Rochester fun

So, Rochester was such great fun. It was great to hang out with the fam, even if they do enjoy sitting around, picking their noses. Heh.



















Maybe no one will notice it is us with the disguises.

Well, all good things must come to an end, and I had quite the experience trying to get back to Salt Lake last week. My flight from Rochester to JFK was delayed because of major storms in New York City, and after one of the airline employees assured me I wouldn't miss my connecting flight to Salt Lake, I got on the plane to JFK only to arrive an hour too late to catch my flight. After dealing with more than one very unhelpful person, I spent the night in the JFK airport attempting to get a little sleep. I then got on a flight to Las Vegas (which was also delayed an hour) and arrived with just enough time for me run to the gate of my last flight to Salt Lake. I was flying with a different airline and didn't have time to get my luggage. After I arrived in Salt Lake and tried to track down my luggage, it seems the incompetence on the JFK workers continuted because my luggage never made it to Las Vegas. After taking 23 hours to get home and finally receiving my luggage a full day after I arrived, I decided I don't really want to fly anywhere again anytime soon. So much for my good record of no incidents when flying.

Needless to say, it's good to be back, and it's good to get back to normal life.

all over

So, it's finally (or already) over. It was quite the week, and it was quite the race to the finish. Our group gave a presentation on our magazine launch, Historic Home, Thursday afternoon. Let's just say we were printing off cover art and materials for the judges that morning. It was pretty close, but all of the judges seemed to think we did a good job--they were all very complimentary, and even the coordinator raved about our magazine. There are always a few things that could be improved, but overall, they thought we did a good job. This morning was a career fair with a lot of big-name publishers (book and magazine). Since I'm not staying in New York, I didn't find it extremely useful, but it was interesting to talk to some of the people to see how they view the publishing industry. This afternoon we had a final luncheon at the Princeton Club (ooh swanky) where the alcohol flowed freely. There were a couple of girls at my table that had more than one or two glasses of wine before the luncheon was over. It's always amusing to watch everyone around you get tipsy when you are completely sober.
Anyway, the crazy week is over. I had a chance to go up to the Manhattan temple this afternoon, and it was wonderful and relaxing. I was glad I was able to go before I left. There are a lot of neat places I'm going to miss seeing all of the time. I guess I'll just have to come back again as a "tourist." :)
Now, I'm on my way to Rochester tomorrow!! The New York adventure continues. . . .

rats and relaxation

So it happened this past weekend--I saw a rat. I only have one more week in the city, and I thought I would make it without seeing one. Let's just say it wasn't a pleasant experience. We (me and some friends from Salt Lake who were here--hooray for having friends in New York!) were in a subway station in Brooklyn, and I saw this large, disgusting, repulsive rat saunter across the platform in front on one of the sets of stairs leading to the exit. I hate rats. Have I said that before? Because I do. I hate rats. They are a very close second in repulsion to snakes.
However, yesterday we went to the Conservatory Gardens in Central Park. It was absolutely beautiful! I wish I had discovered them earlier so I could take better advantage of them. But, I'm just glad I spent some time there. We also walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, which was beautiful.
It was great to see the cityscape at night. Here is one picture from the bridge. It's a little blurry, but you get the idea. It was a nice respite from the stress that my life has been the past couple of weeks. The stress picked up again full force today, but it will be over by Friday. I think I'm ready for it to be over. I have had so many aspects of book and magazine publishing pounded into my head over the past few weeks, that I don't know if I can cram much more in there and retain it. At any rate, that's all I think or dream about these days. Really, as in I am having stress dreams about our magazine launch presentation on Thursday.