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NY/NJ Meetup?


naz

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Any of you NY/NJ/CT/PA people up for a NorCal-type get-together soon? Our Bay Area friends are having a BwB picnic this weekend and I thought it would cool to have one of our own while we still have something left of the summer. I was thinking a Sunday in August or September in some park in the Garden State somewhere.

Or we could meet in Manhattan like we did last time when Sophelia was here.

Anyone up for something like that?

_____________________

edit - details:

Where: Liberty State Park picnic area (tentative)

When: Sun, Aug 26, around noon

How: Directions and info about the park can be found here, here, and here (in order of decreasing official-ness). In some of the directions, it doesn't show that the PATH train connects from WTC to Exchange Place in Jersey City, because they must have been written before the WTC station re-opened.

Who:

definites:

nazfyratu

turinqui-calima

dvd rots

bellis

bellis' SO

mr. x (if healthy)

x-ray (if healthy)

lany cassandra

captain esgred

wynter

sir knight sommerville

probables:

none! yee-haw!

not coming but we'll twist their arm anyway:

quoth

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I'm up for it, though we're out on the west coast until Tuesday morning. So anytime after that is cool.

I was thinking about getting a bunch of Brooklyn Cyclones tickets for a game during the next couple of weeks and offering that as a NY/NJ meetup option.

Picnics are good too.

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I'm down, of course... I'll be in town starting next Monday, until Sept. 20thish, so I'm good for a month; I'll try to make pretty much anything (looking at the Red Bulls schedule, it looks like that's probably happening, which might be good, as the Meadowlands are in the single most Godforsaken location on the planet). So, essentially, yes. Meetup. NYC or anywhere in Jersey, I will do my damndest to make.

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Saturdays in general are out for me as is all of Labor Day weekend. But lets look at sports related activities for a moment:

Cyclones home games:

Fri 8/24, 7pm, vs. Oneonta Tigers

Fri 8/24, 7pm, vs. Lowell Spinners

- unfortunately no Sunday home games, unless you count visiting the SI Yankees (boo!)

Red Bulls home games:

Sat 9/1, 7:30pm vs. Chicago Fire

Sat 9/22, 7:30pm vs. NE Revolution

- I can't make either of these, but you guys can go for sure

Mets home games (Mr. X and I talked about this once):

Fri 8/24, 7pm vs. LA

Sun 8/26, 8pm vs. LA

Fri 9/7, 7pm vs. Houston

Sun 9/9, 1pm vs. Houston

Fri 9/14, 7pm vs. Phila

Sun 9/16, 1pm vs. Phila

Sports stuff is all well and good, but people who don't like sports may get bored. If we do a picnic and a game, the best options (to me) look like the Sunday Mets games on Sept 9th and 16th. I personally think we should keep the sports separate... I don't mind doing that with just the people who are interested.

That leaves a picnic. To make it easy for PA people, then somewhere in North Jersey or Manhattan are the best locations. I know literally hundreds of places in NJ and Rockland/Putnam counties where a picnic can be had, ranging from parks to campgrounds to places with swimming, boating, hiking, etc. They don't have the panache of Central Park, but hey... we can do that too. If we do NYC, someone else will have to pick the spot.

Last year, I set up an office outing at Storm King Arts Center, a beautiful 500-acre sculpture park upstate that has picnic grounds, too. Everyone loved it. I go there about 2-3 times a year. It's awesome in the fall, too. You just can't get very raucous there, but it'd be a nice artsy outdoorsy affair. It's also not very hard to get to. [edit: You also can't cook there, so no BBQ]

If you want raucous, I've organized picnics at Swartswood State Park in the past, which has all of the things I mentioned above. I'm sure Rots knows it - it's up near him. They have lots of picnic tables, a sand volleyball court, a huge field, a lake to swim in, canoeing, kayaking, and hiking trails. But it's kind of out of the way. We'd have to carpool. But there are many many smaller parks in other accessible locations in NJ, if we just want a simple picnic where we can eat, drink, and play frisbee, soccer, croquet, etc.

There's a nice county park in the Meadowlands (yes, you heard me) called Laurel Hill County Park which is literally steps from Secaucus Junction, which has trains to NY-Penn, Phila, and everywhere in NJ. It's actually a beautiful little park, considering it's in the Meadowlands and off the Turnpike.

Personally, I'd love to do this on Aug 26 or Sep 9 when it's still good and warm. Anyway, let me know what you think.

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The Secaucus venue on Aug. 26th might be do-able for me. And it is easy to get to for NY, NJ and PA folks by car or rail, without the need to figure out the intricacies of the NYC subway and bus system.

For future reference as potential activities, there are (1) for sports minded, the new Devils arena is just a safe 5 minute walk from Newark, NJ Penn Station (one stop away from Secaucus), (2) also a 5 minute walk from Newark Penn Station are several best in USA Portuguese and Spanish restaurants (note: Spanish, not Mexican or Southwest.) or (3) a picnic/restaurant/tour of the City of Bayonne where George festered during his first couple of decades. Exit 14A on the NJ Turnpike and the Hudson-Bergen Lightrail goes there from NJ Transit / PATH Train Hoboken Terminal and from PATH's Exchange Place station.

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Well, this is better... I'll wait til more people respond before getting involved in planning this thing. Anyone have a problem with meeting on Sunday Aug 24th? Is that too soon?

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Well, this is better... I'll wait til more people respond before getting involved in planning this thing. Anyone have a problem with meeting on Sunday Aug 24th? Is that too soon?

Well, it's not a real date, and that might be an issue...

(Aug 26 is a Sunday, Aug. 24 is a Friday).

:P

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Well, it's not a real date, and that might be an issue...

(Aug 26 is a Sunday, Aug. 24 is a Friday).

:P

This expectation of insanely high standards, assiduous attention to details, and implied mandate for perfection in all things is killing me on a deep, emotional level and I'm not sure I can continue to bear the pain of your censure and condemnation any longer. :)

Yes.... the 26th.

edited to add smiley. when are we getting the sarcasm emoticon, anyway? does it, like... cost extra?

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Well, yeah, if you mean Sunday the 26th I can do that. Please just make sure it's not to hard to get to for someone from NYC who's not too used to taking the train to NJ.

If we go to the park in Secaucus, it's literally a one-stop ride from NYC: Penn to Secaucus. Anyplace more involved, and someone will try to give you good directions / a ride to and from the train station (generally, from Penn you can catch a direct train to somewhere that'll be convenient to some Jersey boarder; Penn has trains that go everyfreakingwhere.)

Naz: yes, quite. Uhm, 26th is good for me, any shenanigans I might be pulling will probably be limited to the 24th/25th. I'll keep it open.

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I'm going to drive around a bit today and scope out some locations... Laurel Hill, South Mountain Reservation, Eagle Rock Reservation, Watchung Reservation...

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