Week of July 18th 2011: New York City and Colicchio & Sons

If you are a constant reader of my blog, you know that I have a consistent New Year's Resolution to travel to a new place. The reason this one is so important to me is that even though I've don'e a good bit of international travel, I've been really terrible about going to places that are more domestic. Up until July of last year, I hadn't even been to New York (aside from changing planes at JFK). This was way at the top of my list of places to go but I knew that if I was going to go I'd want a companion or place to stay. Well, after my friend, Elissa, moved there earlier in the summer, I knew I had both.

Elissa had given me the directions to get to her apartment from the airport. After several transfers, I soon found myself stepping out of a subway and into the sweltering heat of New York in the summer. For someone who grew up in a city that frequently had over 100 degree summers, it's funny how quickly I've adapted to the mild seasons of San Francisco.

After Elissa got off work, she helped me settled into her lovely Upper East Side apartment and then we changed to go out to dinner. I had luckily showed up in New York during Restaurant Week (similar to dine about town with $35 prix fixe menu) so I was excited to try a lot of places that were otherwise out of my price range. As a big Top Chef fan, I was really happy to see that Tom Colicchio (long standing head judge of the show) had a restaurant on the list and I was able to snag a reservation!

We showed up at Colicchio and Sons which was located just by the meat packing district and the elevated park and were instantly impressed by the modern decor. I personally loved the wine bottle tree. I gave my name to the hostess, but she couldn't find my reservation so - I pulled up the Open Table email on my phone... and quickly realized that I had been off by a week. I was so sad about messing up the reservation and told the hostess that it was my first night ever in NYC and had really  looked forward to dining there. Luckily, the hostess team was very nice and said they'd find a way to squeeze us in if we wouldn't mind waiting a the bar for a bit. We were so happy that they were accommodating, that we didn't have any problem finding something off of the impressive drink menu.

Sadly, I didn't take any pictures of our dinner so it's a little harder to remember exactly what we got. However, I do remember getting an extra course of rabbit sausage pizza mysteriously delivered to our table. We quickly began to realize that mentioning that it was my first time in New York was a great way to have people give us really good service (aka freebies).

We also got a chance to meet up with my friends Anthony and Ian who were roadtripping across the country and happened to be in New York at the same time as me. We end up at several college-esque bars that felt quite appropriate as a meetup with some of my college friends. Anthony has a blog as well and he wrote about our adventures with only a week lag instead of 11 months. You can read that here.

It was definitely a great start to the first of many adventures that we were going to have that trip.

As an aside - the next few posts will be pretty picture free. I had dropped my camera in a creek while in Southern California and my phone had terrible battery life. I took what I could between my broken camera, phone and tablet (yes, I was that awkward person taking tablet pictures - I was desperate) but there will be a lot of barren posts. I know they are less interesting. I'm sorry.

Week of July 11th 2011: River Rafting

It's hard to believe I'm almost a whole year behind on posts! I think my change from One New Thing a  Week to Nikki's New Things will help it catch up somewhere around the beginning of 2012 but there are still a lot of adventures to write about. Let's hope my memory does them justice.

Last summer, my friend Conor organized a river rafting trip on the American River. I had never been river rafting so I was really excited to go and instantly told him to count me in. When I thought of river rafting, my first thought was immediately of white water rapid, helmets, big rocks, possibly falling out of the boat, etc. Well, turns out rafting on the American River is a completely different experience.

We got to the river rafting site, and Conor went to get our rafts as the rest of us put on sunscreen and ate some lunch. Soon, we were carrying our rafts full of beer down to the very calm water. This kind of rafting trip was much more like a moving summer pool party than anything too dangerous. We had a little raft race and then eventually tied our two rafts together so we didn't have to worry about losing each other.

Since it wasn't too far into the summer, the water was still pretty chilly and I was a little hesitant to just dive right in but a few hours in the sun and the water felt nice. Sometimes we didn't have too much of a choice as many passing rafts would spray us with water guns. Soon most of us were in and out of the raft and really enjoying the water. We even pulled our raft over a couple of times to find places where we could all jump in the water.

