{"id":1054,"date":"2005-07-25T23:43:33","date_gmt":"2005-07-26T04:43:33","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/?p=1054"},"modified":"2015-06-02T06:15:22","modified_gmt":"2015-06-02T13:15:22","slug":"nyc-epic-journey","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/?p=1054","title":{"rendered":"NYC: Epic Journey."},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.google.com\/maps\/d\/embed?mid=zBjF7tS8mrKY.k68PDYtzoEMs\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\"><\/iframe><br \/>\nOn Wednesday my colleague &#8216;Hollywood&#8217; and I embarked on what was surely an epic journey to New York City. Never one to take Epic&#8217;s lightly we decided to make the trip more memorable by taking a Train the majority of the way. Now I know most of you would assume this would be a mistake&#8230; you would be correct. I highly recommend everyone take a train ride for at least 10 hours once in their life. Without this experince you cannot fully appreciate my complete and utter hatred for Amtrak. It got to the point where we spent at least 2 hours working on a new <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amtrak.com\/\" target=\"_top\">Amtrak<\/a> marketing plan, which included the following slogans:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>When you aboslultey have to be there by next Tuesday: AMTRAK.<br \/>\nWe know it sucks but some one had to be responsible for rail traffic in the lower 48: AMTRAK.<br \/>\nGot Urine? AMTRAK<br \/>\nNow they&#8217;re swearing at you: AMTRAK<br \/>\nNot going anywear in awhile? Neither are we: AMTRAK<br \/>\nWe&#8217;re sorry ahead of time: AMTRAK<br \/>\nAmish Pimping: AMTRAK<br \/>\nDriven to Murder: AMTRAK<br \/>\nLA to New York, What the fuck were you thinking: AMTRAK<br \/>\nSit back, hiebernate: AMTRAK<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>We stayed in the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.yelp.com\/biz\/belnord-hotel-new-york\">Belnord Hotel<\/a> which included&#8230; well absolutely nothing. I&#8217;m pretty sure they built the room around the bed because there was no way to get the bed into the room without defying the laws of physics. As Neil later learned the Belnord also utilized a self-checkout system which included a complimentary key for the road.<br \/>\n<a title=\"July, 2006 New York Trip by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/327767796\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/135\/327767796_640dc60f97_z.jpg?zz=1\" alt=\"July, 2006 New York Trip\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><a title=\"July, 2006 New York Trip by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/327767698\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/140\/327767698_a5face67e1_z.jpg?zz=1\" alt=\"July, 2006 New York Trip\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nOur trip also required a stay at the exclusive<\/p>\n<p>All and all the first day of the journey began on Wednesday, leaving Columbus at around 4:00pm and ended when we hit Uniontown, PA at about 7:30pm. As many of my loyal readers know Uniontown, PA is famous (or infamous) for the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.mountvernoninn.8m.com\/\" target=\"_top\">Mount Vernon Inn<\/a>. So it was rather heart wrenching to learn that it was reduced to rubble just two days before my visit. Many beverages of varying quality were drank in the now defunct Mount Vernon Inn.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"July, 2006 New York Trip by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/327766717\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/141\/327766717_3506c69630_z.jpg?zz=1\" alt=\"July, 2006 New York Trip\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><a title=\"July, 2006 New York Trip by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/327766518\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/137\/327766518_5ee020d06e_z.jpg?zz=1\" alt=\"July, 2006 New York Trip\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nThe real part of the trip didn&#8217;t being until Thursday morning when I train left the station in Pittburgh around 7:00am and didn&#8217;t reach New York&#8217;s Penn Station until nearly 6:00pm. Needless to say it was one hell of ride.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_0861.JPG by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/42674652\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/24\/42674652_997fb6d4a7_z.jpg?zz=1\" alt=\"IMG_0861.JPG\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><a title=\"IMG_0853.JPG by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/42674647\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/27\/42674647_36917fc201_z.jpg?zz=1\" alt=\"IMG_0853.JPG\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><a title=\"IMG_0846.JPG by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/42674642\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/26\/42674642_143af590d4_z.jpg?zz=1\" alt=\"IMG_0846.JPG\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><a title=\"IMG_0843.JPG by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/42674641\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/26\/42674641_114dfdeabd_z.jpg?zz=1\" alt=\"IMG_0843.JPG\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><a title=\"IMG_0840.JPG by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/42674624\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/28\/42674624_b710704fb4_z.jpg?zz=1\" alt=\"IMG_0840.JPG\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><a title=\"IMG_0830.JPG by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/42674622\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/33\/42674622_2fa597d28d_z.jpg?zz=1\" alt=\"IMG_0830.JPG\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><br \/>\nThe City: We had a great time at what I&#8217;m pretty sure was the 7th Annual Beach Party which our guests graciosly invited us too. As you can tell by the photographs beer was drank, smoores were eaten and friends were made. Yours truly managed to pitch a tent, run in a beer relay and with the help of my colleague carry a cooler full of beer what seemed like 5 miles in the sand.<\/p>\n<p>All and all we had a great trip, some would say an Epic Trip. I managed to try Greek food for the first time which included Souvlaki. I know many of you reading this at home didn&#8217;t actually believe I had room in my palette for such a dish. Stand corrected.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/327766609\" title=\"July, 2006 New York Trip by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/142\/327766609_57761fe789_z.jpg?zz=1\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" alt=\"July, 2006 New York Trip\"><\/a><br \/>\nI&#8217;d like to say thanks to our gracious hosts:<br \/>\nBrian in Uniontown, PA who gave us a tour of the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wmbs590.com\/\" target=\"_top\">WBMS<\/a> radio station and hooked us up with some t-shirts.<br \/>\nJulie in NYC and all her friends who showed us a great time.<\/p>\n<p><a title=\"IMG_0842.JPG by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\" href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/42674631\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/26\/42674631_1d6dbda851_z.jpg?zz=1\" alt=\"IMG_0842.JPG\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>A couple side notes:<br \/>\nAlong with my various other sporting accolades and continuing my long standing tradition of being a <em>Backyard Hero<\/em> I managed to acquire the World Record in Beach Paddle Ball (with the help of Hollywood of course).<br \/>\n<a href=\"https:\/\/www.flickr.com\/photos\/bronder\/42674656\" title=\"IMG_0870.JPG by Nik Bronder, on Flickr\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/c1.staticflickr.com\/1\/29\/42674656_510e8b6627_z.jpg?zz=1\" width=\"640\" height=\"480\" alt=\"IMG_0870.JPG\"><\/a><br \/>\nOne last thing: I never had to use the line:<br \/>\nI&#8217;m from Ohio, I&#8217;m not fucking Retarded.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>On Wednesday my colleague &#8216;Hollywood&#8217; and I embarked on what was surely an epic journey to New York City. Never one to take Epic&#8217;s lightly we decided to make the trip more memorable by taking a Train the majority of the way. Now I know most of you would assume this would be a mistake&#8230; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[19],"tags":[134,422,248],"class_list":["post-1054","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-travel","tag-epic-journey","tag-hollywood","tag-new-york-city"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pazIS5-h0","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1054"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6667,"href":"https:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1054\/revisions\/6667"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1054"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1054"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blackhandproductions.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1054"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}