But I got over the pain, kinda, and then hooked up with my friend and awesome photogapher Elizabeth, www.elizabethwaughphotography.com and headed down to Chelsea. Actually, we almost had a tragedy as the guy who took this picture stepped back to get a better frame and almost went off the platform onto the tracks!!
So Chelsea, land of art yes,
but I also found this cool garage where if I ever decide I want a Street Machine this guy will be glad to outfit my car with a Nitrous Tank!
So we walked around the galleries and while I didn't find too much of interest it was fun to play with Liz's intense eyes and the poppy paintings
and have her get into being an object d'art 
But enough art. What I was really excited about was the evening's event. A guy who had the same surgery with me runs marketing for Madison Square Garden, or "The Real Garden" as he calls it and he gave me VIP passes in his luxury suite to see a heavyweight fight featuring The Russians, Klitschko and Ibragimov.
It was a huge crowd 
and Billy Joel's daughter sang the national anthem 
and she can really sing but at one point she did seem to sound like Maya Rudolph's version of our anthem on Saturday night live..Oh well..its a thin line between passion and absurdity. But back to the fights. The bout before the main fight was this Irish guy Duddy, vs. a guy from Montreal, Smichet. 
Now Duddy was cleary the favorite and there were vendors with T-Shirts and irish flags etc, and Smichet was brought in for a beating. But, as even the Duddy fan with the brogue in our box noted, Smichet won, but as the other guy in our box noted: "It's fixed..Duddy will win" and he did. So bring back Don King and fairness to boxing!! Now the main bout between this 6 foot 8 inch central casting 44 knockout lout Klitschko,
and this scrappy guy Ibragimov 
who couldn't find his way around or under the pathetic and somewhat spastic looking jab of Klitschko was 12 rounds of yawning for us so we took the opportunity to take a photo. 
So the fight ended and Liz and I avoided the celebrating Russians and headed up to our friend Andy's place to crash, Andy being the best host in the world! And I looked forward to crashing and getting up the next morning and having one of my favorite things in the world besides coffee, a seeded roll with the butter already spread and the roll cut in half for easy eating on the go. 
One of my peeves about Boston is that when you get what is called a "bulkie roll" the butter is always a frozen lump in the middle....it's just uncivilized. One of my other favorite things about NYC is that you can get a good shoe-shine on the corner while watching people go by. I was just walking around and this guy 
yells at me: "Gotta take care of those boots..." and he was right so I hopped up and I left with shined shoes, one of the few things you can do for small money and no mental effort, that makes your day just a little better. And it was with shined shoes that I went to Dr. Su the next day and was given an outstanding report, implants in place, bone healing, muscle strength coming back, and in another two months I should be in full bore. This is Dr. Su and his physician's assistant Dr. Blair 
who together are the top hip resurfacing team in the US. Yes, you didn't know you could become a surgeon while still a teenager! Actually one of my cycling buddies went to Harvard with Dr. Su for undergrad and while teenager is pushing it ..he's close! Anyway I don't care if he is 11!! My hips feel great and I am looking forward to cycling this spring and summer! In fact when in NYC I discovered that they are creating bicycle lanes that are totally separated by a curb from traffic
and have separate lights for bikes!!! 
Now that's rockin!
