Snowboarding

Had my first go at snowboarding today and tomorrow I expect to be oh so sore.  It was a lot of fun, but I definitely spent more time on my butt and splayed out on my front than I did standing up gracefully gliding down the mountain.  We started out looking strong...

Then started looking a little more like this...

But all's well that ends well!



Almondine

Tonight Solyn, Brandon, my aunt, uncle and I shared some delicious desserts and bread from Almondine bakery.  If you are ever in DUMBO, I highly recommend stopping in for a baguette, a croissant, and a dessert.  They have the best baguette and pain au chocolat in NYC, in my humble opinion.

Jean Georges

Had a fancy pants birthday dinner at Jean Georges tonight which was very nice.  Not many of the food pictures turned out, as the lighting in the restaurant was too dim.  I did get an okay picture of the molten chocolate cake at the end, which may have been the best part of the meal anyway.

Chinatown New Year's Parade

Happy year of the rabbit!  May you have good health and prosperity in the new year.

BK museum

Every first Saturday of the month, the Brooklyn Museum has a special event where it stays open until 11, and anyone can come in free between 5 and 11.  Every month has a different theme, and there is usually a film screening, some lectures, and a big dance party.  And you can walk around and check out anything in the galleries.  This month the theme was Black History Month, so they showed the movie The Great Debaters (pretty good movie) and had a hip-hop/soul dance party.  It's a pretty cool crowd, including everyone from parents with small children, to teenagers, to people my age and on up.  Good times to be had by all.

Snow removal NYC style

I apologize for being a very bad blogger the last two days.  I needed a little blog vacation, but now I am back!  Today I witnessed an interesting scene outside of work and I snapped a few shots.  Perhaps this is a routine procedure that everyone already knows about, but it was new to me.  As you may have heard/seen, there has been a lot of snow in the city in the past week or two, and it doesn't look like it's going away any time soon.  So the city brought in some machinery to take care of business.  As pictured below, large front loaders would pick up a big pile of snow from the street or sidewalk and dump it into a truck which melted the snow and drained it back onto the street, to presumably find it's way into the sewers.  Seems to me like the city should put all the money they are spending on this process into hiring more teachers or paying city employees' pensions, but that might be too logical.

Talib Kweli

Went to a Talib Kweli concert at Brooklyn Bowl tonight.  Concert started at 9, but of course Talib Kweli didn't get on the stage until around midnight.  The concert was good, but now I'm tired and about to go to bed.

Taking some touristy pics

Stopped by Rockefeller Center tonight to run an errand and took a quick picture of the famous skating rink.  It looks like a frigid Monday night may be the time to go for a skate, because the rink was relatively empty.  After taking a picture of the real thing, I popped into the Lego store to take a picture of the Lego version of the same scene :)

Sripraphai

Tasty, tasty Thai food.  I did some searching on NYC food blogs for the best Thai restaurant in the city.  A lot of people recommended Sripraphai, in Woodside, Queens, as having the best and most authentic Thai.  I was hoping that I would take my first bite and think, "This is exactly how the food I used to eat in Thailand tasted!"  It wasn't exactly that, but the food was very good.  I think somehow eating food from a particular country while in that country just can't compare to eating it elsewhere.  But, our meal was delicious, and the menu was quite extensive, so it definitely warrants a second (or third or fourth or fifth) trip to try a few more items on the menu.   

   

   

Snow covered central park and the big show

Central Park is quite pretty in the winter after a snowfall.  And there are some bad-ass city slicker ducks who ain't going south for nobody!

Tonight there was a show at Brandon's gung fu school for Chinese New Year.  Now you know not to mess around with this guy :)