The Apteryx Haastii diaries

Issue 19 - Upstate (2), and the pain of a hilly racetrack

2007-06-07T16:56:00.000-04:00

The Apteryx Haastii has just come back from a nice weekend in upstate New York. New York "Upstate" is a place which deserves its own name, rather than being lumped in with New York, "The City". Upstate has very little to do with The City, except that neither Upstate nor The City are happy with the idea of having a state government in Albany trying to govern two separate societies and economies. The City believes all of its state tax is spent on roads and infrastructure closer to Canada than to The City, and Upstate believes all of its state tax is spent on welfare payments to inhabitants of Brooklyn and Queens. The only other thing which Upstate and The City agree on is that The City should declare independence from Upstate, leaving both to ignore each other in peace.

On Saturday, we spent the day at the Watkins Glen International Speedway, located on a hill near the town of Watkins Glen, about 5 hours from The City. In a classic bait-and-switch, the Apteryx Haastii was lured to the race track with the promise of Porsche Cup Racing, but arrived to find he had been entered in a duathlon involving running around the infield, then cycling three laps of the track (after the Porsches had all gone home), then another lap of the infield, then another three laps of the track, before stumbling around the infield again. Needless to say, the AH believes watching a 600hp example of precision engineering eat up the track at 100mph is much more fun than hauling his imperfectly engineered carcass around the track at a mere 17mph.

When the AH arrived at the start, it was clear he was well out of his league. The race was endorsed by the US Triathlon Association (with the AH now as their most unlikely member), and there were plenty of carbon-fibre bikes and very fit athletes among the 70 starters.

One thing the AH learned about race tracks is that they are not all built on flat land. In fact, there were three particularly cruel hills which earned a few choice nicknames from the AH, including a long, long, long uphill back straight, which a Porsche would not even feel.

As expected, Kim beat the AH with comfort - coming in 3 minutes faster despite a very sore knee, and placed first in her age group (well, first out of one, but she won a nice trophy all the same). No need to be sarcastic here - to finish at all was a great achievement. After a long, hard 20 miles of riding and 5 miles of running for 2 hours and 23 minutes, the AH was very pleased to beat eight others (avoiding last place being the AH's definition of success in this event), including one with a snazzy carbon-fibre bike.

Next time, I'll read the fine print.

http://www.flybynightdu.com/races/index.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Watkins_Glen_International

Issue 18 - Blizzard

2007-06-07T16:54:00.001-04:00

12 February, 2006 - The Blizzard of 2006.

Maiden Lane - the beginning of our walk downtown. This street is normally buzzing with taxis and trucks.

Wall Street, outside the Federal National Hall (opposite the NYSE). This is one of the most well-defended sites in the US, which means there has to be an armed police presence at all times. Even when the only real threat would be from a crack squad of attack penguins....

I almost feel sorry for these guys - huddled inside a squad car all night, with the engine running to keep the heater on.

The NYSE on Wall Street.

Can you see any attack penguins? Me neither - the police presence makes me feel safer already.

An Angel on Wall St (no, not a penguin. Penguins wear black ski jackets. Really, I would have thought that was obvious).

Kim makes a snow angel in the deep snow where the police usually stand with their assault rifles. It was cold and wet, but it had to be done.

Trinity Church on the corner of Wall St and Broadway. The green dome is the entry to the 4/5 subway line. All of the weekend line work was cancelled this weekend because of the weather forecast, so (ironically), the subway ran more trains and was more reliable during the storm than it would otherwise have been.

Looking North up Broadway from the Trinity Church. I am sure the open-top tour busses which normally fill this stretch of Broadway will be running shortly (and they will still be full).

Bikes on Broadway - funny, there never seem to be any bikes left out on the street when it is NOT snowing.

El Toro at Bowling Green (the bottom of Broadway).

Bowling Green, looking North back up Broadway. Usually the sole preserve of drunks and the homeless at this time ona Sunday morning, Kim and I had the place to ourselves.

Bowling Green station. The fellow with the shovel was fighting a losing battle here, with 3-4 inches of snow falling each hour, the snow kept drifting down in to his station now matter how often he shoveled it out.

Issue 17 - Wind

2007-06-07T16:53:00.002-04:00

5 February, 2006

Kim having a laugh in Central Park. Actually, I think she's telling me how cold the wind is. This day was about -12 degrees centigrade with the wind chill.

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I walk to work each morning past the global headquarters of JP Morgan Chase, the NYSE, the former home of the great House of Morgan bank, down Broad Street to the very tip of Manhattan, where I have a tiny cubicle in a dark corner of a huge open-plan floor at 1 New York Plaza. I walk this way partly for the fun of passing all of these great monuments to capitalism, but mostly to break up the wind in winter.

In the winter months, the sun may shine, or it may not, it may be cold, or it may be mild. But the wind, the howling, evil, devious, and crippling wind, the wind is constant. My office has a pleasant plaza on Water Street, which sets the building back a little from the road (part of the building code, designed to allow buildings to be very, very tall, but allow light to reach the streets). That is to say, the plaza usually looks good in photos, but the reality is quite the opposite. Being set right next to Battery Park and the Staten Island Ferry Terminal, there is no shelter from the wind which either blows off the harbour (bringing wet weather from the South), off the East River (bringing the icy breath of the North Atlantic), or down Water Street (being a Northerly express line of Arctic air, direct from Canada). It is not a place for unbuttoned coats, long hair, hats or people who did not have an American-over-sized plate of pancakes for breakfast. As for using an umbrella in the rain - fuh-getaboudit. It depends which direction you open it, but after 5 seconds in an arctic blast every umbrella is either a blown-out skeleton, or the user is is wearning a black wire hat/straight-jacket from the shoulders up. Umbrellas sell for $5 at street corners, and no-one will pay more because they will be sacrifices to the Mary Poppins god by the next corner anyway.

Now, I'll admit to anyone who asks that I carry a few extra kilos around my middle, but at least now I know that I have a substantial advantage over those who don't ........... ballast. Once in a while I see men and women with what many would consider perfect figures fighting a losing battle with the wind - stopped in their tracks, blown off course, or spun around like they've been slapped in the face with a frozen fish. I may take up a little more space on the subway than them, but at least I can plot and maintain a consistent course across the plaza, without looking like I'm on an ice rink. Which leads me to the conclusion that the reason so many people in New York are overweight is purely to given them a decent anchor when the wind blows.

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Is it redundant to say "flightless Apteryx Haastii", given technically all Apteryx Haastii are flightless?

If I go for a flight in a helicopter, does this mean I am no longer flightless, or am I no longer an Apteryx Haastii?

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What the Farnarkle is an Apteryx Haastii? The answer is below:

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People's poll: Does anyone from outside New Zealand really know when (or what) Waitangi Day is?

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And now for some recent photos:

Our building at 2 Gold Street. The "two" sculpture was done by the same fellow who thought up the twin towers of light in 2002 on the World Trade Center.

Our building - our apartment is the 8th balcony from the bottom (or 10th from the top) on the right-hand side. If you like to test yourself, you can try to count up to the 29th floor (remembering of course that there is no 13th floor) instead...

Arty photo in the the curved mirror sculpture at Wall St Plaza two blocks from home. The white tower to the right is 88 Pine Street, where I worked for the first couple of months after we arrived. The air-conditioning never worked, and the toilets were often backed up, but I get the feeling the rent is cheap (like the budgie). Not sure I miss this building yet.

Issue 16 - Hillbilly

2007-06-07T16:53:00.001-04:00

16 November 2005

This year, Kim and I decided to take our annual holiday in Arkansas.

That little announcement caused no end of consternation amongst my colleagues in the office, who already believe me to be in the same class as the babbling crazy people they cross the road to avoid in the big city. They, like everyone else in the world, only know Arkansas exists because Bill Clinton started his career as a seducer of interns here.

It look us five days of asking people (and everyone is very friendly) before we found anyone who has even been to New York. That makes sense, because in New York, there is simply no-one who would be prepared to be seen dead in Arkansas.

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Arkansas suffers from a sort of uncertainty as to its identity, mostly because the entire state disagrees on how to pronounce itself. It took a great deal of internet research (thank goodness for the broadband connection in the apartment), but I have finally established that it was all the fault of the French. The true Indian name for the river which the state is named after is Arkansa (AR-kan-saa), but to say it properly the French explorers who got here first needed to add a letter which had to be silent, and for reasons known only to them, they chose an S. The correct pronounciation is therefore Ar-kan-saw - Arkansas exists for correct spelling purposes only. For the purpose of clarity, and in keeping with the American custom of dropping correct spelling for the purpose of saying things as they are spelt, I will use the Arkansaw version for now on, for the benefit of my international listeners.

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We have a kind of cool car from Enterprise rentals. Apparently, the Arkansaw state department of motor vehicles insist all rental cars are registered with Hillbilly plates (as opposed to other states, which allow you to display out-of-town plates on rental cars, so that locals can ensure they can treat you with the disdain you deserve for choosing to live in another state). The funny thing is that you don't have to register your rental car for 30 days after it arrives in Arkansaw, so for 30 days you get to drive around without a number plate at all.

Our super-cheap-please-upgrade-me-what-are-you-serious-you-refused-to-pay-a-measly-4-dollars-a-day-upgrade-fee rental car is a black Saturn Ion - with absolutely no number plates at all. It looks like it has been stolen, except no-one would steal a Saturn (because it would break down during the getaway, and it would rattle too much if you put hip-hop on the stereo). It's definitely black, so from a distance, it looks kind of mean without any tags - a bit like a mafia staff car for Soccer Moms.

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Having no tag should be cool - we can go as fast as we want past speed cameras and be safe from tickets.

Except there are no speed cameras in the US. No-one knows exactly why: some argue it is because there is a clause in the constitution which say you must be able to confront your accuser in court (making a speed camera tricky to call as a witness); others because posted speed limits are simply too low; but most simply say they would vote against any politician who supports them. Sadly, speed cameras have been shown to be an effective deterrent to excess speed in any country they have been used in. Sometimes lawmakers in the most developed country in the world fall for the most self-servingly simplistic and childish arguments which Tanzania or Bangaldesh would instantly reject.

Some amusing limitations imposed by courts and state legislatures are summarised by Wikipedia at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_camera.

In the absence of speed cameras, Arkansaw uses blanket coverage of highways by State Troopers to ensure compliance with traffic laws - we pass 2-3 police cars on every 20 minute trip, except after dark, when all state troopers (and drunk or speeding drivers) are in bed of course.

