The day after

Got up around 9am and was distinctly unimpressed. The weather was windy with a light sprinkling of rain. After tea we all went down to the river for a walk and despite a few broken trees and the odd band of rain the scene was no worse than a wet weekend in Bognor.

The police kept us away from the river, but we had a look around. A few underground car parks were flooded, but slowly enough to allow the cars to be moved. The local Irish pub had closed, but a cafe was still open so we popped in for eggs Benedict and a cup of tea. It was midday by the time we got back but there was nothing to do.

I will confess to some bitching about this, after all that fuss for nothing. Friends pointed out that the death count was in double figures, large chunks of the state were underwater (not M’s parents thank goodness,) and silence was golden. Good advice, we got lucky and the flooding was extensive. Long Beach Island got away with minor damage it seems.

M and I walked over the bridge to Brooklyn for a wander around. The wind was strong but warm, and long strings of clouds were scudding across the skyline in slow formations. Shops and restaurants were open and largish groups of people were just strolling in that “I’ve got to get outdoors” way.

We wandered back over to Long Island City and went down to the waterfront, chatting to people as we went. Lots of people were about, and most were in a talkative and friendly mood. The above picture came from my phone (that's M in the lower right corner) from Gantry Park.
Maybe I was wrong about New York - it’s a very easy place to love at times like this.

Everybody panic!

A very strange non-day really, we were in hunker-down mode - not that travel was much of an option. The subway was being shut down at midday and power could go as well in lower Manhattan and be off for days.

First things first, get supplies - both internal and external. Brunch at a local place on Long Island City was essential survival food - meaty corned beef hash, with eggs, toast and jam, with a Bloody Mary because who knew when we might taste uncontaminated tomato juice again. As good an excuse as any.

The off to the local health food shop for some supplies. The queue outside the local Trader Joe’s was two blocks long and the situation similar at the competition. While D&D have a week’s worth of food (and a fortnight’s of beer) in the fridge there was comfort food to buy. We decamped to the local health food store and stocked up on crisps, fruit and the occasional chocolaty morsel or five.

Business was brisk, but not insane - no fights over the last soy milk carton or handful of cilantro. M received a little taunting over a couple of tins of sardines, but I got the same for a highly nutritious, if massive, bag of BBQ crisps.

On the TV New Jersey’s governor and Mayor Bloomberg were now up to three press conferences a day. The eye of the storm is expected to pass a few miles east of New York at 8am Sunday, but it’s slow and carrying a lot of water. High tide is also around that time and the storm surge could be large. We’re in zone two of the flooding area, a couple of blocks clear of the mandatory evacuation zone.

Today the final Top 10 also got posted - end of an era for N and I. The Top 10 started as a vague idea and sort of grew out of control. I think we hit 6,000 words on one and the banter during the decision making process for the final list always made me grin. N has surprising reservoirs of knowledge in unlikely areas and argues his case well. It was a bit emotional to see the last one live.

The first bands of rain started to come in around 4pm and lasted for less than half an hour initially, but then increased in frequency. The wind started to really kick in around 7pm but the floor-to-ceiling windows were holding up fine. We had dinner and drinks, then played rummy while the TV was on silent in the background. At this point there was very little else to do. Shops were boarded up, and while a few bars were open, getting there would have required a soaking. The waves of rain were just pounding down at a 40 degree angle, but at least it was warm and didn’t feel too bad.

Much wine and beer was drunk, as M & D tussled for the lead, with myself bringing up the last place spot. Finally we called it a night around 11pm, filled the bath with water in case power went out so we could flush the loo, and retired to bed. The city was quiet, apart from the occasional car and the odd muted police siren telling people to get off the streets. We checked we knew where our documents were and went to sleep

Escape to New York

OK, we’ve heading back to New York, and the comparative safety of the city. We’ll be close to the airport if the storm is overblown (sorry, couldn’t resist with that or the picture) and I’d rather be in the city if disaster does hit because the apartment is well-situated and there’s good looting opportunities.

The drive back up was none too difficult, a bit of extra traffic but all road tolls were excused and traffic flowed well. We had one thing to do on the way – lunch with an old friend named B. We’d met in Malaysia at an aviation conference in 1998, when I was editing a newsletter on aviation IT (not as dull as it sounds). A few minutes after meeting a very bad local karaoke band had started a pidgin version of a Spice Girls track and neither of us cold suppress giggles.

We’ve been good friends ever since; I spent a memorable first US Thanksgiving with her family and she and some of the family stayed with me in London when visiting. B specialises in family travel, my idea of hell, and is one of a new breed of travel agents that got in early online. Thanks to her I was able to navigate the very murky world of early online booking systems and score some great deals.

Few people under 30 get what a hassle it was getting abroad in the days before online. You had to physically go to a shop in order to not only purchase tickets, but then also to pick them up. The whole system of flight booking depended on a massive early computer system - SABRE (Semi-Automatic Business-Related Environment). This was one of the first computer booking systems, set up as an IBM spin-off and by 1976 allowed travel agents the then-magical ability to book flights nearly instantaneously.

