New Jersey

My Star Miles; a Haul From Jersey To Miami

nobody@vox.com(Sean J. O'Rourke) — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:02:59 -0800

So two Thursdays ago I packed up a mid-sized U-Haul rental van with some of my most prized possessions and set metaphorical sail towards Miami Beach, Florida. Moving day was finally here! In case you're wondering what in God's name I'm talking about, I was offered and accepted an opportunity to head up all marketing for an SEO company that I'd been working freelance for since February. So after a brief stop to pick up Alissa, we loaded the "Haul" and set out on our 1,200+ mile adventure down the east coast.

Despite being marred by traffic early and often, the trip was a total blast and without Alissa, I'd of probably killed myself given what we were up against. To make a long story short, we left her house at 1:45 p.m. on Friday afternoon and had to be in Miami before 5 p.m. on Saturday afternoon. Now keep in mind, this wasn't just a drive, this was a

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haul...literally we were towing my Impala and weren't supposed to exceed 45 mph. Yea ok. We absolutely cruised until hitting the Washington D.C. area where we hit expected traffic. The sun was setting as we crossed the Potomac and we could see the lights surrounding the Capital and the Washington Monument from about a mile away on 95, it was beautiful. Now I'd been driving non-stop since we'd left New Jersey so we decided to switch up driving duties in Richmond, Virginia. We wound up stopping for McDonald's and gasoline and the former experience was hilarious and terrifying all at once. As we walked into the McDonald's right off 95 south, absolutely everyone blatantly stared at us because we were obvious Northerners. After discussing a crackpot family, our driving schedule and a painting hanging on the wall that demonstrated a person driving to McDonald's on the wrong side of the ride, we took off yet again down 95 south towards North Carolina.

After polishing off my driving shift by rocking all 80 miles of my former state North Carolina, Alissa took over while I passed out despite the Haul's almost spitefully uncomfortable seats. To switch we'd stopped at a rest stop just north of the South Carolina border when we realized we still had some 8+ hours of driving to do and it was already past midnight. We decided we could not stop to sleep as we'd previously planned, and would drive straight through all the way to Miami. Fuck yea, adventure. I got my first sleep as Alissa blazed through South Carolina, I was afraid she might be nervous about driving the truck but when I woke up she was cruising at 80 mph! We made a pit stop at this insanely creepy rest stop in South Carolina that was literally in the middle of nowhere. It was a congregation of a BP, a Shell and a McDonald's, it was just eerie. In other news, the McRib is back! Hello 1995!

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The drive through the midnight hours was quick, we seriously were pacing the shit out of the drive. At around 5:30 a.m. Saturday morning, we arrived in Florida and were greeted by a late sunrise and some rain. For the entire six hours it took to cruise south towards Miami, we must have had at least 12 instances of me begging to see an alligator. All in all, we cruised into Miami around 1 p.m. and after meeting with realtor and getting all my paperwork capped off, Alissa and I ventured up South Beach to my new pad!

After unpacking the U-Haul and having tons of trouble with their office, we were finally FREE to go back to my new apartment (now dubbed Jersey South Beach) and relax for a bit for our Saturday night carried a very sweet reward. In addition to getting down to my new place, Alissa and I were guest listed to see the Bouncing Souls in Fort Lauderdale thanks to my very good friend Pete. Alissa, Pete, DJ and Greg hung out outside the venue for a bit before scoring some drinks and watching the Souls rock 1,500 kids at Revolution. Fucking amazing time, definitely going to miss seeing these guys all the time, both on the stage and off.

Pete Steinkopf

Bouncing Souls, Revolution Live, Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Bouncing Souls at Revolution Live, Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Alissa and I Hangin'

Greg of the Bouncing Souls at Revolution Live, Ft. Lauderdale, FL

Bouncing Souls

As they took a two minute break between their sets, with a thousand people screaming for them, Greg walked off to the side of the stage and said "Tell me about your new job man?!". Love those guys, I'm going to really miss them but as they say, "until next time". Next time will be Christmas when I'm home for the holidays. To Pete, Kate, DJ, Greg, Michael and Bryan: I love you guys and hopefully one day I'll get to go out on the road with you.