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We are staying in a timeshare apartment, in a gated community about 20 miles from Hot Springs. The apartment is very nice, and the location on a lake in the forest is beautiful. The scary thing is that we are by 40 years the youngest people between here and the nearest international airport.

A gated community "Down South" appears to be a retirement village or subdivision, complete with a guard at each entrance, and its own police force and tax regime. This particular community seems to be a good 20,000 people, all retired, and all with an overpowering desire to live next to a golf course (there are 8 golf courses surrounded by luxourious houses here, all in a row along the main road through the town).

The interesting thing about the population being 99.99% over 65 is that the only available labour force is also over 65. This means that the staff in the post office, in the Walmart, and acting as security staff at the gate house look likely to keel over if you crept up behind them and said "boo" too loudly.

It is definitely peaceful here in the village - we just can't find a restaurant with anyone in it after 6pm.

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We had lunch in a local restaurant in Hot Springs, on the main strip ("Bathhouse Row" - named for the bath-houses built side-by-side on top of the springs at the turn of the century).

The decor was basic (as with all the restaurants in town) - sort of a cross between dodgy London greasy-spoon cafe, and desperately depressing retirement home. The staff were local (y'all'r not from arouwn' heeer urrrr' ya?), and the menu was deep-fried scary with a side order of something deep-fried. I'm pretty sure the napkins would have come deep-fried if we'd asked for them that way.

I opted for the deep-fried fish, and asked which of the complementary vegetables was most recommended. Passing up the suggested deep-fried french fries and deep-fried corn puffs, I tried another approach and asked what would be the healthiest of the complementary vegetable options.

I am not sure that question has ever been seriously asked in any Arkansaw restaurant before - it seemed to elicit the hillbilly equivalent of a syntax error.

I'm sure they will be debating the answer in the kitchen of that restaurant for weeks to come.

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The city of Hot Springs is certainly not famous for its night life. As any tourist town of 11,000 people will tell you, it's hard attracting international entertainment out of season. After spending the first four days asking around, we did manage to find one person under the age of 60 working in a crystal shop, who directed us to the entertainment district. The directions were perfect, but the description was optimistic. There are three buildings in a block housing restaurants in Hot Springs, all of them owned by the same family. We did have a reasonable meal in what was clearly the best restaurant in town, and were tempted by the invitation to the martini bar with live music upstairs. Upstairs however, the Thursday night crowd consisted of three sad souls keeping the bartender company at the bar, and at least 100 empty seats surrounding a similar empty stage. Take me back to New York, all is forgiven.

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If you buy a Ford truck here, the dealer will throw in a free 22-gauge shotgun.

I'm not kidding.

If you buy the redneck truck, the redneck toy comes free.

It seems only fair that deer in Arkansaw should be issued with kevlar vests.

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We actually came here to learn to play golf.

So far, after some lessons, three visits to a driving range, and two rounds of a par-3 golf course, I have established one thing - golf is a really sh*t game if you are not very good at it.

Enough said - it will spoil the rest of the holiday if I summarise all of the disappointments which go with the golf we have played this week.

Suffice to say, my tee shot on the 18th today was good enough to allow me to retire forever from golf on a high. There were a LOT of practice shots this week leading up to my final 18th hole, so it was fortunate that there is something good to remember.

Who knows, once I can afford to retire to a gated community where there it simply nothing to do but play golf, then I will take it up again.

But not before.

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Photos to follow.....

Issue 15 - 100 kms

2007-06-07T16:52:00.001-04:00

17 September 2005

This weekend was the annual charity bike ride for the benefit of Mulitple Sclerosis. For the benefit of my sponsors who helped me raise almost $1,000, here are some photos to prove I did actually cycle the entire 64 miles (103.7 kms). What you cannot see are the soul-destroying hills in Pallisades Park, or the 40-knot wind which sandblasted me with grit both times I had to ride down the West Side.

Photos attached:

Mile 17, just after the first rest stop at the top of Manhattan. I look relatively fresh here!

Mile 28, coming out of the Lincoln Tunnel in Hoboken (New Jersey). I am sure the ride through this tunnel was faster than any time I have done it in a car!

Mile 35 - Pallisades Park in New Jersey. It was very beautiful, but the hills were starting to sap my enthusiasm by this stage.

Mile 53 - Manhattan from the George Washington Bridge (which joins Manhattan at 176th Street). A mere 10 or so miles to go - down to 12 blocks past that tall building waaay off in the distance!

Issue 14 - Back but still bad

2007-06-07T16:51:00.001-04:00

24 September 2004

Downtown from the Big B - a taxi driver's worst nightmare once they pass the last numbered street.

Now, I know for a fact you missed me.

As the tide of derisory comments began to rise (“I don’t know how you can write so much about nothing,” quipped one brazen hack from a long way upstate), I thought it would make more sense to simply let you sit and stew without some of my unique insight for a while.

In reality, as Kim would say, life got in the way of living, and my job and Kim’s assignments got in the way of everything other than sleeping and breathing.

It’s not necessarily the case that we are past the long hours and high stress – more that we have reached the limit of human endurance, and need to take a few evenings off (and one day a weekend or so) for ourselves. In the interests of brevity, I can sum up the past two and half months as follows: work, assignments, work, assignments, work, assignments, work, assignments, Kim's sister Keryle had a healthy baby girl (Thalia Rose), work, assignments, work, assignments, weekend camping in Hammonasset, work, assignments, work, assignments, work, assignments, saw the final of the US Women’s Open tennis in Queens, work, assignments, work, assignments, work, assignments, etc, etc.

Thursday last week was our six month anniversary since we arrived in New York. Now, six months is not a long time unless you’ve worked as many long hours and weekends as we have, and the reality is that the six years in Switzerland already feels like the distant memories of last year’s holiday.

So, what do we think of the place after six months? There’s certainly plenty to think of, so for the benefit of being able to hold your attention without moving pictures, I’ll do this in bullet-form:

1. I can find my way around now – knowing the downtown area gives me a huge advantage over 90% of New Yorkers who prefer to navigate by the numbered avenues north of 14th Street. When the Morgan Stanley finance department moved downtown three months ago, everyone looking for restaurants, shops and bars seemed to rely on the local knowledge of the Kiwi who had just moved from Switzerland. Scary.

2. When going away for the weekend, fly or take the train – but try not to drive. The American love affair with massive automobiles also appears to extend to a love of stationary Sunday evenings on the I-95 coming back in to New York.

3. Tourists are a pain in the backside. Times Square is the unique preserve of Tourists – so much so that there should be checkpoints between 42nd and 50th streets to keep them penned in there. Businesses which I need to visit should then be forced to relocate to a tourist-free-zone.

4. Who is Robbie Williams? Isn’t he related to Serena and Venus?

5. Acronyms are efficient, but do not on their own represent a valid language. For example, I work for Morgan Stanley ISG, in the MSCI Barra FCG team at 5/1NYP. Speaking in complete sentences seems to necessitate an exceptional attention span.

6. David Beckham, yes I’ve heard of him. Isn’t he the one in the grubby video with Paris Hilton?

7. Paris Hilton is a tramp – she is so naaasty, I hate her. Oh wow that’s funny - she’s on the cover of the OK, Cosmopolitan, GQ and Redneck Gun Club magazines on my coffee table.

8. Baseball is a game of long breaks between sporadic action played over 3-5 hours, with unbelievably unhealthy junk food consumed during the especially long breaks. American Football is a 60-minute game played over 3-5 hours, which implies at best two minutes of inactivity for every minute of action. As my good friend Snowflake says, it’s all a bit like watching Leicester City play, except that the boredom only lasts 90 minutes at Filbert Street

9. Mariah Carey is a pop goddess. What do you mean you don’t like her? She made it all the way to stardom from suburban Long Island, and I’m going to be just like her. Who is this Robbie Williams guy again?

10. We’re going for dinner at Paris Hilton’s favourite restaurant tonight - she is no naaasty, I hate her. I wonder if she’ll be there. It would be great if Mariah was there as well, wouldn’t that be cool?

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Hurricanes are a serious business.

New Orleans was apparently already a scary place before all of the people who are actual or potential Bush supporters left ahead of hurricane Katrina. The fact that it became even scarier afterwards is due to the ability of those left behind(evidently not Bush supporters) to be unpleasant to each other in adversity. Would this behaviour have been repeated in other countries if the circumstances were the same? Of that I am not sure.

The Washington Post quoted an interview with the police captain at the New Orleans convention centre who said that they had 10 officers trying to patrol five large halls in total darkness. In the end, they had to dress in SWAT anti-riot kit, and raid for the rapists and murderers guided only by the muzzle-flashes of guns being randomly fired by thugs. After three days of this, they all wanted to simply resign and save themselves, but they stuck at it rather than leave the weak and infirm alone in the presence of men behaving like alligators. From the sound of it, it was safer being a white American living in downtown Baghdad than it was in New Orleans after the hurricane.

One other story in the NY Times tells of three trucks of bottled water headed to New Orleans which were held up in upstate Louisiana for three days because FEMA officials would not let anyone go to New Orleans without a delivery consignment. No-one (including the FEMA officials) knew what a delivery consignment was, except that this delivery did not have one. People were dying in the 40-degree heat for lack of clean drinking water, and all FEMA could do to help was set up a bureaucracy which actively prevented any help from getting through. It seems that if you need to organize something very big and important, the best way to ensure that absolutely nothing gets done is to create a federal agency run by your least qualified best friend to aggravate the crisis.

The popularity of the previously teflon-coated Mr Bush appears to have genuinely taken a blow over Hurricane Katrina. With Hurricane Rita having hit Texas last month, people will be starting to ask whether the President is to blame. The President will respond by announcing a global “War on Hurricanism,” which will require an invasion of Iran, who the CIA will determine have the capacity to launch a Hurricane on the mainland USA with 45 minutes’ notice. At the same time, new CIA evidence will find that a North Korean underwater nuclear test was responsible for the Boxing Day Tsunami last year, necessitating air strikes on rice fields near Pyongyang.

The War on Sanity continues.

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Here’s a little note borrowed from a deep-thinking friend of mine – I’ll try to be faithful to his analogy here, with his permission so long as I don’t give away his identity.

The argument goes that anyone fighting the US knows they are totally outgunned and have no real chance of success. Before the US administration started using the interrogation tactics in use at Guantánamo Bay and Abu Ghraib, they also believed they were really only facing the cast of “Friends”, but with guns. This was a useful tool in the minds of opposing soldiers – they could fight to glorious but inevitable death, or give up and be treated fairly, and get a hot meal before going back to their families.

