Category: Travel

Spaceships and Alligators

I just got back from a big ol’ vacation to Florida, USA. Yeah, the kids finally wore me down and I let them convince me to take them to Disney. We went to the Magic and Animal Kingdoms, Epcot and some water parks, as well as GatorLand, SeaWorld, The Kennedy Space Center and the beach at Daytona. The Space Center and Gatorland were particularly fascinating. We got to see a real Space Shuttle up close, and hold a real live alligator. It was a great time, and I really enjoyed being with my family. Now I’m back well rested and tanned.

For now, though, it’s crunch time at work, as well as for getting my book finished up and delivered to the publisher. So more on the trip, with pictures and all, later on. One thing I’ll say, I’m happy that my publisher had more origami books for sale at the Japanese gift shop in Epcot than anyone else.

The Big Five-Oh

I just got back from a trip upstate to visit family. The big event was that my parents celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary. This was a big occasion that we’ve been looking forward to. Luckily they’re both still active and healthy, and they threw a big party that brought out lots of friends and relations I haven’t seen in a long time.

My brother Jim and his family came up from New Mexico with their monster truck and an RV trailer on an epic road trip. We all met up in Albany at my brother Martin’s house for the 4th of July. Martin’s in-laws were having a big ol’ barbeque picnic. Unfortunately, the power steering on Jim’s truck blew out when they arrived, but at least they had their trailer set up and were in a safe place. We all met up in Buffalo by Friday for the party the next day. It was great to see all my nephews and niece together with my kids. And, like I said, lots of cousins came out from Toronto, Ottawa, Chicago, and all over. It was great to see everyone. Really nice.

My folks hired a violinist and pianist, who were really good at Hungarian, German, Austrian, etc. music, plus a few jazz standards thrown in for good measure. It was perfect for the occasion. There was dancing and everything. My Mum was in high spirits and even extemporaneously sang a number.

I also saw my friend Mark C., who was the best man at my wedding, who I’ve lost touch with over the years and then remade contact. He’s also the best drummer I’ve ever worked with, in Infinigon, Event Horizon, and a few other groups. I wish he lived around here. He’s been in a metal band and a world beat party band the last few years, doing the summer festival circuit. He’s sporting a way-cool Zappa-esque goatee these days. It was great to catch up.

I gave the toast at my Mum and Dad’s party. I wrote a draft out ahead of time, and then paraphrased it (mainly to shortening it to fit the mood of the moment). This method has worked for me as well as an outline or bullet points, and one can always fall back on the text if winging it seems to be losing the thread at delivery time. So I thought I’d present my toast here, for my Mum and Dad.

…

A Toast

Mum and Dad, we’re here celebrating your 50th wedding anniversary. And it’s good to be here. A lot of people don’t make it to fifty, so you deserve to celebrate. And we here all deserve to celebrate too, having known you and seen your enduring love affect our lives. Thank you everyone for coming, family and lifelong friends, to help celebrate, some of you from a long way away.

Let me take a moment to express how, as a product of your love, how much you’ve meant to me. Dad, I want you to know how my admiration for you has deepened over the years. I don’t think I’ve ever known a more principled man. In my youth I mainly saw the uncompromising aspect of it, but over time I’ve come to appreciate the values and the strength behind it. You’ve given me a lot to live up to and to look up to. Your intelligence and vast practical knowledge have been in inspiration too. You speak and read several languages. You know how to build or fix pretty much anything. You’ve had a successful career as an engineer, and have been lucky enough to enjoy a long retirement. All your sons have gone on to careers in engineering, although in the field of software rather than machinery, some of us despite our efforts to do something else. Your passion for precise thinking has been an example that served me well. Another passion of yours is a love of nature and the outdoors. You’ve always kept the most wonderful fruit trees and vegetable garden.

Mum, my love and admiration for knows no bounds. Your nurturing, your industriousness, your fantastic cooking, your humor. Your commitment to education has been a big factor in my own success in life. But the thing I appreciate most is your creative side, and the creativity you fostered in me. Your love of music has certainly rubbed off on me. Growing up our house was always full of music, particularly classical music. Playing music is one of my great joys in life. You are an expert in needlepoint, sewing, and cross-stitch, and your work is beautiful and at a masterful level. My other artistic passion is origami, and I also credit this to you. Your example of patient dedication has been an inspiration.

