:: 2010 28 July :: 8.29 pm

Last night in the apartment.
Goodbye Forest Hills.

2 thoughts | Comment

:: 2010 13 July :: 10.13 pm

manhattanhenge
So somewhere along the line while living in the city I learned of Manhattanhenge but always missed it or would forget about it. I finally paid attention this year.

Manhattanhenge is when the sun is perfectly aligned with the street grid of Manhattan. It happens twice a year, like Stonehenge. With Stonehenge, the pillars are aligned so that the sun passes through on the seasonal equinoxes. The street grid of Manhattan is rotated 30 degrees from true east/west, which is why it happens on two random dates during the year instead of the equinox. The second date was this past Sunday, so I went to Manhattan armed with my D-SLR and met Bob's brother for dinner.

Technically you can go to any east/west street in Manhattan that's part of the grid, but you want to pick an open one with a good view west. I chose 34th Street so that I could get the Empire State Building in the shots. We decided to stop at 34th and Park and wait there with some coffee. It only lasts a short time, maybe four minutes or so.

_{My empire.}

It was kind of amazing because the constant bustle of Manhattan was paused for a few minutes as photographers appeared out of nowhere, congregated in the middle of 34th at rush hour, drivers stopped their cars (above) and got out to take pictures. It was a little shared moment when all of Manhattan was bathed in the same sunbeam.







Manhattan Solstice
TwentyTen

---

Today is one month since Bob left.
I miss him every single day.
I still tear up in a heartbeat over it.

Jim, his brother, said to me this weekend,
"I truly believe you are a gift from Bob to help get me through this."

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:: 2010 6 July :: 4.57 pm

The Big Apple is baking!



Broke a record today. 102 degrees in Central Park.

We stayed cool on the Fourth though, despite the 95 degrees.

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:: 2010 5 July :: 9.28 pm

I need an update.
But for now, look at this.

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:: 2010 23 June :: 10.41 pm

Bob's brother and I talk everyday. I am thankful beyond words for his friendship. I needed someone who knew him and understood. We had coffee the other night and I had it light, no sugar, in honor of Bob. I miss our coffee texts.

His family invited me out on their boat. They were releasing his funeral flowers into the Atlantic Ocean. The NYPD bought flowers in the shape of a yacht for his wake because he was looking forward to getting a boat again someday. So I went out to Breezy Point, Brooklyn and spent an evening at his home and all I could wish was that I had the opportunity to go out there when Bob was alive. His wife is completely devastated and I could feel it as soon as I walked in the door. The air held the pain. This is where Bob left. There, in his own bed. Sometimes it's worse seeing her so hurt than it is thinking about Bob being gone. There's nothing anyone can do for her.



When we were out on the boat and I was watching the sun set behind Coney Island, I started crying. This is where Bob grew up. This is where his children grew up. This is what he saw everyday before driving into Jamaica. This was Bob. His wife comforted me and rubbed my arm. She comforted me. She's barely hanging on and she comforted me. She has a kind heart. I wish there was something I could do for her. She didn't speak much, but when I was crying she said she just thought this was all a bad dream and she's waiting, still, to wake up.


_{Sunset behind Coney Island.}

It means the world to me that they called me up and invited me. Out of all the people at the NYPD, some of whom knew Bob for 11 years, the family took me, a Crim I, barely there two years, into their life. I don't know what to say. I wish it didn't take Bob leaving for me to know them.



Jim has become a good friend to me. We check up on each other everyday and he's already helped me so much. Most nights this week I've gotten less than 5 hours of sleep, sometimes only 3. We have coffee or dinner or just sit and talk. We listen to music and laugh about Bob being a jackass. I made a CD for his band. He says I have helped him so much through all of this and it brings me happiness that I can do something for a family that Bob loved so dearly. Having a drink at a bar with Bob's sister and kids the other night in Brooklyn, I saw how awesome his whole family is. I am thankful for them and wish them peace.

It was a beautiful evening.


