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Note to self, keep the cats away!

I love TED. I’m not talking about the now-defunct airline. I’m speaking of the conference that has become, in my mind, a ministry of thought. I’ve linked to videos before. You should subscribe to the podcast. There’s great stuff to be had. I recently listened to Barry Schwartz talk about the real crisis: our loss of wisdom. And then today, I had this happen to me:

I rode my folding bike to work, and thus home as well. This evening I passed through the turnstiles with folded bike in hand, and proceeded to the back of the train, my usual spot. As I was to enter, a policeman stopped me and told me bikes weren’t allowed on the the trains until 6:30pm (an arbitrary time when rush-hour is apparently complete). I’ve never had a problem taking a folding bike on the train, and asked him if the rules had recently changed; he said no. I then consulted a PATH train employee, and he indicated while the rules do prohibit bikes, they typically let folding bikes pass. The policeman said he only stopped me because he got chewed out by his superior yesterday. So did I wait the 20 minutes? No, I left that entrance, went down the stairs and back up where I could enter from the other side of the train, and headed towards the front, away from the policeman. Two minutes later the train left the station, where another guy with a folding bike was still waiting for time to pass.

But here’s the thing: in my car, there were 10 empty seats. I was among two people standing, in a car that’s 51 feet long and more than 9 feet wide. There was space to spare – I could have ridden my bike in the car! That amount of people is normal for that train at that time, i.e. there’s always room for bikes, especially bikes that fold. So why was I stopped? Because rules have over-ridden practical, everyday wisdom.

Self portrait, with folding bike

These are the kind of people who make me hate New York.  The people who have lived here for years but have never ventured to Brooklyn, let alone a foreign state like New Jersey!  I almost stopped reading this article after the first sentence of the second paragraph in which the writer felt to compelled to not-so-casually drop the names of the brands she was wearing (like so many people do here), but I soldiered on until the end.  You may remember David’s post where he also expressed exasperation with the people here.  I’ll just echo his “c’mon people.”

I barely remember the brief family visit to NYC years ago, but I remember it feeling very dirty. It probably was, and seemed even more so to a niave young Midwesterner. I know the metropolis has been cleaned up significantly since, but it still surprises me to see the lengths we go to keep appearances up; to make things look authentic, historic, natural (for a city). There are crazy examples of the same but different thing happening in other contexts, but to see such an effort to hide cell phone antennas, still makes me pause:

Find the cell phone antennas on this historic NYC building!

I wonder what kind of radiation those people on the top floor are getting.

I hope not, since this was my idea. Tonight is another broadcast in WBGO and NPR’s series from the Village Vanguard in NYC. I heard a set last night, and the music should be great. You can tune at the regular spots, but tonight’s twist is we’re adding video. Just a static shot in a dimly-lit room for now, but we hope it provides even more ‘added value’ as the marketers would say. Check it out tonight – 9pm EST.

My alarm went off at 4:30, so I’d have time to start the caramel rolls before we left the house at 5:30ish. Once we got into the city, we stopped by a deli for some breakfast sandwiches to go with our hot chocolate in a thermos. Got to our viewing area around 7am, and the crowd was pretty small. It filled out quite a bit in an hour’s time – by 8am we basically couldn’t move, though we had everyone from little stuck up, poorly-parented kids pushing through to elderly people hitting us with their bags. Fisticuffs almost broke out at one point between some definite Jersians; a fun time was had by all! We stayed for maybe half of it, then fought our way through the crowd to freedom. Enjoy the pics!

I went sans Adrienne to the balloon inflation held on the north and south sides of the American Museum of Natural History on the Upper West Side. They warned of crowds… yeah, I’ll say! It was still kinda cool to see. But I don’t think I’ll be going back. But, you can enjoy the pictures, after the jump. (more…)

I had the opportunity to go to the absolute top of the Trump World Tower this (very cold and very windy!) morning.

Click here to open a new window with the big(!) 7.2MB 360-degree panoramic pic.

And check Focus to the left for a couple more ground pics.

A recent poll names the Chicago Symphony Orchestra the top American Orchestra – far surpassing even Boston or New York. Ha! (wait a second, where do I live now?) Of note, the famous Chicago Brass sound is credited. And while I find sounds to be tending more homogenous lately, there really is something to the Chicago school of brass playing (the one that I grew up learning, if not completely emulating). Which is a great segue to say, if you don’t yet have the CD featuring (among others) the brass players of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra playing the music of Gabrieli, get it! Being all brassy and antiphonal and whatnot, it’s a great album for the holiday season for those of you that might associate such things.

I worked all day Saturday, so it was nice to have a lazy Sunday morning:

Later we headed into the city to do some shopping. Which makes one need some nourishment:

That’s my Jamba Juice, an Aloha Pineapple. We’d never had Tastidlite, so we gave it a try. Dunno that we’ll be going back.

On our way to Trader Joes for a wine run, we stopped at Whole Foods to see if they still had any honeycrisps, and Adrienne was excited that they did:

From Washington State, no less. So much for buying locally…

Eventually we got home and whipped up some dinner, steelhead trout with white asparagus. I’m not sure I’m a white asparagus fan. Live and learn, I guess.

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Nice to have a relaxing Sunday. Too bad it’s back to work tomorrow!