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Hi everyone. My name is Nathan, and I write a blog. What, you mean you didn’t remember me? In two short weeks, you forgot all about my little blogging experiment? Frankly, I’m a little hurt.

Then again, even my blogging co-conspirator has been absent since a triumphant super bowl screed three weeks ago, so perhaps I have more pressing problems than the lack of reader attention.

Whatever the case, I finally have a free minute to post again. I have to say I feel dead today. I’m coming off a stretch where I billed 130 hours in eight days. Once you subtract out 24 hours for hours for sabbath, the means I worked 77.3% of the available hours, leaving me with a whopping 5.5 hours each day to do things besides work. when you think about it, that should really be more than enough time, right?

Anyway, I skipped work yesterday (I got home around 5:30a) and slept most of the day. I felt ok yesterday, but today I just feel terrible. I can’t focus on anything. I didn’t even want to get out of bed this morning.

So that’s what’s up with me. I’ve probably bored you enough with the details of my sleep schedule, so I won’t even bother explaining what was so urgent at work that it required 20-hour days.

Although it is now the 16th of February, Valentine’s Day is still close in the rearview mirror. To celebrate, Jannine and made the trek through snow and ice (Wednesday morning brought our first major snow storm of the year, complete with freezing rain, high winds and heavy accumulation) to our new favorite restaurant, Alias.

When I hear “Alias,” I think of Jennifer Garner flying around the world, taking down the bad guys with prejudice. So the name of the restaurant has it off to a good start in my mind. Alias had a great value for a Valentine’s Day five-course pre fixe menu, which is something of a rarity in New York, a city where it seems to be a sport of restaurants to see how much they can jack up their prices for special holiday meals. The food, as expected, was outstanding. Alias specializes in using fresh market ingredients for their food. The combinations are creative, and the dishes are generally seasoned so that the individual tastes of the components can stand out. The highlight was probably a baked acorn squash with wild rice, wild mushrooms, leeks and thin slices of cheese (I want to say it was pecorino, but I don’t really remember).

The one negative of the dinner was the atmosphere. The restaurant wasn’t particularly busy, and the heater didn’t seem able to keep up with the cold winds outside. So we felt too exposed as our extremities slowly froze. Also, Alias didn’t seem prepared to serve a multi-course meal successfully, and kept us waiting for far too long between courses. However, given the quality of the food and the great price, it still comes out as an extremely good value.

As we were walking through the Lower East Side to the restaurant, we passed Clinton Street Baking Company, our favorite brunch place. In celebration of the holiday, they had made a beautiful light display on their front fence.

More as a note to self than anything, but also as a heads-up to the culinary-inclined NYC readers:

Was chatting with the first-year associate who’s working across from me on my current deal tonight. We always have good convo about random subjects when we call each other to ask questions, get information, etc. Anyway, tonight the talk turned to restaurants and he recommended what is regarded as one of the top Thai restaurants in NYC.

It’s called Sripraphai, and is located in Woodside, Qns. Apparently, it is only about a block from the 7, so it is pretty accessible.

When I have more time, I definitely want to check it out, so I decided to add this post so I won’t forget the name. From what I’ve seen online, you should check it out too.

Around New Years, Gary, Erica, Kevin, and David all came out to NYC for the weekend. We were wandering through the East Village and the Lower East Side when we saw this dog sitting in a chair at the salon. (I think it was one of the ones on Ave. A around St. Marks, but I don’t remember exactly, since it was like six weeks ago.) So we stopped to snap some pictures (me + four tourists = a lot of cameras suddenly going off). Unfortunately, the picture came out a little bit blurry, due to the hurried nature of the situation and the twilight conditions. This is why I wish I had an SLR with a 1.4 prime that would allow me to effectively shoot hand-held in low light. Anyway, it’s still a pretty cute dog (but you have to think he knows how cute he is.

AMNewYork reports a new study has found that New York City buses run late (an average of 5 minutes, 15 seconds behind the posted schedule).

This study was done by the New York City Transit Riders Council. I sincerely hope they didn’t spend too much money on it, because they could have just gotten on any bus and asked the riders if the buses run late and gotten the same answer.

The one semi-valuable conclusion of the study is that delays are caused by traffic and other conditions outside the control of the MTA. It’s valuable, because at least we know why there are delays. On the other hand, we basically have a study that tells us what we already knew (buses are late) and that there’s nothing that can be done to solve the problem. Thank you NYCTRC!

A couple weeks ago (could be longer — I don’t have a particularly good sense of time anymore), my sister Rachel came into NYC for a quick trip. It was actually part of a much longer trip, as she had been in Arizona and Colorado and Connecticut and was headed back home to Maryland via LaGuardia.

Since she was getting to the airport early, Jannine and I got a Zipcar (a mini!) and drove out there to meet her. We took her to Chinatown in Queens and had a very yummy lunch at a vegetarian Chinese restaurant. Rachel even came bearing Christmas gifts from my family.

Here are some pics.

Today, I met my friend Josh for lunch. Josh, who attends Advent Hope with me, is a corporate finance lawyer who works a few blocks away from me in the Financial District. We went to Cafe Doppio, a nice little soup/sandwich/salad place on Broad and Beaver. I recommend it if you’re in the area for lunch. The food as good and the prices are reasonable for the area. And it’s certainly better than the Hale and Hearty Soups next door.

