Tuesday, January 06, 2026

New Year's Eve in NYC

Central Park a few hours before midnight.

Kim and I love being in the quiet park knowing there are a literal million people a mile down the road.

Wrapped building and the snowflake my mom talks about every time I mention New York City.

The you-know-what. If you don't know what, that's the Rockefeller Center tree. I mean you probably at least knew it was a tree.
The revelers leaving Times Square a few minutes after midnight.

Back up to the car at 88th Street the next day, a fresh coating of snow on the cars, none of which have moved.

It was a pretty perfect trip. Just a one-day job. Though we did stay at a random hotel in Milford, CT, the night before, and for the first time in our lives checked out Ye Olde Mystyck Village or whatever. Fun. Lit up for the holidays. Good Asian restaurant. Anyway we got to our Maison Pickle rez on time for our NYE brunch. MASSIVE tiramisu French toast. Fries of course. Which they call frites, and I have Kim order those because one time I tried to order them there, and I got corrected on the pronunciation! Then it was on to a visit with Zack, who introduced me to the place. After the original ending of this blog, I really got to know Zack as a real-life friend, and even did some videographing for him. Kinda cool to know you shot and edited (with his help on both ends) a video that got 468,000 views! 

Is anyone reading? Thanks. So we checked into our awesome hotel that we get for free. We've spent NYE (or a few days before) in NYC almost every year for a couple decades, and we usually get this hotel, though we often stay with friends, of which we are lucky to have many of who live there. A lot of generosity going on around us. Yay, friends and family. 

Then (it's dark out from now on, for your imagining pleasure) it was on to see one of the aforementioned friends, who fans of this blog know well. The Chan man!! Had dinner with him at Rosa Mexicano, in the Empire Hotel, where I stayed in 1988 at my dad's Peace Corps reunion. On the same reunion, not long after the Buckner play, we played baseball in Central Park, and a grounder went through my legs, and then got past the woman playing right field (I give her exactly 50% of the blame!), to score the winning run. Damn. Oh well, I got to play slap-the-red with Emily and Allegra Wiles and stay up really late. I also went to the Hard Rock Cafe and somehow missed the giant King Kong made of Legos.

Where the eff was I?? Ah yes, Chan and Kim and I at the Rosa, getting awesome Mexican food. Oh, before meeting Chan we did our usual tree/rink excursion, and saw the light display on 5th Avenue. Kim checked out St. Pat's while I walked around the closed streets taking in the atmosphere. I love NYE in NYC, it's a special feeling. As you know I did Times Square three years out of four in the 90s. Kim definitely never wants to do it. But I'd do it again if she said the word! Spoiler: she'll never say it.

So after dinner we did our traditional walk through Central Park. With a bonus Lincoln Center walk and an impromptu Ghostbusters tour along Park West. There was a very minor snow squall, so small that I din't even get any photos of it. But we'll take it. Got to 57th Street and didn't need the card the hotel gives us saying we're allowed to pass the barricades, but we did see people lined up along 57th going AWAY from Times Square. My theory is they'd been sent from the next avenue over that way, to follow a route to get back over once again and into the pens. So we passed all of them and arrived at the 24-hour grocery store...that closed at 9. But right across the street was a tiny bodega and the FIRST thing I saw was sparkling cider! I almost needed a ladder to get it. An old couple saw me holding it and asked where to get it. I pointed up. The guy was excited to get his "champagne!" I said Nope. He said Same thing. I said Nope again. So we got our cider and our sweets as per tradition and walked right back across to our hotel.

Chan brought Scrabble. (Gonna stop saying what's traditional. It all is.) We started our game at 10:30 and watched......  you HAVE to know this! Twilight Zone! If you thought I watched it a lot in my old blogging days, hoo-whee, are you in for a surprise. It's constant now. Except for December when I stop myself from watching as not to "ruin" the NYE Marathon. I'm watching right now as I type, on 1/6. Kick the can! 

They played Midnight Sun at 11:00. I led Chan by 70 points. The ball dropped. We woke Kim up 5 minutes before. We watched the crowds leave the square out the window. Chan came back and beat me. What?! Yes, what a comeback. I did give him a few mulligans along the way though. He's beaten me a handful of times in hundreds of games so I give him full credit. (But did conveniently type out that mulligan line, I noticed. As did you.)

