“If you’re twenty-two, physically fit, hungry to learn and be better, I urge you to travel – as far and as widely as possible. Sleep on floors if you have to. Find out how other people live and eat and cook. Learn from them – wherever you go.”
-- Tony

So, I packed my bags and recently moved to New York City, to explore life in its infinite variations and complexities.

I am indeed sleeping on the floor.

Long-term plans include returning to school to likely study nuclear power

hosting dinner parties, all day coffee shop reading, discovering something life-changing while reading, riding a bike, making dry martinis, getting lost and not caring, getting lost in Kandinsky's Composition Viii, having a beard, running in inclement weather

my beard, according to my sample size of drunk cowboys at bars that I don't really belong in anyway

Books: The Bridge of San Luis Rey, An Intimate History of Humanity, Born to Run, Man on the Moon, Death and Life of Great American Cities, the Women's Decameron, Chaos: Making a New Science, People's History of the United States, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, On the Road, Fear & Loathing in Las Vegas, Waiting for Godot, A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, Thunder & Sunshine

Movies: Wes Anderson (especially Darjeeling Limited), Kubrick, Quentin Tarantino, Blade Runner, Solaris (1972), Alien, Children of Men, Motorcycle Diaries, Raging Bull, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Submarine, Amelie, Dead Poets Society, Enter the Void, Soviet Animation (especially: Tale of Tales, Hedgehog in the Fog, I Go Seek), Thankskilling, Scott Pilgrim, the Holy Mountain, Fritz the Cat

Music: the Mountain Goats, the Books, Regina Spektor, Flaming Lips, Mogwai, El Ten Eleven, Neutral Milk Hotel, This Will Destroy You, Brian Eno, Yo la Tengo, Modest Mouse, My Bloody Valentine, Led Zeppelin, Radiohead, Matt&Kim, Little Dragon, Grimes, The Xx, Alt-j, Velvet Underground, Rachmaninov, Stravinsky, Dave Brubeck, John Coltrane,

Shows: Breaking Bad, the Office, Anthony Bourdain, the Mighty Boosh, Game of Thrones

Food: Any food that is prepared with attention and care is worth eating. I seek out new food experiences. And good Pho. I have a certain passion for good food, good drinks, and meals shared with friends in a comfortable setting -- sharing meals build friendships. For dinner, I may cook seasonal vegetarian meals to challenge preconceived notions or introduce something completely new. I have spent hours reading everything I find about Cassoulet and Gumbo. Yellow mangoes straight from the tree in Sierra Leone are forever ingrained in my memory. So are three months of only rice and fish sauce.

--running, biking, rock climbing, yoga
--people
--a kitchen knife
--music
--books: to read, to learn from, to better understand the world.

You live in NYC and you know a neighborhood, enclave, local bar, cheap food, coffeeshop, art gallery, concert, architecturally cool building, abandonment, catacomb, or general happening that is worth sharing with a newcomer to the city who's looking for just that sort of thing.

You have lived in another country for an extended period of time and want to talk about it. Especially a developing country, where the lack of electricity and pumping water by hand become your everyday normal.