Explosion out our window

There was an enormous steampipe explosion in midtown Manhattan yesterday evening, and it was right out our window.

Yesterday I was on the phone with Jake when I started hearing a deep, low rumbling noise coming from somwhere... the kind of sound that makes it hard to hear other things.

I casully placed my hand on our big picture window, and the whole window was vibrating! Still chatting with Jake, I took a step closer to the window to see if there was a big truck idling on the street below, and I saw one of the scariest things anyone can see... cars peeling out and dozens of people running frantically through the street, looking over their shoulders as they bolted away from something.

I turned to the left and saw, three blocks away, an enormous explosion-like plume erupting from my street 3 blocks north of our building. "I ! Um! Jake! ... I'm going to have to call you back!"



What is it? Should I leave? I'm a few blocks away, it seems safe. What if this rupture grows or spreads closer or something? I was freaking out. The area affected is almost directly between The Chrysler Building and Grand Central Terminal -- two landmarks, and likely targets for terrorism. My inial fear was that there was a bomb set off in the subway station... but I quickly realized that a) the station doesnt run that far south, and b) no bomb would continue to vent like this.

Within less than a minute, police, rescue, and fire were everywhere. Kudos to these guys for being on the ball! I frantically called Lily (aah, why wont she pick up??) and finally got her on IM. Whew, she was safe. I was so worried! We IMmed the whole time this was happening (my cell phone couldn't connect) and kept each other company.

I grabbed my camera and took the video above. Photos don't convey the power and speed at which this 30-story column of smoke & debris was erupting from the street. The first porton of the video is from literally moments after it began. It looked very much like a volcanic eruption. (It made me think of the movie "Volcano" where an active volcano begins erupting under LA or something silly like that.) My initial guess was that it was a ruptured steam pipe, which turned out to be the case.

Everything's fine now, and we're both safe. The road is closed at the corner below us, so thankfully we can come & go without crossing police tape. There are about 5 news vans in front of our place.

Candles weren't designed for Julys

It's stupidly hot today. We have some nice pillar candles decorating our picture window. Today, they became one with the glass.




So now we have D-shaped candles. Good thing they were only $4 at IKEA, and not $24 at Pottery Barn! We need better A/C.

5 dollar zen

We replaced the ugly $5 Home Depot light with a beautiful $5 IKEA light.




Why do people decorate with Home Depot stuff? They sell lumber.

Real furniture

Today is a very momentous day in our lives -- we just bought our first piece of real furniture!! Real furniture is made of wood and does not require self-assembly. :)

Ever since we painted our dining room red, we've envisioned a glorious antique Chinese buffet storing our fine china, gracing guests as they enter our home. It's remained only a vision for several reasons:


1. The buffet had to be a certain color. We can't have our guests' first impressions be a ghastly color clash.


2. It had to be a maximum 47" wide. Our walls are crooked enough that a 48" piece of furniture acts as a 1-inch doorstop. And most buffets are at least that wide.




3. It had to be within our budget. (Read: really cheap.) We just bought a place; there isn't much cash just lying around waiting to be spent.


This has made our search last over a year. Last month, I (Lily) was walking through a street fair and stumbled across a booth selling antique asian furniture. Standing there was a magnificent buffet... It was beautiful; the color was a perfect match; AND it was less than 48" ! And even better, the fair was at 3rd and 28th... not too long a haul. (Transportating items is always an obstacle in the city). Unfortunately, Sean was away on a business trip, and I couldn't purchase our first real piece of furniture without him. Saddend, I walked away. Alas! Another foiled attempt.

Today, we woke up and glanced out the window - another street fair, right below us! As we headed down the elevator Sean said, "Wouldn't it be funny if that antiques booth is like right out side our building?" (okay, he didn't use the word "like" - that was the Lily edit).

We walked out the door, I glanced to the left and you guessed it - there was the booth, just outside our building's door. We walked the 2 seconds to the booth and there it was. The buffet. We looked at it. It was beautiful, it was perfect. What was even more important - we successfully negotiated a price that we wanted to pay. It was ours!

The guys at the booth were even kind enough to help us carry it into our apartment. Sometimes, things just are meant to be.

Come visit and check out our new addition to the ghetto penthouse... becoming less ghetto, one piece of furniture at a time :)



Please ignore our minty fresh hallway.

The Minimal Effect

If you look around everywhere, cool & trendy is all about the minimalist effect. What better way to show off a room?!?!

So, I'm not too much into minimalism, it's too cold and impersonal. However, there are definitely lessons learned. It's with this minimal principal in mind when Sean and I loaded up 14 medium size boxes & a few pieces of furniture and called them our "outbox" pile. So a week shy of a year, we finally found someone to come and pick up our outbox pile! This is a huge monumental milestone - we celebrated gaining 50 sqft of our apartment back and losing 14 boxes of stuff by using our towels.

I'm sure by now you're asking yourself "Towels?!?! Huh?!?! What?!?!" As motivation for us to donate the outboxes, I told Sean that we can only use our fluffy, brand-new towels we got as a wedding present after the outbox is gone from our home.

Let me tell you, those towels are niiiiiiiiice :)

To help celebrate our minimalism milestone, Sean decided to put forth a bit of his own personal effort: