Back to a New York City that's starting a low simmer in the first sun of the season - 24C this weekend, 28C to start the week and firm in the knowledge that I'm about over all that is urban. That doesn't mean that I want a catalogue paint job porch (heaven forend) but a house, a car, a job - that doesn't seem an enormous amount to have as an ambition.
Anyway having done the gym this morning and too big a lunch an hour ago it feels as though it's about time I dragged an overheated dog around the park...
Saturday, April 21, 2007
Friday, April 20, 2007
Another sunny day...
I do like the sunshine it puts a different sheen on the day doesn't it? Nothing quite like waking up in a strange bed, showering with unfamiar soap, listen to Alec Baldwin berate his daughter on a TV News morning show and then heading up to print out NWA boarding passes and feast on a breakfast made by somebody else. Gladdens the heart and soothes the soul it does. At least that's what I tell myself. Test driving Hondas today - all things good. Hurrah!
Thursday, April 19, 2007
UM Rocks
Ann Arbor. The sun shines. The air is clean. Spring envelopes you in its optimistic embrace. Everywhere there are university buildings and cute coffee shops and in them young people bringing energy, cheer and enough money to have the place feel as though it's thriving. It's a Disney America. Beautiful, peaceful, quiet and yet with entertainment on every corner. All of the serene fecundity of Wappinger's Falls, some of the culture and verve of New York. If I had a green card I'd be knocking on doors right now - trying to figure out a way to get here before Jude does (in September); but of course I don't and I do rather like the people that I work for at he moment. Of course it might just be the weather speaking. But be not surprised if 12 months from now you don't see me working remotely from MI....
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
The dollar is officially crap
So the dollar is now worth 50p. Yup we finally crossed the $2 to the GBP mark yesterday making trips to the UK frighteningly expensive and marking New York down as a place ripe for the maurading. It's been 15 years since the dollar was as low and I have to say that seeing the pound value of my salary drop by 20% based on currency exchange is just horrible.
We'll be staying in dollar friendly countries for the foreseeable future therefore. We are however getting on a plane soon and heading for Ann Arbor, MI where Jude has accepted a job and I have become excited by the prospect of owning a car again - all be it in absentia. I'll not bore you with the car thing again but the list (after lots of excel, lots of formula and 2 days of fact digging) looks like this
1. Honda Civic Hybrid (great choice but a saloon)
2. Toyota Yaris (1.5l, 109bhp but nasty interior - only $11k though)
3. Toyota Prius (the greeny's hybrid)
4. Nissan Altima Hybrid (the non-greeny's hybrid)
5. Honda Fit (again 1.5l, 110 bhp, endless seat configurations, tiny)
Will drive the Civic and the Prius while we're away. It'll be good to take a break from the city, from arranging the 3 monthly scans, from the rain and from dental treatment and from the incessant demands of the Blackberry
We'll be staying in dollar friendly countries for the foreseeable future therefore. We are however getting on a plane soon and heading for Ann Arbor, MI where Jude has accepted a job and I have become excited by the prospect of owning a car again - all be it in absentia. I'll not bore you with the car thing again but the list (after lots of excel, lots of formula and 2 days of fact digging) looks like this
1. Honda Civic Hybrid (great choice but a saloon)
2. Toyota Yaris (1.5l, 109bhp but nasty interior - only $11k though)
3. Toyota Prius (the greeny's hybrid)
4. Nissan Altima Hybrid (the non-greeny's hybrid)
5. Honda Fit (again 1.5l, 110 bhp, endless seat configurations, tiny)
Will drive the Civic and the Prius while we're away. It'll be good to take a break from the city, from arranging the 3 monthly scans, from the rain and from dental treatment and from the incessant demands of the Blackberry
Tuesday, April 17, 2007
Scramble
My new client has pushed the start date of our project forward - to better accomodate a big meeting at the other end of the process. So today sees me scrambling to get everything in place in a way that's both timely and tidy. It's actually all rather exciting. We have the time, the money and the freedom to get this one stunningly right. It's a great process designed to free people up from the voices in their heads that constantly question each and every idea and to encourage them to charge in the direction of their whims and fancies and to see where it takes them.
