My travel partner had made plans to go out with friends this evening, so I decided to go find some good food on my own. I stopped by the desk at the hotel and asked for a recommendation, and they gave me this:

Fat Matt’s Rib Shack is what was suggested, and I wasn’t quite sold on it by it’s name. However, the gal told me that it was the best southern barbeque in the area and followed that with, “…you’ll smell it before you see it.” I couldn’t argue with that, so I set off to get me some grub.

I’m not all that familiar with this area – I’ve only been here a couple of times. Last time, though, my buddy and I went hunting for a decent place to eat and actually ended up in the same neighborhood as Fat Matt’s. In fact, I think we might have passed it on our trip and decided not to stop because it looks like this:

Fat Matt’s is located in the part of town where ALL of the good restaurants seem to end up – not more than 500 feet from multiple “adult entertainment” establishments. I thought that I had mentioned this fact in previous posts, but a quick review of my blog proved otherwise. Just take my word for it: if you find yourself surrounded by “adult entertainment,” there is a REALLY good chance that the restaurants in that neighborhood are amazing.

I went ahead and stopped at Fat Matt’s this time, and I was NOT disappointed. While it really is a shabby facility, their food was absolutely delicious and they had Live Blues, too!

I ate too much – 1/4 slab of pork ribs, 1/4 (of a whole) chicken, and a chopped BBQ pork sandwich. The meat was all slow-smoked over classic charcoal, and the taste was totally there as evidence. If that wasn’t enough, they drown it all in their homemade, signature BBQ sauce, which tastes more like a nice cayenne hot sauce than anything else. It was perfect. I’ll go back as soon as I return to Atlanta – I promise.

So this week I was in Glastonbury, CT, which is extremely close to Hartford. So close, in fact, that we rarely make the distinction between the two when referring to the office that our company has here. But though we’re here with (more than) two cities to see, there really isn’t a whole lot to report.

Hartford is a really old city that doesn’t have a whole lot of “new” in it. It has been called the “insurance capitol” of the world, but even that isn’t accurate any more. We were here last year, and the only excitement we found was the not-so-good part of town. And by “not-so-good,” I mean that I slouched completely down in my seat so that I wouldn’t be seen by the people on the street. It was fairly frightening.

Glastonbury is across a river (not sure what it’s called) from Hartford, and is a really, really small, quaint town. There must be a city ordinance of some sort that is in place to preserve the historic, old feel of the town, ’cause even the CVS and Walgreens look like they have been here for a hundred years or more. It’s quite interesting.

So the first day wasn’t too exciting. The most fun came from wandering through ALL of O’Hare Int’l Airport in the morning while we endured our three hour layover. After we landed in Hartford, we hurried to get to the office and worked until the early evening. We found dinner near our hotel, and then relaxed in the jacuzzi for a while before going back to our rooms for the night.

The second day was just as uneventful. I’m not sure if it’s because I’m exhausted from travelling so dang much or what my problem is, but I wasn’t really in the mood to do much. We worked all day and went to dinner with the local office manager at a local favorite. The restaurant is known for it’s FRESH seafood (the lobster is held live in a tank in the lobby area until you order it), which isn’t my fave, but I had a salmon dish that was extremely tasty. One thing that I have noticed, though, is that people here in the Northeast really like their butter. I’m not talkin’ about margerine or butter-like spread. I mean the real, creamy butter that comes from cows. Since I don’t eat a lot of butter on a regular basis, the food has been quite heavy in my tummy — but it still tastes delicious! After dinner, I hung out in the pool and jacuzzi, and then watched some television until I fell asleep.

The third and final day of actual work seemed to take forever. We got to the office fairly early, and the morning dragged on. A couple people from the office wanted to take us out for lunch, so we went to a local burger joint, called Plan B Burger. This place was phenomonal! The lights above the tables were made from old meat hooks and some very interesting light bulbs, and yet the rest of the interior was very contemporary, complete with green-and-silver foil wallpaper. The food was even more amazing than the place, but it wasn’t much more than “burgers and fries.”

After another long afternoon, we finally got to leave the office for a bit of celebration. This was the last (working) day in the last office of this round of travels, so we decided to have more great food. We went to a steakhouse, called J.Gilbert’s, for dinner and then got some delicoius ice cream at a local favorite: Friendly’s.

We were then so hopped up on caffine and sugar that we were absolutely giddy, so we went back to the hotel, sat in the jacuzzi, watched some silly TV, and checked out the latest posts on FailBlog and GraphJam. We laughed until it hurt, and then retired to our rooms for the night.

Now, after a casual morning, filled with a nice, wandering drive though the state od Conneticut, we’re sitting in the airport waiting to fly home. And, upon my return, I don’t plan to leave town for any over-night excursions until September, which is totally awesome!

So the trip started off just fine, although I was responsible for my own rental car. This may not seem very substantial to the casual reader, but this ultimately meant that I wasn’t going to have my compatriot with me for the entire trip. It wasn’t that big of a deal, but I’m going to chalk that up as the first screw that was loose on this trip. We worked together in the first office for a couple days, but then one of our Network Admins and I switched to the second office for the remainder of the week. The work itself wasn’t too hard, but it boiled down to the people that were the problem.

