The money I spent for internet access at the airport may just be the best $7.95 I've spent in a long time. After rushing to pack, ship and get to the airport, I learned that my flight has been delayed three hours!
On top of that, I left behind a ton of stuff at my apartment, including accidentally forgetting my keyboard and mouse!
One of my favorite things to do is speculate about the future, and what my life will be like. I think, "What will I be doing this time tomorrow, next year, etc.?"
This time tomorrow I'll have moved to Chicago.
This time next month, I'll be a full-time law school student.
This time next year, I'll have finished my first year of law school and wil hopefully be back in New York for some type of lucrative summer job (otherwise I'm planning on studying/working abroad).
This time in five years, I'll be a practicing attorney in either New York or California, hopefully on my way to starting a family at the ripe old age of 33.
Once again, it was extremely nice to return home after being away. This time it was a three night stay in Las Vegas with my old BUILD coworkers and my high school friends. It was good to see Suzanne, Ajuah, Paul and Shirin before four out of the five of us go back to school this fall. Plus, I'm glad I was able to finally make it to one of Mark's (warning: link to myspace!) big Vegas birthday bashes.
Unfortunately, my internet connection at home is not working, so I'll post a longer update once I have regular internet access.
BUILD Alumni
Four more days in New York!
I love how it feels to come home after being away for a few days. There's nothing like the sight of my made bed, clean room, and familar furnishings that put me at ease, usually following a long flight and taxi/shuttle/train ride. After a longer-than-expected trip in Chicago, I shouldn't have been surprised by the huge bliss of returning to my apartment.
Although I am headed right back out in an hour to catch my flight to Vegas (I'll be back Saturday night), I've managed to squeeze a lot of NY in the past 30 hours or so.
Monday:
- Arrived at LaGuardia Airport at 10PM, grabbed my luggage and took a cab home
- Trekked to the 24-hour Apple Store in search of a neeprene sleeve for my new MacBook (sold out!)
- Picked up two chicken and rice plates from the awesome Halal cart on 53rd St. and 6th Avenue (one for now, one for later). The wait was still 30 minutes, even though it was past midnight on Monday.
Tuesday:
- Walked to the Apple Store in Soho. Still no sleeves! Shake a fist!
- Made a ton of pre-law school appointments (TB testing, haircut, restaraunt reservations, etc.)
- Met my old D&P co-workers for lunch
- Checked out two new exhibits at the Met. I'll miss that museum.
- Ate the second chicken and rice plate for dinner
- Met with Andrea and Dickson for drinks at Cafe Noir
- Gave Dickson a tour of my favorite late night food court, Macdougal St, where he had his first Kathi Roll.
- Walked over to Gerald and Susana's where I got to see Janet before she left for b-school on Friday.
Now I'm off to Vegas!
I'm still in Chicago, but I've been thinking a lot about how to spend the remainder of my time in New York (less than two weeks, not including my Vegas trip):
- Meet with all the people I've seen far too little of since I (or they) have moved to NY
- Shakespeare in the Park
- Coney Island / NY Aquarium
- Run in Central Park
- At least one more nice dinner (Gerald, start planning!)
- Yankees and/or Mets game
- Monday night movie at Bryant Park
Hopefully today won't be as boring as yesterday, although I did catch a free concert at the Grant Park Music Festival last night. Today I'm upgrading my iBook for a new MacBook and getting my first iPod (which will be awesome considering I left my mp3 player in New York and have gone music-less this past week)!
Right now I should be at an all-day Long Island wine tasting birthday party for my old roommate. Tonight I was planning on going out for the birthday of one of my Moe's Tavern basketball teammates. Tomorrow would've been my last Dream League game before I moved to Chicago.
But instead, I am stuck in Chicago waiting to sign my lease. At least it's a gorgeous day outside, which I plan on taking full advantage of after I finish running my morning errands.
On a different note, last night I finished Evidence of Things Unseen, which was a beautifully written book about love, hope and faith. It reminded me a lot of Peace Like a River, which I also really enjoyed. Next up is Moneyball, which I'm surprised has take me so long to get to.
I won't be homeless at the start of school! I found an awesome studio in Streeterville, the Chicago neighborhood where Northwestern Law School is located. Unfortunately, I won't be able to officially sign the lease until Monday, which means I am stuck in Chicago for the weekend. None the less, it feels good to have housing taken care of. I'll post more details once the lease has been signed.
Yay!
Greetings from Chicago!
I've decided that I hate looking for housing. I never thought it was that bad, until I realized that out of my last four apartments:
1. Berkeley (North Berkeley): moved into an empty bedroom at my friend's awesome apartment
2. San Francisco (SOMA): moved into a loft sight unseen, which turned out to be the nicest apartment I've ever been to in SF
3. San Francisco (Noe Valley): found the apartment myself in about 24 hours, and loved the neighborhood although I knew very little about it prior to moving there (other than it was close to the freeway)
4. New York (Soho/West Village): also moved in sight unseen after taking over the lease of a friend of a friend. Now it's far and away my favorite neighborhood in NY.
