Category: Travel

Bahamas!

January is always the harshest month of the year, with the cold and the dark, but we ended it on a high note. Jeannie and I took a quick getaway to the Bahamas her birthday. Three days of sunshine, beach and open bar. We made essentially the same trip five years ago, and had great time, and we couldn’t find an alternative to beat it. At the time we pledged to make a winter getaway every year, but you know how life can be. It took a few years to get back to it.

We stayed at the same hotel, Breezes, which is nice and cozy and has several pools, bars, and restaurants, with great food and open bar and is right up on the beach. It has a very friendly and relaxed vibe. The place is really a little gem.

This time around the vast majority of the guests were Canadian, and most of those from the Toronto area. So it felt a little like going home. And you know, those Cannucks are all so darn nice and friendly. Most of them seemed to assume I was Canadian too. At one point one said “Is there anyone in this hot tub who’s not Canadian?” Then she turned to me and said, “You know an awful lot about Canada for an American.” One evening we gathered ‘round and watched Hockey Night in Canada. (The Leafs lost, eh.)

The day we arrived the weather was great, sunny and warm, and we went straight to swim in the ocean. Towards evening it turned stormy. The next day it was overcast and windy, too rough to do anything out on the ocean. After breakfast I wandered into the piano bar, which was empty, and practiced for an hour or so. I did some of my originals, some covers, and Jeannie sang harmony on My Old School. I guess you could hear it from the next room cuz all day people were coming up to me saying I sounded good. So ’round midnight, after the main entertainment was finished upstairs, I went back and there was just the piano player there, and maybe a few people. He was playing a Monk song (Bud Walked In) when I walked in, so I requested ‘Round Midnight. He didn’t know it, and asked my if I knew it. So I hopped up on the piano again. I did 4 or 5 Steely Dan songs and some other things. This time I attracted a bit of a crowd. Since there were so many Canadians around I closed my set with Subdivisions, which was a big hit.

We also spent time exploring the island. Nassau is great, easy to get around, and everyone we met was really friendly. One afternoon we took the bus into town, but the bus got “hijacked” by an itinerant local tour guide, who took us to this place called The Caves, which was bunch of caves where pre-Colombian Bahamians lived over 1000 years ago. Really cool. We walked around Nassau and watched the cruise ships take off. We went to Fort Charlotte, build by the British in the 1700’s. BTW, there’s a giant monstrosity of a new hotel under construction just down the beach from Breezes. Apparently being built by Chinese labor with Chinese financing to the tune of $2 billion. Our guide had a lot to say on that topic and the political and economic implications for the island.

It was a great break from the winter and from everything going on, but it was over much to soon. Now we’re back and the main thing this week is the kids’ school musical coming up this weekend. Lizzy has one of the leads, Michelle is in the chorus, I’m playing in the band and my first rehearsal was yesterday, and Jeannie is acting as producer.

Coming soon: pictures!

Celebration Day

Happy New Year everyone. We had a most relaxing and enjoyable holidays. Caught up with lots of friends and family, had some guests, did some traveling – hundreds of miles of it in snow – and got in some good partying too. Seems like we often go weeks or even months on end without having a chance to hang out with friends, but we made up for it this holidays. Played lots of games: Risk, Sorry, Carcosonne, the green screen door, the triangle game, one up/one down, open/closed, and even chess.

It seems upsizing your house this the thing right now. Mary and Lou have been putting a second story on their house out on Long Island, adding four more bedrooms. It’s almost done, they’re just waiting on a railing for the stairs and a countertop for the bathroom sink. That’s pretty amazing considering they only started work in November, and the contractor with doing lots of post-Sandy repair jobs at the same time. Meanwhile upstate, Larry and Jackie moved into a sprawling ranch house with a really cool glass-enclosed family room and loft, on a lot adjoining the woods. Very nice for all of them.

When Lou came over on Christmas day we managed to get a few minutes together for him to play and sing some of his new songs into a mic. I’m producing his new record, and these are the demos. My first step is to listen to the songs and learn them, then I’ll put together some arrangements and see what Lou thinks of them. So far he only has 4 or 5 songs – enough for an E.P. Should be a fun project. We’ll see how it goes.

Among the parties we went to was New Year’s Eve at Erik’s. I brought along my new bass to show him. It turned out the house was full of musicians, so it was a jam session. I spent most of my time on the bass cuz Erik was on the piano. There was a drummer too. The guitar player kept on calling songs that I didn’t really know but weren’t too hard, things like “About a Girl” and “I Wanna Be Sedated”. I found it wasn’t too hard to keep up and lay down a good bottom. Later on I played some piano but switched back to bass after midnight cuz we had to lower the volume. Next thing I knew it was 4 am. It was a great to chance to get a feel for the bass. I’m really digging it.

Also watched about half of the Godfather trilogy, and got some new records including the abridged Ella Fitzgerald songbook (the three-CD set, not the 16-CD one), and Celebration Day by Led Zeppelin. BTW, when we up in Buffalo visiting my parents, Led Zep were on TV receiving an award. My dad turned and asked me “Have you ever heard of these guys? That guy has really fast fingers.” I’m like, “You told me to turn down their damn music so many times when I was kid!” You’d think he’d remember. Ah well, he’s certainly mellowed out.

