This post brought to you by Bernard Avram Wolfensteiner, DDS

Molly and I randomly stumbled upon this "Jewish Name Generator" and it's a lot more fun than it should be. It does male names and female names. We were particularly partial to Yahuda Rubin.

Update: The site seems to be gone and, unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be any other site like it. Oh well...

Excuse me while I geek out

I had a meeting at work today where we discussed our audit testing approach. During this meeting, the senior on my engagement brought up Benford analysis. I had never heard of this before and it completely blew my mind when I saw it illustrated. Let me (wikipedia) explain:

Benford's law, also called the first-digit law, states that in lists of numbers from many real-life sources of data, the leading digit is 1 almost one-third of the time, and further, larger numbers occur as the leading digit with less and less frequency as they grow in magnitude, to the point that 9 is the leading digit less than one time in twenty.

This counter-intuitive result applies to a wide variety of figures from the natural world or of social significance - including electricity bills, street addresses, stock prices, population numbers, death rates, lengths of rivers, physical and mathematical constants, and processes described by power laws (which are very common in nature).

It is named after physicist Frank Benford, who stated it in 1938. However, it was earlier stated by Simon Newcomb, in 1881.

Did you get all that? Benford's law says that if you take any random sample of numbers and find the distribution of the leading digit, it should look like this:

While that's all well and good, it doesn't mean much until you see it. The manager on my team showed me the results from a previous Benford analysis that they had performed and the curve matched nearly perfectly. I thought that was just amazing, so I tried it myself. The first thing I tried was with some employee expense reporting data.

While it's not perfect, it still follows the general trend. I think the problem here is that people tend to round their expenses. If someone had an out of pocket expense of $29.88, they're probably just going to report it as $30. This was skewing my data, so I wanted to try something with little concious human interaction. This led me to a random data set online showing the number of faculty at various colleges in 1995.

As you can see, it's a much closer and smoother line than the expense reports, but it still isn't as close as the results I saw on our test at work. It's still pretty impressive though. I thought I'd try one final test, so I pulled some completely random census data from the state of Illinois. This provided me a really large population to sample from.

It's fairly spot on. It's crazy how it doesn't really matter where your numbers come from, it will (almost) always follow this same trend. I'm sure this has no bearing in your life, but it does in mine and I find it really interesting, so I thought I would share.

Would you pay $500,000 to vote in a midterm election?

That's the value of a 1918 Inverted Jenny, one of the rarest stamps in the world, which Broward County elections officials said was affixed to an envelope containing an absentee ballot.

I heard about this on Countdown with Keith Olbermann, but I'm too lazy to write my own post about it, so I just stole Digg's... but who knew that Montgomery Brewster voted in Broward County?

read more | digg story

NYC Marathon

Yesterday was the 2006 New York Marathon, so I walked over to first avenue to check out the runners. I got there after the "real" runners had already finished, but that actually turned out to be more entertaining. Pictured to the left are just some random people running. I felt the need to show a normal shot before highlighting the people that I found funny or interesting...

This one is my favorite. At first glance, it is just a normal group of runners. But wait, is that a guy dressed like ballerina? It sure is...

And this was a good one...running in a rhino suit

I saw a lot of people running with flags actually. One person was wearing a viking hat and a Swedish flag as a cape. Bonus points if you identify this flag...

It's super woman!

Just a shot of the crowd

I've got to give credit where credit is due. This is a big guy. If he made it 26 miles, he deserves to be recognized.

I actually saw more of this than I would have expected. The guy in the middlein on his cellphone. I saw people talking and even texting as they ran by...

This was fairly common as well. I guess people needed some way for their friends and family to spot them in the crowd.

I didn't catch them on film, but I also saw a guy running in a Spiderman costume, two guys dressed as the Blues Brothers, and a guy wearing a Ghost Busters costume - complete with backpack and gun.

This is where the title would go

Anyone who has watched TV, read a newspaper, walked down the street, or breathed during the last month is aware of the impending election. We've been bombarded with negative, attack ads and mudslinging over the past several weeks, so it was nice to come home, check my mail, and find a positive, helpful mailing from a state senator. Senator Liz Krueger (D) of New York's 26th district sent "The Harris Family or Current Resident" a "newcomer's guide to New York politics." It welcomed me to the district and provided some insight into New York state politics. It wasn't particularly helpful, but it was an entertaining read nonetheless. I was impressed with the publication until I looked at the front page. In the lower left-hand corner, Krueger included a screenshot of her blog. She obviously made the blog for the purpose of this mailing and didn't bother to even look at it before she mailed it out. She left all the filler in the template intact. I'm supposed to vote for this woman, but she can't even proof her own mailer. That's just embarrassing. Click here for a high resolution view.

Keeping tallies

Molly, Lisa, and I went to see Suburbia on Sunday and we sat a few rows behind Fran Drescher. I'm not sure I would have recognized her, but her voice is unmistakable. Credit to Lisa for spotting her though...

Electronic voting machines already changing Democratic votes to Republican

Several South Florida voters say the choices they touched on the electronic screens were not the ones that appeared on the review screen -- the final voting step. Gary Rudolf touched the screen for gubernatorial candidate Jim Davis, a Democrat, but the review screen repeatedly registered the Republican, Charlie Crist.

read more | digg story

Random picture of the day

Since groceries at our local Food Emporium are so expensive, we've been ordering online from Fresh Direct. It's cheaper and we get the convenience of home delivery. The only issue is that we don't get to see what we're buying ahead of time. Certain items, such as carrots, are priced based on weight, but you can't order based on weight. You simply enter the number of carrots that you want, they pick them out, weigh them, and charge you accordingly. So in our last order, I ordered four carrots. I didn't realize that they would pick out freakishly large carrots to bring up the weight. Pictured above is one of my freak carrots alongside a standard baby carrot. I got three servings out of that thing...

Turd Ferguson

On Saturday, Karie and I attended a taping of Celebrity Jeopardy. The special, week-long event was taped in Radio City Music Hall. It was pretty fun, but I was amazed at how fast it went. When I went to the Daily Show, I spent more time waiting around than I spent actually watching the show. Jeopardy was much quicker and more efficient. We started waiting in line outside the theater around 9:30 and we were in our seats by 10:15. The show began minutes later.

The celebrities for our taping were Soledad O'Brien (CNN), Harry Shearer (Simpsons), and Isaac Mizrahi (Designer). Mizrahi was definitely the most entertaining as he was incredibly flamboyant and provided comedic relief.

