The visit to Serendipity 3 was the highlight of the entire trip. It was Oz for our merry band of travelers. It was a destination that I never stopped hearing the end of even before we left for New York. I was hearing about Serendipity 3 so much before our trip that I was already growing tired of hearing about it by the time we arrived. If you don’t know what Serendipity 3 is, it’s a restaurant that has been the center of attention for many, many years. They’ve focused on it in movies, like Serendipity, and in television, like Rachel Ray’s cooking shows and Samantha Brown’s travel shows. Serendipity 3 is the home of the famous Frozen Hot Chocolate. After having tasted it, it is easy to see why it is famous. If you are ever in New York, I highly recommend visiting, not for the meal but for the deserts alone. During our 45 minute wait to get in, we decided to have a quick dinner at a oven cooked pizza place across the street. Our original intention was to visit Serendipity 3 just for the deserts so having a meal during the wait was perfect, unplanned, timing.
The only unfortunate event during this time was that it started raining and did not stop for the rest of the night. But, we were able to use this to our advantage by visiting Dylan’s Candy Bar candy store and cafe right next to Serendipity 3. It was a pretty neat candy store filled with all types of candies and chocolates. Thereafter, during a brief pause in the rain, we walked to FAO Schwarz and the Apple Store to wait out the rain, and to waste a little more time, before we retired for the evening.

On Friday, we sort of took our time since we had planned to visit Central Park Zoo and it didn’t open until 10am. We arrived there at a decent time and spent most of the midday enjoying the zoo and Central Park until we had to get to the airport for our flight out at 5pm. The rest of the trip, after this, was a disaster.

We got to the airport on time. The only issue was that the plane was delayed 30 minutes later than the original planned 5:05pm schedule. However, due to the surrounding storms, it was delayed again until close to 6pm. While we were waiting in line to get on the plane I had overheard someone else state that there was even a tornado warning in the Manhattan area. Once we got on the plane, the fun didn’t end. We finally taxied out toward the runway pausing halfway for over an hour to wait in a queue with 40 planes in front of us. At the time, there was an estimate that we would not be taking off for another two to three hours. The only problem for us, along with many others on the plane, was that we had a layover in Chicago’s O’Hare airport for a transfer flight to Orlando at 8:00pm. Needless to say, we did not make that flight. We arrived in Chicago close to 9:30 CST, an hour and a half after our plane left out for Orlando. So, we waited in queue at United customer service for another hour waiting to see when our next flight would be taking off. Unfortunately, it wasn’t until 12:55 the next day.

So, United gave us a discounted hotel voucher and put us on the wait list for any planes Saturday morning from 6:50am until time of our scheduled flight out at 1pm. Luckily, we found a really nice Hyatt ten minutes from the airport for less than $75 and stayed the night there. I am typing this from the United gate now having missed out on the first flight out at 6:50am. We are now waiting for the next standby at 10:45am but I doubt we will be on that plane also. More than likely, we will be flying out at 1:00pm.

Update: I am typing this now after having finally arrived home in the early evening. It happened as predicted; we didn’t fly out until 1:00pm.

The trip was pretty decent up until that storm hit NY on Friday. I would be so happy to be home now, if I wasn’t so exhausted.

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After, we decided to go back to the Empire State Building to see if the line had gotten shorter, it had not. By the time we discovered this it was dinner time, so we ate and headed to Time Square. We didn’t spend a whole of time there as we were pretty exhausted being that we had been up since 4:00 this morning. So, we turned in for the night and made plans for a long day tomorrow.

I’m still up now only because it’s a little more difficult for me to settle in before 10:00 p.m; Chelby and her nephew were already asleep by 9:30. However, my eyes are growing heavy now; it’s time for Slumberland.

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However, this time, we are taking her nephew. She felt it would be neat to take him on a trip before he starts school next week. What better trip could there be to tell your schoolmates about than a trip to New York to see the Statue of Liberty, amongst other things. He should have plenty of stories to tell them on his first day back to school.

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Yesterday was the last day of the show, a 2:00 p.m showing. It was, yet again, a smooth show and full of fun. I made one minor flub but was able to easily recover without skipping a beat. After the show we had the cast party at the theatre, and what a grand party it was. There was no doubt, by the evidence of the smiles on everyone’s faces, that it was time to celebrate a successful, and exhausting, five day run. Simon and I, plus a few other nice people willing to help, closed out the day by spending a few hours cleaning up the theatre before retiring to Slumberland. The theatre was trashed so it really did take a few hours before it was cleaned. I think we overdid it. We left it cleaner than it was when we first entered the theatre last Monday.

After we woke up from sleeping in a little, we met our new friends from Rhode Island for lunch at Fanelli’s Cafe near SOHO (apparently, one of the oldest restaurants in NY). It was a really cool cafe with some really good food. We ate, said our goodbyes and returned to Simon’s place so that I could grab my items and leave for the airport.

Reflecting back on all my previous trips to New York, I would say that this was probably the best time I have ever had and it will be extremely difficult to top in the possible future visits to “the city that never sleeps”. I’ll probably have pictures and videos posted within the next couple of days, after I have had time to decompress.

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One of the cast members hosted a Independence Day party in Brooklyn in her gorgeous three story apartment(?) where the top two floors had a terrace with a grand view of Manhattan and the area where the NYC fireworks would take place. It was a great time of meeting new people (a few that were actually from Florida) and enjoying the wonderful fireworks.

