Orlando & Universal Studios!

After Atlanta, we made our way down to Orlando where we spent a couple of days visiting the Islands of Adventure and Universal Studios themeparks.

We hit Islands of Adventure first, and it was incredible, blowing away all my expectations. The rides were so well conceived and executed, it was just amazing. Lots of content, lots of detail, lots of thrills. The park was beautiful, and food and drinks were much cheaper and of a much better quality than those at 6 Flags (as were the rides). :-)

Here I am in front of the entrance to Poseidon's Fury, a simulated archaeological expedition gone terribly awry, complete with fireballs, lasers and a tunnel of spinning water. It all sounds totally corny, but it was really cool.

Exiting from Poseidon's Fury.

Next up was Dueling Dragons, my favorite ride of the day. Two separate but synchronized roller coasters on interlocking tracks representing a ferocious battle between a fire-breathing and an ice-breathing (?) dragon. This may have been the coolest roller coaster I've ever been on, and I think we did it about 5 times...

Then we got completely drenched on Dudley Do-Right's Ripsaw Falls.

Video highlight from Ripsaw Falls

Then we got even more drenched on Popeye & Bluto's Bilge-Rat Barge...

Christine getting cozy with the locals...

Here I am at the gate to Islands of Adventure at the end of the day

Christine and me on the Hulk coaster, one of the highlights of the day.

Hotlanta & Six Flags Over Georgia!

The morning after Flamingo’s, we got up and continued our drive south to Atlanta, making sure to fulfill our daily quota of IHOP’s and malls along the way.

This was the first time in Atlanta for each of us, and we both really loved it. People were really friendly and really hot and I'll really be back.


Me and Christine at Frog's, an outdoor Mexican place in Atlanta

But enough about that. Atlanta was all about visiting Six Flags Over Georgia, just a few miles outside the city in Austell.

Six Flags Over Georgia

Me & Christine at the entrance

We decided to splurge on the Gold Flashpass. This was the best $85 dollars we've ever spent. It allowed us to bypass all the lines at all the popular rides all day long. I think the longest we waited for anything was maybe about 5 minutes. Going on so many rides in such quick succession without the natural check of waiting in line was nearly more than our poor brain stems could handle. But we loved every minute of it. :-)

Here we are just before getting on the log flume.

And here we are getting drenched on the log flume. (And yes, that's me you can hear screaming like a schoolgirl...)

Here we are with a new friend we made along the way.

Then we took the skyway across the park to Acrophobia, easily the scariest ride of the entire day.

Video of Acrophobia -- it doesn't quite capture the heart-pounding, white-knuckle sensation of being suspended so high over the ground and dropping free fall for what seems to be an insanely long time...

Splashwater Falls. My second favorite ride at the park (after the "Goliath" coaster).

Here we are at the end of the day. Mission accomplished. We seriously regressed.

More regression to come: Orlando next!

Give My Regards to Broadway...

This is it! The last photo of me taken in my totally vacant apartment at 2025 Broadway. *sniff* Lots of good memories here, but it’s reassuring to know that Asli, the new owner, totally rocks and that the apartment will be well taken care of. :-)

Packing the whole place up was definitely a challenge, and of course I had to up the ante a bit by wearing dress shoes for the entire move. Since we had to park our Budget Truck rental on a snow bank outside my building, I slipped more than once getting in and out of the back of the truck and slid clear underneath the vehicle with all the requisite theatricality. Good times.

But we managed to get it all done, and as soon as I closed on the sale on the afternoon of Tuesday, March 20, Christine and I took off for greener pastures. I felt a bit like St. Nick, making pitstops at my parents’ place in New Jersey, then at my sister’s, then at Christine’s parents’ home in Virginia, dropping off all sorts of goodies along the way: a couch here, a table there, etc.


Christine in the back of our truck…


Note the fastidious organizational system in place.

Once we were in Virginia and had lightened our load a bit, we swapped out the truck for a bad-ass Jeep Commander SUV to carry the rest of the stuff to Naples, Florida.


