Are you serious?

Originally uploaded by peechie.

I’m sortof in the eye of the storm here - just back from NY a couple days ago, and off again (to Vegas this time) on Saturday.

I’m too busy repaying my sleep debt in preparation for another gongshow week to bother with a costume or anything, and I’ll be in a meeting with my mortgage broker tonight around the time all the kiddies will be roaming around trick-or-treating. Such an exciting life, I know.

But I couldn’t let the day pass entirely unnoticed, so I figured I’d reminisce with a photo of Sasha in her Snow White costume from last year.

Pets in costumes. That’s all the treat I need.

Overall my first visit to the Big Apple was pretty fun. It’s the first place I’ve traveled where I’ve thought I could definitely live there for an extended period (5+ years) and be quite content. Most other places I get the feeling I’d be over them and longing for home within 6 months or so.

Anyhow, for those curious about what I got up to while I was there, here’s the rundown:

Touristy Things

Top of the Empire State Building - not unlike a ride at Disneyland, they hide the lineups. It took an excruciatingly long time to finally get to the top, and getting down was just as painful. But the views while up there were lovely!

Theatre on Broadway - We got half-price tickets at the TKTS booth in Times Square and went to see RENT. I laughed, I cried, I still don’t get rent-heads.

Times Square - This is where we stayed. Personally, I hate it. It’s just excess for its own sake, without any thought or theme, and full of annoying tourists.

Union Square - Shopping! I managed to bring home a few trinkets, and think I could quite happily live near DSW and Filene’s basement. Also, it’s right on the edge of Greenwich Village, an area of town I felt really comfortable in (mostly because the inhabitants and atmosphere reminds me of home).

World Trade Centre site - Underwhelming. It’s a big construction site. Mostly like what we see in Vancouver on an hourly basis, as we pass yet another condo going up. Also, like Times Square, swarming with annoying tourists. It just felt wrong to me that there are groups of people in their white sneakers and matching T-Shirts, smiling for the camera in front of the mesh construction fence. There was just no reverence for the significance of what happened there. I think I’d like to return after the building and memorial pond are done to see if the atomosphere changes. Sadly, I suspect it won’t.

The Food

Definitely the best part of my visit, and more for my record than yours (so I can find these places again when I go back):

Cafe Spice Indian Bistro. Awesome noodle dishes in a funky atmosphere.

Tuscan Steakhouse on Restaurant Row - conveniently just a few blocks from our hotel.

Bobby Van’s Steakhouse. Where the “petite fillet” was a whopping 16oz, and the South African Lobster Tail was bigger than my hand. My dining companion’s T-bone was the size of a smartcar. We were both bested by our dinners, and ended up in protein comas after that one.

Scarlotti Italian Bistro on 47th. Couldn’t find a link, but being close to our hotel, it was a good standby for tasty, easy pasta.

Tia Pol - we had an assortment of Tapas and a suckling pig. Oh. My. God. Best meal of the trip.

Blue Water Grill - located in Union Square, this place is supposed to be one of the best seafood restaurants in the city. Frankly, I was disappointed. My Swordfish was dry, the Broccoli Rabe was completely oversalted, and trust me when I say that if you come from a place with reputedly the best sushi in the world - just don’t bother ordering it anywhere else. But a lot of my dinner companions were thrilled, so it might’ve just been what I ordered.

Blue Fin Restaurant - this was the restaurant in our hotel. I didn’t have breakfast there, but those of us who did said it was exceedingly expensive for what they got. I had dessert and drinks. While my smores cake was forgettable, it was pretty cool sampling Madeira from 1966, 1907 and 1875 (the 1907 was the clear favourite).

The Digs

Just a quick note about where we stayed: the W Hotel Times Square. It was uber trendy and cool, and also frustratingly useless. Listed as one of the conference hotels (which is why we stayed) it was like living in a nightclub for a week, where the setting is ultra cool and getting anything done is the height of frustration.

The in-room internet didn’t work (despite paying for 6 days worth on the first day), the bathroom doesn’t have a fan, the bathroom walls are frosted glass (so when sharing 2 to a room, if someone has to get up in the middle of the night to pee, you can’t turn on the light or the whole corner of the room lights up like a lamp).

The business centre is more for show than actual use (they had a trendy jar of pencils, sharpened just so, but no pens! also, a funky stapler but no packing tape) and despite advertising it as a 24h full-service business centre, managed to lock the elevators to the 5th floor at about 9:00pm, trapping my colleague and I down there until we used our cell phones (nobody answered the house phone on the floor) to call up and beg them to unlock it.

