Category: Travel

One More Time

And so the endless summer slacking comes to a close. We ended with a nice trip to the Maryland beaches. Nature hikes, water parks, swimming in the ocean, a couple fancy dinners, very nice. Jeannie and I are discovering we all have more fun if we let the kids go off on their own. The traffic was terrible both ways, but we had some good tunes. Jeannie bought some old CDs by the Canadian power trio Triumph, which I hadn’t heard in years, but still stand up quite well.

The kids are finally back to school tomorrow. Google wants to set up another phone meeting, presumably to either tell my goodbye or bring me in for round three. If it goes well I’d like to get back into doing R&D. My hope dark-horse hope is to become their in-house expert on computational origami. Trying to figure out how to pitch that they need one of those.

More Summer

Travelling is mainly done for now, and we’re into the long back stretch of summertime. The fun continues with a new adventure every week. Last weekend my parents were in town for a visit, which was really great, barbeque and storytelling. Then this weekend Jeannie and I went up to Connecticut to visit a friend and splash in his pool and ride in his motorboat and go tubin’ on the Connecticut River. Wicked fun.

In between I took the girls out to the beach, Jones Beach on Long Island – on a Monday. Last few years I was only ever able to go on the weekend, but this time there was no one there, totally awesome.

I also bought a new weight set. About a year ago I added some tricep and lat exercises to my workout, as well as pullups, and my arms and shoulders have never felt better. But only I have dumbbells for weights and I’ve gone as far as I can go without a bench press. I looked online and went to several sporting goods stores but couldn’t find a good bench press rack. It was important to get a rack with a safety bar cuz I don’t have a spotter. Then I went craigslist to look for weights, figuring used weights are just as good but alot cheaper, and found this guy in Queens who deals in new and used gym equipment. Went to get a stack of weights and got a rack and bar while I was at it. Bada-bing bada-boom!

Summer Travel VI – Ohio

I just got back from the biggest trip yet this summer. I drove deep into the heart of flyover country, to Columbus, Ohio, for the Center Fold origami conference. My travelling companion was my twelve-year-old daughter Michelle. We both had a great time.

We lit out from NYC early Friday morning. Got over the GWB before rush hour really hit, and out on I-80 for a good 500 miles. Clear sailing, mountains and plains and woods and farms the whole way. Got into Columbus late afternoon, registered for the convention and started hanging out with origami people. Since this was a different convention it was a different crowd of usual suspects, some familiar faces, some new. John M. and Steve R. and Beth J. and Brian W. were there. Beth wasn’t in New York this year and had some new stuff, so it was good to see her. Brian was running the Origami Shop live, selling paper and books and stuff with his wife. I also met John Scully, the head of the Ohio Paperfolders group and main organizer of the convention.

The exhibit space was nice, with round tables and white tablecloths rather than rectangular and black like in NYC. I brought a bunch of stuff cuz I didn’t know what to expect, but it looked really great.

After dinner at a really good barbecue place we settled into folding for the evening. Brian taught Michelle the classic Hydrangea. Michelle got really into it, and suddenly she was off and running, folding model after model with every more recursions. Next day she took a course for a modular flower ball, taught by Meenakshi Mukerji, and suddenly was capable of folding complex modulars. She did a 12- and 30-unit version, and later on did some other modular flower things.

I taught several courses. The first was intermediate and complex spacecraft. I had diagrammed the bulk of my Radio Satellite and SpaceX Dragon since the June convention, although both diagrams only went up to the 3-D phase; the first 35 out of 50 steps or so. So I taught the ending part by demonstration and it went quite well. I didn’t have time to formally teach the Dragon, but a few people folded that too from the diagrams and I helped them finish it off.

The next class was animals from my book Origami Animal sculpture. This was a intermediate class, and there was a broad range of folding ability, but everyone got thru it alright. I had printed out five of the models from my book, although once they started folding it, I realized on of them was not the version I used in the book!

My third class was Sunday morning. I taught intermediate and complex airplanes, including my Jet Airliner and Biplane. People seem to really like my new models, so I’m quite happy about that.