Before the actual game, they ran through an entire practice round. Standing in for Alex during the practice round was some random guy. They played the entire game in the practice round and even included the "meet the contestants" part. I'm not sure if this is standard Jeopardy practice. (Eric?) The questions during this round were comedically easy. One category was called "stupid answers" and the clues contained the answers. For example, one clue was: (to paraphrase) In 1968, the Beatles released an album with a stark, white cover which gave it this name. Answer: What is the white album? (This clue was extra funny because they used almost the same question on an SNL Celebrity Jeopardy) During the actual taping, they used a category called "Stupid Answers: New York Edition." It was just like the practice round, but this time they were all easy questions about New York.

During the practice round, the people in the audience were answering out loud as if they were watching at home. Before the actual game began, Johnny Gilbert (the announcer) came out and told everyone to be sure not to call out the answers. Of course, no one heeded his request. After each question, you could hear murmurs of answers circulating through the crowd.

During commercial breaks, Alex Trebek took questions from the audience. Some were benign and boring, some were bizarre, and some were funny. One little kid asked which contestants Alex favored the most. One woman asked if he was a Yankees fan. (He answered that he was a Yankees fan, a Mets fan, a Redsocks fan...) One woman asked if his TV was working properly. This led to quite a few murmurs of WTF before Alex explained that his TV repair man had asked him if he could get a ticket for his mom. My favorite question was asked by a twenty-something guy. He asked Alex what year the Magna Carta was signed. Alex answered 1216 and the guy corrected him with 1215. This led to quite a bit of laughter in the crowd.

Each contestant got their own special category listing on the board. O'Brien's was C"NN", Shearer's was This category goes to 11, (he was in This is Spinal Tap) and Mizrachi's was Isaac-ly. One thing I want to note is that Soledad O'Brien went to Harvard and anchors CNN's morning news show, but failed to answer some key geographical and political clues. They didn't tell us anything about giving away show secrets, so I'll share. O'Brien got a daily double and said, "I don't normally take risks, but it's for charity, so $5,000." (Apparently she doesn't care about the charity getting money) Her question was this: "Name 2 of the 4 states with a double N in it's name. " She stared blankly at Alex until her time ran out. She didn't even get one.

Final Jeopardy was somewhat hard for the Celebrity edition. It was, "Of the 5 permanent members of the UN security council, which one is the smallest in area." I figured that O'Brien would be the only one to answer correctly. She didn't. She said France. A good guess, as it's the second smallest and is at least one of the 5. Mizrachi answered with "my apartment." and Shearer answered correctly with "United Kingdom." For what it's worth, I leaned over to Karie and whispered the right answer. I'm pretty sure that makes me smarter than the Harvard girl. (O'Brien is, after all, the woman who sent me an autograph that said, "To Koss.")

The episode will air on November 14th.

...Just a Dog Smoking a Cigarette Outside Pottery Barn

I heard an interview on NPR with Chuck Palahniuk yesterday and he was talking about his fan mail event. This seems like a cool opportunity, so I thought I would share it with you. If you mail Chuck a letter during the month of October, (following strict guidelines) he'll respond with a letter or package. He said that he's been known to send very interesting/unique responses.

The day has finally come! Chuck is allowing you all the month of October to write him letters via his agent at Donadio & Olsen. It's been about two years since the last fanmail window was opened and Chuck has been very busy inbetween. So many of you probably thought this day would never come again. But Chuck has set aside much of the Fall and Winter to answer every piece of mail sent to him. And I can tell you that he's already cooking up some new surprises for the reply mail he sends back to each of you.

Now, as always, there are some very important ground rules Chuck has in place that you all must adhere to. The consequences for not following these rules will be Chuck does not reply to your letter... or even worse, it never gets to him and ends up in a trash basket at his Agent's office.

The Guidelines:

- Letters must be postmarked within the month of October, 2006. I'd encourage people to start writing their letters this last week of September, and then hit the post office the first week of October. Don't do a mad rush in the remaining days of October the way people did last time. The earlier you get your letter sent off, the quicker he'll reply to it.
- No packages are allowed. This includes sending him books you want signed. Letters only!
- Please type out your letters in a clear, legible font. No hand-written notes. No oddly colored ink or papers. Chuck will toss these letters for the ones he doesn't need a map to figure out.
- Return addresses must be made super-clear and be printed on both your envelope AND on the letter itself, and like the letter, be typed out in a legible font. Put it this way, if Chuck can't read your return address, you'll never hear back from him.

Last time around, Chuck asked you all to state your goals. This time around, he'd like to hear more about that, but he'd also like to hear about a recent accomplishment you're proud of. Work, school, a baby...

He also stated that it takes up to four months to respond to some letters -- just
because of that inevitable bulk that comes in the last few days of the window. So to make sure someone gets a response, they should use a mailing address that will still
be valid for the next six months.

Important: Also, remember that the way this works is, you write Chuck your letter. He reads it, responds with his own letter/package, and that's it until the next fanmail window. Every year we do this I get people begging me to let them send a follow-up letter to Chuck to thank him for the reply letter he wrote them. What these people fail to realize is that everyone wants to do that. So you'll just have to be patient with your Thank You letters, or better yet, tell Chuck in person how much his reply meant to you next time you see him read.

Okay, start your engines. Fanmail window opens on October 1st, 2006. Please address your letters to the below:

Edward Hibbert
Donadio and Olson, Inc.
ATTENTION: CHUCK PALAHNIUK FANMAIL
121 W. 27th St. Suite 704
New York, N.Y. 10001

Have fun!

Random picture of the day

Lisa and I went to Bryant Park to study and we passed this scene on the way there. I'm not really sure what the deal was. There were a few people standing around taking pictures, but for the most part, no one seemed to care. Two police officers were standing nearby, but didn't appear concerned. There were no police cars, fire trucks, or even a tow truck. It was bizarre...

Update: I asked about this at work and someone told me that they're filming a movie there. I don't have a citable source, but it makes sense.

State turned blue (What is that you said? You gotta whistle in the wind and again...)

I am happy to report that the latest polls show the democrats leading in both the Senate and the House races for the first time in...well, a really long time. (2002?) So what caused this shift in voter opinion? It must be the awful mess we got ourselves into in Iraq, right? Nope. Ok, so then it's the brushing aside of Habeas Corpus? The legalization of torture? The rewriting of the Geneva Conventions? Illegal wiretaps? The secret prisons? No, of course not. The American people aren't concerned with such petty issues. The recent swing in the polls is no doubt a result of the Foley scandal. Don't get me wrong, I'll take the lead regardless of the reason, but come on, seriously? What is it about this country that causes us to turn a blind eye to everything except a sex scandal? The 90s were a time of a roaring economy and peaceful prosperity, (for the most part) but all that people remember is an intern and a blue dress. Now we're in a time of crisis where our civil liberties are being tossed aside like yesterday's spinach and the whole world sees us as imperialistic aggressors, but the biggest news to come out of Washington is a horny, old, gay, alcoholic, priest-abused Congressman pedophile. Absolutely, it is a problem. Absolutely, there should be an investigation. Absolutely, if the GOP was covering it up, they should be held accountable. But come on, why is this the only thing people can use to get interested in politics? I love discussing current events, but most people I interact with on a daily basis have little to no exposure to world and political events. When the detainee bill was passed, I was hard pressed to find people to discuss it with. Now, it seems like everyone is an expert on FL-16 and Mark Foley. (except maybe Bill O'Reilly) As soon as the scandal fervor dies down, everyone is going to go right back to the rock they so love to live under. It's frustrating.

