My First Trip to NewYork

My First Trip to NewYork

These past few days here in New York have been my first exposure to the Big Apple. While I was a bit nervous about spending time in a large fruit it turns out that the big city is very interesting and an experience that all who count themselves cultured should have.

Sunday afternoon I caught a flight out of Denver International Airport. If you've ever been to DIA, then you know that it is a gigantic and very nice airport. You even have to take a train from the entrance to 1 of 3 terminals in order to fly out! Thus it came as a great surprise to me when the plane finally touched down at LaGuardia Airport in New York. I had thoughts of being greeted by fanciness and class. Alas Laguardia was, well, like a well worn shoe :-)

Nevertheless I obtained my bags and walked out to stand in a 20 minute long line for a cab where I struck up a conversation with a very nice man from 'Queens'. He broke my stereotype of New Yorkers as gruff and uncaring people (and as I would later discuss with my new Manager Garrett....New York is all about diversity and breaking stereotypes!).

After checking in to my hotel I decided to take a walk and get something to eat. I was a little afraid of getting robbed (stereotype #2) so I was walking with an alert eye and ready to defend myself at any moment. I kept remembering all the horror stories from my old Jiu-Jitsu instructors from New York. I was ready to perform an Asha Garuma (leg wheel throw) followed by an arm or wrist lock to any potential villains along the way. Eventually my mind was settled that New York City was acceptably safe after all.

I eventually found a pizza shop on Times Square. But the pizza wasn't great. I was disappointed that stereotype #3 about New York wasn't as true :-/ (Later I gave another pizza shop a shot and their pizza was great...stereotype #3 = true!)

The next two days of my trip involved meeting with Warner Bros and making sure that the creative shops knew how to use Motif AdKit to its fullest capacity. Though I wont go over all the details of the meetings, WB and the creative shops we met with are now further on board with Motif.

Aside from the meetings, however, Monday night we took Warner Bros out to dinner at a restaurant called Japonais (http://www.japonaischicago.com/ this is the Chicago version...the NY one is similar).

IT WAS SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO GOOD!!!!!!!!! First we had about 10 rounds of Sushi and Sashimi. Nothing beats a master sushi chef with fresh out-of-the-water-fish.

But the highlight of Japonais was the Kobe Wagyu style Sirloin steak. I nearly died of happiness when I took the first bite. Being from Texas and all, I really thought that I knew what good steak was. Well, those red meat eating Texans could learn a thing or two from the Japanese that's for sure!

Oh and I also saw a small fraction of Central Park that afternoon. We also made a whirlwind tour through MoMA (the museum of modern art).

Waking up a bit tired on Tuesday I proceeded to some more meetings with WB and their creative shops. Again we presented our material, the creative shops listened and the meetings adjourned without any wrestling matches.

After the meetings I had the pleasure of meeting Fan Zhang and Garrett Cronin in person for the first time! Fan was kind enough to take me around the office and introduce me to all the Adapt folks there. I even learned that in fact there are two Theo's that work at DoubleClick! Luckily I work in Colorado and the other Theo is New York.

Another dinner with WB and another 15 block walk back to the hotel. I decided that I would take as few cab rides as possible in order to prevent all those appetizers and desserts from going straight to my 'Buddha' (my own slang for my ever more rounding belly).

As I headed for the DoubleClick office Wednesday morning I stopped for a bagel and put a check mark next to another New York stereotype: awesome Bagels!

Lunch found Garrett, Fan and I eating fish products and banana pudding at a little restaurant in Greenwich Village called Mary's Fish House. It was very delicious! Our conversation turned to marking out the differences between Colorado and New York. And the difference is....diversity (well that and mountains, way less people, clean air, real estate that you can afford and not be the size of a shoebox...etc)! New York's vast range of ethnicities, cultures and languages is really cool. I think I heard at least 5 different languages as I walked along the streets.

Finally it was time to go. I got my bags, walked out to the street put up my hand and was soon picked up by a Taxi who then drove me at 1000 mph to LaGuardia Airport. It was like being in an F-16 fighter jet! So now here I am back in the Rocky Mountains, with fresh air, clean streets and not a honking horn or siren to be heard. Home sweet home!