NY, NY

Interesting article - a fun read - in the NY Times from a couple of days ago: Newcomers Adjust, Eventually, to New York. It's the Number 5 "most-emailed" article on nytimes.com so I'm sure some of you have read it already. I was already feeling nostalgic today as I was watching the US Open on TV. The article was funny because we can relate to much of it. Here are some highlights (with my comments in bold):

"Newcomers suddenly realize either that the city is not working for them or that they are inexorably becoming part of it, or both. They find themselves walking and talking faster." LC: True. I used to walk at a very leisurely Cali-style pace. Now I walk really fast, even if I'm in the apartment or inside the office in Burbank. My Burbank colleagues, when walking with me to places, are constantly asking me why I'm walking so fast. What's the point of lingering? There's stuff to be done and the faster done the better. Even if it's just getting Starbucks.

"Every day until then, she felt as if she was doing battle daily with the city. But suddenly, on a night flight to Kennedy International Airport from California, Ms. Sirkin, 26, caught sight of the glittering skyline, and, to her great surprise, felt a surge of joy." LC: When we lived in NY, I/we traveled a lot - both for business and pleasure. Every single time we approached Manhattan on our way in from JFK, the skyline took/takes my breath away. Even now, when I go there for work, it's the same.

"Young people have flocked to New York City by the tens of thousands for generations, to chase their dreams and test their mettle." LC:[expanding on original post] This one line touches one of the core themes of NY, and one of the things I love about NY. Everyone in Manhattan is there for a reason. Everyone I met had something to prove or wanted something. Not all of it virtuous of course - there was plenty of greed, myself guilty of that for sure. But there were much simpler and virtuous goals as well. Folks like our dear friends Tim/Grace who had a simple life dream of living in NY and raising their kids there. They are doing it and thriving. Thrilling to watch. And our other dear friends Joseph/Theresa who moved back from Maryland several years ago simply to serve the city. It's energizing to be around people with purpose. Even the people that grew up there had a sense of purpose about them. Well, most of them...

"But for many, the thrill of arrival is often tempered by the sinking realization of what an alienating place the city can be, especially for those who are not wealthy or who do not have a pre-existing network of friends." LC: very true. Kind of different for me and Liz because we had each other and our built-in set of friends that transplanted from Philly to NY after graduation. But still, it was tough at times. And yes, it would help to be wealthy in NY!

"Ms. Sirkin’s friend Sarah Kasbeer also recalled being consumed by a common strain of existential New York City angst: the sense that no matter where one is, something better is happening — the real New York is in full swing — somewhere else." LC: I experience this angst even now. I always feel like I'm missing out. Tonight I wanted to be either in Flushing Meadows or Denver. It felt so exciting and I felt like I was missing out...

Enough of my commentary. The article is worth a read. I miss NY. I can't believe it's been over eight months.

My "Staycation"

I'm having a pretty good week.

With exorbitant gas prices and a bad economy, journalists have been throwing around the term "staycation" to describe vacations where folks choose to take time off, but "stay" at home instead of travel to exotic destinations. Irrespective of money, the fact is we are kind of limited right now in where we can go. Gone, for now, are the days of going to Paris, Barcelona, or Taipei and HK for a week or two. Sigh. Liz and I were fortunate enough to be able to travel to a lot of places, so I'm sure no one is feeling sorry for us now. Anyway, until the little critter is a little older, we are home-bound.

So what have I been doing this week? Nothing too exciting. Catching up on sleep a little bit. Lina's sleep routine is much improved since last month, but there are still some challenging nights. The daytime naps still have room for improvement. Anyway, I was able to "sleep-in" a bit this week. I've also been working on our taxes. Yes. 2007 taxes. Embarrassingly enough, I never completed our tax return. Yes, I did file an extension. To paint a worse picture of my own "not on top of it-ness," I'm not even doing it myself. But I'm still using an accountant in New Jersey, so it's just been a matter of pulling together all my documents, filling out a Tax Organizer worksheet, and FedEx-ing it over. What else? Insurance. I ranted about insurance a while ago. Trying to sort through all the mess and make sure we get all the claims checks we are entitled to. Finally, I've been filing. I'm a bit "OCD" about filing. I like having all my documents/mail organized - so much so that Liz bought me a nice (wooden) filing cabinet last year for my birthday present. Other guys want new golf clubs, plasma TV's or state-of-the-art BBQ grills. Not me. I like nice filing cabinets to enable and inspire my filing. Weird. So, with my trusty label maker in hand, I've been catching up on some major filing. This may all sound terribly mundane and boring to folks, but for me, it has been very therapeutic. It's just nice to have some time to catch up on these "life-maintenance" things, especially since our lives went into complete chaos almost four months ago. Speaking of which, yes, I've been spending a lot of time with the almost-four month old. And that has been, definitely a lot better than filing! Maybe I'll post some recent pics tomorrow.

Lina being playful around the apt

It's been a little while since I put up some pictures of Angelina. Here are some recent pictures of her around the house - she is starting to become very playful, which has been really fun!

Beijing 2008: Opening Ceremony's Darling was Lip-Syncing

Again, I'm sure you've heard this already too - the cute girl who sang the touching song "Ode to the Motherland" during the opening ceremony pulled a Milli Vanilli. Here's the article on CNN.