Michelle took Erik Gjerde’s class on his Dragon Helix Tessellation. She did quite well at it and was really excited and proud to have mastered such and advanced model. Michelle really leveled up as a folder and is into some really good stuff now. She told me several times she had a really good time at the convention.

Meanwhile I was inspired by Meenakshi’s work, and began thinking of making a flower-ball out of a single sheet rather then a modular. I spent most of my free folding time on this. First I made a single flower, then a cluster of six that has the form of half a dodecahedron, and then bought some paper from Brian to begin a full dodecahedron. I got most of the prefolding done by the end of the convention.

The last night there was a pizza and beer party in the courtyard of the hotel. All in all it was a great time. Very laid back and relaxed. I hope to get back there again sometime soon.

Next day we drove down to Dayton to see the National Air Force Museum at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. Seeing this place has been on my bucket list for a long time, and it did not disappoint. It’s a huge collection of (mainly American military) historical aircraft, going all the way back to Wright flyers over a hundred years old. Lots of stuff from WWII and the Cold War, as well a whole hangar of experimental planes, including lots of early supersonic ones. The highlight for me was the XB-70 Valkyrie. This a giant and extremely weird-looking hypersonic plane from the 1960’s with a top speed of Mach 3, or over 2000 mph. Only two were ever built and one exploded, so this is the only one in existence. There was also a whole hangar of presidential aircraft including Air Force One, the 707 that severed Kennedy thru Clinton. Cool stuff!

Summer Travel III – V

Lots of travel this time of year. We just got back from a cruise with Jeannie’s family. It was her mother and father’s 50th wedding anniversary and they wanted to take all the kids and grandkids. We’re very happy for them and feel quite lucky both sets of our parents have made it this far.

Rewinding a bit, the weekend after Buffalo we went up to Albany to visit with Martin. He’s building a massive deck out back of his house, and it was about half done the day we were out there. We left Lizzy to stay a spell and help out Kathleen, but were all reuinted the following weekend. We went camping with Martin, Kathleen and their kids, Nick and Lisa and their kids, and a whole bunch of Nick’s extended family. I think we had eight campsites. I always feel like camping is a lot of work, especially the preparation, but then once we get there it’s always such great fun. Hiking, making fires, sleeping in tents, good food and drink, and all that. This year it rained both nights. Not enough to stop us from doing stuff and having fun, but everything was wet when packed up, so we had to roll it out to dry after we got home.

Of course camping isn’t for everyone. Some people are more cruise people. I’ll admit I’m not one of them. I had my doubts beforehand. I didn’t want to be stuck on a boat with nothing to do and/or seasick the whole time. But all was well and it was a great time.

It was a 4 day cruise, which was enough for me, and we had a cabin with a balcony, which was nice. The ship itself was really neat. It’s the Carnival Splendor, which is the 46th largest cruise ship in the world today (it was in the top ten when it was new just 8 years ago) and about as big as can be and still fit thru the Panama Canal. It’s 950 feet long and 16 or 18 stories high above the waterline. Taking off from NY harbor it barely fit under the Verrazano Bridge. Less then 20 feet to spare! Everything inside the boat was a bit smaller than normal, but very efficiently designed so you didn’t mind. I had less than inch clearance under most doorways, and very little shoulder room.

Once we were away there wasn’t much to see other than the sea. We saw dolphins twice. Once was first thing in the morning, six or so of ’em playing in the ship’s wake, which was delightful, and later there were dozens of ’em, but not as close. We saw whales too, one evening watching the sun go down, and some lovely sunsets. But it was mostly overcast so not much in the way of stars. The port of call was St. John New Brunswick, a nothing-ish town that was a cross between St. Catherine and Seattle in tone. We took a hike and saw the local gorge, where the famous Bay of Fundy tides ran upriver and created interesting whirlpools. We had lobster rolls for lunch at a pub, saw a little whaling museum, and the kids got souvenirs. The terrain itself was interesting and weather was much colder in the bay of Fundy than near home. All in all quite charming.