Now the Bush administration has decided that prisoners of war can be “entertained as enemy aliens” at Guantánamo without the right to petition an independent court for their release, or even worse become “ghost detainees” in places like Pakistan or Turkey, the option of giving up and having it easy is pretty much off the table. What does this mean? I can tell you that I would fight to the death if the alternative was interrogation under torture. And I wouldn’t exactly be very nice to the occupying forces afterwards, that’s for sure.

The battle for hearts and minds doesn’t seem to come up in news stories any more.

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And now for the photos:

The Snowflake trying hard to convince himself those glasses make him look like a male model (or South American dictator)

The Gunks on a normal Monday in summer (Kim's weekly climbing retreat)

Sunset at Hammonasset State Park campground in Connetticut.

Issue 13 - Coffee

2007-06-07T16:50:00.000-04:00

Issue 13 - 10 July, 2005

Here's a good one - the transit authority have managed to persuade the city to pass a law which makes it illegal to have a cup of coffee on the subway. You don't even have to drink from it, simple possession is illegal, thereby moving coffee into the same category as class A drugs and concealed firearms. When asked what their problem was, a spokesperson for the MTA (Metropolitan Transit Authority) said that coffee is dangerous, because you can spill it on others, and then the spillee could sue the MTA.

Well MTA - let's work through this. (I wanted to say, "I have a news flash for you", but I can't make my point in less than 15 seconds like all news stories here, given the limited attention span of the average news watcher who obviously prefers chewing gum to food with nutritional value. Not sure I can give it a sensationalist headline either, but give me a minute).

Negligence 101: The law of Tort (which the locals love to sue for so much) requires; (1) a victim to whom you owe a duty of care (duty of care); (2) actual damage to that victim (damage); (3) a reasonably foreseeable event which would give rise to that damage (reasonably foreseeable); and (4) recklessness as to whether damage follows the event or not (fault).

Don't be scared off by the legalese - I prefer to call it the "idiot" test.

So, follow my logic:

1. If someone spills coffee on you in the subway, they are an idiot. In legalese: they need to be nice to other subway users (duty of care); the train jerks all the time so don't be surprised by it (reasonably foreseeable); and if you don't hold on or put the lid on tight you are an idiot (fault). If you can demonstrate damage, then you can sue the idiot.

2. What you can't do is sue the MTA. They need to be nice to subway users (duty of care), they can foresee that people will spill things (reasonably foreseeable), but it's not their fault that people are idiots because in reality the idiots are at fault (so, no fault). No court would ever hold the MTA responsible for all the foolish things that people do on the subway (otherwise they could be sued for all the crazy people - and the fares would be a thousand dollars a trip just to pay their legal insurance). The MTA are not the idiots here, so you can't sue them.

3. BUT, what if it is their responsibility to enforce the law? This means that now it is illegal, they have to check for coffee before someone brings it on to the subway. And if they don't, and one slips through? Well, are they at fault? I'll bet there is a lawyer somewhere who would love to test out in court whether they are. So there you have it - all of requirement met: duty of care, reasonable foreseeability, and now fault. Good thinking - the MTA are now the idiots because they've just created the risk they were passing the law to avoid.

I have a much harder question though - what does this mean for American legislation now? Do city, state and federal assemblies need to pass laws to make simple stupidity a criminal act? That's a pretty high standard - there are a lot of idiots in the world - are they all going to be criminals by definition in America? To all idiots now have to be arrested and tried through the legal system? Are the police now responsible for catching all stupid people and locking them up until their trial? Given I think that the idiots who passed this law are stupid, should they be the first to be locked up?

I really would love to do my state bar exam and be a laywer in this city. I could be sooooooooo irritating!

Legally a very scary place this.

[Time for the inevitable dislaimer: real lawyers - please correct me offline, I did my law degree more than ten years ago. Potential plaintiffs - does this look like legal advice? (let me me help you answer this one - NO!) I owe you no duty of care here, so I don't need to be careful about whether I am right or not. Find an idiot.]

I thought up my sensationalist headline though:

"Congress arrests its own idiots."

Bet they'll buy that if you put it on the front page of the New York Post.

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This week's blog was brought to you by the letter H for HOT - 32 degrees today (95 in old money), and the number zero, being the number of people in other teams who came in today on a Sunday to work in the office. Sadly we had very close to a full house in my group, on the day with the best weather of the summer as well - the better days are coming guys, I promise.

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I wrote this tonight on the roof of my building. It's a very civilised place when the sun is setting (but suitable only for desert-raised frilly-necked lizards during the day). A photos for you of the Woolworth Building in the sunset:

Did you miss the blog about our trip to St Paul, Minnesota? Have a look here.

Issue 12 - Wetlands

2007-06-07T16:49:00.000-04:00

Issue 12 - 10 July, 2005

Minnesota's most famous personality says, "Spend more money kids!"

Three weekends ago we went to a wedding in St Paul, Minnesota. Now for those of you who may not know where that is (and let's face it, does anyone outside Minnesota know the answer to this one?), it's right in the middle of the map of the USA, at the top, near the Canadian border. St Paul is probably famous only because it is a twin city with its more famous neighbour, Minneapolis, which is on the other side of the Mississippi river.

Now there's something I did not know - the Mississippi flows all the way from the Canadian border to the Gulf of Mexico. It certainly is a very determined river! What this means however is that on a macro level the USA must slope downhill, from the top to the bottom, and from the edges to the centre. I'm no expert (no way - Kim is the one getting a degree in this stuff), but I figure those glaciers in the last Ice Age have a lot to answer for.

When you live at the top of a very gently sloping plain which goes from the top of the USA to the bottom, perhaps it makes sense that there is so much wetland. Minnesota is the state of 10,000 lakes, and I think it must have the bog marsh as its state flower.

If you live at the top of the bog, imagine how bad it would be if you lived at the bottom? If you live on the Canadian border, at least the snow freezes the bugs for six months of the year.

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Scott and Melissa were kind enough to invite us to their wedding because Melissa was one of Kim's "sisters" when she was here as an exchange student in 1994 (lots of opportunity for comedy there, but the personal risk to way too high). I'll have to set the scene here for you though. I am an accountant, working for the largest investment bank in the world, based in New York. The bride and groom are wetland biology experts and diehard environmentalists, and therefore so were most of the guests. How I got out of there alive is anyone's guess.

Actually, someone must have tipped off the local horse flies as to who I was, because they rounded up a local posse to come and get me. Unpleasant little buggers - they should be required to give a pint of blood every six months like the rest of us. They should have plenty of mine left over that's for sure.

The day, the people, and the Arikians don't meet my normal standards for ridicle, so I won't demean them by trying to find comedy value in true beauty. The wedding itself was great fun - in the open at a nature centre about 45 minutes from St Paul. The weather was hot and humid, the bride was beautiful, and for the first time in my life I did not have to wear a suit to a wedding (given the setting), and it made me happy given the heat. Everything was perfect, and the couple (and their guests) are genuine and loveable in every way. It was a true honour to be invited to attend and to share such a special day.

Some photos of the day follow.

All the Arikian girls...

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Minneapolis/St Paul is also the home of (I'm shouting loudly here) THE WORLD'S LARGEST SHOPPING MAAAAAALLLLLLLLLLLLL. In the world. The largest. In the world. As Fluffy would say: Like, big, Like.

The Mall of America is indeed the largest mall I have ever been to (thereby validating the claim to fame at least). Kim and I spent exactly 90 minutes there, and walked the entire length and breadth of all five floors which cover at least five normal Manhattan blocks, and bought........ nothing.

Well, actually we needed a drink because we had walked so far, but apart from that: nothing.

It felt strange. Here is a place I have heard of for so long, but it felt just like Lynnmall, the Seedamm Centre, the mall at Wimbledon or Penrith Plaza (actually, for some reason Penrith Plaza felt bigger). In the end, instead of 50 stores full of stuff I didn't want to buy, there were 500 all full of stuff I still didn't want to buy. Actually we did - we wanted some mouthwash and face creme from a pharmacy (of which three are five within 90 seconds walk from our apartment in New York), but unbelievably there is not a single pharmacy in THE WORLD'S LARGEST SHOPPING MAAAAAAAALLLLLLLLLL. In the world.

Explain that one if you can.

Charles Schultz is from Minnesota though, so there is a Snoopy theme park in the middle of the mall, including a full sized roller coaster, and at least 20 other rides. Come on Lynnmall, a Footrot Flats theme park is the clear path to international Mall fame and stardom!

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Kim has gone off on her annual month away from me, attending a field study course in Durham in the UK for this week, then climbing in the Lake District, then off to Australia for three weeks to spend time with her sister Keryle, who is expecting a baby in the next few weeks (fingers crossed - good luck Keryle, and especially Mark!). I, on the other hand, have to satisfy myself with a simple move of office (this is my third desk in my four months here), two blocks even further downtown. The building itself is very recognisable (it is the big silver one in the photos below), and you should be able to pick it out in the opening credits of any movie since it was built in the late 1960's (since at least 50% of all movies seem to start with a helicopter shot of Downtown - I believe it to be true even if you choose to prove me wrong). I like it already for that reason - trying to explain to people in later life that I used to live in the apartment you can't see behind the big building in the opening credits is a pain - now I can shout "that was my office" in the movie theatre every time. Talk about opportunity - I'll bet you wish you could come to the movies with me just to bathe in my reflected glory...

My new office is the grey L-shaped one to the left of the sail here.

New York from Staten Island. New Jersey to the left, Manhattan in the middle, and Brooklyn on the right. The trees were not available for this picture due to an environmental dispute (and a reluctance to travel anywhere near the East River).
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I'd send you some photos of Durham, etc., but the satellite link is down at the moment, thanks to Cingular Wirless' dirty tactics of selling us a nice expensive phone which works internationally, but refusing to activate it for international use. For the avoidance of doubt, US residents reading this need to know that they have one of the least developed mobile phone networks (and most antiquated "sorry, that's not in our policy" systems) in the world. People in Tanzania have more options than residents of New York. And that one is not a joke - I've been to Tanzania, and I know that mobile phones work on top of Mt Kilimanjaro - a five day hike from the nearest building - here mobile phones don't even work on top of my building on the most densely populated island in the Western world. Go figure.

And Cingular - get over yourselves. I have a policy which can't be changed as well - I write bad things in my blog about companies who only do business through uneducated salesmen-sharks backed up by drone call centres operating with no authority to override ridiculous racist policies which discriminate against foreigners. I want to sit the NY state bar exam here just so that I can sue you for egregious corporate arrogance. I wouldn't win, because I know you will have contributed enough to the Republican Party to make sure you could just have a law passed to outlaw me, but I can be just as annoying to you, as you are to me. So be nice - I chose you, you don't get to choose me.

