...but I'm back.

Luke and I had a great trip to NYC. We managed to dodge the hurricane going into the city, and once there, it was a nice weather weekend.

We watched panels on the media and screenwriting and listened to Dave Eggers and ZZ Packer read excerpts from their latest works of fiction.

The whole gang from "The Mighty Wind" movie performed a concert Saturday night, and it was fun to be there in the middle of New York City with a sold out audience for this cool event.

Luke and I managed to down a few calories...Afghanistan food the first night (not in our own private room though) (inside joke), cheesecake at the Brooklyn Diner, Greek food and Italian sausage at the street fair, bagels and cream cheese, and a 'slice' at Penn Station.

We didn't get mugged, even when we went to the 'evil' lower east side on Friday night.

And we both agreed that the upper east side (Madison Ave) is a place we don't care about visiting again.

We checked out the Whitney and enjoyed it immensely.

Our hotel (Portland Square) was little more than a NY version of Motel 6, but it was safe and sound and convenient to Times Square and everything, really.

All in all, we had a great time! We're hoping more can join us next year for our annual trek to the Big Apple!