Please show support for my good friend and cousins band as they play a live concert on a very prominent and nation wide indie radio station on saturday night!

Mom and Dad are coming!

The problem with me and blogs is the fact that I never feel that my life is interesting enough to put down on the internet. Well it is interesting in some obvious Hollywood ways but I never want to risk my job by putting stories on a public blog.

I'm excited this week though because my parents are coming out to NYC for a long weekend. I haven't seen them for several months so that will be great. Not sure what we will do yet, as weird as that sounds being NYC, but I'm sure we will find something fun to do.

Our new apartment is coming along great. We have filled it with ikea furniture that I'm sure will at least last 2 years.

Recently Laura and I were able to escape the city for a little hiking trip in upstate new york. Since we don't have a car we have recently subscribed to a service call zipcar. It is a type of rental car service but cheap to just run around town. You get up to 180 miles in free gas so we went just far enough away to use the full 180 miles round trip. Mouth, our mini cooper, led us there in 90 minutes and it was a beautiful trip. We went to New Palz which is just on the border of the Catskills. After a short afternoon of hiking and getting lost and coming across old nudist men we ventured home but unfortunately hit the rush hour and it took a whopping 4 1/2 hours to get back. Mouth was a great car though...I often think about how he is doing...I hope I get to drive him again soon.

In other news I got to meet Stephen Colbert recently. I bought his new book 2 weeks ago and the seller at Barnes and Noble told me about him coming last week. Thankfully he was coming on one of my days off so I ventured to Union Square. I got there about 2 hours early and got the last seat in the last row of seats, I kid you not. So with about 2 hundred people in front of me and a massive line of roughly 600 behind me I was able to hear him speak for about 5 minutes from his book and then sign for us. I got one signed for me and one for my best friend Travis for his birthday.

Well that all for now, I will add pictures below. Take care everyone.

-Jonathan

Not a lot going on

Its been a while and Julie asked me why I dont update so here it goes.

Laura is trying to get me to run a half marathon with her and her teacher friends. I think I can do it with a lot of training seeing how I'm already walking close to 1.5 miles a day just to get to work (walk to the subway, walk from subway to work, repeat after work). The problem is in the knees. I feel like I inherited dads bad knees, that and I was horrible to them in my adolecent years and they pop and crack all the time, which is quite sad with me only being 23 years old. That being said, my sisters you may tell your children that unless they wear knee pads when they go rollerblading their knees will end up like their uncles, pink and funny looking.

So what have I been doing during my free time? Not much...Actually seeing a lot of movies. I have probably been able to see every "decent" by rottentomatoes.com standards movie out this year. In fact I get kind of sad on my day off when there isnt a movie that just came out that I want to see. So if you need an opinion on a movie I will be able to give it to you no problem because chances are I saw it and if I didnt it isnt worth seeing.

In other news Laura and I went to Six Flags 2 weeks ago. There is a great package that includes charter bus transportation and the ticket for about $50. It gave laura and I a great chance to get out of the city and only took about an hour to get there. I would have to place the park in between Michigans Adventure and Cedar Point caliber. But it was a lot of fun.

In a week I will be returning to michigan for one week to go to a wedding, visit mom and dad and other friends. Honestly I cant wait, mostly because as much as I like New York, it really is an exhausting city. It will be nice to see some green again.

Until next time.

hopefully a new home

So I looked at a new apartment yesterday. It is actually in a great area. Its right on the edge of the financial district in lower manhattan. It took me only about three minutes to walk from the Battery Park train stop or the Wall St. train stop. It is one bedroom out of a loft apartment that is above a pizza shop. The rent is a little bit more than I pay now but it is totally worth it due to the little time it will take to get anywhere in the city and also the amount of stuff there is to do around it. Since it is in lower manhattan, which is the oldest part of the city, the architecture for the small buildings is still sort of harbor feeling which is great and there are several little alley ways with restaurants tucked in them. The apartment even has a washer and dryer, which connected to the room that I would rent so that is both great and not as great.

I have officially bought my ticket home for a week at the end of july, so that should be a lot of fun. Laura and I are doing great and we get to see eachother all the time which is fantastic.

Oh, I now have skype for my webcam so if anyone has those two things let me know and we can talk. Thats all for now.

-Jonathan

Thankfully the virus and infection has gone away. Note to Michelle: yes the doctor told me it was not the name of the virus but the infection that the virus brought on. Though my ear has still yet to pop, my voice and strength are back to normal. Thank you for the research though!

