UAlbany makes Princeton Review

Well my graduate Alma Mater made the Princeton Review. I'm glad the quality of the academic program distracted me from the fact I was supposed to be miserable the entire time :) Here's the link:

Top 10 Schools with the Least Happy Students - MSN Encarta

I think part of the problem is that the UAlbany campus is pretty isolated (even with the free bus service), and the tower dorms are pretty bleak. For an undergraduate without cash or a car, you have to be creative to keep yourself entertained. The campus itself is a modernist concrete creation, so it lacks some of the warmer charm of a more traditional campus with ivy and quad. The challenging layout spills into the student center, where even high traffic areas like the book store and food services feel, "out of the way."

Still, I loved my time there. The academic programs are excellent. The faculty in my program would bend over backwards to help and work with students (Which was especially impressive given the size of our program and number of candidates). The adjunct faculty were knowledgeable practitioners, and my fellow graduate students were a fun eclectic bunch who knew how to work and play hard. I grew attached to the campus architecture, even though I could never give anyone directions to anything other than the student center and the library (UAlbany alums now what I'm talking about, though while I was there they made a handful of attemtps to distinguish a couple of the central buildings from each other.).

My kids liked the fact that, unlike certain stuffier institutions, playing in the fountain was allowed and encouraged.

New York Times covers Sheridan

Oh... I almost forgot. The New York Times did a piece on Sheridan. Actually it was a historic piece on the attempt to create a new state of Absaroka in the 1930's, but there is some multimedia coverage (check the left hand side of the page) that covers the rodeo and street dance. Here is the link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/24/us/24wpa.html?_r=2&hp=&adxnnl=1&oref=slogin&adxnnlx=1216908557-HGNsxO0yyE8L9kTKAh1BdA&oref=slogin

Hellboy Redoux

I finally got a chance to see Hellboy 2 last night. If you enjoyed the first one, you will more than likely get a kick out of this one as well. The movie is both funny and thoughtful, and the visual presentation is nothing short of fantastic (Makes me excited for Del Toro's take on the Hobbit.) Luke Goss is certainly a scene stealer as the prince of the elves, and is one of the few recent tragic villains that I actually felt empathy for (SPOILER: His last lines to Hellboy were delivered with such polished grace that I found myself less moved by the relationship tragedy they had been building up for half the film.)

Although the bulk of the movie is safe for the young teen or squeamish, the auction house investigation was pretty gruesome, and I found myself catching little macabre details that showed that somewhere (probably a dark warehouse in California) the are CGI animators desperately in need of psychiatric intervention. I will never be able to think of the "tooth fairy" in the same way again.

Get in touch with the inner geek.

Amaryllis and I spent the last several evenings drilling through episodes of Firefly. For those of you not familiar, Firefly was a space western that didn't even make it through a full season on Fox. A lot of it had to do with running up against the nascent reality TV craze, where execs questioned spending 10 million an episode for a sci-fi show when they could get idiots to provide more dysfunctional drama than you ever saw in high school for free (Yeah sure, I guess someone technically wins a prize, but we all know the "entertainment" comes from the psycho that makes it 75% of the way through the show. That or you get to marry Joe Millionaire).

The sad thing was that Firefly had one of the best ensemble casts I've ever seen (when you compare to Star Trek spin-offs and Sci-Fi channel fodder where there is always one or two characters whose acting completely gets under your skin, and you wish would just put on the red shirt and DIE ALREADY!). Considering there were only 14 episodes made, its telling that you actually cared about the characters at key dramatic moments (Spoilers: Jayne betraying River and Simon, and how Mal dealt with it; Inara deciding to leave the ship; etc...).

The show also catered to my quirky style humor, and the timing was dead on. After the series was cancelled they made a pretty accessible feature film called Serenity (named after the ship). It's one of my favorites in the genre.

Amaryllis and I have very different tastes about some things, but share some interesting likes that highlight what eclectic people we are. One of our shared likes is Firefly, but I will also pop a bowl of popcorn and watch the BBC version of Pride and Prejudice with her (ironically, because I like Colin Firth).

Quick update

For those of you who follow Amaryllis's blog, you should check out the new header. A friend made it for her and did a snazzy job.

We all had fun at the rodeo parade yesterday. Mom and boys road on the Intermountain Labs float, while Kate and Daddy caught the parade from street level. Sheridan's parade is probably the best you'll see in a town of this size. There were 116 floats this year. Main Street is packed, and many people set out their chairs the night before, chaining them to lampposts and benches and such.

