Da New York Story

A few weeks ago, I got a phone call from my dear friend Diane Shannon, asking me if I'd mind driving to New York City for her family's company. My answer, of course, was, "Of course!"

See, the Shannons run Shannon Graphics, a graphic design firm operated out of their home in Sylvania. They do all sorts of things...design plans, website layouts, 3-D computer models of buildings, etc. All kinds of cool stuff. One of their specialties is supervising the building of miniature models of homes, so that architectural firms can have something to demonstrate to their clients what their projects will look like. These are small but very intricate pieces, and relatively fragile. As such, they cannot be shipped by conventional means. (Tom told me of a previous model which had been returned to them by a client via UPS. It arrived in pieces.)

So they have to drive the models to their destinations themselves. However, the sudden timing of this latest job made doing so impossible to schedule...so they asked me. I immediately agreed...I'd never been to New York before, and this was a great chance to do so.

Sadly, however, the whole thing got delayed a great deal when the client they were working for ended up requesting some literally last-second changes just as I was about to depart. This meant the next few weeks of my life were completely up in the air...I was never quite sure when I would have to depart, as the Shannons worked to modify the model to the client's specifications. As soon as it was done, and I had the appropriate time in my schedule, I was on my way.

Well, a week went by. Then I got my schedule for the coming week, and found two 2-day periods where I might be able to go. The first went by with no word. Then, on Wednesday, I got the call...I would leave Thursday morning.

The plan was simple if potentially exhausting: leave early Thursday, drive all day, arrive and check in at a hotel in NYC for the night, wake up early the next morning and drop the model off with the client, leave immediately for home. That's a lotta driving, no doubt, but I actually love being on the road, and was looking forward to the drive almost as much as I was to seeing New York. In addition, the Shannons would be picking up the tab for everything, from gas to meals to paying for my hotel room. In short, this would be pretty much a perfect trip, IMO.

I crashed at their place overnight, and early the following day I and Tom drove to the Budget rent-a-car place just down the street from their house to pick up the vehicle for the trip. It turned out to be a golden PT Cruiser, brand new. Beautiful car, and the back provided just enough room to comfortably situate the model without worrying too much about it sliding around during the trip. A quick load-up of model and provisions followed, and by 8:30 a.m. I was on my way.

The next 12 hours or so were pretty much a non-event, as I drove pretty much non-stop save for occasionally getting gas or grabbing a meal. I brought a ton of homemade mix CDs as well as a 4+ hour shoot interview with the most entertaining talker in wrestling, Jim Cornette. So I was never bored, though my inability to get a full night's sleep the night before came back to haunt me, as for a bit there I felt a wee bit sleepy. But shortly afterward I was right as rain, thanks to the glory of highly caffeinated diet soda.

Around 7 or so, I started pulling into the actual New York area, catching my first glimpse of the city from a distance while on the George Washington Bridge. (How big of a geek am I? All I could think was, "This was the bridge Snake was on at the beginning of Metal Gear Solid 2!") I never completely entered the city proper, for the record...my hotel and rendezvous were actually on Long Island. When I pulled into the parking lot at 8:30 (New York traffic, gotta love it), my initial reaction was kinda disappointed. The area looked, well, a lot like Toledo, really.

After settling in to my awesome room at the Holiday Inn Express (couch, desk, fridge, microwave, full cable, the works), I decided to treat myself to a nice, New York meal. My first reaction was to get something delivered, but nothing that was strictly local seemed to deliver. Not even the Pizza Hut I called. So back out into the world I went, finally settling on a Red Lobster just down the road. Yeah, I traveled 12 hours to eat at a Red Lobster. You tell me you could resist the siren song of that table bread they deliver. Sa-weet!

Afterward, I had a couple more hours to kill before I seriously had to consider bedtime. In the same plaza as the Lobster was a Lowe's Cinemas complex, and a little compare/contrast action with my current employer was hard to resist. The theatre was very nice, and I can now state for the record that some of our customers were not kidding...the ticket prices in Toledo are, in fact, more expensive than the ticket prices in New York. Scary, no?

After briefly considering catching a sneak of "Snakes on a Plane" (I decided I'd rather see that with some peeps...which I did later in the week) I instead decided to see "World Trade Center," thinking that my locale would add a level of resonance to the story, as well as the simple fact that I'd been wanting to see it anyway. The film was, indeed, very good...the most restrained yet emotionally driven film Stone has done yet. Those who have avoided it under the guise that he must have taken some hard-nosed political stances in it, I can only respond, see the movie. This is the most apolitical film Oliver Stone has ever (and probably will ever) make. It is instead a very, very personal story about two men and their experience during that horrific day. The wider implications of the event are not dealt with...much like "Titanic," this is a film about history in direct focus, giving its audience a sense of what it was like by telling us in great detail what it was like for a few of the ones who were there. It is not perfect (a few of the side-plots are focused on a bit too much for my liking...the core of the story is down in the shaft with those men, and going anywhere else just distracts), but it is well worth viewing.

