Chicago

Patrick and I did eventually make it to Chicago. Fully six hours after we were supposed to, and after nine hours of bus ride, dehydrated, with a headache, and completely exhausted, we got off the bus, found our luggage, let Meghan (Kate's daughter) know we were there. After Meghan picked us up, we all went to get an awesome frozen yogurt treat, and we then went to (Kate's sister) Becky's house. We had some pizza, watched The Day After Tomorrow, then went to bed. It was a fold-out couch, but it was such a relief, and a good night's rest after havinng been on the train and buses for so long.

The next morning, we decided to head out to see some of downtown, Millennium Park and one or two other things. It was great fun, seeing the Chicago skyline, the giant reflective bean thing, and the giant water fountain faces. We had lunch at a little place called the Corner Bakery Cafe, then went back to the car to get our stuff, and head to the train station.

I knew were running later than we should have, and that the cause for it was an error in my own memory, saying that we needed to be on the train at 3:20, when our actual departure time was 3:00. So we rushed back to the car, only to have some shoe shining guy take my brother against all of our will, and dob this "interesting" white shoe cleaning material on his feet. The crosswalk had just told us we had permission to cross the street, and here we were, having to wait for some maniac to finish with my brother's shoes. All the while I'm screaming about how "the train is at three o'clock! we have to go!" and my brother's shoes, which already had the exact appearance he wanted, are being visually altered against his will, by some maniac who has the gall to charge him $4 per shoe.

So it was at that point that I decided we were late. Most of my readers know about CoryTime, and it went absolutely crazy today, as we walked into Chicago Union Station at about 2:45 p.m. (CDT), which was just fifteen minutes before our train was scheduled to leave. Luckily, Meghan and Sean saw us all the way into the terminals, and we got on the train just in time. Not to be outdone by my schedule, I still managed to snap a few hundred photos of downtown.

So now we're on the train, heading to Lapeer, Michigan, where we'll see our grandmother. I'm pretty excited for our travels to nearly be over, and for our vacationing to start.

Just a few more hours...

One of the "sad" events this summer is that I've got to head out and go back to Kingman tomorrow. In all reality, I'm pretty excited about this, but it'll be the longest time I've been away from the helpdesk since I started here in August last year. So now, I'm working "just a few more hours" to help fatten the last paycheck a little bit more before I get back in mid-July.

Tonight's project is to gather all the stuff I want to take with me to leave at dad's house, and anything I think I'll need for my project at the high school, and for my trip to Michigan. So far I know I'm bringing the Lenovo R61i and the D300 stuff, along with the MyWD hard disc, which I use for imaging and multimedia. I'll probably also toss the color calibrator and the rechargeable batteries slash recharger(s) in the photo-backpack too.

Just for good measure, I think I'll bring the A21m, for some NT4 action, and maybe the PowerBook 520s, so I can swap in the good hinges on the 520c, and get some of my own software installed on it.

Anyway... Just a few more hours of work before I leave the helpdesk until July.

Your Orientation... In Space

Recently, Glenn and I have been watching a bunch of things showing on the SciFi channel, and it made me think back to watching Firefly/Serenity earlier last semester, and a few other shows and movies I've watched that take place in space.

A big thing I've noticed is that in each of these fictional universes, there seems to be an absolute standard as to what's "up" and what's "down." You never see two spaceships flying around, with different orientations.

Another tidbit, one that's almost contrary to the first "rule" of space, is that you and your spaceship are always "above" whatever planet you're closest to, as though all planets are sitting down on one 2-dimensional plane, and you can always fly above them.

Just some weird observations, there are probably more weird things like that about science fiction, this just happens to be the one I noticed most recently.

Visiting Kingman

I've been in Kingman for a few days, at Dad & Brenda's house, and my brother has been here as well. It is very relaxing, even after only a day or two, to be in Kingman. It is exactly what I wanted to do this year, after a stressful semester, and a stressful week after finals, to sit down on the couch in dad's house chatting online and looking at train pictures. I've looked at every single Amtrak and Amtrak California photo on railpics.net

Another side-effect of visiting Kingman was going to work with dad, which I enjoyed well enough before he got DSL there, but I really do like sitting there, somewhere else, and browsing the Internet. It's better for my back I think.

