February 2005 Archives

I’m beat. I’m actually writing this midday back in my hotel, cozied up in the covers. Oh, I’ve got plans for tonight but I need to take a break from all this adventuring!

This morning I did get up before 11. I set my phone alarm for 9am, but since it doesn’t have a snooze button, I just turned it off and went back to sleep. But I was awake and up by 10. I have to blow-dry my hair after my shower so I don’t freeze on the streets. Thank goodness for my hat, otherwise I’d be wandering the streets of NYC with feathered ‘80’s hair. Oh, I’d be hot, alright, but I’d also be beat up. Out of the hotel room by 10:40, I’m definitely trending earlier, but not as early as I hoped... seeing that I’m just sitting in the hotel now, I guess it’s no big thing.

Walked to the Metropolitan Museum of Art which is in the same area as the Museum of Natural History, just on the east side of Central Park instead of the west. Since I just did that walk 2 days ago, I decided to walk up 8th and back on 6th (since I already walked 7th and 5th). Nothing new to report on that, lots of restaurants and shops that I didn’t go in to. I figured I’d see nothing new in Central Park too, but walked through it again anyway. To mix it up, I followed the east side trails this time... and discovered lots of new things! There were some cool tunnels and a big fountain and a neat looking amphitheater stage.

Arrived at the Met about a half hour after I left the hotel. Had a hotdog for breakfast before I went in. The first exhibit was Egyptian stuff and they had TONS of it. I took pics of the things that looked like Goa’uld weapons (I’m such a geek). They also had a reconstructed Egyptian temple in a huge glass atrium, very cool! But that’s about when the visit went sour. I saw a lot of other stuff, but nothing that exciting. (I did find the Starbucks lady though!) I saw hundreds of paintings, by many famous artists (Van Gogh, Picasso, Monet, Rembrandt, Warhol, Pollock, O’Keefe, etc) but it didn’t really do anything for me. I’ve never been big into art so this was no surprise. I figured I’d give it a real chance today, but it just seems too static and arbitrary for me. I can appreciate the skill the artists must have to produce such works, but looking at the final product bores me. I thought about it a lot today while wandering the museum, and I think the reason art doesn’t resonate with me is that it doesn’t launch exploratory thoughts for me. I love looking at history and science exhibits because my mind runs wild with the information as I further explore what I have just learned. But when I look at a painting, my brain just sits there and says “What the hell do you want me to do with this?”

Although the Met wasn’t the highlight of the trip, it wasn’t unenjoyable (I’m being told by Word and dictionary.com that unenjoyable isn’t a word. Screw ‘em, it seems like a perfectly usable word to me, so I’m using it). I do enjoy looking at marble statues, and there were plenty to see. There was also a large section of musical instruments; I found the ones constructed from animals the most interesting. I enjoyed O’Keefe’s paintings of vagina flowers (or are they flower vaginas?) And was amazed to discover that Washington Crossing the Delaware is HUGE! Like 12’X21’ huge! Did you know that? I assumed it was a regular sized painting! So... if you like art, go to the Met. If you don’t know if you like art, the Met is a good place to investigate. If you don’t like art, I’m going to say that the Met won’t change your mind.

After spending 2.5 hours at the museum I was ready to head back; walked back on 6th. Walking downtown is something of an art form. The goal, as I’ve gathered from watching locals, is to never slowdown… for anything. This means you have to keep an eye out for groups of gawkers and anticipate which direction they will lumber next. Which ever direction that is not, is the direction you need to head. Crossing the street is another potential slowdown point. Since nearly all the streets are one-way, it’s easier to judge whether you can ignore the “don’t walk” signs. I think I’ve gotten pretty good at this fast paced walking style in the last few days. Tourists keep asking me where stuff is, as if I know where I’m going... “Sorry lady, I’m just walking fast. I don’t even know where we are!”