Kate and I watched the parade from Gould St. The backdrop isn't as pretty as the historic Main Street stores, but Daddy is claustrophobic :)

Everything went smoothly (How can any little girl not be impressed by dozens and dozens of horses) until Kate saw Mom on the float, then of course she wanted her right then and there. She may be Daddy's princess, but when a girl wants her Mommy, well you know...

Now everyone will know you watch stupid pet videos.

Sorry for another link post. I promise I will try to update with something on the family end later. This link is kind of scary:

BBC NEWS Technology Google must divulge YouTube log

It's not so much for the YouTube end. If it turns out to be worth the money Viacom will probably end up chasing the video posters (unless Google succeeds in keeping the logs anonymous). Naw, the tidbit that got me was at the end of the article when it mentioned that up until last year Google kept a copy of every IP address logged with its particular search.

Do you really want everyone to know you have been looking for the David Hasselhoff fan site?

Bean Town and Concrete

For those of you who know and love Boston, here is an article providing one perspective on the debate regarding City Hall Plaza.

LAND online - Landscape Architecture News Digest

For those of you who have never lived in an urban area with a monumental modernist civic project the hub bub can be baffling. These sweeping concrete monoliths and wide expanses are often despised and cursed by architects, planners, and families with strollers (stairs... never ending stairs...), but also have their defenders.

When we lived in the Albany area, I helped organize a conference on the Empire State Plaza and other urban renewal projects. The Empire State Plaza consisted of a massive 1.7 billion dollar project that demolished about 98 acres of of working class neighborhood, replacing them with a raised plaza that now houses about 13,000 government workers. The family used to visit the complex to go to the State Museum, the archives, or the ear popping elevator of the Corning Tower (New York's tallest building outside of NYC). We usually didn't do much strolling on the plaza itself as it tended to be windy and lacked cover. We normally would grab a hotdog at street level, and head to the park area of the nearby State Capitol Building.

4th O' July

We had a lot of fun this 4th of July, including doing something that I was told may have been a felony (Not going to post it here ;P... You can e-mail me for the incriminating details).

We went to a friends house that gave a decent view of the creek valley to see snips of the various shows and personal displays. We just picked up a handful of sparklers and some snakes (Yes, bro snakes, and not even the largest one in Colorado either). The other families had shelled out a hundred dollars or so each in rockets and assorted explosives. I felt kind of bad because the neighbors were on their deck enjoying a quiet evening, and no matter where we set the fireworks they seemed to hit their house. They were good natured about it, but I bet they go away next 4th o' July.

We took some family photos, which Amaryllis has posted a handful on her blog. Family members do not despair. I'll get you some without Amaryllis's copyright on the corner (5 dollars for an 8 x10... 2 dollars more gets you some Kate original fridge art. She's going through a blob man phase that's cute right now, and very detailed for her age. Just scares me she might be drifting into Salvador Dali territory, or at least here creations have a Lovecraftian edge... "Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn." If you understand that you need to stop right now, and get some air. I love parenthetical comments. A complete justification for disconnected near stream of consciousness writing. Faulkner, eat your heart out).

One day at a time.

For those of you who follow Amaryllis's blog, she left a pretty detailed post on the last few months. It would make a for the Hallmark movie of the week, except we don't know how it ends yet.

The boys have been enjoying taekwondo. Since they made it through their first session, we went ahead and got them their uniforms. The last class of this last session the instructor paired them up to practice dodges and punches with the gloves. It was a kids dream come true. A responsible adult actually put two brothers together and told them to wail on each other. The instructor is wonderful gentleman, who does an excellent job of mixing technique with philosophy and integrity. At $35 for 15 classes (1.5 hours each) its a pretty good deal too.

I'm still waiting to find out when I go to the University of Utah Medical Center. After finding out it would take 4 months to see a specialist in Billings. I just went ahead and asked my neurologist to refer me to the U. I don't want to wait four months to discuss one or two possibilities, when I can spend a week in Salt Lake and run through a dozen or so. It's not the Mayo, but we should be able to get to the bottom of it. Right now I just cruise around on maintenance meds that don't resolve anything, but allow me to function enough to work an 8-10 hour day. I can live with the odd twitching and cramping for now, its the fatigue that knocks me flat (In case you're wondering, Provigil is a nice light alternative to amphetamines. Kind of like eight cups of coffee without the bitter aftertaste or cream).