oh dear....

these deadlines are really catching up with me.
time to put it into overdrive and kick up the turbo.
*sigh*

Whoops!

i've completely neglected this thing. eek! here ya go:

And so my vacation comes to a close. Argh. I’m sitting in the Syracuse international airport as I type this, with nonfunctional WiFi. Whatever, I’ll just upload this when I get back to ol’ MIA… which is a huge amount of time away. Since we’re in Podunk little Syracuse, they’ve got no direct flights to Miami. We’ve got to take a small connector flight across New York State to JFK airport in the big apple, a three hour layover, then we go on a huge jet for two and a half hours to MIA. Our flight gets in at 11. And we left the cottage in the rental at 9:20. That’s a good fourteen hours of travel. Fun? I don’t know about that. Speaking of fun, OH MY GOD. Canada was absolutely amazing on every possible level, except for the bugs, but they were overly friendly anyways. Let’s see… the last I wrote I was what, august 4^th? CRAP! That’s a lot to catch up on. Four places. Columbus, Niagara Falls, Syracuse, and Harrowsmith.

Let’s get started then, shall we?

Columbus, Ohio, United States of America

Pulling into Columbus… was interesting. The only thing it’s got going for it is that it’s the capital of Ohio. Why? No clue, Probably because it’s dead center in the state. It’s kind of Podunk-ish, not very big, dumpy in areas, et cetera. It’s stereotypical Midwest. The only thing really big city about it is a small corner, a building called “broad+high” has a couple of Times-square-like-videoboards. CCAD [the Columbus College of Art and Design] is quite small, in a good way. It looks a bit older than CIA in Cleveland but it’s still quite nice. Our hotel was right across from the Ohio State Fair, which inevitably means I got some great shots of the fair at night. We found some interesting things to do, including but not limited to Germantown in Columbus. Dinner at Schmidt’s Sausage Haus, and shopping at the Fudge haus next door. The food was AMAZING. Really, really amazing. *gasp* and then the chocolate we got afterwards. Home made. Dark. German. Chocolate. Need I say more?

Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada

Then comes the 7 hour drive to the Canadian side of Niagara Falls. [we had consulted numerous parties on the issue and were unanimously told that the Canadian side was hundreds of times better, and the US side was nothing but a disappointment] amazing fun in that convertible. Crossing the border was fun too! A short trip across a bridge and drive to a toll booth looking thing, and bam: the lady at the border crossing promptly says “Hello, Bonjour!” and thus everything from now on –every sign, every product –is subtitled in French. (it’s one of their official languages, doncha know?) everything from the big red maple leaf on north was metric. YAY! EASY CONVERSIONS! Niagara falls was a bit touristy, and honeymooney. Very honeymooney. The big thing there is in room Jacuzzis. Yeah, even the Day’s inn we stayed at had one. Tacky much? Whatever. The flat screen TV more than made up for it.

The area was touristy, but once you get to the falls, it’s amazing. I’ll let the pictures describe it, but being there in person gives you this aura of being in the presence of something great. The mist is quite dampening, but there’s a thunder, a constant rush of noise. Pretty. Very pretty.

Syracuse, New York, United States of America

Syracuse was fun. We stayed at my mom’s friend Karen’s house. My mom was the maid of honor at her wedding and I was the wing bearer. They have quite a nice split level in Syracuse, along with two wonderful cats, and a DEVIL DOG CHIHUAHUA FROM HELL. The thing would not stop barking at me. Not once. Non. Not even once during my stay. It went biserk, bat shit insane on me. Crazy. Insane. Devil dog. Argh. That, and Karen’s husband Keith, who owns a specialty beer store. We visited the store before we drove on up to Canada to get some creative Beers, or “Craft beers” from independent breweries. Fun labels, such as “Arrogant Bastard Ale” and “Shakespeare Stout”

Oh, yeah. Canada. It’s so amazing it warrants a separate blog post. Yeah, I’m making you wait. :)

Short Story

our assignment for english was a short story. i liked it so much i'll post it here:

