Take Off! My Life and Times in Toronto
My life and work in Toronto, Canada.
My life and work in Toronto, Canada.
I'll start the Boston Blog later this week ... just wanted to put out a "heads up" to regular fans.
I'm at Pepper Computer, Inc. now, on a short term contract. My NDA precludes my saying anything about it, so I won't. I can say that their product is "not available in stores" so you haven't missed it if you've gone looking. But it is pretty cool and very geeky.
How to Reach Me
I'm back in the USA, so my cellphone is back in service. Call 214 207 7812 to reach me. AIM is another way to get ahold of me, but if you are not on my buddy list, I won't accept a message from you. And of course, my email address is monitored pretty much 16/7.
Bill's Place
I've moved in with Bosney, into a room he formerly used for hobbies. It's snug, and I haven't fully setup my desktop yet so it's a bit slow going on the Toshiba laptop, but we'll get there.
I've created my Boston blog (Don't Look Back) at
http://blog.deltos.com/boston.
Enjoy.
Finished at ATI.
Had my exit interview with Steve L. and checked out today. He told me he found my blog quite a while ago (Hi Steve!) ... but of course he didn't mention it until my exit interview. Whatever.
Did lunch with the Two Bretts at the Lone Star Texas Grill, skipping the QA group's trip to a big Chinese place on Woodbine.
Packing packing packing. Hope to be out of here by 9am tomorrow (but figure 10am).
I had a scare today ... got an email from my supervisor that implied my exit interview was today at 4pm. I misread the date -- it's tomorrow. So ... the plan is still "go":
Tonite: Visit Beth and Brian, off loading housewares, etc., pack clothes
Tomorrow: Finish at ATI, pack hardware
Saturday: Load the car in the morning, drive to Barbara's; enjoy party
Sunday: Drive to Worcester, possibly hooking up with Albany crowd for brunch
Looking forward to a change of pace and to moving in with Bill.
Reluctantly, I went to the ATI event at "The Docks" down on Cherry St. at the waterfront. I was goaded into signing the waver and I had no intention of actually participating in the events.
The Docks are on a jetty running out from the DVP and Lakeshore Drive, but inside the Toronto Islands. The view of downtown is rather striking.
I was assigned to "Team 6" which was composed of guys I don't work with very much. This didn't do much to endear me to the team.
The folks I regularly work with (from left to right): "Wilson" Wei, Nicholas Wu, and two co-op students. These guys are part of the QA group.
The first event Team 6 did was the "Gladiator" fight. I sat this one out, and we got beaten with a stick. Literally. Most of the guys just stood up there poking each other with the blunt sticks, not doing any serious fighting.
The next event was a four-man bag race. Reluctantly, I joined the race. We were beat with gusto by the other team ... and I was gasping for air at the end of the race.
The next event was a group-walk on a big plank. I joined the team on the second half of the walk (we had to swap in the team members not in the first half) and we won. It took a substantial coordination and was an indicator that our team was "gelling".
We proceeded to win the paint ball event, the trivia event, and the dreaded hoola-hoop event. In all, we won six of eight events, and I suspected that we were the first place team.
At the awards ceremony, everyone was in pretty good spirits, mostly because we knew this whole silly thing was almost over.
It turns out ... my team was in second place, losing to the top team by a single point. I was still pretty tickled by the outcome ... considering the irony (again) of "team building" when I was a "dead man walking" at ATI.
The winning team got a free pass on the crane swing. I'm not so sure winning would have been that good!
Another shot of "the Docks" area.
Looking south towards Toronto Islands.
I finally got a commit from my manager here to leave on Friday.
I'm heading downtown today for an ATI "team building" exercise ... yeah, the irony didn't escape me.
Tonite I'm going to do triage on my housewares and pick out stuff that I'm giving to Beth and Brian as I won't be taking it with me (plates, cups, bowls, detergent ... just housewares I'd rather not toss) in my limited cargo space. I'm visiting them for dinner tomorrow night.
Thursday I am supposed to do lunch with Susan Hewitt, a manager here who's been very helpful with advice on how to transition to living in Canada. She is in charge of the product I tested the most while here. Dinner, as mentioned, will be at Beth's.
