leisure

Mmmmm … gnocchi!

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Today I spent most of the day in the office here in Manhattan working on the fixed assets system upgrade. My wife and daughter came by (after flying into JFK that morning) to pick up the hotel key and then ran off to spend a day in the city.

This evening, I met up with my family and my colleagues from the office working on the upgrade and we all headed to dinner at Nino’s Positano, one of Nino Selimaj‘s six restaurants in the city. My favorite Italian dish is gnocchi so of course when I saw that on the menu I had to order it. That was a good choice because it was fantastic.

After dinner my wife and daughter headed back to the hotel and I went back to work to do some more coding. So far, though, the upgrade is progressing smoothly.

Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot

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We had friends from out of town visiting over Thanksgiving last year who wanted to take their kids to Walt Disney World so we ended up getting Florida resident seasonal passes. We’d never been over to Disney in March (usually my March weekends involve Spring Training baseball) so we had never been to the Flower and Garden Festival at Epcot.

We had a totally free day yesterday, so we drove over to use our passes and spend a few hours at the Experimental Prototype City of Tomorrow to check out the festival and have a nice family day together.

We couldn’t have asked for more perfect weather: it was nice and breezy, lots of clouds, and temps in the mid-80s, just fantastic. My daughter rode Test Track for the first time and loved it. We also rode Soarin’ which is one of our favorites. The flower, topiary, and plant displays were colorful and plentiful.

My daughter especially enjoyed the butterfly garden and also the tea plant displays in London.


Good times … a perfect little day trip. We even heard the sonic boom as the space shuttle landed over on the coast.

Spring Training 2009: Day Four

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We got up really early (3:45am AZ time) this morning to head back to the Phoenix airport since my brother’s flight was departing at 6:10am. After seeing him off through security in Terminal 3, I took the shuttle over to Terminal 4 to check my bag for my own flight home.

When it was finally time to board, the place was packed. There were flights heading out to Puerto Vallarta, Cancun, and Tampa all about the same time, and all of them were oversold. It was a tempting offer to give up my seat on the Tampa flight: two nights’ hotel accomodations (since the next flight they could book you on was Tuesday!), a free roundtrip ticket, and a first class seat on that Tuesday flight to Tampa. Too bad I have to go back to work tomorrow, so I did not give up my ticket. 🙁

The flight home was uneventful, and I slept most of the way. It’s hard to believe its all over … what a great time we had in Arizona over the past three days. I’m exhausted.

Spring Training 2009: Day Three

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We wanted to get to the park early today so we got up and went over to Native New Yorker hoping for a good breakfast. Unfortunately, unlike the actual city that never sleeps, the restaurant  didn’t open until lunchtime. So we headed north to Surprise (yes, that’s a city) to check out the Texas Rangers/Kansas City Royals training facility, hoping to find a local breakfast place along the way.

So we kept driving saying “we’ll grab something at the next place” and soon we were back in Goodyear and hungry. Based on our good experience yesterday, we went back to the Paradise Bakery before driving to the ballpark.

I have a pattern of not being on time for baseball games so this was the first time that not only was I on time, I was there before the park opened! We arrived at the Goodyear Ballpark just after 10am and went into the Team Shop to pick up some souvenier t-shirts. This way we were able to put our purchases back in the car as we had a nice close parking spot. The gates opened at 11 and we hung out watching them ready the field for the game. My brother also got some of the Indians players to sign a baseball. Bob Feller was also in attendance.

The game was shaping up to be a good one, with the Indians ahead 3-1 going into the 8th inning, but then everything broke down and the Dodgers scored 5 runs in the 8th and 9th innings, winning the game 4-6. This was the first sellout at the Goodyear Ballpark, with 10,749 attending! It was the longest game we had been to while we’ve been out here as well, at 3 hours and 15 minutes.

On the way back to the hotel we swung past Camelback Ranch, the new home of the Los Angeles Dodgers and the Chicago White Sox that is also celebrating its inaugural season. A lot of these new parks in the Cactus League are shared by two teams, something you don’t really see in the Grapefruit League stadiums back home.

We drove back to the hotel to clean up and relax a bit before heading out to dinner. It being our last night in Arizona, and wanting to celebrate our first trip to the Cactus League, we went to Rustler’s Rooste in the hills of Tempe, a local cowboy steakhouse complete with a live bull, live country western music, and really good food (“beef and brew with a view”).

We had to wait just over an hour (even with call-ahead seating!) but it was worth it. The steaks were fantastic and the atmosphere was as western as you could get. No, we did not try the rattlesnake. 😮

We got home late and need to get up in about 5 hours to get to the airport for our flights home. It went by fast, but it was a blast …

Spring Training 2009: Day Two

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This morning we had breakfast at the Paradise Bakery and Cafe and then drove over to Camelback Mountain. We hiked up the Cholla Trail and saw some spectacular views of Scottsdale and the surrounding areas.

We didn’t make it all the way to the summit, but stopped at trail marker #17 before heading back down (we weren’t really prepared for hiking: no water, I was wearing sandals, etc.).

From Camelback we drove directly to Goodyear and the brand new Goodyear Ballpark, the new Cactus League home of the Cleveland Indians (soon to be joined next year by the Cincinnati Reds). The new stadium is very nice (compared to the slowly deteriorating old Chain of Lakes Park back in Winterhaven) and the nearby training facilities look impressive.

It was a close game, but the Tribe beat the Oakland A’s 7-6 (and during the game, the Dayton Flyers beat the West Virginia Mountaineers 68-60 in the first round of the NCAA tournament! They move on to play Kansas on Sunday. Go Flyers!).

After a brief respite back at the hotel, we drove up AZ-101 again and took some photos in the Peoria Sports Complex, spring home of the Seattle Mariners and San Diego Padres.

