Round Trip

True at breakfast on October 10, Grandpa's birthday! Anna was in Australia.

I few to New York for meetings on Sunday, October 12.

It's a long flight through the night, nearly over the North Pole. I arrived in the afternoon.

To stay awake for the rest of the day, I went to the Museum of Modern Art, just a couple of blocks from my apartment. I like this painting by Chaim Soutine, a Russian painter who lived in Paris. He was Morris Stewart's age.

The Moma garden at sundown.

That evening, I took the train up to Hudson to visit my good friend Nick. The next day was Columbus Day, and my birthday, so I had the day off. He has one of the cutest dogs I've ever seen.

I caught the train back down to N.Y. on Monday afternoon so that I could have my birthday dinner with Sky. We had steaks at Capital Grille on 51st Street.

On Wednesday, Mako came into town and met Sky and me at the apartment I was staying at. 

We then met Sander for dinner at Il Vagabondo, a wonderful Italian restaurant that Sander introduced me to. Nina was busy but showed up at the end.

On Friday, I flew to Dallas for a reunion with Todd, Mark and Roger. We had a very good time.

We went to visit the  museum on the sixth floor of the Texas Book Depository, from where Lee Harvey Oswald shot J.F.K. It was fascinating, though I didn't take pictures. 

I did take a picture of this demonstration that afternoon on the famous grassy knoll overlooking the spot where Kennedy was shot. The demonstrators were calling for the legalization of marijuana. It smelled like a midwestern college dorm.

Todd also took us to the Stockyards in Forth Worth. The neighborhood has retained it's Western small town atmosphere.

Uncle Mark!

You can smoke in Texas restaurants and bars and, apparently, even bring in your licensed firearms. But you can't bring your unlicensed guns or you might go to jail. 

We went to have beers in a place called the White Elephant Saloon, supposedly once frequented by such Old West characters as Wyatt Earp and Bat Masterson. It was a nice bar, the kind of place I've always liked for some reason.

The walls and ceiling of the bar were decorated with people's cowboy hats. We found one from someone named Mark 'Slim' Smith. I liked that.

Slim, himself.

The bar had live music, too! 

'Those were the days when kids were raised... with a Bible and a belt."

Next, I flew to Jacksonville to visit Mom. This is at the Fleet Landing formal dining room. The food is excellent, though I was told by a resident that I wasn't supposed to be wearing bluejeans there.

The view is lovely.

We saw an enormous turkey vulture preening on a chimney and watched it until it eventually took off.

We took a tour outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. Fleet Landing is a beautiful place.

Where's Waldo?

We sat and watched the egrets and talked for a while under this gazebo.

Red, white and blue!

A beautiful flock of Canadian Geese flew by.

The geese.

There is an egret's nest on top of the gazebo on the island in the lagoon.

Mom on the road.

On another beautiful day, we bought bagels and coffee and went out onto the Jacksonville Beach fishing pier to eat. The weather was perfect - fresh, but neither hot nor cold.

We had a beautiful view of the beach.

I flew back to New York for a big meeting. I took Sky and two of his roommates to eat at Sparks Steak House on 46th Street. 

The restaurant is most famous as the place where Mob boss Paul Castellano was gunned down in 1985 by hit men working for John Gotti, who watched the murder from a parked car across the street. I remember when it happened. 

Anna and I later lived around the corner from Gotti's Ravenite social club on Mulberry Street and I saw him several times before he was finally convicted of the murder.

Park Avenue

When I got back to Hong Kong, I was jet lagged, which is kind of nice because I wake up very early in the mornings. This is from the balcony on my first morning back.