And on a side note: It doesn't really matter what the polls (or the electorate) say, because as long as we're using Diebold voting machines, the Republicans are going to mysteriously win...again.

Engrishtastic

Coming home to find menus waiting for you is a common occurance in New York. I came home today to find these two and I just had to share them.

There is so much wrong with this that I don't feel the need to even comment...

It's a good thing they printed this as a numerical list because I would hate to have to read it in paragraph form.Their customers aren't known for their grammar...or punctuation...or making very much sense.

That is good news. Not only has their deal expired, but they printed it to specifically point that out.

Giving In

I started this blog nearly a year ago with the intention of using it strictly to share entertaining stories from my life in New York. I was hesitant to even do that much because I have a negative stereotype of bloggers. Most blogs are little more than people whining about their feelings or posting links to youtube videos and I didn't want to fall into that category. Now, however, in light of recent requests, I'm going to open it up to a little more opinion. Nothing all that entertaining has been happening in my life lately, so there hasn't been anything to post.

The one thing that has been on my mind lately (or always as it may be) is politics. I am a big fan of www.electoral-vote.com. It compiles the latest polls for senate and house races and displays them in an easy to view map of red and blue states. I recommend that you check it out.

9/11 in NYC

In remembrance of 9/11, two huge beams of light fill the sky where the towers used to stand. I took these pictures from my roof.

The Daily Show

Back in early June I sent a ticket request to the Daily Show. Today, slightly over three months to the day later, Kim and I attended the taping at the Daily Show studio. We had been told to arrive an hour to an hour and a half before the doors were set to open (4:45) in order to ensure entry. They said that they send out more ticket letters than they actually have seats for in order to keep the studio filled. Just to be sure, we arrived at about 3:00pm. A rather lengthy line had already formed by the time we got there, but we were confident that we would make it inside.

Around 4:00, a security guard repositioned the line of people waiting so that a couple of interns could walk freely through the crowd and check names off of the list. They started at the front of the line and worked their way backwards. They would ask for your name, check you off the list, and then hand you a card with a number on it. When they checked the person nine spots ahead of us off their list, they handed that person the last numbered card and walked away. I was a little worried that we weren't going to get in at that point, but luckily they came back about ten minutes later with a new stack of cards. The original cards were yellow, but the ones they handed out to us were green. When they ran out of those, they started handing out red cards. The cards made me think of Mitch Hedberg. (On a traffic light yellow means yield, and green means go. On a banana, it's just the opposite, yellow means go ahead, green means stop, and red means, where'd you get that banana?) Kim suggested that maybe the green cards mean that we get sandwiches...

Anyway, we got our cards and then waited while everyone behind us in line got theirs as well. Once everyone finally got their cards, the interns told us some basic studio rules. (No cell phones, no cameras, no asking Jon for an autograph, no leaving once we sit down, etc.) They then asked for anyone who needed to use the restroom to line up near the front doors. At this point, I'd guess that a solid third of the people left the line to use the bathroom. This was all well and dandy, but it meant that we had to continue standing around outside until everyone came back from the restroom. They eventually did, and they opened the doors to the studio, but we continued to stand around for a while afterwards. We were finally allowed into the studio around 5:30 after two and a half hours of standing around outside.

We walked in and my first thought was just how small the studio looked. On TV it seems so big, but in person it seemed like a miniature set. The entire set consisted of one tiny desk and three screens behind it. Also on TV, those screens look awesome. They're so vivid and bright, they look like HD monitors. In person they reminded me more of a high school slide projector screen.

Anway, we were finally inside and finished waiting, so we took our seats and... continued to wait. For a solid twenty minutes we just sat in our seats and talked as loud music blared. Eventually, a guy came out with a mic and began to get the crowd pumped up. He introduced himself as Mike, the warmup comedian. That I didn't expect. He turned out to be really funny and his act consisted of pointing out people in the audience and making fun of them. He made fun of their facial hair, their clothing, their hometowns, and pretty much anything else he could find out about them.

After his act, he introduced Jon Stewart and walked "backstage." Jon came out and fielded a few questions from the audience. People asked some really stupid questions, but Jon managed to turn them into something funny. One woman announced that her son was in the crowd and said that it was her job as his mother to embarrass him. She then asked him if he embarrasses his son. He pointed out that his son is two years old, so it's pretty hard to embarrass him. Another person asked if Jon had seen Dick Cheney on Meet the Press. That was it. That was his whole question. Jon didn't really hide the fact that it was a stupid question and answered with a rather dry, "Um, yeah, I did..." He salvaged it with a pretty funny Dick Cheney impression though. The only other question came from a woman who spent the first forty-five seconds sucking up to Jon and telling him how wonderful he was. She then moved on to her question: "In the moment of Zen from the 9/20/2001 episode, was that your dog?" He answered at first by saying, "Yeah, that was my dog Monkey" and then went on to talk about a conversation that he had with his dog. It was funny, but I don't remember what he actually said. He then admitted that no, it wasn't his dog. He explained that it was the first show after 9/11 and he didn't know how to end the show. "So why not a puppy?" He explained that puppies are the antithesis of terrorism and made the comment that he thought the government should "send a battalion of puppies into Iraq to cuddle with the terrorists." He then he asked if we were ready to start the show. At this point, he took his seat and producers and stage hands appeared all over the place. It became a flurry of activity as camera operators started moving cameras around, the teleprompters were wheeled into position, and the lighting was adjusted. A few minutes later we heard the familiar intro music and announcement of today's date and the show began. (During the intro, the camera pans across a section of the audience. If you look closely, you can see Kim and I...for a tiny fraction of a second) What was most interesting about this part was that the prompter would have a few lines of dialogue and then it would say "adlib." Most of the show's beginning monologue is just Jon Stewart adlibbing. It was really funny.

The next part of the show was an interview with John Oliver who was "live in Washington." In reality, he was standing about three feet to the right of Jon Stewart. I had thought that they did these using green screens, but the ghetto, high school looking screen simply changed to look like Washington. It was a funny interview and then they cut to commercial. After the cameras stopped rolling, Jon said, "John Oliver everyone" and we all clapped. He walked off and the producers and interns materialized again and the cameras were shifted around.

