an aggregate of all things Johnson

When I started the month I knew writing one blog post everyday for an entire month would be a challenge. My previous average was about one post a month. Before the month began I made a list of topics I could cover each evening. There were only a few topics I didn’t get to that I originally planned on discussing.

I planned on telling more about my job at AppNexus. We are building applications that give large buyers of internet media the tools they need to make effective buys across a wide range of inventory.

I planned on talking more about the books I was reading on my Kindle. I wanted to finish the book I am currently reading, The Omnivore’s Dilemma, before discussing it, but unfortunately it is quite long and didn’t get through it this month. I will say that book has been eye-opening so far, but hasn’t forced me into any drastic eating changes yet.

Finally, I had planned on talking more about my experiences with Google App Engine. I decided to branch out from PHP and try some other server-side languages and Python was my first new language. GAE provided a great platform to begin playing around with Python web applications because of its solid and useful APIs and because of its simple deployments. Since beginning with Python on GAE, I have strayed away and have begun working with Tornado. Tornado is really fast and runs nicely behind Nginx. I was able to bring up an application I have been playing around with on a brand new machine in about thirty minutes last night. That isn’t quite as fast as a GAE deployment, but still not too bad.

I don’t think I will be able to keep up the daily posting, but I am going to try very hard to past more often than every month. I have enjoyed sharing something different each day and receiving comments.

Here’s a teaser for what you can expect in December:

• I bought a new camera. It’s in the mail right now and should be here by the end of the week. I am not a photographer in any sense, but would like to learn.
• Rachel and I have a couple trips into Manhattan on the upcoming weekends planned. We will be doing some holiday shopping and definitely some holiday sightseeing.
• Rachel, Crusher and I are going to Kansas City for Christmas. I hope to get out to the middle of Missouri for this (and foil dinners) while we are there.
• New Year’s Eve in NYC! Expect Rachel and I to ring in the New Year from our apartment. I can’t imagine going to Times Square, but I sure enjoy watching it.

We started the week with Seth by going to a pizza place called Grimaldi’s. Everything I know about Grimaldi’s, I’ve learned by reading wikipedia and the Grimaldi’s and Patsy’s menus. I do not know the full history, but I have pieced together that Grimaldi’s was started by nephew of the man that started Patsy’s Pizzeria. Patsy passed away and Grimaldi had a falling out with Patsy’s widow.

With the history out of the way, we were able to put the pizzeria’s to the taste test. When we went to Grimaldi’s we got one meat pizza and one plain pizza. To fairly compare the two joints, we got the same at Patsy’s.

I think the overall verdict was that we liked Grimaldi’s pizza better. They both follow the same recipe and are both cooked in coal ovens, so they were very similar, but Grimaldi’s was a bit crispier. I also liked the ambiance of Grimaldi’s better – Grimaldi’s had a more casual, fun atmosphere.

After fueling up with our traditional Thanksgiving meal we were ready to hit more sights on Friday and Saturday…

Friday started with our usual walk to Prospect Park. Then, the three of us traveled to Bloomigdales and 5th Avenue to immerse ourselves in the shopping insanity. It was crowded, but not much more so than on normal weekends. I bought my first pack of Nuts 4 Nuts from a street vendor. Seth really wanted me to eat street food while he was visiting. I told him that Nuts 4 Nuts would have to count because I am not willing to risk eating street meat.

After we got our fill of shoppers we headed up to the Museum of Natural History. This was my third trip to that museum and I think that affected my enjoyment… It was incredibly crowded and very hot in the museum. We only stayed for a couple of hours because I pretty much freaked out. A nice stroll through Central Park cooled me off, though. We ended the evening in my new favorite location: Dylan’s Candy Bar. A magical place filled with candy where you can pay a dollar to dip a variety of items in a chocolate fountain. I bought a chocolate-dipped rice krispy treat. So tasty!

Saturday is waffle truck day in Park Slope. After a walk to the park, we all got waffles covered in chocolate and whipped cream! You can’t really ask for a better breakfast. Just ask Crusher. He is obsessed with waffles!

We tried to get to Manhattan a little earlier on Saturday so that we could catch the ferry to Liberty and Ellis Islands. Unfortunately, every other tourist in the city had the same idea. After Seth and Travis tried some more street food, we waited about two hours for the ferry in the cold wind. We had an interesting encounter with a Churro vendor, went through a bunch of security, and final boarded the ferry. It was fun to see the Statue of Liberty, but we were not able to go up inside of it… I think you have to get special tickets way in advance to do that. We took a bunch of silly photos with Lady Liberty and then took another ferry to Ellis Island. I had high hopes for the museum at Ellis Island. I am really interested in the island from a historic preservation standpoint, but the museum was not quite as fantastic as I was expecting. It was fine, but it did not have many artifacts and the exhibits were a bit sparse and spread throughout the huge main building. I would love to tour the complete grounds of Ellis Island someday and peak inside the unrestored buildings!

