New York City

THIS POST IS STILL UNDER CONSTRUCTION!

Michelle and I got back from NYC last Wednesday and I'm settling back into my routine. So it's time for me to attempt a blog about the trip.

I'm not sure where to start talking about a 8 day trip to one of the largest cities in the world and a trip to the second biggest comic convention in North America. (I'm going to the largest in 4 months.)

So I guess I'll go in order.

Wednesday:

Normally when we go on vacation, we leave really early. This time we flew out at a more reasonable 9 a.m. That was pretty cool 'cuz I actually had time for coffee before heading out to the airport.

One thing we did that was a little different this time was we flew into Long Island. We flew Southwest Airlines and that's the closest they come to NYC. The bad part was we had to take a train into NYC. However this was actually cheaper then taking a cab in from Laguardia or Kennedy. And the airport at Islip is pretty small, so leaving was no hassle.

The last time we went to NYC we stayed at a Comfort Inn on 71st, just west of Central Park. We like this place because it's affordable, close to a subway stop and in a nice neighborhood. Plus we had a fridge in our room!

When we got checked into our hotel, we rested up and went out for a late-ish supper. People in NYC eat later and we always fall into that routine.

Last time, I paid for that. We ate a late supper at a Japanese restaurant and I got the shrimp tampoura. It was really good, but I was thinking 'Man, this looks kinda greasy.'

That night, about 3 a.m. I woke up with crazy heart-burn. Nothing like waking up in a strange city with weird chest pains.

I resolved that would not happen to me this trip!

We walked to a nearby Italian restaurant. I got the gnocchies. I love gnocchies! It's kind of a potato dumpling and my Grandma Ronnie used to make them all the time. It's not the kind of thing you find in your average Olive Garden!

After the meal, I went to the bathroom. One tip: If you visit NYC, use clean restrooms when you find them. Sometimes its hard to find a public restroom and sometimes you wished you hadn't!

The bathroom was in the basement of the restaurant. For some reason, this is fairly common in NYC. What isn't common is the bathroom had a stained glass window in it.




I'm happy to report no ill effects from the late meal.

Thursday:

This was our big walking day. We ended up walking 19 miles this day!

We started off by riding the subway down to the Greenwich Village. We wandered around, walking through Chinatown and Little Italy.

Then Michelle tells me, "I want to walk across the Brooklyn Bridge!"

"What? Are you crazy? Can you do that?"

Michelle had read about it in the guide book. And so after a little searching we found the path on and we walked across the Brooklyn Bridge.

San Diego submission

Here's my submission for the San Diego Comicon souviner book.

However, I don't think this will be in the book. It seems when I went to e-mail the file to them their e-mail box was not working. I tried to call them, but their voicemail was " over it's limit."

I don't want to slag on the SDCC people, but this seems to be how the entire con is ran. They have the largest con in the United States, but the consistently get things wrong.

Everytime I go I am told to go in a different door and about half the time the pros are told to wait until everyone else gets in.

I had sworn off the SDCC, but I am giving them one last shot.

And so far, it's not going too good!

NYCC pages

Here's the first 3 pages of my sample for the NYCC