I Lost a Picasso

Today I hit one of those development stopping points where the next chunk you start will take a while. I needed to head home in about 30 minutes so it didn’t make sense to start the next thing. I figured I’d just get home a little early.

About a block from my office there’s this tiny bar. I’ve checked it out a couple times before. It’s nothing special. Tiny, only a few beers on tap, but at least they are decent. And during happy hour draft beers are $3.

So with an extra 30 minutes I figured why not.

So I’m drinking a Blue Point Winter Ale (not bad) and checking out my RSS subscriptions via Google Reader on my phone. I’m sitting right next to two guys who clearly know the bartender and are chatting away. I’m trying not to eavesdrop.

Then this other guy goes behind the bar and makes himself a drink. He’s not serving anyone, he just seems like the owner. He knows these two guys and after pouring himself something strong they start chatting.

Again, trying not to eavesdrop.

But it’s a tiny place and they are right next to me. And let’s recall that this is in DUMBO, a fairly artsy, eclectic neighborhood in Brooklyn.

The owner says to the two guys,

I had a really bad day. I lost a Picasso.

At this point, trying not to eavesdrop is out the window. Surely I misheard him. He lost an espresso, or a pistachio, or a panini.

But no. After not eavesdropping some more, this guy must be somehow affiliated with MOMA (the Museum of Modern Art). Some Picasso was being transported from Queens to Manhattan. It didn’t get there. He spent the whole day trying to track it down. He still hasn’t found it.

This boggles my mind on many levels.

First of all, where else do you randomly walk into a bar and hear the phrase, "I lost a Picasso"?

Second, I’ve had bad days at work before. I’ve had really bad days at work. But I’ve never lost a priceless work of art. Software defects suddenly don’t look so bad.

And finally, I really hope he finds it…

Tori with Glasses

Victoria and Danielle recently had their annual checkups (November birthdays, 4 and 8 respectively). I’ve been concerned about getting Danielle an eye exam since she has relatively bad genetics as far as her eyes are concerned.

I got glasses when I was 8. Me and my brothers are all pretty blind. For those that don’t know me with glasses or contacts, I did the Lasik thing over 10 years ago and it was totally life changing.

So given my history, it seemed like time to check Danielle’s eyes.

Imagine my delight when the eye doctor said her eyes were totally fine.

We also scheduled an appointment for Tori since we were checking Danielle. Obviously we have no clue on Tori’s genetics (if you don’t read this blog, Tori is adopted). But she’s never given any indication that she has any vision issues.

Imagine my surprise when the doctor says she has astigmatism in both eyes and needs glasses. At four.

The great thing about a four year old is that getting glasses sounds like a great thing. My wife took her to pick them out and she only cried when she found out she couldn’t take them home right away.

Today we picked them up. She looks super cute and loves them. Here’s a not very good picture of her out to dinner with them.

Snow Day

We got slammed with snow and high winds in Brooklyn Sunday night. This was supposed to be a nice quiet week at work where I’d get a lot done. But the subways weren’t running consistently this morning and our nanny had no good way to get to us, so it turned into a snow day.

So we bundled up and went outside. This is what it looked like outside our place (on Atlantic Avenue, a major street) at about 10:00 am.

 

Danielle has a good friend who lives two blocks away. They have a traditional stoop and they are in Florida. So Danielle wanted to try sliding down their steps. So we walked to their place.

It was easier walking in the street. Cars were not an issue.

As you can see, the cars were a bit buried (that’s the driver side mirror above Danielle’s head).

And sliding down the stoop at her friend’s house was good fun.

While we were playing, people were trying to dig out the cars. The car in the background had apparently been stuck there since about 7am.

But that just meant that you could play with a snow fort in the street.

A great snow day in Brooklyn. Back to work tomorrow…

Quite a News Day

The CIA has a task force to assess the impact of WikiLeaks and it’s called WTF.

The New York Jets head coach’s wife is apparently featured in some foot fetish videos.

