Wednesday, March 28, 2007

Miami in the Spring

You can smell the spring in the air! The facilities personnel are repairing steps on campus to their original specifications:
The campus and its many paths are beautifully lit:
And the uptown stores proudly announce new arrivals:
Can you feel it?

Monday, March 19, 2007

See where we went in NYC!

Click here to see an interactive map of our trip! Here is a small sample:

CommunityWalk Map - Kurt and Jamie's NY Trip!

Thursday, March 15, 2007

New York City, Part 1

Four days. 291 pictures. New York City...

Don't forget to the click on the pictures and make them huge!

Here we are at the hotel. Let the NYC adventure begin!
Walk out of the hotel front door, turn right and walk about a half a block, and turn right for this view of Times Square:
It was definitely worth staying so close to Times Square.
Legally Blonde the musical? Apparently. Also, the McDonald's we visited - with a $2 "Dollar Menu!"
Here we are on our last night - Times Square at night is amazing.Next, we jumped on our double-decker buses (which I forgot to photograph!) and headed up the Empire State Building. After 9/11 it's now the tallest building in New York, and only #2 in the U.S. to the Sears Tower in Chicago.
Yup - pretty big.Here is the view from the 86th floor. This is "uptown," and you can see a famous building!
This is all the closer we got to the Chrysler building.Here is a view of "downtown" Manhattan. The twin towers would have been toward the right of the mass of buildings down there. On the bottom left you can see the gold roof of the New York Life building.
Also in uptown, you can see the "Flatiron" building. Some consider it the first skyscraper when it was the first large building to be built with a steel frame around the turn of the 20th century. People thought that it was impossible for a building to stand and be so narrow. Next, we hopped back on the bus tour and stopped to get a shot of the Brooklyn Bridge. I like bridges.
Next, the Waldorf Astoria hotel. Apparently a different nation's flag flies along the Star and Stripes when a foreign head of state is staying there.
Next comes the home of The Donald: Trump Tower.

The Trump Tower is almost right across the street from the U.N.
There is a flag for each U.N. Member nation - from A to Z.
Next, we hopped off the bus and walked down to ground zero. Although a lot of construction is going on, no official memorial exists yet.
In the background you can see a glass skyscraper, the first of the World Trade Center Complex to be rebuilt after 9/11. There is a train station finished now in the center of the complex, and construction of the Freedom Tower should start soon.
Wall Street!
The New York Stock Exchange (on a very narrow Wall Street.)
Next is Part 2!

New York City Intermission

Here are a few extra pictures with some neat labels!

Remember - click on the pictures to make the labels readable!

First, from the corner by our hotel on Times Square we could see the Empire State Building:
From the Empire State Building we could see the corner of Times Square next to our hotel!
Here is a composite I made of uptown Manhattan with a few buildings and areas labeled.
Here is a view of downtown Manhattan with a few more buildings and areas labeled. Enjoy!

New York City, Part 2

Welcome to Part 2! When we made that right turn out of our hotel everyday, we had a two-story electronic billboard to subliminally cause us to crave M&M's. It was M&M World!
What's in M&M World? Why, two-story columns of every M&M color ever! Not to mention a bag to stick at the bottom and load up with. We went to M&M World every day.
Here is the St. James Theater where we saw The Producers on Sunday night. We came back the next day to take a picture of it, and unfortunately the sign that read "Now Starring Tony Danza" had been taken down. We saw his last performance in the show!
A quick walk up Broadway from Times Square led us to the Ed Sullivan Theater.
Of course, right around the corner on 53rd Street is where Dave does all of his outdoor antics - right in front of Rupert G's Hello Deli!
We went in and got a picture with Rupert. Unfortunately, the person must have been a bit shaky when she took the picture - it's a little blurry. We bought a Snickers and a bottle of water because no one was actually patronizing his shop!
Next is Rockefeller Center, also known as 30 Rock (for its address). This is the skating rink and statue that we always see on TV. The big Christmas tree goes right behind the statue. Oh, and the skating rink is a bit smaller in real life - not even bigger than a high school basketball court.
What else is at Rockefeller Center? NBC Studios! Across the street from here they film the Today show. (We didn't head over in time for the show. We were already riding a double-decker bus around town - we figured that was touristy enough.)
And what is right next to the Today Show? Christie's auction house - where they sold all that Star Trek stuff!Next, we hopped on the subway and headed to the Bronx. Yankee Stadium isn't exactly in a nice part of town. Let's just say I neglected to take a picture of the dead rat (seriously).
Riding the subway the other way into Queens brought us to Shea Stadium. Not shady - there wasn't a soul around.

That concludes our great trip to NYC! How do you finish up four days in the city? Eating at Applebees above Times Square!

I took 291 pictures, so if there are any requests for others you think I would have taken just let me know!

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

Oxford Repair

Uh... how many months has it been? Quite a few...

Not to mention the glass had been cracked for years.