I arrived at my hotel around 10.00 p.m., and didn't dawdle long before getting into bed. It was an unusually small bed considering the price of the room. Only a double bed. Still, it was worth it for the awesome, top-floor view of Central Park. I'd intended to get a good night's sleep then wake up early and work out before my meeting at 10.30. But continuing a trend from the last few nights, I couldn't sleep. In fact, I didn't get a wink until 4.30, by which time I'd read 100 pages of "Master of the Senate", watched half of Midnight Express and sat through half an hour of a shockingly bad early 80s TV movie with Matt Le Blanc (before he got big).

I woke up at 9.20 with a start, and, thinking my meeting was at 10.00, ordered a quick breakfast and shot into the shower. It was only when I checked my email that I realized the meeting was at 10.30, which gave me some breathing room. By 10.15, I was in a cab, heading for Times Square, where I was expected in one of our customer's buildings, to get my id-card, and be fingerprinted and drug-tested. The weather was only in the low 70s, but I was dripping by the time I got to the building, due to the humidity. It will take me a while, I think, after a decade of San Francisco weather, to get used to New York summers.

I spent the next two hours darting between three different buildings, and my hotel. My drug-test was delayed because they were out of cups, so I had time to return to my hotel to check out leisurely. Of course, when I did return to pee into my cup, I was pee shy (as I always am when using public toilets, even single-user locking affairs). I only managed to force out 15ml, a third of what they'd asked for. I'm sure you wanted to know these details.

In the afternoon, I finally got to meet the tech-lead, project-manager and some of our other developers on the project, and it was nice to find them to be an amiable bunch. The project promises to be very interesting, though I can't tell you anything about it. I'd have to shoot you. Oh, and I'd be shot too. I'm really being treated very well by our people. Not only the nice apartment I'll be moving into, but I'm allowed to fly home up to twice a month, and, although I'm flying in on Sunday, they're letting me use Monday to settle into my apartment rather than immediately starting work.

And now home again, assuming my flight isn't delayed by a looming thunderstorm. Two days to wrap up my life in San Francisco and restart it in Midtown, Manhattan.