On the boat there were lots of bars and restaurants, pools and hot tubs, movies and even a casino. Even though there were thousands of people it didn’t feel cramped. The food was really, really good, and there was lots of it in all varieties, from buffets to big dinner banquets. The whole thing really well run, very impressive. Lizzy got into playing the various trivia contests they had, and won a golden “ship on a stick” trophy. The main attraction, of course was just hanging out with the family. Alot like camping, but less forest, more ocean, and less work. It’s great to see all the nieces and nephews for an extended spell. They had a great time all together. All but two are now into middle school and high school, and becoming such interesting people. Of course Denis and Sylvia, who’ve have been on lots of cruises, had a great time too. This was the way they wanted to celebrate.

Next up: Ohio!

Summer Travel II

Just got back from a trip upstate to visit family and friends. Saw my parents and my brother Martin and his family. Had some BBQ and took in the fireworks show at the local park on the 4th. Saw Denis and Sara, whose pool is broken, and then Larry and Jackie, who are on their way to Vegas and San Francisco to celebrate their anniversary. Nick and Lisa and their kids were in town too, so we all went up to Niagara Falls together. I haven’t done the falls in a few years, although I grew up near there and know the place well. We used to ride our bikes up there before I could drive. Anyway, we did the Maid of the Mist and trekked all the way out to Terrapin point, and ended up at the bar there. Great day for it.

Next day we went on a tour of SUNY at Buffalo. Lizzy is going into 11th grade in the fall, and so is Nick’s oldest son so it’s time to start looking at colleges. Jeannie, Nick and I all attended UB a long time ago, and Jeannie and I met and fell in love there, so the tour brought back alot of memories as well as alot of comments on everything that’s changed with the campus since that time. Lizzy seemed favorably impressed by the whole thing, and is starting to think more about what she wants to do with her life and what it’ll take to get there.

Summer Kick-Off

Hi, I’m back. Been busy traveling and other stuff, getting an early start on my summer. I went upstate to visit my brother Martin and then on to the Adirondacks to see my good friend Mark for a few days. Nice just to disconnect from everything and spend a few days on my own. Martin and family are doing well. Abbie is now past two. Out of baby phase and into little kid phase. She’s trying hard to keep up with her big brother, who is trying hard to keep up with *his* big brother. Meanwhile out in the yard they have chickens and ducks and guinea fowl running around and squonking all the time. Great fun.

I haven’t been up to the mountains in a while and it was good to reconnect with nature and to see Mark too. The weather was beautiful and bugs not too bad, so we did a bunch of hiking and canoeing. Very peaceful, just awesome. Mark is doing well too, busy running his own business building web sites for everyone (it seems) in the region. On my last night there I sat in with Mark’s band Crackin’ Foxy. They do old-timey gypsy jazz, and are quite good. Two female singers for an Andrews-sisters-ish sound, two guitarists and a standup bass, with Mark on banjo and ukulele. I played soprano sax and had a great time.

On the drive home coming out of the mountains I wrote a new song.

Lizzy had a concert at her school for her a cappella group and the school band (obviously not performing together). They were really excellent, even surprisingly so. In fact the a cappella group got invited to sing the national anthem at a Yankee game next weekend!

On Memorial Day weekend we had a big ol’ barbecue and had a bunch of friends over. Everyone is so busy all the time so it’s good to see people and hang out. Also went rollerblading for the first time this season, and took the Mustang out for a nice long ride. In between lots of yardwork (today it finally got actually *hot*), working on music, my web site and of course origami for my new book. I now have 16 models designed, including a brand-new Quadrocoptor, and two new models diagrammed and the diagrams for two more well begun. Only a month until convention and lots to do!

Random Reflections

Let’s see … lots of bits and pieces these days.

I spent the weekend hanging out with Seth and Mark at Seth’s cabin in the Berkshires. Good to get away from the wife and kids for a spell and eat lots of barbecue. We went on a nice hike to a waterfall. You should know that Mark is an amazing musician and leads the band Cracklin’ Foxy out of Saranac Lake, NY. I learned the only music Mark hates more than Happy is anything from the soundtrack to Frozen. Also Mark has grown a mountain man beard. I think it was 20 years ago this weekend Seth invited my out on his dad’s sailboat and we cruised up an down the Hudson.

