Live Life. Life is Short. Life is an Adventure.

Diary: 23-24^th February 2007 - Month 4

This weekend I managed to achieve two great nights in a row in New York City.

On Friday night I was honored to have dinner at asiate and meet some new friends. With a lovely view of part of NY Lower West Side from the 35^th floor (except for a blaring neo CNN sign), it was a night to savor. You can also simply enjoy the view by just visiting the lounge on the 35^th floor. Making a booking helps!

On Saturday night I had dinner at Breeze, a cute Thai restaurant, and then Phantom of the Opera. This was the Broadway show I have always really wanted to see and I not only enjoyed a great show, I got the goss on the best seats (which I got), and I also had the pleasure of enjoy the evening with a NY local and Phantom junkie (special thanks B.).

Given I’d never read anything about Phantom, I missed nothing not knowing anything about the show, except for the extra added scare tactic by my host.

I met up with good friend Jay last week at the airport hotel in LA as we crossed paths. He had a great t-shirt on. Here is the actual image courtesy of XKCD, an excellent online comic. Buy Online.

What was just as funny was a lady at the bar asking what it meant, then asked me, “What’s My-squawl?”, when it was MySQL.

Message on JetBlue airplane inseat TV screen.

Diary: 19^th February 2007 - Month 4

In Jersey City, New Jersey if you stand on the corner waiting to cross the street people stare at you. Jaywalking is just a part of every day life here. At least in New York City, people take some care in Jaywalking, in Jersey City people just walk out onto the street regardless of moving vehicles. In Brisbane, Australia you can be booked for Jaywalking and have to pay a fine. I’ve met somebody that has been booked. I’ve observed police waiting to book people at intersections. Generally you just need to be very observant.

Today while standing at an intersection with traffic lights waiting to walk across, two police officers crossed to the corner, walked straight past me, then proceeded 10 meters from the intersection to cross the road into traffic. Obviously other forms of revenue are more profitable.

Speaking of revenue, this week in Hollywood California I observed on Sunset Blvd tow-trucks ready and towing vehicles in a clearway zone between 4pm and 7pm. It was barely 4:10pm. Apparently all the locals know exactly where the two lots for towed cars are, seems like a common and expensive California experience that I plan to avoid.

Diary: 16^th February 2006 - Month 4

I was waiting at the LAX airport tonight and I strolled into a book store. I was looking for something to read, spurned by an earlier email that included a question, “What book are you reading now?” My answer was limited to mainly online stuff, I have 3 books from Amazon at least a month ago I haven’t looked at.

The first book I was drawn to was “The world is flat” by Thomas Friedman. I spent time looking into the history section, after having become more interested in American History from my time in Washington DC. I looked for my favorite author Raymond E. Feist without success. I spent some time in the Classics, Poetry, Business as well as Technology. In the end, I was drawn back to the Classics section because I’d never read any of them. Literally. I’ve never read any Shakespeare, Hemingway, Mark Twain, Dickens. There were books including “Moby Dick”, “War and Peace”, “To Kill a Mockingbird”.

So I’ve decreed along with many other new things this year, I’m going to spend time reading some of the classics. I have started with The Catcher in the Rye. Friends with ideas and suggestions for what I should work with next, your comments are welcome.

Diary: 10 ^th February 2007 - Month 4

It seems like so long since I wrote anything (I look at my blog and there are no entries for February yet, where I’ve been averaging normally 20+ a month). Work has been keeping me extremely busy with time just in the past 2 weeks in Orlando Florida, Dallas Texas, and Quakertown (near Philadelphia) Pennsylvania. I see I’ve got a few draft blogs so I’m going so I’ll try to get to them over the weekend before heading of to Hollywood, Los Angeles for my next week’s work. So the hit list of some blogs to come include:

• NY Philharmonic - Done - read
• Orlando Magic - Second Done - read
• Poker MySQL Style
• Team Bonding MySQL style
• My first Mardi Gras
• Hire Cars

Not to mention at least 3 half finished Washington entries still!

Great words from my fortune cookie at lunch today, working with a customer where everything wasn’t going great. Let’s hope it’s true for my future!