Video from Trip

if you want to see any of the photos in a larger, higher quality format, click the link in the sidebar to my picasa web album.

Photos from Trip

I tried taking a lot of planned panoramic photos... I combine them in photoshop, although I'm not totally competent with the photomerge command. Here's one of Bryce Canyon that turned out well.

Las Vegas

We spent our last night of our trip in Las Vegas, staying at "The Signature at MGM Grand." The Signature is a three tower complex attached to the MGM Grand that is just a little nicer... We had a suite with a giant jacuzzi tub, and a king size bed, kitchen, living room, multiple tvs; it was great.

We ate at Wolfgang Puck Bar and Grill which was amazing. On the MGM Grand website, it is listed as casual dining, but I can tell you, there is nothing casual about the food.

Afterwards we saw Ka, a Cirque du Soleil show. I have to say, it was one of the best things I've ever seen in my life. Truly amazing. Most of the stuff the performers do, you wouldn't think possible. Ka only shows in Las Vegas, so probably you should buy an airplane ticket and get out there.

This morning, we spent a bunch of time at the Grand Pool, the outdoor water enjoyment complex at the MGM Grand. It was nice, but not the best aquatic experience of all time. Then we went and gambled a bit. I was pretty nervous about it... there is something intimidating about all the semi-drunk young people and slightly serious old people. So we played some slots and then a video blackjack game. We lost $11 bucks, but had a half hour of fun.

Finally, we hopped onto our Virgin American flight (interior is like a disco) and came back. Pictures will follow tomorrow as well as a little video. Fred: I really will make a little video this time!

Early Morning

Lila and I woke up this morning at 5:30, got dressed quickly, and drove out to watch the sunrise over Bryce Canyon... It was amazing. The rocks were impressive looking enough in the dim light before the sun climbed above some of the mesas of the Colorado Plateau, but once the sun peaked through, the Canyon looked as if it was on fire!

Naturally, I took many photographs, none of which have made it to the web yet as I didn't bring my own laptop... all these posts have been through kiosks at hotels.

After a short breakfast, we are going back to the Canyon to do a hike, the 1.4 mile Navajo loop, which will bring us down into the canyon. The trail winds around hoodoos, arches, windows, and natural bridges.

Then, we'll clean out the car a bit (We already shipped home two giant boxes, just to lighten our load for the return trip) and drive to Las Vegas. En route, we'll cross out of the Mountain Time Zone and into the Pacific Time Zone, gaining an hour. One more hour to gamble and live it up in Las Vegas! We are going to a Cirque du Soleil show as well as eating dinner at Wolfgang Puck Bar and Grill.

Bryce Canyon

This morning, we departed Zion Canyon. Zion National Park is wonderfully run, with a very environmentally modern visitor center, to a fleet of propane powered park buses, the park is easily accesible and beautiful. Additionally, unlike other parks, it has a great town, just right outside! We ate lunch today in a restaurant called Oscar's Cafe. There, I had the best ribs I've ever had. Lila had fish tacos, also delicious. They played such classics as "Mr. Roboto" as well as "Don't you, Forget about Me..." Also the fish tacos were spelled "Phish" Tacos... so obviously I liked the place.

After a two hour drive to Bryce Canyon, we checked into the local Best Western and went to look at the Canyon. Skipping the obvious viewpoints, we continued to Bryce Point, less crowded with better views. Geologically, Bryce is easily my favorite canyon we've seen. Tall sandstone strucutres protrude from the canyon floor, Hoodoos they are called. Tomorrow, we plan to wake up to watch sunrise over the canyon and then to do a short 2 mile hike before we jump in the car and drive the 4 hours back to Las Vegas.

Zion National Park

Today I'm posting from the Zion Lodge, its about halfway up the Zion Canyon... It is a beautiful national park although it is oppressively hot outside. I've been drinking a ton of water and I'm still sure that I'm dehydrated.

Although the scenery is great, our campsite is not. We had to rent an RV site, because of limited availablity, and it was infested with ANTS! Litterally, everywhere you looked there was an ant... We've readjusted our travel a bit to stay in some inexpensive motels for the next two nights, mostly to avoid the ants. A nice result of this is that we are going to get to actually stay by Bryce Canyon.

Grand Canyon

Staying at a campground (Mather Campground) at the Grand Canyon has been a really relaxing experience. We walk around, look at the Canyon from different perspectives, read, take photographs, nap, eat, and walk around a bit more. Today we went to Shoshone point, an unadvertised viewing spot, used primarily by the park's service for weddings and events, which has unparralled views. It was pretty nice to eat lunch with near 360 degree views of the Grand Canyon.

Tomorrow morning, we drive to Bryce Canyon, for a quick look, and then on to Zion National Park where we'll spend the next three nights.

Colorado Plateau Part 1

Lila and I flew in to Vegas yesterday and rented a car with little trouble... We flew on a Virgin America flight, which if you haven't done, is pretty fun as far as planes go. As you play with great inflight entertainment systems you're bathed in a purple light cast from the plane's overheads... It sort of feels like being in a lame club... At least what I think a lame club might be like!

We spent a while in Henderson, a suburb of Las Vegas, picking up some stuff at REI that we didn't want to pack, and then buying a GPS unit.

Drove out of Vegas and went to the Hoover Dam... It is a pretty colossal construction, although there isn't that much to see. There is a tour that highlights the inner-workings, but we didn't grace the tour guides with our presence. Afterwards, we continued driving, for several hours, and finally made it to flagstaff where we had a room booked at a motel.

After a quick breakfast and some internet time, we are going to go pick up some food and camp stove fuel and head off to the Meteor Crater, a short drive to the east out of flagstaff. Then its off to the Grand Canyon!

Just finish the Job, Jobs

So, if you spec out a pc laptop with as equivalent as possible parts as an apple, they typically run about the same price... sometimes the mac is even cheaper! For example, I just turned away from this post to spec out a dell laptop, a 13.3" screen model, for comparison to the macbook. With similar features to the macbook it comes out at right around $1000 bucks (a little under actually). Now the apple, with the same specs is more expensive... But if you factor in the cost of software that comes with the apple, they are neck to neck. You could consider buying the cheapest macbook, which albeit has a slower processor, but provides a much better graphics card. The GC in the dell is the same model as in the old macbook air, the intel x3100. A decent card, but nothing compared to the nvidia 9400.

So whats the point? Well the point is I think apple should give you iwork for free. You are already getting a great computer at a great price. Why not just finish the job and do the one thing that PCs never do... come with good word processing software, out of the box.

Pages is a great program, it is my word processor of choice! I hardly ever use word (twice a year for writing student evals)... Why doesn't apple produce pageslite? Something like wordpad (not notepad, wordpad, it is in accessories for all you pc users who didn't know it was there) but better. Most people don't need much from their word processor.

The other stuff, that's extra, presentation software, spreadsheet software, a lot of people don't use it. Make people pay for that. Lots of people use word processing!

Of course this is all really moot. Apple should really put out a web based verision of iwork and skip the computer altogether. Google docs, except by apple, and therefore, nicer looking and a little bit better functioning.

This was rambling. Sorry. But I'm in class and needed something else to pay attention to.

Here in MEXICO

Lila, Lila's parents (tobe and meg)and I are in mexico.

We are in cozumel, a great destination and we are staying here.

