10/20 - 10/22 - The cold comes in the Night and so does Party Time

Friday after work I carried the bag I had bought at Kohl's and made my way back into the city. Russ was hanging with Nathan and Gary over at the Tribeca Grand Hotel. The weather had turned cold but my Nike jacket was warm enough to get me there but definitely not as warm as I wanted to be. I could not get a taxi but it wasn't too far to walk from the PATH station, just a long 15 minute walk up the street. After I found the guys at the bar we hung out for a bit, ordered some very simple veggie appetizers before finally deciding we needed to go out to dinner and go some place else to get it. We headed around the corner to Walker's and got a table right near the front door and had the very friendly wait staff keep us happy with drinks and good food. The hamburger was just as good as advertised and we all had a very good meal. After dinner we said goodnight to the guys and then Russ and I headed over to the Ave to flag down a taxi to take us over to the parking garage where the Murano waited to take us back to Brooklyn. Battling trucks and buses we got back to Brooklyn in short order and headed upstairs for a quick clean up and then time for sleep.

Saturday morning I woke up to delivery breakfast and watching TV. Russ was going to meet Nathan at the gym so I decided I would go too and we headed into the city to go to the NYSC near City Hall. Nathan arrived a short while later and we continued through the work out before we finished up and headed over to Wendy's for lunch. I got a Grilled chicken sandwich myself and the guys got Frescatta sandwiches which they said were quite good. After we said bye to Nathan it was back to Brooklyn to chill out for a while as afternoon drew to a close and the night settled in. I watched DVR programming and woke Russ up when it was time to order dinner and get the dinner delivery before it was time to clean up and get ready to head out. Russ decided he was going to stay home for a bye week so I was going to head out alone for the evening.

I was able get a car at the car service and headed into the city. No real traffic and I was able to get to the city pretty easily. Dropped off at the corner of 18th Street I walked over to the front of Roxy and after saying hi to Derek I headed inside. The rest of the month was 21 and over to enter and the party so the crowd took a while to pile in. I think part of the problem was that no one knew what to expect from DJ Merritt. On some nights he goes electro way too soon and sometimes loses the crowd part way through the night. I've enjoyed Merritt at Roxy from back when he used to open for Peter and even more-so after Peter was gone and he opened for himself. He seemed to be in a much better mood on this night however and the music was on point from the very beginning. We heard hits from Madonna "Jump" and "Nobody Knows Me" along with "Boost Your Metabolism", "Sexyback", "Let the Music Use You Up" and a whole lot of music that I thoroughly enjoyed. Unfortunately although the crowd enjoyed the music (the area around the bar was emptied out and the floor was full), there were other parties (Evolve with Victor Calderone) that some people were looking forward to and my friends Rob and Tres had invited me but I decided to stay at Roxy. After they left and took some of the entourage with them the dance floor developed quite a few empty spaces. The music was still good though and I myself stayed at the party until 5am before finally heading out to pick up my coat before heading out into the night. A short walk over to 9th Avenue and I found my car ride home and headed back to Bklyn for my well deserved rest.

Sunday I stayed in. No going outside for me. We had already picked up dinner fixings so I made Lasagna (which turned out most excellent by the way) but after dinner I did not feel like leaving the house so Russ picked up dessert at Baskin Robbins and brought it back. Since there was no "Wire" to watch on HBO due to the World Series we watched DVR programming and then the news and then it was time to shutdown the weekend and prepare for my week of school in Midtown. I so deplore waking up early multiple days in a row.

10/13-10/15 Return to New York and Return of Manny

So So Busy. Updates so far and few in between. But at least I'm still having fun. I had just returned from my long weekend and short work week to start a new weekend. I did not go out on Friday Night, just came home and watched TV. I even went to bed at a reasonable hour because I wanted to make sure I went into the weekend well rested.

I awoke on Saturday morning, enjoyed delivery breakfast, and made ready to go to the gym. Russ drove us over to the city and we worked out at the NYSC near City Hall. The workout went well and afterwards we headed over to Wendy's and had lunch. I had a burger myself and watched Russ have his own. Afterwards we headed back to Brooklyn and chilled out for the rest of the afternoon. My poor Powerbook was still keeping me from my full music transferring capabilities (from PC to Powerbook to Ipod) but on the PC in the office I still was able to search on Beatport and Itunes for new tunes. When dinnertime finally rolled around I had my chicken caesar salad and after watching Cops on Fox I went ahead and did the weekly haircut. Once that was over we showered and cleaned up and dressed for the night out.

