Scene and heard

The commute to Downtown Boston took less than half an hour door-to-door. I was lucky as the train arrived at North Quincy Station at exactly the same time that I did.

I met the folks from Starpoint Solutions who got me the job. Had a cup of coffee and a chat before being walked over to my new job at Mellon/

In 1988, I had a contract at Wall Street Trust, just after it had been bought by The Bank of New York. 10 years later, I went to work for The Bank of New York. In England in 2003, I worked for Mellon Newton. Here I am in Boston, after BoNY and Mellon have merged, once again working for a different entity, but ultimately the same company. And like the others, I found it to be very friendly.

I have met several people, each very easy to get along with. The work is something I have done before, so it holds me no fears. They are as happy as I am that I am here for however long this will take. It will probably be a month before I have a decent guess as to how long that will be.

I can report that I got lost at lunchtime and even the two cops I asked had never heard of Boston Place, the address of the Mellon Center. Great time for me to have left my phone on my desk! My mini adventure lasted less than 10 minutes though.

My early verdict? I’m going to like it here.

What a day. What a day! Up at 8am, I realised I didn’t want to drag my suitcase, travel bag and computer bag on the subway and subsequent walk to downtown Brooklyn. I was going to Floyd’s Pub on Atlantic Avenue, where NY Spurs, the official New York Supporters Club for the mighty Tottenham Hotspur would be watching the Carling Cup Final. I took a cab from across the street.

I had decided that I would rather watch this big match in the company of my fellow Spurs fans than alone at home, on my laptop. There must have been over 200 people there. Beyond bravado, I wonder how many were truly optimistic that ‘we’ would win. Chelsea are one of the big 3. Their style is not attractive. They stop the opposition from playing, boring them; lulling them to sleep, before hitting them with a sucker punch. In this way, they win most of their matches and certainly were strong favourites for this match. But this is the new Spurs.

Spurs pummelled Chelsea without success and inevitably conceded a goal before half time. This is where Chelsea usually come into their own. Making no attempt to please neutral fans or even the purists among their own supporters, they just choke games to a boring, miserable death. Except this time, it didn’t go according to the tried and trusted script. Spurs got a penalty to tie the match, forcing extra time. Four minutes into the extra half hour, they scored another; fluky, funny, but who among us at Floyd’s cared about that! How many times have we been on the wrong end of these!

With each Spurs goal, Floyd’s erupted. I took some videos and pictures but forgot to bring the cable to Boston that will enable me to download and post them here. I wonder if one will capture the amazing singing, which was so much like going to a game, but on a much smaller scale. The crowd was maybe evenly matched between English and American. There is something interesting, quirky and fun about hearing English football chants sung with American accents. Some even change certain of their words to try to sound cockney, in much the same way that English rock ‘n rollers adopt American accents when they sing.

I went on my way to Boston very happy!

Why did the cab from Downtown Brooklyn to Chinatown, which took barely more than 5 minutes, cost more than the one from Bay Ridge to there! Crazy! I got to there in time to catch the 1:30 bus. It got there 20 minutes inside schedule. I didn’t catch a cab from South Station to North Quincy. The cabs here are much more expensive than New York and anyway, the journey is simple by the Red Line of Boston’s T – it’s underground/subway system.

I got here at ten past six and had a nice chat over a cup of tea with Robyn, my landlady. At about 7:30, Sean came. He was dropping off more stuff for me; I had sent with him when he left for college last Tuesday. We went out for a delicious Vietnamese meal, actually walking to the restaurant. This is something that New Yorkers do, but apparently Bostonians are not so apt to do.

It’s nice around here! The house I am in is very nice. Currently, there are two students here, although one, who I have yet to meet, is leaving this weekend. The other will be ‘replaced’ in a month when he leaves his internship and goes back to college in Cincinnati.

It is early days yet, but I am happy here. So much better than staying in hotels! Not that I could have afforded to have done that, but this is comfortable and my room is my own. I have use of the kitchen. The drawback? I share a clean bathroom. I’ll survive!

I start my new job in Boston next Monday! I thought it would happen, but it’s tough to relax when it isn’t 100%.

I will stay in North Quincy in a very nice house as one of 3 lodgers. Everything about the house is comfortable and my job is easily accessible from there.

I will definitely come back each of the first two weekends and will play it by ear from there, probably coming back 2 or 3 times each month if I feel comfortable in Boston. The first week is really for no reason other than I don’t feel ready to stay a weekend in Boston yet. For the second weekend, I am having a little party at Hannah’s request. She wanted to know when I would next do a wings evening, so I’ll do it then. I’ll have to arrange a food delivery on Saturday morning, as I won’t be much up to shopping after arriving home at maybe 11pm Friday and having to prepare food for the evening.