Maybe in a day or so I'll upload some pictures. I didn't bring the cable for the underwater camera, so only above ground photos while we're here. Maybe we'll have some video on this trip!

Last minute

Well today was an adventure...
I've misplaced my passport, I can't find it anywhere, and I've really looked. So a few days ago, I made an appointment at the Regional Passport Office in New York City. Basically, you can go in with the proper forms and get a passport same day, or next day.

I print my forms, fill them out, print out my proof of immediate travel, get my passport photos taken, get my certified copy of my birth certificate, and get all this prepared the day before. This morning, I wake up, and I get ready to go. Then I look to make sure I have everything, and the photos are gone! Completely gone. They were in an envelope, and now the are not. I assume that they slid out of the envelope somehwere...

What do you do at 7:00 in the morning when your appointment is at 8am and you need passport photos? Well you do what I did... freak out. Thankfully, Lila was thinking and made me stand against the wall (which is white) and she took some pictures with me with her camera. I raced down to Rite Aid, printed the photos then hailed a cab.

While I was in the cab, I measured and trimmed the photos to 2x2. Lila equipped me with sisccors and a ruler before I left.

I got to the passport office a few minutes late, but it wasn't a big deal. They sent me right up. Then the passport agent looked over my documents. I breathed this huge sigh of relief when he stapled the photo to the form.

It all worked out. I get my new passport tomorrow and I'll be able to go to mexico on Sunday.

Let this be a lesson to you. Don't loose your passport. If you have photos taken, SEAL the envelope. And, if you do it right, you can take your own pictures. Lucky for me, Lila was thinking this morning, instead of freaking out.

All you really need to play Quake for real...

This are both real items. Anyone know where the aliens are?

A seriously awesome combo

Try these together:
Polar Clock by the team at Pixel Breaker


And set it as your wallpaper with wallsaver


I had a little trouble getting Wallsaver to "see" PolarClock, although it supposely searches the directory that user installed screensavers go to... I moved it to ~/System/Library/Screensavers and then I had no problem.

Where I buy all apple related stuff from

Check out these guys: Powermax.com

Since it is in Oregon, you don't pay sales tax, and their prices are definitely competitive with apple, especially for refurbished computers. My Macbook Air, after you factored in tax, was $300 less expensive than the identical model from apple.

Their customer service was superb, and the shipping was as fast as anyone else. Save some money and have a more satisfying and safe shopping experience with Powermax!!

Hardware Review

Lets see:

If you already have a nice desktop, this is a great computer. I had problems with using remote disk, I think due to the Teacher's College firewall. Rather than spend some time on the phone with CIS, I decided that I really could use an external DVD-RW drive. Rather than buy the completely useless apple model (only, only works with the Air) I went for an LG model:

The drive has performed perfectly, and given that it is the same price as the apple model, and that it will work on any system (mac or pc) I can't imagine why you'd buy the other.

Obviously a sick laptop requires a sick case, and for that I turned to one of my three favorite computer bag companies, Waterfield Designs:

Mine's the same, except I put the flap on a vertical orientation to allow easier backpack access to the laptop. Hmm... I just realized how small this image is. Oh well!

Now, I'm thinking about mobile me... It seems like the type of thing that is a gimmick, but it really isn't that expensive... Only about $8 a month... And it will allow easier syncing across macines, of which I have three now... Hm... Lots of... Any one have any tips?

Cooling Your Mac

For a little extra control over controlling the temperature inside your mac, check out Fan Control.

It gives you a window in System Preferences in which you can control at what temperatures the various internal fans "turn on" and you can control the speed at which they spin.

I think that the software works for all intel based macs, so go for it. If you want to mess with it. Which obviously I couldn't leave alone.

Two parts

First:
You could live like a hobbit!



This guy, I think in England, built this place, and even though it conjures up odd (read enticing) images of Lord of the Rings, it is pretty cool.

Second:
How did I find this? Was I just googling for "build your own hobbit hovel?" No... I stumbled upon it. Stumble is awesome, and maybe the most interactive time waster I've ever found. You should try it. It'd be very web 2.0 of you.

Where'd we'd only go if you paid for it

My brothers got us a gift certificate to Mario Batalli's restaurant, Babbo, in NYC. We made a reservation a month ago and went tonight for their pasta tasting menu with paired wines (which is an enormous amount of amazing food).

Needless to say, we are both stuffed, happy, and tired. Living in NY does have its perks...

Where we'd go, if you came to visit

Recently, Lila's cousin invited us out to Queens to get some Chinese food. We took the 7 out to Flushing and went to Golden Mall.

The food is great, cheap, and fast. Today, Lila and I ate for about 12 bucks. And we are full! Here are some shots of the interior.



So, potential visitors, you could be as happy as these people!

Photo Blog

Although I post most of the same photos, I also have a photo blog at http://picasaweb.google.com/davemortimer/. You should check it out as I occasionally post different things there.

Trip to Rome

Obviously another update is long overdue... And no. This isn't a video update. Although there might be one in the near future. These are some photos from our trip to rome. We had a great time as I hope the pictures should show!
The Spanish Steps

The obelisk at Piazza de Popolo, there are obelisks all over rome, this one is great condition.

Lila in front of the Pantheon. The Pantheon is over 2000 years old and pretty much the best preserved structure from "the ancient world."

Lila in front of the Fountain of Neptune in Piazza Navona, a large piazza built on the site of ancient stadium. We stayed like 2 minutes from here.

Looking at across the Tiber River towards Hadrian's Tomb.

The view over the Vatican Museum from the top of St. Peter's Basilica.

The altar inside St. Peter's.

The Pantheon at night. We were staying about 5 minutes from here, so if we had a little time to kill we'd just wander over. It is a giant building right in the thick of the city.

The Trevi Fountain by night. Apparently the Trevi fountain was commissioned to commerate the completion of an aqueduct, which terminates at the fountain.

This is the inside of this italian bakery/pizzeria that we went to a lot of times. The pizza was amazing. It was easily the best pizza I've ever had, well maybe the best besides scarlet begonias. The baked goods were also great. They cut the pizzas with these 14-16" long knives with one big chop!

Lila standing in front of the Colosseum. The Colosseum is pretty impressive but there isn't actually much to see on the side. You wander around and imagine thousands of animals and people being slaughtered inside. I've read that the ancient Romans used to flood the inside of the Colosseum and stage mock sea battles!

This is the view from the Palantine hill, one of the seven hills of Rome, looking down over the Forum. The Forum is right by the Colosseum and walking around you can really get a feel for what ancient Roman life.

This is the Temple of Saturn, inside the Forum.

This is an evening shot of one of the 4 Santa Maria churches in Rome. Technically, when you enter this church you leave Italy and enter into the Vatican Sea, even though this church isn't really near St. Peters and the rest of the Vatican.

Lila is walking up the inside of the Dome inside St. Peter's Basilica. She is actually standing perpendicular to the floor and it is the dome that is curving.

This is a view taken from one of the many bridges in Rome looking out across the Tiber River towards the Vatican.

When we visited the Vatican we arrived really really early and so we were rewarded with about 20 minutes of crowd free viewing. Later in the day, it was literally shoulder to shoulder through much of the space.

This is Piazza Navona, looking towards the Four Rivers Fountain, sculpted by Bernini. When I was a child we visited Rome as a family and stayed nearby Piazza Navona, that's how I picked it as the location for our hotel for this visit.

