TechyDad

This is a special post not only because it is my 50th Aloha Friday, but also because it is about a place that is special in my heart: New York City. I’m writing and scheduling this from my house, but by the time you read it, I’ll be in NYC attending BlogHer 2010.

Growing up, my father worked in the city and every so often we would get to go to his office. I remember excitedly riding the train and subway. As we walked down the streets of the city, my sister and I would twist our necks to see the tops of the gigantic buildings. (By contrast, years later, when B showed me her home city, I felt let down as I grew up thinking city = towering buildings.) When we got to my father’s building, we would run up the steps, through the revolving door, through the revolving door, through the revolving door…. well, you get the point.

When we were done with the revolving door (or when our father said we were done), we would go to the elevator. Up we would go about twenty or so stories, the exact floor escapes my memory at the moment, and over to my father’s office. He had a big window to look out of and boy did the people and cars look tiny.

Later, during college, I interned at a PBS affiliate in New York City, WNET. Before my first day, my father accompanied me into the city and showed me how to navigate from where my train would leave me off, through Penn Station, to the appropriate subway lines and to my building. Without his help, I’d have likely wandered around for hours on my first day. Thanks to his assistance, I hardly ever got lost. Just one time, really, when I almost boarded a train for New Jersey instead of one for Long Island… Oops!

I know that BlogHer is going to be busy, but there is so much in the city that I’d love to do and see. I’d want to see the Museum of Natural History (would like to see it with NHL as well). I’d like to travel to the Lower East Side to get some of the best pickles around from NYC Pickle Guys. I’d like to catch a Broadway show and see Times Square. I’d like to visit Ground Zero, see the Empire State Building, see the Statue of Liberty and Central Park and …. Well, I guess you get the idea. Luckily, the city is a quick (relatively speaking) train ride from our house. Alternatively, we could visit my parents and take the LIRR from there into the city.

While I don’t think we’ll get to see many sights in New York City on this trip, I’m sure we’ll have plenty of great memories of BlogHer 2010!

My Aloha Friday question for today is: Have you ever been to New York City? If so, what was your favorite thing to do/see there? If not, what would you most like to do if you got the chance to visit there?

Thanks to Kailani at An Island Life for starting this fun for Friday. Please be sure to head over to her blog to say hello and sign the MckLinky there if you are participating.

Aloha #50

As you probably read on TheAngelForever.com, we saw Toy Story 3 on Sunday. It was a powerful movie and it is quite amazing how Pixar keeps topping themselves. I keep thinking "There’s no way they’ll beat this" and then they go and beat it. I won’t spoil anything but I don’t think that it’s a spoiler to mention that the movie is about Andy going to college and what happens to his once-beloved toys when he goes. The toys long for playtime and Andy just keeps them in a toy chest, forgotten and unplayed with.

A few days ago, I looked through my office. I have quite a collection of toys, momentos, pictures and other assorted items that I’ve collected over the years. Most of them have some sort of sentiment attached to them. Let’s go on a tour, shall we?

Starting from the left and heading right is the head of Dilbert’s boss. This is actually a "silly slammer." You hit it and it says things like "I’m the boss. It doesn’t have to make sense!" Then there’s Tigger and Pluto from our Disney World honeymoon. Behind them is Humphrey the Bear who was given to us by a Disney World tour guide upon finding out we were newlyweds on our honeymoon. Behind him is a canner penguin from a trip to Montreal we took prior to being married. Behind that is a Long Island Ducks rubber duckie. The Ducks are a baseball team near where my parents live.

Moving on we find the characters from Lilo and Stitch, another Disney movie I loved. Behind them is a Homer Simpson Pez dispenser, Mickey in a car, Dilbert and Dogbert. After them is a stuffed Hershey bar from when we visited Hershey, PA. The photos are B at our wedding and B and I with Mickey on our honeymoon. Finally, there’s the M&M guys from a trip to the M&Ms store in Las Vegas just before finding out B was pregnant with NHL.

Here we have a Mickey/Minnie wedding couple. You can wind them up and they dance. We got them at Disney during our honeymoon. Then there’s Winnie the Pooh in a cow costume. He was handed to us with Humphrey. In the back is Dr. Evil and Mini-Me along with Dr. Evil’s cat. Next to them is a box with Thing 1 and Thing 2. Besides being Dr. Seuss characters, they are also one of our nicknames for the boys. B and the boys gave me this. In the front are various snowglobes and momentos from trips to Mystic Seaport, Boston, Sesame Place, Hershey and Niagra Falls. There’s also a Disney World photo holder from our last Disney Trip (currently sans photo) and a Yoda/Darth Vader mirror toy. (You look in one end and it’s Yoda, look in the other and it’s Vader.)

That crystal and the little "eye guys" are from our trip to Howe Caverns while B was pregnant with NHL. Behind them is a penguin keepsake from our trip to Montreal. Next to them are my Farscape guys: John Crichton, Zhaan, Scorpious (with shrunken Hynerian head), Chianna, and D’Argo. They’re joined by Gandalf and Shrek. Quite the combination, huh?

Not pictured (mainly because he hasn’t been dusted in far too long) is a Spiderman toy perched on a Gargoyle affixed to my wall.  A web head covered in cobwebs is irony not laziness, right?

On top of my computer resides an Easy Button, Super Grover and Oscar from our trip to Sesame Place, a talking C-3PO that I picked up from a going-out-of-business KB Toys, Photographer Goofy from last year’s Disney World trip and a couple of DRDs who wandered away from the other Farscape guys.

Finally, there’s the front of my desk where I have my "Judge Me By My Size" Yoda from our most recent Disney World trip, the first photo of B that she sent me (along with the note she wrote me after we were engaged) and a pinscreen.

And that concludes my tour of my office toys/momentos. Getting back to Toy Story 3, I can’t help but wonder, when I shut the lights off at night, do my toys come alive and have parties?