Category: Travel

Fall Forward

Today is a wet, rainy day, perfect for catching up. It’s a good thing too. It’s been warm and dry the whole fall, and the grass everywhere is turning brown like California. Believe it or not we only tok our air conditioners out yesterday.

Last weekend Lizzy came home from college for a quick visit. As it happened we had planned on visiting Martin that weekend, so Lizzy took a bus and met us in Albany. It was a beautiful ride up thru the turning fall colors. The visit with Martin was pretty brief, but we managed to get in a little hiking along the escarpment in a local park and then dinner at nice German restaurant. Weiner schnitzel and potato pancakes, yum!

I also had a little time for drawing and playing with Martin’s kids. They’re all into mythology and mythical monsters right now, and so is Michelle. I’ve also been thinking of alt-tic-tac-toe variations as ideas for video games, and shared some with Charlie.

Lizzy rode home with us Saturday night, and was gone pretty much the whole day Sunday catching up with her friends. Was home again in the evening. Good news she’s enjoying college, engaged and doing well in her studies, making friends and doing stuff. Took a 6:00 AM flight back to Buffalo Monday morning.

Meanwhile Martin and I had alot to catch up on. We just published a major release of The Global Jukebox (http://theglobaljukebox.org). This one includes a major upgrade to the menu system, and integration of Choreometrics in to the app, and a lot of new content. Anna and her academic team are presenting it this weekend at a conference along new research findings.

Now we’re moving right on to the next development cycle, and we’re taking a moment to hit some purely engineering-oriented tasks. One is that we’re converting it to a single-page application, so that you can switch between the two main views, map and wheel, and keep your current song, playlist, journey or whatever. Next is we’ll be converting the whole thing to Typescript.

I’ve been converting my main project in my day job to TypeScript the last few weeks, as part of a larger effort to improve code quality and get things better organized. Coming from strongly typed languages like Java and ActionScript, it feels like coming home. Which is funny because I’ve spent the last few years making my peace with the lack of types in Javascript, and thinking of it more and more in functional programming terms. Now it feels like the best of both worlds, and kind of code you can write looks alot like say Scala.

Another thing that happened last week was I finished the manuscript for my Origami Airplanes and Spaceships book. I had been basically done for quite some time, but then when I went to print out the book for final proofreading I thought the diagrams were a but hard to read. This book is in an 8” x 8” format, where the previous on was 9” x 12”. The typical drawing was about 85% size. So went thru and pumped up the size on all the fold lines and arrows.

It’s particularly critical to distinguish between the valley folds and mountain folds. One is a straight dashed line and the other is alternating dashes and dots. I also made some minor corrections and wrote an introductory blurb to each models and a very nice introduction to the whole book. For a long time I didn’t think I had much to say, but when I sat down to do it the whole thing just flowed out from the first sentence “Since ancient times people have looked up to the sky and dreamed of flying through the air and traveling among the stars.”

And Then There Were Three

Just got back from another road trip upstate, this time to drop Lizzy off at college. Major life milestone, hurray! The whole thing went pretty smoothly, and all of Lizzy’s planning paid off moving in. She’s off to a good start in the dorms, making friends and learning her way around. Jeannie and I went out with Larry and Jackie and Nick and Lisa after the move-in, so they finally got to meet. Amazingly, they both independently went down south to see the eclipse last week. Both said it was a fantastic experience but the drive home, eleven hours long, sucked. While we were up there we got a visit from my cousin Tom and his family, who were on their way home from New York City. On the way back we stopped by Martin’s. He and Kathleen just ran a 5K race. This is a pretty big deal for Kathleen, who just a year ago broke her leg pretty badly. Their kids are all into Greek mythology these days so we spent some time drawing mythical monsters. I came up with a beast that head seven heads, including those of a bear, antelope, Komodo dragon, giraffe, and two snakes and a chicken as tails!

Overall a relaxing trip and nice weather for driving. Now we’re home again and the house feels large.