Next day we took the 1 train back up to our car (snow had fallen overnight), drove over to the East Side, and met back up with Chan in his neighborhood for Pho. Which is pronounced "fah"! It's like that later Kiss song. I just wanna fuh! I just wanna fuh! I just wanna fuh-get youuuu! 

This trip was perfect. My timing and estimating was impeccable. Remember the time I was with Chan on Staten Island and predicted to the minute when we'd make it back to his apartment and even HE was impressed for once? Yeah it was like that. The whole time. We're back to work after our 5-day weekend and..  who me? Oh that's right, when I stopped blogging, I was still working with elderly, which I did for 9 more years. Now I work with IDD adults. It's amazing. They're amazing. Anyway I'm back to work but planning the Fort Myers trip!

This was fun. I should do it more. See ya soon?

Sunday, May 11, 2025

Hmmm...

I definitely have lived some bigger moments that deserve blog posts. I still seem to not be doing the work though. Stay tuned. For the rest of your life. Thanks. 


Monday, April 07, 2025

Will I Do Shit?

 I think the answer is yes, mainly in the form of photo-type galleries. Like when I go to Fenway or something. Or maybe some retro-galleries. Stay tuned! (He said to basically nobody but whatever!)


Sunday, February 09, 2025

Plow the D’Oh

Caught the plow on BeachCam ParkingLotView late last night! 





 


Saturday, February 08, 2025

What?!

I blogged for about 10 and a half years. Then I didn't blog for about 10 and a half years. What did I learn? That I like blogging better than "social media." Call me quaint, but I kinda liked it when the only people on the Internet were the few who went through the trouble of starting their own space. When the only people who took photos were the ones who bothered to buy a camera. When it took a *little* talent to be allowed to display it. Humans have officially proven that almost none of them deserve to have a platform. Should the option be there for everyone? Sure. But people should learn that when they're not good at something or have absolutely nothing to offer in a given field, they should just dis the fuck appear. (Interrupting myself to remind you that you're reading the thoughts of someone who once did a public access cable TV show...) Or, maybe even better, say it but in a place where nobody has to look at it unless they want to. And I never wanted the Internet to come to me, I prefer to go to it. Notifications will kill you. Why does everything you do need to go out to everyone you've ever known? How about messaging just the friends who would care about that moment's bullshit? What's different about me? Well I do think I'm better at providing people with actual content that can't be confined to 162 characters. But even if I were the most interesting person in the world, I wouldn't want to force my crap on people. I want the select few who care about my unique brand of unique-brandiness to find it. Wait, is that what I really want? When I would go on X and say some incredibly groundbreaking thing, wouldn't I want the world to hear it and tell me how awesome it is?? Maybe. But I realized it's more rewarding to take that thought and share it with a friend or two, the ones who'd specifically appreciate it. Doing that feels better than 1,000 strangers hitting the like button and not even commenting. More importantly, it feels better than NOBODY seeing it despite that it went out to, technically, the universe. Blogging to me is the perfect middle ground. Millions could see it, but only my tiny-yet-worldwide network of friends will. The Internet in general is a great thing. I love connecting with people from all over that I couldn't have possibly met 35 years ago. But I like to do it this way. So if you found me, welcome. If you found me again, it's good to see you (italics-free) again. And if you got a notification of this new post somehow, if that exists, and it didn't kill you, you get a gold star. All that to say, in the words of Frank Costanza, I'm back, babeeee! I swore I wouldn't blog again, only that I'd update things on here like my snagged ball list or to fix broken photos, etc. But here I am. More to come..... (if I actually keep this up).

Monday, July 14, 2014

An Almost 5-Game Winning Streak

Nice job by HH and BroHo today in an 11-0 win. The loss on Saturday still kills me though--we could have gone into the break on a 5-gamer.

So the first half ends with us 5 back of the Yanks and 10 back of first place in the loss column. The perfect set-up to a second-half funtime comeback. And we start at home against the Royals, just like in the Morgan's Magic season of 1988. I was lucky enough to be at that doubleheader that started all the fun that year.

I can't believe all the original Ramones are dead now, with the passing of Tommy. Joey and Dee Dee died two and three years before I started this blog, but I see I mentioned Johnny's death here back in 2004. Note: the game I said I'd be going to in The Bronx the next night was that classic 9/17/04 Mariano-blown "catch the ball!" game. That night was one of my favorite baseball game experiences.

Saturday, July 12, 2014

Alex From Stroh's...

