Around NYC With Out of Towners

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Yesterday I got a call late from my friend Joe. He is in from Baton Rouge (or nearby BTR to be exact) for his wedding. His local friends and family flew in a few days early. He gave me a call to find somewhere interesting to do. I ended up meeting up with him and his friends at his hotel. We headed out to Little Italy for some dinner at my favorite italian place on Mulberry Street. We then headed to Union Square for a round of drinks at Heartland. We were going to head to some other pubs but Karen called and we meet her and some of her friends at a bar we went to back in May near their hotel. We hung out there for a while and then everyone headed home. it was a fun night. I met allot of Joe’s friends for the first time. I will be hanging with them tonight for dinner and at the wedding tomorrow.

I grabbed a cab home and thankfully it only took me 10 minutes to get from the east side to my apartment. I decided last time I was out with Joe & Karen that I will pay the extra money for use of the Tunnel to get home, vs the 59th Street bridge. it is so much faster, especially at night. I didn’t get home till 2AM, so I am glad I took today off.

Wrapping Up The Work Week

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Today was hectic at work as I tried to finish up everything I needed to before I take tomorrow off. I didn’t make my goal of stopping at 5PM to begin to relax. I called at 6:30PM when I still probably had hours more work to do. You have to know when to call it a day. This week has been really long days for some reason. Usually I have busy days but I can finish up at reasonable hours at least a few times a week. This week was just jam packed with stuff going on.

Just Finished

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I just finished work for the day! I wasn’t done until about 11:30. It was just a marathon day. I had tons of meetings during the day that lead me to be unable to work on any emails or other requests. I left the office at around 6 figuring I had hours more to go and I wanted to be home to finish up. I got home and had a quick dinner and then worked for a few more hours till a little while ago. The good news is I got my inbox to 0. I still have a bunch of action items I need to do but I looked over everything and responded to the most urgent stuff. Now I need sleep.

Canceled Plans

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Today I was supposed to head out for drinks with a friend. I started having a head ache in the early afternoon so I emailed to cancel. I have a ton of stuff to do at work, a hair cut to get and I don’t feel well. That is not a great way to start a evening out. I feel bad since I haven’t been able to meet up for months. Hopefully later this month. Today was an in the office day and it was jam packed with stuff to do.

Ran and got a haircut after work and then lied down for a bit and then tried to get some more work in. Not a very glamorous day, but busy.

My New Kindle 2

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Tuesday I got my Amazon Kindle 2. Due to some glitch with Amazon my order that was supposed to arrive Monday didn't show up till Tuesday. They were at least cool about it and gave me a refund for the over night shipping I paid for, and still shipped it over night when they could. That is good customer service. So far I like the new Kindle. The fact that it is thinner is nice. I also like how it feels when holding it. I did notice that text seems a bit lighter on the new Kindle Vs the old one. Apparently that is an issue others have stated when reviewing it. So far it isn't an issue for me.

I was able to move all of my books over to the new device seamlessly. I am not a fan of DRM or the way Amazon locks me into their system but I will give them credit for good customer service and customer experience. So far!

Another Unplanned Day

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Today I was planning on heading to my “home base” office downtown. Everything was going according to plan until I got the email saying the express 7 train wasn’t running and I would be expecting delays. The station was packed when I got there. As I was waiting for the train I got an email from someone I am sharing office space with and he was going to be in the office at the same time as me. Thankfully if there wasn’t a train delay I wouldn’t have gotten the email since I would have been on the subway. Due to a short shuffle of desks I am sharing a desk with someone since we are both rarely in that office. Today we would be conflicting. With the train delay I wouldn’t make it to that office and make my 9AM call anyway. I decided to goto the midtown office and forage for an open spot. That place is allot bigger and I have a much better chance of finding space. Sure enough I did. The rest of the day was a bit different since i was somewhere i wasn’t planning on being. Now I had meetings that I could do in person vs over the phone. Things actually worked out really well since I got allot done. I like the mid town office, but I don’t always like schedules changing at the last minute.

I didn’t get out of the office till almost 6. So much to do! Thankfully I got my inbox to 0. My to do emails are only at 34. That is great for me. I am off to the mid town office again tomorrow to meet with someone who is visiting from out of town. That trip to mid town was planned though!

For dinner I tried some prepared chicken parm from the grocery store by my house that I bought yesterday. It was pretty good. That was the first or second time I have tired prepared foods from them. I will use them again for that sine I have had good luck so far. It is nice to just heat the oven and drop something in. It is also a change of pace from grilling up fish or steak. Either way it was tasty. If it keeps I have the other half of the portion for dinner tomorrow.

Unplanned Monday

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Do you ever have days that end up being nothing like you planned? Is it because of nothing within your control? For me today was one of those days. I had a few problems that came up in the morning that side tracked me for most of the day. Because of that the day was a blur, but I wanted to take a minute to at least write something. More tomorrow.

The Weekend Went By So Fast

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This was a totally lazy weekend, even by my standards. It was partially unintentional. I got a head ache in the early afternoon yesterday, and it didn’t go away the rest of the day. Thankfully it didn’t get really bad, but it was bad enough to curtail any evening plans I had.