_{Bob's children releasing the yacht into the Atlantic.}

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:: 2010 20 June :: 10.51 pm

I had a completely remarkable night last night. Rode the ferry to Staten Island at sunset and got the most spectacular photos in NY harbor.



Then went to see Bob's brother in his band. They rocked out, personally played Michelle by the Beatles for me, bought me drinks, thanked me a hundred times for coming out for Bob, bought me breakfast at a diner at 4am, and we stayed up talking until 6:30am about Bob, life, and death. It was a night I will never forget.


Wearing Bob's Jets hat.

If I could do anything if I saw Bob again, I would hug him. I never hugged him. I never told him I appreciated his friendship. I told his brother these things last night. So I asked him for a hug. It was the next best thing.



I just realized it's been a week since he's been gone and my life has already changed.

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:: 2010 17 June :: 5.04 pm

I found comfort today. His brother is just like him.

As the days keep turning into night
And even breathing feels all right
:: Alexi Murdoch

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:: 2010 16 June :: 10.36 pm

I don't have words for what I witnessed today. I looked into the eyes of a murderer and listened as he addressed the family he broke.

I listened as the ADA read the last entry Michelle wrote in her diary. She wrote it 9 days before she was murdered by Gary. It floored me. The unspoken reality of it all. She wrote it for no one. She wrote it not knowing a courtroom full of people would listen to it while she lay in the ground across town. She wrote it not knowing that the man she was writing about would kill her in a few days. That he would be listening while her family wept behind him and the NYPD filled all the rows of seats in the courtroom. There were so many of us we spilled onto the defense side of the courtroom and I sat in a bench behind his parents.

How desperate are we for truth? How rare is it, that it immediately incises and rips open all the filters from which we seek our truths? The mask of media was lifted today. The masks of gossip and self-interest. Today, I heard truth.

There is so much more I could say about the hearing but I just got home from shopping for funeral clothes. On Facebook a group was made for remembering Bob. It's filled with messages and photos and I just started sobbing. Sobbing.

This week. It's indescribable. I was supposed to be in Michigan tonight. But my flight was Spirit and their strike canceled my flight. I was supposed to miss the sentence hearing today. I was supposed to miss the NYPD softball tournament tomorrow. Bob was supposed to go to the sentencing. He was supposed to play in the softball tournament. Everyone knows Bob is the light of the tournament. We go to see him drink and pitch and make us laugh. I was disappointed I was missing it. I told him to tell me about it and the hearing when I got back. Instead, I went to the sentencing in place of Bob. There will be no softball tournament tomorrow. Instead we are going to Bob's wake. I will not be in Michigan at a family bbq this weekend, I will be at a funeral in the Rockaways. All this while Jason is in Michigan. So I wander from work to home to the store to home to bed, alone, and wonder how my life flipped upside-down in one evening. I stare at the wall and remember good times with Bob. I stare at the ceiling and wonder why a murderer is alive and Bob is gone.

A loss.
A canceled flight.
A murderer.
A wake.
A funeral.
Alone.



Bob pitching (with a beer at his feet) at the NYPD Softball Tournament, one year ago tomorrow.


Here is an article about today. The NY Post, Daily News, and CBS were there. I saw myself on the local news this evening sitting in the hallway outside the courtroom before the hearing. The NY Post article is most complete, even though I don't like that paper. I can vouch that it's pretty much accurate. For once.

1 thought | Comment

:: 2010 14 June :: 10.45 pm

That's my Bob.

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:: 2010 14 June :: 6.06 am

I'm lucky if I got two hours of sleep last night. I just want this to be a joke. I won't even be mad. I would do anything to have him be at work today, pointing and laughing with his stupid Bob grin.

I can't even think about his family. When I do I sink, because I know they must feel worse than I do and I feel horrible.

