King Tut Does Chi-Town

by Erik Olsen on

For those who never got to see King Tut the first time around, well you are lucky little devils. Why? Because Tut is back. And he’s mad as hell. In fact, he’s especially angry because they are sending him to Chicago instead of New York, here he really wanted to go. He’s been dying (ha ha!) to see Spamalot, and just can’t get his bony hands on tickets. But in Chi-town he will be, as part of a traveling exhibit  called “Tutankhamun and the Golden Age of the Pharaohs” which opens Friday at The Field Museum. 

The expectations are high, with exhibit organizers saying the show could draw 1 million visitors before it closes on Jan. 1, 2007. And, of course, businesses, restaurants and L’il Tut trinket makers are working overtime to be able to sell you as much Tut-related crap as you can pay for.  The show features more than 130 treasures from the resting place of the “the boy king” and other royal tombs, all between 3,000 and 3,500 years old. Will New York get its own Tut? Well, hard to say. All I know is that he will go on display next February at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. After that, bets are off.

Manhattan (Beach) on the Hudson

by Erik Olsen on


I give a big thumbs up to efforts that various groups and government organizations have made to clean up the Hudson River. I use it every week. I paddle on the Hudson, I’ve gone swimming in it and some of my runs each week take me along it’s sparking edge. How cool, then, to read about the effort to give us outdoors deprived Manhattanites a place to sun ourselves.

Yes, we might be getting a bona-fide beach. Say it with me: a beach in Manhattan. And what’s even more amazing is that the beach, should it be built, might be located just a few blocks from my apartment. This is crazy news. But of course, like a Nascar race beauty pageant, there are always a few big buts. In this case, one of the buts is that the beach won’t even be started until 2012 when the city sanitation department depot relocates at that time.

The second but is that this is where the city sanitation department is located. So that can bode well for the cleanliness of things, even if they do say it will be cleaned up. But no matter how you look at it, a beach along the river would be tres cool. It may be aways off, but I am already shopping for beach towels.

Free New York

by Erik Olsen on

Having spent the last six-plus years in the Big Apple, I have my own sizeable set of places to go that I love, places I will always take visiting friends to see when they come. The fact is, the city is addled with sites and locations that are free, where you can spend hours just hanging out and snapping away with your camera.

Well, Fodors has decided to list some of these places in a fine piece in their tips section. Many of the sites here are ones I would have put on my own list. For example, the Reading Room at the Public Library. This is one of the coolest places around, especially during the summer when it is hot and miserable, to hang out and read a book. The gaping space is nicely lighted and you can find yourself a comfy space to sit and devour a book or just people watch. Of course, there is also Central Park and Apple store in SOHO, two other spots that would make my own list.

Winter Surf

by Erik Olsen on

We take you back now, dear readers, to a time not long ago when snow blanketed the earth…or at least the Northeast, and fierce winter gales rippled across the Eastern Seaboard, dumping tons of snow across the region. And what did some people do that day? Not the ones huddled together in the comfy warmth of their homes, siting by open fireplaces and sipping soothing alcoholic drinks? No, I’m talking about the ones who decided to go surfing.

Surfing, on the day of the biggest blizzard of the year? Yes, believe it or not, too, that day was said to be one of the finest days of surf in a long, long time. And so that is what dedicated surfers anywhere must do when the waves are tasty. So check out this video of the surf that day last winter during the blizzard of 2006.

Photo of the Day (5/30/2006)

by Erik Olsen on


This photo made me do a double take when I came across it on the Gadling Flickr site. The incongruity of a surfboard and a Kalashnikov was just too much for my coffee-deprived mind to absorb this morning. But it is the real deal, and was taken by our good friend localsurfer. He says the shot was taken in Yemen, where “gun’s are a way of life”. Gnarly, dude.