The Bug in the Big Apple

Last weekend, my "little" brother came to visit for a few days. I say "little", which is actually a misnomer. He is much bigger then I am (or at least taller -- give me a few weeks, and I'll definitely be wider), but will remain for all eternity, my little brother. That's just how it works. I hadn't seen him since Christmas, and he hadn't been to New York in over 3 years. It was fantastic to have him visit.


It was a rather laid back weekend, in all. On Friday afternoon we went to the Natural History Museum to see all the stuffed animals from all over the world artfully arranged in their "natural" habitat. We also went to a show in the planetarium called "Cosmic Collisions". This rather picturesque bit of ridiculousness was narrated by Robert Redford, and insists that billions of years ago, when earth was a new planet orbiting around the sun, an enormous space rock crashed into it with terrifying force. This caused all manner of molten hot rock debris to shoot out into space, and immediately start orbiting the earth. Over the course of 1 MONTH (according to Robert) all this molten hot rock debris clumped together and formed itself into our moon. So now, this freak space collision knocked our planet off its axis so that now we have 4 perfect seasons, and also created the moon which rather perfectly controls the tides on our planet. Reeeeeeeeeally.

The other great part about the planetarium is this rather lofty statement. As we are queueing up to go in, the announcer says, "Once inside, please move to the end of the row and leave no empty seats. All seats in the theater offer equal views of the universe." Wow, really? From anywhere we sit in this theater in the middle of Manhattan, I have equally excellent view of the whole universe? Who knew?

On Saturday we went out to to the Bronx to see the Yankees play the Blue Jays, in what had to be the longest baseball game in the history of the universe (which you can see perfectly from 81st Street and Central Park West). The 1:00 p.m. game didn't start until 2:30 p.m. due to a rain delay, which we got to sit through. Then the game just dragged on and on. Hey, don't get me wrong. I love baseball games. But this took forever. By the end of the 9th inning it was tied 11 to 11, and there had been no home runs. We decided we had gotten the full value of our tickets, and left...which is a big thing for us, as Kevin and I practically have a religious conviction about leaving games early. We got home in time to see the recap of the game, which finally ended in the 10th inning.

Sunday was nothing but church, napping on the couch, and football -- with Kevin working on a 10 page paper for school thrown in there. I was able to enjoy one of the truly great life experiences available...that is, watching a Dallas Cowboys game with my brother. He is a crazy die-hard Cowboys fan, and a loss on Sunday will ruin his entire week. Because of his work schedule, this was the first game he was able to watch this season. It was fantastic! He sits on the edge of the couch the whole game, and yells at both teams. He actually yells things like, "Come on! Kill him! Make him die!" This is serious stuff. Thankfully, the Cowboys won, and my brother will be able to live in peace for at least this week.

Here are a few pics from the baseball game...Enjoy!