Ny Recap (business Remix)

Hi all,

Hope you're doing well this evening and are having a good weekend. I'm glad there's still Sunday left.

So it's felt like I haven't written in a while so I'm not sure where to start.

Last Sunday I actually started writing my presentation. Unfortunately the words did not come to me, so I ended up doing everything but work on my presentation.

Monday (as usual) I was doing work stuff during the day so I didn't get to work on it either.

(anxiety building)

Monday night I worked on the presentation while handing out candy to kids (it was Halloween). I worked utnil 2 a.m. Tuesday morning, taking a break to pack.

Tuesday morning I had my coworkers review the stupid presentation and was busy revising and getting the oh shit screenshots ready (just in case the VPN connection failed on me). My plan was to leave during lunch, but I ended up working through it and leaving at the last minute for home to pick up my luggage and head off to the airport.

The flight was groovy. We got there with no issues. D, my travelling buddy was the best - she travels with a seemingly neverending supply of treats. I didn't really say much on the plane, cause I was busy going over my presentation.

We get into the cab, tell the driver where we need to go, and he asks the mllion dollar question, something to the effect of, "How would you like to go?" I was thoroughly confused.

Apparently there's a billion ways to get to the hotel from La Guardia - you just have to do this delicate balance how much time you want to spend in the cab, with how many tolls you want to pay, what is going on in the city (apparently Prince Charles and his lady friend were in town), and of course the daily traffic patterns.

We had absolutely no idea so we were pretty much at the mercy of the cab driver. He offered the bridge or the tunnel. I went for the bridge (I thought it would be more scenic). He started telling some other stuff, so we just told him to get us there as quickly as possible (and we trusted his judgement). As a precaution, I even took the time to write down his medallion number and his driver's license number. I guess we did ok :)

Geneman was a welcome friendly face to NY, meeting us at our hotel, in full high-powered exec gear. He hung out with us while we checked in, and joined us for dinner.

(begin "as close as I'll ever get to living like a rockstar" lifestyle)

So the 3 of us (D, Geneman, and me) ended up hooking up with our salesguy and a bunch of other people for dinner at Luna Piena. I highly recommend the linguini with baby clams, a.k.a Linguine alle Vongole. The food and company was great, the wine was freeflowing, and the dessert was just too good to pass up.

After dinner we had drinks at the W New York - The toitiest hotel I've ever had drinks in. We were in this very posh and trendy bar area on the 2nd floor. I'm talking nice plush couches, fur/furry pillows (I think it was faux, not sure), very swanky decor, and a lot of wheatgrass.

I don't know what the connection with the wheatgrass was, but it made for some good conversation.

Plus there were these random magazines and books scattered all over the place. Oh yeah, and we played "executive" tic tac toe. There was this nice wooden block that served as a playing surface, and then there were these metal X and O game pieces.

Toity to the extreme.

Unfortunately I had to be a party pooper and get back to my room to practice the good old presentation. Which hadn't been timed, so I have no idea how long I was going to ramble on. Plus I was too tense to be really social.

Bedtime was at 2 a.m.

Poor Geneman probably didn't make it home until then as well - he should be prepared by now for my visits...

Anyway, at 6:30 a.m. I got up to get ready, and run through everything one last time.

Overall the presentation went ok - it wasn't my best performance, but oh well, what could I do, right?

What's done is done.

Fast forward to after the meeting...

So that night, we hooked up with Geneman again and we had a crazy dinner at Bobby Van's Steakhouse. We got this appetizer that was seriously my version of food heaven. The server brought out this huge tray of ice - on it there was lobster, shrimp, oysters, crab meat. And that was just the appetizer!

We defined surf and turf that night.

After we finished the appetizer, I was ready to go. But there was still dinner...

I normally don't eat red meat. Apparently I had to make up for lost time. The porterhouse steak we ordered was huge.

And, for the first time, I got to try what a 100 dollar bottle of wine tasted like.

Like crap.

The whole gourmet wine thing is lost on me. I could try the $2000.00 bottle of wine (it's on the wine list), and not be able to tell the difference between it and the wine from a box.

After dinner, we went to this bar thing on the top floor of a hotel that starts with a "G" (I don't remember exactly what it was called) and chilled up there for a bit. The view from the top was gorgeous. Most of the outdoor area was all closed off (since it was fall) but we were still able to look outside and catch a great view of the NY and NJ skyline.

And for the last stop (for us at least) we went to this dance club down the street. I think it was called "Roots" or something like that. It was selected after visiting 2 or 3 other club/bars that weren't up to our hosts spec.

So we danced to some really really loud pounding music - Unfortunately I wasn't up on the club scene so I hadn't heard any of the music before. Although there was a rather interesting remix of a early Michael Jackson song - I think it was either Rock with You or Don't Stop till you get Enough.

The entire time I'm out, I just keep on thinking to myself how the whole situation is kind of surreal. I'm out having expensive dinners, at the bar, and at a nightclub? In New York City? On a Wednesday night?

So wacky.

Unfortunately, all good things had to come to an end - We ended up cutting out at 1 ish - The rest of the crowd was headed somewhere else...

Now I can say I've actually been to a New York City club. And a bar.

Anyway, the next morning D and I met up at 8 a.m. to make the most of our 2 hours (before going to the airport) and explored the city. We saw a few tourist attractions, and had two celebrity spottings - Carlos Santana and Diane Sawyer. They were filming Good Morninng America in Times Square. Santana actually performed 3 songs so we hung around to listen.

Not a bad way to end the day in NYC...

To top the trip off, I got to fly first class back home :)

-Kirk