New York City Trip

I’m currently decompressing from my week long trip to New York. I hardly wrote anything while I was there, but as soon as I sat down and started to reflect on my visit, a rush of memories from the past week came flooding in.

My Element

“…Mike is totally in his element here (NYC).”

-Shani Fecht (excerpt from journal 7/25/03)

I’m headed to New York tomorrow morning for a week of couch crashing with old friends, connections with new ones and a bit of exploration and self discovery.  I’ve always been drawn to that city in some strange, cosmic way. I was the only Yankees fan I knew growing up in Sterling, IL, except for my uncle who turned me onto them as a 6-year-old. A couple of years ago, I asked him why he was a Yankees fan, having been raised in the same small town.

One Year Later - A 9/11 Story

This was originally printed in The Pulse-Chattanooga's Alternative Weekly Newspaper, on September 11, 2006.

When I watched the attacks on the World Trade Center on TV in Atlanta, I cried and worried for my friends and coworkers who were living and working in the city. I also had no idea that one year later, September 11, 2002, I would be watching as firefighters and police officers lined the streets surrounding my new apartment on Greenwich Street in Lower Manhattan, less than 200 yards from Ground Zero, preparing for the ceremony to begin just blocks away.

Moving To New York (Part Two)

In my last post, I started the story of mine and Shani’s move to New York City.  CLICK HERE TO READ PART ONE

The following is the completion of that story…

In the time between calling the cops and parking the truck, Shani had located the apartment building and joined us on the corner. An Asian man and his family suddenly appeared among the group motioning over to his car, the Honda with the smashed mirror. I apologized over and over, and he just nodded again and again, apparently unable to speak English. I said that I would pay for it, but the communication barrier posed a problem. As we stood there near his car and he surveyed the damage, I took his information and promised to call him the following day to arrange payment for the broken mirror. We were able to get that much accomplished through broken English and improvised sign language. I returned to my conversation with the police officers.

Moving To New York (Part One)

In July of 2002, I was employed with Crunch Fitness, a health club chain based in New York City. At the time I was the Area Sales Director for the company’s 6 clubs in Atlanta. We had a pretty successful year to that point and there had been a shift in upper management in New York, creating a void for the same position in Manhattan. I thought for sure that they would either promote someone that lived in the city or hire someone more familiar with those particular clubs, so when I got the call offering me the position, not only was I floored, but I accepted it on the spot. Shani and I knew there was always the possibility I could get it, but no one had ever really mentioned anything concrete, certainly nothing along the lines of my having been the front-runner for the job.

I’ll never forget Shani’s response when I called to tell her.