Stay in your lane!

    I went for a bike ride today - with a mask and distancing from other people - and had a lady yell at me to "stay in your lane!". People often yell weird stuff, and usually I just ignore it. But this one bugged me because at that particular point in time, there were no lanes.

    You can see in the picture below that the lanes kind of end. I was beyond the yellow markers as seen in the photo. The path bends around under the overpass and eventually reconnects with some more bike lanes. But in between, there's just road with no painted or even implied lanes.

    Thinking back on it now, maybe she was just warning me to continue staying in my lane, that's the only thing I can think of that makes sense. Or maybe she was just being a New Yorker and wanted to yell at someone. 

 

But I wanna see the big boat!

The USNS Comfort was sent to NY to help provide extra beds for non-corona hospital patients. It's here because NYC is the epicenter for the covid-19 in the US and the city is running out of ICU beds to treat them.
But being NY, people are silly. Despite all the warnings and orders for social distancing, people gathered in large crowds to watch the ship arrive. The best way to avoid the corona virus is to stay away from other people, yet people ignore that to go see a ship that's supposed to help ease the pain of the hospitals during this time. Crazy.

USNS Comfort, in center, from our neighborhood across the river. (Taken while practicing social distancing.)

Bus driver hates on police

    Some bus drivers are talkative, some are silent. I had one that liked to announce every stop, including instructions for getting on and off the bus and then repeated the whole spiel over again. It was rather annoying, like non-stop talking. I much prefer the quiet drivers.
    One morning, I had a driver that was not having a good day. He was mildly complaining about things like the road and other drivers. Then we approached a stop light and a police car cut in front of him and stopped at the red light. This set Mr. Driver off and he started a whole tirade about how the police were ruining his life. His rant went something like this:

"Man, you guys are supposed to make traffic better, but here you go cutting in front of me and make me miss the light. Now I'm stuck here for no reason because of the police. Stupid police man, what you doing to me? Why you do this stuff to me? Oh... NO! Do not turn on your lights and drive through now. Arrrrggghh! I can't believe the police would do this to me. Now I'm stuck here for no reason. And you just drive off... No wonder traffic is so bad. You're supposed to make it better and you do this kind of thing? I can't believe it ..."

     Of course, all the passengers were silent, acting like this wasn't happening. Eventually, we made it through the light and the tunnel to the bus station. Mr. Driver only freaked out one more time when another bus cut him off near the entrance to the station. That caused a smaller rant about how people are ruining his life. I was happy to get off the bus that day.

Hey, I'm walking here!

    Shortly after moving here, I was having a discussion with other new employees at my company about living in the city. One topic that came up was whether or not people would want to have kids and raise them in the city. For most of them, it was "no way, it's a crazy place." One even made the comment that they'd have to be pretty tough kids to live here. I'm more in the camp of "sure, why not?"
    Now that I've been here a while, I realize that I don't often see kids in the city. Rarely on the trains, never on the buses, rarely on the streets. I see high school kids on the morning train, but really not many under the age of 15 or so. Maybe the timing isn't right and they've all been taken to elementary school or something. It is a little strange now that I think about it.
    I did have an interesting experience this last week though. I was waiting for my wife on a street corner in midtown. Since it was really cold outside, I was strolling a little just to move and keep a little warm. I was looking all around just to people watch and pass the time. I noticed a girl - maybe 8 years hold - and her mom walking down the street in the same direction as me. The sidewalk was mostly clear and I figured they had plenty of room to pass by.
    When they got close, I felt this little arm on my side, pushing me to the side. At first, I thought it was someone trying to get my attention. But no, it was just the little girl, pushing me out of her way. She didn't even say anything like "excuse me." So the only person (so far) that's pushed me out of the way on the streets of NYC is this 8 year old girl. I guess they do grow up to be pretty tough.

Empire State Building Colors

    One of the nice surprises we had after moving to New York was that we have a nice view of the Empire State Building from our upstairs window. Not only that, but it was nice to discover that the colors of the lights on the building change fairly often. Most days, it is its signature white color, but for other occasions, they switch it up a bit.
    For example, for the New York Rangers opening game night, it was colored in Rangers colors - Red, White, and Blue. For Thanksgiving, it was fall colors. This one is my favorite so far, Christmas colors between Christmas and New Years:

    Sometimes the colors are weird. Like on Christmas Eve, it was half Christmas colors and half Hanukkah. Which means that it didn't really look good either way.

Upside down drawing

    Lately, I've been trying to do some things other than being on the computer all day. One thing I've been experimenting with is drawing.

    I picked up Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain as one book I've been reading/working through on the topic. I like the exercises that it has you do. This one is my upside down drawing of Picasso's Igor Stravinsky. It didn't turn out exactly like the original, but I like it.

Subway Drummer

    NYC has a lot of musicians that perform in the subways. I recently learned that they need to apply and audition in order to be able to perform there. Most of the time, I see these performers as just more noise pollution. But the one I saw today was actually fascinating.
    He was a drummer, but he didn't have hands. His arms looked like they were amputated just above the elbows. Somehow, he had the drumsticks attached to what remained and he sat on the floor with a drum held in his knees. Then he drummed.
    I don't remember it being particularly good or bad drumming. I don't remember anything at all about how it sounded other than that he did have some recorded accompaniment. But it was interesting to see this guy being able to drum.