Only in, but suprisingly in NY

Probably one of the weirdest things I've seen ever has occurred over the past two days.
My friend came over to my apartment yesterday about midday and as we were walking Keona, I noticed a car on the street was running. You could see steam, smoke, exhaust, whatever, coming out from the tail pipe. There was no one in the car. It was parked. The keys were in the ignition. I've seen the car before, so I assume it belongs to someone that lives in the area. I figure, "well, someone must have just ran into their apt. to get something."

Later that night when I get home from work and let Keona out around 10:30pm-ish and the car was still there. Still running. Keys still in ignition. Again, I just kind of thought, "hmm... weird."

It wasn't until this morning, when I saw it for a THIRD time on the street, parked, running, and keys in ignition. So, I didn't know what else to do besides call the local police office and report it. They said they'd send someone out to have a look. Well, apparently, the information I gave was not good enough because when I came home the car was STILL there. However, I also saw police lights. There happened to be an officer looking in the car talking on his radio.

I told him that I had called it in this morning and was curious if they were just now finding it. He said that they were never able to locate it. It just so happens he was off duty and someone else had flagged him down to report it (also another person who is out walking their dog frequently and noticed it.) So, the police officer said they had an address for the owner and would try to track her down. About 10 minutes later, the car was towed away.

I, unfortunately, don't know what the story is behind it. BUT where in the world would you be able to leave your car running for a day and a half and NOT have someone break in and steal it? Do I live in that good an honest of a neighborhood? Or is NY just so backwards and full of fear that people are paranoid and suspicious beyond belief that they won't touch a car that's handed to them on a silver platter? Who would leave a car for that amount of time, and what good reason could they possibly have for doing so?

I just hope that the owner is ok.

I'm in the money

.. well relatively speaking I guess. I finally finished training at the restaurant. I (along with all the trainers) still can't believe they made me do the whole training program. Regardless, it was a good refresher, and now I'm FINALLY on the floor by myself. Yesterday was my first shift taking my own tables. I waited around for 2 hours before finally getting my first one. Throughout the night, I had 5 total. Not too shabby. I did a lot of running for what I thought would be more money. Even though it wasn't as much as I thought I would make, it was definitely more than I had the day before. So all in all it was a good night.

Then there was today. My second shift. I got called off. Oye! This does not bode well. I had to do what they call "sharking." Once I got my phone call informing me that I would no longer be needed for the evening, I got dressed in my uniform anyway and made the 15 minute walk to the restaurant hoping that there would be some poor slacker willing to give up their night's worth of money so I could take over their shift. Mind you, this is in essence an act of desperation. An essential begging of sorts as I ask each sever walking in the door if they'd like to turn right back around and go home :) I almost gave up after about 9 "no's." My last chance was one girl. Finally, some relief! She gave her section to me and went home! Yay! I was able to make some money!! :)

I'm not so good at begging, so I hope this calling off business doesn't become too frequent!! One more serving day for the week, then it's back to the photo world!

Follow up

For those of you that were curious, Betsy has posted pictures from her shoot in NY.

http://www.betsyhansen.com/01location/location.htm

A post about a post

Betsy, the friend that was visiting, has posted some pictures from her shoots in NY on her photo blog. The second location (both night time shoots) is one of the areas I pointed out to her while location scouting. The other onew (day shoot) was a location one of the stylists knew of close to her home. (Both with A-mazing views!)

http://www.betsyhansen.blogspot.com/


Still on the lookout for the resulting images to be posted on her website.

Winding down...

Finally, I've found time to post an update! Hopefully, it will include lots of pictures as long as blog spot and my computer are feeling nice tonight.

Things are finally starting to wind down. And, I think my schedule will soon get into a pretty good groove. It's been kind of crazy lately as my training for the restaurant interferes with my intern days. Not to mention, my hours are all over the place.

I've been absent as my training for the restaurant has been going on these past two weeks. Yes, past two weeks... it's about a 9 day training program. It includes, quizzes, following trainers working their tables, trainers following me serving there tables, final exams, and an audit. And yes, they made me go through the whole training again. No one seems to know why for sure as all the trainers have thought I've done great and will do fine. We've decided on one of two explanations.

1. There's a guy that transferred in recently who wasn't so hot and blew it for me.
2. (The more likely reason), they're skimming the fat around there at the moment as far as employees go. They have a deck that's open during summers which means more staff. In the winter when they close it, they trim back the staff to people who show they deserve to be there. Hence, they really had no need to hire me, but the manager likes to work with transfers. So, he just wants to make sure it's worth it. Good for me. But, I know I wouldn't be happy if I was one of the servers there though.

