Part of the Ride

Yesterday after school I went over to my cousin, Susie’s place who’s in Manhattan for a couple of months. I went over there to babysit her kid so that she and a friend could go to a show. When they got back they mentioned that it had just started raining pretty hard as they came in the door. I didn’t think much about it though because I figured I had an umbrella and would be fine; how bad could it be? In fact, I’d all but forgotten about the rain when reached the building’s lobby an hour later after talking with Susie. Sure enough it was still raining, and raining hard. I only needed to walk 3-4 blocks to make it to the subway station but within only one block I was soaked from my waist down. After another block or so it started to rain under my umbrella as the water had made its way through the fabric. I thought about stepping into a restaurant and getting something to eat while trying to wait out the rain. I was tempted but I figured I was already soaked and couldn’t get much wetter. The streets flowed like rivers and the taxis were followed by rooster tails of water on the near empty streets. I tried to avoid the big puddles and the spray from the cars but once you’re wet you’re wet. I could feel the water sloshing around in my shoes.
The subway station had water dripping from the ceiling in some places but it was nice to be out the rain. Service at night is greatly reduced so I ended up waiting for 15-20 min. for a train. The MTA train was fairly empty, maybe only 10 people in the car I was in, which made it easier for the two homeless people covered with coats and dirty blankets to lay on the benches not to be disturbed. I guess it’s like a two dollar hotel room that keeps them out of the rain.
The MTA train doesn’t take me into Jersey so I had to transfer to the PATH train. The PATH trains runs even more infrequently than the MTA at night, so there were a lot of people waiting on the platform when I got there, but I still had to wait for another 15 minutes for the next train.
I haven’t said specifically what time any of this was taking place but it’s important to fully appreciate the next part of my voyage home last night. It was about 1:30 am when I arrived at the PATH station, apparently the perfect time for people to be leaving work, shows, or bars and heading home and those were the type of people waiting at the station. The subway is a great equalizer, there were guys in tuxes and women in evening dresses, but there were also others smoking and stumbling around the station.
I was able to get a seat on the train. The first thing I noticed was that sitting right across from me was two girls that had obviously been out partying and had too much to drink. One was passed out and laying in the others lap, I didn’t see her move until her friend dragged her out of the train at their stop. The other one was awake to start with and apparently let someone else know where they needed to get off because someone had to wake her up at her stop. Three collage aged guys drinking out of paper bags what turned out to be one liter bottles of beer started talking loudly about everything from politics to business to geography. Of course it was drunk talk so some of it was pretty funny and they even drew a couple of other people in the car into their weird conversation. Most people were doing a good job at ignoring or enjoying these guys except a large guy standing close to them who looked like he was ready to pop one of them in the face to shut them up, but nothing happened. The guy sitting next to me started talking with the drunk guys and I noticed out of the corner of my eye what looked like water dripping on to his sleeve. I looked up at the ceiling to see if there was a leak and was confused when I couldn’t figure out where the water was coming from. I looked back at the sleeve of his sweater to see if the drip was still hitting it and was even more confused to see that the drip wasn’t landing on his sleeve, the drip was coming out of his sleeve. It was the weirdest thing, to see drip after drip materialize out of his dry sleeve and then all of the sudden it stopped. I was a little grossed out as I tried to figure out what the heck that liquid was; it was like he had just sprung a leak. I was happy to get out of there when my stop came.
I finally got home at around 2:00 am. It wasn’t exactly what I expected to be doing last night but it’s all part of the ride.

Brooklyn Botanical Gardens

Last weekend a classmate of mine that lives in Brooklyn invited me and couple other guys from school over to go to the Brooklyn Botanical Gardens. It only took me 40 minutes to get there despite the fact that it was a Saturday and the trains don't run as frequently on the weekend and that I had to take three trains. Last weekend was the first really nice weather that we've had here this Spring so lots of other people had the same idea as us to take advantage of the weather. It was a really nice place especially with most of the trees in bloom.

Magnolia flowers

Later that night as I went grocery shopping, like I always do for fun on a Saturday night, it was still warm out so people were outside on their steps talking, playing guitar, and singing. The funniest thing I saw were two girls who must of been under 10, fencing in the middle of the sidewalk with epees, masks and uniforms. Not the type of thing you normally see happening on the street.

Chery tree blossoms and more magnolias

More of the same

Just so I don't have all flower pictures, this is an army memorial that's outside the park

Spring Time for Jason and Jersey City

The winter wasn't as cold or as long as back at home but the Spring is still a relief. About a week ago the first flowers started showing up with grass poking through the cracks in the sidewalks. This week the trees started to flower. This splash of colour and life is a nice juxtaposition to the concrete and the cars of the city.

