Beastie Boys Come Home

Last night the Beastie Boys played a sold out show in their home town of Brooklyn, NY. The show took place in one of NYC’s most unique venues, McCarren Park pool. McCarren is an old community pool that is the size of at least 3 Olympic sized pools. The audience stands “in the pool” and the stage is on one of the edges.

The weather was threatening rain from the get go but held off and provided a perfect night to jam out to some great music.

It was surprising to learn that they have never played a show in Brooklyn. With 2 members hailing from the borough, you’d think after all these years they would have played there. So it was a special show for the boys as well.

There was no opening band just Beastie Boys from start to finish. They played a great mix of the hits you gotta hear, like Sure Shot, So Whatcha’ Want, Intergalactic, Body Movin’, Root Down, and their new instrumental stuff. The new stuff is great too and makes me wish I were going to the show tonight at Hammerstein Ballroom which is all instrumental.

Between many songs they would scream “BROOKLYN IN DA’ HOUSE!” and the crowd would go nuts. So you could imagine the anticipation and expectation that they would play No Sleep Till Brooklyn. Well following a great encore that included Sabotage and Intergalactic, they delivered! The crowd went insane and was an unreal feeling throughout the venue.

Everyone left with big grins on their faces knowing they had seen a unique show and one you know the Beastie Boys themselves will remember.

Some great pics from the guys over at Brooklyn Vegan, who were obviously much closer to the stage than us.

 

“Just got a place in NY” – U2

Well  you have to experience everything in life at least once.  My wife and I just exp. buying a place in Manhattan.  Let me tell you it is a bit diff than getting a place in NC.  Aside from the obvious purchase price diff the whole process was way diff.

To start open houses happen at very fixed times, 1-2 hrs on a Sunday vs. anytime any day in NC, then when you finally weed through the countless crap places that advertise “roomy” or “cozy” or “cute” and in actuality are just dump, you then have to battle the others who believe the place you want is the place for them.

That begins the bidding process.  Thankfully, ours was not a horror story in which we are going back and forth btw another buyer and the seller, but we did get outbid once by an ALL CASH offer…ps who the hell walks in with that much cash….scratch that, I don’t want to know. I’m sure they’re very nice, hard working, honest people.

Next, they’ve accepted your offer and now you have to get approved by the building.  Let’s set aside the scenario where you are buying in a Co-op. Co-ops can literally rape you and leave you on the street for no good reason, therefore not allowing you to buy in their precious building.  We bought into a condo, typically much more lax in their criteria for potential buyers.  In our case they did require a lot of info.  We had to provide 6 letters of reference(3 personal and 3 professional) all saying we are good people and won’t burn the building down aka bullshit.

once that was complete and you get the necessary financing(typical bs issues apply), now you wait and prepare for closing.

NY closings require cash money ho!  I’ll put it this way, in NC we walked away with cash from closing….in NY that was certainly not the case.  We got an estimated closing amount we had to come with a certified check for, but in the end…it was a bit more. SON OF A!

The closing process:  in NC, it was us, our lawyer, their lawyer and the sellers.  It was relatively calm, sign here, sign there etc.  In NY it was like walking into a war room.  It was a formal executive conference room, big round table and surrounded by people in suits.  My wife and I walk in, say our hello’s(where we got some quick head nods only) and sit to begin signing till our hands fall off.  The roll call was as follows, me, my wife, our lawyer, the sellers lawyer, sellers agent, broker representative and title company representative and our agent.  It was organized chaos of papers and in the end all fall nicely into neat piles for the respective parties.

It was a whirl wind and def. a learning experience but most certainly worth it.

Next installment will be whether we can make our first mortgage payment or not.

Send donations to scott.calise@gmail.com

 

I’m a slack ass

I told myself this was it, I’m gonna start this blog and keep it up…well it lasted about a month.  It’s just a tough habit to adopt and my usual blogging time(during work hours) has been replaced with….well actual work.  damn the man!

I hope to get back into it and maybe change the purpose or direction of the blog, instead of me just rambling…ok starting next post.