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There is a movie being shot for the next eight weeks outside my (new) office. It it is a Spike Lee movie, starring Denzel Washington and Jodie Foster. I've walked past it a few times, but so far no sign of the real stars yet. Lots of sexy and expensive looking white trailers though - photos to follow (if I can take one past the security guards).

Issue 11 - Not so bad

2007-06-07T16:48:00.000-04:00

Issue 11 - 18 June 2005

It's time to respond to a little viewer feedback again. Last week's entry may have been a little dark (a few of you picked up on that one), reflecting the fact that it was at least a million degrees both outside inside my office. This week's weather is back more to normal, and so life is a little better now. In fact this leads me to the next question which many of you ask - is it really so bad (and have I had any good experiences here)?

This is of course an excellent question. A colleague of mine said to me this week that New York always seems so exotic when viewed from the city you grew up in, assuming of course that city is not New York itself (thanks Mr T for the quote - you have won a free subscription to this newsletter for your contribution). He is right - I grew up in Auckland with US TV shows on the box, thinking there would be nothing cooler than to live here. At the same time, I also very much wanted to live somewhere in Continental Europe and learn a language there. All of these things seemed distant dreams at the time, and in the big scheme of things, most of the things I wanted to do as a kid have come to pass (apart from being a professional cricketer - that one appears to have eluded me). So I shouldn't complain.

The purpose of these pages is however to let you see the life in New York which you don't get to see in the movies or on TV. Now, I would have thought that anything based on the daily life of a middle manager in a huge bank would be about as interesting as a radio interview with Paris Hilton's shoes, but you're still reading after 11 episodes, so I figure there must be something you like about it (beats me what though).

Putting my natural cynical nature behind me however, here are a few good things about living in New York:

1. Most things are in at least a rough form of English:

Now, I really loved living in Zurich, and learning some rough Zeugling-Deutsch was one of the best parts of it (the skiing was pretty good too). That said, there is some real comfort which comes from the fact that I don't have to psych myself up before calling the telephone company to complain about having no service for weeks on end. In the end I could pretty much make myself understood in Zurich over the telephone, but I sounded like I had the IQ of a New York driving license assessor when I did it. Here at least I can use big words, reasonably comfortable in the knowledge that I know what they mean (as opposed to NY driving license assessors who seem to have vocabularies limited to single-syllable words which eventually culminate in FAIL).

I'll save my rant about the American egomecentrical desire to dumbercize and confuzerate with the inventification of nonexisterist-neuvo words for another week. This is the positive blog after all.

2. Bookstores:

Bookstores in Zurich were (1) almost entirely filled with books in German; and (2) very limited in their selection no matter which language you spoke. Orell Fuessli on the Bahnhofstrasse typically had one table of overpriced junk fiction, two or three history or outdoor pursuits books, and at least two entire floors dedicated to US political memoirs and self-help books on things like how thinking positive will get me a $62m golden parachute when I finally get sacked (it is of course all rubbish - the real route to getting a $62m golden parachute is discussed in this excellent NY Times article - but I didn't give it to you).

Bookstores here are better than libraries. That's actually because libraries don't let you talk or use mobile phones while reading, and they don't have a Dean & Deluca coffee shop on the ground floor. Bookstores here seem to actively encourage the grazing approach to book shopping - they figure if you nibble enough of every tree on the Serengeti, you'll eventually find one you like enough to buy. Libraries have some work to do here to keep their market share I say.

3. Taxis:

It's [insert here any stupid hour after too many drinks which would make your mother blush] in the morning, you are so blotto that you are just asking to be mugged, and you can't work out even with the assistance of the helpful street numbers which direction might be home. In Zurich, this meant a walk home, or a Taxi ride which cost more than the UN oil for food programme. In New York, you look hopefully up the street, and if there isn't a taxi coming, that's because you're looking the wrong way up the one-way street and they are driving away from you. There are a lot of taxis, really cheap taxis, who know how to get to where you live, so long as you can remember where you live. And they're yellow - very yellow. You've got to be asleep or leaving a bar in another city if you can't find a big yellow taxi in less than 60 seconds.

4. Restaurants:

In New York, it's hard to find a bad restaurant.

In Switzerland, it was way too easy.

In New York, bad restaurants go broke FAST thanks to the crippling rental costs.

In Switzerland, the food was rubbish in most restaurants, but everyone seemed to accept it. After 6 years, I never understood that bit.

5. New Yorkers:

Love them or hate them, so long as they don't work for the DMV, New Yorkers are very funny people. They have an earthy sense of humour, and they genuinely seem to enjoy the everyday. Everyone has their own life, their own characters, and they are all a little crazy in their own way, so that they can live here. They may not know it, but they are actually very happy to be here.

6. Go on, it's pretty cool really:

I work on Wall St (well, in a building called Wall St Plaza at least), we live opposite the largest gold depository on the East Coast, we walk past a movie crew every other week, we can see the Hudson from our balcony, and that's without mentioning a single tourist attraction elsewhere on the island. On Thursday last week I was sitting at the table of the Board Room on the 40th floor of our headquarters discussing the quarterly press release with the CFO for the world's largest brokerage firm by market capitalisation (OK, along with 50 others, but there were a lot of people in our firm not sitting at that table - and it is a swimming-pool sized table!).

Don't get me wrong - there's plenty to moan about. Aber endlich ist es nicht soooo schlecht.

I guess it's not sooooo bad.

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A quick one - over the past few decades the tools of golf have fundamentally changed, with metal woods, balls with better flight, carbon fibre shafts, long-handled putters and so on. In a survey published last month, the effect of these massive advances on the average golf score in the US was exactly..... nothing. No difference at all. Not even a little bit. So if you duff a shot with an old (wooden) wood, chances are you would have duffed it with a metal wood as well. I guess it's not the tools that make a good carpenter.

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Sincere thanks are due to the die-hard Auckland rugby supporters, who were big-hearted enough to burn the Super-12 final between Canterbury and NSW on to DVD and post it to me. I watched it within minutes of receiving it last week, and there are few things which could make a distant red-and-black fan so happy. Fortunately Kim was off climbing until late in the evening, so I was only annoying the neighbours (who, unlike Kim, are probably not from NSW) each time Canterbury scored. I may well have already known the score, and read every report on the internet, but nothing beats seeing your team win a final.

So, to all at Tomo St, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! I'll have to find a way to butter you all up enough to get some copies of the Lions tests now!

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And now for the light entertainment:

Camping at Hammanasset Beach, Connetticut, with Andrew and Willa. I constructed the badminton net and the BBQ - Kim (of course) erected the tent. Reflecting the qualifity of the workmanship (and perhaps the use of Chinese plastic components), the badminton net was the first thing to fall down.

The beach itself - it may have been very warm, but not in the water! Count the swimmers....

A lesson in how to turn your toes blue. Piha is like a hot pool compared to Long Island Sound in June.

The new and improved terrace, after Kim's careful attentions. Note the grass, home-made planters, and ageing cricket bat (which serves as an excellent door-stop). The plants are Tomato plants, and are Kim's experiment for her course (as well as future red things in my salad).

On our walk this weekend - we did the "Five Bridges and Three Boroughs" walk. Starting at 60th St and 2nd Avenue, over the Queensborough Bridge, to this spot in Queens, looking back at the UN Building and the BB.

Then along the Queens foreshore and over the Pulaski Bridge to Brooklyn, through the Polish district in Brooklyn to Williamsburg and over the Williamsburg Bridge (pictured) to the Lower East Side of Manhattan.

From the Lower East Side, down to Chinatown and back over the Manhattan Bridge, which looks down on the FDR here, and a pretty cool place to play baseball (these guys looked pretty serious).

After the Manhattan Bridge, we picked up the Brooklyn Bridge at about the same place in Brooklyn, all the way home, 9 miles (14.6 kms), and four hours later. Certainly an interesting walk, and probably the first time I have been in Queens and Brooklyn without fearing for my life. There are some nice parts after all....

Issue 10 - Hot

2007-06-07T16:47:00.001-04:00

Issue 10 - 16 June 2005

Just a big white refrigerator (the thing on the right is the box it came in)

Hot

In New York, there are four seasons. The wet one, the dead leaf one, the f...ing cold one, and the really, really unpleasant one.

This is the unpleasant one.

New York in summer is really the armpit of the world. When the heat comes, it is nice for the first minute or so - a bit like being stepping outside in Singapore before your shirt instantly sticks to your back. Then it hits you - the humidity, the smell and the noise. New York is a noisy place - sitting on our balcony, there is a solid roar of air conditioning units, pneumatic drills, sirens and car horns. Sitting here this evening feels a little like sitting on the tarmac at Hong Kong airport under a Cathay Pacific 747 - it's noisy, its a bit whiffy, and it feels like I'm in the blast of the jet engine.

In summer, the beautiful people get a chance to show how beautiful they are, and the other 99% of New Yorkers leave the house believing that if they are not beautiful, they can at least wear almost nothing and get away with it. I hate to say it, but the 99% are painfully wrong. While the streets are a boiling 35 degrees, the subway is airconditioned (very civilised - Londoners take note). I wear a suit to work, and so I swelter in the street, but the superchilled subway is perfect for me. One step inside the frigid depths of a subway car is however enough to turn the most over-primped, under-dressed socialite into a shivering goose. Score one to the ugly blokes in the suits.

Air-conditioning is a strange animal. It is a bit like living in a refrigerator (stay with me on this one). A refrigerator is a big white box, with a cooling element in it, powered by a big engine at the back. It is a fact that if you leave the door of a fridge open, the temperature of the room will initially fall (as the cold air from inside the fridge mixes with the warmer air in the room), but then rise. This is because the engine at the back generates more heat making cold air, than the cold air it generates. This is of course due to the famously well-known principle of physics, "you can't get something for nothing," or to use some basic New York principles with the same concept, "did you really expect me to carry your bags up here for nothing," or, "did you honestly think that lunch was free?"

My office building is big and white, and is shaped like a refrigerator. It is cold on the inside (although not lately - the pot plant I keep on my desk is the only thing not wilting for the first six hours of the day), and even has a light which comes on when I open the front door in the morning. It does however take a great big engine on the roof to keep it cool, which I know from the "no free lunch" principle generates more heat than it does hot air.

The heat of the New York summer is therefore self-perpetuating: the weather warms up, the air-conditioning comes on, which generates more heat outside the buildings, which means that the air-conditioning must be turned up, which in itself generates more heat. So, New York is really just a city full of fridges with their doors open.