The following weekend really depends on whether Sean will come home. He will be on Spring Break and is undecided as to where he will be, but it is his 21st birthday on March 15th, which will also be the 7th anniversary of my father’s death.

Even though my job in Boston is officially not a completely done deal – the company does it’s checks and my credit is far from stellar – I went to Boston on Saturday to see a couple of places.

Having not needed an alarm clock for a few weeks now, when my radio alarm sounded shortly before 6:30am, it really was a rude and unwelcome awakening. I left home an hour later, heading for Chinatown.

Options for travel to Boston include flying, which costs more than getting to London excluding the cab fares to Kennedy Airport (it is quite inaccessible from here by public transportation); trains which cost $58 one way for a 4 ½ hour journey or approximately double that for a half hour shorter journey time; Greyhound Bus at, I believe $35 each way, or ‘the Chinatown Bus’, scheduled to take 4 ½ hours, at a cost of $15.

As luck would have it, my good friend Carrie lives a couple of blocks away and she invited me for breakfast. This was a good start to the day.

I arrived at the first apartment in Brighton at about 4pm, having been met by Harry, who is the go to person in the apartment share. I really liked the place and felt very relaxed. Plus points: Harry is a cool and interesting guy; they have Fox Soccer Channel and appreciate what I call football. Negatives: It is a short bus ride away from the Green Line on Boston’s T, and not the most accessible of places.

Harry took me to the second place I saw, in North Quincy. Robyn is also very nice. She has a son who is a college Junior and was very friendly. This would be closer to lodging, but the house is very comfortable and Robyn engaged me as a friend, not a landlady. The major thing standing this above the first place is the accessibility and the main negative is that there is little around there within walking distance.

Right now, it seems as if I will be going with North Quincy ahead of Brighton.

The journey home wasn’t great. My 7pm bus was cancelled due to mechanical problems, so I was on the 8pm. It arrived in New York at 11:50. Sean was coming from college and was on the GW Bridge. It seemed too long to wait in the cold, so I waited for a D train from Grand Street Station instead. And I waited and waited! After over 20 minutes, I called Sean who was in the area, so we came back to Brooklyn together. By the time I arrived home, I had been gone for 17 hours and 20 minutes.

On Sunday evening, I went back to Connolly’s Bar on 45th Street, Manhattan. Steve Riley doesn’t play Zydeco, he plays Cajun music, which is more like a hodgepodge of traditional American music without the rhythm and blues aspect , but still with the French flavour. So much fun though! This guy definitely knows how to get a party going!

Usually, my zydeco evenings involve meeting Trish at St. Andrew’s Pub, but she was on her way back from The Hamptons with her friend Adelle, so I went alone and they joined me later. As I walked in, I was confronted by a huge crowd of dancers, so navigating towards the bar wasn’t easy, and just before I reached my goal, I was asked to dance. After that, I got a little closer to the bar before one of the regulars, Barbara, also asked me to dance.

By the time that dance ended, Trish was there with wine in hand, asking if I’d dance with her! It’s great to be in demand! You really can dance all evening if you so choose, switching partners every song or two. Few people only dance with those they arrive with.

The crowd is mostly over 40 and largely over 50, but the 20 and 30-somethings also have a blast. One of the regulars, Jack, is a spry man in his late 70’s. Please let me be like him when I grow up! Others include the guy who Trish has dubbed The Rockin’ Rabbi, a short bearded man who always has a great time and a man who has the worst dance face I have seen in many a year. The dude can dance, but needs to drop the ‘look how cool I am to dance this well at my age’ expressions. And a lot of people there are really good dancers.

If anyone is interested, check out letszydeco.com. Go with a friend or go alone. You will have a great time. I’m going to have to seek out the Boston group, as I am assured that there is one and the crowd is similar. What a mood lifter!

We finished the evening with 7 of us having a drink and sharing food at St. Andrew’s. I arrived home just after 2am.

Not wanting to brood about a second break up with Susan, I got back onto an Internet dating site within a couple of months of last seeing her, but this medium is quite unsatisfying, as it is largely a glossy advertisement for people which is as false as the claims by those advertising products. So if you are honest, you don’t get too many responses. And most of the women who can see through the crap are people who I could appreciate as a friend only. There is a certain type of energy that I look for that they don’t seem to have.

