Do I Plan Too Much?

For those of you who don't know me, I like to plan things.  I am only now starting to wonder if I plan a little too much...  I will let my millions of fans on the interweb be the judge.

Here are some beautiful examples of my planning..  I have one, five and ten year plans that include things such as getting a particular score on my GMAT and seeing a World Cup game in Brasil (I can spell it that way, thanks to Lia).  I have a pretty dang complicated financial model that estimates and tracks my income, cost of living, savings and investments going out only 5 years, since beyond that the variables are too unpredictable.  I also have my three target/dream careers, and all of my plans are working towards me one day realizing one of those.  Those three are Governor of FL/TN, a Managing Partner for a private equity group, or a really cool big time real estate developer.  The common theme between all of those careers is that they are all heavily dependent upon thinking and planning, which seems like a whole mess of fun.

My hobbies also coincidentally revolve around planning.  I have this strange desire to design systems, processes, houses and especially cities.  I even do research so that I can plan better.  Isn't that sick?  I have planned out what an intelligent version of healthcare reform would look like (intentional offense to anyone who thinks the one they passed was intelligent), I have formulated plans for reducing crime and poverty in cities, and I have even gone about designing entire cities from the ground up just to get an idea of what I think the perfect city would look like so that I could determine what are the most important factors to consider when planning to improve real cities.

A high level map I drew a while back is shown here:

And here is a street level drawing, complete with bike path along the water and unnecessarily robust mass transit:

So by now you are probably thinking that I am crazy and obsessive about this stuff, but here is my curve ball for you. Isn't it a good thing?  While people waste their lives watching shows about other people being filmed wasting their lives, I am working hard to solve all of the world's problems so that if I ever do get the opportunity to make things better, I'll be ready to pounce.

It's all part of the plan...

However, there is a severe unintended consequence of all of my thinking and planning.. and that is that Lia lives with me and has to deal with it all the time.  As difficult as it is for me to solve all of the world's problems on airplane napkins, it has to be even harder for her to listen to me talk about them all the time.  I am trying to get better about turning the thinking off.. So as a first step, did you see Jersey Shore last week?  They are so stupid...

A Tough Week at Work

Hello Friends, this is Sean writing.

As a few of you know, I have officially begun my next project at work.  I am flying to Kansas City every week to teach older folks how to be half as awesome as me.  While flying across the country twice a week and working long hours away from family doesn't appeal to some, the perks of this job are undeniable.  I plan on outlining the week before Lia's birthday below.  Spoiler alert: I was home for most of Lia's birthday, so she does still love me.

This was a special week at work.  A whole bunch of the team was in training so the onsite team was just the project manager and a whole bunch of analysts.  In order to curry our favor, our project manager planned a trip to one of the best BBQ joints in the world: Oklahoma Joes.  

We knew the place was classy the second we heard that it was located in a gas station on the Kansas side of KC.  Well, we got there and the line was out the door.  It really did live up to the hype.  I had the half rack of ribs, brisket, texas toast and french fries.  The brisket was brisket.  It was good, but really brisket is just a medium for the sauces.  The ribs, however, were phenomenal. What really shocked me were the french fries.  They were some of the best fries that I've had in a long time.  Not quite McDougal fries, but dang close. Anyway, Anthony Bourdain listed Oklahoma Joe's as one of the top 13 places to eat before you die, and he uses a lot of profanity so he has to know what he is talking about. The only negative I had for Oklahoma Joe's was that there was no sweet tea.. what a shame.

The next day I flew to Atlanta to party it up with my coworkers.  It was good to catch up with my friends from my previous project, and one of my buddies and I may or may not have karaoke'd Friends in Low Places.  The hotel we were staying at was pretty cool.  It was the Marriott Marquis in Downtown Atlanta. 

The rooms were not spectacular or anything, but the entire inside of the building was open, from the lobby floor all the way up to the glass ceiling over 50+ floors up.  It was pretty cool to be on that lobby floor looking up.

Our view wasn't bad either.  I was rooming with one of my college buddies, Andrew, and we were on the 33rd floor looking North. The conference itself was pretty typical.  Lots of learning and important people talking about complicated things.  The awesome part was the venue for our Thursday night social.  Has anyone ever heard of the Georgia Aquarium?

