To wordpress. It's been a good run on blogger, but I just feel stuffy in here. So, if you'd like to continue to follow my writing, point yourselves here:
http://chrishiatt.wordpress.com/
For Google reader (or any other RSS feed reader): http://chrishiatt.wordpress.com/feed/
Thank you for reading. I look forward to seeing all of you on wordpress. Cheers!
Saturday, May 15, 2010
Friday, May 14, 2010
Let me tell you about my favorite pizza place
Grimaldi's pizza. Oh my. If you're one of those people who thinks New York is overrated, you would probably think this pizza is, too. Now that I think about it, you probably think this blog is overrated in that case. But if you did think that, you wouldn't be reading, so now I'm writing to no one. Getting back on track...
I will try to explain this in the most elemental terms, as this pizza has become elemental to my existence in New York. Eating Grimaldi's pizza is like rediscovering the ability to do something that is crucial to your existence. Take breathing, for example. If you suddenly remembered how to breathe, what types of emotions do you think you would feel? Energy. Refreshment. Confusion, maybe? How have you been living all this time without the ability to breathe? Astonishment that you're alive. Now imagine those emotions and feelings tied up in a pizza. I'm not kidding. When you eat this pizza, it amazes you down to the last bit of discarded crust on your friend's (or wife's) plate. And it's not that eating a single pizza at Grimaldi's is even that great. It's that after going there a dozen times, I am still delighted by each bite - even surprised by each slice's unique quality. It gets better each time, and it is easily more delicious than any of the other pizza places I have been to in New York.
So if you live here, or if you're moving here, and even if you don't care, go wait in line at Grimaldi's. It's well worth it.
I will try to explain this in the most elemental terms, as this pizza has become elemental to my existence in New York. Eating Grimaldi's pizza is like rediscovering the ability to do something that is crucial to your existence. Take breathing, for example. If you suddenly remembered how to breathe, what types of emotions do you think you would feel? Energy. Refreshment. Confusion, maybe? How have you been living all this time without the ability to breathe? Astonishment that you're alive. Now imagine those emotions and feelings tied up in a pizza. I'm not kidding. When you eat this pizza, it amazes you down to the last bit of discarded crust on your friend's (or wife's) plate. And it's not that eating a single pizza at Grimaldi's is even that great. It's that after going there a dozen times, I am still delighted by each bite - even surprised by each slice's unique quality. It gets better each time, and it is easily more delicious than any of the other pizza places I have been to in New York.
So if you live here, or if you're moving here, and even if you don't care, go wait in line at Grimaldi's. It's well worth it.
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Movies in NYC
My wife and I love movies. At this point, I am not even ashamed to say we watch one almost every night. When I got to this city, I looked at the price tag for viewing a film on the big screen. Averaging $13 for an adult, paying for the movies here is no joke. But going to the movies here is like being reborn. Let me tell you why.
The screens are huge and clean. Most of them are DLP, which means there are no blemishes and scratches on the picture associated with a spool of film being used several hundred times. The seats are comfortable, and the theaters don't smell like vomit. Amber and I went to Times Square to see "Date Night" just before the bomb scare the weekend before last, and our theater had large, memory foam-padded captain's chairs with leather headrests. I didn't move an inch the entire hour and half, and I usually writhe around in agony as my tail bone gets more and more sore. IMAX theaters abound, and they are well worth the average of $17 you will pay for the experience. There are other reasons, I'm sure.
We just got a TV at our apartment, and it's a good thing because I would gladly bankrupt us on decadent cinema experiences in this city.
The screens are huge and clean. Most of them are DLP, which means there are no blemishes and scratches on the picture associated with a spool of film being used several hundred times. The seats are comfortable, and the theaters don't smell like vomit. Amber and I went to Times Square to see "Date Night" just before the bomb scare the weekend before last, and our theater had large, memory foam-padded captain's chairs with leather headrests. I didn't move an inch the entire hour and half, and I usually writhe around in agony as my tail bone gets more and more sore. IMAX theaters abound, and they are well worth the average of $17 you will pay for the experience. There are other reasons, I'm sure.
We just got a TV at our apartment, and it's a good thing because I would gladly bankrupt us on decadent cinema experiences in this city.
Friday, May 7, 2010
Work
New York City is cutting lots of jobs (up to 11,000) to close a budget gap of several hundred million dollars. Bloomberg's blaming Albany, D.C. is blaming Wall Street. Most of those cuts are going to be teachers and firefighters. Thanks to the failed bomb attempt in Times Square last weekend, our police force will not shrink.