The entire trip was a blast and couldn't have even been the least bit fun without Alissa. Between her coming down for the weekend, hanging at the show, helping me decorate my entire apartment, helping me stock my place with enough food to live through Katrina and just spending time with, it was just great having her around. She's beyond an amazing friend and I'm really grateful she helped me with everything. After almost $2,000 in some new furniture, a new record player, a sweet new red microwave, a badass blender and a new Sony hi-def television, my apartment is pretty much all set! I'm hoping a lot of my friends get the chance to get down here and relax in this amazing weather. Today, at 85 degrees, was definitely the warmest November 15th I've ever experienced. More to come as always!

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Let The Fist Pumping Commence

nobody@vox.com(Sean J. O'Rourke) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 13:26:06 -0800

There's been a lot of talk about MTV's new show Jersey Shore set to debut on December 3rd as being offensive to both Jersey-ites and Italian-Americans. As if we in the Garden State don't catch enough flak already, thank you MTV for another batch of pseudo-entertainment. I honestly don't worry about people trashing my home state anymore because I've been around the country to know there's people from Jersey everywhere. I'll probably wind up watching this piece of garbage too, and I bet half of the people are really from Philly like they were in MTV's recent True Life: Jersey Shore. Does anyone else notice the startling similarities between the casts of this show and VH1's Tool Academy 2? I know I'm splitting hairs but that show was hilarious.

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Nov 3: New York comes to Manhattan

nobody@vox.com(Bart) — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 19:03:38 -0800

The USS New York - a battleship that has 7 tons of steel from WTC recycled into its hull - sailed into New York on the Hudson river yesterday (Nov 2). It was quite a spectacle. It was about 8am on a gloomy morning. The all grey USS New York almost blended in the background and the photos look like they are black and white!

I went down just as the USS New York came into view with an advance aerial welcome party.

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NY Waterway ferries scurried up and down, almost treating the USS New York like a minor annoyance during the morning rush hour.

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The ship briefly stopped in front if the World Financial Center (WFC) - which is in front of the WTC site. There was supposed to have been a 21 gun salute, though I didn't hear it. On both sides of the river, fire departments turned out smartly and played their bands.

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All in all, an entertaining Monday morning.

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Nov 14: Back on the "E"

nobody@vox.com(Bart) — Sat, 14 Nov 2009 13:53:53 -0800

After a 3 month hiatus (when I was on a project outside New York), I am back to being a regular on the"E" (For those who are not familiar with what I am referring to, The New York E Subway Line is what I mean). I do the WTC - 7Av/53rd street stretch daily. The E trainset composition is now all R160 - which is great. That conversion of trainsets was well underway even before my travel. The other change I noticed was that, in off-peak hours, they open only one door per car when the trains wait at WTC. I am guessing this is for energy conservation ans seems like a sensible move. The only catch is that, if you choose to walk past a car to the next one, you have to recalibrate your judgement - for you cannot just hop into the next door.

7Av/53rd Street is unique in that you can seemingly head off in opposite directions while actually going the same way. So, on the upper level, you have the "E" going one way and the "B" and "D" going the other way but you can take either and still get to, say, W4 street.

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Oct 27: Circle Line and the LSC

nobody@vox.com(Bart) — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 19:02:21 -0700

Circle Line and the LSC

Originally uploaded by bharat_s_rao

Last Sunday (Oct 25) was a very nice fall day - close to perfect from a photographer's point of view. As we approached sunset, multicolored hues took over the sky. Pink gave way to amber, orange, yellow and red. Ferries and boats docked at the Liberty Marina glistened and the canal shimmered. All in all, a pretty picture.

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Facebook Scares Me

nobody@vox.com(Sean J. O'Rourke) — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 10:13:02 -0700

Do you know your ~~enemy~~...Facebook?

CNN released a report this morning that stated that Facebook's users almost equal that of the entire United States population. That's great news for Facebook but I think it's somewhat terrifying in the realm of personal data collection.

What's On YOUR Mind

Part of what makes Google a profitable entity is the site's ability to dissect data obtained from searches and use that information to target ads specific and relevant to your search. Google analyzes this data based on these extremely short-worded information requests, so my question is what will become of Facebook and the uncountable amounts of data that it collects on a daily basis. Consider the ability for Google to know you from a phrase like "clothing store NYC" versus Facebook and it's almost infinite amount of your personal data on it's servers. There's not only all of your interests, activities, favorite books, movies, etc, but that of everyone you know and often how you know them.

