new york city, day 4-6

Day 4:

• More training.
• More food. Italian this time. Arno's. From the swarm of waiters to seat us and take our orders, I guessed that meant good service... But, they forgot about us once they cleared away our plates. Weird. "Yes, we'd like to see the desert cart." Then nothing. For what seemed like an eternity.
  
• Walked up to Times Square. Lights! Crowds! Applebees!

Day 5 :

• More training.
• Buy the purse for Liz. Just as fabulous... And, it comes in three styles.
  
• Met up with Chevan after work. He took us on the subway down to the World Trade Center site. Then back on the subway to find something to eat.
• Found a vietnamese place near NYU. Very good. Butterfly Grill. They'd mounted butterflies in glass cases all over the walls. Was very cool.
• The calamari appetizer was very good. Much better than the usual batter coated crunchy chew rings.
  
• For the main course, got the 'spicey frogs legs'. Good. But not spicey. Chevan and I act like an old married couple, "Oooh, that looks good. Can I have a bite?"
  
• For desert, the red bean ice cream. When it arrived, I got a prize. A piece of cardboard in the ice cream. I was stunned (and a little drunk), so Chevan came to my rescue and asked for a new bowl. And, we did our old married couple routine again.
  
• Took the co-workers back to the hotel, then went out for drinks with Chevan. It was good to have a chance to catch up and gossip about old friends. Haven't had a chance to talk with him one-on-one in a long time.

Day 6:

• Sleep in.
• Realize my voice is really hoarse after yelling back and forth with Chevan to be heard over the music in the lounge. Iron shirts. Hope I don't lose voice.
  
• Grandpa & Grandma (mom's side) have seats to the Metropolitan Opera, arranged to meet with them before the trip. Unfortunately, Grandma wasn't feeling well, so I just met Grandpa. Had a fantastic lunch at the Met and saw La Forza del Destino.
  
• Accusations of innocence deflowered! Accidental shootings! Explosions! Cross-dressing! Betrayal! Murder! With subtitles (via screens installed on the backs of the seats)!
• Back to the hotel to meet up with co-worker #1 and her cousin. They're in her room, watching 'Tall, Dark, and DEADLY!'. I go up to her room to harrass her, in time to see self-defense manslaughter delivered via boat to the face. ON LAND! I can see why they were riveted.
  
• Call up Chevan to see if he's free for dinner again.
• Walk up 9th Ave, try to decide which of the many places look tastey.
• There was a cluster of 4-5 Thai places. It must have been a sign from Jeebus. Decide on Breeze. The menus are presented in CD jewel cases. Odd.
• Once again, decide to go with the the kookiest sounding thing on the menu. It was a panang curry with squid, scallops and shrimp. Served in a banana leaf. It was very good. And it came in a banana leaf, so it was clearly the winner.
  
• Also once again, Chevan and I do our old married couple routine.
• As if it's not bad enough that we're eating off each other's plates... Find out that Chevan watched Project Runway too. He pointed out the places where they filmed on our way up to dinner. Parsons, Atlas, Toys R Us, Red Lobster. And Nick was his favorite too. And, Chevan also demonstrated his Santino-as-Tim-Gunn impersonation, as we walked by Parsons' and saw the infamous Red Lobster.
  
• Back to the hotel. Call Liz.
  

new york city, day 3

Forgot to mention about day #1:

• My room has a safe in the closet. Before I left to look around the neighborhood with co-worker #1, I made sure to set the combination and put my laptop and digital camera in the safe.
• When I got back to the room. I discovered the safe door was open.
  
• Oh no! I've been burglarized!
• Wait... Everything is still there.
  
• Oh no! I'm an idiot who forgot to shut the damn safe door.
  

Forgot to mention about day #2:

• The shower in my room is tremendously hot. I have to turn the temperature knob all the way to cold for it to be slightly bearable. I assume the cold-water thingamajig in the shower hooziwhatsit is busted. The hot water coming in the sink is very hot... but the cold is very cold.
  
• Had dinner with co-workers #1 and #2. #1's cousin lives in Manhatten, and came out to dinner with us. She was very funny.
  

Day #3 (I can tell my vast army of 2 readers is on the edge of their seats now that I've skillfully whet their appetite with more details of the previous day's happenings):

• Got up
• Went to training
• Back to hotel
• Dinner! Heartland Brewery & Rotisserie
  
• Sampler tray full of tiny beers! Hooray Tiny Beer!
  
• Wander around Macy's, concentrate on walking in straight line.
• In Macy's, the higher we went, the older the escalators. I've never seen an escalator with wooden treads before. Sweet.
  
• Back to Hotel.
• Check e-mail. Realize the networking change that IT is doing just broke something they set up for me a couple months ago... My downloader application is barfing error e-mails around the company, complaining that it can't connect through the special NAT-ed address to the remote office. Hooray e-mail!
  
• 11pm! Hooray garbage trucks!
• Watch VW commercials friend posts to his blog. Hooray creepy VW guy!
• 11:13pm. Car alarm starts going off.
• Sweet zombie jesus, NYC is noisy. Remember tray full of tiny beers! Hooray tiny beers!
  

new york city, day 2

• Garbage trucks outside from 11-midnight
• Discover the refridgerator in my room makes a odd, short buzzing/clicking sound every 15-30 minutes... All night.
• Up at 2am. For some reason. Back to sleep.
• Up at 4am. For some reason. Back to sleep.
  
• Up at 6am . Get ready. Wonder why I kept waking up every 2 hours... Obviously, Zombie Hitler and Orville Redenbacher are involved somehow. And, don't get me started on Ladybird Johnson.
  
• Mmmmm... contintental breakfast.
  
• Training class from 9am-5pm
• Conference call back to SLC 5:30-6:30
• Run back to hotel to catch up w/ co-workers.
  
• Go to very tastey restaurant, with horrible service... But, the food was fantastic. Ida Mae Kitchen-n-Lounge

new york city, day 1

Because my co-worker forgot her journal, I will post this here for all posterity:

• At dinner tonight, our waiter sounded like Fenster from the Usual Suspects
• At dinner tonight, the soup special was a sun-dried tomato bisque with roast garlic and sweet pee puree. No, that's not a typo... Well, it's their typo not mine. And, yes, we ate it. You could really taste the pee.
  
• I found a lovely purse at the 99cent store down the street (a black purse with a embroidered blond lady sitting in a animal-print lounge chair). I think my wife will get a kick out of it... So, I must purchase it to prove I'm not the world's worst husband for travelling (for work) over her birthday. Well, I'll probably get something else too.
  
• The Chinese restaurant down the street from the hotel had some truely nasty looking garbage cans waiting for pick up... Picture 4-5 large cans, filled with meat/fish off cuts. Thank god the weather is still fairly cold.
• When we got to JFK, who was there by the gate looking fabulous? Nick Verreos, Liz's 2nd favorite designer from this season of Project Runway. Now that the chance has slipped by, I'm kicking myself for not getting Liz his autograph and/or a picture.