My Field Trip to Bloomberg

          On Monday I had the chance to go to the Bloomberg L.P. building.  Bloomberg is probably the largest financial news outlet in the country, so I guess it's kind of a big deal.  It's the company former Mayor Bloomberg of New York started back in the 80's.  Of course, I was there for a reason.  It was a field trip for my public finance class.  Our professor, who isn't actually a professor, he's just visiting this semester and teaching this one class because he's an expert, used to work there, so he got us in.  So for two hours we sat in a conference room and had a discussion about bonds and the market with two guys who work there, which was marginally interesting.  My favorite part of the trip, though, was walking through the building on the way to that conference room.
          We started out in the lobby, which was pretty standard, besides some weird wooden sculptures along one wall that looked like what I imagine pterodactyl nests wood look like (I don't understand art).  The lady at the desk took our picture and we got a little visitors badge to hang around our necks.  We walked past the security guards, who scanned our badges, and this is where things started to get awesome.  Past the guard station we came to an elevator bank that was dark except for some purple light coming from behind white wall panels that would fade out as others lit up.  We got into an elevator and went up to the 6th floor.  We exited into another purple elevator bank and had to walk to the other side of the building to catch an elevator down to LL2.  As we walked, I saw some amazing things.  First of all, the walls are all white marble.  I know this because I felt them, like a weirdo.  We walked past a help desk, which let me to believe that the building is so big that even people who work there get lost.  Past the help desk, the hallway curved around and opened up into a huge commons space, with orange and black chairs and tables scattered across the white floor.  There were little kiosks everywhere with organic potato chips, Oreos, oatmeal, juice, soda, and just about any other snack food you could think of.  Oh, and all that stuff was free if you worked there.  As the hall curved around more, it narrowed again and we walked past a fish tank wall, and I thought, "of course there's a fish tank wall."  As we walked a little farther, we walked past two glass walled conference rooms with white letters on the outside that read "Boston" and "Philadelphia", raised up and set back a little from the wide hallway.  On the landing of the steps that let to those conference rooms, there was a coy pond.  Yes, a coy pond.  A coy pond in the building. With real coy. I could see them through the glass walls that extended about a foot above the ground, just swimmin' around in there.  Thats where my mind exploded.  We walked into another elevator bank, went down to LL2, got some free soda, and sat in a conference room with white tables and grey walls.  The whole place looked like it was from the future.  Ultra modern, with screens everywhere displaying charts and stock exchange data.  It was quite an experience.
          Now, don't get me wrong, I would never want to work there.  I think working in finance would be terribly boring.  But the building was super cool.  And it added some descriptions to my new definition of "rich" that has been forming since we moved to New York.
          "Rich" is having a coy pond in your building.
         

Sunday, Sunday

          What's this?  Two blogs in one week?  Yes, yes this is me making an effort to take this more seriously.  I have a lot of trouble writing these because, as I said when I first started this, it's hard for me to come up with things to write about that people will actually want to read.  Living here, while it's not becoming mundane, now seems less extraordinary.  The city is still awe inspiring, and I see buildings or streets or scenes every day that deserve more than just a fleeting glance.  But now I live here.  I have daily and weekly activities, and most of the time I might as well be living anywhere else; my thoughts and actions, revolving around school or work or whatever else, would be mostly the same.
          So, I thought I'd just write about my day and see how that goes.  I'm afraid it will be terribly boring, but I'm going to do it anyways.  Today is Sunday.  Ok, that's a good start.  Sunday for us means church, even though for the past month or so Kyha has had to work 10-6 on Sundays, so, sadly, no church for her.  We've been going to Hillsong, which we like.  The music is great, of course, and so is the preaching.  However, I take Sundays off of bike riding, so I have to leave our apartment around 8:15ish to catch the 2 or 3 train downtown to Time Square station, where I transfer to the N, Q, or R train to Union Square in order to get in line at Hillsong by 9:00 so I can get a good seat at the 10:00 service (yes, there is a line for this church, which is the worst part).  Every Sunday after church, in an effort to make my life more like all of the New York based movies and TV shows I have ever seen, walk two blocks to a little diner called Joe Junior.  It is wonderful.  Wood paneling on the walls, a TV on mute hung in the corner, a conspicuous bag of garlic nailed to the wall above the old metal cash register.  Every week I sit at the bar and order the same thing, pancakes with two eggs over easy, and no thanks, I'll just have water to drink.  And every week I go in there with the naive hope that today will be the day the waiter makes my life complete and says "Goodmorning.  Just the usual today?"  But, instead, I politely decline a menu and say I'll have pancakes with two eggs over easy.  Maybe next week will be the week.
          I'm usually done eating around noon, which means I have two hours until I have to be at work.  It's about a half an hour walk across town, but I fill the time with some exploring.  I'll duck into antique shops or book stores, sit in a park and people watch, or just walk around.  Today I went to the Stumptown Coffee on 29th street, since Kyha is such a big fan of theirs.  It's attached to a fancy hotel, and their seating area is the hotel lobby.  So after the hipsters behind the bar kindly made a tea for me, because I'm boring, I went into the lobby to read for an hour.  Now, this is not your typical hotel lobby.  It's poorly lit, I suppose for effect, with dark couches and armchairs placed close together in such a way which assumes that the strangers sitting in them will want to talk to each other, when actually nobody wants to talk to anybody.  It is New York, after all.
          After that I walked to work, where I did work things, and then I rode the Subway home and had dinner with my lovely wife.  Now I'm sitting on my fire escape writing this because the weather is perfect.  That was my Sunday folks.  I'm going to go to sleep now.

The Internets

          For the first time ever, I am writing this blog from our apartment!  Yes, we finally signed up for internet service.  Yes, we've been going without the internet for the past two and a half months.  We also don't have a TV.  Or a microwave.  Or cars.  And I guess thats not that much to live without.  A lot of people live with a lot less.  I thought I wouldn't miss TV, but it's been hard sitting around not knowing who the mother is on How I Met Your Mother, or what's going on on The Walking Dead, or what happened in the apparently amazing final season of Breaking Bad.

          As far as living without a microwave, that's been less hard.  I don't even think about it anymore.  If I need to heat up some leftovers, I just use a stove and a pan, like they did in the olden days.  We also don't have anything at all in our freezer ever, so no microwave burritos to warm up.  We wouldn't really have any room for a microwave on our counters anyways.  Living without a car has been something I've gotten used to sort of automatically.  It's pretty easy in New York, with the subways and buses.  And a lot of other people feel the same way only a quarter of the people who live in Manhattan own a car.  And even if I did have a car, I wouldn't want to use it with all the traffic and difficulties finding a parking spot.  I still think biking is the best way to get around, even though it's freezing outside now.  I actually made it home from work on my bike in half an hour on Sunday, which is a few minutes faster than it would have taken me on the subway, but that's only because it's like a half mile walk from my work to the nearest subway station.  I do miss driving sometimes.  I think about driving to Spokane or Pullman, with some gummy worms and an iced tea from the gas station and the music on, and man that sounds fun.  

          In other news, there is only like 5 weeks left in the semester, so I'm going to be writing a lot of papers.  Kyha got a raise at work, and now has a set of keys to be responsible for opening and closing!

          Ok, that's it for now.  If you need me, I'll be catching up on all of the Netflix time I've been missing.