Tales from Jersey City and beyond

I'm back from my first "Business Trip" (boy, never thought I'd say that!) to Jersey City and New York and it was quite the journey. Here's what I came away with:

-It's officially time to make Pouy my legal middle name. I'd looked up the process once before but decided it was too much work once I saw scary legal words like "judge," "notorized," and "affidavit." (Although one of the steps that excited me was the "notice of petition to the public, meaning an advertisement in a local newspaper." How cool would that be?? My 15 minutes of fame in the Springfield Connection!) But after my drama with the airports and having to get pulled into a special security screening area by TSA after my ticket reservation read "Pouy" instead of my legal name, I decided I was over it! I figure if I'm really trying to be Pouy in all facets of my life, I should at least have a piece of ID that shows that, right?

-There is such thing as cab driver karma. On my inbound trip, I had probably the worst cab driver ever, who insisted on driving a steady 70 miles per hour the entire trip, windows down, cursing at every car and leaving me praying I would make it to the hotel alive. Granted, he did cut down what should be at least a 20 minute trip to about 12. On the way out, however, I had the nicest driver I've ever met. He was on the phone checking to see if my flight was on time, scanned the radio station for weather and airport updates, gave me the option of writing out my own receipt in case I felt like ripping off my company and pocketing some extra cash (I found out he was testing me to see whether I was an honest person -- I passed!), and was basically a ridiculously genuine and sincere human being (not to say that's out of the question for a cab driver, but...). It was a little over the top, but he even gave me this big schpeel about how when he's behind the wheel it's his passengers first, and he'd never go all road rage crazy with anyone in the car, because it's his job and someone else's life. Anyway, point is, I was glad I got into his car, and in the end he got a nice tip.

-I had what was yet another random "only in New York" moment/experience on Sunday as I watched the World Cup final with Laura. Right around the bend from Lo's apartment is a little French café that, in honor of the final, placed a large flat screen TV in front of its storefront on the sidewalk and set up benches and chairs for some loyal patrons. Hours later, as the game entered overtime and eventually the PKs, there were probably close to 100 people crowded around watching the game, blocking the streets (that sure got the Po-Po's attention) as if it were a completely normal thing. And to make things even more interesting, sitting center stage in a seat right in front of the TV was none other than Andrew McCarthy, popular '80s actor of "Pretty in Pink" and "Mannequin" (or, as I like to remember him, "Weekend at Bernie's") fame. Like I said, only in New York.

-Bloomberg looks like the coolest place to work, ever. Ok, at least on the east coast (damn you, Google!). For one of our field trips -- the other was to see the NASDAQ opening bell, which was exciting, but admittedly not nearly as cool as NYSE would have been -- we got to visit an employee at the Bloomberg offices to check out how they use our company's services and basically what they do with it. What we found out, aside from very valuable information about how our clients use our news, is that Bloomberg takes good care of its employees. The interior of building itself was a ridiculous show of modern excess, complete with spiral escalators, tropical fish tanks, and basically lots of glass. I decided I definitely would love to work there, if only for the awesome free snack/café bar with fresh fruit and other tasty treats at my fingertips.

-During one of our classic corporate training sessions, I definitely confirmed myself as a combination of a "rational" (type A!!!) and "harmonious" (everyone's happy, right??) type after discussing the four communication/personality styles that people possess. Just ask Auddie about some of the conversations I'll have with myself about my daily schedules: "Ok, I'll wake up at 8:15, ready by 8:50, out the door by 9, arriving at destination at 9:30, allow 20 minutes extra for possible traffic/parking, etc..." Yeah, I'm nutso. It's amazing I'm ever able to settle on a time to set my alarm clock in the morning.

-Jersey City ain't so bad. Ok, so the hotel didn't exactly have my name under the group reservation and I had to throw down my credit card to book myself a room, and after much drama was told by an employee that I was just "the talk of the hotel all afternoon" as they tried to figure out where they screwed up, but in the end, they still gave me a warm and delicious chocolate chip cookie that seemed to be fresh out of the oven even though it was simply pulled from some mysterious place under the counter. And at least the room I got had a great view, right? (see below: looks just like the sunrise by the river house from last week, doesn't it?) Really, just a stone's throw to Manhattan...

Additional photos on my Flickr.