Well, I think I have been persuaded to do something I thought I would never do. In a few hours, I will be in a hip-hop class, poppin' n' lockin'.

This is something that a bunch of people from the office have been planning since last week. I said no from the start (if you have ever seen me even attempt to move in any way, you know why)... 6 ft. 4 inches of awkward movement with Ichabod Crane arms... yeah.

Well, today, they finally convinced me to go with them. The whole office is pretty much doing it (I guess it was the peer pressure). So, I am going to go waste $14.50 on an hour hip-hop lesson, but it will be fun. That is the only reason that I am doing it (and to see everyone else make fools of themself too)...

So, me, Nathan Moore, in a hip-hop class... what is this world coming to? I feel the embarrassment approaching quickly... and if you happen to pass by on 74th street, please do not look through the window...

[nt]

photo from nathan

Tonight was really awesome. Dinner at RED with some people from Murfreesboro was a lot of fun. We then walked down to Ground Zero.

A large group was there (obviously from some church in town for the Billy Graham Crusade). Quietly, one of the girls from this group started to sing. At first, you could only recognize that she was singing. Her voice was too quiet to recognize anything else.

Slowly, a few more from her group joined in. Eventually, there were about 15 or so people singing worship songs at the top of their lungs at the fence at Ground Zero. It was AMAZING and very encouraging.

As people walked by, they could not help but glance over to the group with several hands raised toward God.

This went on for quite some time as the girl that started it all would pick up another song when one ended.

We left before they stopped singing, but as we walked back to the apartment, I could still hear them singing a block away tunes from Amazing Grace and Shout to the Lord.

The group that I was with tonight then came back to our apartment and went to the roof where we hung out for quite some time. It was a lot of fun hanging out with some of my regulars now but also some new people that I never knew from Murfreesboro.

[nt]

I have been spending most of today working on the PhuseBox site. I am experimenting with some new features, so don't adjust your computer monitor if my site has some color to it.

I am trying to decide if I can offer users the ability to change the colors of the site AND still keep it looking clean. My goal behind this site was to make a site with sophisticated blogging and nice features. I think that too many colors (and other stuff) may take away from the purpose of the site.

I am also working on a new feature that will make photo uploading extremely easy from anywhere.

I have also added/updated several other things that most of you will never notice.

Keep messaging me with problems/bugs or suggestions for the site. PhuseBox has been around for ALMOST one month. Thanks to everyone that has made it a hit!

[nt]

Well, I have been extremely busy the last few days. I have basically been working on a series of videos that will be shown at PAINT THE TOWN at the end of July...

Today, I ate lunch at a place called Joshua Tree... it was excellent. One of the best meals that I have had since I have been here... and it was very affordable as well. Speaking of which, I need to stop eating out... my funds are near gone.

Anyways, I am coming to the Boro for the 4th of July... (July 3-6)... Maybe I will get to see some of you soon!

This weekend, I will be working on some of the major bugs with PhuseBox (especially some of the group problems)... More features are being added as well. PhuseBox is about to get a lot better.

[nt]

Today (June 22) is a very very cool person's birthday. In 1973, Carson Daly was born.

errr... just kidding, well, it really is Carson Daly's birthday, but it is also someone else's birthday. So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RACHAEL! I miss you!

And I would like everyone who reads this blog to message her today and tell her a quick happy birthday even if you do not know her. Message Rachael by clicking here!.

So there ya go! Happy Birthday, Rach. I hope you enjoy it (and enjoyed the pre-birthday celebrations of about 3 weeks ago)...

And I must also say happy birthday to Chas as well.

[nt]

photo from nathan

By the way, this is my building, THE EXCHANGE. I guess you would call me lucky.

[nt]

I officially started my "job" today at New Hope New York. My first assignment is planning/producing a series of videos that will be presented during the rallies at Paint the Town at the end of July.

I have to set up several interviews. I think I am going to go shoot some footage from around the city tomorrow.

I love the city. I love living here and riding the subway uptown to work in the morning. I love being able to walk down the block and being able to eat anything from chineese to authentic italian food. The city just seems like a perfect fit for me.

I am currently sitting in my apartment watching FRIENDS on TBS... which is much different when you are actually IN the city. (so is SEINFELD)...

There is a BORDER'S right around the corner... i think i will go hang out there for a while.

[nt]

FROM XANGA'S UPDATE PAGE:

"We know, we know - comments have been down for too long!!

