Niagara Trip I

My mother-in-law came to visit from Hong Kong last week so we finally took a vacation.  It had been a long summer so it felt good to get away from everything---get away from the house, get away from work, get away from Jersey.  We drove up to Niagara Falls for a couple of days.  I had visited Niagara Falls before, but that was years ago and so I wasn't sure what to expect.  I guessed it would be super touristy and outrageously expensive.  And part of it was---there were the usual souvenir shops, wax museums, and chain restaurants.  But Niagara is probably one of the places where there is something behind the cliche. 

The Falls themselves are impressive.  But besides the Falls, there are also other attractions worth visiting, such as the Butterfly Conservatory.  It's only a short drive from the Falls, but it's worth the effort.  It's essentially a large greenhouse that holds hundreds of different species of butterflies.  The butterflies are freely roaming throughout the Conservatory---once you enter, they can flutter all around you.  I don't think I've ever been so close to so many butterflies at the same time.  We ended up just sitting there for a while and letting them land on us.  It was a pretty peaceful moment and we could have sat there for hours and forget about the world.

 

Seasons Fleetings

And just like that, summer is over.  Just a week after 90 degree weather, the temperatures have dipped to the 50s and never really recovered.  The air is no longer as wet and humid.  Patches of pale yellow are popping up in trees around the neighborhood. 

Autumn is my favorite season, mostly because there's a vibrancy in the air, especially after the long, lazy days of summer.  The air is brisk and invigorating and the skies are clear and vivid.  But I think there's more to it than just that---there's a sense of urgency.  Autumn feels like Nature's last spectacular gasp before the long, cold death of winter.  Leaves explode in color not seen since spring flowers.  Vegetables and fruits are ripened and ready for planting or harvest.  Birds fill the air with arrow-like purpose.  It's a season of action.  It's when Nature fights back against the certainty of Time.  It's how I hope my autumn feels like.

The other reason that summer seems over is that just last week, just the first week of September, we saw Halloween displays in stores already.  Really?  Two months before schedule?  I'm not even sure if the candy would still be good by then (i.e., likely eaten).  I'm pretty sure that any pumpkins you carve won't last for two months, although they will certainly be scarier.  Whatever costume you get for the current fad will likely be passe by Halloween. 

On the other hand, this is a signal that it's only a matter of time before the best season arrives---the season of 24-hour Christmas radio!  Yeah!  Every year this season starts earlier and earlier, and so I get to sneak into lab and change the radio station to spread the holiday joy each year earlier and earlier.  However, I think they're starting to get on to me, as the radio is always changed back when I leave the lab...

It's spooky how time creeps up on you...

Moments Defined

Some thoughts after spending this week in New York City.

Where were you on 9/11?  For me, I was just starting my first year of graduate school in California.  Due to the time zone lag, I remember waking up and seeing the confusion over what had happened hours earlier.  No one knew what was going on or whether it was some kind of accident.  Classes were still on schedule, so I headed off to campus.  This was before the days of widespread mobile networking and I didn't even have a laptop at the time.  Many of us didn't know what was going on.  However, as the day went on, each class became progressively emptier and emptier as people went home transfixed to watch the news.  I remember sitting quietly with a German post-doc just shaking our heads as the news broke that the towers fell.

Every generation has a defining moment.  The 1940's had V-day and victory in World War II.  The 1960's had the moon landing and the literally other-worldly achievements of science and technology.  The 1980's had the fall of the Berlin Wall and the defeat of communism.  And the 2000's had 9/11. 

This is the first generation that is being defined by defeat rather than triumph.  Where is our great accomplishment?  Where is our great response?  It's as if our forefathers couldn't get over Pearl Harbor.  I think it's important to never forget the tragic losses of the day, but at some point we need to use that as inspiration to rebuild ourselves stronger than before.  It's as if we're compulsively fixated on this moment of vulnerability---it's like a wakeup call but we're still dazed and not quite awake.  It's a testament that after 9 years, we're still squabbling over what to do and haven't even been able to rebuild anything over Ground Zero (although to be honest, I think they should keep the site empty and leave the Tribute in Light as a permanent memorial).  We're mired in a war that's already over twice as long as World War II with no end in sight.  We don't know what to do, so we what we're told.

By letting 9/11 define us, we are being defined by fear and terror.  We need to rise to the occasion, rise above fear, and rise to what freedom demands of us.  It used be said that our generation needed a war to wake us up.  Well, we have our war and it looks like we're still snoozing...

Photography: Tribute in Light

The 9th anniversary of 9/11 took place over the weekend.  Every year, the city  has set up the Tribute in Light to mark the date.  It consists of a series of powerful searchlights resulting in twin columns of blue light shooting to the heavens from Ground Zero.  It's a mute but powerful memorial to the losses of that day.

We were in the city to pick up my mother-in-law visiting from Hong Kong from JFK airport (in a sign that the people of New York have moved on, the city was packed and there was a huge traffic jam going to the airport---people aren't afraid of flying anymore).  When the sun set, we headed to Brooklyn Bridge Park to view the tribute.  Luckily, I had my tripod with me and was able to shoot some pictures.

World Trade Center Tribute in Light

 

 World Trade Center Tribute in Light

Brooklyn Bridge with the Empire State Building lit up in red, white, and blue

Panorama of Manhattan

Moonrise over the Statue of Liberty

Playing with black and white, cyanotype toning

The light is even more amazing and inspiring in person.  It's not overwrought or tacky---it's a very classy, minimalistic tribute to the lives that were lost.  The park was packed with people who came to see the memorial and pay their respects.  The photos can be seen at my Flickr site.