On top of that, I had my first visitor here in NY! :) Although we didn't get to hang out much socially, I think it was a great visit. We went shopping and location scouting one day (she's a photographer as well and was lining up some shoots while she was there. So I was pointing out some areas that might make for good backdrops. Once she gets those posted, I will include it on my blog.)

So, when people ask how's NY the answer is pretty much: gallery, gallery, training, tired, gallery, subway, subway, bus, gallery, training, broke, subway, bus....and AWESOME! :) Now if I could start making some income, that would be SUPER!

As for Keona, he's adjusting. He's unfortunately had a lot of time by himself at the apartment. But I was glad to see the other night that at least he's putting it to good use:

Not only is he smart, but apparently quite studious as well! ;)

And yes, that is my room. It's nothing fancy now, but it is affordable!! I have been meaning to get some pictures of the apartment up. I wanted to wait until I was done done, but that may never happen. So, here it is as of now.

My awesome NY/ NJ view! And what a fantastic closet! ;) It definitely beats the metal roller racks!

With everything that's changed is nice to have a familiar work station. Complete with spiffy new paper/ prints drawer. Thanks, dad! <3

Front entrance:

My "living room." Finally, a nice shelf for my books!!! :)

Picture that was 50% off with a little bit of Sweden in the chair (the pillow is called Stockholm).

Sitting area:

Kitchen curtains and a photo by Alex Web. One of my favorites.

The hallway into my bedroom (bathroom is the door on the left)

and the trusty PUB MIRROR! :)

Floor length curtains from Ikea that I didn't know I was going to have to hem. Oops. Didn't know they came in different lengths.

And the not so cute part of the apartment... cleaning. Notice the before and after. Mmmmmm!

And... after they were clean. I thought that darker color was wood grain at first. Bleh!

And now, something MUCH PRETTIER!

That building on the right is the restaurant I work at. And if you'll notice the view behind it. That's what I'm looking at while I'm at work. The building has floor to ceiling windows.
And the scenery on the walk home:



I thought about posting a picture from a new body of work I'm starting. But, I think I'll save it until I've developed it some more. I'm really excited about the things that are brewing in my head as far as photos go! I can definitely see this being a turning point in my work.

Same style, definite visual shift.

:)

AND THAT, is all I've got for tonight.

I know... I know...

Hopfully, I'll get some time soon to do a good update. It's been crazy busy lately. I started my training at the restaurant this weekend.

I have some pictures of the apartment with the furniture it it. The living room is looking finished (other than a few boxes still unpacked). The bedrooom, however, is still in need of a little TLC. Desk station is good to go (of course ;) but the rest of the room kind of looks like I live in a closet since I don't actually have one in my room.

Also got a cute picture of Keona and some from my walk home from the restauraunt.

So... coming soon! (hopefully!)

Hoo-rah!

I found an actual grocery store! And the prices actually resemble those of FL grocery stores instead of some trendy NY market. Don't get me wrong, I enjoy going to those (all kinds of new foods to try), but to shop regularly... not so much. I paid close to $5.50 for a package of thomas english muffins the other day at market in Brooklyn. At Path Mart (the name of the store) I can get them for $2.50 with a "save" card. I'll have to look into one of those! :) A $3.00 savings on muffins alone... shhh-yeah!

It's in a plaza with a payless and a post office and not more than a 5 to 10 min. walk from my apartment. I'm really enjoying my neighborhood, not to mention my land lady is awesome! She replaced my range hood over the stove (it was in BAD shape), fixed my doors so they actually close, and put in new doorhandles (because she didn't have the keys to the other ones- they were actual key locks- and was worried I would lock myself out and have to call a locksmith). I've heard SO many horror stories about landlords and I'm so glad that it doesn't seem like I'll have to deal with those!

My first visitor from FL is coming in a week. Exciting!

My first taste of big time...

... At least, that's what it felt like. :)

Today I went to two auction houses (Christie's and Phillip's) for previews. The time is nearing for Photo Auctions. So, these auction houses and others have their previews of what will be for sale. There were walls of photos! It's amazing seeing the range of photographers. What's even more is we had a few of the photos taken out of the frame to exam the prints more closely. It's amazing what I've learned in such a short time.

I'm spending so much money, but it's totally worth it! :)

Following "work"... Starbucks (Tall Caramel Macchiatto and Pumpkin Loaf) with a side of people watching in Union Square! :)

Photographers that I liked from the Previews:
Alec Soth (21st Image down of the door with the number 6 on it)
http://www.alecsoth.com/Mississippi-new/pages/frameset.html
I had actually seen before and really liked his Niagara portfolio. So, I think it's funny that I picked him out again today.