Friday I'll close out my work PC, submit my last timesheet, and go to the RI and start packing the Golf. I'll check out in the morning, eat one last powdered egg and Muslix breakfast, and then drive to Barbara's.
I am going to retire this blog and start a new one for my time in Boston. The URL will be posted as the last entry on this blog Sunday.
Shout out to SUNYA -- I mean the University at Albany -- for being named the top "party school" in the U.S. UT Austin only came in seventh, no doubt to their everlasting shame.
It is the ninth time the University at Albany -- a state-run school with an undergraduate enrollment of 12,000 students -- has been on the party school list. It was No. 1 in 1998 and No. 14 last year. The University of Colorado at Boulder ranked No. 1 last year."If this were a term paper, it would get an 'F' in methodology," university spokeswoman Lisa James-Goldsberry said in a statement. "The rankings are not to be taken seriously, and are certainly not reflective of the serious, hardworking students at Albany."
"It's pretty crazy," said Matt Kazimir, 21, a recent Albany graduate from Danbury, Connecticut. "There's always a party."
Still, some students say Albany's ranking isn't deserved.
"I wouldn't agree it's No. 1," said junior Brian Fessler, 20. "There are certainly a lot of opportunities to party, but it's also a great institution with some top programs. There are great academic opportunities, as well."
Brigham Young was ranked the top "stone-cold sober" school, the survey found. Massachusetts Institute of Technology was the toughest to get into. The happiest students overall were at Pomona College in Claremont, California.
Students most likely to vote for President Bush are in the Republican's home state at Texas A&M University; those most likely to vote for Democratic challenger John Kerry attend Warren Wilson College in Asheville, North Carolina.
Rensselaer considered itself "too professional to rate" in the 70s and 80s, but a school full of nerdy guys is not a party school. Trust me.
I spoke with my manager this morning about finishing on Friday, and I think he's finally coming around on this plan. I'm done with my principal work here and the next test series won't begin until after I'm gone by the 27th, so why drag it out?
Meanwhile, I'm going to attend an offsite "team building" event tomorrow. Spare me the cries of "oh, the irony!" It's something to do other than read about XFree86 and wait for Friday. It's down at "The Docks" which I haven't been to (but have driven past) so it's an opportunity to see a little more of Toronto before I'm gone. Oh and they want us to wear our "minon" T-shirts.
Update: The big offsite event is cancelled -- again -- tomorrow. It's going to rain, rain and rain for the rest of the week.
I had dinner with Elizabeth Allen (nee Beth Seog), her partner Brian and 18 month old daugther Brianna. We went to her favorite Japanese restaurant, the Sushi-Ya in Newmarket.
We went back to their home in Aurora and chewed the fat until 11:30pm. My god, can I talk! (Tell them, Beth!) It was great seeing Beth again, and her daughter is a delightful handful. Brian is as loving and caring a father as I've seen and I'm so happy for them being together in a great country like Canada.
I'm so sad that I didn't hook up with them before the week I am leaving Toronto!
An attraction in Niagara Falls I didn't get to take my kids to is the Lego Brick Art exhibit.
The whole thing is the brainchild of a Mississaga artists who bought all the Lego, rented a small hall in Niagara Falls, and built all this.
An overview. In the center is a full replica of the CN Tower as well as many Toronto buildings on the left.
What Lego exhibit is complete without a replica Golden Gate Bridge?
A stunning replica of the Taj Mahal, complete with elephant on the lower left. The artist said he just used photos of the buildings to replicate them.
Around the whole setup ran nine train loops with various Lego trains on them. I told the guy that he'd "achieved one of my fantasies in life -- having more Legos than I knew what to do with". He looked at me like I was a kook.
Went back to Niagara Falls, Ontario for one more round. I don't know if I'll be leaving town next Sat. (21st) or the one after (28th), but in either case, I won't be back to Niagara Falls for quite some time. (I'm still waiting to get a chance to see Geneva, Switzerland again.)
Skylon Tower, all 525 feet of it.
The main observation deck with easy-to-poke-camera-through fencing.
