Up Late on the High Line

We were super excited about tonight. The High Line, which we've been on plenty of times before, invited the City to come out and play after dark, in an event they called Up Late on the High Line.

Along with the ability to roam the park after normal closing hours, they invited artists to create various light and sound installations to entertain us. Sounds like an amazing event, right? You can see why we were excited to go. And so was everyone else.

We waddled along and saw a few cool things (check out the video below for the full experience), but around 10:45 it was already too packed and they were asking people to leave. We made it to about the Standard:

So we turned back and took a few long exposures on 14th Street just to kill some time...

And then we wandered along 14th Street to Black Tap for a burger (pretty good, not up to Shake Shack standard or anything, but good) and their famous shakes (again, pretty good, not quite up to the hype, but very photogenic).

Check out the full experience in the video here:


Thanks for reading/watching. :) Have a great day!

#EveryPath in Central Park

I love Central Park. A lot. 

I love to explore it. All of it.

When I moved to the Upper West Side, I started running in Central Park as often as I could. I'd run different paths each day because I wanted to see it all. After a few months, I started to wonder if I'd actually been on every path in the Park. So I looked at different running apps and found a web app that could connect to Strava and overlay multiple runs on a single map.

So after possibly running the entire Park once (which, according to CentralPark.org's faqs, is 58 miles), I started tracking it to see for sure. Here's where I'm at as of tonight.

There are a couple paths currently under construction that I can't access, but whatever.

Now it's 2016, and I'm gonna do it again. Except this time, not only am I going to track my run, I'm going to document them on here. I'm going to post at least one picture from each of my runs through Central Park, along with the route and stats for the run.

I need to make one thing clear: I don't particularly like to run.

I don't care about my times or pace averages. They're often much worse than actual because I stop to take pictures and enjoy my surroundings. This project isn't about running or health or improvement of any kind. I JUST LOVE TO EXPLORE. And I love Central Park. I'm excited to share the Park with you, one path at a time. By the end of 2016, we'll have seen #everypath in Central Park.

And I'm hopeful that this hashtag catches on and people start to share areas they love to explore. #EveryPath in Zion National Park? #EveryPath in Yellowstone? Take the hashtag and run with it (or bike with it - Strava does biking too).

Here's what you need to join in:

• Strava: Android and iPhone
• Map Overlay: http://www.jonathanokeeffe.com/strava/map.php

Yay! See you on my next run.

Birthday #34

Today was my birthday!! Yay!

I worked for the first part of the day. In the early afternoon, I decided to go for a run. Because it's my birthday and I felt like running. Also because we learned that our scale has been off by 5 pounds and I fixed it last night so now I want to lose 5 pounds to get back to where I thought I was.

I ran for about 6 miles, from our apartment down through the rambles across the bow bridge down the mall all the way to the pond and gapstow bridge. And back up the east side and around the reservoir. I wanted to go to places that might have pretty colors for Fall. I found some.

The rambles (just south of the castle and above the lake) were ridiculous. Every direction you turned was picturesque.

Explore Central Park Run (with Photos!)

I've always wanted to explore Central Park. All of it. In one day. So I did.

So I went with Isa to work on Saturday (she's currently working at Columbus Circle for Zagat) and I thought it was a perfect opportunity (nice weather, time to kill, etc) to run. For those of you who have never been to Central Park, it starts at 59th Street and goes up to 110th Street, which is 2.5 miles. I thought if I zigzagged a little bit, I could turn it into a 4 or 5 mile run.

So I started running, and then I kept going. And when I got home and mapped it out, it turned out that I ran 8.25 miles! So enjoy my (not so) little exploration of Central Park on a nice Spring Saturday.

The mile markers are circled, the photos are numbered.

So without further ado, here is my Central Park run pic explosion (I whittled it down to just 15 out of the 51 I took). They're numbered so if you want to know where I took a particular shot, you can find it on the map above. You can find 41 of the 51 shots (I don't really like 10 of my pictures) on the Facebook album I'll create tomorrow.

