Steve Fischer's Random Blog

Category: Brooklyn

  • Bad Zip Car, great weekend

    Well, I guess it was inevitable. We had our first negative experience with Zip Car last weekend. But we still had a great weekend.

    The weekend started early with parent/teacher conferences on Friday. Of course, it’s just kindergarten so let’s not get carried away here, but it’s really nice to hear teachers say wonderful things about your daughter. And since our conference was at 4:00 we asked our nanny to work late so we could do (gasp) an early dinner and a movie. Truth be told, we don’t get out that much.

    There’s a new place near us that we wanted to try. It was a beautiful day so we sat outside. The food was great and so were the drinks. (My wife had The Fair Harbor and I had the Ommegang Witte – tasty)

    We saw State of Play which was good, not great. But for someone who hasn’t been to the movies in ages, just relaxing with the popcorn was worth it.

    The next day we were visiting my wife’s sister. But we had also agreed to take Danielle’s best friend while her mother was doing an all day class. It was another great day. We went to the park in the morning and Danielle had her swim class after lunch.

    Have I mentioned who her new swim teacher is? You can look him up here or here (Anthony Ervin). Really, an Olympic gold medal winner teaching 6 year olds is serious overkill, but he’s really nice and good with the kids.

    To look at him you wouldn’t guess how good he once was. Yes, he’s tall and thin with 0% body fat (and tattoos covering both arms). He’s a bit geeky looking. When you get close you notice the huge feet. And teaching in the pool you can’t tell. Except for one time when he was out of the pool and the three kids were doing the backstroke. They weren’t supposed to go all the way to the other end of the pool but they did and once they started they couldn’t hear him. So he walks about halfway down the pool, does kind of a sideways dive into the water and about a split second later he emerges at the other end of the pool. OK, he’s still fast.

    After swimming we we going to my wife’s sisters. We had the Zip Car reserved for 4:30. When I left swimming I had a voicemail from Zip Car. The person who had the car before me wasn’t going to be back until 6:00. Well that sucks. I called them to see if there were any other cars available. The first totally gorgeous weekend of the year. Any guesses? No cars. So we’re basically stuck. It was very annoying, though in truth it didn’t really impact our weekend overall. Funny how an hour and a half can seem like a disaster at first and be a non-event later.

    Apparently Zip Car has a pretty emphatic no tolerance policy on lateness. The other driver will get fine $50 for every hour she was late (would be nice if the inconvenienced party got some of that…).

    We got up to my wife’s sisters place a bit late, but the girls napped on the way so they were ready to go. Everyone played and had a great time. We played the next morning had lunch and headed back. And since Danielle’s friend’s mother wasn’t going to finish her class until 6:00 on Sunday, we did a picnic in the park.

    There’s a park in Brooklyn tucked in between the Brooklyn Bridge and the Manhattan Bridge called Empire-Fulton Ferry State Park. It’s a great little park, and will eventually be park of a much bigger park. It’s also very close to one of the best pizza places around (at least according to Zagat’s). You can count on standing outside in line for at least a half an hour to get a table. But they take pick up orders. So 45 minutes ahead of time, I call them. Then later I just walk from the park, skip the line, pick up my pizza (really annoying the 30 people waiting in line) and walk back to the park.

    A delicious end to an awesome weekend.

  • Parenting Gem

    Danielle (6) takes a ballet class and a hip hop dance class at a local dance studio (in Brooklyn local means about 2 blocks away). This is nothing serious, just good fun kids dance stuff.

    This week was “Open House” week, so parents could watch a class. Of course, I have the more flexible schedule these days, so I’m the parent at Danielle’s hip hop class today.

    Aside from being big fun to watch (imagine 6 year olds doing an “attitude walk”), there was a point where the teacher wanted the parents involved. She told the kids to grab their parents to do some freeze dancing (if you aren’t familiar with freeze dancing you clearly don’t have kids – you dance and when the music stops you freeze like a statue).

    Danielle runs over to grab me, and then she runs over to grab Victoria (2). So there are my two girls doing freeze dancing in the dance studio. A very nice big sister/little sister moment.

    Victoria doesn’t completely get the “freeze” part of it, but everytime everyone else freezes, she just laughs out loud.

    One of those little parenting gem moments…

  • I’ll take $500,000 a year

    This article cracks me up…

  • Ubiquitous Free WiFi

    Since I am not currently working (at least not in the conventional sense) I obviously do not have an office. I am doing many side projects, lots of research and actual coding so I need a place to do “work”. Often being at home is not a good option since I have small children who can be somewhat distracting.

    So I am quite pleased at the quantity (and quality) of free Wifi in close proximity to my apartment. There are two quality coffee shops, a coffee shop/restaurant and two good bars with free Wifi within blocks:


    Favorite Coffee Shop: The Flying Saucer. Classic artsy coffee shop with decent food. Cheap, good secure WiFi. And you see lots of freelancers there working. A very good vibe.

    Next favorite: Building on Bond. This is a coffee shop by day, restaurant by night. Very nice. To encourage the crossover, they turn off the free WiFi at 4:30. But there’s a pretty good signal that you can pirate after 4:30. And they have a decent beer selection too…

    The newest one is a coffee shop and art gallery, called Clover’s. It’s a bit fancy shmancy and the coffee is overpriced. But it will do in a pinch.

