Sandy

This past week was spent dealing with Sandy and Sandy's aftermath. Last Sunday is when things started. I joined my bar friend at Pony Bar, where we ran into one of our friends who is a musician, and who has lived in HK area for years. We chatted a bit about what to do when Sandy hit, and he had some good places that he shared with us for us to go if we needed information (i.e. what bars in the area were likely to be open with patrons who had transistor radios inside). The weather at that point was windy, but not raining.

They started shutting down all public transportation on Sunday evening. It felt a little like it did when Irene came through the city last year - like you know something is coming, but there was no panic b/c Irene was supposed to be huge and nothing happened with it. My office announced on Sunday night that we were all supposed to work from home on Monday.

Monday day was pleasant. Windy and a little rainy, but nothing major. I was taking care of my building friend's dogs while they were out of town so I headed up to their place during the day to make sure the dogs were okay. Their view faces a different direction than ours, so I sat up there for awhile and just watched the clouds go by. I also happened to notice that Pony Bar was open for business (they posted on their FB page). So I texted my bar friends, and we all decided to meet up for a few beers there. Along with about 75 other people. The bar was packed - again, nobody was taking Sandy seriously (including me).

My bar friends and I headed home around 6 pm that night, and the wind was a lot worse at that point and it was raining but it still didn't feel dangerous. That night the storm hit big time. My bar friends talked about watching transistors blow in Jersey and then whole sections of Jersey would go black. Power outages started rolling up Manhattan getting to within 2 streets of us before they stopped. The wind was crazy - it tore the roof off the space shuttle Enterprise hangar on the Intrepid. But Blondie and I got crazy lucky as our building/neighborhood was spared the brunt of what happened.

Tuesday my office was closed again. But nobody was working from home as people either had no power, or had power and were glued to the TVs as footage of the destruction came rolling in. Staten Island, and parts of Brooklyn and Queens were completely wiped out. The lower half of Manhattan sustained a lot of damage. Upper half of Manhattan and Bronx were okay. The day was spent getting the latest on the storm news, and also spending some time with the dogs to make sure the weren't too freaked out.

Wednesday my office was open if you could get there. All subways were still down, but buses were running. I was going to take a bus to work but as soon as I started out of my house, I saw gridlock. So I walked the 2 miles over instead. Some of my coworkers carpooled in together from Brooklyn, and the 7 mile trip took 3 hours. It was crazy on the streets of Manhattan. Everyone who came in got sent home at 4, and HR bought pizza for lunch so it was nice. I walked back home that night, marvelling at the mass number of cars on the street. Bloomberg put HOV restrictions onto cars coming into the city starting Wednesday evening, but it didn't really help the situation.

I had vacation already planned for Thursday and Friday. On Thursday, my bar friend joined Blondie and me to do some shopping. Blondie needed some clothes, so we headed up to Times Square and then down 5th Ave almost to Central Park to various clothing stores. We decided to hit up a bar in our hood for lunch, so we walked back over to our area, still marvelling at the gridlock. We passed a gas station a few blocks from our apartment, and realized there was a massive amount of people/cars lined up to get gas. As we stopped to watch (TV crews were there too filming, and cops had streets and the gas station itself blocked off), a cabbie leaned out his window and told us this was the only gas station in Manhattan that still had gas and power. People were waiting in 10 hour lines to get gas.

After lunch, Blondie headed home to crash out and I went with my bar friend to our local bar. We hung out there into the evening, made sure everyone who worked there was okay and didn't have damage to themselves/their property. Blondie came back over early evening to sit and chat with everyone for awhile. It was a nice way to end the evening. The crappy part of the evening came when we heard from Bbbb, my SF friend, that he had cancelled his trip to NYC for this weekend - he knew NYC had been hit hard, and thought postponing his trip made sense.

Friday was my birthday. Pbbbttttt. I started the day with a workout, and then did our laundry while Blondie met with an accountant for his business. Around 2:30 we headed out to grab lunch. We went to our local little mexican restaurant for food, and then crossed the street to the new tequila bar in our hood for margaritas. This place is owned by Angelo Sosa (Top Chef fame) - we never liked Angelo Sosa when he was on TC - he honestly acted like a dick on the show. We sat down with a margarita, which was awesome, and then got to ragging on AS - saying things like "well, we don't like you but you make a mean margarita". We also had a discussion on whether AS actually worked / ever worked at the restaurant and I was adamant that he didn't. And then we looked up from our table (we were sitting in front of the windows), and AS came walking by and into the restaurant. We laughed our asses off, and then bolted.

After margaritas, it was down to Dunkin to grab a bunch of donut holes and then over to the local bar. We met up with my bar friends, and downed a bunch of drinks and shots to end the night. Turning 38 sucked, but at least it's over!

Friday was also memorable because Bloomberg reversed his decision on the marathon and cancelled it. I thought holding the marathon was a horrible decision, especially seeing what residents of Staten Island, Queens, BK, etc are going through. But he was adamant that the show must go on. There was a monstrous backlash going on throughout the city about the marathon, and I was actually starting to get worried that runners were going to get hurt. So cancelling it was the right thing to do - and should've been done almost a week ago.

Saturday I met my bar friend for a late brunch at a new bar about 3/4th of a mile away from our apartments. The food was awesome - I had a tuna nicoise salad that rocked my world. And the playlist was awesome - it was early 90's music all day and we couldn't tear ourselves away from the bar. Also, the bartender was trying to kill a bottle of Bushmill's so my bar friend and I became proud recipients of free shots. We finally pulled ourselves free about 3 hours later, and then we did a little bit of shopping on the way back from the bar. And then we met up with her husband at our local bar to end the day. More shots ensued, and then I was ravenously hungry so headed home to order in food with Blondie.

Today will be spent doing something. My train is supposed to come back up tomorrow morning, so getting to work should be a little easier tomorrow. I work this week, and then we leave Saturday for SF - me for work, Blondie because I insisted he come with me this time. And then it's time for Thanksgiving!

Workouts:
Sunday: 40 mins on Precor, 2 mins at level 6, 2 mins at levels 11-12, 5 min cooldown; little bit of weights
Monday: P90X Legs&Back, P90X Shoulders&Arms; Insanity Cardio Abs
Tuesday: 3.1 miles (39:22) hill intervals - 2 mins at 4.1 mph on 0% grade, 2 mins at 5.3-5.7 mph on 3% grade, 5 min cooldown
Wednesday: Insanity Core Cardio and Balance; 2 mile walk to work, 2 mile walk home
Thursday: 3.1 miles (36:23) speed intervals - 2 mins at 4.1 mph, 2 mins at 5.9-7.0 mph, 5 min cooldown
Friday: Insanity Cardio Recovery
Saturday: 3.1 miles run in 36:42*, 5 min cooldown

* I was massively hungover when I did this run. I also did this run on shitty treadmill - there are 4 treadmills in my gym, and 1 of them is keyed higher/faster than the other 3. I use this shitty treadmill on my Tues/Thurs intervals, but avoid it at all costs for my run days. On Saturday, it was the only treadmill open. And running it all, while massively hungover, on shitty treadmill - even though it was a minute slower than last week - totally made my day.

--K