I have been thinking a lot of home lately, not that I want to move back but some small things I miss. I never thought I would say this but I actually miss Meijer sometimes. The ability to go to one store and buy everything is just so convenient and above that at reasonable prices. Or to be able to hop in a car and drive somewhere quickly. I don't want to make it sound like I don't like the city though, there is always something to do and everything is open late. It will be interesting to see where Laura and I go next, we have been lightly talking about Chicago...Time will tell.

Bullous Myringitis: virus that causes Jonathan to hate the last week he has been living because of strong pain to the ear and throut. Also has caused voice loss. Virus is highly contageous therefore Jonathan needs to be out of work for two days.

They found blood on my eardrum this morning at the hospital which caused them to ask if I had been hit on the head or fallen...I simply told them I couldnt remember if I had. I told laura maybe it was a tumor pushing on my ear drum...she didnt like that too much. Turns out it wasnt a tumor afterall.

Life has pretty much been the same since the last update. Slowly starting to look for a new place and slowly getting sadder by how much apartments cost. I got a $4/hr raise so I'm at $22/hr however weekly it only makes me have about $15 more dollars due to the fact that my health insurance has kicked in. Oh well, glad I waited to get sick until I had that.

I'm going back to sleep. Leave me one

-Jonathan

Holy. Cow. It has been a long time since I have had the ability to write. For that I am sorry to my following of 3 people.

Anyway, what have I been doing in the past month. One word; Working. All in all work has been great along with life in general. Laura and I are doing great. She is currently in L.A. visiting her older sister so it is bachelor week for me.

My best friend and soon to be best man Travis came out at the beginning of March which was alot of fun.

Behind us is a restaurant called Chocolate by the bald man. Probably our favorite restaurant in the city. The drinking chocolate is great enough but Laura and I had to get the smores the first time we went.

If you think I look unhappy it is actually quite the opposite, I am suffering of chocolate overdose. It took 3 days to recover.

One of laura roasting the 'mallow.

Story Time:

My birthday was last thursday, happy birthday to me, the night before my birthday brought me something of a suprise. I was currently quickly counting my money at work wanting to not spend a second longer when one of my managers rushes to the back and in a frenzy starts to call someone and outloud saying how he had to get rid of some tickets. My ears perked up at once. So after inquiring about what was going on I found out the concierge has two tickets to Wicked and needed to get rid of them after the person who bought them ended up not being able to go. Along with that they were for free. The downside is that it was currently 7:35 and the show started at 8:00. I told him I would take them and he agreed and I quickly called laura (who was in her pajamas, let her kill me if she reads this) and told her that she could see both a broadway show for free and the show she wanted to see the most all in one night...if she could get to the theatre district in 20 minutes. Get this, the girl almost got on the subway......I told her she was crazy and to take a cab and I'll pay when she gets there. Luckly I still had my suit on so I looked NYC presentable and without thinking I punched out and ran. I ran for 10 blocks and 2 avenues and got there in 10 minutes (hey, its a long trek). Laura showed up 5 minutes before the show started and we rushed in. Now seeing how these were free and each were worth $250 I figured they would be good.....boy was I wrong.......they were the best seats in the house. Fourth row-Center!!! Can you believe that??? Needless to say the show was fantastic and won me bonus karma points with laura.

In other news I finally met my big boss, who isnt really my boss, but kinda is. Also a certain "dirty dancer" from the 80's is in house so I'll be meeting them probably tomorrow.

My parents come in a couple weeks which should be fantastic, not only because they are bringing my stuff (why I dont show you my room that consists of a air mattress and tv) but more because I miss them, I really do, so it will be great.

Okay, I'll be posting more in a couple weeks when I have my computer, the only reason I could now was because Laura was so nice to let me use hers for the week.

-Jonathan

What I have been waiting 2 months for

So if you have read this blog at all you know I have recently been in New York City for 2 months now. I have completed about 100 applications and in the first month got one interview at the end of it. February was a bit nicer to me because I took my fathers advice. He told me the moment a company wanted to hire me I would get about 5 calls from other hotels. It happened. Trump Intl. hotel one of the cities leading hotels hired me for real yesterday. You know what happened about 5 minutes after? I got a call from another hotel wanting to interview me for a night manager position. I might go to the interview if I can just because I have always wanted to work with this company for as long as I knew I wanted to work in hotels. The interview would give me a great look at the culture and if it is good for me in the future. For now though I am going to start my post-graduate career at Trump.

I have also put money down on a room for rent. It is a room in Brooklyn and is a sublet until August. By then I can decide if I want to spend the outrageous money for my own apartment and more importantly if I can afford it. The rent starts on March 1 which will also be close to the day my best friend from home comes out to visit.