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Events last fortnight:

Another quarter-end went by, and I didn't get sacked - as soon as they find someone stupid enough to volunteer to do this 14 hours a day in my place (in the balmy climes of 88 Pine Street after the aircon shuts off at 6pm), I'm off to grow grapes in Central Otago I think (as opposed to growing tomatoes in the heat at my desk). No volunteers? No surprise there - not enough gullible accountants in the world, I say.

Friday two weeks ago: Star Wars! Children of the 70's, you've got to love it, because it answers all the questions it took the franchise the first 10 years to pose. "How could Darth Vader be Luke's father?" "How could Leah be Luke's sister if they grew up on different planets?" To be honest, George Lukas answered these with as little inspiration as possible. Seriously, if you asked me when I first saw Star Wars what the story should be to explain Obi-Wan's 1977 statement, "He was a Jedi once, you know," I'm pretty sure I would have added a few more twists to the tale. And I was 7 years old at the time.

Friday last week: our first show on Broadway - "Chicago" at St James' Theatre on 49th St. This was always my favourite Broadway to Hollywood crossover, and it was excellent. Super-slick and professionsal as you would expect. He had it coming, he had it coming, and you would have done it, just the same.

Last weekend: camping weekend at Hammanasset Beach in Connetticut, about two hours North-East from New York. Andrew and Willa were kind enough to give us a lift, sponsor the gas, cart our kit around, provide all the food and utensils, and be polite about my ability to undercook and overcook food on the BBQ. You guys win the "I could survive Guantanamo Bay without my Koran" award for holding out under torture.

And now for the photos:

Long Beach, Long Island. Memorial weekend (two weeks ago)

(Awwww)

A rock in the Gunks - Kim's new climbing partner (Jim) is up the top there somewhere.

There he is, a little closer.

The Gunks - about 2 hours North of New York.

Summer on the pier at Christopher Street in Greenwich Village - wow was it HOT on this day!

And - the team: we always dress like this!

The Pine St All Stars, from left to right, back row (club and position in parentheses); Michael Burgess (New Zealand, London and Zurich - bat boy); Rob Grudzinski (New Jersey - catcher); Debbie Pellegrino (Brooklyn - 1st base); Patrick McMahon (Inwood - short stop); Fred Cuttita (Manhattan - pitcher)

Seated: Rahul Chopra (Canada and Manhattan Pretenders - 3rd base); Bram Boeve (The Netherlands and Geneva - designated hitter).

Inset: Michele Peluso (Long Island - Manager, trainer, coach and franchise owner).

Absent (on free transfer from rival club): Donna Kichukova (Bulgaria - 2nd base)

Issue 9 - River

2007-06-07T16:46:00.001-04:00

28 May 2005

The East River. Don't let its toxic appearance at the surface fool you - I'm certain it's toxic all the way to the bottom as well.

Firstly, welcome to all of you who are visiting for the first time. In the true tradition of telemarketers and Washington lobby groups, we've mined our collective databases to find another 50 or so names of people who were missing out on the Apteryx haastii experience. I don't know how you define success, but if you search on Google for Apteryx haastii, we are now listed second (up from third a week ago). If you still don't know what an Apteryx haastii is, then you should do the search, and click on the site which so unreasonably comes up first. The Great Spotted Kiwi never had it so good.

Secondly, I have a quick favour to ask: we're looking to use the Ringo webtool to keep track of our mailing list - could you please quickly sign up there? (Here's a nice LINK for you). This way, I can send a group message to let you know there is an update rather than risking the ire of the nice folk at my employer by sending personal messages from my work address! Thanks (and thanks especially to the nice folk at my employer - don't fire me for saying something I shouldn't have. Please).

Third, you're a difficult group to please. Last week's post prompted a storm of criticism - "not enough pictures," the entertainment-hungry public cried. It's bad news for you, but I actually like the writing side of blogging, but since we're in the entertainment business, some photos are at the bottom of this page from our evening walk over the Brooklyn Bridge last night. Summer must be coming - last night was the first time it has been warm enough to even consider walking near either river without initial aerodynamic testing of our clothing to prevent being lifted off the ground and dropped in to the scary stream of toxic waste which is the East River.

I've often railed about how US cities (and Swiss ones for that matter) like to ignore the fact they are on a waterway, and instead of exploiting the natural beauty of water, choose to put a road or motorway along the waterfront. I'm beginning to see the historical rationale behind this though. We live at the bottom of Manhattan - the part of the US with the longest history. It's all relative of course - the barn next to our old ski-pad in Flims (Switzerland) was built in 1588 (yes, the 16th century), and that was a young building. The US was not even a country until 188 years later (and New Zealand was not even called a dominion until 252 years later). The definition of "old" or "historic" is a subjective value.

Going back a long time, settlers to New York from other places always thought of themselves as being on the way to somewhere else, which meant they took a very transitory approach to local resources. The most obvious example here is the way the rivers were the rubbish and sewage dumping points for the growing city. In theory, the rivers take the rubbish out for you, so how bad could it be? The answer to modern greenies is clear of course - the Hudson and East rivers are at least partly tidal rivers, so what goes out to sea also comes back another 12 hours later, and washes straight back up on the foreshore. As a result - the foreshore was a truely unpleasant place, so why would anyone wish to live there? The foreshore was therefore crying out for a nice six-lane highway to protect residents from the stench.

Now, most advanced economies have come to terms with the fact that the expansion of human civilisation needs to at least attempt to maintain a balance with the natural environment around it. As a practical example, the atmosphere's way of punishing London for simply pumping coal smoke into the air was the "pea-souper" - a thick green fog so bad that in one week in 1952 "The Great London Fog" killed at least four thousand people. Just to give you an idea, theatres were closed after the choking fog entered the (then new) National Theatre on the South Bank of the Thames and obscured the stage from the back rows. In 1956, the UK government passed the Clean Air act, which outlawed smoke-producing fuels. In my two years in London, there was no shortage of drizzle, but almost no fog, and certainly not one "pea-souper". I'm the last person to argue that the air in London is clean, but I will say that I'm pretty sure my allergies would would have been a good deal worse if the Great Fog was still a possibility. The point here is mirrored all over the world - the developed world has been working on cleaning up waterways and air quality, with some limited although significant success.

New York, on the other hand, seems to be well behind the global curve here. If you live in New York, you genuinely start to believe the rest of the world exists just to keep New York alive. I work for an American bank, built on the 20th century American economic miracle, which now is totally global in nature, reflecting the reality of the 21st century (did you like the rhetoric in that one - I could run for office here. If Ahhhhnold can do it, surely someone who speaks English stands a fair chance?).

New York is the financial powerhouse though - if you took the non-US part of the world out, you would eliminate around 35% of my bank's total revenue, and if you took the whole non-NY world out, you would only eliminate 45% of total revenue. [[Scary legal bit: don't quote me, or sell or buy any shares as a result of any number I say here - these are 100% OPINION only - I've not tied my opinion back to any public or private info about the bank I work for! I'm NOT kidding - don't sue me, you have NOTHING to rely on here]].

Hence, if you work in Banking, you think the world can't survive without New York. The same goes for the movie industry (see my sidebar below), the fashion industry, the poodle-grooming industry and so on. In the end, the whole pile of fluff we always hear about New York being "the centre of the universe" which we all hate - it's scary but after a mere seven weeks here, I'm beginning to see what they are getting at!

What this means however is that New Yorkers all see the environment as someone else's problem. They feel that if they are busy being the centre of the universe, it's only one small island, so the rest of the world can do the environment thing. New York is a massive consumer of resource, but a major producer of economic energy. When the Bush Baby administration decided to can the Kyoto accord, I kept asking, "How is that possible? Who in the world is anti-environment," as if it was a tautology (old debating term for an obviously true statement). By contrast, in New York, those who cared asked, "Wow, they had a world environmental forum in a restaurant on Lexington Avenue. It must be pretty good." (the restaurant, not the forum)

In the US, economic energy is perceived as the power of all things good, so the rest of the world had better get busy saving the environment.

Otherwise, I'll need to get a rope so I can moor my boat to my balcony on the 29th floor when the sea level rises.

That's what happened to Venice, and that was last major city-state in history (from the 16th century no less).

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There was a movie scene being shot outside my office building last Friday. I'm pretty sure I was the only one excited by this fact though - according to the Mayor's special office for the film industry there are 100 films and TV shows being shot in NY this week. Hence the following logical conumdrum:

The whole world wants to see films set in New York

The whole of New York doesn't care even a little bit about movies set in New York

New York doesn't care (or even know) even a little bit about the rest of the word

therefore......

The whole world watches movies which feature (by definition) bored New Yorkers;

and New York watches.......

Nothing - it's not cool to get excited anyway.

Unless its the Yankees or the Mets. And even then only if you cared.

Actually, the Time Out or Village Voice magazines' reviews of new restaurants or bars tend to generate some excitement. Makes sense really - not relevant to the rest of the world, and the rest of the world is not relevant to New York. Only New York is relevant to New York!

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Bis nächste Woche!

M&K

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Events this week:

Saturday (last week): a great night out with Andrew Beattie (not another English Andrew, surely), and his excellent friends, Sam, David and Kevin. What a great Thai restaurant in the East Village - we need to make that a regular occasion just so that we can have the duck curry more often! The restaurant: Montien

Tuesday: Kim climbing! Yay! She has a climbing partner! Yay for her! And especially for me!

Thursday: Dinner in a cool but tiny restaurant on Prince Street in SoHo with Bryan and Kristen (formerly from Colorado and Zurich). Well done Snowy and Caroline - we did all eventually meet up thanks to your persistence, and the four of us are all grateful! The restaurant: Alma Blu

Friday: Walk across Brooklyn Bridge to enjoy one day in a row of spring weather. Photos below (don't give in yet!)

Saturday: Kim paints the bedroom orange. Sorry Mr Hall - I know we should have spoken with you first! Photos to follow after the third coat!

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Had enough? Did you see last week's post about how I think Wall St will be a supermarket soon?

Didn't think so

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And now for the photos:

Downtown from Brooklyn Bridge. The whtie spot -----------^----------- there is the top of our building.

The boss - smiling now she has a climbing partner.

An arty shot to finish (artist credits to Kim). Brooklyn Bridge at sunset.

Issue 8 - Supermarket

2007-06-07T16:44:00.000-04:00

28 May 2005

The NYSE on Wall St - specials on cauliflowers in Aisle 10?

