Grateful

Tonight I want to be grateful. I feel like I have so much and have been given so much. For me, life is easy. I guess I'm feeling patriotic too because I give credit to the historical figures that gave lives for the liberty and security we have today.

Despite all the things I may complain about like late meetings, sparse parking and coin operated laundry. I should be grateful for everything I have. I have a comfortable home. I even like that it is small, and easier to clean. I shouldn't need to mention my wonderful family but they are a blessing. Not only do they provide so much happiness but without them I'd be a wandering rich bachelor with no purpose. It's really the 'purpose' that I'm grateful for. That 'purpose' provides stability and consistency to my life, making any exploration or adventure that much more meaningful because I shared it with them. You could take away everything and if I still had them I could be happy.

I should mention that I'm really tired tonight. It might just be easier to be content and grateful than complain. Perhaps this is why you get this missive tonight. Maybe on another night when I'm not so tired you'll get all the detailed complaints.

The photo is me with my girls, by Minna.

Lunar eclipse tonight

I went outside during the eclipse. Luckily tonight there are no clouds. I walked up the street to find a place that had less street lights. Up at the corner I put the camera down on the sidewalk and almost immediately this guy stops next to me with his big Nikon and tells me his 50mm will probably not work. I can smell the cloves he is smoking. We both take a few photos. We share some settings. I'm having a tough time with getting the right white balance. It gets cold and I go back inside. I might go out when the sliver appears as the eclipse wanes. To me this is the most beautiful aspect of the eclipse. To me it shows movement and life, but not like everyday life. It's means that the solar system and universe we live in is real. It's like getting an outside glimpse of our universe by merely standing on the sidewalk outside.

This photo shows the moment just after full eclipse.

The opera

We had an amazing experience at the opera last night. I must say this is one reason I love being in the city. It feels sophisticated.

Anyway, I scored the free tickets at work (Because I was the first one to reply to the email offering the tickets, ok I'll attribute it to knowing keyboard shortcuts. I was only milliseconds ahead of my coworker Shana). We saw Otello. Minna wrote about it too.

Once again on my own

I haven't blogged here in a while. At one point it had been so long I swore it off and would just write with Minna on the family blog. But I'm feeling the need and the desire to write on my own again. So after two-and-a-half years I'm going to be blogging here again. But I'm doing this on my own, without the amazing blogging creativity of my wife.

long time

It's been a while since I posted. Minna and I have been very busy with a few things. Namely buying a house and moving 3 times and going on vacation all within about 3 weeks, as well as doing our everyday things like going to work, and taking care of the baby.

We are now living in our new apartment, that is a co-op that, that we bought, that we love, that we are still trying to unpack. It's so awesome and I want everyone to see how awesome it is.

We began our 1of3 move by moving from our old apartment. waiting to long to make a decision on whether or not to stay another month, which we should have done. Waiting until after the landlord had a new tenant and since we thought he wouldn't give us back our deposit we packed it up and moved all our stuff into our friends' garage who are very generous. This we did to keep our deposit, which we got back. Why didn't we move into our new place I hear you asking. well, because our new place wasn't ready yet. And I can hear the numbers crunching in your head... we moved three times, yes three. We thought that our place would be ready by the close date of the 12th. Which is before our friends would be moving on the 15th. But our close date turned out to be the 20th. So with our friends moving the stuff on the inside of their house we were moving our stuff on the inside of their garage to the inside of their new garage. This was so annoyingly dreadful knowing that we would be moving again, wishing our place was ready. So when we finally signed the papers and the place was ours... the floors were still sticky from the new finish put on that day, unbeknownst to us until at that moment we sealed our shoe prints in the entryway, to be reconciled to have to stay one more night not in our own home.

Our new home is so awesome not just because we waited an extra week to close, or because we lived in our friends living room, with our stuff in their basement, out of a suitcase for 3 weeks, and its actually nice to have a place to live, period. But because the space is nice and the kitchen and bathroom were redone. Yep, really it's nice to have a place to live.

I hate rent

I feel like I throw way too much money out the door and into someone else's pocket, namely Paul, our landlord. Paul is a nice guy and he fixes things that need fixing. But I don't want to give him so much money, It makes me sick to think how much money we've given this guy, no investment no returns. "here have all my money, like I need it". No more. Minna and I made an offer on a COOP. A Co-Op is a Corporation that owns a building. We are acutally buying shares of a corporation that owns the apartment we'll be living in (if all goes as planned). We're very excited about it and fall asleep at night dreaming of our own place, and how we'll make it ours. It'll be much smaller and we won't have our own washer and dryer, but I won't have to donate my hard earned money to Paul, and get no return. Here's what it looked like when I went to visit. (they are renovating and we'll have an all new kitchen and bathroom when it's all done)

so much to catch up on

We've been having so much fun!

Most recently we've had some friends over. The Truscotts came from Boston. We went to Grimaldy's Pizza, just below the Brooklyn Bridge on the Brooklyn side.

When we got there we had to wait maybe 10 minutes to get a table. While we were there I was waiting in line to change Hannah (there was only one bathroom), I overhear this guy saying that this is the best brickoven pizza in NY. Anyway, we finish up and pay the bill and walk outside and to our dismay find a line at least a hundred people long. Apparently it's pretty good pizza, I mean, I liked it.

While the Truscotts where here Minna and I took the opportunity to make use of our nice tent that we got a while back and never have had the chance to use.

It had been soooo long since I've been camping. Even in our backyard it was good to sleep out of doors. The Truscotts enjoyed our bed. We slept on a great air mattress and Hannah slept on some fluffy blankets next to us.

In other news Minna and I were trying to make the biggest bubble ever.