Here is a picture of my new friend, the Whale Shark.  I couldn't capture just how big he really was with my amazing BlackBerry camera, but I tried anyway.  There were two big glass viewing panes in the ballroom.  One of them was for the world's largest aquarium which had the whale shark and tons of different fish, sharks, sting rays, etc. and the other pane was for the cold water tank which just had a bunch of crazy beluga whales.    The beluga whales just kept ramming the rocks, backing up, and then ramming the rocks again.  I think Lia was right.. no one is meant to be cold.  Not even whales.

Please notice the artsy awesomeness of my photography.  Or just look at the really cool looking stingray swimming by.

And finally, I am going to leave you all with a Go Dores pic.  It is only fitting since Vandy grads are taking over the whole company.  Picture is of three of my frat brothers from college, Ian, Trey and Andrew, along with a new friend, Jen, and one of my current project teammates, Kaitlyn.  The theme was Country Club, so don't judge Andrew for his choice in pants.

The next day I flew home to be with my wifey on her birthday.. which I am sure will be covered in our next post.  

The Great Sandwich Revelation

So.. it took me all of 23 years, but I have now seen the light.  I have finally learned that homemade sandwiches don't have to suck.

My whole life I had just eaten ham and provolone, with a little mayo on some white bread.  Sometimes I would mix it up and throw some turkey or muenster cheese in there.  When I felt healthy-ish, I would throw it all on some wheat bread.  To be honest, I never really enjoyed those sandwiches.  I ate them because I was hungry and because they were easy.  The whole time I was mindlessly chewing those bland concoctions, I was wishing I was eating a frozen pizza, a nice steak, or really any food that had that thing called flavor.

The real tragedy is that sandwiches don't have to suck.  I have had some delicious sandwiches in my life.  We all know that the Silly Goose in East Nashville has the greatest sandwiches on earth, but have you ever wondered why?  Just look at their menu.  They don't use a plain loaf of bread or plain deli meat.  Their sandwiches are covered in sun-dried tomato or roasted red pepper aioli, instead of helman's mayo or mustard from a fluorescent plastic bottle.  Really, the only similarities they share with your homemade sandwiches are that they use bread, meat, cheese and then some kind of sauce.  They just use delicious versions of all of those things.

Making a sandwich is not rocket science.  Let's all be honest, it doesn't exactly require skill or training.  You just need to have the right ingredients.  So why is it that everyone is perfectly fine with eating such mediocre sandwiches at home?  The only thing I can think of is cost.  Have you ever bought a tiny bottle of sun-dried tomatoes?  Any chump can spread that stuff over bread, but it takes a neuro-surgeon (not a family practice doctor cough cough Laur Laur) to be able to afford it.  If I have to choose between Lia finally getting new dentures and me buying sun-dried tomato spread, then I am going to go with my wife's health and happiness every time.  If you add goat cheese, roasted red peppers, an awesome loaf of bread,  arugula and roasted walnuts, then a sandwich becomes as out of reach for the common man as other luxuries such as cars that are fun to drive and vacations that don't revolve around family.

Vacuum sealed meats and processed cheeses are cheap compared to smoked salmon and blue gouda, but is sacrificing your happiness worth saving a little money?  This all just goes to further validate the wise Daniel Tosh's view that money most certainly does buy happiness.  Have you ever seen someone sad on a wave runner?  Despite the financial challenges presented by always trying to eat delicious food, I believe it can be done.  On a semi-related tangent, have you ever wondered why there is crime in low income areas?  If you had to eat frozen bologna with tasteless cheese every day, you would want to break crap and hurt people too.

All of this to say that I have a dream... I dream that people will stop buying lottery tickets and instead send their children to school with a sandwich that excites and inspires a young mind.  I dream that adults would quit buying cancer sticks and instead treat themselves to 23 bites of pure joy every afternoon.  I dream that young, attractive, professional, married couples in Sunny Isles Beach would not feel the need to buy anymore makeup, and would instead spend that money on delicious ingredients so that we can all share in the same dream.  I dream of a world with no more lame sandwiches.  Who will join me?