OK - it's time for a big prediction. I think the famous New York Stock Exchange on Wall Street will be shortly be a Supermarket. It's a long and potentially dull road to this conclusion, but if you can handle reading a few words without any gratuitous photos, then you are welcome to bear with me.

The history bit:

The NYSE has been on Wall Street since 1792, when it was a scruffy meeting place for dodgy merchants, trading goods under the buttonwood tree next to the wall built to keep the English and Indians out. In more recent times, it has became the symbol of modern capitalism, as the place where trillions of dollars of available capital (i.e. cash) move around every day in exchange for slivers of ownership of the world's largest companies.

The Michaelnomics bit:

The point of capitalism is that it allows those with spare cash (i.e. free capital) to give it to those with good ideas but no cash. In this way, the best ideas get the most funding so they can happen, and the worst ideas get all their cash taken away from them so that they fail. I like to think of it as Darwinian natural selection with money (and who doesn't find money sexy - or is that just me?).

Michaelnomics as an example:

Many people think Google is a good idea - sole ownership of the best internet search algorhythm, innovative thought leaders in the industry, potentially substantial source of income from internet advertising, and a reasonable approach to spending money by management. Google's shares were offered for the first time last year, and everyone wanted to buy in to a good idea, generating an instant market valuation for Google of 23.1 billlion dollars. That's a lot of searches for that Paris Hilton video if you ask me (and shame on you if you know what I am talking about there - unless you've seen it, in which case, is it true she has less talent than that dog-rat thing she lost?),

At about the same time, Enron's business model appeared to consist of taking all of their spare cash and gifting it to their Management by way of secret and complex trust arrangements hidden on Carribean islands. This is most people's idea of a bad idea (apart from the Enron managers who thought this was a fantaaaaaaaastic idea), so Enron not surprisingly had trouble raising more spare cash from anyone, and they went broke.

See, it's like natural selection - bad ideas, like gazelle who are can't run (and Wimbledon football clubs), get killed off, and the strong ideas are left to survive and breed other little ideas.

Actually that was an aside - did you enjoy it?

Now what's missing from that very idealistic approach is the Michaelnomics concept of "economic friction". Economic friction slows the free flow of capital and diverts a share of the economic energy in the direction of those who place themselves in the path of the transaction. In the world of physics, a television gets hot because of the friction involved in turning electricity in to a picture capable of turning a man-puppy-thing into a statue at more than 30 paces - the less heat involved, the more efficient the process, and the less electricity required to generate the stationary-man-puppy-thing-effect.

The most obvious form of economic friction is the concept of commissions (if you are government-employed, this is called corruption). For every transaction (e.g. the purchase of a TV, buying or selling shares on the NYSE, or giving money to the Pandas through the WWF), there is a fee to pay to everyone who handles the goods and the cash. This fee is really a tax on the system - hence it hinders the free flow of capital like a handbrake hinders the abilty to take off at speed from the traffic lights. In short, one dollar given to an idea should result in the idea receiving as much of the dollar as possible (in a perfect world, the Panda would be able to sue for its full dollar). The more that dollar is lost through friction, the less chance little ideas have of surviving.

The point - economic friction at the NYSE:

The NYSE operates an open outcry system, similar to the way cattle is sold at market. The problem with the open outcry system is that there are a lot of people dressed as brightly as peacocks, all shouting, and therefore a lot of peacocks shouting but not listening. With any such system, there is an excellent chance of the buyer and seller thinking they agreed to different things. When a trade takes place, minions who work for the peacocks pick up all the "buy" and "sell" tickets and try to match them. Where they don't agree, there is an "out trade", which takes all sorts of reseach to sort out. The costs of peacocks, minions and out trades (and the ridculous bonuses for the CEO of the NYSE) need to be recovered from the commissions charged on each trade. One thing is for certain - no matter how much you make or lose in share trading, the peacocks never lose a penny.

Now, the peacock system works for tourists and TV video bytes, but it's a not that efficient. Actually, as it turns out all the other major exchanges around the world have already cottoned on to this fact, and have moved to screen trading, where buy and sell orders are matched automatically. This means you don't need a great big hall, peacocks, minions or out-trades. Trades are matched in split-seconds, with the details 100% matched - which of course means transaction costs (and therefore, commissions) are lower. So as it stands, the NYSE, the home of Western Capitalism, is actually one of the least efficient capital markets in the world.

Archipeligo - the NYSE dragged kicking and screaming in to the 21st century:

Last month, the NYSE (against the wishes of the peacocks - these peacocks are pretty well-connected parrots) agreed to merge with Archipeligo Exchange - an electronic trading platform. This has to be the first step in the phasing out of the open outcry system, and minimising the economic friction within the NYSE.

So, let's follow the logical progession here:

1. NYSE merges with an electronic trading platform

2. No-one needs the peacocks who used to strut around being annoying, charging huge commissions for something a computer can now do with e-mails. The peacocks go back to selling furniture in Jersey and stationery in Brooklyn.

3. The NYSE trading hall goes quiet - all trading is now done electronically

4. The banks and brokers work out that rent downtown is pretty expensive given electronic trading can be done anywhere. They move their offices to lower cost and higher security locations in Cincinnatti and Bangladesh.

5. With the banks gone, more and more offices downtown are converted to lower-cost residential apartments.

6. With a higher residential population, product and services will follow, such as hairdressers, plant shops, and (of course) supermarkets.

7. Supermarkets need "big bang" retail space and the largest space around is already empty - the NYSE trading hall.

8. Some time in 2009, Whole Foods moves in to the NYSE space. Cauliflower specials follow shortly after....

You read it here first.

*********************************************

Just a PS to this (dated 31 May)

Newsweek will run an article in their June 6 edition saying exactly the same thing: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8017002/site/newsweek/. I'm going to need to set up tracking software and start posting copyright notices to stop the big guys from stealing my material a day after I post it!

Issue 6 - Sidewalk Rage

2007-06-07T16:42:00.000-04:00

Blogs are fun. It's amazing who reads the triffle I think up, and how many people get upset when they are left off the mailing list. It's a strange sense of the modern age that the further away we are from you, the more likely you are to read my propaganda. Of course, if I was just standing next to you in the pub talking this sort of stuff, you'd either find another pub, or at least politely disagree. When I blog, I'm always right - the complaints office is the box with the plastic liner and recycling logo under my desk.

With success comes responsibility though. See, this all started off as a rant from a vaguely frustrated Kiwi (with material occasionally plaguarised from a very disgruntled Australian) about, not to put too fine a point on it, life in America. The problem is that now I have to apologise to all of the Americans who are reading this, because you've all muscled in on my project (although I do refuse to apologise with a "zed", and absolutely not with a "zee"). The final straw was when I started forwarding this to my colleagues at work - a rich source of material scythed down in one swift stroke.

*********************************

So, what are some interesting topics from this week?

How about my cousin Dave, living the high life in Boston (Baaah-sten), a 30-minute flight and a psychlogical world away from New York. Dave is a bass player in a band in his spare time, but his day job used to be as a graphic designer for an accounting firm - not one of the defunct ones, but if you wince at the gentle moo of Italian cows making milk for a certain diary company, you'll know who you are. Now, being a bass player is way cool, compared to working for an accounting firm, so it was not the end of anyone's dreamtime in the gloaming when the time came for heads to roll and Dave was one of them.

The cool thing here is that he can say that he used to work for the "creative department".

Of an accounting firm.

See, if he had worked for Arthur Anderson, some would have said it was the auditors who were working for the creative department....

I'll bet they didn't sack the guy who thought of that name. In fact, he probably helped sponsor the Sarbanes-Oxley Act through Congress.

*****************************

In Baah-sten, they are very friendly, relaxed and reasonable people - so long as you think the Red Sox are the only thing there is to believe in on a baseball field. So - a quick history lesson: baseball was invented, the Red Sox were pretty good around the turn of the century, but didn't win a thing after that. Not a sausage. Not a skerrick. Nothing. Like, really nothing. Hang on, wait - no, still nothing. You get the picture - that's a lot of waiting.

The NY Yankees on the other hand won everything, year after year. The Yankees are so successful that they have that sort of collective arrogance which goes with being a legend in your own lunchbox. They are all megastars, hired on rock-star salaries, with a fanatical following of fans all with matching lunchboxes.

Then last year, the planets aligned, the gods smiled, and the Red Sox came back four times from certain death in the playoffs against the Yankees to set up a World Series appearance (don't get me started on the "World" thing) which they subsequently won. So wonderful, so great, so well done, so unbelievable.

It's all so.... so last year.

The new season has started, there are 162 games to play, and it's all history. All that emotion, all that hot air, all those books, photographs, anecdotes and column inches, all last year. The stories about the champions are today all kitty litter and chip wrapping. People struggle to grow rice and live in a house again in Sri Lanka, and in the US billions of dollars flutter around in the sports industry. All of that economic activity on pastimes - no wonder George Bush got tired of owning a sports team and started a war over oil. It must have seemed so much more productive to him.

So, Baah-sten is a beatiful place, with very friendly people. Just tell them you hate the Yankees (even if it's true), and you'll get along fine.

****************************

Walking around midtown NewYork has given rise to a new condition in the flightless kiwi - sidewalk rage. The problem with having our head office at Times Square is that the whole world visits New York, just to get in my way. I've written before about Times Square as a collection of flashing lights and mobile billboards, but at ground level not a lot moves. Seriously, wildebeest migrate across the Serengeti faster than the average tourist can determine whether the lights have changed to "walk" from "don't walk". And just like the Serengeti, you can't look in any direction without seeing a wildebeest with a fresh new "I [heart] NY" t-shirt, chewing the cud of this morning's pizza.

When I'm struggling to get to a meeting and trying to step lightly down Broadway, I feel like a cheetah with an elephant sitting on its tail. I can jump from side to side and yelp in frustration, but in the end I'm only going to go anywhere when the elephant does. Kim seems to have the technique well established - she can flit like an angelfish through coral. Perhaps I'm the elephant here after all.

I now take a massive black 400-page diary as my notebook to meetings. It's too big and heavy to be practical, but when I carry it on Broadway, I'm never mistaken for a tourist, and the red sea seems to part in front of me. It makes sense really, because I'm what they all came to NY to see - a harassed NY banker. All I need now is a syndicated lunchbox.

****************************

Some footnotes:

1. For those who didn't get the accountant's inside joke about the cows' moo - Deloitte & Touche took over the audit firm Grant Thornton a few years ago, who cheerfully ticked off every year on a non-existent asset of not less than one BILLION euro on the balance sheet of Parmalat, an Italian diary company. Ouch.

