Cynically Optimistic

I was going to cheat and count Washington since I'll be there in a couple of weeks, but I was honest and didn't. I'm pleased to be skiing, and equally as please to scratch another state off of my list. It would be cool if you got some recognition for visiting every state in the union. Without further ado:

bold the states you've been to, underline the states you've lived in and italicize the state you're in now...

Alabama / Alaska / Arizona / Arkansas / California / Colorado / Connecticut / Delaware / Florida / Georgia / Hawaii / Idaho / Illinois / Indiana / Iowa / Kansas / Kentucky / Louisiana / Maine / Maryland / Massachusetts / Michigan / Minnesota / Mississippi / Missouri / Montana / Nebraska / Nevada / New Hampshire / New Jersey / New Mexico / New York / North Carolina / North Dakota / Ohio / Oklahoma / Oregon / Pennsylvania / Rhode Island / South Carolina / South Dakota / Tennessee / Texas / Utah / Vermont / Virginia / Washington / West Virginia / Wisconsin / Wyoming / Washington D.C /

Go HERE to have a form generate the HTML for you.

Posted by Jeff Smith at 10:41 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (1)

Sometimes a simple relaxing trip to the city to view public art can take an unexpected twist. All seven of us met for lunch on the upper west side at a quiet Thai restaurant. Finally just before 2 PM we wandered into Central Park to take in The Gates. It was free, so I figured it was worth a trip to check it out. The plan was to follow the Gates with either the Metropolitan Museum of Art or the Natural History Museum. I opted to stay in the park and walk around with the throngs of other people. Everyone else headed off.

I saw a LOT of Central Park. Strawberry Fields, The Shakespeare Garden, Belvedere Castle, the Lawn, the Summit, etc... The Gates in and of themselves are hardly interesting. It's just a bunch of orange (or saffron) vinyl arches with a big sheet of nylon fabric hanging from them. I don't think the point of the art installation was to put up the arches and have them be a work of art all alone. The art is the fact that tens of thousands of people are in the park in February. People were laughing and kids were playing and everyone was enjoying the sunny yet cold day. I've never even seen that many people in the park in the summertime. I had a nice chat with a couple who took my photo, and then I watched a woman wearing leather pants and a fur coat get shouted at by an anti-fur freak. She handled that better than I ever would. I wonder if this girl really expected to change this woman's mind about fur by harassing her while she plays with her dog in the park.

After the park, I went to have a drink and wait for everyone else to meet back up from their respective museums. We were sitting at the Raccoon Lodge drinking $2 Sam Adams and the French Foreign Legion (aka, the post-docs in our lab) show up and we have sushi for dinner. A LOT of sushi. Love it.

We split up again when the French headed home, and the three of us who remained decided to go out to a bar/restaurant where Bob and E had been before. We walked into the bar portion and after waiting a while we sat ourselves at a porch-swing equipped table. It was an odd seat, rocking and all. E's feet couldn't even touch the ground. After a drink we decided we'd rather move on and asked for the bill. $60!? The Fuck?! So we called the waiter, who called the owner, who got the hostess and we argued about how they actually have to tell you in advance if there's a $10 Cover charge. She didn't get it, and I wasn't budging. We were about half a step away from getting the police when she finally just threw us out. We didn't even pay for the drinks, and we were actually on the street before we realized what happened. Now I can check off another item on my "List of things to do before dying": Get kicked out of a bar.

We went to an unremarkable bar after that, and then got on the LIRR and headed back home.

Posted by Jeff Smith at 06:51 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Happy Hallmark Holiday everyone! Even I was suckered into buying stupid heart-shaped candy boxes, such is the weakness of the consumer society I suppose. I'm wearing black to honor the occasion, once again. I also found this little gem in the comments on Slashdot. That'd do it for me.

Yesterday was a great day, unlike today's grey skies and threatening forecast. It was very sunny and fairly mild for this time of year. I went house shopping and saw some very interesting places. The numbers still boggle my mind. $350,000 for a house built in 1922 with original wallpaper and old man funk? No, thanks. This particular house had a mysterious pit dug out in the basement, which dropped the floor 2 extra feet. The listing agent said it was because the guy who lived there was a competitive bodybuilder and needed the extra height to lift weights over his head. I suspect it's where they kept the gimp.

In driving around searching for homes yesterday I also saw a part of the island I've never been to before. Lake Ronkonkoma is a moderately-crappy lake, with some pretty weak beaches. It was completely frozen over due to all the sub-zero weather so we walked out onto it and noticed people were sliding about at the other end on some sort of boatlike contraption equipped with runners and a sail. It actually looked really fun but we didn't have time to check it out, and I was sans-camera so you don't get to see any pictures.

At the end of the day we saw a house that was pretty nice, built in 1977 and more to my taste. Price tag: $379,000. That's insane. The house was basically in the same type of neighborhood and Donor's place, with 1 fewer bedroom and no basement. No freaking basement! Oh, right, they don't get tornados here. Hopefully I can find a mobile home that I can afford.

Posted by Jeff Smith at 03:22 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Well, as you can pretty obviously see, I've completely horked by blog template. This is all because I upgraded to MT Version 3.15. Actually, the upgrade was pretty straightforward and really not that big a hassle... except I wanted the more slick stylesheet that comes with it, and well... this is the bloody ugly result. I'll get to it. Hopefully.

Advice to those who see weirdness in their movabletype interface when they first load it: Clear Cache. Fixed my problems. The upgrade works, but you've got to deal with all your old templates and such.

Update: Ok, I put my old stylesheet back. I'm mostly understood how it worked, and this new one I have no clue... so I'll deal with this later.

Posted by Jeff Smith at 12:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

It only took 2 months of complaining, during the coldest months, to actually get my own thermostat installed. As you can see, it's quite ugly. I will not complain since now I am warm. Opening the door to my apartment on Monday evening I was greeted to a warm blast of 75 degree heat in my face, which was a bit much. I settled on 68 degrees as comfortable for winter. What a concept, not shivering at home!

Since I can't be completely happy about anything, please note the crappy patch job on the right side of the thermostat. Thanks for that attention to detail, jerkstore.

In other news, another move is impending. Looks like I'll be back to having a roommate, which will allow me to have an actual nice apartment, rather than living in basements and garages and being a general second-class citizen.

One other thing as pleased me about living here recently. I bought my plane ticket to Seattle for a March ski trip to Whistler, BC. Total ticket cost after taxes: $194.60. On the way there it's a direct flight, return is via ORD, as per usual. How odd is it that I can fly across the country for $100 less than it costs to fly into CID or MLI. Also, I'll be back in the IC area around the second weekend in April for a wedding. Social secretaries start your pencils.

Posted by Jeff Smith at 05:57 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

Today I'm perusing Science Magazine, like you do, and I came across a little blurb about how there are actually 3 separate species of Elephants! Bollocks I say - for I distinctly remember being taught in school that that there are only 2 types: African and Indian. The way to tell them apart is that African Elephants have large floppy ears, and Indian Elephants have smaller ones.

Apparently there are two species of African Elephants: African Savanna and African Forest. The Forest species is smaller and less aggressive than the Savanna species. So, forget what you used to know and learn this: 3 types of elephants. Crazy genetics. The thrust of the Science article was that the mitochondrial DNA of the Savanna Elephants shows that it's possible for the species to cross, and it's mostly male Savanna mating with female Forrest Elephants, those horny devils.

Oh, and now we refer to Indian Elephants as Asian, because they're not limited to India. Apparently I'm not very PC either.

Posted by Jeff Smith at 04:36 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)