Artist: Rexrode

After leaving the clinic around one today I made a stop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn on the way home to unwind a little. I walked up and down Bedford Ave mostly, the main street of the neighborhood, where I went into a few stores and did a lot of people watching. A retail store that I really like but is pretty overpriced is Brooklyn Industries. There are locations throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn and they have great graphic-t's with what I would describe as "urban art" on them. I guess the store inspired me because when I got home I had to do some urban art drawing of my own.

We've had a series of New Yorker magazine covers hanging over the couch that both Jen and I were over. I sat down and thought of some things you see often in our neighborhood and came up with the water tower and bike silhouettes. (pic) When Jen got home she helped me narrow the last one down to the headphones. For materials I just used thick gray paper as the canvas (what was inside the pictures as backing), the same matting and frames, and leftover paint supplies from when we moved in. I'm really happy with how they turned out and how much cooler our wall looks. I should have taken a before picture. Maybe when I have a little more time... or any extra time... I can turn my hobby into a little t-shirt business or something. We shall see.

There's going to be some filming on our street, possible right out our window, this Sunday night. The project name is "Person of Interest." I'll be around and let you know if I see any mention-worthy celebs outside.

Frankfurters for Everyone!

Good evening Germany! You happen to be the country that, not counting the US, I had the most page views from this week (6), lol. For being such a great audience i'de like to thank you Germany for bringing us Audi, Mercedes Benz, and BMW. Thank you also for sending Janine Pretti, our x-manager at Aeropostale, to the US. If it wasn't for her and her store Jen and I would have never met. I also love a (Kosher) Frankfurter once in a while, so thank you. Hitler, Nazi's, and the Holocaust...not so great.



Shannon, ha

 That was fun.

Lady Gaga



Andrew and Carmen

In clinic this week we've been practicing measurement, don/doff, adjustment, and care skills of prosthetics and orthotics. We got to choose various pieces to try on and then present our make-believe case to the class. Here are a few of my classmates (pics) bringing a little pizazz to disabilities. When Shannon (in the shades) was up I couldn't help but be reminded of the Lady Gaga Paparazzi video where she was being lifted out of a blinged out wheelchair with gold loftstrand crutches. This thought made me lose it so the whole time Shannon was presenting I couldn't stop laughing. What a jerk. 



Last night we went to a rooftop bbq at the Rockrose building here in LIC. There were lots of good friends there, including our neighbors Ricky and Richard (married to two sisters upstairs, not a gay couple. ha) who are usually working that time of night. Jen and I split up and got to know a few new friends too. The weather was nice and cool, but after an hour or so outside the sky over the city skyline turned to dark shades of gray and black. It looked so ominous, like the evil NYC scene from Ghostbusters. It was quickly moving our way, though, and it started pouring a few minutes later. The drops were huge and everyone was suddenly scrambling to get inside, grabbing trash, dishes, children, and whatever else. We waited inside in the building's amazing rec room, "Club Rockrose," until the rain let up a little.

I was practicing in my Brooklyn clinic for 9 hours today and then came home to put together a powerpoint for a group presentation tomorrow... I'm pooped. Jen's out tonight celebrating two girlfriend's b-days at Shi, the waterfront sushi place in the 'hood.

Heat Wave!

Manhattan has looked so polluted and far away from our neighborhood the past few days, I assume because of the high humidity and heat. As you’ve probably heard it’s really hot here. It’s not just Florida hot, but crazy hot. Jen and I came home yesterday and said the same thing to each other; that it felt like you were stuck in the wave of stifling heat left behind by a city bus. That’s pretty much the best way to describe it, miserable. Con Edison, our power provider, reported overall electric use peaked at 13,189 megawatts at 4 p.m. Friday, eclipsing the all-time record of 13,141 MW set on August 2, 2006. I don’t really know what megawatts are but it sound like a lot. I was afraid the city would have a total black out like what I heard happened a few years ago and that there would be total insanity everywhere. I guess there’s still time. We tried to conserve but even on low our a/c was running all day. I saw a lot of frozen water bottles, wet towels, and even people walking down the block without shirts or pants… it’s true.

I worked tonight. I work tomorrow night. Maybe something fun will come up tomorrow or Sunday. Or maybe I’ll just sit in our climate controlled apartment and eat ice.

Summer BBQ's

Things have been a little intense so I pretty much had no time for writing. What’s new though? A few things lately. About a week ago we went to put dinner in the oven and realized it hadn’t warmed up and would not even turn on. Our neighbor suggested trying the breaker which had worked for her in the past. That didn’t fix it. Given our landlord’s… thrifty reputation (aren’t they all), I called him to put in a repair request. He then, surprisingly, told me he didn’t think it was worth fixing and that he would just get us a new one! Well, he followed through (with continued coaxing) and here we are with a beautiful new oven.

