Our Trip to New York

Last weekend Lisa and I flew out to New York for an Orthodontist as CEO conference. The meeting was brilliant, but experiencing New York City together was the real treat. The first day Lisa toured the city with my Partner in business's wife, Laurice Bankhead. I'll start by posting some of the pics she took while on the town

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Union Station (connected to the Hyatt where we were staying)

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Chrysler Building


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Carnegie Hall


That evening we went to our first, and hopefully not last concert at Carnegie Hall. The New York Met. Philharmonic Symphony was beyond belief! I was certainly glad that Doug Fox, an orthodontist friend, insisted that we purchase tickets. The music was all in honor of Leonard Berstein, which was so appropo, considering that West Side Story was set in New York. As is becoming the norm, I had tears streaming down my face during one of the numbers. I don't know if that sounds rather pathetic, but my tear ducts seem to have minds of their own.
My account wouldn't be complete if I didn't admit that I played a game on my ipod when the concert became a little boring for 20 minutes or so. At least I didn't get up and leave like the people in front of us. In short, I experienced a full range of emotions. The guys who sang the part of 'Tony' during the West Side segment was perfect. We were pleased that although he was from the Opera, that he sang without sounding like he came directly from the Opera House. Maria, on the other hand, was all Opera. Shame.
I got a kick out of the young man that played the lead 'Jet' during the chorus numbers. After the show we walked around New York by night. It was my first chance to see a bit of the city - Macy's, the Christmas Tree and Ice Skating Rink, the Chrysler Building, people sleeping on the steps of a church. Again, so no camera for that part, so let's skip to the next day when we went to Times Square after my meeting. Lisa had already been around town again that day, and toured part of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She was really cute because she was having so much fun. She is always cute, but I did take a mental note once again of how important it is to take Lisa away from the world of our wild boys, her calling as relief society president, the demands that my work schedule puts on the family, ME, and everything can cause stress in her life, and help her escape for a few days. I am SO glad that she suggested that we come home on Sunday instead of Saturday. We would have missed SO much!!!

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My Cute Wife at the top of the steps on Broadway and 47th


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Lisa and Rich - The place where the big apple drops on New Year's

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A doctored version of Times Square (with a building removed, and so forth). I didn't take pictures when we came back later to see Mary Poppins, but it felt like we had walked into the Celestial, or perhaps Terrestrial Kindgom. I really enjoyed talking to people on the streets there, tourist or local resident, and reveling in the ambiance of 20+ High Def screens that made up the walls of most of the buildings. It was NOT Vegas, which I detest. The people were having fun, but didn't have glazed over eyes like they do in Vegas. Nothing against the residents of Vegas, but it is a white trash magnet on the strip. This was more of a cultural magnet with more like minded people. Soon after our first visit to Times Square

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Here is our tour bus. The couple in front of us are from Colorado Springs, where my brother-in-law Spencer Elmore works. He is an LDS orthodontist who we happened to sit behind on the tour bus. Name?...I'll tell you later.

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We were very sad for this part of our trip. We spent time in the memorial building reading about the individuals that died that day. Seeing parts of the airplanes, parts of the building, items recovered, and notes posted by those left behind stirred a deep reverence - we were on holy ground.