The Glass Needle

The room was white. It seemed to float above the city in a new age skyscraper, one of many glass needles pointed miles up into the faded blue sky. In this one glass needle, the room sat. Flat, modern, and square. The wall furthest east was about 35 feet tall –composed entirely of glass panes looking out over the city. The wall adjacent to that was another wall of windows –this time looking into the lives of the citizens of the city. Another 35 feet of monitors and screens, all filled with innumerable amounts of data and images. Sandwiched in between these two vast expanses of glass, sat the apartment. It was barren and modern. The walls and floors remained empty, unfinished concrete composite. The ceiling had all of the ducting and plumbing exposed, giving the whole room an industrial feel. Hidden in an enclave on the northern wall was the kitchen. The space had all of the bare necessities, plainly visible and utterly utilitarian. Metal and black gloss dominated the room. On the south wall was an ingeniously hidden Murphy bed, and two small openings on either side of the bed where light emitted. In the center of the room was her workspace, along with a makeshift “sitting area” for the rare times she had guests over. Her chair faced the perpetually glowing wall of video feed, allowing her to monitor it with cunning precision. On the left side of the chair was a small pad, with some controls for the video, a small keyboard, and a glowing red button. The red button was the only source of color in the room, other than what she was wearing, and even then, there were only two things in the room with color at all.

They used to say that one’s home reflected one’s lifestyle. Makes sense, and this woman was no exception. The woman who resided in the room wore plain white. She had a bright white, somewhat tight fitting turtleneck encasing her thin frame, with a bright red scarf wrapped around her neck. She was tall, pale and bony, and yet, she had a huge presence. When she walked into a room with another breathing soul in her vision, her ice blue eyes seemed to cut them into a million little pieces. She walked with an eerie grace, sometimes seeming to hover over to her destination without moving. Her name was unimportant. When she was recruited, she lost all sense of individuality. She was part of the machine. Expertly calibrated and scarily precise, the network of the machine let nothing slip by unnoticed. Her shift for the Eye was beginning.

She moved over to the center of the room toward the chair, as the Murphy bed behind her quickly receded into the wall, leaving only a memory of sleep. She sat down on the chair, her weight on the sensors triggering the video wall to flash a message of greeting to the woman. She proceeded to place her left wrist on the port. The computer seized control of her wrist and within seconds, her arm was intertwined with wires, and her veins were connected to the mainframe through a set of small wires peering out of her forearm. She was now under the watch of the Eye, like every other citizen in the city. While she scanned the screens on the massive wall, the wires in her arm bombarded her brain with data on every single person visible in the frames. The scenes on the screens were ghostly –hordes of people going about their daily duties, all strangely synchronized. It wasn’t hard to find the first problem of the day. Somewhere near the city gates, she spotted someone out of sync. The man she saw wasn’t wearing plain beige, and looked terribly confused. The Eye had no data on this man yet –he was so obviously an outsider that did not belong. She pressed the red button without hesitation and watched as seconds later, three men dressed in white armor came to take the man to the tallest glass needle.

Throughout the day, the woman weeded out potential problems throughout the city, along with the Eye network, keeping the city running like a well oiled, blindly obedient, thoughtless machine. Anyone who compelled her to tap the red button was quickly subdued and would be sterilized by authorities to prevent further danger. If they posed too great a threat, they’d never to be seen again. Wiped off the face of the city of glass needles. There she sat, in this chair, intricately wired into the framework of the Eye. She was detached, looking at the video with such a blank stare; any possible onlooker would assume her dead. She didn’t even blink, moving only to let air into her lungs. She was detached because of the red button. Years of tapping it had worn her sympathy and emotion dry. She no longer felt any sort of empathy when pressing the button. She had lost that long ago, and now functioned like a methodical machine, not even thinking, but rather knowing.

She continued with the routine until another abnormality sprouted. This one was different –what looked like a mother and daughter were walking in line with everyone else, but were not supposed to be near the city gates. The data the Eye pulled up on them confirmed her suspicions. She began to wonder, the first time thought had intruded on work in years, why the mother and daughter were heading to the city gates. Could they be trying to escape? Why would they do this when they knew the Eye was watching? She sat there for a moment, not knowing what to do, dumbfounded by the bravery of these two people. Her finger was over the red button, ready to push it, but her conscience forced her not to. The closer the woman and daughter got to the city gates, the more rushed their pace became. She knew the Eye was watching all three of them. The mother, daughter, and herself. She thought of the consequences of her inaction. The woman and daughter began a mad dash to the gates, shoving people aside to get out of their hell. The woman behind the screen held firm, not moving, still in shock. The Eye saw this.

As the woman and daughter were just escaping the gates, five armored guards dressed in white appeared within the room. The woman started to shed a tear, but before it was released to stream down her face, the Eye sent a massive shock through her system from the wires in her forearm. The wires connecting her to the mainframe were shocking her into submission, waiting for the guards to take her. The guards proceeded to take her away, farther up into the glass needle. Her red scarf was torn off in the process, and remained in the room with the button.

