Survival of the fittest!

I saw a great example today of self-selection.

We're in the outskirts of a hurricane.  Winds are gusting to 40 mph and it's raining.  A group of motorcycles comes by.  Already, it's ridiculous.  Riding in gusty winds and rain is incredibly unsafe.

However, to make matters worse, these guys were doing racing and doing tricks.  I heard them coming and tried to get a video.  Before I could hit play, something happened.

You can see the aftermath in the video.

The rider popped a wheelie in the rain and crashed.  He skidded into the freeway on-ramp while his bike crashed into the wall of the bridge.  You don't expect to see these sorts of things in person.

Trying to get it started again on the on-ramp.

Bike moved under overpass.

Trying to fix it.

Helmet video camera!

These guys got the whole thing on video!

Close-up of the damage.

Trying to fix the bike.

Maybe when this guy goes home he'll start a wood fire in his kitchen or bring a toaster with him in the shower.  I wish I had a copy of the video from his helmet.

Ghost Town

At noon on a weekday, it's impossible to find an empty street.  There will always be cars or pedestrians somewhere.  Not today.

A zombie will jump out at any moment...

I woke to mostly silence.  There were quite a few sirens, but no street noise.  With school cancelled, I decided to go touring.  The rain was still pretty light and the wind was bearable.

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If you look carefully in the middle of the picture, you can see the Hudson coming up through the walkway.  The park was a swamp because a couple hours earlier, at high tide, the whole area was flooded.

Angry Hudson!  Not that exciting of a video, but I don't plan to be outside during the worst part of the storm, so that's what I have.

Do not enter the water!

Incoming: Hurricane Sandy

A hurricane is on the way.  Sandy is supposed to pay us a visit tomorrow, so the subway and buses are shutting down tonight.  Parts of Lower Manhattan are being evacuated.

I live on top of a hill, so flooding shouldn't be an issue up here.  Apparently everyone is taking precautions anyway.  I went to Duane Reade and you would think the end times are here.  The entire block is a madhouse of people hauling supplies as quickly as possible.

Checkout line at 2pm on a Sunday.

Remaining toilet paper selection.

Tissues aren't any better.

Deodorant is in better supply.  I guess that makes sense.

They were sold out of flashlights, batteries, and bottled water.  They were also closing early so employees could make it home.

This will be my first major hurricane!  I've done tornadoes and earthquakes.  If I survive this one, all I have left are volcanic eruptions, Godzilla, and a zombie apocalypse.

Pakistani Dinner

After getting back to Manhattan from West Point, I joined a group of Pakistani students for a cultural dinner.

Lentils, something, and some sort of meat.

Beef?

Biryani and some sort of chicken.

Sesame bread!

I don't speak Urdu, so I don't know what we ordered.  It was all good, so I guess it doesn't matter.  There were a few more dishes that weren't pictured, but now all you non-Pakistani food eaters know what the food looks like.  Good stuff!

Pakistanis like lights.

West Point

Besides the city itself, an advantage of being up here is the ability to visit other nearby places I would not otherwise see.  I went to West Point yesterday.

Military Police checking IDs and tickets.

Pre-game formation.

Football!

Army happened to be playing Ball State which is Erin's alma mater.  You can see the Ball State crowd in red in the pre-game picture.  I guess they don't travel well.

International students.

Notice how they all look confused or distracted.  This was the first American Football game for most of them and no one understood the rules.  I tried to explain, but you can only absorb so many rules at once.  When Army kicked a field goal, they were completely lost.  "So it is like soccer?"

After the game, which Army lost of course, we went on a tour.  This was the real highlight of the trip.

USMI Chapel

Dining Hall

Mural of major world battles.

Lawn for practicing marching.

Nice Fall foliage on the river.

West Point has a very nice picturesque campus.  I suppose that helps when you're being forced to march all over the place.

Parking lot of top of the main classroom building.

This is the same honor code as at CBS.  I have a feeling we stole it.

Stadium on the water.