2. Sidewalk rage isn't actually my phrase, although it is a good one. Thanks to Debbie in the MSCI Barra FCG power-team for coining this one.

*****************************

And a thought to finish:

Slaves to fashion take note - combat fatigues now come in pink. Excellent for camouflage if you are conducting guerilla warfare in a Barbie shop....

****************************

(Thanks to Kim for that joke. I can't think of them all myself!)

Have a good week!

PS - if you haven't already, please sign up for a passport and register on the website. This way you stand less chance of being forgotten if I even lose my mailing list! The link is at the bottom of the link below

http://groups.msn.com/TheNYdiariesofflightlessApteryxhaastii/_whatsnew.msnw

Issue 5 - The Roof

2007-06-07T16:38:00.000-04:00

Sorry - it's still month-end. Here are a few photos of the sunset from the almost finished roof terrace of our building in the meantime (http://2goldstreet.com/)

I couldn't help myself though, I've appended some (i.e. too many hours of) subjective commentary (and my sleep suffers for it).

But first I have to ask, "do you know any accountants?" I still have one position open in my team, and I would have so much more time to actually write my blog if I filled this position so I had someone to do all my work for me. Any Muppet considered, Animal on the drums included. Knowledge of spreadsheets essential, ability to count to ten useful, but not essential. Advantages - ummmmmm, apply for details. Disadvantages - can't be many. You have to work for me for one. And I'm softer than a tiger with a Vegas animal trainer in my mouth. Purrrr.

For Burgerian family members your patience will be rewarded, a certified photo of a Daverix Rilerius (previously feared extinct, or at least impossible to find) lurks below....

Looking uptown.

The ESB (known as the Big B*stard to itinerant Kiwis - The Big B to you) lurks to the left of this shot. The Supreme and Circuit courts are in the foreground.

Fans of the TV show, "Law & Order" will be pleased to know the homicide detectives are in the "Police Plaza" complex one block away. It must have seemed so easy to make show out of it. Mothers of sons and daughters residing in New York should however always remember that "Law and Order" is fiction - homicide detectives probably do wear cheap suits and have at least one wise-crack an hour - but it actually feels more dangerous walking around Cathedral Square in Christchurch after closing time than it does walking around Harlem after dark.

I managed (deliberately of course?) to focus this shot on the previously down, but now up-and-coming district of the East Village - where one can see the Daverix Rilerius in action on bass with his band (blatant plug, but get over it - I'll bet you wish you had a cool cousin in a band that plays regularly in New York). A link to the online shop where you can purchase the album will be uploaded once the Daverix gives it to me....

The Manhattan bridge shines behind the architecturally unacclaimed Human Resources department of the City of New York on the right. If you enjoy spotting landmarks in web photos, you will of course have already seen the pillars of the Brooklyn Bridge in front of the Manhattan Bridge anyway....

Ha! Made you look for it, even if you didn't see it! When the wind direct from Greenland subsides enough to make a safe attempt (i.e. in late August), we will bring you some photos from the walkway of the Brooklyn Bridge. Until then, the BB (not The Big B) remains the sole preserve of those who can afford the Taxi ride to La Guardia airport and genetically modified seagulls.

Arty stuff - reflection in 80 Wall St. Fans of alcoholic beverages will recognise with uncanny clarity the blurred image of the Big B to the right....

A tale of two rivers (or, to those living in Auckland - the perfectly normal conclusion which follows from living on a very skinny piece of land):

On the left - (not funny this one) a Hudson River view courtesy of Al Qaeda. The WTC site is the other side of the (black) Brown Brothers Harriman building in the centre of the shot. No-one has any sense of humour about this, least of all me. Not funny, not cool. Big hole in the ground, big hole in the heart of New Yorkers. I'll write a page on this once I've been here long enough to get anyone to talk about it.

On the right - my office is the white one, nestling up to the raw sewage of the East River. I have a beautiful internal cubicle on the third floor, offering me an outstanding view of........ other cubicles (but fortunately not the foreshore of the East River). I'd take photos of the office, but as we all know, web blogs are a great way of finding an excuse to fire mouthy middle managers.

It takes 90 seconds to walk the street distance from 2 Gold to 88 Pine, and 120 seconds including lift journeys from the Nespresso machine in our kitchen to the Nespresso machine at work. A wait at the traffic lights at Maiden Lane and Water St can suck up a vital additional 60 seconds.....

And for those who wait - the only photo from Boston last weekend which did not involve hurricane force winds and horizontal sleet:

A Daverix Rilerius in its natural habitat - Foley's Bar in Downtown Boston. Don't underestimate it though..... it still knows how to execute a Fool's Mate if ever you drop your guard! AND, it still rails against the improper use, of, commas, in, place, of (parentheses).

Now, us Kiwi's know nothing about sounding like we care about the language, but we sure know how to get upset about it!

(yes I know, improper use of an apostrophe in Kiwi's - just making a point. I wouldn't mention it, but there are too many teachers (especially Mr Pipe and Mr Loretz, formerly from Avondale College, and Ms Barwick, not allowed to work in the US, but still bloody qualified to teach bloody English) who read these pages!)

Issue 3 - Shark

2007-06-07T16:34:00.000-04:00

Overheard last Thursday at a Cingular Wireless store:
Michael & Kim: "So, how much does it cost per month?"
The Shark: "$39.99 a month."
"But it's another $4.99 for 200 SMS's a month."
"Yeah, right."
"So..... that's about $45 a month?"
"Yep, that's all."
[Michael, being a lawyer from way back, starts to read through the 10-page contract. The Shark drums his fingers in irritation while pulling faces of boredom at Kim.]
M: "So what's this $36 activation fee?"
The Shark: "That's standard. Everyone charges it."
"You didn't think to mention it?"
"I supposed I should have mentioned it, yes."
"Is there anything else we should know?"
"Like what?"
" Just want to know how much it will cost. Are there any other charges we should know about?"
"Nope, that's it."
[Michael continues reading, and now he is the one drumming his fingers in irritation.]
"What about this $1.25 regulation charge?"
"That's standard. Everyone charges it."
"It doesn't say how often this is. Is it monthly?"
"Yeah. It's a tax."
"That's funny, it expressly says here, "This is not a tax." So this is fee you charge me for answering questions about me as required by the government?"
"Yep, that's it."
(Very slowly) "Is there anything else we should know?"
"Like what?"
(Getting grumpy now) "Look, I just want to know how much it will cost each month. For the third time, how much will it cost?"
"I can't tell you because of the tax. I always tell people to add more because of the tax. The tax is different depending on where you live."
"But we live around the corner."
"So, you'll pay the tax from where you live."
"OK, how much is that."
"I can't tell you really. It's about 22%."
"22%! But sales tax in New York is only 8.625%"
"The tax on mobile phones is different."
"So how much is it?"
"I can't tell you, I don't know, because it depends on where you live. Look, I would have told you all this, but I didn't know you knew nothing about the industry.
"Does anyone?"
"Yeah, everyone. I believe in saying all this up front, right? It's more honest to say everything up front."
[Michael & Kim decide to cut The Shark off before he coughs up a conscience.]
"Yeah. Whatever."

So - Elliot Spitzer - good job hammering the banks, and getting a ton of money for New York state (even if no-one from the financial community will fund your 2008 Presidential Campaign). Could you please go after a decent target now? In the land of the free, the home of the "consumer is king", and the birthplace of anti-trust law, why are all the mobile phone companies offering exactly the same ripoff deals? Get out there and make them pay for anti-competitive practises!
Just make sure they don't add the cost of the fines on to my monthly bill.

