Update.

Maybees, time to decide.

I can make it...after working in Zurich, my boss gave me the weekend off.

Dan

OK so my plan for Saturday was to drive up to Gettysburg for a Civil War re-enacting event, but attending an FT event may be more fun. Plus, my cousin lives in NYC so I could see her. And I participated in a Civil War re-enacting event two Saturdays ago, and it has been forever since I've attended an FT event. (Oh...wait...hmmm...maybe it hasn't been THAT long since my last FT event.)

Anyway, count me in as a probable (decide by tomorrow) and since my cousin is in a Broadway play right now with both a matinee and evening performance, it seems that she would be available only to see me in the morning so I would probably have her come to the breakfast as well. During the summer, I told her about these people that I get together with to talk about points and miles but I didn't tell her that it is you all that the breakfast is with.

So my plan would be to do the US Shuttle -- out on Saturday AM and return Saturday PM. Let me decide for sure by tomorrow.

I just so happen to be picking up < violist > at about 0845 Saturday morning.

Need a ride?

from LaGuardia?

Count Me Out

I just found out that I am going to need medical tests on Sat and will be unable to attend.

Sorry for any inconvenience this may cause.

And here I was going to bring my Java book.

I hope your tests turn out ok.



[This message has been edited by Alysia (edited Nov 13, 2003).]

Oops.

[This message has been edited by kanebear (edited Nov 13, 2003).]

Confirmed at the Marriott La Guardia. Now, how do I get to breakfast (hitch a ride w/dhammer)?

This'll be fun - I've never been to "The City" before

I'm picking up 'violist' at LGA at 8:45. If you like, I think I can arrange a pickup at the Marriott. It's only a minute out of my way.

e mail me at dhammer53@aol

You're on your own for the return.

Dan

So count me in for sure along with a special attendee....Freddie Jr!

Jan - he's all yours to take to Vegas.

My cousin won't know her pre-show rehearsal schedule until later today so I am not sure if she's going to make it or not.

Sorry about the last min folks sadly I wont be able to making it tommorrow morning due to a school assignment.I would be free later in the afternoon if anyone wants to meet up??
-howie

Thanks to everyone who turned out for this,
especially dhammer53 for arranging it and
jan_az for inspiring it. Had a great time;
it was wonderful to see Catman again and
to meet everyone. Sorry, stockmanjr, didn't
read this board last night; turns out some
of us went wandering afterwards and we might
have been able to meet you someplace: but I
had a flight out at 6 anyway so would have
had to poop out early.

Cheers
ml

I agree with violist, thanks to jan_az for giving the inspiration and dhammer53 for setting the event up. Also, I want to thank SeeYa for being our impromptu tour guide, and violist for his company.

Now that I know my way around, Manhattan isn't safe anymore!

US 739 BOS LGA 0730 0837 319 6F

Ah, my first flight in three weeks, and boy did it
feel good. The Shuttle has evolved since last month
- it now has a first class section, to which I was
not entitled, as I'd booked this as a UA codeshare.
Not that it would have mattered much: I did the
easier Attache crossword, propped my head up against
the window, and drifted off, pretty much the same as
I'd have done anyway. Next thing I knew, we'd landed
and were sitting in a big old La Guardia traffic
jam; it was around 8:30. Got to the gate and deplaned
at 8:50, rushed outside ... no dhammer53. Turns out he'd
been by earlier; we caught up with each other on the
second try, though. Also in the car were boilermaker
and Alysia; we still had jan_az and her sweetie to pick
up, though, and there was some lighthearted discussion
about who was going to have to sit in the trunk to make
room for them. A quick minitour of Brooklyn, from
the expressway, and we were shortly at the Marriott
only to find that jan_az was still missing; so we went
across the Brooklyn Bridge toward our destination,
Veselka, 2nd Avenue at E. 9th, in the Ukrainian part
of the East Village. The good thing was that nobody
had to sit in the wayback; the bad thing was that we
all were kind of worried about jan_az.

Got to the place to find jan_az and David there (turns
out that as she'd read on the board that dhammer was
picking various of us up, she inferred that there would
not be room for the two of them, so she took the subway)
and our table not ready (it didn't come ready for quite
some time, but that was ok, because people kept
trickling in for quite some time). Eventually we all
showed up, and eventually the table was clear, and
I believe the complete roster was: ljp99, lensman,
SeeYa, David, jan_az, dhammer53, Catman, JayBrian,
Darren, kanebear, boilermaker, Alysia, and moi.