 

Calise’s In the NY Times

Last Monday my wife and I attend a pretty great event at the Rainbow Room in NYC. It was an annual fund raising event for Mary Mount College in the city. Anyway, the MC for the night was Natalie Morales (vavavoom) from the Today Show (was supposed to be Ann Curry, but duty called in Darfur) and the honoree for the night was Geraldine Ferraro. So with all these fancy schmoes there, somehow we got our picture taken and were in this past Sunday’s Style section of the NY Times.

 

Web Analyst Job Opportunity

Doubt enough people read my blog for this to be worthwhile but figured I’d put this on here. A recruiter from eLearning contacted me for this position, can’t take it so wanted to pass it along.
It’s in Hoboken, NJ and the HR guys contact info is at the bottom. Good luck!

 

Web Marketing / Business Analyst

 

POSITION SUMMARY

eLearners.com, a fast growing internet marketing services company is seeking talented business analysts to help run our paid search advertising campaigns (PPC), enhance our search engine optimization (SEO) efforts, and perform other critical marketing analysis functions in support of the business. The successful candidates will also provide analytical support to Sales, Marketing, Account Management, Technology, and Executive Management.

 

As an employee of a small, fast-growing company, you will have the opportunity to work closely with all levels and all areas of the organization, and significant empowerment to help achieve our performance and growth objectives.

 

RESPONSIBILITIES

Include: SEO and Paid Search Management and Optimization – Manage keyword selection and bidding strategy across multiple per-per-click search engines using both proprietary, in-house designed tools, as well as commercially available products. – Develop and test creative, update ad copy and bid strategy . – Analyze click and conversion data, expenses and return on investment (ROI). – Implement both structured and self-designed search engine optimization strategies. – Significant discretion will be given to analysts that demonstrate sound judgment and the ability to effectively grow traffic to our web properties. Data and Trend Analysis – Analyze site visitors using state-of-the-art 3rd party and custom web analytics, and make recommendations for SEM, consumer and client marketing, and off-site strategies. – Analyze paid campaigns and make recommendations for revisions and strategy improvements. – Analyze visitor behavior, design and perform A/B and multivariate tests. – Conduct drill-down analyses, “what-if” analyses and adjust strategies based on findings.

 

Other Responsibilities – Perform special ad-hoc analyses for clients, sales, business development, marketing and account management team. – Provide analytical support for new and existing products and services.

 

XM – Sirius Merger Info from CEO Hugh Panero himself

Happy Friday everyone. In the mail last night I got a letter from Mr. Panero himself…..well I think the 13million total subscribers to XM and/or Sirius also got one, but ya know it was the thought that counts. Anyway I attached it below but it basically describes that your service won’t be interupted, that they “plan” to make both sets of programming available via your current radio with no obligation to purchase a new radio. We’ll see if all these promises and claims hold true. Either way it’s pretty exciting and good for the satellite radio world. No more wishing you had Sirius to listen to NFL or wishing you had XM to hear MLB!

sc002542c3.jpg

 

Random Song Friday – Little Ones – Oh MJ

Check these guys out. Fun indie band from the West coast   Little Ones on iTunes

 

Good to be the King…

…of Chapel Hill, NC at least.

Senator and Presidential Candidate John Edwards just upgraded his pad http://carolinajournal.com/exclusives/display_exclusive.html?id=3848

 

Attention All Foodies!

Here is a new Food site that just launched and it is what many sites like AllRecipes or CNET’s Chow have tried to do. It has plenty of user generated content from you sending in your favorite chocolate chip cookie recipe to full vodcast. Check out Boy Eats World, well done cooking segments. Not just a camera on a tripod with the same static shot, like many vodcasts out there.

One great feature combines what I like to call “the crack of browser toolbars” Stumble Upon, into their site for you to stumble upon a recipe you might not thought of to make. Try it out, pretty cool if you have no idea what to make for dinner. Just click the Explore menu button.

Like many new sites out there it has a great, integrated Google Map so you can post reviews of a favorite restaurant in your area and the map highlights them all.

Check it out and let me know what you think, is this “THE” MySpace for Foodies or just a flash in the pan (no pun intended)

 

Random Song Friday

Rodrigo y Gabriela – Tamacun

Off their self titled album. Great acoustic guitar skills.

Embedding an audio player is in the works. But for now check out their site and iTunes page