Puppy Fever

So, as many of you may have already gathered from this blog, I have some serious puppy fever. Many women at this stage of life may find themselves with baby fever. I, on the other hand get quite enough baby love every week at work. If I ever start craving the love of a little one I cuddle a newborn for a few extra minutes at 4 AM and then I'm good. An hour later when they start screaming I'm pretty much over it...for now anyways, ask me how I feel when I'm 28.

Puppies are a completely different story though. I crave a puppy, need a puppy, dream of puppies. I have never had a dog. My mom never let us get one when I was growing up. In college I lived in a sorority house and as much as we tried to convince our "house mom" we needed a house dog she wasn't having it. Now, Sean and I live in a condo building that does not allow dogs. Although I've totally seen small yappers in ladies purses in the elevator. Just another sketchy part about living in Sunny Isles Beach (along with the russian mob). As soon as our lease is up in February we are going to move somewhere where dogs are permitted. I CAN'T WAIT!

So I've been thinking about my future dog for years now. In this time I've come up with a list of requirements.

My dog must:

*be dorky, dorkier than me (is this possible?)...I don't need a cool dog that is going to laugh at me when I run into the edge of the kitchen counter for the fifth time that day.

A dog that is way cooler than me.

A dorky goldendoodle named Waffle from one of my favorite blogs.

*be super into playing fetch and be awesome at it. Obviously you can't really tell if a dog is going to excel at this when they are a puppy but I have great faith that with the right genes and Sean and I's training ours will be awesome.

Dog enjoying  fetch!

*love to swim. Nothing makes my heart happier than seeing water loving dogs launching themselves into the water over and over again with a big smile on their face.

Two of my favorite dogs after a swim!

*love to snuggle. Sean and I spend much of our life snuggling and so obvi are dog is going to need to join in.

This is my friend Layla, she is a snuggle dog.

*Be large enough that I can't step on it easily. As I noted above I'm a dork and a klutz I don't need any dog squishing accidents.

I found a very cute but very squishable puppy on the beach.

I am so excited for our future baby puppy doggie newborned adorableness. The little pup will be perfect for us and I can't wait to be a momma! I'll keep ya'll updated on our puppy journey...and I won't be mad if our baby looks like this...

or this...

I also can't end this post with out  a little shout out to one of my best friends...Willowdog. Her mom is my soul mate/best friend and Willow will always be my first doggy love. 

Isn't she pretty?

Her mom wrote a whole blog post about how awesome she is here.

NYC Post 2

Hello friends and semi-creepy people who read stranger's blogs, here is the second half of our NYC trip!

Sunday morning we woke up and had brunch with Sam and one of his roommates at a restaurant in the Upper West Side called Lansky's.  After that we caught a cab back to the hotel in Midtown. We learned our lesson the first time we tried to take a gigantic suitcase on the subway.  Once we got back, we set off on our next great adventure, the Upper East Side!

We headed up to Dylan's Candy Bar on the recommendation of one of our friends where Lia and I proceeded to each buy big bags full of candy.  I got chocolate because I'm sweet and Lia bought bought bitter and sour candy because she is sweet too.  We then proceeded to go to Central Park and eat our candy, and the pictures start... now!

These kids (and by kids, I mean teenagers) are engaged in a fierce medieval battle simulation that can only result in one thing... all of them having even fewer friends.  I really shouldn't knock them though, since this is far more exercise than the average World of Warcraft player gets.

The Upper East Side was beautiful, albeit a lot less lively then the rest of New York.  This actually seemed like a place where average people with millions of dollars live.  They also had some beautifully manicured medians all down Park Avenue.

I think the real clincher for Lia liking the Upper East Side were all of the designer dogs.  This man had 3 different Goldendoodles: a large, a medium and a small.  And people say that upper class America does not embrace diversity! 

After rubbing elbows with the rich and famous, we headed down to the Flatiron District to see Madison Square Park.  Lia is pictured above posing with the Flatiron Building.  It was actually pretty cool how thin the building appeared.  If that architect had a clothing store, it would change the life of just about every middle aged woman in Texas.