This is a statue of a guy who's name I forget. He was a contemporary of Copernicus and was burned at the stake for challenging the Church's sun centered solar system model. The statue stands in Campo di Fiori, a great square that 6 days a week is covered with stands selling foods and vegetables and chickens and pork and all sorts of other stuff. During ancient times the city wasn't really built up much out here, mostly fields. Pompey, a roman general and later consul, built a theater right near here which is were Julius Caesar was stabbed. None of those original buildings still stand.

All in all we had a great trip - Rome is really fun city to visit and well worth a weeks visit. We were able to see the sights, eat enormous amounts of really good food, and have a relaxing time.

Format shift

I got a camcorder - a sanyo HD700... So it perfectly possible that there will be video updates in the future. They will still be infrequent.

Could she be more beautiful???

Should have put these up a while ago

Some long awaited photos from the wedding....
Don't we look happy?

Lila and Parents walking down the aisle

The best picture of the ceremony

The Wedding Party

The 2005 bowdoin crew

The past and future bowdoin legacy

Spot the differences.....

How many differences can you find??



inspired by highlights magazine - respond with your answers!

Thank You To all my friends

Thank you to all my friends who gave Lila and I this wonderful gift. I really like it and I sit in it every day!



Thank you again!

Its been a long time

A lot has happened since my last post. New president, thanksgiving, bought a new sofa... I haven't been posting as many photos recently as I've been putting them on my picasa account. You can access it via the link in the sidebar. I'm trying to organize my photos by location, so far, I've got Alaska, Catskills, New York, and Maine sections... I think Bowdoin people will enjoy the early morning photography down by Simpson's Point.

Happy Thanksgiving all. I celebrated by helping my brothers get really good deals on stuff.

2 Main thoughts

Ok - I'm thinking about two things:

1. I accidentally sent my ipod through the washer and then the dryer. No damage. Plays perfectly. No problems. Can you believe it? I'm not joking. Reinforces my axiom, electronic devices are waterproof if there is no current flowing through them. Forget "I'm a pc," apple needs: "you can send this through the wash and it will still work."

2. I'm really not a political guy - I'm really not. I pay attention to it but I believe our future lies in science and technological progress, not political process. Elections, Presidents, Government, its all extremely important, but in terms of mankind as a whole, the next 1000 years, I truly believe that science has or will find the answers. All that being said.... Obama's infomerical (call it what you will) almost made me cry. I feel inspired. I want to call people and tell them to vote Obama, I want to blog Obama positive, I want to drive to Florida and go door to door, but....

I'm not going to. I'm going to read reviews of computers, watch videos on youtube, play world of warcraft, and generally to continue my semi-nerdy technical resistance. Oh, and teaching.

I was wrong

The new macbooks are sweet - the are lightweight, sleek, incredibly elegant, and more powerful than before. Steve Jobs is still godlike and order is restored in my world. I'm even starting to come around on the macbook air!

Worried

I've got to say... I love apple but I sort of think that they flopped with the new macbooks. They look amazing, and they're construction is great, but when you can buy a more powerful refurbished macbook pro from the refurb shop for less money, I really think apple has missed the mark. So, thats my verdict. It looks hot but it doesn't have as much under the hood as it should, especially compared to the old MBP.

Now for the good news -> The new MBP is sweet, the high end graphics card, the 9600GT is sick, especially in a laptop. Processor speeds at 2.8 ghz, hard drives at 7200 rpm, there are real reasons to buy this machine. But imo, the even bigger news:

Seriously? $899 for the new 24" screen is a bargain, that is a great quality screen and I'm going to have a real hard time not buying one to sit next to my imac.

To be fair, much of the upgrade was focused around design so you might find me recanting once I travel down to the cube and get my hands on the new models.... I think you really have to see these in person to decide if the refurb route is for you.

And finally, avery raises a great point, much of this upgrade has got to be setting the stage for Snow Leopard so until we know more about what that OS will bring, it is difficult to judge....

Microsoft Ads revisited

Turns out Microsoft made those Ads on macs using adobe CS3. check it out.

A great way to waste a minute....

And revisit a classic with a modern twist.

Ads

Microsoft has got new ads out - the Seinfeld & Gates ads and the spoof "I'm a PC" apple ads.

First off, I think that the Seinfeld & Gates ads are really funny. They aren't laugh out loud funny, they aren't stupid stuff happening on MTV funny, but they are funny. Probably they are closer to English Office funny. Hey, most americans don't like the English Office.



In the "I'm a PC" there are only two funny parts:
This guy:

and the guy who sells fish:


Obviously, the point of the ad is to show people that PC users are not all "boring suits." But I think that the ad is a little too high brow and it can't really stand up to the Apple Ads.

The ad that does out manuever apple is the I don't wear a suit ad: It is short, sweet, and its got a guy from NASA which obviously makes it legit:

Follow this link over to gizmodo to watch the ads.

Probably Microsoft should ask me next time they start an ad campaign.

Evolution

I've already mentioned that I think that the inclusion of magnetosphere as the new itunes visualizer is brilliant - but I've used itunes 8.0 a bit more and I've got some more comments.

Oftentimes apple's updates don't have a ton of visual implications for the user. Much of what is changed is "under the hood" so to speak and while there are new features, they don't compose the dominating bulk of the update.

Itunes 8.0 moves in a different direction. I feel that this is a true evolution of itunes, the genius feature is going to revolutionize music listening in the same way that the itunes store did. I've never felt that coverflow was really that great and I think the new implementation is also really nice.

I'm still exploring 8.0 but I'm finding listening to music with the new itunes to be a new experience compared to the old itunes, especially when you use the visualizer.

I've got a two screen setup and my left monitor is almost always set to show the visualizer now. Its just that good.

T-mobile?

Most of the geeks amongst us carry some sort of snazzy cellphone these days. Whether its an iphone, blackberry, an LG enV2, so on an so forth, we've all got one. But the true geeks amongst us now have a tough decision to consider. Even though T-Mobile sucks, maybe we should switch?

On Sept. 23, Google, in partnership with T-Mobile is going to release their new phone running on the Android system. We've heard a lot about Android, the Google phone, and we don't really know much about it. But it will be cool. Google is a company with a near spotless track record of only producing cool and well functioning software and I'm sure Android won't be any different.

When the iphone came out on AT&T the big detractor was the network. But AT&T has improved and I'm sure that is in no small part because of the iphone. T-Mobile isn't known to be a stellar network (apparently in Hawaii though they are the only choice), but perhaps it will start moving along.

All in all, I'm tired of a cellular marketplace dominated by Verizon. Maybe in a few weeks I'll have a sweet phone and a crappy network. And in a few months, maybe the network won't be so bad.

Productivity goes down

One of the great things about apple is that they are constantly innovating in the world of design. But thats not to say that when they see someone else putting something truly amazing together that they don't recognize it. The visualizer in iTunes 8 is one of those examples. It was developed by a software group called The Barbarian Group and although they no longer maintain it, apple has it.

If you select itunes visualizer in the visualizer menu, accessible through the view section in the toolbar you will be blown away by the seriously remarkable graphics. It was hard for me to even write this blog post. Combine the visualizer with the new genius function and prepared to be blown away.

First Day

So some would say this was my first day of school! While I've definately taught before, I've never been a full year long classroom teacher. Things went pretty well I think - we have a lot of support at Bank Street.

Check out the school. It really is a wonderful institution.