Together you make a great team, and so have prospered and mellowed over time and grown in love and commitment. So we find ourselves here today. Like I said, It’s good to be here. All the family and lifelong friends, everyone who’s shared in their lives, now you’re to help make this a special day. Please join me in a toast to my Mum and Dad, Frank and Eva. Cheers!

Cold Snap

Last weekend was a little ski trip up to the Berkshires with our friends Seth and Cathy and their daughter Erin. The trip coincided with a cold snap – zero degrees when we woke up Sunday morning! It got up to maybe 10. There’s been no snowfall this year but they’ve been making snow on the mountain. Conditions were pretty good, mainly cuz it was so cold. We had a great day skiing but we didn’t stay out too long. For once, though, the cold didn’t seem to bother me, and I stayed out on the mountain longer than anyone in my fur-lined tuque. I got in a good 10 runs.

Apart from the weekend this has been a mild winter and so far I’ve been feeling really good. Hope it lasts ‘til spring. The days are already starting to get longer.

The trip was a really good time and we stayed up late playing games with the kids. As an added bonus Michelle went with Erin to her horseback riding lesson Monday and got to help groom the horse and ride him too! She was absolutely thrilled.

The next day it was back to work, and the kids are already deep into school again. Tuesday night was Lizzy’s school band concert. The band sounded really good. Lizzy and the girl sitting next to her sound particularly good as the 1st flute section. It’s the same band director as the old school, which is nice cuz he’s a cool guy and a good teacher. It’s much larger ensemble now, forty kids compared to maybe a dozen. And that’s just the experienced band. The beginner group, including Michelle, will play in the spring concert and double the size!

Livin’ on Spongecake

Yeah I’ve remained lazy about updating my blog. But I’ve been on vacation, enjoying time in the real world away from the screen. And then yesterday was the first day of school for the kids. How quickly the vibe changes from relaxing to demanding. So here’s a LIFO recap for all y’all.

The good news is the kids think the new school is great. Jeannie for some reason has was really uptight and upset about the whole thing.

And of course the return of the usual pressure from work. Put up a new release of or app today. Completed lots of refactoring to smooth the road forward. The boss always wants me to get more done in less time while making my code look more deeply thought out despite the time pressure.

Before that, on the weekend between our vacation and the return to the world of working for the man, I finally organized my studio and cleaned up the garage, so those jobs got crossed off my summer todo list before the start of fall. I took apart my old lawnmower and put the engine in storage, added to the collection of future robot parts.

Before that we got back from a road trip to Washington DC and Ocean City. It was a great time. In DC we visited John Montroll and he and I had some good origami time. He has some great new models, and I showed him my work-in-progress book, which he wants to help me get published. I’m up to sixteen models diagrammed and formatted for the print page.

We also went to a few of the Smithsonians. The museum of American History, where we saw Eddie Van Halen’s (heavily modified Strat) guitar, Bill Clinton’s (completely unmodified, not even a rubber band to stand in for a bad spring, Conn) saxophone, and Farrah Fawcett’s (I have no idea) orange swimsuit and Catwoman’s original Catwoman costume, among other attractions.

The National Museum of Natural History is much smaller than the NYC counterpart, but the exhibits are more focused and less run-down. Better lighting and signage mainly; the taxidermy and rocks are pretty much the same. There’s a major Hall of Skeletons that goes on and on, going from every order of mammals thru birds and down to reptiles. Plus all the usual taxodermy and minerals, and a bit of outer space, and a focus on Elephants. Couldn’t do the mall without visiting the Air and Space museum, with Wright and Curtis fliers, and spaceships that have been to the moon and back. At this point it feels like America’s former glory. Saw an awesome newsreel of Teddy Roosevelt flying a Wright Bros. plane

Also toured the Capital. It’s changed alot since we were kids and you could circumnavigate the place running up and down all the steps. Now all the step are guarded like Grand Central Station by Homeland Security cops with dour faces and machine guns. To take the tour you have to go in thru this new underground compound on the East side, and then after a movie you’re shuttled up thru some escalators to the Rotunda. The tour guide was friendly and knowledgeable, and there was alot to learn about the paintings and friezes in the rotunda. The painting of Balboa was unrealistic, since he was supposed to be 24 years old but had a beard like a 12th level Dwarven warrior.

We also saw the Canadian Embassy. We took the train in to DC to avoid parking hassles. When I visited D.C. as a kid my Dad parked at the Capital in the space reserved for our NY representative, uh, claiming he was representing New York. Well that’s no longer possible without suffering severe tire damage or worse.

