I spent most of this past week working in Midtown Manhattan. When they asked me if I’d be ok with working in New York for a week, I said yes… but only if they found me a hotel near the job site that wasn’t crawling with roaches. I guess they called my bluff, because I ended up staying just a couple of blocks from Times Square. And there was nary a roach to be found.
(This is both an awesome and an awful location. Awesome, because you can walk to pretty much everywhere you need to go. Awful, because you need to push your way through hordes of tourists to get there.)
I even got to take the train down! Business class. Faaaaaancy.
(The fact that I called it fancy, means that it wasn’t really fancy. But it sure is a sweet way to travel.)
Usually when they send me onsite, I spend all day working my brain off, and then I go back to the hotel and watch Law and Order until I pass out. But I was in New York, man! I couldn’t just sit around. I’m sure I should have figured out how to go to some museums or art galleries, but I did manage to eat just about every different kind of ethnic food I could think of.
Things I also managed to do:
- Met up for dinner with a friend from high school who I haven’t seen in years. He has a Very Cool Job(tm) these days, and happened to be in the area. It was an unexpected treat to get a chance to catch up with him.
- Ate a delicious steak at the restaurant where John Gotti had a couple of mobsters gunned down. A real slice of New York history! When a sales guy is taking you out, you definitely need to order a steak.
- Had a totally random celebrity sighting (Michael Emerson pooper scooping after his dog). One of my friends says that only tourists in New York have celebrity sightings, because we’re the only people looking up. But I would like to state for the record that I only saw Mr. Emerson because the guy standing next to me said “hey, isn’t that guy famous?” (I was looking down at my phone.) I guess I have the kind of face that says “you should totally point out to me that celebrity holding a bag of dog poo.”
- Spent an evening hanging out with my good friend Vicki. It’s been far too long since I got a chance to hang out with her. Also, there was delicious Mexican food involved. And she gave me a sip of her coconut margarita. Does it get any better than that? (No. No it does not.)
- Walked to work. Every day. In fifteen minutes or less. This might not seem that big of a deal to you, but I usually spend 45+ minutes in the car to get to work.
- Bought an Olaf doll for Lilian at the Times Square Disney Store, aka the Most Horrible Place on Earth. They have the Frozen soundtrack on repeat. I’m pretty sure that’s some sort of OSHA violation. I tried to make a joke about this to the cashier (she was singing along, I suspect Stockholm Syndrome). Then I realized she thought I was one of those crazy Disney people. Then I tried to backpedal. Then she was like “Uhhhh, I don’t care. Move along crazy lady.” True story, bro. Then I gave Lilian the Olaf doll when I got home and she told everyone “Papa bought it!” Sad face.
- Face-timed with my kid from a bar in the East Village on Friday night. Because nothing makes a husband happier after a week of solo parenting than seeing you out and about with a whole bunch of your mutual friends. (He was cool with it.)
- Went jogging in Central Park. Contrary to what all police procedurals would have you believe, not every jog through Central Park results in stumbling across a dead body. It does, however, involve being passed repeatedly by all of the Type-A personalities who are jogging in Central Park at 8am on a rainy Saturday morning. Dammit.
Ok, so it wasn’t exactly the most exciting week of all time. But considering the fact that I was mostly there to work, I think I did pretty well for myself. And I felt all relaxed and recharged when I got home! Fifteen minute commute + no small child to wake you up early = so much extra time for sleeping.
I felt pretty self conscious about taking photos while I was there (I’m sure everyone could tell I was a tourist, but I liked to pretend it wasn’t blatantly obvious), but I did take a couple.
30 Rock
It had to be taken!
I took the train back as far as Hartford and then met up with my family (more on that some other day). Lilian did that whole “I’m mad at you for leaving, but happy you’re home, so I don’t know what to do with my feels, so I’m going to act all crazy until I figure it out” thing for a bit, but she calmed down pretty quickly and was just happy to see me. I can’t say that I would recommend leaving on a week-long business trip to snap your toddler out of her “Daddy rules, Mommy drools” phase… but it was kind of effective.
Have you had a chance to go anywhere cool on business? And do you think you got a chance to take advantage of your trip?