The Biggest Holiday Of The Year

I meant to post this on Friday, but didn't get around to it. I suppose I could just change the date of this entry to be Friday, March 17, but that would be cheating.

At any rate, I never knew until last year how big of a deal St. Patrick's Day is to some people. I guess I don't really pay attention to too many holidays except for the major ones or the ones where I get a day off. But I remember talking to a coworker last year about how he was liking New York so far for the six or seven months that he had lived here. He told me he loved NYC and was telling me about all the great times he's been having. Then he told me that the best day he has had in New York was St. Patrick's Day.

St. Patrick's Day? It has never occurred to me to do anything for St. Patrick's Day. I knew people went out to the Irish pubs, and I think there's a parade, but I never thought that much about it. Well, my co-worker, who is Filipino by the way, said he had the best time and was going to have friends from out of town visit him for the next year. Wow, out of town visitors. That never crossed my mind either.

Sure enough, he had a bunch of people visiting from out of town, and invited me along. I declined. I went to the movies instead.

My New Years

I realize this is a little late, but I wanted to tell everyone how I spent New Years.

I was traveling back from San Francisco on New Year's Eve. My flight was supposed to leave at 11AM, but the Bay Area was having a really bad rain storm that was delaying all the flights. I had some tentative New Year's Plans, but nothing I would have been heartbroken over, if I had missed them. I just hate flying back East since you lose so much time and it's so late by the time you get back.

I thought I was never gonna get out of the airport. United kept delaying and delaying my flight. Every hour, it seemed that the gate agent was making another delay announcement. The other issue was that since SFO was in scheduling chaos, many flights, including mine, couldn't be properly staffed because flight attendants were stuck in the air or delayed getting to their next flight. I passed my time listening to my iPod, talking on the phone, and munching on some See's chocolates that I had bought at the airport stand originally as a gift, but I figured my friend wouldn't mind if I had some, or in my case, all of them.

Eventually, at around 4PM, PST, it was time to board. Our scheduled time of arrival in New York was 11:30PM, EST. But I knew there was no way I'd make it to any New Year's Party in time for the new year, unless there was a party at JFK. I could hear this guy who was still holding out hope and telling his friends on the phone that he was going to jump in a cab as soon as he got out of baggage claim and head all the way to Brooklyn from JFK just in time to see the ball drop on TV. I didn't really care though. I've never been a big New Year's person anyway.

The flight was completely full. Every seat on board was occupied since so many people were flying stand-by on my flight. After takeoff, the flight was pretty uneventful. The poor flight attendants were working really hard to keep everyone happy because they were understaffed too. After the meals and drinks were served (or "beverages" which I've always thought as a really gay word), we settled into our seats and watched the movie or slept.

A few hours later, a few minutes before 10PM, EST, one of the flight attendants made an announcement. Because there was very little chance that anybody on the flight would be able to celebrate New Years outside of the airport, the flight crew was going to celebrate with us. Since we were still in the air and wouldn't land till just before midnight, EST, we were going to "celebrate" New Year's in Santiago, Chile, where it was about to turn midnight. The crew started passing out champagne, and then the flight attendant said, "Ok, get ready to count down." We all counted down "10, 9, 8,.....Happy New Year!" and toasted each other.

It was so cute and a surprisingly nice way to spend New Year's Eve.

Today At The Gym

I woke up fairly early today for a Saturday. After puttering around my apartment for a bit, I decided to go to the gym. I belong to Equinox and the closest branches to me are 76th & Amsterdam and Columbus Circle. I prefer Columbus Circle because it's a bit more spacious and sharing the same building as Whole Foods is very convenient.

I decided to do some cardio that day and got on the treadmill. I kind of needed to clear my head and so running was good. I ran four miles and then got off the treadmill to cool down and towel myself down.

As I walked off the treadmills, I tuned into the TVs. Soon I was totally engrossed in The Real World/Road Rules challenge and stood there glued to the TV set even though there was no sound, just subtitles. While I was watching the show, I happened to be standing behind an elliptical machine. A woman soon approached me and asked "Excuse me, are you using this?" I replied "Oh, sorry. No."

So I moved out of the way. As I did so, my eyes were still glued to the TV. But I should have watched where I was going instead of the TV. I tripped over the elliptical machine I was standing behind, and knocked into the woman on the next machine and fell over her pedals. I braced my fall with my arms and ended up banging my right arm into a standing beam with a mirror surrounded by a metal frame that I scraped my elbow on. I also got a nasty bruise on my left quad from falling on the second elliptical machine. And my broken arm is also really sore. Everyone crowded around me and I was so embarrassed. I told everyone sheepishly, "I'm ok. Was just distracted by the tv..."

Real World isn't worth this much pain.