More Celebrity Sightings!

Well, it's no secret that I run into a lot of celebrities.  I suppose it's just because we celebrities run in similar circles.  :-)  Haha, seriously, I think I am just super observant and I notice them more than other people.  In the last month or so, these are some of the celebrities I've seen.

John Larroquette

Most of you will remember him from his days on Night Court back in the 80's (early 90's? I don't know, too lazy to Google it right now).  He is currently starring in "How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying" on Broadway, and having just seen it on Friday, I can say that he is truly fantastic in it.  But this was from like 3 or 4 weeks ago.  Actually, it was on May 5, because I was walking to the subway after a Cinco de Mayo Mexican dinner with some friends when I saw a bunch of people crowded around the How To Succeed theater.  I actually thought I was going to see Daniel Radcliffe when I got up there, but turns out it was just John Larroquette heading home after the performance.  Haha.  Still cool though.

Anjelah Johnson

It would be hard for me to describe how much I LOVE Anjelah Johnson.  She has been my favorite comedienne ever since her Bon Qui Qui days.  If you haven't seen that or her nail salon bit, you need to click the links and watch them immediately.  FYI, they are both clean, because not only is she hilarious, she's also a Christian.  In fact, in like 2 weeks, she is marrying one of my favorite Christian artists, Manwell from Group 1 Crew. Super excited for both of them!

Anyway, we had gotten tickets to see her show at the Gotham Comedy Club last Friday.  I was closing up the office downtown, so I was rushing to meet Sara, Leticia, and Andrew before the show.  Gotham just so happens to be right next to Doughnut Plant (which you'll remember from my previous post) and they were hanging out there until I got there.  When I walked up to Doughnut Plant, Anjelah was standing right outside of it!  I was like, "Dude, I am going to watch your show in like 30 minutes!" Well, I didn't actually call her dude (I don't think).  But I did ask her if she would wait right there while I grabbed my friends from inside to get a picture with her. But they had already gone in to get our seats. :-(  Anyway, I went back outside and got this solo picture with her, and actually chatted with her for like 5-10 minutes, about everything from my move from Texas to her upcoming wedding.  She was SO genuinely nice and funny, and she even said hi to me when she was walking up to the stage later at her show.  I would HIGHLY recommend you doing whatever it takes to see her if she comes to your town.

And my final (and by far favorite) celebrity sighting of the past month, would of course be...

Ryan Gosling

About a month ago, Sara, Leticia, Andrew, and I were strolling through the East Village, heading to a movie (Water For Elephants) to kill some time between brunch and church that night.  There was like a little street fair happening (think flea market meets ghetto garage sale meets yummy Houston Rodeo food), so we decided to walk down that street and check it out.  There weren't that many people around and all of a sudden I see this guy walking toward us that looks suspiciously like RG, munching on a slice of pizza as he walked and talked with his friend.  As he got closer, I realized that it was in fact him, about the same time as Andrew did.  Andrew and I busted a U-ey, followed by a rather confused Sara and Leticia (who had not noticed that the insanely hot actor had just passed right by us), and followed him down the street.  Hey, there's no shame in our game.  We were debating whether or not to stop him and ask for a picture when two other girls stopped him, and he happily obliged.  We figured this was our moment and Andrew asked if he would take one with us.  He was super nice and asked his friend to take the picture for us.  He didn't act annoyed or inconvenienced at all, just took the picture, said it was nice to meet us, and went on about his way, eating his pizza.  I love that he was so cool.  By the way, here is the original picture if you're interested.  I cropped the one above for my own pleasure. Haha.

Funny thing - one of the previews for Water for Elephants was for his new movie, Crazy, Stupid, Love in which one of his co-stars proclaims (regarding his abs), "It's like they're photo-shopped!"  Not sure about the abs, but he is really, really, ridiculous good-looking, both on-screen and off.

So that's all the celebrity business for now.  I did want to take a minute to answer my sweet friend (and new mommy!!) Rebecca's questions from the comments of my earlier post.
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So was he hot? (in reference to the aforementioned maintenance guy)
Haha, I don't actually know because when I went in there, he was behind this big cabinet and it would have been awkward to try and get a good look.  Maybe next time...