2 thoughts | Comment

:: 2010 13 June :: 10.22 pm

He was excited about the softball game this week. He was hilarious when he was drunk. He wanted to go to the sentencing for Michelle Lee's killer this week. He always talked about how proud he was of his daughter flying fighter planes and how he was looking forward to when his son finished high school so that he and his wife could relax. He talked about how he liked where he lived. How he loved to travel to Florida and take cruises. He was always there for me. He would come and sit at my desk and bullshit with me. And one Saturday when he and I were the only ones working in the room, I confided in him all the things that were bothering me. I told him when I was upset at work and he listened. He told me stories about when he has been upset at work and how he dealt with it. He was my coffee buddy. We shared stories over coffee and sometimes sat together at lunch. He gave me a ride home from work when I didn't have my MetroCard. He promised me a beer. Recently I asked him when we were going. He said, "soon". I was going to loan him my dad's softball glove for the game this week. I just met his son a few weeks ago. He daughter just graduated. On Wednesday, the last day I saw him, we talked about a concert he was going to. He asked me how the SEM training was going. He helped me get in that training. He was the one I asked about Lasik because he had it done years ago. He stood up for me. He helped me out. He was the one confidant I had at work. He was THE ONLY PERSON I could go to and feel comfortable. Even though he was my boss, he was my friend. From the beginning I opened up to him. I respected him and I listened to him and he made me laugh every single time we talked.

There are very few people I open up to. There are very few people I like in life without hesitation. Bob was one of those people.

I don't understand what happened today and I swear to god it feels like a bad dream I'm waiting to wake up from. I feel robbed from a friendship I could have had for a long time.

1 thought | Comment

:: 2010 13 June :: 9.12 pm

I'm not gonna be able to sleep tonight. A good friend is gone.
Really upset.

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:: 2010 8 June :: 9.32 pm

Dear Diary,

Today I looked at a tick's hairy vagina under 10,000x magnification. Well to be accurate, I shot high energy electrons at a tick's vagina to get 10,000x magnification. What did YOU do at work today?



No, but really. No picture of the vagina (don't worry it wasn't pretty) but I did take this photo of some particles containing manganese, chloride, and oxygen.



We looked at other things such as gunshot residue, paint chips, diatoms, copper screens, glass orbs, and uh, ticks.

That picture above that I took, one particle is about 200 microns across.
I could look at weird shit all day with that thing.

2 thoughts | Comment

:: 2010 7 June :: 10.49 pm

Oh for bollock's sake. There have been like 12 entries I've wanted to write but now it's just all jumbley in my head.

LOST Finale Party -- Success!
We had like seventeen people over or some crazy number like that. Respectable for a one-bedroom NYC apartment, for certain. Mike dressed up as Hugo and Tiffany dressed up as Ana Lucia. Jason wore his Dharma jumpsuit until the apartment reached a million degrees from all the drunk respiration, at which point he tore it off and donned my pink grass skirt. PS: In our five years together, I'm certain I've never seen Jason so sick (ahem, CRUNKED) as I did later that night after everyone left. I, however, was perfectly fine. Thank you. ::curtsy::







We seriously went decoration happy. And my pulled pork received raving reviews much to my relief. It was a 7-hour experiment in the kitchen and I was wondering why I decided to make this meal for the first time when I was cooking it for 17 people. Our apartment was pretty badass. Details in the Facebook album.


Uh, what else, went to another Mets game one of these past days. Don't remember if I posted pictures of the other game. Either way they're on Facebook too.




Hello strange man. I squishy your head.









I'm excited to be in SEM (scanning electron microscopy, for the non-scientifically initiated) training this week at the NYPD. It's a nice break from casework and I get to learn a new instrument. It's used in forensics for gunshot residue and characterizing particulate matter, among other things. It's that fancy doodaddy that makes those black and white photographs of extreme magnification and incredible depth of field you sometimes see of pollen grains or things of that nature. We're playing around with samples tomorrow. I'd like to get to keep my photographs but I'm not entirely sure that's possible. Plus, we got to wear those cardboard 3D glasses at work today. 1990's childhood, what!

