Wintertime Madness

Today was more less absolute madness. Sort of.

Disclaimer: if this blog seems more incoherent than usual i came back from a bar semi-recently and am less than articulate at the moment.

1st Sam and I went to this cathedral which was actually within like half a mile of here and it's supposedly the largest cathedral in the world. Bigger than notre dame, or the one in mardid, or w/e. It was pretty cool and really coould comapre ot either fo them in terms of crazy spectacle ness.

After tha we went too Greenwich village and ate at Joe's Pizza again. It was still pretty bomb and lef to some walking around Greenwich village. We got to washinton square park and I was def hit up to buy some bud from a random guy. Wooo. The park had a bunch of dogs too including a lady with 3 dachshunds. Awesome. They were barking at some other dog and it was basically 3 angry sausages.

Afterwards we went to check out the public library here. We saw this outdoor market which seemed worth wandering through. There was this sweet tent that sold beanies that were animal themed. Sam got a porpoise and shark one and I made many puns with the word porpoise. The library itself was awesome and made me miss school and the feeling of being scholarly. There was a Guttenberg bible there that was printed in 1455 which was supposed to be one of the oldest extant western texts around. Madness.

Afterwards Sam went to go meet up with Karri to go to Serendipity which wasn't really something I was all that interested in so i figured I'd go find the burlington coat factory to get myself a nice coat. The directions I found were for the corperate office. Wop. So I took a totally sweet detour. On the plus side i stumbled upon this place called go go curry whihc was a japanese curry joint with a gorilla as the mascot. I stopped for some katsu curry which was a bit salty but otherwise good and went on my way. A solid 40 minutes later I made it to BCF and got myself a coat. After that I went to the NBA store which on one hand was really cool and on the other hand had no warriors stuff because they suck so much. (they did just beat both the suns and the celtics!) Anyways I ended up getting this pretty cool Chris Paul Mardi Gras Jersey. (http://www.hornetsnestonline.com/product.php?productid=16674&cat=0&page=1)

I went to go to meet Sam and Karri afterwards but they were at this Japanese Restaurant which they didn't want me to show up to for whatever reason. I went and met them and they left so I went to the sushi bar myself. This was a pretty expensive place with all the waitresses in kimono and they were apparently the first restaurant in the US to serve fugu. I got an order of ten zaru (cold soba noodles and tempura) as well as some sushi. It was mad expensive but the butteriness of my one order of toro was incredible. They also brought dashi at the end for me to mix with the zaru soba sauce which was a pretty cool touch.

So here's the crazy part. I was sitting next to this random older man who looked a bit like the old man in Jurassic Park and he basically just started talking to me. He ended up being this big time architecht and the "H" in http://www.shca.com/ He told me about his company which has offices all over the world including NYC, London, Paris, Istambul, and Shanghai. He told me his library has over 3000 books, that he was a syracuse grad, and that his favorite project was always the one he's building next. BTW HE DESIGNED THE RESTAURANT WE WERE IN. That's crazy. the staff, already attentive was def making sure he was taken care of even more. We spoke on a variety of topics including the new book on google that i'd heard about on NPR, which btw his friend was the author of, as well as the over all job climate and the 5 recessions he'd weathered. He spoke to his daughters, one a business woman married to an ABC and the other biologist. He also talked about how he always tried to hire local talent at his offices and that he did little of the details today but was still something of a clearing house for all the projects. BTW His most famous project was restoring the statue of fucking liberty. DAMN.

We talked about how with design, and art in general you're essentially putting your ego out to be critiqued and that nobody, no matter their skill is truly successful unless they can defend and sell their ideas. he also noted that though they hired local talent most clients didn't actually want him to design stuff fitting the local aesthetic but rather wanted something that symbolized their modernity and readiness to work in the world.

At the end when we left he introduced me to the owner of the restaurant who must have assumed we were friends and gave me his business card. Mr. Hayden said I'd be going to law school in ny and that i'd eat there a lot. I wish I had a card to give back but it was still a pretty awesome experience.

Finally I met the girls back at karri's apt but she doesn't get cable so I went to a neighborhood bar to watch monday night football. Neat place, epic game, and when it went into overtime the bar tender gave me a free glass of stella. After the game I went to Karri's and ate leftover bbq while watching the Warriors beat the celtics. Today was a good day.