For March

I need to find more events to go during the weekend. Maybe some during the week as well but I'm not going to worry about that - enough things pop up during the week. I already have the next two Mondays booked up.

I need to have the CA vacation booked up. Of course flights are getting more expensive. I already wasted $250 on the Argentine government so I don't want the airlines to get more.

I need to find out more about transportation. Who are the experts, what are the leading thoughts, what are the main messages advocates are trying to convey, what are the bills or goals they want to pass? I need to make it so I don't look like an idiot when I talk about this stuff.

High-Speed Rail

Everyone is talking about high-speed rail right now because of proposals in Florida and California. Even if those states to get rail, NYC will stay the same for a long time. A colleague mentioned that price could be a big deterrent for Americans to champion rail. It cost 220 Euros one-way from Paris to Marseilles. But it's $175 one-way on Acela for the 3-hour trip between NYC and Washington. Marseilles is more than double the time, although it's actually further away mile-wise because the French rail is much faster.

Another thing is that our roads are more developed and gas is cheaper. That's true so that's why we need to make high-speed rail so much faster and more convenient. Once it's almost as fast as flying and brings the added benefit of no security pat-downs, more people will do it and it will get cheaper. We also need to bring more companies into the business so Amtrak can't charge exorbitant rates. I know I would rather take the train than fly or drive. Considering my many past trips to Lancaster and my recent trip between Buenos Aires and Iguazu, I could have benefited greatly from fast and relatively-cheap rail!

Argentina

Back from traveling for 2 weeks. Not only do I miss being on vacation but I truly miss Argentina. Everyone is so relaxed and is always up for having a good time. Things aren't too different south of the equator. Even though it's a temperate climate, it's still sort of a tropical way of life.

One of the favorite pastimes of Argentines is to have a picnic and drink mate. People like just sitting at a park or at a dock, drinking mate, and watching people walk by. Everything closes late because people take their time eating dinner and going to bars. Overall, because I was staying at an apartment and was with someone who lives there, I didn't feel like too much of a tourist so I got the city to really sink in.

Ad reps

It's nice to make people feel happy just because of something I do. The other day I got an email from an ad rep at comcast saying he's happy at the prospect on working with me on the NJAR account and asked if we could set up a time to talk. This was just after I let his supervisor know that we won't be doing any tv ads with NJAR this year. I wrote him back saying there's no room in the budget and that we can't change the budget anymore. A few minutes later I felt like I might have been too curt, especially with someone who was so recently assigned the account and someone whim I have never met. I called and we talked for a few minutes. I said that it sucks he just got assigned this account and it's not moving anywhere. He seemed genuinely happy that I didn't leave him hanging with that email. This is what life is a about i guess - the human connections and making people feel like they have your attention. At first I wasn't willing to give him mine but when I changed my mind I felt accomplished, like I did my job. That's what pr is about.

I'm glad I felt enough human emotion to make me react that way this week.

Subway in the snow

They're really doing a bad job of shoveling. The street corners are full of snow so I have to stand on line to wait to cross the street. In Newark they don't even clean the pedestrian crosswalks, they use them to pile on the snow!

I realize we're getting a lot and there's a problem finding places to put the snow. But this isn't rocket science. I'm sure there's a way to get the snow to a place and melt it. There's really no excuse for not cleaning the snow.

How much more productive and efficient would our lives be if it was faster and easier to get around? There's so much work to do, so many workers available to do it, and governments willing to plan, so why can't we invest in this? Why are our daily lives less important than school vouchers or defense spending in Afghanistan? Why don't people realize we need to spend money on public transportation so that people can be more productive at work and many more money? There needs to be a way to clean up the snow more efficiently. You know it's bad when the businesses and private residences, who don't get paid to do this and aren't required to clean until hours after the snow, are doing a better job than the government who PAYS PEOPLE TO DO THIS!

Brick Lane Curry House

We went here because of the Phall curry, which is supposedly the spiciest dish in the Western Hemisphere. We didn't end up getting that dish, which ruined the experience.

The service was very good and the decor was inviting, which is the opposite of most Indian restaurants. It's at the beginning of the "Little India," area of 6th street, but it's on 6th street nonetheless. Maybe its proximity to so many cheaper and more authentic Indian restaurants made its steep prices more apparent.

It's obviously more Americanized, actually Britishized, but we knew that going in. The prices are also significantly higher than most Indian restaurants on 6th Street. The dishes were pretty good, but lacked the spicy Indian flavor. I would not go back were it not the the Phall curry.


http://www.bricklanecurryhouse.com/

Bourbon Street - Bayside

Bourbon Street for Father's Day had a slimmed down pre-fix. I couldn't taste the regular menu that everyone boasted about. I had the crayfish Monte Cristo and I have to say it was pretty underwhelming. The bread was very good, as were the home fries. But the crayfish were full of mayonnaise, as I should have expected. The shellfish itself might have been tasty, but I could hardly taste any of it. The is a dish that I should have seen right through. The waiter told me about the mayo so I should have expected a crayfish salad.