Russ and I piled into the Murano and headed into the city. After one loop around the block we found parking just down the block from the club and headed up the street. After saying hi to Derek I headed inside the club and said hello to the wristband girls and then coatcheck. I also spoke with Aisha and told her much fun I had up at the Black and Blue. After speaking for a little bit I caught up with Russ at the bar and then said hello to Jose. I gave him a gift shirt brought back from Canada and discussed how quickly the place was filling up. Our Roxy DJ for the evening was Manny Lehman who had not had a Roxy appearance since before the summer time. It was a long wait but I knew it was going go as well as usual as virtually no other large party DJ reads the crowd and gives them what they want. Once I heard the opening beats to his own mix of "Jump" and I was up on the speaker in the asian section and dancing. I stayed through a tribal song and before I could get off the speaker he segued into "Sexyback" so I took off my shirt and danced some more and once the song changed once again to "Promiscuous" I lit my hands with the lights and danced some more before finally returning over to my friends near the bar. The mood of the party stayed upbeat through all of the expected hits that Manny played for the crowd and the place stayed packed until far after 4am. Russ was still recouping from our trip to Montreal so we left the party around 4:20am and stopped at the diner on the corner for Russ to have a bite to eat before heading back to BK. Another party enjoyed and while not too many of our friends were there the crowd was upbeat and the party was all that could be expected.

Sunday I woke to delivery breakfast and watched football games on Fox and CBS through the afternoon. I made stuffed shells for dinner and we enjoyed those before settling in for the evening programming. Of course we took a short break to pick up some vanilla ice cream from Baskin Robbins and catching up to The Wire on HBO at 10pm. And now another week of work ahead. (It happens to the best of us). Until next time

10/6-10/10 - To Montreal we go and a Black and Blue Weekend it is

Friday

We drove all afternoon and all night (7 hour drive when you have to stop to eat at least once and several rest stops as well). We arrived in Montreal a little after midnight and then had to find the Host Hotel that had the event tickets. A little driving around in the city and we found the Delta in the more modern business section of Downtown rather than the middle of the tourist/club/shopping areas at the other end of St Catherine. After I had picked up our tickets we headed to the hotel and checked in. I love the Suites and I cleaned up and then got ready to head out. My sister was dressed all in black and I opted for black long shorts and my boots along with the leather armbands. We were heading out to the Leather Party after all. Russ was tired from driving so Ana and I headed out to the ATM on St Catherine across the street from McDonalds and picked up some Canadian bills. We then headed back the way we came and made our way into Club Medley.

The club is a concert venue as it has a nice stage but is build for Standing Room Only. The dancefloor is big enough for a smaller party but since they closed off most of the upstairs most of the crowding was due to the fact that people only could go upstairs for the restrooms. We had arrived late but we still saw the show with Kevin Aviance and we cheered him on with drinks in hand (it was a chore getting understood at first but since we always wanted the same drinks we just had to do the pantomime for what we wanted once). After the show Ana was able to get Kevin's signature on a 5 dollar bill along with a signature Kiss on the bill as well.

We stayed until 4:30am as we wanted to be able to hangout again the next night. Ana wanted something to munch on before she turned in We looked through different 24hr Bodega type stores and ended up buying items in the vending in the hotel. Soup and crackers. I was able to relax and head to bed on our first night.

Saturday

We headed out after noon for Brunch at the restaurant that was serving Brunch on our passes. The service was nice and the food was pretty good if more exotic than my usual "bacon and egg" breakfast fare. Afterwards we headed over to the Pharmaprix and picked up cranberry juice, water and different hotel room items and then headed over to the store across the street to buy some Absolut Vodka. We then caught a taxi and headed back to the room. I spent a while trying to find directions to the gym we had free visits for with our passes. After I located the address I used the map of the city in the tourist guide to locate and we headed out with the Murano. Of course we got lost and asked a bus driver who told us we were 5 blocks south of where we needed to be. The street was parallel to St Catherine and did not cross it. We found the street, found the gym, and got to work out. The gym was huge with a lot of over used machines but with an unmatched selection of different types of machines and a lot of space. After the workout was over we headed back out, took pictures of the Olympic stadium and headed back to the hotel. We had passes for dinner after 6pm and we arrived after 7 and had dinner. Ana won a CD from one of the previous parties and we had a great steak dinner. After dinner we caught a cab back to the room and watched Sat Night television on Canadian TV. From the racy sexy camera shows (Candid Camera but with naked people) and the crazy commercials and the subtitled MTV and sports programming we had plenty to watch. Ana had guest list at a Grey Goose party but it was too far away when the Military Ball was right around the corner.

