I am finally “home” from my long-ass adventure of the past few days. Actually, I’m at work (at a BANK…why are we not off today???), and really looking forward to being able to go home at some point.
I’ve been offline since Thursday morning, so there was a lot of email to catch up on.
But here’s my weekend recaps:
Partytom and I ended up taking an earlier flight that planned – we were supposed to fly out at 4, but since I found out my remote access to work had been disabled, my “working from home” didn’t actually work out. So we hightailed it to O’hare and jumped on a noon flight to Philly. Arrived in the City of Brotherly Love, rented our ragtop, and cruised down the AC Expressway to meet up with Larry and the other boys. We actually *beat* them there – and were in Atlantic City by the time we would have been just getting on our original flight. Rock and roll.
No real stories to tell about AC – I didn’t win any money, but we did stay at the Borgota hotel, which was really nice. Had a LOT of fun with the boys, and drank a pretty good amount of booze. Good times, great oldies.
Friday morning, Tom and I got up and jumped in the car for the long drive to NYC. Thank goodness for the ragtop, because the fresh air was a perfect hangover cure. Arrived in Manhattan in the afternoon, and then drove around trying to find a gas station before returning the rental car (props to Tom for his excellent ew York driving). Dropped off the ride and checked into our swank suite at the Bedford Hotel on 40th and Lex.
We took a little power nap, got some Chinese food, and headed to Union Square for the Friday night dance. It was REALLY crowded and hot, so I spent most of the night outside smoking and talkin to people. But it was a good time, and I was jazzed to see old friends that I haven’t seen in a while, and to finally meet some other folks. Talked mac.geek stuff with Wexie, Rik, and Josh, and Tom and I headed back to the hotel around midnight.
Tom and I got up early on Saturday and went for a walk around Manhattan. We walked up to Sloan-Kettering, so Tom could see his possible new neighborhood. It was a pretty nice day for a stroll. After checking out the upper east side, we took the subway down to the Village and jumped on the water taxi. That was cool; we went around the south end of the island, past Brooklyn Heights (I waved to , but she apparently wasn’t watching for the boat), and walked back to the hotel, where we met up with Mike and Elizabeth (two kids who were staying with us for Saturday night). The four of us met Lisa Marie for a fabulous lunch at Bice, and then went back to the hotel for a nap. Before I went to sleep I got a voice mail from about meeting up with for pregame drinks. So I jumped in the shower, dressed myself up, and headed uptown. I rode the S twice (because I didn’t realize it only had one stop) and met Amanda to catch the A up to Zoe’s.
The three of us shared a couple of bottles of wine and chatted with Zoe’s sick roommate. Headed to Columbia for the Big Dance. I was very pleased to be able to make a big entrance with a hot girl on each arm, and then addeded a third when we met my friend Darlyn while we were waiting in line for coat check. The music was amazing, although I didn’t dance, because it was too crowded. I had WAY too much to drink, but got a lot of good socializing in. One thing that amused me – because Nicole and I had planned to do our “red carpet” interviews (which we cancelled due to her bronchitis), everyone wanted to know what I thought about their outfit. That was a little hilarious. It also reminded me that I actually know more about women’s clothing than men’s. I am not sure what that means.
Afterwards, we had a small little hangout session back at the Bedford. I didn’t drink anymore, but started to not feel super well (I blame the pizza and the fact that Amanda and Kathy attacked me with an unprovoked bout of tickling). Eventually everyone left and it was crash time. I didn’t get to say goodbye to folks, which turned out to be sucktastic, because I didn’t see Amanda for the rest of the weekend.
Sunday was a mellow day. Tom and I got up and found that a street fair had set up on Lexington, so we got some breakfast and wandered the stalls. Did a little napping and went out to Central Park for the outdoor dance. Larry had told me it was nice out, so I didn’t bring a jacket. Larry is an idiot.
I lost my right contact when walking in the park, so I spent the rest of the day/night half-blind. That sucked. After the park adventure, we met up with people for all you can eat sushi (which was surprisingly good – I had 32 pieces) and then headed to Columbia with Amy and Rik. I kind of petered out at the dance, because I was getting a bad headache from the one-eye action, and Tom had some reading to do – so we said our goodbyes and headed home.
All in all, it was a fun weekend. I didn’t get to spend time with some people I wanted to, but I got to spend more time with some others. It was really cool to finally get to meet Amanda’s friend Zoe, and I am glad Amy came to sushi, since we haven’t been able to hang out for a while. The weekend did remind me that I really do like it in New York, so who knows – I hear JP Morgan has a little bit of a presence out there, so maybe one day I’ll be there for more than a few days.