Day 2

Today was a weird day. Not as good as yesterday. But ok.

First of all, I had to go to day 1 of a conference. There I ran into my former boss; it was not pleasant. As I stated in an earlier post, I can't say why I am at this conference, but the fact he is there has something to do with it. He cornered me in the hallway during the first break and at first tried to be nice on a personal level (asking about my back surgery) and then asked the question I have been waiting to hear for the last couple of weeks - "What are you doing here?" He of course flexed his muscle, tried some intimidation tactics, and then the session continued. What a jerk. I must say it was difficult to listen to him at times during the 6.5 hour session. And I have three days more of this...

On the good side, I did go out and explore some more today. I had work to do so I took my laptop to the Rock and sat outside and worked. Then went back to the hotel, dropped off the computer and went back into the theater district looking for a place to eat. Nothing sounded great (my appetite has diminished lately, probably due to this new anti-inflammatory medicine I am on), so I just ended up stopping by a small pizza joint and picked up a slice of pizza for $2.50. Took the pizza and walked about a block and came across a beautiful area between two buildings. It was peaceful, calm, and the pizza was amazing. We're talking Cossetta's (St. Paul, MN) amazing. I wished B was here, as I know he would have appreciated it.

So, afterwards I walked back to the hotel and continued on about eight blocks and found another big shopping area. But by then my feet, which had spent all day in dress shoes, were screaming in pain so I limped back to the hotel, had a drink at the bar and came back to the room to complete some work and hit the sack. Tomorrow I think I will go to Ground Zero, so I want to rest up. Hardly had any sleep last night (too stressed thinking about what I would face today from my old boss), so I'm due.

A few random items:

1. I had my first NYC celebrity sighting. 6:45am, Kennan Thompson of SNL, smoking a cigarette by Grand Central Station.

2. Though traffic is not as bad here as I imagined it would be, you still couldn't pay me to drive a car through this city.

3. Times Square/Theatre District reminds me of...The Wisconsin Dells. I'm talking the bright lights and billboards of almost a circus-like quality competing for your brain's attention. The only difference is that here it is cool, and in WI it looks like one big nightmare/joke of a town that wants to make me drive far away as fast as I can.

Enough procrastinating, I have to get to work. Have a good one.