Nerdtopia, Lauren, Harlem, Rodgab, Squab, Valjean, Magnolia, Redrum and Lauren

Once again, I've let the blogging slip. This time it's been two whole weeks without an update. What a failure. But really, isn't it better to be out actually doing things instead of sitting around blogging about how you wish you were?

And boy did I do things. A quick play-by-play:

Saturday the 23rd (which seems like forever ago) I went to Baltimore for Games Day, which I'm fond of calling Nerdtopia™. I won't bore you with the details, but it was a pretty sweet time. Our bus broke down on the way, so when we got there they made up for it with $80 gift certificates. So that was cool.

Sunday the 24th I went to a rooftop party with some Googlers. It was a pretty sweet time. I got to hang out with some work people, eat corn and get a drunker than I anticipated (all positives).

The following Monday and Tuesday I worked late, because I knew I would be taking Wednesday off, because...

Wednesday the 27th, Lauren came into town! She arrived way earlier than anyone should legally be allowed, so there were multiple naps in order that day. We did carve out enough time to travel downtown and do some preliminary shopping; the Apple Store, Saks, Tiffany's. She did a ton of shopping while she was here, Wednesday's outing was more of a scouting mission than an actual raid.

Thursday night we went to see Ratatouille, which for being probably the least advertised Pixar movie in history, was actually a pretty great movie. They keep getting better and better with the animation. Makes you wonder if a movie is good enough you don't have to advertise it into the ground.

After the movie we trekked down into the village to get some ridiculously overpriced drinks. It's the weirdest thing, for the price of two glasses of Scotch at a bar, you can almost buy a whole bottle of it at a liquor store. Does New York have some insane tax on drinking glasses and barstools or something?

Late Friday night Lauren got an insatiable craving for some fried chicken, and after consulting the internet, we found a place that was rated well and open late. And it was in Harlem. And so it was we found ourselves wandering aimlessly down Frederick Douglass Blvd at 11:00 at night. The food was fantastic, and in retrospect I think I expected the experience to be a lot worse than it was. That'll show me.

Saturday we woke up to go shopping again. So back to 5th Ave, and back to Tiffany's. Lauren loves Tiffany's, and I loved taking her there. After that it was all a blur of stores and walking.

Sunday we went to Central Park to see Rodrigo y Gabriela play SummerStage (for free!). It was a great show, even though we were pretty far back. Those two never cease to amaze me with the many thousands of ways they can make a guitar make sound.

Monday after work Lauren and I had reservations at the swanky Gotham Bar & Grill. The place was so swanky I don't think either of us knew what to do with ourselves. I'm glad she was there or I would have felt very out of place. She had the Maine lobster tail, and I ordered the roast squab, not even knowing what squab was (spoilers), but it turns out it was pretty delicious.

After dinner we took a cab up to Broadway where we had tickets to see Les Misérables. I hadn't seen it since I was much younger, and she'd never seen it, so we figured it was about time. The show was amazing, and it had me humming tunes all night afterwards.

Wednesday was the 4th of July, and in perfectly patriotic fashion, we decided it was too much of a hassle to find a place to watch fireworks. Instead we went to New York's famous Magnolia Bakery for some delicious cupcakes. Then we went shopping some more, supporting the economy for our beloved country.

Thursday was Lauren's last night in town, and I think we were both pretty worn out from a solid week-plus of constant activity, so we rented The Shining, which I'd never seen before and she hadn't seen in a while. I definitely liked it, very suspenseful, and pretty damn creepy.

Yesterday morning, I took Lauren to JFK to get on a plane back home. Looking back, it was a fantastic time having her here. I can't believe we did so many things together this last week and a half. Hopefully she'll get a chance to come again, I miss her like crazy and she's been gone less than 36 hours.

Today was boring by contrast. I woke up, read, went to the nerd store for a few hours, came back, caught up on my Reading, and blogged like a crazy person. Tomorrow's another Googler roof party, so that should be fun.

That's it for now. Hopefully it won't be two weeks before I post again, for your sake as much as mine.