So what? Watching all of this go down and talking to Amber as she pursues a teaching career, I've been thinking a lot about work lately. Why do we work? What motivates us to do it? And in the end, what's the point? So you're thinking, "Really, Chris? You're going to get philosophical on us?" I know. I can't help it.
People work for a variety of reasons I guess. But what are they? Satisfaction is a start. Maybe it gives someone satisfaction to pursue a dream. I know Amber has wanted to teach all her life. Or maybe the act of producing something is satisfying. Unfortunately, the production of tangible things in the US is becoming a foreign concept. But we can add value by providing services or by channeling information in a useful way. Money is another one. We work and get paid for it, and this is a necessary exchange, because we live and pay for that. While it's necessary, I can't say it's that much of a motivation for me and for many people I know - but there is the old school that's still trying to get rich (my problem is, most of the time someone else has to get poorer for you to get richer). Greed is powerful, and I am greedy - I'm just not sure I'm greedy for money. The problem with working for money is that its actual value isn't determined by what we do, but what we do is given an arbitrary dollar value. This becomes a problem when global economic uncertainty can make the Dow dip 1,000 points in a single day and looming inflation makes me wonder if a $20 bill will be able to buy a sandwich in 10 years.
Where am I? I have a daily activity. It satisfies some of my desires and many of my physical needs. Still, I see people in the city who do not work. Their daily activity is survival, much like that of the developing world, and they live by the generosity of other people and by the accommodations afforded every American citizen, regardless of motivation or ability to work. And their mental and emotional state is largely unrelated to their vocation. When I look at these people, I see some who are happy - happier than most of New York's workforce. I also see some who are apparently more miserable than anyone I have ever met. In these cases, I find it hard to believe that a steady job and an apartment could do anything for them, anyway. I just went in a circle.
I like my job. I know people who like their jobs. So I'm not talking about going off the reservation here. But I do want to remind myself (and any of you who haven't thought it through), that work is a small element of a much bigger and more complicated picture. Around the time that jobs start disappearing (albeit slower now than last year), it's probably a good time to look at what you do and imagine what your life would be like without your vocation. If you live in New York and you work for the city, I would do it sooner than later.
Thank you for reading my blog.
So what? Watching all of this go down and talking to Amber as she pursues a teaching career, I've been thinking a lot about work lately. Why do we work? What motivates us to do it? And in the end, what's the point? So you're thinking, "Really, Chris? You're going to get philosophical on us?" I know. I can't help it.
People work for a variety of reasons I guess. But what are they? Satisfaction is a start. Maybe it gives someone satisfaction to pursue a dream. I know Amber has wanted to teach all her life. Or maybe the act of producing something is satisfying. Unfortunately, the production of tangible things in the US is becoming a foreign concept. But we can add value by providing services or by channeling information in a useful way. Money is another one. We work and get paid for it, and this is a necessary exchange, because we live and pay for that. While it's necessary, I can't say it's that much of a motivation for me and for many people I know - but there is the old school that's still trying to get rich (my problem is, most of the time someone else has to get poorer for you to get richer). Greed is powerful, and I am greedy - I'm just not sure I'm greedy for money. The problem with working for money is that its actual value isn't determined by what we do, but what we do is given an arbitrary dollar value. This becomes a problem when global economic uncertainty can make the Dow dip 1,000 points in a single day and looming inflation makes me wonder if a $20 bill will be able to buy a sandwich in 10 years.
Where am I? I have a daily activity. It satisfies some of my desires and many of my physical needs. Still, I see people in the city who do not work. Their daily activity is survival, much like that of the developing world, and they live by the generosity of other people and by the accommodations afforded every American citizen, regardless of motivation or ability to work. And their mental and emotional state is largely unrelated to their vocation. When I look at these people, I see some who are happy - happier than most of New York's workforce. I also see some who are apparently more miserable than anyone I have ever met. In these cases, I find it hard to believe that a steady job and an apartment could do anything for them, anyway. I just went in a circle.
I like my job. I know people who like their jobs. So I'm not talking about going off the reservation here. But I do want to remind myself (and any of you who haven't thought it through), that work is a small element of a much bigger and more complicated picture. Around the time that jobs start disappearing (albeit slower now than last year), it's probably a good time to look at what you do and imagine what your life would be like without your vocation. If you live in New York and you work for the city, I would do it sooner than later.
Thank you for reading my blog.
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