I know you have had a lot of celeb run ins but is there anyone in particular we are on the look out for? 
That is actually a really good question that I have been thinking about lately.  There are definitely some celebs I want to see, and even find myself looking for specifically when I am in certain parts of town.  To name a few...Daniel Radcliffe (I have seen him, but on stage doesn't count), Kelly Ripa, Anderson Cooper, Neil Patrick Harris, Jimmy Fallon, and/or any of the cast of SNL


Do you miss having your car? You says its not much of an adjustment but I wonder if you ever walk out your front door thinking that you're just going to hop in your car and suprise no car! 
This really does happen!  There are some days when I miss having a car SO much. Like this weekend - construction on the L train meant that my usual 35-45ish minute commute into the city became more like an hour and a half.  But then I think about the logistics of having a car here (driving in this crazy NY traffic, cost of parking - if you can even find it!, and gas prices) and I am kind of glad to not have to deal with it.  But some days I miss it a lot.
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Last, but not least, a few random pictures from the last few weeks.

Doesn't that look appetizing? This was in one of those big Italian markets.  Gross.

Springtime in New York! Saw this on the way to the subway.

Thought this was cool.  The flags that are usually from all different countries in Rockefeller Center were all US flags in honor of Memorial Day

As promised, the view from our Financial District office. Yes, that is the Statue of Liberty off in the distance there.  Beautiful!

 Alright, well this has been quite the day of blogging.  It's nice to have a holiday. :-)  So very thankful for those who have given their lives for my freedom.  Enjoy your Memorial Day, everyone!

Still Not A Yankee Fan (Or a Mets fan, for that matter...)

Well, I bet you thought this post was never coming...a big reason why I started this blog was to talk about baseball, so it's time to get back to my roots here. :-)

As I mentioned in earlier posts, back in April, both the Rangers and Astros came to town in the same week.   At the time, I had been in New York for about a month, was right in the middle of my job search, and was feeling a little blah.  Some Texas baseball was just what I needed.  On Friday, April 15th (my one month NYC anniversary), I had my one-day at One Medical, which was basically like an all-day interview.  As soon as it was over, I jetted off to meet Leticia and head to Yankee stadium (where we would meet up with Sara and Andrew) for the Yankees/Rangers game.  Back in December 2005, on my very first trip to New York, Kristi, Shahla, Ashley, and I had taken a tour of the old Yankee stadium, but I had never been to a game (or to the new stadium).  It was pretty nice (though if I had to choose, I would say I'm a little partial to the old one...).

We got in and found our seats...

...then it was time to go get my hot dog on.

Ok, I feel like I need to stop and give you a little background here.  There are very few things I love more than a ball park hot dog.  It is like the missing piece of the puzzle that allows me to enjoy the game, regardless of the outcome.  I really only have one requirement for my hot dogs.  It is IMPERATIVE that I have some nacho cheese to dip it in.  Back in Round Rock, Monday home games for the Express were dollar hot dog and soda games.  Nothing cures a case of the "Mondays" like dollar hot dogs. I used to go and get several hot dogs and a cup of nacho cheese (which, at $1.50, cost more than a hot dog), and watch the games in a state of nacho-cheese bliss.  Those were good times. (A friend told me today that Monday games are just not the same without me... :-)  ).

But I digress.  Strike one against the Yankees (and their stadium) is that you cannot get nacho cheese.  Well, not in the conventional way, anyway.  They don't have regular "ball-park" (translation: orangey cheese-ish stuff) nachos.  They only have these specialty stands where you can buy traditional Mexican nachos with fancy cheese, sour cream, guacamole, the whole shebang.  So what did I do???

I think you guys already know the answer to this.  I paid $8 for those stupid nachos JUST so I could dip my hot dog in the cheese.  Not my proudest moment, but you do what you gotta do, I suppose.

Anyway, we had a great time at the game, and the Rangers were victorious. I always love a Yankees loss, and it was even sweeter knowing it was a team from the great state of Texas that did the damage.  I will say the Yankees fans around us were pretty cool and fun.  We got a normal amount of heckling, but it was all in good fun.

Here are a couple of pictures from the game.

It was really cold and windy, and these Yankees fans are a bunch of wimps!  Look at how empty this place is (this is like the 7th inning) - Minute Maid Park fills more seats than this on a Friday night!!