And Pat Robertson of the Christian Coalition has come out in favor of marijuana legalization.

All this in one day. If this keeps up, what’s The Onion going to do?

Favre to Start

Say what you want about Brett Favre, but consider this.

The Vikings have no chance at the postseason.

They are going to be playing in total crap conditions.

Against a Bears defense that will punish the quarterback.

With their star running back out.

He has nothing to prove, so why play?

Because he loves to. It’s what he does. He plays football. Like him or not, all the drama around him revolves around that basic fact. He loves to play football.

He has zero reason to play tonight. He will get beat up in crap-ass conditions and almost certainly lose. But he’s playing.

Unhappy Meals

This is ridiculous. I would totally agree that a school shouldn’t have a McDonald’s as their primary lunch option. Or that schools should have vending machines full of soda and nothing else.

But suing McDonald’s because the toys in Happy Meals entice children to eat unhealthy food is ludicrous. My daughters love happy meals. They always go for the toys (even though they are usually lame). But here’s the deal. My eight year old doesn’t say to me, "see you later, I’m going to McDonald’s".

She gets McDonald’s when I take them. I’m the grown up. I am making a rational choice to treat my girls occasionally with food that isn’t great for them because it makes them happy (and it’s easy, which makes me happy). That is a rational adult choice that I should be allowed to make. And as a parent I should be smart enough to say no if my daughter wants McDonald’s two days in a row.

The plaintiff in the lawsuit says that McDonald’s

uses toys as bait to induce her kids to clamor to go to McDonald’s

So can I sue Nickelodeon for airing ads that make my kids "clamor" for sugary cereal? How about the circus? Let’s sue Ringling Brothers for making my kids "clamor" for cotton candy. What about the ice cream truck that plays that stupid music. Talk about clamor…

Better yet, can we sue people for being crappy parents?…

Blackberry Woes

I was a Verizon Blackberry user. I wanted to stay on Verizon because my phone needs to function as a phone. But I ditched Blackberry as soon as the HTC Incredible became available.

So I held out until April 2010. But the original Droid came out in October of 2009.

Check out the chart below. Verizon uses dumped Blackberry as soon as the Droid came out and haven’t looked back.

Republicans to 9/11 Responders: Drop Dead

Literally.

A measure that passed the House and can pass the Senate 57-42 will never get a simple up or down vote due to Republican pressure.

We can’t have a mosque anywhere near Ground Zero, that would be un-American. But helping the folks who actually risked their health after 9/11, that’s, well, I really don’t know. Are they really saying it’s unpatriotic?

OK, I get it. We can’t pass any spending bill unless it’s paid for. What? This bill would be paid for by closing a loophole that lets people keep money in the Cayman Islands?

So Republicans prefer rich folks hiding their money in the Caymans to paying for health care costs for firemen who helped after 9/11?

Someone please tell me I’m reading this wrong.

Wanted for Questioning

This is just bizarre. Julian Assange has not actually been charged with a crime in Sweden. He is wanted for questioning.

Interpol is involved. He’s arrested in the UK. Denied bail. And he hasn’t been charged with a crime?

Like I said, a conspiracy theorist’s wet dream…

Working in Dumbo

One of the interesting things about working in Dumbo (note: if you check out the Wikipedia entry, look for the picture of the "pocket park", my office building is the one behind it) is that there is so much filming going on.

Walking to work and seeing the big film trucks and areas blocked off and the catering trucks for the crew is a fairly regular occurrence. The neighborhood just has a funky warehouse feel that works in movies and TV shows.

Sometimes it’s just a fashion shoot. These are less of a production. You usually see one drop dead gorgeous woman in clothes that make no sense for the neighborhood being followed around by a motley group of photographers. Seeing a model try to navigate the cobblestone streets in 6 inch heels is quite amusing.

And so it was today. It’s 30 degrees and windy. So of course there was a beautiful woman in purple spandex exercise shorts pretending to run while guys on ladders take photographs.

An amusing way to start my day…