2007
- Flight home is 2 hours delayed from New York. Other flights are getting cancelled. I’m screwed.
- Ridiculously frustrated at the lack of WiFi at LGA.
- A lot of people rebooking for tomorrow. 🙁
- Flight cancelled. On 6am flight tomorrow. No hotel rooms. Going to Frost & Nixon, then an all-nighter.
- Got Frost/Nixon ticket. Luggage checked at nearby Marriot. Good for next 4 hours. 🤞
- In cab to friends couch. Gave up on the “romance” of staying up all night in Times Square.
- Frost/Nixon was great.
- So happy to have shelter.
- Settled down enough to go to sleep now. Up in 4 hours.
- Up and dressed. Time to try this airport thing again. Thanks Hadar and Lois!
- Just got a Northwest departure notice via email that says my flight is on time!
- Observing that in fact NY does sleep.
- Not sure which is scarier: a taxi driver in clogged traffic or on the open freeway.
- Through security and at gates. That went way faster than I expected.
- Flight is boarding!
- Landed! This saga ends.
Assembling Mazie's Birthday Present
One of the cool features of my new Canon SD750 is a brain-dead simple way to do time-elapsed movies. I just had to play today while putting together Mazie’s birthday present. In case you are wondering, it isn’t Mazie’s birthday today. That’s a few weeks away but the present we got her had arrived and we decided to let her have it now. Fewer things on her actual birthday make it easier for her little 2 year old self.
Anyway – here in 48 seconds is Mazie and I putting together her new table and chairs. I love it.
Jon Stewart Stand-up Night
Last night we went to see Jon Stewart do his stand-up show at the Orpheum downtown. I’m a very committed fan of The Daily Show, and some friends (here and here) and I got the opportunity to actual see a taping of The Daily Show a few weeks ago. Stewart’s delivery is a riot, and his writing team is top notch.
A friend of Tammy’s saw that he was coming and called us up to see if we wanted to go. There wasn’t much thinking required – of course. The show was great.
He came on stage with almost no introduction, just five or six words, no warm-up act, he just walked out and started throwing out some great material. I laughed so hard that at the end of the 90 minute performance I was hoping he would stop soon because I was just wore out!
In addition to the expected political bits he did a great riff on dealing with technology that had me nearly delirious. He also seemed to leave Minneapolis with an impression that we have “hallways connecting people to Hooters restaurants”.
Also, by far the most popular t-shirt at the show…
Dinner at Woody’s Grill.
Just rebooted the Road Sign Math server — it was down for 4 days. Need to move that to WordPress!
New UI for Google Analytics is strikingly good.
Stranded in New York
Tonight, for only the second time in the 10 years or so that I’ve traveled for business, I got stranded. I was to depart New York tonight on a 6:00pm flight out of LaGuardia. I heard that storms were coming, and I was worried because my experience is that LaGuardia is a horrible airport when dealing with bad weather. Newark seems to do the best for the NY region with tough weather.
My 6:00pm flight was delayed to 6:40pm before I even left for the aiport. On the way to the airport I got three additional delays on my Blackberry pushing it back 20 minutes each. By the time I arrived at the airport I was looking at an 7:50pm departure and other flights were being canceled. They then “delayed” my flight until 7:00am the next morning, which I found humorous since 13 hours, overnight, hardly seems like a delay. The cherry on top was when they then canceled my 7:00am “delayed” flight and rebooked everyone on regularly scheduled flights the next day.
This was bad enough, but on top of it there are no hotel rooms in the entire city of New York. None. Seriously, I’m not kidding. No rooms. The closest I came was a $900 room at the Four Seasons that ended up getting booked while I was on the phone with the guy debating if $900 was at all sensible for a room to sleep one night in, getting up at 4:00am for an early flight out. I decided no, and the room got taken anyway.
I planned to have a fun time with it, and head into town with no hotel room. Ya know, make lemonade and all. I know there is a Starbucks in Times Square open all night, and I figured I’d just connect there and stay up all night drinking espresso. I was seriously worried about the 2:00am to 5:00am period though. I knew I would get pretty tired.
Then I got a voicemail from friends in New York. He’s on Twitter, and saw my flailing desperation. I had considered calling them but I was still clinging to the romance of braving New York all night. I quickly opted to take the couch in their apartment and that’s where I write this. I’m getting ready to wind down and sleep a couple hours before heading out.
It’s amazing how much ruckus a blustery storm can bring.
See also Stranded in New York Tweets.
Frost/Nixon on Broadway
Tonight while I was stranded in New York I decided to take a moment to forget the travel struggles and enjoy some theater. I had heard on MPR back home about Frost/Nixon (wikipedia link as well), and I was really intrigued. I had sort of forgotten about it since I didn’t think I would get an opportunity to go. Earlier on this trip though I had walked by the Jacobs Theatre and saw it listed and it had stuck with me. So, tonight when I was struggling with flight delays that turned into cancellations, I decided to go see if I could get in the 8:00pm show. A quick taxi ride and I grabbed a nice ticket on the main floor for one.
I didn’t know the story behind Frost/Nixon until I had heard it recounted on the radio. The headline is David Frost, with an entertainment background (as opposed to journalism) gets these interviews with Nixon after he’s resigned the presidency by paying Nixon a lot of money. The play explores how both men were hoping to save or recover their careers through these interviews. Nixon to show he was innocent. Frost to show he was a serious talent. Battle played through debate, and only one could win. Nixon lost.
The play is very well done. They intermix video and sound very well. Michael Sheen (David Frost) and Frank Langella (Richard Nixon) are just amazing. Langella does something that was a first for me – he does close-up “TV” acting at the same time he’s doing stage acting. Really impressive. I’d recommend it to anyone.
Stranded in New York Tweets
See also Stranded in New York.
One of the tweets highlighted in my MarketWatch Farewell Video.
In New York and skinny jeans are everywhere.
Starbucks people are using wireless headsets. Getting too close to McDonalds. 🙁
One of the tweets highlighted in my MarketWatch Farewell Video.