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Current Mood: Loved

Joining the real world hasn’t been easy. A heavy heart and a longing to go back has invaded most of my thoughts. Bennifer will be en route to their tropical vacation tomorrow morning so I’m going to have to get back in the AG writing game! I’m up for it, or I will be this weekend.

Every day is an adventure though, today was no exception (the little things). I’ve been getting Jonathon off and on the bus for 12 years. 12 years, so I guess it was about time I had an accident. The chair lift was coming down while I was shooting the breeze with the driver, the next thing I know… PAIN! The lift landed smack dab on the middle of my foot. You’d think the driver shot me with the look on her face as she quickly put it in reverse and off my foot. I don’t know how to explain what it feels like to have a chair lift land on your foot… that’s holding a 300 lb chair… while you’re wearing wedged heels… I assured her I’d be fine as I hobbled away with Jonathon’s chair, tears shooting out of my eyes “Must cry like a baby when I’m behind closed doors.”

It hurt like HELL and I did sob uncontrollably, I couldn’t help it! After Extra Strength Tylenol and elevating it for a couple of hours, the swelling went down and although it felt ice cold, it didn’t look completely abnormal. I’m guess nerve damage, but nothing that requires emergency care. I’ll live and lesson learned.

I’m still adjusting to a vacation (first one in ten years) of being over, saying “See ya later” to a magical city, and getting back into the daily grind… and metal grinding into my foot ripping off a small top layer of skin.

Tomorrow’s Friday though- yay?

Current Mood: Sad

Reader’s Digest ranks only U.S. city surveyed ahead of London, Moscow

NEW YORK – New Yorkers are a polite bunch. No, really, they are. So says Reader’s Digest.

The magazine sent reporters “undercover†to 36 cities, in 35 countries, to measure courtesy. New York was the only American city on the list.

In a city with a reputation for being in-your-face, New Yorkers seem to be expressing themselves with a new one-finger salute: a raised pinkie. In fact, they seem to have even better manners than people in London, Toronto and Moscow.

In its admittedly unscientific survey, the magazine’s politeness-police gave three types of tests to more than 2,000 unwitting participants.

The reporters walked into buildings to see if the people in front of them would hold the door open; bought small items in stores and recorded whether the salespeople said “thank youâ€; and dropped a folder full of papers in busy locations to see if anyone would help pick them up.

New Yorkers turned out to be the politest: 90 percent held the door open, 19 out of 20 store clerks said “thank you,†and 63 percent of men and 47 percent of women helped with the flying papers.

In short, four out of five New Yorkers passed the courtesy test.

Pride in Big Apple
Mayor Michael Bloomberg said he’s not surprised.

He told reporters Tuesday that whenever he travels abroad, he hears nothing but praise for the Big Apple’s good manners.

“We are so jaded,†he said. “We want to think the worst of ourselves, and people from around this country and around the world think exactly the reverse.â€

 

The rudest continent is Asia, Readers Digest said. Eight out of nine cities tested there — including last place Mumbai, India — finished in the bottom 11. In Europe, Moscow and Bucharest ranked as the least polite.

Reader’s Digest, which has readers in 21 languages, is publishing the results in its July issue.

Current Mood: Thankful

I’ll write later (jet lag, long flight/delay, long day)

Here are my photo streams- see arsgeek for my Legends Panel

NYC  days 1 and 2
http://www.flickr.com/photos/24778657@N07/

NYC days 3 and 5 (battery died on day 3)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/25907472@N06/

Current Mood: Sooo sleepy

Once more I’m spent- but Ben has continued to be awesome enough to continue blogging while I’m caring for the man of the weekend (my beautiful boy) and also trying to return messages to pr people for exclusives tomorrow. http://www.arsgeek.com/ has the coverage- the latest… JONATHON AND STAN LEE FINALLY MEET!!!!!!!!!!!!

