i <3 bklyn

boy does new york come alive in the summer.

i walked out a few mornings ago and noticed some porta-potties sitting on the other side of eastern parkway. confused, i turned around and noticed signs along the block saying eastern parkway would be closed on monday.

hooray, an event!!!

i quickly ran inside and googled that sh!t. according to the west indian-american day carnival association, there is a huge labor day parade that goes right along my street. and i mean huge. after reading the website, it says about 4 million people participated in the parade in 2001. that's a lot of people.

too bad i'm the only person in the u s of a that has to work on labor day. what's with that?

as of today, the barricades are up along the sidewalks. the nypd is at the franklin avenue stop right now, setting up a barricaded path outside of the exit to ease congestion in that area. i imagine leaving for work at 9 am won't be too big of an issue seeing how the parade starts at 11, but i'm starting to worry that that 30 foot walk to the station is going to be a battle.

but that's not all the wonderful world of new york has in store!

i got a bike this weekend! now i can travel around brooklyn with ease, no longer having to do such silly things as ride all the way to union square to connect to the l if i want to go to williamsburg!

i've already put it to good use. after picking it up in long island, i caught the lirr back to nostrand ave. a word of caution: if you are planning on taking your bike on the lirr, you need a permit. it's $5 and you can get it here. i wasn't aware of the permit, so when the conductor asked for it, i said "what?" apparently arthur knew what he was talking about, though, and said we literally just bought the bike. crisis averted.

after that, we headed to clinton hill to pick up arthur's bike and rode to bed-stuy to check out an apartment. after waiting for a half hour for the broker (who said he was on his way when we got there) and watching neighborhood kids take down tree limbs with a pocketknife and throw things at their neighbor's windows, we decided we'd had it and didn't want to live there.

later on, we rode to park slope, grabbed some food at union hall, then saw pineapple express. pineapple express was good for the most part, but i wasn't digging the spy/action parts, especially towards the end.

and finally, today i went to brighton beach. only after saying i would all summer...

it was amazing. it's really sad that that was my only beach time, but well worth it. and it's that much more satisfying after riding there on your bike!

this is an awesome reference for people who like to bike around brooklyn. (listen to me trying to come off as a biker now).

but what we did was cut through the park, and took the bike path on ocean parkway all the way down to the beach. we laid in the sun for a few hours, then got some food at tatiana's. it was ok food, but the scenery more than makes up for it.

oh, and i sustained my first injury! after heading back, and riding through prospect park (making a detour for the wiadca drumming group), i stupidly wanted to turn, and arthur stopped, and i didn't stop in time, and fell over onto my knee.

only scratched it a bit, but it makes me feel tuff.