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