Me and Christine about to leave her parents’ home in Virginia.

In the spirit of stopping to smell the roses and all that, we decided to take the scenic route south through Virginia and drove nearly the whole length of the Skyline Drive.




It was really scenic and very relaxing, as there were very few other cars on the route, though it was obviously off-season, as all the rest areas were closed along the way and the trees were bare for the most part. But we still had great views and there was a rather stark, otherworldly beauty about the place that grew on you after a while. :-)



After finishing the Skyline Drive, we then drove a good part of the Blue Ridge Parkway until around sunset, when we switched to highways to finish our drive to the motel in Fort Mill, South Carolina where we would be spending our first night. We couldn’t retire, however, without first popping out to the neighborhood watering hole and bonding with the locals. The front desk person at the Motel 6 knew there was a bar called “Flamingo’s” nearby, but recommended asking the guy sitting on a bench near the motel for directions, etc. I think Christine will mock me forever for walking up to a total stranger (who apparently has no affiliation with the motel and is perpetually sitting on that same bench on the street out front) and asking, “Pardon me, but are you the gentleman who knows about flamingos?” The important thing is that we eventually found the place and totally loved it.


I think I missed this shot (despite my amazing form).


Christine on Biker Bitch Drive

We played some pool and chatted it up with the mother/daughter pair working the joint (mom as short-order cook, daughter as bartender). Well, actually the mom was already off shift and downing one beer after another and sharing with us her fantasy that one of these guys pulling up on a big motorcycle every few minutes in front of the bar would finally sweep her off her feet and drive her off into the sunset. She was actually a riot – up until she had to be cut off and then stumbled out of the bar, presumably to go home. We left shortly thereafter, so we could rest up for our drive the next day to Hotlanta!

The Journey Continues…

After my brief sojourn in New York City, I was planning to drive down to Naples, Florida to bring some stuff from my apartment to my sister’s new condo down there. Then I was planning on flying from Florida to Australia to continue my travels. But the exciting new development is that I won’t be doing it alone! :-)

My friend Christine decided she would take a short leave of absence from the same law firm I was last working at, and she will be joining me for the drive to Florida, as well as the trip to Australia, in addition to doing a bunch of stuff on her own for the next few months.

And in order to get ourselves into the proper mindset to really enjoy Australia, we decided to christen our Florida road trip “The East Coast Regression Tour 2007,” stopping by a bunch of amusement parks along the way. Then we will fly from Miami to Melbourne and spend about 5 weeks in Australia, visiting Melbourne, Cairns & the Great Barrier Reef, Darwin and Sydney. To make this all even more serendipitous, we will be meeting up with our friends Stacy and Patty in Cairns, and Elliot and Stephanie in Sydney! I will be flying back to New York on May 3 to attend my cousin Kerri’s wedding in New York and hopefully visiting a few folks in the tri-state area, before flying to Paris on May 14 to stay until my MBA program starts in September. Whew!

In honor of Christine taking a leave of absence and spending some time away from NYC, her friend Sara organized a little going-away party for her at Absolutely Fourth in the village.


Jamie, Sara and Christine at Christine’s going-away party

Unfortunately, I don’t have any more photos from the party, because I was way too busy having a great time hanging with Christine and Sara and catching up with some friends from Wilmer (Sarah & Joanna, Rebecca, Alexis, etc.) and all the other intrepid souls who braved a particularly nasty and blizzardy March night to give Christine a proper send-off!

Final weeks in NYC...

