Celebrity Alert: Kate Connor and Andy Hirsch.

I like film festivals. There is a huge energy, and a lot of enthusiasm from everyone. We've made new friends (always do), and run into an old one (Neil from CATAPLEXY). Met Kate Connor and Andy Hirsch yesterday. Both actors with long and distinguished careers. Lovely people, too. Very grounded and plain nice. And yes, they are as attractive in person as they appear on the screen.

Long Island, New York and riding on a well-built rain system

If you look at a map, Long Island, New York, seems like it should be saturated by New York City. The Big Apple. Visions of a metropolitan mega-sprawl. Queens is definitely this way, but yesterday we grabbed the train out to Stony Brook. Long Island has an extremely efficient rail system. Out here, in Stony Brook, everything is very well spaced out, and it feels much more like I'm in the countryside, very far from any city. Quite beautiful.

Jamaica, New York, Part 2

Kristi and I have arrived in New York City. We flew into JFK tonight, and we're staying at the Best Western in Jamaica, New York. It is just outside JFK. Of course, JFK is so huge, there is an incredible amount of territory "just outside" of it.

I had forgotten that "airport" is a contraction of two words "air" and "port". When I remember that, I view the port of air very differently. I remember to look and see and notice the incredible diversity of people, especially those whose native language is not English. During the 5-hour flight from Seattle, I sat next to a woman from India. She was flying into NYC to see her daughter.

Here at the Best Western, we rode with a family of four on the shuttle from JFK. I have no idea what language they were speaking, and Kristi did not recognize it either. We've both had some exposure to Europe, so we can at least recognize most languages. I'm thinking it might have been Greek or one of the Southern European languages. The father very much had a university professor look about him.

We'll take the train to Stony Brook tomorrow. Kristi's film - SOMETHING SPECIAL - shows before FORT MCCOY, which includes Camryn Manheim and Eric Stoltz in the cast. I'll let you know if either are here :)

If you know anyone near Stony Brook, let them know about the showing at 7 PM, on July 22, 2011.

Whenever I fly into an airport or new place, I try to view it with fresh eyes. I want to see how different parts of America are different than others. Sometimes, it's a lot of hard work. One giant airport is very much like another, anywhere in the world. JFK is different in one way - it is so huge, it actually has large tracks of concrete that have not been used in a long time. That was interesting - grass growing through the cracks and things.

I'll let you know how the train trip goes tomorrow :)

Jamaica, New York

Depending on how you Google it, Jamaica, New York, either really exists, or is just a fancy name for Queens. I'm really rusty on my history of New York City, but I think Queens is a borough, so I suspect that Jamaica was once a town or other municipality that got absorbed by the Big Apple. Sort of link CenturyTel absorbing a different company, changing the name to CenturyLink, then absorbing Qwest (and the Qwest brand will likely cease to exist entirely in a few years). I'm telling you, Judge Green is seriously unhappy about this (q.v. the 1984 breakup of AT&T).

Episodic

I'm a terrible blogger. Good bloggers are consistent and eloquent. I'm a random text bleeder. :)