The List Tradition Continues!

Tuesday, May 27, 2008

Hey all! I came across this list of 18 rules for living that are attributed to the Dalai Lama. Big hitter, the lama. And they are slightly more helpful than receiving eternal consciousness on one's death bed. Here they are!

1. Take into account that great love and great achievements involve great risk. Although many great achievements do involve great risk, it's not universally true. Planning can minimize it.

2. When you lose, don't lose the lesson. The term "losing" is interchangeable with "getting something wrong."

3. Follow the three Rs: Respect for self, Respect for others and Responsibility for all your actions.

4. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a wonderful stroke of luck. And sometimes it's more than luck... sometimes things are too coincidental to be coincidence. 

5. Learn the rules so you know how to break them properly. I think instead of saying "break them" it should be "improve them" or "amend them." No rule is permanent, because with new knowledge rules can become irrelevant or inappropriate.

6. Don't let a little dispute injure a great friendship. If it's a great friendship, a little dispute will probably not cause much injury to begin with. If it does, it's probably not a great friendship.

7. When you realize you've made a mistake, take immediate steps to correct it. Sometimes a mistake can product a better result... so perhaps not always.

8. Spend some time alone every day. Preferably on a golf course.

9. Open your arms to change, but don't let go of your values. My first thought was that sometimes values change... I would write it Open your arms to change, but don't let go of what makes you who you are.

10. Remember that silence is sometimes the best answer. Seems I might have this one backwards right now.... tending to be silent when I should speak up, and talking too much when I should be silent.

11. Live a good, honorable life. Then when you get older and think back, you'll be able to enjoy it a second time.

12. A loving atmosphere in your home is the foundation for you life. I like this one because I'm moving on Sunday and am very excited to create a nest of my own that I am happy to come home to every day.

13. In disagreements with loved ones, deal only with the current situation. Don't bring up the past.

14. Share your knowledge. It's a way to achieve immortality.

15. Be gentle with the earth.

16. Once a year, go someplace you've never been before. I'm due for something in 2008... we'll see!

17. Remember that the best relationship is one in which your love for each other exceeds your need for each other.

18. Judge your success by what you had to give up in order to get it.

Update on Life

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Hello all! Things haven't gotten any slower here. I've hardly had time to look around and find interesting things to write about. However, I do enjoy visiting a website called buzzdash.com. People submit poll questions there, and they scroll across the homepage. I'll find myself answering questions for 10-15 minutes before the scroll the whole way through. And what's even nicer is that they let you create your own questions for your blog. So I've created a question about something that's on my mind lately: the economic stimulus rebate check. According to the IRS website, thanks to the last two digits of social security number I shouldn't expect mine until the end of June. Even still, I've known all along what it's going toward: a delicious queen-sized bed. (No, I'm not going to try to eat it. It's figurative language.) So I decided to ask the question: what will you spend your check on?

In other news, June should be a phenomenal month. I'm moving into a studio on June 1st, and can't wait. Living by myself is something I've wanted since I moved to NYC, and two years later it's happening. Between that and my favorite time of year to be in the city thanks to all kinds of free events, I will hopefully spend a lot of time making my new place into a home and the rest getting into a lot of fun.

So, let me know what's going on with your early summer. Anything fun? And vote in the poll! =)

These are a Few of My Favorite Things

Saturday, May 03, 2008

April was a pretty dry month in terms of blog posts... before I knew it the month was over and I'd only written three posts. Yikes. Things are admittedly busy lately between work and pool (and now trying to find a new place for June 1st) but I'll try to throw posts up more frequently for those actually reading. =)

I've decided to take an opportunity to throw a shout-out to a few of my favorite things: namely, some NYC locales that make me happy. I'll hopefully give a couple of good reasons as to why they're my favorites that will inspire you to think about your favorite places. If you'd like to, post a comment about your favorite places. And I'm not just talking NYC - I'm talking anywhere. Because you never know... someone could be searching on Google this very instant for a cool place to go, and your comment could turn up in the results and give them an idea!

Without further delay....

1.) Cafe Sutra, 639 5th Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. This place is like the living room I've never had. If I'm ever a millionaire, I might just move the whole operation into my living room. Big comfortable chairs, copies of the Onion, sweet jazz and lounge tunes flowing out of crisp-sounding speakers compliments of satellite radio, and coffee drinks that make me salivate just thinking about them. They feature local artists' works and have music nights. And if that's not enough, they have free wireless. They had me at "Hello." The owner is a great guy; very friendly and interested in hearing what customers have to say. They've been experimenting with frequent purchase reward deals - buy 9, get the 10th free kinds of things. Once they've got one of those in place, you'll basically know where to find me.

My Cafe Sutra addiction is a croissant with a large Shiva: A latte with Ghiradelli Chocolate and Peppermint. (Mmmmmmmmmmmmm.... must restrain myself from getting up this second and going to get one. The name of this place is highly accurate to the delicious feelings one gets when drinking a Shiva.) 

2.) BAM Cafe, 2nd floor, Peter Jay Sharp Building, 30 Lafayette Avenue, Brooklyn, NY. The Brooklyn Academy of Music (BAM) is a cool place in and of itself - they've got live theatre, a movie theatre, art exhibits and more. But my favorite place to be in the BAM is on the 2nd floor at 9:00 PM on Fridays and Saturday nights. There, you will find the BAM Cafe. With a kind of modern hangar feeling (think metal framing, brick and soft white lights) it makes for a very intimate setting. Then you add in the fact that at 9:00 Fridays and Saturdays they have FREE concerts featuring all kinds of music (usually amazing) and it becomes an ideal date night. You can drink some wine or beer while listening to a wide array of musical styles - everything from jazz to Latin to R&B to world. Make sure you bring an extra $15-20 for the artist's CD, because it's the kind of stuff you won't find in stores but will wish you could. I can't walk out of without buying a CD. Check out their website for more info. http://www.bam.org/events/bamcafelive.aspx

3.) Juilliard, Broadway and 65th Street, New York, NY. My golfing buddy Reggie introduced me to this one. During the school year, if you head over to the calendar of events at juilliard.edu on any given day, you will find several free events going on. Musicians, singers and dancers at Juilliard may be students, but they're unbelievably talented. And in order to get experience under their belts, they put on free shows. A couple of days ago I went to a 2-hour concert by the Juilliard Orchestra where they played 5 pieces written by Juilliard music composition students. It's an added bonus that you're basically at the Lincoln Center, a beautiful group of buildings including the Metropolitan Opera. After the show you can walk by the fountain and head over to any of a number of nearby restaurants, including some amazing Mexican food and drinks at El Centro (9th Ave and 54th Street.)