I might also get a haircut while I am here, not sure yet.

Avenue Q

So, I know that this post is very late, but it's worth noting anyway that Megan and I went to Tucson last weekend to see some of her friends and watch Avenue Q. The show was basically amazing, there was more and better music than on the CD, as well as some plot points that you really don't get just from listening to the cd. It was really cool to see the show in person with the other people, arranged very similarly to the original Broadway setup too, just with different actors.

Before the show, was Donald's football game, which was a decent photography opportunity, and after the show was a trip to Takamatzu (sp?), which is one of Megan's favorite foot spots in Tucson. The ways there and back were okay, except for the whole thing about the traffic in phoenix, and on the way there when Megan and Glenn freaked out at each other because of a stop we had to make in Casa Grande.

One thing I noticed is that whenever Glenn wants to do anything with friends, he has to have them come get him, and they bring him home. I'm giving Megan's mom points for noticing this, but I've got to admit that in my universe, it's always been a given that the parental units of both parties share the responsibilities of child transport. And while Glenn, Megan and I aren't exactly children anymore, it's worth noting that over the weekend, doing that would really have helped us, especially when on Sunday we were running late and Glenn's mother freaked out because he left without warning.

Overall, it was a great weekend, aside from the whole thing about "almost no sleep." Megan experienced the very-little-sleep even harder than I did, because she was apparently faced with a few more than normal adverse conditions at work. (That is, of course, to say nothing of my busiest-shift-ever at the helpdesk.) Oh, and there was the carpal tunnel, which Megan seems to be getting really hard, I need to teach her how to fix that, the wrist massaging thing really does work.

Yellow Bikes

Today, on the way from the Student Union to Wilson, Megan had to walk her bike, so an NAU staff member pointed out to me that I could ride the yellow bike with her. So I did. The particular bike was very tall, but it was about the right size for me anyway.

It's actually a very cool idea, and a good mode of transport for those of us who either don't have our own bicycles here, or don't feel the need to futz around with our own bicycles just for getting places on-campus. I left the bike in front of Wilson today while visiting Megan, although I am thinking of riding it further to the Wettaw building so I can get to BIO100L quickly.

My only complaint so far is that the first bike I tried was actually missing its chain and the red sign informing of the purpose of the bike, but I suppose it's to be expected so early in the program, especially with less than 100 bikes in circulation, that some of 'em would develop such problems. The other thing is that they're all used bikes to begin with, so they've got their own problems of various sorts.

It's not perfect, but sometimes, it's more convenient than waiting for a bus, and it's faster than walking up or down Cardiac Hill to get to or from some of the popular South Campus locations, such as the Business, SBS and Engineering buildings.

Back to K-Town for a few days, then.

Well, I’ve awakened and gotten ready to go, or at least almost completely ready to go. All I’ve got to do is put the water bottles into the little ice chest and be on my way, if I want to walk. Of course, I don’t actually know if I want to walk, but if I do I’m mostly ready. I think I will leave from the front exit today, in a bit of an effort to let everybody know I’ve gone, and I need to thank Amber for allowing me to stay here since Wednesday.

I could actually go to the SLAC at any given time, and I’d actually like to so I can "check my email" along with accessing a few other features of the Internet, such as AOL-IM and maybe IRC. I’ve also got a long queue of blog entries that I need to post, including this one, and it would probably be easier to do that if I had an Internet connection. On the other hand, it would be quite easy for me to just keep writing things. Although I’ve found out that if I do loads and loads of writing when I’m not online, I end up never posting the stuff I wrote, for one reason or another. (typically because I’ve told everybody who I think might read the blog over an IM anyway.)

[later in the day]
I’m now sitting in the business building with my laptop, hooked up to the internet via the NAU VPN and Wifi. It’s working fairly well. Mostly I’m just "checking my email" and now uploading blog entries. Add to that, I'm waiting for my ride back to Kingman. I'll then come back to NAU next Tuesday, as dad switched his day off.

