Challenges.

This is the last week of the summer semester at school. By this time Thursday night I will have completed my Intermediate Algebra final and bagged a pretty good buzz from a couple of brewskis in celebration, because I am naturally a two beer queer.

This class has been an interesting one. Populated with mostly older folks taking their time at the finishing their degree, there has been one woman near my age who has consistently barked out the wrong answer to every question posed while the professor has been squeaking the chalk on the board the entire semester. He could ask “what’s 2 plus 2?” and she’d yap out “5”. I’d then say “4” in a slightly irritated voice, resisting the urge to throw on a Thurston Howell III accent while correcting her. I don’t think of her as Lovey.

The professor likes to give us extra credit tasks with what I call “speed trials”. For example, he’ll write an endless sea of variables, lines, operators and operands and tell us that the first five people to answer the given problem will get three extra points on the next exam. While I can normally answer the question, I must say that I’m not good in the role of Speedy Gonzales. I’ve purposely slowed myself down for this round of college so that I’m sure of what I’m doing and making sure I do it correctly. Give me time, I’ll figure it out. Last Thursday he wrote an equation with several real and imaginary numbers involved and announced, “The first person to answer this question will 5 points added to their semester grade.”

Holy crap.

Of course I froze. I don’t care, I’m already hovering near the top of the “A”‘s so I figured “let them eat cake” and slammed my pencil down, not in the mood to get all imaginary with numbers. Naturally, Ms. Yap was the only one to answer the question correctly. She sure picked a doozy for her grand debut.

So the challenge this week is to enjoy Independence Day AND study for the final the following day.

Relaxing.

Patio.

After spending the morning doing chores, Earl and I took a few moments to relax on our patio this afternoon. Like the well oiled machine we strive to be, we split up the “honey do” list and just got everything done. While Earl was grocery shopping, I had the task of trimming the out-of-control bushes in the landscaping across the front of the house. We planted the bushes three years ago and haven’t done much with them since. They are now tamed back to a reasonable size. I was expecting to find a buried treasure or something but all I found was cat poop.

After the landscaping was under control and the groceries were put away, we went to Lowe’s and picked up a few goodies for the house, including a bird feeder, some potting soil and geraniums from the abandoned decorative pots along the driveway. All this outdoor activity coupled with my craziness in cleaning the house on Friday has me feeling pretty good about this place we call home.

Now if the weather would just feel like July 1st instead of May 1st it’d be picture perfect.

Central New York.

Earl and I haven’t been on a fun road trip in a while. With sunny skies and moderate temperatures bestowed upon us by Mother Nature, I declared that today we would return to the tradition of going for a “long ride”. We decided to approach today’s ride a little different and explore a little closer to home.

Our first stop was the Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park in Syracuse.

Rosamond Gifford Zoo at Burnet Park.

I have not been to this zoo since I was 10 years old or so. It was still called the Burnet Park Zoo at the time. Despite the 29 years that have passed, I still remembered quite a bit of the zoo. It seems to be in good shape and the animals seem happy. I’m not sure that I’m a huge fan of the whole zoo concept, however, I do appreciate that the zoo is doing their share to make sure animals that are near extinction are not killed off completely. Plus, zoos do a good job of educating the young about Mother Earth, so there are many good things about a zoo. However, if I had to sit in a cage all day I might resort to throwing my poop, so I guess I see both sides of the coin.

Overall it was a pleasant experience.

After the zoo we headed north to the Oswego County Fair. I had read that this is the 150th anniversary of the Oswego County Fair, so I thought it would be just wonderful. The fair is held in the next town over from where I grew up and it was a regular family activity to go to the county fair, so I was looking forward to the experience. When we arrived I noticed the grandstand was jammed with folks gawking at the demolition derby. I guess it’s still the biggest attraction at the fair. We decided to skip that and opted to walk through all the building, pass by all the food vendors, look at all the arts and crafts and admire the various tractors on display. After about 10 minutes or so it was time to leave as we had seen it all, so we headed out. So much for that 150 year celebration.

After a stop at Smokey Bones for a few brewskis and supper, we headed to Carousel Center for a walk before heading home. One stop at Carousel Center was at the Apple store, where I got to play with an iPhone. O.k., while I think the hype of this thing was entirely off the map I must say that the geek in me really loves this gadget and while I can think of many other things I could spend $500 on, I wouldn’t mind if I had one of these things in my pocket. So I have not added an iPhone to the geek arsenal but I would definitely say there’s one in my future, even if it’s two years from now.

There has been an effort underway for many years to transform Carousel Center into Destiny USA. If the final vision for Destiny USA is ever reached, it could be the largest man-made structure on the entire planet. Even Phase One of the plan is quite impressive, especially in the fact that it is an entirely green operation with absolutely no fossil fuels involved in it’s creation.

To me that’s just cool.

