So, for those of you who don’t already know, Damien Rice has a new album, entitled 9, coming out very soon. AOL is streaming the album in full; you can hear it here. Now, I’ve heard some complaints about it, but, having listened to it repeatedly over the last few days, I’m not sure why. If you’re familiar with his live shows, only about half of the songs are new, but they’re all good. I’m finding the album ridiculously listenable, possibly even more so than O was. I may even have to break down and pre-order it before my paycheck comes.
Archive for October, 2006
So what have I been up to since my trip to Cleveland? That’s a good question. I don’t have much of an answer, I’m afraid. And, sorry, but I still haven’t taken a picture of my office to put up yet. Patience.
I did have the pleasure of getting a visit from Greg this weekend. In fact, being a better blogger than I, his version of the weekend went up Sunday. Here I am, reporting it on Tuesday. But I have pictures, so ha ha!
My Friday started out on a not-so-lovely note, what with receiving a take-home exam in a class I’m not doing great in. It started getting substantially better, however, when I started said exam that afternoon and got about half of it completed without significant trouble. Since the exam is due this Friday, and I’d nearly finished the other homework assignment due this week, that meant I wouldn’t feel stressed about spending my weekend with friends.
I was in the middle of cooking a paltry, last-minute-running-out-of-food-items meal of pasta with chicken, mushrooms, pesto when Greg knocked on my door. I’d had Aladdin on for entertainment while cooking, but that quickly took a back seat to the hours of talking and catching up. And, because British humor makes everything better, we topped the evening off with a couple of episodes of “A Bit of Fry and Laurie”. (Dear God, Stephen Fry has the most amazing grasp of the English language–but that may be a topic for another day.) Then off to bed.
Saturday morning, we managed to rouse ourselves and get to campus in time for the noon chimes concert in McGraw Tower. It’s not really fair to say that the chimes are one of things Cornell is famous for, but it is fair to claim that they’re something that anyone who went to Cornell definitely remembers. In addition to chiming the hour, there are daily concerts on the tower’s twenty-one bells, making them some of the most frequently played chimes in the world. Since it was Family Weekend for the Class of 2010, lines to climb the 161 stairs to the top of the tower were fairly long, but we made it in. We dashed around the top of the tower, snapping photos of the surrounding views, the bells ringing overhead as a student below us played “Music of the Night” from Phantom of the Opera. That was followed by a song I didn’t recognize. We then headed down a flight to the room where the student chimesmaster was playing (and the volume was a little less ear-ringing) just in time to catch Pachelbel’s “Canon in D” and “Part of Your World” from The Little Mermaid. It was really quite impressive to watch the chimesmaster playing because it involved standing on one foot while ringing a bell with each hand and one foot. Quite the dance. The concert concluded with “Far Above Cayuga’s Waters,” the Cornell alma mater, and then we got to fight people down the stairs.
We then wandered about campus a bit, taking in the sights and the history as narrated by me and some of the legends and such I’ve read. The autumn leaves made a wonderful backdrop for the statues of Ezra Cornell (above) and Andrew Dickson White, the university’s first president. Even on a day that was relatively gray, some of the colors were still spectacular. We swung north to get a view of Falls Creek Gorge, which was much changed from when I saw it with Mark a few weeks ago. The rain made a huge difference. (As an aside, when I took a look at Six Mile Creek on Friday, it looked more like Six Miles Of Rushing Muddy Flood Waters River.) Instead of taking Greg out toward the Plantations and the eastern reaches of campus, we circled back through the science, labor, and hotel buildings–with special attention toward the Space Sciences building, which is home to the Mars Exploration Rover project. Our final stop, prior to the obligatory Engineering Quad tour, was at Uris, where we took a peak at part of the brain collection there. In particular, I had to point out the brain of Edward Rulloff, a nineteenth-century genius and murderer who plagued this area and who now has a Collegetown restaurant named for him. Since I pass Rulloff’s every day and salivate over their list of specials, we decided to try lunch there, a decision I do not regret in the least. Excellent sweet potato fries.
We picked up a bottle of chianti on the way back to the apartment, and, after a brief pit stop, continued our extensive walk by heading down to the Commons to visit a couple of used book stores. I really need to start carrying some paper and a pencil with me into these places so that I can write down books and authors I want to check for at the library. It’s ridiculous how many books of interest I find. I also got a kick out of discovering a copy of a German geometry textbook from 1929 that was written in Altschrift so that I could barely make out the letters.
Still haven’t made it to the new independent music store in town. Still need to.
