Mexico

I was in Mexico D.F. (Districto Federale) for a business trip. This was my first visit down to the D.F. I was pleasantly surprised by the city. For the most part, the area was very clean. The food was great. The people were very helpful. But, bear in mind that it is a BIG city, 22 million people and 8 million cars. I was told that the smog is not as prevalent in the winter because the temps are lower. This help provide a great view of the city and the mountains surrounding it. There is definitely a large separation between the rich and the poor, men still rule the business world, and they take very, very long lunches similar to Spain. I am looking forward to seeing more the next time I head down there...

Mexico, oh mexico

 

"View on way back from aeropuerto"

 

 

 

My Driver

 

A weekend away

I was able to relieve myself from the rigors of NYC life and head down to the Mid Atlantic to hang with my sister. It was exactly what I needed. I was able to focus on what I wanted to in 2007 and the rest of my life. So, I would like to thank my sister and my family to helping me with that.

Side note: It was unusually warm for January. I didn't even wear a coat all weekend. It was good, but not good. It made me think about the whole affect of global warming and how much it had an affect on the weather. Is it really that bad or is it just a wierd patch in the flow of the weather patterns? It's probably a little of both. At least I can take cover in the fact that it was as cold as it should be in Detroit...

Side side note: I saw two movies over the weekend: Night at the Museum and Children of Men. Two completely different movies, but good in their own genre. Night at the museum was heartwarming and funny. Ricky Gervais played a completely hilarious role in the movie. Another thing it did was make me want to visit the Museum of Natural History. Children of Men was a dark futuristic science fiction movie about the whole world becoming infertile and them trying to protect someone who had become pregnant. It had some of the same themes as A Brief History of the Dead. Go see both of them.

Recycle

As most of my confidants know, I am a big proponent of recycling. Just heard a news blurb related to the lack of New Yorkers who are recycling their garbage. Here's my plea to NYers and all other people of the world: Step it up! Do you realize it actually cost $30 more dollars per pound to dispose of regular garbage. You would be saving the city money along reducing our diminishing natural resources. Check out your local recycling options. For New York City, here's a link to see how to correctly recycle: NYC Recyclng

Leaving Iraq

Here are some links for staying or leaving Iraq: FNCL
Gidley
Meet The Press
McGovern
Rand
Buzzle
You cannot leave Iraq unless you have a stable government. Iraq is in a civil war right now. If we were to leave Iraq with unstable leadership, Iran will more than likely take over part of Iraq and who knows what would happen with the Kurdish section of Iraq. As much as I am devastated by the level of death that happens each and every day with our own troops and Iraqi civilian, is it morally right for the US to leave and show more devastation. Of course, this would all be moot if we would have never entered Iraq under false pretenses. I ask the political people in charge of this country to stop thinking about how this will affect their careers and think about what is best for the US, Iraq, AND the rest of the world. Are we better off spending money on a country that we don't own or focusing on domestic? I would say the latter. Unfortunately, we have made our bed and now we must lie in it.

More Rewards for the Subway Savior

NYC, Trump, Disney reward "Subway Superman"
Fri Jan 5, 2007 3:39 PM ET

By Mark Porter

NEW YORK (Reuters) - A New Yorker dubbed "Subway Superman" received the city's highest civic award on Thursday after pinning down a stricken stranger on subway tracks just enough to allow an oncoming train to run over the top of them.

Wesley Autrey, 50, jumped onto the subway tracks at a station in Manhattan's Harlem neighborhood on Tuesday to help Cameron Hollopeter, who had suffered a seizure and fallen.

Autrey held down Hollopeter's convulsing body in the track bed as the train passed just centimeters above them. Both were uninjured, but Hollopeter, 20, remains in hospital undergoing tests to discover what caused his seizure.

Autrey, whose knitted cap was brushed with grease and dirt from the train passing overhead, played down his daring act as he accepted the Bronze Medallion -- for exceptional citizenship and outstanding achievement -- from Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

"You see somebody in distress, you help out," Autrey told a news conference, as he was flanked by his 4- and 6-year-old daughters, who had watched their father jump onto the subway tracks. "I was just in the right place at the right time."

While Bloomberg called Autrey a "true hero" and the New York Post newspaper dubbed him the "Subway Superman," the construction worker -- who went to work as normal after the incident -- said the real heroes were U.S. troops in Iraq.

Along with the civic award, Autrey was also given a year's worth of free rides on New York's subway and buses, then met with real-estate mogul Donald Trump, who gave him a $10,000 check, along with two other checks from undisclosed donors.

The Walt Disney Co. gave Autrey and his family a one-week fully paid trip to the Disney World theme park in Orlando, Fla, and tickets to the Broadway smash hit musical "The Lion King."

The New York Film Academy, where Hollopeter studies, said it had given Autrey $5,000 and offered scholarships to his daughters, while The New York Daily News reported Autrey had been offered a television show apartment make-over.

