SeanCJackson

Now I never need to leave my apartment!

2007-06-01T23:25:00.000-04:00

Technology just keeps getting cooler by the second. You must go to Google maps, locate 36 Mott St. in New York City, them click on the "street view" tab. Move the little guy to Mott and Pell. Spin around. I was sitting on the bench in front of that church on the other side of the street, its much closer in real life. The Black on White sign on the church side of the street is Aji Ichiban with fun candy stuff, including Flower's Kiss, the yummiest ever.

color

2007-04-04T17:24:00.000-04:00

I owe y'all a bunch of color pics, but here's an Illustrator sketch.

Day 2

2007-03-28T21:04:00.000-04:00

Day 2

Lunch Time

2007-03-27T09:24:00.000-04:00

They gave us a 2 hour break for lunch

Fairway

2006-06-17T08:27:00.000-04:00

Now one of the coolest things about living in New York is the Fairway at 125th street. You can buy anything, but without the fancy-pants gourmet attitude. Less crowded than Zabar's or Fairway at 72nd, it has an aisle dedicated to olive oil and hot sauce, a massive olive bar, and 45' of wall cases devoted to cheese. Instead of cooler cases for meats, there is a giant, refrigerated "cold room" with the fish, meat, flowers and eggs.

It has the usually array of ethnic spices, European spreads, and Latin veggies that any NYC store has, but huge by NYC standards, warren-like in its floor plan and crammed like a bodega.

All their organic coffee is fair trade, meaning the farmers get more than 1c a pound for their product.

I took a bunch of pictures, before security followed me and said, "What'cha takin' pitcha's for?" Apparently, corporate grocery spying is a big deal. So I asked the corporate office if I could use my pictures in this blog, but they didn't get back to me. :(

Forgive Me

2007-02-09T22:52:00.000-05:00

It has been so very long since I have posted. As all my friends, including my lovey wife at Pumpkin Spice Knits all have blogs, the peer pressure to post increases.

Let's hit the high points of the last few months. The extended family came to NYC for Thanksgiving to stay for a few days and have a big turkey dinner in our fancy new apartment. My mom, who hadn't been to NYC since she was a teen, had a grand time. We went to Soho and Pearl paint, and down to Beadsworld USA. She got to see the window displays at Macy's on Wednesday, since they has just been installed, it wasn't to crowded.
The Macy's Day Parade was cold and rainy and we made the pact:

If it is cold or rainy, we will not go to the parade.
If it we are in NYC, we will go to the parade.
If we are going to go, we will get up early and go to [a top secret location], where we know we can see and is right on our subway line.

Here was our view of the parade 2006:

That's right, cold turkey butt.

But other than that we had a grand time:

Family is good.

Cast-On

2006-11-06T21:39:00.000-05:00

Cast-on is a podcast about knitting.
I'm working on the computer, Mrs. Jackson is knitting, and we spend time together listening to this lovely radio show about natural wool dying, fleece, iron age spinning, and life in Wales. Three or four mellow tunes for a relaxing afternoon or evening.
Our new favorite thing.

NYC Skinny Women

2006-07-24T21:57:00.000-04:00

It's not that all NYC women on the Upper West Side are skinny with funny hair... really...

Starbucks - 102nd & Broadway

DNA Me

2006-07-16T00:44:00.000-04:00

My friend, your neighborhood librarian, posted her personality DNA on her blog.
Well, I just had to do mine. Mouse over the little squares to know the real me!

Faithful Idealist

Comparing her graph to mine is especially cool. Trust, spontaneity and confidence are almost identical, but openness, authoritarianism and empathy are exact opposites. (I wonder what she thought of The Fountainhead?)

The test is goofy fun, but it did have this inspired question:

Craigslist on Wikipedia

2006-06-25T00:38:00.000-04:00

Since moving to New York, I have used Craigslist multiple times, to find gigs, furniture, etc. Craigslist, for those who don't know, is a free, regional, classified service where I post what I need, and anyone can read it instantly. No fee. No wait.
I skipped over to read the history of Craigslist on Wikipedia . A thorough, concise article on something I use often, but know very little about. A typical Wikipedia article. No fee, no wait, unbiased and perfect.

Woah.

This really is everything the Internet promised us 15 years ago...

Civ 4

2006-06-07T09:40:00.000-04:00

So the expansion for Civilization IV, Warlords, is coming out in July. I am looking forward to it. Civ4 is the coolest game, as all the previous Civ games before it. If you are unfamilliar with the game, check out the website. Sid Mier's Civilization IV. Here are some cool screenshots for fans.