The first office was usurpted by our company more than ten years ago, but it almost seems like the people there haven’t yet got the message. It reminds me of the joke-like stories of prehistoric wars where people fighting at remote battlefronts would keep fighting years and years after the war actually ended. Well, while there isn’t really a war, I kinda got the impression that some of the people still think that they work for their own company intead. Since we hail from the “home office,” there are occasional moments of animosity where the cold shoulders are on full display. I can’t say that I can blame them for it, but it definitely doesn’t make my job any easier.

The second office has always been “ours,” but the culture that exists there is ENTIRELY different than the first. The people in that office are so fun and lively and funny that I felt bad for having to keep them in line. They were an absolute blast.

Then there were two additional travellers with us: the guy and the gal. The guy is from the Network Administrators group, and he was brought along to be an extra set of hands and to share the experience with other people from our IT department. The gal is actually the person that I report to directly. While it was nice to have more help, there were monents when it seemed like having more people was actually a chore. I could go on and say more, but I’ll stop there.

Since we were trying to work in two different offices at the same time, I had dinner with different people almost every night. One night, my compatriot and I drove around for about an hour only to return to the area near the office/hotel to get food from the Waffle House. The next night we had dinner at a decent steakhouse. The following night was dinner from an up-scale sports bar and restaurant, where I apparently looked mad enough to get free dessert. I’m still not sure how that happened, but I didn’t complain about the delicious cheesecake that we didn’t have to buy. The following night was dinner at Benihana, which is a fun place to watch the Japanese guy cook your food directly in front of you. And, again, we got free dessert without saying anything bad or derrogatory. I can’t tell if I look mad all the time or if people think I look like an influential food critic. Regardless, I’m going to see if I can get this to work in more places.

Other than that, though, the trip was quite uneventful. Except for the part when they forgot, or neglected, to place our luggage on the plane for the return trip. We had a direct flight from Atlanta to Peoria, but our luggage apparently wasn’t scheduled to depart at the same time. Since it was the return flight, it wasn’t absolutely terrible for me, except that I wasn’t going to be home for more than 20 hours before driving to Columbus, so that did put me in a bit of a bind. Overall, though, it worked out okay. The luggage was delivered around 9am the next day, I made it to Columbus in good time, and I’ll not be returning to that particular airline for the remainder of my travels.

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.

Why? Because if these people had ever driven, they would understand that you always stay on the right-hand side of the street, or sidewalk in this case. They would also know that you never STOP randomly in the middle of the walkway. Seriously – do they know who’s behind them? If they were driving a Kia, would they just slam on the brakes, while going 60mph, right in front of a Mack truck? No? So why the heck do the tiny, 80 lb ladies stop right in front of me while in full-stride? Someone’s gonna get run over one of these times…

The office is located at 38th and Broadway, just a few blocks southeast of Times Square.

From the balcony of the office, looking towards Times Square:

The first night, we worked fairly late, so we just wandered through Times Square a little bit, found some food, and then crashed back at the hotel. Nothing too exciting.

The second night, however, we did a LOT of walking. We first walked down to Arturo’s in SoHo for dinner. This place has the BEST pizza that I’ve ever had before in my life, so it has definitely become the place that I will always try to visit whenever I return to this city.

From there, we walked through the neighborhood until we found New York University, and then followed 6th Avenue back to the hotel on 40th. We stopped in at the hotel for a restroom break, and then headed back out through Times Square for more sights.

First, Madison Square Garden and Penn Station, which seem to be the same place:

Times Square:

Ed Sullivan Theater:

Lincoln Center (also home to Julliard School of the Arts):

Central Park:

So, if you don’t know anything about the distances between these places, here’s a brief explanation. Each city block is roughly one-tenth of a mile wide. We started walking at the hotel on 40th, and walked down to Arturo’s on Houston St, which is pretty close to 8th or 9th. Then we walked back to the hotel, and then on up to the Lincoln Center at 65th. We meandered around a bit, wandered through Central Park, and then back to the hotel again. By my estimation, we walked more than 13 miles tonight. Whoa. That’s all I’ve got to say. Whoa.

Oh, I almost forgot to mention that we, once again, found the gay part of town. This time, however, the banners on the light posts said that we were in the middle of Gay Pride Week. NYC takes the cake on this one.

UPDATE: We missed the Pride Parade, which would have really been the icing on the cake. Nothing says “Gays live here” than a parade! The parade will be taking place on the day AFTER we get home.

Tomorrow night we’ll walk some more, I’m sure, but I don’t yet know where. It will be cool to see something new, I’m sure. This city provides PLENTY of people-watching opportunities, especially while walking amongst them.