    Of the bars, only one actually advertises WiFi. The Brazen Head is a nice beer joint with good WiFi. But my favorite bar of all, Pete’s Waterfront Alehouse now also has WiFi. The don’t advertise it, so I’m assuming they are just using it themselves.

    So I can basically work anywhere…

  • ZipCar Part I

    Since we let our car go, I had been looking for a good chance to try out ZipCar. I wanted something low pressure, in case there were snags.

    Today, Danielle had a playdate with one of her classmates, Eloise, after school. Eloise lives reasonably far from us. About a 20 minute walk or a couple stops on the subway. Eloise’s mother was picking them both up from school and I had to go get Danielle around 5:15. Danielle wasn’t going to have dinner there (she’s a picky eater) so I wanted to get her home fairly quickly for dinner.

    I could do car service, but then I’d need to run in and grab her quickly while the car waited. Not likely with a six year old.

    So I reserved a ZipCar from 5-6. I deliberately waited until today just to see if you can do ZipCar on the spur of the moment. Plenty of cars available. I try a Subaru Forrester (to see if it would be a good weekend getaway car). I could have gone for a BMW or a Mini Cooper. But I’m a practical kind of guy.

    It couldn’t have been easier. I walk to the garage a few blocks from our place. I hand the guy at the garage my ZipCard and he gets my car. A ZipCar will only unlock and only start if you have the right ZipCard. It’s just a regular card like a credit card with a magnetic strip. But ZipCars have RFID readers in them. They get programmed remotely so they know who has them reserved. The car will only start and only unlock during my reservation with my ZipCard.

    I can reserve cars from my Blackberry or my PC. ZipCar knows where I live so it defaults to the two garages closest to me.

    Given that in Brooklyn you have to park your car in a garage a few blocks away anyway, the ZipCar experience was different from owning a car only in that you can’t leave anything in the car.

    All in all a very successful first ZipCar experience

  • ZipCar

    The lease on our car just ended. For a long time I have debated the value of owning a car when you live in Brooklyn. It was a 42 month lease and the car had 18,000 miles on it. We probably drive it 2-3 a month on average.

    Between the cost of the car, parking in a garage (a necessity in Brooklyn), insurance (expensive in Brooklyn) and miscellaneous costs, we probably spent $1000/month on the car. If you drive it twice a month, each one of those trips is effectively costing you $500. Crazy.

    But not having a car seems a bit odd. Since I graduated from high school, I have always owned a car. Even while spending 9 months in Japan, or 6 months working on a cruise ship, my car would be parked at my parent’s house. I’ve just always had one.

    Part of it is the freedom aspect. What if, on a whim, we decide to go visit my wife’s sister (about 60 miles away)? Or we need to get something out of our storage unit (about a mile away)?

    Enter ZipCar. ZipCar is really designed for our case. People who need to drive occasionally but for whom owning a car is crazy. The cars are parked all over, in the same garages that I would use for my car if I owned one.  You can use them by the hour. Most cars run $11/hour ($17/hour for a BMW) which includes gas and insurance.

    So we’re going to be trying it for a while. And living in the city there are always trains, taxis and car service. I predict we don’t spend more than $200/month getting around without the car.

    Today I appreciated the change. I’ve gone to see a friend a few times up in Westchester. If you own a car, you might as well drive it. The drive is about an hour to an hour and fifteen minutes with some highly annoying traffic (particularly getting out of the city). I do a lot of swearing as I drive. But if you already own the car, the incremental cost of the trip is just the gas.

    I visited that friend today and took the subway to Grand Central and then the Metro North train. It took an hour and a half, door to door. It cost $20. I read the paper, worked on my computer, wrote this blog. Didn’t swear once.

    I’ll blog later about my first ZipCar experience. Maybe I can get used to this…

  • Another Great Antic

    As always, it was a great day. If you haven’t read any of my previous posts, the Atlantic Antic is Brooklyn’s biggest street fair and it’s right on our street. Couldn’t be better.

    I tend to view the Antic either through Danielle’s eyes or in terms of the food. So if you are a 5 3/4 year old:

    • face painting
    • giant inflated slide
    • pony ride
    • roasted corn on the cob
    • cotton candy
    • blues band
    • painting on a giant canvas
    • kids music
    • popcorn

    And then if you are me:

    I’m not sure who had more fun…

  • Atlantic Antic Today!

    Regular readers will recall me blogging about this Brooklyn street fair. It’s the best around and it’s today.

    If you are just interested in the food, here’s the link.

  • MTV goes Brooklyn

    Apparently the next Real World will be filmed in downtown Brooklyn, about 6 blocks from our place. Though it’s an interesting six blocks. It’s very close to Danielle’s school and it’s very close to lots of good stuff, but it’s still an odd neighborhood. Neighborhoods in New York can change in a block.

    There’s a trend near our neighborhood where huge luxury condos are going up in areas that aren’t really residential. The building the Real World will be using falls into this category. I liked the comment in this New York Times article:

    They could get mugged out here.

    But it’s not like they’re slumming. They’re going to live in a $6 million place. Welcome to downtown Brooklyn…