see as i saw

 Since my parents moved hours away from where I spent my childhood and adolescence, I don't come to my hometown that often.  When I do, there's a strange sensation of feeling far removed and like I never left at all.

When I drive down what has always been the main hub of town, things couldn't look more unfamiliar.  What once was a truck stop is now a Meijer.  Where there used to be empty land, they've packed in a Wal-Mart.  Stores and restaurants with corporate governance now reside where local businesses or nothing at all used to stand.

But when I started winding down the dirt roads, connecting one familiar stomping ground to another, the comfort returns.  When I'm noshing on the best donuts known to man, they taste as wonderful as I remember them when I was five years old.  There's a well-worn ease in sitting around the living room with three of the people that have known you best, despite the time and distance that makes these occasions rare.

As much as I've never been one to think longingly back to high school days, I walked away from this wedding reception with a far less sour taste for that era than I have been carrying around for ten years. I forget what it's like to be around an entire group of people that know each others' pasts, spending nearly every day in the same general surroundings and events.  I suppose I enjoyed waxing nostalgic a little bit.

There's still no chance that I want to move back to the same realm where I grew up.  But an occasional reminder of where I came from and the building blocks of my adolescence proved to be welcomed.

 Having a full-time poses a potential to halt some of the practices and routines that I've developed in the past eight months. Conversely, having a job allows me to return to several things that were sacrificed in my sans paycheck days.

One of the missions that I want to focus on adopting permanently is being open-minded. That means trying new things and saying yes to opportunities and possibilities. You never know where a path will lead you or the things you will learn by taking that chance.

Taking this job was a chance, although a calculated one. Spending two weeks in New York, a highly unfamiliar city, is an experience. Going to the US Open, even alone and only for 35 minutes of a match, was an irreplaceable opportunity.

These are considerable 'yes' situations, but they don't eliminate the need to focus on expanding my day-to-day life. In fact, while the big events may be more newsworthy, the tweaks to daily life are forging my character and leading me to the big events.

Today I dipped my toes in the water. (This is an intended pun, are you ready for it?) I tried sushi. When in New York, and the company supplies you with a risk-free catered opportunity, might as well.

Then, of course, there's the common (yet still slightly frightening) concept of injecting myself into situations where I meet new people. Group endeavors still tend to leave me people watching from the outskirts, but I make an effort to incorporate those situations on occasion. What I'm getting better at is one-on-ones, whether it's small talk with a stranger, meeting up with a friend of a friend, or playing tour guide for my brother's boss.

 Yes, I know, I've been a neglectful parent to this blog baby of mine.  Although I had the photo and the content idea all mentally mapped out, the actual execution just didn't come to fruition.  Can I be extended a pardon, though?  Based on extenuating circumstances, such as day three of a new job?


I'd like to see you learn about writing xpath, optimizing for CPCs, and figuring out where the permalink goes in the nano code...then coming "home" to your hotel room to blog.  Yeah, that's right.    And I may have, ahem, had other priorities.  Moving on.  So today is going to be a joint post, melding yesterday's topic with additional thoughts I ruminated on today.


Even though the majority of my hours in New York have been spent working, I'm still enjoying learning the little things about life here.  When I travel, I generally make an effort to put myself in a local's shoes instead of waltzing around from one tourist destination to the next.  If I wasn't living in a hotel, I think that my daily routine here might actually make me feel like a local.

To that end, I've actually been buying several of my dinners from the food bars at Whole Foods (conveniently located two blocks away).  The check-out lines are long during the evening commute hours, but space is limited.  So here's what I learned as I went along.

There are 30 registers, two rows of fifteen facing one another and separated by a single aisle.  There are three lines of customers, each assigned a color.  A monitor at the front of the line coordinates - blue, yellow, green.  When a register opens, the number flashes on the monitor within one of the colored boxes.  Whomever is in that line scuttles over to that register.  For some reason it feels like a game every time I do it.

And maybe it's the just the US Open coloring my opinions, but I'm kind of loving New York.  I never imagined it as a city I would be comfortable living in, but after even three days I'm starting to reconsider.  Today I walked home from work, down 5th Avenue, and walked to the north end of Madison Square Park.  Because in New York, they do things like set up a jumbo screen in the park with a feed of the US Open.  And people actually gather to watch it.  You know what else?  They're seriously engaged, applauding and cheering after points.

I'm not saying that it's time to head out of Chicago, but I'll be happy to spend more time in New York City - both during the remainder of my training period and in the future.

 I was so close to a dream come true, my idea of an ideal night and a possible perfect ending.

When Andy Roddick won his third round match, I was just excited by the prospect of being in the stadium for the next round.  As I kept my eye on the weather reports each day, it wasn't promising.  But after work today, it looked like the front would pass and maybe we'd sneak in some tennis before another one arrived.  Worst case scenario, I'd waste some time trekking out to Queens.

