New York summary

Wonderful time had in New York City. I keep waiting for the pictures from J, as I only have a few from Madison Square Garden.

So, I'll try to recap as best I can, a solid week out:

Wednesday: Arrive late, meet Ted and Nada (I'm sorry, T, I have no idea how to spell her name) for dinner. Great thai food, continue with drinks with Ted for a few hours. Very thankful that I was able to meet up with Ted before he left for New Orleans.

Thursday: NBC Studio tour. Fun little tour, getting to see the today show studio, the NBC News studio (Yes, I did want to play around a bit), and then just some of the other areas behind the scenes. There was a part of the tour where they asked for two volunteers to do some anchoring to show how things work. Yes, I did volunteer. And for $35, I could have had a DVD of it!
Next was a long walk up to Central Park, and then a stop in the WCBS Radio studios, where we hung out for a half an hour with Steve Scott, former WLS News Director and Bulls PA Announcer. Great studio, and he and his partner were gracious to let us sit in the corner and watch them do their thing. It made me think I could certainly be an anchor in a major market, but I don't know if I have the newswriting chops, or new sensibility to do it.
Next, drinks at the Australian, the Illini bar in NYC. Met up with poker superstar Taylor Caby, who was incredibly down to earth and fun to talk with. Got recognized by a couple of people who really, really like the stuff on fightingillini.com. Loved the ego boost. During the game, I actually sat with Taylor, which was a nice opportunity for me to watch the game with some rabid fans, and yell and cheer.

Friday: LONG walk to the Guggenheim. Really fascinating piece of architecture. Highly recommend it just for that, if nothing else. The artwork...well, yeah, I mean, I'm not a huge art person. But some of the work was from immediately after WW1, and for some reason, I like more morbid works.
Walk back, go to the game, sit with Julia, which was also fun. Afterward, drinks with Popeye, and then later, we were joined by Lucia, and her husband Mike. I haven't seen Popeye in about 6 years, so that was incredibly fun. We still could do a spectacular morning show, for sure. He's very gifted. It's too bad Champaign-Urbana wasn't able to handle us.

Saturday: Ellis Island. Probably our least favorite of the 3 "tourist" things we did. IT was nice to see the Statue of Liberty up close, but I think they could do a lot more with Ellis Island, for sure.
Got to go see the legendary 4th street basketball court (major disappointment, no streetball legends, only 40 year old overweight white dudes), and Washington Square Park, two of my favorites. Julia was attacked by a overweight squirrel.
We had a wonderful dinner at Kean's Steakhouse, home of the pipe club, and then, on to Promises, Promises, starring Sean Hayes, Kristin Chenowyth, and Molly Shannon. Really good show, and yes, even I enjoyed it. We then took a bike taxi back, which was thrilling and terrifying, and overpriced.

One cancelled flight, and two delays later, we were home.

That is the best summation I can put together without taking up 2 hours.

But it was fun.

This week, Julia's 30th birthday. Yikes!

Trying to catch up...

It's been a really busy few weeks. I can always tell based on the amount of days I'm able to spend playing poker. So far, it is 13 days in to the month of November, and I've played 5 sessions. That's not great. SO yeah, busy.

The biggest news is that Julia's grandmother passed away earlier this week. Thanks to my mom, Julia was able to get out there in time to say goodbye, and I'm very thankful that she was. Julia has handled it like a trooper, but I just feel bad, as I've had a ridiculously busy week, and was not able to travel, nor have I really had a chance to be as supportive as I probably should be.

We're scheduled to go to New York on Wednesday, and I'm so incredibly excited. I can't wait to get to go through Madison Square Garden, and just go nuts. To me, that will be just about as good as it gets.

I may also be announcing a baseball game at Busch Stadium in March. That is developing, but man, that would be awesome.

Basketball has gone well so far...things might be different once we get to Yale, though.

OK, that's all for now. I've been at the football game for 2 hours today, and have pounded out about 10 emails, and 10 thank you notes, for my birthday. In September.

I did want to just post this video. obviously, with Julia's loss this week, my mood has been a little bit more reserved as well, and I've been listening to the Garden State soundtrack. I really think that this song might be in my top 5 of all time, just because anyone who has experienced loss of someone very close can empathize and feel this song.It's about a breakup, but I think the feelings fit for many different situations.
I do, however, apologize that it is set to a video of Jack and Juliet (Jacket) from Lost.