[CT] I'm going to be on "Day to Day" on NPR

[Dan Moran]

Bob Howard wrote:
>Glad to hear you're not dead. Take it the right way; I grew up in NYC.

Some years ago I lived in NY for a year and a half. I thought New
Yorkers were the *rudest* people. Then one morning at a coffee shop I
was regularly having breakfast in (little hole in the wall on First
avenue, up around 73rd Street) I asked the proprietor to refill my
coffee. He was sitting a few tables over talking to another regular.
He'd filled my coffee every time I'd asked for a month or two at that
point, no problem -- he looked up at me and said, "Get it yourself, you
know where it is," and went back to his conversation.

I was shocked. I don't mean fake-shocked, I mean it had never ever ever
crossed my mind for an instant that a server in a restaurant would speak
to me that way. But I *did* know where the coffee pot was. I got up,
walked over to it, refilled my coffee, and sat back down again.

I ate at that coffee shop another 6 months or so, until I went back to
L.A. I never had to wait to get my coffee refilled again, the entire
time I was there. I walked in while he was cooking the fresh corn
muffins, grabbed a cup and filled it for myself, and sat down with my
newspaper. Once I realized the guy wasn't being rude to me, I just loved
him.

I'm back in Los Angeles now, and that's a good thing. But sometimes I'm
sorry I spent a whole year in New York before I realized that New
Yorkers have plenty good manners, by New York rules. Every now and again
while I'm sitting in an L.A. restaurant, waiting for my coffee to get
refilled, I think about getting up and wandering over to the coffee pot
and handling it for myself ... but I know I would shock the waiters, so
I don't.

I'm glad not to be dead either. ;-)

>P.S. How're Amy and the brood?

We're doing great. My baby is a year and a half and a nonsense-sound
generator -- you could build up a superb alien language out of what
comes out of his mouth. (Aside from not talking, he's not a baby any
more -- he's a hard-charging little boy with an Agenda.)

>(I'm so proud. Didn't ask anything about AI War)

I've been so wrong so frequently on this subject I'm reluctant to
mention it ... but I have to think that pointing out to a publisher that
I'm about to be heard by a national office, on a semi-regular basis,
won't hurt.

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