Overall the quality of the food was weak.

http://www.bourbonstreetny.com/

Sea- Brooklym

We went to Sea for Keren's High School graduation. The food is generally good and not too expensive. They have the typical restaurant problem of boasting a more complex appetizer list and main course list. The two best items of the night were both Keren's orders. "The Claw" was a gigantic shrimp in its aforementioned claw. They put some spices in it but the shrimp stood for itself. I usually don't taste the juices from the head or tail, because shrimp are usually cut for me, but this time I could - and the taste was great. I also enjoyed the faint grill flavor of the shrimp.

The curry noddle soup that Keren ordered came in a gigantic bowl. The noodles were okay, not homemade or special in any way. But the broth and the vegetables stood out. The broth was spicy but not too spicy. It had a slight shrimp-y flavor. It was the curry soup I tried to order at many Vietnamese restaurants, but this time it had the flavor.

http://www.seathairestaurant.com/

Ippudo NY

http://www.ippudo.com/ny/

This east village outpost of a Japanese chain restaurant claims that it has the best Ramen in New York. In my opnion - that's true.

I haven't had much ramen at all, but I liked all the restaurants that I have been to. My friends had been to Ippudo before, and knew the wait is extremely long. We were in the area for a happy hour, the perfect time to put our name down and come back later.

The wait ended up being 2 hours (we only had to wait at the restaurant for half an hour), but it was worth it. The staff greets you when you come in, making you feel like you're in Japan. The menu contains many appetizers, but only 6 main courses - all 6 of them ramen soups. I hadn't heard of most of the names on the menu, and even some of the ingredients listed in the descriptions. It's a good thing I came with friends who had been there before and knew what to order.

We ordered three appetizers to share. They weren't that great but good enough to order different appetizers next time. The ramen selections seemed very similar to one another and they all cost $13. I ordered the Modern Ramen: noodles, pork broth, pork, scallions, seaweed, mushrooms, red pepper paste, and sprouts.

I expected something like what I had tasted before: soft noodles with light pork broth and a couple of vegetables. What I received was beyond my expectations. The bowl was huge and I was full to the brim by the time we left. The nooldes are hand-made and I could taste it. They tasted like a mixture of whole-grain, buckwheat, angel hair, and the ramen that comes in the styrofoam container. They were a little tough and meaty (like there was subtance in them) but gentle and smooth at the same time. The broth was very pork-y and thick. I anticipated a light broth, which I knew wouldn't give me a problem because I don't like pork. I couldn't escape the porkyiness of Ippudo's broth, but it was okay - even better. First of all, the pork pieces themselves were so soft that I didn't mind eating them. Second of all, the pork used for the broth was probably very high quality, which made the broth 10x better than anything I had even tasted. Third of all, the thickness made it substantial so I didn't have the weak taste of broth I usually get at cheap restaurants.

The whole thing together tasted excellent. I would recommend it to anyone who isn't a vegetarian. The price isn't bad either.

Ippudo NY
65 4th Ave
New York, NY 10003
(212) 388-0088

Flowers in the Kitchen

We were waiting for a show to start at Elizabethtown College, so we ventured into "downtown" Elizabethtown to find a place to have dinner. Later, we found that we could have snuck into the catered dinner for free. Although the food didn't look very good, I can't say it would have been much better than my entree.
I use "downtown" loosely. It's pretty much 2 blocks long. Apparently, the corner of Market and High make up the square, but it looked like any other intersection. There were a few banks, restaurants, and other random stores over those two blocks, but not even a souvenir shop! It made me feel lucky to have gone to college in Lancaster.
We received recommendations for Flowers in the Kitchen and Flavers. We looked at the menu of both before deciding. Even though Flavers offered more options, Flowers in the Kitchen looked like a really great place to spend a couple of hours. Flavers had no atmosphere whatsoever.
Flowers is a restaurant and trinket store all in one. There are fabulous tables and chairs that look like a cross between a table someone would have in their own kitchen and something you might find in a school. It worked, though. The walls were covered in bookshelves filled with trinkets, odds-and-ends, art supplies, etc. They were fore sale, although I don't think they make more than one sale per week. The restaurant was big, but we were the only people eating until 15 minutes before we left. This may have been because we arrived at 4:45. The menu offered a soup, several salads that pretty much consisted of greens, a type of nut, and a type of fruit. There were appetizers, but they were more like bar snacks (crackers, cheese, pretzels). The main courses are changed every week, it seemed. It was mostly chicken dishes, a couple of fish, a steak, and a pasta. I was disappointed because the only options I had were the steak or the pasta, because chicken always tastes bad at a restaurant. So I went for the pasta.
The disk was called "linguine with four cheese and tomato sauce." It was basically marinara sauce. I asked, and the waiter told me there was cheese in the sauce. I didn't want to go through the trouble of returning it, especially because the only other option I had was steak. So I went with it. The sauce was reasonably good and it came with a soup and desert. Overall, the meal was disappointing in its quality, especially once we realized we could have had a free catered dinner. The desert was excellent, though. Their theme was maple sugar, because this is the maple tree tapping season. There was maple syrup in Jeremy's couscous and bacon. My desert was a maple brownie sundae with maple syrup. Jeremy's pear tart also had maple in it.

Would I go back? Not unless I'm hungry and in Elizabethtown. But I would go here over any other place mostly because of the atmosphere.

Flowers in the Kitchen
8 S Market St
Elizabethtown, PA 17022