Cleveland Calling

Well, today was the second day in Cleveland. Nice city here. It’s not as big as Miami, but the architecture is an incredible mix of old and new. We got into Cleveland yesterday, checked into our hotel, and this morning got up and about. My appointment at CIA was at 10AM, with a meeting with the Dean of faculty at noon. I ended up doing one better for me and meeting with the chair of the Industrial Design department at the school. Let me tell you, that’s pure awesome. We got a campus tour along with that. It’s a small school, and it’s like DASH but up a few levels. 500 or so students, so it’s a very personal setting. (one of the best qualities for a school to possess.) we had lunch in little Italy as per advice from our student tour guide, in a small Italian bakery. I had the Meat Stromboli. Good stuff. The other thing strange about being so far north is the hours of daylight. It gets dark at around 9:15. 9. AT NIGHT. 9. WHAT GIVES? My biological clock is screwing up each time I see the sun at night. I’m told it’s only going to get worse the further north we get. Ah, well. At least I can look forward to tearing through the heartland of America to Columbus, Ohio. We’re going to go there for a night, then head over to Buffalo, and Niagara falls. Also; I need to get the damn camera out more. That shutter button is getting depressed.

Haulin' on down to Cleveland

Today we hauled the Sebring from Detroit to Cleveland. With the top down. On the interstate. Blasting Satellite radio. Quite fun, except for the sunburn. Ironic, no? I live in Florida and spend all day in the sun and yet, one trip up north with the top down and I’m pink. What gives? Oh, OH. We were delayed in coming to Cleveland. Why? I-75 Southbound was shut down. All of it. And my iPhone kept telling us to get on it, leading us nowhere. Fun times led to fun driving, and before we knew it we were headed to Cleveland. As soon as we pulled into the city we were greeted by the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Quite nice architecture, might I add. It was already 3, so it was pointless to pay $22 for two hours of the museum. And they wanted to take my baby from me! They had a mandatory camera check-in. no way in hell am I ever going to do that.

Long story short, we raided the gift shop. I’m not sure whether it’s a good habit or not, but we’re making it one to cruise the downtown area with the top down at night. No muggings yet. And the breeze and temperature is quite nice on cities on the great lakes. Or just up north in general.

Further stories and reporting tomorrow!

next stop? Columbus for a day, then a 6 hour drive to Niagara Falls (the Canadian side, of course)

We swear! It’s bigger in person!

Today was a good day. We left our awesome Victorian hotel on Ferry Street behind. (pictured to the left) we promptly drove to Dearborn, Michigan to tour the Rouge Factory at Ford and visit the Ford Museum. The Rouge factory would have been nice, seeing as they made it out to be the factory of the future. It would have been awesome if they were actually making something at this “factory of the future”. Alas, all the workers had been laid off since early june because the trucks they were making at the Rouge plant were just not selling. In fact, nothing with four wheels is selling. Right now, this super green gem of the future isn’t even doing anything. It’s just sitting there, taking up space, wasting electricity with the lighting, not even making any gas-guzzling trucks. I’d post a picture of this depressing sight, but cameras are forbidden on the factory floor, as they might capture workers in “compromising positions” as one employee put it. “Especially the female employees, you know, bending over to screw something in… we don’t want them to be photoshopped and up on youtube, you know?”

YEAH, like I’m gonna do that. Who wants to see brawny babes sprawled over an F-150 Chassis with a riveter? You know, on second thought, keep that to yourself.

Next stop was the ford museum. Not just cars, oh, no. planes, trains, cars, furniture. Anything henry himself could get his hands on and put into a museum. Kennedy’s limo? Got it. Original Mustang Mach 1 concept? Got it. The Allegheny? Yup. That’s stuffed into the warehouse too. Quite, quite large in fact. Those of you who know me in person know that I’m no shortie. I’m 6’4.5” and this engine was MASSIVE. The little sister of the Union Pacific “Big Boys”, the Allegheny was still quite massive. Used to haul coal in huge 150+ car trains from the Allegheny mountains to the factories that used them. Huge things. Massive. No other words.

When we left there, we headed over to our hotel (not nearly as nice as the Inn on Ferry Street), there! Over on the left! A mass of old Detroit metal! I must! MUST! Stop to take a few pictures!

Yep, a local car club was meeting. We stopped in with our Sebring and my camera. The cars? Awesome. The pictures? Great. The people? Nice. There was one car that caught my eye –a 1955 Ford Fairlane convertible. In pink. With black trim. Owned by a nice little old lady. In pink. With pink trim.

I got a couple of really nice shots from the trip, and uploaded some to Flickr. here's the link:

[Flickr Photos]

enjoy!