Speaking of Minute Maid, let's get on to the real highlight of that week...seeing my Astros for the first time this season!!  They came into town April 19-21 for a 3-game series with the Mets.  The first game of the series was on a Tuesday.  It had been cold, rainy, and miserable all day, and it was looking like it was not going to be a great day.  But a few hours before the game, I got a call telling me that I had gotten the job at One Medical!  And then the rain finally stopped.  So the day was turning around and I had my fingers crossed that the game wouldn't get rained out.  I was meeting Angie at one of the stops on the 7 train and we were going to ride in together and watch the game.  Angie tries to act like she is not a baseball fan (she says she only goes for the hot dogs, which is not necessarily a bad thing), but I think it's growing on her. We got to our seats and after spending like 10 minutes (and a whole lot of napkins) wiping all the rain off of them, we settled in to watch the game.  CitiField had already won my heart with...

Yes that's right, ball-park cheese!  I love that orangey cheese-ish stuff. :-) And it was only $1.50, which was a much more acceptable use of my resources.  

As you can see from the tarp on the field, the state of the game was still undetermined.  But they did end up playing.  As miserably cold and wet as the weather was (it was raining on and off the whole game), I couldn't have been happier.  It was like having a little bit of home right here in New York.  Eventually, we did go down to the concourse because of the rain, but we watched the rest of the game from the back of the lower sections.  IT WAS FREEZING.  

But we survived, and the Stros pulled off a win!  Which, if I'd known at the time how hard those would be to come by this season, I might have been more excited about.  Haha. Thanks for being a trooper, Angie, and for sticking out the whole game with me!! Here are a few more pictures from that game.

Nothing like looking into right field and seeing Hunter Pence

I also went to the Thursday game of the series, with my friend Ronnie from college, who also recently moved across the country to New York!  We had a different view...

...and much better weather...

...but alas, the Astros couldn't pull off another win for us.  

It's all good though.  The Astros won't be back in New York at all this season, but they will be in D.C. in September, so I am hoping to make it to those games.  Until then, I will have to keep watching my MLB TV and rooting for them from afar.  And going to Mets and Yankees games to get my "baseball fix." 

But I will never be a Yankees fan.  Never.

Touching Base

Hey guys.  I know, I suck.  I think my problem is that I want to write these cool blogs with pictures and the whole deal, and so I am never satisfied enough to actually finish them and post them.  But then I just end up with no new blogs and a bunch of disappointed fans.  Haha.  I like referring to you guys as my fans, it makes me feel like a celebrity. :-)

Anyway, I am on my lunch break at work right now, so I don't have a lot of time, or any pictures or anything cool like that, but I can give you a rundown of what my life has looked like this past month. So here goes...

I feel like I was made to live in New York.  I really love it here.  The transition, surprisingly, has not been nearly as hard as I thought it would be.  In fact, I think it has been pretty seamless.  Those of you who are friends with me on Facebook (which I am much better at updating, so add me here if you haven't already!!) know that I have been getting to do a lot of cool things (and meet a lot of cool people!).  My celebrity run-ins have been many, as I sure you would've expected, and I am trying to take in all New York has to offer me in the way of culture.

The biggest change since I last posted is that I started my job!  Today is the end of my fourth week here, and even I am surprised at how much I love it.  I am working for One Medical Group, which is a pretty amazing company that I believe is changing the face of health care.  If you are in San Francisco or New York, you should definitely consider us for your primary care.  But business aside, what I love about OMG (oh yeah, that is our acronym) is the people.  I was so worried leaving the children's home, because I loved working there so much.  It was hard to imagine anything even comparing to the relationships I made there. But I have been pleasantly surprised over these 4 weeks.  Everyone here is amazing.  I felt right at home from the first day on the job.  People have gone out of their way to make me feel welcome and teach me how to do my job.  I still have a lot to learn, but having great people around me makes that seem a little less daunting.  I am working out of all 3 of our offices, 2 in Midtown and 1 in the financial district.  In my next blog, I'll post a picture of the view from our financial district office.  We are on the 45th floor and have a SPECTACULAR view of Lady Liberty herself.  That's where I am now.  I can't believe I get to look at that all day.

In other news, I am pretty excited about a couple of things... 

Rachel is here again (she had to work in Jersey this week) and she stood in the rush line this morning and got us tickets to How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying for tonight.  I have been wanting to see this show for forever...it stars Daniel Radcliffe (of Harry Potter fame) and it's got some really good reviews.  I'm really pumped about that. 