A half an hour or so after the fireworks, Simon and I left for another party taking place at The Lafayette House hotel in Manhattan. The host and hostess were friends of Simon in town from Rhode Island just to see the play so they invited us over to hang out for a while. When we got there we were greeted by the wonderful hosts and more unmet friends from Orlando. Surprisingly, after I met everyone there, I found out that the host and hostess and two other super nice people at the party were originally from Orlando also so we ended up all being instant friends. It was really a good time thanks to the generous hospitality of all these new friends.

Tonight the play starts a little later than usual (8:00 p.m.) so it gives us all time to rest after a long night of celebrating Independence Day.

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A lot of time, money and hard work was put into this amateur mod so I’m feeling a little bit of sadness now. I’m sure I will get over it.

I found there was no need to have it sitting around any longer since I had a powerful Dell XPS gaming machine sitting right next to it rarely being used. So, now that the mod is no longer in use, the Dell machine will be me my main desktop machine. It frees up the needed space and saves electricity. I’m sure I could have upgraded all the parts in the modded PC to be just as powerful as the Dell XPS, but there really is no point.

Here is an old web site I keep around showing the created process of the PC mod.

http://www.edwardcrosby.com/personal/Mod/

Next step, selling my 250 CD collection as it is also just sitting around collecting dust. All my music is on three different hard drives in MP3 format. I haven’t touched a single CD in my collection in over two years.

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Of course, I am excited. I’ve never been in a play before, unless you want to count the parts I had in kindergarten. The most exciting thing about this first experience is that it will be – should I call it – an off-Broadway play right in the theatre district of Manhattan. BRILLIANT!

I need to thank Simon for having faith in me. I’ve acted before, if you call working as a gangster on the Great Movie Ride in Disney’s Hollywood Studios acting. But trusting me with this task, even if it is a small part, is something powerful.

The only difficult thing about this is that I will not be up there for all of the rehearsals. I did, however, change my plane reservation so that I would be up there until the 7th instead of leaving on the 5th. Getting there on the 30th will allow me a couple of rehearsals before the play starts on the 2nd. Crunch time!

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His play runs from July 2nd through the 6th (details in that web link above) and I will be there June 30 through July 5th. I’m actually expected to help out with the production (lighting, stage help, or whatever and whenever I am needed) while I am there, which makes the trip that much more exciting. I can’t wait.

One other really cool thing about the trip is that I will be there for Independence Day. The play has an early showing that day so that it will be done in time for the night’s fireworks that, I am sure, will be occurring all around the island that is Manhattan, where the play will be taking place.

I’m pumped! I’ll be sure to post pictures and, possibly, video when I get back from the trip.

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Enjoy.

Click here to view the embedded video.

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Pictures from the trip

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Dragon*Con pictures:

Mine

Shag’s

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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Click here to view the embedded video.

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The best thing I can state is that I will be living there someday.

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I had every intentions of trying to get to New York last year at the first part of December to check out the holiday decorations and to experience what New York is like during Christmas time. However, work got in the way and I ended up in Vermont for a week and experienced a real winter wonderland compared to the depressing warm and humid temperatures of Central Florida. I enjoyed every minute of it.

I’m not exactly sure what Simon has in store for me this coming weekend. Being the fantastic host that he is, I am sure it will be a time to remember, as has proven to be in the past. I know one thing I plan to do is check out Rockefeller Plaza in Manhattan to view the tree that is put on display every year. I’ll have made it there in time as the tree is planned to be lit this Wednesday night, the night before my arrival. It should be grand.

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Some co-workers and I went to Halloween Horror Nights at Universal Studios Orlando last night, it was a blast. Even though it was extremely busy with 90 degree temperature and 100% humidity, we still managed to have fun.

The longest we had to wait for a house was a little over an hour. The negative thing about this hour wait, besides it being an hour wait, is that once we got into the house for the walkthrough it only lasted about 10 minutes. I believe the issues with Halloween Horror Nights (HHN) now is that it has gotten so popular that it’s tough to go to it without waiting in a queue for a haunted house for more than an hour. I remember about 10 years ago, before moving to Orlando, that going to HHN on a weeknight would asure you would not have to wait in a queue for more than 15 minutes.

The houses were pretty cool and the theme of each was oustanding. This year was a little different in that while you were waiting in queue, you could watch clips of horror movies projected on the wall. This seemed to add a little something to the theme of each house. For example, one of the houses we went to was called People Under the Stairs Under Construction. While we were in line, we were entertained with the view of quite a few clips from the, now classic, film, People Under the Stairs. An added bonus to the walkthrough of the house was that they gave you hard hats with flashlights mounted on top to wear to help through the really dark areas. What they failed to mention was that this flashlight would sometimes stop beaming it’s light or act like the battery was going bad and just flash. This added to the surprise of not knowing what was around the corner.

The Bill & Ted’s Excellent Adventure Show was just as good as it had been previous years, it remains a legend. Other than that show and the houses, there wasn’t a whole lot more to do there, which was fine since we didn’t have time to check out all of the houses because of the crowd and long queues. The only ride that we noticed was open was The Revenge of the Mummy rollercoaster. This was the first time I had experienced it and it wasn’t bad, short, but not bad.

If I get a chance to go next year, my goal is to try to go to HHN the first week it opens in hopes that it is not as crowded versus a visit closer to Halloween.

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