Slacker

Well, I'm sitting in Logan Airport, waiting to return to NYC after a week in Boston working at the Camper store here (yes, only a week this time around!!) Just got off the phone with Sara and realized that I need to update my blog. I'll spend some time this week adding some back-dated posts, and hopefully will keep up with posts in the future.

9/11 Towers of Light Tribute

Last night I tried to get some pictures of the Towers of Light tribute. I had to sneak onto the water front terrace of this Italian restaurant in my neighborhood to get some shots. The pictures looked good on my little camera screen, but, as I expected, they turned out pretty blurry without a tripod or a good support.

Awesome Sunset on the Flatiron Building

Spain, Again!

Ok, my trip to Spain wasn't as exciting as my adventures there last year (I only went for about five days). I spent most of the time with work people, which was fun because the trip is like a family reunion with the managers from around the world. I need to work on my Spanish because most of the Italians and Spanish people who work in the shops don't know English-- we know eachother but it is difficult to communicate. The worst part about the trip was the hangover I had on Thursday for my flight home. Let's just say I'll be more careful about eating enough food and drinking in moderation next year (as if I'll remember). Some visual highlights:

Una Fiesta in a little town outside of Inca, Mallorca



Nancy, my boss from when I was in Chicago, and me



Bernd, the manager from Frankfurt, and me



Gianni, the manager of the Rome store at the Spanish Steps, and me



Laura and me


Me and Ruben, the area manager for Madrid. Ruben visited us in NYC two weeks ago and is a lot of fun (we call him Mango)



Andrew, the manager from Dublin, and me


Joe and Rebecca, from London. Heather from San Francisco, me, and Ana, from headquarters in Inca, Mallorca

Celeb Sightings

The pickings have been slim, but Billy Crystal was in the store a couple of weeks ago. Sorry, that's all I got.

Viva Las Vegas

I spent the first days of August in Las Vegas for the WSA convention (basically a shoe orgy). It worked out very well that I was in Vegas that week because I was saved from the horrible heat and humidity of NYC (and most of the country.) I had the opportunity to meet up with my cousin who was in LV with her husband and two other couples. Overall, it was a great experience and a good change from NYC and being in the store. Here are a few pictures from the wonderfully fake Vegas:

I was just wondering what happened to Toni Braxton

The Flamingo

The Horrible 80s architecture from Ballys

The Strip, from Ghost Bar, at the Palms

Sugar Sugar

Took this great picture of the Domino Sugar factory by our apartment. This picture was taken from the Wburg Bridge.

HOOKED UP!!!!

I have internet in my apartment, a real internet connection that doesn't time out after a few minutes!!

Toto, we're not in Kansas anymore

On Monday, we had a party in my shop for the the King's Cup--a Regatta in Spain. This is the first year there is a second co-sponsor-Camper. Our company designed a new sailing shoe for the race. The party was a lot of fun and it reinforced my decision to move to New York. NYC is the center of our U.S. operation and working here is an awesome opportunity to have an impact in our company. And besides, it was an evening of cute bartenders and free drinks!

Laura and Me at the party with my oversized Camper polo.

Still Alive (after not having air conditioning and internet)

I moved out of the corporate apartment this week. It worked out swimmingly that the heat wave that hit Chicago came east on the day I had to move out of my cushy apartment with very strong air conditioning, to my new apartment with no air (it is with the movers). I also thought I had no internet as my iMac couldn't get online with the wireless base I was trying use (steal). However, I have discovered it works with my laptop, go figure. On the air front, thankfully the heat broke and I can sleep at night. Our apartment stays pretty cool as it is, so it wasn't too horrible!

The Long (and often winding) Road (Part Two)

Our trip to New York went pretty well. The time went by quickly, especially in our nice Buick minivan with iPod connectors and leather seats. Indiana and Ohio were pretty much a boring blur. We got into Matt's mom's house around 1:00 in the morning. It was nice to spend a little time with Matt's mom, despite the power of healthcare attorney and living wills she made us sign (her husband is a lawyer and she is very anal about people having all their legal documents in order). We got on the road in the morning and the rest of the drive was at least more exciting. Once we got into Pennsylvania, the road was quite winding and there were a lot of mountains and tunnel passages. The excitement of the trip came when we were heading into New York City. It was really cool to see the Statue of Liberty for the first time as a New Yorker (although it was really far away). We drove up to the Holland Tunnel, which would take us into the city . . .

