[ this entry pieced together from jottings in my journal during the course of the NYC trip]

So the security people at the Boston airport were really nervous about me bringing the robot on board. After confusing the woman behind the X-ray conveyor, I got passed up the security chain to some very mean-looking woman who walked me and my box over to the Delta Airlines people and made me show them the contents of my box. Initially they said "no way." The mean woman kept insisting that It had a timer on it (she was referring to the LCD screen on the microcontroller). After some discussion and pleading, I got them to let me demo the robot for them. When I turned it on and the lights lit up and the servos jerked, they jumped back like it was about to blow or something. It was hillarious. I ran the spin-cycle demo for them and they were instantly convinced that it was harmless and let me go on my way. Time wasted: about an hour.

Once I got to New York City and had taken a cab to the Wieden & Kennedy office, I carried my robot up to the 7th floor as instructed by Iain in his email. When the elevator opened, I got my first glimpse of what W&K was like. They owned the entire floor of the building, and it was almost entirely composed of one big room. A very nice space! The receptionist had a casual air about her that relieved my fears that this might be a really stuffy advertising bunch with lots of suits and whatnot. Iain was not immediately available, so I had a few minutes to sit there and look at the office. Most of the employees looked to be in their late twenties and early thirties, everyone looked very "hip." There was this funny trophy case in reception that had a trophy for each of their major clients including Nike, ESPN, Jordan, and some others.

Iain showed up and showed me around. He is an exceptionally interesting person. He gets big points for the Scottish accent too (he's from Glasgow). He set me up in his office while I waited for the 4:30pm presentation. There I saw that he had an extensive collection of techno videos on VHS, some great records and CD's, and basically that he and I shared a lot of common interests. This trip was getting more and more promising every second.

I got introduced to everyone and there seemed to have been some hype about my visit, as everyone said things like, "Oh you're the robot guy!" I was under the impression before I arrived that my presentation would just be for a few of the creative department personell. But it was sounding like the bulk of the office would be there, so I had to do a little last-second preparing for a real presentation. I programmed some more interesting demos into the robot and thought about what I would be saying.

When the presentation rolled around, I was set up in the company kitchen in front of about 25 people. They seemed interested and asked good questions, and I think they enjoyed it. The robot demos worked well, etc. I gave them a 6.270 video and a few shirts.

Afterwards, Iain had some more work to do, leaving me to wander around W&K and chat with people that worked there. I talked to the receptionist for a bit and (aside from being really cute) turned out to be a really interesting person. She had snuck away from the front desk to watch part of the demo and I was telling her about my lack of plans for the remainder of the weekend when she unexpectedly gave me her phone number. I blame this irrational behavior on my new haircut. :)

When Iain was finished, he and I and a few other guys went to some bar near W&K to meet Iain's girlfriend, Julie. This is where Iain informed me that Wieden would be putting all of my meals, drinks, etc. on an expense account. So I figured why not bring on the white russian. But at this point I was really starving and drinking on an empty stomach was probably a bad idea. I got drunk on one drink, and every time I went to the bathroom, a new white russian seemed to have appeared on the table. So now I'm drunk. Julie comes in and is really really cool (and gorgeous, as everyone seems to be here. they're all pretty).

We cab it over to Iain's place in the east village and I drop off my stuff. If I had any doubts that Iain was the coolest person ever before, now it was certain. His modest apartment is filled to the brim with records, CDs, and cool gear. I heart this guy. And he has cool locks on his door (a medeco and some side-pinned thing I was unfamiliar with).

Dinner was amazing; a french reseraunt with gourmet everything. Yum. I had a fillet mingon. I showed Iain the matchbook that Heidi had written her number on and he declared that I must call her tomorrow because she is amazingly cool.

After dinner, of course, we had to go to another bar. Because that's what you do in New York, I guess. This was going to be a weird weekend. Met one of Julie's friends who I wasn't too impressed with, but this was because she was piss drunk and was talking turd about my research. Iain put Kraftwerk on the jukebox and insisted that we wait around for it to come on, which never happened.

I must have left that matchbook on the table at Casimir, though, because when we got home I did not have it. So I am a total rube. I've lost her number. I feel like such an ass. Iain assures me that tomorrow we'll try to figure it out.

I woke up early and went off to the Empire State building. The line was already really long at 10:00am, but it moved quickly. The observation deck is on the 86th floor. The view was tremendous, if a bit hazy. I snuck into a room where I could see down an elevator shaft and snapped a picture that didn't come out. After making my way back down the elevator, I walked down 5th Ave. past the flatiron building and over to the Bowery. Met up with Iain and Julie for "brunch" at 12:30 (isn't brunch supposed to come between breakfast and lunch??) at the Bowery Bar near CBGB. Apparently it was a big Andy Warhol hangout or something.

Went to the Museum of Modern Art uptown a ways. My first subway ride of the trip was uneventful. The NYC subway is way less fun than the Boston one. And more expensive by 50%. But the tokens do have cool pentagonal holes in them... I guess that's what the extra fifty cents is for. Anyway, I didn't know exactly where the MoMA was, so I wandered around for awhile. Poked my head into St. Patrick's cathedral to see some good old-fashioned gothic architecture.

