As Mark Twain wrote, “Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted.”

I haven’t done one of these topic-less, rambling, venting blogs in quite some time. Tonight, I’m alone in a hotel room, I’m far from home, I’m feeling somewhat morose, and I need an outlet. If you’re allergic to random useless information, now might be a good time to stop reading and go have a beer.

Thus began a day in the life of a geek for hire. The alarm went off at 7:30, and the room was cold enough to hang meat.* It seems my thermostat has two positions: SWEAT and SHIVER. I’d rather shiver. As I rose from the bed I discovered another problem. I seemed to have strained something. My hamstring muscles were so sore it hurt to walk. Great. I staggered to the shower and applied copious amounts of hot water. The condition improved, however slightly.

As I got out of the shower, as if on cue, the cell phone rang. I answered it without looking, which was in retrospect a big mistake. For the next half hour, an all-too-familiar female voice proceeded to remind me in excruciating detail just how rubbish I am. By the time I could extricate myself from that joyous dialogue, it was getting quite late. I dressed, stumbled downstairs, and contemplated the subway. Two flights of stairs down, a stand-up ride on a sardine-packed train, and two flights back up at the other end. That sounded painful. I walked half a block west to Broadway in search of a taxi.

Broadway is perhaps the busiest thoroughfare in Manhattan. It runs from north to south, the length of the island. It’s normally lousy with taxicabs, honking and lurching and careening from one near-collision to another. From tall buildings they look like yellow cockroaches. It stands to reason, then, that on the only day of the trip that I chose to take a cab, there were none. Oh, several drove by in the 15 minutes I stood on the corner, but all of them were full. Not one available cab came my way. I heaved a heavy sigh and hobbled up to 79th street, then down into the subway station where the temperature was approximately 3000 degrees. Celsius. The train hove into sight, I crammed myself into the clot of people in the nearest car, and was transported with jolting alacrity to 66th street. My cell phone rang again. This time I looked first.

Arriving at ABC, I got my pass from security and stepped onto an elevator. Elevators in New York are wonderful! Have you ever noticed that in most places, it seems the “DOOR CLOSE” button isn’t connected? You can press it over and over, and the door will still close when it damn well pleases. Not so here. New Yorkers don’t like to waste time, and people who work in network television count seconds. Press the DOOR CLOSE button in these elevators, and by the time the switch bottoms, the door’s gliding shut. I pressed B1 and the elevator deposited me in the crisply air-conditioned technical complex two floors below ground.

I looked at my cell phone, and as expected, it proclaimed the good news. NO SERVICE. I headed to the control room, sat down in front of the console, plugged in my laptop, and checked the status of the ongoing software work back in Atlanta. As it turns out, nothing was ready. That meant that for most of the morning, I would have little to do other than some more rudimentary testing of the existing configuration, and a bit of consulting with the engineers.

There are lots of engineers at ABC. It’s quite interesting. The operation is so huge, with such mind-boggling amounts of equipment, that there are three engineering departments just to handle audio and video gear alone. “Engineering” does all the planning, technical design, drafting, and equipment specification. They design any new facilities, and plan any needed modifications of existing ones. I’ve worked with several of these folks; they’re unique in their ability to juggle several complex projects and keep them all moving forward.

Then there’s SMAG, the Systems Maintenance and Assembly Group. These are the engineers who actually put it all together — they install the gear, pull and route any necessary wiring, handle the task of interfacing it with the remainder of the facility, configure it, and make it work. These guys are true professionals, experienced, skilled, and dedicated. Give ’em a drawing, they’ll give you a control room.

Once the control room’s substantially finished, it becomes the responsibility of a third engineering department called NTM, Network Technical Maintenance. These are the guys who come running when a video monitor starts making that annoying singing noise during a broadcast, or when a crucial piece of equipment chooses an inopportune moment to fold. These engineers spend years learning the ins and outs of every wire, plug, monitor, tape machine, power supply, nut, bolt, screw and jackfield in the whole vast complex. Two of these fellows even came to Atlanta last year, to learn the care and feeding of our consoles.

So, these folks wandered in and out, and I answered questions, and between those times I had some coffee, answered my e-mail, poked at the console every few minutes to ensure it was still happy with life, and appreciated my surroundings.

The room where our console’s being installed is TV6 … facilities here have rather arbitrary numbers. World News Tonight is produced in TV3, and among other things, TV6 acts as its backup in the event that TV3’s control room is out of action. It’s a well-equipped room, big enough to handle a complex broadcast like this without difficulty. On the monitor wall in front are banks of video monitors displaying everything that might conceivably be needed … cameras, remote feeds, videotape, servers, electronic graphics, DVE … all of it. Even the two major competing networks and their local outlets have their place on the wall. This is, as you might guess, a really fun place to sit. At the audio console are two color monitors and several small black-and-white ones that can be switched to anything the audio operator might want to see, and in the rack within arm’s reach is a router head that allows the operator to route any of hundreds of audio sources into a dozen or so console inputs. From my chair, I could call up the sound for any of the pictures on the monitors on the front wall. Geek heaven.

I watched a very cool rehearsal for tomorrow’s Space Shuttle launch. A few more button presses and I could even listen in on the director’s circuit, hearing his calls to camera operators, graphics people, the technical director**, and other production folks.

