August Recap

I’m currently on day four of a rare twelve-day stint home in NYC and it feels pretty glorious. As much as I love traveling for work, it’s nice to go to a grocery store, do some home-cooking, and take a small break from LaGuardia airport!

It’s also nice to take a breath and reflect on what a fantastic past month I’ve had to round out the summer. August was my fifth full month with the new gig in New York and if it’s any sort of tell – the future looks bright.

August began with a fun weekend in the city hanging out with friends and checking out a new rooftop bar.

For work I headed to Boston which is one of my favourite cities. The trip was fun because I actually took the train from Penn Station in New York. It’s about a 3.5 hour ride and the train is really nice – comfy, easy to work, and quiet cars make it nice for concentration. In Boston I got to go for three separate runs and every time you jog in that city you’re inspired by the incredible running community and history. One day I’ll run on Boylston St. towards a finish line I hope.

The weekend after Boston was amazing. I played beach volleyball in Brooklyn with some friends on a court that’s right on the East River staring back at the Manhattan Skyline – fantastic way to start a Saturday morning.

But the weekend was really stolen by Sunday, August 11th as my good buddy Dave hooked us up with free VIP tickets to the final round of the Northern Trust Open.

This is the first FedEx Cup playoff event on the PGA tour and featured all of the best players on Liberty National Golf Club – just a quick ferry ride from lower Manhattan, around the Statue of Liberty and over to Jersey City.

The golf course is wild with stunning views everywhere and Dave and I had such a fun time – we walked pretty much all corners of the course and then hung out in the PGA Tour suite on the 17th green to enjoy our free beverages and snacks. I definitely felt spoiled and am in serious debt to Dave for taking me along!

The next day I was off to Austin, TX for the week. I already wrote about ATx in the last post and can’t wait to head back.

When I arrived back from Austin I had one day before welcoming my sister Dan for a quick weekend trip. She actually ended up staying at my place after I left as she had work to do in the city and she took full advantage of living the NYC life! We had an excellent weekend together – checking out restaurants, shopping (she helped me buy jeans with holes in the knees), walking TONS, more shopping, more eating at Smorgasburg in Prospect Park, Brooklyn, and just hilarious chats.

We talked lots about how nice it is to just be brother and sister aka friends, and not always feel like we need to talk about business or which one of us is going to follow-up with a tutor or reply to a client email.

It was sad leaving Dan on Monday afternoon because we had such a fun weekend together and it sucks that I can’t hang regularly with her, Steve and Finn on a random Tuesday or Sunday. At least I was off to another great city.

Our project team co-located in Chicago for work which meant catching up with my friend Laura – always fun seeing her and she was a great tour guide. We grabbed a beer by the river after work, then she took us around to a couple really stellar rooftops in the West Loop for dinner and drinks.

I always forget how nice Chicago is – so clean and quite picturesque from anywhere downtown because of the river. It’s also got a great running path both along the river and along Lake Michigan.

From Chicago I flew back to Connecticut to celebrate the wedding of two friends from my Hartford days. It was at a delightful lakefront venue and I had a ball catching up with people I hadn’t seen in a while.

While there I was fortunate to stay at Dominic and Jen’s beautiful house (I lived in their basement in CT in 2012) so it was just like old times with non-stop banter, a cheeky round of golf and plenty of laughs.

Finally just last week I flew from Hartford to Dallas for some training which was both exhausting and rewarding. I felt like I learned lots and did some solid networking. It’s funny being the trainee and watching/listening to presenters especially after years of teaching seminars and working so hard to engage audiences.

I can already tell that work is going to be nuts in September, but I also have two amazing sets of visitors to look forward to: my Mum and Dad are coming down from Toronto to complete the child tour for six days, then a complete gong show from Winnipeg is headed down for a weekend of hilarity. Andrea and Ryan, Jill and Sean, and Lyndsey and Danny will embark on the Big Apple and I’ll try and play host for what’s sure to be a fun-filled weekend.

August certainly gave me lots to be thankful for and if September shapes up like it’s looking, I’m excited for what lies ahead.

Thanks for reading,

Mike