When I got back to Times Square, I stopped at the discount ticket booth. They had half price tickets to The Producers. I bought one and went out searching for lunch. I discovered on my first night here that Times Square is not the place to find food. Oh, it’s a great place if you want to eat the same food you can eat any where else in America (Olive Garden, Applebees, T.G.I.Fridays, etc). So, I headed back toward my hotel with sushi in mind. I found a place that had a decent lunch special and went in. Ate my miso and sushi; eating at restaurants is the only time that it feels weird to be alone. I never feel alone on the street, Jennifer is there to keep me company (I swear there are multiple Alias posters on every bus that passes). I was so taken away by lunch that when I emerged from the restaurant, I had no recollection of where in the city I was. I walked to the street corner, and thought “oh, that’s right, I’m right across the street from my hotel... that was weird!” Went up the elevator, and here I am, typing this up. I’ve got an hour before the show starts, so I’m going to just take it easy and I’ll finish this entry up once I get back tonight. Hope the show is good!

...

Good? It was great! It was everything you could hope for! Singing, dancing, humor, Hitler! This thing was seriously funny, and I’d call it edgy if it weren’t based on the movie that was released way back in 1968. The musical number “Keep It Gay” was hilarious, loved the Village People entourage (Leo:”That Cherokee was friendly” Max: “Yeah, but I knew it was time to leave when he said ‘we smoke'em peace pipe’”). And the “Springtime for Hitler” show within a show was deliciously irreverent and frenetic. We’re talking, chorus girls dressed as Nazi stormtroopers cheerfully dancing in the shape of a swastika, irreverent. No wonder people were making a big deal about this show back in 2001, it IS a big deal!

After the show, I walked back to my hotel (less than a block away) and changed out of my dress clothes. Went back down in search for food. Kieran says I should eat lots of pizza while I’m here, so I stopped at the first pizza place and ordered a slice of pepperoni... it wasn’t very good. I was still hungry, so I walked to the next pizza place and ordered another slice of pepperoni... it was different but still not very good. I’m done with the great pizza experiment, Kiers better give me specific pizza recommendations or I’m going pizza-less for the rest of the week.

I had today planned out pretty well, even with secondary plans in case things didn’t go as I hoped. But I got myself into a mess anyway. Plus one of the highlights of today was something that wasn’t even in the plan!

I’ve been hearing good things about the new show called Wicked. Apparently it’s a post-modern prequel to The Wizard of Oz. It’s very popular right now, so no chance for half priced tickets. However, I saw on their site that they do a lottery for 28 front row tickets for each show. You put your name in 2.5 hours before the show, and if they call your name, you get a ticket for only 25 bucks! I figured it was worth a shot, so I showed up at the box office this morning at 11:30am. Well, actually I was a little early, so I ate a bagel on the street to pass the time. At 11:30 I wrote my name on a card and it got put into one of those bingo tumbler thingies. The drawing was at noon, so I had to entertain myself for another half hour.

I started walk down the street, and I stumbled across the Ed Sullivan Theatre, home of the Late Show with David Letterman! Went in to see what the story is on getting tickets. They said it was a lottery system too, and had me fill out an application. I thought that was it, but no... they brought me to another room and sat me down at a table. I was being interviewed! The guy asked me what brought me here today (“I was just walking by”) He asked if I was a fan (“Yes, Tivo records the show every night!”) He asked me if I have any favorite bits (“I love ‘Will it Float?’ oh and ‘Is This Anything?’”) As we were talking about the show, we were laughing about stuff. Oh, I SO got the job. I told him I could come see the show today if I don’t win in the Wicked lottery, and if I did win then I can definitely come the next day. He said I’d be getting a call later in the day if my name came up in their lottery (but he pretty much said that it would).

Walked back to the Wicked box office, waited to hear my name not be called. While they were calling other peoples’ names, my phone rang. It was a NY area code, so I figured it was the Late Show already calling back. The guy said that they would leave a voice mail if I didn’t answer, so I let it ring and kept listening for my name... The lottery ended, no Wicked ticket for Jake, but a listen to voice mail confirmed my Letterman appearance. I had to be back at the Ed Sullivan Theatre between 3 and 4, it was 12:30 at the time. My backup plan for when I failed to get a Wicked ticket was to visit the New York Transit Museum to see just how they built that amazing subway system. But, did I have enough time now to do this and be back for Letterman? Maybe...