Update 2: I forgot that I had taken a picture of Grand Central Station:

We were there from Tuesday until Friday, and it was hot every day. Their only saving grace is that the heat of the day actually causes thunderstorms almost every afternoon, which, in turn, cool off the city enough so the evening is bearable. These thunderstorms are much different than the ones that I’m accustomed to – they only last for about 30 minutes. In that brief time, though, I thought I was going to die. Thursday afternoon was the worst of them all, and it seriously left 6+ inches of water on all of the roads that I saw. It was raining and blowing so hard that I couldn’t even see the building across the street from our office. It’s like it wasn’t even there. There was thunder and lighting, too, along with wind gusts of 50+ mph. The people from the office that we were visiting said that it’s quite regular for this type of storm to happen, but they also admitted that this particular one was much worse than they had seen in quite a while. Actually, since the last hurricane hit the Texas gulf last fall. I’m sorry, but as soon as people compare a summer afternoon thunderstorm with a friggin’ HURRICANE, I get a bit startled. But all-in-all, it was cool to witness for myself.

Oh – and in the midst of this storm, someone was crushed and died at a construction site nearby.

On Wednesday night, my buddy and I decided to drive around Houston to see what it has to offer. We typically do this one all of the trips where we have a rental car, and if we don’t have a car we just meander through the city on foot until we get tired. So in Houston, we drove to/through the downtown area, which really isn’t too exciting. We saw the former Enron building from about a block away, and then found Minute Maid Park (baseball) and the Toyota Center (basketball). Not too exciting, really. So then we decided to just drive around before heading back to the hotel. We ended up in an area of town called Montrose.

While we really weren’t trying to find the gay part of town, we sure as heck did. The light posts that line the street all had rainbow flag banners proudly displayed. Oh, and we also saw a building from across the street that was painted like it was leopard print. Seriously. How more “gay” can it get than leopard-print buildings?!

The next day, while we were out to lunch at Otto’s, we were talking with a gal from the office that is a Houston native. She mentioned that we should stay away from Montrose because it was the “gay part of town.” We started laughing hysterically because we didn’t know that there was actually a part of Houston that was labled that way, but then we proceeded to tell the gal that we must have found it. She asked how we knew, and we explained the rainbow banners. I PROMISE this is how the next part of the conversation went:

Her: “Rainbow banners? Really? I’ve never seen those before.”

Me: “Yep, and I even took pictures of them.”

Her: “Huh. They must have been having a parade or something.”

Laughter ensued.

SO, this means that I’m not the only one that automatically associates the gay part of a town with parades. And, because of this whole “discovery,” I’m now determined to find a gay parade in action to further prove my point.

So I was up in Chi-town last week - for work, of course. It was an okay trip, but it was missing something…

Our office is only about 2 blocks away from the Sears Tower, Union Station, and the Holiday Inn, so we were definitely in the heart of the action. And by “action,” I mean that we were able to dodge the sleeping bums on the sidewalk as we hoofed it from place to place.

The drive up to Chicago is not the most exciting, nor is the drive home. But I did manage to make it from our Peoria office to the Chicago office in exactly three hours – to the MINUTE! That takes talent, I swear.

During the trip I learned some interesting details about the two gents that I was travelling with. I won’t share any of them here at this time, just in case they are able to find this blog and get offended by my humble observations. I wasn’t travelling with my buddy this time, so it made the trip less bearable. In the long run, though, it all worked out.

The most exciting thing that we did was eat dinner at the House of Blues. If you’ve never been to one, I definitely recommend going at least once, even if it is just to be able to say “I’ve been there.” I must warn you, though, that there was a decent-sized black guy in the bathroom that was being paid (hourly + tips) to watch me do my business. Of course, he was actually waiting to assist me with washing my hands, refreshing my cologne (provided), and freshening up my breath with any of about fifty varieties of mints on a tray near the sink. I’m told that this is something quite common in Europe, but here in the ‘States we don’t typically get so inebriated that we are unable to wash our own hands after using the restroom…

Oh well… Off to Houston!

The atmosphere was really hip, too. They were playing a mix of “chill” techno and “drum and bass” techno the whole time, which was almost awkward to hear while sitting in a place that feels like the basement of a 2000-year-old castle. At times the music really caught my attention, and at other times it appropriately faded into the background. The lights were quite low, which allowed for deep shadows to penetrate the detail work in all of the wood accents. There were gargoyles EVERYwhere, too!

They have a bar area, a “sit at a table and eat” area, and then a substantial lounge area filled with couches, ottomans, and low tables. This is TOTALLY a place that I would frequent if I lived here in the city.

The food was also good – we had a few appetizers: Garlic Shrimp, Fried Ravioli, and miniature Lamb Chops. I followed that with their signature hamburger, which was quite tasty as well.  I had never eaten lamb before, so that was my adventurous food for this trip, and it was also my excuse for sticking with a burger for dinner.

Here are some pictures from the outing:

First, the door to the place:

A view of the lounge/bar area:

The seating area for eating REAL food:

Since my pictures don’t do it any justice, check out their official website: http://medusaloungela.com

Where are we going? Hollywood. Yes, THE Hollywood. We’ll be dining at the Medusa Lounge (http://www.medusaloungela.com). While the place looks neat, I’d rather be hanging out on the beach.