Gapstow Bridge on the Pond, with the Plaza in the background. One of my favorite places in the Park.

Classic Central Park. Kid playing on Balto, horse-drawn carriage over an archway.

Some of the trees are starting to look pretty. :)

Isa and I tried to get an apartment in those towers.
Come to find out Madonna and Bono live in the building.

The boats are out already!

Isa and my favorite arch in the Rambles.

The obelisk behind the MET.

I think this is my favorite pic of the day.

If you weren't sure how big Central Park was, this should help.

Cool bridge by the Bridal Path.

Click this picture to enlarge it and look at her painting. It's amazing!

Hands down the prettiest place in the Park: the Conservatory Gardens.

Ahh, love is in the air. All over the park, the ducks are all paired off.

Pretty plaza by the Discovery Center.

Yeah, so 8.25 miles later, I got back on the B train and headed home. And I'm proud to say that my legs don't hurt at all. They needed a little stretching yesterday and today, but overall I think I fared pretty well.

Next up: Half Marathon.

Help Us Make a Baby

Hello world! It's me, Brian! I see things look a bit more girly around here since my last post. Serves me right for abandoning the blogging world like that.

As you know from Isa's posts, we've been busy creating a new Android application (for those of you that are less tech savvy than others, there are four basic types of smart phones out there - iPhones, Windows phones, Blackberry's, and pretty much everything else is an Android phone). Our application works on Android phones. It finds your location and points out spots around you where you can sit down and relax. If you haven't seen the demonstration video yet, watch that here:

We entered the video into a citywide contest, with $50k in prizes. We're eligible for about $23,000 if we win all the categories we're entered in. (Could you even imagine?!?!!!!) Most winners are based solely on the judges' discretion and criteria, and we just hope they love our app as much as we do. :)

But there is one $4000 category called the Popular Choice Award. And that's where you come in. We need votes. You can vote once a day, so keep coming back each day to help. And tell your friends. It's really easy.

For now,  here's what we would LOVE for you to do:

1. Create a profile (which is super easy) on the BigApps 3.0 page:
http://2011.nycbigapps.com/ (top right corner, click sign up)

2. Go to your email and click the link to confirm your email address. That will open up the BigApps 3.0 page again.

3. Find the RelaxNYC app. Click the submission gallery and search for "relax" or just click this link: http://2011.nycbigapps.com/submissions/5799-relaxnyc

4. Make a comment below the app. It could be about the video, about the app, about the idea, just saying hello, wishing us good luck, or complete gibberish. You can't vote yet, but you can leave a comment.

Voting doesn't start until tomorrow (Thursday) at 10am, but commenting now helps put our app toward the top for people who don't know what they're looking for. :)

You're the best! Thanks!

Oh, and how, you may ask, does this help us make a baby? Well, babies are expensive. And our savings account could use a boost so that we'll be financially ready for offspring.

So your votes = $ = baby sooner than later. :)

Relax NYC

Brian has been hush-hush (kinda) about his app for awhile now, but it's almost finished! And now we need help!

For those who don't know, he's created an app that can search for places to sit (parks, street benches, playgrounds, etc.) while you're walking around NYC. The app is called Relax NYC.

It's meant for both locals and tourists, kind of along the same line as NYC Mate (has subway and bus maps with schedules).

The issue we're currently having is deciding what direction design-wise to go in: more fun and playful (1) or more polished and city-like (2). Photo here:

We like how appealing number 2 is, but like the idea of number 1. Number 1, however, also looks more like a game than a tool. But number 2 looks very similar to NYC mate (unintentional):

Any comments? Helpful ideas? Do you like #1 or #2 better? Which would you rather use and download? Which reflects the app better? Which reflects the city and appeals to its users better?

Anything would help! Thanks!!

Fashion's Night Out NYC 2011

Blogging is like exercise. It feels good when I do it all the time, but if I stop for a while, it takes a lot to get me back in the habit. So what was so big that I just have to write about it?

