Hmm it has been a couple days see if I can put things together in some coherent thought..

Tuesday - Pretty normal working day except for a couple interesting things I guess..

Went for a coffee with Russ and a guy that does M&A deals for a large finacial firm down here and the talk circled around Ferrari’s, race tracks, and toys that are too expensive for my budget taste and common sense; but fun to listen to nonetheless.

The frustrating part of the day was when I got home and the kind person that is providing me with my wireless connection (where ever that might be) had it shut off or not working! How the heck am I supposed to deal with my email and get stuff out if I don’t have a connection. How inconsiderate - after tyring to log into their router with some default usernames and passwords I gave up. The person was smart enough to change thier router password, set the name of their network to ‘the one’ but not secure it - which is a good clue for me as out of the 10 possible choices that show up, ‘the one’ is the only one that is not protected and I can use.

Without a connection I got some more work done on my documents and then went to the starbucks to login and finish the work that I needed an internet connection for. There was a very attractive woman in the shop with bright blue hair… sexy! Other than that and some of the other customers that lead me to believe I need to hang out at Starbucks more often; other than that it was pretty normal starbucks;)

Once the work day was complete I printed off what I could for the Tribeca Film Festival and jumped in a cab to try and catch the box office before it closed. I figured if it closed then I would just line up for what I could - worse case I would get to check out Tribeca and see another part of Manhattan.

The start of missing lots of things:

I arrived at the box office 5 minutes after it had closed… nerst.. oh well. I found a neighborhood pub jumped in and got a beer and looked over the schedule to see if I could find something I was interested in and then head in that general direction.

I finished my beer up at a pub on Greenwich Street I had 45 minutes or so before the show started so I started walking the the general direction of where I thought the cinema was. I was going to go and try to watch The Ruling Class starting at 7pm, unfortunatly it sold out so I didn’t get tickets.

Not to be defeated I decidedto go and try to watch a couple of films playing together Little Peace of Mind and Looking for the Lost Voice starting at 8:30. Unfortunatley that show also sold out and I didn’t get tickets either. At this point I was conversing with a couple of people in the line and it was a pleasent exercise to engage in a social activity.

You can’t keep a good man down, so I pulled out my now tattered schedule and tried to look for another show and saw that Coca - the Dove from Chechnya was playing at 9:15. Me and my two new aquantances headed over to the line and it looked good as there were very few people infront of us. BINGO we got in. The movie started quite late as the Film director and the Festival Director wanted to introduce the film so we waited for them.

The film was very powerful and very disturbing. It helped to cement my view of 3 sides to every story, yours, mine and the truth; with the truth being invisible to all. It was also amazing for me to find out that Chechnya only had about 1 million people in it and they figured that between 180,000 to 300,000+ have been killed in the 10 year war. It was also a film that you left in a somber mood and just felt fortunate for where you happened to be born and the state of the societies that we are currently able to live in.

The simple process of meeting 2 new people made the night, along with the random nature of the evening made for a very enjoyable eving in NYC. They don’t count as ‘friends’ as I don’t have any contact information but it leads me to believe there is hope.

I took the subway home - which would have been my first real ride, although Brian and I did do a very short ride on it on a previous trip. I figured that the NYC subway at 11:30 at night given the right mental approach was going to be pretty comfortable and the $2 to get home as opposed to the $20 I spent to get down there seemed like good idea too. It was an uneventful ride, although on my walk home from the station; which is about 10 blocks; I seen a man fall out of a cab and appear to be somewhat hurt or stunned. I walked over and helped him up on his feet. Turns out he was just really really wasted; he wanted to chat but I figured he likely wouldn’t have had much intelligent or enjoyable to say so I passed on his offer.

Wednesday

Once again normal working day, I’m still going straight to the office in the morning but I am way better at stopping myself a few minutes in and getting the day started right. Had a meeting today - forgot cuflinks in Calgary so I either need new cufflinks or a shirt that didn’t require them. with the meeting at 1 pm, 30 blocks south of here I figured I’d test the shopping availability of NYC. So off to the store, picked up a shirt and tie, back at the apartment ironed everything and headed out the door by 12:30. I walked most of the way as 30 minutes gives a person in a rush lots ground to cover. I also picked up a hotdog on the way .

Instead of heading to the climbing gym tonight I figured I would try to head to the fesitval again as I enjoyed the thought of watching more movies and having the makers of the film close by for questions after.

I decided to try and take the train down this time - pretty simple except I got off a little too early. I should have gotten off at the world trade center stop but I got off at the 4 street stop, which was fine by me as I enjoyed the walk through Greenwich Village - neat place.

I got in line for A State of Mind where the two folks from yesterday where going to try to get to. I tried to get tickets online but only door tickets were left. I figured if lined up an hour before it should have given me lots of time. Problem was I got off a little too far away. It was raining lightly with some thunder and lighting just to make is a fancier storm and more entertaining walk, I walked along the westside of manhattan with the statue of liberty off in the distance to the right and the Wall St. area just ahead and off to the left. I arrive 45 mintues before the show and was a bit far back, luckly one of the folks for yesterday was ahead so I walked up figured I’d go say hi and either get the f-off look or visit for a bit. it didn’t really matter to me if I caught this movie or another one at this point as surprises sometime are good and I figured which ever movie it would be it would be okay.

We ended up seeing A State of Mind - a film about North Korea. It was very enjoyable film to watch and really well done. The director had some great answers to the questions after the film and feeling somewhat a 3rd party (not N. Korean and not American), as the film had lots of anti american comments from the North Korean citizens and many in the crowd simply refused to believe that these people could be happy cause their way was wrong - where the comments from the director were that the North Koreans didn’t want to change anybody they simply didn’t want to be persecuted for what they wanted to do and how they chose to live. I’m certainly a fairly ‘devote’ capitalist but there will be lots of people that enjoy the social structure that exists in N. Korea and happiness is a reference point generally, so I might tend to agree that many there might be more happy than many here.

After the film you get to ask the director some questions, this particular audience must have had too many questions as they asked us to move the questions outside the theatre so they could start to get ready for the following production. We were able to talk to the director directly outside the theater with a group of about 10 people. One of the ladies beside me wwas the reason americans look like their ignorant when they travel outside their country (remember it only takes a couple of these to wreck it for the group). She wanted the director to agree with her that these people were not happy, did not like their or The General and generally agree that the american way was right. He rightful told her that he just drove 5000 miles around parts of american and it was a very ugly place in most places, until you got out of the car and talked to people. He reccomended that she do that.

It was also interesting that Americans are not allowed to travel to N. Korea (the N. Korean government won’t allow them) and many of these folks felt cheated by this as they wanted to visit this country. I guess you can’t bully them on the international stage with like the current adminitration has and then expect them to play nice with you.

Anyway.. too political here tonight..

Neighborhood Updates:
1) Couch arrived today!!!! I’ll post pics in the morning when the sun is out
2) Scores - the famous strip club is only 4 blocks away - not sure I need to check that place out first hand though.

I think I will try to catch another film tomorrow and I really want to go and see this Panel discussion on Saturday.

Life is good, still no social network or new friends but we’ll get there.