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I call this part one because, as of now, I am planning to visit again in October for New York ComicCon. But, that’s another story…

We went out to NYC to check out the Tim Burton exhibit at the Museum of Modern Art. It was awesome seeing so much of his original work and some really cool props from his movies (Batman 89 cowls, Catwoman suit, Edward Scissorhands, etc… ). The layout of the exhibit was awkward… no real direction or path, which left people milling about in all directions. Put 500 milling about fans in 1 area and it gets tough to move around!

The other big part of the trip was seeing Rock of Ages. SO. FREAKING. GREAT! If you are of the era when Quiet Riot and Twisted Sister were the hot new ways to make your parents hate you, you owe it to yourself to see this. Come on, it even had the Hot 80s Chick Rolling Around On Hood Of Car.

As a total coincidence we went to see the Organ Beats while we were there! It just turned out that they were playing there while we were in town. Of course, we would see a Waltham band in NYC. Again.

I had fun geeking out with both total strangers and band members. The nerd never stops!!

While there we also went out for tea at Alice’s Teacup, an Alice in Wonderland tea shop. We had the Mad Hatter for 2. 2 pots of tea, 3 scones, 2 sandwiches and a plate of cookies and chocolate mousse. Mmmmm…. I wanted to run away with a box of berry lemon scones.

What else?

We stayed at the New Yorker, which is where we usually stay for NYCC (see prior tie in there about a second trip). They were doing promotional rates for the slow period of winter, so it was only around $130 a night, which, for a convenient Manhattan hotel isn’t bad.

Um… we had some very small cupcakes from a silly trendy bakery. They were about the size of a dollar’s worth of quarters, and cost about the same. Very tasty, though foolishly overpriced

Otherwise we did a LOT of walking. For example, our slow, relaxed day had us walk from 34th up to 78th. I definitely put some miles on my shoes this time ’round. The weather was fantastic for it… 40s and sunny.

The bus ride was uneventful. I was happy to see that there and back we had wifi on the bus and on the return trip had regular 115V power outlets at our seats. Yay Greyhound!!

After just a short time together, we had to say goodbye to our friend Breadman.

He apparently couldn’t handle another loaf of elegant oatmeal bread. He jumped off of the counter, dough in hand, and plunged to his death.

A moment of silence for the bread machine.

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Having gotten used to the joy of home baked bread, we went out on a quest. We ended up with a $90 machine at Macy’s for $48. Not too shabby!

Nice subject, eh?

Fresca is the web server that my site has been on at Dreamhost for ages now. Bengals is the new machine. Yay more modern systems…

Fresca is a dual core opteron 2.2 ghz with 4 gigs of Ram. Bengals is a quad core 2.0 ghz Xeon with 16 gigs of ram.

The end result? More power!!!!! Er… less sluggish wordpress install? The DB server is the same, which concerns me, but we’ll see.

In other news, the world has been all abuzz over the iPad. More interesting is the discussion of Apple as a luxury brand. I’m not sure why this is even a topic of discussion, as it seems obvious. Apple is like, say, Lexus. Yes, the cars are very nice, and have all sorts of little details that a Kia might not. But there’s as much a status/brand recognition thing going on as quality.

That’s how I look at Apple. I REALLY like Mac OS X. I can get about 80% of my UI/environment matched on my Fedora laptop for about 5% of the cost of a Mac. I like the unibody aluminum chassis, the backlit keyboard… all those little things. Like the Lexus it comes at a price.

Happily, I’ve gotten my last few upgrades for free via employers, but prior to that I’ve bought many a new MacThing. I’m aware of the reaction to showing up at a coffee shop with a shiny new Apple. It’s a bit awkward, and I know that people make certain assumptions about you based on the presentation you make. But, that’s just something that happens, and I feel pretty neutral about it.

Anyway, back to the iPad. I like the idea. I’ll want to play with one in person, but it seems like it would be a fun system. It’s lacking a couple of things that I’d really like to see, and which I suspect will be in V2. My main gripe is lack of a way to connect a digital camera to it. This seems like a great thing to bring with you when you travel, and to use to upload photos. Then again, lately I use my iPhone more often than my Rebel XT.

In other other news, I had a sad molding failure… The thickened layer of Rebound 25 on my clone rifle never fully cured. I suspect the basement got too cold at night for it. 2 days later and it’s still sticky. So, I’m calling that side of the mold a failure and starting over.

I removed it, fixed up the clay barrier, and put a new coat down tonight.

This morning I drove out to Woburn for a company’s liquidation sale, and picked up a Gast 1023 vacuum pump for $100. These retail for around $700 new, so this was a BIG score and shaved a ton of money off the vac table bottom line. I was SO tempted to pick up a second one for a spare, but refrained. I’ll probably contact them again next week and see if there are any left. If so I’ll likely go back.

Then when I got to work, I found that my tonneau cover had arrived! It really was as easy to install as they claimed. It took me about 15 minutes to get it out of the box and on the truck. I wasn’t able to do the tailgate weather strip, since it was VERY dirty. I’ll have to do that later.

This will be great for a number of reasons. Like, for example, the $700 vac pump in the bed is not out in the open for the whole world to see now!

I also won’t have to strap in any small things I put in the back. I’m probably going to pick up one of the cargo separators for it next… it’s a rigid wall that installs into the rails on the bed and can be positioned wherever you need it.

With something like that, you can put, say, grocery bags, in the bed of the truck and not have to crawl all the way in to the back of the bed to get them back out.

It was a busy day filled with meetings!

First was the benefits meeting, where we discussed the relative value of various lost appendages.

Then lunch.

Then the full on company meeting, where all of us were in one room. I got to present a bit about IT security at it, which was wildly exciting. Really.

It’s nice not having any fear of public speaking. Our company is smaller than some of the convention panels I’ve done, so it was cake.

Then the big news. It’s official: we ARE moving in to the new office space I went to look at a month or two ago. It’s still in Waltham, but WAY bigger than what we’re in now. HUGELY bigger.

And now we kill time until the company party at Tempo on Moody St at 6. Now, do I park at home and walk down, or park there? Probably the latter… it’s cold.

hello there, new year. how are you? i’ve had a cold, but otherwise i’m doing well.

let’s see, what’s going on?

i’m moving ahead with the “finishing the basement” project. i’ve repointed and walled in about 1/4″ of the place now. one wall is still open while i sort out electrical stuff. it’s looking good, if i do say so myself

we got a wii, and have been playing around with wii fit. i’m digging it so far. it’s fun, and i do manage to work up my heart rate pretty nicely. and doing it as a penguin trying to catch fish is way more fun than as a guy in a gym.

we also reactivated weight watchers, and have been on-plan for 4 days now. whee fun!

new years eve was spent with the waltham music scene at harper’s ferry. crazy show with tons of tribute bands, waltham the band, and other madness. good stuff!

we saw avatar in imax 3d and i was just awed by the technology that went into it. definitely the most believable cg world i’ve seen. i absolutely loved the movie and really want to see it again.

back to work tomorrow. after so much time off it’s both exciting to be back and a bit of a downer. ah well, we must pay the bills!

it’s almost election time in 501st land. leadership transitions are always interesting. this year could prove very interesting indeed.