mortonfox: (chestnut ramune)
On Sunday, our Hi-4 group went to Jones Beach on Long Island to do a mascot gig at the 2009 Walk Now for Autism Long Island. There are some troublesome issues with Autism Speaks' stance on vaccinations but it's my last year doing this gig, so I won't worry too much about it. In costume this time were [livejournal.com profile] jbadger, [livejournal.com profile] rukario71, [livejournal.com profile] rapidtrabbit, and I.

I thought this was a good event. Few events we do have attendance in the 5 figures and this is one of them. (27,000 people) Event volunteers were helpful in providing transport from parking to changing area (a tent at the end of the field behind the stage), providing water and snacks, and checking on us every now and then. I did 3 sets, a long one at the start, a medium one, and a short one at the end. Posed for photos dozens of times. Also met the GEICO gecko, MetLife Snoopy, and Elmo. (the guy playing the latter had been introduced to our group)

After the gig, we had lunch at East Bay Diner in Wantagh. Then [livejournal.com profile] rukario71, [livejournal.com profile] jbadger, and I went and did a bunch of geocaches around Levittown, Massapequa, and Smithtown. We didn't have much time before sunset so it was good that there were a few that were close together. In the evening, we went to Flushing Chinatown for soup dumplings at Joe's Shanghai. These are dumplings with a bit of soup inside. There is some novelty to these soup dumplings, but I wasn't impressed with the service. We went there just for the soup dumplings and although we did order two steamers of dumplings, the servers kept coming back and asking if that was really all we were ordering. Quite annoying. Also, they add an automatic 15% gratuity to the bill, a practice I deplore. And that's all they got.

The caches... )
mortonfox: (chestnut ramune)
The Elvis Bull

I did a mascot gig with Hi-4 for Maple Sugar Sunday at Stamford Museum. The weather forecast was rather dire on the amount of snow expected on Sunday but I figured there was a good enough chance that the snow wouldn't amount to much, so I didn't opt out of this gig. I began to doubt my hunch when snow started coming down while I went for the Beware of the Dog! and Purchase Pipe geocaches in Westchester on my way to Stamford. Well, guess what? The snow slowed to a few flakes here and there and none of it stuck. So it wasn't a bad day after all.

Our group this time was [livejournal.com profile] jbadger, [livejournal.com profile] jimwolf24, Damian, and I. Our changing area was in the children's activity center building. We took turns going out two at a time in costume. It wasn't a terribly big event but there were still many people who took a chance on the snow and attended the event. There was a paved path all the way around the farm area so I took a walk in costume there and interacted with people and kids along the way. On my second time out, I stayed mostly near the center part of the nature center grounds because the path was wet from ice melt. On my break, I changed out of costume and toured the area as a regular visitor, sampling some popcorn and maple donuts and watching the maple sugaring demonstration. I also took some photos and video.

Our post-gig dinner plans fell through because the Thai restaurant in Greenwich apparently disappeared without a trace some time during the last few years. So we split up. I went with [livejournal.com profile] jbadger to Flushing Chinatown to try some eateries from this New York Times article. I had Hand-pulled Noodles with Mutton at Lanzhou Handmade Noodle at Golden Mall Food Court. This food court, hidden away in the basement of Golden Shopping Mall at the corner of 41st Road and Main St, was an incredibly cramped space subdivided into a dozen or so food vendors. I had to change seats because someone needed to push a stack of boxes down the narrow aisle. I thought the mutton and noodles were okay. The soup had more spices in it than anything you'd find in any run-of-the-mill Chinese place. For dessert, I had cheesecake at Sun Mary Bakery, another place mentioned in the NYT article.
mortonfox: (chestnut ramune)
Kidz Expo - Snoopy

What a weekend! I thought I wasn't going to do one like this any more but it happened anyway. I spent the whole weekend either away from home or at home asleep. Sunday night, I just came home and went to sleep, so other than a bit of checking up on things and looking up geocache information on my cell phone, I wasn't online for over 56 hours! Anyway...

Saturday: Kidz Expo

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Sunday: SJG Breakfast geocaching event

Read more... )

The caches... )

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Morton Fox

May 2020

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