Needing something healthy to eat, we had dinner at Souper Salad near the Arrowhead Towne Center and then it was back to hotel. We retired for the evening after a dip in the pool (brr!) and the spa (ahh!).

Spring Training 2009: Day One

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After meeting up at the airport, my brother and I picked up the rental car and drove to Avondale where we attempted to check into the hotel. We were too early, though, so they turned us away.

We grabbed some lunch at an Islands restaurant down the street and then headed over to Maryvale Stadium to see the Cleveland Indians take on the Milwaukee Brewers (and lose, 5-7).

This time we were able to check into our hotel so we unpacked and relaxed a bit before heading north on AZ-101 to Westgate City Center, a really cool entertainment area anchored by Jobing.com Arena and across the street from the home of the Super Bowl XLIII runner-ups, the Arizona Cardinals.

We grabbed a sandwich at Which Wich? and then walked down the street to  to see the Phoenix Coyotes play hockey against the Anaheim Mighty Ducks (Arizona lost 3-2 in an overtime shootout).

Our row won a free car wash at Danny’s Family Car Wash, which was funny since we were from out of town and had a rental car.  After the game, we were exhausted (it was about 1am EST for us) so we crashed back at the hotel.

Spring Training 2009: Finally!

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I’m sitting in the waiting area in Terminal 3 of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport waiting for my brother’s flight to arrive. My flight here from Tampa was uneventful, except we landed 30 minutes early and then sat on the plane for those 30 minutes waiting for a gate to open up.

Note: my posts for the next four days will be stamped in Eastern Daylight Time, but Arizona is actually three hours behind because even though it’s in the Mountain Time Zone, it does not observe daylight savings time.

Fire up the (new) grill!

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We got our very first gas grill as a wedding shower gift over 12 years ago and it served us extremely well. As part of our backyard renovation project that we started last fall (and is almost done!) we decided to finally get a new one.

After shopping around and doing some research, I chose the Charbroil Infrared Commercial Quantum series. The model I got has four burners (40,000 BTUs), a side burner (13,000 BTUs), and 580 square inches of cooking space.

The manual estimated the assembly time at a mere 30-45 minutes, which turned out to be extremely optimistic. It took me about 4 hours to get the entire thing put together (including unpacking and cleanup time), but I also did it all by myself. You can see assembly pictures here.

After assembly, I fired it up at full power for about 20 minutes to burn it in, so to speak. 🙂 It can put out some serious heat! The metal grates shield the flames from the food, converting the convection produced by the gas flames into infrared (or radiant heat). I had all four burners up past 700 degrees in just a few minutes. The side burner also came with a griddle (pancakes, anyone?).

Tomorrow I’ll give it a shot with actual food and see how it comes out.

Shopping under gray skies

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I guess we should have gone to the parks today instead of yesterday: it was gray and overcast, but cool and not a single drop of rain. Oh well!

img_2384-790133After breakfast and a little personal time at the hotel (Disney’s All-Star Music resort), we headed over to check out Disney’s Boardwalk. We had seen it yesterday while taking the Friendship boats from Hollywood Studios to Epcot and it looked neat. It’s a nice little area, but not that big and there’s not that much to do in the early afternoon. It’s mostly restaurants and clubs (which open later) and a few stores for shopping. It does afford a nice view of the Yacht and Beach Clubs across the lake, though. I liked the tagline for the ESPN club: “we recommend the HD.” 🙂 It’s probably a cooler place to go in the evening.

Since it was just about early lunch time, we decided to try Spoodles, a Mediterranean restaurant on the boardwalk. The breakfast menu was up, but since it was 11:15 we figured by the time we were seated, lunch would be served. Well, after waiting for 10 minutes and then being shown to our table, we were told they don’t serve lunch! Just breakfast/brunch, and then dinner starting at 5:30. We had already eaten breakfast, and there was really nothing appealing on the brunch menu …

… so we left, drove over to Downtown Disney, and had lunch at Bongos Cuban Cafe, which was very good (I recommend the Cuban sandwich). After lunch we wandered around the West Side and Disney Marketplace and did some shopping. Then it was back to the hotel for a family nap.

Refreshed, we went over to Summer Winterland miniature golf and played the sand course. My wife scored two holes-in-one and tied the course record for the day (38). We actually left Disney property 😛 and grabbed dinner at QDoba over in the touristy area on Apopka-Vineland Road.

Back at hotel, we swam a bit in the guitar-shaped Calypso pool and then finished up the day watching a bit of “Finding Nemo” in the hotel food court on the big plasma screen.

Overall, a fun, relaxing day, and we stayed dry the entire time.

Road Trip 2008: Day 8

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It was a late night last night after the fireworks show, but I managed to meet up early with my siblings. We headed downtown to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum.

img_1908-791938I had never gone to the museum while I lived in Cleveland … it was one of those things I figured I would get around to eventually. The exhibits were really cool, way too much to describe in a single blog post. My favorite things were the original hand-written lyrics sheets: it was neat to see the scratch-outs as the songwriter tried to find the perfect words. Did you know, for example, that Billy Joel’s “We Didn’t Start the Fire” was originally titled “Jolene” and had a totally different refrain? Some other personal favorites of mine included the piano that Ian Hunter composed “Cleveland Rocks” on, different early rejection letters to U2, and the Talking Heads memorabilia in the New Wave section.
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After finishing up at the museum, we headed past Progressive Field (formerly The Jake, or Jacobs Field) over the river to the Great Lakes Brewery for lunch, along with a quick trip across the street to the West Side Market. Mmmm … beer. 😉

After some more shopping it was back to the hotel for dinner and packing. It’s back on the road tomorrow afternoon as we head back to Florida.