But even more pumped that I get to see my mom and dad in exactly FIVE days!!!  They fly in on Wednesday and they will be here for 6 days.  I can't WAIT to see them.  Plus, we have 9th row seats to see Memphis, which is the other show I have been dying to see!!!  It's gonna be a good week, folks. :-)

I haven't been able to make it to any more baseball games since I saw the Rangers and Astros play the Yankees and Mets, respectively, but I'm really looking forward to seeing some more games here in New York, and also maybe hitting up some games in Philly or DC soon.  The Astros are not giving me too much to be excited about these days, but let's not forget that things looked about this grim in 2005 at this point in the season, so don't EVER count us out.  I'm kind of pumped about our new owner, even though I have mad respect for Drayton, and I'm hopeful we are headed in a good direction with the management.  It'll be an adventure, regardless.  Haha, isn't it always for us Astros fans?

Alright, my lunch break is wrapping up, and I hear from my co-worker Danielle that there is a super-hot maintenance man in the other room, so I'll probably head out and go check that out before I get back to work. Haha.

Show me some love in the comments and of course any questions or suggestions on what I should blog about.  Promise to post some pictures soon.  Happy long weekend, everyone!!

"Guess That Celebrity" Revealed!

Ok, a few things...
I am a little disappointed with you, blog readers.  I know that many of you read my last post, because a bunch of you have asked me about the celebrity in the picture.  And yet, not one comment?  Not one of you wanted to venture a guess?  Not cool, guys.  It's no fun to write a blog when no one leaves comments.  It's also no fun to spend money on a cool prize and have no one to give it to.  I actually wasn't going to even give you the answer, but I had already written like 3/4 of the blog and I figured I would be nice. :-)  But next time I'm going to need some more participation.  I still have this awesome prize to give away!

Posting this blog also has the OCD side of me freaking out, because it will throw things off chronologically (I haven't finished my baseball game posts from a couple of weeks ago).  But a lot of you were really bugging me, so here goes...

The celebrity in the picture was none other than...

Cory Monteith, star of the hit TV show, Glee!!

Now, let me give you the back story on this.  Most of you know that I am a huge pop culture nerd.  I am not one of those people that idolizes celebrities or really even envies them.  I am just very intrigued by and interested in them.  I love to know all the Hollywood gossip and can school just about anyone in TV/Movie/Celebrity trivia.  And, as referenced in an earlier post, I am also pretty notorious for running into celebrities.  This does not count as one of those celebrity encounters because I planned it in advance, but I still got to see some of the biggest names in Hollywood yesterday.

I don't watch a ton of TV (especially now that I have no cable), but I am actually a HUGE Glee fan.  I think the show is really clever and original, and being a big Broadway lover, the musical aspect of it is fantastic.  Now if you watch the show, you'll know that the McKinley High glee club has recently won regionals and is on their way to nationals in, yes that's right, New York City.  So the cast of Glee has been in town all week filming.  I knew this of course, but with the crappy weather and lots to do, I hadn't ventured out to try and find them. 

**Side note: when I went to the Stop N Shop on Wednesday, I noticed that the street right next to us was lined with cast trailers, so I got super excited that it was Glee that was shooting essentially in my own backyard. (Well if there was such thing as a backyard in New York)  Turns out they were shooting for a show called Damages, which I found out later is actually a Golden-Globe and Emmy winning show starring people like Glenn Close, Ted Danson, and Tate Donovan.  So still kind of cool, but not worth staking out the trailers or anything.**

