Sugarloaf For Passover

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Easter Sunday, middle of Passover. Time for a hike on Sugarloaf Mountain, in Maryland.

The hike began uneventfully, a quiet walk up a small mountain on a hot April afternoon. Nice rocks, trees, the usual.

After stopping for lunch a mile or so in, it began to rain gently. We continued.

Within minutes, we were sitting in the middle of full-blown thunderstorm, with flashes of nearby lightning.

We squatted under/near large rocks to avoid lightning strikes and tried to wait out the storm. The downpour accelerated.

We eventually decided to keep hiking in the rain, after being completely soaked. The rain stopped after a few minutes on the trail.

We hiked back to the car in the cool quiet, appreciating the clarity that follows a spring rainstorm in the forest. 

New York and Back Again

Thursday night Acela. Friday wandering Soho and the East Village in the cold rain. Tokyo 7 has moved, and I found a completed building in the former parking lot next to my old apartment on 9th and C. New espresso machine at the 9th Street Espresso. The sandwich from Barnyard didn't taste as crisp.

Found a cool sock shop in Soho where they gave me a glass of scotch for free. Saw Win-Win at the Angelika.

Drinks at the Pegu Club, modeled after a colonial watering hole of the same name in British Burma. Dinner at a French restaurant on Houston. Stopped a by a friend's newly-purchased apartment in a coop, a first for friends in New York.

Saturday was sunny, warmer, and devoted to Brooklyn. Dinner on Smith Street. 

Notes On the Middle West/Upper South

The 1:15pm Delta flight from DCA->CVG left at 2:50pm. My first Delta flight of 2011 and my first with Silver Medallion status. Delta offered an alternative flight through the web, with one segment in First Class. Turned out to be a mechanical problem, which is never reassuring.

CVG  is entirely different as a final destination, rather than as a transfer-point.  I wonder how many cities get more transfer-only visitors (who never actually visit a city) than actual visitors. I've passed through but never visited Dallas, Detroit, and Chicago.

We get into Cincinatti around 5pm. The city is grey, industrial, and very mid-western. My colleague remarks that it looks just like downtown Minneapolis. Do mid-western cities look the same?

There is a large Teacher's union demonstration in Fountain square when we arrive. The speeches boom into my hotel room on the thirteenth floor, the cheers and chanting of the crowd. They seem energized, something about pensions.   Is there is something particularly nasty about the attack on public sector workers in the mid-west?  One envisions 1950's and '60's Cincinnati: prosperous, orderly, friendly, a well-respected public sector. The height of American Power.  Expectations and changing economics, oy.

We eat at a wonderful new French restaurant that I find on yelp. The food is excellent.  I'm impressed.

***

It's raining in Kentucky. We pass fields, cows, horses, and strip-malls. We labor to and successfully find a Starbucks, the great American constant.

After the meeting we drive back to CVG, eat some chili (apparently Cincinatti is famous for Chili), and buy Kentucky-themed souvenirs. Our flight to BWI is delayed and I talk Delta into putting us on the flight to DCA.  I narrowly miss getting upgraded.

Monkey Business

5:40am. Awake.
7:15am US Airways Shuttle: DCA to LGA.
8:55am Starbucks, 29th and Park Avenue. Dancing crazy woman. Jazz. Delicious Energy.
-Work-
1:19pm hail taxi slightly south of Canal Street.
~1:47pm Sprinting from the security line, I hear the my name on final call for US Airways Shuttle back to DC. I am the last passenger to board.
8:30pm: Tales of life in Saudi Arabia from an ex-consultant over Sushi.
11:25pm: I finish reading The CEO and the Monk: One Company's Journey to Profit and Purpose
11:40pm: Roommate opens package to find stuffed monkey in a ziplock bag with attached thanksgiving card.  

Playing and Watching At War

Went ice skating on Tuesday night in the sculpture garden, paintballing on Saturday somewhere in Virginia. My first time paintballing, intense and wonderfully separate the rest of my existence.  Pumping adrenaline, the fear of being shot by a small orange pellet, a simulation of warfare. Exhilarating moments of victory and teamwork.