The Process of the Present

I saw that Google has a new application brewing in their labs:  Google Scribe.  This apparently uses the power of Google to help autocomplete not just your searches but also anything that you write.  This is one small step for helping grad students write their dissertations and one giant leap for monkeys writing Shakespeare.  Presumably it uses the cumulative text of the Internet to decide the best word for you to use---I'm guessing after several iterations, you could quite possibly get the finest distillation of the collective writings of humanity ever conceived (or is that the lowest common denominator...?)

I decided to give this a spin and got the following result.  I only entered the first word of each sentence and then let Google suggest the rest of the sentence word by word:

Hello world.  Hi there I am in the process of the present.  It is a very good job.  I'm not sure if it is not a valid stream resource in C minor for Piano and Orchestra.  Dennis Hopper allegedly smokes pot in front of the domain name you entered.  He was a member of the Board of Directors of the Company and the Company shall be entitled to a refund.

This is a great way to get a good deal of the day and night to make sure that the following conditions are met.  The following content has been identified by the YouTube community as being potentially offensive.  These are the most common causes of death in the United States.  Hmm, I wonder if the same is true for the Front Range of Colorado.

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So maybe it's not quite Shakespeare, but perhaps a little Dada.

Dust to Dust

We received the remains of our lemon kitty Marquis this week.  It felt a little unreal to drive down to the animal hospital we had been so often, only this time without the uncertainty of what was going to happen.  We had his remains individually cremated---we had discussed burying him, but since we live in a condo with no outdoor area, we had no good spot.  And if we eventually end up moving away, we could always keep him with us.  Plus, he was never an outdoor cat to begin with.  They placed his ashes in a nice wooden box that we can keep with us forever.

 Marquis sitting in his favorite spot one last time

I miss his charm and good lucks.  Everyone who's met him has mentioned what a beautiful and sweet cat he was.  I miss his big blue eyes and his big paws with six toes on each foot.

I miss how he would follow us everywhere.  He never liked being alone and always wanted to be near people.

I miss how he used to come up and wake us up every morning to play.  I miss how he used to come down the stairs and greet us when he heard us come home from work.  I miss how he would then climb halfway up the stairs, stop, and look back and wait for us to follow him up.  If we didn't, he would come back down and nudge us forward.

I miss how he would twist, turn, and twitch in pleasure as you pet him.  I miss how he used to roll over for a belly scratch and then grab our hands with both paws to lick them all over.

I miss how he used to go crazy playing with rubber bands.

I miss how he loved car rides.  He loved to sit up and stare out the window as we drove.

I miss how he enjoyed water and even let us wash him in the shower.  I miss how he would chase his tail in the bathtub.

I miss how we could clip his claws with no fuss.  He would just sit there politely until it was done.

I miss how he would sit in the sink and wait for us to turn on the tapwater to drink from.

I miss how he would lie on us and knead us with his front paws all night.  If I would call him, he would come sit on me.  Then if my wife called him, he would jump over and sit on her.  We could keep doing this over and over again until he would get dizzy.

I miss how no matter what time of the day, you would always find him sleeping in a sunny spot.  I miss his yawns after a long nap.  I miss how he stretched first his front legs and then his back legs when he got up.

I miss his quiet, polite meow voice.  He was never whining or demanding.  He wouldn't complain if he was hungry---he would just sit patiently in front of us food bowl.

I miss how he quietly sat and begged us for food when we were eating dinner. Although he could, he never jumped on the table while we were eating.  He just waited until we were done (except the one time he swiped away my wife's chicken wing with neither of us noticing).

I miss how sweet he was.  He didn't have an aggressive bone in his body and he never hissed or striked out at anyone, even strangers.

I miss our kitty.

Food: Buffalo Wings

Buffalo wings are a weakness of ours but they tend to be obscenely overpriced.  We've tried making them at home, but we've usually chickened out and just gone with a simple (although likely healthier) oven baked or broiled method.  This time, however, we were craving the real thing so we decided to go all in.

In the past we've eyed some deep fryers but we've always been skeptical of their small size---the biggest mistake when deep frying is not maintaining a constant temperature, especially once you add the food.  The small deep fryers just don't seem like they have enough heat capacity to avoid a sudden and disastrous drop in temperature.  The problem is that you get greasy food if you don't maintain the right frying temperature---at lower temperatures, the oil can soak into the food.  If you can keep it hot, the oil fries the food surface and doesn't have time to seep in, resulting in surprisingly non-greasy food.  It may not be healthy, but at least it's healthier.  So instead of buying a deep fryer, we've started using our Dutch oven.  It takes a while to heat up, but the cast iron helps retain the heat even when you add in cold food.  Plus, it feels like you have better control over the heat using your gas stove.

We dried the wings as much as we could (any residual water can result in soggy skin, as well as dangerous steam causing the oil to pop) and then deep fried them in two shifts---first at 250 'C for five minutes to cook the meat and then at 350 'C for five minutes to crisp up the skin.   We then removed the wings, drained the oil, and then tossed them in some buffalo sauce (1/2 cup melted butter with 1 cup Franks hot sauce with some Tobasco to taste).

Dutch oven deep frying with candy thermometer

 Best invention ever:  an oil splash guard

 Before:  mmm...wings...

 After:  we went with a lighter Belgian Hoegaarden to wash down hot sauce

It was our first time making home-made buffalo wings and they turned out pretty good.  The only problem was that we didn't make enough...