Longer Stranger Trippier

I was upstate last week on a visit to Buffalo with a dual purpose. One was to visit my parents and the other to drop of Lizzy for her college orientation. She’s going to UB, entering the business school. Jeannie and myself are UB alumni, along with lots of friends we haven’t seen in a while. It’s getting to the point where thirty years doesn’t seem like a long time ago. I’ve been re-connecting with quite a few people this year, mainly over facebook but in person this spring with my former college roommate Rich, and now on this trip with Danny, who just happened to be in town visiting his parents the same weekend as me.

Danny is literally my oldest friend. He grew up four houses down from the house I lived in until I was ten years old. He’s also one of the smartest people I’ve ever known. We were entering freshmen in the UB honors program together. Danny is responsible for Jeannie and I meeting. His roommate Todd went to Jeannie’s high school, and they had a party one night and Jeannie showed up and we got to talking. After college Danny moved to D.C. while I moved to New York and then California. So there was alot of catching up to do. Danny has has a very interesting career working for the State Department in the foreign service. He’s been all over the world: Egypt, Russia, Brazil, and most recently Afghanistan. I was pretty itinerant for a number of years, but I can’t imagine the level of commitment one must have for this lifestyle. Even now he’s loving learning languages and cultures, passionate about the mission, grateful to be able to do some good in the world. It’s good to know he’s doing well.

We also saw the movie Dunkirk when we were up there. It was very visual, not like a typical Chris Nolan movie. Almost like a tone poem of a war picture. It was also basically a single extended action sequence, like the opening of Saving Private Ryan drawn out to fill the whole movie.

There was a classic car show in my parents’ neighborhood. Over 400 cars they said. Lots of American muscle, Mustangs, GTOs, Cameroes from the 60’s and 70’s. Lots of rebuilt hot rods, and all kinds of more exotic stuff going back to the 30’s. There was a whole parking lot full of Corvettes. Apparently they have this show every year and it was begun by a guy at a local garage who specializes in fixing up classic cars. I wish I’ve know cuz I could’ve gotten his card and talked to him about restoring the Mustang.

Lastly we went to a party at Larry and Jackie’s for their son Joey’s high school graduation. He’ll be entering UB in the fall as well, living in the same dorm as Lizzy. Big wheel keeps on spinning around.

Now back to crazy busy situation at work.

Some Summer Fun

I had to cancel my trip to Europe at the last minute because of an injury and I’ve mostly been sitting around the house getting better. Apparently the Origami Creators Conference was a good time. The next interesting international origami conference for me is the BOS and 7OSME in Oxford in 2018, so Imma try to go to that, and maybe take Michelle with me.

Still I’ve been having a bit of fun and trying to make the most of summer so far. Of course I’ve been really busy with work too. Right at the end of June we went to see Sheryl Crow at the Beacon Theatre. Excellent show, great venue with it’s classic maximal art deco. Great sounding band, including several guitar players, and a pedal steel guitar, Rhodes and organ. Surprisingly Sheryl played bass on a lot of songs.

Last weekend we saw McCoy Tyner at Caramoor Art Center. That was really good too, but a very different kind of show. I can’t believe I’ve live in Westchester for years and never seen a show a Carmoor. It’s like a mini SPAC, full of gardens and an amphitheater under an awning. There were three piano players, the last of which as McCoy, all playing an eight foot Steinway, accompanied by a fantastic rhythm section. I’m amazed at how three different players can get such different sounds from the same piano, down to the sound of a single note.

Vacation Pics

We’ve only been home a little over a week and it already seems like it was ages ago. So before it recedes too far into the past here’s some pics of our trip to Puerto Rico. As always drop me a line if you want login credentials. BTW Lizzy’s run of Hunchback of Notre Dame started last weekend at it was very impressive. I’ve seen professional shows on Broadway that weren’t as good.

http://zingman.com/fotooz/2017/2017-01/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/2017/2017-02/
http://zingman.com/fotooz/

Caribbean Blue

Just got back a few days ago from a fantastic vacation in Puerto Rico. I’d been to the Caribbean a few times, but always British islands. This was my first time on a Spanish island, which is a bit funny cuz it’s part of the U.S.A. It reminds alot of a humid version of California more than it does of Jamaica or the Bahamas.