Nets Game

A guy in my ward came up to me on Sunday asking if I had plans for for the next Wednesday and if I liked basketball. Obviously I didn't have any plans and of course I like basketball. Anyways, he told me that he had tickets to the Nets game that he wasn't going to be able to use, and because they were playing the Toronto Raptors he thought I'd be a fan of a Canadian team. (I'm not a big Raptors fan but who cares).

He gave me two tickets, so I took a guy from my class that lives on Staten Island. The game was at the Izod center which a little ways inland which means a long bus ride, so we decided to go to Staten Island and pick up his car and drive to the game.

The seats were really good, as you can see from the picture.

It was cool to see players like Vince Carter and Chris Bosh play.

I was a little conflicted about who to cheer for because I didn't go in really liking either of the teams all that much. I decided on the Raptors. They ended up winning, thanks to me.

The game wasn't all that action packed but It was fun to be there.

Because our seats were behind the basket they gave us thunder-sticks but there were a group of kids sitting behind us that couldn't use them without hitting me in the side of he head and they screamed like girls until half time, that's when they lost their voices. You can hear both it the video.

Christmas in the Great White North

I had two weeks off from school for Christmas so I went back home. The day before I left New York there was a blizzard that shut down all the local airports. I managed to make it out without much trouble. I found out that the next day there was another storm that canceled more flights out of New York.

The weather wasn't much better in Edmonton. It was cold. There were only a few days that made it out of the -20s. That just meant that I didn't get to play as much shinny hockey as I would have liked to.

It was fun to be home and play with the kids. The twins were pretty funny on Christmas morning and Grace was cute and always giggling.

We did manage to get out skating once with M&T and the twins, but the ice was really bad that made it hard to skate so we didn't stay out very long.

The Smiths came up from Lethbrigde for New Year's eve.We spent the night playing rock band and watching hockey. Pretty good night.

And of course there was the Resolution Run on New Years Day. Being ridiculusly cold at the start and too hot at the end are just part of the run.

I've been away for 5 months but I was suprised at how much it felt like I hadn't been away at all.

Christmas in NYC

Yesterday I went into the city to see some of the Christmas sights. I wanted to see the tree at Rockefeller Center and some of the shop displays on 5th ave. There were more and more people the closer I came to Rockefeller Center, and by the time I got there it was almost shoulder to shoulder. It was a pretty impressive tree and it was kind of fun to see people skating in the plaza.

The big store turn their display windows into Christmas dioramas that have little to do with the store itself, but tons of people stop to look at the displays.

Of course Macy's has Christmas lights and window displays outside but they also have the Times Square New Year's ball on display too. They also have a Santa set up that is reminiscent to "The Christmas Story". They make a big deal about Christmas.

Before I went home I stopped in at Bryant park where they have another Christmas tree and skating rink. And for no good reason I took a picture of the Empire state building. Merry Christmas from New York.

Thanksgiving Day Parade

My parents are in town for a couple of days and we decided to go down to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. We took the PATH train into the city, and the train was pretty full for a holiday, but it turned out that most of the people on it were heading to the same place we were. There were a lot of people there.By the time we found a good spot to watch from we were there were people 6-8 people deep off the rail, so we were behind a lot of people and the instant the parade started a wall of kids on shoulders and standing on things shot up in front of us. Most of my pictures were taken from between kids heads.You don't really get a sense of how big these things are until they float over you. They say there were 40 balloons.

These things float ominously down the street like Snoopy shaped clouds of chlorine gas over top of the unsuspecting crowds.

I'm not sure if this is Miley Cyrus or Hannah Montana, either way all the kids around us were going nuts when she went by. "IT'S MILEY"

This float has the whole sesame street gang, Bob, Maria, Gordan, Big Bird, Oscar, etc. I think they tried to get Mr. Hooper but had to settle for just his store I put these two pictures in especially for Moses Smith because I know he's a big fan of Neil Young. Keep on rocking in the free world Moses

I started to get kind of cold after 2+ hours of standing there, but most of the crowd stayed till the end of the parade. I think the little kids were kept warm with by their anticipation of the arrival of Santa. I was expecting him to throw candy or have his sleigh pulled by a John Deere tractor. I guess Cardston has just set the bar pretty high.

Parade left overs.

After the parade they kept Broadway closed to traffic while they cleaned up. It was pretty cool to walk down the middle of Broadway through Time Square.