When we got home, we jumped straight into lasagna making and Joe, Joanna, Greg, and I had a lovely dinner of that together. Since we lost track of the time, we had a brisk walk back up the hill in order to make it to campus in time to see A Scanner Darkly, which is based on a Philip K. Dick story (like Minority Report was). The rotoscoping they did on the live-action in the film made things a bit bizarre and tough to follow, but we decided that was probably the purpose, what with drugs and addiction being the primary topics of the story. As always, there was a twist, which I’m pleased to say I guessed before the big revelation at the end. Ah ha, my father would be so proud.
Back to the apartment in time for some SNL, which was not, I’m sure, as fantastically and unspeakably wonderful as I expect this weekend’s episode to be. I’m every so slightly looking forward to Hugh Laurie hosting.
Sunday was back to gray and rainy, which meant that Greg slept past nine, but I, thinking he might wake up like on Saturday, got up earlier. One of these days I’m going to write an ode to the sleep I’ve missed. Or something like that. I did eventually wake Greg up by starting to make blueberry muffins, but I think he forgave me. Joe joined us for breakfast, and, although Greg had to head off in the early afternoon, Joe ended up staying the entire day. I’m nice and distracting like that.
Jon got home and joined us for dinner, dessert (apple crisp!), and The Incredibles. All in all, a lovely weekend.
So this is a post that’s been a long time in coming, but here I (finally) go. Back in August, I had the extreme good fortune to stumble across a message on the Frames board about Paddy Whacked Radio. This weekly radio show, broadcast out of Boston on Friday mornings (9-11 a.m. EST), features primarily Irish artists and music with an emphasis on rock and acoustic but with some traditional stuff thrown in, too. It’s run by Shawn Fitzmaurice, who, in my oh-so-humble opinion, has excellent taste in music. He and I started exchanging comments and messages almost immediately, and we’re buddies now.
Some of you may possibly have noticed that PW Radio shows started appearing on my site a while back. The show was in need of an archive for some of the episodes that deserved more than a week’s worth of availability, and I think the fact that I was willing to host them myself says a lot about my opinion of what Shawn’s doing.
Every week he plays a great balance of “known” artists (think the Frames, Bell X1, Damien Rice, Mic Christopher, the Mary Janes etc.) and “unknown” independent artists (like Pier Nineteen, Paddy Saul, and the Fairplay Collective). For me, it’s fantastic to hear songs and bands that I love played on the radio–and in the U.S. no less!–while, at the same time, discovering artists I wouldn’t have known otherwise. So consider this my official plug for Shawn and his show (and maybe upcoming podcast?!). Check out some of the older shows and tune in to the new ones!
On a chilly Monday morning when anything other than crawling back into a warm bed sounds unpleasant, I feel like wassail is God’s greatest gift to man. Mmm, wassail.
Cornell’s Fall Break occur(red) yesterday and today, and I chose to take a trip over to Cleveland to visit those of my friends still there as well as some of my former professors. I left early on Saturday and had a pretty nice, quiet six hour drive. The roads across most of New York were empty, and between patches of dense fog, I got great views of the leaves changing in the Alleghanies. I really wish someone else had been in the car with me–there would have been pictures then. Traffic got iffy once I reached the eastern side of Cleveland, but, thankfully, I made it to Megan and Tim’s place without any serious problems.
We grilled steaks and burgers Saturday night and ate them outside well after dark, which was rather entertaining. Chris joined us in time for coconut rum and Cokes and Firefly. And, being silly, silly people, Megan, Tim, and I were still up talking around 2:30 that morning.
Sunday was fairly quiet; I tried to stay out of their collective hair so that they could get some work done. Mark came up from southern Ohio–I’ve seen him twice in as many weekends, so, obviously, I’m getting spoiled. We crashed the biorobotics lab to chat with Brian and Rich for a few hours. Brian’s got quals in January, so he’s riled up about that. I told him that I’ve got them in May, so I feel his pain.
Megan, Mark, and I had a late dinner at the Turkish restaurant. I was amused when the host recognized me when I came in. I had my favorite, lamb saute and Turkish apple tea, and it was very welcome. Well worth the drive, ha.
Monday was an absolute whirlwind. I got to campus around 8:30 (the same time, unfortunately, as the ABET accreditors) and was pretty much busy visiting people from that point onward. While Mark and I were grabbing breakfast in Nord, one of the deans saw me and said ‘hi’ in a manner that suggested that she didn’t remember that I’d graduated. Mark seemed to find this unsurprising in my case.
My first swing through the EMAE department gave me a chance to chat with Prof. Alexander and to find that Jorge Cham is visiting Case later this month (can you say jealousy?). Unfortunately, ABET were closeted with Dr. White, so Mark and I wandered off to Allen Memorial to see Mano Singham for a bit. I popped into Guilford long enough to say hello to Dr. Ittner and to find that Brad was missing, the rascal. Back on the main quad, I got a whole crowd of professors in the Glennan hallway. Dr. Greber informed me that the ABET aerospace accreditor was very impressed with my class’s aerospace design projects. Ironically, not fifteen minutes later, Prahl came over to inform me that another accreditor had apparently asked him where the design was in that “moth pheromone thing” amongst the senior project reports. He knew that was my report and started in on the guy about it apparently. I guess instead of taking the direction of how I designed experimental procedures or software, he told the guy, “She’s one of our best students! She’s doing her PhD at Cornell now!” Ohdearlord. Also, while Prahl was recounting this again later, he said that my report was “very well-written”, so that’s good, I suppose.
