Cupcakes, Bar Fight, Fireworks and Naveen, oh my!

Hi all, welcome to Friday in Manhattan! Did the work thing, even though I was a zombie (several days of only 5 hours sleep!). I went to lunch with my group, and lo and behold after lunch we took a nice long walk! Like 25 minutes long, we walked around the site - several buildings. Nice tradition to walk off lunch! We talked a bit about the demo I saw for a garbage collector I might work on at work. It was cool because it's used in the underlying system of both a small (model) helicopter, as well as a music synthesizer. And I was told the music synthesizer could be a good benchmark for me in my research - very cool! Maybe this doesn't make sense to some, but it was fun to see what I work on in a real thing so even non-CS people would appreciate it :-). So had a nice afternoon - we had an hour and a half brainstorming meeting with my project and decided we might work on a very ambitious, longer-term idea. Sort of exciting. Then I worked out briefly in the tiny workout room at work before jumping on the shuttle to get back to the city.

So I road the train down with a bunch of other cool interns and one mentioned the famous "Magnolia Bakery". Have you heard of it? Apparently it's famous for it's cupcakes! They had really wanted to check it out - but apparently it normally was a line around the block and an hour wait or something! So we all took the subway to that area after work - stopping through Grand Central Station which is HUGE! It was fun to go exploring with other interns :-). It happened to be in Greenwich Village which is a really cute area. We found the bakery, and there was virtually no line, so instead of going to grab dinner first was we thought we'd do, we just went in and got some cupcakes! :-). Yum. Although I didn't eat any then. We just waited 10 minutes in line or something. So then we went and found a place for dinner - we ended up at the White Horse Tavern. I wasn't too excited about bar food, but got a chicken and mushroom pie (like a pot pie). We were having fun hanging out and we were sitting outside on the nice evening. So suddenly a fight broke out next to us! Our nightly entertainment! So it's wasn't a fist fight or anything, but this guy went up to this girl and they were arguing and yelling at each other and calling each other names when they were about an inch from each other. Then she said something like "Just lay a finger on me, and I'll... ". So he did - pushed her in the shoulder area with his index finger. That really pissed her off - and before I knew it he had her arm too. They were really loud and the rest of us were just gaping at them. Then a security guy for the tavern came up and forcibly separated them, and sorta took the guy and shoved him out of the little gate around the patio and said to get out of here. Well, the guy fell and hit his head on the concrete and was really pissed that they were rough. He stayed on the sidewalk yelling at the girl for another 10 minutes - calling her a prick and a wuss. I still didn't know what they were actually fighting about! And the restaurant people were booing him and throwing food at him and saying to get out of here, but he wouldn't - he was just looking for a fight sorta. Apparently the cops were called because they came and apparently finally took the guy away. The restaurant people couldn't stop talking about this for the next 1/2 hour! Craziness! I've heard people argue on the subway and get in each other's faces, but this was way more heated - crazy!

So anyway, I left my friends, and when I walked back past the cupcake house on the way to the subway, there was a line around the block! Crazy... I had to go back to the subway, though, to meet Naveen at the airport - woohoo! So I went home, dropped off my cupcakes, and lo and behold outside my apartment window in the distance there were beautiful fireworks going on - and a big display that went on for awhile. I tried to take some pictures. I love the city skyline at night all lit up and it was beautiful with fireworks - reminded me of Portland :-).

But I ran out the door to catch the bus to Laguardia airport. I got to the corner where the bus picks up and there were like 4 fire trucks and several police cars. It didn't look like anything was going on at all and a lady told me sometimes they refill water on the hydrants or something, but they were just milling around. Weird. So I hoped on the bus that took 50 minutes to get to the airport - sorta slow. But I just read :-). It was pretty easy - and met Naveen! It was good to see him - I'm glad to introduce him to the city (although he's been here), and he said he got a great view of Manhattan as he landed and even picked out our apartment complex! His eyes were all awonder when we took the cab back home - the view of Manhattan as the cab crosses the bridge is really pretty. And we got dropped off at our place and I got to introduce him to our wonderful apartment! Yay! I'm glad he's here :-). I was so excited telling him all the things I want to do and what I've discovered - I guess I overwhelmed him. He said he just needed to get used to being here and explore the neighborhood a bit before I bombarded him with more stuff! I'm just over-excitable here with things going on :-). But he seems happy to be here too, so yay!

That was Friday. Saturday was basically about sleep (finally), getting a quick breakfast on Broadway (at 1pm), and then going out to a party at my boss' boss house in the suburbs and mingling with work folk. But we actually had a lot of fun. The area around here is really beautiful and green and we drove up the Hudson which is pretty. And his house was nice - lots of people brought kids who played around. Too much food, again - it's inevitable! And we got our first sample of the iPhone someone had just bought. Geeks, of course. But we had a lot of fun mingling. Nice people. And Naveen had fun playing badmitton. So finally stuffed, and coerced to bring leftovers home, we left to come back to the city! I am having fun here! Alright - time to head out again - maybe to get something that can pass as our dresser, and also maybe to meet friends. More later! Yay a fun, more relaxing weekend :-).