Vista

Lila got a new computer, an HP slimline, with an AMD 2.8ghz processor. Its got 4 gigs of RAM, a 500 gb hard drive, a decent graphics card and naturally it comes with Vista. Ignoring the possibility for a cheap joke here, the version of Vista it has is the best home version, not vista ultimate. We paired it with a 22" Acer LCD and picked up Office Student edition cheap, all from Newegg.

Got to give Newegg props, everything got here really really fast.

Vista is not so bad, I've decided. Running on a comp that is built for it, with a screen that is built for it, it runs quite nicely. Sure, I think we could squeeze a little more speed out of the system, but out of the box, it was ok. True, its not as easy a setup as a mac, nor as fast, but I found it acceptable.

I'm going to post anything I notice about it over the next few weeks or so. I figure a bunch of you people out there aren't ever going to switch (see the ad, Off the Air at the mac ads site) so you might be interested in what Vista's like from the perspective of a home user.

Seward and Talkeetna

Seward is a small fishing town on the Kenai Peninsula. There is a fairly large harbor to accommodate all sorts of boats including, small powerboats and sailboats as well as cruise ships and shipping ships.

Seward is also home to the Alaska Sea Life Center which is a superb aquarium. They also had a large enclosure for marine birds.

The main reason people go to Seward is to see the Exit Glacier, a glacier that is part of the Harding Ice Field. The Harding Ice Field is over 4000 feet thick in some places and is home to 30 plus glaciers. The Exit Glacier is only a short hike from the Kenai Fjords National Park Center.

After two days in Seward, we took the train to Talkeetna. Here we are standing in front of the Talkeetna River, a partly glacial river (which explains all the silt in the river).

We went salmon fishing and both of us caught a bunch of silver salmon. Lila caught more fish than I did and here she is with probably the nicest salmon of the day! (Which she caught, she also caught the second nicest of the day) The guy next to her is the fishing guide, Danny.

After fishing we got to raft down the river. In a few minutes we are going to leave for the train to take us to Fairbanks. It is an eight hour train ride that will take us through Denali National Park.

Glacier Bay

We spent a day on this fairly large sized boat going into Glacier Bay. We visited three glaciers, saw sea lions, bears, eagles, puffins, and great scenery.

This is an island that had a lot of birds flying on it. It was very fun to watch the puffins.

A great photo that lila took of the marjorie glacier. It was the largest of the three glaciers we visted. While we were looking at it, small parts of it were calving off. You could hear the ice cracking. Overall, it was really impressive.

Some sea lions we saw early on during the boat trip. Can you spot the bull?

Some people were nice enough to offer to take a picture of me and lila. We were really lucky to have blue skys the whole day.

A final view of the majorie glacier was we sailed away from it.

Glacier Bay was one of the most impressive places I've ever seen. Although the trip was a little touristy and kitchy, it was amazing.

Gustavus Part 2

We spent a day in Gustavus with no real plan. So we went golfing!

Yes Gustavus, town of about 400 people has a 9 hole golf course and a driving range. You just walk up to this unattended shed, put some money in, grab some clubs and go. Needless to say, Lila and I are terrible at golf, we did the driving range, and it was fun.

We spent a fair amount of time at the pier watching fishing boats come in. Does anyone notice that southeast alaska looks a lot like coastal maine?

Its a long pier....

Gustavus Part 1

Gustavus is a little town right outside of Glacier Bay National Park. It was about 400 year round residents and it reminds me a lot of small towns in Coastal Maine. The only way to get to Gustavus is to fly in, and the easier way is to fly on these little four seater planes. We went with a company called Air Excursions. The pilot was this young guy who never spoke to aircraft control (no need) and informed us that we were free to leave our cell phones on.

The Homestead Bed and Breakfast was one of our most favorite places we've ever stayed. They had bikes for us (a great way to get around a flat island). Here is Lila standing in front of their sign.

This is the "mall" in Gustavus, two businesses, one of which is the Homeshore Cafe. Homeshore is really the only restaurant in town, there are others attached to inns but they have set menus and are kind of pricey. Homeshore has sandwiches, salads, and pizzas and we ate there four times!

Catty Corner to the Homeshore cafe is THE gas station/museum. It looks cute from the outside but since it was never open while we were there, we can't comment on the inside.

This is a view of Lila and the dock in Gustavus. Everyday several fishing boats and whale watching boats go out. We came down to the beach a lot. Lila found lots of old fish guts but you don't have to see those pictures.

These last two pictures are from when we rented sea kayaking in Bartlett Cove, right at the southern end of the park. While kayaking we saw sea otters, sea lions, and a black bear. It was really nice to do some sort of outdoor activity.



We had great weather in Gustavus. The southerners on the island complained about the weather but clearly they hadn't been to New England in the winter, or any other time of year. Southeast Alaska really does look a lot like the Maine Coast, just there are mountains. I really liked it in Gustavus and so did Lila.

There are more gustavus photos coming, largely pictures from our day long cruise to the tidewater glaciers in glacier bay. I haven't offloaded those yet though.

Juneau

After a little excitement getting to Alaska (cancelled flights that we weren't notified about) we arrived in Juneau to a very nice little inn called the Beachside Villa. Here is lila standing in front of the hot tub!


We ate breakfast twice at this place:

The Sliverbow Bakery. It was really good. We had the reddest lox I've ever seen. It was delicious.


Lila and I hiking Mt. Roberts. Mt Roberts is one of the mountains that overlook the city of Juneau. It was a beautiful day, according to some locals it was like the third sunny day that summer. It was really fun to go up from sea level to about 3500 feet.


This is the view of Juneau from most of the way up Mt. Roberts. You can see the city of Juneau on the right side of the photo, the island on the left is Douglas. That is were we stayed, it was about a 20 minute walk into downtown from there - it was nice to be away from the cruise ships.

This is the place that we stayed in Juneau. Its the building to the right of the long aluminum barn thingy. It was a really great place to kick off our honeymoon.

A panoramic photo that Lila took of the mountains from Mt. Roberts.

More pictures will come, we've been having trouble uploading photos. Right now we are in Anchorage and have a solid wi-fi connection. More to come!

Married

Thank you to everyone who helped us have a successful wedding!

Lila's Mom's Garden

I've got to say, Lila's mom is a terrific gardener. Here is just one photo of some of the great flowers in her garden.

The wedding is soon.

Bronx Zoo

The Bronx Zoo is a pretty amazing place. I find it astounding that so many wild animals live within a stones throw of manhattan. Despite forecasts of thunderstorms today, Lila and I went to the zoo and enjoyed an afternoon of sunshine, reptiles, ungulates, large cats, apes, and the less well refined, nyc camp groups.

A Visit From England

Shaun, one of our english friends who we worked with at Killington, came to visit yesterday and today. The itineary included the Museum of Natural History, The Staten Island Ferry, and the Central Park Zoo.

Dip

My friends from High School, Matt, and his older brother mark started a company a few years ago that makes and sells bean dip. It is pretty tasty stuff and available a lot of supermarkets and specialty stores including whole foods! Maybe Camden has seen it on the shelves? In any case, check out the link in the sidebar. They're the shout out.

Also I have a new digital camera and I've decided to add a new section to my blog which will be computer backgrounds. I figure a lot of people like to have nature scenes as their wallpaper so I'm going to start posting some here. If you click the picture, your browser should open it up in a nice large window. The pictures are pretty high rez so they should be good for whatever screen size, unless you are Jon Todd. I hear he uses a 60" LCD these days.

