As of this afternoon, I am once again among the fully licensed drivers in the state of New Jersey. Six months and two days I was without my license and the pain that brings to a self-described lover of driving is immeasurable. I honestly wish that they had taken my pinky toe instead of my license as that probably would have been less painful to me, but it’s all over now.

And if you don’t know why I lost my license in the first place, then you obviously aren’t a regular reader. If you really want to know, go look in the archives because I’m sick of linking to my past mistakes. It’s time for me to start moving forward again.

The past few days have been abuzz with activity, and am I ever thankful for it. This had been slow, dull and boring for me as of late and the last four days certainly helped to change all that. Let’s just hope that this is just the start of the uptick on the excite-o-meter. Well, without further adieu lets step back to…

Wednesday
I took my seat as the train started to pull out of Point Pleasant Beach station, going over some notes I had been e-mailed a few days before. I was on my way to the city to do some serious work and it would be a few days before I saw home again. I had been brought on work my usual wizardry on a project about a month ago by some of the folks from Monetaire and the past few weeks I had been getting some work in for them from home. Nothing too stressful or exhaustive, but that was due to change in short order. The client had just handed us down a tight deadline to meet that would require close coordination on the part of myself and David, and telecommuting just wasn’t gonna cut it. There were some aspects that would just go easier if those working on it were in the same place, and since the David and I were the only ones working on this aspect of the creation, we decided that I should be up in NYC to work for the next few days.

Well, less we decided and more he decided, but I agreed that it was the way to go. ^_^

Instead of setting up shop in the office on Broadway, he decided that working out of his Park Slope apartment would just be better all around. Less distractions and we could work as late as necessary to get we needed to out of the way. Not like all of this couldn’t be done in the office, but at least here we had a place to crash without having to wait for subway trains at some ungodly hour of the night.

We worked all through the afternoon and well into the night. David coding out what content should be on the pages and me styling it as we went along. After many hours, a few beers and some decent tacos from a local restaurant we had a great deal of a working prototype built. Well ahead of schedule too. I don’t remember exactly but it was around 4 am or so when we decided to call it a night.

Long time since I’ve done that kind of coding. Felt good. Exhausting, but good. My inner geek was quite happy with our progress.

David’s roommate Nick was going to be out of the house so with his blessings I got to crash in his room. I laid down and tried to grab some shut eye, but it was a very windy night out and with every gale that came down the street the windows shook inside their framing. Not very helpful when you’re trying to grab 20 winks. On top of that I always have a bit of a problem sleeping in a strange bed. I tried watching some TV to tire me out but about all that would come in was either spanish broadcast or reruns of the Tonight Show with Jay Leno.

Needless to say I didn’t sleep well. ^_^

Thursday
Thursday began at a somewhat less frantic pace than I had thought it would, which was a godsend for me. There were some meetings for David and I to attend (well, more like he had meetings all day and I had to sit in on one or two — thank god) and a little more coding work, but compared to the marathon session of work the day before, this was a relative walk in the park. It was good to be up at the home office again and not my own home office for a change. I made the most of the opportunity by grabbing some lunch at one of my regular haunts — Le Basket — and catching up with some of my coworkers who I hadn’t seen in person in a while.

My evening plans had actually been made a few months in advance; the last time I went to the Lion’s Den in fact, when I saw a poster in the window for the band Lettuce. This band includes members of some of my other favorite groups such as Soulive and the John Scofield Band and I had been digging their CD heavily since getting it so getting to see them live was the logical next step.

I showed up fairly early, remembering that last time I saw a show at the Lion’s Den I regretted not showing up earlier to see more of the opening act and I wasn’t about to chance the same happening again. I got my drink and found a spot right up front and center as the opening act of Marco Benevento and Joe Russo took the stage.

There music consisted of organ and drums, but with just those two instruments they laid down some very infectious sounds. Benevento was somewhat bi-polar with his playing; a veritable madman one second and calm and cosmic the next as he laid down both high-end rhythm with down low bass lines simultaneously. And Mr. Russo was equally impressive with his skills behind the set, throwing out incredibly wicked and complex beats throughout. Some of the fastest and tightest playing I have ever seen, bar none. Of course the best part of their act was the way they fed off of each other and the crowd’s energy. I made a beeline to the merch table to grab their disc as soon as there set ended and just as quickly made my way back up front.

