Best Boat Break

Do you see what happened up there? A few months into this new-blog experiment and I slip into the naming routine from the old briggie.blogspot.com. Old habits, they're hard to break!

Anyway last weekend I was just arriving at work when I got a message from Jeff that he and Noelle were in town and they told me I should come ride the Staten Island Ferry with them. I thought about it a little and decided that meeting up with amigos would be the right thing to do. So I played hooky from work for a few hours. It was the right thing to do.

If you weren't feeling like seeing lots of pictures of Jeff this might not be the post for you.

Or if you didn't feel like seeing sneaky snaps of strangers, either.

When everyone looks like this it means the Statue of Liberty is coming into view.

Stealing yo selfie

I think the idea is you're not supposed to have to do that if you have the stick?

Arriving in Staten Island we weren't just going to jump on the next ferry. We stuck around to appreciate this mysterious burrough. We did so by eating at Dairy Queen.

Return trip...

C'est what?

Sneaking on stangers, continued

And trying to keep up with the crowd when I got back to Manhattan.

Best It Was Dark Up On That Roof

Thursday night was Melissa's birthday party, an annual late-summer affair. I was out of work early enough to go (I'm sorry that all posts for the time being will start with an explanation of what work did or didn't let me get to) and since I knew I'd be up on a dark roof, I brought my Voigtlander Nokton 50mm f/1.1 lens with me. I got this lens nearly 4 years ago and it's fun but so hard to focus. As my new Leica has live view that makes negotiating it's super thin depth of field a little easier, but still hard. This post begins with varied photos taken in low low light.

I bumped into Tamara on my way to Melissa's. Here she is being patient with me as we wait for the elevator to Melissa's roof. Oh wait, there wasn't an elevator to the roof? No biggie. Not afraid of a few stairs.

Just a little bit of the view from that roof.

Portrait of the birthday girl by candlelight.

Over there: Alexis and Sara.

Over here: Melissa and I.

Right here: Two Harvardians, Ashley and Mencius.

And those were all the most-usable photos of the night. I close with three more street pictures from my dark walk home.

Thank you for putting up with my constantly pointing out that it is dark at night and that means that there is not much light.

Oh Man, What a Nice Weekend!

I had the whole weekend off and even got out early on Friday so I really tried to make the most of it and I don't think I did a bad job.

Friday evening I met up with Kim and Alexia and Levi at El Cortez in Bushwick, a Tex-Mex Tiki Bar. The food was good (check out my chimichanga below) and the decor was epic--check out this Eater post full of pictures of the interior, you will dig it and want to visit. As you probably know, I don't drink, but if I drank, I think I'd love drinking at El Cortez. What higher praise could I give?!

Bushwick sights

After dinner we headed to Bedford where they were giving out free cones at Davey's. I had the "Whop'corn" (Whoppers and Popcorn). 

Neighborhood's neon tree

Saturday. Big Day. Started with a neighborhood and Soho stroll on my way to breakfast lunch.

Have you seen one of these? They are EVERYWHERE now.

Dork Knate? I don't get it.

Carol was in town and I met up with her and Ryan at Mission Cantina. They're always changing the menu over there and currently the menu is: Choice of Two Burritos. On the left: chile relleno burrito. On the right: fried chicken burrito. You might be leaning towards the chicken one on principle, but let me tell you: that chile relleno one is the burrito you really want.

Also got ceviche tostadas and guacamole. Had to try to fill that table.

Post Cantina? Morgenstern's, of course.

There's this peach ice cream now that everyone is saying you gotta get.

Had an hour or two of freetime...

Before standing in the Red Hook ferry line with Lauri and Carol. It's a big line, you watch a lot of ferries come and go as you wonder which ferry you'll finally fit onto.

I was going to go with them to Hometown Barbecue but ferries were getting so delayed and I needed to be at Lincoln Square before 7 so I sent Lauri and Carol off to Brooklyn like I was seeing them off at the airport and stayed behind in the city.

Street model with tourists.

I'm probably the last person on earth to take some pictures inside the new Fulton subway interchange.

But it's highly photographable.

Having missed out on Brooklyn barbecue, I met up with Chaunte at the Mighty Quinn's in the West Village for a little Manhattan barbecue. I tried their new smoked and fried spicy chicken sandwich. Spicy chicken sandwiches: so hot right now.

And then, get this, we went up to Lincoln Center for a 25th anniversary screening of Metropolitan, my favorite movie that I forget to list when listing my favorite movies.

FOLLOWED by a Q&A with director Whit Stilman and nearly the whole cast! Like they were only 2 people short of the whole cast, it was great.

Everyone's crazy about Chaunte's summertime pants.

All the attention gets embarrassing.

Finished up Saturday night with Ty's birthday party. No pictures, though. It was dark and there were lots of people to talk to.

Sunday Emily surprised everyone by showing up at church with her 12 year old niece. No pictures of that because we were in church.

But here's what new friends do right after they meet: go onto a phone to figure out if they've met before.

Walking home from Prince street. Hanksy strikes again.

Seamore, a new fish restaurant up the street from me, is packing them in.

Genuine Superette a little less packing them in.

The Lion of Little Italy

So, yeah. Very nice weekend. Now I'm home a little early on a Sunday night, reading books and writing blog posts and feeling ready to do the law more tomorrow. Here I come, law! Rested and ready!