Home again, home again

I flew in from NYC this afternoon. I still love Manhattan but I also love So Cal. Every time I stand at the shuttle stop, waiting for the Wally Park Shuttle to pick me up, after a biz trip, I marvel at how pretty LA can be and how happy I am to be home.

I saw lots of things in NY that would have made for some great posts but I'm just not that quick with my phone camera. Also, my days, an nights were seriously packed. Some days began at 7:30 am in the hotel lobby and ended at 10:30 pm.

I knew it would be raining on some days so I looked into the subway. I used the F train throughout the week and found that it's my new best friend. There was a subway station on the corner near our hotel and had a straight shot to where we had to be all week. It was great!

I ate at Buddakan which was really nice. They told me it's the restaurant they filmed Carrie's engagement party in the Sex and the City movie. I also got to visit Serendipity 3 again which is every bit as good as I remembered.

I heard lots of talk about our President Elect in the streets. New Yorkers tend to be very loud, passionate and animated when speaking. You can't help but hear snippets of lively conversations all around you. The shopping, the walking, the meetings, dining all make for a pretty good time and I always feel fortunate to be able to do them. That being said, one of my favorite things about NY is getting the New York Times delivered to my door each morning. I know... I'm a nerd. I always read such cool stuff in that paper. I pick it up every morning, throw it on the nightstand and save it for the end of the day. I read it in bed while watching the news or David Letterman. I just plain love it.

My favorite article of the week was this one. I saved the piece because I was afraid to forget to do a search on "mind control" and "gang stalking". (I didn't have the energy to get out of bed to reboot my computer when I read it.) I know it's mean but dang... some things ya just gotta check out. This is one of those things.

Another pretty regular part of my travel routine is reading Vanity Fair on those long plane rides. I realize VF is technically no different than the average gossip rag. However, in it's defense, it does feature intelligently written, lengthy articles with fewer pictures and some $10 vocabulary words. I read a really good piece on the NY Times Baghdad bureau (I think it's safe to say that's a job I wouldn't like). I also read all about Patty Hearst's lame-o step mom who has managed to get herself into about $45M in debt. What a moron.

Ok, I admit it, I really enjoy those scandalous stories about the uber-rich socialites and their falls from glory. I don't know why but I only read VF on planes. I'm not sure when this tradition began but it's now deeply entrenched in my travel routine. I'm now off to finish the article on Rupert Murdoch and the fate of his family fortune. Cool!