It came just in time as Jen and I co-hosted a bbq at a friend’s house in LIC tonight. Jen made sausage bread last night which I threw in the oven this afternoon after my midterm practical. Oh, by the way, I just finished my midterms which means I have about 4 more weeks left in this session. The test today went well. Wutev, I’m just trying get through it. Anyway, I’m proud I actually remembered to check on the bread and took it out before it burned. We also made a Ceprese salad. It’s a BYOM (bring your own meat) party so I made some burger patties today. We handed over our perfectly seasoned, organic ground beef to Matt (the host and griller) who, after grilling, threw it in with everyone’s “normal” meat. We tried to figure it out and think we at least found one of them. After inspecting the meat pile I concluded that organic meat smells and looks just like its conventional counterpart. Ha.

Some other new things came in a package Mom sent us this week. One of the many nice items inside was a new electronic squeaking mouse toy. It’s pretty life-like and Pup has been obsessed with it since she got it. The slightest movement will set it off so it takes special care to get up off the couch or move around without getting her excited. Yesterday she ripped it open and removed most of the stuffing and noise maker, declaring it dead.

Roots

Today, Blogger added statistical options that allow me to somewhat view my audience based on their location or what search engine they found my blog through.  I found out I've recently had readers visit my site from Canada, Netherland, and Singapore!

Hello world wide web. lol. This week we took a break from the grind and had some mid-week fun in our nabe. There is a part of Campus Crusade that does inner city, or "urban" ministry through art called Here's Life Inner City (HLIC). To be closer to the city HLIC recently acquired a warehouse space in LIC a few blocks form our apartment as their new home base. Our friend LeeAnn (s/p) organized a gallery opening, themed "Roots," to welcome them to the neighborhood on Wednesday night. I love modern, urban art and enjoy making art myself so when I heard about the event I added it to our chalkboard wall of things to do. Good friends, good food, good time. Pics, including my two favorite peices.

After the event we went to LIC Bar for a few, hoping to catch the end of a performance by Walking For Pennies. They're no one famous, just a local group that I'm pretty sure we heard on Valentine's day and were good. They had just finished playing by the time we showed so we stayed for another band (not so great) and a drink.

Overboard



 It's not very often that Jen and I get a whole day off together. When it does occur, like on the Fourth of July, we go a little overboard with our plans. Yesterday we took the Q train to Brighton Beach, the less crowded neighbor of Coney Island. We did walk down the boardwalk to Coney Island for lunch and to gawk at the huge line at Nathan's Famous Hot Dogs, though.

After soaking up some sun at the beach (though we have nothing to show for it because we wore 30 spf, lol) we came back into the city and went for a jog around the Jackie 'O reservoir in Central Park. Though many of them were just fire flies, there were a lot of bugs out at sunset, flying into our faces as we ran. Jen ate a couple. The sunset was beautiful, though (pic).

A little before 9 we headed over to the west side to watch the Macy's fireworks show. We really didn't have a plan, other than knowing it was between 34th and 59th-ish, and just walked as far towards the Hudson as we could down 50th street. Once the show started we realized we got lucky and had lined ourselves up with one of the barges. Beautiful! Enjoy the pictures.

I'm about one week in to an intense, six week summer session. I was in class, clinic, working, or studying most of the time this week. I'm not really loving my first assignment either. It's a combination of issues. I'm there to learn (which is not happening) and don't really agree with his choices of therapy interventions. He's not awful and I don't want to bad mouth my CI (clinical instructor) because you never know who's reading. I mean who isn't reading this blog by now? :) I worked for very talented PT's in Tallahassee and learned a lot from them. I just want to be assigned to a place like that. I'm going to talk to Dr. Ross about my assignment on Tuesday. If nothing else, if I b*tch enough it might guarantee an awesome clinical assignment in the Fall.

Friday night, work. Saturday night, work. Sunday and tomorrow off! Saturday Jen took a train to White Plains to visit her sister who's in from FL visiting family. She spent the night and came back this afternoon where I met her in Grand Central with Pup then went to brunch in the East Village. It was a little rainy but after a few tries we found a restaurant, Bone Lick BBQ, that was serving brunch outside. Pup was very good while out and about. She got lots of attention today and many incorrect guesses about her breed and sex. Lol. She does have a blue leash and a black bag so it's a little unfair to expect people to examine her to make sure I guess.

After brunch we walked around and shopped our way to Soho before heading home. In the Village we wandered by this really cool store called Evolution, kind of a taxidermist with a twist. There were animal rugs with the heads attached, taxidermied animals, and (the twisted part) skeletons of fetal Siamese twins (pic).