The Stress-Relieving Powers of Sarcasm

I'€™m visiting my mother'€™s house. It€'s great and all, except for all the ways in which, over the past year, it€'s become awful. I pretty much let my mother know this back in November. I believe there was no shortage of funny faces, somewhat rude comments, and a variety of other ways in which I was somehow able to say "I'€™m dissatisfied with this."

What I've found is that I've got a similar thing going on now, except that things are a little bit better. However, she is now using other physical cues to tell me that being in her home causes me great stress. Back in May she told me I needed to lose weight because I had somewhat high blood pressure, which was apparently evident because my foot wasn'€™t as bony/veiny as it should'€™ve been. On Thursday when I came back, I thought my foot looked okay and showed it to her, hoping for evidence of some kind of progress with my health, but she said it looked just as bad, and she introduced the possible factor of stress.

It occurred to me that it is probably pretty stressful for me to be here now. It isn'€™t as though I really dislike her or her house, or even my brother, but they'€™ve made some choices in the past year that it'€™s really difficult for me not to comment on. And yet, after some of the disasters that happened last November, I'€™ve managed to do very well holding my tongue in December and then again in May. Mom told me this past Thursday that it must have stressed me out pretty badly, the thought that I'€™d have to come here.

I suppose it did add a bit of stress. At mom'€™s house, I sleep in the office on a couch(1), everybody smokes but me, and the entire thing is allowed to be significantly more messy than it ever was in the past, in addition it'€™s become a much more "€œopen" environment where any one of my mother'€™s many new friends(2) can just walk in and out as they please.

What I wonder, I suppose, is whether or not I'm stressed because I don't feel I can speak openly. One of the things I suppose I became used to at NAU is the expectation that I was able to say pretty much whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted to say it. So pretty much everybody knew how I felt about a lot of things, because I didn't feel bad about making snarky little comments about things. Here, on the other hand, the slightest little offhand comment that wasn't intended to mean anything, goes a very long way, down a dark, destructive path. Recovering from those tiny comments takes much longer than it should here too.

Ah well. They'€™re my family and I suppose that means I'€™ve got to love '€˜em. It probably isn'€™t as bad as I think it is, and I'€'m sure it's healthy for my mother to be indulging in such things as having friends, and running her house as she chooses. I'€™m just not quite adjusted to the changes I suppose. I'€™ll be back at dad’s house in a few days anyway, and then back to NAU on the 23rd.

1. Which, believe it or not, is actually worse than just a mattress on the floor.
2. Most of whom I don'€™t particularly like.

Bike Ride

uunnghh....

No, I'm not a zombie, but I suppose I'm close. I decided today at about 10 a.m. that it'd be a good idea to return my library book today. (It was LoTR-1 -- and no, I still haven't read it.) Having walked to the library last Saturday, I thought it would be a good idea to go a different way today. (Well, I thought I might give LOTR a try -- I literally fell asleep after reading some of the foreword.) (Or was it the prologue?)

Anyway, I rode my bike to the library today, and discovered that it was an incredibly stupid thing to do on my part. Mainly, it got way hot outside way fast, I didn't bring enough water along, and it turns out that I'm not really *that* great at riding a bike, it takes a lot of strength and energy to do it in the heat like this, and more water than I brought.

So for next time, more water, not biking, and I still need to get a hat, it seems.

Unlucky Bus Ride

The superstitious people are saying that today is a very lucky day, what with it being July (7) Seventh(7), 2007(7). On CNN this morning, there were images of loads of people getting married because of the luck of the day, and I even thought myself that I might have to do some things to test my luck.

I did just that, I rode a bus today. Wasn’t that smart of me? If everything had worked out properly, I should be hurrying right along at the present moment, on my way back home to Kingman, ending out a great week in Tucson. (I was visiting my NAU friends, Glenn, Megan and Ally.)

Unfortunately, the test of my luck (or of the combined efficiency of Autobuses Crucero, USA and Grayhound Lines, Inc) was… unfortunate, let’s say. I found out that the testing of my luck wasn’t the best idea ever. Apparently the bus from Tucson to Phoenix has been delayed significantly several times in the past few days. We were, in fact, lucky that the bus scheduled to depart at 8:40 a.m. left “just” two hours later at 10:40 a.m. The day before it had left at about 1:40 p.m. I suppose I’m glad I wasn’t delayed that much.