As we were waiting at the tunnel entrance, I thought it would be cool to take a couple pictures of the entrance, and then some pictures inside. That was a great idea until we were pulled over by the New Jersey police. The officer had seen me taking pictures and made me erase my camera's pictures of the tunnel. He wanted me to open the back of the van and put the camera away. This, however, was not going to happen as I didn't want the contents of the van to spill on the New Jersey Turnpike. He let me put the camera away and warned they would be watching us on the cameras in the tunnel. We made it through the tunnel, and across Manhattan onto the Williamsburg bridge into Brooklyn. We unpacked, had dinner and made it back to the corporate apartment.

The Long (and often winding) Road (Part One)

Our Journey is complete! I arrived in Chicago late Sunday afternoon at Midway. I was pretty emotional when I landed because the reality of the move finally set in. I felt like I was coming to cut my last official cord to Chicago. When I made it back to the Addison St apartment, I realized there was so much to do. Matt and spent the rest of the evening packing and doing anything we could to get the place in order. A couple friends who live in the hood came over to lend us some moral support (and some DQ Blizzards-thanks Mike and John). We still had a lot to do and we worked until about midnight when gave up and went to bed. After a little sleep, we woke up and got working before the movers showed up at 8:00. Heaven sent us Sara, who helped us pack the mini van to capacity. We finished around 3:45 and hit the road after we dropped off our cable box and modem at RCN.

For the Cheese Lover in You

Just read about this new place in the East Village, sounds great!

http://www.towleroad.com/towleroad/2006/07/nyc_eats_smac.html#more

Madonna (so sad)

So I had plans to go to see Madonna Monday night. My boss had an extra ticket which was awesome because I didn't even try to get tickets because I didn't know when I was going to be in NYC. Got to work on Monday and put a Madonna mix on the sound system before the store opened. As I was doing some work, my boss called: she was on the way to work, but had terrible news. The tickets were for SUNDAY night. We totally missed the concert. Enough said.

Apartment

I've worked the last five days and haven't had much time/energy to write. Thought I'd upload the pics of our apartment.

Two Days Off!!

I had two days off to myself yesterday and today, which was so nice. Because today was supposed to rain all day (which it didn't) I wanted to spend yesterday in Central Park, despite being overcast. I had a wonderful day hanging out on one of the several huge open spaces (I was on the Sheeps Meadow lawn). I had plans to meet my friend Billy for dinner and I had some time to kill by the time I was ready to leave the park. I headed to the new Apple store on 5th Ave which is amazing. Apple basically dug a hole and put an entrance on the street level. As I was heading over to Columbus Circle to meet my friend, who works at the new Time Warner Center, I passed the Ritz Carlton on Central Park South. There was a huge group of people waiting outside the hotel as well as some paparazzi. As I've become celeb crazy living in New York, I thought I should see what the fuss was about: Jessica Simpson was waiting to leave the hotel. I took a very blurry picture, but you can totally make her out. I met Billy and had a great dinner at a Mexican place in Hell's Kitchen. Today I had three goals: go to an art gallery where a guy from my high school was having a solo show, see Hiral, a friend from Loyola, and pick up my new apartment keys. I saw Mathew's showing which was cool, considering I missed his show a few years ago by one day. I ate lunch at the NoHo Star which is a nice place north of where I work (for those who don't know the downtown area, NoHo is a little area north of Houston street. SoHo, where I work, is the area south of Houston). As I was making my way toward the subway to meet Hiral I saw Jeannie Garofalo on the street (Bleeker and Broadway). I was on the phone with Meghan and saw her walk by me. I literally hung up on Meghan, and was following Jeannie down the street, trying to turn on my camera (the batteries were in wrong). I caught up to her and asked her if I could take her picture with me. I met Hiral for a quick drink as I had to pick up my keys for the apartment at five. It was really cool to hang out, if only for a bit, and I will be excited for her to come back to NYC as she is spending the summer in Chicago.

Pride Sunday Re-cap

Well, yesterday was a long day at work. We had to do inventory which in the Chicago shop takes about an hour. Inventory in New York took until 1:00 a.m. last night. Needless to say, I didn't have time or energy to write about the Pride Parade. (I also missed Anthony Michael Hall who was in the store when I was on my lunch break).

