Well despite the title of the party, we ended up not singing a single Christmas song. We had plenty of talent in the room. Thanks to Manahi for bringing his friends who are excellent singers. Click on the photo for more pictures. Below are some video clips.

Today my company went out to celebrate holidays and talk to each other about things other than work. In this group photo I decided to break the tall-people-go-in-the-back rule with the help of a chair.

As I as walking around inside Best Buy store on the corner of 26th street and 6th avenue I saw a DDR pad next to a home theater system. I looked where it was connected and discoverd an XBox console on the floor behind all of the fancy amplifiers and dvd players on the shelves. I started stepping on the pad and a sales person asked me if I wanted to play. I said yes and he gladly switched the TV input from broadcasting a foodball game to the XBox output. I stayed there for about 20 minutes playing as curious customers where asking me "how does this work?"

Today we celebrated the birthday of my friend Meg at Amarone Ristorante. We've been going to this restaurant with Meg and other of my friends many times during several years while Meg used to live couple of blocks away from it. The owner of the restaurant Toni knows Meg for many years. He is a great guy. He was nice enough to give us some dessert wine on the house! Even though I don't drink alcohol, I finished a whole glass of it, since it tasted really nice and I could not taste any alcohol. It sort of tasted like ginger ale.

On Tuesday (two days ago) just before leaving the office to go to the Quadrille rehearsal I discovered that I lost my wallet. On that day I only used it in the morning to get my usual breakfast at a deli. Since we had an in-office lunch, I have not been using the wallet throughout the day. I tried to look for my wallet all over my desk and in all my pockets and bags, but could not find it. I had to borrow $10 from my colleage Sarah and head out not to be late for the rehearsal. My friends suggested I call the banks and cancel my credit cards. So I did, and fortunately no unauthorized charges were made. But unfortunately I will have to update all of my automatic payments with the new credit card information once I get it in the mail. The next day I started a new monthly unlimited $70 metrocard. The one I had in my wallet would still be usable for 13 days. I also had to go to the bank and get a temporary ATM card. I also tried to mentally prepair myself for the trip to the DMV to get a duplicate drivers license.

But today after I came back from lunch, my co-worker Arthur said, "Raphael, I have bad news for you!". Then he pointed at my chair. The moral of the story is: When you lose something, always check underneath your butt first.

I have finally done it! Now I can put Chandelier Installation on my resume!

It took 8 hours to install the chandelier in Kerrie's living room. That included ripping apart the old light fixture and ceiling medallion, attaching her new fancy ceiling medallion, wiring the dimmer switch on the wall, attaching the chandelier, and putting more than 120 crystals on it one at a time.

Removing the old lighting fixture was simple. It was held in place by only one screw. Removing the old ceiling medallion was a bit more challenging. After first trying to gently separate it from the ceiling with a chisel, I ended up beating the living crap out of it with a hammer and shattering it do pieces. This thing was like 100 years old and this was the only way to end its life.

I could feel a nice chilly breeze coming from the hole in the ceiling. Since Kerrie lives on the top floor, I anxiously peeked in the hole to see if I could see a glimpse of the sky, but fortunately I did not. I sighed with relief knowing that her floor would be dry when it rains.

In the hole there were 3 sets of wires all connected together. I disconnected them and had to figure out which one had the juice. I left my voltmeter at home, so I decided to use Kerrie's paper shredder as the indicator. After connecting its plug to various combinations of wires I finally made the shredder produce its ominous sound and isolated the set of wires that had the juice. The other two sets seemed useless to me, so I cut them short so they are out of the way. I connected the wire that would go to the dimmer switch on the wall and was ready to put on the fancy ceiling medallion that Kerrie bought.

Attaching the medallion was fairly straight forward, thanks to the instructions that I found on the web. Before installing it I had to file a groove in the edge of the medallion for the dimmer wire to go through. Then I put some adhesive caulk around the perimeter of the medallion and stuck it to the ceiling. I also used 4 screws to secure it.

The next thing to do was to install the dimmer switch on the wall. I attached it using a special box designed for outside wiring. I used special adhesive tubes along the wall and ceiling to hide the wire.

At this point we came to an exciting part of actually opening the chandelier box! It was exciting because Kerrie bought the chandelier almost a year ago and it's been in that box until now. The box contained several packages of add-on crystals, a pack of mounting hardware and the chandelier itself. First thing to do was to figure out how to attach the chandelier to the existing mounting hardware that was in the ceiling already. The mounting hardware that the chandelier came with did not really match the one in the ceiling. After scratching my head for a while I came up with a creative way of doing it. I had to use Kerrie's help to hold the chandelier as I was attaching it. This is definitely a job for two people. So don't even think about doing it alone. After screwing different parts of the chandelier together and hanging it on the chain it was finally attached to the ceiling!

So I thought, "all right, I'm almost done!", but then I realized that one of the wall outlets did not work. I was like "what a...?". And then I remembered those extra wires in the ceiling hole. Argghh! Who would have known that a wall outlet wiring was actually connected in the hole for the chandelier. So I had to dismantle the chandelier and attach the other pair of wires. This time I had to do this through the hole in the medallion, because I did not want to use the same technique to take it off as I used on the old one. I figured which one of the two remaining sets of wires was coming from the wall outlet and connected them to the wires with the juice. I reattached the chandelier and watched some TV on the television that was connected to the now working outlet as Kerrie was taking a shower before going out to get lunch. When she came out of the shower, she told me some bad news - the light in the bathroom was not working! I'm like: "What??? You've got to be kidding me!" That third set of wires in the chandelier hole in the living room was actually connected to the light in the bathroom! Now, who would have known that! Since both of us were starving, we decided to go ahead and get some lunch (or was it dinner?) and buy the light bulbs for the chandelier and then come back and continue.

