One of New York City's newest licensees, plus the Super Bowl

Two tidbits from my end.

First, as of last Friday, the day after Thanksgiving, I passed the exam and became New York City's newest licensee. That having been said, maybe there should be more than just a written exam. The very next day, I suggested to my date, who also lives in Florida, that we take the subway from 61st and Lex to Washington Square, rather than a cab. Within minutes, changing trains at 51st and Lex, at about 2 PM, she was attacked (a street musician spat in her face), begging the question as to whether someone who leads another into being the victim of a subway attack within a day of obtaining his license should really have one, even though the station is normally safe. Anyway, don't tell the New York City Department of Consumer Affairs - I still don't have my actual license, just a piece of paper!

For any of you planning to take the exam, I recommend studying more than I did. I was told most people fail the first time, and while I did pass, I did not make a score high enough to have an asterisk next to my name on the web site, even though I grew up in the New York area, have lived in the city, and visit several times a year. There were a lot of obscure historical questions, a lot of questions about obscure points of interest in Queens and Staten Island hardly any out of town tourist would ever visit that I had never even heard of, and a few questions about New York City traffic laws. I'm not even sure I got the only baseball question right, and I used to co-produce and write the questions for a sports quiz show in cable television. The question pertained to why the Brooklyn Dodgers were originally the Brooklyn Trolley Dodgers - mind you, the Dodgers (not the Trolley Dodgers) haven't even played in Brooklyn since 1955.

I also finally got certified in CPR this week.

Also, Tim and I will be working the Super Bowl in Tampa, providing meet and greets and other hospitality to CBS employees as I understand it, for a company called Sportsmark who recruited me out of ITMI since I live around here. They just wanted local people, which is why I didn't spread the news, except to Tim who mentioned that he frequents these climes in the winter. Anyway, its not exactly going to be big money, either, but I am very much looking forward to it.

I haven't landed anything else firm. Flamingo Educational, the company Clara has some tours with, told me they would use me but nothing has been set up, but I've been very bad about sending out resumes - probably not even a dozen. To give you an idea of how bad I've been about sending out resumes, I haven't even sent a resume yet to Tauck, even though I spent parts of four days a few weeks ago fam touring one of their long-time employees. The good news from her front is that, even though she was selling tours for the first time, people were still signing up tours, so not everyone is scared away by the economy.

Looking forward to seeing some of you in Texas.