Rather than wait to hear back from our vendors on how to easily recover the comments, we're just going to re-enable commenting.

We'll be restoring comments from a backup over the next 12 hours. It will take time for your comments to re-appear on your site! Please bear with us - it will take some time, but we figure that this way... at least we can all use the site in the meantime.

We're working around the clock to get the comments back onto site ASAP. We're very sorry for this, and will keep you posted on updates as soon as we have them!

UPDATE 12:45 pm, EST: It's taking longer than we had hoped to re-activate comments. Our first plan didn't work, but we have some alternative paths we're taking now. As soon as we have a sense of timeframe, we'll post an update"

==========

laughable. that's all. more features to PhuseBox coming soon (and you can leave comments, unlike xanga's current position)...
[nt]

So today, I found my absolute favorite store in New York City. Ever since I have arrived, I have wanted to find a really good art supply store. So today, finally, (right after eating vietnamese food), I found a place called Utrecht on 4th Ave.

Wow. Heaven in NYC. It was the largest art supply store that I had ever been in! I bought a few canvases and some paint... and they are priced really well too. Carrying large canvases on the subway proved to be a more difficult task than I thought, but it is all well.

I also helped put together a loft bed from IKEA tonight for Ellie. Yeah, I don't like IKEA anymore. After three hours of frustration, we finally got it together. I think IKEA's goal is to frustrate people with their vague instructions and pieces that barely do not fit.

Anyways, that is what I have done today... Not to mention that we definitely beat the BCI group at Scene It three times in a row (do not mess with the Scene It All-Stars)! I stayed pretty busy the entire day and just now got home (after over an hour trying to get home)...

Quick note: I am making note of all the bugs that you are telling me about the site. I will try to get to all of them in the new PhuseBox that I am still preparing. Keep letting me know of any new problems you come across! Thanks!

[nt]

I have been trying to check/leave comments on some Xanga sites, but ever since last night, when you click on comments, it says the feature has been disabled for maintenance.

Is anyone else just tired of Xanga and how they are doing "maintenance" ALL THE TIME?!

[nt]

photo from nathan

Today, I went to the taping on the Conan O'Brian show in Rockafeller Center. It was an awesome experience!

I went with Adam and two of his friends. They are in NYC for the weekend. Anyways, the four of us went and waited in the waiting line for almost 1.5 hours (and we even had tickets but we wanted good seats)...

So the show consisted of Ethan Hawk, Carson Kressley (from Queer Eye for the Straight Guy), and The Redwalls. It was pretty good except Carson had some really off-color humor. It may be cut out of the show, but it may not.

Anyways, so, if you can handle the off-color humor, you should watch it tonight. Even though I am not on camera any (I was on a side wall), I was there. I would not really reccomend you to watch it, but if you do, I was there.

And, they did a bit where it shows the audience quite a bit, but it was pre-recorded with a different audience on a different day, so don't look for me.

Anyways! Lots of fun. Now I have to do laundry.

Sidenote: for people that I am supposed to e-mail, I have no way to SEND OUTGOING email from my apartment. My Fed-Ex packages got here and they are fine. Thanks for doing that!

later
[nt]

ok. So for the past 24 hours, I have been competing against two other minitry teams in a 24-hour video scavenger hunt in New York City. That's right, all of New York City... Manhatten, Brooklyn, Queens, New Jersey, etc...

We were dropped off Wednesday afternoon at the airport with nothing but one cell phone per group, our metro (subway) cards, and a CD-ROM... Long story short... we had to find a place to read the CD and then print the clues to the hunt.

We were not allowed to contact the other teams, go back to any apartments, bring our own money, etc. They left us with $80.00 in team money.

So, long story short, it is now THURSDAY EVENING and I JUST got back from the 24-hour "Amazing Race" video hunt.

I HAVE NOW BEEN UP FOR 35 HOURS STRAIGHT! - and you should try that sometime.

However, I did learn my way around New York City... and had several interesting encounters including: walking through Harlem at about midnight, begging for food/money, finding our way all the way back to Manhatten from the airport, have 500 people sign a fake petition, going to Times Square at 4AM (and surprisingly, it is pretty empty)... those sorts of things!

It was a ton of fun and my team won! So that added to all this madness. I am seriously tired and feel that I will sleep till Saturday.

This was my welcome to me from New Hope New York.

[nt]

I have been working on several new features for PhuseBox today. Unlike when I have made changes to the site in the past, I am going to keep these changes on a testing site first, and release it when everything is stable and I am happy with it... this could be a few days or even a few weeks.