We do this by offering the safety net of regular meetings where we sit down and judge all that we've done against some pretty stringent criteria. The idea is that knowing that there's a forum to raise eyebrows and objections will free people up from that everyday behavior of checking mentally whether what they're doing is sensible and prudent and all of those Gordon Brown words.
It's going to be great - I woke up excited but it's also going to be a scramble toward the first meeting. I'm out for three days, the guy running the thing is out for a week after that and we have out first big session in a little over two weeks.
I just went from excited to stomach churning. This is good.
We do this by offering the safety net of regular meetings where we sit down and judge all that we've done against some pretty stringent criteria. The idea is that knowing that there's a forum to raise eyebrows and objections will free people up from that everyday behavior of checking mentally whether what they're doing is sensible and prudent and all of those Gordon Brown words.
It's going to be great - I woke up excited but it's also going to be a scramble toward the first meeting. I'm out for three days, the guy running the thing is out for a week after that and we have out first big session in a little over two weeks.
I just went from excited to stomach churning. This is good.
Monday, April 16, 2007
before the rain came
the rain here is just horrible - and it keeps coming, wave after wave after wave - almost literally. It's just curl up in a ball and eat toast whilst watching re-runs awful. Which reminds me - scans. Must call hospital. More later
Sunday, April 15, 2007
A day in the sun
Spent yesterday on a bit of a photo safari around Williamsburg - and was lured into a local bar by the sight of a man in kilt and Arran sweater talking with a women in, well not very much. Turns out it was 'open to all art class' day and that even I - clod with camera was welcome to join. Hurrah! I promised the model that I'd not post anything that she hadn't seen and approved - so have a folder heaving and straining with pics that I really want to share, but can't yet. This isn't one of the better pics, but it's one of the few that's approved to date. More later. Oh I do love living in the city.
Friday, April 13, 2007
man i hate your band
really should be my personal motto. I keep venturing out to see bands that seem to be derivative, self absorbed and well sucky and then blaming my age for my point of view. Well bollocks to that. Yes I listen to more i-pod stuff than I do radio, yes I'm starting to seal the edges of my musical time capsule but you know what I'm still open to somebody good. So wow me. I have CD $'s. I have download bucks aplenty. Come show me what you've got all.
Thursday, April 12, 2007
On yer bike mate...
So with Jude graduated (post graduated?) my thoughts about a car for michigan turn to obsession. Of course being a professor in management and the environment in a school known for environmental research means that Jude can't just turn up in any old car. The US may not have cought on to Carbon Neutral Fascism yet - but it's coming and Jude wants to look and feel clean. Which means a car that looks and feels clean (and masks the fact that its main purpose will be to shuttle her back and forth to an airport whereupon she'll board public enemy #2 and blow any savings she's made and more)
The real problem of course is finding a car in the US that does decent miles to the gallon. The US likes its cars to be fat and lazy - to have huge displacement, fat torque curves and wallowy seats seperated by think arm rests otop which rest 1700KCal Starbucks drinks.
Take for example the VW Golf (Rabbit in the US)...a frugal 1.4L car in the UK the entry model here is a 2.5l that 24.7mpg in real world driving conditions. Even when you add the 20% that brings a US gallon up to th esame size as a UK gallon you're looking at just under 30mpg - and that's considered pretty darn good (the 2.5L VW is a compact car here)
So we're looking at a Honda Fit (think Jazz with bigger engine), at a Suzuki SX4 (think Suzuki SX4 with standard all wheel drive, 143hp and 24mpg - yikes) and at things like the Toyota Matrix / Pontiac Vibe , the base model (2.0) Ford Focus as well as a Prius that's great in normal conditions but only manages 31mpg in the cold winters of Michigan.
Diesel isn't really an option. You can't find diesel cars. You can't find Diesel at the pumps and the thought of importing from California (where emissions standards make cars cleaner) fills me with red tape heebie jeebies.
Really it comes down to one question. Can the Honda FIt stand up to a Michigan winter or do we need a real 4 wheel drive vehicle in which case the SX4 is the most fuel efficient option. Why the worry? Well the average temperature is sub zero in Detroit for 3 months of the year (lows around -8C on average in January). The annual average temperature is in single digits (Centigrade) and you're looking at around 4 feet of snow a year - if there are no major storms. And there are often major storms.