On another monitor was the live feed from Kennedy Space Center. I watched people walk around on the press site, heard reporters filing stories for later broadcast, and heard even the press conferences and interviews that ABC didn’t air. It was like being omniscient, just for a little while. I enjoyed it.

I had a pleasant lunch with some folks from Engineering. My friend Steve told me a story that I wish I could repeat to you, but I can’t because I dislike being hunted down and killed. It’s funny, it’s ironic, and it would embarrass some highly placed people if it ever got out. The ABC commissary has changed catering companies since I was last there. The coffee is better, but the food’s gone downhill a bit.

The afternoon was a repeat of the morning. “Hurry up and wait” was the prevailing theme. I monitored the console, did more testing, assisted with troubleshooting of a non-console problem, and watched World News Tonight from my all-seeing chair.

At around 7 PM, I hailed a cab (easily, this time) and came back to the hotel, changed my shirt, and went back out in search of dinner. I had planned to go to a nice place on 79th street that serves really good Buffalo chicken, but a look through the window revealed it to be more crowded than the morning subway had been. I wandered instead to a small cafe’ on 74th street and had a Gyro and some iced tea … which was exceptional, as usual. It’s true, you really can’t get a bad meal in New York. A mediocre coffee shop in New York would be considered a four-star restaurant in Atlanta. Food is serious business here.

Speaking of food, the upper west side of New York boasts a restaurant which serves the best Chinese food in the world***. Hunan Park is a small, modest restaurant that consistently gets Zagat’s four-star rating, a well-deserved honor.

I have a favorite dish. It’s Kung-Pao Chicken. It’s a hard dish to prepare correctly, but the results are spectacular. Dried chinese peppers, peanuts, and oil are stir-fried … this causes the peanuts to absorb the pepper oil and take on the flavor of the peppers. Then, at just the right moment, diced chicken, scallions, and other vegetables are added along with a special, pepper-based savory sauce. The peppers are left in. If you like heat, you can eat them. If you don’t, you just eat around them.

Some restaurants use the same sweet sauce they use for other chicken dishes. WRONG. Some throw the peanuts in as an afterthought, leaving them uncooked and flavorless. WRONG. Sime places don’t even bother dicing the chicken! WRONG! In a lifetime of searching, I’ve found only three restaurants that can make this dish correctly: Szechuan in my home town of Charlottesville, VA, Chinese Pagoda in Douglasville, GA, and Hunan Park here in New York. Of the three, Hunan Park takes the prize. I’ve eaten there every single time I’ve visited the city, since my engineer friend told me about it, and I’ve always gotten perfect food!

It’s a tiny place. The walls are covered with pictures of celebrities, posed in the usual impromptu way with the restaurant’s owner. Most are autographed. Alan Alda, who has mentioned the restaurant on talk shows and in interviews, has several photos on the wall, along with former mayor Giuliani, Harrison Ford, and a host of other familiar faces. Efficient but very polite waiters are standing by to show you to a seat, provide you with a refreshing glass of water and a bowl of fried noodles, and take your order. They speak little english but know their business, it’s never a struggle to make your needs understood.

The food is prepared quickly and delivered piping hot. The egg drop soup is tasty, and not overly salty as many are. The egg rolls are crisp, light and flavorful. It took three visits to Hunan Park before I noticed that there was no salt, pepper, soy sauce, or other condiments on my table. While these are graciously provided upon request, they’re never on the table unless you’ve asked for them. I didn’t notice, for three entire visits, because for the first time in recent memory, I didn’t need those things, at all. I’ve never been the type of person who seasons his food before tasting it, and the food here needs nothing. It’s perfect.

One would expect a four-star restaurant to have matching prices. Nope. It’s unbelievably inexpensive, particularly when you consider that it’s in New York. I had a very satisfying meal there on Sunday night, and walked out only twenty dollars lighter than when I walked in — including a generous gratuity.

If you’re ever in New York City and want an exquisitely flawless Chinese meal that you will remember for years, Hunan Park is the place to visit. It’s on Columbus Avenue between 70th and 71st streets.

I stopped at the market for a late night snack. Markets here are another phenomenon. I wish I could somehow do my grocery shopping in New York each week. Everything’s fresh, local, and of top-notch quality. I brought a nice, thin, crusty italian bread, and a wedge of English cheese called “Red Leicester” which I’ve never tried. It’s not at all red, it’s orange. I will overlook that bit of false advertising and give it a go, though.

When I walked in a short while ago, my thermostat had been set back to SWEAT by the thoughtful housekeeping lady. I’ve now set it back to SHIVER and am enjoying the few precious moments when the temperature passes through the comfort range. It’s been nice to visit here again, but I miss my cats and my birds, I miss my apartment, and I’m ready to go home. It’s a little lonely here.

With that, I think I’ll turn the TV on and chill out for a while. Literally. If you’ve read this far, and actually absorbed any of this drivel, you deserve an award. You’re a very special person and you should consult a mental health professional immediately. 🙂 Good night!

* Don’t go there, Omally.
** You British folks call him a Vision Mixer, which makes much more sense to me.
*** You might — MIGHT — find better in China, but I doubt it.