• Emotional Response to Stimuli: removed (now a flaming bus full of war orphans will not even move me to look in their direction)
• Attitude Projector: on and…locked (prevents sappy panhandlers from getting the upper hand)
• Vision Controls: removed (Cardinal Rule for All Cities: Make no eye contact. EVER.)
• Anti-Terrorism Tools, consisting of a flashlight, a fully charged cell phone, eye drops, ibuprofen, and half a roll of electrical tape. (Yes, your shrewd observation would conclude my preparation is essentially useless crap for an attack, but it makes me feel prepared.)
• Innocuous Items that Can Be Used as Weapons: check, check, and… check

I haven’t been into the City since the Dinkins administration and this would be my first jaunt into the city solo. I have been told that the town has changed and that it’s nicer, friendlier. All the same, I went in thinking that every other person was a mugger or a panhandler. The others were obviously tourists.

I took the train in and managed to get into the city much faster than I had expected. I probably estimated more time in having to fight the CHUD’s and various street urchins. Turns out they both unionized (Tourist Scammers and Newspaper Sellers Local 3) and don’t start work before nine. Who knew? So I took the most leisurely walk I could manage up Seventh and Broadway over to the Hilton for the seminar. New York at 6:30 in the morning is unlike anything imaginable. Quiet streets, minimal foot and car traffic and almost picturesque shots of storeowners hosing down their sidewalks. I even broke the Cardinal Rule: when I stopped my walk long enough to let a jogger by, she not only looked directly at me, but smiled and thanked me! If the Queen Mum offered to do my laundry all next week, I couldn’t have been more surprised.

Even with a fine and leisurely walk uptown, I made it to the hotel early. Try "two hours before the seminar" early. Although I had some serious considerations about getting a good New York bagel, I was gripped with this unexplainable fear that every shop I passed was a festering hotbed of disease. So I spent the bulk of my time doodling in notes about the trip and reading.

The seminar went well. I saw what I needed to see by lunch so I cut out and met up with an old college friend, D. She’s one of the few people I know who has lived in both Philly and New York and I was hoping would have an interesting perspective on the two cities. Her take: both places suck equally. She holds the belief that there are only two types of people in the world: you’re either from California or you’re from New York. It doesn’t matter if you’re from Saskatchewan, you’re either a pushy New Yorker or a go-with-the-flow Californian. Sadly, she’s a Californian trapped in New York, for the time being.

All this, and I can’t wait to go back…