I am beyond excited for the NYC citibike program to launch. It's a program that lets you rent bicycles from pickup stations all around the city, from Midtown Manhattan and south, and extending into south Brooklyn. I signed up for the annual membership and am planning to try and replace cab rides with bike rides. We'll see how it goes!

I spotted this one near my office, on Astor Place. They seemed to be doing some testing.

Taken 9.11.12.

Took a Zipcar out today and headed for Far Rockaway beach. It took about 30 minutes, and $3.25 in toll, but it could not have been more worth it. They have 7 miles of beach, and 5.5 miles of boardwalk. And since it is an NYC Park, all beach access and parking is free.

First stop, the famous Blue Bottle Coffee (from San Fran). They share space with Caracas Arepas Bar (also awesome). They brew each cup individually, so it takes a couple of minutes, but is well worth it. They lived up to the hype for sure.

After some beach time, next stop Rockaway Taco for a tostada, flautas, chips & guacamole, and lastly, cucumbers, mangoes, and jicama in lime juice with chili and salt. Sublime, and all can be ordered vegan. Sweet!

Add to that a michelada from the next door bar, and you are good to go for lunch.

Finish it off with a vegan brownie ice cream sandwich from Babycakes, and just about a perfect day. Beat Irene by a hair!

Had a day of stunning food at Mario Batali's Eataly market and restaurants. Le Verdure, their vegetable restaurant was unreasonably good. I was beyond impressed. They are artists with vegetables, simply prepared and delicious.

At Le Verdure: blistered shishito peppers with sea salt, kale bruschetta, Tuscan tomato soap, farro salad with mache, frito misto (fried vegetables), pinzimonio (raw vegetables with olive oil and salt).

The beer garden on the roof, Birreria is also worth going to.

New York city continues to show off its greatness. Last night at Celebrate Brooklyn at Pier 1, DJ Rekha and Red Baraat wowed the mob with amazing bhangra music outdoors as the sun set. Enjoy some average photos and videos shot on my phone. The crowd absolutely went wild to the stunning music (even though the sound aint great on my phone). And yes, that is a guy with a sousaphone (not a tuba) rapping on stage.

I was having dinner and I noticed the lightning. I raced outside and managed to grab one photo before the rain hit. The lightning continued as I had dinner and then I heard a terrible noise. I looked outside and it was hailing like crazy, so I hid away from the windows. I finally peeked out and saw the streets flooding like crazy! All of the white stuff in the street is hail that fell over a matter of a few minutes. What is going on?!

The lightning is still quite bad, and seems to be getting closer. I can only imagine what that flooding is doing to the neighborhood. And this is all after the tornado we had a few weeks ago.

update1 : photos/videos got picked up by Gothamist and Tweeted out by NYDailyNews.

update 2: The Daily News also used it and a screen grab of my video on their article which was picked up and promoted to Yahoo's front page.

update 3: The Wall Street Journal Metropolis blog used the photo.