Standing in the wind all day really tired me out, but the boys motivated me to go back to Manhattan by promising another trip to Dylan’s Candy Bar. We ate dinner at Patsy’s Pizzeria first, and then went wild at the candy store. I got another rice krispy treat at the chocolate fountain and we bought a bunch of fudge, chocolate, and gummy candy… Our eyes were definitely bigger than our stomachs, though, because we barely made a dent in our sugary loot when we got home. We capped the evening with a viewing Home Alone to further cement our holiday spirit. Fun times!

I meant to do a re-cap post for each day on the day it happened… and I should have! Now it is overwhelming because Seth, Travis, and I have done SO MUCH STUFF! Be warned, this is a giant post with all the details of our touristy adventures!

Monday

Monday, we started with a trip to Prospect Park with Crusher for the off-leash doggy time. Then, we headed to Manhattan and ate lunch at Hello Deli. Seth got his photo taken with Rupert! We stood in line for the Late Show with David Letterman for hours, but it paid off because we got to attend the day’s taping. We also walked around Times Square and went to the giant M&M and Hershey’s stores. They gave out free candy samples! Yes! I got scanned by an MnM machine that determined I was Mega Mix flavor. Hmmm. Even after free candy, we had a craving for cupcakes, so we stopped at Crumbs and picked up a few to take home. Then, we met Travis at the Brooklyn Bridge and walked across to Grimaldi’s for pizza, but you already know that.

Tuesday

Tuesday started with another walk to Prospect Park, then a very tasty lunch at Brooklyn Fish Camp – we had lobster knuckles, a trout sandwich, and conch soup. Then we headed to the Upper East Side and visited the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We viewed just about every gallery! After taking in all of the art, we walked down Madison Avenue. I love window shopping at the ritzy stores, but I think Seth was bored… until we hit FAO Schwarz on 5th Ave! Toys! Seth got his photo taken with the Lego Chewbacca. After all of our walking, we met Travis for dinner at Shake Shack.

Wednesday

Wednesday was our “rest” day. After a long walk around our neighborhood to Brooklyn Bread and Gorilla Coffee, I worked on some Thanksgiving meal prep. Then, we headed to Chinatown to check out the scene. We walked all over the Lower East Side and ended up at Yonah Shimmel’s Knish-ery for lunch. The restaurant is 100 years old and the potato knishes were delish! You know that I can’t pass up a cupcake, so we had to stop at Babycakes bakery for a box. Babycakes is a gluten-free bakery and the cupcakes were adorable and surprisingly tasty! We also shopped around Soho for a bit despite the rainy afternoon weather. Seth bought a new scarf at UNIQLO. For dinner, we came back to our apartment and ordered JPan. Crusher was happy.

Thursday

If you have already forgotten, Thursday was Thanksgiving. We woke up at 6:30 am to head out to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. We did not have any reliable intelligence as to where the best place to watch would be, so we blindly headed up to the Upper West Side. After a lot of walking and maneuvering, we found a place to stand in Central Park at about 64th Street. The parade was fun and the little kids watching it were cute, but I don’t know if I need to attend it every year… We didn’t get back to our apartment until after 1 pm. On our way home we made a quick stop at Grand Central Terminal so Seth could check it off his NY sight-seeing list.

I started the meal prep right away when we got home, but we didn’t sit down to eat until about 6. Our meal was very good, but I’ll save discussion of the menu and the full critique for a future post… After stuffing ourselves, we watched Christmas Vacation and relaxed. It was a great Thanksgiving!

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You will have to wait for the Friday/Saturday installment of our adventure until tomorrow…. This post has gotten out of control! You can view all of these photos, and more, on my Flickr.

We got up early today to go see the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. There were people everywhere once we made it down to the parade and it was harder to find a place than we expected. After more than an hour of walking and maneuvering we found a place where we could see the floats and balloons from the park.

We were at 64th St, which is up near the start. Apparently, the famous people join the floats at a later point in the parade because we didn’t really have any extra entertainment. From where we were standing, the parade took about an hour to pass.

Even though we did a lot of walking and didn’t get a great view, I had so much fun. It entertaining to see people everywhere in the holiday spirit.

After we returned home from the parade, Rachel started making the meal. It was a fantastic meal. Rachel outdid herself again.

This year (like so many previous years), I am extremely thankful for my amazing wife, Rachel. The year didn’t start out too great, since I didn’t have a job, but Rachel was very positive as we decided to move from a home we loved to New York for me to take a new job. She has done so much work to get us settled in out new city. I am so lucky to have such a perfect wife.