We started out by me making crepes for the group. Tip: Don’t make crepes for 12 hungry people. It’s a lot of crepes. Then the King Tut exhibit. We watched the 3D movie and then the coat check girl dropped my camera a few feet onto tile. Then we had first lunch Ruby Foo and had a great Bento box dessert and amazing sushi. After that we went to FAO Shwarz and the Apple store. That is a huge toy store (both are actually). Then off to second lunch at Grimaldi’s Pizza. Wonderful pizza. Completely packed. Still fast though. Then we went to Chinatown and are currently waiting for third lunch at Congee Village. This is a VERY Chineese restaurant. Not he typical americanfied version.
Third day
Well, it’s the third day here in NY. It has been incredibly busy. We seem to barely ever stop walking and seeing things. I just realized I haven’t taken pictures of the place we’re staying, so I’ll do that when I’m less lazy and go get my camera. Right now, I’m trying to get pictures uploaded, caught up on my reading, get my devices up to date, etc, etc. Doesn’t seem anyone is up and about yet. Seems I wake up at about 6:40 no matter what time zone I’m in and it’s not a work day. Maybe I’ll go start making some sort of breakfast for everyone.
2nd day in NY
We had breakfast and headed off to start our day. We started out by going to the Natural History Museum. A few of us saw a pretty disappointing planetarium show. Did you know mass is what makes things? After that we walked through Central Park to get to the Metropolitan Museum Of Art. There we found a hot dog stand in front before going in. That was a lot more fun and had beautiful paintings and artifacts. After that, we walked over to the Guggenheim Museum. That place is full of odd “art” I don’t understand. We didn’t stay long. We had dinner at this amazing Italian restaurant voted best in Little Italy by Zagat. Some of us went to the Empire State Building. There we watched a show WAY more disapointing than the planitarium. The NY Sky Ride is normally $36/ticket, but we have the New York Pass so it was included. I probably would have been upset if I had paid $36 for that show. You sit on a shaky seat and watch a 15 year old blurry video of NY with 20 year old special effects. But we were wasting time anyway, so it did its purpose. We were waiting for it to be closer to sunset when we went up. After that, it was off to second dinner. We were going to go to Al La Turka, but weren’t sure it was there anymore and ended up at a fantastic Indian place called Nirvana. The food was wonderful. We made it back to the house a bit after 11.
Here is a map of our walk. The gaps are subway and when I forgot to turn it back on after getting off the subway. Also off in buildings where we did most our walking.
Pictures are on MobileMe and Facebook. The connection isn’t good enough here to put them on this site. I’ll put them on when I get home.
Roaming NYC
We wandered a lot of miles today. I forgot to use a tracking app to be able to map out all the places we walked. I’ll try to remember tomorrow. We went to see the World Trade Center and the Memorial Preview. On the way we saw a really old church and after we went to an even older one. We went to a great pizza place for lunch. Then we walked to get desert from a place Jake’s friend recommended (Ferraras Bakery and Cafe). It was amazing. We had assorted flavors of gelato and other deserts. On the way there, we got side tracked and walked half way across the Brooklyn Bridge and back. After desert, we were going to go to a great Italian restaurant for dinner, but decided to come back to the house instead.
Pictures are here. Also on MobileMe and Facebook.
NOTE: Currently all pictures are on MobileMe and Facebook, but not here. Only a partial set made it to this site. I’ll finish uploading them here when I have better internet access at home.
Made it to New York
We got on a plane at about midnight (it was very late boarding) and made it to New York at 6:10 am EST. Then we went from air train to train to subway and got to the brown stone mansion we’re staying at for the week. It is pretty nice. It has about four floors with a couple rooms per floor. It has an elevator to help with all the floors. While waiting for the lady to come and open the place, we walked around and found breakfast at 5th Avenue Deli. They made up sandwiches fresh to order. Then a while later the lady came and we I just finished getting cleaned up and ready for the day. Suzy is taking a nap, but the rest of us are getting ready to go see ground zero, a church, and maybe go to a restaurant by the ocean. I’ve taken some pictures. I’ll try to get pictures posted every day at least once. I’m letting my legs rest or I’d post them now. The camera is a couple flights up and I’m too lazy to go back and get it.
Coming home
Well, I’m sitting at the airport and waiting to head home. It has been a lot of fun. I have stayed incredibly busy the entire time. I’ve been getting up at about 8 am and going to bed around midnight. Yesterday I walked about 5 miles on a tour around Boston. We went from coffee shop to shop working from there instead of the office. We went to two coffee shops then a restaurant and finally back to the nicer office. I took a bunch of pictures, but didn’t get a chance to upload them throughout the day and forgot when I got back to the apartment. So I’ll upload them when I get home.
Walking around Boston
Here are the photos from my last day in Boston when we walked around the city. I saw tons of people at the park, sailing, biking, and jogging. People were enjoying the first nice day all week. there were a few people playing some jazz in the park. They were really good. We walked across tall, long bridges.
Pictures are here.
Boston
Here are a couple more pics of the TechStars office. There is an iguana at the front desk and a ping pong table in the kitchen.
After work we did an Urban Interactive sleuth game. Sleuth is an app I helped write about a year ago. It lets you create your own game scripts, audio, etc. and have missions that you answer to get points and move to the next mission. This company uses the app to do interactive tours of the city. They had us play-test a new game for it for them. The set up improv actors/actresses around the city and start you with a couple clues and the app. Then you’re set free to wander the city to answer the missions, get more clues, and find and interact with the actors/actresses. It was a lot of fun. It took us about 1.5 hours to finish. Normally teams do these games and try and compete to see who can get the highest score. You get points based on how fast you enter the correct answer.
Pictures are here.
To the Boston Office
Here are some pictures of my way to the TechStars office and a couple shots of in the the room we’re working in. There are other rooms and a kitchen with snacks and drinks. There’s also an iguana. I guess I should get out and take some pics from around the office too.
Pictures are here.
My trip to Boston
Early Sunday morning, about 5:30, Suzy took me to the airport. I spent the next 10 or so hours traveling arriving in Boston at 5 pm. I took a taxi over to the mall and wandered around waiting for Nick (the person I’m here to see) to come.
We went to check out his offices. He has this amazing office that has free food and drink, great wifi, and tables were people sharing this office can sit and get work done. His other office is similar, but he only has it for 3 months while he is a part of TechStars, a tech startup operation thing.
Monday I got up and headed off to work until about noon. Had lunch in a group of smart, motivated people, then it was back to work until 6:30. Then we went to MIT and had a free dinner there they were doing as a presentation deal. It was a lot of fun talking to the MIT students. They’re really smart and friendly. After that, we went to his other office and worked until about 11 pm. Then it was off to his apartment and I did a video chat with Suzy and fell asleep around 1 am.
This morning I slept in until 9 and had to get to the office by 10. We’re working hard again, trying to get an iPhone/iPad app done this week.
I’ve been taking pictures and will get them posted as soon as I can. So far it has been a lot of fun meeting people and walking around the city. I get to walk about 5 miles a day to get around. Nick set up some activities for us to do a couple nights this week. Some game called Mafia/Werewolf, some board games, and testing out a new game using an iPhone app that I helped him write a couple years back that’s a treasure hunt kind of deal that you do in real life using the app.
