i keep a diary

September, 2014

The September Roundup

Here are all the photos I took in September 2014.

Monday, September 1st

maddy
Monday was Labor Day. Maddy got my up early and we headed over to East River Park. The FDR overpass...
east river park ˆ walking ˆ maddy
...is always a great place to party at night. GEORGI STYLE!
booze ˆ garbage
ellen, hans, quinn, sarah
Hung out with these guys on Monday evening...
ellen ˆ hans ˆ quinn ˆ sarah
treat
Went home and ordered 1am biscuits from the new (yet short-fated) 24-hour biscuit place in the neighborhood. Corn biscuit with black pepper and blackberry jam? FUUUUU. How did this place not stay open?
biscuit ˆ treat
Watched Larry David on Kevin Pollack's Chat Show
larry david

Thursday, September 4th

Thursday morning award ceremony for all the people in the company who did the most good stuff!
flux capacity ˆ singleplatform ˆ work

Friday, September 5th

jane anne, kristina
Kristina was in town visiting from California. So we went out for dinner...
walking ˆ jane anne ˆ kristina
grant, kristina
...and then stopped in to Sunny Annie's to get some desserts! Grant grabbed the cookies and...
best ˆ bodega ˆ grant ˆ kristina
jane anne
...Jane was mesmerized by too many ice creams to choose from again. Haha.
jane anne

Saturday, September 6th

maddy
On Saturday night Maddy threw a party...
maddy
jared, jeet
...with Gurj, Jared...
jared ˆ jeet
catrinel
...and Cat. We made plans to go hiking the next day!
catrinel

Sunday, September 7th

I keep my bike on the street and once every few years (my bike is armored up pretty good) someone manages to fuck with it. (Solved it with another piece locking hardware for the stem). Brought my bike up into my apartment to worry about later...
bike
catrinel
...and went downstairs to meet Cat and we...
driving ˆ catrinel
...hit the road headed up to Dunderberg Mountain in Bear Mountain State Park!
driving
catrinel
We managed to park and find the trailhead just after 11am. My knees were creaky after the drive so I ate a few bananas. Mmmm, bananas.
banana ˆ hiking ˆ catrinel
Dino trees.
trees
As we hiked in, we stopped to explore a few of the abandoned tunnels left behind in the 1890s by the Spiral Railway Corporation.
hiking ˆ tunnel
catrinel, me
We set up the self-timer for this one and had to run all the way to the tunnel and then turn around and try to act all casual. Haha.
hiking ˆ tunnel ˆ catrinel ˆ me
As we made our way up the mountain...
hiking
...the trail started revealing beautiful views of the Hudson.
hiking ˆ scenic overlook
catrinel
So much fun hiking with this one. As we were hiking, we started wondering what animals we might run into. "We might even see a bear." "Really? Fuck! Wait are you sure? Do you still have a cell signal? Maybe we use our phone to look up whether there are bears here. What mountain are we on again?" "Bear Mountain?" "Bear Mountain! OH FUCK!"
hiking ˆ catrinel
Five minutes after laughing about this, a hiker passed us coming the other way on the trail telling us that a bear had been spotted by other hikers nearby! We made it to the top of the trail unmolested by nature.
best ˆ hiking ˆ hudson river ˆ river ˆ scenic overlook
catrinel
Hung out for a while enjoying nature and making sure we got enough hot pics to get our 'Gram on later.
hiking ˆ catrinel
Hard to believe this is less than an hour from NYC.
bridge ˆ hudson river
Caw caw!
bird
catrinel
There are several trail loops you can do.
hiking ˆ catrinel
trail
Following the seven mile loop.
hiking ˆ sign ˆ trail
catrinel
Woods buddy.
hiking ˆ catrinel
catrinel
Crouching down to capture...
fern ˆ hiking ˆ catrinel
The pretty ferns with their early, alternating fall colors.
fern ˆ hiking ˆ tree
catrinel, me
I had so much fun hiking, Cat! Let's go again sooooooon.
best ˆ catrinel ˆ me
Fern field
fern ˆ hiking
catrinel
Who made this?
catrinel
catrinel
Big Choppa!
tree ˆ catrinel
catrinel, me
Thanks for picking out such a good place to hike, Cat!
catrinel ˆ me
grant, kristina
I met up with Kristina after getting back into town and then she and I headed over to meet up with Grant at Lucy's.
lucys ˆ grant ˆ kristina