It was a very nice place.  That said, I'm really glad I didn't go there.  If you are late to class, you have to walk for five hours in full dress uniform with a rifle without talking to anyone.  Not that I was ever late at TCU, but why take the risk?

Tom's Diner

Erin and I ate at the famous diner from Seinfeld, Tom's Diner.  It's pretty close by and we needed some food late at night.  I watched the final Presidential Debate while Erin faced off with a piece of pie.

Here you can see a battle between Erin and a slice of blueberry pie.

Who won?  (hint: it was not the pie)

Pumpkin Carving Part Two

After my warm-up with Erin I was ready to take on my classmates.  After our last exam we bought some snacks, pumpkins, and drinks.  Then we put on a horrible scary movie and started the projected.  The Faculty (1999) is a must watch to see how not to make a scary movie.  It has a lot of famous actors, but that doesn't help it.

My creation.

Classmate creations.

Which one is the best?

My two pumpkins side by side.

Pumpkin Carving

I wanted to carve that giant pumpkin from Saturday night, but apparently giant pumpkins cost over $100.

Instead, I settled for this subway-friendly pumpkin from an organic market in Greenwich Village.

Erin takes a stab (haha) at making a mouth.

After finishing our Halloween music, we had a finished product!  The monster mash...it was a graveyard smash...

I can't decide if he looks cute or scary.

It was supposed to be a friendly pumpkin since it's so tiny, but if you stare at it long enough it looks sort of evil to me.

Also, a fun science experiment...the candle cooks the lid, drying it out.  This makes it shrink slightly, so the lid falls on top of the candle and starts to burn.  Burning pumpkin actually smells OK   Unfortunately, now the lid doesn't stay on top.  Lessons for next year.

NYC Cars

Owning a car here is a really bad idea.  Most people use the bumper in front of them as a curb stop.  When you hit the car in front of you, shift to park.  That means almost all cars here are covered in dings and scratches.  There are two solutions.  First, you can buy the bumper buddy.  It's a rubber pad that hangs from your trunk or hood to protect you from other parkers.

However, the other option is to just embrace it.  You figure your car is going to be destroyed anyway, so why not terrorize it yourself?

It looks like cave drawings.

At least this one is seasonal.

Oh, and notice how all three cars are touching.  The caveman car is blocked in.  It is good to have friends who can help you push cars out of the way so you can go to work in the morning.

A Night Out

I don't enjoy the New York nightlife all that often, but my classmates had a birthday party planned for all the October birthdays so I joined in.

On my way to the first location, I learned that you can wear absolutely anything on a Saturday night.  Leather pants, leather jacket, leather collar?  Sure.  Bright yellow leggings with pink shoes and blue hair?  That works.  Boots, jeans, no shirt, and a white/red candy-cane-striped top hat?  Apparently so.

I don't have a good picture of these people because generally people dislike strangers taking pictures of them.  Plus, these people are much more likely to be mentally unstable than the average normally dressed person.  I did capture one woman from behind.  She was dressed like some sort of noble from 500 years ago.

Some sort of medieval cape. 

After arriving, I spent a few hours trying red, green, black, and white tea.  It turns out they all taste roughly the same.  I'm not cut out to be a tea snob.  At least there was entertainment!

Belly dancer with a sword on her head!

Here is a video featuring some great belly dancing music.  It's too dark to really make out what is happening.

It sounds like snake-charmer music.

Then we headed off to a "club."  It's apparently a family restaurant by day and a fire hazard by night.  Basically, they fill the venue until each person is touching at least three others.  Then they roll out a red carpet and form a line.  If you're lucky, you can use the secret VIP door so you too can literally rub elbows with strangers.

When there are no chairs, find a giant pumpkin.

At 4am I was hungry, so we went to get Pakistani food.  I'm pretty sure the food in the display case was almost 24 hours old at that point, but it's surprising how good everything tastes that late.  I suppose Waffle House is still in business for that reason.

Chicken and Waffles

Let's just get to the fun part first.

Waffle, fried chicken breast and wing, cornbread, and fruit punch.