Anyway, we’re sitting there eating our food, and in walks Tom, another guy who goes to church with us. He comes up to me and says, “Hey Nathan, what are you doing here? Do you work around here?” I said yes and we exchanged our pleasantries.

Josh is trying to catch his eye and give him the whole “hey, I know you too” look. Tom looks at him, sticks out his hand, and says “Hi, I’m Tom. Nice to meet you.”

Josh paused, then said, “Hi, I’m Josh.”

Then there was an awkward silence, and Tom turned to get in line to order his lunch. No, that wasn’t uncomfortable at all.

At least not as uncomfortable as it will be when Tom sees Josh at church.

Ah, victory is sweet. But a long-awaited victory is especially delicious. Peyton Manning and the Colts withstood harsh criticism and envious catcalling, as well as a miserably rainy night in Miami to win the forty-first Superbowl! All the boo-hooing about a supposedly porous defense and overrated quarterback turned out to be for naught, as Indy proved themselves the far superior NFL team of 2007.

Some of you may wonder how it is that I came to be an Indy fan, let alone a football fan. Inexplicably, Nathan was able to educate and turn me onto the brilliance of both brains and brawn of a professional football game. Early on, I fell in (what has turned out to be very close to) love with Peyton Manning, and in the course of last year’s season, the rest of his team. As I am from LA, and LA has proven to be a mostly inhospitable environment for most major league sports teams, I have no emotional ties to any California teams. With both the Rams and Raiders safely out of Southern California, I felt free to join any random football family. (For anyone who thinks that San Diego is the same as LA, and that I should feel a stronger loyalty to the Chargers, they need to talk to a real Southern Californian.)

Even though I am a newcomer to the world of the NFL, I know full well people’s split feelings about Peyton Manning. People pretty much either hate him or love him. I’ve gotta say, one of the most satisfying outcomes of Indy trompling over the Bears last night was watching Peyton and his team come into their own. Peyton Haters were ever ready with the cutting question, “If he’s so good, why hasn’t he been able to win the Superbowl?” As I saw it, he simply wasn’t ready. His time had not come yet, and the same went for the Colts as a whole. This year, they finally stepped into large shoes that had been waiting for them these past four to five years.

Of course, the sloppiness of the Bears’ performance–as ever, Rex Grossman caused many a groan from the Bears’ fans sitting on either side of me–only helped Indy to their victory. But, really, how could anyone expect the NFC titleholders to beat the AFC champions? It’s actually not that fair, given the incredibly disparate levels of talent and competence between the two conferences. But you can read in more analytical detail about such things on espn.com. I’m just a lovin’ fan.

It’s 12:30 am on Sunday morning, aka prime party time in New York. Or at least, that’s the rumor I’ve heard. Seeing as I’m old (at least in my mind) and rather uncool, I don’t get invited to parties and I don’t try to find parties to get invited to. So my Saturday nights are often somewhat “quiet” by the standards of many. Of course, many would say that blogging late on a Saturday night is automatic proof of being lame. But when you find out that I’m blogging to take a break from work (currently marking up a Description of Notes for an i-bank that wants to pitch a refinancing deal to a perspective client next Thursday), well….I have pretty much proven beyond a doubt that I am not the most “fun” person living in New York City.

Anyway (in addition to providing an oblique way to complain about working on a Saturday night), I felt like posting some pics. Today’s selection was actually taken over a month ago, when J9 and I were out in LA over Christmas. We stopped by the Frank Gherey-designed Disney Concert Hall and I spent time taking some pictures. (In my case, some = 53 pictures in about an hour.) Unfortunately, I was rather disappointed by the results. It was getting dusky while we were there, and so hand-shake contributed to a lot of blurry pics. Also, looking through my pics is like a textbook with examples of mediocre composition and poor use of space.

Here are a few of the better results:

I’d like to say that this one has that whole “cool edgy blur effect” going on, but most people would probably recognize that as a lie and write it off as low-quality camera shake. You be the judge.

In such a bad mood this afternoon. This should be a great day, as the partners (as well as some of the midlevels) are gone. Everyone’s wearing jeans and feeling pretty relaxed. I guess the problem is that I just want to go home, but I have work to do. It’s not pressing work, but every hour I spend on it now is an hour that I don’t have to work this weekend.

Anyone have some motivation for me?

In other news, I actually left the office and got a sit-down lunch today. I think it’s the first time I’ve done that since starting work. I got pizza from Adrienne’s Pizza Bar in the Financial District. (The Financial District is now apparently being called the FiDi by some people who are cool. This is a terrible name for the area. First of all, it sounds like something that you connect to with your laptop for internet access. Second, the belief that neighborhoods have to have a “name” that is some sort of retarded abbreviation before they can catch on is so annoying. The area already has a name: “the Financial District”. It does not need an abbreviated one.)

Anyway, I believe I was talking about pizza. The pizza was extremely good. It is (at least in Michigan parlance) Greek pizza, meaning that it’s square and has a nice crisp, yet greasy, crust — otherwise known as square deep-dish pizza, according to the website of Buddy’s, the Detroit-area restaurant where I first discovered this culinary wonder. The prices are perhaps somewhat high (I think you pay more for a single pizza at Adrienne’s than you would at Grimaldi’s, although the pizza at A’s is more substantial and probably larger), but it’s good, unique pizza in New York, where it’s hard to find anything other than traditional Italian-style pizza.