They came back from commercial and Jon introduced a segment where Jason Jones interviewed some hunters. The two things I found interesting about this part was that it appeared as if Jon Stewart had never seen the segment before. During the whole thing, he watched closely on a small screen below his closest camera. He laughed at all the funny parts and, at one point, put his papers over his face as he laughed out loud. The other thing that I thought was interesting was Jason Jones watched from the doorway as his segment aired. He was just wearing jeans, a t-shirt, and a baseball cap and he left as soon as his segment was done. At the commercial break, Jon once again gave a "Jason Jones everyone" and Jason gave a little bow before disappearing out of the studio. Another commercial break...

The next part of the show was an interview with the guest of the day, Maggie Gyllenhaal. It was a bizarre interview and there really isn't much to say about it. At this point they went back to commercial.

A short time later Jon asked the crowd if we were ready for Steven Colbert. Everyone cheered and Steven came up on the screens. The cameras weren't rolling at this point and Jon and Steven just talked to each other about the emmys and what each had done over their two week vacation. It was a really funny exchange and it seemed like the two of them were competing to see who could make the other one laugh. Colbert definitely won. They finished talking, the screens shut off, they came back from commercial, the screens came back on, and they started talking again. The only difference was that this time I could follow their conversation by looking at the teleprompters. They had a brief exchange and then they cut to the moment of zen as Jon walked away.

The show ended and Jon came back out. He thanked the crowd, said some humble words, and walked off again. The lights came up and the interns ushered us all out. Overall it was a really fun way to spend a day in Manhattan.

One degree

Since I started chronicling my celebrity sightings with Keanu Reeves and Sean Penn, I figure that I should keep up my tally. The other day, Molly and I were waiting in line outside the Lyceum Theatre on 35th street and Kevin Bacon walked by. Does that make me one degree from Kevin Bacon?

Moving in - or at least trying

Now that it has been nearly a week since I’ve moved to New York, I’m finally getting around to writing about my move in. For those of you who don’t know, I did a two step move to New York. Last Friday, I picked up the Penske truck, loaded it with nearly all my belongings at my Mom’s house, loaded it with the rest of my belongings at my Dad’s house, and then drove to Cleveland where my roommate, Karie, lived. It was my first time driving a sixteen foot truck and I was incredibly timid at first. It took me a long time to pull out of the Penske parking lot. It was even worse when I was driving through Sylvania with half of my stuff in the back. Since I wasn’t finished packing yet, I hadn’t secured everything properly and I could hear as things shifted around in the back. After driving the two hours to Cleveland, however, I felt like a seasoned pro. I arrived in Cleveland and we packed up Karie’s stuff as well. When all was said and done, we didn’t even have a foot of space to spare. We had loaded boxes, clothing, and furniture from the floor to the ceiling and from the front to the back.

That night Karie’s friends came over and we all hung out talking, watching the Brown’s game, and having a few beers. They were all really nice people and it was a good time. They left and we got to sleep some time around 12:30. My alarm went off at 5am and we sucked down coffee, ate some square bagels, and hit the road. I ended up driving the entire way to New York. By this time I had began to really enjoy driving the truck. When cars would cut me off, I would exclaim that I hated cars and wished they wouldn’t let them on the road. (It was fun to be on the opposite side of things)

The drive here was completely painless. It was entirely too easy. We didn’t hit any traffic to speak of. We didn’t even have a single slow down. We blew right past the dots in Pennsylvania. That being said, we made it to the city with plenty of time to spare. Molly was going to help us unpack when we got there and Karie had two friends to help as well. With all those hands to help, unpacking was going to be a breeze. The only thing that stood between us and unpacking the truck was navigating the behemoth through the city and finding a parking spot. Neither one was an issue at all. Driving through the city was slow and laborious, but it really wasn’t bad at all. The only thing really worth mentioning about that leg of the trip was the fact that people kept trying to hail us. It was really amusing actually. We were driving a huge, sixteen foot, yellow moving truck, but people kept mistaking us for a taxi. I would see them put their hand up to hail us, then realize what they had done and put their hand down with an embarrassed look on their face. It was great. When we finally got to our block, we found a big metered space two hundred feet from our door. There was even enough space to pull out the ramp from the back of the truck. It really was entirely too easy. It was almost like it was too good to be true. Something surely had to go wrong…

Our next step was to pick up our keys from the super. Karie had talked to him earlier in the day and he had given her his address. He told her to stop by when we got in. Since he only lives around the corner, it was a quick walk. We got there, knocked on the door, and a woman answered and gave us our keys. Again, it was just way too easy.

We walked back to the apartment like giddy schoolchildren. We excitedly talked about what we were going to do first, what our predictions were about the apartment, and what we thought the unpacking would be like. We got back and I slid the key labeled, “1626 front door” into the lock. It slid in perfectly. I tried to turn it. I tried again. I tried harder. Oh freakin’ crap, the key wouldn’t turn. I moved aside and let Karie try. No luck. I tried again. Nothing. Well shit, this is not so good. I pointed out that we could always call the super later, but for now I wanted to start the unloading process. I buzzed a couple of apartments in our building until someone unlocked the door and we went in to see our apartment. I tried one key in the door – nothing. I tried another – nothing. I tried another – it slid right in and turned with a clunk as the lock disengaged. Hooray, success. I tried the door, but it still wouldn’t open. Ah, the deadbolt must still be locked. Unfortunately, there was a strange metal cover over the deadbolt lock and we couldn’t fit a key into it. There was no way that we were going to get into our apartment.

Alas, we trudged down the stairs and called the super – no answer. Karie called the management company and got a snippy response about talking to the super. The manager said that he didn’t have a set of keys and there was nothing he could do. After a short argument, he told us to come to his office and pick up his spare front door key, but he didn’t have an extra set of our apartment keys. With no other choice, we walked about a mile roundtrip to the manager’s office only to find that he had “just stepped out to go to the bank.” Real nice… I talked to his secretary (or whoever the heck she was) and she gave me the key he had promised us and, at my request, tried to call the super back. She couldn’t get a hold of him either, but as we were about to leave, the manager came back. There is no dancing around his description. Plain and simple, he was an obnoxious prick. He was completely uncaring about our situation. When I pointed out the fact that he only gave us the front door key and we still had no way of getting into our apartment, he snapped at me to call the super. He doesn’t have keys, so it isn’t his problem. I told him that we were unable to get a hold of the super and his secretary was as well, so he tried to call him. He either had a cell phone number or just pretended to talk to the super, because fifteen seconds after the secretary got no answer, the manager “talked” to the super. He told us that the woman we had seen earlier would be over to let us in.

