Mike,

If you are a fairly senior reserve in category there's probably a pretty good chance you can pick up some yellow slip flying on your reserve days to mitigate the pain of sitting in the crash pad. Sitting long call in NY is actually not so bad. You can hop on the subway and head downtown without having to worry about missing a call from scheduling. NYC ain't SAT, but I am sure you will find something to do for the one or two months you are on reserve up there.