brief interruption

i'm sure everyone who reads this blog knows that i'm in new york and i was not at the movie theater in aurora last night. demitria was not there either. we're both fine. i've never been to this theater, but the area has a reputation for being unsafe so we stay away.

demitria is coming to see me in nyc today. we're going to craft restaurant tonight. it's the restaurant run by tom colicchio from top chef. it's going to be awesome. tomorrow, we're going to hit up some museums and go to a broadway show.

however, it is raining again. being in denver, i forgot that it does rain in other parts of the US. bummer.

heartbreaker

i saw my first new york celebrity!!! this guy!!! carson something!! i mean, wait... the queer eye guy!!! carson something!!!

the moment was incredible. we sat and drank coffee and our conversation was majestic. we discussed music, art and the like. we were old friends. it was kismet. i can't believe i ever existed anywhere else on earth. the gates of heaven. they are overrated when speaking with carson something. i mean, i try not to blush.

this is all true. except for the gates of heaven stuff. i went for a massive walk today. i took the subway to the village because i wanted to go to bleeker street records. but i got off too late and i ended up in chinatown. so i asked a guy, 'hey buddy, how i do i get to this place?' and he said, 'walk this way' for like twenty minutes. so i walked. and i walked. i walked through chinatown. i was so lost it was sad. i walked and walked until i found trendy coffee shops and the like. i wish i was not fat from surgery. otherwise, i would have been the most beautiful creature in town. but these folks, they dress like everyday is a catwalk. there are lights and cameras on every intersection.

i found other music. and it was awesome. all the bands i knew, the up and comers. and they were way over priced. i could get them for about five dollars less online. i'm sure new yorkers knew that. i mean, they are the smartest folks in america.

i kept walking. i walked through new york university. i walked all the way to bleecker street records. again, nothing amazing.

but i wanted something amazing. so i had to create it. i was at 6th and fourth. my hotel was at 6th and 40th. i knew what i had to do.

so i walked all the way to my hotel. that's right. i walked through the new york crowds in my flimsy shoes. i felt muscle pangs. i ignored them. i was hungry. i didn't care. i had to keep going. i had to walk the distance on 6th avenue. i had to prove i could do it. it wasn't about fitting in. it was about attrition. this channelview boy was going to walk all the way and soak up every instance and every breath and every foul stench and every sound and every billboard and every scaffold and every stop shop and every bit of new york on his way back to his hotel. he had to do it because he knew he was never coming back. he was going to feel every inch of the concrete and trip and fall and get laughed at and step in potholes and take the wrong way because this was it. he was not going to feel it again.

and i made it. i stripped out of my soaked, sweaty clothes and started again. i walked to a sushi restaurant and on the way saw carson what's his name. he was on the phone. i assume he was talking to the vice president. i had some sushi and then hung out at the hotel bar and talked to the cool asian bartender all of the night. she was a big arrested development fan. much respect.

demitria's coming tomorrow. new york will be restaurants and broadway shows. and it will be fun.

but i can't wait to be back to the mountains. the passes. the trees.

it's going to be a good weekend.

new york state of mind

my first day of training was interesting. if you recall my previous post, i had a hard time getting things going on my trip to new york. the next morning was no different, but this one was completely on me. i woke up, got directions to the pwc building and headed off. i found the building, no problem. i had to stand in line and get a security badge for the week. there were lots of other people there for training, so the line was long. i got my badge and headed up. i asked the receptionist where the training was. she had no idea what i was talking about. i thought this was a bad sign. so i opened up my computer and scanned the email about training and i noticed that i was supposed to be at a hotel across times square. i started laughing because nothing had changed from the previous night. i hailed a cab and told the guy where i was going. i looked up the email again and gave him the exact address. before i could finish he goes, "i know where it is." i appreciated that. this picture above is when training was over and i was heading back to the hotel. i stopped and snapped this shot of times square.

this is what i see when i look out my window. if you notice the green trees in the distance, that is bryant park. they show movies there outdoors during the summer.

this is the debt clock. i always imagined it in a more prominent place. i just happened to look down the street and see it. i'm not sure this is the same one that everyone shows on the news. i think there might be two of them because this one was very hid. update: there are not two of them. it's been moved. and the one i saw was the real debt clock. how cool is that? i wasn't even looking for it! it's like it called me!