Anyway lots of things to think about as we headto the NYC MOTOR SHOW this afternoon - templates in hand, ready to take a look and see what we can see. What feels right. And who has the best deals. Remember that cars may be huge and inefficient here but they're cheap... 2.5l Golf - 7,600GBP, Toyota Yaris 5,800GBP, fully load 4*4 SX4 with every extra 7.800 quid.
I just rubbed my hands with glee.
The real problem of course is finding a car in the US that does decent miles to the gallon. The US likes its cars to be fat and lazy - to have huge displacement, fat torque curves and wallowy seats seperated by think arm rests otop which rest 1700KCal Starbucks drinks.
Take for example the VW Golf (Rabbit in the US)...a frugal 1.4L car in the UK the entry model here is a 2.5l that 24.7mpg in real world driving conditions. Even when you add the 20% that brings a US gallon up to th esame size as a UK gallon you're looking at just under 30mpg - and that's considered pretty darn good (the 2.5L VW is a compact car here)
So we're looking at a Honda Fit (think Jazz with bigger engine), at a Suzuki SX4 (think Suzuki SX4 with standard all wheel drive, 143hp and 24mpg - yikes) and at things like the Toyota Matrix / Pontiac Vibe , the base model (2.0) Ford Focus as well as a Prius that's great in normal conditions but only manages 31mpg in the cold winters of Michigan.
Diesel isn't really an option. You can't find diesel cars. You can't find Diesel at the pumps and the thought of importing from California (where emissions standards make cars cleaner) fills me with red tape heebie jeebies.
Really it comes down to one question. Can the Honda FIt stand up to a Michigan winter or do we need a real 4 wheel drive vehicle in which case the SX4 is the most fuel efficient option. Why the worry? Well the average temperature is sub zero in Detroit for 3 months of the year (lows around -8C on average in January). The annual average temperature is in single digits (Centigrade) and you're looking at around 4 feet of snow a year - if there are no major storms. And there are often major storms.
Anyway lots of things to think about as we headto the NYC MOTOR SHOW this afternoon - templates in hand, ready to take a look and see what we can see. What feels right. And who has the best deals. Remember that cars may be huge and inefficient here but they're cheap... 2.5l Golf - 7,600GBP, Toyota Yaris 5,800GBP, fully load 4*4 SX4 with every extra 7.800 quid.
I just rubbed my hands with glee.
Wednesday, April 11, 2007
Dr Jude...
... so Jude is now Dr. Jude. Dr. Jude PhD. Which is pretty cool. The defense was tense and scary and underlined all that I feared about academia but Jude was calm, made her points, scored a couple of points of her own and left the building a Doctor. Very cool.
In a train station now (wireless huh?) but will post more later
In a train station now (wireless huh?) but will post more later
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Playing Defense
Jude defends today. Meaning that in 12 hrs or so she'll either be Dr. Jude or she'll be temporarily rueing the day. The PhD. hasn't been the easiest of times. There's been death, sickness and all manner of family bits and pieces. There's been loneliness (you try living in Wappinger's Falls and having no reason to leave the house) and lots of times when we've felt trapped... turning down jobs because they didn't fit with the visa or areas of study because they didn't fit with advisor specialty. Financially it's been a disaster too - costing us close to $1m in lost earnings and opportunity.
Yet here we are - in New York, new friends around us. old friends back in the fold, me in a new job. Jude with an offer on the table and ready to start soon. The sum of human knowledge expanded a little. Can't be bad, can it?
Here's to closing this chapter and opening the next.
Yet here we are - in New York, new friends around us. old friends back in the fold, me in a new job. Jude with an offer on the table and ready to start soon. The sum of human knowledge expanded a little. Can't be bad, can it?
Here's to closing this chapter and opening the next.
Monday, April 09, 2007
The great defender
Jude defends tomorrow. If it goes well then she's Dr. Jude. If it doesn't then she's back to square one with a a whole hill o' razor blades to climb. I have to say that the US PhD. system seems far more rigorous than the UK version. Heresy I know but she had to take two years of graduate classes in some pretty hardcore methodologies before she was even allowed to start thinking about what she'd do and the pressure to publish and appear on public stages has been constant and intense.
