So, I am typing away in the wifi enabled waiting room in the Lexus Service Dept. It's full of sandwiches, refrigerated water, flatscreens, magazines, and nice chairs. I am in for my 5,000 miles check (which I am electing to take at 4,200 miles).


Something like this, but with catered food.

Anyway, I just got back yesterday from a weekend in NYC. I am going to convince Reid to live there because it's the best city in the world . The best part is I live like 45 minutes away.

Oh, I don't think I mentioned yet that Danielle and I are broken up. Basically, I thought that our professional situations were too different for the next few years, and I wanted to experience the single life. We are trying to remain good friends though, because it's not like we broke up from a hatred of each other.

I drove in to the city on Friday night to visit my friends Brandon and Derek from high school. We went out and met up with Derek (different Derek, prittay good on FTP) and his gf Katie. We went out to a few places in the West Village. I got back and passed out on the couch at Brandon's apartment because the queen size blow up mattress he had been pimping up so much somehow wasn't blowing up with air. I woke up with gatorade by my side and a blanket draped over me so that's a win I guess. Then the adventure began.

I was going to move my car from the garage where it was on Friday uptown on Saturday, so I showed up around noon on Saturday to do that. Well, somehow they had lost my keys. I wound up speaking to some manager on the phone, and trying to remain patient as I was told they had no idea where they were. I went back to where the car was parked and searched around with an attendant but couldn't find anything. I told the manager that I was coming back the next day and expected the problem to be fixed. In addition, I wasn't going to ask that my now forced taxi rides be comped, but I did tell him that I thought it was reasonable for my 2 night stay in the garage to be free. He agreed which was nice since it saved me $70. I used that saved money + more to buy an outfit for Saturday night since I wasn't originally planning on staying both nights.

Getting into Derek's apartment in the West Village wound up being a disaster. My phone died, so I got to his apartment building but didn't know which one was his. I couldn't call, but I wound up finagling my way inside. His name wasn't on the listing because he was sub-leasing!!!!!!!!

Somehow, the mailman was in the building at the same time and I asked if he knew Derek. He said yes, and that I had just missed him by under five minutes. He thought he came from one of three apartments down the hall, so I knocked on all three doors and got zero answers. Of course, Derek was inside his apartment (one of the doors I knocked on) and just didn't hear. I went back outside and started to wander the streets for a Verizon store to buy a charger. I wound up paying some guy $5 so I could call Derek, but obviously he didn't pick up. I finally wandered around and used a pay phone (I probably have a disease on my ear now) to call him collect. I finally contacted him and told him to come let me in. As I walked up to the door, Katie showed up from down the street and said, "oh cool, good timing." I explained to her that I had been trying to get in for over an hour at that point .

As I had previously mentioned in a blog post, Derek and Katie are really good cooks. We went down to the meat packing district and got some Chilean sea bass for dinner, as well as this exotic rice, baby carrots, and bokchoi. They were delicious.

We went out and met up with Brandon and one of his co-workers. We went to some bar that spanned an entire block (although it was narrow) and then to another bar that had a techno room as well as a hip-hop/80s room. After, we got some pizza and I experienced "taco stand," which is this mobile mexican food van that somehow cooks legitimate mexican food.

The coolest part about the city is that there are a million things to do. You can literally change what you do every night, and it would take years to experience everything that the city has to offer. I feel like it's one of the best places in the world for a single guy in his 20s (especially with some extra cash), and it almost feels silly to pass up on living in some place where tons of people aspire to one day.

Who knows. My car is ready. Enough multitasking for the day.

Greg