Spring break is kinda of a weird time of year for a tropical vacation, cuz spring had already arrived so it’s too late to escape the cold. Still, it was summertime hot down there, which felt great. Out trip was a nice balance of hanging around relaxing by the beach on going on adventure outings. This may be the last big trip for the four of us as a family, with Lizzy going off to college in the fall.

We stayed a resort hotel on the seaside. It was very nice. The first day we arrived in the mid-afternoon and the weather was stormy, so we explored the place, relaxed at the bar and got dinner. Next day the weather slowly improved so we spent most of the day hanging around the pool. By the afternoon the sun came out but the ocean was still too rough to go swimming. We had a visitation in the hot tub by the local giant iguana, who was very friendly.

We went on an evening kayaking trip, starting in a bay on the ocean and going up the river thru a jungle of mangroves to another, inland bay where there was bioluminescent algae. Very Kurztian. We watched the sun set floating on the still water of the bay. Once it got dark the water literally glowed when you cut thru with your paddle or waved your hand around in the water. Other than that the trip back was in total darkness. Very cool experience.

Next day we went to El Yunque National Forest, a tropical rainforest. Went on some hikes to some waterfalls, saw some cool birds and lizards and lots of strange plants, climbed to the top an observation tower. Had lunch a roadside stand and discovered mofongo. Now we need to find a place around here that does mofongo. Yum!

The ocean finally got calm enough to go for a swim, although they had no life guards so I didn’t go too far out, and the kids didn’t go in at all.

Another highlight was we trekked out to the Arecibo Radio Telescope, which was until a few months ago the world’s largest radio telescope, with the main dish 1000 feet across, or 20 acres in area. It’s built in a natural depression in an part of the island with weird hilly terrain, full of caves and sinkholes. It turns out you can’t rollerblade in the dish even if you wanted to cuz it’s not solid. It’s just a bunch of aluminum mesh plates held up by a gridwork of wires. There’s jungle growing underneath! You need special metal snowshoes to walk on it, and there’s a weight limit of 120 lbs. So there goes that dream.

The telescope itself is storied and older than I knew, designed in the 1950′ and operational by 1963. It was where they first measured the length of Mercury’s day, and where they first discovered pulsars. In addition to receiving signals it can send them, so it can function like a giant police radar gun and image individual asteroids millions of miles away, halfway to Jupiter. One of it’s major missions now is building up a catalog of all the near-Earth asteroids. It has a whole ‘nuther antenna for atmospheric research. And more lizards!

The last stop of the trip was Old San Juan and the fort build by the Spaniards in the 1500’s. We threaded thru the neighborhood by car, although the streets were clearly not designed for cars, and as luck would have it we found the one parking spot on the street, as close as you can get. Also right when we arrived a big cruise ship was leaving, so it was all relatively uncrowded.

On the way into the fort we saw a band setting up in the square outside, trumpets and tin pans, but by the time we came back they were gone. I wish we were able to hear more local music. Ah well. At least we found a nice pub and a cold relaxing drink after all that.

The flights were uneventful and comfortable enough. We got home around two in the morning. I don’t fly as much as I used cuz it’s so often a hassle, but this trip was fine. Now I’m thinking of going to France in July for an origami conference.

Coming soon: pictures!

Turn Turn Turn

Life continues as we turn the corner towards fall. Vacations are over and another school year has started.

We often go the beach at Ocean City MD over Labor Day weekend, but this year there was a hurricane barreling up the coast from Carolina, and the weather report was for heavy rains and gale-force winds, so we ended up cancelling the trip. Still we had a nice relaxing weekend, and went out to dinner on the water on Long Island Sound. Lizzy got to work a couple more days at the pool and ended the summer with some extra cash, and got to practice driving too. Michelle got to go the Renaissance Fair with her Aunt and cousins, and afterward we had them all over for one last barbecue.