Also, the entirety of the staff are trendy gay men (which, I don’t care, just do your job already), who are far more concerned with how they look to eachother and the club crowd coming and going than actually showing up at the front desk, answering the phone, or opening a door when I’m laden with bags (does a *doorman* even have another duty?).

But, their claim to super comfy beds and luxurious sheets was bang on. Damn. I want a set for myself!

I missed…

Running in central park. Between work and the rain, it just wasn’t happening.

Exploring more around SoHo. I tried, but I got a little lost at my attempts to navigate the subway, plus I was already exhausted from the week and laden with packages from earlier shopping.

All told though - I’m looking forward to getting back to the city to explore some more, and am seriously entertaining notions of living there some day. As long as I’m not living at the W.

Oh, hi there. I kindof disappeared for a bit didn’t I? Rest assured, I was not mugged, nor did I get lost. I was, however, hassled by the mob.

It’s fairly well known ’round these parts that the Jacob K. Javits Convention Centre labor department is pretty much run by the mafia. And I’m not even joking. It’s not wiseguys walking around in Armani suits or anything - but these guys are definitely connected. You do not mess with them, or the system.

They are the exclusive (and I mean exclusive) supplier of shipping, handling, construction and electrical labor in the building. You play by their rules.

You do not touch anything. You do not “take away” their jobs. This includes repairing shoddy workmanship and plugging in your own lights/tv’s (again, not kidding).

For the most part it’s ok - you sit around your pile of half-assembled structure and crates and wait a lot for things to be done. It’s pretty standard that any one of a number of laborers will show up with a work order, look at it, look at your stuff say “I gotta go get a tool/part” and disappear for 2 hours.

But, with a huge heaping helping of patience, I persevered and our booth was constructed relatively competently and in plenty of time for us to get ready for the show opening. Another company with a setup near us wasn’t so lucky - they had shipping troubles, and when their booth arrived late, they tried to expedite things by starting construction themselves. They were then blacklisted by the labor who refused to put up their booth and also wouldn’t let them (these guys are masters of intimidation) do it themselves.

Eventually, after the foremen decided the offending exhibitor had suffered enough, they constructed the booth in just the nick of time. The exhibitor was finally firing up their laptops (one of the few things you can do yourself) when the show floor opened.

Anyhow, we figured we were out of the woods, and had our booth ready to go. Then our video guys showed up to capture some footage of our in-booth demos. And they pulled out some extension cords and got ready to plug in their floodlights.

And that’s when fucking Tony Soprano shows up. “Whoaaahh you? Whadduyuh think ya dooin’? WHOOSE YO’ BAWSSS?”

HOLY SHIT

We unplugged and put away the lights posthaste and apologized profusely. And that was pretty much the end of that. If we’d wanted the lights, it was made abundantly clear that we’d have to order a contractor to plug in the extension cords. They didn’t say what would happen if we’d refused to take things down - but none of us were interested in finding out.

So we shot our video on battery, sans extra lighting.

And ever since, I’ve had an unshakeable urge to watch the Godfather.

So I’m in New York City! The big apple! The city that never sleeps!

I’m bored.

I’m sitting in a conference centre (Javits) in a dirty, industrial part of town, supervising our trade show booth setup and catching up on some work. Thank god for free wifi.

But it hasn’t been all bad.

Even though I had to get up at sparrow’s fart to get to the airport for my 06:20 flight, I had a fantastic surprise when I got there. The co-worker I was flying with used his status points to upgrade us both to first class for the Vancouver-Chicago leg of the flight.

Or at least he thought he did. Turns out the upgrade didn’t go through for both of us, and I was the one who ended up in first class while he got priority boarding and a bulkhead seat (first class was full by the time we checked in). But I got the bigger seat, and breakfast! With real dishes! It was still airplane food, but I’m not complaining. (Thanks again, Rich!) Our bags also got priority tags, so they made our 40-minute connection at O’Hare.

All in all, yesterday was awesome. Our flights left on time and arrived early. The hotel is pretty and swanky (W Times Square) and with the tiny exception of the insane lineups to get up the Empire State building (which had very nice views once we were up there) everything went as smoothly as possible (including the glasses of scotch we downed in the evening).

Today - less smooth.

The booth is going up veeeeeery slowly (Thanks NY Union Labour!), a major piece of hardware is stuck in customs, the flying has caught up with me and my stomach is hateful, my computer (specifically outlook) keeps crashing.

