NYC High Line

The HighLine was built by the New York City Railroad between 1929 and 1934 to eliminate the dangers of street level city rail traffic.  The elevated trains carried meats, produce and dairy to warehouses and factories at the third floor level and the route became known as the "Life Line of New York".

In 1999 a group of community residents rallied to safe the decaying structure. Today the HighLine is an urban oasis along Manhattan's West Side. The elevated track is now a city park winding its way through the trendy Chelsea and Meat Packing District where apartments go for between 2 and 20 million USD. It's tracks still remain but are now part of a mixed surface of wood, concrete and stone walk ways surrounded by lush green areas filled with grass, flowers, fountains, art installations and viewing platforms allowing visitors great views down many of the cities streets. 

We started at W 34th street. The path looped along the Henry Hudson Parkway until it went up W 30th St. We followed it all the way to the end at Gansevoort Street where we had a delicious lunch in the Gansevoort Market before making the track back to W 34th street.  Its a great venue to relax and enjoy on a summer day.

Home Decorating: Beetle Art

Anyone who has ever been to my home knows that I have an eclectic sense of décor. While most items have been accumulated while traveling and represent some memory of a fantastic vacation to some far away place some items just strike my fancy. Today I added three new pieces to my eccentric collection. Their names are Chip, Chaz, and Charlie and they are three ceramic and metal beetles.

I first saw these unusual beetles hanging in a grid-like pattern at Arhaus Furniture in the spring. While I admired their quirky appearance their $49 a piece price tag left me less eager to have them join my collection. On an off chance I visited recently with a friend and found that they were marking down floor samples and clearance items in preparation for their annual warehouse sale. As luck would have it these ceramic and metal beetles were included in that sale and marked down to a more modest and reasonable $12 each. 

At that price it was worth a gamble to see if they might fit a spot on my wall I have long found challenging to fill. I hung them vertically and am happy with how they fill the space. It also added another unusual element in keeping with my eclectic personality. 

While I am enjoying the new pieces I have to stop purchasing things since I am out of room both on the walls or packed away in storage for a later date when I have more walls to hang things in a bigger home.

Home Decorating: Lamps, Flowers, Sailboats & Foo Dogs

During my time off at the end of 2014 I did a good deal of purging, cleaning and reorganizing around the house. I eliminated many unnecessary, outdated, or too small/big clothes as well as many household items. It felt good to empty the closets and make room for new things. Another big push was eliminating paper unless imperative to keep originals leading to a lot of scanning and shredding. With all that going on I had piles of trash bags and donations to Savers to take away.

Once done I was able to finally look around my place and notice a few things that I either didn’t like or was missing. I figured I’d make a trip to Homegoods and see what might strike my fancy and make the return trip home with me.

The first section of the store was occasional furniture. They have some of the most unique and unusual items but I don’t have any room for any furniture so I tried to pass by. One item that caught my attention and drew me in was an office desk made of aluminum and looked like a vintage airplane wing. It wasn’t functional with all the rivets and would require a piece of glass cut but as cool as it was I didn’t need it so I pushed forward.

As I explored the abyss of home decor products the lighting section caught my eye. They had a pair of really cool Drexel Heritage desk lamps in the same George Kovacs Arc style as the lamp I had purchased to go next to my Eames Lounge Chair. One thing that has always annoyed me was the lack of light on my desk and this pair would certainly add light. At $49.99 a piece into the cart they went.

Next I set my sights on the center of the store where they have everything from floral arrangements to small decorative items. Some of the floral arrangements looked so believably real I just had to pick one up. I settled on two different arrangements. The first a small vase with 5 white roses and I thought it would be a perfect fit for the bathroom. At $24.99 why not do it and be able to claim my bathroom always smells like roses. I also set my sights on a large bouquet of peonies, roses and other flowers that I thought  

 
would be a perfect fit for the coffee table. Big enough to be seen but not too big that the table is lost. I was in luck here since it had two price tags on it. One tag said $99.99 stuffed inside it and the other stuck on the outside very visible was $29.99. Not sure why it had two but I definitely wanted it at the $29.99 price and so into the cart it went.

I decided that it was time to check out and started making my way to the registers but not without one final stop by the clearance section. Strangely they had a pretty fantastic boat model of a vintage single mast sailboat with its stand. It was an imposing model and was easily 3 feet in length. Its front bowsprit was loose but looked like it just needed its screws tightened and was marked down from $99.99 to $29.99. I wasn’t going to pass on this model and into the cart it went alongside the lights and flowers.

