jay | leaving *real* bagels behind...

Up at 7am... was somewhat adjusted, it didn't quite feel like 4am anymore. Down to the street to find a sidewalk cart to buy breakfast (no way am I paying $12 for a danish and coffee in the hotel...). I rarely eat bagels except when I'm in New York, but today that was the case... large, surface chewy, tender down inside, a slab of cream cheese... simple, but the ones at home are invariably tough, hard, spongey or too flabby. Coffee and juice and a tip was still well under $5. Back up to my tiny $280/night 9x10 room with no closet or wardrobe (had to hang my shirts and jacket in the bathroom), located next door to the Rockefeller Center. Packed, showered, and off to Honeybee.

Took the subway, but the R instead of 1-9, and was momentarily confused to walk topside near the Empire State Building instead of Penn Station. Reoriented myself, then it started raining. I was still more or less on time to Honeybee (at 34th and 10th Ave). We covered MARTE final drawings and lists and manuals, proposed budgets for the MIB Scout drill, and DAME integration and summer testing. Then joined the daily MIB telecon.

The telecon dragged on... my part was done, and so I headed out for lunch with

sinboy (after I'd shown him a few Mars rover display artifacts). We had a good time catching up, going to an Italian grocery/deli around 37th and 9th Ave. Smoked buffalo mozzarella and soppressa and smoked red peppers... mmm. Between that and the cream cheese, I've used today's calcium ration, pleasantly.

Then a cab back to the hotel, then to Penn Station, then a train to Newark airport and the six-hour flight homeward...

NYC isn't home, or even homelike, per se... but working with these guys at Honeybee over the past three years has brought me here often enough that I'm starting to feel comfortable and to have a vague idea of how things work. Not always (viz. last night's cab) but it isn't disconcerting anymore to adjust. I kind of get off on the energy, actually, the rush and sounds and movement and lights. I like crowds, to some extent. And there are little stories on every block, if I look or listen for them.

It's also interesting to watch the gender-image split... seems like NYC women are often locked in some kind of fashion combat, a feminine one-upswomanship... where generally males seem like irrelevant bystanders. While the guys just wear the usual corporate uniform, or are casually slobby in sports hoodies or polo or T-shirts, on the street.