We walked back to our apartment absolutely fuming. This was not the way that we wanted to start our life in the city. At this point we were also debating the existence of the super. We were told that our super was a man named Angelo, but there was a woman’s voice on the answering machine, a woman who answered the door at the apartment, and a woman who was coming over to let us in.

We got back to the apartment and started waiting for the super. While we waited, one of Karie’s friends arrived and the three of us tried again to get into the front door. The key that the manager had given us wasn’t even close to the size of the lock and didn’t help at all. Since our original key fit the lock, we kept trying that one. Eventually Karie got it to work. The secret, we’ve since discovered, is that you can’t put the key all the way into the lock. You need to put it in and then pull it back out about an eighth of an inch. Then it would turn. That would have been useful information to know, but no one had bothered to say anything. Ok, at least we were able to get into the building, but that didn’t help us get into the apartment. Since it had been about forty-five minutes since the super was supposed to show up, Karie called back. The woman who was supposed to be there helping us answered the phone. Karie explained that we were able to get into the apartment, but we still didn’t have a way of unlocking the deadbolt. The woman told us that she didn’t have a key to the deadbolt either, but it shouldn’t be locked. Well, that was really helpful. She told us that she would call someone and hung up the phone. In the meantime, Karie and her friend went up to try and figure out the door while Molly and I stayed down on the street to wait for the super. A few minutes later they came down the stairs with smiles on their faces. Karie’s friend had figured out how to get into the apartment. In order to get in, we have to turn the key once to disengage the deadbolt and then turn the same key again to disengage a secondary lock. I’ve never seen a lock like this and again, it would have been great to have been told that. Regardless, at least we were able to get into the apartment. Karie called the super back to report our success and we felt stupid, but not that stupid, because that was a little ridiculous.

We did a quick walk through of the apartment and everything was dirty. Have you ever seen that episode of Friends where Ross dates the girl with the dirty apartment? He goes to her place and there’s nowhere to sit and at one point he gets black goop all over his hand? Three of those girls used to live in my apartment. We didn’t understand how it could even be so dirty. We had seen the place a month prior and it was in great shape. It was almost like they had gone out of their way to add dirt as they were moving out. The bathroom looked like it hadn’t been cleaned since the Second World War. The kitchen sink had grapes in the drain. The fridge still had food in it. (including half a starbuck’s iced coffee) Every single closet and storage space had something left in it. We found one shoe, used band aids, peanut shells, and all sorts of other stuff. It was gross, but at least I didn’t find a collection of nail clippings like when I moved into Madeline’s place.

We started unloading the truck and, after about fifteen minutes, Karie’s friend announced that she had to leave. She was going out of town for the weekend, so she had to go home and pack. Karie’s other friend conveniently went out of cell phone contact, so it was just Karie, Molly, and I unloading the truck. Molly was really a lifesaver. We needed one person to stay with the truck and two people to carry things, so if she hadn’t been there, we would have been out of luck. Shortly after we started unloading, I felt something hit my hand. I looked down and saw that a pigeon had shat on me. Welcome to New York… At one point, a sketchtastic couple came up to the truck and offered to help unload for a small fee. I told them that we were ok on our own and they argued a bit, called me cheap, and then walked off. (For those of you who will get this reference, they looked a lot like Bubb Rubb and Lil’ Sis.) It was a slow process getting things down the street and then up the two flights of stairs into the apartment, but after about two and a half hours and off and on rain, we got everything unloaded. We were all exhausted and utterly worn out. We ate dinner at a great little burger place across the street and called it a night.

At some point during the unloading process, I saw a man taking the trash out. His shirt said Angelo, so I introduced myself. He asked if the key situation was cleared up. I told him that it was and apologized for the confusion. He just rolled his eyes at me. It was fantastic. My super already hates us. I apologized again and told him that we needed a mailbox key. He told me that he couldn’t get to it that day, but he assured me that he would get me a key the next day. It’s now five days later and we still don’t have a mailbox key. I’ve left a couple of messages, but they haven’t been returned. I even explicitly stated that I’ve tried all the keys we have and none of them even come close to fitting the lock, so I’m sure it’s not an issue like before. I can tell that it’s going to be a fun time dealing with this super…

There’s nothing much to say about the unpacking / setting up the apartment process. When the mess is cleared up, I’ll post some pictures of the apartment. I was really discouraged on the day of the move in, but by now I really love the apartment. We did about six hours of cleaning, so I don’t have to wear sandals in the shower anymore. We have our furniture (mostly) set up and we still have a lot of space. It’s a huge apartment for New York and the neighborhood is great. We’re surrounded by great bars and restaurants. We’re really close to a post office, a grocery store, a hardware store, a Chase branch, a Best Buy, and everything else that we need.

Disney

Team Tan Pinocchio in front of the castle at Magic Kingdom

The other G8

I spent the last several days at PricewaterhouseCooper’s Intern Development Program at Orlando’s Walt Disney World. I had a great time and I may write about it in another posting, but right now I’d like to share my experience flying home to Columbus.

All the interns were assigned specific busses to the airport based on the time of their flight home. I was scheduled on a 5:30 flight, so I was in the last group of people to leave. Our bus left the resort at 2:30 en route for the Orlando airport. We arrived with plenty of time to spare and breezed right through security. I was traveling with Tanya, a friend of mine who attended OSU and will be starting with PwC in New York in a couple of weeks. We found our gate and sat down. We each took out our laptops and we checked for a wireless signal. We could detect one, but it was faint and fleeting, so we left to find a stronger signal. I mentioned that Tanya is starting full-time in New York in a couple of weeks. She has a job, but she doesn’t currently have a place to live. It was imperative that we found a WiFi hotspot so that she could get online and look for apartment listings. As soon as our flight touches down in Columbus, she’s going to get in her car and drive to New York to look for a place to live. She has about 24 hours to find an apartment and drive back to Columbus. (She told me what she had to get back for, but I really don’t remember) If you don’t know how much fun it is to look for an apartment in New York, scroll down the page a little.

We found a hotspot nearby and I checked my email and browsed the web as she looked at craigslist and the village voice. Pretty soon we found ourselves getting hungry, so we went to an airport deli and got a couple of sandwiches. As we were finishing up, we checked our time. Our flight was at 5:30 and it was currently 5:00, which was the scheduled time for boarding. I told her to go ahead and finish her drink because she wouldn’t be able to bring it on the plane and we left to get on board at about 5:15. We were no more than 100 yards from our gate, so we weren’t too concerned about the time. When we got to the gate, it no longer said Columbus, Ohio. As a matter of fact, it didn’t say anything at all. The sign board was blank. That’s never something that you want to see. I went up to one of the other gates and inquired about our flight. Gate change. “Oh crap,” we said as we took off sprinting towards our new gate.

