New York – An Overview

 

 

 

 

 

Andy and I went to New York for a week in the end of May. The main reason being my brother graduating from Columbia University. The second reason being my best friend lives in Highlands, NJ just south of NYC. We had rainy, dreary weather most of the time we were in the city. We didn’t let that stop us from having adventures and I certainly didn’t let it stop me from taking photos! It did put a damper on how many photos I could take, but I’m still happy with the ones I got.

I was skeptical about liking New York. Most people told me that if I liked Chicago, I would not like New York. Well here’s the deal, I like Chicago. I loved New York. If it weren’t so bloody expensive I might just try to move there. Their parks were way better. People weren’t rude, grouchy or mean like rumors allude to (except for one jerk at the bus terminal, but hey everywhere has some scum bags!). There are food trucks of deliciousness everywhere. The areas that I visited didn’t seem to have the weird sectioning of “only businesses” and “only residential” like Chicago has, it was relatively more integrated. And did I mention the parks were way better!?

We spent the nights at my friend Steph’s house in Highlands, NJ. So the first three days of the trip, which we spent in NYC with my family, we commuted in. The bus tickets were $31 round trip, each. This is still way cheaper than a hotel in NYC for a night. The commuter buses were like Greyhound buses (or MegaBus buses) with big comfy seats and a little restroom in the back about %50 of the time. The fourth, fifth and sixth days of the trip we spent in NJ. We explored Sandy Hook National Park, the State Forest that is literally their back yard, Twin Lights historic site, as well as enjoyed some local businesses. On the seventh day of the trip we took the Sea Streak Ferry back into the city, this time with Steph to explore. The Ferry was fun, chilly and more expensive than the bus, but definitely worth it for one of the treks. The views were beautiful, and there was a bar on board!

 

Overall, a wonderful trip. It was not too expensive either. We could do it again next year… maybe, but again sometime for sure.

Burn Out

 

Mods vs Rockers Chicago 2013.

Congratulations Little Bro!

My brother graduated from Columbia University on May 22nd/23rd! Andy and I went to NYC to spend some time with him. Here are a few photos. I’ll post more about the trip later on!

Friday Symposiums

So the Friday Symposiums continue. Stella may have closed down, but we are not giving up so easily. We have hosted several at the Growling Rabbit Cafe, a few at the Heartland Cafe and have been invited to host events at The Coffee Shop (that’s actually the name of the place) and at Ciao Bella.  I’m more involved now, since I’m the manager at The Growling Rabbit and am completely in charge from the store end of things. I’m actually fully organizing my first event too! I’ve always helped with organizing the others, and of course have photographed, but this one coming up? It’s all me. June 28th. I’ll be sure to share how it turns out.

Jinnene Foster reads.

Naomi Kiernicki sings.

Catherine McCaffery reads.

Jinnene Foster performs.

I can’t believe how busy my next week is. I work every single day yesterday through Saturday. Sunday I have a photo shoot. (A paid photo shoot!! hooray!!) Monday I have to buy luggage and pack. Tuesday Andy and I fly to New York for a week long vacation. I hope everything runs smoothly. I’m so very, very excited to see my family (mom, dad, aunt, uncle and maybe even a few cousins will all be in town for my brother’s graduation!) also, my best friend Stephanie and her husband Chris! I’m really excited to get to know Chris. Andy and I have only met him once, at their wedding.

Yikes!

So I just read through my last post the “Chicago Zombie Pub Crawl 6″ one… yikes! I shouldn’t write blog posts when I am sleep deprived and/or stressed out. That was rambling and didn’t make a lick of sense at points. Sorry.

I’m very excited for two upcoming events.

First, on May 19th I have my first paid photo shoot of the summer! Rob, the guy who had me shoot “Pour Out Your Heart for Chicago Commons” last fall, again hooked me up with this shoot. The shoot will be a triathlon in Niles Illinois, at the Leaning Tower YMCA. It’s called the leaning tower YMCA, because there is a miniature leaning tower of Pisa. It’s one of the things to see on my “before I move from Chicago” list (which right now is a mental list!).

Second, is New York!! I can’t wait for vacation! I’m not excited for New York City particularly, it’s never been high on my list of places to go, but I love to travel and I love to see new places. My brother is graduating from Columbia University (yeah our family has a thing for “Columbia”) with his MPA. Andy and I are going to be staying at my best friend’s house in Highlands, NJ. I am excited to see the beautiful natural areas of the east coast. I’ve been to Boston, but it was years ago with my parents and I don’t remember it too well. Karl, my brother, has promised us a tour of his campus and living arrangements. He lives in student housing, for now, and calls it his six by six closet. He has a temporary job on campus for the summer and is looking for an apartment with some buddies of his. He is also job hunting.

I am also still job hunting. uhg.

Chicago Zombie Pub Crawl 6

As always, the Chicago Zombie Pub Crawl put on by local theater PH Productions, was a fantastic time! We used “3D Gel” instead of latex this year. It was way more comfortable and came off much easier, though maybe a little too easily since parts of it were falling off before the pub crawl was even over. It looked great for most of the time, so I would say 3D gel is probably what we will use in the future.

Motivation seems to go in phases for costumes and makeup. I think it helped that Chicago Costumes, one of the sponsors, had a small army of make up artists charging $5 and up for face make up on the spot.

