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This is a bit overdue, but I wanted to make another post about my last adventures in NYC, namely Dinner with Scott and Concerts in the City.

Dinner with Scott

Scott was previously my dad’s boss during the last handful of years that we were living in California. Even though I was only about 9 years old the last time that I saw him, I remeber being incredibly impressed by him as a whole. He wrote me a personal letter congratulating me on my baptism at the age of 8, which really meant a lot to me.

Well, I hadn’t talked to Scott directly in more than 15 years, but I have always wanted to know him as an adult. Last year, I visited our office in NYC, and my dad was a bit disturbed that I didn’t think to make arrangements to have dinner with Scott. However, I didn’t even think that it would be sensible for him to travel from his home in New Jersey into the city just to have dinner, so I didn’t even ask Scott. This year was going to be different.

I found Scott’s company website back in April, but couldn’t find any direct contact information for him. I could only find a “Contact Us” link. I sent in a brief email asking that it be passed to Scott so that I could be in contact with him. His response, which was much more immediate than I dreamed possible, was extremely exciting. He wanted me to call him as soon as possible, and we exchanged emails to arrange such. Later that week, we talked on the phone for about an hour and determined that it wouldn’t be any trouble for him to meet me in the city for dinner while I was there.

From the time of the phone call until Thursday night, we traded emails back and forth, during which I discovered that he is a budding artist/sculptor and musician and that he is even more awesome than I remember from way-back-when. Oh, and we made all of the arrangements for getting together in the city.

Since I was travelling with my best friend, he and I met Scott for dinner Thursday night. Scott met us at our hotel, and we walked a few blocks to a little tavern/microbrewery/chophouse. We sat and ate dinner and enjoyed really entertaining, satisfying, and facinating conversation. I am SOO glad that I had a chance to get together with Scott.

I really want to write more about Scott, but I’m opting to do so later in a separate post. I gotta get back to the details of my trip!

Concerts in the City

While we were at the NYC office, one of our coworkers mentioned that there are typically concerts at Bryant Park on Friday mornings at about 7am (EDT). Well, James and I aren’t going to turn down a free concert, so we decided to get details. We stopped by the concierge desk at the hotel, and the gal there told us that there were actually TWO concerts scheduled for Friday morning. One was Coldplay up at Rockafeller Plaza (on The Today Show?), and the other was Maroon 5 at Bryant Park (for the CBS morning show, whatever the heck it’s called).

Seriously?! Maroon 5 and Coldplay?! I couldn’t believe that we would be able to see two free concerts of two bands that are both quite good. I’m not a HUGE fan of Maroon 5, but I was excited to try to see them perform.

Both venues were relatively close to the hotel, so we decided to go try to watch Coldplay first, and then we would listen to a bit of Maroon 5 on the way back to the hotel. (We were checking out and flying out later that morning.)

So, we woke up terribly early and headed off to Rockafeller to see Coldplay. I was amazed that I could work up a sweat from WALKING at 6:30 in the morning, but I sure did. It wasn’t even that hot…. I’m just weird. When we got to Rockafeller, it was nuts. Wait, it was Nuts with a capital N. There were people EVERYwhere, and there were NYPD officers trying to direct traffic, both foot and automobile. So while that was crazy, that wasn’t the worst part. The worst part was that the band was only playing when it was time for them to be on TV. So, they would play a song, and then there would be 20 minutes of standing in the sun until they were ready to play again. AND, on top of that, the performance area was so small that the sound wasn’t that great. So, the “Coldplay concert” wasn’t all that we hoped for.

From behind the stage:

From the front of the stage:

We decided to walk back towards the hotel, which took us by Bryant Park for the Maroon 5 concert. Needless to say, the venue was larger and much more open, but we didn’t have time to stand there and wait for the next cue for them to play. We didn’t get to hear any Maroon 5.

Oh well, we tried. It would have been REALLY awesome if would have gone better, so it was worth it.