New York, New York, It's a Hell of a Town

My company has a policy that its employees should spend 80% of their time on billable projects and 20% of time on training. This past week I completed some percentage of that training at the ShowBizExpo in NYC. I walked through the trade show, drooling over expensive lighting equipment and sat in on some training workshops for lighting. I learned some excellent tips on how to light subjects dramatically and quickly for video, which I hope to put into practice at work soon.

Work paid for the train ticket to NYC and the admission fee but we were responsible for our own lodgings. I chose the casa de Monica and Dan - my sister and boyfriend’s place in Hoboken, NJ. They had send me explicit directions on which trains to take and where to gets cabs in order for me to get to Hoboken NJ at 11pm. They did such a great job of explaining how the transit system work that I actually understood it this time!!! My previous two attempts at riding NYC/NJ trains have ending in horrible disasters of me getting hopelessly lost. Buoyed a day of successful train riding, I took the on the '4,5,6' and went 'downtown' (important things to know when riding their metro) to Manhattan for shopping at one of my favorite record stores, Other Music.

So, all in all, it was a great week. I learned lots of new and useful things about my profession, I got in some records shopping, I got to see my sister, and I got to read (and subsequently finish) the book "Our Band Could Be Your Life".