Kevin's Weblog

I spent half of last week in Manhattan — the first time I’ve been there in a bit more than 6 years. A series of observations:

I am always amazed at the infrastructure of the city, and that it is possible to sustain a city on this scale at all. Walking around, you can’t avoid noticing the volume of trash being generated, and removed, each and every day. One is constantly walking under scaffolding. Less visible is the constant stream of food into the city’s restaurants, and surprisingly little road work. Among other things, it makes me thankful for modern health and safety practices.

Walking around mid-town, I find myself having that out-of-place, but trying-to-fake-it feeling. Staying in a hotel that’s way more expensive than I could afford, surrounded by luxury stores and swanky clubs, I wonder how many of the people I see really belong in this lifestyle and how many are just pretending for a bit.

I’ve lived in the part of the universe where “coffee” means “espresso” for so long that the dominance of drip coffee in New York seems like some sort of stubborn affectation.

They recently opened a Whole Foods on the Bowery.

There seems to be some sort of economic ideal achieved here, wherein people out-source virtually everything: cooking, laundry, driving, etc. I don’t claim to really understand the local economy, but I wonder if in part it’s just so damn expensive that you can’t afford not to fully realize your comparative advantage, whatever it might be.

This was my first time flying JetBlue. Not too shabby, but there’s just no way around the fact that red-eyes suck. At least I got a couple mindless movies to entertain me on the way home, since I forgot to bring a book to read on the flight.