scott

Horseback Riding and R and R

by

For our last full day in Albuquerque we got up early again (not as early as yesterday) and went horse back riding at the hotel.  We didn’t know this but the hotel is on an Indian Reservation.  We got to rid the horses on a trail on the reservation.  It was pretty cool.  We saw petroglyphs.  Well M did.  I saw them later on photos since I couldn’t see the rocks well enough to see them.

My horse was pretty good.  She actually listened when i wanted her to gallop, go left or right and sometimes stop.  The only thing was she wanted to stop and eat every five minutes.  I was pretty pleased with the horse choice.  The only thing bad was she attacked M’s horse and someone elses.  I am not kidding.  M and I got lined up next to each other for a photo and my horse tried to slam her head into M’s horse.  It was pretty bad ass.  While we were riding back another horse got close to her and she tried to do the same thing to that one.  I thought it was a bit funny.

I was glad to be finished with the ride since it was getting very hot and my legs were starting to kill me.

For lunch we went back into Albuquerque for lunch at the place that was closed on Sunday.  The Grove Cafe.  It was another really good lunch.  After that we we drove around downtown a bit and then went to a nice espresso place before heading back to the hotel to get in some pool time, and reading.

For dinner we went to the Corn Maiden Restaurant at the hotel.  It was very highly rated and it was fantastic.

Hot Air Balloons and More

by

Our first full day in New Mexico was pretty fantastic.  M and I debated on doing a hot air Balloon ride.  We both wanted to but it was pretty expensive.  In the end we said it is a once in a life time experience and we were in one of the best places in the world to do it.

We got up at like 6:30AM to get picked up for the ride.  We learned the only real time you do a Balloon ride is right at dawn.  We got some fantastic photos of the ballon being inflated.  It was a pretty big ballon.  It fit 12 people and for our ride there were 10 of us.

There is so much i could write about this experience.  It was simply fantastic.  We got so many awsome photos.  There were 3 other ballons launching when we did so we got to get a lot of them and the scenery.  We got well over an hour of airtime before we set down right off a soccer field.

I learned that once we land you never just jump out or else the ballon will get lighter and fly away.  Don’t worry I didn’t try it but the pilot was very informative.  Once it was safe several of us got out and moved the ballon away from a building so we could deflate it.  It was interesting work helping to deflate and put away a 260,000 cubic foot ballon into a big bag.

We were done and back at the hotel well before lunch time.  We decided to drive to the Range Cafe for some lunch.  It was nearby the hotel and got good reviews in the travel books and everyone at the hotel suggested it.  We were glad that we did.  The lunch was good, but for desert M and I had a piece of chocolate layer cake that we both agreed was THE BEST WE EVER HAD.  From two people who love chocolate that is a stellar endorsement.  M has photos of me before and after.  They are pretty funny.

For the afternoon we lounged by the pool.  We were going to go horse back ridding at 6pm but it was very stormy so they canceled it for the night.  We rescheduled for tomorrow.

For dinner we were lazy and stayed at the bar restaurant at the hotel since the nice restaurant was closed.  We had low key food.  M had a cheese plate and wine and I had a delicious hot dog.  Go figure that New Mexico could make good hot dogs.

New Mexico Day 1

by

I am finally writing about our New Mexico vacation.  As I usually do if I write about stuff in the past I post date the blog entry so i know when everything actually happened.

Today was our first day of M and I’s New Mexico vacation.  In August we planned going away and after throwing around over a dozen North American cities we both thought lets go to Santa Fe.  Leaving on September 11 was not our original plan but I was actually glad to get out of New York City on this day.

We had a really early flight out of LGA.  M cashed in some American Airlines points she has been wanting to use on a vacation and got us free tickets for this trip.  The kicker was we even got a first class upgrade going to New Mexico.  We had to transfer in Chicago but it wasn’t too bad.

We got to Albuquerque a little before noon.  After we picked up the rental car (we opted for a small SUV) we headed out to our hotel outside of Albuquerque.  We were hungry so we stopped off in down town Albuquerque to try a cafe that M’s guide book suggested.  We didn’t notice until we were out of the car that it was closed on Sunday:(  We were then off to the hotel.

We were staying at the Hyatt Regency Tamaya Resort & Spa outside of Albuquerque for the first 3 nights.  Our room wasn’t ready when we got there so we hit up the hotel bar for some lunch.  I had some fantastic flat bread with blue cheese and other stuff.  It was good.

Once we dropped our stuff off at the room and hit up the pool.  It was really cool.  We got back to the room to find a complimentary bottle of wine and cheese plate.  I was very impressed with American Express travel’s Fine Hotel & Resorts for this.  I never booked anything through them before but Joe recommended using them since I had a card already.

After snacking we had dinner at the hotel’s regular restaurant.  It was good.

We had a long day but it was a really good start to the vacation.

Last Day Before Vacation

by

On my last work day before a week off I had to tie up all loose ends at work.  It was tough but i think i handed everything off ok.

After work M and I meet up with Luke and some other people for a few drinks at Windfall.

 

Off to See a Judge

by

Today we went up to Pearmont to see a judge.  No we didn’t get arrested for anything.  This judge will be the officiant for our wedding.  It was a simple meeting.  We just meet for lunch to I guess interview each other.  She seemed pretty cool and her story on how she started doing weddings was pretty cool.  M and I both liked her.  We both joked that the officiant for the wedding will be the cheapest part of the actual getting married.