I spent some of my found time dusting off Elixr, my long-neglected three-quarters completed third Buzzy Tonic album. Been tracking the bass part for what will probably be the last song, Leave the City Behind. I have other songs that I haven’t even begun to track, but I’ll probably save them for a future record. Hopefully I can finish this one by the end of the year. After that, seeing as I now have a working rock band and a real live jazz band too, I want to figure out a way to record some of my songs with real musicians.

But for now I’m going back and listening and mixing, adding the occasional part to round out an arrangement. I’ve been putting autotune on the vocals too. (Shhh, Don’t tell anyone!) Autotune has come a long way since the days of Believe, and the default mode makes it easy to manipulate while still sounding natural. It basically brings it about halfway to true pitch, so there’s still room for tremolo and tonal effects, everything sounds a bit more in tune, kinda like quantizing my midi piano parts for tighter phrasing. So far I have four new mixes out of the eight finished tunes. So watch this space for some new mixes soon.

Now the kids are back in school again. Lizzy is a Senior and Michelle 8th grade; both are really excited. Lizzy is driving to school now (!). I had been thinking of getting her an old jalopy of a car since her commute is so long by train. Then thru a lucky turn of events we got a much nicer car then we originally planned. Only problem with is was the bumper had had a close encounter with a garage door and repainted the wrong color. Today I sprayed it with the correct matching shade and now you can hardly even tell. Other random good news: Jeanne got promotion at work, and a raise big enough to cover the hike in our car insurance.

The last couple weeks at work have been pretty mellow for me. I took a couple Fridays off, and alot of people were gone a whole week, and then at the end of August our management was all out in Vegas for the year’s most important trade show. And as a former trade show exhibit designer, let me tell you we had a very cool booth! The software engineers had all been scrambling like mad to get a sufficiently stable and polished demo of the new UI out for the show. Apparently it’s a hit. Then last week we got to catch our breath, and do some refactoring, bug fixes, and planning.

Now we’re at the top of another big long run of work. The goal is to have a fully functional new UI by the end of the year. Google will no longer support Flex and Flash in chrome, so we need to retire our old one. When we were told this back at the beginning of the summer I thought it was well nigh impossible, but we’ve made alot of really good progress over the summer, and it looks pretty doable from here. Meanwhile we’re also rearchitecting the backend of our product to be modular, distributed and scalable, and to be able to handle a million computers in our system.

New Song: Kings Hex

Big wheel keeps on moving along. Jeannie and I just got back from quick but very fun and relaxing camping trip with our friends Erik and Jen and Jerry and Rose. This trip we didn’t bring the girls cuz they just got back from a trip of their own, going to camp for a week with their theatre group YAA. I must say the house is really quiet without the kids around, but OTOH it’s not hard to get used to. Jeannie and got to go out on out own a few times. Friday we went to downtown Yonkers and had dinner on the waterfront with some jazz group playing right across the square.

Last week was big deadline for work. Working at a startup, my company is running at a pretty hot pace, pretty much the limit of how fast you can write software without it becoming total chaos. This weekend the company is at a big trade show in Vegas giving our customers and prospects a preview of the new software I’ve been working on. (My boss is one of the crew going out there and doing demos. I offered to teach him the MIT card-counting system for blackjack, which I learned from some MIT guys when I was out in Silicon Valley in the ‘90’s. He thought he’d be too busy to have much time for casinos.)

So it’s the end of the summer and I’ve been working hard and getting a little fried, working late into the nite to get everything in for the code freeze. But I figure it’s August so I took a couple of well-deserved days off mainly to catch up on random tasks and some rest.

The camping trip itself was very nice. Got to hang out with friends, cook over a fire, swim the lake, play some guitars, everything you want. I must say, as much as I enjoy it all I was thinking I might be done with camping after the July trip. It’s just alot of work. And next year we and all our friends have kids going off to college, so the situation is changing and the opportunities for family vacations are numbered. Maybe better to rent a lake house or beach house or something. But then it turned out that with just the two of us it’s alot easier, alot less gear and food and everything, like in the before times when we used to travel light. So now I’m back into camping again.