Monday, September 8th

grant
On Monday night I went over to Grant's apartment to help with with an experiment he was conducting for an article. He was trying to find out whether directly stimulating his brain with electricity via a handmade device he'd purchased from the internet...
laptop ˆ grant
...would finally help him learn to touch-type!
laptop
We started out trying to establish a baseline without the device. 7 WPM
laptop
grant
A few tries later...
i did it for science ˆ grant
...up to 16 WPM.
Ten minutes and twenty tests later...
...Grant's progress topped out around 18 WPM. Not bad for only 20 minutes. He decided it was time to break out the DEVICE!
The hand-made device came along with this very sophisticated-looking diagram to show you where to place the electrodes of the device on your scalp depending on the kind of effects you are looking to stimulate in your brain.
flyer ˆ i did it for science ˆ wtf
It also included this OTHER handout with a photo of the guy who hand-made the DEVICE showing off how to best position the wet-sponge electrodes in order to maximize Savant Learning, the obvious choice for the acceleration of touch-typing in both of our books.
flyer ˆ i did it for science ˆ wtf
grant
After we had finished soaking the sponges attached to the electrodes with salt-water, we secured them to their proper spot on Grant's skull with a headband. Because hey, if you're going to get your brain fried, you may as well go out looking fabulous when it happens! But seriously...
best ˆ i did it for science ˆ wtf ˆ grant
...what could go wrong, right?
wtf
grant
After making sure the sponges, and all of his affairs, were in order it was time to...
i did it for science ˆ grant
...Flip the switch! Flip the switch! No sparks flew, and much to our surprise (and frankly, my disappointment) Grant remarked that he wasn't even able to feel any noticeable current in his scalp or face.
We decided to press on with his typing trials and see if the current from the device managed to stimulate his brain into learning how to type faster.
A few trials later and he'd managed to increase from 18 to 21 WPM. Still improving, but about the same pace as without the device. I was mainly there to notify next of kin in case things went south with THE DEVICE...
..., so once it seemed to be (relatively) safe, I left Grant to keep doing trials with the device and headed back to my place to welcome...
anni, doug
...Doug and Anni into town from Finland! (When I called Grant the next day to ask about how the rest of the night went with the device he told me that he'd just discovered that the device did not have a battery inside it during all of the trials he'd conducted. Whoops! Science is hard! Hahah)
anni ˆ doug

Wednesday, September 10th

maddy
Excited to have house guests.
maddy
anni, doug
Got up early for Odessa pancakes!
odessa ˆ pancakes ˆ anni ˆ doug
jane anne
Met up with Jane for dinner.
jane anne

Friday, September 12th

Had the day off of work on Friday and took a trip out to Queens to go to Spa Castle!
spa castle ˆ van
Spent the afternoon on the roofdeck getting my head gently pummeled by the waterfall.
jane anne, me
So refresh. So relax.
spa castle ˆ jane anne ˆ me

Saturday, September 13th

I was showering on Saturday morning and noticed a pretty good soap-bubble human skull. Double vanitas memento mori!
best ˆ bubble ˆ skull
Celebrated this fleeting life by reading a wonderful Murakami novel (Colorless Tsukuru Tazaki and His Years of Pilgrimage)...
book
treat
...and eating the entire fancy yogurt & blueberry chocolate bar Doug & Anni brought me from Finland!
treat