A little ways down the river, we saw a few rafts pulled over and swinging into the water from a rope hanging from a tree. Of course our group pulled over to join in as well. We noticed that the other groups were only sending up boys so the girls in our group decided that we would have to go up and join in too. I was definitely really nervous about swinging in. Even though I love adventures, I always think about everything that could go wrong - but that was all for naught because when it was my turn, I swung far out and landed safely in the icey water. All of the other rafts were really nice and they helped check to make sure I didn't have any problem getting out of the water and then offered me a beer.

Eventually we made it to the end of rafting portion of the river and had to return everything and wait for the bus back to where we parked. Rafting down the American River was such a great way to spend a warm, sunny day and I'm very excited that I get a chance to go back later this summer... with an even bigger group!!!

And We're Back...

As I'm sure you may have noticed, I had to block my own site for a while. No, this wasn't some sort of protest against internet privacy laws, but it did have to do with my internet privacy. I recently had the unfortunate experience of being the target of internet harassment.

I've worked really hard to make the conscious decision to keep track of what I put out there in internet world. On this blog, I've been very deliberate to not post my full name, where I work, or even full pictures of myself. This blog is probably my most public online image and as such, I've tried to keep it really private where it matters. On the other hand, I am more public on my social networks where I have tight privacy settings and monitor who I accept as friends or links or put in my circles.

Despite that, I found something that I couldn't control - what other people said about me. Just because I could control what I put out about myself, didn't mean that others where unable to say false things about me on the internet or share my private information. Finding this gap in privacy and reputation control was incredibly disheartening.

While I did my best to report any posts about myself or my friends, I realized that the biggest thing I could do was stop the poison from spreading anymore. I double checked and reinforced my privacy settings, but I knew I would have to tackle the bigger question of what to do with my blog. While there is not personal information and there are no pictures, I do share a lot of personal experiences. This blog is as much a way for me to remember some really cool things I did, as it is a means for me to let people know what's out there. I really love my blog and I realized that I didn't want this person to touch something that I love.

I hope I didn't lose any of my followers by having to privatize my blog. It's made me really happy to see the number of readers I get a month grow. Based on the countries that read my blog based on my stats, I don't think my Twitter and Facebook messages got out to everyone so here is hoping that you're still checking on me.

If any of you have been the target of internet harassment or defamation and would like to reach out to me with how you dealt with it, I'd really like to hear about it. I'm not really sure what my options are and I'd be really comforted to know that I have some.

Spring Cleaning

Every now and then I like to write a post that has nothing to do with the theme of the blog, but one of my resolutions was to get more organized and I wanted to show you some of the little things I've been doing to reach that goal.

To say I'm not the neatest person in the whole world, would be an understatement. My desk and room are in a perpetual state of "clutter" and I function on the system of "everything has a place - but I'm the only person who knows that that place is so don't bother to figure it out." But, still, I'm only human and the clutter gets to a point that I scream inside and need to figure out a better system. Now that I'm home a lot studying, this has happened more often so I wanted to share some of the things I've been doing to clean out my life a little and stay focused. You may call it procrastinating since I really should be studying but I like to borrow the words of my 9th grade English teacher and say "a cluttered space is a cluttered mind." So let's get rid of some clutter.

Do you really need it?
Sometimes it's good to get rid of things even if you're not replacing them. You just have to go through and think about if you're really going to use something. The next few tips are just some of my methods of getting rid of the things I don't really need.

One In, One Out
Lately I've been doing a lot of shopping. I recently changed jobs and I also just realized my wardrobe was a little out of date. After 3-4 years in the working world, it was time to replace some of the things that I've had since starting. I didn't strictly count piece by piece but after each shopping trip I would go through my closet and drawers and get rid of my older clothes. I've made bags and bags of things to give to Goodwill over the past couple of years. In all honesty, I've probably given more than I've purchased since I was the same size for a long time and kind of hoarded clothing. At some point, you need to face the facts that you're not actually going to wear that again and you don't need 25 similar t-shirts.

On the t-shirt note, I've had some friends make t-shirt quilts from shirts that we got for free or for fund raisers. I didn't have the patience for this product but I'm pretty jealous of the quilts they ended up with.

If you itemize your taxes, places like Goodwill also give receipts for your donations. I don't itemize and I usually like to be in and out so I just drop mine off.