 

Getta a Schvitz

by

Today M and I headed into Forest Hills again to do some apartment hunting.  Before our apointment we headed over to Mens Warehouse to look for Tuxedo’s for the wedding.  We ended up not picking a tux.  I need to go online to find one and then go back.  There were too many choices.

While we were at the store I did do some shopping for a suit.  I have been saying a need a new one for a year so I finally pushed myself to get one.  I found 2 I liked and ended up buying both of them.  There was a buy one get one free sale so it worked out.  I have to come back after vacation to pick them up.

The apartment we saw wasn’t anything to write home about.  After the apartment viewing we headed into Manhattan to use our life booker coupon at the Russian Turkish Baths.  We saw this place over the winter and wanted to check it out so we were happy when we saw only a few days later a lifebooker coupon for it.  It was really cheap but we had been procrastinating going for months.  We were glad that we went.  That place was great.  The different hot steam and sauna rooms were fantastic.  The cold plunge was even really good.  We each got a 50 minute massage.

After the schvitz we went to a sushi place called Kanoyama nearby.  It was good but TJ Asian’s by our apartment is still better.  I am totally loving the Sushi now.  I am still new to it.  I only started having some Sushi over Sashimi over the past few trips to the place by our apartment.  After dinner we went to ChikaLicious for desert nearby.  I had some really good macaroons, but the mini cupcake i had was only ok.  It was a fantastic Saturday spent with M!

Save The Date

by

After pondering what to do for a few months, M and I settled on not sending out paper save the dates.  Instead we sent out a save the date email to people we had addresses for.  We just pointed everyone to the wedding website with all the details on the wedding.

Almost All Mac, Well Sometimes…

by

For over a year I have opted into a “bring your own equipment” pilot with my company.  It basically allows me to use a Mac at work.  There has been a great community helping with how too’s, what apps to use to replicate Windows apps, etc.  For the bulk of that time I have generally opted to continue to use a Windows machine.  It wasn’t because I wanted to, but it was because of limitations of email.  More specifically it was Entourage was a horrible app that came no were near its Outlook for Windows equivalent, and then it was that Outlook 2011 wasn’t compatible with the Exchange system I was using.  Last month that last part changed and I was able to use Outlook on the Mac.  It was the last major piece to my going all Mac again at work.

Over the past month I have been going days using all native Mac apps when working remotely and then days of using my Windows machine in the office.  For the most part I am able to work 80% or more on native apps on my mac when I try.  There are a few websites I need that require IE, plus doing certain things in Sharepoint is better looking or just easier to do in IE.  I can do a lot in Sharepoint on the mac but I do default back to IE a lot.

I also had a few issues with Webex on Lion.  I still have issues if logging in via one of the two Webex portals I use.  The other I found a work around for and it does work.  So half the Webex’s I need I have to goto my iPad or a VM.

As I mentioned earlier the big hold back was email.  Now that I can use outlook 2011, for a while I didn’t want to.  It is Outlook and much better than Entourage, however it is not as feature rich as Outlook 2010.  Plenty of reviews covered that.  But even with its limitations it is growing on me.  I am not yet ready to go all mac every day but I am getting closer.  Right now I am at 2-3 days a week.  Since I sit at a computer 8+ hours a day a change like this will take a while to get used to.  For now I hope to continue to be mostly Mac at work more days a week.

 

The Not So Big Hurricane

by

Saturday M and I were planning on visiting a judge we are interested in being the officiant for our wedding. I was very concerned about the weather based off of what I was reading about the hurricane and the travel advisories. M was less concerned but I was worried that if we woke up Saturday morning and the weather was bad we wouldn’t be able to cancel our Zip car reservation. Because of those concerns and not being sure if the bridges would remain open if the winds got bad Friday night we canceled our zip car reservation. The judge was very understanding.

Saturday we planned on doing stuff in the apartment since we canceled our plans and figured it would be a good idea to stay home. Those plans plans got shot to heck when my mom called to see if I wanted to goto my cousin Derek’s wedding. He had a few cancelations due to the weather and wanted M and I to come. In our family to keep numbers down the 1st and 2nd cousin’s (my parents) are invited to stuff but all the kids are on the B list or else it would be too many people. I wasn’t offended at not being invited, but I totally forgot the wedding was Saturday. M and I talked about it and even though we (mainly me) didn’t want to travel upstate in the morning that we would risk going to long island at night for the wedding.

We got there just in time for the service and had a good time at the party. We left right after dinner to try to avoid the weather getting too nasty. That was already too late. Halfway home it got really bad out. I asked M if we were really stupid to be out if almost no one was on the road. The LIE was basically empty. That was almost scary. Thankfully we made it home without incident, except our strained wits if that counts?

Today I had several calls with work to review the status of things related to the weather. I am always amazed at how organized were I work is regarding incidents and disasters like this. It makes for many calls on the weekend but in the end thing weren’t down with any of the products i support so i was very happy.

Now M and I are relaxing on the couch. I am blogging and she is working on the wedding registry. I find it a bit cure that we both have Macbook’s (M on the 13″ Pro and me on the 13″ Air) on our laps listening to music. It is a nice relaxing end to a crazy weekend.

Day Off

by

After working every night from Friday to Tuesday and parts of the day over last weekend I decided mid week to take a day off. Little did I know at the time that a major hurricane was supposed to be coming to the east coast. Honest, it wasn’t a master plan of mine or anything.

I was able to get most of the day to relax. I just verged out on the couch and on the computer. it was nice, but later in the day i did have to deal with minor work related stuff due to the Hurricane.

In general a nice restful day off.