But I digress.  Anyway, I knew Friday was my last weekday of freedom before I start my job next week.  It was also supposed to be an absolutely gorgeous day, highs in the seventies, sunny, and perfect.  Thursday night, I thought about what I wanted to do the next day, and I honestly just wanted to go check out a Glee shoot.  I had heard that they would be at Washington Square Park, so I got up early and went to check out the situation.  Nothing out of the ordinary was going on, other than an unusual amount of people hanging out because of the awesome weather.  So I got on my phone and looked up the shooting locations for the day.  There were 3 or 4 in the West Village/Greenwich area which was not far from the park, so I set out to see if I could track them down.  To no avail.  I walked by all of the places, and while it was clear that they had either just shot there or were getting ready to shoot, there was no sign of any celebrities.  So, finally, around 11:30, I decided I just needed to camp out and wait for them to show up.  I knew they were scheduled to film scenes in the park and they hadn't been there yet.  So I found a little bookshop, bought a book, went to Whole Foods and bought some lunch, and went back to Washington Square Park.  I staked out a bench and proceeded to eat my lunch.  I also struck up a conversation with a middle-aged guy who was sitting next to me.  He asked me how I managed to have such a beautiful day off from work and I filled him in on my life and move from Texas.  Luckily, I didn't fill him in on what I was doing in the park at that moment because after I had been sitting there talking to him for like 15 minutes, the two-way radio he is wearing starts to go off.  And I hear voices talking about lighting and production and call times and all that Hollywood mumbo-jumbo.  Then he gets up and starts setting up barricades right in front of where we were sitting.  Yes, folks, he was a Glee crew member.  He later came back by with some other crew member and said I would have to move from the bench I was sitting because they were going to need to shoot there.  He said, "We're filming for a show called Glee.  If you want to stay and watch, you can stand over there behind the barricades."  I totally played dumb, thanked him, and said I might stick around.  Haha.

Anyway, I took my place behind the big silver rails they had set up, along with about a million teenage girls who had started to gather around.  I felt a little stupid but after a morning of wandering the West Village, I knew that I wasn't going to give up without seeing these Glee kids.  Long story short, I ended up there for the next four hours, watching them film and contemplating whether or not I could punch some of the teenage girls around me and get out of the crowd before the cops could catch me.  Seriously, the producers gave us two rules - 1) Turn off the flash on your cameras, and 2) Don't scream.  And yet every time one the stars got anywhere near us, these kids started screaming. And calling them by their characters' names..."Finn, will you marry me?," "Puck,  you are SO HOT!!!," "Please come talk to us!!!"  And then they would get ticked if they wouldn't respond and yell mean things to them.  And I will say this, the cast was super nice and friendly, and waved to us sometimes between takes.  But they are doing their job.  They didn't have time to come chat with all the screaming teenagers (and me and this one guy next to me that was taking pictures for his 8-year old daughter) in the crowd.  If someone was screaming at me during my job, I wouldn't be half as nice as these guys were.  That picture I posted yesterday was of Cory having a little fun with us.  He took one of the paparazzi's cameras and started snapping pictures of us taking pictures of him.

Anyway, it was a lot of fun.  I got to see all of the actors that play the glee club members. The only big cast members that weren't there were Matthew Morrison and Jane Lynch.  It was a huge production, as you'll see in the pictures. It was actually hard to get great pictures because there were so many crew members and so much equipment everywhere. But I did my best.  The rest of the post will just be my pictures.  I blew some of them up so you can see the actors better.  Enjoy!

Heather Morris (Brittany)



Cory Monteith (Finn) sitting on the bench where I had just been sitting.  Also, the guy in the red is clearly Chord Overstreet(Sam)'s stand-in



Group walking into the park (and singing).  You can kind of see Mark Salling (Puck), Chris Colfer (Kurt), and Heather  behind that guy in the black, Dianna Agron (Quinn), Ashley Fink (Lauren), Naya Rivera (Santana)



Mark, Chris, Heather, Cory, Naya, Chord Overstreet (Sam), and Jenna Ushkowitz (Tina)



Chord, Cory, Mark

Mark getting his makeup touched up

Heather, Ashley, Lea Michele (Rachel), Dianna, Corey

There's those Finn dance moves!  Haha.
Chord, Jenna, Heather, Cory, Mark

Harry Shum, Jr. (Mike), Lea, Chord, Jenna, Heather, Mark, Cory



Naya, Ashley, Lea, Kevin McHale (Artie), Harry, Heather, Jenna, Cory (and you can actually see Amber Riley, who plays Mercedes, under Jenna's arm)

Artie can walk!!  Well, no, but Kevin McHale can.



Dianna



Lea

 

Chris (thanks for posing!)



Amber Riley (Mercedes)
The guy facing us in the plaid is Dianna's brother

Naya (who is one of the most stunning people I have ever seen), Lea, and Harry in the background

Glee creator Ryan Murphy

The stand-ins for the actors, getting the marks set and whatnot

Dianna, Chord, and Ashley