Sell It
The hardest things for me to get rid of are movies, books, and games. One of my favorite childhood (and still) movies is Beauty and the Beast and I used to dream of have a floor to ceiling library in my future mansion. Because of that, I hoard books notoriously. I was always really skeptical of the e-book trend and was steadfast that I needed to save every book so that I could have my library. I don't think I'll ever let go of my childhood dream but right now, I live in a tiny San Francisco apartment so these things just aren't practical. I joined the Kindle bandwagon a couple of years ago, but I still have my old paper favorites. I've gone through my books and movies and games and decided to sell or donate the ones that I don't absolutely LOVE. Am I really going to read that chick lit book again? No. Am I really going to play that video game again when I have tons I haven't played? Probably not. Am I going to watch all of these movies when my Netflix queue has hundreds of movies and I usually just watch them when they're on TV? I think you know the answer.

On our way to a few local bookstores

The problem with trying to sell these things is that the re-sale value drops quickly. A lot of stores won't give you much but if you're willing to go through the time, you can get something. The internet is probably your best bet if you want to get every penny out of your goods. Glyde.com is my favorite for video games and movies. You can set your price and they will tell you how much you'll net out of that. When someone buys your item, they send you a pre-paid envelope so that you can ship it to them. I like how hassle-free it is but if you're willing to trek to the post office every now and then half.com, ebay.com, and amazon.com are all great options too. If you don't want to wait and don't mind getting a little less, there are plenty of stores that buy back too. A quick internet search should be able to guide you in the right direction.

Or do things the old fashioned way....
But when you do need paper, I find a filing cabinet is great. I can keep track of all my important paperwork this way. Even though it's a hassle to organize, it makes me feel safe knowing that I've held onto the paperwork for my car or medical records, etc. Since I'm one, young person I don't have a ton of paperwork so I use the bottom drawer of the cabinet as additional storage.

Keep the Same Items in Less Space
Actually, the more I think about it (this post was written over a period of time...), I really can't part with my DVDs. They were such a big investment at the time are worth so little now (thanks Netflix). Instead, I decided to get a giant CD case to put them all into so that I can get rid of the cases, take up less space but don't have to part with my costly collection.

Make the most of your space
I used to kind of just throw the things I wasn't using into my closet. However with a growing shoe collection (the one thing I seem to find impossible to purge) I realized I needed a better system so I decided to keep the shoe boxes for my newer shoes so that I could stack them easily. My older shoes don't have boxes so they just rest on my shoe rack. For flip flops, I keep them in a line on the floor of my closet.

Even though I have a ton of shoes, they only take up one side of my tiny closet. On the right side of my closet, I took an old crate I wasn't using anymore and put all my purses in it. Since I usually use the same bag for work, it keeps the others out of the way until I need one. On the floor of my closet, I have a small shelfing unit for extra storage. I keep printer paper and other computer supplies on one and my bedding on the other.

I also have a ton of bookshelves. Since I've been trying to donate or sell books and read more electronically, they have plenty of space for other items. Bookshelves can be a good way to display fun items you have, or for a little extra storage. For some of my shelves, I bought cute wicker baskets so that I could keep smaller items tucked away out of site.

Storage Solutions
If you really can't bear to part with something - find a place for it. I have a few puzzles that I've collected from some of my trips. It would be easy to say "you don't use them so trash them" but I really love them and the only reason I don't use them is because I don't have a big enough surface in my apartment. Since I know I won't be using them for a while I tucked them out of the way in some drawers and shelves that are harder to access. This way I can make use of storage but I don't have to worry about how hard to get to they are.

To organize my jewelry, I got a necklace tree and ring dish. After hanging up my jewelery, I realized the tree was looking very crowded and it was a good push for me to get rid of some cheaper old necklaces that I never wear.

And if all that fails...

Just Trash It!

Coverless, chewed up or out of date books

Sometimes there just isn't a place for something. I donate most of the things I get rid of but I know even Goodwill won't take something that's excessively damaged and there's no choice but to trash or recycle it. This is also just a good practice for things that come in. Junk mail? Straight to the recycling bin. Freebies? Just don't take them! That cute macaron box that you swear you're going to put things in? Put something in it or move on.

For a long time, I used to keep my magazines and swear that I was going to go through and cut out cool pictures for a collages. Well, after years of magazine hoarding I realized that I haven't made a collage in 7 years and finance magazines probably wouldn't be a good place to start so I went through the few magazines that probably would have fun clips or recipes and trashed the rest. I still don't look at those but it's a small comfort until I can work through everything else.

