Monthly Archives: February 2005

Today happicow and I spent our last day in Chicago at the Shedd Aquarium, where they had Rockhopper and Gentoo penguins :)

This was a really good aquarium, definitely one of the best I’ve been to (and apparently the largest indoor aquarium in the country), and their penguin exhibit was second only to the penguin exhibit at the Pittsburgh Aquarium (out of my limited realm of experience). They also had a dolphin show, and since I have only seen such things on TV before I found it really enjoyable too.

Unfortunately, my camera’s battery ran out so I didn’t get as many pictures as I would have liked, but I did manage to get a few of the penguins. I’ll post pics sometime after I get back home, which should be tomorrow.

After the aquarium we headed on back to Cleveland, and 6 hours later, we are here. w007. In a few short hours, we leave again. w007.

I’m keeping this separate from the other post because I forgot about it briefly in my excitement, but here goes: happicow was supposed to sell our two extra tickets on eBay, which he did. He was supposed to deliver said extra tickets to the buyer, which he did too well. In other words: he sent the buyer of the two extra tickets all four tickets. We almost coulen’t get into the theater because the two tickets we tried first had already been used, but luckily for us happicow had brought all four tickets with him (which amused the security guard a bit). Extra luckily for us, the buyer was a nice guy and only used the two tickets he bought, not all of them.

It would have been an incredibly disappointing weekend if we had come all the way out here (~12 hour drive) only to discover we could no longer see the show. Luckily, people are kinder than I often give them credit for, and everything worked out :)

We’re back from the concert. In a word: s’awesome! The music was completely immersive and masterfully done- it wasn’t even spoiled by me having to pee really bad for the entire first half of the concert :)

Besides the orchestra, there was also a choir, and various CG scenes from the game were played on some big screens behind the stage during certain songs. Nobuo made an appearance as well, and spoke to the audience (who mostly screamed back) a bit at the end, before introducing the encore. The Rosemont Theatre was completely sold out- full of thousands of Final Fantasy fans from all over the country (though I only saw one cosplayer), all screaming at the top of their lungs for more (but unfortunately we only got one encore).

Here’s the itinerary:

• Liberi Fatali (FFVIII, w/ choir)
• Zanarkand (FFX)
• Terra’s Theme (FFVI)
• Theme of Love (FFIV)
• Dear Friends (FFV)
• Vamo’ Alla Flamenco (FFIX)
• Love Grows (FFVIII)
• (intermission)
• Aeris’s Theme (FFVII)
• Not Alone (FFIX)
• Ronfaure (FFXI)
• Final Fantasy I-III Medley (including the wondrous Chocobo theme)
• New melody from Final Fantasy VII Advent Children
• Final Fantasy (ending music from various games)
• Extra Bonus Level: Sephiroth’s Theme (w/ choir)

Truthfully, the worst thing about this concert is that there are no CDs available yet! Still, I did manage to drop $60 at the souvenir kiosk anyway (on a t-shirt and two programs [one for Chris, and one for myself]), and I plan on buying the CD as soon as it comes out (it will). Chris really enjoyed the concert too, and I’m hoping it inspires him to finally complete FFVII (which he’s been playiing for well over a year [and still hasn't had any major plot points spoiled, somehow]) and maybe play some other FF games after that (such as FFX or FFVI).

I guess that’s all I have to say about that for now, except the suggestion that if you ever get the chance to go to this concert while it tours the US I highly recommend it, even if you only have a pasing interest in Final Fantasy or orchestral music in general.

Today happicow and I went to Fry’s! It isn’t quite the geek mecca that Rob made it out to be (this one had no theme, but was like a ginormous Radio Shack += Best Buy), but it is really cool. I spent way too much money (well, maybe not) and got some junk for my needy co-workers while I was at it. I got some incredibly silly things for myself, and a few things that may actually prove useful (such as a Dremel!).

After Fry’s we tried to go eat at Cheeseburger in Paradise, but there was a wait and we were hungry, so we just dumped our swag off at the hotel and ate at Taco Bell. We may try Cheeseburger again tomorrow before we leave.

After that, happicow wanted to visit the famed Meigs Airport (starting point for every flight sim ever) and maybe take a test flight (he almost has his pilot’s license, afterall), but the roads weren’t co-operating and eventually he gave up and we decided to head directly to our next goal: Millenium Park.

After figuring out that you park under the park (and pay exorbitant parking fees of $12/everything under 12 hours) we found the Bean only to discover that it is closed for winter (it will re-open in May or June). I took a picture of the tarp covering it, though :)

After wandering around the park for about an hour and getting some shite expresso we paid our $12 and headed back to the hotel, where we are now.

Soon, very soon, we will head to our concert. More later.

Chris and I didn’t end up hanging out in Cleveland like we had originally planned, partly because there didn’t seem to be anything new to do in Cleveland, and partly to just get on the road (though we should hopefully have another go at it Sunday night/Monday morning). So, after a breakfast at IHOP we ended up leaving at around 13:00 EST, and finally arriving in Chicago around 19:30 CST (there were several tonnes of slow-moving traffic), where, soon thereafter, we partook in some Chicago-style deep dish pizza (yummy, except for the crust).