The MoMA exhibits were exquisite. There was one called "Work Spheres" which was all about the future of office design and furniture. I wanted to buy one of everything they had in there. Great desks, lamps, chairs, layouts, etc. And they had some of the Sony robot dogs and various other gear somehow tangentially related to working. This included a giant SUV decked out with all-terrain research gear.

Another exhibit was an Andreas Gursky photo exhibit. His use of repeating patterns and color is amazing. The giant prints were so great to stand right in front of and just get lost in. The only person I know of who can take a closeup of a carpet and make it look really cool.

Finally, there were the paintings. It was like walking through the cliff notes on art. All of the big names were represented, most of the paintings I recognized back from my liberal arts days. Matisse, Van Gogh, Picasso, Pollack, Monet, etc. They were all there. It was so weird to turn a corner and be confronted by the actual "Starry Night." Just... boom, there it is. The painting everyone has seen and read about, there it is right in front of me without fanfare. But what a great painting. I must have stared at it for 20 minutes.

When I got back to Iain's place, he had picked out his music for the party tonight and we set about trying to figure out what Heidi's phone number was. This turned out to be easy as she was listed. We got in touch and I invited her to come to Iain's party with me, but she was feeling tired and we agreed to just go have a drink or something after dinner.

So Iain and I headed out to Hell's Kitchen to bring his turntables and mixer to the bar where the party would be. It was such a dump. Apparently some kind of metal bar, the Bellevue was filled with people that were visibly not my type and the bartender had a leather dominatrix outfit on. Weird. They let us into the back room which was full of garbage, and then down into this weird dungeon basement where we would set up. I was half-expecting to see the gimp in a box down there or something. There was no PA, not table, and the place was a mess. We stood around for awhile tried to get ahold of the party organizers with no luck.

After awhile, I went back to Iain's place to meet Julie and head off to our dinner reservation. Dinner was the most amazing meal. A place on the lower east side called "the kitchen club" which had a lot of japanese influence and served the greatest mushroom dumplings. We ate a lot. Several $40 bottles of wine went by, appetizers were supplied liberally, etc. I got more of an idea of just what a socialite Iain was. The owned knew him and gave us numerous free menu items, came over to talk to us a lot, and basically kissed his ass. Or maybe it was because we rung up a $260 tab. Not sure.

At any rate, it was the best meal I've ever eaten ever. And for me it was free. Oh yes.

So I called Heidi from the resteraunt and she came over just as we were finishing up desert. Iain went back to the club to fix the nightmare that was happening with the party situation. I headed off into downtown NYC with Heidi. We just walked around for a long time and talked. She is a fantastically interesting person to talk to. Of course, as per New York law, we ended up at a bar and I was drinking another white russian. geez. That's #5 on the weekend. I feel like I sort of made an ass of myself talking about my research and everything, but there's only so far you can go talking about nuclear engineering at a bar without looking a complete tool.

I had to be back at Iain's party by 2:00am to help him carry out the gear, and I did actually want to hear him spin some, so at 1:00am I walked Heidi back to her place and we flagged down a cab. I figured that since she had turned down the offer to go to the party that our walking around was just her being nice to me. I had, afterall told her that I didn't know what I would be doing all weekend. So I wasn't assuming this was about physical attraction or anything. As I was getting into the cab, she gave me a quick kiss which pretty much shattered that notion. Wow!

So that was cool. Now I'm not sure what to do. I suck at this sort of thing. But she is really really cool to talk to and, well, gorgeous. Again, it must be my new haircut. :)

I took a cab back up to the Bellevue and met up with Iain, Julie, et al. They had located a shitty PA and made a table out of beer cases. The sound quality was awful and the crowd was lame, but Iain was awesome. He played a Renegade Soundwave remix of a Kraftwerk song that kicked ass. He's hillarious behind the turntables. Dances around all silly and clearly loves doing it, even in such a crappy venue.

After the party, he and Julie wanted to know all the gossip about me and Heidi, apparently they were expecting wild and exciting things to happen. I fear I may have created an inter-office gossip mill. I hope it doesn't piss off Heidi. We retired to Iain's for the night; I'm exhausted.

Slept in some, and went to brunch with Julie and Iain at a Polish diner nearby. Went to a music store called "other music" which came highly recommended by Iain. Bought the new Wagon Christ disc, learned that they just opened a store in Harvard Square. cool. We walked around the lower east side and saw a store called Alife that sold limited edition stuff including weird Air Woven Nikes. Last stop, a store that specialized in grilled-cheese sandwiches. They also sold fruit smoothies, which is what we were after. It was about 90 degrees and very very muggy.

Anyway, we walked back to W&K and grabbed the robot. I said goodbye to Julie and Iain and thanked them for an amazing weekend. They were so generous and great to hang out with. I took the cab back to LaGuardia. In contrast the the Boston security debacle, the New York people didn't even blink at the robot. Didn't want to open the box or anything. Talk about lax security...

What a fun trip. Wow. I enjoyed New York City so much that I'm tempted to try and live there at some point. It was amazing and put Boston to shame. Not sure what to do about Heidi; I'd love to see her again but I still don't really know what the deal is there. She seemed pretty excited that I said I would email her, so I hope we can stay in touch. And if I make it back down there agian, perhaps we can hang out more. I hope so.