It was a very profitable business, but the internet cut a huge segment out of it, as it has with a lot of industries including mine. B got into the internet early and now works from home - and occasionally from a cruise ship, beach resort or Peruvian mountain - setting up holidays for families with children, and more importantly sorting out problems when they occur.

Anyway, we hadn’t actually seen each other in years, and a 1:30pm lunch stretched into 5pm, at which point the waiters were getting restive and a second portion of pudding increasingly attractive. We said a fond farewell and parted ways.

We had planned to go up north for an hour and see M’s old home town, but the second we got onto the freeway traffic was nearly static. Lots of commuters - it was Friday afternoon - but a lot of very stuffed cars too, and not everyone heads to the country for the weekend with that many supplies.

We stopped off for water, a torch and a few essentials before heading back to D&D’s place, dropping the car off as we went. According to a policeman in a bar we stopped in they were expecting flooding not too serious. We shall see.

The end of the affair

Having very mixed feelings about New York – it hasn't changed, but I have and no longer feel the same way about a city that has been a passion of mine for a while.

When I first envisaged moving to the US, New York was top of my choices of places to work. There's an undeniable energy that comes from cramming seven million people into a tiny space, adding a dose of capitalism and pressing the fast-forward button on social evolution. It's a place where you can get almost anything you want whenever you want it, where the poshest shops share a street with scuzzy corner stores and it'll always be the the best place in the world for bagels and pizza.

But New York no longer has the same hold on me that once it had. I first came in 1999 and was entranced, and the city pulled me back again and again. It has a buzz like no other place, I've laughed, cried, loved and lost here and regret nothing, well, maybe one or two things but you know what I mean.

Maybe it was the oppressive heat and humidity, or the rudeness of people, or simply the fact that I've got older and softer, but I'm no longer so besotted with the place. M summed it up best - it's kind of like a relationship that once burned hot and hard, and has now mellowed into a sort of friends-with-benefits deal. I'll always be fond of the place, but now it's somewhere you visit, have a good time and then wave goodbye to. Northern California has won my heart now, although I'll always love the green rolling hills of Derbyshire.

Absolutely fabulous

Met up with some of my favourite people in the city, and we set up to paint the town red.

The evening started with drinks in a cocktail bar on 57th avenue, before moving on for beers and burgers at a nearby joint. Lovely to meet up with T and A again – both of whom look fabulous. Another old friend, who I hadn't seen in over seven years (god I'm old), although I nearly didn't recognise her. Good to see that some of us get better looking with age :)

Drinks turned into more drinks, then burgers and a stagger through the city trying to find somewhere with aircon. I am coming to the conclusion the British lost the war of independence after one too many New York summers.

Dinner at Tiffany’s

I was really excited today; one of my oldest friends was coming to town.

Si and I worked together in the mid 1990s and we’ve been close ever since. She’s a fantastic woman: smart as a whip, caring and with a mind as deep as the Marianas Trench. She’s also a true international glamour girl, equally at home on the streets of New York, gigging in Hyde Park or wandering down some distant beach with the wind in her hair.

She was in town for a meeting and was staying down south but came into the city for dinner. It’s been nearly a year since we were last together but she looked as good as ever and we bonded again over G&Ts before heading down the Mission to Foreign Cinema for a screening of Amelie and dinner.

There we met up with her client M, although those two are thick as thieves and it’s more of a sisterly relationship than a business one. Also along were some Silicon Valley A listers; venture capitalists and tech old(ish) money. All in all very good company, and we all had a good chat which I have to keep off the record for a while – business plans are afoot.

Sadly they are all off back to New York in the morning so we said our goodbyes at midnight and vowed to meet again soon, ideally this summer.

Old friends

One of the joys of the internet is that it allows people of any interest and location join and share ideas and gossip online.

I first got into forums in the mid-90s, through an online magazine called Salon. It’s a free-thinking title, with some very good writers and the forums were full of people largely of my ilk. I made some good friends, and even the occasional lover, on there and gained some valuable insights to boot.

It was a cartoon in the New Yorker that coined the classic phrase “On the internet no-one knows you’re a dog”. It’s true that I’d never met most of the people that I chatted to online and it’s possible that among them there might be an axe murderer or two. But when you converse with people online for a number of years they have to be very good at covering those traits up consistently.

Thankfully I’ve found not one of them to be angry loners with collections of skins in the attic; in fact most have turned out to be exactly who they said they were. It’s been a real bonus on my travels to know that if I went to New York, San Francisco, Florida or Seattle, that there would be a local who could show me around and share a good meal with.

Once Salon started charging for forum use the crowd split and shifted to new sites. Most went to Worldcrossing and I tagged along. But about four years ago work commitments and a lingering feeling that I should be putting more effort into offline relationships led me to drop out.

But with the move I decided to get back online. Seeing as I know less than five people in San Francisco I figured it wouldn’t hurt and besides, curiosity got the better of me. So yesterday I went back, and to my delight a lot of the old crowd are still there. There are few things in life better than catching up with old friends and I’m looking forward to doing just that.