The pictures above were taken from the rooftop of my friends' beautiful new apartment building in the Hell's Kitchen neighborhood of Manhattan; just west of Times Square. The visible white glow in the distant foreground of the photo is the glow from all the neon and lights in Times Square.

On Monday I was on a route that had me running 'troubles' all day. They were mostly internet service problems. I showed up at one job and the guy led me down into his darkened basement where the computer, the router and all his equipment was located. I could see his wide screen monitor from across the room and was intrigued by the photo he had displayed on his computer desktop. I walked over and sat down as he described the trouble he was having. He was one of the few people I encounter in such situations that knew what he was talking about and had done and tried all the right things.

As I sat down and connected my equipment to the cable line I looked more closely at the picture on his PC. It was a night time shot; somewhat distorted. It was clearly NYC as the Empire State Building was partially visible to the right of the photo. As my meter was processing things, a process that takes a couple minutes, I studied his display more closely. I realized that his picture had to have been taken on the same street in Manhattan where my friends live; just an avenue east towards Times Square.

I mentioned to the guy that I was interested in the photo soon after I sat down. The scene looked 'vaguely' familiar to me. I have 4x6 prints of the pictures above paper-clipped with a bunch of others inside my metallic work clip-board. As I waited for my equipment to process the signal readings, I pulled those two photos from my clip-board and I showed him what I meant. I pointed to the distorted buildings in his picture and the real ones in mine. He could see that I was right, he laughed and said, 'That's pretty cool.' He had never been to the city; he just liked the picture he chose to display on his desktop.

I have been on that rooftop many times and, day or night, it is always somewhat 'magical.' For me, seeing his desktop reminded me how truly lucky I am.

Great friends, great times in a great city.
Life gets no better than that.

I look forward to seeing them all there very soon.

I hope all's well with everyone.

Have a Happy Thanksgiving!