After having some nice Thai food, the energy was replenished and I was not too upset about detaching the chandelier for the second time to connect the remaining wires in the hole. Note that it got totally dark outside by then and the electricity had to be turned off for me to safely complete the operation. Fortunately Kerrie had two flash lights that she got after the blackout of 2003. So she was, like God, guiding the light into the hole while I was trying to connect the remaining wires. Finally the chandelier was attached for the third time and both the bathroom light and the wall outlet were functioning. Phew! "Third time is the charm!"

But the job was not over! I had to attach more than 120 crystals and chains all over the chandelier. We were able to figure out where the crystals go, but the chains turned out to be a puzzle. The diagram in the instructions sheet was not at all helpful. Again we tried 3 different ways to do that and the third one turned out to be "the charm". To put on those crystals and chains took almost as long as to install the chandelier!

Well, it took a long time to accomplish this, but it was worth it. Now Princess Kerrie has her new palace!

James was nice enough to bring the New York Times newspaper article about me to Grimaldi's pizza in Brooklyn. We had to wait for 10 minutes in line outside the entrance in the freezing cold, but it was worth it. The pizza was fresh and tasted great. Then we went to the Brooklyn Ice Cream factory for some in-house-made ice cream.

More Photos.

The I-House ball is yet another chance to put on a tux!

More info in the Dance Blog

Thanks to Kerrie, I get to experience the things that kids do for holidays. First she came up with the Easter Party where we painted eggs. And today we had the Pumpkin Carving Party on the eve of the Halloween, which was also her idea.

Click here for photos.

Here I am on my way to one of the best halloween dance parties in New York City. It is held at DanceSport dance studio located next to Columbus Circle. I've been going to their annual halloween parties for several years and they are always a blast. They do a great job decorating the room. Most people come in costumes to participate in the costume contest. Kerrie got selected into the finals of the contest with her half angel and half devil costume. There was also a comic dance show put up by the DanceSport staff. This year the theme of the show was the Olympic Games. The dance routines incorporated the moves from various sports like Boxing, Kun-fu, Gymnastics, Synchronious Swimming etc...

Click here for photos

Below are the videos.
Videos:

To get into the Halloween spirit, Angi, James, Joanna and I went to the Haunted House located at 107 Suffolk Street. It was an impressive and quite scary experience. The four of us were privately escorted by a guide through 10 rooms of the house. Almost every rooom had live actors in grizzly makeup appearing from the most unexpected places, talking to us, and playing skits. But it ain't no sitcom.
If you have weak nerves or are disguisted by blood, I don't recommend to see the photos. Note that since I took the photos with the flash, you can't tell by looking at them that most rooms were actually dark and had special light effects which made the experience more scary than it looks on the photos.

This weekend Javits Center is about to be filled by more than 50,000 attendees and exhibitors displaying the latest video game and gadget technology. What I am excited about the most is the DDR Tournament with the top cash prize of $1000. On Saturday is the Experts division. I'll definately be there to watch some of the best DDR players from the East Coast!

Read more in my DDR Blog.

I've been to Central Park countless number of times and I thought I have seen it all. But today Joanna took me to the part of it that I had never seen before. It was the Conservatory Garden. It was a very beautiful place and I was surprised that I have not known about it until now. The garden entrance is on 5th avenue at 105th street. The garden was full of colorful flowers, exotic plants, trees, and creatively designed lawns. In addition to the beautiful flora, there were several fountains, statues, and alleys with benches where one could sit and enjoy the beautiful views.

We walked around and took many photos. Taking the close-up photos of the flowers made me realize why the button to turn the camera in the macro mode has the symbol of a flower.

The garden was quite crowded. There were a lot of people taking wedding pictures. Joanna said that on a weekday it's much better to come there, since there are far fewer people.

After visiting the garden, we walked towards the nearby lake. On the way I got a chance to make friends with the geese.

Later Joanna had to go to the office so she took the Subway and I opted to walk back home through the park to enjoy the rest of the beautiful day. I decided to go through the alleys of the park that I have never walked before to see if I could discover more cool places that I have not seen yet. I ended up going underneath a charming bridge and saw a small waterfall.

Click here for more information on the Conservatory Garden.

Click on the photo to download the full-size version (3MB).

This photo was taken at one of the biggest conventions of young computer enthusiasts called "The Gathering". It is an annual event that takes place at a multipurpose hall The Vikingship located in the city of Hamar in Norway. More than 5000 participants get together to compete in programming of computer graphics put together to computer generated music, playing computer games, modifying computer hardware, and other "geeky" activities...

At this year's event the first European Cup tournament in DDR took place.

Tribute to Clayton at his going away party.

Photos

Videos (Latest version of RealPlayer required.)
Make sure you watch them with sound.
Related Links
Clayton's and James' dance performance

More info in the Dance Blog.

The weather is getting pretty hot so it's time to cool off at the beach. Click here for information on how to get to Long Island beaches by train from Penn Station.

Today my friends and I took a train to Long Beach and we got there in an hour from Penn Station. This was ultra convenient! Whenever I drove to the beach, it would always take more than an hour and many times I would get stuck in traffic and be frustrated. This trip was very relaxing. The train seats were comfortable. I think it's time to sell my car...