Uh, what else, apartment hunting for the first time in 4 years. Nearly out of here. Jason has yet to decide, we shall see. Come what may.



Flying to Michigan next week to see my parents for the first time this year.

Got a tour change, now working 0700x1500 so that my evenings are again in my possession. Or at least feel that way.

Bought a bike from a guy off Craigslist. I ride to work a couple times a week. Remarkably, it takes exactly the same amount of time the subway ride does. Early morning creeping over Long Island is refreshingly amazing as I ride into the sunrise. I rode my bike through the drive-thru at a Dunkin Donuts this morning. Waited in line with drivers. Weird looks. My bike is too light to activate the speaker so I ordered at the window.

I met the Craigslist guy in midtown to check out the bike. After I gave him cash and we parted ways, I decided to ride home to Forest Hills from midtown. What an adventure! I rode over the East River on the 59th Street Bridge and it was spectacular with views of Roosevelt Island below. Then got lost in Queens for a long while (somewhere in Maspeth/Sunnyside) before a kind biker led me to Queens Boulevard, where I rode the boulevard of death home. I will do some Manhattan riding this summer (staying on biking trails mostly) and perhaps Governor's Island. Good photo ops.

Anyway, bed soon so I can coat specimens in gold tomorrow and zap them with high energy electrons. Wee!

1 thought | Comment

:: 2010 24 May :: 1.13 pm

The morning after a party it's always fun to play Where Did the Drunk People Put Their Cups?

Apartment is traaaashed and Jason worshiped the porcelain god all night.
Glad I took off work today. Hoo boy!

3 thoughts | Comment

:: 2010 20 May :: 9.32 pm

Your work is to discover your world,
and then with all your heart,
give yourself to it.
Buddha

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:: 2010 20 May :: 7.08 pm

One year ago tomorrow, the NYPD closed in on the man who murdered my coworker. They showed up at his home in Queens, not far from where I live, and took him into custody. He has been held at Riker's Island without bail ever since.

Today, one year after he was caught, he pled guilty to her murder. They gave him manslaughter, in exchange for a plea. He will be serving 29-37 years.

We were told at work today in a meeting.
Here is the public news:

Article

1 thought | Comment

:: 2010 16 May :: 10.19 pm

One week!



Jason and I (mostly Jason) have been busy getting ready for our big finale bash next weekend. We've hit up two party stores for decorations, a craft store, and still need to pick up the island food. Invitations went out a week ago via FB and email. So far 12 people confirmed and many more we're waiting on. It has potential to be one of our biggest parties. Jason is going all out and I'm trying to keep up. :)

Last visit to the Lost Bar (ever!!) is this Tuesday. We've pretty much switched from our original Lost Bar to the new one since it's closer in Astoria, rather than Manhattan.

Cool sidenote: Our original Lost Bar that we went to for years is now the site of an attempted Guinness Book World Record. A couple of Losties are watching EVERY SINGLE EPISODE FROM THE FIRST TO THE SERIES FINALE. In one sitting. They are starting this week and finishing just before the finale. With documentary crews, et al.

So next Sunday is the end of it all. This show has been quite the journey and our party is gonna end it with a bang.

Namaste.

6 thoughts | Comment

:: 2010 15 May :: 12.43 pm

A mermaid found a swimming lad
Picked him for her own
Pressed her body to his body
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.
:: William Butler Yeats

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:: 2010 14 May :: 11.53 pm

five
Went out in Queens tonight with a group of criminalists for some dinner in Chinatown. Authentic Chinese food, bubble tea, Red Mango, Chinese candies and buns and pastries.



After leaving the restaurant, we were greeted by a large number of our own. The PD had blocked off the street and created a police line around the elevated train line. A few of us got out our badges and went up to see what was going on. Another bomb scare, right there while we were having dinner. A suspicious suitcase, Bomb Squad and Wall-e on their way.