For starters, the New York parade is much more wide open, unlike the Chicago parade where there are tons of people mashed onto the sidewalks, we didn't have to worry about finding space on the edge of the route. Hillary Clinton was walking with Mayor Michael Bloomberg, which was pretty cool. Other than that, there wasn't anything too exciting at New York's parade. (Maybe just a few more crazy costumes on people who seem to just want to walk in the parade and not be with a particular group or float) We poured various types of alcohol into water bottles, went to Chipotle and got large cups of water, and mixed our drinks on the sidewalk. (at one point we sent people back to Chipotle to get some food). The parade took about five hours and as usual, we drank the whole time. I was pretty tired and drunk by about 5:30 and I had a really bad headache. We went back to Spiker's friend Jill's place and I almost fell asleep. We had a fun day, but with all the events of the week (apartment hunting, starting a new job, etc) I was so tired that it was nice to go back to the apartment and spend the night with Matt before he had to go back to Chicago for work.

Correction

Matt saw Jay from Project Runway, not Jai from Queer Eye (although Spiker and his friends went to the Roxy on Saturday night and saw Carson).

Sweet (Tall) Home Chicago

Interesting article about skyscrapers in Chicago
http://www.breitbart.com/news/2006/06/24/D8IENO980.html

Prince Street

There are two really cool shops across the street from my work.

The first is the Morrison Hotel Gallery, which has tons of music photography.

http://www.morrisonhotelgallery.com/soho.html

The second store is the Kid Robot store, where Matt and I have begun collecting their "smokin" bunnies

http://www.kidrobot.com/kidpages/nycstore.html

Another long day

Another long day at Camper, totally busy. I'm going to lose weight running up and down those stairs. Matt saw Jai from Queer Eye (the pointless "culture" member) walking around 33rd and 7th Ave.

Hot as Hell

Today was so sticky and gross in New York. I considered joining a health club just so I could shower on my lunch break. The Camper store was packed today, as it was Friday and the first day of our sale. What with the busy day and the hot weather (and the lack of a really powerful air conditioner in the store) I felt pretty gross. No real celebrity encounters today, but the actor who plays Albee (the son of Roman) on Big Love (the new HBO series) was in the store. Came home, took a shower, and figuring out what to do about dinner.

New Apartment and First day of Work

We ran up to Times Square to go to the Chase that can handle our Chicago Bank One accounts. We got our certified checks for the landlord and, much to our pleasant surprise we made it from Times Square, got to the apartment in Brooklyn, looked around the apartment again and signed the lease, and made it back to the Marcy stop on the JMZ in one hour. Not bad! Spiker and Matt dropped me off at work. Work went well, although it is going to be a huge switch going from our tiny stockroom in Chicago, to a stockroom that has two different floors. Today was a very slow day by NYC standards, but very busy by Chicago standards. I had lunch at Peep with Matt and Spiker. Peep is a cool Thai place where the bathrooms have one-way mirrors so you can see the people eating, but they can't see you. We had a discussion about how it'd be cool to see a celebrity on my first day. Well, when I was back at work, one Ms. Whoppi Goldberg walked into the store. She was really awesome. The customer I was helping wanted to try on the shoes I was wearing, and Whoppi liked them and she ended up buying them! My co-worker Duane wanted a picture with her and of course I had my digital on hand. When it was my turn, the picture came out all blurry, but she was already gone when I looked, oh well, you get the idea.

A long day, a relaxing night

After we found the apartment and took some much needed showers (we seem to be taking 3 a day), we met Spiker (our friend from New Orleans via Chicago) and his friend from Israel. I had perhaps the best ravioli I've had in my life at a place in Chelsea, totally forgot the name. It was a wonderful night and we got to eat outside. We had a few drinks and Matt and I headed for home as we needed to wake up early to get to the bank and get money for the apartment.

We have an apartment

We found an apartment!! We'll be living in Brooklyn, near the Williamsburg bridge. I totally forgot to take pictures of the place, but when I get the keys next week, I'll post a few. It is a loft space and it has an awesome 400 sqft outdoor area where Matt will be getting the hammock he's always dreamed about (and wanted to put in our sunroom).

Apartment Search (Day One Re-Cap)

WHAT A DAY!

