Shiny beautiful wonderful substances

Have you ever held a couple hundred thousand dollars worth of beautiful yellow gold? You would be shocked by how much it weighs. I was lucky enough to see and touch billions and billions of dollars worth of gold (around 24 billion to be eact)

Through a sales contact I was invited to go down into the bedrock of New York city and go into the deepest vault in the city and see the largest collection of gold in the world at the Federal Reserve bank of NY! How could I pass up an opportunity like this, sometimes I absolutely love my job.

Getting into the building was fairly routine, just needed a contact inside to vouch for me, picture ID, metal detector and x-ray of my possessions. Not quite as intrusive as the airport and the cops were much more cheerful and patient. Only two special elevators go to the sub floors A-E, of course the gold is kept in the lowest floor, E. Located over 80 feet below the street it is built straight into the bedrock of NY. In fact when the vault was built, it was first constructed and then the building constructed around it. The door itself weighs 90 tons and is operated by a manual wheel with no hydraulics or electricity. It is so well designed from the 1920s that even I was able to easily turn the wheel to rotate the vault door. Once the door is sealed and lowered into a cork like hole a few inches down the entire vault is air tight and water right. The door can only be opened when the clocks on the inside (which are manually wound and set each day) release the locks, without those clocks it is impossible to open the door by ANY operator. They say there is enough air in the vault to last a two day weekend if someone is locked in considering the air is also cut off at the end of each day, however it has never been proven or tested. Once inside there are over 100 individual vaults some filled with simply a few dozen bars of gold others so overstocked that to open the door risks gold actually falling out. Each vault is identified simply by a number and not by the country or organization who owns it, and can only be opened by three separate individuals.

Interestingly two countries needed additional storage of gold and thus they had to build a new vault outside the main one. To bring in the 300 TON door they literally had to cut successive holes in the parking garage and lower it floor by floor. One needs to wonder how much security that took each night. The security guards are serious by quite friendly (as are most New Yorkers). They have their own shooting range on the third floor and can shut down the entire building and secure it in 23 seconds, this is not something I witnessed or wished to test. But unbelievably cool and impressive. The truly remarkable thing is that we do not charge any of the outside entities to house and secure their gold, only when they want to transfer it or remove gold.

Outside of the gold visit (which is still one of the highlights) my visit to one of the greatest cities in the world was fantastic. Outstanding food and even better company. I am convinced that New Yorkers get a complete bad rap when it comes to their attitude. I continue to find them some of the friendliest people willing to make up for the overly cramped conditions they find themselves in anyway they can. What I do not miss is the constant dressing and undressing for the unbelievable chilled weather. Every time you go outside the layers of leather, cotton and wool needed to protect against the elements. Thankfully a small price to pay for the privilege of living in a fantastic city.

Returned home today on a nice short 6 hour flight on United’s wonderful PS service (premier service) flight. This is a domestic 757 outfitted with three cabins with unbelievably comfortable seating. They give to all first and business travelers their own personal DVD player with 12 different movies to watch at their leisure in their plush leather seats. Complete with two meals and special soups and moisturizers in the bathroom, this service makes flying in and out of NY one of the most enjoyable flights on United bar none. Unfortunately my stay in the sunny state of CA will be short lived as I will be flying out late tomorrow to Florida on an red-eye before another multi-hour presentation. I most certainly look forward to next week and my lack of travel plans!