One of the big reasons that I decided to go to Cleveland over Fall Break was because Dr. White, my advisor, is leaving at the end of the semester. So I spent about a hour chatting with him–he declared when I came to his office that he knew that it was “inevitable” that I was going to stick my head in the door, so he was waiting for me. The poor man has obviously walked around the corner too many times and found me sitting outside his door. I found it kind of funny that, as I was on my way out the door, he said, “Talk to you later” just like he always did when I was a student. Except this time, ‘later’ will probably be a couple of years down the line at a conference. Sadness.
I hit the biorobotics lab, looking for Mark, and instead got into a conversation with Andy and Alex, a couple of the grad students there. Case is gearing up for the DARPA Urban Challenge since they just got a vehicle, and certain persons (who shall remain unnamed) tried to get me to funnel them information about Cornell’s car, especially since DARPA announced last week that Cornell is one of about a dozen teams to get a $1 million grant for the Challenge. Oh my poor, torn loyalties!
After finding Mark, we went to the SAGES cafe for lunch before I stuck my head into Peter Whiting’s office to say ‘hi’. Sounds like SAGES is doing very well, which makes me happy. I think it’s only going to improve from this point forward.
I stopped by Prahl’s office next and was quite amused when his first question was not about how graduate school was going but about how well my car handled the drive. There’s an engineering prof for you. He got onto the subject of ABET again when Dr. Davy stuck his head in, and Prahl suggested that the accreditors interview me since I happened to be in that day. Luckily for me, they weren’t in the room to take Prahl up on the offer.
Mark and I swung by Dr. Ritzmann’s office in biology next, ostensibly to tell him that he was right about me loving Cornell. Then we hiked one more time up to the eighth floor so that I could see Quinn in more than just passing. We ran into Christian while up there, too, which was excellent. He got onto the topic of graduate school applications (which both he and Mark need to be working on right now) and mentioned that Cornell is one of his target schools, so I made it clear that he was expected to come visit. He took us down to Bingham to visit Dexter, Case’s DARPA UC robot, and told us quite a bit more about the team. From the sound of things, quite a few of the graduate level classes in EECS and EMAE this year are being aimed toward work on the Urban Challenge. It sounds like Case has a strong group to work on it; the real problem is a lack of funds 
We got back to Megan and Tim’s only to find that a water main had burst, so there was no clean water. Mark and I skipped out to Heinen’s to pick up a couple items (yummy bread, yay!) while Megan made taco soup for supper. ‘Twas very good. After dinner, we called up Kate, Chris, and Christian and met them at La Gelateria, because Mark and I simply couldn’t leave town with some gelato. I’m happy to say that the coconut and cinnamon gelatos are as excellent as ever. The real highlight of the day, though, was the conversation. We must have sat there for an hour-and-a-half or more talking about everything from Monty Python to jobs to ECIV 310. To sit around with friends I haven’t seen in months (and may never have together like that again) and share that dynamic was just fantastic. Also, Kate made me cry with laughter, and everyone needs a bit more of that in their lives.
The drive back to Ithaca was a bit more stressful, I think, partially because I was leaving Cleveland during the morning rush hour, but I made it alright. I had to stop for food this time–or more exactly, for the Coke I got with my food–because I was having trouble staying alert. Clearly I missed my morning tea this time.
All in all, I’m extremely happy that I went to Cleveland over break. It seemed a bit silly to go back less than six months after graduation, but, on the other hand, the longer I stay away, the fewer people I’ll know there. And the thing that surprised me about the visit is that, once the people are gone, there will be little familiarity or comfort left in visiting. Sure, I may get to have some of the food I can’t get in Ithaca, but University Circle doesn’t feel like home anymore. Walking across campus felt familiar, but it definitely didn’t feel like I belonged there the way I did a year ago. I hadn’t realized how much Ithaca and Cornell have become home to me. I didn’t really want to leave Case not that long ago, but, looking back on it now, I wouldn’t change a thing.
Latest Comments
RSSWell Behind at Curious Notions
the canadian, Bernadette, Amy, Steph
Nicole, Bernadette, Nicole, Joe, Steph, Bernadette
Greg
Nicole, Bernadette, Nicole, Bernadette, Bernadette
Joe, Nicole, Joe, Nicole, Joe