did you hear that i moved? i am finally living on my own for the first time. new neighborhood, new grocery stores and restaurants, new borough, new subway. i am excited for the change even though things were great before and didn't need to change and didn't necessarily get better. does that make sense? i loved my old apartment and neighborhood, but now there is the excitement that comes with a new experience and all the promise that it brings.

i am extremely grateful to my friends that helped me with the big move. thank you for helping me pack up the kitchen, for lending me a van, for carrying everything i own out of one place and into the next, for riding in the back of the van, for filling my cupboards and hanging my shower curtain, for munchkins and cold water, and for a bookcase to swallow all my books. i could not have managed without your help.

here is a picture of the subway station i use on my way home from work. an artist used the standard fluorescent tube lighting fixtures found in every station in the system but arranged them in a new and exciting way. so now i get to enjoy that on my daily commute.

i walked around greenwich village on saturday to check out a possible apartment location, and since it was close by, i kept going all the way to Hudson River Park. my feet were beginning to ache so i sat awhile at the esplanade and watched the boats go by. i saw a canadian battleship speed by all the sailboats that seems so tiny in comparison. it's Fleet Week in New York and we invited the canucks. i hope that's not a derogatory nickname.

on monday i went for a late-day bike ride down to prospect park.
i had seen a bunch of apartment listings for the far + south sides of the park so i explored those neighborhoods a little before heading into the park. the sun was getting low in the sky when i sat in the lawn to rest and read, so i didn't even stay very long. i read a short chapter in a book i just started, Kavalier & Clay. mostly i just watched the kites flying and these three guys with amazing frisbee skills. somebody with two loose yorkies walked by me, but like most new york dogs, they didn't really want to visit me (or anyone). and since i was kind of worried about some issues with my bike, i left.

instead of going straight home i stopped at the new williamsburgh park right on the east river. after all, there was still lots of sun there; no trees to block everything, just a wide expanse of water with the manhattan skyline as a backdrop. i read another chapter and took some pictures of the setting. by then it was 7:45 and they were closing the park, so i went home for dinner.

enjoy a few select pics at kodakgallery.

i've posted some pictures on flickr of the guest house roof being lifted into place on a house my office is building out on Shelter Island, at the tip of Long Island. the guest house is just a bedroom and bathroom, but the roof overhangs the terrace a lot, so that makes it bigger. actually, it looked huge on the ground but tiny in the air. some of that is due to the swoop of the butterfly roof line. enjoy the pictures.

apartment walk thru video. warning: this was hastily done with digital camera.

I was admiring all the stately brownstones on my walk between construction sites today, thinking how i could bring my parents up to the area next time they visit, when i came upon this alien building. wow! i guess the Landmarks Commission wasn't up and running when this was built.

the (L) train keeps me feeling like a real new yorker. i am referring to the long and frustrating commute that many manhattan workers face every day just to get from their apartment or house in the suburbs to their job. since i only live two short blocks from my subway station, and then only ride the train three stops, it would seem that i know nothing of this commuting hell. i mean, how difficult is three stops?

that's where the (L) train helps me out. By the time the train gets to the final stop in brooklyn before going under the east river into manhattan, it can get packed to the gills with people (hipsters). and perhaps since the trains dead-end not long after getting to manhattan, they get backed up like a traffic jam on the interstate. Often this means that even if you manage to get on the train, it hardly goes anywhere... or it moves verrrrrry sloooowly and stops frequently at and between stations. i spend a lot of time under the east river.

Enjoy this a camera-phone picture from this morning. it took me four trains to get on, and that's only because i got onto a train headed the opposite direction and then switched back to a manhattan-bound train. smart, right?

My coworker just showed me a blog that is posting old garfield cartoons that have been altered to remove the Garfield and Odie characters. Once you do this, you're just left with Jon talking to himself. He had a pitiful existence to begin with, but now he's really funny.

here's the link: click

it's primary election day in New York. And even though i was running a little late this morning --lots of "Rock Band" at my apartment last night--i made sure to swing by my neighborhood school to vote.

i never got a voting notice in the mail, so i didn't know what district i was in. this would mean standing in line to find out before going to my specified voting booth to stand in line again. But on the way to the school i passed my roommate who was coming back from voting. as we passed i thought to ask what district we were and she remembered. whoo-hoo! i could skip the frst line at least.

