Really long time, no talk

Hello! It has been awhile since I last posted - no excuses, just wasn't feeling it come Sunday morning(s). I've been pretty much on the go for a few weeks now, and yesterday and today are the first days in a long time where I got to just relax. WOOT!

So. What has been up? Some travelling (some crazy weird ass last minute travelling), some hanging with friends (old and new), some concert-ing, some exploring, some working out. Let's get this recap started.

1) Exploring:
Blondie and I have been talking about leaving our neighborhood. While we love Hells Kitchen, we've become a bit bored. It's not Hells Kitchen's fault, it's ours. But we need to shake ourselves out of our slump. We think we want to live in Tribeca / Nolita / SoHo area of Manhattan, so we've started going to these various neighborhoods to hang out, eat dinner, have a few drinks. The whole idea started in SoHo one Friday night - I had gone down and met Blondie at his office, and we had gone for dinner. Then, not wanting to head back home, we started wandering and made our way to Nolita where we ran into a street fair. (We didn't run into it per se, kind of walked into it). We wandered up and down the streets before plopping ourselves on a corner for sangria and people watching into the night. While there, we kept saying how much we loved the neighborhood and an idea was born.

Last week, I went down to Blondie's work another night, and we went for some mexican goodness before wandering through SoHo window shopping and people watching. We want to do this several times over the course of the next month so that we are certain this area is where we want to move to. We are going to try and do different days too, so that we get the feel of the neighborhood. It's certainly much nicer living here and being able to take the time to figure out where you want to live, as opposed to moving here from SF and not knowing anything about the city at all and just picking a neighborhood at random (although we certainly got lucky as Hells Kitchen is a great place to live)

2) Concert-ing:
Blondie got free tickets to a band called "Twenty One Pilots" from his work - we hadn't heard of them, but decided to go anyway to listen. The venue these concerts are at is a small, 100 person only, standing room only room - so you are literally no more than 20 feet from the band. These guys came out from backstage in skeleton masks and I turned to Blondie and said "What the fuck have you gotten us into?" But the band ROCKED. I have been cranking their music since we came home from that concert. GO LISTEN NOW! I also love the feeling of "I live in NY, I'm at a free concert, this band rocks!" At one point during the concert, I was jumping up and down and looked over at Blondie and he was also jumping up and down! Nothing like some really good music to get you pumped!

3) Travelling:
2 weeks ago, I was sent out to the NJ/PA border for the day - they had a fancy car pick me and a colleague up and drive us out for work. We spent a day doing a kick-off meeting, and answering questions, before the car drove us back to the city. It was a nice break from my normal work week, but very tiring - you get somewhat tense for these sessions as you have to be on at all times, as well as you never know what kind of questions you are going to get.

Then, my week last week started with a Sunday trip to NC - I flew down Sunday afternoon to Raleigh with a couple of my colleagues and we drove 1 hour out of Raleigh to our work site. We spent 3 days down there, along with about 20 other people who had flown in from the office for this. Work put our hotel rooms on a corporate card, and then picked up all incidentals (the VP who was telling us this said "everything, including beer. seriously. put your liquor on the room. watch me!" and walked over to the bar and ordered a glass of wine and said "charge to my room!") We worked our asses off during the day (I was technical lead at a site which meant while the work stuff was going on, anything that went wrong, I had to deal with - either fix it, escalate it, write up tickets for it, etc); and then partied our asses off at night.

My 2 colleagues and I were slated to fly back to NYC on Tues night, so we got to the airport and found out our flight was majorly delayed. We took a seat at the bar and were drinking pretty heavily (only because everytime it was close to our flight taking off, it would get delayed again). It was while we were sitting at this bar that I found out I had to take a trip to SLC on Friday. Finally it was time for our flight - so we paid up and walked up to our gate - to find out in the 4 mins it had taken us to get to the gate, our flight had gotten delayed again. We plopped down in some seats and were just hanging out wondering if we would get home that night, and up comes the CTO of the company. He was flying with the president of the company and they were hanging at a bar (their flight was also delayed) and offered to buy us some drinks - I took him up on the offer (the CTO and president offer to buy you drinks? you say yes. always) and we hit the bar up for some more goodness. Finally, 5 hours after we were scheduled, we got to head on home. I got to my apartment around 1 am, and it was sheer relief. Until I remembered I had a trip to SLC in 2 days...

Which takes us to Friday morning, and the 4 am wake-up call. I hopped a 7 am flight to SLC with another colleague. We landed around 9:30 am SLC time and took a cab to downtown. (BTW, SLC is GORGEOUS. I kicked my own ass all day about not staying through the weekend.) We met up with a few other coworkers and started talking through the presentation we were there to do. Around 1 pm we started our talks with the company we were there to visit - we had 1 minor technical glitch which took me about 90 secs to resolve midway through (the longest 90 secs of my life), but other than that, it went pretty well. As soon as the presentation was done, it was back to the airport - 2 of my colleagues had flights out at 3 (not to NY but to other places) and I had a flight at 5. I texted a friend from NY who I knew had been staying in SLC for a month or so, and it turned out he was on his way to the airport too! I grabbed a seat at the bar, and had a few while waiting for my friend. We had a great hour getting caught up, before he caught his 5 pm flight to Portland at gate D7 while I caught my 5 pm flight to NY at gate D6. It was crazy coincidental and crazy good getting to see him. The flight back went well, and I got back to my apartment at 1 am, leaving me almost shaking with exhaustion.