Beach Day

Today Lila and I went to Robert Moses State Park to go to the beach. We walked over to the fire island lighthouse and had a very good time.

Makes me want to buy "not a mac"

Seriously, this is maybe the best comercial I have ever seen.

Ahoy!

We've been out on the water a few times.

The Boat Arrives

Lila and I bought a boat and today it arrived! I have to say its gorgeous. We rigged it today, for practice, and it will go into the water hopefully this weekend!

Blackberry Pearl 8130 review

Despite the fact that I love apple, I went ahead yesterday and bought a blackberry. I was eligible for a new phone and the Blackberry Pearl 8130 was on sale at bestbuy so I went for it.

I'm really happy with it - the operating system is complicated and the suretype keyboard takes some getting used to... but it works flawlessly once you get it.

Naturally the first thing I did to my pearl was to download a theme to make it look more like an iphone. I had some trouble getting the theme to load on the phone but the customer service people at www.mobihand.com sorted it out for me.

One really cool feature is the case that it comes with. The case is unimpressive looking and sort of useless seeming since there is no belt clip. But the case contains a magnet that the phone "notices" when it slides in automatically putting the phone to sleep. You can change how the phone responds to emails for example depending on whether it is in the case or not. I ordered a third party case from otterbox, which comes with a holster that accomplishes the same feature. BTW, there are some videos on youtube of people tossing blackberrys in this case down stairs and into snowbanks.

The GPS feature of the phone, paired up with sprint service anyways, works really well. I used it to drive to some address in White Plains that I had no idea how to get there (I was picking up an ebay purchase, not driving around aimlessly). The gps took me there perfectly.

Overall, its a great phone and I highly recommend it to other people. If anyone out there has any questions I'd be happy to try to answer them!

Day in the park

Lila and I went to Central Park last weekend for her niece cassidy's birthday. Then we say these two guys walking thru the park. Naturally a photo op ensued.



Yes. Thats Lila's older brother standing between Captain America and Spiderman. They said they lost a bet.

Cozumel 2008

Lila and I went for a week to Cozumel, Mexico. We mostly went diving and relaxed at the hotel. The food was excellent.

Mix up in the mail

I ordered this:



and got this:



Sierra Trading Post: Where jesus isn't exactly sure what you ordered.

A welcome houseguest

Fred came to stay for the last four days and I've got a few things to list that I know to be true:
1. A labatts in maine tastes the same as a Labatts in NY.
2. A labatts with fred always tastes great.
3. Dave Duhalde is really loud. All the time.
4. Fred is probably Jon Todd's brother he never had.

If anyone thinks of anything else defining about fred why not post them here.

Keep moving forward!!

I've learned something about myself. Whatever the last pixar movie that I watched is always the best movie I've ever seen.

The most recent:


The movie is all about scientific ingenuity and how you (really you there reading this) could invent the future!!!

And the plot moves wicked fast.

The best bumper sticker I've ever seen

Even better than the darwin fish:

Buy one

Say What?

Words.

Is there anything that unites people the way common language does? Words are complex, elegant, and simple. But I really never stop to think about words.

Here are two documentaries that I've seen that really made me think about words and their place in my life.


Wordplay

A great movie about crossword puzzles, the people who do them, and the people who create them. In my mind the under two minutes nytimes crossword solve contained in the film is equivalent two the crazy kids who solve rubic's cubes in under 30 secs.


Helvetica

This movie is a little slower, and not as exciting, but extremely interesting. Seemingly benign, fonts have a really interesting history brought forth in this very swiss movie.

Good Watching.

Cell phones

Lots of cool stuff coming out of the Mobile World Congress (I can't explain Robert Redford either). Many new phones and the line between computers and cell phones are blurring.

An observant pursuer of information would notice the complete lack of mention of Apple. When do we get iphone 2.0?

The Best meal I've ever had cooked for me

Lila just made me this extremely good fried shrimp dish out of "The Silver Spoon" cookbook. Those of you who know lila, know that she is a great cook. This recipe was so good that I've decided to risk copyright infrigement yet again and post it.

Fried Shrimp in pink sauce

Ingredients:
4 table spoons of tomato paste
3 tablespoons heavy cream
juice of 1/2 lemon, strained
1.5 cups dry white wine
1 teaspoon grated fresh root ginger
1 garlic clove
16 large raw shrimp, peeled and deveined
2 egg whites
vegetable oil, for deep-frying
all-purpose flour, for dusting
salt and pepper

Combine the tomato paste, cream, and lemon juice in a bowl, season with salt and pepper and set aside. Pour the wine into a dish and add a pinch of salt and the ginger and the garlic. Add the shrimp, mix well and let marinate for about 1 hour. Stiffly whisk the egg whites in a grease-free bowl. Drain the shrimp and immerse them in the egg white. Heat the oil for deep frying in a large pan. Spread out the flour in a shallow dish. Holding each shrimp by the tip of its tail, dip it in the flour, then put it in to the hot oil and cook until golden brown. Remove with a slotted spatula and drain on paper towels. Season with salt and serve the pink sauce, handed separately.

Good eating

Nerdcore kinda

was just shown this by lila's older brother. And yes, I'm really excited about adding youtube videos to my blog.

Tim Burton scares me again

This was one seriously scary movie. There were funny bits, and sad bits, but mostly just scary bloody bits. You should probably go see it.

Voices from Macworld

Jon and I left Macworld yesterday and I thought I'd post some show photos as well as some thoughts.

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This was the Apple show floor, pretty much the dominant feature of the expo. There was this big stage and pretty much every hour there was some sort of presentation. The focus of many of these was of course the...

The Macbook Air!!

Here we can see many Apple fans checking out the new ultra-portable. It is really cool. Although it doesn't come with a CD drive, it is able to use any other wifi enabled computer's cd drive. In my opinion the perfect companion to the Air is the mini. you could run a headless mini somewhere out of sight and just use it for storage and the drive.

Of course many other companies were at Macworld. Google had a cool booth...


Naturally there was no where to sit, few power outlets and the wifi didn't work...


All in all we had a really good time. San Francisco is a great city with lots of good food, fun places to visit, and plenty of bars. Also everyone is trendy. So we felt right at home.

Steve and Barry's

Lila's brother, Joey, is on a budget and he needs new sneakers. What should he get? Can he be stylish and cheap? I suggested checking out Sierratradingpost but no, thats not cheap enough. Can you look cool and be cheap? Yes!! At Steve and Barry's you can!! You can be as cool as either, Stephan Marburry, Venus Williams, or Sarah Jessica Parker.

Encouraged by Joey, I checked out S&B's for gifts and yes I did buy some. But let me tell you why I won't do that again. Steve and Barry's occupies the niche that none of us knew existed between Old Navy (its a step below) and Walmart (its a half step above). Its kind of like target but only with clothes and the clothes aren't as nice.

To be fair, I know its nice for people to be able to get the gear that the pros wear at those prices (Marburry and Williams both compete in their own footwear). And if you want to look fasionable, well we all know that Sex in the City has told us that SJP is hot. So I guess shopping there is appropriate for some, but I don't think its for me.