Today was not much better. I did a bunch of shopping online for things I have been procrastinating buying. It was mainly replacing some clothes that I have that are getting ratty. I also did my laundry and cleaned up my apartment a bit. I waited for a Fresh Direct Delivery in the afternoon. Dined on fresh Sword Fish in the evening. I gotta love fresh stuff from Fresh Direct. I also decided to try and finish a book I started over a year ago. Not sure why I stopped reading Pattern Recognition because it was good, but I have about 1/3 left to go.

Now it is getting late and I don’t know where the weekend went. Oh well. I am off to read another chapter or two before bed.

My Parents Are Becoming So Tech Savy It Scares Me Sometimes

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We live in a very technical world now a days so I don’t know why it surprises me that my parents are slowly embracing modern tools. I am less surprised by my dad than my mom but it sometimes still takes getting used to.

My dad at least has a long history of having useful gadgets. He was the first person I remember to have a PDA. It was an old Sharp Wizard that I eventually inherited. I get my love of gadgets from him, but I think I take it to a whole new level. Of course there is alot cooler stuff out now.

My mom on the other hand is not tech savvy at all. I still get calls from my mom for help doing basic stuff on my dad’s GPS. Of course my sister who once programed for a living also calls me just as frequently about similar issues so I shouldn’t judge.

What is funny recently is that my dad had been dead against a smart phone for ages. At one point I got him a Treo 300 that he used for a year or so, but didn’t like the small keyboard. He ended up going back to a regular phone and an old style Palm handheld. He has had a palm handheld (minus the time with the Treo when it was Handspring) since they first came out in 1996. Recently, well actually over the past few years he has been asking about an all in one phone/PDA. The problem is he doesn’t like the little keyboards. Because of that he hasn’t switched his setup, but has really wanted to ditch his phone, PDA, and pager (yeah he still has one) for one device. His work was going to give him a Blackberry a while ago but he turned it down because again he didn’t want a keyboard. I showed him the iphone when I got it and we decided it wasn’t for him since he would have a problem with the lack of feedback on the virtual keyboard. Recently he has been wanting a new phone again, so he went to the Verizon Store (his carrier). I was surpassed when he came back and said he wanted a Blackberry Storm. He liked the feedback of the virtual keyboard, and the phone did everything else he needed. He even wanted to get the data plan to get work email. He spent about an hour with sales guy and ended up buying one. I now need to go over and migrate his palm data to the Blackberry. In some ways I am not surprised he got that phone and in others I am a bit surprised he has a phone as advanced (arguably) as the one I have!

My mom also surprised me with technology when she started asking me about the Amazon Kindle. Apparently Operah had a special about it and she was interested. My sisters mother in law gave my sister a Kindle and my sister lent it to my mom for a cruise she went on a few months ago. She really liked it since she didn’t have to pack a bunch of books. She took a while to get over some issues with it but apparently got the hang of it. For a while I was pondering upgrading to the Kindle 2 and she asked if she could have my old one if I did. At first I wasn’t going to upgrade. For me the price of the Kindle 2 was too much to be worth the upgrade from the first version. My mom’s birthday is coming up and I couldn’t figure out what to get her (and I still owe her a mothers day gift) so I asked if she wanted my Kindle for her birthday gift? She said yes, so I ordered a Kindle 2 for myself. The new one would be a waste for her, so I don’t feel so bad giving her the generation 1 version. I am excited for the new Kindle and hopeful my mom doesn’t run into any problems using the Kindle the next time she uses it.

In a later post I might write about part two of this post, about my progress at weaning both my mom and dad off AOL. They still use it for email. I setup a mail domain on Google Apps and created accounts for both of them. I just need to show them how to use the Gmail web interface and get them to tell people the new addresses.

Dodging Rain

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I worked from home today. The day could have gone either way. I could have had a few meetings (that was what my schedule said) so I could get some backlogged work done, or things would come up throughout the day that would distract me from what I was aiming to do. The latter happened as I expected but hoped wouldn’t. I didn’t even realize what time it was when I called it a day and aimed to meet up with friends.

I headed into the city to meet up with some friends at Blaggards. Turned out no one showed up. Stanley texted me saying he was taking off sine no one else showed up. I was in the subway so I didn’t see it until I got there. Everyone was last minute cancelations, except Luke who I hadn’t heard from. Since I was already in the area I went to Macy’s and did some shopping. From there I headed over to the Apple Store on 5th ave.

As I got out of the subway by the Apple Store I started raining. It looked like a major thunder storm was coming in. I ran to the store just in time. I bought a iPod Nano 8GB (silver if you are curious) and an arm band to use it when exercising. Yes, I bought a new nano so I could actually try to do that exercise thing people keep talking about. It is kind of redundant to have since I have an iPhone and a 160gb iPod but each device has its own uses. The 160gb pod is currently being used as a portable hard drive and like the phone is to big for use when working out.

Before buying the pod, I browsed around to kill time while it rained. By the time I got out of the store it was raining a bit but not as bad as it was. The sky was really dark for just after 6 on a Summer afternoon. I got home and it was still only raining a bit but it looked like it was going to pour again anytime. I got really lucky getting home without an umbrella. At one point in my trek home I could have bought one (those guys selling umbrella’s know exactly where to position themselves) but I rolled the dice and made it home only slightly damp.

I ordered in and just watched some shows I had on my Tivo. I wasn’t in the mood to head back out.