The last three day of the trip were spent on the beach and in the hot tub and in the water park and at Asseteague National Seashore. The waves were pretty intense, which made for good body surfing and boogie boarding, but it took alot of energy just to get out past the breakers. You got pretty beat up or at least thrown around every time, so you could only stay in the ocean an hour or so. The rest of that stint was total relaxation, boardwalk, and yummy seafood dinners. Scallops and crabs. This has gotten to be a habit with us. 5th year in a row I think for Labor day. Just so awesome. The days go by too fast. You should consider joining us one year.

Before that, rewinding a week and a half now, was the hurricane. Lots and lots of wind and rain. Jim Cantore of the Weather Channel was broadcasting from NYC, which was enough to fill us with dread. Luckily in the end we were unharmed, although we lit out for our vacation a day and half late because we needed to ride the storm out and then clean up the yard and clear the street. We had been planning on going to colonial Williamsburg and Busch gardens, but ended up punting on all that b/c in VA they lost power and didn’t know when it would come back on.

The main storm was Saturday night, and I stayed up late listening to the wind howl, but we all went to bed not knowing the end of the story. Sunday morning it was pretty calm and we went for a walk down to the creek, which had overflowed its banks and flooded the adjacent street. Sunday afternoon we got heavy wind from the backside of the hurricane. It downed a tree across the street from us, the last of a stand that have fallen in storms the last five years or so. Luckily for us it fell away from our house. Unluckily for our neighbors across the street, it took out their power line and they didn’t get it back for five days.

In other news, Lou came home from the hospital the Friday before the storm. He’s basically okay and glad to be home, but there’s some major lifestyle adjustments, particularly around diet. He has to eat soft foods for a while, and ease his way back into normal food. Heaven knows when he’ll be able to have a drink. When the storm hit, their whole neighborhood lost power, but their house didn’t flood. Denis and Sylvia took KVAP for a few days and brought over ice and food daily, so Lou could get some rest and Mary could deal with the emergency. The power came back on sometime when we were away, and things are more-or-less back to normal now. KVAP started school today and Lou is home convalescing for a few more weeks at least. Luckily (for 21st century America) his health insurance covered everything and he can take as long as he needs to get back to work and his job will be there for him. Still the situation sounds pretty rough.

In other other news, my friend Olga from work had her house pretty much destroyed by the hurricane. She lives in central New Jersey, on a bit of county-ish land by a creek, kinda like Martin’s old place. A few years ago the dam upstream failed, and she has been involved in a lawsuit against her town, which declined to rebuild it. This last storm her whole house flooded on the lower floor, plus her cars were destroyed, and she was stranded in the top floor of her house for most of a week without power, until the flood receded. Bad situation. Not sure if her kids made it to the first day of school. Not clear when she’ll be back to work; she was out the whole week. So I’m basically picking up her work for now on top of my own.

Ah well such is life.

The Adventure Continues

This was the first weekend I’ve been home in a month. So here’s a quick post to bring you up to date. After our big vacation in mid July, we spent last weekend camping with Martin’s and Nick’s. It was a great time, and great weather. Just a bit of rain as we were setting up camp, but then it cleared up. We were lucky; they were predicting a major storm. The whole thing was nice and mellow. Did some hikin, swimming’, barbecuein’, storytellin’, and just hangin’ out. Charlie is bright, well tempered and energetic, and getting big fast. Martin is moving on building his new house, so it’s only a matter of time until asks for his guitars back.

When I’ve been home I’ve been crazy busy at work the last two weeks, staying late and going back to work after the kids were in bed. Friday was our big demo. It was a tree browser for related records in our content management system, with all kinds of complex functionality for auto-expanding the tree and including related records, and managing duplicate records, circular dependencies and other kinds of relationships. I was pair programming with a colleague much of that time, and it was an interesting experience trying to build a huge, complex feature set under time pressure. We didn’t always see eye to eye on the approach, but in the end what we came up with was probably better than what either of us would have done on our own, and certainly faster. Olga is clever at using hash tables to speed things up, and good at low level implementation. On the other hand, her communication skills aren’t great, and I had a better understanding of the feature requirements. So I was focused on the architecture, the classes and methods, and how to keep it forward-maintainable, which often gets sacrificed in these situations. A well-written application should read like a good story. I ended up rewriting a substantial portion of here work to put all the business logic in one place so it could be easily read and (if necessary) modified down the line. Anyhow, we made our deadline and the application looked great and performed fast, so it was a big success and things will hopefully get back to normal.

