Fun

Ok, time to finish this up. Every time I think of something else to write I think that I should finish this and then don't write anything. How's that turn of phrase go...? I have 99 things to do and finishing the Macy's blog story ain't one of them.

We board our respective buses and get a police escort from the warehouse to Central Park West. Its always bizarre having a police escort, makes you feel important or dangerous, somehow 'other' than the rest of the world.

So its 12:30ish and still raining and the NYC crew is all wondering why we didn't just show up here in the first place. Seriously, we all just spent six and a half hours to get a nice pep talk.

We head on down to the front of the lineup. You always work front to back. Just in case things get hairy the front of the lineup can start while the back is finishing up. There have been cases when workers jumped on the floats and kept working as it was going down the route - not in my years, but in the past.

I don't want to bore you too much with written details of how these things go together. That, and Macy's might not like that too much either. I will tell you that things have gotten much better in design in recent years.

We used to nail things don to be torn up later, now there are thumbscrews for everything. Things used to be made out of heavy steel and wood, now things are mostly steel frames and foam with a hard coat. This is a double edged sword. You can't accidentally crush a 2x4 as you can foam. 'Delicate' is not what we are looking for here, but 'light weight' is a definite bonus.

This year we had four assigned floats. U.S. Postal, Green Dog, Echo Mountain, and Pep Rally.

U.S. Postal is a giant eagle, 3 crane picks, and trim... takes about an hour to an hour and a half.

Green Dog is new, 5 or 6 crane picks and some high-up work. Spacepods and a base station!

Rhino Mountain we've almost got down to a science, but not quite. It is a three story tall giant Rhino that looks to be carved out of rock. Rock climbers repel down it during the parade. Its between 9 and 11 crane picks and takes the longest of all.

Pep Rally is an easy float that takes about half an hour. It is usually done for us by the time we finish the rest of our work.

Now the dynamics of working with people show that everyone wants to be doing the interesting jobs, which is rarely the best way to get things done. During setup I generally try to keep moving doing the little stuff whenever they have more than enough people working the cranes or such. There's plenty of time to be the hero later on... So on Rhino Mtn. I usually do the picks up from the utility, making sure that we aren't wasting time unstrapping something while the crane is waiting. This year was a little different as our crew had changed and I went up to land the pieces with Ben. U.S. postal I did the pick ups and straightened the trim. And so forth.

We finished ok, despite the rain. Each year when we finish we walk up and don the route looking for people we know arriving to operate the floats on the route, looking for any crisis that have escaped out attention, etc. Usually a surreal moment as ballerinas and marchng bands start to appear out of the pre-dawn gloom. None of that this year. A quick look to see if anyone needs help, shout to the crew head that we're on the bus if needed, and off for a quick to hour nap.

Tear down. First, a word about chili. I don't know who came up with this, but we are fed egg sandwiches around 2 in the morning and then Chili at breakfast time. Yes, chili is a fine, hearty, hot meal, but at this stage of the game you're playing with fire. Who knows what my boy is going to do with this overly spicy substance (yes, I just called it too spicy... if you know me, that means something to you).

During setup everything is lined up neatly along CPW and four cranes can run up and down the route pretty easily. Tear down is on two narrower side streets, two cranes per street with a decent distance between the two. Once you start a float, you almost have to finish it. So if you start a float at the first crane, just as they finish one on the second crane - you've screwed up and half the street is backed up waiting on you to finish.

Pile on top of that the fact that a lot of the teamsters that drive the floats are tired an want to go home - nevermind that they spent the night in a brand new GMC with heating. They turn the corner and once in a while nail a wing of a float on something. Lightpost, scaffolding, tow trucks, police cars generally ding more damage to the float than the structure, but still, no fun.

Tear down is where I feel I shine a little. I'm not as good as I used to be, but I can still kick it up a notch and have a reserve of energy that many can't tap into. People are dropping like flies. Rules are you can't go home until everyone finishes - but you can stare into space from the sidewalk.

Presence of mind is almost more important here than anytime before. I'm amazed at peoples capacity to try to run a crew to tear down something they hae never even seen before, but digress.

Did I mention its still raining. I got a change of clothes on the bus with that two hour nap, but they are wet again already.

So from about 9:45 through to 4:30 we put it all back like we found it. It all needs to be tied down so we don't lose anything on the way to NJ. and then off it goes.

Sign out. Wish everyone a happy Thanksgiving, and catch a cab to Leighton's for dinner. Some people promise o show up - but we know they are going to get home and crash.