Making Things Pretty

The pair of these flowers cost me $20

So hopefully you have a ton of space now so make your home pretty. Since I have a ton of empty shelves, I've used them to display artwork or nick knacks that have sentimental value. Some shelves have some nicer glassware or souvenirs too.

It's also nice just to have open space. Keeping my counters clear has given me some room to display flowers so I've been trying to keep some at the apartment. You can get a nice bouquet at Safeway, Trader Joes or Costco for $4-$20 (depending on the type of flower) and they last a couple of weeks.

And most importantly.... KEEP THE JUNK OUT! Just because you have more space now doesn't mean you need to fill it up with the kind of stuff you just got rid of.

These are just some of the things that I've found helpful. Like I said, I'm far from the neatest person but in my effort to fix that, I've found some things that work. If you have any of your own tips feel free to share them! It may seem like a lot but I basically spent one evening/afternoon a week sorting through things and organizing.

In the weeks since writing this, I've seen some of the clutter sneak back out (mostly since I've been studying so much) but it's definitely been controlled by the fact that there is just less stuff around the apartment.

Week of July 11th 2011: San Francisco Zoo

Is it ok if I make up for missing weeks by doing two posts in one week? Can I just average 52 posts a year? Ironically, I tend to have a few "draft" posts but none of them were quite ready for publishing. In either case, my warning is that with studying, work, and some semblance of a life - I'm stretched a little thin for the next few weeks but I will definitely make it up to you. Anyways, enough of my excuses...

I love animals and so I really like zoos. Growing up in LA, I went to an amazing zoo fairly often. When I was in college, I decided to check out the Oakland zoo and was really disapointed. I'd heard bad things about the San Francisco Zoo as well so I was skeptical about going. However, my last job started having an annual volunteer day and one of the options was a day doing landscaping at the zoo. I don't mind manual labor and it was a chance to check out the zoo so I decided to sign up for it.

I got to pet you!

The morning at the zoo was really fun. Because there were a few different options for the volunteer day, it really split up our company and I got to interact with some people I don't get to talk to as much. Even though I knew I wouldn't be there much longer, it never hurts to be nice and get to know the people that you work with.

Since we had a pretty big group, we finished the area of the zoo that they had set out for us with plenty of time before we had to go back to work. In order to thank us for the hard work, the zoo gave us a special treat - we got to pet a Koala bear!!!

Koala bears aren't really what you'd expect... they fur is almost like petting a coarse poodle... very fluffy. The eucalyptus leaves make their fur smell amazing as well. The Koala we got to pet was "friendly" but you could tell he was still quite shy.

After the Koala bear petting, we got a brief tour of the zoo. I was really excited to get to see the tigers. Say what you will about tigers in San Francisco (if you don't know what I'm talking about, you're not going to learn here), they are my favorite animal. The SF zoo had several tigers and each had their own habitat, plenty of room to pace, and were easy to see. I feel like whenever I go to a zoo, the tigers are sleeping or hiding. In Oakland, the viewing areas were so small it was impossible to see anything. However, at the SF zoo, they were awake and almost eerily watching us. I made a little video of one of them pacing.

The rest of the tour was pretty brief. We saw a lot of the usual animals but there was one other stand out. The SF zoo had a few little penguins. Apparently they are a special breed that can handle warmer climates. I'd never seen those before so that was really cool.

Like I said, I really love animals and I really want to go back to the zoo some day. They actually have volunteer days some Saturdays and I've been meaning to go back. If anyone would like to join me, let me know and I send you the information.

Week of July 3rd 2011: La Brea Tar Pits

As I was driving around LACMA looking for parking, I had passed the La Brea Tar Pits. Despite buildings and streets in the area being named "La Brea," I had never pieced together that the tar pits were in the middle of a busy part of Los Angeles. I figured that since I was in the area, it would be a good opportunity to check out the  prehistoric landmark.

Along the street is one of the bigger pits. This one has some large, fake, extinct creatures placed in it for decoration so I decided to snap a few photos of that and then continue exploring.

The actual tar pits themselves are part of a bigger museum that focuses on the fossils that have been found and pre-historic discoveries. I'm actually a huge science nerd and really wanted to check this out, but I knew I didn't have enough time to really do it justice. It will probably be fun to come back some time with my young niece and help teach her about science (and post about that new experience too).