Fine fine win last night against the blind/deaf school. VaZQuez with a huge 3-run half dong, and two other hits, that guy knows what he's doing out there. I won't say anything about the Rish/Lyons announcing combo because there's just not enough time. That play by Badenhop was incredible, wish they'd given it more credit. I didn't stay up for the post-game but hopefully they played it a million more times at full and half speed and notified the WebGems department if that exists.

(Okay I just went to redsox.com and that highlight popped right up on the video player thing, so by all means go check it out.)

Friday, July 11, 2014

The Perfectly Slotted Red Sox Game

Out of work at 5. Game had started at 4. Had Castig on way home. Took 1 hour and 15 minutes to get home. Normally takes 37. But the "working in Newport" experience is vastly different in the summer months. Traffic doubles with every five degrees the temp rises. Heard us go from being no-hit to winning in car. Got home, saw last three innings and Kim and I would then listen to Koji wrap it up on the way to the Providence outdoor movie, Adaptation. But as we passed the strip clubs, he blew it. Got our Gordito Burrito and headed back to car, hoping it was still tied. It was. While looking for parking for the movie, heard the winning hit, our second walk-off win (Castig always says it correctly unlike Don and the rest of the entire world) in as many days. Then watched the brilliant Adaptation. Fuckin' Cooper. Fuckin' Cox. Fuckin' Cage times 2, as fuckin' Kauffman times 2. Just as deep as Eternal Sunshine, but on the funny end of the spectrum as opposed to the serious. But both great just the same. Got home, lit'rally heard just the words "Yanks lose 9-3" as I flipped on some sports channel. Also saw before the screen changed that Tanaka is out at least 6 weeks. Fun stuff.

So my plan of "us and Baltimore" fighting it out at the end is starting to take shape. At least in my mind. The Jays are falling, the Yanks are a bus with no wheels, and while the Rays started doing better, they were still just too far back for it to matter. Which is probably what they're saying about us, considering they're actually still ahead of us, but hey, who are the world champs here? We're gonna have a great September as all these young guys become a somewhat well to well-oiled machine. Will our July and August be good enough to make that September matter? It's an easy division, we just gotta keep "plugging" along for the time being. This can be done!

Thursday, July 10, 2014

Sox Win 2013-y Game

This was a fun one, hopefully you didn't give up on it. We were down 4-0 at Sweet Caroline time, and it felt like we were down by more than that. Mookie Betts started the inning by beating out a grounder to short, and when he saw nobody at second base, he bolted. An infield double! Remy said it was all the fans had had to cheer about, as he inexplicably forgot about Jackie Bradley's inCREDible catch in center earlier. Two outs later, Sale was taken out at 107 pitches. The next three dudes went: single, double, walk, double. So it was 4-3 White Sox going to the ninth.

Koji, who, awesomely, replaced the injured Tanaka on the All-Star team today (Why the balls wasn't he on there in the first place, I mean what the crudding crud?), shut 'em down and we went to the bottom of the 9th, down by 1. With one down, Mookie got hit by a pitch. And when Nava's deep fly took a high hop off the scoreboard in left center, you knew Mookie would be racing all the way around. Tied. Next batter is Kelly LeBrock Holt (See how I tied in both cinematic ballplayers who came out of nowhere to become a legend AND supermodels? In fact, the "Le" could represent both "LeBrock" and the first two letters of "Leak," as if Kelly Leak went crashing into Brock Holt creating a beautiful Kelly LeBrock. Holt.), and he lines one into right. Nava scores and it's over. We win.

Side note: When that ball hit Gomes in the nose in left field, how was it that Remy didn't realize he got hit at all until after the replay? Did he think the ball bounced off the wall and took a 90-degree turn to the left?

Side note 2: Indians squandered one against the Yanks. I just wasted hours of my life watching it into the 14th inning. But they're baked scrod anyway, what with their whole rotation on the DL including the one guy who's been good so far. And no hitting and whatnot.

Wednesday, July 09, 2014

I Must Break You

The Yankees' Ivan Drago, Tanaka, is headed home for an MRI and has been placed on the DL. Nice to see the lights dimmed on their one bright spot, at least for now. And CC may be done too. It's a shame, I kinda liked watching him drag his droopy derriere onto the diamond.

In other news, you can say goodbye to AJ Pierzynski. The man with the golden arm has been called up. And with Holt starting at short tonight, maybe the Stephen Drew self-imposed prison sentence is over!

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