It’s only 2:00pm here, and I feel like I’ve been up for hours. Oh wait - that’s because I have! After a fitful night of mostly not sleeping, I got up at 6:00am to go meet all the vendors, who’d decided they’d hedge their bets on the Union Electricians not finishing their part on time (which they actually did), and showed up an hour later than they’d scheduled last week. Thanks. I didn’t need that extra hour of sleep.

So now I wait, and watch. And hope that this day ends soon and tomorrow everything’s better.

I’m leaving for New York City tomorrow morning at ass o’clock - so I’m finishing up some last-minute laundry and packing.

I have the sneaking suspicion I’m forgetting something. Of course I have no idea what. My list seems complete, and I have all the items on it ready to go.

Perhaps you can think of something I haven’t?

And if not, leave me a comment with something fun to see or do in NYC. I’m staying in Times Square, and will get my share of good eats. My evenings will probably be busy with parties and schmoozing (with work people - so not quite as glamorous as it sounds), but I’ll have some weekday daytimes free to sightsee and shop. I plan on using at least one of those to go for a run in Central Park (yep - still doing that running thing).

What are your top must-see’s?

So, as mentioned previously I’ve decided I’m going to start running. In fact, I’m slightly past “deciding” since I’m on week two (after doing week 1 twice) of the Couch to 5K 8-week running program from coolrunning.com.

So why running?

I am not a joiner. While I liked rowing as an activity, my past experience reminds me that a sport training on someone else’s schedule is going to frustrate rather than motivate me. Plus (snob that I am) I want an activity for fitness and me time - not another social activity. Honestly though, I’m super busy these days and hardly see the friends I already have, and the whole team thing doesn’t really work if you don’t engage in any “off the water/field” teambuilding. I suppose I could row a single but I don’t like them much, I far prefer the bigger boats.

I also loathe having to travel to my activity - dragging gym clothes plus work clothes plus all the necessary equipment to get from one into the other (hair-things, body-things, makeup, etc.) just plain sucks. I want to roll out of bed, do my thing, then get straight into my own shower and get on with my day.

I must work out in the mornings, before work. Not only does it get me going in the morning (which is what I’m really looking for), but once I’ve sat down for dinner or on the couch on any given weeknight, I’m not likely to get up again. Once I’ve slowed down or stopped for the day, that’s it. Ask Neil, who pokes me back awake at about 9:30pm after I’ve fallen asleep on the couch for the umpteenth time and points me in the direction of the bedroom so I quit drooling on the upholstry.

Impressions so far

Running, when done properly, doesn’t totally suck. Sure after my first run I felt like I’d been hit by a truck for 2 days, but when I ran again on the 3rd day the very same run was noticeably easier. Then when I left it for 4 days, it was more difficult again. Instant results and feedback like that do a lot for motivation*.

A good training program also makes all the difference in the world. I’m using the Couch to 5k podcasts created by Rob Ullrey - they make it wicked easy to just plug in and go. No checking my watch every few seconds to gauge time, and some great ambient tunes that I can listen to while I just focus on that elusive “point in the distance” that I tell myself I need to get to.

Another thing that surprised me: I like mornings. What I don’t like is getting out of bed - but once I’m up, mornings are awesome. I am a “morning person.” Anyone who knew me during my teenaged years will likely fall down in shock and disbelief right about now, but it’s true. This whole morning person thing also makes me feel markedly better about definitely not being a night-owl (see: falling asleep on the couch around 9:30 just about every night).

Running makes me HUNGRY! That whole kick in the pants to my metabolism at 6:00am gears me up to be pretty ravenous for the rest of the day. So far I’ve been mostly good about responding to HUNGRY with APPLE instead of COOKIES - but only mostly. One thing at a time, people.

There is a camaraderie among runners. Those people I used to glance at the few occasions I was out and about at such an ungodly hour thinking “they must be insane” are now nodding and smiling and sometimes even saying “hello” to me in the mornings. You know the saying “if you can’t see the crazy person nearby, you are the crazy person nearby?” I’m now the crazy person.

So, all told, running has been going pretty well - I’ll fill you in on my progress again in a week or so.

*The week 2 program is seriously kicking my ass. I’ve run it 4 times, and still want to barf at the end every time. I’m just waiting for it to feel “easy” once, and I’ll ramp up to week 3.

