– early flight from the brand new Terminal 5 at JFK

– we are on mars..

New York changed a lot since back in the days we lived there.  Ave. A, B, C used to be a place you’d never come back alive if you wandered in by mistake.  Now it’s such a sought after area where the studios costs a million.  The meat packing area on the lower West is also the hippest place to be. You see a lot of fancy mom’ pushing baby carts in shadey areas.  In the morning, it’s not just commuters in business suits, but also kids going to school that crowds the streets.  I used to rush through smelly Penn station but now it’s like a happy indoor mall.  Grand Central Station has a market place on top of the dining concourse.  I remember Zaro’s bakery being the only cool stop where you can get things like chocolate covered crossants on your way home.

I miss living in the east coast.  and especially the seasons. That includes snow and below 0 degrees weather.  I had 3 layers of clothing,  and 2 layers of winter jackets on at all times.  But that’s part of the experience.  I won’t complain being back in the 80F weather in LA.

South Street Seaport

– view from Brooklyn Industrial Area

– central park

snow “storm” hits the east coast.

Staten Island – wanted to spend more time here and get closer, but I dare not step in to the marsh to find dead bodies, nor become one..

Abandoned farm colony in Staten Island

coney island during off season. I like the desolate surreal feal to it.

Main purpose of this trip was to see the new addition to the family -

and attend Matthew’s birthday

Some scenes from northern NJ

ringwood manor

woods from the backyard

this was around Iowa. looks cold

flying into JFK in golden hour

a view from Jones coffee was rather pretty..

cool Rialto theater, san marino lady, ugly glenale, and a googie sign

a really cool coffee whole sales place with cafe area.  they have a huge coffee roaster surrounded by floor full of coffe bean in a sack!

started doing studies from the exhibition book we got from LACMA

Last fall, we made drive trips in search for fall colors in So Cal, but in vain.  It is now middle of the winter (for rest of the world..) and we are seeing lots of colors all around town.

It was foggy all day.  At the Pasadena city hall fisrt thing in the morning to take care of some biz..

the floats for the Rose Parade starts lining up late the night before.  As we do every year, we walked out to check them out .

On New Years day, we just watch the parade on TV since it gets pretty mad out there.