Best Big Saturday

A thing about Jared and Karen is that they're totally into this message board community called "Spock With A Beard" (or "Swab"). Through Swab Jared and Karen "met" Kersten and Tai (who I already knew from real life). As both couples were in New York for the weekend, the four of them decided to meet for real. And I got to say, "Hey guys, good to see you again!"

Kersten wasn't so into being photographed by Karen.



But Tai was.



We breakfasted at Murray's Bagels and then headed for Jared's convention once more.



Karen took an illegal photo of me on the subway.



Here's Jared preparing to get down to business at the convention center.



While Jared stayed beside his chair, the rest of us explored the showroom floor. There was a gorilla. That's good furniture.



There was a company there that sold "soft" indoor playground equipment, like this swaying bench. (For a limited time, a video of Karen and I swaying on the bench is available here).



There was also an indoor see-saw there. It was this guy's job to see-saw with prospective buyers like myself. It turns out I'm not as good at see-sawing as I had thought I was.



Furniture, furniture, furniture.



"Please, step into our dining capsule. Tonight we will be having Future Burgers and Tomorrow Fries"



Flower chandelier.



White chair.



Pantone seating for snackers.



A menagerie of pillow animals. I've seen these around in stores.



The baby gorilla was pretty cool.



Out-of-control wavy wood situation courtesy of Parsons School of Design, I think.



Industrial felt was really big this year.



The Javits Center was good enough to keep its bribery rates posted. Put me down for one rewarding professional misconduct, please.



This guy was funny. He told the best jokes.



By lunchtime I had had my fill of furniture, so I headed home and was watching some TV when Amber called and asked if I wanted to go to the Met(ropolitan Museum of Art, not Opera) to meet her friend Amy in town from DC who is married, pregnant, and great. I was like "Yeah!" and was headed for the 6 when I encountered this band of bicyclists being escorted through the city.



Sure you got out your old timey bicycle . . .



But did you put on your old timey outfit?



Uhm, the Met looked a little different.



After Friday at the Moma I went a little easy on the taking of pictures of pictures at the Met.



But remember that painting I asked you to remember in my last post? Must be by this same dude, right?



As the sun is out and it's probably not going to snow again (fingers crossed) until the new school year, the Met rooftop garden is open, mostly for the taking of fine photos like this one . . .



After the museum we tried to find this model that Amy's sister Ashley was supposed to meet up with. Eventually he was found and we all went to the Burger Joint. But before that I finally saw the Japanese elephants by the park that are so popular these days.



Things that happened that night that I have no pictures of: We went up to Inwood to see Ashley (the one that's Amber's sister, not Amy's sister) sing in a talent show, we rode around in a station wagon, and we went to a party in an apartment on the 42nd floor of one of the Trump Place buildings (that's the development on the Hudson).

Meanwhile, Jared and Karen (reunited with Jon, Jill, and Owen) did things like going to the Brooklyn Bridge.






And sitting on my bed.



Owen, the baby, was well-liked by complete strangers. All Friday evening people were poking at him and talking to him on the subways, on the streets, and in the museum and restaurant.



I'm just glad I didn't take any pictures on Sunday. But Monday is already headed to be monster-sized. I hope you like signage . . . you'll see what I mean later. (And once again, all the really really good looking pictures on this post were taken by Karen with her fancy camera.)