The Marriott Renaissance hotel that Anne and I stayed in when we were here in June. We were on the lowest glass windowed floor, near the middle.
The new Casino, plus our hotel and the Hilton next to it on Fallsview Lane.
The view our "fallsview" room didn't have -- of the American Falls.
A very busy Rainbow Bridge.
Closeup of Goat Island point and part of the Horseshoe Falls.
Closeup of the Walk Under the Falls on Goat Island and part of the American Falls.
The Maid of the Mist passing near Table Rock.
The falls spot light point (and some obsolete hydro equipment).
The American Maid of the Mist elevator and two of the ships.
 | Tom called me tonite from the Boston concert in Austin, Texas. Now he's been to see the band twice and I haven't seen them even one time. Then again, I can still hear so maybe I'm not so disadvantaged. |
He said he'd pick me up a concert T-shirt, so if you see me wearing it, be sure to remind me I wasn't actually there. Because I'll insist I was, and that the "contact high" blurrred my memories.
Today I was planning on visiting Elizabeth Allen (neeBeth Seog) at the bookstore she works at in Aurora, Ontario and then go do some random thing. I wasn't able to find the bookstore but as I was leaving the RI, I took a look at the tourist info rack and saw a very well made flyer for The Fergus Scottish Festival. I decided to go check it out.
I don't want to bore you with all the navigational details, however this festival was out in the middle of nowhere. I had to drive out 401 to Guelph, and then up Hwy. 6. The festival organizers placed signs directing traffic to a back road (my GPS led the way) to the parking.
Fergus is farm country, folks.
The Festival is held at what looks like a rural civic center that is better suited for cattle auctions than anime conventions. Just inside the entrance was the strangest thing I've ever seen a bank do, an ATM embedded in a van.
The Festival was spread over several acres and fields, but the main drag looked something like this.
These being Scottish farmers, there was livestock on display. What Scottish Festival would be complete without sheep (and an open lecture on the perils of sheering said sheep).
A small barn held two "Scottish" cattle. They were substantially furrier than the Texas variety, better suited to living on rainy, cold rocks all year round.
A large area of the Festival was filled with netted tents, in which young women were constantly changing clothes in plain sight. After a while, I realized that all the shirtless girls in bras were getting ready for the next round of Highland Dance Competition.
A live bagpipe player accompanied the dancers who ranged in age up to 18 years. I assume that was so that each performance had to accomodate the tempo of a human performer and not a recording. The costumes are fairly simply but all featured a kind of doily worn across the chest by each young woman. Many were wandering around with the doily and and a brassiere (on top). I wonder what the ancient Scots would have thought?
Another major competition was marching pipe bands. I called Anne while watching these to tell her where I was and hope she could hear the pipes. She really likes bagpipes, and these bands (while not large) were quite audible. And also, quite good. Fortunately, few actually played Amazing Grace.
I saw (to my surprise) that you could tune a bagpipe. I imagine some kind of vise adjustment on the cat trapped in the bag. You tell me.
But perhaps the biggest draw, and certainly the largest crowd, was for the Highland Games. I only saw two events: Robertson Caber and Fergus Stone.
The Caber is a telephone pole toss. I mean, look at this and tell me it's not a telephone pole toss:
I had a number of funny captions in mind ("Scottish telekinetic lifts telephone pole" or how about "Man in Kilt 'heals' possessed tree trunk") but watching this insane "sport" just took all the fun out of ribbing it. This must be the original "X Game".
You gotta admit, that caber looks like the bone tossed at the beginning of 2001: A Space Odyssey.
So what sort of git comes to this kind of event? How about this lad on the left, who looks like he didn't have a SciFi convention to attend this weekend. More typical is the gent on the right, with full kilt and gear (getting coffee, of all things).
And speaking of kilts, there were more than a few around. Here's one for the handyman (it was called the "Utilikilt").
Fortunately, there were a lot of artisans selling their wares. This stunning image ased on Stonehenge caught my eye (the artist is inset).
 |  |
Some beautiful Scottish wedding dresses were on display.
As were many sword vendors' collections.
