New York on Ice

to set the tone, New York and all of the east coast even down to florida have been having record breaking cold days this winter.
Jen took me out for birthday dinner and a surprise.  A group of people sat down next to us and I overheard them say they have 2 extra tickets to the Jack White concert with Run the Jewels opening.  I told Jen oh man that is the one concert this year that I would want to see.  Me and bob tried to get tickets but they were sold out already.  I figured we would be going to some broadway show or something after dinner but then we started walking towards madison square garden.  How lucky was Jen that she got us tix for this concert and the people next to us at dinner happened to have two extra tix just stoking my despair?  Run the Jewels had the best hip hop album on 2014 but it was sad, the garden was less than half full for them but by the time Jack White went on it was full.  His encore set was even longer than original set.  It rocked.  Then we met bob for drinks.  Somehow the photos from our Hawaiian housewarming/my birthday party got deleted.  There were only a few photos taken anyway and then the best pic was the pile of SPAM musubis that we made.  It was a calm and adult like birthday.  Everyone barely drank and they went home by 1am.
So photos that are missing before this day that I can remember is from the MOTH story hour at the bellhouse and it's a show they play on NPR where people tell stories.  The bell house is very close to our house and it was cool to see live.  Here we are in Crown Heights but it looks like we're walking through Hoxton in London

This bar Covenhoven has a huge section of brews from everywhere to buy and carry out of drink in.  Pretty cool place

When did printers get so high tech?  I got this printer from Illustrator Lily Padula and it has blinking lights to show the empty ink cartridges and makes espressos and flat whites too even.

we were in some music video thing

Whiskey time and Norman's Kil.  The winner of the night was Lagavulin 16 year from the Scottish Isle of Islay

keeping it in the islands with Talisker and Ledaig scotch

delux-if-ied some Shin Black ramen even with a pat of butter on top.  mushrooms, baby spinach, scallions, soft boiled egg, onions and you got a meal goin on.  It's pretty delish

Fashion week, went to some stuff with jen.  This is at one of Mel's events for Otte

went to a thing at John Varvatos on Bowery which used to be the original CBGBs.  He's a big rock fan I guess so he encased a lot of the wall in glass to preserve all the gig posters and general crap on there.

their thing that night was moonshine and they made it into all these flavors of DISGUSTINGLY undrinkably sweet moonshine drinks.


apparently the Struts are John Varvatos favorite band and they played that night.  I'm not a fan

FDNY

the night ended at one of Cori's denim designer co-workers swank apartment.  They had many bottle of fancy tequila.  After two big glasses of that on top of all the other drinks including moonshine, Jen was a puddle on the floor so I scooped her home. 

somehow I didn't have a crippling hangover so I was able to go for a run.  I still wear the same running jacket I got in Japan, you can see the shoulder that hit the windshield of the taxi that hit me.

the poor guy isn't doing so well, and it's valentines day.

sometimes love is 3 pounds of beef for beouf bourguignon a la Julia Child.  The rest of the day was shot because it takes all day to make this

a little older and a little wiser is it was less intense making this this year.  It was still a tough battle in the kitchen but we won.


was part of a group show at the Museum of Sex.  It was just a big party


still fashion week, we went to Nancy's thing, designer Michael DePaulo's evening gowns inside the Carlton Hotel.

at this point these living mannequins had been standing there for 2 and a half hours.  They're thrilled to have another wanker with a camera oogling them you can tell

on to Beer dork hangout, Torst in Greenpoint for too many craft beers

pffff, as usual just a puff of smoke from Jen Yoo

V day present, look who's a member of the Bklyn Larder Cheese Club! (for 3 months).  This is a lot of cheese.  1.5 pounds of 3 cheeses every month.

a party at Maison Kistuné and the end of fashion week.  And if you didn't know New York has been having record breaking cold days this winter.  It sucks super bad. 



You Call That a Snowpacalypse?

So they predicted it would be the biggest snow storm in New York City history dumping up to 3 feet of snow.  The shops were all crowded with people stocking up on supplies, kale, and preparing for the loss of power and not having to go to work for days.  Spoiler alert, snowpacalypse didn't happen.
a few days before snowpacalypse we discovered that the Other Half brewery was a few blocks south of us in Carroll Gardens and they have a way cool tasting room.  They have some crazy beers and some funky ones.

Brooklyn's other brewery.  Still a hidden gem for sure!

This was one of the funky brews,  "Beat it Nerd" a brett fermented IPA. 
There are a few cats they let in and out.  Jen's caption for this photo was going to be "finding the darndest things in new places".  Dig in there buddy.


around the corner we discovered is where the salt trucks are for this part of brooklyn.  I would find out at 2 am why this truck driver was here waiting with this load of salt


woke up at 2am to this.  Had no idea it was supposed to snow.

flash forward to Snowpacalypse day and this is all the snow we got.  The night before travel was banned after 11pm.  Everything shut down or closed.  New York woke up very disappointed.


You call that a Snowpacalypse?


the other week someone drove a car through the Henry Public's window.

it's really sad where kids have to sled in NYC.  The road at the top of the hill is a highway the BQE (brooklyn queens expressway) and then they sled down into a street.

roosevelt island.  Virginia's family used to live there 


The Snow Queen.  What kind of frosty spells exist inside her mojo satchel

grossness.  4 levels of traffic below the brooklyn heights promenade.  It's the BQE again.  You can't really hear the traffic from the promenade though and it looks out onto all of lower manhattan.  Great in the summer time.

Brooklyn bridge park.  bk bridge in foreground, manhattan bridge in the back.

insanity at the Hillside Dog Park in Brooklyn Heights.  The parents outnumbered the kids and dogs.  Again, sad where kids have to sled.  At least there is a fence between the BQE at the bottom of this "hill"




Smith street, Carroll Gardens south.

time for vin chaud and netflix because tomorrow its back to work.  Thanks for nothing Snowmageddon.