Housewarming

Stopped by a housewarming party tonight held by one of Dale's best work friends, Lesa, right. She and her new husband have five kids between them, ranging in age from 2 to 20, and they just bought a home in midtown with six bedrooms and five bathrooms....

..... and a pool.

The house is grand. The Midtown street it sits on (Wellington) is one of the very few in Wichita that remains unpaved.

    The house also is across the street from historic L.W. Clapp mansion, which is selling for $1.3 million. On an unpaved streeet.

A good day at work

Cupcakes, cookies and pink punch for our quarterly employee awards presentation.

Drink du jour

Pineapple mojito: Muddle together six mint leaves, half of lime (sliced) and half teaspoon sugar in a glass; add a few ice cubes; pour over that 1 tablespoon frozen pineapple juice concentrate (somewhat thawed), 2 tablespoons white rum and 2 tablespoons club soda. Stir it all. Repeat.

Nick and Lexi play poker

We might be teaching this child some bad habits, allowing her to sit at the poker table, but I figure that 5 years old is not too young to learn the ways of the world. And Lexi is very smart, just like her daddy, Nick.

Lori and Westley

My coworker and friend Lori Buselt visited the newsroom today to show us the progress her long and lean little baby is making. Westley is about 2 months now, and a very handsome young man. He was pretty much in la-la land when I took this photo.

We didn't plan this

My friend and coworker Lori Buselt invented a feature called We Didn't Plan This, for those occasions when two or more women in the newsroom wore very similar outfits to work. Lori is on maternity leave, but the feature lives on. Today Molly and I work pink sweaters and gray slacks to work, so naturally we had to have our pictures taken. Molly and I are cold-blooded sistuhs and need sweater protection from the newsroom AC during the summer.

NYC, part 6

Our final day was spent in part touring the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island.

Dale in a lame pose holding up the Statue of Liberty.

The view of Manhattan from the Statue of Liberty.

Grand Central Station, where we had drinks on our final night in NYC.

I like these photos of Deb and Dale trying to figure out how to get to the Empire State Building.

We didn't go up, but we saw it, once we eventually got there.

 Empire State Building in the background.

Dale posing with NYC's finest, who helped us with directions.

NYC, part 5

At the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Which has a HUGE collection of Impressionistic art.

On the steps of MMOA.

Drinks at Rockefeller Center.

This is part of an unusual but fascinating art exhibit around Manhattan -- about 70 upright pianos were placed all around the city for people to play whenever they wished. This was a man playing at Battery Park.

NYC, part 4

The spectacle of Times Square.

Deb, looking at the spectacle.

Inside the Broadway Theater, where we saw "Promises, Promises." Look in the mirror in the background to see Dale and me reflected in the far mirror.

A bocce ball club playing in Central Park.

Hula hoopers working out in Central Park.

Dale at a Central Park pond with sailboats in the background.

NYC, part 3

Jim and Deb waiting in the NY subway for our first full day in the city.

We started out in Greenwich Village, taking in the sights.

New York graffiti.

Chinatown vendor.

Bulk goods in Chinatown.

A street in Chinatown.

Storefront in Little Italy. And, below, Deb looking down a street in Little Italy where we later sat at an outdoor patio and drank sangria while people-watching.

 

NYC, part 2

 

Our first night in NYC was spent mostly at River Cafe in Brooklyn, a charming restaurant that was recommended to us by my friend, Carrie. It's expensive, but we agreed this would be our super-splurge for the trip. This is Jim, me and Dale in the restaurant's beautiful gardens before our reservation. The men were required to wear jackets, and one diner who tried to take his off after he was seated at his table was told by the maitre'd to put it back on. He did.

 

The River Cafe is noted for its gorgeous view of the NY skyline. The city is across the East River from Brooklyn, so the point of River Cafe is to go around dusk to watch the lights as they come on. Our timing was perfect for this and we were lucky enough to get a table at the windows, although you can see the skyline from anywhere in the restaurant.

 

The Brooklyn Bridge. I shot this out the window from our table.

 

I've never had duck so I decided to go for it at a place where I figured they would do it well, which they did. This was duck leg in a white truffle honey and fennel pollen glaze with potato croquette, organic carrots and julienned bok choy.

 

 

Dale's dessert, a chocolate model of the Brooklyn Bridge.

 

Our crew.

NYC, part 1

For the first time in 30 years, I visited New York City last week. Dale and I went over the Fourth of July weekend with two friends, Deb Miller and Jim McLean. I'll roll out some of our photos in the next few days. Above is the view of Hudson Bay from our (dirty) hotel window. We stayed at the Downtown Marriott in lower Manhattan, near the financial district and just three blocks from the site of Ground Zero, where the Twin Towers fell in 2001.

Naturally, Ground Zero was the first place we visited, although for now it is only a construction site. But to think that 3,000 people died at this site during the Sept. 11 attack is truly humbling. A small museum of sorts has been opened about two blocks away. It gives a photographic history of the attacks and shows the plans for the new memorial...

Which is scheduled to open in September 2011. The two ponds in this model will represent the spots where the Twin Towers stood. All around will be soaring skyscrapers, the most prominent of which will be the Freedom Tower, which will rise 1,776 feet. Three more memorial towers will be part of the development.

One of the amazing stories surrounding 9/11 is the survival of St. Paul's Chapel, just across the street from Ground Zero. St. Paul's has the distinction of being Manhattan's oldest public building in continuous use, and the closest house of worship to the site of the World Trade Center. George Washington had a pew in the church. The photo above is of an old cemetery on the church grounds. This
18th century church somehow made it through 9/11 unscathed and was transformed into an ad hoc headquarters for the rescue workers. It's very odd and touching to see this old church still standing and in use so close to the modern buildings that were demolished in the attack.

More later...