There’s really not that much more to say, actually. We plan to actually do stuff tomorrow, but to save face in case plans fall through again I’ll avoid blogging about it until we actually do it :)

happicow and I just got into our hotel in Cleveland, all part of our master plan[1]. We left Ithaca sometime around 17:30, and ended up getting lost a bit in the neighborhood of Watkin’s Glen (because happicow decided to try some silly route that would have saved ten miles) for about an hour. And the weather sucked.

The weather was really rather interesting in that everything would be clear and suddenly there would be a blizzard and visibility would shoot down to nearly nothing. Then after a mile or so of that the snow would disappear just as suddenly as it arrived, and there wouldn’t even be any snow on the ground. After about another 20 miles this cycle would repeat, all the way between Watkin’s Glen and Cleveland. I guess this has something to do with some lakes or something :)

Anyway, yeah. Because of all that we didn’t end up getting to the hotel until around 01:00.

We haven’t done anything interesting yet, because it’s late and dark. At least this hotel has free Internets, but unfortunately by the time we actually do something worthwhile (maybe tomorrow) we will already be checked out. I’ll update more as I can, but that all depends on net access.

[1] We are travelling from Ithaca to Chicago, where we will see the Final Fantasy Symphony and probably do some other stuff.. Since Cleveland is halfway we are stopping there for a night on the way out (now) and the way back (Sunday night). Yep.

At work we are in the process of changing the name of our main website[1] from the “Solanaceae Genomics Network” to the “SOL Genomics Network”. This has the benefit of allowing us to use the same acronym (SGN), but the downside of making something that looks like an acronym (because powers on high insist that the ‘SOL’ be in all caps).

Some of my geeky co-workers and I insist on creating a backronym for SOL (because if it looks like an acronym, it had best be an acronym), The best option we have come up with is {SGN On-Line} Genomics Network (this has the benefit of being recursive and retro-geek-tongue-in-cheek-chic), but it seems SOL is already an overloaded acronym.

Anyone have any fun/geeky/work-safe acronym suggestions?

[1] Disclaimer: though I work on this site a bit, it is not for the project that pays for my job. Hence, though SGN may continue to exist, if the site I work on loses funding, I am probably still out of a job.

This is one of those things I just always assumed that anyone who thought about it would eventually realize. I guess most people just don’t bother to actually think about it.

If you pay attention to the highway during periods of bumper to bumper traffic, you will notice that the lanes take turns moving. One lane will be moving faster for a brief time so people will switch into it; this slows down that lane for everyone behind them and speeds up the lane they had previously occupied. This continues on down the highway and usually everyone ends up going the same general speed. If you’ve ever noticed that you tend to pass the same cars over and over again, this is why.

Trust me, this is the way it works. I’m from New Jersey- I know.

I just paid Chris to do my taxes (‘cuz I’m über-lazy). I owe the man (not Chris, rather, the man) $163.

Crud. And I thought I might actually get a refund.

At least I got a chance to donate to some worthwhile causes while I was at it (or he was at it, actually).

Unluckily xpdf was being incredibly uncooperative and refused to print one of the returns I have to mail in to the state, but lucky for me I remembered being told once upon a time that ggv also does pdf, so it was all good.

In other news, I just filled out a survey about Linux books that should hopefully (if all goes well) get me a subscription to Linux World magazine. We’ll see how that turns out.

Today, Beth, ctl, Nick, and I tried to go to a military surplus store in Syracuse to buy ourselves army boots.

After getting lost (thanks partly to shite Mapquest directions [shoulda used Google Maps!] and partly to crap road design/naming) we finally found the address where the store should have been only to find… nothing. Possibly we were more lost than we thought, but quite likely the place had closed down.

So we went off to try and find a phone book, because for some reason, no one was willing to call 411. After getting kinda lost a few more times, we found one (at a rather unfriendlyconvenience store). Nick looked up the location of another miliary surplus-type store.

After getting only a little bit lost, we found this place successfully, only to see that it wasn’t open on Sundays.

Giving up on that whole plan, we decided to get food and head back home to Ithaca. Nick suggested a few places, and we decided to try the Spaghetti Warehouse (though ctl wanted to try Dinosaur BBQ, that was vetoed). So we found another phone book, and after a bit of responsibility shuffling (which ended up with basically the same ones we had started with) Nick went to get the new address.

We proceeded to get nontrivially lost, and to drive in circles for about an hour, trying to decide which way South was using only the sun and a shite small mapquest map of the area for directions.

Eventually, ctl wanted to call it a night and head back, but a few minutes later we actually found the place.

Great signs and okay food were our reward (I got the vegetable lasagna).

After that, we got lost again trying to find a way to get onto Rt. 81 South, and saw one of the most interesting bits of road stupidity ever (where a two-lane road suddenly ended at ‘Do no enter’ signs and veered off into the highway guardrail [we were the second car in a group of three to get tricked by this]).

Obviously we got home eventually, or I wouldn’t be posting this :)