I had two dates with a very nice woman who then got deep into her work and we hardly emailed and never spoke. Not exactly a start to a relationship! And I mostly lost the impetus to find anyone else.

Losing my job took away any thoughts I’d had about meeting anyone new, so I removed my profile. And for now, I don’t feel that I need to do it all over again. I will be dividing my time between two cities and trying to have fun in both. And should a new friendship take on the promise of more, I will go for it, as ever, even if perhaps treading a little lightly at first.

The truth is, whereas I will never date Susan again, there are times that I do miss her. I have been sent emails with cute animal pictures and she was the first person I wanted to forward them to! And for all of the compelling reasons why I must never date her again, we had good times which I will always remember fondly. I had thought that even before discovering today that she has apparently become involved with someone new. I wish her well in that, as she is a good person who deserves happiness.

There is a Democratic Party rule that only States given a special waver can hold their Primary or Caucus before February 5th. Both Florida and Michigan brought theirs forward ahead of this date and the Democratic National Committee refused to grant them the waver.

The reason for these moves was that both States wanted their votes to count for more than they do when they come late on, when either overwhelming momentum influences the vote, or the nomination is already either won, or as much of a formality as the inevitable nomination of John McCain for the Republicans.

Why they had to choose dates before February 5th and why the DNC allowed 4 other States the special waver is a mystery. Why should Iowa traditionally be the first caucus and New Hampshire the first Primary, thus giving them undue influence on the nomination process? Why was the Nevada Caucus brought forward ahead New Hampshire this year and South Carolina also allowed the special waver? And why were Florida and Michigan not allowed the waver? Why does this ridiculous process of States holding votes on different dates persist at all!

Actually, delving further into this mess, it was none other than Governor Charlie Crist, a Republican, who signed the legislation moving the Primary date for Florida. Might some skullduggery have been involved? And why the fuck did the Democrats allow a decision made by a Republican to cause such pandemonium for their party!

Governor Jennifer Granholm of Michigan is a Democrat. Her reasons for bringing her State’s Primary forward to January 15th, was to get the candidates to focus on the extremely poor condition of the Michigan economy. This move was contested by New Hampshire, which wanted to retain its status as first to hold a Primary. Draw your own conclusions on that. I have certainly drawn mine!

For whatever reason, a total of 368 Democratic Delegates will not be counted between these two States. As there are 4049 Delegates including these, this means that more then one in 12 Democratic Delegates are unimportant.

In 2004, John Kerry narrowly won in Michigan and slightly less narrowly lost in Florida. For the Democratic nominee to win the Presidential election in November, he or she will surely need to win both of these States, which between them carry 44 of the 270 Electoral College Votes that will be needed for victory.

Apparently, rules for both parties dictated that half of the Delegates should be sent to their respective Conventions in such circumstances. The Republican Party decided to uphold its own rules.

The DNC ruling punishing these States in effect disenfranchises over 8% of potential Primary voters and worse, potential November voters! For me, this is a monumental cock-up. How can the Democrats hope to run a Presidential Campaign when they are so cavalier with their own nomination process?

I clicked on a scary looking banner on a web page. It shows a falsely wrinkled woman; a badly worn 60 year old perhaps, whose face becomes young and beautiful, supposedly because of this amazing product.

So what thought came into my head? A wonder product that makes an 80 year old woman look 30, and wondering if/hoping that it could do a job on the rest of her also, or else it could come as a bit of a surprise of you got real friendly like!

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate it when a mature woman takes care of herself and looks good. But this reminds me of the film Brazil, except that was funny!

http://beauty.iqderma.com/dms313/

If any woman who looks like the older image actually believes that this product will make her look like the younger one, call me. I have a bridge to sell you.

Today, I went into the New York office of Starpoint to fill in all of the pre-employment paperwork. Unfortunately, I forgot to bring along a couple of things they needed. I told the guy who went over everything with me that I had a dental appointment at 3pm tomorrow, so I would be back a short while before then with the necessary.

The weather was, of course, disgusting. Not enough to stop me from having my hair cut by the person who does it best, but enough to decide me against going to Trader Joe's. Actually, that was one of two reasons. The more important one was that the paperwork took longer to do than I had hoped and I wanted to be home in time for the 3pm kick off time of the Spurs match.

So I got home at 2:20 and powered up the laptop. I searched for the match thread on the Message Board I subscribe to and was confused to find none – there’s one for every match! After a little research, I discovered that today is not actually Thursday. The match is tomorrow and my Dental appointment is in two days. So much happened between Monday and Tuesday, between me interviewing for and getting this job my mind turned them into Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday!