I’m over the hump on my Scala class. It’s actually making sense now. I submitted the homework on Huffman encoding and got a perfect score. I’ll admit I googled the problem, but hey, that’s what you do in real life when faced with a programming challenge. Rather than just copy what I found, I took several different solutions and read them and compared them until I understood what they were saying, and then created my own solution that best expressed it to my sensibilities. This week I finished the last lecture, and there’s two more homeworks to go, but the last one is another double, pushing up against OUSA.

Jeannie is back at work, starting a new job after switching jobs followed by a spectacular flameout a couple months ago. Woo-hoo. Meanwhile the kids are counting the days until the end of school.

I’ve been rockin’ my own work of lately. Ever since Olga got sacked it’s been so much easier to concentrate. Today at work I wrote over 200 lines of code! Also I came across a situation (marshalling data parsed out of an xml response) where the Scala approach is better than the way I’ve been doing it in Java all these years. Would have been far less code.

My train reading these days has been the Conan the Barbarian series by Robert Howard. It turns out these were originally published in Weird Stories magazine in the 1930’s alongside the first C’htuulhu stories, and Howard and H. P. Lovecraft were friends similar to Tolkien and C. S. Lewis. Conan is perfect train reading. I had to give up Game of Thrones because it got to be so rambling and pointless. The Conan stories OTOH are nice and short, with tight plots, heavy on action and with a supernatural twist. I can usually read a whole novella between my morning and evening commute.

The Relix are officially defunct. Our drummer Gus finally quit last week, frustrated with auditioning new singers. He’s now trying to start a new group with Mike and me from the Relix and some guys from his other band, which also crashed and burned. We’re getting together later this week. I learned Space Truckin’ tonight in honor of the occasion.

Meanwhile I’ve written and begun recording two new tunes. One is called Your Dancing Shoes, and it’s a catchy blue-eyed-soul number with a big horn break in the mode of Domino or Sir Duke. I’ve asked Lee, the erstwhile Relix guitarist – the jazzy one – to lay down a guitar track for me, and he enthusiastically agreed. Now I just have to get the bass part clean enough that I’m satisfied with a take. I’m going for no punch-ins on this one because the there’s not very many gaps in the part, and it’ll just groove better.

The other song is called To Be a Rock, and I plan on asking Frank, the other – straight ahead rock – Relix guitarist to sit on that one, cuz it matches his style. In fact I wrote these two songs with these guys in mind. I hope he agrees because even though I could probably play the part myself, I want to capture his sound, which I have no idea of how to reproduce. This song still needs some development; I feel like it’s missing a part toward the end.

Since I’ve become a regular member of my Jazz combo I feel like I should learn the tunes. I have an older version of the Real Book (1980’s) than everyone else, and it’s just chock full of errors. I also want to get my chops of for slaloming changes of the bebop and bossa nova numbers. I finally had a chance to practice sax this week. I’d been noticing for some time that it’s been getting harder to pop out those low notes. I went over the horn with a leak light but the low notes are all tight. They ought to be; I just had the horn repadded two years ago. I finally discovered the problem is the octave key. So tomorrow I’m gonna call up Virgil Scott and see when I can get the horn in. For now I’ve fixed it with electrical tape. I noticed it’s the third spot on my horn fixed in such a way.

Live update – four firetrucks pulled up to my neighbor’s house a little while ago. They loitered four about an hour and just took off.

The last topic for tonight is origami. I finished my Dimpled Dodecahedron, wetfolded it and all, and it came out very nicely. Only one step away from the Stellated Dodec, v2. The closing is working out different than the previous model since I can’t remember how I did it before. I still have two weeks before the convention and hopefully I’ll be able to finishe a few more ideas. The big problem now is that my folding style has grown so complex it’s very difficult to fold these models even for me.