We made our obligatory trip to the ATM and then headed over to the club around 1:00am. After the thorough security check after we checked our coats we were into the party vibe. I headed upstairs first to get a nice overview of the whole place but the lighting was much darker than I remembered. We still saw a cool stage performance and then headed downstairs to do some more dancing. When Manny put on Madonna and "Jump" I headed to one of the platforms in the middle of the crowd on the dancefloor and danced. There were plenty of people who also wanted to dance and at one point I ended up dancing between 4 other people. But finally the space cleared and I danced with just 2 other people on the platform before coming down and heading back over to where Ana was standing. We had a pretty good bartender at the back bar and she even had shots with us before the drink cutoff when we got our final drinks. The DJ for the middle of the party was Manny Lehman and after the cool segue into DJ Paulette I decided it was time for us to go around 5:30. We still had plenty of other parties to look forward to. We headed out and my sister got late night food at McDonalds (burgers) before heading back to hotel. Another party enjoyed and then to sleep.

Sunday

Russ was still not heading out anytime soon (Saturday afternoon gym visit turned into back muscle strain) so Ana and I headed back to the Pharmaprix to pick up back soreness stuff and some more hotel room stuff. We then picked up lunch (me at Mickey D's and Ana some Canadian Pizza that Ana did not like when we got back to the hotel). I gave Russ his food from Mickey D's and he went back to watching TV while I played with my DS for a bit before taking a nap. Around dinner time Ana and I headed over to Chinatown and picked up something to eat. The food selection was poor but we made do with what was available and I had orange chicken and Ana had something made with goat. Russ liked his dumplings and some of the Orange chicken but I found the food very generic as NY Chinese food seems to put most other cities to shame. Anyway after watching more Canadian TV we got ready around midnight to head over to the main even party at the stadium. I decided to go with blue camo shorts and a t-shirt with blue on the front. My lights were attached to my waist so the Security had no problem with my usual pocket full of stuff (mints, eyedrops, lipbalm, and Purell) Once inside the stadium we had the long walk to the entrance to the stadium floor. The party was in full swing and the crowd was huge. We appeared to have arrived after the main rush because there were no crowds at the coat check or at the security check but the dancefloor was packed. I gave Ana a light for her wrist so we could see each other from far away and then we headed into the crowd. The bars were already running out of drinks an hour before cutoff so we both had rum and cokes to drink before I switched to a Base (gatorade). When the time for cutoff rolled around we were cutoff 5 minutes early but were able to head into the VIP and order our last round before it was too late. Last drink under our belt and a trip completed to the real restroom deep into the stadium we were back in the VIP section dancing on the platform. We headed out briefly to dance in front of the stage and were just in time for the next performance. Three drag queens, an entire squad of BBCM dancers and the acrobats on the trampolines and we had plenty to lookout as they performed a whole routine to "Ain't No Other Man" and a few other recent hits. After that was over we headed back into the VIP and danced some more. We saw another stage show that we watched from the VIP around 5:30 am and stayed at the party until 8:30am in the morning. I could have stayed longer but felt Ana and myself really should get some rest since we had been at the party for over 6 hours. I was once again happy we danced on the wood flooring in the VIP section rather than the stone floor on the main section. Much less stress on the feet. Especially the way I dance we I like the music. Our trip back out to the coatcheck was much shorter and we got our stuff and headed out into the daylight. Instead of flagging down a taxi we walked over to the train station and caught a train back to Berri Uqam not far from Mickey D's and our hotel. We picked up breakfast and then headed back to the hotel and told Russ about the party. Then I went to sleep.

Monday


I woke up in the early afternoon and we headed to the Canadian KFC (PKC) before heading back to the room. More Canadian TV and then calling Ana who had taken a day trip on the subway to see the city. After she came back we headed down St Catherine to the diner type restaurant we knew about and had a great hamburger dinner. After dinner was over we went back to the room cleaned up and Ana and I decided what we were wearing to our last party. We also packed up our luggage so we would not have to pack in the morning. We made a drink in the room before we left and then headed out to the ATM and then to Stero Bar across the street. Thank goodness we had our drink before we headed inside as Stereo is an afterhours club (I forgot) but it was a good detox from the previous parties and I got a good dance and sweat on before 3:10am rolled around and I told Ana it was time to go. We picked up our stuff at coatcheck and then headed down the street to the Couche-Tarde 24hr store. Nothing inside that Ana wanted so we headed back down the street, dodged homeless people and went back to the room and to bed in the hotel for the last night.



