Mostly Harmless

Today was an odd day. Not bad exactly, but definitely odd.

I went to work for a scheduled systems upgrade.  Lily and the kids went to Central Park and after work we met in Chinatown.  When we returned to Long Island we found my front passenger window was broken and my GPS unit stolen.

Now I didn’t exactly leave the unit out, it was in the center console.  But the window mount was sealed to the window so I left it there.  The round rubber from the suction cup is still there, just not the rest of it.

According to the police there has been a rash of break-ins with people looking for GPS units.  They smash the window and look into the console for the unit.  If you don’t have a GPS then you’re just pissed.  If you do have one put away then you’re also out a GPS unit.

I’m not really angry about it since these things happen.  I’ll take the car to the dealer and hope that my insurance covers most of it.  Other than this, today was pretty good.

I heard on 1010 WINS this morning that a tentative agreement between 9 unions and Amtrak was going to be announced today. That’s a relief as both Lily and I both take the LIRR to Penn Station get to work. It would have been a pain for us to get to work, likely we’d have gone to Queens and taken the MTA.

We both enjoy working in NYC. When I started commuting again it was like I’d been banished to a third world country and had returned to civilization. My first week I was walking to work and trying not to look like a tourist.

That’s an exaggerated reaction and there are advantages to working close to home in Long Island. But I just prefer working in Manhattan and never mind the 90 minute commute.

Picture from of Wikipedia article on Penn Station.

Wow. This image is from Newsday’s web site.

Lily and I usually try to catch the 5:53 PM to Ronkonkoma out of Penn Station. Thursday night all the passengers were told that there was a fatal car accident at Mineola. Luckily that accident was not fatal, in fact the driver was rescued with 10 seconds to spare. But our line was canceled until further notice.

With all the trains not running we figured it would be a couple of hours before we could even get on a train. So we went to look for a good Thai restaurant that we know of. It’s on 48th street between 8th avenue and Broadway, close to 8th. Remember that address.

We went up 8th avenue but turned towards 9th avenue instead. Lily used to work on 50th street and we were wandering around 9th avenue saying “Wow the neighborhood really looks different”.

It was different alright. Lily kept insisting that she would get to this place from work by going out the back of her old building. That was true, but her old building was between Broadway and 8th avenue. Her current building was between 8th and 9th.

I was pretty sure that we were on the wrong avenue and said so. But I did not push the point since I learned many years ago to not contradict my very determined wife.

Eventually we ended up in a different Thai restaurant where I looked up the address of the place we were searching for on my phone. We both got a laugh out of that and I was told “Why didn’t you look that up earlier?” (I had offered to do so, was told not to bother, see earlier point about not contradicting my wife).

We ended up catching the 9:14 PM train.