Fotoz Update Part 1

Spring teases us with false promises and winter holds on with one final desperate gasp. Over the weekend enough snow had melted that I was finally able to clean up the debris left behind by the removal of my old elm tree. The good news is the town is supposed to come and grind out the stump and plant a new tree. We’ll see if they keep their word.

Meanwhile, as we begin to make plans to go aout and play in the coming year, can there be a better time go back thru last year’s pictures and make some albums and relive some fond memories. I put up the first two albums, which cover the period from the xmastime thru the end of the school year. Highlights include a trip upstate for the holidays, a trip the Caribbean, and Lizzy’s graduations from middle school. As always these galleries are for family and friends, so if you need a password drop me a line.

Third Annual OrigaMIT Convention

This weekend I attended the 3rd annual OrigaMIT convention at the venerable Massachusetts Institute of Technology. I had such a good time last year that this year Jeannie decided to come up with me. It was a great hang. I exhibited some models, taught two classes, and hung out with a lot of origami friends including Jason, Brian, Erik Gherde, Sipo, Ben, Mark, Anne, and others. My exhibit this year was smaller, with mostly new stuff: my Stellated Dodecahedron, Great Dodecahedron, and Penfractal Dodecahedron, my Penrose Tiles I-III, my Dog Timber and Cat Sophie, and to round things out my Moose, Armidillo and Cuttlefish from the book.

In the morning my class was Timber and Sophie. I was pretty impressed with the level of folders. They got thru both models in an hour. At OUSA in June they took an hour for each model. I guess maybe teaching it the second time I’m getting better at communicating the nuances effectively.

At lunchtime Jeannie and took a walk along the Charles river. There was a big rowing race going on, which was pretty cool, and towards the end a whole flurry of sailboats got out on the water.

After lunch I attended a lecture by Erik Demaine on the work of David Huffman. Huffman is more widely known for his work in computer science, having invented the encoding algorithm that’s at the heart of modern media codecs like jpg and mp3. But he was a pioneering origami guy as well, particularly with curved folding and tessellations. Erik is in the process of putting together a book about Huffman and his origami, and had slides of a lot of cool works I’d never seen before.

My second class was my Penrose Tessellations. I was expecting only a few people since the model is pretty advanced and rather esoteric, but the class was full and included a good handful of kids. Good thing I brought extra CP’s and paper. Kathy Stevick donated some pre-cut pentagon paper, which was a big time saver. Even so, teaching this class was harder than I expected. Most people aren’t used to folding in pentagonal geometry, so I had explain everything in more detail. Plus there was a lot of precreasing. The class was in fact for a system for folding tessellations of any number of cells. I had them start out making a 10-cell model out of small paper, and then start in on the 30-cell out of large paper. I figured the 10-cell would take about half the class, but it took more like 90 minutes. Still everyone hung in there and most folded a successful model. Those who were interested got enough to get going on the 30-cell one.

That evening there was a giant folding competition in the main room, and Jason asked me to participate, and Jeannie was my partner. We folded a giant version of Timber out a five- or six-foot square of white paper. I was concerned it might not stand up cuz the giant paper tends to be floppy, but somehow it worked. When it was done I called it a Dire Wolf. It was the crowd favorite, and Jeannie and I won first place. I got a copy of the proceedings of 5OSME and Jeannie got an OrigaMIT shirt.

Later that night Ben demoed his KNK Zing cutter. It’s basically the same thing a craft robo, but apparently better, cuz it can take wider stock and it has better software. It was pretty cool seeing one in action, and see how scoring the paper can save a lot of time and help with the folding. I’ve been thinking of getting one, although I delayed the purchase in favor of amps on other music gear. If I do, it’s good to know this is a good piece of gear.

As we left MIT we saw the lights of Fenway Park across the Charles. It was the last game of the pennant race. We got back to our hotel room just in time to catch the replay of a grand slam that turned the tide of the game in Boston’s favor and led the Red Sox to victory. On the drive home Sunday morning it was a perfect fall day for watching the foliage change color. The leaves were peaking red, yellow, crimson and orange. It seems like every few miles we’d round a curve and the view was just breathtaking.