A number of years ago, when my sister was sitting in intensive care with something close to Legionnaire’s Disease, I was sitting in a hospital waiting room with my cousin Theresa. Concerned about the welfare of my sister and still reeling from the death of Theresa’s daughter, we were basically “numb” and just talking about the meaning of life. Why are we here, how can we make a difference and all that sort of deep stuff. I’ve never forgotten that conversation. It enhanced a drive I’ve always had to do my part to make the world a better place. This is where Destiny USA intrigues me in many ways. First of all, if it ever comes to fruition, it’s going to be nothing short of impressive. It is being built on an industrial wasteland that was known as “Oil City”, for all the oil storage tanks that used to live there. It lies on the shore of one of the most polluted lakes in the world, Onondaga Lake. However, Destiny USA can be a major force in turning this all around, enhancing efforts to clean up the lake and bringing jobs, visitors and prosperity to the Upstate New York “rust belt”. Many may not agree with this, but I think there’s a solid vision waiting to be realized.

Perhaps a newly educated Civil Engineer could assist in the effort.

You Go Girl.

MSNBC’s Mika Brzezinski refused to open a newscast with a lead story covering Paris Hilton’s release from prison. The whole thing can be seen on the YouTube video below.

Whether this was a planned protest or not, I found her attitude to be quite refreshing in a world of Mary Hart wannabes covering every movement of Paris’ exposed vagina.

I hate Paris Hilton. I despise everything she stands for. She is an obvious symptom of a very sick society.

By the way, 101 American soldiers have died in Iraq during the month of June. As of today, there have been 3,570 U.S. deaths since the beginning of this war, as confirmed by the Department of Defense.

And I’m suppose to care about Paris Fucking Hilton? Not on your life. That is all.

Panera Ponderings.

Before I get into this latest entry, in case you haven’t heard, Apple releases the iPhone this afternoon at 6 p.m. I don’t know if you’ve heard anything about this latest gadget as the media has been very, very quiet about this technological breakthrough so I thought I should warn you that things might be a little crazy around your local Apple and /AT&T retailers. By the way, I’m not getting one, he says rejoicefully.

I am sitting in Panera while en route to my sister’s to do the brotherly chore of mowing her lawn. Since my sister’s boyfriend is a Canadian Hockey Player, she ends up spending a lot of time north of the border in Prince Edward Island. Stateside she has a townhouse in one of those sort of snobby developments so there is much pressure to keep her lawn under control. Therefore, I must drive 100 miles round trip to do this.

This is what older brothers do.

I always find a trip to Panera to be a fascinating experience. I don’t know if it’s the effect of Baby Bush and his cast of idiots or what but there seems to have been a general dumbing down of the American public since the dawn of the 21st century. Panera does a great job of posting their menu in bold print, using words with no more than three syllables to describe what they have to offer. The prices are available to all, there’s no secret handshake required.

Can someone please tell me why almost all customers have such a difficult time ordering at Panera? To begin with, they stand 10 to 12 feet away from the counter, seemingly like they’re fearing an appearance of Barbara Eden (in the dark wig) smoking out of a jelly roll or something. Secondly, those waiting their turn at the register make no attempt to sort out what they desire prior to getting to their turn. They talk on their cell phone, scratch their nuts, leash their kids, lash out at their kids and “ooh” and “aah” over the pastries in the display case but by all that is holy they DO NOT make any decisions or try to figure out what Asiago Cheese is. Why is this?

I would bet one thin dime that they know what they want when they’re ordering a Burger Bomb by yelling into the clown’s mouth.

I don’t feel I’m unreasonable. Perhaps I expect too much from people. Is it crazy of me to wish that people stand in line, formulate their order in advance and move through the ordering process in a timely manner?

Perhaps Panera should install a clown’s mouth on the counter.

The Ride Along The Canal.




Symbols.
Originally uploaded by bluemarvel.
Click this image for another image
from the same area, it’s equally as powerful.

I hate graffiti. While some see beautiful artwork when observing the spray painting on a bridge or side of a building, I usually see vandalism.

On my bike ride along the Erie (Barge) Canal today, I noticed that there’s a lot of graffiti on the bridge supports for the roadways that cross the canal and trail. Most of them amounted to seemingly incomprehensible scribblings, however, two images stood out among the random symbols. This is one of them, the other is on my Flickr account, just click that image and move around my account a little bit to see it.

I also took quite a bit of video which I threw together into one piece to share. I figured out my sound issue while I was filming, so just kind of deal with the minute and half of excessive wind noise. I know better for next time.

The video is about six minutes long and requires Adobe Flash Player.
[MEDIA=9]

No Shame.

I wanted to try out new video software for my laptop. I’m happy with the video quality of this clip and the software I’m using.

Sweet Jesus, I need to get some sleep.

[MEDIA=8]

Dab of CNY: Tom Cavallo’s.

Cavallos

Earl and I decided to skip Saranac Thursday at the local brewery and instead enjoy each other’s company for supper out tonight. Since the hot, humid weather has left us for the time being, we enjoyed the gorgeous evening out on the deck at a favorite of our local haunts, Tom Cavallo’s in the Village of New Hartford.

Cavallo’s is a favorite amongst the locals. They’re especially known for their Italian dishes and their pizza and wings night. We each had a pasta dish chased down with a few beers.

If you’re in the area, we highly recommend it.