While waiting for Lettuce to hit the stage I got into a conversation with a taper who was adjusting the setup of his equipment to pick his brain about the cost of the hobby and what not. I have recently become interested in getting into taping shows myself, but there is definitely a level of fanaticism involved that I’m just not ready to commit to if you want to have decent sounding recordings. He quoted a four-figure price for his recording deck and stage mic, and not a low four-figures at that. Definitely not a hobby to half-ass your way into.

Finally Lettuce took the stage, sporting a line up that included the likes of Ryan Zoidis and Sam Kininger on sax, Neal Evans on the keys, Eric Krasno on guitar and Adam Deitch on drums. There were more members on stage as well, but alas I could not ID them. Their playing more than lived up to my expectations and then some. While they didn’t do their most excellent cover of Herbie Hancock’s “Hang Up Your Hangups” as I was hoping, they did do flawless renditions of their songs “Nyack” and “The Flu” among others and that more than made up for it.

Everyone seemed to be having a real good time — crowd and band alike — except for that taper I had talked to earlier. He stood guard over his mic and admonished anyone and everyone who whooped and hollered a bit too close too it, fearful the noise would ruin his recording. I too was given the evil eye and while I thought he was a bit out of line to be encroaching on the fun of others the way he was, I let it slide and tried to keep my shouts directed away from the mic. If you’re gonna tape shows, crowd noise is just something you have to live with and he should realize that.

As the set started to wind down, Lettuce started calling up even more people to join in with them. And then for their encore, they did it again with even more new faces. I just stopped counting how many extras showed up on stage after a while — it was better for my sanity that way.

A sort subway ride back to David’s Park Slope pad and the night was complete. I would crash there one more night in preparation of another day of work in the city in yet another new location.

Friday
Another windy night in Park Slope and another easy going morning. David and I took our time heading out much to my relief, considering I hadn’t gotten in until sometime around 2:30 the night before. The leisurely start to our day gave me just enough time to recoup before we hopped the subway over to the apartment of the company’s CTO, Damon. His is a swank pad on the 28th floor of some apartment building on Chambers St. that was affectionately termed “The Eagle’s Nest” for the day. David and Damon had some high level planning to discuss (among other things) while I sat with my laptop on the comfy couch and coded away, trying hard not to be distracted by the phenomenal view outside the window.

Sometime around 6 or so we decided to call it a day and I made my way to Penn Station to rest up at home and get some decent sleep in my very own bed…er, futon. Sleeping in your own place is highly underrated in my opinion.

Saturday
After lounging around for a while in my room and finished tying up some of the coding lose ends left from all the work of the days before, I gathered myself up and headed to the train station once again. Yes, once again I strode into the city but this time it was purely for pleasure’s sake.

Damon was about to launch a side venture of his — SmartAssistance — and I had done a logo design for him, which granted me the privilege of an invite to the launch party back at his apartment. I had never been to an actual New York apartment party before, so my curiosity was piqued to say the least.

By the time I wandered into the party most of the catered mexican plater was already gone and I had missed the grand introduction speech, but Damon was nice enough to introduce me to everyone with a a short little speech and I went to go get my drink and grub on.

One thing that I noticed right away was the staggering amount of young asians in attendance. Not to further stereotypes or anything, but when I first walked in I felt like Godzilla taking a stroll through Tokyo. I think there was maybe just one other person out of the 20 or so packed into the modestly cozy apartment that was taller than me, so that didn’t hurt my analogy either.

I mingled a bit, answered the few questions that came my way and had a good time, but after a few hours it started to die down and the party refugees were starting to outnumber the party attendees. There were side discussions of people heading out to other bars, but there was still time for me to catch the last train home, so I opted for that. I had been planning to say up in the city all night, but secretly I had been asking myself how the hell I planned on making it through the night. I saw my out and gladly took it.

So there you have it. Four days that ranked a bit above average for yours truly. It was real. It was fun. It was real fun, and it got me out of the house for a while. What more could I have asked for?

Well that’s true, but I don’t think I’ve been good enough to get a private island filled with porn stars dressed as Catholic school girls, so I’ll take what I can get. ^_^