Tennis with a short net

22 09 2008

It was the last Friday of the summer. The sun was low on the horizon. And Joe went to Dick’s Sporting Goods the day before.

Missing the connection?

Why, badminton in Central Park of course. Duh. And here’s what I learned:

  1. You can play net games in Central Park
  2. The dirt is hard. Makes it difficult to put in poles for said net-games
  3. People with dogs will want to play with you. That is fun, but beware of the dogs stealing your game things.
  4. Dogs also poop. In the grass. Where you are playing. Look out.
  5. Badminton … not badmitton or other such spelling without the middle “n”
  6. Conrad and I are better at this strange sport than we thought (given a midget net and another couple equally as savvy in the game)

Can you say redo this Friday!? :-)


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Categories : friends, new york

Closing parentation gaps – conference attending

18 09 2008

My parents went to an educators conference every year. When I was of a certain age, I was invited to join them. I still remember what it was called: ASCD .. and it lives on. They considered it a valuable way to learn outside of their usual social / geographical circles of influence.

Point being, we don’t usually share a lot of work experiences in common. My line of work is drastically different – from anything that was productive employment in their generation. This week though, I’m attending a conference: the Web 2.0 Expo.

Part of me thinks of this through that lense, part of me is observing how the world of conferences has changed (especially this one – who’s topic is about new webby stuff, so it better be using the stuff), and also what has NOT changed. (Someone here said, “Offline is the new online” — and I thought, “hmm, not really new, but welcome back.”)

So yeah, it’s a pretty good experience so far. Oh, and people at work helped me get a free ticket – including a fancy lunch discussion soiree, got to love that.

Next week: sharing 10 things I learned with the team who couldn’t come … need to let it percolate a bit to see what we can actually do differently based on all the different things we’re hearing here. Mostly lots of people talking about a lot of different stuff – but no 1 plan has emerged as a blueprint we can copy & reapply directly to our world.

I am twittering now, so that’s new.

Sidenote: Watch for Tim Washer’s new hilarious TV show pitch for a mockumentary on trade shows – man is there material all around us!


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Categories : family, new york, work scenes

Living like a tourist and riding on the topless tour

17 09 2008

It was a birthday present from the husband, and it’s been on the ‘to do while we live in nyc’ list for a while: taking the topless bus. After all, they parade those tourists right by our apartment window every week.

So on Saturday, we hopped on. And off. I like the hopping. In fact, we went into the office to collect our boarding tickets and negotiated some free extras along the way (2 sunset cruise tix, valued at $51 each. Nice.). Then walked the heck out of Times Square and the weaving bus line down towards Penn Station & the 34th street Macy’s instead. Good decision on our part, only took 3 stops to make our way to the top of the bus.

We hopped off at South Street Seaport and hopped on the bus to Brooklyn – a place we haven’t explored too much yet. There we hopped off at Prospect Park, designed by the same guys that did Central Park and a project they supposedly consider to be more successful. It was beautiful. We felt like we were out in the country somewhere… not in New York City. We walked a bit and ate a bit and found a cocktail and went in to some creative stores and all kinds of good stuff.

Fast forward … night bus tour. Next day, the Upper West Side loop that goes by our apartment, and into Harlem, and … we didn’t know this, down the same street where we’re going to move to (but not by the apartment – yay for less bus traffic by future windows). We rode that bus twice. Two different tour guides each with their own slant on the things we passed by. We even hopped off in Harlem and explored Dinosaur bar-b-que … awesome … and Fairway grocery (way better than we expected – deserves its own post) … and then walked home (from 125th to 86th) down Riverside Park which was lovely as the sun was just nearly setting and the river and park were awesome.

So … a great weekend, a lovely extended birthday-excuse to do something from the list, rich memories to savor.


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Categories : new york, travel