It's almost the weekend! Whoo-hoo. but first, let me tell you about last weekend. I went on a choir retreat somewhere in upstate New York. all i know is that it was a two and a half hour bus ride from the city. we took two coach busses from Times Square Church, which of course were late; they had to go through security checks at the holland tunnel. Friday night, all we really did was eat and introduce ourselves to everyone with a game thing. Saturday, we ate, and ate, and ate. in between eating buffet-style meals, we played group games like three-legged race (but with three people--the middle one backwards), basketball, minefield (direct a blindfolded person around obstacles), etc. alas, the gold team didn't win the day. in the free time, i kicked around a soccer ball, shot some hoops, and played like ten games of volleyball. i also took my first spin in a golf cart. saturday night we had a giant bonfire, and small groups sang--like a talent show. During a medley of these cool african songs three girls sang, a bunch of folks danced around the fire. we joked that once the pastors heard about our pagan fire dance, we would never get another retreat again. ha, ha. sunday morning we got up early so we could board the busses at 6 am and scoot back to the city in time for church. it was a great weekend, and now i even know people's names. of course, anyone that didn't make the retreat is still basically a stranger.

so i'm looking forward to another great weekend. even though the weather is kind of cool right now, i think i'll try to get to the beach when i go out to Long Island this weekend. Monday, i'm going sailing!

have a great holiday weekend.

all i'm trying to do is stay awake. i've completely exhausted my candy stash, and it's only 2:30. oh, no.

i visited Holly this weekend to help her look at cars. i also helped her eat lots of food, browse through an outdoor art festival, swim in the pool, and lay in the sun - and i have the crispy-red skin to prove it. but back to the cars for a second. we looked at toyota, mazda, honda, and nissan on saturday. nothing interested us at toyota, but she drove a 6 over at mazda. after taking us to a deserted parking lot in the middle of nowhere, our long-finger nailed salesman gave us an agonizing tour of every minute detail of the car. the engine was great, the hatchback was even better, but the seats sucked big time and mazda's zoom-zoom was too masculine for holly. She did love the small SUV over at honda, the CR-V. and since she'd already seen her friends' accords, we skipped that one. and then the nissan atlima was our final drive of the day. with the weekend over now, i think she has narrowed it down to the accord or the altima. both are very similar, so it will probably all depend on if nissan can get her the configuration she wants at a price at least competitive with the accord.

so i was supposed to come home early last night. when it got toward boarding time, they announced that it would be delayed for over an hour. then they cancelled the flight altogether. the weather was fine in raleigh and in new york, so i guess it was horrible somewhere between the two places. so i had to crawl out of bed at 4 this morning to make my 6:40 flight. i could have made it to work on time, but i didn't have my work keys on me, so i went home first. an hour late to work isn't so bad. i'm pretty bored anyway.

During choir practice last night, my senior pastor breezed in and told us that the choir is going to Zambia in October. I just looked it up at the CIA's web page, of all places; It's a land-locked country in southern Africa. Wow, that should be exciting. I've never been to Africa before.

And my boss is out today; his wife is having their baby today! they were going to do it tonight or tomorrow morning, but i guess they moved it up. I wonder what they are going to name the little guy...

Two great things about this weekend: it was really fun, and it was all basically cheap/free, unlike the past week of spending. Thursday night was the last F+F. (F+F = "friends 'n friends" or "friends on friends") But it was all a rush, so we just got pizza.

On friday, i rode my bike from work to meet rebecca for tennis. it was my first time riding over the Queensborough Bridge. well, the first time on the ped/bike path. i rode on the street part last year during the Bike NY Five Boro Bike Tour when they closed it to traffic for us. anyway, i went over the bridge, through central park, over to the upper west side, and up riverside park. that was a workout in itself. i got a court for us at the 119th street hard courts since i had no luck at the clay courts at 96th street. our first round of tennis went pretty well, but i really need to learn how to serve. afterwards, we walked to rebecca's place, since it was nearby, where she made me dinner. and since it got so late, i took my bike home on the subway. i think i had enough exercise for one day.

plus, i had to get up early the next morning. a friend from choir had invited me to go hiking upstate with some of his friends. we met at Grand Central at 8:15 am. sooo tired. it was a beautiful hike. none of the forecasted rain showed up. in fact, it was mostly sunny and cool, just perfect for hiking. i actually got some sunburn across my face and the back of my neck. yes, redneck. anyway, it was nice to meet some new people. Arno and i were friends of dalcy, and then there were dalcy's housemates andy and nathan. nathan brought his friend joanna who brought here friend bill. so how many degrees of separation are there between bill and me? one funny thing, though. through conversation, we discovered that nathan and i worked in the same office last summer on the MTA Second Avenue Subway Project; he as engineer and me as an architect. this is where you start singing "it's a small world after all...." at one spot on the "mountain" you could see the skyscrapers in manhattan. that was simply amazing. i'll try to post a few pics soon on my webpage.

and then yesterday (i know this is really long, but i'm almost done. besides, i'm just plotting out drawings right now, so i have time to blab.) between church services i biked down to prospect park in brooklyn for Christina's birthday picnic. another beautiful day outdoors. we had all kinds of food and snacks, and i got to see some folks that i hadn't for a while.

sounds like a fun weekend, right? what did you do? i told you my story....

