Forgive me some random thoughts:

It's an evening of mixed emotions, a draining day at work but one that reaffirmed my faith in being blessed to work with people who care about what they do. In other news, I've lost or misplaced a cheque for $60, and am angry at my own ineptitude - I had the cheque yesterday, and now it's gone. Duh. Since my return from NYC, I've yet to work out, and am feeling frumpy. So I just ordered a pizza.

While I was in NYC, I checked my website on different computers, and was distressed to see how bad it looks on other browsers and machines. In two cases, the right-hand column moves itself to the left, over top of the blog entries. Keith has known this for a while; it will take me sometime to recode the site.

I saw the following in New York :

Movies (9): Last Orders, Secretary, Tully, The Grey Zone, Femme Fatale, Far From Heaven, Bloody Sunday, Auto Focus, Igby Goes Down.

Comedy (3): Al Franken, Janeane Garofalo, Bill Maher.

Music (1): Yes.

Theatre (1): Frankie and Johnny in the Claire de Lune.

I awoke one morning last week at The Leo House in NYC to discover I'd left my hotel room key in the door the night before. No one mugged or killed me, as far as I can tell. In the past I've left my car keys in my car overnight twice at Marmot Basin (when I skied in the mid-80s), and have previously left my house keys in the front door of my house overnight as well. One time in the mid-90s I went to work and left the front door of my house open. None of this is a good sign.

Some of you know that two of my cars have been lost in fires, and that last year I backed out of my driveway with my back door, driver's side, open, smashing it into the column holding up the carport. That car went up in flames last February. Yesterday, driving to work in a daze, I entered the Education Car Park and took too sharp a right turn going up the ramp, and scraped the back door, passenger side, something fierce.

I'm fortunate to work with some great people, so when I returned to work, there was no anxiety about having a desk and an e-mail inbox full of paper and e-mails and books and memos and shyte. I survived the day, and am home, blitzed in the head. I won't get back into my regular workouts for a couple more days (daze?).

Here's an interesting essay from Pete Townsend on the future of The Who; thanks to Chris (brother) for bringing this one to my attention.

I want to put notice out that I agree with Geoff, and that he and I and many others blog because it's fun, and for any other reasons that may emerge from the fun doing it, such as learning more code, improving one's writing skills, sharing ideas and thoughts and comments, regardless of how useful or informative they might seem to someone else, meeting other bloggers, developing a new community of contacts and friends, whatevahdafuck, as Tony Soprano would say. The full essay to which Geoff refers is at Library Juice, and addresses the number of "wild librarian" sites that have appeared in the past few years. I don't emphasize on my site that I'm a librarian per se, nor is my profession the focus of the site or the blog. It's a pastime, a hobby, and as Geoff reminds me, a place to vent from time to time. So there. Nyah. Thpppppttt!

I'm home, feels good to be home. The trip was fun, exhausting, memorable. Now it's back to reality. Thanks to good friends Margaret and Keith for rides to and from the airport. Time to shovel snow.

Just left the theatres after seeing Auto Focus, the new movie based on the life of Bob (Hogan's Heroes) Crane. The movie details Crane's descent into a life of sex, sex and more sex, until his untimely murder, which was never solved. Greg Kinnear plays Crane as a happy-go-lucky kinda guy, who dreams of Jack Lemmon-type roles, but ends up doing dinner theatre after the TV series ends. Again, highly recommended.

As mentioned last time, I'm worn out and looking forward to returning home. It's also too humid and warm here right now (yes, I know, I should NOT be complaining about such things). I've seen seven movies on this trip, and plan to see one more tonight. Also picked up a few souvenirs from the New York Transit Museum Store in Grand Central Terminal.

So I'll talk to you again when I'm back in Edmonton. For those of you who read my NY Diary, thanks for following my trip. It's been fun. See you soon.

It's Sunday night, and I am worn out. I have one more day left on my NYC trip, and it has been fun. The past couple days have been warm, and I've been walking about feeling heavy from the humidity and heat. Tomorrow the high is 21C! I need my short pants, I'm sweating way too much.

Last night I watched Bill Maher do 90 mins of standup in support of his new book, When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden. The book considers ways the US goverment might act to help its citizens fight the war on terrorism, and uses as its inspiration posters from WWII. Thirty-three new posters were created by a group of artists, and some are available on his tour. I quite enjoyed his performance, and afterwards he autographed my copy of his book.

Celebrity Sighting 1: Ann Coulter was sitting two seats away from me. I stood next to her when the crowd was leaving but said nothing.

Today I saw two very good and important movies. Far From Heaven is Todd Haynes' new picture, an examination of upscale life in Hartford CT in 1957. Julianne Moore gives perhaps the performance of her career as a supportive housewife and mother, and one of the local society page celebrities among her friends. Her husband, Dennis Quaid, is a successful business man for the local company called Magnatech. They have two small children, a gardener and a maid, and life seems grand. It is the fall, the leaves are shades of golden red and auburn. But all is not as it seems. Moore's life begins to unravel, and she finds herself confiding in not only her best friend, but also her new gardener, played by Dennis Haysbert of 24. That the gardener is black will come to haunt her. The film is also presented in the style of the late 50s films, and is inspired by the movies of Douglas Sirk, including All That Heaven Allows. I've seen none of Sirk's movies so cannot comment on that aspect of the movie. Highly recommended. Moore's performance is so powerful it's almost as if she isn't acting. She inhabits all the movement, behaviour and nuances of The Supportive Wife, wanting nothing more than the best for her husband and children.

Bloody Sunday is a new film that replays the events in Derry, Northern Ireland on 30 January 1972. A civil rights march was organized for that day, and when the march had ended, the British Army shot 27 civilians, killing 13 of them. The writer/director, Paul Greengrass, shot the film as if he was a cameraman on the day of the event. It is hard to believe the movie was made last year, everything looks like documentary or news footage. The film shows both points of view, that of the marchers, specifically the Member of Parliament for the area, and the army commanders. The bias is, as you would expect, towards the marchers, and we are reminded at the end of the movie that no soldier was ever disciplined for killing a civilian. Again, highly recommended. Shot as it is, with hand held cameras, it's also hard to believe that the dialog between all the actors was scripted. It truly appears to be footage shot on location as it all happened.

Celebrity Sighting 2: I was walking back to the Leo House when I looked up and saw Butch Goring walking in front of me with his girl friend/wife. Again, I said nothing, but wanted to say, "Hey Butch, we went to the same high school!"

Tomorrow is my last day here, and I am looking forward to returning to Edmonton to my home and my own bed, and my friends. But it's been a lot of fun to be here again. I think I've had my fill of New York for a time to come.