What about food, you ask? Scottish food? You mean ... haggis? I have no idea what this booth actually served ... I was too afraid to approach and ask.
This eatery caught my eye because I thought the elephant theme would amuse Anne.
I had some local ale (Sleeman's Honey Brown Lager) just before I left, so I didn't leave without a proper drink at the pub. The lager was tasty with a hint of honey. Don't take my word for it ... I'm not a qualified beer drinker by any means.
They held a "Scotch Nosing" event that I would not have enjoyed, but which many of my dear readers would. Eight different Scotch brands were offered and a history of Scotch whiskey was presented with the drink. It would have been quite an interesting lecture if I could have stomached the drink. Alas, scotch is wasted on me.
I had a phone interview with HP in Richardson today. The interview went well enough, but they're going to take weeks to decide whether to offer me a contract job, and it won't start before the middle of the month, if not later.
So I'm going with the "sure thing" -- Pepper Computer in Lexington, MA. They've offered me a contract through the end of September with the potential for more work from home in McKinney.
The only annoying thing is I told my project lead today at ATI I was leaving a week early, and he disagreed. I guess he doesn't understand that I don't have to work for ATI -- indentured servitude it is not. I'm 95% done with the last cycle of testing and I can close shop next Friday with no work left undone.
At the end of the day, I had heard from the headhunter trying to place me at HP in Richardson that they were almost certainly going to offer me the contract job, and that the Pepper contract was not a problem because he was sure they'd wait for me to return to Dallas in four to five weeks (near the end of September -- I must be home in time for Anne's birthday!). This was good news, although far from a certainty, because it means I have (potentially) now got work that will last a long, long time (the HP contract is multi-year, but in this market and with HP's current problems, who really knows?).
Meanwhile, back at ATI, the same problem manager who derailed my vacation with Anne and the kids tried to tell me I had to work until the end of the month (and he meant 8-30, which is highly amusing since his manager told me I was done on the 27th). I told him I was finished with testing this coming week, and that I wanted to move on to Pepper. After thinking it over (after work), I don't really care all that much whether I stay the last week or not, but it might help with cash flow since I don't really know how long it will take to get the first check out of Pepper. Right now I have three paychecks pending from Oxford if I work at ATI until the 20th. One more week would round it out and I can delay the RI bill on Amex to boot, lessening the cash flow problem until the Pepper money comes in.
So who really knows what will happen. If I don't finish on the 20th, I'll drive down to Barbara's for the Decker party and return for one more week at ATI. Otherwise, expect me in Boston on the 22nd. Stay tuned ...
Here are the promised photos of Casa Loma:
Eric Smith sent me a short email today confirming that my contract will not be extended, and my last day is 8-27. I'll leave Toronto by the 28th (or sooner), and I have only one weekend left to "finish out my dance card" and see any sights I have overlooked.
Right now, that is:
The Bata Shoe Museum
The Toronto Zoo
Ontario Place
Hamilton Warplane Museum
Frankly, none really grabs me. Two are aimed squarely at kids, and the other two are kind of esoteric museums.
I went to Scooters tonite for the last time, and said my goodbyes to the folks there I've befriended over the last several months. They played All My Ex-es Are In Texas in my honor. Somehow that just doesn't sound right!
I still haven't heard from my ATI manager about being extended another three months (it turns out he's in Ottawa at a funeral) but the office manager said she was under the impression I was being extended. That's not anything like a confirmation, and the word on the floor is that we're waiting for a big vendor to sign a big order (I presume that's sufficiently vague for the NDA).
My contract house (Oxford Associates) is looking at some other prospects for me in Marlboro, MA. This would be with another group at ATI but I'd be doing Linux device driver work, which I like working on. This sounds like a pretty solid opportunity with a different group at ATI (I presume the rate will be similar to the one in Toronto, including the bizarre per diem arrangement), and I look forward to the possibilities.
The headhunter in Dallas who was pressing me to finish up here and get home as soon as possible has left a message saying the client (HP) isn't in as big a hurry as before. I'm not surprised, but of course dissappointed.
