I’m back! As some of you know, I packed my family up and headed east to New York City for BlogHer. We had a blast and saw so many things and so many parts of the country we’d never seen before. It was a looooong car drive but it was worth it. Here are a few highlights of the trip and our time in NY.
Long car drives are a heckuva lot easier now. I remember when I was a kid and we had to go on long trips from Dallas to Odessa but bored out of my mind. My days consisted of staring out of windows and elbowing my brothers but my sons had a mobile hotspot, video games, graphic novels, a Kindle, 2 tablets and I don’t even know what else. They both got into Temple Run and competed to see who could get farther, they proudly informed me they completed every objective and opened up every character. I’m so proud.
God is a God of nature. Every once in a while you see a study that says that people in urban settings are generally less religious than people from the more “country” parts of the country. Usually it’s explained as urban people are more educated and too smart to need God or financially better off and don’t need to lean on God for help but now I have a different theory. As I woke one morning and saw the clouds hanging over the Smoky Mountains or watched the fog roll in over horse fields in Virginia, I found my mind very easy and naturally turning to think about God. There was something about being surrounded by the raw beauty of nature that made the basic ideas of Atheism (There is no Creator, this is all a product of chance and not design, etc.) seem absolutely crazy and a little silly. I think those ideas make much more sense if you are always surrounded by concrete rather than mountains.
My wife and her friends are absolutely amazing. One of the coolest things I’ve gotten to see unfold over the last few years is the ladies of Trending Media put together Social Soiree. It has very quickly become THE party to go to and it has been such a joy to be able to help out in my small ways but mostly I’ve enjoyed seeing a very smart and talented group of women come together and do something amazing. If you are a blogger and didn’t get to go, be sure to watch for the details for the next one.
Traffic laws? We don’t need no stinking traffic laws. I realize when you have as many people in one place as you do in NYC, things can get a little hairy but I was in no way prepared for what was basically an every-man-for-himself free-for-all in the streets. Traffic lanes were ignored with people just driving where ever they wanted, jaywalking laws were ignored as people just wandered out into traffic assuming that no one would hit them, bike lanes were ignored as bikes just whipped in and out between cars. We took a cab ride across town to see the Statue of Liberty and I swear we almost died about twenty times. At one point the cabbie laughed at me because he could see how stressed I was. It was nuts.
New York is beautiful. I got to see so many awesome things while I was there and had to leave so many things unseen because of time and budget constraints. I felt like I could have spent a month there and not even come close to seeing everything. I did get to go to a Yankees game and really liked their new stadium. It’s not as nice as Rangers Stadium but it will do. 
New York is strange. Last year when I went to San Diego, the one thing that really stood out to me was the number of homeless people on the streets. There were literally a half-dozen on every street corner, it was absolutely crazy. (Someone asked me if we had a homeless problem like this in DFW, I told them absolutely not because if you stood outside in Dallas, the heat would kill you.) I was expecting more of the same in NY but surprisingly I saw very few homeless but the few I did see were of the guano-crazy variety. On lady had a VERY long story written on cardboard about how Sarafina was a slave owner and wanted to make slaves of everyone and she stole this lady’s last piece of cardboard to keep people from knowing the truth about her. Whoa. I was going to snap a pic of her but I had no idea how she would react so you’ll just have to use your imagination.
Won’t Back Down is a very good movie. I got to see an advance screening of Maggie Gyllenhall’s new movie, Won’t Back Down and it was VERY good. If you got to see Waiting for Superman it’s similar to that but instead of a documentary, it’s the story of one woman’s efforts to change her public schools to be better. I cannot recommend it enough to you. The best part for me was when it was over they brought Maggie Gyllenhall, Viola Davis, Rosie Perez, and the movie’s director on stage and took questions, there were about as far away from me as you are from your computer screen. Very, very cool. But seriously, go see the movie.
Ok, I won’t bore you with anything else other than to post a few more pics and a video or two if I can manage that. Now I guess I need to get back to work!
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