Some of the people down on the other end of the table
got regular breakfast food, I'm told; at our end, we all
ordered East European things. I didn't want breakfast
stuff at all, so I was torn between bigos and the deluxe
sampler (the roast turkey dinner I have heard people rave
about wasn't on offer), but as I wanted to try several
things, I got the latter. Dinners come with soup and
salad; the mushroom barley soup was, as the joke goes,
"barely soup," but in the other direction - thick with
mushrooms and barley, the stuff was more like a pudding
than a soup; it was rather undersalted, but I didn't add
any, as I am trying to remember at moments that I am a
heart patient now. Salad was ordinary, dressing likewise,
a sweetish thickened dill vinaigrette. The plate itself
consisted of one each potato (rather nice), meat (quite
mushy and somewhat disappointing), and cabbage (very
green and very mushroomy - delicious) pierogi, a big old
stuffed cabbage roll (the stuffing was primarily rice,
with a bit of that same pink mushy meat; it would have
been fine if it hadn't been also a bit undersalted)
coated in a mushroom gravy. Sides included stewed onions
and a rather odd beet salad that appeared to be almost
half horseradish. Oh, yes - for my dollar upcharge for
"deluxe" I got half a nice kielbasa. Lot of food. SeeYa
had an assortment of pierogi and a side order of one
meatball, which she was disappointed by as it had been
softball-size when she'd had it before, and it was more
ping-pong-ball-size this time; ljp99 and lensman both
got blintzes - I tried one - it was tender, with a
quite nice sweetened farmer cheese filling. Obolon
Premium (all bottles are $4.50, but this comes in half
liters, whereas the others are 12 oz) was, as I explained
to my neighbors, rather like Heineken, only skunkier.

After a copious and leisurely breakfast, spiced with
conversation and the presence of Freddie Jr., we split
off, some to do whatever ways, and several of us took a
field trip to McSorley's for a round of the dark beer
($2 for an 8-oz glass - apparently, according to SeeYa,
purchasable only in multiples, which makes sense, as 8 oz
of beer is an insignificant quantity). On the way we
witnessed a demonstration in remembrance of the Ukrainian
holocaust (1932-1933). Some of us figured, well, what is
anyone going to do about it? and others figured that it
is good for people to keep making these commemorations so
the memories and lessons learned will be kept alive.

Then SeeYa took boilermaker and me on a walking tour
of SoHo, Chinatown, and Little Italy, which was fun;
we also visited a couple of the fire stations that had
lost colleagues on Sept. 11; boilermaker bought a t-shirt
or two; and then we said goodbye to SeeYa, who had for
some reason to go upstate on something called a train.

It was now past 2, and we were overdue for lunch; we
wandered around NYU a bit and found a busy and
friendly-looking restaurant, BBQ, E. 8th at University
Place. We were seated out in the relatively quiet back
and proceeded to have a filling if not inspired meal.

I ordered the dark-meat chicken and ribs combo, with
yellow rice (extremely salty) and cornbread (not
unbearably sweet). The chicken came as white meat
(I'd asked for dark, because as far as I'm concerned,
white meat is nowhere so nice - I'm a leg man for sure)
but was rather tender and moist, nicely done. Ribs
were at best average, somewhat puny and meat-free
baby backs sauced with a pleasant but way too sweet
sauce. Boilermaker had a roast beef plate - not an
enormous amount of beef, rather pallid and not very
tender, sided with cole slaw and a large quantity
of French fries: I tried a bit of the beef, and I was
not hugely impressed. He also had a cup of chicken soup,
which was impressively crammed with chicken and
vegetables (not much liquid). A decent, not memorable
meal: we agreed that the meats were insufficently
smoked, if at all. (It turns out on further inquiry
that this is a branch of the Dallas BBQ that smells
so good on 2nd Avenue.)

As it was getting on in the afternoon, we went to the
8th St. subway station, where a W train arrived within
about five minutes and took us to Astoria Blvd.,
whence we caught the M60 (which also came within five
minutes) for the airport. To be noted: boilermaker's
one-ride ticket ($2) did not include a transfer; if
he'd bought a reusable ticket, his $2 would have
entitled him to a free transfer onto the bus. Further,
the buses do not accept dollar bills. This was a
temporary embarrassment.

Said goodbye to him as the bus stopped fairly near the
Marriott, and I got to the airport at just before 4:30
and had an hour to do my e-mail at the US Airways Club.

US2138 LGA BOS 1800 1905 319 4F

The guy at the gate saw that I was a 1K and tried to
upgrade me, but he was overruled by his supervisor,
who was the one working the computer. No prob, he was
apparently under the impression that 1Ks and CPs are
treated the same (they're not), and I thanked him anyway
for trying. Anyhow I'd got my bulkhead, so I relaxed with
the other crossword and zoned out for the flight. We
landed at 6:40 and were at the gate about 6:55, after a
bit of a contretemps with the jetway operator, who
apparently was unaware of the size of a 319.

Interesting note. On both flights we took off from
Shuttle gates and arrived at mainline gates.