Issue 2 - Learner Driver

2007-06-07T16:29:00.000-04:00

Issue 2 - April 2005
Learner driver
I am now the proud owner of a full New York state driver's license. Now, for those of you who know that I passed my license in 1987, that might seem to be an obvious statement, but nothing could be further from the truth.
When I moved New Zealand to Pongolia, I simply handed in a flimsy paper Kiwi license, and was posted (for free) an even flimsier UK license (which was large enough to use as a bedspread on my tiny bed at Dancer Road). When I moved from Pongolia to Choco-Cheeseland, I handed in my very tatty bedspread-license, and after the payment of a mere 114 francs, was the proud owner of a Swiss license, credit card size, summarising in tiny print (and in four languages, none of them English) the fact that I was allowed to drive anything up to a bus which held less than 30 people.
In New York, I turned up at the Department of Motor Vehicles (the DMV, or Disturbed, Malicious and Vicious, for short), handed over the license, and was confidently told, "you can change your license if it is issued by a state in the US or Canada."
Me: "Really? But I have a license issued by Switzerland."
DMV lady: "No problem. Is Switzerland in the US?"
(HONEST, I did NOT make that up - and she was NOT being sarcastic. Kim was standing beside me as a witness. Life really is stranger than fiction sometimes).
Me (after long moment of total surprise): "Yes, actually. It was issued in Switzerland, Texas."
DMV: "That's alright then. [Stamp, stamp] Here you are:"
Sadly, I was not thinking quickly enough to make sure the last two sentences happened, so there I was, back to the status of Learner Driver. After a short two-hour wait, one mindnumbingly simple 10-minute multi-choice test, and a mere $46, I now had a torn and badly printed receipt - a piece of paper more worthless than the flimsy piece of paper I obtained in New Zealand more than 17 years ago.
No matter, I thought, how bad can it be? I just turn up, do the practical test, and I'm fully legal again. Apart from the compulsory five-hour course I had to take. So, I manage to find a driving school in Brooklyn (obviously - who learns to drive in Manhattan?), and so I got to sit in a smelly, crowded room fully of very sweaty, bored teenagers for a whole Saturday. What did I learn in this time? All I learned is that there are no good reasons to go to Brooklyn on a Saturday morning. People from Brooklyn will probably disagree with me (and I expect them to). They may suggest that the Fulton Mall, far from looking like the gangster's version of Acton High Street, is in fact the home to many a good deal from reputable merchants. They may suggest that the cuisine on the Mall is nutritious and very affordable, rather than a collection of grubby fast food restaurants, where Burger King really does look like the most healthy option. They may even argue it is the home of fine art and culture, so long as graffitti meets the definition of fine art, and rap music the meaning of culture. What they will not say however, is that Brooklyn is an ideal place to sit and watch five hours of videos on the dangers of not wearing a seatbelt.
So, I have a flimsy piece of paper to say I can guess multiple-choice correctly, and another to say I can watch TV for five hours on a rainy Saturday without noticeably falling asleep. These things are of course of no value, until I have passed (cue meanacing music), THE TEST.
THE TEST, held on Friday of last week, after a three-week wait for an appointment, was to last no more than 10 minutes (why the 3 week wait?), on the totally deserted streets (save for other aspiring drivers) of Redhook, Brooklyn. I would now give a long and withering critique of the beauty (or otherwise) of Redhook, except that I didn't see any of it. What I did see, was a single grassy green park, with deserted roads on all four sides. Now, remember that I had nothing to gain from this test - either I pass as expected, or I surprise and fail, like 40% of those who take it first time. In order to minimise the embarrassment of tripping myself up immediately after the starter's gun, I took the very sensible step of a 45-minute lesson with the driving school, who would then lend me their car with which to sit THE TEST.
My lesson was easy enough - stop at stop signs, don't go the wrong way up one-way streets, and always, always turn my head like a giraffe looking for sunspots on its back to check my blind spot when changing lanes. Having learned the simple rules about all-way stop intersections (give way to anyone who arrived before you, and anyone bigger than you who looks like they might not have insurance), I was ready. We parked at the end of a queue of at least 30 cars, and waited the compulsory two hours before an assessor was ready to have his power fix.
Cue the music - we're off. Pull out easy enough, then at the first intersection (an all-way stop - no worries there now), a huge articulated truck comes from the left and begins to pull in to my street. I indicate, giraffe, and move to the side of road to give him room to turn. While I am doing this, DMV-hitler-person shouts, "anticipate the truck!"
Having well and truly anticipated the truck, I politely reply, "Yes, I have it, thanks."
The truck pulls past, I indicate, giraffe, turn left as instructed and move to the next test. More on the truck later.
Left again at the next all-way stop, parallel park behind an SUV (parked at the end of a line of cars - I could have just driven up behind it), left into a narrow two-way street (avoiding the devious trap of simply driving down the middle of it), then politely tooting the horn at pedestrains walking along between the parked cars (I learned that one in one of the five videos - it's actually written in to the law - you are SUPPOSED to use your horn when you are just cruising along deserted streets).
Right again at the stop sign at the top, three point turn to turn around and pass the point of origin again (on a road large enough to do a U-turn on), avoiding the devious trap of reversing all the way back across the street (and illegally facing the wrong way on a two-way street - instant fail).
I'm instructed to turn left, back in to the narrow two-way street. I pause to let a careening SUV sort itself out before it reaches the stop sign. I have right of way, but I don't want to finish up as a hood ornament on a Dodge, so I wait until he stops before I pull past him.
The world ends.
"TAKE YOUR RIGHT OF WAY SIR!" says the SS-officer in my passenger seat. "YOU HAD YOUR RIGHT OF WAY, YOU DO NOT HAVE ALL DAY! THIS IS A VERY SERIOUS ERROR!
"TAKE....
"YOUR....
"RIGHT....
"OF....
"WAY...."
I'm going deaf in my right ear, and trying to figure out how annoyed he would have been if I had taken my right of way, and we had been punted backwards across the road in a mashed-up Chevrolet Cavalier, to land finally in the park. Whatever. So defensive driving is actively frowned upon. That explains a lot.
The rest is straightforward, right at the stop, right at the stop, right again in to the original road (DOH! Forgot to do the giraffe there! Bloody deserted streets. I might not have seen a falling telephone pole because I didn't look). And we stop.
So, I think. I know I forgot to giraffe once, so that's five points. I'm allowed 30 points, so this should be easy.
"You did not observe [giraffe] when turning right [five points]. You used excessive manoeuvring when parallel parking [probably right - it turns out you're only allowed to turn the front wheels six times - five points, we're up to 10, out of 30].
"You did not take your right of way, that's ten points [TEN POINTS! You are f**king kidding me].
"You displayed poor judgement with the truck. You should have anticipated him before I told you to do so. Ten points."
WHAT!!!!??? The blood is roaring in my ears now. Should I argue that I was just taking my right of way? Hang on now - that's still only 30 points. I really will blow it if he gets me for having a bad accent, or not taking my right of holding my patience.
"You have only just passed this test. Take these notes and work on them in your everyday driving."
Yeah, right mate. Whatever. You get your 15 minutes of fame with me writing about you. A pass is a pass...... and you will always be an idiot.
For what it is worth - I was there for two hours, and he only passed one other person the whole time I was there. And he looked unhappy about it then as well. AND, I'll bet he "just" passed him with exactly 30 points. I hope he sleeps well at night.
So - I'm qualified. Qualified at multiple-choice, TV-watching, and driving around deserted parks in the middle of a weekday. But only just.
But get this - for all that I've been through, spare a thought for Kim. She waited three hours at the DMV to be told she is not ELIGIBLE for a license (having no social security number). Why are the skills required to drive the same as the skills required to pay in to social security? Is the state government now responsible for (federal) immigration policy?
My parting question on this: Is the word "logic" deleted from government dictionaries, or is it just in a collective blind spot so big that it cannot even be seen when turning one's head around like a giraffe?

Events this week:
April 19 2005 - Container arrived from Switzerland. Oh the joys of boxes and damaged furniture!
April 20 2005 - Drinks and dinner with Susanne Frailick near Union Square.
April 21 2005 - Watched an ice hockey game at Chelsea Piers, Morgan Stanley FID vs Equity. Well done Rob Grudzinski (from my team at work) for one goal and and an assist for FID! Watch the older eagles fly!

Issue 1 - Loud

2007-06-07T16:26:00.001-04:00

Another engine quietly exits onto 8th Avenue. Note the complete absence of threatening oncoming traffic....

The New York diaries of a flightless Apteryx haastii
Issue 1 – April 2005
Loud
Well here we are. Suffice it to say that via Christchurch, London and Zurich, this particular Apteryx haastii (Great Spotted Kiwi) has crash landed in Downtown New York.
Crash landed at 2 Gold Street, to be precise. Of course there is no way that you could know where this is, because it isn’t a helpfully numbered avenue or have informative numbered cross streets. We’re all the way down where only those with dark suits or fully fuelled hijacked aircraft ever go – Downtown. I’ll put you out of your misery – we live two short streets from the NYSE, and three minutes’ walk from the WTC site (now a Belgium-sized hole in the ground with the world’s most visited wire fence).
So here we are - Kim and I – like baby rabbits emerging timidly into the sunshine for the first time. There are hawks circling unseen in the sky, loud unfamiliar sounds, and there is not much to eat anywhere near the warren. What are our first impressions?
Loud. There you have it.
For our first month here, we were lucky enough to be put up in temporary accommodation in midtown at 48th and 8th. 30 seconds from the place that tourists call heaven – Times Square. So here I’ll make the same statement that everyone makes – it’s just not square. Now, I’ve been to a lot of famous squares in my short life: Trafalgar Square in London, the Palazzo San Marco in Venice, Paradeplatz in Zurich, Cathedral Square in Christchurch, etc, etc; but none of them are the intersection of two six-lane highways. And none of them have TV screens - a lot of TV screens (like a LOT, a lot). I’m a bloke like any other – show me a TV and I’m instantly paralysed - I just have to stop and look. Test my theory – look around a TV shop near the plasma screens. I’ll just bet most of the men standing like statues with their mouths open are just responding to the instinctive reflex to follow moving bright lights like puppies (or moths). TV shops only have sales people to break the spell and clear room for other men-puppy-moths to come in and see the pretty colours. The way I see it, New York taxi drivers must have compulsory anti-paralysis training just for Times Square, otherwise there would be all sorts of TV-screen induced road-kill at each intersection and crosswalk.
So back to loud – sorry, LOUD! You see, the problem with living on the 32nd floor of a building above the intersection of 48th and 8th in New York is that we had an excellent view of the fire station on the other side of the road at 48th and 8th. Now fire fighters are a good idea, and fire stations for them are also a good idea, and having one near where you live is an excellent idea. Putting sirens on NY fire engines is a very bad idea.
Don’t get me wrong – sometimes a siren is necessary, just like sometimes the use of force when arresting violent criminals is necessary. It’s just that the use of force can be excessive, and then it’s a whole new crime. In my opinion, pulling out at 3am on to a deserted 8th avenue in a great big red truck with flashing lights is not exactly dangerous. Unless you’re a fire fighter, who grew up as a kid with the sole purpose in life of driving a truck with a siren (which is turned on). Or perhaps they just feel that it really is dangerous to pull out on a deserted 8th avenue, so it’s important to have the entire neighbourhood as lookouts for oncoming traffic – hence the need to wake them all up so they can check the street from their windows. Just to make sure everyone is awake, fire trucks have a horn which is loud enough to shatter the tiles of passing space shuttles, which is used to terrify oncoming traffic in to submission, notwithstanding the absence of traffic at 3am. I’ve been to the Belgian Grand Prix where we discovered the bang of a formula one car changing down feels like a blow to the inside of your chest – the sound of these horns feels like the F1 car hitting the inside of your ribs. From 32 stories away. Through double-glazed windows. I think that’s loud – you tell me.
Kim has been under extreme pressure trying to meet assignment deadlines in between the instability of a move to a different continent, and was justifiably complaining about the noise in the apartment. I thought I had the solution when I bought her some noise-cancelling headphones, which were designed originally to allow you to still hear the movies on airplanes. They did an excellent job of cancelling the low hum of all the air conditioning units in the city, so that we could hear the higher-frequency sound of the sirens much better. It turns out that the dull roar at low frequencies in NY is just useful for covering all of the other noise.
I think this is the cause of the perception that Americans abroad are loud – they’re just hearing-impaired.

Events so far:
21 March 2005 - last decent night's sleep, induced by many, many, many beers and G&T's at Lady Hamilton's in Zurich. Can't member much except being serenaded out by everyone singing "New York, New York" to Kim and I.
22 March 2005 - arrived in NY, no Ellis Island experience, no feeling of momentous step, just a deserted immigation hall at Newark Airport
22 March 2005 - first night in temporary accommodation - beginning of the month of sleep deprivation.
25-27 March 2005 - Easter with the McKamey's at Lake Seneca, upstate NY.
12 April 2005 - Michael - drinks at Social Lounge on 8th Ave with Andrew Beattie and Simon Fisher.
1-15th April 2005 - first month-end for Michael with the new team from NY. The good thing about deadlines is that once they have passed there is no need to feel bad about the things not done yet. The numbers go from potentially misstated to just plain wrong. Not much else changes: the sun still comes up and goes down as before, and people still watch TV and get their hair cut.
14 April 2005 - out of temp accommodation to 2 Gold St. No excuses any more - we just have to like it!
15 April 2005 - dinner with Amit Shah at Pipa on 19th St, then party at Orchid on 6th Ave.