Afterward, it was back to the hotel, where I was able to briefly hop on the net thanks to the executive office suite available for complimentary use. I posted my brief little blog thing there, and also got a wonderfully cool e-mail from Jess which just made my night (thanks again, dude). I also met a very nice guy who came in to use the computers as well...he was looking for a new car and asked if I knew any places online which listed such things. Having been through such problems myself, I was able to point him to a few sites, and we chatted for a few minutes before I really had to excuse myself to try and get some sleep. He shook my hand and told me it had been a genuine pleasure meeting me. I said likewise. Could the day get any nicer?

Nope. Upon reaching my room, I sat upon the toilet and after a second or two, heard a cracking sound. Merely by sitting on it, I had broken my toilet seat. Sigh. I remembered that they had taken my debit card information so that they could charge my card for "incidental" expenditures. Did that include broken toilet seats caused by the weight of my fat a**? I didn't know. (For the record, my account at this point contained about 5 bucks and could not afford even the slightest of charges.) I went down to the front desk and informed the concierge of my little mishap. He took a note. I asked if it would be charged to my card. He said he didn't know. Great. End result was that I was up an hour worrying about this and trying to figure out how to solve it if I did end up getting charged.

I was awoken by my phone ringing at 7:40, about 20 minutes before my wake-up call and about 6 hours after I'd finally gotten to sleep. It was Craig, the client I was dropping the model off to. We arranged a meeting at 9:30 at the Holiday Inn where I was originally gonna stay, about 45 minutes away (it was much closer for him, hence why they were gonna book me there, but it was completely filled when they tried). After a shower, I moseyed downstairs and talked to the morning concierge, asking her about the toilet seat problem. She assured me that I wouldn't be charged for it. All I could think was, "Why weren't you here last night? I could have gotten a full night's sleep." After wolfing down a small continental breakfast, I headed off to the meeting place.

Or, at least, I tried to. The Mapquest directions the Shannons had printed for me were perfectly fine for the first, say, 10 steps, then I got completely lost when I must have been within, oh, a mile or so of the hotel. I say "must have been" because I never actually GOT there. After going well beyond the directed amount of miles and seeing no Holiday Inn in sight, I stopped and asked for directions at a gas station. (I am in NO mood to perpetuate stereotypes about male drivers, thank you, I ALWAYS ask.) The kind gentlemen at the desk tell me, "two lights back, take a right, go a mile or so until you reach a circle in the road, you'll see it to your left." I thank them profusely, as I'm close to running late. So, to the second light! To the right! To a mile later! To...wait, there IS no circle in the road! Nor is there one for a mile after that! Or another mile! Arrgh!

So, back to the main street, stop at ANOTHER gas station and ask. The gentleman (who was operating a pump, for it was a full service station, thus bolstering my theory that I had somehow gone back in time, as I was sure those things didn't exist anymore) barks, "one light back, take a right." O-kay. One light back, take a right, and...lo and behold, a dead-end street! And the only thing on it is a post office! This town's gas station attendants certainly know their geography! So I call Craig to apologize profusely (as I was now very definitely late) and ask for help. He instead tells me to stay at the post office, he knows where it is and will come and meet me. Thank the Flying Spaghetti Monster.

Craig shows up a scant 5 minutes later, a charming and kind man in a shirt and tie. We begin to unload the model from the back. I should mention at this point that I was terrified that somehow my driving had wrecked it and I'd have to drive home and back in the next week...but all was well, and the model pleased him very much. A quick load into his car and we were done. He even gave me a hundred for my troubles, which was a certainly unexpected but thoroughly appreciated bonus. This, in fact, gave me enough disposable income to stop at a Best Buy just down the street from my hotel and grab Heather a movie she'd been looking for all over the place (Night Breed) and Diane a wrestling DVD I've owed her for some time (Best of Samoa Joe).

After a quick load-up of my stuff and an equally quick checking out of the hotel, I was back on the road and heading for home by 11 a.m. Given the previous day's excursion, I figured I'd be back in town by 11 p.m., midnight at the latest, and that was if I made a few stops along the way. Well, a few stops I did make, but they were by no means by choice. I had ignored the fact that coming into town on Thursday was a different animal than leaving on Friday. The traffic in NYC was way more congested than it had been coming in, so I didn't even hit open road until 1 or so. Then, after a clear shot through New Jersey, it all went to hell by the time I hit Pennsylvania. See, they were working on the roads. ACROSS THE WHOLE STATE. So there'd be these huge stretches of, like, ten miles where the road would be one lane. And the traffic would, naturally, grind to a screeching halt miles even before that. It was so bad that I called Heather after one rest stop, then called her about 2 hours later, and I was only MAYBE 30 miles further than when I had last called her. And it went on like this the whole way from PA border to PA border...break out into clear sailing, get a few miles away from a one-lane section, stop with the traffic, inch our way through, and on we went again. Special thanks to Heather and Abby for talking to me on the phone and helping me keep my sanity through this stage.

With all the delays, I didn't make it back to the Shannons' home until 1:30-2 a.m, to find Tom and Diane still awake and waiting for me. They didn't need to do that, though I deeply appreciated it. I had spent about 27 of the previous 40 hours driving there and back. Still, I enjoyed the whole trip immensely. I love long driving, really (when you're moving, at least), and I got to ever-so-briefly acquaint myself with the Big Apple. In fact, my taste was whetted enough to pencil in a unencumbered-by-business excursion sometime in the next year, this time with plenty of time to see stuff. Anyone wanna come with? :)