As I made my way to the door the overflowing isles of goods kept me moving at a slow pace and one final item on an end cap had to be taken home. To be fair it was a pair of items. I have long has a fascination with Foo Dogs and they had a matched pair of Foo Dogs in a bluish green glaze with pretty awesome detail. Sadly they were $49.99 each. So another $100 if they were to make the trip home. I hesitated and looked at them for a good long time before deciding I would be angry at myself if I didn’t buy them. I wasn’t sure where they would go but I could always return them if I decided they just weren’t the right fit for my home.

 

While checking out I watched as the register total climbed to a final total of $284.93. That’s a lot of items for the cost. When I got home I immediately did some research on the items I bought. The Sailboat is from Authentic Models and retails for $269.99 so at $29.99 I saved 89%. The Foo Dogs I discovered retail for $195 each at a local furniture store so a savings of 75% off. The lights were another great deal retailing for $350 a piece saving 86%. The floral arrangements had no definitive marking or maker so I wasn’t able to locate an exact match but a smaller arrangement of peonies on overstock.com was $189.00 so I can only assume at $29.99 I saves at least 84%. The roses I found another similar arrangement for $69.99 of similar quality for a 65% savings. Total retail cost of my purchases $1,618.98 for 284.93 for a savings of roughly 83%

Orlando Vacation: Day 6 - Free Day

Given that it was supposed to rain all day I was pleasantly surprised to get up and discover the sun pouring through our room’s windows. When I looked out I could see the clouds in the distance and knew we wouldn’t have long before the rain soaked our day.

Dan and I got ourselves ready and left Chris in the room while we went and played a round of mini golf at one of the three on the resort grounds. According to the sign it is Florida’s only Official Championship Putt-putt Golf course. I would highly doubt it since it seemed pretty poorly maintained and that I have been to many a mini golf over the many years I have been visiting Florida. Either way it was fun and I clobbered Dan. I attribute my win to my Grandmother who was always very competitive and taught us how to putt and challenged us every visit we made. Even as she got older she still putted better than all of us. My two hole-in-ones certainly didn’t hurt either and left Dan clearly annoyed. Perhaps I should have let him win since it was his birthday after all.

After our mini golf we returned to the room and decided that we would head to the movies today to see Zac Efron in the Neighbors since the weather was not good and it would be miserable to walk around a theme park in the rain. Everyone agreed and we headed over to the Regal Point Orlando. The theatre and all of Point Orlando was like a ghost town. I expected to find the theatre packed but we were one of only a few small groups enjoying a movie.

After the movie ended it was still raining so we decided to check out the outlet mall again. I wanted to pick up a few more of those Johnston and Murphy shirts. We didn’t stay at the mall very long and began wandering around the city of Orlando. As we were driving I saw the since for Ripley’s Believe it or Not and asked if everyone wanted to check it out. Everyone seemed interested.

Even before entering we noticed that the building/odditorium as they call it looks like it is falling into a sinkhole with its significant lean. That was just the start of the strange and unusual things we would find inside.

Read my Ripley’s Belive it Or Not Blog Entry

After enjoying the strange and unusual we again found ourselves wandering around Orlando stopping at a variety of different Souvenir shops before deciding to grab a bite to eat for dinner. First we stopped at Dick’s Last Resort where the place was more than 75% empty and were seated at one of their many communal style tables. Given the lack of patronage currently in the restaurant we spread out a little since it was kind of cramped and were immediately told we had to move back since they were going to seat more people next to us.

I commented that there are plenty of empty seats to fill before putting someone on top of us. I know Dick’s has a reputation for being crass and rude but the rudely put response from the server that he didn’t care and that we needed to move back or he wouldn’t serve us was more than I was going to tolerate. As a group we decide that we would leave and try a different restaurant more accommodating to our need for a little more space. As we got up another waitress asked us where we were going. I responded that we were leaving and again the obnoxious comments came forth. “What are you too good for us? Are we not high class enough for you prima donna’s she barked.” I simply replied “You hit the nail on the head there sweetheart” and we walked out to more of their chastising. I understand the concept of Dick’s Last Resort however at the end of the day the needs of their customers should be meet and when they aren’t and a customer decides to leave they shouldn’t be chastised relentlessly.

After our less than appetizing experience at Dicks we moved on and found a different restaurant where we got burgers and fries and had a great time. After dinner and the rain still pouring down we headed back to the resort to relax and get some much needed rest. After all we had plans for our last full day at Universal Studios.