This is the 5th scare since Times Square. Luckily only one has been real. They shut down the 7 train so I couldn't get home for awhile so we ate our frozen yogurt and laughed at our work stories.

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:: 2010 13 May :: 10.08 pm

Obama was at the NYPD today (headquarters, not the lab) to thank the Bomb Squad et al. for their work on the attempted Times Square bombing.

And hopefully our little Bomb Wall-e got some recognition too. :)

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:: 2010 12 May :: 10.46 pm
:: Music: Vampire Weekend :: Giving Up the Gun

11 thoughts | Comment

:: 2010 8 May :: 11.10 am

I have this feeling that something bad is going to happen. I don't mean ever. I mean soon.

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:: 2010 6 May :: 8.48 pm

Holy fucking tourists in Manhattan.

I know we have big fancy buildings but do please find it within yourselves to step aside when you're gawking in a vertical fashion while standing in the middle of the bloody sidewalk. I'm actually trying to get somewhere.

Had a checkup. Vision is 20/20 and doc says she can't even tell I had surgery when she looks at my corneas. They're completely healed. And I didn't get any halos, or star burst weird night things that people sometimes complain about. Before the surgery, the surgeon said my pupils are larger than most people's so I probably wouldn't notice any halos because I've always had them. He was right, I've always had a halo ring around lights my entire life, now I just know why. And post-op, they're not any different. Woot for pupil fatties.

Thoughts: I know I'm at that age when people are hooking up and getting married and all that jazz. But my god Facebook has shown me how boring their domestic life is. Sure kid pics are cute and I'm going to drown the internets in my own someday, but OMG are you seriously uploading pictures of your MAILBOX?! It's not even a special mailbox with some cute pattern or unique shape or anything remotely interesting. It is literally a PLAIN WHITE MAILBOX. GO DO SOMETHING.

Now, I'm not talking about showing off pics of your new home or what have you. Sure that's a big thing and it's always nice to show people a new place, but OMG YOU BOUGHT A NEW PLATE! Upload naaaow!!

7 thoughts | Comment

:: 2010 4 May :: 6.37 pm

Saw the evidence from the terrorist bombing at my work today.
FBI is there too.

And the shit at the crime lab is going DOWN.

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:: 2010 4 May :: 7.55 am

Very proud of the joint NYPD Terrorism Task force and FBI for catching the Times Square Bombing suspect.

Rock it guys.


Didn't think that our Bomb Squad robot that I showed a few entries back would be needed again so soon.

6 thoughts | Comment

:: 2010 30 April :: 10.59 pm

I was wondering why Pace sent me that weird email this morning...

Reading the news tonight I found out why.

CNN

NPR

FOX News
(Fair and balanced. Har.)

NY Daily News

Cyanide is NOT the way to go. It's messy. In your body.

School pride. >_<

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:: 2010 29 April :: 6.50 pm

Today, my grandpas on both sides would have turned 87. Happy Birthday Grandpa Charlie and Grandpa Flynn. Gone but not forgotten.

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:: 2010 28 April :: 8.57 pm

thoughts
Relaxing after work with some green tea, reading the NYPD magazine. I like hearing about all the different things the department is doing. We're so unfathomably huge, it's impossible to know much more than what's happening at your own division. In the magazine, Commissioner Kelly talks about the PD's response to the Moscow subway bombings, how the patrols increased instantaneously after news spread. I remember that day. It was after my surgery and I was passing men with assault rifles and SWAT gear underground. He also talks about how our department does large scale, multi-agency counterterrorism training surges in Grand Central, Penn Station, and Herald Square. So that men like Zazi are caught before they kill.

Other interesting fact I read: On average, there are now fewer than six felony crimes a day in the subway, compared to 10 a day in 2001, and 48 a day in 1990.

We are the safest big city in America.
I'm proud to be part of it.

1 thought | Comment

:: 2010 27 April :: 10.44 pm

Today is one year since the murder. The amount of statuses and comments on Facebook in her memory is kind of amazing.

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