In another life, both Chris (a rock star) and Paul (a writer) must have been restorers. How else could they have nailed what we go through when we go on the road? Talk to any grizzled veteran about Andrew, Gloria, or Katrina, and you will be regaled with tales of never-ending work, months and months of fun times, and millions of dollars of cash being given out by clueless adjusters like Willy Wonka giving out chocolate at his factory. Dig deeper, though, and you will find out some sobering details about jobs going upside-down, adjusters never issuing payments, and lawsuits lasting years (if not decades). You will hear of horrible conditions, unreliable vendors, and endless blight and despair within the communities affected. More recent tales will tell of working in New York City, the capital of the universe, after Superstorm Sandy, sleeping on the street in a car for three weeks, eating only what could be gotten from a can or a seedy street vendor, and working in the basement of a huge Wall Street building with no power, heat or elevators.

That last one was me. Even though I lived only about 20 miles west of Wall Street in central New Jersey, my work schedule left me little time for rest, so I parked myself in my Acura TSX, itself parked on aptly-named Water Street in downtown Manhattan, catching some ZZZ’s in between meetings and work tasks. Start at 6 a.m., done around midnight, only to have to check in on three other buildings in the area before shutting it down for the night. Four hours straight was a God-send, and rarely took place in the first month. Having worked on Wall Street for over 25 years, this was never the nightlife that I had experienced, imagined or planned for. Yet there I was, blanket and canned goods in tow, bumming it on the mean streets of New York.