Enter into a Thanksgiving day well in progress. Make a b line for your third set of clothing and find a cup of coffee. Its WARM again, the smell of good food is everywhere, isn't this amazing. If you ever find yourself not feeling as thankful as you should at Thanksgiving dinner, I recommend spending the night before and the day leading up to out in the cold rain. Turkey never tasted so good.

Bev, and Karen, and Jess, and Craig, and a bunch of others toil away for 3 days to make the most amazing spread you've ever seen. But that isn't what makes it so great. What makes it so great is that this entire group are mostly people that see me for about 5 hours a year. They welcome me (and others) into their home and celebration and don't think twice about the smelly, nasty, delirious people that just walked in he door. This is normal. This is expected.

At this point I start to lose focus. Talk of the years events. Talk of parade. Some staring off into space for myself. The entire place just goes out of its way to radiate comfort, and welcome.

An this entire episode, from Veselka's diner to the end of Thanksgiving dinner does a lot to put things in perspective. Sure, work encompasses a lot of my life. Maybe I've lost some things dear to me over the year. Maybe life is tough and stressful. But once a year I can put all that aside for three days (I do nothing on friday) and really remember what its all about, in a way I don't think very many can.

Thank you to all who make my Thanksgiving a unique, extraordinary, colorful experience every year!

So its on. Josh went an blogged all over the place about it and now I'm expected to come up with something interesting... I'd promised this anyway, but people on this blog are used to me not keeping my promises.

So here goes, part 2 of my Thanksgiving. I'll start with an itinerary and then get into all the nitty-gritty.

The lead up to parade is always the most irritating. Nowadays we don't lay hand on anything until at earliest 12:30 am Thanksgiving day. There was a time that involved push out but I'll tell you about that some other time. This story doesn't need that.

Regardless, official meet is 6:00 pm, wed. before Thanksgiving at Veselka restaurant 2nd ave. and 9th. I ussualy meet Leighton around 5:45 at his place to drop off clean clothes.

We eat dinner. This is a ritual. This is the forewarning for any new guys. This is talking about the weather when it actually is significant. This is contemplating what we are in for. This is, above all, the last good meal you will see for 24hrs.

'We' is the New York City Crew. Most people working Macy's are from NJ, and we are the minority. We have oft wondered why we can' just call in and then meet everyone on Central Park West, but seeing as we've made large strides in the past years it is better not to push our luck.

7:15 We finish dinner and pay. Coffee at the Starbucks across the street is in order. We also grab some energy bars from the deli. I don't drink Starbucks except once a year.... tradition trumps principle - all good stategists should remember this.

7:30ish - PATH train to Hoboken.

7:45ish - Cab to Macy's Shop.

8:00 - half hour wait in th Shop for the Bus.

8:30 - Bus to Macy's Warehouse.

9:00 - Macy's Warehouse.

11:00 - Meeting. This is always fun. The heads of Macy's gather us all around and we recognize people who have been doing this insanity for many years, and acknowledge what we are up against, and who our crew heads are. This year, our normal crew head was moved up in life and our new crew head is inheriting our truculent bunch.
See if you can follow the math hear. As I remember the speech...

"Last year we had 8 people per crew and were finished by 6:30 am, so we think we are safe having 7 people per crew and finishing by 8 am."
"Buses leave at 8 am. You do not want to get left on Central Park West. Please be on your Bus by 8am so we can all get down to tear down together."
"Last year we had 26 large floats ***some big baloon and some intermediate baloons***. This year we have 30 floats ***some big balloons and some intermediate balloons***"

There was a lot more said than that, but did you catch that. Let me re-phrase it in Sam-speak. "We have 4 more floats, 7 or 8 less people, and somebody thought we finished early last year - not the case. And oh yeah, your crew head has changed."

As we boarded the buses for ew York the rain was starting... I love parade...

more to come....

I hurt. My knees are a mass of bruises, my right elbow aches, I have at least three bruises on various parts of my head, all my finger joints ache and have various scrapes, I have windburn on my cheeks and chapped lips. Why do I do this every year?

I realized this parade (My 9th!) that I've never really written about parade, I just tel stories to my friends about what new crazy stuff happened this year. I'm guessing this will be part one of a two part post because I doubt at the moment I will have the wherewithal to follow this through immediately. I'm tired and the Friday after Thanksgiving is my one dedicated day off. I don't work the Friday after Thanksgiving.