The actual defense is a mixture of public forum and private torture. So I'm going to head up and watch the presentation / opening questions before being kicked out while they grill her in what I'm thinking of as the Mastermind specialist sunject round. After that round they kick her out and deliberate. This can take anything from 10 minutes to 4 hrs.
My contribution to the preparation has been minimal. I've taken pictures (like the one above) for the powerpoint slides (20 in the presentation, 43 prepared in case of questions), I've slouched off with the dog to provide 'alone time' and I've plied with wine when I thought it neccessary. And at every step and stage my conviction never to follow the PhD. path has grown stronger. It takes a certain type of person here and I'm not that type of person.
But it's 8.28 and my train is at 8.42. I must dash. Have a great day all.
The actual defense is a mixture of public forum and private torture. So I'm going to head up and watch the presentation / opening questions before being kicked out while they grill her in what I'm thinking of as the Mastermind specialist sunject round. After that round they kick her out and deliberate. This can take anything from 10 minutes to 4 hrs.
My contribution to the preparation has been minimal. I've taken pictures (like the one above) for the powerpoint slides (20 in the presentation, 43 prepared in case of questions), I've slouched off with the dog to provide 'alone time' and I've plied with wine when I thought it neccessary. And at every step and stage my conviction never to follow the PhD. path has grown stronger. It takes a certain type of person here and I'm not that type of person.
But it's 8.28 and my train is at 8.42. I must dash. Have a great day all.
Sunday, April 08, 2007
Sleeping diseases
I think that I slept for about 10 hrs yesterday. This is unusual for me as I'm not really one for lie-ins. However I've been knackered ever since our two day session last week. There's something about being responsible for every step of a process that really does slow you down - you get to the end and you just crash. This time it was stimulus, venues, exercises, shopping trips, introductions, ideas, groupings and enough energy to carry everybody through it all. I though that I was fine, I wasn't obviously.
Meanwhile Jude is up at the crack of St. Early the Riser and starting on charts for her thesis defence. It's on Tuesday and everytime she sits down to look at the screen she gets wound just a little tighter. It's an amazing physical reaction and one that I recognize after 4 years in an advertising agency that worked only on crisis and panic. Most of which was self created.
The problem with where I used to work was size. It was a huge agency, with huge clients and lots of people. The problem was that the number of great people, the people you wanted to work with and for, was tiny. And these people were in demand, on everything. So if you wanted them you had to convince the powers that be that your problem was bigger, more urgent and more scary than any other problem in the building.
"I need these people now or the whole account is going up for review, the work won't be delivered, we'll be sued and the client is threatening to take a crap through your letterbox." was the general tone.
This led of course to several consequences. Hyperbole is one thing, constant hyperbole starts to have a physical effect. People started to believe the desperation of their own circumstance and the stress levels soared. They aged. They got sick. They went grey. They upped the doses of alcohol. They looked for people to blame, for people to shout out.
And then of course everything was rushed. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so of course thought, care and attention to detail were frowned upon. "Get it out of the door Jenkins" was too often the mentality.
And finally there were the defections. Constant seige leads to shell shock and people leaving the trenches to pursue careers in cabbage management, or fluffy hat wearing.
It was miserable and right now Jude is in her own solo version of this hell. Thank God Tuesday sees the end of it.
Meanwhile Jude is up at the crack of St. Early the Riser and starting on charts for her thesis defence. It's on Tuesday and everytime she sits down to look at the screen she gets wound just a little tighter. It's an amazing physical reaction and one that I recognize after 4 years in an advertising agency that worked only on crisis and panic. Most of which was self created.
The problem with where I used to work was size. It was a huge agency, with huge clients and lots of people. The problem was that the number of great people, the people you wanted to work with and for, was tiny. And these people were in demand, on everything. So if you wanted them you had to convince the powers that be that your problem was bigger, more urgent and more scary than any other problem in the building.
"I need these people now or the whole account is going up for review, the work won't be delivered, we'll be sued and the client is threatening to take a crap through your letterbox." was the general tone.
This led of course to several consequences. Hyperbole is one thing, constant hyperbole starts to have a physical effect. People started to believe the desperation of their own circumstance and the stress levels soared. They aged. They got sick. They went grey. They upped the doses of alcohol. They looked for people to blame, for people to shout out.