       

Based on a recommendation from one of Lia's coworkers, we went to this crazy deli/wine store/grocery store/restaurant called Eataly.  The place was huge and the wait for a table was really long, but in the mean time we just went and creeped on the folks in the dog park across the street.  The food ended up being pretty dang good.  I got a delicious spicy salami pizza and Lia got some very boring looking pasta that she claims was delicious.

After dinner we went up to the top of the Empire State Building.  We heard it was pretty neat to see the city at night, and I did like how cool and breezy it was up there.  Above you can see a picture of Times Square and Rockefeller Center.

Here is me playing with the night vision functionality on my camera.  Aren't I fancy and artsy?  If you want to pay me for any of these pictures, you are dumb, but feel free.  

Monday was our big day.  We woke up pretty early (before noon) and headed down to Greenwich Village.  Washington Square Park was full of nannies and hobos and was actually quite beautiful.  NYC has got the park thing down.

We finally found someone who we stereotyped as not being the kind of person to steal our camera.  Please note the Empire State Building through the arch in the background.  If our photographer was as artistically inclined as me or any other talentless person, they would have noticed and gotten a better angle on it.  Oh well.  For lunch we got amazing Mediterranean food from a place called Mamouns Falafel and took it back to the park to eat.  

Although Lia and I didn't really like Greenwich Village, we were both obsessed with SoHo.  It had a ton of character and there just seemed to be people everywhere.  Never crowds though, just a steady flow of people.

One of our friend's older sisters was getting married nearby the next weekend, so we decided to walk by and take a look at the church.  The outside wouldn't really catch your eye but inside the place was magnificent.  

Our trip to SoHo served three purposes, to see a new neighborhood, to increase our hipster cred, and to shop at some of the unique stores they have there.  All three objectives were met in the above picture which was taken in Uniqlo, which is like a very trendy Japanese Macy's.  We also hit up a few baby boutiques so Lia could but a gift for a coworker who just adopted a baby.  That is where I learned that there are multiple different kinds of strollers and they range in price from really expensive to just plain absurd.  I plan on building my baby's stroller out of plywood and some old bike tires.

After we were done with the 3 H's (Hipsters, Hippies and Hobos) we headed downtown and jumped on the Staten Island Ferry.  These ferries are huge and come pretty regularly.. they are also priced perfectly at $0 a round trip.  It is really nice of those New Yorkers to pay absurdly high taxes so that us tourists can save a few bucks.  Thanks!

The views of Lower Manhattan were spectacular!  It gives you a much better idea of just how densely everyone is packed onto that island.

It was a little unsettling once I realized why they were needed, but we had two Coast Guard boats escorting our ferry.  I did get this sweet picture of the boat in the foreground and the Statue of Liberty in the background.  My caption for this postcard would be "Freedom isn't Free."  I am thinking about starting an unsuccessful business selling postcards and mediocre pictures. Thoughts?

After our ride on the ferry, we took a walk through Lower Manhattan,starting with Battery Park.  Honestly, this was the least impressive park in the city.  Too many sketchy people and overall poor upkeep.  There was a gorgeous view as you left the park though!

Here is Lia posing in front of the Bowling Green, which was founded in 1733 and is the oldest public park in NYC.  The original fence from the 1700's still surrounds the park, although they tore down the original statue and ripped all of the crowns off of the fence during the American Revolution. Screw King George.

And here is the infamous Wall Street.  It was actually pretty underwhelming and a lot shorter than I thought it would be.  

I thought this was a nice picture of the NYSE back in the day, you know, when America still had good credit.

We also made a trip by Ground Zero.  It is crazy to see just how big of a construction site it is.  The One World Trade Center Building (aka Freedom Tower, the half built one on the left) is going to be awesome.  It is one of the best designs I have seen for a high rise in a while.  

Like I mentioned earlier, the parks in NYC were spectacularly designed and most of them are very well maintained.  I love the way that they incorporated the city in the sight lines for all of the different parks.  This is City Hall Park pictured above.

This is the Woolworth Building, which was the tallest building in the world from 1913 to 1930.

After we had finished touring downtown, we decided to walk back through Chinatown.  

Lia bought some awesome sunglasses in Chinatown for next to nothing.  Don't worry everyone, I am sure they were living wage/fair trade.

