New Year's in November

This afternoon Eric and I did some walking around and shopping. One of our stops was the Herald Square Macy's, which is gigantic. Seriously - 9 floors of shopping madness. I'm not sure how one would ever seriously shop there. It just seems like a tourist attraction. Of course, it's already all decked out for Christmas, which certainly gets you in the spirit...even though it's not even Thanksgiving yet!

The main floor of Macy's, all Christmas-ed up

We stopped in to Macy's for one very interesting reason: to see the new New Year's Eve Ball! Apparently the ball that has dropped in Times Square since 2000 is being retired this year, and they recently unveiled the new 2008 edition. It is currently on display in Macy's, so we had to stop by to see it! It was stunning. Not as big as I would have expected, although apparently it is double size of previous balls. It is a 12 foot geodesic sphere, weighing 11,875 lbs., covered in 2,668 Waterford crystals and powered by over 32,000 lights. If you want to read more about the new ball and the history of the balls past, click here.

Apparently this new ball can create over 16 million colors and billions of different patterns. We stayed and watched it for probably 10 minutes, and did see some pretty patterns, but I guess we didn't even see a fraction of what it can do!

The New Year's Eve Ball: A sample of the different colors and patterns we saw!

Eric and the Ball

Me and the Ball

This really was a pretty cool thing to see. Eric even touched it. So, this year when you're watching the New Year's Eve Times Square festivities on TV, you can tell all your friends that you know someone who touched that ball that's being dropped! HAPPY NEW YEAR (soon enough)!