I'm back from blogger vacation. i feel refreshed and invigorated, thank you. so let's just jump right back in it.

My bosses broke up. I now work for just one architect, not two, so things are a little strange at work. plus, the boss that stayed will be very distracted when his first child is born some time this or next week. i'm not sure if this will give me more responsibility and opportunity at work, or if i will just be struggling to stay busy.

a bunch of us surprised my friend C for her birthday, albeit one week early. some of her friends came from out of town, and we all went out for a three and a half hour dinner to celebrate. guess what we had... sushi. it was my first time, and so everyone said it was funny that i was having my first taste at such a nice place. it had better be good! it was the most expensive meal i've ever paid for; our party of eleven averaged near 70 per head.

but it didn't seem too expensive. that's probably because i had already spent a fortune that day. i went with my friend rebecca to get a tennis permit. a hundred bucks will let you play on any public court in the five boroughs from april through november. so we just have to play a lot to make it worth our while. Permit in hand, we went out and bought tennis racquets. so i think i may have to eat raman for the next month or two; the money is just flowing out of me.

oh, yeah, i think i'll be spending more moolah this week. the lease is supposed to be drawn up for our new apartment, so that means i'll be losing another chunk. heck, that's more like a load. (note: to see a picture of the outside of the new apt build, see the "lookie" section on my homepage.)

anyway, all this money talk has gotten me depressed. oh, but i have good news too. i'm going to visit holly next weekend to help her look at cars. woo-hoo. it's a lot more fun to help spend someone else's money.

conclusion: i guess maybe this blog is tracy's opposite. should i title it "the journey FROM frugality"?

It had been raining all last week; it was cold and miserable. now, suddenly, it seems to be late summer. My office thermometer says that it is 86.7 degrees in here. other signs that it's summer: i'm riding my bike to work again, LAPRN (my neighborhood) is really noisy, and we hear the mr. softee song all day long, at work and at home.

My room mates and i may have found an apartment. Like most places, it has it's good and bad. first, the good: it's two short blocks from the subway stop, in a great neighborhood. the building was built in 1904, and they are preserving it's great character. otherwise, everything is brand new. But that's also where the problem begins. They're still building it. while we were trying to move May 1st (1 month early), this would mean moving July 1st at the earliest, and it could be August 1st. So we would have to get our landlord/new owner to let us stay longer than our lease. Also, the place has kind of a kooky layout for the living spaces. Since it isn't ready yet, we are holding the place for a few weeks while we decide.

Happy Easter! It's been a great weekend: A day off work, a new computer, the NY auto show, sunny days, and Easter sunday service...

I took off work for Good Friday. It was great to take a break. On saturday i went to the New York Auto Show with my friend Ryan. We had a great time just walking around looking at cars. There were a lot of new concept cars, and it's always good to see the new production vehicles, too. I was amazed at how much new stuff there was. Since we went last year, i expected to see a lot of the same stuff. that was the case with the displays themselves, but the cars weere pretty different. i didn't realize it, but we were there walking around for four hours straight.

We met Christina for lunch at a little tiny place in the Village. She had been at a cooking class that morning and was anxious to tell us all about it. so i was hearing about how to make wonderful pasta dishes, deciding whether to get brunch food or a hamburger, watching Matthew Broderick walk up to the counter, thinking about if i should splurge on that grape soda... wait, Mathhew Broderick is here? yeah, well, would you look at that. I felt a little bad that he has to get take out; if he was normal like us he could sit in this cute little place and have brunch. I guess it's one of those New York moments.

okay, i have to go. my roommates called; they bought so many groceries that they can't carry them all home by themselves. Columbia grads...

it's done. last night i assembled my new computer. and it rules.

there were only minor glitches in putting everything together. the first was getting the case open. i just could NOT slide the side off. it seemed to be caught right were the lock is. i though, "great, they shipped it to me locked with the keys inside." so i broke through the drive bays, reached way in, and snagged the keys. turns out, it wasn't locked. instead, the handle near the lock moved to release the catch, and then it swung open. no wonder it wouldn't slide.

so then i just followed the directions that came with the motherboard, and most everything went alright. i sort of bent a pin or two when i finally got the processor open, but it was so minor that they straightened right out and slid into place. whew! i had to connect a gazillion wires for the front case USB and firewire ports since they were all individual instead of just being bundled into one 'outlet.' and when the labels didn't exactly match the motherboard chart, i just took educated guesses... and they all work!

the scariest part was hitting the power switch. ryan came home just in time to help me install all the drives, so that sped things up. and since the case has a side window, he made sure to bundle some of the wires out of the way. he also moved my front case fan so that it brings the air past the hard discs. smart move, i think. but i had to hit the power button by myself. when i did, we had a good laugh. all four case fans came with multicolored LEDs; each one has a blue, red, and green light. pretty corny.