I can tell you that I have some really awesome additions in the works... I am also getting around to fixing all the bugs.

Keep giving me feedback on how you like/dislike the site!

[nt]

Today, I started to program some new features into PhuseBox that will be available soon. I am reworking some of the control pannel options and things like that. When I launch the new version of the site, I will be taking into consideration your input. Please, continue to give me your feedback by remarking on the previous post about USER REQUESTS.

Thanks again!
[nt]

Well, it has been just over two weeks since I started programming PhuseBox. I cannot believe that we have almost 200 users in the first two weeks. Keep spreading the word and I will do my best to make this the best blogging community on the internet.

So, after two weeks of existance, I am asking you, the users, what features that you would like to see added to PhuseBox in the future?

What is your take on music?
What is your take on cutom layouts?
Is the interface easy?
etc... just ramble in the remarks about what you like or dislike or what you want to see...

I have exciting ideas ahead including a new way to get photos onto your PhuseBox site... that is coming soon.

Thanks in advance for the remarks!

photo from nathan

This is a photo of Bethany and me on the top of my building yesterday.

Wow. What a night. I am sitting here in my apartment, my feet are throbbing, and I am exhausted.

I just spent the last 4 hours WALKING all over southern Manhattan.

Lane, Ellie, my sister Bethany, and I all started the night by going to a great seafood restaurant called the Paris (and had to walk through the foul smelling fish markets to get there). However, there was a guy at the bar in the next room that kept saying "ARRRRR!" like a pirate. It cracked us up every single time.

After we ate, we decided it would be fun to go up on the Brooklyn bridge. Little did we know, even though we were almost right under the bridge when we left the restaurant, we had to walk a LONG ways to the end of the bridge. We finally found the ped. walkway and walked ALL THE WAY TO BROOKLYN.

So, in Brooklyn, we decided to get ice cream and found this little grocery store called the Pea ?Something? and we each got a PINT of ice cream. On the way back, we walked back over the bridge, while every once in a while, rotating ice cream bins with each other to try a new flavor.

We walked ALL the way back across and found this really cool place right next to City Hall and the NYPD and we sat on a bench and talked. Finally, we treked home, but not before trying to catch subways that did not come, pitching pennies into rat holes, and running to catch subways that were not ours.

All in all, I am exhausted but it is definitely the most fun that I have had since I moved here!!! Whew! and all of it was pretty spur of the moments... even walking to Brooklyn to get ice cream.

The view of the city from the bridge is AMAZING. All I had was my camera phone, but I will upload those photos later.

My sister is going back home tomorrow so I have to get up fairly early to get her to the airport. It was really great to spend one last awesome night with her!

I think I am going to have fun here.

***EDIT*** and earlier today, Bethany and I went to Chinatown and then walked in Central Park. Which was highlighted by Bethany telling the sketch artists that "The sketches are good..." as we walked past.

So, Bethany and I just got back from walking around near my building. For a relation for those I have not already told, I am living in a tall building in the financial district of NYC called THE EXCHANGE (on the 11th floor, for those who care). And no, I do not have a great view... it is just a view of the building across the street, but what do you expect in NYC?). However, the building is AMAZING!

I live a few blocks away from where the twin towers used to reside (lower tip of Manhattan). I live just down the street from the New York Stock Exchange and right around the corner from THE TRUMP TOWER, in fact, I can look right into it from my roof.

Oh yeah! I have a roof... well, most people have a roof, but atop my 23-story apartment building, there is an observation deck. Lane and I went up there last night. WOW. The NYC night lights from the ground are amazing, but from atop a tall building... AMAZING. It is almost as good as looking at the stars. ;-)

And the weather was perfect last night. Not too cool, not too hot, with a slight breeze. I love New York.

My older sister, bethany is here for the rest of the week, so I look forward to hanging out with her until Saturday.

I miss EVERYBODY back at home. Right now, Diversion at Belle Aire is starting in about an hour back home. I will miss being there in the tech booth, but I guess God had bigger plans for me!



photo from nathan
my bathroom



photo from nathan
my kitchen



photo from nathan

MY ROOM... FINALLY MOVED IN!

Later!
-Nathan Moore

photo from nathan

This will be my room...
The whole apartment is really nice... especially with high ceilings! fun!

later!

photo from nathan

So this is the main room in my apartment.
Lane brought his futon, big screen tv, sound system, etc... very nice!