Hello everyone.  I have several important Grant updates for the last couple days.

Last Tuesday, July 13, 2004, I went to the free Fountains of Wayne concert at the World Financial Center downtown.  The World Financial Center is right across the street from the World Trade Center site.  I snapped this pic of the new WTC station that opened up earlier this year:



Anyway I made my way to the back side of the big huge indoor Winter Garden at the WFC, where all sorts of people started crowding around the stage outside.



They played a good set and poked a little fun.  At one point, the lead singer changed around some lyrics to Radiation Vibe for old diehard fans like me to pick up, since parents and kids made up the majority of the audience due to the newfound recent success of their latest album.  They came out for a double encore, which now marks the second time I’ve seen them do a double encore, although both times it seemed like they weren’t planning to.



I was worried I wouldn’t hear “The Biker Song” this time, but they finally played it in the double encore, so this concert marks the first time in a while that the band played every song I wanted to hear.  Hmm, well all except “Troubled Times” I guess.  The band hails from New Jersey, and many of their songs deal with places in New Jersey or New York City, which made the show even better.  My favorite song by them right now, “Sick Day”, takes place on a PATH train from New Jersey, so after the show I got them to sign my PATH Quick Card, although they seemed confused at first as to the reference.  On top of that they seemed a little drunk and partially deaf, unfortunately.

The lead singer, Chris Collingwood said that he used to work in this building on the 35th floor (he’s the one on the right):



On Thursday I again tried out for Who Wants To Be A Millionaire, the daily version.  This time I passed the test and got to the interview process.  They took a Polaroid of me and the interviewer seemed pretty interested in several things that I had to say, so in three or four weeks I will know if I am eligible to be on the show.

After that, I met up with Leighton and we went to the lounge of the new Mandarin Oriental hotel up on the 35th floor.  Here was our view of Central Park:



After that we had lunch at a wonderful restaurant called Eatery with prices much lower than the quality of the food.  After that we went hotel lobby hopping and ended up at a really posh lobby at W Hotel in Times Square and the incredible world’s largest lobby at the New York Marriott Marquis:



Yes, this picture was taken indoors.  To give a little perspective, those are balconies off of each floor which face down into the atrium.  Leighton took a business call, and I relaxed and almost fell asleep:



After that I returned to the apartment and fell asleep for six hours.  I have ruined my daily schedule entirely, so now I’m going to go program some more for the software project Tucker and I work on all the time.

Ciao.