Acceptance Letter

On Monday we felt a record temperature of 107 degrees. The warm August weather means the atmosphere is changing in Manhattan. Students are back in town bringing more traffic and more money to local businesses. Fall classes and football are less than a month away. The fans are starting to get restless in anticipation of Bill Snyder's second year back at the helm after a three year retirement. For the first time in ten years I won't be here for a football season in Manhattan. It will be the first time in twenty-four years for Jenn.

As you all know, the reason for our absence is we will be residing in New York City while Jenn attends school. She received the official acceptance letter on Saturday. I wish I had a camera in hand at the moment she checked the mail so you could see the pure joy and excitement I saw in her eyes. This means the next month is going to be very busy for us!

We are putting most of our belongings in storage and taking the bare essentials that we will need to succeed in our endeavors. I don't want to write all of the details of our next month but here is our tentative plan for leaving Manhattan and arriving in New York:

August 28: Drive to Omaha, Nebraska, stay for the weekend while visiting friends and the Omaha Zoo.

August 30: Drive from Omaha to Canton, Ohio.

August 31: Visit the Pro Football Hall of Fame, something I have wanted to do since I was about ten years old. And since Jenn is such a stellar woman and loves football too, she is excited about this as well. After visiting this for a few hours, we will finish the drive to Brooklyn and stay in a hotel.

September 1: We are meeting with an agent that will have many apartments waiting for us to view. She is excited to welcome us Midwesterners to her city. Agents are common there and we found one with a reputable company in order to make sure that we find suitable housing quickly.

September 15: The Natural Gourmet Institute of Culinary Arts welcomes a new class of students, one of which intends on owning her own cafe in Manhattan, Kansas while teaching people the healing and prevention benefits of eating naturally.

I imagine that I will have something to say about the Zoo and the Hall of Fame, but not sure if I will have much to write about before then. As I said, we have to get our affairs in order before we go. To give you an idea of the jump we are doing, look at these startling differences obtained from Citydata.com and recorded in July 2009:

Manhattan
Population: 52,836
Population Density: 3517 per sqare mile
Cost of living index: 85.2 (100 is average)

New York City
Population: 8,391,881
Population Density: 27,668 per square mile
Cost of living index: 177.1

Truly you can see why this is really Little Apple to Big Apple! The largest city in the United States provides us with many challenges and opportunities. We plan on visiting many places within the city and outside the city so stay tuned for that as I will write about the experiences we share. Thanks again to all our family and friends for your love and support. Dreams like these cannot happen without it.