cshell

Thoughts on the abortion ruling?

I have to say up front that I'm pro-choice, so if that's going to offend your sensibilities, stop reading. NOW.

Ok, with that out of the way - what are people's feelings on the recent Supreme Court abortion decision? I found out about this because I'm on the Planned Parenthood action list, so they send emails about "pro-choice" issues, but I didn't see it in other news outlets. Granted, I haven't watched the news in a few days, but still...

NY Birthday Extravaganza!

http://flickr.com/photos/cshell/444411257/in/set-72157600044274193/http://flickr.com/photos/cshell/444409941/in/set-72157600044274193/

Kristi and I went to New York to celebrate our birthdays (we went on the weekend between our birthdays). See extended for details.

http://flickr.com/photos/cshell/444400362/in/set-72157600044274193/The background is that Kristi and I have booked a trip to Europe in May/June, but we'd never traveled together before. We get along great, but traveling with someone often makes or breaks relationships (even friendships). We thought that the trip would either cement our friendship, or we'd kill each other. Either way, we'd resolve what we needed to do about the trip in May.

Kristi won two free roundtrip airline tickets (she filled out a survey and won the trip). She very graciously decided to take me to New York with her for a dual birthday celebration. We flew out on the redeye on Wednesday night after work, and got to JFK around 6ish in the morning. We were able to get checked into our hotel room early. The Doubletree gave us warm chocolate chip cookies (which were soooooooooo yummy). We took naps, took photos of the lovely view outside our room, then headed out into the gorgeous day. We walked down 51st St. and had lunch at Prime Burger. Then we walked over to St. Patrick's Cathedral which was pretty spectacular. We walked over to Rockefeller Center and saw the ice skaters. (I thought the rink would be much bigger. Huh...) Then we walked past Radio City Music Hall.

By the time we walked down 6th and found Bryant Park, our feet were getting tired so we decided to sit in the park for a bit, watch people go by. We spotted a bit of the Chrysler building behind other buildings and the public art in the park. And there was a carousel in the park that we went to snap a couple of photos of. Feeling refreshed, we walked over to Times Square, where Kristi felt compelled to put her head in Will Ferrell's crotch. For dinner we went out and found pho. (It wasn't as good as Ho3, but pretty satisfying nonetheless.)

We talked to the concierge about where to go for dinner and drinks. We found the pho restaurant on our own. We then went in search of the bars that the concierge told us about. We then thought he must have been smoking crack as we never found the places he was talking about. Since we were still a bit wired when we went back to the hotel, we went to hang out for a bit in the hotel bar. We were having a good time hanging out, chatting, etc. when we saw a group of 4 drunk guys by the door. Well, ok, two were probably just a bit drunk, but the other two were DRUNK. Kristi noticed that one of the did a drunken pause when he got up (i.e. to steady the room, or to remember where he was going).

Then the drunker of the two started weaving his way over to us. Uh oh... He introduced himself as Johnny K. We found how trullllllllly drunk he was because he couldn't remember that we'd told him where we were from (a couple of times), and he could barely focus on us. His friend Mike came over to talk to us too. I was hoping Mike was less drunk and would rescue us from Johnny K, but no dice. He was 5 or 6 sheets to the wind too. JK finally figured out that we were not blown away by his charms and were not going to invite him back to our room, so he went back to his friends, so we were able to make our escape to our room. Whew... (Sadly, I didn't have my camera to commemorate this interaction.)

On Friday we got up lateish and went to the Met. We of course had to take photos in front of the big windows like in When Harry Met Sally. Then we walked over the Guggenheim as I was hoping to get pictures of the outside, but the exterior is being renovated. So from there we went for a walk in Central Park - which was gorgeous.

Friday night we went out for drinks with some of her friends at The Tempest. We had a great time. One of the guys walked across the street to get pizza (since we didn't want to leave our primo spot in a booth). Kristi was being a bit boy crazy, but that was kind of entertaining to watch. We met guys from Long Island - Vinnie (who Kristi said was kinda dirty hot), and James (who had a huge dragon tattoo on his back - which you could see because he was wearing a wife beater), and Scott (who was cute but kinda ditzy). They had been to the Black Sabbath concert at Madison Square Garden (which is right behind Penn Station - who knew?).

Saturday morning we got a slooooowwww start. We had to check out of the hotel. Kristi had gotten a free night at a Hilton due to a bad experience at another property. So we got our stuff and got a cab over to the Hilton (on Avenue of the Americas/6th Ave.). We couldn't check in at that point as the room wasn't ready, so we went in search of lunch. We had lunch in a brewpub near the hotel, then went back to check in. On the way back to the hotel there was a street vendor selling purses, so we both bought a couple. I took a nap, and Kristi did some work.

Then we got ready to go out for the evening. We thought we'd go check out Greenwich Village on the recommendation of Vinnie and some of Kristi's friends from the bar. In another "When Harry Met Sally" moment, we had to go to the arch from when he drops her off at NYU (in Washington Square Park). We walked around a bit, but the main drag in the area, Bleeker Street, was overrun with drunken frat boys roaming the streets in weaving herds. We decided that wasn't our scene. But we found a cool vegetarian restaurant