M.I.T. Origami Convention

It already seems like ages ago, but just this last weekend I went up to Boston for MIT Origami Convention, a.k.a. OrigaMIT. The conventions was put on by the MIT Origami Club under the leadership of Jason Ku. It was smaller than the OUSA convention in New York, but certainly big enough to be a lot of fun. MIT and the Boston area have some pretty heavy folders, and MIT is a really fun place to hang out.

I drove up Friday night with my friend Marcio. We both work in the city and live in Westchester, so we met a Grand Central and took the train back to my place. We took Jeannie’s car cuz it’s a Prius and gets amazing gas mileage. I actually got 52 mpg on the ride home! The trip up was smooth, except navigating around Boston once we arrived was a bit dicey. We stayed in a hotel not too far from Cambridge.

The convention was held at the MIT Student Union. It was easy to get to and find parking. I was teaching and exhibiting, so I brought diagrams and models. About half of models were brand new, including the Cuttlefish and Giant Squid; some were new-ish including the Armadillo, Turkey and some Tessellations. A few were classics, including my UFO, Rocketship, and War Elephant. The diagrams were the last few from my book that have yet to be test-folded: the Cuttlefish, Giant Squid, and Turkey.

As with most conventions it was organized into sessions that were either classes or seminars. The first session I went to was Erik Demaine, an expert in origami mathematics. He basically showed us slides and talked about his course (http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.849/fall12/). I was familiar with some of the material cuz I’ve read his book, but it was all really fascinating stuff. Afterwards I had a good discussion with him about origami polyhedra design.

At lunchtime I went for a walk along the Charles River by the MIT and Harvard campuses. It was a beautiful fall day, and the riverside walk was full of people strolling, biking and jogging. I hadn’t been to Boston for a few years, although it seems like every time I’m here in end up in Cambridge. Anyway, I’d forgotten how nice it is down by the river and the park. Very Not New York.

After lunch I taught my course. It was cephalopods, the Cuttlefish and the Giant Squid. The class proved to be very popular. I had diagrams for both models, which I passed around at the start. Then I folded both models for anyone who wanted to follow along, which was most of the class. These are both pretty advanced models, somewhat more than I’d expected, but the class did a really good job. I folded the Cuttlefish first. That took close to an hour, and it was a two hour class. A lot of people were not fast in developing the tentacles. That comes near the end but is fairly repetitive. Then we started the Squid but ran out of time, again cuz there’s lots of repetition in developing the tentacles. The good news was everyone was so into it that when class ended, we all went down to the hospitality area to finish. I got good feedback for the diagrams and the models along the way. Mostly they were both very foldable and people really liked the models. As usual there were some minor errors and steps that could do with a bit of clarification.

After that I sat in on Michael Lafosse’s class. This was the perfect compliment to Erik’s class. Michael is a master folder and designer and has some beautiful complex models, and quite a few books too. He also runs a paper making studio for making high-end origami paper. One more thing he’s known for is his butterflies. He’s got lots and lots of butterfly variations, and this class was about that. These are intermediate level models, so the focus was much more on the artistic side than the technical side. Most complex models have a sculpting/finishing phase at the end, and this class was all about exploring that for butterflies. Toward the end I remembered a butterfly design I was working on, and dusted it off and began to get back into refining it. For me the major challenge was developing the points for the legs. I realized if I changed the geometry at step 3 it’s open up more paper.

After classes was dinner and hanging out folding. Some there asked me about the tessellations in my exhibit, so I ended up teach a group how to fold one. These seemed like such a simple idea to me at the time, that you could work out how to fold it jut my looking at it. But people seem to really like it, and it turns out (since it doesn’t use a square grid) there’s a bit of mystery involved. People keep asking me about the tessellations. I’ll keep them in mind for the next book.

I also had my Turkey diagrams test folded by a fellow folder named Mark. Even though the diagrams are not complete, we got thru to the end, and I showed him how to finish. This is definitely the most complex model in the book. We were hanging out and talking the whole time, bit it took three hours to fold. Still, I’m happy Mark got thru it. It’s a worthy model and I got good feedback.

As Saturday turned into Saturday Night lots of students were meeting at the student center dressed up for Halloween going out hit the bars. Rule 63 Guy Fawkes. Ah college life.

Sunday Marcio and drove home, trying to beat the storm. The wind was picking up already, and we passed several convoys of utility trucks heading east. Jason was supposed to fly back to Japan Sunday. I hope he got out okay.

The big goal for this weekend is to finish my book, which basically means finishing the Turkey diagrams. Oh, and cleaning up my yard. I’m really looking forward to being done with diagramming and getting back working on other things like music.

Spaceships and Alligators

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

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

The Big Five-Oh

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

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

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

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

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

…

A Toast

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

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

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

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

Cold Snap

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

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

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

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

Livin’ on Spongecake

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Ah well such is life.

The Adventure Continues

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

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

Next up: I need a new lawmower.

1655 Trip Miles, Part 4: Mountain Jam

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

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

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

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

Next up: I have to fix my lawnmower.