when i found my station and my turn came up to register my signature, the advanced-in-age ladies told me three times that i wasn't listed in the book! i had to keep spelling my last name for them -- H-O-M-E-R. then they started writing me up as a democrat. this i knew to look out for since the same thing happened to me last time i voted. "oh, he's a REPUBLICAN!" they exclaimed after i corrected the one filling out the voter cards and showed them both the REP next to my name.

and of course the young guy working with these ladies had already set the booth for democrat - more wrong assumptions. so i had to wait for the next person in line to vote and reset the machine. but the girl next in line couldn't vote until all of this was understood by the lady filling out the cards and the lady looking up the signatures. WOW! what a test of patience first thing in the morning.

while at a jobsite this morning i noticed a plumber seemed to be talking to himself as he was up on a ladder in the corner of the room. i didn't see a cell phone, either. hmmmm.... okay, whatever, right?

i moved on to other things. i okay'd a light fixture installation in the other room with the electrician. i talked with the carpenters about a wall niche they needed to make for a giant flatscreen TV. then i looked around for anything that seemed to be out of place. that's my job.

then i double-take as i see two legs squirming out of a hole high up on the kitchen wall. it was funny too because he wasn't going in or out, but just squirming around. i guess the plumber was actually talking to someone earlier, and wasn't just crazy. this other guy had somehow shimmied into the wall, which is up pretty high, and had crawled back above the ceiling of the neighbor's apartment.

i thought it was hilarious.

Ever feel small, insignificant, or helpless?

Ever think you're out your league, too small to matter, or fighting a losing battle?

Ever feel bullied, out of place, or like you're second class?

i think this building feels the same way.

72nd street on the upper east side is lined with giant apartment buildings. i was early to a meeting up there today--i'm working on a 3 bedroom, 2.5 bath apartment with wrap-around terrace, no less--when i noticed this relic across the street.

actually, i think it's holding its own just fine.

i'm with calvin. sure, try and do better in the new year, but don't strain yourself.

perhaps i could try a bit more than calvin:

- reacquaint self with gym.

- read bible more.

- sleep more.

- eat less cookies.

- take some tests.

that'll do for now.

Happy New Year! i missed the ball drop here in the Big Apple, and it seems i also missed an apple at work. this is what happens when you leave an apple on your desk over the holidays.

funny enough, it looked perfectly fine from the other side.

Christmas at the Emerson's has been lots of fun. little Lincoln has been loving the toy holly got him for me, though it took us three times before we finally got one that worked. The first one was DOA, and the second one only partially worked. while Lincoln played with it for a little while, he kept giving us these puzzled looks. he knew it wasn't working the way he remembered. now we finally got it right, and Lincoln is a happy kid.

His grandma + grandpa got him a motorized vehicle for outside. lincoln loves to push it around the cul-de-sac instead of driving it. at least it's good exercise.

other than playing with lincoln, i've just been eating, sleeping, and breaking in my mac.

Merry Christmas everyone! I hope santa brought you everything you deserved, wanted, or needed. i know that's quite a range of options, but you should know by now that Christmas is not about gifts. It's about celebrating Jesus Christ coming to our little messed up world to be our light and life.

And Christmas is about celebrating with your family. I got to meet my newest nephew on Christmas Eve! What a fun kid! I'm told that on their way back from Russia, as he was reviewing pictures of his new family, he saw my pictures and said that i was just a friend of the family. ha, ha! But his mom and dad set him straight, and he now calls me uncle--in Russian, for now--and gives me big hugs.

it's been a great christmas.

and if you didn't get what you wanted for Christmas, then take a tip from the Homer family. You'll never be disappointed Christmas morning if you buy yourself the gift you want the most!

i really want a mac laptop.

i've been deliberating on the decision for a while now. i was going back and forth between buy ing now or waiting for christmas, or bonus time, or the new year, or after the mac expo when they might announce new models, thereby driving down prices on the current models. my first plan was to buy the basic version macbook pro new from amazon, which had quite a discount plus a rebate. but i agonized over spending the money. then amazon's price went up a few times. oh well, it wasn't meant to be. then i remembered my brother had mentioned buying refurbished apple products from the apple website. so i looked there and saw that i could buy a refurbished model at a discount. then an ichat with my brother brought up the idea of getting the more powerful version. and since it's refurb, the upgraded model is within reach.

last night i put the macbook pro in my online shopping cart, filled out payment and shipping info, and then hovered over the 'purchase' button for a few minutes. should i really buy this? what am i doing? but i want it now. why wait? common sense prevailed. i hit the purchase button.

so santa came early this year! okay, actually i just went and splurged on myself. whatever. i'm getting a mac in the mail next week! merry christmas!