Trip Highlights - Week #3

This week was an overnight in White Plains (yes, I know it's close to home but I had to be there until 9PM and back the next morning at 7AM - just easier to stay over) and Portland, ME.

All my meals were in hotels so no good food stories there. The Crowne Plaza in White Plains is a lousy hotel so all I could do is complain - which I won't.

I do love Portland, however. It is a very manageable town - I love that the airport is about a 10 minute drive from the heart of the city. The best part of my trip there was that I flew up in a prop. I haven't been in a prop in a long time, but this was a new version. Seating for 74 people and relatively quiet (for a prop). One of the things I like about props is that you really feel like your flying. Yes, we got bounced around a lot due to high winds, but there is something about it that just feels more exciting. Regional jets usually fly at higher altitudes so the combination of this being a prop and the short flight (50-60 minutes of air time) meant that we flew at 15,000 feet. Aside from the winds, the weather was brilliant and the flight provided a grand view of the New England countryside. The fall colors were much brighter a few weeks ago, but there was still plenty of orange left, mixed with a light blanket of snow at higher altitudes. It really was quite relaxing - almost a zen moment.

Still battling the remnants of a cold that started when I began my travels, so not feeling 100% but getting there. Sunday I leave for Denmark which I expect will be the most exciting of my six weeks of travel. Even the weather looks like it will cooperate with daytime highs reaching 50 rather than the usual high 30's at this time of year.

Trip Highlights - Week #2

Two weeks down - four to go . . .

This week was Orlando where I spoke and exhibited at a healthcare IT conference. It was very exhausting and not terribly exciting. Had one good meal at Vito's Chop House where our head waiter and his assistant both remembered me from when I hosted a dinner there for about 25 people last February. I guess I tipped well.

There were two interesting things that I observed. One was on the day I was leaving, the hotel's directory of events listed "Food For The Poor - Dinner." Now I know that this was a dinner being held for the organizer's of this cause, but I thought it was just dripping in irony.

The second was when I landed at Newark Friday night. There is usually a lot of traffic coming into the city through the Lincoln Tunnel on Friday evenings, but when I asked the cab driver how traffic was, he said it was very good. He said that since the economic crisis started, less people were coming into the city on the weekends - I guess for many it is an expensive proposition. Bad news for NYC businesses - good news for motorists.

Off to Portland, ME next week . . .

More Bushisms

I was out of town last week and came back to find these two gems on my George W. Bushisms calendar. The first one is quite timely - especially the first sentence - given the events of recent weeks, and the second is just one of those that make you shake your head in disgust.

"We're concerned about the short-term economic news, but long-term I'm optimistic. And so, I hope investors, you know - secondly, I hope investors hold investments for periods of time - that I've always found the best investments are those that you salt away based on economics."

-- Austin, Texas; January 4, 2001

"It's very interesting when you think about it, the slaves who left here to go to America, because of their steadfast and their religion and their belief in freedom, helped change America."

-- Dakar, Senegal; July 8, 2003

Only 92 days left!

The Yuck Factor

I passed a restaurant on 92nd Street and Amsterdam Avenue today called Yuki Sushi. I know it is probably supposed to be pronounced "You - key" Sushi, but the part of my brain that causes silly little grins to appear on my face couldn't help wonder how many people call it "Yuck-ee" Sushi.

Trip Highlights - Week #1

I started a six-week stretch of travel this week. Some of it is grueling, but at least I am home most weekends and going to some interesting places. I decided that one of the ways to relieve the stress would be to create a blog entry for each week listing any interesting experiences - good or bad, culinary or otherwise.

This week was San Francisco. I love SF, but I also had a terrible head cold which, on top of a significant workload, limited any leisure time. There was really nothing of interest that happened. Flights were on time and incident-free. No crazy cab drivers. Kind of boring from that perspective, so I thought I would write about food.

My client in SF is located at the crossroads of North Beach and Chinatown, and my hotel was a short walk away sandwiched between Chinatown and the Financial District - both locations making for some outstanding local dining. I had a business dinner at Rose Pistola which is one of my faves, introduced to me by my friend Meryl back when she lived there. Also had an opportunity to grab a sandwich from Molinari's - a true Italian deli in North Beach. Fresh home-made mozzarella, prosciutto, roasted peppers on semolina bread with pesto spread - yum. Lastly, I grabbed food to go from R&G Lounge while I worked and watched the third debate. R&G is one of the larger Chinese restaurants and with a very non-descript exterior and its location on the edge of Chinatown, it had not occurred to me to try it. My client's CEO, however, grew up in SF's Chinatown and recommended it. It was excellent, though I suggest dining in with a group and sampling the seafood specialties.

Next week is Orlando. Not exactly thrill-city if you're there on business. Let's see what kind of trouble I can get into . . .

Time Warner's Cognitive Dissonance

We have Time Warner Cable for both television and internet access. Their service has never been good and though we recently experienced a stretch of about two years with relatively few problems, we have experienced 2 major outages of signal into our home in the past 2 weeks. One lasted 36 hours and another over 12 hours. During the 36 hour outage, they apparently started working on resolving the problem one evening, stopped, and then did not start again until the next afternoon. Their response about this when I called to check the status of the problem was that "We don't work at night."

Approximately 3 hours after the most recent 12 hour outage, I received a call from Time Warner extending me a special offer to switch my phone service to them as well. I refrained from both cursing and maniacal laughter, and explained my recent experience to the rep on the telephone, adding "Since Verizon works at night, I think I'll stick with them for my home phone service." The rep paused, and then asked again whether I was interested in a special offer. Was she deaf?

UPDATE: So a few hours after I posted the above entry, I went through the mail and opened my bill from Time Warner to find that they had not credited me for the first outage which took place several days before the bill was issued. I called Time Warner and after about 10 minutes combined hold and representative research time, the rep issued the appropriate credit. She then asked me if I would like a special offer to switch to their phone service. There was silence on my end for a few moments before I said, "Did you hear nothing I just said about my service being out for 2 days, and again just the other day?"

Mamma mia . . .

Sophisticated Ladies

I was having lunch today with 8-year old Molly and her best friend, Hannah. They were chatting about a classmate's recent birthday party at a theme restaurant called "Mars 2112." They agreed that while it was a fun place, the food was "yucky." Hannah then added, "Well, it only scored a 12 for food in Zagat's." That an eight year old knew this was only slightly more amazing than the fact that both Hannah and Molly know that the top score is a 30, thus confirming the yuck factor of the food.

These are real city girls.