Just to start thing blag rollin' again

So, I haven't posted in a while and I have a bunch of pictures from my awesome adventure to the big city, NYC, to see my sister. So here is the basic run down of the trip, but I think I'm going to make an album on the facebooks for all the pictures.

We drove from Maine to NYC on a wednesday night and I took thursday and Friday off. It's the only time I've taken off from work thus far and I feel like it was definitely well spent. Anyways, we stopped in Portsmith, NH at the Portsmith Brewery which was pretty decent. A big part of this trip was good food so I kicked it off right with a Chorizo burger which kicked ass but lacked some sort of delicious sauce. We got into NYC late that night and Chris had to work in the morning (poor Chris).

Morgan and I had to do some much needed grocery shopping but then kicked it into full-blown tourist mode by walking across the Manhattan bridge. K, I lied about all the pictures...

Checkout all the GODDAMN CHEESE!!!!!

Seriously though, that place had a massive amount of cheese that picture doesn't even capture it all or do it justice.

Here you can see the Freedom Tower (also know as America's middle finger) and the brooklyn bridge. 

NYC skyline

We checked out all kind of things in Manhattan including a sweet clothing store where the prices aren't bad and they fit your clothing for free. We walked about 9-10 miles that day so we covered some serious ground. Checked out Times square where there were about 6 different people dressed as Elmo. I also saw Iron Man, Batman and Spider-man hanging out there...I dunno... they seemed legit. Basically anyone in costume tries to take a picture with you and then tries to get you to pay for it, tricksy super heros. We checked out part of the NYU campus where there were these BAMF guys who had these huge steel rings that were large enough to stand in and they would ride them around on flat ground and do sweet tricks. Also, they were jacked.

Morgan brought lobster back with her from Maine so we cooked those that night but a bunch of them had actually died. If you know anything about lobster, you know that it is risky business to cook an already dead lobster. So, after deferring to the internet which basically said that as long as they haven't been dead for more than 24 hrs we would be fine. Since they probably had died within the past 12 we went for it and let me tell you..... Dead lobster is damn, damn, damnnnnnn delicious. I would almost consider killing it before I cook it next time. There were no ill effects whatsoever except that we ate more than our fair share of lobster that night. NOM.

The next day we went to the American Museum of Natural History, which was amazing. If you are ever in NYC and have a day to burn you should definitely check it out, it was sweet. It's also enormous. Protip: all admission (as far as I understand) is actually a suggested donation so when they say "That'll be $25," you can hand them a $10 and they won't bat an eye at you. Just saying. That being said I ended up paying full price, but that is beside the point! 

Narwhal!

So, one of the most hilarious parts of the museum (for me) was the plaque underneath this Narwhal skeleton that said something like "Obviously the Narwhal's sleek body was meant for swimming quickly through the ocean." That's all it said. No mention of the GIGANTIC FUCKING TUSK on it's head, nope no mention at all. What about the tusk man? We wanna know about the tusk, did it cross-breed with a unicorn? Are there any documented cases of Narwhals poking out each other's eyes on accident? If a Narwhal plunged headfirst into the sea floor would it be able to swim backwards to get it's self unstuck? THESE ARE THE QUESTIONS KEEPING THE WORLD AWAKE AT NIGHT PEOPLE!

After the museum we hit central park which was pretty cool. Lots of people running/biking and just a bunch of tourists. NYC is full of em for sure. That evening we went to this placed called BonChon to get their famous doubly fried wings, which were delicious and spicy as all hell. I don't know how Chris hasn't blown an O-ring or something because he ate them like he didn't want to live. We went to a comedy show that had this dude from 30 Rock as a headliner. It was hilarious and it was also just awesome how many comedy shows are happening at any given time in NYC. It's crazy and the selection of everything was just mindblowing. You've got options to see all of these comedy groups where really famous people came from for not that much money and it's awesome. 

The next day we went to this awesome food festival which was insane and had like every food known to man and unknown to me. On the way I got the stroke of brilliance to call Renee because her and Toby recently moved to the Bronx in pursuit of their various degrees in higher education. As luck would have it, Renee was actually in the area (quite a ways from where she lives). So, we met up with her and ended up going to the Bronx to check out their place and see Toby. We played some Munchkin and ate some animals crackers, you know... adult stuff. Apparently Renee is training to do roller derby and was doing the same course thing my sister had done earlier. That night we actually went to a legit roller derby which was BADASS. Chicks on roller skate beating the crap out of each other. I have to say one of the best parts about the whole thing is the names of the skaters. They choose their own witty names like "Puss and Glutes", "Donna Matrix", "OMG WTF", etc.

Then, on Sunday we went to this homebrew beer festival. We sampled 30 beers (equivalent to 5-6ish beers), the tasting started at like 1PM and we were there until like 4PM. They give you a card to write comments on and then vote for the best one at the end and let me tell you... my comment card is hilarious! At least I thought it was by the end of the time I was there, I kept it because at the time I was pretty convinced that it was an entire standup routine by its self. After all that day drinking, Mo and Chris took a nap. I went on a little city adventure by myself and just walked around Brooklyn. Cool town, too bad nobody knows about it... Anyways, that night I hopped the plane back to Maine (which was extremely empty) and landed with a bakers dozen of the finest bagels I've ever had. I brought them to work that morning and was the hero of the day. This concludes my awesome recap of my trip to NYC.

More recently (last weekend), I finally made good on something I'd been promising myself I would do since the beginning of the summer. I rode my motorcycle to the ocean and just dicked around. It was awesome and I highly recommend the many therapeutic benefits of a long motorcycle ride.

Yup, I should've done this more often...

This week it is back to business and preparation for Common Ground fair. Pika will have a booth there and I'll be there for a good portion of the fair. Hoping to camp out and meet up with some fun people. In the meantime I'll be salivating over cafe racer builds on the internet.