Current Mood: Giddy

 

Freaking amazing. Ben and Jenn… seriously- You two rock times a million. Thank you thank you thank you. Saying good bye is going to SUCK but in the meantime we’re enjoying every NY minute

Here is the link to the pics I have uploaded *so* far. I’m tired and tomorrow is Comic Con!

http://www.flickr.com/photos/24778657@N07/

I’m going to re-post what Ben wrote on AG that captures our first few hours. In the meantime- I may copy/paste what I wrote to Jesse because it’s quick, it sums up today… and I’m SO tired. It’s 10:30 here and I should still be on PST time (7:30pm) but I adapt quickly.

(from Jesse’s blog) Me too- I have to start blogging! Today- Empire State Building- amazing. And entire construction team stopped traffic for us to cross, we’re treated like celebs going into ANY building (they’re SO great to Jonathon!) I lost my purse/backpack with Jonathon’s meds- I was freaked! NO!!!!!!!! I thought it was stolen! Apparently when lifting Jonathon’s chair down steps, they fell off out in the street, the ppl at the Empire State building found it and were all on alert- and we walked out of a store, I was panicked- they recognized us immediately and led us to the basement to get our stuff… SO nice and OMG this city is magical. We spent two hours in Time Square getting pics of EVERYTHING and Jonathon with the NYPD cops… amazing. Okay, I should start writing this down and getting my pics uploaded that Ben didn’t post on AG. Freaking amazing. I’m currently waiting for our food from Skyline Diner to deliver (FREE delivery!!- of course I’ll tip) But dude, friendliest people EVER. I was standing outside and 4 thug looking people walked by, we all exchanged beaming “Good morningâ€â€™s Nothing can top this ever.

Our first day in New York, we’re accused of Terrorism and make it on National Television with Teddy Atlas and Chaz Witherspoon

Yes, we’re an aspiring bunch. Dawn with her camera got us into a bit of a spot with a tollbooth dude who essentially insinuated that people taking pictures of New York (i.e. tourists) are, you know, terrorists. After warning us that we could spend up to 5 days in the clink and have to pay lots of money, he then gave us directions to where we needed to go.

Because terrorists need directions too, I guess.

But then, the awesomeness factor started to magnify. We were in Manhattan! Our hotel was easy to find and extremely vertical in nature. About 10 feet wide and six hundred tall. A nice place all in all. Jonathon has made it to NYC for ComicCon!

We hurried into our rooms, got organized and found out that we were definitely in for a treat.

Yes, that’s Teddy Atlas. And Teddy Atlas is truly an awesome guy. Thanks to the Dr. Theodore Atlas foundation who helped in a big way to make this trip possible, we are here in New York. Thanks to Teddy, Russ and the folks at ESPN and to boxer Gentleman Chazz Witherspoon, our trip, our first half day in NYC has already been amazing.

A few days ago we heard from our friend in the sports world Russ. Russ works with ESPN on the Wednesday Night Fights. Through some of the fine folks who work with him, he let us know that he was able to get us into the fight tonight. We were jazzed. We thought we’d be seeing the fights, Russ and Teddy would get to meet Jonathon and we’d all have a good time.

Did we ever! We were ringside for the fights. Not just ringside seats, but sitting right behind the bell itself, behind Teddy and ahead of the crowd. It was amazing. Teddy came right over and gave Jonathon a huge welcome, and continued to talk with him throughout the fights. He will always remain in my mind now a wonderful person. First with helping us to get here and now with just being a great guy.

After Gentleman Chazz fought (and won) we all got a big surprise. Chazz came out of the ring after being declared winner, shook a few hands, came right over to Jonathon and gave him his gloves. What a trip-defining moment – it was really amazing.

Chazz came back towards the end of our evening and signed Jonathon’s gloves for him, got some information and promised to send Jonathon some cool stuff. Russ came out of the ESPN trailer afterwards to inform us that Jonathon had been on National television as Chazz hung out with him. Wow.

