Dan Mayer's Blog

I went to visit my girlfriend in NYC for a week because we had been busy and not seen each other for 7 weeks. Long distance sucks and waiting that long between seeing each other sucks really bad. It was great to get a chance to make a longer visit out there. It was also a busy and exciting week.

The first night I arrived my friend Steve happened to be in town because he was dropping off a plane. He was only around for a few hours so we met up for dinner and drink. Since we ended up getting together so late nearly every where's kitchen had closed. We eventually found a place still serving food and got to spend some time catching up. We tried a couple bars around Columbia and I got to get a better feel for that area, as I wandered around trying to find a place to eat.

Erin had some schoolwork and a busy day Thursday, so basically I worked on my computer and read a bunch while she went to class and got some work done. Kind of a lame day in NYC but when visiting for that long it is expected that Erin will have some things she has to get done.

The next morning Erin had to go give a presentation at school, while she was gone, my computer decided to blow up. It refused to boot and I was stuck for the rest of the trip with out a computer which really limited my ability to get anything done. I was on vacation but I was planning to have some time to accomplish some tasks. Unfortunately, with out my mac startup disk there really wasn't anything I could do unless I took it to a Apple store which would have taken 5 hours or so with travel to get my system working... Crappily Ben's machine had just died to so Devver had a really bad week with low productivity. A the life of a startup, it is all ups and downs, a roller coaster man.

Friday night was my first Halloween in NYC, which was cool. I have done Halloween all over and really enjoy seeing all the crazy costumes and how people dress up. It was kind of surreal to be on the subway with all sorts of crazy costumes and outfits. It is like a dream world to look over and see 3 or 4 Furbys chatting away. Since I had never seen the Halloween parade we decided to check that out. It was cool to see some of the costumes that best where when large groups got together to all dress as a group. There were some great outfits, but the wall of people to see the parade was pretty crazy. Erin and I had pretty boring costumes this year, but with time and money limited we at least dressed up. We were referees, I will post some pictures when ever I get them since they are locked away on Erin's camera. We then went to a party recommended by a friend that just wasn't our cup of tea, mostly bad music and no body dancing... It was also insane trying to get a drink there with some horrible rude bar tenders. It was cool to get to meet up with my friend Adam from Ignighter for awhile and chat. Then we headed to the CU party at club Touch, which sucked. Basically the free tickets we had weren't honored, they were packed full and not letting people in even with paid tickets. It was just horribly negative energy and everyone in the crowd was angry and arguing. We were tired and it was just lame so we took off, calling it a night.

The next night was our night out I had promised Erin. A really nice night of dinner and dancing. We had a great time, the restaurant we ended up at wasn't exactly what we were expecting, but it was pretty delicious food. We downed a nice bottle of wine and started walking around looking for a nice place to have dessert. We found this tapa bar with live music and asked about desserts, which they don't serve. They recommended a pastry place next door we grabbed some stuff and headed back to the tapa bar for sangria with out dessert. We finished our food and drinks right as people in the place started dancing, Erin loves to dance so we joined in and had a blast. This ended up being one of my favorite evenings of the week.

Trying to keep ourselves busy in NYC we went to see a Circus, since Erin had a friend in the show and we could get cheap tickets. We saw two shows by Spiegelworld Desir and Gazillionaire's Late Nite Lounge! It was a good time and we found a great tiny little Italian restaurant to eat dinner between the shows. Desir was in the same spirit as Cirque du Soleil but with a much smaller more intimate audience. The 'big top' can only hold maybe 200 people. It was a much smaller audience than that when we saw the show. It was a sexual show, keeping it pretty tame, but a nice erotic energy. My favorite was two trapeze style acrobats swinging and dancing on a raised square using each others body to counter balance every move, and using each others bodies as equipment to perform acrobats on.

An unexpected treat while I was visiting was that the Flobots were in town while I visited. Erin got a hold of our good friend Jesse Walker (Flobots Bass Guitar) and we got free tickets to the show. iDave was also coming around with some friends to see the show. It was great to seem them outside of Colorado because there shows here now are crazy. Erin and I got to dance a bit during the show. We got a quick tour of their tour bus after the show. Then we headed out with a bunch of the band and friends after the show to grab pizza.

My last night in town was Election night, we originally were planning to go to an election watching party, but after 4 nights out in a row I wasn't in the mood to go anywhere or to get on the stupid subway again. Don't get me wrong the subway is great the ability to get nearly anywhere in NYC for 2 dollars is amazing, but it is gross, crowded and getting anywhere in NYC takes forever. The last two nights because of construction and bad luck we had spent nearly 3 hours each night dealing with transportation. So we decided we would make dinner and watch the election results at Erin's home in Harlem. It was great to see Obama win the election, we celebrated with some drinks out on the street, watching Harlem come out to celebrate. There was dancing, cheering, fireworks, and joy in the streets. It was a pretty cool site to see.

So that was my NYC trip in a nutshell. It was a blast and it was a much needed time for Erin and I to be together.

Until I get some pictures here is the only picture I can share of the trip. I had read all about this silly hand drying machine, and finally while flying back from NYC got to use one. It was not really that impressive better than other hand driers, but this simple man prefers paper towels.