I ordered the "Al Sharpton" and this is what I got.  Yes, we were in Harlem.  No, it wasn't very healthy.  Yes, it was a strange combination, but oddly it sort of works.

Erin's boring waffle (by comparison)

Bananas, pecans, and cinnamon are average fare here.  You can order a waffle and catfish or a waffle with shrimp.  Really, just order some type of fried meat and put it on top of a waffle.

Real miso soup.

To balance out the heavy lunch, I had a much lighter dinner.  Still, I picked a soup that packed a punch.  This miso soup is not what you get with your sushi dinner.

Quote from menu: Miso is a fairly recent development in ramen soup, a specialty of Hokkaido and northern Honshu that originated in the 1970s. Our miso is second to tonkotsu in terms of richness of flavor. Our Miso ramen broth tends to have a variety of flavors coming from a balanced mixture of various Miso's(fermented soy bean paste), combined with umami flavors coming from wok sauteed corn, leeks, scallions, bean sprouts, chicken sausage, pork belly and bok choy. Garnished with sesame seeds, nori (roasted seaweed). Noodles are thick, curly, and slightly chewy with udon-like qualities. (Please allow extra time to prepare.)

Not quote from menu: Yum.

Finally, Erin baked some muffin/donut hybrids.  What should we call them?  Duffins?  Monuts?  Domuffnutins?

Pumpkin flavored!

They didn't last long.

A New Season

So apparently there are four seasons.  Instead of hot and not-quite-as-hot, there are four real seasons.  In facts trees here have colorful leaves.

This is roughly 100 yards or so from our apartment.

I look happy enough in the picture, but just 3 minutes later I'm less cheerful.  There are 50-ish evil steps to get up to street level.

A haunted brownstone!

First there was the patriotic brownstone and now the haunted brownstone.  It's much easier to get your residence to look festive when it's only 400 square feet.

Also, today it was 72 degrees.  I'm curious how much longer we'll see these pleasant temperatures.  The pictures are not from today.  If you know me, I would not be wearing a jacket in 72 degree weather.  I probably wouldn't be wearing a jacket in 62 degree weather.  It just happened to be very windy that day.

Cupcakes, Rita's, and the Taco Truck

So cute and only $5 each!  Oh wait...

Blurry picture, but it's for real.

Rita's has followed me to New York!

Authentic Mexican in NYC is always served out of a truck.

This has become my favorite nearby Mexican option.  It has a great name.  Super Taco.  The food is way better than the name suggests.

Boba/Bubble Tea

For those who have never enjoyed Taiwanese Boba tea before, I found a sign explaining it at T Kettle in the East Village.

I am a happy customer.

Where is the cold?

Since moving here two months ago, the weather has pretty much stayed between 65 and 80.  A couple evenings this week it dropped to the 40s, but that was the first time.

I suppose I didn't really know what to expect, but everyone always seems to complain about the weather here.  I know that winter is still a few months away, but I think Fall temperatures here are actually nice.

It's still in the 90s in Texas, so I'm glad to be up here.  Maybe that will change in January :)

Union Square

Union Square is like going to the zoo, except you're looking at people.

These guys look interesting.

People from the crowd were joining in.  I guess the words were pretty easy to learn.

Lots of tables to play chess.

I don't even know where to start.

There are so many things to commend on in this picture.  Let's start with the guy sitting on front of the Occupy Wall Street sign on the left with mask.  When not protesting, he wears a beret and plays chess.  To the right of him is a man wearing a crown and holding a sign that says "THE ONE".  Right before this picture, the older man in blue was debating with the guy in the crown.

To the right of the sign-holder is a guy in a sleeveless shirt who is clearly insane.  In the photo he looks like he is giving a hug to an invisible friend.  In reality, he was spinning in circles singing.  Just to the left of him in the far back is a woman wearing a full medieval costume.

Finally, on the right you see a drumset and a group of people.  I'm not sure exactly what was happening, but the guy in black sitting on the ground was dancing while doing a walking handstand.

I should have taken a few more pictures of other interesting people, but we had to go across the street to Whole Foods.  Fun times.