This post will be overly-dramatic. Parade is a series of exaggerations in life and story-telling, so any post about it really couldn't not be overly dramatic. That is part of the mystique of parade. Part of what does keep me coming back to work it. Its something I grew up with, huddled about the television with my sister every thanksgiving I can remember growing up. It was my first 'famous' experience in New York City. In a single night, Parade went from being this thing that you saw people doing on television - to a real life event put together by friends of mine, and me. That carries with it a certain weight. This is one thing I know people around the country tune in to, and many can identify with certain parts of it - who doesn't love Snoopy?

On top of all that, Thanksgiving holds a special place for me in that after Parade I'm welcomed into some dear friends' home. Every year this gets harder for me. This people have known me for close to a decade, and in that time they've seen me through a lot. To repeatedly spend a holiday with them brings us closer all. I may not see them for over a year afterwards, but we all seem to know that in a very real way spending this time together makes us a quirky sort of family - with all the burdens and jys that bears.

This is the kind of drivel you get out of me when you send me through the wringer and then put me to sleep for over 12 hours.

I haven't even gotten to what I do for the parade yet. And I have to go for the time. Look for installment two of this post - complete with Giant Rhinocersoses, Spaceships, Turkey flinging, and more. To be continued...

So somebody has built a skill crane arcade - operated via the internet.

http://www.rocktheskillcrane.com/play.php

Wow. Just wow.

I found an interesting little project completely by accident yesterday. I was riding from Manhattan back to Brooklyn yesterday around noon after a meeting, and I saw a girl wearing a hoodie that said, "Change your fuel. Change the world." and had this nifty little leaf symbol on the back of it. Now if you've read much of this blog you know that one of my big soapboxes is how we are pretty much killing this planet.

Between Climate Change, unsustainable manufacturing, and poor management or resources, and about another dozen imminent concerns I don't think we have 20 years of comfortable living left even in first world countries. I know its grim, but it s true. If we don't change our ways, we are screwed.

But that has nothing and everything to do with the cute girl on the subway - did I say cute?....hmmmm.... I had to ask about the hoodie didn't I?

She was part of The Big Green Bus Project out of Dartmouth college last year. Which is a amazing awareness raising project and seems like everyone I have mentioned this to knows something about it. Personally, I think that the hoodies could be an amazing awareness raising thing in and of themselves.

In the end I don't think that bio-fuel is the answer - too much CO2, but in the short run it is definitely one of our best alternatives - especially since the entire trucking fleet of North America is already diesel engines (no change of fleet means only half an infrastructure change for distribution).

Anyway, check out TBGB and send let them know if you would buy a hoodie or t-shirt as well. I think that they have a completely untapped revenue resource and haven't exploited it yet.

And Steph, if you read this, were I in a different time in my life I totally would have asked for your phone number. Best of wishes.

On the Fifth Day Sam desired Beef Stew - and went grocery shopping, but had not the time to conccoct such things.

On the Sixth Day, in lieu of working, which might updet some clients reading this, but, hey, I'm only human, Sam send out via text message, and Myspace Mail, and doves with olive brahces an invite for 'Anyone who felt like stopping by to come partake of the stew of the gods....

Ok, maybe not 'stew of the gods', but it was rather fine, I think... I'd have eaten it if noone showed up. Luckily for me, Elley, and Fred,and Jeremy, and Mimi, and Sarah all tok time to cme have fun. (meems, me thinks your link is broken, but its there in hopes of being unbroken in the near future.)

Learned a few stewing tricks from Jeremy - although I think I need to see this 'de-glazing' thing demonstrated (he's promised dinner at his place next weekend and I think we should all hold him to that.) Talked to Elley about her job at P.S.1 and ho they're stupid for not putting her on full time. Fred is fred-ish. And generally, life is good.

The best was the end with Sarah and Jeremy not rolling out till 5! am. We all stoo around the kitchen island with a single bowl of ice cream and a single bowl for the remaining Dutch Apple Pie, just talking and enjoying life. Sarah and I mutlaly decide it is Time for the evening to end, and Jeremy says something to the effect of 'Oh wow, I thought it was only like 2:00' Time flies....

To me these evenings are more fun, less expensive, less intoxicating, and generally more valuable than are standard fare of 'lets go grab a pint' that turns into 5 or more and...blah...

So, I hope to be doing this type of thing every two weeks or so... good for the soul.

I just thought that this was too much fun.

Python eats sheep: This 5.5m (18ft) python ate a pregnant sheep in a Malaysian village. Afterwards, it couldn't move and had to be removed from the street it was on. http://www.news.com.au/dailytelegraph/story/0,22049,20372915-5006003,00.html

Someone else beat me to it. I think that I am going to continue my personal colection, but these are fun to look at too.

http://www.flickr.com/groups/stickfiguresinperil/pool/