A short while before 7pm, I got a call from an agent in California who thought she had something for me a couple of weeks ago. A hot new job has come up in San Francisco. Oh, well. As she said, timing is everything!

It is a 3-6 month contract in Boston and starts on February 25th. I plan to come home most weekends, so will not be moving. I’ll probably get a room through Craig’s List. My hope is that the job market in New York picks up in the next few months and I can get something here. But the company I am doing this through seem rather bullish about their prospects for placing me in another role in Boston in 3 months time. We shall see.

There’s an interesting symmetry in this job. It is almost identical to two other jobs I have had. Four years ago in London, I had a contract with Mellon Newton, which is wholly owned by Mellon Bank. Two years ago here in New York, I had a contract at Brown Brothers Harriman, through a company called Starpoint. This contract is at Mellon Bank, through Starpoint.

I’ve seen commercials for this recently, and after making so many negative comments about other products and commercials, I thought it only fair to write about something that is exactly as advertised.

I saw these in a couple of places in England. At first, I didn’t know what to do, as it looks so different to any other hand dryer I’ve ever seen. I watched a couple of people then tried it myself, and was blown away! I’m used to the scenario where I hold my hands under or in front of a dryer and after maybe a minute, I give up and let the air do the rest of the drying.

With the Airblade, you put your hands all the way in, draw them out fairly slowly, about 10 seconds, and your hands are bone dry. It is by far the most effective and fastest hand dryer I have ever used, and I now have less patience than ever when faced the old style crappy things. To every restaurant owner and public facility manager that has considered getting one of these: Please do! I guarantee that all of your customers will be very happy that you did so!

Bill Clinton is not a racist!
I was watching The Situation Room on CNN and was angered when Wolf Blitzer stated matter-of-factly that he doesn’t know if Obama could appear on a Clinton ticket in the General Election, in the light of what Bill Clinton said after Obama’s primary victory in South Carolina. Anyone who has read my views on this will not need me to repeat them. What alarms me here is that the press, which generally hates the Clintons, is the driving force in this demonisation of President Clinton. It so believes it’s own propaganda, that it now states the problem it created as if it is accepted fact.

For me, any white people who believe that shit are either gullible or suffering from an acute dose of Liberal White Guilt, which in itself is insipid racism., I wonder how many Black people believe that the man who was called the first Black President is now a racist. And of those, did they come to this conclusion themselves or was it only after the press blitz informing them that this is the case!

Immediately after The Situation Room, Lou Dobbs came on. He started with the following statement:

“Mexican President Felipe Calderon has said that he is pleased with the remaining candidates in the US Presidential race. My question for you today is, are you pleased that he is pleased?” He said this with a condescending sneer that was dripping in sarcasm.

What a disgusting person this man is! Guess what Lou? America is the most powerful and important country in the world and other countries do care who is elected President in November. When America cares strongly enough about an elected official in another country, it is likely to go in there and covertly overthrow the person it objects to. Other countries don’t do that when they don’t like who is elected President here, but each has a vested interest in the outcome and is entitled to their own opinion.

Maybe Lou, if you weren’t so conceited, you might take this as a compliment to the might of this country. Maybe, you might even care about how your country is seen elsewhere. I have news for you Lou. After 8 years of W in the White House, that opinion is currently at a very long time low!

It was certainly no surprise that McCain did the best of the Republican candidates. The Democratic results were altogether more interesting.

I was watching MSNBC for much of the afternoon, then switched to CNN and a while later, BBC America. The American channels had Obama neck and neck with Clinton in New York and with a very large lead in California. I suppose the main thing that shows, is that Obama supporters are more likely to talk to the pollsters standing by polling stations.

I find it interesting is that in the UK, Bill Clinton, who people there absolutely loved, is now suddenly as demonised as he has been over here among so many Democrats who used to call him the best President of his generation. How has this come about? Has he suddenly become a bad man? Has he changed and I somehow missed it? Is the press getting a message through to people? Is it the fact that in supporting his wife, the former President must spin for Hillary and against Barack? I’m suspecting the latter, with a little help from press bias.

And I just got my answer, as an analyst speaks the words :”because of what the Clintons did”. I have heard these words from others. But what did the Clintons do? After the Florida primary, Hillary went to Florida. The press make that sound like she broke an agreement and campaigned there. And the ‘educated’ people who watch news channels have been suckered into believing it. Pollsters will have us believe that educated people are going for Obama by a margin of 2 to 1. Further proof, in case anyone needed more, that education doesn’t equal smart.