The night before I had scribbled down the subway lines that run to the museum as well as this map so I could find the museum once off the subway. Now to find a subway entrance for the right line... I found an entrance for N/R so I went down the stairs, paid the fare, and went through the turnstile. Only to discover that I was on the wrong side of the platform with no way to actually get to the other side!! So, I had to leave, go back up the stairs, cross the street, and go down a different set of stairs. The fare is good for only one entrance, so I had to pay another 2 bucks but at least now I wasn’t going to be going the right way, right? The train showed up, I got on, and away we went. After some time, the train actually emerged from its burrow and transformed itself into an el! I didn’t know there were els in New York! After a while, though, my stop hadn’t come up and I started wondering where the heck I was. I was about to check the map on the wall when the announcement came that the next stop was the last stop... and it wasn’t my stop. When we got to the end of the line and I was the only one still on the train, it was pretty obvious that something went wrong. I checked the map, and whadda’ya know, I went the wrong way. Which means that the first platform I was on WAS the right one. Sigh, I stayed on the train and had to ride it back the way I came and then past to my destination. Remember how it was 12:30 when I headed toward the subway? Well it was 1:30 by the time I got back to the platform that I originally got on at. From the announcements it sounded like we weren’t going to stop at the Canal St. exit that I was expecting either. I was closely watching the map this time, and decided to bail at the 7th street exit because it looked kind of close to where I wanted to be.

Up the stairs, back in the city and I have no idea where I’m at. Now when I look down at the map that I scribbled down I realize how poor a job I did. I only labeled a few streets assuming that I’d be getting off at one of the labeled subway exits... and the street I was on didn’t match any of the labeled streets! I started walking in an arbitrary direction hoping to stumble across a labeled street (keep in mind that this whole time I’m under a tight schedule). After a few blocks I stumbled across State; I’m at least in the general vicinity! One block up and I hit Schermerhorn, but now the question is, am I east or west of the museum? I had no idea... but I continued! I walked for quite a few blocks before I hit Hoyt! At this point, it felt like I was hunting for treasure with an old treasure map. I had just enough information and luck to get to each next landmark. I sighed a breath of relief when I saw a giant banner for the museum.

The museum was actually in an old subway station which was pretty neat. There were lots of pictures of subway construction which is what I came for. There was also an exhibit on the els of New York (Manhattan used to have them, and they used to be steam powered so they’d constantly drip water and coal and crap down on the streets). The subway system and el train system were privately owned by two separate companies. Apparently both companies were in financial trouble so the city bought up both systems and joined them up. In the lower level of the museum were a bunch of old subway cars that were open to walk through. It was kind of neat seeing the different styles through the years. The museum also had stuff on the bus system but I just glossed over that stuff since I was still in a hurry (and because who cares about buses?!?)

When I left the museum, I stuck to the labeled streets and went to the subway spot that I thought I was originally going to get off at. At this point I really needed to hurry and I had to walk pretty far through the tunnels to get to the right platform. When I got there, I was a little frantic; it looked like one track was for the M train and the other track was for the R. But which way were these going? As I was reading the signs, a train pulled up on the M track. I continued reading signs on the R track when I realized that maybe both tracks were M/R tracks, one for each direction. I quickly looked at the train that had been sitting there for a while, and sure enough it was the R train! But is it going the right way? The doors are starting to shut. Look at the sign on the train, does it help? Nope! What do I do? I panicked and slid through the just wide enough doors as they closed completely. Well, now I’m on this train, is it going the right way? I guess I’ll soon find out, wait for me David Letterman!

It was going the right way, everything would be alright. I could relax. Got off at Times Square, got my Letterman ticket but had to wait another hour! Ate dinner at a Thai restaurant (Pannang Chicken) and had a slice of zucchini bread from a deli. And then Letterman. I had an awesome seat, 5th row, right on the aisle. I could see Dave the whole time, but the guests (Patricia Heaton and John Witherspoon) were blocked by the camera and crew. It was fun to see, but it’s actually better to watch the show on TV. When you watch at home, you are free to respond however you choose. But at the show, you are expected to clap and laugh on cue like a trained monkey. It wasn’t horrible, it just got a little annoying that they were constantly trying to “fluff” the audience. I recommend doing it once, but I bet you won’t want to do it again.