I was excited about this trip before, now I am truly exhilarated! We all want Jonathon to have a good time and now I know that he’s already had a great time and we’re only on day one. I know that the look on Jonathon’s face made my week already. This whole trip has already been worth it. Here’s to an amazing four more days with Jonathon and the rest of us here on the ArsGeek crew. And thanks again to everyone who made this trip possible. You all rock in a big way.

-Ben

 Since Ben has been kicking butt with energy and posting, lol here’s his posting of our events today:

 

Today we all took the opportunity to sleep in a bit. We had to be at Javitz around noon to pick up our press credentials. As we strolled through the convention center, we goggled at all the ComicCon related things going up left and right. Superheroes, villains, aliens, dudes from Hell – it was all here, and so were we!

Having hung out at Javitz for an hour or so and gotten our press passes, we decided to take in the sites. We had a tour of the Cartooning department at the New York School of Visual Arts, thanks to Christopher for setting that up! From there we strolled to the Empire State Building, then to a great Comic Book store and then to the .99 cent store. Then. . . horror. Dawn went to pay for some items and her bag, along with Jonathon’s, was gone. We panicked, ran around for a bit and found our way back to the comic book store. No bag. Had we been robbed? The bags were definitely gone, and we had them when we left the Empire State Building.

Then, as we were heading down to an intersection to cross the street, an Empire State Building employee popped his head out of another store and said “Hey, did you guys leave some bags behind?” We all pretty much staggered about with relief. Dawn got everything back from a large number of great people. In fact, everyone we’ve met on this trip has been amazing. A construction crew went out of their way to stop traffic and help us through some sidewalk work and across the street. We met a couple of nice gentlemen who had come over from the UK for the convention and chatted for a bit and generally had a great time.

Times square is just as big and bright and crowded as it appears in movies and just as much fun. Lots of pictures were taken and we’ve all walked an awful lot today.

Here’s Jonathon with two of New York’s finest. We’re really loving New York – so thanks to all of you New Yorkers who’ve made our stay great so far! Tomorrow, at 10 am the doors open to the press and professionals and we’ll be there!

[tags]comic con, comiccon, nycc, new york, nyc, javitz, just wow[/tags]

 

Current Mood: Thankful

I’m so excited! How did I spend my final normal evening? Doing my state taxes. Yes, tomorrow is the deadline and I love living on the edge.

I got the extra key for Ash (it has Mickey Mouse on it ), so now I know the cats will be taken care of, the fish fed and the plants… there’s just no hope for the plants. I’m waiting for Jonathon’s meds to come back from school to up his supply… and… umm… I think that’s it!

I purchased HUT tickets (transportation to the airport). It leaves at 3:45 in the morning, I need to check in at 3:30… and I’m borrowing Ash’s phone tomorrow night JUST in case my Vonage or internet is down so I have a back up for calling a cab at 3AM to the airport shuttle. 3AM???? This means I must get up about 2… ACK! I figure I can nap on the drive to Portland and hopefully nod off on the 5.5 hr flight. When we land we’ll be three hours in the future and I’ll let everyone know immediately if there are any drastic changes in the future (if there’s time).

I’M SO STOKED!!!!

It’s been very difficult working this week (well, only one day so far). My brain has been begging to start the day dreams of travelling to a city I never thought I’d see, the smile on my boys face by giving him the best dream vacation for him ever and seeing my friends. It’s so much to mentally digest that I was working non stop to avoid getting swept away by my cloud hidden dreams.

Do I go to bed tomorrow, or just nap on the sofa? Dare I even fall asleep?

Of course I’ll be blogging while over there- if not here, then on AG, so I guess I can’t say anyone will miss my presence, but I will be writing on EST!!

 

Current Mood: Crazy!

Okay- I received an e-mail from Delta and I don’t want this information buried…

CHANGE

Wednesday, April 16

If you guys meet me in luggage claim I guess it’s not a big deal because the time is only different by around ten minutes. As far as you know I can walk really slow. They’re playing The Golden Compass on the plane WHY???????