Glenn Vanderburg's contact is working on connecting me with a firm in Dallas and his (that is, Glenn's friend) own company is considering opening a satellite office in San Antonio, which is where they'd want me to work if I came on board. That's a 300+ mile drive home on the weekends ... yikes. Nothing much happened today on that front.
I applied for several jobs listed in the D/FW area over night, and one placement firm called back today. They do Palm and Pocket PC development, and it could be quite interesting. I'll hear more from them as the week goes by.
The company that Bosney put me in touch with (in Lexington, MA) has all but made me a formal contract proposal. They want me to work on contract at their office in Sept., and then I can return to Dallas and (hopefully) continue to work for them remotely (with some travel). They make a handheld PC using embedded Linux, and I'm really excited about this offer.
Mike Weisberg told me today to expect a call from his Albany, NY consulting firm. He's submitted my resume for consideration and hopefully we can arrange an interview (possibly in person, since I can get out there in an afternoon's drive). If I were to join his firm, I'd have to plan on moving the family up to the Capital District -- probably after Alanna finishes 8th grade next Spring.
Things are looking way, way up and I am much relieved to have all these options spreading out in front of me. Many thanks to all my friends who have supplied their good name and blessings towards potential employers in MA, NY and TX.
Japan had a near perfect deployment of a solar sail today. The solar sail is the only deployable version of a zero-fuel space vehicle (i.e. no internal power supply limiting the range of the vehicle and vastly increasing it's mass), and Japan has launched the only one to date.
Their first sail is a clover shaped 7.5um thick mylar device (shown above) and the second sail is a fan shaped device of the same material.
Solar sails could, in theory, traverse the solar system riding gravity "highways" (discovered by mathematical analysis of the interactions of planets) through the planets and providing something resembling a real transport system for large cargos of non-living objects, all without any pesky fuel tanks. The ultimate "hybrids".
I had this idea quite a long time ago, back when I (too) read Sagan's Contact. Why not hide a message (or program) in the DNA of early life on Earth, that said "Kilroy was here!"? It's a clever way to make sure the message survives long enough to literally be discovered ... by the same life forms that carry it.
Put yourself in the situation of the aliens, out there somewhere in the galaxy. They surmise that Earth looks promising for the emergence of intelligent life one day, but they have no idea when. There would be little point in beaming radio messages in this direction for eons in the vague hope that one day radio technology would be developed here and someone would decide to tune in.A better plan would be to leave a message for us to find when we are ready. The trouble with this set-and-forget strategy is the time factor. Life takes billions of years to evolve intelligence. Even if ETs figured there was animal life on Earth, they could be faced with a wait of tens of millions of years. That is a long time for an artefact to survive.
Putting the text inside a large metal object and plonking it on the Earth's surface is expensive in transportation costs, and risky. Our restless planet leaves nothing untouched for long. The artifact could easily end up buried or drowned or eroded to scrap.
The ideal solution would be to encode the message inside a large number of self-replicating, self-repairing microscopic machines programmed to multiply and adapt to changing conditions.
Fortunately such machines already exist: they are called living cells. The cells in our bodies, for example, contain genetic messages written by Mother Nature billions of years ago.
DNA, the molecule that contains the script of life, encodes its data in a four-letter alphabet. This would be an ideal medium for storing a cosmic calling card. In many organisms, humans included, genes make up only a tiny fraction of their DNA. Much of the rest seems to be biological gobbledygook, often called "junk DNA". There is plenty of room there for ET to etch a molecular message without damaging any vital genetic functions.
How long would such a message survive? Mutations continually scramble sequences of DNA, especially the junk part. Recently, however, scientists in the United States have discovered whole chunks of human and mouse junk DNA that seem to have remained virtually unchanged for tens of millions of years. That would be a good place to store a message.
The beauty of this scheme is that ET wouldn't have to visit Earth to implant the message. A lot of junk DNA consists of genomic fragments inserted by viruses over the course of evolution. An alien civilisation could, for negligible cost, dispatch tiny packages across the galaxy, loaded with customised viral DNA. The cargo would be designed to infect, without harm, any DNA-based life it encountered.