Tuesday



I woke up, washed up got dressed and we all said bye to the hotel room. We checked out retrieved the car and headed into the city to find a coffeeshop that took our coffee coupons and then we headed for Rue de Bonaventure and out of the city. The trip back was faster but the wait at the border was just as long. The guard was conversational but trying to catch in something suspicious but we had no issues and headed back home through NY State. (A week later Buffalo was hit with 2 feet of snow, who knew?) Anyway our trip back was all good until I suggested we head back through NJ and Russ wanted to head through NYC. During rush hour that was not a good idea and we had to make a rest stop for Ana at the Amex building downtown. We then drove over to Staten and picked up the baby on Staten over at Moms and then headed back to BK. Once we got back home we called a car service for Ana to get back to her home and we said goodnight. A nice order of Chinese food from Uncle Liao's and we had completed our return. Then we started watching DVR programming from when we were gone.


Another good time.

If I go back to the Black and Blue again I will fly up to Montreal. That 7 hour drive takes too much out of you but it is still pretty, I will just enjoy the park pics when I get to Montreal rather than just the trip. I did a good job with the planning this time but next year will plan even better.

9/29 - 10/1 - Party In and Party Out and then Party again..

I met up with Russ in the city and decided that even though we were going out to hang we would eat something before it got too late. We each picked up Whopper, headed back home, ate the sandwiches and then changed to head out. Russ had the directions and once we were in the depths of Brooklyn I fell asleep for a few minutes until we got off of the Cross Island expwy near Cypress Hill. After moving the the neighborhood for a bit we finally passed the familiar and turned on the right street and then parked in the Jimmy's driveway and headed inside. We said hello to Chris and Cliff and after banging my leg on the coffee table the host gave us a tour of the house and then after my coat was hung up I headed into the kitchen and had myself some chicken wings. After the meal we headed down to the game room and watched the guys play Poker. We welcomed Stephen, Mike, Ben, Donnie and Ty and continued with our party. After the Poker tides had turned back and forth quite enough and enough drinks had been drunk, I had saved bottles of beer falling from the fridge and made myself some excellent Sprite and Ketel One drinks. When we could play no more it was time to head back home. We said goodnight to the guys, I made sure Donnie had his CD and we gave the Jimmy his gift bottle of Belvedere. We headed back across Brooklyn, dropped our friend off at home and then headed back to the slope. Good Night.

Saturday we had delivery breakfast and then headed out to Pathmark to pick up soda, orange juice and some other stuff for the house. Once that was over we headed back home and chilled out some watching DVR programming including the delayed watching of ER as well. It was time to chill out for a while and then once dinner rolled around we watched Cops and ordered the delivery of chicken caesar salad. After watching the DVR episodes of Oprah and the Dateline NBC with the stupid predator men who get caught trying to go to the house of the young chicken head girls and boys they met online. After watching the end of those shows I went ahead and cleaned up with the haircut, then the shower and shave. After the wardrobe was all set up I was ready to step out into the night. I said goodnight to Russ and headed out.

A short walk down the hill and then into the car service. I stretched my legs while waiting and then walked out to the car and got in with the driver when she arrived. She told me there was made traffic on the bridge so I paid for her to go through the tunnel but of course she went in the EZ Pass lane when she had no EZ Pass so we had to give the booth money to the police before we headed through the tunnel. We made good time into the city until crossing 18th street I decided to get out and walk the rest of the block over to
Gym Bar. I stopped in and said hello to Ty and gave him my latest R&B CD "Ride and G Groove" before finishing off my drink, picking up the magazines and then heading out into the night and down the block. I got in front of the club and after a short wait I said hello to Derek and the security and headed inside. Once inside I hung out with Aisha for a while and headed inside to see the crowd and headed to the back to see my bartender Jose. The Roxy DJ for the eve was DJ Mike Cruz. I was not sure If I would be as excited as the first few times he was DJ at the Rox but I kept my hopes up and got into the groove. The energy was upbeat, the crowd came early and the party got the place full before 1am. The music ranged the tribal and vocal mix spectrum and even though I expected "Glamorous Life" I still enjoyed it and the rest of the music as well. I hung out with Rob and Tres both on the dance floor with the rest of the group and danced on the stage and on the different boxes. I was looking forward to next week of even more hanging out and I stayed until 4:35 am before heading outside and walking over to 9th avenue to catch a car back to Bklyn and home.

Sunday was pretty much a lazy day, with just delivery breakfast and watching football in the afternoon before Ian came over and played Megaman on the DS for a bit and we watched TV before we all headed out to pick up dinner at KFC. Ian got popcorn chicken and a wrap while I got a 2 piece meal and Russ got himself a chicken pot pie. After dinner I said goodnight to Ian and wished him well on his trip home to Westchester. All of the Fox programming for the evening was on repeat so it was more football until late. Of course, once 10pm rolled around it was all about The Wire on HBO and later Def Comedy Jam. I had to remember to DVR the shows the next week when I was away. The weekend was over but the coming week would be short. Always nice to have something to look forward to.