Have been watching a Battlestar Galactica, another simulation of warfare. It's a a remarkably satisfying and complex show that plays with morality, humanity, Need to buy a DVD player, and have heard this site is good for LCD TV stands. 


All is Quiet on most other fronts. 

Nice comes a long way

Caught the 8pm US Airways shuttle, last flight to LGA from BOS.  A mostly empty plane,  fell asleep before we left the ground. Got into LGA around 9:20.  I miss Delta. 

Stayed in Times Square at the new Element on 39th street. Studio-style apartments, recently opened. $119 a night, no major complaints. Had late night tea with A, a high school buddy working in finance. As a result of working A LOT, A has taken a liking to celebrating shabbat. Potential topic for doctoral dissertation: relationship between career, aging, and religious observance. 

Slept like a baby, had an early midtown breakfast with N, an old and dear friend. Decided that I like turkey bacon. 

Midtown New York morning traffic/hustle is totally insane. I don't miss it at all. 

Work Work Work.  Only in new york does a meeting end two hours early. 

Took a frozen walk from Union Square to Soho, where I had coffee/dinner at Aroma on Houston. New York has changed a great deal since 2009, for the better. More smaller stores, boutiques, and experimental chains/shops. Energy of recovery/renaissance.

Inadvertently split a taxi with a snowboarding economic consultant whose father grew up in Brooklyn. 

Punjabi cab driver was very amused/confused by the split cab incident, prompting a long conversation that included Indian and German political history, airline industry gossip, and values: he loves Jet Blue/Air India/Lufthansa, was relieved at the assassination of Indira Gandhi, had only recently heard about Adolf Hitler (while on a layover in Frankfurt?) and told me that he's become more religious and less materialistic as he gets older. See above bolded comment.  

Talked the US Airways gate agent into bumping me onto the early flight back to DC without the $50 fee, after an unsuccessful attempt at check-in.  In the words of the TSA agent: nice comes a long way. 

New England Buddha

Our 6:30pm flight from DCA to BOS got cancelled and we plugged ourselves onto the 5:30 flight. US Airways was surprisingly palatable, though I sat in the middle seat.

Spent the evening in the Sheraton Framingham, a pleasant hotel with a remarkable germanic brick facade. Slow elevators, nice staff, and well-booked. Dinner at Samba, a fantastic japanese seafood/steak joint with Argentinian  influences. Some of the best-tasting sushi i'd had in a while.  Remarkable Buddhas, one depicted below.

Young and Resting in New England

Returning to the hotel, got tea with b in the buzzing restaurant. Distant piano music, obscure Sinatra tune. Investigating, I find balding salesman playing "Angel Eyes." He welcomes the accompaniment and we exchange pitches before I head off to sleep. 

What comes down will probably go up again...

Slowly bouncing on the DC trampoline: dinner party (UP), 127 hours (DOWN), work day trip to philadelphia pre-snow on the Acela (UP UP UP), running on a treadmill (UP), phone calls (bounce onto back), walks through georgetown (up/down), warm snaps in February (slowing down), To Have and to Have Not.

Flying to Boston on Tuesday night.

Sudden Outbreak of Snow

Flash snowstorm starting in the late afternoon.

The people at work freaked out and started leaving faster than the crowd at Yankee Stadium before the bottom of the ninth inning. Rumors about the metro failing and terrible traffic.

I got a ride home from a co-worker. It took a few more minutes than usual.

Snow in DC demands True Grit.

Winter of my Content

Still floating from a wonderful weekend. Highlights:

-L2 on Friday night. Think meatpacking district in a georgetown cavern, smaller, hidden, and sans ibankers.

-ben's chili bowl at 3am. Think chili dog at 3am.

-"True Grit" on Saturday night with B. Terrific. The best movie I've seen since Roman Polanski's Ghost Writer. Better, even. Those Coen brothers know what they are doing...

-sunday phonecalls with israel, botswana, and brooklyn. Oh, skype.

-monday post-work showing of "the way back" by Peter Weir (directed Witness, year of living dangerously, etc). Intense and hard to watch, numbing. Apparently Stalinism was extremely bad. Who knew?

-watched State of the Union with N and R and ate dumplings and french bread. Enjoyed the dumplings.