And... I get to leave again in 2 weeks - this time to Asheville for a couple of days. So I'm mentally gearing up for that. Luckily, a colleague from Atlanta is flying in also - a woman I adore, and we have made a lot of good plans for what we will be doing while we are there (outside of work stuff). I feel kind of lucky that I'm in a role where I do get to travel a lot - I got to go for my old job a ton, but it was almost strictly back and forth NY->SFO (with an Atlanta trip tossed in) - so getting to see new places is pretty exciting.

For other news on the job front - something very exciting about my role had been floated to me about 3 weeks ago. I got giddy with the thought of it (nervous too, but mostly giddy) - and it appears now that this is not going to happen. I've been trying to deal with the emotional fallout of it without it affecting my work, and it's been hard (I've done it though). I just had worked myself into such a state of excitement, and to find out it's a no-go has been extremely disappointing.

4) Hanging with Friends:
Blondie finally got to meet my new work colleagues - the ones I adore! We took a Friday night and a large group of us went out for dinner with someone who had left recently. One of my coworkers and I had been talking before we had went out - he was bringing his girlfriend, and I mentioned something like "everyone will love Blondie and wonder why he married me" and he got to laughing and said "everyone will love my g/f and wonder why she puts up with my bullshit" And then we agreed we'd be the 2 who partnered well and nobody would understand it. And of course, everyone loved Blondie and the g/f. The group hit up West Village / NYU area for dinner, before going to one our favorite beer bars in that area. Blondie and I were laughing b/c everyone in my group is so young, so we probs looked like everyone's parents. The night was a blast though and one I'm glad we got to have.

2 weekends ago, my BFF from work and I had went with a smaller group on Friday for drinks (I had been in charge of coordinating a massive upgrade to some systems at work - it had gone on that Friday and it had gone excellently - so all involved went to celebrate with beer and tequila shots). Afterwards, she called her boyfriend and the 3 of us headed to our local pub to meet up with Blondie for some more fun. It was the first time Blondie had met her boyfriend and only the 2nd time Blondie had met my BFF. Again, the night was killer - my BFF nicknamed me Energizer Bunny b/c I like to dance to the new internet jukebox. We split a bunch of sampler platters for dinner and just chatted the night away. We agreed that next time we would go to my BFF's neighborhood (UES) and do dinner / drinks there.

I've gotten to meet up with my old work colleagues three times in the last few weeks also! The first time I met up with my old product lead for my favorite project that I did; along with my old boss. We went for many fruity drinks at a midtown bar, and closed the place down (on a Wednesday). It was really good seeing them and getting caught up - only my boss is left at the company, and it was good getting office gossip as well as hearing how much the product lead loves her new job.

Secondly I got to meet up with my 2 BFF's and their significant others at a tapas place in Chelsea. My 2 BFF's still work at the company so it was good getting more office gossip. We stayed for a long time at dinner, before I convinced one of my BFF's to give me a ride home.

And finally, on Thurs night (before my 4 am wake up call to go to SLC), I met up with a larger group as a former coworker is moving to SF in a few weeks - so it was a good-bye party for her. We started with many drinks at a bar in midtown east area, before my 2 BFF's and I walked back over to my hood for dinner. We went for mexican and sangria, and talked non-work for a long time (getting caught up on what is going on outside of the office). Afterwards, I met Blondie at our local for a bit, and then headed home (and cussed out my alarm clock as I set it to 4 am - it hurt).

5) Working out:
It's still happening! Even with all the craziness that has been going on, I'm still getting good workouts in 3-4 days a week. I'm down to 28:50 for my 2.5 mile run. Which is really good for me. Yesterday, on almost no sleep and pure exhaustion, I did 2 miles in 23:38 which made me happy. Today, well, I might relax and just go get a pedicure, or I might lift some weights and then go get a pedicure. But definitely, a pedicure.

6) Miscellaneous:
We saw the new Star Trek finally in 3D! It was really good - it always takes me a few mins to get used to 3D, so I did spend about 5 mins reacting to things on the screen by jerking around in my seat (good times, good times). We went for tapas last night on a date night - headed out to a place in our hood and just took our time. Seafood paella, peach sangria, some empanadas... it was a great night last night. And there were 2 little kids in the row in front of me on the flight out to SLC - when we landed the little boy was all "mom! mom!" and then started going "Yankees (turned his thumb down), Mets (turned his thumb up), Giants (turned his thumb down), Jets (turned his thumb up)". I about died laughing - Blondie would've LOVED this kid.

That's about it - full recaps start again next week (yay, yay for you).

And finally, HAPPY HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO TCKITW (how long can I call her this?) Hope you had a great day sweetie! We miss you and love you!

--K