The force is strong with this one

As evidenced by my last post I've been thinking about evolution and religion recently. The question has been raised, can one reconcile religious belief with science? And I've come to the conclusion that at least I can't. If you are the strictest definition of a religious person, you hold content of your religious text to be true. What science proposes as the history of the universe, including all interactions on our own planet, is really at odds with religious texts. Can you really believe in evolution and believe in the bible or the koran or anything else at the same time? I personally can't.

I was telling lila that I don't think I believe in anything religious and that I think I'm an atheist. But then I decided that isn't really true, I believe in science. And one of the central tenants to all science is the first law of thermodynamics. Energy is conserved. Also, for something to exist it has to have some energy. Check out this debate. So one might say that energy flows throughout everything, binding everything together in one universal manner? Sound familiar? I'm not an atheist, I'm a jedi.

Creationism makes you dumb

Watching a pbs video on evolution and it is striking. As an educated science type, you loose sight of the fact there are actually a lot of people out there who don't believe in evolution. To which I say: Are you out of your mind?

I recall an old doonesbury cartoon in which a doctor tells a patient they have cancer, an ever changing evolving disease. He then asks the patient what type of treatment they want, the creationist treatment or the evolution treatment. The guy asks the difference and the doctors says well in the evolution treatment we give you drugs and chemo, the whole nine yards. In the creationist treatment we pat you on the back, give you some penicillin and send you on your way. The patient, a creationist, asks to hear more about the evolution based treatment.

Recently in a wired magazine, I read an article from the international congress on science, in which they were discussing doing away with the word "theory" and replacing it with the word "law" as its basically the same thing anyways.

A lot of misunderstanding of science derives from a lack of understanding of normal words in a science context. While ignorance is unfortunate, what's even worse are the people who do understand what the words mean and take advantage of it.

And to top it off, this idiotic debate makes us the laughing stock of the rest of world. Health care, education, and now science ed. I hate this country.

What to Eat on thanksgiving

OR


Truthfully I really don't like thanksgiving food. Turkey is ok, with barbeque sauce but everything else is not want I want to be eating. I'm always hoping that the thanksgiving dinner will fail and we'll have to go out to a Chinese Restaurant since they'll be the only ones open. I guess I'm not too american but thats just the way it is. You try eating salt free, fat free, skin free turkey and bad kugel for thanksgiving your whole life. You'd want Chinese food too.

Bowdoin from Birth

Last night, Lila and I went out to dinner with my family and some other non-family but very close family members. In total there were four bowdoin grads, and adam who we figure is going to get in (college application process is kind of like the NY Lotto, hey you never know). We ended up singing Beneath the Pines (my favorite).

Also in other news, I, who normally surf the web and play computer games got a perfect score on my writing & literacy midterm. I'm the Fred of my TC class. Except I don't play Casey at the Bat and Requiems at the same time and throw stuff at people. It'd be hard to throw stuff at myself.

Fanfare please

Happy to announce that Lila and I became engaged on sunday right before the 4pm sea lion feeding at the central park zoo



We are both very happy. We have not set a date yet, but don't worry we will.

A Public Apology

Ok. When I didn't hang out too much with our friends, no one blacked my face out of a photo. Eric, I'm sorry you couldn't come to homecoming. You're a great friend, a great scheduler, and I'm sure you'll be a great lawyer.

I tried to come up with a good republican joke but I couldn't think of one that wouldn't make what I wrote above less meaningful. This is the closest you're going to get to getting a hug.

Results are in

Despite having the opportunity to hook up with jonelle, drink lots, have a good time, and escape the stigma of being a republican, Eric Penley did not come to homecoming.



Perhaps we should all have a moment of silence in memory of his passing the dark side.

Fact: Jon is really good at changing his oil

No, its the opposite!

It'd be true if being really good at changing oil included: dripping it all over your face, loosing washers, not tightening bolts enough, losing said bolt on the highway, draining all your oil at 65mph and making your car smoke. And trashing the engine.

At least friendly tow truck drivers, tom, dave, and a cave man were all ready and willing to help.

Actually I feel bad for Jon. But nobody tell him.

Thank you for dynamite

Apparently Al Gore is the favorite for a nobel prize this year. Check it out here.

The quality of teaching

So a classmate of mine recently observed a bio lesson. During this lesson the teacher told the students that two animals of different species could not mate and reproduce. A student raised his hand and asked, what about the platypus? Doesn't it come from the reproduction of the duck and the beaver? To which the teacher replied, "Oh well, thats an exception."

I don't think I'm going to make a joke about it because although it is funny, it isn't.

Bling Bling

Get a grill or get this, the nerd's version of a grill.

Lawsuit Against Apple

So I don't know if you've heard but there as a lawsuit out there against Apple, Steve Jobs, and AT&T related to the iphone price drop. Check it out here.

This is way funnier though, It was a response I found trolling the comments from the linked article.

Originally Posted by dh87
Last week at Whole Foods, I paid $2.29/lb for apples. This week apples were only $1.69. I am suing Whole Food for $1 million dollars, which is a conservative estimate of my actual, emotional, and spiritual damage. As the eponym of the product in question, I may sue Apple as well.

Fred, do you have any take on this? Does the chick have a case? Can I sue eric penley for not coming to homecoming? I can't even describe the emotional damage.

Virtual Insanity

Today's adventure:

Got caught for copyright infringement!

Upon returning to my computer, after going to work this morning, I discovered that I could no longer get online. I had a "self assigned ip address." Thats what a computer does when the service provider revokes their IP address for some reason.

Well I went to find out the reason and it turns out that I got caught by the lawyers from HBO for downloading Entourage. This is approximately how the conversation with the head of computing went:

Me - Hi, you need to see me about copyright infringement?
Him - (looking up from playing second life) Yeah, we got contacted by some lawyers
Me - well I guess I shouldn't have been downloading things.
Him - You understand the implications?
Me - yes, I'm sorry.
Him - its ok, just don't do it again.
Me - ok, I won't.
Him - you seem pretty tech savvy, do you want a job?
Me - thanks, but no thanks. I've already got one.
Him - ok, great to meet you.
Me - thanks for helping me out.

Anyone get the irony? Offered a job b/c I was breaking the law?
To quote Jamiroquai, "its a crazy mixed up world, we're living in"

Day Trading Worse than Away Message Checking

Recently, I've started paying a lot more attention to the stock market. I mean, I want my money to be working for me, right? Well E*Trade is a lot worse than either World of Warcraft, or watching youtube, or checking away messages or any of that stuff. I mean thats your money either growing or not growing. Watching it is mezmerizing.

But I've found something even better than fooling around with your own money. Try trading on the PPX, Popular Science's virtual exchange. There you can buy "future stocks" that predict things like: "Will the FDA clear deep-brain stimulation as a treatment for clinical depression by September 30, 2008?" That's the current IPO, on a the market at $50.00/share. There are a number of other "stocks" available, probably around 100, and they all have different prices, reflective of peoples opinions on how accurate the statements are. And you get to start with $250,000 so there are plenty of options.

Another example, I own 230 shares of this: Flying Car by 2025 - Will a flying car become commercially available by 2025?


Seems like a good thing for people who are at work who'd rather be fooling around online. Avery.

How Many Days Until Homecoming?

No Reservations

So watching the Travel Channel Show, "No Reservations" recently on my ipod I learned a cool fact. Chef, Anthony Bourdain is from New Jersey. Specifically Leonia, NJ. Who else is from Leonia? Its up to you to find out.