Here's where things got interesting.  I took the 1 up to Times Square, where I was supposed to transfer to the 7 Express.  I got a little perplexed by the signage telling me that 7 trains were coming on both tracks.  Not wanting to end up opposite of my destination (I later realized that Times Square was the beginning of the route and there was only one direction to go), I engaged in an activity that I spurn - asking directions, essentially.  There was a woman next to me who seemed like a good candidate, but it turned out she was about as knowledgable as me.

I finally figured out that a diamond signified "express" and a circle meant "local".  So I ushered us both onto the subway.  For some reason, I decided to play out of character again and started small talk with this woman.  Maybe it was just because I was bubbling over with enthusiasm about the US Open.

When we were a few stops away from our destination, my new transit partner called her friends to let them know she was almost there.  I immediately discerned from her response that her friends had decided not to go.  After telling them not to worry multiple times, she hung up and gave me the rundown.

She wasn't interested in going alone, tennis was their passion and she was just along for the ride.  But she had tickets waiting at will call.  And after asking me if I had good seats (clearly the answer was no), she volunteered hers to me.  In the blink of an eye, I was bequeathed two tickets in courtside reserved seating.

Honestly, I could barely stand or think straight.  I wandered aimlessly into the tennis center, unable to focus.  So I set myself on a mission to eat something and snap to it.  Then I made my way into Arthur Ashe Stadium, nine rows up from the court, and it was more amazing than anything I ever dreamed of.  I had a seat next to a guy who would become another small talk buddy and later buy me a drink during the rain suspension.

I could already wax nostalgic about how amazing every detail was, except for one, the fact that the match got canceled at the start of the first set tiebreak.  My perfection was only destined to last 35 minutes.  So, it was a partial dream come true.

After the match was canceled, I was still hesitant to leave the stadium.  It went by too quickly.  Then a worker started chatting with me, and as the center court lights shut off, we exited together.  He let me in on a secret about getting back to the city in twenty minutes instead of an hour and a half: the employee shuttle bus.  I just had to board with him and act like I knew what I was doing.  And it was free.  Sold.  So I headed back into Manhattan, chatting with Mohamed on an employee-sanctioned charter bus.

Despite the fact that nothing really went as planned, I can't be completely upset about my night.  Sure, I'll most likely miss the remainder of the Roddick/Del Potro match, and even if it starts late enough for me to watch it won't be live.  But I made it to the US Open, I sat in the most amazing seats, I saw my favorite player in person during his final days, and I had some unique experiences thanks to random people.  Plus, the match was canceled soon enough that I can trade in my ticket for one of equal value for the 2013 US Open.

My actual travel went surprisingly smooth.  Caught a cab to the Blue Line, only had to wait four minutes for a train, five minutes in the security line, took off on time, and landed early.  I even managed to get to my hotel for $5 cheaper when the cabbie decided to take the Williamburg Bridge instead of the Midtown tunnel.  Came in the back door and missed some traffic.

Pretty quickly after checking into my hotel room, which is somehow even smaller than the one I had in the same hotel last week, things started to get strange.  I unpacked and arranged some things around my temporary home, then decided to head out for some wandering.

As soon as I walked out the front door, some sensation drew my attention to my left index finger.  It hurt.  The I realized it was swollen...and turn black and blue.  I started wondering what bit me, because I hadn't hit it, slammed it or tweaked it.  So I rushed back upstairs and scrambled to hunt down an ice machine.

I don't quite remember, but I'm guessing it was somewhere around that point when anxiety starting setting it.  After twenty minutes of icing, I figured it was time to go about my original plan and headed out.  Only, as I walked up 6th Avenue, I felt like my mind and body were detached, unfocused.

Although I wasn't particularly hungry or thirsty, nutrition and hydration were my best guesses to resolve the rather disorienting state.  Duane Reade provided a luxurious bagel and string cheese lunch.  Since I wasn't willing to admit defeat just yet, I nabbed a park bench and tried to convince myself to eat.

Apparently I was being watched, by a kid in his early twenties who had previously been catnapping on another bench.  He approached me awkwardly, said "hi", and proceeded to just stare at me.  I said "hi" and waited.  Then he said his name and stared again.  I responded with "Ok" and waited some more.  I wasn't in the mood.

From there he started rambling, and maybe it was just my state of mind, but half of it sounded like nonsense.  At one point he told me that we're all youthful inside.  Then he was telling me about the beauty of the leaves and grass, which segued into him asking me if I'd like to lay in the park and look at them with him.  I politely declined, telling him I didn't feel well and was going to my hotel.

Since then, I've spent most of my time resting in this king-size bed, only seeing the city through my window.  I suppose I'll be here many more days though, and I have a first day of work to report to in the morning, so I'd rather not press my luck.

My day-to-day themes don't vary much lately - and today will be no exception.  After a 48 hour stay in Michigan, I made the three-hour car trek back to Chicago this morning with two purposes in mind: packing and Roddick.

Yes, I managed to fit a month's worth of belongings into a carry-on bag and a personal item in January.  But I was going to Costa Rica, where no one knew or cared if I wore the same swimsuit and shorts every day.  Now I'm attempting to pack within the same restraints for two weeks in New York, including nine days in the office.