On the other hand, any delay at all from Tucson causes me to miss my bus from Phoenix to Flagstaff-then-Kingman. The bus, which was scheduled to depart at 11:40, was missed by more than a whole hour. The only other bus leaving to Kingman today is at 8 p.m. Oh well, I suppose. Too bad I don’t know anybody in Phoenix close enough to have come get me.

Or more accurately, too bad I haven’t got an Internet connection that I could otherwise have used to contact some people I do know that live in Phoenix. It would be quite nice to be able to get food outside of the station here, because I’m not too big on bus station food. Add to that, I don’t know if I’ll have enough time in Flagstaff now that I’m on a different route, to carry out my original plan of eating at the restaurant there. This is especially true now that I estimate I’ll be in Flagstaff at midnight. Yaay.

Luckily though, I had enough money to call dad and tell him I won’t be coming exactly as planned.  The new plan is that I’ll call him whenever I show up in Kingman. Reasonable I suppose, given that the new ETA is comfortably after midnight, as opposed to comfortably prior-to-dinner.

(Yes, I posted this way late, but ohwell.)

Once Again/Backup Frenzy

On this June 29th, the day of the iPhone release, I come bearing news of the impending death of my new-in-December iMac. The s.m.a.r.t. status of my hard disc, as reported by Apple's Disk Utility application, is "failing."

S.M.A.R.T. is definitely a cool piece of technology, invented in the 1990s and widely implemented in consumer computers... just after 2000 I'd say. It's handy, and if everything goes over right, I won't lose any data, but I am going to have to call Apple up after my trip to Tucson, and arrange the repair of my iMac. It might, but I hope not, result in a trip to Vegas or Flagstaff.

If it does require that I visit a mac shop, I'll look for one in Kingman (Yeah, right!) or just wait until I get to Flagstaff, and if/when the drive dies, I'll just use the 200gig-external, and pray that that doesn't fail because after that, all I've got are the 80 gig, the 40 gig and the laptop.

Well... wish me luck in my backup adventures, and after my trip to Tucson, in my adventures calling AppleCare.

Train Travel

Amtrak does a good job with the Southwest Chief. It may have been at one point in time, or it may even still be one of their least profitable routes in the entire system, but there are plenty of people who ride it from Chicago to LA and back again on a regular basis, plus the regular helping of people who ride it for shorter distances, such as my ride from Flagstaff to Kingman.

One of the first things I noticed, and something about which I was very pleased, was the fact that the waiting room in Flagstaff was very full - there were an amazing amount of people waiting to get on the westbound Southwest Chief. It makes me happy that there were so many people waiting on the train.

Engines number 5 and 98 pulled my train. One of the Heritage Fleet baggage cars, followed by a typical Superliner consist, of the Crew Dorm, probably three sleeping cars, the Dining Car, the Sightseer Lounge, and the three Coachclass cars.

I heard the comment in the station that it was a lot like Europe, where we were all waiting for the train, but I realized that this is a distinctly American experience. Here I am sitting in about the middle of the top deck of a two-level long distance coach. I have more legroom sitting in this behemoth of a transport option than I do in any of my classes, and while I realize that it isn't going as fast as the cars on the road, or an airplane would be - I'm partaking in a unique and relaxing experience. The gentle swaying of the cars as they roll along the tracks, the Eastbound freighters zooming by us at regular intervals, and the ability to get up and go to the restroom, and then wander over to the Lounge car and buy a snack or some milk. Despite the supposed awesomeness of bullet trains, I don't hear about anybody telling you their latest Shinkansen journey was relaxing, or that they were able to roam the train and buy a snack.

I am definitely glad I was able to take the train, even though the trip was so short. I may make it a point to do a longer and more comprehensive journey by rail at some later point. I would one day like to do the whole Southwest Chief journey, as well as as much of the Coast Starlight as possible - and I would certainly love to see some of the other Northern and Eastern routes.

Maybe one day I will buy one of those 30-day North America passes from Amtrak and VIA and take all of the various trains I've read about and seen pictures of.

Spring Break

Well, Spring Break is finally here, and I couldn't be too much happier. I really do enjoy having a week off.