How would we know if there was a message in our genomes? Presumably ET would make it easy for us to spot. Some sort of in-your-face pattern would be best, something that stood out from the random scatter of genetic letters.
A good way to do this would be to use the letters to represent pixels on a screen tracing out a shape like a circle - an idea mooted in a different context by the late Carl Sagan in his novel Contact. That way, the artificial nature of the pattern would still be apparent even if a few pixels got scrambled.
The arresting pattern would serve to flag the message itself, which would otherwise be overlooked as a meaningless jumble. The message would then need to be decoded with the help of a computer. What would ET have to say to us? Most likely, any message in the genome would be rather basic, like people waving between mountain tops.
I've said, for some time now, that this century's greatest breakthroughs will be:
Clearly genomic SETI could answer the last point and possibly the first, too. If we have a "message" embedded in our cells, what does that tell us about telology? Does it warp religion's out of shape? (BTW, the first bullet has all but been accomplished, so you might as well consider it done.) If we are "made in God's image" then maybe there's a copyright notice in our DNA ...
I overcame my trepidations today and went in search of a doctor.
In the same time I would have waited at my Allen, TX doctor's office to see him I called a clinic, drove to it, saw a doctor and had a 'script for an antibiotic. I had no wait, no appointment and it only cost $30 to see the doctor (with no Ontario Medical Plan card) and another $30 for the meds.
It was unreal. And the funniest part -- the doctor complained about how the Ontario health system was so lousy. I laughed. It is so much better than the pay-as-you-die system in the U.S. they should be grateful.
As any Rocky Horror fan would know, Tim Curry uttered those words, putting Fay Wray in the minds of generations to come. Sadly, she died Saturday.
She was born Vina Fay Wray on Sept. 15, 1907, near Cardston in rural Alberta, Canada. Her parents moved to the United States when she was 3, first trying farming in Arizona and eventually returning to Salt Lake City, where Wray's mother was from. Later, they settled in Los Angeles.As a teenager she haunted studio casting offices and won an occasional bit role. Despite her mother's fears that the movie crowd was sinful, Wray was allowed to accept a six-month contract with Hal Roach at $60 a week.
Wray had a daughter, Susan, from her first marriage and a daughter and son, Victoria and Robert Jr., by the second. Sixteen years after Riskin's death, she married his physician, Dr. Sanford Rothenberg, who died in 1991.
Casa Loma is an enormous three story Edwardian home built at the turn of the twentieth century for Sir Henry Pellatt, who lost possession of the home towards the middle of the Great Depression (he was a financier, go figure).
It's a big home with big rooms and some quirky things like watch towers, but on the whole, it's not that amazing. I've been to Versaille and the Schonbrunn so I've seen a really big home before. This is a nice place in the midst of Toronto's urban neighborhoods, but a far cry from a palace. And there's no A/C!
I took film photos which I'll post later in the week after they are developed.
PS. I didn't get lost, Christy!
Apparently, Issac Newton is all the rage in geek circles.
I've been reading Neal Stephenson's System of the World trilogy (only the first two books, Quicksilver and The Confusion are actually published), which is essentially about the creation of the world's financial system and the staggering intellectual battle between Sir Issac Newton and Wilhelm Gotfried Leibnitz, the two men who created The Calculus. So, as a result, I'm already reading more about Newton than I would normally have cared for, mostly because he was the Bill Gates of his era: a maniacal genius who changed the world but did immense distruction on the way. Newton's attacks against Leibnitz were legendary, and became intangled in several major conflicts including wars of Europe. Well, ok maybe Gates hasn't started any shooting wars, but his battle against Linux will be the epic conflict of our times.
None the less, Newton was a singular genius and this website of his works reveals that he was also a loonie. Dig in and be surprised.
I've come down with bronchitis again, so I'm not travelling this weekend.
Unfortunately, I don't know how to get antibiotics here, so I'll just have to soldier through it on cold meds instead. Feh.
My contract runs out at the end of the month, and I'm working on finding the next job and/or staying for another three month stint if offered. My supervisor has indicated that he wants to continue the contract, and that he's working on the budget. He suggested that he would know sometime next week, so I'm figuring next Friday before a definite answer is available.