We arrived at the new gate of departure a few minutes later and recognized some other Ohio-based interns waiting in line. As we approached, we heard them discussing an “inoperable cargo bay.” I asked them what was going on and they explained that the smoke detector in the cargo bay wasn’t working, so they couldn’t take on any checked bags, but anyone with just carry-on bags could still fly. We stood in line together discussing how much we didn’t like Delta as we waited our turn to talk to the people at the gate. After a few minutes, the Columbus PwC recruiter came to talk to us. She had just spoken with the Delta people and gave us the full report: “The cargo bay is indeed off limits without the smoke detector. Carry-on bags are allowed, but we’re flying on a very small plane, so nothing larger than a backpack or briefcase can go on board. As an apology, we’re all going to get a $7 meal voucher and a $25 discount to use towards our next Delta flight. They’re going to rebook us all on a later flight.” We were all very pleased to find out that we would be getting $32 out of all this. It more than made up for the hassle… (yes, that was sarcasm)

For some reason, they decided to tell us that the plane would still be taking off even if no one was on board. They said that it had to get to its destination, so it would be departing regardless. That was just what we wanted to hear at that point in time. Passengers were trying to reason with the Delta people, but they were getting shut down left and right. People asked why they couldn’t just fly home now and send their bags on another flight. Delta told us that it was against FAA regulations to send the bags on a different flight from the passengers they belong to. Other people tried yelling at the Delta employees, but that didn’t do much good either. Everyone was pretty much out of luck at the point. They weren’t letting people on this flight and they weren’t making any promises to get people on the next flight either. They were going to work people onto later flights as they found available seats. It was a bad situation and the likelihood that everyone’s bags would be lost was great.

A few minutes later, a Delta representative called out to the crowd: “Is anyone traveling with just carry-on bags? Does anyone not have checked baggage?” Silence... “No one? Everyone out there has checked bags?” I spoke up and told him that I didn’t have checked bags, but I had a larger carry-on. He told me that it wouldn’t fit under the seat, so I couldn’t get on the plane.

“So if my bag were smaller, you’re telling me that you would fly me…just me, to Columbus?”

“Yes sir”

“So no one else would be on the plane?”

“That’s correct.”

“Ok, then can I just buckle it in the seat next to me?”

“Sorry, that’s against regulations.”

“Can I lock it in the bathroom? I promise I won’t have to pee for the entire flight.”

“Sorry, regulations.”

“Can I unpack everything and stick a little bit under each seat?”

“That would be fine, but you can’t fit your bag on the plane.”

“I can make it fit. I’ll jump on it and fold it up and force it under the seat.”

“I’m sorry sir, that won’t work.”

“Ok, how about this? What if you give me a garbage bag and I just stuff everything in that? That’ll smash down nicely. I’ll send my bag on a later flight or throw it away. It was a Wal*Mart suitcase – it cost about $25. I’m not worried about it; I just want to get home.”

“Sure, that’ll work. Let me get you a garbage bag.”

Ok, so let’s review here. They just told me that they would fly me on my own private Delta flight from Orlando to Columbus, but only on the condition that I transfer my clothes to a garbage bag. It made no sense at all, but I really wanted my own private flight and I thought it would make for some comedy for the rest of the weary passengers. I was right about that last part. Everyone else was loving the conversation I was having with Delta. You have to remember that I’m at the back of the line, the Delta guy is at the front of the line, and we’re having this conversation across everyone else. Tanya offered to take my empty suitcase on the later flight and one of the other interns asked if he could take my picture while I loaded up my garbage bag. Everyone else just laughed and discussed how stupid Delta was.

The Delta guy walked over and handed me a garbage bag and told me to pack everything up because if I wanted to get on the plane, we would be departing immediately. I put all my stuff down and got ready to make the switch. At this point everyone is laughing at the ridiculousness of it all, but that was an improvement over all the anger that had been flying around moments earlier. I opened my suitcase and the first thing I removed was the PwC backpack that I had received at IDP. Sherrie, the Columbus recruiter, suggested that I just pack my things into the backpack rather than the garbage bag. That was a much better idea, so that’s what I did. I packed every last item from my suitcase into the backpack until the backpack was just as large as the suitcase. Sherrie pointed out this fact and told me that I would have to take some stuff out in order to make it fit. I agreed, but opted to ask Mr. Delta. None of this made any sense anyway, so I might as well try my luck. I held up the backpack, asking, “Is this ok?” “That’s fine.” he told me “Get on the plane.” So with that, I handed my empty carry-on to Tanya, waved goodbye to my fellow Columbus-ites (Columbonians?) and got on the plane.

I wasn’t alone, however. Sitting on the plane were two pilots. This was most likely the reason that they were going to fly a defective and “empty” plane to Columbus even if none of the passengers were on board. It didn’t stop there either. Two other interns and a PwC manager walked on behind me. I’m not sure how they managed to pull that one off and I’m not sure what happened to their luggage, but somehow they made it on the plane. And rounding out the group were two other people, but I don’t know their back story because I had no interaction with them. Your guess is as good as mine as to how they managed to fight their way on. I managed to stuff my oversized backpack into the overhead compartment and looked for a seat. The flight attendant told me not to worry about what seat my ticket said and asked me to sit in the back. I asked one of the pilots what the deal was and she told me that they had to distribute the weight throughout the plane. Since it wasn’t full, they had to make sure we didn’t throw off the balance of the plane. Let me tell you how fun it was to hear that little nugget of information.

I sat in the second to last row, diagonally behind the pilot I had just spoken to. As I glanced around from my seat, I noticed her suitcase was stuffed behind the last seat, between the seat and the bathroom wall. The other pilot’s bag was in the same place on the other side of the plane. Ah…must be on of those FAA regulations…

It was a great flight. It was the most informal flight I’ve ever been on. The flight attendant walked down the aisle handing everyone a bottle of water before we took off. That’s how they do beverage service for eight people. It was also interesting to listen to the two pilots talk to each other. I’ve never heard pilot gossip before, so I enjoyed eavesdropping. They were complaining about their “lines.” If anyone knows what that means, I’d appreciate it if you’d enlighten me. Another thing I found interesting: The second we took off – the exact split second we left the ground – the pilot sitting in front of me grabbed her laptop and turned it on. So much for that regulation as well, I guess. She spent the flight watching “Walk the Line” on DVD in case you were wondering.

The snack service was kind of fun too. The flight attendant walked up with a basket of crackers, cookies, and peanuts and asked if I’d like anything. I took a package of those delicious airline biscuit cookies and she told me to take as many as I’d like… there were only eight of us after all.