Basically, I've always had excellent apartment karma, but it seems to have run out here. I'll keep you updated!
Greg has posted his set of Hawaii pics for our viewing pleasure. I've stolen a few for my own flickr, but you should check out his entire set foor the cool pics he got with his waterproof camera.
Hawaii 2006 by GBeaze
Tommy and Mike in the Fishbowl, Maui
This past weekend was a great one, for a few reasons:
1. I was finally back home. Although I loved my vacation, it was nice to finally sleep in my own bed in my own apartment.
2. Thien, my old roommate from San Francisco, was in town.
3. The weather had cooled down enough that it was nice to be outside.
Friday - I met up with Mike and Thien at Katz's, always a great place to take people from out of town. Next we watched Talladega Nights, next year's Academy Award winner for Best Movie Ever. Afterwards, we went to Forbidden City for Oliver's birthday, before finishing off the evening at Park. We also met up with Patrina, an old dorm friend I hadn't seen in ages.
Saturday - I gave Thien a much more proper tour of NYC than his last visit to NY. We walked around Soho, through Little Italy, all the way to Joe's Shanghai in Chinatown. After lunch, we met up with Mike in the Lower East Side, then back to my place in Soho so that I could show it to Mike's friend, who was thinking about taking over my lease. I'm sure my tiny apartment was not that impressive (aside from being a dirt cheap 2BR on the border of Soho/West Village), but I hope she was impressed by the roof deck. It was the perfect afternoon for a few beers in the sun. For dinner we had Lombardi's. It was my first time there, and I loved it. We didn't finish dinner until about midnight, after which we spent the rest of the evening at Uncle Ming's.
Sunday - We kicked off the day with an excellent French brunch with Mayumi and Will joining the three of us. During the afternoon, Mike and I hung out at my place while Thien prepared his stuff to leave. After walking Thien to the train station, Mike and I headed over to Prspect Park for some soccer with one of our Moe's Tavern teammates.
All in all, an excellent weekend. In fact, excellent enough that Thien is now considering moving to New York from San Francisco!
I've finally realized that my vacation days are over, and I won't be jet-setting away to another beach anytime soon (although Vegas is just over the horizon!). My recent two week Miami/Bahamas/Hawaii vacation has to rank among my best vacations ever. A month ago I never would have believed that a casual mini-trip (compared to my Asia and Europe excursions) could be so awesome.
Unfortunately, my beloved Nikon was stolen out of my checked luggage (shake a fist!), so I have no pictures of Miami and the Bahamas. The vacation consisted of largely relaxing with my parents, sisters and cousin, so there wasn't anything too exciting to take pictures of anyways. Here's the itinerary for the first trip with my parents, sisters and one cousin:
Day 1 - 2: South Beach, Miami
Day 3 - 6: Cruise in the Bahamas and Key West
Day 7: The Everglade National Park, Florida
I borrowed my dad's camera for the Hawaii trip, so the second half of my beach vacation was able to be documented. Compared to Miami/Bahamas, the vacation was much more filled with outdoor activities. Being the ninth wheel (four couples and me) among my closest high school friends and their significant others was not as bad as I thought it would be.
Itinerary (links to photosets)
Day 1: Arrive and hang at Nari's cousin's beach-mansion
Day 2: Road to Hana with Greg, Chris and Bo
Day 3: Bike ride down Haleakala Volcano
Day 4: Hike to snorkeling and the Old Lahaina Luau
Day 5: Fly to Big Island and relax
Day 6: Visit Kileuea Volcano Park and hike to lava flow
Day 7: Relax and shop for souvenirs
Day 8: Fly back to Los Angeles via Maui
Unfortunately, I came back with only a light tan after having slathered on the sunblock for two whole weeks (I've recently decided to avoid the premature skin aging you see all over Europe and Asia).
Tammy introduced me to a new blogging service, Vox, which I may consider switching to. Take a look and let me know if you think if it looks better than Blogger:
eat when hungry, sleep when tired
Last night I watched An Inconvenient Truth with my parents. It was a pretty good documentary, although it's target audience were people who don't know much about global warming. I think my parents both enjoyed it. After the movie, my dad couldn't stop with the "I told you so's." He works with a lot of NASA people and has been talking about global warming/rising water levels for ages. On the way home my dad wouldn't stop with, "I told you not to commute from San Francisco to Menlo Park all those years!" among others ("Everyone called me cheap for keeping the lights turned off in the house when I was trying to conserve energy!", etc.)
I do recommend that everyone watch this movie, even if you are as well-versed in global warming as my dad is. It is a bit scary knowing that the Earth has a great chance of being vastly changed, if not in our lifetimes, then definitely in our children's. It still boggles my mind how George W. Bush (and other Republicans) flat-out refuse to watch this movie.