radio city music hall. i don't know much about it, but i saw that bon iver would be playing there in the next week or two. now when i was out, i was involved in a classic new york scam. i was walking down 6th, which is called the avenue of the americas. this guy hands me a cd and starts talking. but i don't stop walking. he's talking, i'm walking. he wanted money for the cd for charity but i told him i would not be giving him any money and handed him back the cd. i escaped unscathed from the new york scam. now that got me thinking about scams. i came back to the hotel and searched common new york scams. that was one of them! except my houston smarts paid off. because it said that usually people stop walking and others surround them and ask them for money. also it said that the person will shake your hand and not let go. that didn't happen to me. the rest of the scams were interesting. one involved bumping into someone and blaming them for breaking their glasses. they tell you you owe them like 300 dollars and they settle on 50, so you feel bad and you think you're getting a deal, so you pay them 50 for glasses they dropped and broke on purpose that probably cost 10 bucks. nice.

nbc! seinfeld! cosby! friends! liz lemon! i was on the lookout for tina fey. i was thinking really hard of what i would say to her if i bumped into her that totally encapsulate my humor and make her think that i needed to be a writer on 30 rock. i did not run into her and that's a good think because i couldn't think of anything that was funny. that might have been the funny thing to say. look at her with sadness and say, 'i have nothing funny to say to you."

this is what my hotel room window looks like right now. the rain was intense about twenty minutes ago. it's still coming down and lightening. today we got out early and i was going to go for a long new york in central park. not going to happen.

new york, new york, pt. 2

yesterday was my travel day to new york. i had no idea that was exactly what it was going to be: an entire day of travel.

i woke up not really ready to go to new york. i wanted to enjoy my sunday morning. i had my coffee. i goofed out with demitria. i petted sofie. it was the typical awesome, relaxing great sunday morning. but i momentarily forgot how to tell time and if it wasn't for demitria, i would have been super late to my flight. i was nowhere near ready to go when we realized we should have left ten minutes ago. i grabbed my bag, grabbed my computer and we started to drive to the airport. but when i was driving, i was going through my mental list of things i was going to need in nyc. there was something missing from that list. my phone. we had to head back to the house because i forgot my phone. i knew that had sealed my fate. i was certain i was going to miss my flight.

but i didn't. i got to the airport and went to print my ticket but the system could not find me. it kept saying there was an error. i didn't have time for errors. the line to get to the service desk was a mile long. but i was allowed to jump to a shorter line to find out what was happening. apparently my reservation was deleted. i have no idea why or how. i was certain at this point i was going to miss my plane.

but i didn't. i went through security, got to the gate and found out my flight was running 45 minutes late. ha! i hadn't missed my flight. i was going to make it. i got something to eat and got on the plane. i was ready to head to new york. this was 1 o'clock mountain time. we didn't leave the denver airport until close to 3:30 mountain time.

why? storms in new york. so the decision was made to take another route, hitting up atlanta and coming up the east coast. fine. that sounds good. but we had to add fuel because the flight was now going to be an hour longer because of this new route. so we had to get people off the plane. they asked for volunteers. people got off. they also took off all the luggage. this didn't affect me because i didn't check a bag. but the people around me, they were mad. and i had no way of getting away from them. the woman next to me went through every scenario possible of how she and her cousin (on a separate flight) were going to get to germany. time and again i heard the same concerns, the same answers and the same desperation and aggravation. i put in my headphones. and she still would say things outloud and look around as if she was talking in on particular direction in the hopes that someone, somewhere would participate in this unhappiness.

but we did make it into the air. the flight was pretty smooth except getting out of denver, but that's par for the course. we landed safely in new york at about 9:30 eastern time. i didn't get off the plane until close to 11p.m.

why? because the storms and lightening had gotten so bad that they shut down the outbound planes and we had no gate to park at. so we sat. and sat. and i heard people complain. and moan. the only highlight was the older woman next to me, probably in her late sixties. she was nice and i spoke to her a few times during the flight. i asked her how far we were from the city and she said about an hour. by this time, i was starving because there was no real food on the plane and i had anticipated having an awesome new york meal, but that wasn't going to happen. she gave me some packaged breadsticks and a peanut butter brownie because i was so hungry. i thanked her about ten times. she was the highlight of my day.

so we finally got off the plane. i got into a cab and headed for the city. it was huge. there were buildings everywhere. we drove by times square and it was the brightest and grossest thing i had ever seen. the hotel was very close to times square so once i checked in i was going to head out and take some light night pictures. i went to check in. they couldn't find my reservation.

why? i was at the wrong hotel. i had given the cabbie the wrong information because i looked it up in a fit on the plane because i couldn't find the email that gave the hotel's address. so i went back out and grabbed another cab and headed to the right hotel.

it was 12:30a.m. eastern time when i got to the right hotel.

i arrived at the airport in denver at 11 a.m. mountain time. i went to bed shortly after 1a.m. eastern time.

it was, without a doubt, the craziest travel day i've ever experienced in my life.

more to come from nyc.