Since I wasn't able to go into the actual museum itself, I decided to keep walking around and looking at the various tar pits that were scattered around the park. Yes, the tar pits are actually separated by lovely paths and gardens (that I later found out all house pre-historic plants) so it was really nice to take a leisurely stroll around the area (about as leisurely as a 100 degree day can be at least).

After walking around a bit, I found something especially interesting - there was a tar pit that was currently under excavation. The pit had a small viewing area for guests to look into and see what the site looks like while scientists are busy unearthing new fossils. It was really interesting to see the set up and wonder if they'd found anything interesting so far.

According to their website, the new site was found when LACMA decided to build a new parking garage. In the process, they found new fossils. Luckily, they were able to start the new excavations despite the construction.

I really loved that there were current excavations going on. It's a good reminder that museums aren't just collections of artifacts for people to look at, they are also places where current research is being done and discoveries are being made.

Plus, it never hurts remembering that Science is fun. 

Week of July 3rd 2011: Los Angeles County Museum of Art

After checking out the Tim Burton exhibit, I decided to look through the rest of the LA County Museum of Art or LACMA, as it's more commonly referred to.

LACMA is in a very interesting space. The museum is held over several different buildings and outdoor spaces, showing a real separation between themes. As a natural progression, I decided to go to the building right next to the Tim Burton exhibit. This was the home to the Contemporary wing. If you had asked me earlier that day, I would have told you that I hate modern and contemporary art. This exhibit changed my mind.

The Contemporary wing opened up to a huge, very noticeable piece - a giant balloon dog. Of course, it wasn't actually a balloon but I just thought the piece was so fun, I had to get a snapshot of it. At first glance, the room didn't seem to have anything else that was too spectacular. The same artist had a few other pieces, but these looked so much less impressive. One looked like an inflatable raft stuck between the rungs of a ladder. Another was a floatie that that had been pushed through a chain link fence. At first I thought this was really dumb too... until I started thinking that there was no way it should still be inflated. So I read the descriptions of the pieces and saw that they weren't floaties or inflatable rafts... they were actually created from metal and paint. They looked so realistic, and at that moment I had such a realization of how amazing this artist really was.

On the back wall of the room, there were also some giant works that looked like some photo/art collage mixes. Just like the "inflatable" pieces, I didn't think much of them... until I realized that there was no a single photograph - they were all painted. I'd never seen such a realistic looking painting before. I spent the rest of the time in the exhibit trying to figure out what was a photo and what was a painting. They were all paintings.

That room had a few other gems, some you may recognize from some little old artist that goes by Andy Warhol...


I hate to say this, but I was much less impressed by his pieces after seeing the hyper-realistic ones. They just made his seem simple in comparison.

The rest of the contemporary wing was fun, even if it was a little less memorable. It made me realize that contemporary art is all about showing you something ordinary in an extraordinary way. Maybe it portrays a feeling or sensation - just like the twisted bed reminded me of sleepless nights and my fits of insomnia. Maybe it was just showing a sense of humor - like the giant litter box.

Since the contemporary wing was so fun, I decided to go check out the modern art exhibits. There were some pieces that seemed very similar to the contemporary wing. This giant comb was still fitting of style of ordinary-in-an-extraordinary way.

But then I turned a corner and remembered why I dislike modern art so much...

I will never ever understand the artistic quality of a blank canvas. Ever. My theory with art is that if I feel like I can go home and make it rather quickly - it probably shouldn't be a in a museum.

I thought the blank canvas was bad... until I saw the piece that looked like a painting that was just wrapped up for shipping. For some reason, this one was even worse in my opinion. For all I know, it was wrapped up to be shipped out for another museum. I'm sure that a curator would have some explanation about the artistic merits of modern art, but I just find it all pretty unbelievable.

The rest of the museum had a lot of beautiful exhibits as well. I went through them a little quicker so I don't have specific comments or pictures for you. Honestly, the museum is huge so it was hard to take everything in. I definitely would love to make a few more trips back there and maybe even bring my sketchbook. It was one of the things I really wished I had on this trip, and sketching while in a museum is something I haven't done yet. I know it's really common for artists and students so I definitely would love to give it a try and see what I'll be inspired to come up with.

So what do you do when you're done looking at art? Well, you go check out some smelly tar pits of course! But - that's for next time.