NYC Rocked - But It's Oh So Good To Be Back Home

Got back from a week-long school trip to NYC on Saturday night (Candace & Sadie picked me up sometime after 1am, so is that technically Sunday morning?). Visited some magazines (Time, thanks to a sweet hook-up from my cousin Jesse and the Martha Stewart magazine empire), an environmental design firm (Applebaum & Associates, they do a lot of museum work), a design legend (Milton Glaser, who was, if nothing else, interesting), an illustrator (Bret Helquist, whose gorgeous lineowk graces the Lemony Snicket series of books) and, thanks to some cold-calling on my part, a record company (V2 records, an imprint of Virgin, they handle David Byrne's Luaka Bop a well as their own roster which includes the White Stripes, Mercury Rev and Grandaddy).

As if that weren't enough, I saw Spamalot (the musical based on Monty Python's Search For the Holy Grail), spent (literally) a day in the Metropolitain Museum of Art (an amazing place - just massive), a night at the Museum of Modern Art (with the exception of most of the contemoprary art section, an amazing collection), an afternoon at the International Center for Photography (the upstairs - cool, downstairs - ridiculously depressing) and another few hours at the AIGA (the American Institute of Graphic Arts, for you square daddy-o's out there, www.aiga.org if yr curious) annual design competition display (some cool stuf there).

In-between all of that I went shopping at Urban Outfitters, American Apparel, Kidrobot (more on that later) and a couple of CD stores (again, more later...).

Oh yeah, I also peed in a subway station.

Needless to say, I was one busy boy, but had an amazing time. Learned a TON and feel a little better equipped to go out in the workplace in the (way too) near future. It was nice to see the old town again, to ride the subways, to pound the pavements, to see the lights and smell the pretzel and nut carts (seriously, I'm craving some honey roasted almonds right about now). It was also nice to see my girls again. As much fun as I had, there was part of me that just wanted to be at home with them, and now I am.