Where there's smoke

For anyone who's ever worried about their safety in a city where drivers rarely seem to pull over for emergency vehicles, here's some encouraging news -- apparently when there's a fire of any size, 10,000 firemen drive their bright red trucks in from every direction, and prepare to battle the blaze.

In the last week, I've had two opportunities to see NYFD on the job.

First, John called me from the gallery district, Chelsea, just about 10 blocks south of my office, to ask what was going on up around the AP. It was only then when I figured out the sound of helicopters overhead was because it was prime 6 o'clock news hour and there was an actual fire in progress.
I walked out on our outdoor basketball court (a leftover from when our office housed Doubleclick) and watched as flames shot out of the roof of a building one block west. Naturally in a company full of news geeks, there were dozens of us out there, including several with cameras.
Nothing can beat the melodrama of this news item on Firehouse.com.

Then last night, John was channel surfing when he came upon Brothers and Sisters on ABC, and stopped for a few minutes out of curiosity about Calista Flockhart's new show. (more about why in a minute) We caught the tail end of the show before the screen went dead air. Strange.
With no TV noise in the apartment, we tuned in on all the sirens outside -- and looked out to see them all surrounding ABC headquarters, right across the street from us.
Still a news geek, and the tiniest bit concerned that our building might be the one burning, we went downstairs to scout it out. Along with most of our neighbors, who were shooting pics on their camera phones.
By the way, I love that several ABC affiliates used our story, and not one from AP, about the fire.
http://abclocal.go.com/wpvi/story?section=nation_world&id=5322047
http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=nation_world&id=5345027

Celeb spotting

My best celebrity spotting so far was on a plane headed from New York to LA last week.

I was cutting it really close to catch this flight, thanks to a super slow cabbie, and as I raced for the gate, I thought it was a little weird that several flight attendants had their cell phones out taking pictures. Maybe it was one of their birthdays or something? Who knows. Gotta hurry onto this plane.

A group of three or four people were ahead of me and I think we were the very last ones to take our seats. I was just thankful I hadn't missed the flight, and immediately stopped thinking of the flight attendants taking pictures.

Then the group in front of me stopped abruptly in first class, and when I stopped, I recognized Calista Flockhart saying hello to the people getting on. The guy in front of me was taking his own sweet time, then started backing up, not realizing I was behind him. He very politely apologized and offered to get out of my way so I could get past, as I realized it was Rob Lowe.

Being a somewhat anti-TV snob, I didn't realize they were in a new show together until I googled them to find out why they might be traveling together.

Apparently also in their group was some girl from 24, who I'd never recognize since I haven't seen the show. And Michael Bolton, who I probably wouldn't have recognized without his mullet except my stewardess was very excited and told me he, too, was in first class.

To answer your question, Calista is just as skinny in person as you'd think. But Rob is better looking in person than I expected, even if he never took his sunglasses off.

Is it just me, or is it weird to see celebrities getting their own suitcases off the conveyor? Even if it's sort of a used-to-be celeb now having a come back, I'd sort of expect they'd have people to do that for them.