Journal : OpenRoadWorks

It's always been a wonder to me how cultures intermingle in the streets of New York City. I'm here on business, an overnight trip of curious dimensions (I got a "free" hotel night at the Hilton for agreeing not to stay somewhere, which was a blessing and curse all the same), noticing the rhythm of the city again. Starting on 42nd Street at 2nd Avenue, it was a British invasion. Specifically, two gentlemen boarded the elevator on the 16th and 11th floors, both British, and both with a Pfizer business card affixed to their briefcase or roller bag. Of course, it made sense, as I walked out of the hotel - Pfizer's world headquarters was across the street, which likely prompted some sort of meetings or working sessions and the trip stateside. As I walked across Lexington Avenue, I started to perspire; another heat wave has descended upon the city, which is meant to only get worse, and I realized that it would create a furnace affect on my trip through the ...

...is what I tweeted last night after having the privilege of attending a private screening of the movie hours before the midnight premiere. As much as the digital revolution has fragmented the shared experiences that we have, it has also greatly expanded the impact of those events that touch various peoples. Witness Harry Potter. In the pre-digital world, this would have been an uniquely British story about wizards and boarding schools, but it has captivated global audiences and transcended the borders of its now-uber-wealthy writer. We were part of the crowd that spanned the globe to see this movie, which I can say, lives up to the hype. On a Thursday evening, we could watch the lines of children queuing up to get a chance to say goodbye to a childhood growing up with Harry Potter and watching the actor grow from a plump-faced little boy into a serious actor and apparent alcoholic. It did not matter for 2.5 hours in the theater, of a movie that was pretty gripping from beginnin...

It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. The famous opening of The " Tale of Two Cities " by Charles Dickens , could have been the opening of our evening at the National Building Museum last night. My wife signed us up to leave the comfy confines of suburban townhouse living to experience the nightlife of the "pretty people" of DC . And pretty people there were, of the "augmentation" type (I did not know they existed in such numbers here!) as well as the fashionable type. In all cases, they were on hand for the best that Washington DC has to offer in food and drinks as declared by the writers and readers of Washingtonian Magazine . As the valet took forever to retrieve our car afterwards (the head valet apologized as his "slow" man was giving the task of grabbing our car, after finally arriving to discover that he was just a seemingly confused, disoriented college kid with over-sized basketball shoes), we re...

On any given day, I receive about 150-200 emails that require my attention. As of 11am this morning, I have already received around 70 such emails from my work account alone, and the deluge has not yet begun. When I open my Gmail account in the morning, there are usually a good 20-25 emails that sit in this box as well, most of them informational and promotional but some of them reminders of things to do or friends to chat with. That pile just contributes to the list. Over the course of any given day, I try to process as many of these emails as I can. Perhaps anachronistically, I clear as many as I can from whatever day seems fitting, not so much that I have some priority set to them, but because it catches my attention to get done at the moment. Of course, this means that I don't quite process all the requisite emails on any given day, but let's leave that dog lying for now. The kids today, they don't use email - they use something else. It's called text messaging ...

This morning, I bought a pair of Velcro paddles that catch a miniature tennis ball (you can buy your "beach volley" set here , if you are so inspired!). I was shopping with my wife at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, where her brother happens to be working this summer. So domesticated, to spend a morning at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, but I'm going with it. Anyhow, I realized in the moment of picking up these simple paddles that I was really slipping into a moment from a different time, as someone much younger who was getting increasingly excited to drive down south for a week at the beach. My wife, who spent those same formative years back in China, could not understand why I wanted to drop six dollars on such a seemingly wasteful set of plastic paddles. But I had my reasons - this was a classic accompaniment to the beach of my childhood, with the requisite shovels and turret-shaped buckets that were standard-issue beach gear for the kids of northern families. And we are re-living...

Every so often, an afternoon comes along that deserves a siesta. Today is such a day. With mid-90's temperatures and a blazing, blue sky, a July summer day such as this carries the conditions befitting of a hour's respite from the day's torching heat and mounting challenges. Good thing, then, that there is so much more work to do and that a pause is difficult to conceive at this point. But it is worth daydreaming - as good as a siesta, just done wakefully instead of eyes closing. In any case, I found this portrait by the artist Roxanne Driedger to be appropriate. A sort of soft tribute to the innocent pleasures of an afternoon nap that seems so appealing right now.

I just checked this blog. Dormant since October 16, 2010. What has happened since that time? Where have I been? And what have I been doing? It's been 263 days to be exact, almost 9 months, and a world apart, as that period of time can be. I have a new job , I have a new dog , and I suppose that I have a new outlook on life - although this can be nothing more than time changing me, as it changes us all. Regardless, it is worth the reflection and then moving forward, to visit this blog more often than every 9 months.