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NY Minutes: Fat Cats and Righteous Rats

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" Ratting on the fat cat over the road on 21st and 10th Ave, Chelsea, Manhattan. Have you seen this large inflatable rat around town? I always thought it was a giant advertising balloon for a vermin extermination company doing their mouse-mulching in the building immediately behind. Clever! But no - it's actually the protest mascot of construction industry unions. "Come in! Take photos!" said a picketer in a hardhat plastered with a  "UNION" sticker when I stopped by with that typical "what's up with that?" expression on my face. He pointed across the road to a wooden skeleton of a building alive and crawling with the sound of hammers and hi altitude girder-walkers. "The owner is employing non-union workers at minimum wage, like five bucks, no benefits." I looked around at the apparently unionized throng languishing behind the barricade, all dressed up, iphoning, and nowhere to jackhammer. "A union member gets p

Traffic Cone Bag™: reviewed on RoadBikeRider.com

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Exciting news! http://trafficconebag.blogspot.com/2010/08/rcb-reviewed-in-roadbikeridercom.html

Gal Yoga: Saluting the Hoboken Sun with Chelsea Piers Free Yoga

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Photos by the Galfromdownunder - mid downdog!  Is yoga better outdoors or indoors? Beach or park? Ashram or gym? I've generally preferred indoors, finding the outdoors a bit of a distraction.  But think of the advantages: better dissipation of neighboring sweat, no one bumping into you, and the chance to gaze up at the sky and watch clouds in that boundless blue sky slide by - something we rarely do when we become "grownups" grafted to swivel chairs and tempurpedic mattresses. Last Thursday, lying flat on my back on Pier 64 with a piece of foam between me and the concrete, I felt strangely exhilarated. The occasion? The free every-other-Thursday yoga class offered by Chelsea Piers Fitness Center, the massive complex just over yonder. And yes, it really is on Pier 64. Hint: to locate the cross street, subtract 40 from the Pier number and you get 24th Street. The instructor, Paolo, was possessed of a delightful South African/British/Spanish something else accen

Gal Yoga: The Charlie's Angel Stretch

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At the risk of being pacifistically (is that a word?) incorrect, I discovered a really good stretch I hadn't come across in my training or any classes to date, which I've called the "Charlie's Angel Stretch". The term "Charlie's Angels Hands" refers to the hands clasped with forefingers pointed like a ... gun. I got that  nugget from my teacher trainer and anatomy nurse,  Joschi Schwarz . It's a tremendous stretch involving several muscle groups. But which? Over to Joschi ... Congrats! I hope you're having a lot of fun teaching! Answer to your question is: obliques quadratus lumborum (smaller muscle in the lower back),  latissimus dorsi (because arms are over your head) rhomboid (shoulderblades are pulled away from each other), and pretty good for the  erector spinae infraspinatus teres major and minor.  Gluteus medius I guess plays more of an activator here. Great pose to create space for the hips (lumbosacral fasci

Handsomest Man in Greenwich, Australia (via Soho)

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A snippet from my Legend in Own Lunchtime files ... THERE I stood, having just exited Eastern Mountain Sports, SOHO after my weekly shift, when a couple on two Brompton folding bikes beckoned me in the darkness. "You're the girl who wrote the book about Cuba," said the gent who identified himself as Pete DeJong of Greenwich, Sydney. "I really enjoyed it." Now that's no small praise from an actuarial professor! "He's really picky about what he reads, so consider it a compliment," chimed in Pete's partner, artist  Dana Dion (check out her cool abstract expressionist art). "It was recommended by a friend of ours, the editor of the Weekend Australian." Holy helmet, I better get cracking and write another one ... It's a fleeting but flattering experience to be recognized by total strangers, especially when they're visiting from other side of the planet. Apparently it was my "Asian face and Bike Friday" t

The winter of our discount tent: Retail 101 at EMS

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Camping geeks rejoice - boonies-quality Dark Chocolate Cheesecake.  There are generally 3 ways to live the New York Dream if you still have to work for a living: 1. Earn an astronomical salary on Wall Street or similar, and live in a loft and eat out several times a week 2. Get a steady and coveted city/government job with benefits that make you basically unfireable 3. Piece it all together - act, sing, sell, wait tables, volunteer, teach, sell your own product online, knit condoms for Etsy - and still manage to eat out once a week and pay your rent on time. Mostly. Having surrendered my 9 year Oregon-based career as a Customer Evangelist , I've entered the realm of option 3:  I volunteer teach yoga , make and sell my original schtick , do freelance copywriting and social media, and today, I entered the world of retail - working a casual shift at Eastern Mountain Sports , the northeast's version of REI. Now, if you're an outdoor gear freak, EMS is the place to be

Downward Dog Days in NYC: Doing the Groundhog Salutation

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Last Tuesday there were around 15 -18 people in my 6pm Chelsea Rec Center class - mostly newbies to yoga. One game young guy, an 80 year young woman, and the rest in their 20-40's. Great! So much for my inital idea of a Yoga for Boomers class - with a timeslot of 6pm, this is now simply called, Easy Yoga by the Galfromdownunder. It's listed as part of the ShapeUpNYC initiative - so it's free to all participants, regardless of whether they are members of the Rec Center. One thing about being a volunteer teacher:  I get to teach whatever I want. As a warmup for this group, I've developed what I call a Groundhog Salutation. It's basically a Sun Salutation but you never get up on your feet to worship the sun, you say down at woodchuck (ferret or Aussies) level.  It's a good limber up for the back before you totter to your feet. The drill: Inhale - hands and knees post cat/cow. Exhale - Down dog. Inhale - drop knees on the way to ... Exhale