Hey, just so you know ... this post is now about 13 years and 8 months old. Please keep that in mind as it very well may contain broken links and/or outdated information.

I guess it’s true what they say about the frenetic pace of life in New York City. My 10-day business trip to Manhattan just flew by. It was a lot of hard work, and a lot of fun, but I’m glad to be back home.

We worked all weekend on the PeopleSoft upgrade, starting Friday afternoon and finishing Sunday afternoon, working past midnight on Friday and Saturday. So it was a long haul, but worth it … we had very few users issues on Monday or the rest of the week. Overall it was a smooth and successful upgrade, almost transparent to the user-base (which is the best kind).

Finding good food is never a problem in Midtown. I hit a lot of my personal favorites around the office like GoodBurger, Lychee House (which used to be called Our Place), and Nino’s (where I had the gnocchi again, like last time). Upon request, I grabbed breakfast for the team from Ess-a-Bagel Saturday morning. Apparently New York water makes the bagels and pizza taste better than anywhere else and now I have to agree. The four of us on the upgrade team had our celebratory dinner Saturday evening at Del Frisco’s where I had some fantastic steak and also tried the crab gnocchi (yeah, I’m a sucker for good gnocchi) which I finished as leftovers for lunch on Sunday. Later in the week we went to Hillstone (which used to be called Houston’s) for my send-off lunch (awesome fish sandwich). I also had to try Aperitivo’s Pizza Bar down the street from my hotel, but didn’t see a single TiVo in the place. 😉 The pizza (and wine) was pretty good, though.

My wife and daughter took the train down into the city on Tuesday morning, after spending the weekend (while I was upgrading) in Philly with family. So while I was at work during the rest of the week, they did the tourist thing visiting Times Square, American Girl Place, the Statue of Liberty (for another Junior Ranger badge), Rockefeller Center, the United Nations, Ground Zero, and even saw a matinee of “Phantom of the Opera” (6th row in the orchestra). I would meet up with them after work for dinner and any evening activities (like a trip to Dylan’s Candy Bar for dessert).

How about the weather? It was hot, but felt pretty much like home to me. The city dwellers didn’t seem to be enjoying the 90+ temps, though. Luckily, most of my waking hours were spent working in the air conditioned office.

We had a 3:45pm flight back to Tampa on Friday, so we had the car to the airport pick us up in Midtown at 12:30pm. It had just started raining so I figured we were in for the usual long drive to LaGuardia. I was wrong: by 1:10pm we were checked in and through the security line. That has to be a personal record for me: 40 minutes from the office to the gate. Wow.

Of course, the speed of our arrival was immediately countered by a delayed flight (presumably due to bad weather in the Gulf thanks to TS Bonnie). That gave us extra time for a leisurely lunch followed by some “free” time in the gate area. We finally boarded the plane around 4:00pm and after a long line to the runway, were airborne after 5:00pm. Whew. The flight was uneventful and we landed at TIA around 8:15pm. At least our luggage was one of the first bags out on the belt so we were quickly off to the car and on our way home.

I’m looking forward to relaxing and decompressing this weekend. 12 straight days of work can really drain you!