This weekend will be pretty mellow, hoping to sleep in a lot. Maybe I'll take some pictures of Laura and I around the city. Not sure what we are doing for Valentines Day yet, maybe go to the Empire State Building, kinda cheesy but oh well.

-Jonathan

Dont jump into the deep end if you cant swim

I had my second interview at Trump Intl. yesterday and met with the General Manager. It was great to see a GM of a top 6 hotel of NYC very calm and collected. He genuinely seemed interested to just chat with me and didn't act rushed. It really said something about the culture of the hotel. After that was done the HR person came back to see me and told me they wanted to offer me a position on accounts that my references checked out and my drug test came back okay. SWEET! If everything works out I will definitely take the job.

After the interview at Trump I braved the arctic winds rushing at me and arrived at the Hilton NY for my next interview with a wind blown Afro. Let me start by saying this hotel is a polar opposite from Trump. Trump is about 200 rooms where the Hilton NY is the largest hotel in the city at 2,000 rooms. Not only was the size an opposite from Trump, I felt like everything was out of control and rushed. To add to this I felt that I was over my head when they asked me what my management style was....I have never felt like ending and interview before until then. I wanted to say, "I'm sorry, maybe we misunderstood each other. You obviously have seen my resume before the interview and have noticed I don't have much experience as a manager so why did you call me in if you are only going to act like I'm crazy for wanting to pursue housekeeping management? I'm going to let myself out." I understood they just "wanted to me to know what I might be getting myself into", but come on, as much as it is an interview to me I'm also interviewing the hotel.

What the experience really showed me is that I should grow within a company and not jump in to water that is deeper than I am.

-Jonathan

Okay, so I'm a bit excited today. I got a call back from Trump Intl Hotel wanting me in for a second interview on Monday and also that day I will be interviewing at the Hilton NY for a mystery position. Okay, it's not a true "mystery" but I had no idea what position it was for when I accepted the interview, I have applied for roughly 100 positions in the last month and thats not an over statement. Well I looked back over my e-mail today and found out I only applied for a housekeeping Manager position there so I'm hoping thats what it is for.

In other news the wedding seems to be exactly on track for being a year and five months away. We have the Eberhard center booked for June 28 2008 and we just booked the church which is Westminster Presbyterian Church in downtown Grand Rapids where Rev. Ann will be marrying Laura and I. I have never met Rev. Ann but she seems nice.

No big plans for the weekend, if anyone wants to fly out and visit just come on over, there is room! Have a great weekend everyone!

-Jonathan

This picture is what made me title my blog what it is. While I have yet to see an alligator in New York there is a possible rat in lauras apartment. Dad thought we should name it Ben...

I'm starting to get bored

When I get bored I spend money. Spending money when you dont have a job is not good. But not having a job makes a person bored. Its a never ending cycle! My interview at the company the other day went well. I will find out today or tomorrow if the job is going to be open and if it is then I will go in for another interview. New York is a tough place, I mean I never thought it would be easy but I also never thought I would have to go back to square one. It feels like to even get a front desk position here you need years of experience and a degree.

First Post

Okay, so I'm gonna really try to make this a blog that I write on at least once a week.

I have been in NYC for a little over 2 weeks now and am still jobless. I apply for on average one position a day so I feel it will change for me soon. Because my fiancee Laura does not have an internet connection in her apartment I have to either go to Barnes and Nobles in Union Square and fight the hordes in the cafe to pay $4.00/2 hours or go to my favorite upper east side cafe: Effy's (sister Julie got a taste of what he has to offer on her trip here). This is because most of the job applications are done online.

I'm having a lot of fun so far though which is good. My days are much the same though. I wake up when Laura is leaving at the crack of dawn to move her way uptown to go to work and I go back to sleep for another hour or so. Then I wake up and watch a bit of fuzzy local tv. Once I'm done with that I make my way out to either internet spot that I spoke of above and then I find some place to wander around until it is time for Laura to come home and we make dinner and watch fuzzy tv again. If you were a bit curious what the current pad looks like well I just happened to take a few pictures.

This is the view from her bedroom

Street outside of her apartment

Every time I want to come home I have to walk up 5 stories

Kitchen

Livingroom

Okay, so I'm done job searching for now but I did get my first interview for monday. It is just a front desk agent position but their starting wages are $18.50/hr and can go up by experience, so hopefully that will work out. It is with a group of hotels called Affinia. Visit them at http://www.affinia.com

So have a great day everyone!

-Jonathan