As soon as the show got out, I walked to my favorite new place, the half price ticket booth! Got a ticket for Fiddler on the Roof and went back to the hotel to relax for an hour. Fiddler was excellent, it was funny but poignant and it was neat to hear all these songs I’ve heard before in the context of the actual story (“Matchmaker”, “If I Were a Rich Man”, “Sunrise, Sunset”) I’m soooo addicted to Broadway.

A few days before, I remembered that one of my college friends, Nolan, now lives in NY. I emailed him and we arranged to meet for lunch on Thursday. He hasn’t spent much time in Manhattan so it was up to me to pick the place for lunch. Momo Sushi was nearby and rated high on a restaurant webpage, so that’s what I suggested. We met at the restaurant at 11:30am and ate and talked for over an hour. He had to get back to work, but we decided to see a Broadway show once he got off of work (he had yet to see one). I figured I should take him to the best one I’ve seen so far, so I told him I’d buy tickets to The Producers. After he left, I walked down to Rockefeller Center to see if I could get in to a taping of Late Night with Conan O’Brien, but all they were offering were tickets to the Jane Pauly Show... no thanks.

The TKTS booth didn’t open for another 1.5 hours, so I was going back to my hotel room to chill for a while. But on the way I realized I was still hungry, so I bought a falafel from a street vendor. The thing was only $3.50 and it was HUGE! I ate it in my room and by the time I finished it, I was stuffed! And tired. I laid down and ended up sleeping until 5pm! I got up in a hurry because I still didn’t have the tickets. As I walked out of the hotel and headed down the street, I saw Richard Kind (the dumb guy on Spin City, he’s currently playing Max in The Producers) talking on his cellphone and walking straight at me! I smiled at him and we sidestepped in opposite directions and kept walking. My first run in with a celebrity!

Got down to Times Square and I realized that I was still pretty groggy from my nap. I felt kind of like I was dreaming as I walked through the busy streets with all the bright lights shining in my eyes. Bought the tickets and headed back to the hotel to wait for Nolan to call. On the way back, I realized it was lottery time for all the shows, so I put my name in for Avenue Q. I figured if I won, we’d go to that instead and it’d still be less than full price with the wasted Producer tickets. Nolan showed up and he put his name in the lottery as well. 6o’clock came and they started calling names. Not our names, then the guy said “ok, one more name” and grabbed into the bucket for a piece of paper. He unfolded it and looked down at it, then frowned and looked closer, and that’s when we knew we had lost. Obviously the name on the paper was a little harder to pronounce than “Jake” or “Nolan!”

We had two hours before our show started, so I took him to the Irish pub I found on my second day here. We ate dinner and talked some more about work and school and future plans. Went and watched The Producers, this was my second time in 3 days and it was still TONS of fun! There were parts where I was laughing so hard that my vision was blurred from the tears in my eyes. It wasn’t as shocking this time, but it was more fun because I was there with someone else. I think, after seeing it twice, I can say that The Producers is the single best piece of entertainment that I have ever watched. You MUST go see this show, regardless of cost or inconvenience. It really is that good.

After the show, Nolan had to catch a train home and that was the end of that day.

My last full day in NYC. I still had plenty to do, so I was up and out of the hotel by 9:30am. I took the subway to Broadway and 8th and walked through Washington Square Park on the way to Greenwich Village. I was there pretty early, so most of the shops were still closed, but that was ok because I didn’t see any that I wanted to go into anyway. I walked up and down many streets in the Village and just looked around, not too exciting but at least I saw it. Once I had enough of window shopping, I headed east on Houston. I ended up walking through SoHo, saw a French Connection clothes shop and thought of Ritchie and his FCUK sweatshirt. I ended up at my second destination, Little Italy. There wasn’t much to see here either, the light poles and fire hydrants are painted red, green, white... There were tons of Italian restaurants though, but it was still too early for lunch. So I kept walking to my third destination, which was Chinatown.

