Where'd that T-Rex come from?

Here's a funny photo that Allie and I took at a tourist trap somewhere just off the freeway in Arizona or New Mexico while on our cross-country road trip just after Thanksgiving last year.

My beautiful afternoon and New England quirks

The fact that today's afternoon was beautiful has nothing to do with me. It's mine because I was able to enjoy it. I had dropped Toebzilla off at a pet hotel yesterday for reasons I'm not going into here. On my way to pick him up today, I stopped off at a bagel place for the first bagel I've had in Massachusetts this year. In a rather ironic twist, bagel shops aren't all that common in the MetroWest area. There around, but there's just no prolific quality chains, like Noah's Bagels in the West Coast (to the people that hate Noah's, they are still far better than many places, so I consider them quality by comparison). I'm sure there's a bunch of bagel places closer to the Boston area, but I'm not driving an hour for bagels. Anyway, the place I went to was OK. Service was slow and understaffed for a Saturday. The bagel was fine. I picked up Toebzilla from the pet hotel and then drove to a farm ice cream "parlor". I'm not sure why it's called a "parlor" since you don't actually get to go inside. I think I mentioned this in a previous post. I had a small ice cream in a waffle cone. You got to watch out at the farm ice cream places. Smalls are typically still quite big. Toebzilla was a bit impatient with me as it took me forever to eat my delicious ice cream cone. The farm ice cream shops opened earlier in the season this year since Winter weather ended a bit early. One surprize in New England is that the Diary Queens typically close during Winter too. I've never seen Diary Queens do that before. It was quite disappointing in November to be forced to get soft serve at a McDonalds. As an alternative to Diary Queen, I do miss Foster Freeze, which is a smaller California chain of soft serve ice cream parlors (you actually get to go inside at these places). Oh, one more comment about the farm ice cream shop; they do serve soft serve, but I had "hard serve" today. After coming home, I relaxed on our balcony in the sunny and warm afternoon. Toebzilla doesn't get to go on the balcony often, so he was sniffing around quite a bit, and investigating how far he was above the ground. When I went back inside, he followed quickly. Both of us then sleep for the rest of the afternoon with the Sun peaking through the blinds of the bedroom. I think I'm well rested now. I might actually not fall asleep during SNL tonight.

Meeting Mike Rowe

The Joke
When travelling across country late last year with my wife, I discovered a section of our hotel store at the Grand Canyon that was dedicated to Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe. There was a foam board cut out of Mike Rowe’s image. To joke with my wife, who loves Mike Rowe but who never found her way into the store, I took a photo of me with the 2D cut out. The joke turned out to be so little, Allie forget all about the photo within a couple of days.

Irony a few months later
In a bit of irony, I actually did meet Mike Rowe at SolidWorks World 2012 earlier this year. Yes, he graciously took his photo with me. Can you tell which is the real Mike Rowe?

SolidWorks World 2012 is a design conference dedicated to 3D CAD related products and services for engineering and similar fields. The conference happened to fall on Valentine's Day this year. It was in San Diego. This means, I (and many attendees) were away from our spouses on Valentine's Day. I asked Mike Rowe if he would write a Valentine's Day message to my wife (an autograph written to Allie). He signed my conference badge. I'm not going to show it here because its my gift to my wife. It is an autograph that will never be sold, and it's up to Allie to show it off!

I thanked Mike Rowe a bit too much and then told him that my wife and I have been fans since he was on Evening Magazine in the San Francisco Bay Area. He looked at me surprized, if not a tiny bit consternated.

On Stage
On stage at the conference, Mike Rowe talked about the need to bring recognition and honor back to the blue collar trades (plumbers, electricians, etc). He founded mikeroweWORKS for this purpose and to help people connect with each other in the trades.

Alaska Cruise Day 7: Not Alaska (B.C.)

Day 7 of our Alaska cruise was highlighted by a visit to Victoria, British Columbia. Many people don't realize that the name Columbia was used by our North and South American forefathers to name a bit of land that they really didn't have a name for. Columbia is the "poetic" name for the Americas. There's also Washington, District of Columbia (Washington, D.C.) and the actual country of Columbia.

Victoria is a very nice city with many interesting buildings, good food and they freely take U.S. dollars (1:1 with the Canadian dollar these days).





My In-laws liked it a lot. We had a relaxing time, just walking around without too much of a schedule to worry about. We had a great dinner at a local steakhouse. There was this Celtic themed store with some of the highest quality clothes I've seen (and the prices to match). I even have a video around somewhere of Darth Vader playing the violin (street performer).

The vibe in Victoria is definately different than Vancouver, B.C.

One of the reasons we chose to take a cruise with Norwegian is that the cruise starts and finishes in Seattle, WA (within the borders of USA). Many cruises start in Seattle, but then end in Victoria. That means we'd have to take an international flight home; a painful experience which I am always more than happy to avoid.

So, even though Norwegian wasn't everything we expected it to be, it was everything it needed to be. I guess that's not a great endorsement, huh.

Overall, the trip was enjoyable. Some pluses (many of which cost more $$$) and some minuses (many of which were part of the cruise package for no additional $$$). We did our trip to Alaska. We did our first cruise (and prolly last, at least for a long while). We took my In-laws on a big vacation and had a lot of quality time with them. And, I got to see my best friend and his family before and after the cruise.

Please see the full Alaska Cruise article list.

Tuesday Two: powering eyes

Polyplus propel potentional power, providing pertinent p...oh...nevermind. Polyplus new technology will allow for "ultra-high energy density [lithium] batteries " to significantly increase battery charge. This will allow cellphones and many other devices longer times of operation between rechargings.

A microchip may soon be available from the minds at MIT that will allow blind people to acheive some level of sight. It's not a full site, but "blind person to recognize faces and navigate a room without assistance."

Alaska Cruise Day 6: Ziplining

Day 6 of my family's Alaska cruise was marked by a visit to Ketchikan. Suprizingly enough, we didn't spend much time in Ketchikan itself. Our excursion took up almost all of the time.

I did the ziplining canopy tour in the rainforest. By an amazing coincidence, Allie took her parents on a nature walk excursion that was run by the same operation on the rain forest floor. So, while I was zipping around overhead, they were walking on a guided tour below. Allie said she kept an eye out for me, but we weren't in the same part of the forest at the same time.



They got to see a bald eagle, owl, bear markings on a tree, a canoe being made (in progress, not from start to finish), and other natural or native items.


I was zipping around the canopy with a group of people, most of which have never ziplined before. It was a lot of fun. I haven't developed the photos from this adventure on my disposal camera yet. Hopefully the film is still good after all this time (2 years). I do have this shot taken by an automatic "ride" camera.


Note the gratuitous fist pump. :)

The excursion took up so much time in the trip to a from the dock and on the adventure itself, we didn't get a chance to check out anything in the town of Ketchikan itself.

Please see the full Alaska Cruise article list.