Come and vote for HTW HERE.














.

You can see all of this at MY BLOG, but I will just place it here too.

I decided to rent out a small apartment for a few days during the NWP/NCTE (National Writing Project & National Council for Teachers of English) conference I reserved a place on 55 Morton Street in Greenwich Village (
View Larger Map). Greenwich village is awesome! The locals are great! The coffee shops, music stores, and restaurants were wonderful. I never felt unsafe as I walked back to my place alone at 1 or 2 in the morning. (The rest of the conference attendees stayed up in Times Square.)

I will say, however, that I got a taste of what it is like to live in a REALLY old building. I figured that I would be given a place with a nice view and a clean room. I knew that I would not come back in the evenings to find my bed made with a piece of chocolate on the pillow. I knew the final cleaning would be up to me. However, I did not expect what I encountered.

The Interesting Surprises:

I checked out the shower because a clean shower is important. If I had been in a horror movie, I would have heard a shrieking noise when I pulled back the shower curtain. I don't know what kind of substance it was, but I knew that I would not be able to take standing on it. I also knew that, being November, I wouldn't be able to find flip-flops to wear in there. I decided to just stand on a towel.

There were two air conditioners, one in the kitchen and one in the bedroom/den/dining room. I went to turn on the one in the kitchen to find that it was turned off...or so I thought. I realized it was not plugged in. I looked for a nearby plug and realized that the plug was 3 pronged, but the outlet was two pronged. Lest I die a fiery death, I thought I better not break off that third prong. The other air conditioner was not plugged in either, but luckily I found a plug for it. I plugged it in and hit the high button. When it started it had reminded me of a muffled motorbike engine as if you were standing about 30 yards away. I didn't sleep well that night, but I learned that setting it on Medium stopped the sound.

I really shouldn't blame the sleeplessness on the air conditioner, though. I found that the window's blinds were rather bothersome. You see, when I am asleep, I don't mind people watching me. However, when I am going to sleep and I think someone is watching me, it makes it rather difficult to drift off. The blinds beside the bed stopped about 2 feet before the bottom. Outside was a fire escape, and I kept imagining that someone was either watching me from an opposing window or sitting on the fire escape and staring. Eventually, I just stacked pillows from the futon and some bags in front of the window to make sure.

In the morning, I awoke with just enough time to take a shower and sprint to the subway to go 25+/- blocks uptown to the conference. I ran in there threw back the shower curtain, threw a towel in the bottom of the shower, grabbed the handle to turn on the water, and then I realized it was in my hand; that is, it was no longer attached to the faucet. I tried to turn the little screw with my fingers, but found that I was not able to do so. After about 3 minutes of learning how to put the handle back on, I was good to go, though mildly irritated.

The only other element that was broken was the phone. I went to call a local restaurant to see when it closed and found that the phone was dead. That was okay, because I had my cell phone. However, what if I HAD plugged in that first air conditioner after breaking off the 3rd prong on the plug. What if it HAD caught on fire. I might have died.

Vote for Hideous Tie Wednesday on my blog
http://esoterium.us/blog/?tag=hideous-tie-wednesday
To read other entries, just go to http://esoterium.us/blog

If you want to see what is going on with me, check my real blog. I have other stuff that you might find interesting as well.

My blog address: http://esoterium.us/blog

My website address http://esoterium.us
However, here is the latest news:
If you are wondering how Martha is feeling, this photo should give you an idea.

Enjoy the show:

One correction: he is 7 inches, not 4.

If you are interested in seeing pictures of the trip I took with Martha to Bergen, Norway to visit Brian and Stephanie, go to www.bendavisvhhs.com and click on PICTURES. I posted three pages of pictures there (pick a number).

Also, I have posted a whole bunch of them at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/benjamindavis2000/

Enjoy! Check back soon for updates.

Ben