Well, I’m posting this from New York… finally decided to spend the stupid $15 to get internet my last night here because I needed to confirm my flight tomorrow and such. You’ll notice two other backdated entries that I just posted… those were written in the previous two days here. Whee.

I am completely exhausted right now. Went on a 10-hour tour (8:45 AM to 6:45 PM) of New York today. Absolutely amazing. First we drove around this area a bit, looking around Times Square and such. Then we went to Battery Park and got on a ferry for the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. Spent about an hour on the ferry there and back, and about an hour looking at the Ellis Island museum. Went for lunch, and stopped to look at ground zero where the WTC towers used to stand. Then went to the United Nations for a guided tour. Then drove around for another 2 hours while the guide showed us just about every part of NY (from 1st street up to 115th street), including the cathedrals, ethnic neighborhoods, expensive shopping places, big scary tower things, etc. Wow, this city never ceases to amaze me.

There will be pictures later tonight. I need to go through and batch them. You’ll probably find them both on Alan’s Photos 2 and this journal (as a new page, complete with my comments and such). Not sure when I’ll get them posted though… I still need to eat and pack everything.

Speaking of eating, breakfast was an amazing yogurt parfait and fresh lemonade. Lunch was provided by the tour and was a chicken sandwich with fries. Dinner is a turkey pesto wrap with authentic New York cheesecake (with strawberries, of course) for dessert. I’d love to eat like this every day… except it’s cost me well over $40 for food for the past two days, so meh. Too rich for my blood, but as long as Fog Creek is paying for it, I feel like I can indulge a little.
…
Wow, that makes me sound like a terrible person. I mean, I’m on vacation, so I can indulge a little? Meh.

Heh, this is the longest I’ve gone without internet (two days) in, um… forever? Even when I was in Thailand two summers ago, I used my cousin’s computer the first few days, and then got an internet card (like phone cards here) to access it.

Well, the interview itself went okay, I guess. Was asked about 5 programming questions, no personal questions. Whee. Had some trouble with the n-ary tree algorithms (getNextNode, getPrevNode), but meh… got it to work eventually. I think my implementation (using a linked list to store the children) was a bad idea. If it was Java, I guess I would have used a Vector for simpler access and whatnot. Whee. The other stuff seemed fairly straightforward.

Walked around New York for a couple hours. This city is so huge… still quite overwhelming. It doesn’t seem as scary as it did last night though… maybe the sunlight helps. Went to Central Park, walked around for a while, looked at Times Square. Whee. Will walk around more tonight when I look for dinner. Mark suggested I get pizza, so I think I will do just that.
Signed up for an official city tour tomorrow… figured a guide would be much better at showing me places that I could do myself. The trip also goes to the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, so it should be interesting.

Still amazingly impressed with the hotel. The bathroom is HUGE… I think this is the first time in years that I’ve incredibly looked forward to my nightly shower. Yay.

I think I’ll pay for internet for 24 hours, starting tomorrow night, so I can check-in to my flight tomorrow afternoon. That means I’ll be online then… although I guess since I won’t be posting this entry until then, so writing this is kinda pointless. Wheee!

Edit: Mark, you give good advice. I am now full of the most incredible spinach and mushroom pizza I have ever eaten, along with an amazingly rich hunk of tiramisu. I can’t decide which is better: that, or the broiled and grilled chipped beef with potato pancakes (with applesauce, of course!) I had for lunch today. Why is NY food so good?
I’m feeling very, very happy right now. You know what? I went in there today and I did my best. I am happy with my performance on all the interview questions. The company seems like a remarkable place to work. Best case, I get hired. Worst case, I did my best and I’m happy with it… and I get a free trip to NY, all expenses paid (including that incredible pizza I just had tonight). And I got practice for future interviews. I went in there today not expecting anything… not worrying about if I get this or not… I went in there just intending to do my best and be me. If they like me, great. If not, oh well, there will be other opportunities later. I am confident in my skills and proud of what I’ve accomplished.

And holy shit… Times Square at night. Enough said. There will be pictars.
I should sleep soon so I can wake up for the 9 AM city tour.