The Leonia Volunteer Ambulance Corps. insignia

Click here for more Leonia info

Not Funny but Cute

Some may have heard. Lila and I have adopted kittens. Their names are scarlet and chowder. You might be under the impression that they are named after scarlet begonias and a classic maine soup but they aren't. They came with those names. Thats why we adopted them. And they're cute.

Triple Cheeseburger model for the five paragraph essay

The buns represent the introduction and conclusion. The three meat patties represent the three body paragraphs of the essay, while the cheese, lettuce, majo, and other toppings represent the writing flourishes like vocabulary, sentence structure, and verbiage. This model has obvious limitations. Students might think that the introduction and conclusion should be indistinguishable (since they are both buns). While they are somewhat similar, there are clear differences. Next, toppings are stacked one on another in a burger, but in a paper, vocabulary and sentence structure are part of the meat (i.e., not stacked on the meat). Finally, and perhaps too obviously, burgers are eaten while essays are read. One could say both are examples of consuming, but essays not dissolve in the stomach acid, but rather digest in the brain of the reader.

This paragraph was submitted as part of a homework assignment by a classmate of mine. He gave me permission publish it on my blog

Republican Penley: The Evidence builds

An unnamed source today reported to me that in fact the 25 page paper due wednesday (eric's excuse not to come to homecoming) is in fact a 10 page memo due friday. This raises two key points.

1. Thats not that much work and really eric has no excuse to not be at homecoming.

2. He committed perjury (he may not have known he was under oath when we were chatting but he was) when he LIED to me making his workload sound larger and more pressing. Naturally, I'm lumping him together with the other lying republicans, Cheney, Rove, Bush, whoever you want.

So in the name of all that is good, Eric, come back to the light. We don't want you to be a republican. We want you to go to homecoming.

Penley to join GOP Imminent

Its been on all our minds recently... When will Eric Penley show his true colors and admit to being a republican? The evidence for it is as follows:

He's moved to a red state and is taking classes. This map is from the 2004 presidential election. Virginia is clearly red.



Secondly, he says he's not going to homecoming. From a conversation with him earlier today:
1. "yeah, so I'd love to make it to homecoming but I don't think I can"

2. "one reason I really can't come is that I have a 25-page paper due the following week"

3. "part of what makes me pretty good at stuff is that I make responsible decisions in times like this, and don't fuck myself over at a critical time in the semester"

Finnally, when asked if he was a republican, he said no, but then told me that he was surrounded by conservative racists.

Only time will tell.

WoW!!!

So after ten days away from fast internet I'm ready to admit that I miss playing World of Warcraft. Its fun, anti-social, and it doesn't require me to shower or anything.
Rest assured. I will play all day tomorrow.

Who'd win in a fight?

It's no secret that I read a lot of US weekly and pay plenty of attention to celebrity happenings. Really there's no question that Brad Pitt is one of the celebrity world's leading men. Entering into that world now that he lives in LA is David Beckham. So naturally the question arises, who'd win in a fight?



Brad Pitt has got the sreet cred - anyone remember fight club? He can obviously take care of himself. Also the Ocean's 11 movies show us that he's got brains as well. Mr. and Mrs. Smith? Brad knows how to use a gun. And a minivan.



Then we've got Mr. Beckham. He's no cushy londoner. Raised in a blue collar family, he worked his way through the international soccer world. He works out every day and has to seriously exert himself to earn his multi-million dollar paychecks.

So who'd win in a fight? Both these guys are tough, cool, and strong. So I look at the wives. What is Victoria's effect on David vs. Angelina effect on Brad? Posh keeps to herself, is quietly supportive, and just pouts a lot. Angelina on the other hand trucks brad all over the world and makes Brad play Robin to her Batman.

So I'd give to Beckham, he'd definitely take Brad in a fight. Maybe if Angelina took Brad's balls out of the steel box she keeps them in and gave them back to Brad, Brad could stand a chance against Beckham.

what am I doing right now

Ways to procrastinate your special education final which is due in two hours and nineteen minutes:

watch all the apple "I'm a mac..." commercials

update your blog

stare off mindlessly into space

check out all the new apple products and spec each one out optimally for your use just to see how much you can't afford one

tell yourself that you are going to take a short nap only to accidentally take a long nap

write your name, the name of the class and the date at the top of a piece of paper telling yourself thats its ok you are procrastinating since you have already started

this list could go on and on but I guess I really need to do this final now.

Horseshoe crabs - blue crabs - garden spider

what do these have in common? They are all arthopods and are in the Super Phyllm, ecdysozoa. We're dissecting them tomorrow. It is going to be intense.

Additionally, I spent the weekend working and playing video games. Time management? A skill I will never learn.

In the world of mac, fake steve jobs was outed by a guy from the nytimes. He's the senior editor of forbes magazine!! I heard an interview with him and he does not speak in any way like his alter-ego. But either way, forbes is going to sponsor the site and not edit what he writes. I think it will be pretty funny to have a corporate magazine sponsor a blog which basically just trashes on everyone who is anti-apple or a lunatic (larry elison), especially when so much of the forbes readership probably falls into that category.

Also, I've been trying to like Cramer from mad money. I just can't do it. That guy is worse than doctor phil.

On my own

Since my classes are going to run for another week and half, and lila was done with hers, she decided to go to the adirondacks to work at her camp. So I'm going to be on my own for about two weeks.

I know what you are thinking. I will sit around in my underware, play video games, watch tv, sleep, eat and generally make a mess everywhere.

But no!! In fact I will go to work everyday (not weekends), do homework, take finals and just generally be responsible.

Sounds pretty boring.

So to make life exciting I'm accepting recommendations for stupid stunts:
Rules - the stunt can not have a high probability of landing me in the hospital. (low probability is fine. Secondly the stunt can't have a high probability of getting me arrested.

Other than that, the skies the limit. Once my readership at large has submitted a good list, I'll post it and you can vote. I'll perform the task suggested by the winner. They also get a quarter.

good luck.

Live from amnh

So its my lunch break right now - sitting in my classroom in the museum. This is a pretty fun job and the students are great. They are pretty much ideal as they have all chosen to be here and undergone a difficult application process. So things are going well on the museum front.

As some of you may know, I was initially opposed to the iphone thinking it was not as great as it was cracked up to be. Well since then I've gone to an apple store and played with one and I'm thoroughly impressed. I want one. Of course it would cost me 200 bucks to terminate with sprint, then another 500 for a phone then a new at&t contract. Thats a lot of money, honey.

It makes me think, have pretty much all the people who were going to get an iphone already gotten one? Are people going to keep buying them? It seems that they are cost prohibitive to most. Any thoughts from the avery's of the world?

thnking about iphones an apple in general, the apple enthusiansts should all be reading this. Its worth your time.

I'll be in nyc through august 18th. then Lila and I are going to Maine
ine and new Hampshire. We're coming back on the 27th or something like that. So visits are in order.

Orinoco River Basin or Upper West Side?

I set my aquarium back up we moved back to the city. It styled as a south american black water aquarium. You can look it up if you care. Either way it has Discus Fish and angelfish.

My new job

I attended a 7 day institute at the Museum of Natural History on evolutionary biology and creating trees that show evoluntionary relationships between creatures. From that institute I found out about an open position to teach for The Museum for a program called the Lang Science Team.