I wrote all of the above while I was still on the plane. After we got off the plane, I caught up with the other PwC people and asked them how they got on the flight. They told me that they couldn’t fit 5 people on later flights, so they were forced to put them on this flight and send their bags on a later one. They didn’t let people choose who got to go early and apparently that whole regulation about keeping people with their bags was a bunch of hooey.

Apartment hunting – day 4 – the long and winding road…to hell

After three long and heat filled days, we were ready to get home. Karie told me that she would pick me up outside Molly’s apartment at 8 am, so I coordinated with Molly and Lisa as to what time I would get up. I was planning on waking around 7 in order to be up and ready to go by the time Karie picked me up. Unfortunately, the heat kept me from sleeping well and I awoke at 4:30 and couldn’t return to sleep. I made the best of it by showering, watching an episode of “Rescue Me” and then walking down the street to get a breakfast sandwich and some fresh squeezed orange juice. About three hours later, Karie called to tell me that they were about to leave Brooklyn and they would pick me up at about 8.

They called to tell me they were outside at about 10am. Apparently they got lost in Brooklyn and then got stuck in the morning rush hour traffic. It was later than planned, but at least we were finally hitting the road. Getting out of the city wasn’t too bad and strangely enough, at one point, we were two cars in front of a bus from Ohio University.

The first leg of the trip was New Jersey. We stopped for gas and then continued on our way. I only mention this because it’s illegal to pump your own gas in New Jersey. I find that very odd… This was supposed to be a quick jaunt of about 30 or so miles before we hit Pennsylvania. Unfortunately for us, the quick jaunt came to a screeching halt about 5 miles from the Pennsylvania border. It took us nearly 2 hours to traverse those five miles. The holdup? A garbage truck had flipped over just before the toll booth, spilling its wares all over the road. They had closed two of the lanes and had haz-mat crews on the scene to clean up the mess.

We made it past the toll booth and started the long, boring trip through Pennsylvania. We were only in Pennsylvania for about 45 miles when traffic slowed to a crawl. We feared that the evil dots were behind the mess, but after around 30 minutes of slow moving traffic, we got through the construction that caused the slow down and continued on our way. We hit a few more traffic jams after that, but to be honest, after a while they all started to blur together.

At this point we had hit at least four slow downs, but we were finally making some progress… until we weren’t again. Traffic came to a sudden stop and we were sitting completely still. A semi in front, behind, and directly to the side of us ensured that we could not see what was going on. We were totally surrounded by trucks and sitting completely still. After 15 or 20 minutes, we started to inch forward, but didn’t get over five miles per hour. After an hour of slowly inching forward, we learned what was causing the gridlock. We were on I-80 West and across the median of trees, we could see a disaster on I-80 East. We saw fire trucks, ambulances, police cars, and twisted pieces of metal that had previously been cars. I-80 East was completely shut down by the accident. We figured that our traffic was caused by people looking through the trees to try and see the accident, but as we moved forward, we learned that they were re-routing the eastbound traffic onto our side of the road in order to get traffic moving again. The sudden influx of merging traffic slowed us down and caused gridlock. Finally, after about an hour and a half of sitting there, we started moving again… only to stop again about two miles later. All that traffic from the eastbound side that had entered our highway was now blocking off a lane as they lined up at the next exit. It took us about a half an hour to get through this second leg of the mayhem.

With that behind us, we finally picked up the pace and were on our way back to Ohio. By this point it had felt like we were in Pennsylvania forever and we wanted nothing more than to see that “Ohio welcomes you” sign. Unfortunately, nature had a different plan for us. When we were only about 30 miles outside of the Buckeye state, day suddenly turned into night and the skies opened above us. We were hit with a torrential downpour that slowed us down and eventually forced us to pull over. At first, I continued to drive by following the tail lights of the car in front of us, but when that car pulled off the road, I had no choice but to do the same. It was raining so hard that I could no longer see the road and it was unsafe to continue. Luckily, after only a few minutes on the side of the road, the rain let up just enough to let us continue. I waited until another car went by and pulled out to follow it. After a few minutes, we found ourselves a part of a caravan of slow moving vehicles, hazard lights blinking, working our way towards Ohio at a rate of around 25 miles per hour. As we drove westward, the weather eventually let up and we continued our normal pace, but we had lost at least 45 minutes to the slow down.

We made it to Ohio and we let out a happy cheer. From there it was a painless drive to Berea where Karie’s home and my car awaited us. We had to stop off a Denny’s for a few minutes to wait for our passenger, Karie’s friend Tara, to get picked up by her mom. We were soon back at Karie’s house. I transferred my stuff into my trunk and got back on the road for my final leg of the trip.

I was on 71 South for maybe ten minutes when blue and red lights suddenly materialized in my rearview mirror. “Great, I thought to myself. This is just what I need to end the perfect drive.” I pulled over and waited for the officer to walk up to my window. I handed him my license and he turned and spat. “Did he just spit on my license?” I thought to myself. It turned out that was chewing tobacco and he had spit on the ground next to my car. This was how our conversation basically proceeded:

Officer: Where is…spit…Sylvania?

Me: Just outside of Toledo, sir.

Officer: And where are you going?

Me: Columbus, sir. I’m driving back from New York and I’m on my way home. I just graduated from Ohio State and I’m living there for the rest of the summer.

Officer: spit… I clocked you going as fast as 70 back there. You know you’re in a construction zone? Spit… You’re supposed to go 55 in construction zones. Those signs aren’t there as a suggestion you know… spit.

Me: I’m sorry sir. I apologize sir.

Officer: You were obviously paying attention. You were using your turn signals. I’m not going to give you a ticket… spit. Just make sure that you slow down in the construction zones. I know that no one is working out there, but the rest of the drive back to Columbus is under construction, so I want to see you going 55… spit. Have a nice night.

Me: Thank you sir. I appreciate that sir. I will sir.

I pulled back into traffic and cruise controlled it back to Columbus at 55 nearly the rest of the way back. I know that I was fortunate to not get a ticket. A double fine speeding ticket would have surely not been pleasant, but I couldn’t help but feel frustrated. People were flying by me at 80 or 90 miles per hour and I got pulled over for going “as fast as 70.” I kept the needle somewhere between 65 and 70, so let's take the average of 67.5 mph. There was no construction going on and there weren't any lane closures or anything. So I was going (on average) 2.5 miles over the speed limit. Awesome.

I slowly made it back to Columbus and finally made it home around midnight. I threw my stuff on the floor and went right to bed. I had been up for nearly 20 hours and I had been in the car for 14 of those. It was most unpleasant and I get to do it again in a few weeks… this time in a moving truck.

