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6
Jun 11

Sea Day

We’re just taking our time out here in the Atlantic. We’re cruising at a pace that makes Bermuda on the third day of the cruise. I don’t mind. I love the sea days. If you don’t know how to relax a few sea days will teach you. We’re on the Celebrity line — which is the line of choice, my cruise veteran folks insist — and they do a great job with pretty much everything, including giving you entertainment and distractions on the ship. But to just sit back in the shade, read, watch the waves go by, that’s glorious.

So we left yesterday, turned off the phones after we crossed under the Verrazano-Narrows Bridge in New York and started exploring the ship. We had the lifeboat drill, required by international law, but streamlined to 94 seconds by the efficient people of this vessel, the Summit. Essentially, go to your muster station, bring your life jacket. Put it on, velcro, snap, whistle and light.

I feel safer already.

As if anyone is going to be finding their way to the theater if the dreaded seven horn blasts are heard.

So we did that, saw a bit of the ship, got cleaned up for dinner and had a fine time.

This is my second cruise, our honeymoon last year and this week, both on Celebrity where you get top-notch service. And the food. My heavens, the food. Last night I had a lamb shank that could have fed an American family of six. Amazing. Tonight there was the barbecue glazed black salmon, which was nothing like you’ve pictured just now, but better in every conceivable way. In between there are restaurants, grills, cafes and all sorts of other places to embarrass you with their options.

Today, though we started in the gym. I rode 35 miles, had a piece of grilled and pressed chicken for lunch and then went to my massage. See? Celebrity. My masseuse was from Romania, where they train people with sharp elbows and brick-like knuckles in the finer arts of sublime muscle torture.

Then we hit the therapy pool, which is to say a warm salt water pool with random spouts swirling water at various angles splooshing you. After that I read the day away.

There is nothing in the world wrong with a sea day.

The Yankee and her parents, at dinner tonight.

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5
Jun 11

On a boat

We’re departing from Bayonne, New Jersey for a cruise to Bermuda with The Yankee’s parents (see them in the background, there?). See you ~~suckers~~ fine people soon.

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4
Jun 11

Other photos

We’ve found our summer home:

Now someone just needs to tell the people that presently live there …

At any rate, this will be our view:

The Yankee, family friends John and Kate, my lovely in-laws Nancy and Bob and the irrepressible Wendy:

This is at the delicious Tutti’s Ristorante in Westport. The place is practically under an interstate and the building has the feel of an old mom-and-pop video rental store, but the food is sooooo delicious. We went there Thursday.

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4
Jun 11

More New York? More New York

The people have spoken. And, mostly, what they said was “Surely there are more pictures. And there are. Each one I’ve shown you over the last four days came from my phone. These are from my SLR, which I only took into the city on our first day. So this will be familiar but, hopefully, not repetitive.

Having gotten these out of the way, however, we can move on to the next grand adventure.

(Today we had company in my god-sister in-law and her husband. They came down for dinner and to spend the night. We had steaks and talked about cycling and family and recipes and things. And since I didn’t take any pictures of our early-morning laundromat run, dinner, cleaning or the cookbook my mother-in-law gave us today, I’m wrapping up New York. The cookbook, though, is incredible. I’m not a cookbook guy, but I’m excited about Off the Eaten Path. We will be cooking from this — and referring to it here in the future — and you would too if you enjoyed the under-the-radar type places.)

Anyway, New York, one more time.

You never get over that feeling, I think.

I know one of these tough, steely-eyed guys from the Bronx. He gets a little choked up when he talks about the Statue of Liberty, trying to imagine what it would have been like, not too many decades ago, when his ancestors saw it from their boat.

The next time we visit we’re taking the in-depth tour of the statue and the island.

One of my two favorite rooftops in Manhattan, above is the New York Life Building. It is the 81st tallest building in the city. Built over two years at a cost of $21 million, this gothic building was completed in 1928. It has 40 floors and is 615 feet tall. The roof is comprised of 25,000 gold-leaf tiles.

Best building in town, the Chrysler building is the one I always look for. Now 80 years old, this is still the fourth largest building in town. I do enjoy the art deco stylings here. Also, a picture of the building, from the ground, is now on the front page of the site. Last year I put up a view of the Chrysler in black and white, this time it shines in full color.

Wendy checks out Central Park from Top of the Rock. Great views up there. No lines, no waiting.

When people sailed into the area and saw New York’s first “cloud scraper” as it was then called, they might have marveled at the sight. Or thought, “How ostentatious.”

And by cloud scraper I mean the three-story building in the foreground.

When we get home and I get all of the photo galleries caught up there will be plenty more from Boston and New York that didn’t make it onto the blog. I’ll, of course, let you know.

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3
Jun 11

New York, Day 2, Part 2

Friday is here, right here, where you are reading now. And this Friday will add more to what you read about on Wednesday, which is here. Really the whole week, as far as the blog is concerned has become about New York City. We’re spending the week with the in-laws and having a lovely time in Connecticut, but I went camera happy in the city.

Indeed, everything you’ve seen so far has been from my phone. I haven’t even uploaded pictures from my SLR. Which only reminds me how far behind I am in the photo gallery section of the site. I’ll catch up one day. Now, more of Wednesday!

A word on Theodore Roosevelt: I’ve read 2,170 pages on the man (Theodore Rex, The Rise and Wilderness Warrior) not counting the excellent 1912, which is about the campaign between Woodrow Wilson, William Taft, Roosevelt and Eugene Debs. You could say I know a little something about Roosevelt’s ideals of the “vigorous life.”

But I’d never realized the Klingons were his primary voting bloc:

That’s at the Metropolitan Museum, where I did not see a wax statue that looked like Robin Williams. But I did see a recreation of the Easter Island Head. And, yes, when The Yankee took my picture with it I gave it the bunny ears.

They have dinosaurs and other cool fossils at the museum of natural history. You have to pay to enter some of the special exhibits. As we had already paid once, we didn’t desire to do so again. But even in the sections for the cheap people, like me, they have some fine displays.

That’s some evil looking turtle ancestor, isn’t it? Both museums, the Met and the Museum of Natural History have some great displays. You could spend a day in each, maybe. We tried to do in two in afternoon.

No one likes going to museums with me. I want to read every sign.

Other stuff: How was your lunch yesterday? I only ask because this was our view:

We sent Wendy home today. Said she had a good time, but was ready to be home where things moved more slowly. We had waffles with John, who is a family friend that retired early to, he said, make waffles (and Photoshop jokes). His waffles were worth the wait. After seeing John we dropped Wendy off at the airport spent our afternoon around the house. My mother-in-law showed me her grandmother’s camera:

She let me take it apart. It has everything you need except the 2.5 x 4.25 film. The optics are still pretty good, but the aperture might need work. The camera was released in 1906 and was in production through 1937. She thinks, based on family history, that it is one of the earlier years. That camera may be 100 years old and it still makes the fabled Kodak sound.

Finally: this is a panorama I shot of Grand Central Station. I’ve been playing with this app for a while now and I think I’ve almost got it figured out. Give it a whirl.