I’ve been to plenty of Chinatowns in my day, and this one was no different. It does amaze me though that they cling to this way of grocery shopping. It seems so dirty and smelly and disorganized, I wondered if they’ve seen the way we do it? And if so, why stick with this method? What possible benefits could this way have over the supermarket way? I’m not one to usually think my culture’s way is better than another’s, but I couldn’t help think it about this stinky mess... It was fun though, being the only white guy on the street. Just walking through, watching, listening, smelling, experiencing, and thinking...

It was nearing noon, so I headed back to Little Italy for some lunch. I found a place and ordered Rigatoni Bolognese. Now I’m not a big fan of Italian food, it always tastes alright, but it never seems very special, y’know? Like, I always feel like I could make the same thing at home, no big whoop. But this stuff was delicious! The plate was huge, but I kept just stuffing it down because it tasted so good! After lunch, I started waddling back toward my hotel. I had planned on taking the subway back, but since my sightseeing had taken less time than I expected, I decided that I’d just walk all the way back (which was a little over 3 miles). As I walked back, I saw the Empire State Building up close! I thought about going up to the observation deck, but I decided that I didn’t care enough to actually pay for it. All along the way, I kept stopping in tourist shops to see if I could find a gift for Kara. The people that worked in the shops all appeared to be the same nationality (I’m not quite sure which it was though) and they were all WAY too helpful. I just wanted to look through the store, but they would walk through it with me and if I showed even the slightest interest in something they would start talking about it. It was weird, so I’d just leave and hope the next store’s attendant would be a little more easy going.

When I got back to the theatre district, I stopped by the Wicked box office to see if they had any single tickets for tonight’s show. They didn’t, but they recommended to check back sometime between 5 and 6. Sounded like a plan, but I was tired so I went back to the hotel and took another nap. Got up at 5:30 and hurried back down to the box office. Signed up for the Wicked lottery and also checked for tickets to buy, still nothing but there was a cancellation line that I got in, so that if/when people cancel, we’d get first dibs on those tickets. The lottery went as expected, my name wasn’t called. But, the cancellation line went as I didn’t expect it, as I got an awesome seat just off center toward the front of the orchestra section. But, this was no half priced ticket, this was the full $100 deal, so I was really hoping the show was as good as everyone was saying it was.

It wasn’t. It was utter crap. Seriously, the story was absolutely stupid, I knew where it was going WAAAAY before it got there. The songs were totally boring, they added nothing to the show, and there was hardly any dancing, etc. I honestly don’t understand what all the hype is about, this show was just terrible. And I paid 100 bucks to see it, argh! At least I got to see a bunch of good shows at good prices, but seriously don’t believe the hype on this crapfest.

After the show, I got a hotdog on the street and headed back to my room. The hotdog only made me more hungry though, so I headed back down and got a sandwich from one of the European cafes.

And that’s it, that’s my New York vacation. My flight leaves tomorrow at noon, and I am taking the subway and bus to the airport. I had a ton of fun here, and it feels like I stayed the perfect amount of time. I’m not bored of it here yet, but I also don’t have anything else I really want to do while I’m here. I’d say that vacationing on my own was a successful experiment. It would have been nice to have company, but I was never lonely or miserable. And so I go home tomorrow, sated on exploration and adventure. For how long? We’ll see...

Yesterday was my first day at e***. It went well but I was coughing ALL DAY! Apparently I picked up an illness in New York, and boy is it a bad one. I cough so long and hard that I almost throw up! And that's assuming that I have something to throw up (I had a small lunch yesterday and that was all I could eat). Today is my second day at e***, I called in sick.

Now that the dust of my illness is settling, the details of my Portland life are coming into focus. Here’s how it’s shaping up:

We’re temporarily staying at TJ & Michelle Arko’s house while we look for a house to rent/buy. The Arkos are clinging to the caveman ways as they have neither internet access nor cable TV! This explains my lack of blogging in the last week; it also means that my Tivo is completely out of commission. Watching our regular shows has become an exercise in creativity as we hunt down locations to see each show. ABC kind of comes in over the antenna so we watched LOST and (part of) Alias on a dinky TV at the Arkos’. Part of Alias because we turned it off halfway through, I’m done with that show, they’ve officially ruined it by turning it into a sad copy of The X-Files. Let me know if it gets better again, and MAYBE I’ll check out the DVDs... doubtful. We went to Dave’s house on Sunday afternoon to watch Stargate Atlantis and Battlestar Galactica on his Tivo. Sunday night was Micah’s for Arrested Development. I’ve got Scott downloading Enterprise and SG1 for me through bit torrent. We really need to talk the Arkos into getting cable!