We made some wonderful new friends. They were at the Chicago ZPC for company research. They’re organizers for the Minneapolis ZPC. Their pub crawl attracts 30,000 people, which is WAY more than Chicago has. They were great to hang out with. Hopefully we were helpful in our knowledge of the Chicago Zombie Pub Crawl. Andy and I have participated for 4 years, but beyond that, we’re not really involved in the Zombie community. We do know our neighborhood though. We are going to try very hard to make it out to their crawl in Minneapolis, in October. I’ve never been to Minneapolis and I think something that awesome is more than enough good reason to go. I need to explore more cities either way.

Our group was more fun this year than last year as well. Last year we had a small group and only about half the people in our group were dressed up, let alone makeup-ed. So this year was good. Even the one guy in our group who requested Lady Gaga’s Bad Romance at EVERY bar and danced drunkenly on stage to it every time was friendly and entertaining.

I had round two of a job interview today. It was creepy and weird. The office was locked and the lights were all off when I got there. I had to call and a guy came from somewhere in the back to let me in. They then put me in a conference room with a table that sat twelve. At the other end of the room, not even on the table was a small (maybe 12″) monitor. This was my video interview from DC. Like I wasn’t nervous enough? How impersonal and awkward could it get. It’s alright. Interviews are good practice. Eventually when there is a job I really want I’ll have experience interviewing in. This job doesn’t really appeal to me for any reason other than it pays better than my current job and offers benefits. It barely involves photography, and has nothing to do with environmental conservation, gardening, or ecology.

I think my best bet now, is to go back to school. No matter how poor it makes me, since I don’t qualify for any federal aid. Apparently once you have a bachelor’s the government doesn’t think you deserve to continue your education, especially in a new field of study. I’m going to try to get some grants, scholarships, and aid through schools. I have two ideas to look more into right now. Harold Washington City College here in Chicago apparently has an interdisciplinary study involving photography, microbiology and the Chicago River. This is according to a zombie microbiologist I met at Farragut’s, one of the bars on the zombie pub crawl. I really want to look into this possibility. My other idea to look more into, is Michigan Tech’s Applied Ecology graduate program. They have a dual degree with the Peace Corps. I’m pretty sure that is the only way I could afford graduate school. Also, because of the Peace Corps aspect, they wouldn’t require me to go back to undergrad and get a bachelor of science to attend their grad program. Their program sounds so amazing and hands on. I’m so much better at applying things that learning them out of books. I think I could fit really well in the program. My only worry is leaving for two years of overseas service with the Peace Corps and leaving Andy (my boyfriend of 7 years behind). Two years is a long time to be away, in a possibly remote area where I may not get to communicate with him regularly. I think the experience could still be worth it. I have some option weighing to do, and a lot of research to figure out if I will even be allowed to do either program.

Macy’s Flower Show

My parents came into town this weekend. I wasn’t sure what to do with them.  They’ve done most of the touristy type things they’re interested in doing here. I’ve lived in Chicago for almost seven years, after all. I mentioned this dilemma to one of my regular customers, and she mentioned that Macy’s was having their annual flower show this weekend. I didn’t know such a thing existed. I mentioned it to my parents, they googled it and decided it was a must.

The 9th floor of Macy’s on State Street was spectacularly done up. Not that Macy’s going over the top with spectacle should surprise me after photographing Macy’s Glamorama and Glamorama Afterparty, but they do know how to go all out. For the Flower Show there were tropical flowers and plants everywhere and I mean floor to ceiling, as well as wall to wall. There were fountains, sculptures, benches, drapes, umbrellas and all manner of other decorations.

This year’s theme was “The Painted Garden,” which apparently translates to “Indian Theme.” Thankfully, in my opinion, most of the plants were left natural. There were disappointingly some plants that were quite literally painted to match their respective set up.  None-the-less, everything was beautiful.

Aside from the main room of flowers and ornate decorations there were also a few other sections of the show. One of these other sections was an area where you could purchase plants and books about plants and gardening. Most of the plants they had for sale were very reasonably priced. They had lots of air plants and orchids for sale. If my parents and I hadn’t been planning on spending the rest of the day wandering around downtown I would have bought an air plant or two. Overall, another wonderful, free activity in Chicago. I hope to attend the Flower Show again next year, and hopefully bring my real camera, not just my camera phone!

On a completely unrelated note, I actually had someone at the cafe today do the “pay it forward” thing. I’ve always heard about people buying the person behind them in line or at the drive-thru their coffee or what not, but I’ve never had someone do it in my cafe! We were really quiet today, so he didn’t actually get to buy it for them in person, but he paid for a large coffee and told me to “use my discretion” and give the next person to order a large coffee their coffee on him. This pay it forward gentleman was a new face in the cafe. I’d only seen him once before, on Thursday or Friday of last week. I remember him because he was very polite, but called me things like “hun” and “sweetie” which usually rubs my nerves, but with his southern accent and exceedingly nice behavior, it was somehow more endearing. Today he was equally polite, and definitely nice. When my regular customer ordered the next large coffee, he laughed and said “fine, I’ll buy the next person theirs too! Let’s see how long the chain goes!” Typically the food service industry crushes my faith in humanity, this was one of few boosts and it was wonderful!