This is wrong on so many levels. First of all, the real talent was prevented from singing because of her appearance. According to CNN, "Lin was lip-syncing to the sound of another girl, 7-year-old Yang Peiyi, who was heard but not seen, apparently because she was deemed not cute enough." It was the decision of high-ranking officials. Hmm, I wonder how you communicate that to the little girl. "Hey little Peiyi, you have been bestowed the honor to represent your country with your beautiful voice on the most important night of our modern history. But...here, can you sing into this microphone and...make sure you just stand behind the stage during the opening ceremony. Don't let anyone see your homely face and crooked teeth." I mean, what does that do this little girl? And what is the message to the rest of the country? It just confirms the hard truth: your looks matter. Just awful.

Secondly, it just leaves another bitter taste of the State over the Individual thing. A reminder that the state can do whatever they want to whomever they want whenever they want. Scary isnt' it. Lastly, it's just deceptive. Seems so "un-Olympic-like."

Having said all that, though, I am still floored by the Opening Ceremony. I watched the utterly amazing blocks sequence again tonight while trying to bottle-feed Lina. I guess my two posts on the Olympics have been pretty negative so far. I love the Olympics, always have. I'll try to write some more positive stuff later on.

Beijing 2008: C'mon Guys...

I'm sure many of you have seen this already: the Spanish national basketball team, posing for a photograph for an advertisement. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, they are indeed pulling back the skin around their eyes to look "Chinesey." WTF. Pau Gasol, of the Lakers, is in this photo as well. Having spent time in the U.S., and especially in LA where there is such a large Asian population, you would think that he of all people would know better. The article (click on link above) claims that no one in the organization, or the company paying for the advert, thought this was offensive. Really? I mean, I kind of want to believe it...but you have to be really stupid not to think that this would not provoke some sort of reaction...

Shudder, I guess it calls up childhood memories of the chant: "Chinese, Japanese, dirty knees, look at these..."

some lee family pictures

After I posted my thoughts on JetBlue (a few minutes ago), Liz remarked that I should put up pictures. Your blog readers want to see pictures. I said, no, I'm sure they are interested in my fascinating and insightful commentary about insignificant things. Then I thought, hmm, maybe I'll put up some more pictures.

Emily and the whole family came over on Saturday for a bit. Emily, my sister-in-law, was trained at Vidal Sassoon and still does part-time work at their home (in between raising three kids, managing the household, being the eldest daughter, and pastoring a church). By the way, if you ask her for a haircut don't be cheap - people of her caliber usually charge big bucks because of their experience and background. Anyway, they came over so that Emily could fix my hair. I had just gotten a haircut on Friday, at the Japanese place next to Mitsuwa in Venice (I miss my place at St Mark's in NYC), that left me looking very '80's, and so it was nice of her to come and take out the tail portion of my do. Lina was taking (a very rare) nap, so the Lee's didn't get to see her. On their way out, Kay (the oldest, 5) said, "oh, the two best friends didn't even get to see each other!" I thought that was hilarious. Here's a picture from last week of Lina and Noah.

Another picture of the two nieces hanging out. One looks serious and contemplative. The other, well, not as much!

In the last picture of Uncle 1 (Jonathan), Lina was screaming. So here's a better one...Too bad Jonathan wasn't looking...

Say it ain't so!

JetBlue is one of my favorite airlines. JetBlue recently announced their new policy of charging $7 per pillow. Say it ain't so! Even with all the recent announcements of domestic airlines nickel and dime-ing air travelers, I didn't think that JetBlue would pull the same kinds of stunts. Liz and I are big fans of JetBlue. For several years, we were frequent fliers on the JFK to BUR / BUR to JFK routes. We usually took the 6:45am-ish (or something like that, which I think they may have canceled) flight out of JFK which means we would have to wake up around 4:30am in our little UWS apartment. This flight always sounds like a good idea when you're planning it months or weeks in advance. Usually, I'm cursing myself (a common activity) the night before, when it's midnight and I had not packed yet. Anyway, JetBlue ain't Singapore Airlines or BA's flat bed business class, but it's solid - decent fares, easy-to-book online, good entertainment (live broadcast TV through DirecTV is great except for the delay when changing channels), and decent seats for economy. They are a lot more on-time than United, American or the established US airlines. And there is still a sense of some order unlike Southwest, which has a lot of good elements but is basically a flying Greyhound to me. Anyway, all this to say that I'm a fan of JetBlue and a bit disappointed with this new decision. What are they going do next? Put a coin slot next to the screen, as a colleague remarked today.

To be fair, I'm sure they crunched the numbers and figured out that they needed an $X uplift in revenues per flight to make up for the ballooning cost structure. Let's say around 1/3 of folks usually take a pillow on a regular flight (not the red-eye). On an A320 with 150 seats, that's 50 pillows. I'd say the $7 hurdle immediately halves this pool of people. Now we're down to 25 folks paying $7 for the pillow. That's $175 extra per flight. Doesn't seem like much. Even if we double that to $350, I just don't see that really moving the needle. So I'm a bit confused why they did this.

Anyway, overall I would still be happy to fly JetBlue again soon. But if they start charging for the pretzels...

Three Months

Angelina is three months old this weekend. Unbelievable! We can't believe that we made it to three months, and that we've kept her alive for three months! It's gone by so fast, and it's been an eternity. Here are some pictures of her in different settings and moods.