Autrey -- whose boss didn't believe his excuse for being late to work until he saw on the Internet what Autrey had done -- is also scheduled to appear on both "The Late Show With David Letterman" and "The Ellen DeGeneres Show."

"Good things happen when you do good," Autrey said. "What better way to start a new year than saving a life?"

Autrey said he has visited Hollopeter in hospital and met the young man's father.

Previous recipients of New York's Bronze Medallion include civil rights leader Martin Luther King Jr. The last recipient was Housing Authority employee Felix Vasquez, who caught a baby thrown from a New York City burning building in 2005.

The Subway Savior

What a touching story. Please read and see what great people do:

Construction Worker One Day, Subway Hero the Next

John Marshall Mantel for The New York Times

Larry Hollopeter, left, with Wesley Autrey, who saved his son from a train on Tuesday.

By TRYMAINE LEE and CASSI FELDMAN

Published: January 4, 2007

Wesley Autrey teetered back and forth on the edge of a subway platform yesterday, re-enacting how he dived onto the tracks of a southbound No. 1 train in Manhattan on Tuesday to save another man’s life.

A little boy with black hair and a bowl cut followed each of his moves. Other passers-by at the 137th Street station let loose the occasional hurrah or hand clap. Still others riffled through newspapers, which featured Mr. Autrey’s picture and headlines like “Subway Superman.”

A few subway stops away, at St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center on 114th street near Amsterdam Avenue, Cameron Hollopeter underwent a second day of medical evaluation. Police said Mr. Hollopeter, a first-year film student at the New York Film Academy, had suffered a seizure, which sent him convulsing off the platform and onto the tracks, where Mr. Autrey held him down as the train rumbled just inches above them.

Moments after the train came to a halt, Mr. Autrey recounted yesterday, Mr. Hollopeter asked if he was dead. “I said, ‘You are very much alive, but if you move you’ll kill the both of us.’ ” Both men emerged from the episode with little more than bruises, but Mr. Autrey also emerged a star.

Mr. Autrey, a 50-year-old construction worker, said he knew something was different when he showed up for work later on Tuesday. His boss, he said, bought him lunch — a ham-and-cheese hero — and later told him to take yesterday off.

Then yesterday morning, as he walked to his mother’s apartment in Harlem, “a stranger came up and put $10 in my hand,” he said. “People in my neighborhood were like, ‘Yo, I know this guy.’ ”

Once at his mother’s apartment, he held interviews in the living room with some of the national morning news programs.

After that, it was back to the scene, where he recounted Mr. Hollopeter’s backward tumble off the platform and into the path of the oncoming train.

Throughout the day, Mr. Autrey’s sister, Linda, 48, played the role of administrative assistant, logging invitations for the talk-show circuit, including requests from the David Letterman, Charlie Rose and Ellen DeGeneres shows. Phone calls from well-wishers came pouring in, including one from the mayor’s office. Mr. Autrey said he had been offered cash, trips and scholarships for his two daughters, Syshe, 4, and Shuqui, 6, who watched as he dived to the trackbed.

“Donald Trump’s got a check waiting on me,” he said. “They offered to mail it; I said, ‘No, I’d like to meet the Donald, so I can say, Yo, you’re fired.’ ”

By the end of the day, the president of the New York Film Academy, Jerry Sherlock, had personally handed him a $5,000 check.

Yesterday afternoon, Mr. Autrey and Mr. Hollopeter met again. The meeting was closed to reporters, but afterward Mr. Autrey described how he stepped into Mr. Hollopeter’s hospital room, where they shared a few laughs as Mr. Hollopeter’s father stood by with tears in his eyes.

Shortly after 4 p.m., Mr. Autrey walked out of the hospital with Mr. Hollopeter’s father, Larry, and into a throng of more than 30 reporters and camera operators who jammed microphones into their faces.

“This is Cameron’s father,” Mr. Autrey began. “He’s a very, very, nice, nice man and, you know, I’m not used to this press,” he said, as reporters shouted at them to lean closer to the microphones and camera shutters popped like party favors.

Mr. Hollopeter was nervous, his hands shaking, as he read from handwritten notes.

“Mr. Autrey’s instinctive and unselfish act —— ” Mr. Hollopeter said, hesitating, as reporters inched closer. “There are no words to properly express our gratitude and feelings for his actions. Cameron is recovering and stable. Now he needs his rest, and our wishes are that you respect his privacy. May God’s blessings be with Mr. Autrey and his family.”

The teary father then slipped back into the hospital, apparently overcome with emotion.

“Me and the families are trying to make some plans so his family can meet my family and we can have a little gathering,” Mr. Autrey said, before breaking into a hearty laugh. “Without the media!”

Mr. Autrey was asked to reflect on the experience.

“Maybe I was in the right place at the right time, and good things happen for good people,” Mr. Autrey said.

Then he hopped into his brother-in-law’s tan Toyota Corolla. As the car pulled away, Mr. Autrey had some final words: “All New Yorkers! If you see somebody in distress, go for it!”

Anthony Ramirez contributed reporting.