speaking of fans, i sure have an abundance of them. the case has four, and there is one for the CPU, the motherboard chipset, the power supply, and even the graphics card has one. what is that, seven? no, eight!

anyway, i just got all my data back from ryan's computer where i was storing it through all this. and now i'm getting ready to start installing software. that's not going to be as fun as building the computer was.

my computer bits and pieces came via fed ex yesterday. whoo-hoo! i just have to lug the case home, using my home-made, tape handle (note: the comma indicates that the handle is home-made, not the tape), and i should be set to build my super computer. well, super compared to my old one. i hope it works without too many glitches.

we had our last rehearsal for easter sunday last night. (that's a bad sentence, but i don't feel like fixing it.) we're singing five new specials on sunday. they're pretty cool. one of them is a medley of five really old songs. the mass choir is about a hundred people, but only this one little old lady knew any of the songs. so she gets to lead one of them! and we're stealing one of the songs from the brooklyn tabernacle choir. so sunday should be fun. strange, though; they don't do anything special for good friday. but i am! i'm taking off of work. i figure that i'll probably finally go see mel's "the passion of the Christ." and put together my computer!

stress sucks.

my room mate and i have been apartment shopping. we found a beautiful loft on williamsburg waterfront that was big, clean, had great amenities, and a great landlord, but we just couldn't configure rooms in it. not that we didn't try.

so we looked at some places on roosevelt island, which is in the east river between manhattan and queens. the place was really nice, with a south-facing balcony great manhattan views, but no neighborhood to speak of. well, not the cafe and shopping kind of neighborhood. it's more of a park and activities kind of place. so we'll see.

and our broker is tired of us not taking a place. of course, we haven't managed to get out of our lease (which ends the end of may). we just want to get out of this place, and before the summer rush.

and i still don't have a computer. but i'm about to buy the pieces for one... we'll have to see how that goes.

it's too bad the weekend is gone already; i enjoy them so much.

friday night i had a leisurely dinner out with some friends. i took a cab into manhattan with ryan, who was going to his friday night hockey game. taxis seems so luxurious. anyway, people just kept showing up. i of course was there first. when connie arrived we chatted at the bar until c showed up. we relaxed while we waited for kathy to show up, and then chatted more over drinks. we took forever to order, because we kept forgetting to study the menu. this didn't seem to please our waiter much. whatever. so we ate. then rebecca showed up and ordered food. and ryan came from his hockey game and ordered more food. so by the time we had dessert and paid our bill, it was already 11:30. a three-and-a-half hour dinner is great!

saturday i had to focus on my room and computer. ever since my computer blew up, i've had computer pieces strewn all over the room. no, it didn't really explode, but all the scene was missing was some scorch marks or something. besides the deep cleaning, i tried to put my new hard drive on my old computer. but no matter what i tried, it wouldn't recognize the drive. i tried all sorts of IDE cable configurations and jumper settings. nothing. it either saw nothing, or it just sat there and thought about it. so frustrating. i need to order new computer parts soon; i can't take not having a computer. well, at least i'm able to surf the web, etc on my old computer.

and to finish off the weekend... sunday was church, spaghetti, nap, church. wow, i could use a nap right now.

DAY 3, and it's still snowing. barely, but it's still going. where's global warming when you want it?

the telemarketers are driving me nuts at work. five times a day people call and demand to speak with the person in charge of the telephone account. no, no, no, never call again! i just got a call from a women askig if i'm interesting in obtaining a pistol license. i asked if she meant like a gun. yes. that gave me a good laugh. until she called again.

work is boring, but my hard drive comes today! i hope this solves my computer problems. if not, i may just have to use my tax money to upgrade like crazy!

wow, it's a bliazzard! i can't even see the sky scraper down the street. it's been going since 10 this morning, and it's really piling up now. I hope this is winter's last hurrah, because i'm sick of it. bring on spring!

spring is also tax time. i e-filed the beginning of last week (?) and i just noticed while i was at the atm that i had a lot more money than i expected. sure enough, my federal tax return has already been direct deposited into my account. hopefully my new york cash will come in soon too.

it's come to my attention that i am not very consistent with my blogging. i guess i forget that people might actually be reading this. sorry.

the three-day fast ended well. that last day, though, my tummy protested once in a while if i accidentally started dreaming about food. i tried to avoid the thought of food and what i was going to eat once it was over. i thought i was getting lasagna from my roomies, but they didn't come through. it was for the best though, since the tomato soup that i had was a better way to ease back into eating.

the services each night were great. we sang a sort of off-the-cuff song service. the pastors interrupted a lot with things to pray for. we usually had a ten minute sermon, tops, and the rest of the time was spent praying. We prayed collectively, independently, in groups, out loud, and quietly (well, mostly loudly) for purity in our lives, against fear of sharing our faith, and similar topics.

but now my computer got sick. i have to figure out how to get past these stop errors. they can be pretty devastating. and i don't know if this is related or not, but i'm sick too. i almost didn't come in to work today--i've been saying that i need a day off--but i was feeling better today, and it is payday; you don't want to miss that, right?

what i really need is a trip to the beach.... ahhhhh.