The undiscovered country... 14th century goodie huts!

The King's on fire.

Sunday NYC

2006-05-02T22:41:00.000-04:00

We went to early mass, 8.15am. A great way to start the week!

After church, we picked up some bagels, took them home, then decided to see Akeelah and the Bee. What a lovely movie! Yes, it was a little predictable, but so what? All the actors are great, the kids loved it. So much better than Dreamworks ilk like Ice Age 2.

From the movie, we wandered down to St. Paul the Apostle on 60th and Columbus to pick up a present at the tiny and well stocked Catholic store in the front of the chapel. They have all the good stuff here.

We decided to wander through Lincoln Square, cause its a cool, quiet spot, but wait! not today!
There is a large plexiglass sphere and cameramen milling about... What's this? David Blaine is setting up to drown himself in my city! Look quick, take pictures. Time to move on, perhaps it will be filled up when we come back through.

We head to Columbus Center down the street. Take pics of DW. She looks like a movie star. Fancy tart pan at William Sonoma, and down to Jamba Juice in the basement Whole Foods market. Berry Lime Sublime is king, the only flavor I ever get.

Grab a coffee and back up the street to see if, yes, the fishbowl is full! But Blaine will not be getting in until Monday. I hear that he will be getting out live, on ABC. Grab some hot nuts before getting on the bus to head home. Why bus? My family thought it might be more mellow than the subway ?! But it turns out okay, because we caught these two hipsters showing off their John Deer gear. Ha! We emailed this pic to DW's dad, just to show that we have rednecks here in the big city too! (Actually the guys were real cool, thanks!)

After a rest, the kids and I hit a Central Park playground for a while, but have to get back to church to meet a guy about picking up some fair trade coffee. Score. Fair trade coffee is the way, I am so happy that this is now an option for us. The chocolate is still quite expensive. Now we just need freetrade computer and cell phone components, right? Happy to bump into someone I work with coming out of church! Who knew? New York can be such a small town.

Home and DW has made the best dinner ever: these cool veggie wraps with feta, grilled peppers, lettuce, onions and balsamic dressing.

The weather was great and this weekend's soundtrack is Matisyahu. (Thank you L)

Egg Dye

2006-04-14T09:36:00.000-04:00

The joyful sounds of children dying eggs. Well, by now, they have switched to wearing goggles, mixing colors, and pretending to create monsters in bizarre experiments. Ah... the true meaning of Easter.

Time Travel

2006-04-07T08:13:00.000-04:00

Nothing like reading a Philip K. Dick book about time travel (Dr. Futurity) to leave you feeling a tad displaced....

Books

2006-04-05T22:07:00.000-04:00

I just finished Carl Hiaasen's Hoot. I picked it up at the kid's scholastic Bookfair. It's great. I haven't read a (grownup) Hiaasen book for a while. It's light and a lot of fun. I also read my first Elmore Leonard book, Riding the Rap. The perfect crime, bungled by greed, incompetence and laziness, and good-hearted cowboy cop who realizes the only person who understands him is a woman that uses her gifts of observation and intuition to be a beachfront psychic. A good read. Leonard wrote Get Shorty and about a million other books. This is cool, because I love stumbling across a new crime/mystery writer. I can only do 4 or 5 books by a mystery author before I am ready to move on. Y'know, you read one Hillerman book (or Haaisen, Dick Francis, Grafton, Grisham) you sort of get their world. Only Walter Mosley keeps me coming back.

I'm not such a fan of the icky books... Thomas Harris pretty much did it best with "The Silence of the Lambs" Here is my '89 cover.

By the way, it was snowing crazy this morning, here in NYC, but cleared up to be a beautiful, bunchy cloud afternoon.

Lovely test

2005-11-29T00:12:00.000-05:00

Isn't this just the niftiest illustration? I came across it on a Google search for "cards" for a website I was building.

Spring is here!

2006-04-02T13:17:00.000-04:00

This week I picked up my first iced coffee for the year. We went for a lovely walk along the river. We cleaned the windows. We watched Howl's Moving Castle. It was great.

Mom's with us.

2006-02-09T22:13:00.000-05:00

My mother in law has moved into our NY apartment. Now we are entering the arcane word of Medicare coverage. I've done hundreds of graphics on this topic over the last 10 years, but now I can experience it first hand.
My first thought is that it is a daunting, monsterous task. But I have to say, everytime I call the help line, 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) they have been super friendly and helpful.

First Post

2005-11-29T00:03:00.000-05:00

Good night. First post. How do I tie a blog into a website?