New York Trip

The trip to New York was fabulous. If the trip had been purely for fun it would have been even better, though the conference I attended was informative and good for networking. The conference hotel was in the Times Square area, which is the best place to be if you are visiting NY--you can walk to anything you need and catch a subway to anywhere else. Rod came with me since the hotel was free (to us anyhow; my company paid for the stay because of the conference). We flew over together on Saturday afternoon and split up to do our own thing Saturday night. Rod went out to the Brooklyn Bridge area because he wanted to take a photo of the bridge from a particular view and at a particular time of day (night). In typical (awesome) Rod fashion, he crawled through a fence and had to get past a Bollywood movie set to get to the angle he wanted. He said he may end up as an unedited extra in the film. When he arrived at the spot of interest apparently someone else thought it was interesting too because a RECLINER was there. If this was me (and it wouldn't be because you wouldn't have caught me wandering into a sparsely habited section of Brooklyn, crawling through a fence, or assuming the Bollywood people wouldn't mind me stepping through their photo shoot), I would not have sat in the chair because I would assume that someone had left it there for a reason to get rid of it, such as the scene of a murder. Anyhow, he's got a great shot of the bridge and a great shot of him in the recliner with the bridge as the background. I will post one as soon as I can get it from him.

On Sunday, we took the subway over to my cousin Kristin's apartment to see her, Chris, and their new baby, Jenny. Jenny is about 4 months old and is very cute. She hung out with both Rod and I and eventually fell asleep on her Dad's chest. Kristin took some photos--they might end up on her blog. Sunday afternoon I had to spend at a conference meeting until 5:00. While I was there, Rod took a taxi out to see his house and school from the time period that he lived in Long Island. We went to see Legally Blonde on Broadway on Sunday evening. It was awesome and I rank it up there with my top 3 favorite Broadway musicals (other 2 are Rent and Cats). The part of Elle Woods was played by an understudy who had great charisma; the whole ensemble was engaging and I would see it again in an instant.

I spent all day Monday at the conference, but in the evening I synced up with a high school friend for chocolate cake and reminiscing. Tuesday evening I went to see Xanadu on Broadway with two work colleagues. I may post some more photos if I can get my colleagues to send a couple that they took. The show is based on a really cheesy Olivia Newton John movie (of the same title) from the early 80s. The actors specifically channeled some of the nuances of the movie characters, particularly the way ONJ pronounced her character's name, "Kira," in a breathy voice. It was a funny show and I was surprised how much of the music I already knew. I guess more than one song from the movie was a pop hit. At some point during the trip Rod went out to Central Park to see David Blaine in the middle of his latest stunt--hanging upside down for 48 hours.