Continue reading »]]> So, I was motivated to start writing again by the efforts of both my Dad and my friend Jen Stevens, who was kind enough to pressure me into joining her writing group. A fun bunch, who give good constructive criticism, the hardest thing was to get back into it.

Then I took a look at my blog. The last post was almost a year ago. What the hell kind of Internet-age executive can I be if I don’t even update my blog regularly!

But oh, what to write about. So many topics that no one will care about. So many opinionated pieces for the sole consumption of the Google indexing robot. So little time.

The first piece I wrote for my group ended up being written on a plane to Europe on my iPad because I was running out of time. It ended up being autobiographical because I felt like such a poser trying to write something fictional. The second time it was my turn to share I again procrastinated, then four days before we were supposed to meet I wrote the beginnings of a story that I had no idea where it would end, but was about a topic I at least cared a lot about and was therefore willing to do some research on: pirates.

Yes, that’s right… pirates.

Not the Johnny Depp kind, but the skinny Somalian kind.

Something about the idea of four guys on a wooden boat successfully taking over a 500-ft container ship worth hundreds of millions of dollars just fascinated me.

So, maybe one day I’ll put it on my blog.

Like NEXT YEAR.

Continue reading »]]> This is why cities are fun.

I walk back to my apartment at 12:15am, after seeing Green Zone in the movie theater that is two blocks from my hose (score one for expensive Manhattan apartment). There is a guy who has walked behind me for an entire block who also enters. The doorman appears to know him. He’s about forty, dressed in a black leather biker’s jacket, black T-shirt, and black jeans. He’s got grey hair under a bandanna, a moustache, and a little bit of a beer belly. He’s carrying what appears to be an entire shrub of lavender branches in one hand, and a plastic grocery bag in the other. We enter the elevator together silently and I reach past his bouquet to press the button for my floor.

Unable to help myself, I ask: “Someone sent you out at midnight for flowers?”

I intentionally keep my personal pronoun gender-neutral because it’s quite possible he’s bringing all this back to his African-American lover who is waiting behind one of the apartment doors somewhere in my building at this very moment, dressed up as an Indian.

“And a tub of ice cream,” the guy responds nonchalantly.

“Ah, a midnight craving for ice cream, I understand. Flowers, a little less.” I say.

“I’m trying to make an impression.”

“That should do it. Good luck.” I say as the elevator doors open and he steps purposefully out.

Sometimes I love New York.

Continue reading »]]> So, as you all know from reading my blog about my time spent living in the Netherlands… they are a bit weird. They’re alien-like tall and thin (for the most part), they have funny attitudes about being tolerant, but extremely rude at the same time, they drink milk for lunch, their language sounds like Klingon, the list goes on.

One of their weird European habits has to do with registering and de-registering where you live with the city’s Town Hall. I think this arcane practice dates back to the time of walled cities, when moving from one town to another was a risky and dangerous process for both the person moving and the town receiving them. When you move to a new town, you have to take a copy of your rental contract or your mortgage to the town hall, along with numerous pieces of identification, and register yourself as a resident in the town.

Now, there’s all sorts of benefits (to the city bureaucracy) of having every single family/household registered (for example, it makes it easy to collect taxes and turn off your water and charge your for shit that you don’t know what it is because you can’t read freaking Dutch)… but for the most part, this is a ridiculous practice that should have been phased out in the 1800′s.

The problem for me was, I REGISTERED just fine, but when I left I was, oh shall we say, slightly absent-minded about all the shit I needed to turn off, cancel, unsubscribe, and, yes, you guessed it… de-register.

So, after being back in the US for eight months and STILL getting charged 90 Euros ($7,000 USD) a month from my old insurance company I got fed up. I called the bank. I spoke to a customer service rep (which is a term you use loosely in Europe) and demanded that they stop letting this insurance company take money out of my account since I haven’t been a resident in 8 months.

“Oh,” she says, “Then you didn’t want the car, apartment, and other insurances that we charged you 450 Euros for a month ago either then?”

I DON’T FREAKING LIVE THERE. WHY WOULD I WANT APARTMENT INSURANCE!?

“That’s right. I don’t.” I say. My face turning crimson and contorting as I master my anger.

“Oh, well, we can’t stop your insurance because you’re not de-registered from the Hague.”

And cue exploding head.

More phone calls. More customer service (loosely used) reps. Letters written and mailed (yes, MAILED, as in actual pieces of paper that are transported from one location to another, as in what they did in the Stone Ages). More waiting. Actually, I have to be fair, not too much waiting. Two weeks later I was emailed (my god!) a PDF copy of my de-registration letter from the Town Hall.

I forwarded that on to ABN AMRO (my bank) and have been waiting for my money back, but the one thing that counts is that those fuckers from Groene Land Achmea (the health insurance company) won’t be getting any more money from this American.

Still, it was a sad day. I have now officially severed all ties with my former life. I am poorer as a result, and I don’t just mean financially.

Actually, that’s not true. I have something that looks suspiciously like a letter from the Tax Department sitting unopened on my sofa which will probably make my head explode again (after I get it translated).

But we’ll save that for another time.

Continue reading »]]> Today was the last game of the summer league season. I know, most of you are very surprised because I haven’t written anything about the first 10 weeks of games, well, get over it. The point is, I’ve been playing summer league as a member of the Maroon team of the Manhattan Ultimate Disc (or ‘MUD’ for short) summer league.

I was completely psyched to be playing ultimate in Manhattan and not having to trek all the way up to Westchester to play in the WUDI league (which took about an hour and a half each way if you had to take the train). I joined WUDI, payed my dues, went to one game, the captain yelled a lot and was pretty tense for a summer league captain… and that was the end of that.

But Manhattan Ultimate… now that’s a different story.

The first time I get an email from the captain (a great guy named Mateo) he starts off by saying: “I didn’t draft any of you, but if I had been given the opportunity, I would have drafted you all anyway, so let’s have a great time.” Ha. Great. So basically, I’m on the reject team. The team that was drafted by a representative, after which they found a captain to assign to the motley crew of ultimate misfits who nobody else wanted. What was even funnier was that the first game of summer league both the captain and co-captains were out at another ultimate tournament with their (more serious) club teams and Mateo sent me an email asking me to be the default captain for that day.

To make a long story short, we were the worst team in the league.

But that’s not really what counts. What counts is that, even while we were soundly being crushed week after week (I think we won two games out of 12), we had a hell of a time. Yes, we were not a very balanced team, yes we lacked experienced players, yes me and Joseph were the only ones who showed up one day (THAT was a fun Sunday)… but damn it, we had fun. We laughed a lot, we played as hard as we could, we had parties, we did all the things that you want your summer league team to do, and so I count my first season in the Manhattan Ultimate Disc league as a great success and hope to be joining again in the Spring.