Here’s how my weekdays are going; I wake up at [gulp] 7am, Kara and I leave together at 7:30am. She drops me off at Billy’s bungalow at 7:45 and then continues on to work. Billy and I talk and drink coffee for 15 minutes and then walk to the bus stop. The bus takes about 30 minutes to get us to the office, sometimes Billy and I talk but lately we read our books. Work goes from 8:45am-5pm, lunch around noon. There is an awesome “food court” of vendor trailers one block away from here. Every type of food that you can imagine... however, so far the quality of the food has been less than impressive. The last few days I haven’t had cash, so I’ve gotten sandwiches at Subway. At 5:15pm we take the bus back and read again. We’re back at Billy’s bung by 5:45pm and I’m free for fun!

Billy and Dave go lap swimming on Mondays, I was going to join them last night but my cough isn’t entirely gone yet. Kara and I played Rummikub at Billy’s while we waited for them to return. Once they did, we went to Costco with them and had a romantic Valentines dinner of hotdogs and pizza. Drove back to TJ & Michelle’s, talked to them for a while and read for a while. In bed and asleep by 10pm, I expect to be able to stay up a bit later than that soon, but my body is still adjusting to this early morning wakeup...

Last night Kara and I met Dave and Shanlyn at an Indian restaurant called Got Curry? The name is horrible, but the food was pretty good. I got the Chicken Tikka Masala and Kara got Aloo Gobi (which I stole a bit of). After dinner we went back to Dave’s and watched LOST. It was a slower paced episode than normal, but still very good. I was surprised at how much time they spent on the “I never” scene; it lasted quite a while, and it really seemed like more of a movie scene than a scene from a TV show. After LOST, we decided to play a game. I had brought Alhambra and Ticket to Ride; I suggested Alhambra but Dave and Kara wanted to play Ticket... so Ticket it was. I ended up KILLING them with a Miami-LA run and five other medium length routes. Dave would have been close had he completed his cross country run (I think NY-LA) but he just couldn’t get the black cards he needed.

This weekend marked our first Seattle-as-visitor trip (though only partially since we still have our apartment up there). Kara and I left Portland around 9am on Saturday morning to go up and pack up our stuff. Since I was in NY the week before we moved to Portland, we didn’t pack much stuff before we left. Kara drove while I read aloud a book about cadaveric research called Stiff. I saw the book on the shelf at TJ and Michelle’s as we left that morning, and recalled a decent review of it over at Defective Yeti. Once we got up to Seattle, we packed for a few hours (or rather I packed for about an hour and Kara packed for a few more hours while I continued to read Stiff... I also had to throw in back massages every 30 minutes before Kara would agree to the deal!)

Once the packing was finished (which took shorter than expected), Kara took a shower and I took a nap. When I woke up, Kara informed me that we had plans with Brett & Jess: dinner at Queen Sheeba’s and then a game of Settlers of Catan. It was the perfect low-key night, which was exactly what I was hoping for (oh, and the fact that I won at Catan didn’t hurt either).

The next morning we loaded up a bunch of boxes into the van and Kara drove home while I continued reading (I had to sweeten the deal, again with another massage, geez!) We dropped off the boxes at my parents’ house and returned Cindy’s van to her. On our way back to the Arkos’ house, we stopped by Billy’s (he was in his underwear!) Went out for Thai at Papaya Thai with TJ & Michelle (I thought the food wasn't very good, never going back) and then went over to Dave’s and played Traders of Genoa with him and Shanlyn. I KILLED them with 7 adjacent prestige cards and 7(!) buildings claimed with tokens (I got so much money from people using my buildings). The three of them were all within 10 ducats (Kara:665, Dave & Shanlyn: 675) I had 960!