As is being discussed today, apart from Obama’s home state, Illinois, large states that will vote for a Democrat in the General Election voted for Clinton. Obama surprisingly won in the conservative states, but these will vote Republican in November, so maybe those aren’t the best places for him to be strong. On the other hand, a delegate is a delegate no matter where they are from. But perhaps Democrats would do well to note that Clinton can win where the Democrats need to win.

And I have a question about the Obama change. Seeing as he doesn’t talk about details and merely repeats that we need change, can anyone who intends voting for the man please tell me, apart from the face, what changes by voting for him!

On the left is my good friend Trish, dressed more for Madi Gras than Superbowl, with her friends Ira and Adelle. Then there are 3 pictures taken of the crowds on Broadway at about 11:30pm.

Last night, I went to a Manhattan bar for one of my favourite pastimes – zydeco dancing. For those of you who don’t know what that is, it is Louisiana Cajun dance music that is a mix of old style Rhythm and Blues with accordion, washboard and a very french, bayou type of feel. Great fun! There are videos on youtube. Search for Buckweat Zydeco or check out the video at the bottom of this post, Geno Delafose, who I saw two weeks ago. Even little touches of a ska type beat and some definite bluegrass in some of his music, and very difficult to sit still through!

Anyway, they had a big screen TV in there for the ‘Football’ fans and loud cheers went up first when the home town team took the lead, then when they regained it, and finally at the end of the game.

Shortly after 11, I left there with my friends, heading for Times Square Station and home. As we approached Broadway, we realised there were huge crowds of people there, as the buzzing sound built towards a crescendo with each sep we took.

I took a number of pictures and these 3 videos. I’m no fan of the sport, but wow! New York and more particularly Times Square was the place to be last night. What a trip!

I really wasn’t happy with this news. I have to suspect that he will now be the first person whoever gets the nomination will ask to be their running mate. But who will it be? The populist and charismatic Obama, who still scares the shit out of me, or the considerably smarter yet less likeable Clinton? Let me think? A man who could cause nuclear war, fighting on the streets of Europe and the overthrow of the Egyptian government just for starters, if his actions are as reckless and stupid as his words, or a woman who is married to the smartest and best President this country has had in decades, even if some people can’t get over the fact that he lied about having extra-marital sex! (I can’t help wondering what they would have thought about FDR had the press been as disgusting back then as they are now!)

My real wish is that the best man for the job, Al Gore, can be drafted. But in his absence, and only one Democratic candidate still running who isn’t Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton becomes my choice. I really don’t think she’s as bad as some make her out to be. And anyway, enough men are sexist, enough women hate ambitious women and enough people are racist, that if Republicans are sensible and vote McCain as their candidate, it probably doesn’t matter which of the two Dems get the nomination, as they will probably lose.

The best word to describe this week would be silence, although I think frustration runs it a close second.

I never did hear about the job in Chicago. That’s fine, as I had a bad enough feeling about the company as employers that I wouldn’t have taken it. My experience at Alliance Capital (now Alliance Bernstein) two years taught me that there can indeed be something worse than no job at all. If a job is horrible enough, you can’t sleep and open yourself up to poor health. No, I had no problem with the chill wind coming from the second city.

But the interview at Deutsche Bank here in New York was really good, and I had anxiously waited for news on the second interview I was recommended for. I hadn’t expected a call the first week, but as this week progressed without a call, I started to get concerned.

I had previously contacted several agents in London. Last night, I loaded my new CV (it’s not called resume over there) onto Jobserve, which at least used to be the best site for IT jobs in the UK. Today, I got a call. Would I be interest in working for DWS in Frankfurt? Sure! I was then told that the hiring manager is in New York, and the hiring manager is a woman by the name of… exactly the same person who interviewed me for Deutsche Bank! Seems that DWS and DB are one and the same!

The woman in London contacted this person and found out that there are “some changes” going on and therefore nobody is being hired. And so I tried yet again to contact the agent over here, but this time telling him what is going on rather than asking. He got back to me a while later. “Not good, but I’m ever the optimist”.

Well, the woman in England seems confident that she can find me something. Then again, a couple of weeks ago, I heard the same thing from someone in Amsterdam, and nothing materialised from that. We shall see. I will speak with her boss on Monday. And I will continue to search. A possible job in San Francisco also materialised then disappeared since my last update. Maybe this time next week, I will be preparing to take a flight to some faraway place…. and maybe not.

I feared this wouldn’t be easy, but hoped that my willingness to travel would make it more likely that I get a job sooner rather than later. There are days when my optimism is challenged. But I will start next week with hope.