And then of course everything was rushed. Desperate times call for desperate measures, so of course thought, care and attention to detail were frowned upon. "Get it out of the door Jenkins" was too often the mentality.
And finally there were the defections. Constant seige leads to shell shock and people leaving the trenches to pursue careers in cabbage management, or fluffy hat wearing.
It was miserable and right now Jude is in her own solo version of this hell. Thank God Tuesday sees the end of it.
Saturday, April 07, 2007
I loved this picture...
... and I'm not sure why. Could it be that all around me cohorts are flying in from holiday with children attached to their hips? That brunch these days often involves a highchair and a cherub faced picture of all that we're missing? Or is it just a great picture? I'm not sure - perhaps it's just my wanting one more subject to photograph - somebody cute, uncomplaining and in my own image. Selfishness then. Probably.
Friday, April 06, 2007
Time for more scans
It's April, which means more scans. Of course this is the US and I still haven't been billed for my original scans due to the hospital sending the bill to my ex insurance company and then disappearing off the edge of the world. I'm assuming that all is well but expectying problems when I want to head for the MRI machine and the receptionist gets an 'unpaid' message flash across her screen.
I'm due at the dentist too. $7200 for work that really isn't neccessary but will see all of my UK dentistry finally fixed by somebody competant.
There's a correlation between poor dentistry and cancers (as well as heart attacks) that's hard to deny - it's oft cited but seems to be a smaller debate than you'd imagine. Maybe sick people don't have the energy to sue their dentists. Or maybe dental hygiene is something that's hard to prove in a court of law. I'm not sure which it is but I do have to call both Adela at the hospital and Tatiana at the dentist today. Don't let me forget.
I'm due at the dentist too. $7200 for work that really isn't neccessary but will see all of my UK dentistry finally fixed by somebody competant.
There's a correlation between poor dentistry and cancers (as well as heart attacks) that's hard to deny - it's oft cited but seems to be a smaller debate than you'd imagine. Maybe sick people don't have the energy to sue their dentists. Or maybe dental hygiene is something that's hard to prove in a court of law. I'm not sure which it is but I do have to call both Adela at the hospital and Tatiana at the dentist today. Don't let me forget.
Thursday, April 05, 2007
work
a lot of people have asked what it is that I do for a living.... the answer is this... kinda.
Take a loft, a rug, an illustrator, some very senior clients, a ream of colored paper, some scented pens, cat poo coffee and a 'box of childhood' and you end up with 16 great ideas.
All a tad odd though... huh?
Take a loft, a rug, an illustrator, some very senior clients, a ream of colored paper, some scented pens, cat poo coffee and a 'box of childhood' and you end up with 16 great ideas.
All a tad odd though... huh?
Wednesday, April 04, 2007
More Idol
So last night was American Idol with a barely alive Tony Bennett, who seemed so happy to still be upright that all he could do was lavish praise upon those upon whom he intended to later feast.
Blake Edwards starteds with his tradmark Jamiroquai with arthritis slide and delivered an okay "Mack the Knife" that was free of both beat boxing and vocal range
Phil Stacey's performance of "Night and Day" was as flat as his voice... the man has to go home and soon
Mindy Doo started shaky (could it be her newfound neck putting her off) but finished big... she has to be safe tonight and if she isn't she should bring in the Richard III preservation society and demand a recount
Chris Richardson managed to turn "Don't get around much anymore" into his usual nasal dirge. This week though it was an upbeat dirge which should keep hime safe
Jordin Sparks is 17. This means that her ability to sing is 'amazing'... "On a clear day" was old fashioned but in tune. Grannies everywhere will have pointed their walkers toward their rotary dial phones and clawed arthritically at 1-866 idols 05
Sanjaya Malakar is 17... his inability to perform has made him a national joke. He's okay with this, which makes him okay with me. His 'cheek to cheek' was anodyne enough to reassure parents everywhere that their pre-teens aren't having sexual thoughts about him. Game on sanjaya.
Smile is a great song. Gina Glocksen is a chunky chick with badly styled hair who does a passable Joan Jett karaoke. You do the math.
