Protest in a Bike Lane

Short video by an NYC-based actor/director protesting against his $50 fine for cycling outside the designated the bike lane. A very persuasive argument!

Cerebellum

JFK was dishwater; flight was more entertaining than the layover. Highlight was walking around Times Square drinking a monster amount of Budweiser Lite in a equally monster-sized plastic cup, cover and straw. Saw suburban America with token shopping mall for the first time (a non-event).

Ivan was “up at his country house for Labor Day weekend”. So, second JFK, second JFK with plans/people that have fallen through. The crew I was with were exhausted and unimaginative and all as clueless as me, so after I while I took off out of frustration.

Hurricane Earl didn’t make an appearance either.

Billboard orgy

Might be hosting a Global Freeloader later this month, a Filipino girl coming for an airline interview. Just the one night. Have a layover, and yeah, am unwilling to leave an unattended stranger in my place.

Monday I had my second EK interview of 2010. I was in the remaining 7, of the 40-45 people that showed up at the Headquarters. Almost made it to the FI (final interview). I didn’t care at the beginning and by the end I really did. The whole episode was just a downer. Another 6 months, then. Straight after that I talked to the HR guy from the second job in Saudi. Said he was sending the job offer and of course it never graced my inbox with an appearance. Downer.

I’ve had 5 holidays/personal trips this year in Turkey, Egypt, Spain. It’s never enough? All my travels stop short.

Have now been self-medicating since March – a solid six months. With absolute certainty I can say it’s made a big difference. One side effect is really trippy, sinister dreams that I remember. Wide-ranging apathy would be another. The most obvious (physical) side affect is a kind of buzz I really can’t describe at the back of my head. It’s more apparent when I feel panicked or if thinking or hearing something pleasurable, music; a new idea. Like an enhancement on natural reaction by way of the back of my head. Cerebellum?

Glideslope

Aviation terminology is the best terminology of any industry, period. All I can do it wait for someone to come too close to me and for me be able to say: ‘You are penetrating my Obstacle Limitation Surface!!’, which is something like the air transport equivalent of a personal bubble. Except for aircraft not people.

I’ve been spending most of my time reading the (airport operations) manual that arrived earlier in the week. The language is straightforward and it’s easy to read and so absolutely interesting! I’m in the right spirits for applying myself to this even more now because I actually passed my transport planning course..?! I had a ‘result withheld’ which I translated into ‘you suck to the point that we aren’t even bothering to assign you a fail grade’, and then I got an out of the blue email a few days saying I’d been awarded a pass. I was so happy..it makes an enormous difference to me. 🙂 It feels so fitting, for example, to sit in passenger seat on ground in Muscat, have a coffee and muffin, and make notes and study with the tray table down. Contentedness. I think I can do well at this. Love all that I’m learning.

I liked my Jo’burg layover, it was the new-style one, with a turnaround to Cape Town wedged between. Looked out for District 9 alien residents but none showed up. Summer infiltrated my hotel room and I was very glad to have the Southern Hemisphere. How tired I am of crew conversations. I went out for dinner both nights and have figured out it’s a far better idea to be with 2-3 other people rather than a big group. Otherwise, you’ll for the most part just end up with some kind of chit chit revolving door of the most inane topics. If anyone else mentions those manuipulate-someone-into-loving-you-long-term books (Think like a Man, Act like a Lady, or, Why Men Marry Bitches) to me I am going to buy a four-wheeler buggy and ride off into the desert sunset never to be seen again. Especially if the crew are relatively new. I cringe to think of how annoying I must have been when I first joined, hoooo! Really, I’m terrified of some of these girls influencing me because often the only opinions I’m hearing are theirs. Save me. Fear of crocodile tears.

Usually this would be the time for me to play things down or throw in some self-deprecating comments. But you know what? I’m tired of thinking so little of myself, always! Not accepting compliments, being mortifyied at inopertune times at muliple points throughout the day. I do value modesty and being humble etc but I think it goes too far with me. I have things wrong, I have imperfections – and so does everyone else. I make mistakes and trip up – and so does everyone else. I’m genuinely surprised if it turns out that I’ve been accurate on a disputed point woith someone. Does it take a lifetime or a lightbulb moment for you to truly respect and value yourself and the morals and opinions you hold? Even things that I despise about myself aren’t all that bad, it just depends on how you perceive it. Like, blushing for example. It’s actually kind of cute. So get on with with it, let’s get some perspective ya? 😉

I have a New York flight tomorrow morning. I’ll be there on a Friday night. Missing Creamfields tomorrow night but I’m over it now, I can’t be here so too bad. There’s supposed to be a meteor shower here too then (always at the wrong place at the wrong time, dang!). As for JFK, I’m not allowing myself to look forward to it in some way I think. This sounds scroogy and decrepit, but every time I’m genuinly excited about a layover it only leaves me deflated and bummed out. Let things run their course – and I’ll keep a look out for opportunities as they come and fly expectation-free. Jake is doing some Jewish thing at his parent’s house over the weekend, so either the crew will be half-decent or I’ll just frolic about on my own. I tried to walk to the Brooklyn Bridge last time from Penn St (ha!) only to realize Manhattan is actually quite a sizeable island. Might try starting further down this time.

