I ain't as good as I once was...

It seems like an age since I returned from my NY trip to cover the International Toy Fair. Within days of my last post, I was struck ill. I missed three days of work and a trip to the doctor confirmed I had strep throat. In addition, I'm sure I had also become the breeding ground for some other microscopic nastiness as my symptoms went far beyond the awful pain of strep. The recent hit country song by Toby Keith,as he laments the effects of age on his once 'ready for anything body' immediately comes to mind as I think about how sick I was and how difficult it was to get back to normal. I think the 5 days of 5 hour sleep, the constant moving from warm indoors to the 25 degree NY streets over and over again during the day left my immune system unwilling or unready to fight off anything. Add to that my boss and traveling companion Brian Savage had been sick for days. I think I was the leading candidate in the election to be struck down by creatures unseen. As a result, I've been extra busy at work and have found little time to post here, however, I promised a rundown of the NY trip. So here goes...

An over view of Friday the 10th of February goes something like this:

Brian and I left the office Friday morning and flew out of DFW bound for JFK. We had a good flight and I watched most of 'Good Night and Good Luck' on the airplane. We rode the train into Manhattan and then took the subway attempting to find our hotel. We exited the subway too soon and walked a good 10 blocks to our hotel. People were just getting off work and heading out of Manhattan for the weekend so you can image the chaos. Our friend Buddy Finethy from Atlanta was already at HIS hotel and awaiting our arrival. We made it to our hotel room and we were greeted by a lovely view of construction on the adjacent roof top. The words "helltown boys" were sprayed on an exposed beam just outside our window. Eerie but oddly exciting and definitely NY.

A quick phone call and Buddy made his way to our hotel. Dinner first and then a show! We headed out to eat being encouraged to step inside a 'south american meat restaurant'. Sure enough we sat at a round table and were offered copious amounts of meats, all served after a strategic hunger-dimishing offer of salad and bread. We sat and talked for a while and it was really nice to see Buddy again. It felt good to spend time with someone from the motherland who had been there since I had moved away.

8:00 was showtime at the Shubert Theatre and we had tickets to see SPAMALOT! This was quite a treat and quite the revelation of how the Monty Python cult film fave was turned into a Broadway musical. Some scenes were almost verbatim from the movie while MANY others were wild extensions of concepts only hinted at. The inclusion of the Lady of the Lake as a principal character was most noteworthy. Wow!This actress could really belt out a tune! It was a really neat experience and set the tone for the rest of our time in NY city. More on that later...