Do you (bloggers) ever get to that point where you realize you haven’t written for a while, and you want to, but because it’s been so long you have no idea where to start - you want to apologize for not writing because it has been so long, but you’re not actually sorry because you haven’t been up to anything very interesting - though a few things have happened and you feel you should mention them but you don’t because they seem far too insignificant to appear as the first thing on your blog after such a long absence and you end up so frustrated at the situation and your need to put something on the page that you end up just writing a huge run-on sentence instead of any actual content?

Me neither.

Anyhow, here’s a brief sampling of what’s been up with me lately:

Wedding stuff is still going on with a minimum of crazy-inducing antics. Note I said minimum, not zero, and while minimum is obviously better than medium or maximum, it is still far more irritating than zero. I am attempting not to drive myself nutty over it and/or throw things. So far I’ve been mostly successful at both.

Our new place looks closer and closer to completion every time we go by. The retail stores on the ground floor have opening dates that fall within the next couple weeks, and they’ve finally pulled the blue plastic off the windows. It’s so close we can almost smell it. Which obviously makes us hate everything about the place we’re in more with each passing day we don’t get our official notice of occupancy. Oh the list I could create of things that I am excited to leave behind - including our impending rent increase.

I’ve started running (stop laughing, Mom!). It’s not my favourite thing in the world, but surprisingly, it doesn’t suck as much as I thought it would. A good training program helps.

The countdown to travel is on. I leave for NYC in 10 days. I’m gone for a week, back for a week, then go to Vegas for a week. I am simultaneously excited and terrified, because I’m the lead for both these events and would rather not fuck them up. I actually think the likelihood of that happening is approaching zero, but I don’t want to jinx it.

Any requests for which of these to expand on first?

At the beginning of September, my latest contract with Telus finally came to an end and I made the switch to Rogers.

None of the mobile phone providers here actually offer what I’d call “good” rates on voice or data packages in the range I’m using, so my decision to go with Rogers was made strictly from a CDMA vs. GSM standpoint. I also wanted a smartphone with windows mobile and wifi, and Rogers delivered the option that was within my budget: the HTC S621.

Thanks to the recent arrival number portability in Canada, I was also able to keep my number and just swap it over to the Rogers account. Easy peasy. It only took about 18 seconds for the swap to happen.

And this is where I say FEAR YE THE PORTING OF MOBILE NUMBERS!!!!

Check your cancellation agreements, double check your dates, and make DAMN SURE everything you do is on the up and up. If it’s not, you could find yourself on the receiving end of a hefty fine, like I almost was.

I told the Rogers salesguy (a store manager no-less) while I was purchasing that I wanted to port my number, and I was pretty sure I only had a couple days left on my telus mobility contract. He didn’t mention anything about possible conflicts. I figured it was no biggie. I didn’t actually realize until it was done that the porting thing was instant - I figured it would take a couple days, based on the experience I had transferring my land line from telus to Vonage.

Not so much.

I called telus about an hour later when I got home, and found out that the second my number ported, my telus contract was cancelled and I was automatically levied their termination fee of $100 or $20 for every month or portion remaining, whichever is MORE.

And how “early” was my early cancellation? 13 hours. I ported my number at 11:00am September 3rd. My contract expired September 4th.

But according to the first few folks at telus I spoke to, I cancelled early, that is that, and I owe them $100 plus tax.

But remember that bit at the beginning where I said I “almost” paid a hefty fine? I was unfailingly polite, used every ounce of customer-service-fu I possess and prayed to every deity I could think of. And the unthinkable happened.

TELUS MOBILITY, THAT UNCARING, UNCOUTH LEGACY INCUMBENT BEHEMOTH - THEY OF THE “NO INCENTIVES FOR BEING A CUSTOMER FOR SEVEN LONG YEARS DESPITE THE FACT THAT NEW CUSTOMERS GET A BUCKET OF GOLD AND A BLOWJOB WITH THEIR FREE PHONE” - THEY GAVE ME A GOODWILL DISCOUNT FOR THE VALUE OF THE CANCELLATION FEE!

I know, pick yourself up off the floor, and read it again just to be sure. They waived the fee. I didn’t believe it either, which is why I didn’t blog about it until the bill showed up in my mailbox stating as such. But it did, and I paid my $20-worth of pro-rated fees happily!

Anyhow, I have a new phone, it’s pretty skookum (although I still can’t figure out how to upload pictures to flickr with it - help anyone?), and I managed to find the three people in the telus organization who haven’t succumbed to the borg. I almost feel bad for signing my soul away to their competitor. Almost.