From Rainbow Bridge.

Board Room with a view.

At least it isn’t raining.

Seneca Lake, Geneva, New York. Circa 2008.

One of my most favorite branding updates in recent memory, The New York Public Library gets a new logo and Brand New has the scoop.

Side note: Glad to know I wasn’t the only one thinking “Simba!!”.

Image credit: Brand New.

Taken on October 14, 2004.

Five years ago today: Again, I’m late on this one. For a fair stretch of time I was camping every single year in Chenango Valley State Park with family and friends. This particular year, I remember, it was rather cold a few of the nights. I was sleeping alone in the tent (Eliza wouldn’t have it being that cold) and I recall waking up with frost on my nose. No, I didn’t sleep in that camper.

Oh, I’m the guy looking incredibly tired in the middle. I’m tired because it was probably very, very early in the morning. But when I’m camping there is no way that I will miss breakfast. It is my most favorite part of camping. And, even though we’d be up all night doing who knows what, I have to be awake in the morning for breakfast – no matter how early.

To my left is my brother-in-law Chris and to my right is one of his employees Ryan.

New York is easily one of my favorite cities. The last time I was there I had the privilege of eating some really delicious Thai food, drink at an authentic Irish Pub, and scarf down 4,000 calories worth of White House burgers. Where else can you do that?

The Thai food that we had was at Thai Basil on 9th Ave. and W. 56th St. Thai Basil is, or rather was, what seems to be, a repurposed hallway or stairwell turned restraurant with a few small tables. The decor is clean, simple, and in typical asian style. The service was proper, prompt, and delicate.

Chris and Jon had either never had, or seldom had, Thai food before that day. So we were all in for a treat. Chris got squid and something curried. I can’t even remember, now, what I got. But it was delicious. Although 9th Ave. between West 54th and 56th streets is riddled with what I am sure is excellent Thai food restaurants – I can recommend Thai Basil on Manhattan.

The Irish Pub (which could have been either McGee’s on W. 55th or Connolly’s on E. 47th or maybe even a different pub altogether) all I know is that we walked, and walked, and walked before we stopped here for a couple of appetizers and some beer. Speaking of beer Jon had some sort of light beer. I had to fight off the entire staff to keep them from throwing Jon out by his neck and belt loop. While I was wrestling with the barkeep – I managed to scarf down a bunch of stuff mushrooms. Shhh, do you hear that? Ireland is absolutely screaming for Eliza and I to visit.

And the day was just getting started.

We had a lot more walking to do this day. You see, we’re not from New York City and so this is sort of a novel thing. Walking. Everywhere. To the library (which was closed). To another library (which was lame). To the pub, to a restaurant, through Times Square, back to our hotel, to the parking garage, back to the hotel, and ultimately – late at night – to White Castle.

I know what you might be thinking. Isn’t this post supposed to be about No Reservations? Anthony Bourdain’s show about traveling the world and eating some of the best food ever made by human hands? Yes. But if I know Tony. He digs a late night White Castle burger binge. So, off we went. Twelve blocks to the nearest White Castle. No problem. We had already walked miles and miles that day – why not a few more footsteps? We all ordered the exact same meal. Ten burgers and two fries. We ended up giving some of the food to a beggar sitting outside of White Castle (smart man). But most of us finished our double-portions of the greesy, grimey, and some would say disgusting little burgers that leave a wet spot on any table you set them on. I was sick.

In case you didn’t know the sign that you had a successful visit to White Castle is if you leave feeling like you want to puke.

Overall we had a very good time in New York. I always do. That is why I enjoyed seeing a different side of New York than the one I typically get to see in the latest episode of Anthony Bourdain’s No Reservations. Tony’s side. In this week’s episode Anthony shows us a portion of New York City that is slowly disappearing, being replaced, rebuilt, torn down, or put up for sale. Sad? Maybe for people like Tony who grew up in and around New York and have a history there. But for those of us that come into the city on occasion to soak up some of the city life, the culture, the food, the architecture, the noises, and again the food – New York is always changing. Always disappearing, being rebuilt, replaced, torn down, or being sold. It is what makes New York, New York.

Photo credit: Jon Christopher.

Date taken: August 30, 2005 | A winery that offers tastings, gifts, and snacks in a very large barn. I believe this was on Cayuga Lake in New York. I’ll check my records and update.

Wow. Jay Maisel, a photographer, bought this building 42 years ago for $102,000.  It is now estimated to be worth nearly $30 million. Talk about a return on investment.

Real estate experts, interviewed by NY Mag, had said they thought the building was abandoned. Far from it.  Turns out Jay, his wife, and his daughter are leading a full life in there and have, in my opinion, set up one of my favorite homes I’ve ever seen.

I can’t even begin to imagine how awesome it would be to have 72-rooms at your disposal and have had put them to use the way that the Maisels seem to have done.