Next up: I need a new lawmower.

1655 Trip Miles, Part 4: Mountain Jam

Friday afternoon we departed the Thousand Islands for the high peaks of the Adirondack Mountains. Our friends Mark and Kelly, who live in Saranac Lake were our hosts. You may recall Mark was recently in NYC for a gig with his band Crackin’ Foxy. It was a pretty chill hang, and great to catch up. We stayed up talking late into the night about life, music and the internet business. (Mark runs whiteface.com and other ORDA sites.) Saturday we did some sightseeing. Drove up to the top of Mount Whiteface. I’d tried to get the top of Whiteface quite a few times before, in both winter and summer, by car, tram and skis, and every time the weather has forced me to turn back. But this day was perfect and clear, and you could see for miles and miles. Lake Champlain the east, the high peaks to the south, and the St. Lawrence river to the north. Totally spectacular. Plus a cool little trail from the parking area to the weather station at the top, featuring carved stairs and solid stone architecture. Later in the day we went blueberry picking, which was a real treat for everyone, especially the kids. We brought home a big jar of blueberries which I’ve having for breakfast every day this week.

That evening we went to see Harry Potter 7.2 in Lake Placid, for the second time (first time in Buffalo). It was the best movie of the whole series IMO, and in some ways even better than the book. Placid was really jumpin’ that night cuz the triathlon was in town. Took a nice walk around the main drag by Mirror Lake after the movie.

Sunday was the big drive home, but we still got one more visit in. We stopped in Albany for lunch with Marin, Kathleen and Charlie, checked out some weird/cool book stores and toy stores, and even got a little shopping in. The ride home was smooth and devoid of major traffic jams.

It’s been a crazy week at work, trying to meet a deadline. Looks like we made it. Also back to working on a live set of music. I finished my Adirondack Moose diagrams, but no time for new origami this week. Still, I now have 10 models laid out for print, including three that weren’t in my ebook.

Next up: I have to fix my lawnmower.

1655 Trip Miles, Part 3: It’s a Beauty Way To Go

Next day we took off bright and early for our main destination in Canada: the Thousand Islands. Stopped for lunch at a Canadian rest stop on 401. Nicer than the ones on the NY State Thruway. Pizza with Canadian bacon. Yum. BTW, Canadian bacon in Canada is just called “bacon”.

We’d been there once before for my cousin’s wedding and have been meaning to go back for years. The name (of the islands not the meat) doesn’t do it justice: there are actually over 1800 islands in the Thousand Islands, where Lake Ontario flows into the St. Lawrence River. The whole area is just amazing scenic beauty of water, islands rocks and forests.

We got pretty lucky because we threw this trip together at the last minute, and were able to rent a cottage right on the water. We found the place on the internet while we were looking to rent a boat. Indeed the place is called Spencer’s Boat Rentals and Cottages. The woman who runs it, Lynn, was really nice, friendly and helpful. They normally rent for a week but were willing to rent to us for just a few nights. Must’ve had a cancellation. Lucky indeed.

The cottage itself was small, but big enough for us, and like I said, right on the water. The setting was beautiful and peaceful with a gentle breeze off the river cooling of the otherwise unseasonably hot weather (for up there at least, but no one really has air conditioning cuz it almost never gets up into the 90’s). We spent the afternoon swimming at a nearby beach and the evening barbecuing and fishing off the dock.

Next day we were all set to rent a boat but the wind was strong and the water was choppy, so our hostess demurred. So instead we went into town and took a tour on a much larger boat. It took us all around, under the big international bridge, past castles, mansions, and random rocks. It was so hot, even out on the water, we had to get into the shade fairly often. It was just as well we didn’t get our boat that day; we would have fried. I now have a paper model of the boat on Hoban’s dashboard.

We had a seafood lunch at some nice waterfront restaurant (sensing a theme here?) and then it was onto another park for the afternoon. The place had a nature center with live snakes and turtles, which the kids really enjoyed. Then it was more swimming on another beach. This one looked to be a favorite spot for windsurfers and parasailors to put in, so it was fun to watch that. That evening we were all really wiped out from the heat, so we let the kids watch Phineas and Furb while we barbecued. BTW, did I mention the Metro grocery stores up there are fantastic?