Where to begin. Our relocation guide to New York suggested getting travelers checks if you are from out of state (apparently to make the process easier if you need to put down a deposit). Only a few Chase banks in the city are linked to the same system of the former BankOne. So, we had to head to Times Square to withdraw some money. It took forever to process our checks as the bank clerk didn't really know what she was doing. After other clients were giving us nasty looks for taking forever, we decided that Matt probably didn't need to withdraw checks as well. We got a snack at a place that advertised wireless, which it didn't have. But we found out Bryant Park has free wireless. It was so awesome to sit in the park and look through Craig's list and schedule appointments. At 1:00 we had our first apartment viewing, a 1 bedroom in Hell's Kitchen (midtown), it was $2100 plus broker's fees. It was the biggest apartment we saw all day. However, the rent plus probably 3500 in fees was not in the cards. We saw the next apartment which was on 37th and 9th. It was a "2bedroom" (aka two closets with a tiny kitchen). We went down to see two apartments in Soho (like three blocks from work). It was a tiny (300-400sqft) 1 bedroom. It was really cute but so small (the steps up the apartment were so tiny, I don't think our furniture would have made it upstairs.) We took a break after viewings and got ice tea and cookies from Olives (which will be my new favorite coffee/snack shop during work breaks) and sat across the street from the Camper store. After some errands, we made it over to the next showing in the Grammercy area (30 St and 3 Ave). We liked the place, especially because it has a great little shared balcony. We went to turn the travelers checks into a money order. After we did, however, we had second thoughts about the apartment. It didn't have much light and we wanted to see the East Village apartments we were planning to see. We saw Matt's friend Carlos and met him for a drink before our late appointments. The first showing was on Chrystie and Rivington, which was close enough for me to walk to work. The showing was an open house and a lot of people showed up. It was a cute, tiny one bedroom. We could actually fit our stuff into this apartment. It was $2000 and no fee. We put our name down, and we'll see what happens. Our final showing (after some great pizza) was at 13th and 3rd. This was an awesome apartment. It was tiny and we'd have to think about selling our furniture, but it was a place to be proud of: nice building, exposed brick, new kitchen. There were about twenty people wanting to see the place and the girl was a little surprise all these people wanted to see it. The chances of getting it are pretty slim, as someone probably offered her tons of money to allow them to take it over. We made it back to the corporate apartment and needed to go get some shampoo and a bit of food. Before we went into the Duane Reade (the Walgreens of NYC) we took a few pictures in the beautiful City Hall Park. (if it looks like I'm totally sweaty and gross, I was ). Shower, a couple Stellas, and some pop tarts and we're off to bed before another day. Think we are going to check out Brooklyn.

Last apartment showing of the day

Sitting on the street, waiting for the next apartment showing. Yes, sitting on the street and stealing someone's wi-fi. Earlier we were in Bryant Park looking at Craig's List postings. There should be wireless everywhere!!!

Outside My Door

wtcchurch
Originally uploaded by bluestateboy.

Got into New York around 4:00 today. I "went easy" and flew ATA into LaGuardia. Unfortunately, Matt couldn't get on my flight and had to fly into Islip on Southwest. I'm staying at a corporate apartment near the World Trade Center. ( here is the website: http://www.furnishedhousing.com/property-13.html ). I took this picture when I went out looking for a market (spent $10 on a bag of kettle chips and a two litre of soda and bottle of water, Oh Jewel, how I miss thee!!) Financial district not really the place for big box super markets. Waiting for Matt to get here so we can meet his friend Carlos for dinner.

Pre-Move Insomnia

Had a long day today. Had brunch with Matt and Meghan at Silver Cloud. I hung out with Meghan at Filter (funny, I have never been in there before) after Matt left for a one day trip. I saw my roommate from sophomore year at Loyola walk by with his dad, totally random as Sara and I had just discussed the fate of Aaron. As I was walking back to Meghan's bike on her way to work, I had the first of many "almost" breakdowns. This weekend's whole "saying good-bye" routine is getting old, not because it takes time or I'm not enjoying the company, but because it is too much of an emotional roller coaster. Went down to Streeterville to meet Weiser and Lacey (good-bye number two of the day). We had a horrible experience waiting for our coffee products, but we got a free coupon for the next time, sweet! Lacey and Weiser just moved back to the city and it is really too bad I didn't have more time with them. Left them near their apartment and went to Michigan Ave where I took a cab back home. It was almost too much for me to sit and watch the mag mile fly by my window. I shed a few tears. Came home and did as much packing, cleaning and organizing as possible. Sara called me and had Erik pick me up to meet her and Toby and Kelly for a drink. Sara made this awesome going away present: a large card where she wrote and illustrated the many memories we've shared over the last five years together. I almost couldn't read it, cause I would have lost it. I held myself together when she walked me to the cab (but not when I read her going away card to Matt and me). It doesn't feel like I'm moving yet. It will tomorrow when I land in NYC.

It is 4:00 a.m. I just can't sleep.