Nourhan asked me when I have my leave next year so she can plan her wedding date. How flattered was I,and surprised. She’s even thinking about her fiance’s brother’s girlfriend, because they just found out she’s pregnant, so they’re thinking about setting the date for an appropriate time. It’s very sweet, but very surprising. Don’t you havefull swing to be entirely selfish when it comes to your wedding? If it was me, the date being convenient for other people would be the last thing on my mind. Rather I’d be concerned with attending to the millions of details, and that the date be something of significance to me and the manboy. They were planning on this pre-wedding 9-month visa thing but I think because of how very complicated and expensive it is it’s another reason to push the wedding forward until June. I was wondering if Melody had some advice for them as I think they also looked into this whole paperwork nuptual chirade. But I’m not sure if it’s appropriate to ask, and anyway, I haven’t heard from her.

Still have no idea what I’m doing for the holidays and New Year’s. I’m scared it’s going to be a big fat nothing at all. Happy 2010, hey.

Broadway & Bombshell

Only got a few clicks in before my battery spluttered. Same thing happened in Toronto (don’t like the oddball wall plugs/charging incompatibility in North America).

Flatiron

Locals took an immediate interest in the building, placing bets on how far the debris would spread when the wind knocked it down. This presumed susceptibility to damage also gave it the nickname Burnham’s Folley. The building is also said to have helped coin the phrase “23 skidoo”, from what cops would shout at men who tried to get glimpses of women’s dresses being blown up by the winds swirling around the building due to the strong downdrafts.

Often, I ‘tourist’ backwards, finding something by chance, by vague direction and ambiguous means, then fill in the details and story post-find. Put simply, this is me starting with a general idea of where I should probably walk, coming across something that might make me cry a little or at least provide some bubblechills, then I’ll google around when I get home. It’s not the better way to sightsee in every situation, but it can work wonderfully, like with the Flatiron (formally Fuller) building. Beautiful, beautiful, beautiful!!! Until I was up on the top of the Empire State building the night before and the audio guide voice pointed it out to me, I hadn’t heard of it, and the next day I walked right to it without even meaning to (not surprising as it’s on 5th and Broadway) There is such major profound satisfaction in seeing such a gorgeous man-made structure like that – of course it’s a city icon! Times Square can eat my face, it can’t compare. I get way cheesy from hereonin, beware. The style descriptions, the stories of the construction etc, are lullabies to me..

I found myself agape, admiring a skyscraper — the prow of the Flatiron Building, to be particular, ploughing up through the traffic of Broadway and Fifth Avenue in the late-afternoon light.
—H.G. Wells, 1906

On the captions on the framed pictures inside the foyer I recognized the Burnham name (the designer of the building)  from the 1909 Plan of Chicago, aka the Burnham Plan. So, planner and architect. 🙂 His other commissions include other buildings in Detroit, Washington D.C, Chicago, Pittsburgh.. which is funny as this is most of the US cities I want to see for their urban planning.

The acutely angled corners give the building an exaggerated and dramatic perspective. As the city’s “first” skyscraper, New Yorkers worried that it would topple over. In the over 100 years since its construction the Flatiron’s only problem has been that city grime has settled into the crevices of the terracotta flowers and Grecian faces decorating the building. Even this has only served to accentuate its details.

Located at 175 5th Avenue, between East 2nd and 23rd streets. Completed 1902. 87 metres high and 22 floors, with the rounded narrow top end only six feet wide. Consists of a steel frame covered with a non-load-bearing limestone and terracotta facade. Beaux-arts architectural style; combined elements of French and Italian Renaissance styles.

Today, the Flatiron Building is frequently seen on television commercials and documentaries as an easily recognizable symbol of the city, shown, for instance, in the opening credits of The Late Show With David Letterman. It is depicted as the headquarters of The Daily Bugle, for which Peter Parker is a freelance photographer in the Spider-man movies.

It is a popular spot for tourist photographs and also a functioning office building which is currently in the process of being taken over as the headquarters of publishing companies held by Macmillan. Macmillan is renovating some floors, and their website comments: The Flatiron’s interior is known for having its strangely-shaped offices with walls that cut through at an angle on their way to the skyscraper’s famous point. These “point” offices are the most coveted and feature amazing northern views that look directly upon another famous Manhattan landmark, the Empire State Building.

In January 2009, an Italian real estate investment firm bought a majority stake in the Flatiron Building, with plans to turn it into a world-class luxury hotel, although the conversion may have to wait 10 years until the leases of the current tenants run out.

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http://commkey.net/daniel/flata.htm
http://www.nyc-architecture.com/GRP/GRP024.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flatiron_Building#Architecture
http://www.emporis.com/application/?nav=building&lng=3&id=114793