Please excuse my long absence from the blogosphere. I had less than 3 weeks in New York City, and it was all a total blur. Aside from catching up on 3 months’ worth of unopened mail and paperwork, I had to do the final packing up and moving out of my apartment before closing on the sale March 20. I was also laid up with back and neck problems for most of my sojourn in the city, due in no small part to my first car accident ever in NYC. Sadly, I didn’t get an opportunity to meet up with nearly as many friends and family as I had hoped. :-(

Let’s start with the little traffic incident. I caught up with Sharon, Rachel & Tom for a drink in Chelsea about a week after I got back to New York. Rachel, Tom and I were then sharing a cab uptown. As we were heading west on 19th Street, a station wagon apparently ran a red light heading southbound on 9th Avenue and crashed into the right-rear corner of our taxi as we were passing through the intersection. We actually spun nearly 270 degrees and finally hit a parked car and came to a stop. It took a bit of time for police officers and others on the scene to get the taxi door open so we could get out, and the three of us all seemed to be in shock and banged up to varying degrees. I had quite a bit of pain in my neck and hips, and an ambulance took the three of us to the hospital.

Really, though, we were all very lucky. I think if the car had hit us just a second sooner, it would have collided head-on with the right rear door (next to which I was seated), as opposed to our right rear fender, and it would have been much, much worse. As it was, quite a bit of damage was done to our taxi, and our rear bumper was sent flying south down 9th Avenue, while we were sent spinning west on 19th Street. As you can see, the trunk lid was torn off the car and a good part of the trunk was shredded. (In this photo, you can also see my favorite blue hat on the rear dash -- it obviously flew off my head in the accident, never to be recovered. *sniff*)

The taxi Rachel, Tom and I were riding in, just after the accident

I spent a few hours at the hospital, where they insisted on taking x-rays, etc. Fortunately, for the most part, it seemed like I was okay, and I managed to see Dr. Jeff (my chiropractor) about 12 hours after the accident happened. I had some whiplash, as evidenced by the “shearing” between vertebrae in my neck, as well as “cervical straightening” in my neck, and my pelvis was a bit dislocated, but hopefully nothing that will give me too much trouble long-term.

Me at St. Vincent’s Midtown just after the accident, waiting to have x-rays taken. :-(

Never one to let some minor spinal issues hold me back, I made it to my brother Tommy’s place a couple of days later for his 42nd birthday. I couldn’t believe how much my niece Maya and nephew Michael had grown since I saw them last!
My mom and niece Maya at Tommy’s

Me, Tommy, my parents, my nephew Michael, Malgosia and Maya

I took a trip out to Long Island to see my brother Tim and his wife Kim and their son Timmy Jay. As you can see from the following pics, Timmy Jay is simply the most adorable child ever. J

Timmy Jay at Ruby Tuesday

I also managed to catch up with Kerry and Stacy over a couple of drinks at O’Hurley’s. Our favorite bartender Mr. Will took this photo of us – note my freshly-poured cosmo on the rocks.

I made a few trips down to New Jersey to move some stuff to both my sister’s place and my parent’s house in Monmouth County. While I was driving in the express lane on the Garden State Parkway, I noticed this rather unfortunately labeled van driving down the local lane. I snapped this photo, and then later found out from my mom that “Monmouth SCAT” stands for “Monmouth Special Citizens Area Transportation.” Somehow, I think they could have come up with a better acronym…

While in New Jersey, I visited a bit with Mike & Marie Steven, my parents’ best buds from too many decades ago to count. They were minding their beautiful granddaughter Autumn, so I got to meet her for the first time as well.
My sister MaryBeth and little Autumn

And lastly, just before I left New York, Rachel & Tom hosted a brunch at their apartment where we got to catch up with our old friend Richard and finally got to meet his new main squeeze, Shelley. We had a really great time, and it was nearly impossible to pull myself away to go back home and keep packing up my apartment.
Shelley, Richard, Me, Rachel & Tom

Alas, I didn't get to see a whole slew of folks I had hoped to catch up with while I was in New York. So sorry about that! Definitely hoping to have a little more time to do so on my first visit back, in early May! :-)

I'm Back!!!

Can you believe it?!?!?!? I'm back in New York City! But only for a couple of weeks. :-( I'm busy trying to get caught up with stuff and pack up and move out of my apartment so I can close on Tuesday, March 30 and head off for a road trip down to Florida before flying to Autralia... ;-)