Fashion's night out is the kick-off to Fashion Week here in New York City. All (and I mean ALL) of the stores on 5th Ave and Madison Ave that have anything to do with fashion throw parties that go from 6 til 11pm. There are honestly thousands of parties all over the City. I went to the Upper East Side, because I'm not cool enough to party in the meat-packing district.

There are a few things that every party had in common, and a few stores went the extra mile to set themselves apart from the rest of the pack.

First, the common themes:

Alcohol. And a lot of it.

Most places just had servers wandering around giving out champagne and mixed drinks. Some places skip the server and just put all the drinks out for you to grab.

And DKNY skipped the champagne all together and went right to free beer.

Music. The louder the better.

Every place blasted fun and upbeat tunes, and most had live DJ's.

That's the official Fashion's Night Out tote bag - only $50!

Some had jazz bands...

And one (Ann Taylor) had Natasha Bedingfield, who is really good. I like her now.

Tiffany's had Leighton Meester, but it was packed full before I got there, so here's the main floor, decked out in Disco style:

I didn't mean to go to all these places, I actually just went for the "carnival" at Alice + Olive's that I read about in this morning's paper:

They were doing free makeovers and haircuts and face painting and all sorts of fun stuff in there. But it was so packed, so I left. But on my way to the subway, something caught my eye.

No, not that, this:

Free Food!!!

And then I needed something to drink, something non-alcoholic, so I went into another place and got some water and kettle corn.

And then, since I was well-fed, I decided to hang out for a while. And I probably hit up 15 different parties. All in all, fun night. I highly recommend it.

Happy Birthday America

As any of my friends know, I'm always late in wishing people a happy birthday. So it's fitting that I post this a day late.

The day started out in Coney Island (as every July 4th does) with a hot dog eating contest at Nathan's. It's been going on for decades, and although Isa and I had heard about it forever, we'd never been. Now we've been...

...along with 50,000 other people. I'll give it to them, the first two or three minutes of the contest is pretty exciting. To see someone eat 20 hot dogs in two minutes is quite a sight. But then it's pretty much the same, but a little slower, for the next 8 minutes. I think it was worth going to once, just for the experience and to say we've been there, but we'll probably not be attending again.

But 62 hot dogs? Seriously? Forget being able to eat that fast, how do you eat 62 hot dogs? How are you not full after 20? Or 5? Or if you're Isa, 2? Who feeds these people for Thanksgiving?

After the contest, we headed home to put together a picnic and then staked out a sweet spot on the West Side Highway for the fireworks on the Hudson. We didn't bring the real camera or the tripod because we didn't think we'd have space. We were wrong.

We were one of the first ones there at 4:30pm (for a 9:20 show, which is surprising considering Bryant Park movies are packed 5 hours before the show) and so we staked out the corner of the spectator holding cell at 30th and 12th Ave.

The weather was perfect and the sunset was beautiful.

FDNY Fireboat sprayed red, white, and blue water

pretty. :)

Isa's pic. LOVE this.

Macy's fireworks did not disappoint. From our sweet vantage spot, we could see four of the six barges clearly. If you've never seen the NYC fireworks, Macy's sets up six barges in a line up the Hudson River and they shoot off fireworks simultaneously, creating a 2-mile wide fireworks display that's pretty dang amazing.

Happy Independence Day everyone. Thanks to everyone who fights to keep this land free. Because I was thinking about it last night, and I really like being free. Like a lot. America rocks.

NYC Roads Will Eat You

This is in the middle of the road right next to our apartment.

Yeah, that thing could practically swallow a mini cooper whole. And if somehow a piece of it got through, its little brother would eat the rest of you 30 feet later.

And that is reason number 26,307 that I take the subway. There are never potholes on the tracks. Unless you're at Dekalb Ave. I'm pretty sure there are a few holes in that station (see train derailments here, here, and even back in 1985. Enough trains have derailed at Dekalb Ave, there's even a punk song about it).