Haley Scarnato is entertainment Quaalude. I'm sure she did whatever song she did competently... I'm not sure that's enough.
LaKisha Jones managed to get away with that lisp again (when will they mention it?) but also managed to do that menace in her eyes thing that she does so well when she's 'in the zone'... I feared for Simon's life and for Randy's virginity but she knocked it so far out of the park it almost cleared her bosom.
Blake Edwards starteds with his tradmark Jamiroquai with arthritis slide and delivered an okay "Mack the Knife" that was free of both beat boxing and vocal range
Phil Stacey's performance of "Night and Day" was as flat as his voice... the man has to go home and soon
Mindy Doo started shaky (could it be her newfound neck putting her off) but finished big... she has to be safe tonight and if she isn't she should bring in the Richard III preservation society and demand a recount
Chris Richardson managed to turn "Don't get around much anymore" into his usual nasal dirge. This week though it was an upbeat dirge which should keep hime safe
Jordin Sparks is 17. This means that her ability to sing is 'amazing'... "On a clear day" was old fashioned but in tune. Grannies everywhere will have pointed their walkers toward their rotary dial phones and clawed arthritically at 1-866 idols 05
Sanjaya Malakar is 17... his inability to perform has made him a national joke. He's okay with this, which makes him okay with me. His 'cheek to cheek' was anodyne enough to reassure parents everywhere that their pre-teens aren't having sexual thoughts about him. Game on sanjaya.
Smile is a great song. Gina Glocksen is a chunky chick with badly styled hair who does a passable Joan Jett karaoke. You do the math.
Haley Scarnato is entertainment Quaalude. I'm sure she did whatever song she did competently... I'm not sure that's enough.
LaKisha Jones managed to get away with that lisp again (when will they mention it?) but also managed to do that menace in her eyes thing that she does so well when she's 'in the zone'... I feared for Simon's life and for Randy's virginity but she knocked it so far out of the park it almost cleared her bosom.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
A quilcie this morning
it's 6.45am I've already printed out the lyrics to "Baby it's cold outside" and I have a long say of Twister Mixed Cocktails, deep fried mars bars and general oddness in front of me. It ought to be good - but if it isn't there's nowhere to hide and as all of this is new to me I'm a little concerned that I'm the virgin in a virgin process. It's a little like organizing a gang babg at Jesus Camp - you know that they really should go for it but you're always just a little worried that the kid with Jesus in his heart is going to ruin it for everyone else.
Monday, April 02, 2007
My Civet coffee arrived
Kopi Luwak or Civet coffee is coffee made from coffee cherries which have been eaten by and passed through the digestive tract of the Asian Palm Civet (Paradoxurus hermaphroditus). The animals gorge on the ripe berries, and excrete partially-digested beans in their feces, which are then harvested for sale. This process takes place on the islands of Sumatra, Java and Sulawesi in the Indonesian Archipelago, in the Philippines (where the product is called Kape Alamid), in the country of Vietnam, and the coffee estates of south India.
Cool beans, huh?
Cool beans, huh?
Sunday, April 01, 2007
Cool day today
after a night of drunken debate with displaced Cubans we started the day gently, with a brunch. Our friends Michael and Joanne and their increasingly lovely son Ollie joined Xtiana, Alex, Jude and I in a quite Tribeca brunch spot before we all spilled out onto the streets in search of saucy underwear (Jude), coffee (the Xs) and fuel for their giganta wagon (Michael, Joanna, Ollie and all)
Then this evening it was Ice Hockey. Our neighbors gave us really great seats, one row behind the opposition bench and we dragged J.Lum (a friend from Oz) with us for an evening of bafflling stopages, loud musical interludes, very polite fans and the occasional stand up fist fight (on the ice)
Big week for me at work this week so time for The L Word (am I the only person still watching?) and then bed. 8am gym tomorrow and then a LONG day ahead.
Then this evening it was Ice Hockey. Our neighbors gave us really great seats, one row behind the opposition bench and we dragged J.Lum (a friend from Oz) with us for an evening of bafflling stopages, loud musical interludes, very polite fans and the occasional stand up fist fight (on the ice)
Big week for me at work this week so time for The L Word (am I the only person still watching?) and then bed. 8am gym tomorrow and then a LONG day ahead.
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