Sunday, September 14th

On Sunday they fenced off the "bendy tree" in Tompkins in preparation for it eventually being taken down because they were worried it was going to fall down and injure somebody.
maddy
Took this one for a long afternoon walk...
kitchen ˆ maddy
...over to East River Park.
east river park
Whispy powdery clouds.
clouds
More "clouds."
clouds
Got a new handlebar stem...
bike
...and a special new neck-lock that requires a unique-bolt to remove it making my bike...
L for loser ˆ bike
...even more unfuckable with! (Writing this in Dec of 2016 and my bike has still not been stolen fucked-with since despite it being parked on the street every night!)
bike
Tompkins sunset
sunset ˆ tompkins

Tuesday, September 16th

On Tuesday morning I got to watch InRhythm come in and coach the SinglePlatform dev & product team on Agile.
flux capacity ˆ singleplatform ˆ work
jon c
Figuring out how to use software engineers to help a business is tricky stuff!
singleplatform ˆ jon c
jeff g
I always enjoy seeing the methods that people come up with in order to make things run more smoothly!
flux capacity ˆ singleplatform ˆ work ˆ jeff g
Went to an after work dinner, had too many free drinks...
...and was a four-drink mess by the time I made my way downtown for a house party at Carla's!
Grant and Amanda!
Feeling fuzzy through Little Italy.
aki, amanda, grant
Amanda, Aki & Grant.
aki ˆ amanda ˆ grant

Wednesday, September 17th

Super into admiring my rocks.
rocks
While this was sitting on the carpet...
rocks
...I noticed it was next to a shape that looked matched the shape of the rock!
carpet ˆ rocks
I placed the rock onto its obvious home on the carpet and the mysteries of the cosmos were revealed.
rocks

Friday, September 19th

On Friday evening there was a big gathering of people protesting the park's decision to cut down the "Bendy Tree."
crowd ˆ tompkins
rev billy
Rev Billy Talen putting batteries into his megaphone a few moments before he was arrested by police.
tompkins ˆ rev billy
matt
Later that night I went to UCB to check out Matt's show.
improv ˆ matt
aki, amanda, grant
Afterwards, we went to Siege & Katie's for a get together in honor of Aki being in town!
al ˆ aki ˆ amanda ˆ grant
aki, amanda, siege
al ˆ aki ˆ amanda ˆ siege
Came home to find this one in a self-made pillow, blanket, towel luxury combo.
Look how long it is!

Sunday, September 21st

max
Had a Sunday video brunch with this guy! Showing off his drinking...
baby ˆ ichat ˆ max
max
...and eatin skills.
baby ˆ ichat ˆ max
max
Adorable!
baby ˆ computer ˆ ichat ˆ max

Monday, September 22nd

ellen, josh adcock, juliette, piper
Saw these guys on Monday!
ellen ˆ josh adcock ˆ juliette ˆ piper
(For years I was keeping notes about what I did each day using an online email service called OhLife. But they shut down in September of 2014 so I'm without notes for a lot of my photos! I eventually wrote my own version of it and now that's what I use!)
sunset

Thursday, September 25th

Fun to come back to work for my client and see things much more organized the next week!
flux capacity ˆ singleplatform ˆ work

Sunday, September 28th

On Sunday afternoon Quinn was having a "I'm moving away to Asheville" party at her Brooklyn apartment where she was giving away lots of clothes and belongings.
We did a little bit of day-drinking...
...and it was only a matter of time before...
me
...I found myself in some of the more choice Quinn wardrobe freebies. Oh, you know. Just lounging in a mesh shirt and faux tiger fur vest, enjoying a seasonal craft IPA. Just another Sunday in Williamsburg!
awkward ˆ vest ˆ me
ellen, the ktb
These two laughing <3
ellen ˆ the ktb
On the walk home there were notes posted to trees on my block...
movie set ˆ sign ˆ street
...about them filming Mozart in the Jungle the next morning.
movie set ˆ sign
Spent the rest of the evening playing guitar! Happy September 2014!
guitar