Apartment hunting – day 3 – success

edit: I'm finally home and have a real internet connection, (no more bluetooth to cell phone) so I can finish updating my pictures. The final day's story will be up within the next 24 hours.

I don't have a lot of time to write, but we signed our lease this morning for the place that we wanted on 2nd, between 84th and 85th. Here's some pictures:

My room

The bedroom we'll be using as a common room. We're thinking about putting a dining room set in here. This is the view from my bedroom doorway.

Kitchen

The main common room looking from the kitchen. The door on the left leads to Karie's room (pictured here, far right) The door on the right leads to the "dining" room and then on to my bedroom.

A peek into Karie's room

A view from the main common room. The door to the left of the vacuum is the entrance. You can see the bathroom right next to that.

Apartment hunting – day 2 – the end of Farnsworth

Yesterday we met with Farnsworth Bentley from one brokerage firm and Denis Leary/ Gary Busey from another. Today’s broker was a team effort. We started the day by heading down to Chelsea and meeting them in their office. We filled out all the initial paperwork and went over what we were looking for. The woman (I’ll call her Abi…because that’s her name) looked through listings and short John Stamos (I’ll call him that because that’s what he looked like) took us around to show them to us.

It is important to know at this juncture that I received a phone call during our meeting with Abi and John. The call was from Sky Management, the company who operates the building in which we applied to lease. The message they left informed me that we had not gotten the apartment that we had wanted, but we had been approved for the same basic apartment, but on the fourth floor. I don’t remember if I mentioned last time that there were two listings in that building, so I’ll go ahead and do that now. There were two listings in that apartment. Both rooms looked very similar, but one was on the second floor and the other was on the fourth floor. We put on our application that we wanted the second floor, but we would take the fourth if we couldn’t have the second.

So anyway, we then set out to look at the first apartment with John. During our trip from the office to the first listing, Farnsworth called both Karie and myself twice. We decided that we would not return his call until we saw a couple of places with John since we weren’t sure what we’d be seeing. We walked into the apartment and immediately knew that we wanted it. All the listings that we had seen yesterday were okay at best or downright awful at worst. This place was fantastic and we knew it right away. It was a first floor apartment and it was huge. The bedroom windows overlooked a small garden-ish area and it was overall just a great place. We told John that we liked it and he told us that we had to act quickly. Other people were looking at it and if we wanted it, we had to get on it immediately. John was not one to mess around so we began running at full speed down the street to find a cab to take us back to the office so that we could get the paperwork in motion.

Funny thing about running around New York. It’s hot. It’s really hot. As a matter of fact, while we were in the cab, we were listening to the radio. After talking about Castro, they did the weather report. As of that moment, the temperature was reported as 91 degrees, with a heat index of 109 degrees. Yeah, we were sprinting down the street in 109 degree weather. It was awesome…

We got back to the office and began our paperwork, but we were told that someone else had put in an application before us. It was close though, so we still stood a good chance. By this time, however, Farnsworth had left several more messages on each of our phones. This was difficult because we knew that we wanted the place that we had just seen, but we didn’t want to lose the other place if we needed it. We decided that we would go back out and look at a few more places before getting back to him.

We headed down to the East Village and ended up getting lost looking for the apartment. This was absolutely miserable because it was just so unbearably hot. We were all sucking down water like it was our job, but we couldn’t seem to stay hydrated. It was really really hot…

By this point Farnsworth had called several more times and was telling us that he couldn’t hold the apartment much longer. He said that the management company was going to start showing the apartment to other people again if we didn’t sign immediately. I called him back and told him that we were running all over town looking at places, but we didn’t want to lose the apartment. I asked him to hold on to it for as long as possible and I’d get back to him as soon as possible. You know what he said to that? He hung up on me. Can you believe that? For some stupid reason, I thought that he would be an advocate for us. I would have thought that he wanted our commission. Apparently not.

We eventually found the place that we were looking for and it was really bad. The shower was in the kitchen and the bathroom was a toilet in a closet. It sucked so we moved on, but we had wasted a lot of time and effort. The next stop was the Upper East Side and we looked at one rather lackluster apartment. We expressed our dismay and quickly moved on to one on 95^th street. This was about as high as we were willing to go, but it was worth a shot. It was a second floor walkup, but it was fairly nice. It wasn’t big by any means, but we liked the location, the apartment was doable, and the rent was around $400 cheaper than any of the other places we had seen. We decided on the spot that we wanted this place as our backup if the apartment from the morning fell through.

Again with the urgency, John called Abi and we raced into an internet café across the street. Abi faxed us the application and we filled it out and faxed it right back. We were really pleased with the speed and efficiency of this broker. At this point, we felt confident that we had sufficient other options, so I called Farnsworth to tell him that we didn’t need the other apartment anymore. Since hanging up on me, he had called several more times. He had changed his tone and was trying to be nice again, but the damage was done. I cut him loose. We then left to go look at more places…

We took a look at one or two places that didn’t excite us and were left with only one more apartment. John told us that this next place wasn’t actually showing yet, but he had talked to the tenants and they had agreed to let us look around. It was located on 84^th and 2^nd, which is right by where I’m staying now and it’s a young, fun neighborhood. We walked into the apartment and immediately fell in love. It was amazing. It cost $5 less per month than the place from the morning, but it was probably twice as big. The girls living there now had turned it into a three bedroom, but it was really a quasi-railroad style two bedroom. Karie and I walked around looking at the rooms and discussing what we thought. We didn’t want a railroad style, but this one we decided could work. When you walk into the apartment, you’re in a big room. To the back is the kitchen and the bathroom and in front is a large communal space. There are two doors on the far wall. One leads to the converted third bedroom. The girls told us that they thought it was meant to be a large closet, but they had turned it into a bedroom. The other door leads to a large room with a huge closet and tons of cabinet style storage space. Through that room is another large bedroom. Karie told me that she would be willing to take the small closet/bedroom as long as she could keep her clothes in the middle room with the giant closet. She said that she lives in as small of a room now and her only necessity was the closet. I told her that conditional to that offer, I would be willing to take this apartment.

We walked back outside with huge grins on our faces. The place was amazing. It was huge, in a great location, and on the second floor. (We were so sick of fifth floor walkups, especially since at this point it was 99 degrees without the heat index) John called Abi and set the wheels in motion. We then headed back to the office. By the time we got there, Abi had already filed our application. She told us that we had lost the first apartment of the day to the application before us, but we had a good shot at the place on 95^th and we had an even better shot at the place we had just seen. She told us that since it wasn’t actually showing yet, no one else had seen it. No one else had put in an application on it. She said that there was really no reason that we wouldn’t get the apartment, but we wouldn’t know for sure until we got approved. She said that we should know by noon tomorrow, so here’s hoping for the amazing apartment.