On the third day the weather broke. It was back to the mid-eight’s and low wind, so we finally got our boat. It was a little bass boat with a 30hp engine, but big enough to have fun. Our neighbor in a nearby cottage had a boat with a 225hp motor. Totally outrageous! We spent the morning touring around the islands, having a ball. Parks Canada has lots of islands where you can just pull your boat up and dock it, and then picnic, hike and swim. So around midday we did exactly that. Found a great spot on a place called Mermaid Island. Deep blue water, but calm and with a good way in and out on shallow, smooth rocks. I’m amazed at how clean the water is up there. The whole experience was just so awesome.

One last thing: I’ve spent a lot of time out west, including our last two summer vacations, and I’m amazed at how green everything is in the summer in the part of the continent.

1655 Trip Miles, Part 2: The Great White North

Our first stop was Toronto. On the trip up I realized it’s been three years since I last visited Canada, and many more since TO. The downtown area is all built up with apartments now. But it’s good to know that Q107 is still rockin’ the airwaves from the top of the CN Tower. Emotional feedback on timeless wavelengths.

We visited the Ontario Science Center. I’d been there once as a kid and again in college and remembered it as a very cool place that the kids might enjoy. Of course back then it was just about the only hands-on museum of its kind. Now there’s the Exploratorium in San Francisco and the New York Hall of Science in Queens. Still the Ontario Science Center stacked up well, with exhibits on space and physics and other cool stuff. And a great live exhibit about reptiles, which Lizzy especially loved. We also saw the Imax movie Under the Sea. This was a big, old-fashioned Imax with the nine-storey tall 180 degree screen, and it was pretty impressive. Lots of weird fish, squid, cuttlefish, nautilus, sharks and even some seals. I’d been interested in folding origami cephalopods (squid, cuttlefish, and nautilus) and feel I now have a good sense of how they look and move. And, I got a cool wind-up dancing robot in the gift shop.

We spent the evening downtown on the waterfront, walking around after a fantastic seafood dinner. Touched the base of the CN Tower and looked up, seein’ tower. Briefly snuck into the 12th inning of a Blue Jays game.

1655 Trip Miles, Part 1: Shufflin’ Off

Just got back from a major road trip family vacation. Great to change your mode of living every once in a while. The last couple of years we’d taken flights to faraway lands, but this year, between having a new car and a desire to avoid any Imperial entanglements at airports, we opted for a car trip.

We started with a drive up to Buffalo a few ago Friday. The kids were already up there with my Mum, having all kinds of adventures of their own. Meanwhile Jeannie and I had a week to catch up on our work and our rest. So it was just the two of us for the drive up. Got an early start; it was smooth and mellow. Made great time and explored the satellite radio stations.

We spent a few days in Buffalo. It was a very chill scene. The kids went swimming at the local lake. I put new wheels on my rollerblades. Jeannie and the girls did some shopping. Went out to see the new Harry Potter movie one night. It was probably the best of the bunch. We hooked up with Larry and Jackie at a beach bar on the Lake Erie waterfront; it was a good time and good to catch up. Larry had the good fortune to see the circus elephant walk last time he was in NYC. Sunday we went out to Rochester for my niece’s birthday and swam in Denis and Sara’s pool. Sara made me a Jayne hat for my birthday. Awesome thanks!

Monday we went up to Old Fort Niagara, which is now a very cool living museum. It was established by the French in pre-revolutionary times, and subsequently captured by the British in the 1751, handed over to the Americans in 1783, re-captured by the British in 1813, and returned to the Americans a year later. Lots of history, old stone buildings and wooden furniture, cannons, muskets and bayonets. Re-enactors really brought the experience to life, garbed as colonial soldiers in layers of hot wool on sweltering summer day. They put on demos and answered questions about weapons, food, and lifestyle from back in the day, and were knowledgeable and friendly. The high point was the drum and fife exhibition by two lovely ladies in colonial military drag, followed by firing a cannon into Lake Ontario by a group of more veridical soldiers.

After that we headed down to the falls. Hadn’t been there in a few years and it was great to walk around and take in the views. We took the tour of the Cave of the Winds. It takes you down an elevator carved into the rock of the falls. At the bottom you can walk around on some boardwalks and get the view from the bottom. They give you sandals and ponchos because it’s really wet down there. The kids got completely soaked. It was an awesome experience.

Tuesday we lit out for part 2 of our trip, a tour that included several destinations in Ontario and upstate New York.