My group is losing it's best developer, Tong Qiu, to another group in ATI. I've been enhancing his test application and am trying to position myself as the next "expert" on it. I've also made a good rep by delivering substantially better documentation for test suites (I can rite Eanglish an' stuff lahk that) so my perceived value is improving. The big unknown is the new middle manager, Steve Levine, who doesn't seem to care much for me.
If my contract ends on the 30th, I'll pack up and drive to Schenectady that day or if the packing takes too long, stay one more night at the RI and then drive directly to Boston for the WorldCon. I'd drive home starting on Tuesday, September 7th.
If my contract is continued, then I'll try to drive out to Boston on the 2nd of September (Thursday) and return on the 6th (Monday), really really late.
If you know about job opportunities opening up in Boston, Dallas, Los Angeles, Kansas City, Austin or Houston that entail strong Linux/Unix, C/C++, or device/kernel development, let me know! My resume is here.
I'm staying in town this weekend, after a couple of 1K mile weekends driving through NY State.
Nothing in particular in mind this weekend -- may work on the slide scanning, yearbook project, and possibly start on the Traveller Infinite Series rewrite. I'm sure that Toronto's got something interesting going on. Today President Bill Clinton is in town signing his book (no chance I'd get in on that gig ... it was a Hockey Line wait).
My wife's favorite beach is being celebrated at it's 75th anniversary. If you're from the NYC area, you've almost certainly been there. If you aren't, you're still more likely to have been there than not. Raise a glass to one of New York's natural wonders.
The killer whale that I and my family saw at Marineworld Ontario (named Neocia has died. WRGB has this story, which incorrectly states the life expectancy of orcas at 25 years. I read somewhere else that it's more like 80 in the wild, which means this whale died as a teenager (she was 12).
A couple of weeks back, there was a story about her tossing a human trainer around like a rag doll (I saw the footage on TV), and it was alarming. When a killer whale wants to use you as a Plushy, you're the Plushy.
Reading about orcas in captivity has made me sick to my stomach. We are penning up cetaceans used to having whole oceans at their beck and call. The park tanks make the holding pens in Guantanamo Bay seem expansive. I'm not giving Marineland or Sea World any more money, ever.
Had lunch with Mike Weisberg at Stuyvesant Plaza in Albany at the Londonderry sandwich shop. We walked around Stuyvesant and I found another item to add to Anne's birthday gift cache. It was great seeing him again and fortuitous I was in town when he was.
Before I drove to Stuyvesant Plaza, I took a quick jaunt down to Albany and through the Empire Plaza. The weird shaped building, for those "not in the know", is the Egg (the nickname for the Empire State Plaza Performing Arts Center).
This morning I visited the RPI Approach on 8th St. in Troy. I decided to take some off-beat photos of RPI landmarks that I can use in the WiKi version of Not the Rensselaer Handbook, and this is one of the big landmarks.
I'm staying one more night in Schenectady, at the Kraus'. I'll probably head out in the morning, and I'm thinking of doing the Corning Glass Museum on the way back, or the Land Museum in Rochester. Either way, I'll be in NY most of tomorrow and still in cellphone range.
Bosney took me to the location where he made his Quicktime VR image of the confluence of the Mohawk and Hudson rivers at Waterford, NY.
Here's my static shot of the Erie Canal sign.
Towards the first lock of the Erie Canal is this welcome sign (in both English and French ... sort of).
To the left of the sign is part of the original "ford" in the Mohawk River, from which Waterford, NY gets its name (kudos to Bill for telling me this).
On the new bridge between Pebbles Island and Waterford, NY, you will see this view of the last lock on the Erie Canal. You can spot the Erie Canal sign on the left bank and Waterford, NY on the right.
When we arrived near the spot where he took his images, an enormous flock of Canada geese came down the Mohawk and approached us, figuring me to be a bread tossing biped.
Bill taunted me to "get down at the water level" when the geese were coming in. He, however, maintained a goose-nipping safe distance away.
Bill noted that the tide was in and the water level was much higher than when he took his shots for his QuickTime VR image.