How did you spend the Millennium night? Did you do something special? You wouldn't believe what I did on that night. You know I'm going to tell you all about it, but not now. Let's start with some other things.
My apartment is on the corner of 14th Street and 8th Ave. My job was on 22nd Street and 7th Ave. A small math question. If it takes 1 minute to walk a street and 3 minutes to walk an avenue, when should Barak wake up if he wants to be in the office at 9:00 AM?
But the good days have passed. Now the company office moved to 37th street and 5th Ave. - Too long to walk. So I take the subway.
The subway in Manhattan is very good. I take the A train (really! but I can also take the E or C trains) downtown (Blue arrows) to 4th street and 6th Ave. Then I go uptown on the B, D, F, or Q trains (Orange arrows) to 34th and 6th Ave. I walk from there to work. Altogether, including waiting at the subway stations, it takes 20-25 minutes. It's worse than the previous 10 minutes walk, but it's still not that bad.
But some days the subway turns bad... and when it does, it's really bad. I was on the F train on 14th street, waiting for the train to start moving towards the next station on 23rd street. But it didn't. We waited a few minutes, and then a set of speakers on the top of the car told us the news: "Ladies and Gentlemen - we're sorry for the delay, but it seems that on 23rd there is a passenger under the train...". The moment I heard that I got off the train. I waited for a bus, but no rescue came from that direction. Actually I was lucky that I didn't take a bus. As I walked on 6th Avenue uptown, I saw that the traffic was really jammed. What would you expect? On 23rd Street the Fire Department guys (that handle such rescue operations) blocked the streets with 10 of those red long cars.
The second time it happened was when I returned from Israel - the December visit. I landed at JFK and took the subway to Manhattan - once again, the A train. Usually it takes about an hour, but there was a fire in one of the far stations that caused delays. It took me 2 1/2 hours to get home.
So should I take a Taxi? Sometimes I do, but during the day it's a lot slower than the subway.
Maybe talking about the subway is not funny, but it's an important part of living here in New York. Most people I know (that live in Manhattan) don't have a car. It's too expensive to have one in the city. Parking during the day usually costs more than $10 (+ tax) an hour, and street cleaning rules are so complex that you're bound to get parking tickets every once in a while. Plus, and that's really nice - the tax for parking is 18.25% where most other things (Like McDonalds) have only 8.25%. It's the City's way of saying "Don't have a car". If only it were like that in Tel-Aviv.
(Editor's note: not in this life time, thank you very much!!
Mental note: Cancel Mr. Roni H. From the distribution list)And the answer to the previous question - The question is invalid. I never want to be at the office so early.
Every year, my company (WSG) has a company party. All employees including spouses are invited, and so are some of the customers of WSG. Oh, and I forgot to say one thing - formal dressing. So I put on my best suit (my only suit), borrowed a tie from Eran and headed to the Marriott Hotel near Times Square. Here's a picture of some of the co-workers in WSG.
So you've seen some of the people that work with me. But I know what you really want to see. You want the real scoop. Well - here it is. Oh my god, I'm so ashamed. If they see this picture in Rosh-Pinna they wouldn't let me vote in the next election, and my brother needs every vote possible.
Once again, the Americans are excellent when it comes to trying to sell you stuff. As you know, I'm interested in home theater equipment. There's a very good home theater magazine called Stereophile's Guide to Home Theater (SGHT). I bought one issue in a newsstand, and decided to register to this magazine. They always put registration postcards inside the magazines. Here's the postcard:
Now, you might need a calculator for this calculation: How much more do you save if you pay $29.94 for 20 issues instead of $14.97 for 10 issues?
Before talking about the Millennium night, let's talk about Halloween. On Halloween there's a parade in New York that runs on 6th Ave. I can reach the 6th Ave. in less than 10 minutes. But (there's always a "But") there were many people on the streets. How many? I stopped counting at 9,564,968.
When there are so many people in the streets, the NYPD (Don't let the TV show fool you) gets into action and starts blocking streets - for mortal men on feet. Not just cars. We couldn't cross the streets. The moment we came near 6th Ave. we knew we should turn back. Still, the experience took us a total of more than 2 hours.
I didn't plan on making even a bigger mistake on News Year's Eve. I was with friends, so we came near Times Square at around 10:10 PM. How near? A few hundred meters. We couldn't see the ball, or even Times Square itself. I went home 15 minutes later, and saw the ball drop on TV. People who wanted good spots came to Times Square 12-8 hours in advance. I'd rather see a Melanie Griffith movie than stand like a fool for so many hours.
And that's the whole story. See you in the next Millennium.
- "Should we arrest David Coperfield?" Dana Scully after looking at something that looks like pure magic
- "Yes, but not for this" Fox Mulder