If you’ve stuck with this rambling post this long, we get to the payoff. In my downtime I finished off another jazz demo. This one is called King’s Hex. It’s a development of an idea I’ve been kicking around for a long time. The basic groove started as an attempt to write a song for my prog rock group Infinigon, but I didn’t have a lyric. Some of those ideas eventually found their into the song Angel or Alien of the second Buzzy Tonic record Face the Heat. Meanwhile I wrote an instrumental version – which by this time was a completely different song – for Flip|Hippo, the acid jazz duo I had with Erik for a time in the 90’s, but the melody was very challenging to play, and we never really got it together.

So I figured I’d dust if off and tighten up the arrangement for my new jazz group since I finally have a group players that can handle a song like this. I actually had to practice the sax part a few times to get it right. Now here you go:

http://zingman.com/music/mp3/jazzDemos/KingsHex.mp3

What a Long Strange Trip It’s Been

We’re about halfway thru the summer now, and finally have a chance to pause and catch our breath. Michelle is done with her summer school and Lizzy has only a couple day’s left of driving school. Work for me is busier than ever and the weather has been really hot the last few weeks. We’ve been on some good adventures.

A couple weekends ago we went down to Jones Beach on Long Island. We went early on a Sunday morning, the best time to go, before it gets too hot and two crowded. The waves were just perfect, the ocean was calm and beautiful, and the sky was warm and sunny. Mary and her kids came out too; they live only a few minutes from the beach. We decided to go back to her house for lunch, which was a lucky thing cuz on the way I got a flat tire and it wouldn’t been bad news if I’d stayed on the highway much longer. As it was, AAA came out and changed the tire, and we were able to find a place nearby that was open on a Sunday and could fix it. Not too bad.

This last weekend we went camping with Nick’s. It was another really excellent time. The weather was great, and Martin’s came out to spend Saturday. I went on a long, hilly, rocky hike, which is something I haven’t done in a few years cuz of my ankle, but this year it felt good, strong and healthy. So I went and had no problems. Great views down both sides of the mountain, out over the escarpment into the Hudson Valley and back onto the lakes. Afterwards we went to the beach on the lake, jammed on guitars and had an excellent barbeque. All in all a mellow and peaceful time. This could be the end of an era. We’ve been camping together since before Michelle and Marco were born. Next year both families will have a kid graduating high school and entering college. We’re thinking of maybe shifting gears and renting a house on Lake George next year.

To top it all off last night I played a fantastic jazz gig. More on that soon.

Every Day’s the Fourth of July

After five weekends in a row of nonstop running around we finally have a day of rest. Most recently we were upstate visiting family and friends for a few days around the 4th. My friend Larry had a graduation party for his daughter. Meanwhile his oldest son is now twenty and looks just like he did at that age. Amazing. Larry also got a dart board and a pool table and some very nice bourbon and made a game room, so that was alot of fun. I went rollerblading for the first time this season. I’ve come to realize the streets around here are hilly and bumpy, while in my parents’ neighborhood they’re flat and smooth. Much nicer. Went up to the falls, with my kids and my mom. Martin came to town with all his kids too. We had a barbeque, saw the fireworks, had a great time. Lizzy drove home partway, for a good hour thru the hilliest part of the trip. She did a cool 55 while I usually like to go 80 when I can, but it was totally fine.

Before we left and again since we’ve been back the weather has been super hot, but the last few days we’ve had some rain, which is a welcome relief. I’ve been super busy with work – went into the city all but one day last week – but even so I’ve really been enjoying the summer. I just really like this time of year.

We had jazz today with the full group for the first time in what feels like ages. Made some recording of a few songs including a couple of my originals. Hopefully they’ll come out. Last time we tried something was wrong with the balance and you couldn’t hear the bass. I also introduced a new tune but we didn’t have much chance to work on it.

This summer is a bit mellower than the last few for travelling. For one thing I’ve started a new job recently, and also the kids are busy. Michelle is taking a high school prep summer school program, and meanwhile Lizzy is taking driver’s ed and has a job at a local pool. I’d like to the beach sometime, and we have a camping weekend coming up, but that’s mostly it for a while. Hopefully we can continue to get things done and at the same time enjoy ourselves.