Last Sunday morning I flew up here to New York City to visit Rob and Sarah Elkin, to do some business in Manhattan, and to visit my grandparents in New Jersey for Christmas. Upon arriving at La Guardia at 10:30 on Sunday morning, I waited for Rob to come pick me up. We headed to a sandwich shop for lunch---and met Sarah and two of her friends there. Afterwards we went to Memorial Baptist's youth group Christmas party at the home of a family in the church. In the evening, we went to the Christmas program that kids put on at the church. Monday, Rob and I talked about the church he's planting for a few hours and did some basic brainstorming and discussion about the next steps in the process. We both went to Manhattan and met Sarah for lunch---then I went to a brief meeting with Hyperion Books---to show them some of our Portland Studios work as well as some newer work we're doing with our book cover design group. Dinner was chili made by Sarah---FANTASTIC.
On Tuesday, we stayed in Brooklyn and walked the neighborhood, being the first day of the NYC Transit strike. Wednesday was the day of the cab rides---In the morning, I actually walked south from Greenpoint to the Williamsburg Bridge---over the bridge---and finally rested at a Burger King on the Lower East Side of Manhattan. I took a cab to Penguin Putnam on Hudson St. and then up to a meeting at Random House at 55th and Broadway. The ride home was a nutty group of New Yorkers all packed in a minivan cab. I sat in front of two hardened businessmen---who well remembered the strike of 1980. The girl next to me ran a personal massage business at clubs in Manhattan. The was a quiet and kind family man accountant in the front passenger's seat. I ended up joining up with him to get over the Williamsburg Bridge back into Brooklyn. Somehow I ended up getting out of the cab far too far south and walked a mile or two back to Rob and Sarah's apartment.
Thursday, I took a cab to Wall Street and Broadway---then took the Seastreak at Pier 11 over to Atlantic Highlands, NJ---where I spent a fantastic Christmas weekend with my family.
This morning I caught a NJ Transit train back to Penn Station in Manhattan---then dropped my stuff off in Brooklyn at The Elkin's place---Then headed back out to SoHo. I came here to the Apple Store to get 2 12-inch Powerbooks fixed. Cate's laptop had a problem with the cable plugging in correctly---so that the laptop wasn't charging often. You had to get the plug to go in JUST RIGHT to make sure that it would charge. My laptop had pretty much konked out the day before I left for NY---so that's been pretty frustrating. I finally had it fixed here at the Genius Bar---just some permissions repairs. So I'm christening the "new" laptop with this blog update. The drone of the giddy presenter in front of me has turned to white noise.
Posted by bmcallister at December 26, 2005 01:44 PM | TrackBack