The original plan was to get dinner in Chinatown, but Lia didn't want to anymore after just the first block.  The sidewalks being wet with fish juices and the whole place smelling terrible probably didn't help.  Also, the 8 year old kid driving by in the brand new Rolls Royce was a little unsettling.  Sketchy place I tell you.. in a good way.  Dying from a Ninja attack sure beats your traditional mugging.

We ended up going to this amazing pizza place called Lombardi's.  There was a bit of a wait, but it was worth it.  Lia labeled it the most delicious Pizza she had ever eaten.. and in all fairness, it was an incredible pizza.  I still prefer Chicago style, which is probably just because I have good taste.  After dinner we retired to our fancy $400/night Courtyard. Thank goodness for Marriott points!

So as Lia has quickly learned, I have picked up travel habits from working in a job that takes me so many places.  One of these habits is experiencing a city through food.  If you only have one or two days in a city and you are busy the whole time, the only real fun thing you can do is eat.  My list of foods to try in NYC were as follows: NY Style Pizza, a NY Bagel, Fine Dining and a Corned Beef/Pastrami Sandwich.  The 2nd Avenue Deli was strongly, and I mean strongly, recommended by my Jewish friend that I met on the flight up as a place to grab some Corned Beef.  Lia and I took the hike down there and it did not disappoint.

Lia had Challah French Toast that just about changed her life.  Also, to my great satisfaction, they had an item on their menu that was a Corned Beef Sandwich and a Pastrami Sandwich combo.  2 sandwiches, one plate.. It was meant to be.  Both were incredibly delicious, but the rumors are really true.  They make every effort to put too much meat on there... and they almost succeed.

After lunch, we walked up through the Murray Hill area.  I don't really recommend it, however it did take us by the Chrysler Building which is my favorite building in NYC.  It was the tallest building in the world for just 11 months and was built by Walter Chrysler himself.. not the company, just the man.  He also ended up stiffing a bunch of the subcontractors on the deal.  Fun stuff.   

We then took a walk by the United Nations Headquarters.  The main building is under some pretty extensive renovations so the trip turned out to be a huge disappointment, not unlike the United Nations itself.

We then decided to spend the rest of our time in NYC touring Midtown.  This picture above represents one of the things I love most about New York, and that is the grandiose old buildings right next to the biggest and best modern buildings.  Some people would hate the contrast, but I think it is fun to have a city that so well displays changes in architecture over the past 300 years.

We then took a walk through the Rockefeller Center which was pretty cool.  They have a Lego store!  Lia let me go in and I felt just like a kid again.  I promise before everyone who knows how to use the internet, my children will get to visit that store at an age where society still allows them to play with Legos.

Because Lia and I are American, we thought we would grab some burgers at the Shake Shack again before heading to the airport.  On the way back to the hotel to pick up our bags, we had to walk through Times Square.  The above picture shows Lia frowning.  Times Square is really something you only need to see once in your life, and this was the fourth or fifth time Lia had seen it this trip.

Once we got  back to the hotel, and in keeping with my fanciness, we had a Yukon Denali pick us up and drive us to the airport.  For all you penny pinchers out there, car services are often cheaper than taxis for longer trips.  Lia slept the whole drive to the airport, which was probably the slowest I have ever traveled in a motor vehicle.  The only real tragedy of the trip is I didn't make a friend on the flight home.  Oh well, I'll try harder next time. 

And of course, I am going to end the article with some Pros and Cons of New York.  The cons are clear when you first arrive.  The city is absolutely filthy, crowded, claustrophobic, expensive, full of crazy people, smelly and it is very difficult to breathe due to all of the pollution.  

On the pro side, it did have chocolate chip cookie dough cupcakes!  The food was incredible.. we really did not have a bad meal.  The people were also a lot nicer than they were made out to be.  It is also incredibly easy to get around, which is important because there were so many things to see and experience.  The parks were awesome too..

And the NYC Trip is finally done!!! I promise future posts will be shorter, mostly because I hated writing this much.  I hope someone actually read this far, because I would hate to think I could have been playing Call of Duty this whole time instead of typing. Oh well, I guess I will never know.  Go Dores.