Mathias Hoch
http://www.renabranstengallery.com/hoch.html

An 'imagine this' moment

A little bit of back story for you.
-I have to take a bus from Manhattan to get to my apartment in New Jersey.
-It's the first stop out of the Lincoln Tunnel and close to 31st street (this will be important in a minute.)
-My ticket costs $2.55 (when you travel between different zones, the cost is different)
-A lot of buses are exact change only

SO, IMAGINE THIS:
You get on the bus number that appears on your ticket at the gate that the guy in in the ticket office told you to go to. You come out of the Lincoln tunnel and watch the street your bus is supposed to be getting off on fly by on the left. You realize, this apparently is NOT the bus you wanted. Then, you remember you left your cell phone at home. So, you can't call anyone to help you figure out what to do or to help you get back home.

You decide you have three choices.
1. You can get up NOW and tell the bus driver you think you've made a BIG mistake (while everyone watches and wonders "oh great! What now?")
2. You can wait until the first stop and then get off and walk back or ask the bus driver what the best thing to do would be.
3. You can ride it back to Manhattan and just catch another bus (because they all go back to port authority.......). Better yet, this will just swing back around by the stop you normally catch buses at in the morning and you can just get off there!

You decide against #1 because you don't like people staring at you and thinking your an idiot. You decide against #3 because that will probably take forever! Not to mention, you only have $1.00 cash in your wallet and don't know if that will be enough for the transfer fare. You go with decision #2 and figure a little walking won't hurt anyone.

However, as you keep waiting for the bus to stop, you begin to realize that he's not stopping anytime soon. Crap! By the time he does stop he's in the 60's and you start to panic a little bit. Now, you'd really look dumb telling him that you were supposed to get off on a stop that was 30 streets back. So, now you start to think option #3 is looking good in terms of getting off at the stop you catch in the morning. That is, until you start to figure out, he's not going back that way. He'll definitely be taking another route..... So, I guess I will just take it back to Port Authority in Manhattan and then catch another bus. Oh shoot, but I don't probably won't have enough for the transfer fare! Gah! You're running out of options.

You decide to suck it up, tell the bus driver and ask him what to do (now that a good amount of people have emptied off the bus and you see an empty seat right behind him which will make it easy to talk without everybody knowing your business!) Not to mention, you're a good way from home, without much cash or a cell phone, nor a clue of your whereabouts. Asking the bus driver is looking REAL good about now.

WELCOME TO MY TRIP HOME TODAY!!! :)

Luckily, the bus driver was extremely nice! He gave me a hard time about it, joking that I was causing trouble and that the transfer fares would cost me a GOOD amount of money. Thank goodness he wasn't picking any passengers up on the way back as he was switching over to a new bus route. He was able to switch up the way he normally goes back to Port Authority and dropped me off at the bus stop in front of my house.

THANKS ALLEN!!!

(When you come to visit, if you're taking a bus during rush hour and it says EXPRESS... GET OFF!!!!! Even though it says the same number as on your bus ticket... it's EXPRESS... it doesn't make local stops, which yours is one of... GET OFF!!!!)

:)

Ketchup!

This is going to be a mess of stuff. Stuff I wrote but never posted, pictures I took, but just got to putting on my computer, and a bit of current funness. So, sorry in advance for the random order and lack of cohesive thought.








***I wrote this yesterday, intending to finish, but took the day off instead and was in bed watching tv on my computer all day instead! ;) ***





Today, this is it. It finally hit me. I moved to NY*. I talked about it for so long (and I don’t know that I even believed I would do it… not so soon, and not so quickly anyway.) The people are new. I’m in a new place by myself. It’s going to be freezing and I’ll have to wear 4 layers of clothes…. I’ll have to buy those clothes first as we don’t really have a need for winter jackets or boots in FL. I can’t just hop in my car and drive an hour and a half and be back home.

I finally feel like I’m at a point where I can look back and say, “Wow, this is what I’ve been working for.” It’s absolutely weird and amazing to take a second and realize that. For such a long period of time I’ve had tunnel vision. I couldn’t really focus on anything that didn’t involve planning my move to NY. It’s as if my point of reality had shifted. And now, to sit here and be in NY is unreal! At the same time, I feel like the last few months have been a blur. Where did all that time go? Did I spend enough time with people that I won’t see for a while?

***PICTURE BREAK***

my view during lunch break:

... Website is giving me a hard time, so apparently that's all for now..

:(

Finally!

We're finally here! Got everything moved into the apartment yesterday. Now it's just a matter of unpacking boxes and getting some furniture. As of now all I've got is bed (no frame), nightstand, printer stand, desk, and desk shelf.

Where are all my books and bags going to live?? :)

...Why did I move from our big spacious house in FL again?

Pictures to follow sooooon!