I get to go home Sunday night too, though I am thinking I might try to come back here a bit early, Thursday or Friday night most likely, that way I can get myself well enough prepared for the final haul of my freshman year.

I also think that before I leave, I should clean my room, but for now I'm fine just sitting here listening to Leahy and reading the Interblags.

Travel Plans

I am going home for spring break - I get to ride the Amtrak Southwest Chief train from Flagstaff to Kingman on March 18th, and I'm going to come home a few days later, on the same train.

I'm going to bring my camera and video camera most likely, who knows - there may be other implements of awesomeness involved. Portable computer, anyone? I may attempt to make a video blog of the trip.

Summer Rail Trip!

I'm not yet certain, but I think would be quite awesome to have a jolly ol' rail trip this summer! I've discovered an interesting plan that Amtrak has, which basically allows me thirty days of free travel on almost any train in North America operated by Amtrak or VIA Rail Canada. This plan would cost about $640, plus I would want to get a Passport and I would need to sign up for the silly "Student Advantage" card which would allow the savings.

If I did that, I would probably not spend too much more than a day or so in any cities of real importance, but you can be gauranteed I'd have many many photos of wherever I went.

Another option is to just go to Seattle on train and visit people from that region of the world. It is both less, as well as more exciting. I would definitely end up spending a total of 3-4 days total in the Seattle area, probably visit some people I know online or whatever.

Either way, I think it would end up being like a 30 day long photographic wet dream, plus I could get to visit my friends from Washington and other parts of the USA and Canada.

Trip to Vegas!

Today was Vegas Day for Dad and I. :) Here is a Photo-Blog-Post of the adventure. (This is, by the way, my first blog entry of the year!


They started building some improvements to Highway 93, I presume.



Pink Jeep tours now gives tours in pink Chevrolet Suburbans. Don't tell the tourists - they won't even notice.


We then got to the Hoover Dam, and had to drive across it. We went from the "AZ" time to Pacific time.


I saw a ram that you don't put in your computer, as well as an extremely deceiving walkway, it looked more like a wash ditch than a walkway!


Las Vegas has some very interesting landscapes, as well as a lot of smog! I don't know if I'd actually want to live there with that kind of smog hanging around all the time.


I saw a lot of buses in Vegas, which is surprising, and not surprising at the same time. I haven't seen an accordion bus since I lived in Washington, I think. Also, there is a casino with friends. I wonder who they are.


In Las Vegas, especially on or near the strip, just about everything is either more scandalous, or shinier with more neon light tubes.


Danny Gans was Entertainer of the year at least two or three years ago when I went back to Michigan, and he is apparently still it. I think it should be Celine Dion or somebody else for a change.

How interesting! Fashion Show Mall has a huge iPod ad on the front. Almost every surface in Vegas has advertising on it.


Vegas has a lot of interesting advertising. Here is some examples of adversiting on taxi cabs. NewEgg, Toshiba, Microsoft, and Benq seem to REALLY love that advertising space. I also think that the stacked deck thing is somewhat funny.


We went to the Apple Store in Fashion Show Mall! I really liked looking around the store, but I found that while it was mesmerizing, it was less mesmerizing in a "must have a new Mac" way now that I've got... ba-dah-bing - my new iMac. :)


Teavana is another store in the mall. Dad went in here, and was going to buy a book, but he didn't want to, he said, after the cashier in the store said that photography wasn't allowed. The store had a silly fan setup, I took a picture of it from outside after that incident.


I got a new lens for my camera! It's a Quantaray 18-125mm lens for Nikon AF. It is awesome! when I got that picture of my dad, I was standing about three feet away from him. This is totally an awesome wide-angle lens. I also got the picture of the Tamrac logo from probably... well, it was quite far away. I certainly can't wait to test the lens out tomorrow, and next week at school. It will be awesome.


Here are some automotive things from the very end of the trip. (taken with my old 28-80 Nikkor glass.) The first belongs in "Stick Figures in Peril" I'm sure. The second is an automobile that seems to be missing parts.

In all, it was a very awesome day, and writing this blog post has taken much too long. Here's to an awesome 2007, filled with loads of photography opportunities, and great times!