Whenever I have a customer or even prospect to visit in NYC I literally jump at the chance. Hell I’ll even arm wrestle people over it. When I’m at JFK needing to go back home I actually don’t look forward to going back home, but rather want to stay. That feeling to me indicates it is time for a change.

So… in hopefully September 2009 I will be moving from Renton, WA to one of the fiv boroughs (focusing on Brooklyn right now) and I wont be the only one that is going. My brother (who is finally graduating college in T-1 month) will be joining me on our new quest.

What does it mean for work? Nothing from what I can tell. The cool part of my job is that I travel and the funny thing is that living in NYC means I am 3 hours ahead of office plus with a 109 million people a year traveling through one of the three airports (EWR, LGA and JFK) in the NYC area, flights literally go almost everywhere in the US or around the world. As a matter of fact, the other day it was cheaper to fly from JFK to LAX then it was from SEA to LAX.

It’s a change but it is a change I really look forward to. With the speed I update this blog, it could possibly mean that the next time I’m posting from somewhere in NYC.

Imagine the following situation:
- Gigantic crowd, closed subway station at 47-50th because of the chaos at Rockefeller center and streets closed off
- Hotel is 9 street blocks north of you with your luggage (gigantic suitcase)
- The plane at JFK will leave with or without you.

That is the situation I found myself in yesterday. I literally had to push my way through a crowd of thousands of people to get to the hotel to pickup my crud. Finally got there at 5:25. Rushed upstairs got my stuff and thought about options on how to get to JFK.

* Taxi cab – $45, takes about 80 minutes.
* Subway Line A to Howard Beach station – $2 + $5 for Airtrain, takes about 70 minutes
* Subway Line E to Jamaica Station – $2 + $5 for Airtrain, takes about 60 minutes + time to get to Line E
* LIRR to Jamaic Station – ~$8 + $5 for Airtrain, takes about 35 minutes + time to get to Penn Station

Cab was out of the question. Battle came down to Line A (since it was right next to the hotel) or a trek to Penn Station. With the fact that having a giant suitcase on a subway at rush hour is *no* fun at all, I decided on the railroad. Made it to Penn Station at 5:40pm, train left at 5:45pm and I was pulling into Jamaica station at 6:15pm.

I thought to myself the entire way that I can’t even make it in 35 minutes by car or any form of public transportation to Seatac when stuck in Bellevue at 5pm… whereas in a city just barely under 10 million people and about the same distance to the airport I have options and the ability to do exactly that.

Soon, very soon, options wil become available in Seattle….