Well I got hired and I start tomorrow. I'm teaching ten ninth graders for three weeks and then every other saturday throughout the academic year. I'm teaching them about frogs, Ecdysozoans, and coaching them through a research project. Today I have to go to The Museum to learn about frogs and Ecdysozoans so I'm prepared.



Additionally, I get a museum staff pass and guest passes so if you want to see dinosaurs - come to nyc.

Do I exsist? (before you go thinking I've gone all Matt Spooner, read on)

What does it mean to exist? Pretty existential I guess but I have my own personal answer. You exist where you spend your time (duh). So when Lila pointed out recently that I spend all my time online, I got to thinking. If I spend more time online, interacting with the web, than I do taking to people, do I exist online? Sure. But If I don't contribute anything, I'm more like a ghost roaming the 0's and 1's of the metaphysical. (whatever that means)

So morty's world is back. With a new look. A promise for more updates. Thoughts. Experiences. And trying to seem more witty than I actually am.

See you tomorrow

To Infinity and Bed, Bath, and Beyond!!

Well once again I'm back at the wash 'n wifi. Lila and I have moved to vermont succesfully.

We had a fun summer at sea and a good time this fall at chewonki.

We now rent an apartment in rutland vt. Its got room for guests so I encourage you to visit. You being, emma or fred, or avery, or SEA people, or Chewonki people or all sorts of people provided I already know you.

We bought a sweet LCD tv and now we have a home theater. I watched toy story on it. Man, woody sure looks hot in hi def.

The apartment has a sort of office room, which is being used for, well.. an office, and my indoor garden.



There is a four foot two bulb fluorescent light fixture and 4 compact fluorescents in metal work shields lighting the plants. Total output 12,000 lumens. Total energy cost less than 3.5 60 watt blubs. There is also a fan on a light timer which goes off four times a day to create an artificial breeze to cut down on insects.

I'm growing six varieties of peppers, basil, cilantro, marjoram, oregano, mint, rosemary, and thyme. There is also a small orange tree. As jon todd will contest, it is an ornamental orange tree, but the oranges are 100% edible and taste basically like a cross between a lime and an orange. They are nice in a gin and tonic.

Also I'm trying to get a job for the next 6 weeks or so until ski season really starts rolling. So far I've applied to the home depot, and as soon as I finish this I'm going to go and apply for jobs at Bed, Bath, and Beyond, Dicks Sporting Goods, Staples, and Radio Shack.

I've also been selling stuff on ebay. So far I've sold a Gameboy and a Guitar Effects Pedal. I will be selling a guitar and a wallet (people have bid but the auctions aren't over) and I just listed an audio interface.

I just finished drinking a coke and now I'm going to bed bath and beyond.

Back from the dead?

So my non-exsistent readership may have thought that I sailed off the edge of the world, (the world is flat you know) but really I've just been either lazy or distracted for two months.
Done lots of fun stuff, sailed, visited friends, spent time with lila, computed, been outside, visited grad schools, all sorts of things really.

A little while ago I went to mexico with lila.



We had a good time although mom came too and she was real stressful. Never try playing tennis with her.

This is what manhattan looks like from New York harbor. We sailed under the Verazzano Bridge and up the east side to the 79h St. Boat basin. It was grey and rainy the whole time.



I'm going off to maine in a few days. By this tuesday afternoon I'll be a few miles from the Canadian border leading a canoe trip.

More updates in the future...

Hello from below the Mason-Dixon Line

So readers, you find me for the first time below the mason-dixon line. I don't count D.C. or florida because although they are in fact geographically "southern" states, I don't really think they count.

Charleston, SC. is ok. This port stop actually hasn't been as great as we'd be hoping. The dock is nice, there are some restuarants in walking distance, there are a few bars, some decent shopping but something over all just irks me and a few other people and as a result the stop hasn't been as relaxing as we'd hoped.


I've decided that I'm going to try to get into the patagonia catalouge. This picture is one of my early efforts, its a work in progress.

Camden called me a yesterday. She'd never called me before so I was pretty surprised but it was really great talking to her. I hope the rest of you all are all well.

Soon we'll be off to Norfolk, VA. If I get a chance I'll update again! I bet you can't wait.

Its been three months since the last update!

Well, in the past three months, lila and I have finished working at killington, and now we are working on the boat. We're sailing on the Corwith Cramer for SEA. We just finished our first trip, an alumni trip. We sailed from key west to the Dry Tortugas. There is an old fort out there called Fort Jefferson.


Its basically a small island (no fresh water) with a fort built on it that covers the whole island. There is decent snorkeling around the island and it is kind of cool to walk around. Its in very good condition.
I'm working as an asst. scientist. We haven't done lots of science yet but we will be. We did catch a tiny octopus and we are trying to get halobates (marine insects) to lay eggs.

Lila is doing well, she's cooking on the boat along with another girl (a close friend) named Danielle.

Refer to the email I sent to see where the boat is going to be at anytime and I'll talk to everyone/anyone soon.

Emma

This post is not meant to embarass emma (as she might think) but, simply to honor her. Whenever you need someone to talk to, she's there. If you need someone's opinion about whether the stunt you are about to pull is over the line or not, ask emma. The person who will worry about you when you're drunk, emma. Basically emma is really great and deserved a shout out a long time ago but she didn't get one. For some reason. Mostly because avery and me on each other's laps is funnier. Not to say that emma isn't funny. Because she is.

First post of new year, and my mom is visiting

Hi all, mom came to visit, she sleeping in my living room. She hasn't done anything super ridiculous just yet but we can cross our fingers. We skied her all over the mountain yesterday and things were mildly successful. But don't worry fred, she'll probably do something to cause my blood pressure to shoot through the roof soon enough.

I got new skis.

I had demo'd a bunch of skis and i liked this one the best, the elan magfire 12. Its the top of the line do anything go anywhere ski. Just like a little black dress. Its the little black dress of skis. Its also a lot of fun.

I went to Washington DC. I saw the declaration of independence and the constitution and the bill of rights, and the WWII memorial and the Vietnam memorial, and the lincoln memorial, and the Washington Momument, and Eric, Fred, Avery, Conor, John Haines, and Dan. It was fun. They were fun too.

Mostly I just go skiing, and think about skis. In fact, I'd say that I think about a ski or ski related idea for about 80% of the day.

My toilet is leaking.
and I found my digital camera so maybe finally I'll post some pictures of my apartment.

New Years at Killington

So its been a crazy world here at Killington over Christmas week. Boatloads of kids (180 is our max, we usually go up to 185, however the room we operate out of is only rated for 100 people including instructors) come in everyday and its my job to teach them to be badass. But the good news is that the parents love me. I now get booked for private lessons all the time and if I don't get privates I do pretty well in tips. In tips, I made 45 today, 55 yesterday, and 25 the day before that. So thats good, it pays for my ticket to D.C.

So I'm going to do D.C. Fred and I are going down in mid jan, I'll be there from the 19th to the 21st, I think fred is there from the the 18th to the 22nd. He has more time off than me. I think fred called it "Son of New Years." Conviently coencides with Dan's birthday. Also Dan, I'm getting on the shopping for skis for you thing.

So I'm hanging around the ground hotel tonight until tenish when lila gets off work. Then off to various locales along the access road with other people from work. Right now they is an acoustic guitar player performing in the lobby by the fireplace. He's playing "How sweet it is to be loved by you." Its corney here but fun.

If anything remarkable happens to me I'll tell you.