Do yourself a favor and check out the photo slideshow in addition to the article.

Source: NY Mag: The 72-Room Bohemian Dream House.
Via: Jason Kottke.

Taken July 18, 2008 – The windows at the Seneca Harbor Wine Center.

Date taken: July 18, 2008 | Lights reflecting in the harbor waters.

Date taken: July 18, 2008 | Seneca Lake Marina in Watkins Glen, New York at night.

Date taken: April 13, 2008. | A vine post near Seneca Lake in New York.

This particular vineyard and wineary had each of their grape vines marked for the type of grape that they had planted.  These few rows were marked with Gewurztraminer.  I remember the wines here being very odd in color and not great in taste.  However what they lacked in wine they made up for in show.  One of the winearies was decked out like a hillbillies cabin.

There is an Air Show this weekend and so many planes, including two Blue Angel fighter jets, were practicing overhead at Jones Beach on Long Island.

The GW Bridge costs $8USD to cross (for a car). Better than the $12USD you have to pay to go through the Holland tunnel to the south.

I am neither a Cowboys nor Bills fan, but I still went to a Monday Night Football game there. Must have been for booze.

Sparkling wines and Sherry.

Besides being cool, a gorgeous day.

Eating lunch during a wine tour break.

This past weekend Eliza and I and a few friends headed to the Finger Lakes region in New York to try and buy some wine. As is typical with vacations my “diet” went from eating specific amounts of specific foods to eating “whatever was available” in quantities that were chosen for me. With most of our meals the food was delicious – in fact – I did want to make sure I mentioned that if you ever have the chance to eat at the Seneca Harbor Station, do it. Every single dish that we ordered (of which there were seven of us), was excellent.

We managed to play a bit of frisbee, football, and the age-old classic hacky sack while we were in New York so that helped a bit with burning off a few of the calories from the food and wine.

All in all a good week – and I’m looking forward to getting back on track and getting to my goal.

[tags]diet, weigh-in, the-diet, finger lakes, vacation, new york[/tags]

There was some really nice music playing in various portions of the town. Dear John (not sure if this is their official site or not) was there. They have some really good sound to their music, decent lyrics, and their front-man is pretty decent live. But they could definitely use help on the backup signing.

Derrick and Dustin performing

Derrick and Dustin, who do not appear to have a Web site, were playing some Jazz next to a restaraunt (which they seem to do each year) have a really really great sound. I asked for a CD but they said they had sold out already, and so I just sent them an email asking if I can send some moola their way if they’d send me a copy. I’m not sure what goals these guys have, or if they ever want to “make it”, or just do this for fun – but I think they would have potential to put out something spectacular.

On Sunday, my parents came in for a visit. We had a nice lunch with my parents, and my sister Nettie’s family. We all stayed on our diets (my parents included) and ate grilled chicken salad and fruit. In my opinion, a perfect lunch.

After that I went and played basketball for about three hours, came home and watched a horrible Game 5 of the NBA Finals. Come on Dallas! What did you do this weekend?

[tags]diet, the-diet, owego, new york, strawberry festival, family, nba, music, dear john, derrick and dustin[/tags]

May 19th

12:00pm – Just finishing up on some work before we head out. We’re hoping to leave around 3:00pm from here, so we’ll see how that goes.

7:30pm – We left on time, and had a nice drive up. We stopped at a Wendy’s to get some energy before arriving at our hotel. Some guy, clearly on crack, checked us in. We’re probably going to watch the rest of the Cavalier’s and Piston’s game before finding something to do.

11:30pm – Watched the Pistons beat the Cavs (boo), and watching the rest of the Maverick’s game before hitting the hay. Tomorrow, the vineyards.

May 20th

8:00am – The Mavericks should have won, but as we all know nothing comes easy in the playoffs this year.

We’re heading out to breakfast somewhere, then hitting our first vineyard around 10:30 I’d think. I’ll try to take as many notes about each vineyard while we are here and either incorporate them into this post, or create a post all on Seneca Lake. Something I wish that I had done the last time when we came up and went to Cayuga.

May 21st

1:00am – Not having Internet access makes it much harder to do updates, but at least we’re having a great time here. We got to at least 7 vineyards today, and ended up buying around 3 cases (12 bottles each). The main regret both Eliza and I had from last year was that we didn’t buy enough wine – hopefully we won’t say the same thing this year.

Although the weather forecast was supposed to be cold and rain all day, it was pretty nice out and never rained on us, so we were all pretty happy that we didn’t have to run from the buildings to the car every time.

May 22nd

9:00am – We’re back home. As I said before, not having Internet (and having what seemed like no cafés with such), makes it pretty much impossible to do good live blogging.

I think I am going to end up writing a new post on what I thought of this trip, and what we did, and so on – but here are some pictures until then.

[tags]vacation, wine, finger lakes, new york, wendy’s[/tags]