Facebook is like another internet, with unfathomable amounts of business, professional and personal information located only on its own servers. I can imagine a science fiction human-rights-apocalyptic movie scenario that started because the Government set up a shadow set of social networking sites that collected all of your information and has now lead to some essence of world domination. Keep blogging and next thing you know, there's Colonel Hans Landa smoking his pipe in your kitchen.

P.S. Out of my own curiosity I Googled "clothing store NYC" and a targeted ad for Microsoft's search engine Bing came up as a sponsored result. Such a strange world we live in.

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New Racing Kites EPK

nobody@vox.com(Sean J. O'Rourke) — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 07:43:51 -0700

Check out my good friends in Racing Kites and the amazing new electronic press kit they just put together. These guys are really as honest, hardworking and humble as they are in this video. They also have a new EP Right Here, Right Now available on iTunes.

Racing Kites EPK

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More Conversations with Karl

nobody@vox.com(Wingman) — Fri, 09 Oct 2009 09:10:28 -0700

Wingman-Groups

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QotD: Famous Encounter

nobody@vox.com(Sean J. O'Rourke) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 05:59:46 -0700

Who is the most famous person you've ever met?

Bruce and I at Starland Ballroom

My friend and Hudson bandmate Mike and I spent a day at Starland Ballroom hanging with our friends in At A Glance a few years back. We were all sitting around in the dressing room after their set awaiting Streetlight Manifesto to take the stage when the Boss walked in. It was surreal. He walked up to me and I stood up and said "Hi, I'm Sean", he shook my hand and said "Hey, I'm Bruce". I thought in my head; "fuck YEAH you are, just let me look at you!!!". He was sweet and it was cool that he took a few minutes to come in and just say hello, he didn't have to do that. None of us even knew he was at the show. I've heard from many people I've told the story to that Bruce, despite being one of the most famous and successful American musicians of the last thirty years, still buys tickets like everyone else and will just hang out in the crowd at a concert. I'll never forget meeting Bruce Springsteen, my only regret is that I wasn't nearly as big a fan of his then than I am now. I like to think that meeting him played a part in me becoming a huge fan of his. I saw Bruce and the E Street Band this past Wednesday and I'll be back at Giants Stadium this coming Thursday.

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Sep 27: Northwest and Continental

nobody@vox.com(Bart) — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 08:45:50 -0700

It is not hard to come to the conclusion that flying domestic in the US is a pretty plain vanilla affair and there isn't much to choose from among the airlines. Yet, when you fly frequently, you begin to discern differences as the laws of probablity kick in and events such as cancellations, aircraft changes, bad weather etc. occur. I have been flying between New York (Mostly from Newark) to Minneapolis on work for the last 12 weeks or so. I mostly fly Continental but have taken a few flights on Northwest/Delta.

When I started, Continental was using Boeing 737s on the early morning (from EWR) and late evening (from MSP) flights but they then abruptly switched to the Embraer 145 - a much smaller aircraft. With 2-1 seating and a very tiny overhead bin, this aircraft invariably requires me to check in my cabin bag at the gate - and reclaim at the gate on arrival. This adds about 10 minutes before you can be on your way, which matters when you fly every week. It is also a single class configuration, so there's no question of upgrades. Being "Elite" doesn't confer any significant advantange on this type of aircraft.

A bigger issue is that Continental seems to cancel flights at the drop of a hat when there are weather induced delays at Newark. They often cancel the originating flight, which means the return flight from Minneapolis is cancelled too. It is infuriating to see Northwest/Delta flights take off (albeit with delays) to the 3 New York area airports while Continental seemingly refuses to even try. This has happened twice in the recent past (will write another post on this and how Delta rescued me when Continental abdicated). NWA uses an Embraer 190 on the sector - which is more comfortable, can accommodate larger cabin bags and has a two class configuration.

The good thing about Continental is they actually supply some meaningful food complimentary. Cereal on the morning flight and a snack box with cheese, crackers, chocolates etc. on the evening one.

So there it is - it isn't all plain vanilla. The "coffee, tea or me" days are long gone, but there is scope for differentiation still.

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