Rough and Tough NYC

My travels last week took me to NYC for some magical photo magazine covers. My Lovely Lexi and I drove down in the wee hours of a beautiful spring morning fighting Manhattan traffic and pedestrians with a boat load of death wishes. While we're on the subject, let's talk about the favorite pedestrian practice of crossing the street. It's a funny thing that street crossing. When I'm the one doing the crossing, it all seems so simple. The cars stop driving and I start walking or better yet, there are no cars coming and I run across the street to get to the other sidewalk before resorting to pushing the cross walk button. For those of you who are avid cross walk button users, I do apologize, but I am adamantly opposed to the use of such devises for two reasons. The first is that I often find myself crossing mere seconds after pushing the button because traffic has come to a natural lull. The second is that after the previously mentioned lull occurs, traffic is generally ready to pick up just as the cross walk symbol lights and by then there is usually no one crossing the street. I may be a bit biased because this happens so frequently at the intersections near my house, but I doubt this is the only place it occurs. That being said, I now have to give props to the crossing signal operators in NYC. Those folks have really got crossing and driving coordination down to an art; it is choreographed like the most professional of ballets. This was much appreciated considering the fine weather on the day of our travels. I didn't have one close call that Saturday. Not one bumper to human interaction. Shocking. This was not the end of my shocks and surprises for the day though, don't you worry. We had a great time at the event taking pictures of the passers by and enjoying the NYC scenery; fascinating folks in that city, simply intriguing. The best part of a city trip is the ride out, hands down. There's no rush to get to a job, no worries about being late because work is over for the day, and with the rate of traffic movement in the city you get a good long time to really take in the scenery. What was my favorite part of the trip out this time? That has to be the scariest UPS store sign I've ever seen. I'll ask you to indulge me for this one, it's just a fun thing for me. Never before have I seen a UPS sign with such huge spikes atop the letters--kind of like big dragon letters or something. It was simply fantastic, I couldn't help but take a picture. I know that most major cities like to keep the birds from roosting on their signs, but leave it to NYC to post these humongous spikes that would likely impale a pigeon from tail to beak. What a trip...