what a night.

yesterday, i was exhausted and ready for bed at 9:00. I had taken my first bike ride of the year earlier that afternoon, and i never thought to ease into it. well, i thought about it, but when i ride, i like to go all out the whole time. i crossed the williamsburg bridge into manhattan, something i'd never done before. I'm not sure why i haven't until yesterday, since it is just a few blocks from my house. anyway,getting onto those bridges is just one long continuous, steep hill climb. once in manhattan, i rode along the east side highway through a long park that i never visited before. It was full of people playing soccer and baseball on large astroturf playing fields. (since the long sliver of a park is between the highway and the east river, i think it's probably hard to get maintenance equipment over the pedestrian bridges.) I rode the bike path down to the tip of manhattan, battery park, and continued around to the west side, familiar territory. i took the bike path there up the west side to perry street, where i stopped for a water break in a nice little park on the hudson river. there were tons of people out lounging or playing with kids and dogs. i snapped a few pics of the richard meier apartments across the street and turned back for home.

so for my first exercise of the year, i went pretty hard. admittedly, i stopped a lot to take pictures--like the brooklyn bridge, the parks, the WTC--but i was pooped once i got home. all i wanted to do was put my feet up and moan. and i did for a while, until my room mate sliced his finger open in his haste to dish up some much-anticipated ice cream.

accidents happen, this is life, but why must they be such an ordeal? our first problem was getting christina to stop saying, "oh my God, oh my God, oh my God!" then we had to convince ryan that he shouldn't stitch it up himself. most importantly, we had to find out where the nearest hospital was. we had no clue. we were looking online, through the yellow pages, asking the operator, etc. we ended up grabbing an address in manhattan and walking a few blocks to hail a cab. well, our address was wrong, but the cabbie had a little book that gave us info on a close hospital.

and after about four long hours of chatting with christina, watching the corner television, trying to guess what the other people were in the ER for, ignoring the crazy cane-wielding voodoo lady, and dozing in poorly designed waiting room chairs, ryan came out with six stitches and we were able to return home.

so then it was about 4 am, and i was supposed to get up in like three hours for church... r i g h t . no, i called the choir hotline and told them i wouldn't be making the morning service.

what a night.

computers:

i got a new computer at work! it came thursday, but i waited to set it up until friday. my work load was pretty heavy on thursday, and i thought that setting it up would be a fun thing to do on friday. i needed to transfer all my documents from the (barely) older computer, so i brought in a crossover cable and just networked them together directly. it worked great.

my boss, steve, is taking my old computer to replace his relic; you have to give it a good kick to shut it up. it's so outdated that it's last upgrade was to windows 98! but it's still working, and since he's bringing in someone to update his database into a newer program that can print through a usb printer, he doesn't really need my old computer yet. so friday was a day of multitasking to the extreme. i thought that dual monitors would be nice, but i had two computers to work on. while one scanned, i cadded on the other. i was really having fun. but then i got sucked into some construction documents, and the old computer basically just played music.

and speaking of playing music at work, i'm kind of in a dilemma. well, it's not really a... anyway, the new computer came with five speakers and a subwoofer! do i really want to set it up? what i really want to do it keep my old speakers and bring the new set home for the computer in my bedroom. it would be nice for watching movies... but i don't know if they'd go for that. but do i really want all those speakers at work? maybe i can just set up a few of them.

and one last item. all this windows xp at work, and trying to network with ryan at home... i gave up and 'upgraded' to xp on my machine. at least i got the network to work, and now have 3dmax 6.0. ;)

i just finished my first full week of choir. i must say that's it's pretty fun. i've gotten the 'sway' down, but i still worry that i'll open my eyes and find myself going in the wrong direction. thankfully, that hasn't happened yet, and i'll try not to dwell on it any more. since i've just started, i don't know the specials that we sing during the service, like during the offering, etc. i kind of chuckle as the music starts, because i don't have a clue as to when to sing, what notes to sing, or any of the words. i should be terrified since thousands of people are watching me. but i watch the director and listen to those around me, and pick it up easy enough. other than that, i was a little worried about how large a time commitment this is, but i think it might be okay. i mean, i really don't have much else to do outside of work. and it keeps me from watching too much tv.

another thing about choir is that i have to start wearing ties, since it is a requirement to be on stage. now, one of the big benefits of being an architect is that we don't generally wear ties. (maybe it's the one thing we do to try and make up for the low salary.) and then i go and join something that makes me wear them again. sheesh. so i'm still trying to determine what kind of ties i like. sunday i wore a brand new tie from barneys, and tonight i wore an old tie from salvation army. i guess i've already about run the gamut. and by the way, the barneys ties was from their warehouse sale, so i didn't pay $80; it was 75% off. can you do the math? no? well, that means it was only twenty dollars.

speaking of saving money: i know this is not the blog about being frugal--that's tracy's--but i just got a notice that since i signed up for direct deposit for my giant school loan repayment, they lowered my interest rate by a quarter percent. that's not much, but it means that it's down to 2.750%. plus, i've overpaying a little. thanks, Dad!

i've eaten really well lately. first a lamb burger with spicy stuff (francilla or something) and then chicken in a red wine sauce with dill potato salad (thanks christina). food is so good. oh, plus i made chocolate chip cookies.... ahhhhhh

positive: MoMA Queens was good this weekend; finished a little side job; the aforementioned food; "you have rainbows in your hair! . . . oh, it's gone."

poopie: too much work today; fording the streams and ponds on the walk home from work in the cold; a nasty paper cut under my finger nail (oww!); you, for laughing at my spelling of poopy.

it was like hitting the lottery. friday night, to kill time before a church event at 7pm, i swung down to herald square to hit a few clothing shops. i took an unfamiliar subway line because of trian delays and ended up in the manhattan mall. i discovered a new store, but that's not the point of this. on the way, i saw a shop window sign advertising "no tax." i thought, "how so they get away with that?" then i saw huge banners all over macy's proclaiming tax free sales... wow! that little store's sign was legitimate. but, alas, i had to run off to my church event. (story note: the church event i tried to attend wasn't going on that night. either it wasn't happening because of a special youth rally, or it wasn't the weekly even that i thought it was. oops.)

anyway, i found out that night from christina that it had been tax free "week" and that the next day (saturday) was the last daythat clothes were to be tax free. i guess they do it a few times a year now. so saturday i went on a small shopping spree and bought nice jeans and a great button down shirt. not on sale, really, but i saved the 8.5% tax that i'd normally pay. does this qualify me as frugal?