On location: NYC...

Yo, whats up everybody? I'm down here in NYC for work related purposes. I'm all about making customers happy. That's me in a nutshell. (Help help! How did I get in this bloody nutshell??)

I arrived here yesterday. On the trip down, I first sat in some Boston traffic on the way to the airport, then I took a short plane ride, and finally, I sat in some NYC traffic on the way to my hotel. I spent less time in the plane than in the car... Hmmmm.

Anyway, couple quick observations:

1. Its hot down here and very humid, but I don't mind it. If I start to think it's too hot, I just think about the time I spent pushing my snow-blower up and down my driveway last winter. Nuff said.

2. Eye-candy abounds down here.

3. The people working at Dunkins could use some training on making breakfast sandwiches, especially the part where they actually cook them. I'm not really complaining though. The mere existence of a nearby Dunkins is like an oasis in this land of Starbucks.

[Side note]

The first time I came down here, I really had to bust my ass for this customer and I wound up drinking lots of coffee because I would get so tired and frazzled. The only coffee I could get was Starbucks and got sooo godamm sick of it, but I needed caffeine to keep me going so I was forced to drink it. As I was walking back to my hotel after a long day, I saw a guy crossing the street with a Dunkin's cup in his hand. I ran up to him, pointed at his Dunkin's coffee and frantically asked him, "WHERE'D YOU GET THAT??"

The guy was taken aback a little since he was probably not used to crazy people getting in his face and asking about his coffee, but he quickly realized what was going on. He pointed down the street and said, "Right down there dude, but it's not as good as Boston Dunkins."

That is true, but New York Dunkins is better than no Dunkins.

[/side note]

4. The people I'm with think I'm a little nuts because I walk all over the place and don't take cabs. I like the exercise and besides that I'm too cheap to pay cab fairs to get around. Plus I hate dealing with receipts and filling out expense reports.

5. My first day here I secretly wore my 04 ALCS Championship shirt under my work shirt. It was like I was a spy hiding my secret identity while I was in Enemy Territory. 

So, last night after I got out of work, I walked over to Hells Kitchen to visit a friend of mine who has an apartment there. It was a long day with the customers so it was nice to just chill out and way better than sitting around in my hotel by myself. We were just hanging out, relaxing, drinking a beer and watching baseball. Sounds normal right? Wrong. We were watching The Yankees game. WHAT??

I was in bizzarro world. Here we were, 2 Sox fans, sitting around in NYC having a couple beers watching The Yankees play The Pirates. I felt like I was in some weird alternate dimension as I listened to the YES network announcers gush over the different Yankees players as they came to bat and watched the YES network promos that all seemed to start with, "The New York Yankees are the GREATEST TEAM IN THE HISTORY OF SPORTS..." Gack!!

It was most disorienting, kind of like that Star Trek episode where there's a transporter malfunction and the Kirk winds up in that parallel universe where Spock has a goatee and Sulu wants to assassinate him so he can become Captain of The Enterprise... (Yes. I'm a nerd.)

Getting back to reality... As we watched the game, I was rooting for the Pirates (of course) and muttering insults at each Yankee player as they came up to bat.

After a couple of innings in this strange parallel universe, I asked my friend, "Don't you get NESN down here?"

"Nope."

"Dude ya gotta get game day audio or something, come on! Spend the 10 bucks and become an official member of Red Sox Nation. How can you live like this?!"

After a couple innings I had started to have enough of the Yankees game, especially since the Yankees were winning, and I asked my friend, "Aren't there any bars around here that show The Sox? Where are all the secret Red Sox bars?"

We wound up going down to a bar called The Mercury, where they have large screens showing both The Sox and The Yankees. We walked in and I saw Fenway and The Sox playahs dressed in their whites along with the familiar NESN graphics. Ahhhh. Much better. Good old, soothing green Fenway Park.

We were served by a lovely Irish lass who served a strong gin and tonic and put the Sox game on the TV screen right where we were sitting.

David Wells pitched a gem of a game and the Sox were swinging the bats and scoring runs. Mike Timmlann ("whoa Black Betty, bam-a-lamm..") and Keith Foulke came in and were both were lights out. Wells, Timmlann and Foulke combined for a 1 hitter. Nice.

Today is going to be a long day. I'll be at the customer from 6AM till after 7 PM.

When I get out of work, my friend is going to take me to a place called Harrison's to watch the final game in the '75 Vengeance Series vs The Reds. That's my light at the end of the tunnel for today. No matter how long and sucky today may wind up being, at least I can relax and watch The Sox tonight.