Category: Life

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Spain! Ham!

Spain!
Thanks to the noble efforts of our catsitter friends, the famous librarian-and-animal scientist couple Clay and Mike, our tickets to Spain arrived safely, and we spent six public transportation-filled hours in Madrid while we waited for our train to the north.

This might come as a surprise to some of you, but Madrid? Not a town for vegetarians. Within two blocks, we passed El Museo de Jamon, and Palacio de Jamon. Yes, that’s the Museum of Ham, and Ham Castle. Madrid was beautiful and huge and weird. We did a quick tour through la Plaza del Sol while searching for food. As the default sometimes meat-eater, I ended up consuming all things mysterious that arrived at our table. Which pretty much ended up being everything. We kept ordering things that seemed vegetarian, and they kept arriving covered in ham. Chris ended up eating a bocadillo and some cheese we brought from the UK.

The best library-related thing about Madrid was the Amazingly Clever and Fabulous Biblioteca Metro – sort of a bookmobile kiosk in one of the subway stations. It was charming, modern, well-designed, and the librarian helped us figure out the difference between commuter trains and metro trains. Sadly, we didn’t get a photo of it (or one of Ham Castle) because travel rule number one is: Sleepy people shouldn’t bring expensive digital cameras that they don’t own into downtown Madrid on a Friday night. So you’ll just have to imagine it. Mmm.

We couldn’t get a sleeping car to our conference in Gijon because they were all going to Bilbao, so we ended up sleeping in the brightly-lit second class compartment with our feet on our bags and cricks in our necks. Our guidebook, which shall heretofore be referred to as The Big Book of Paranoia, convinced us that every third person was a pickpocket, so that didn’t help with the sleeping. This morning was a blur, spent trying to speak enough Spanish on .2 hours sleep to convince the kind hotel lady to give us una cama de no fumando. We have now learned that the process of preparing a no smoking room in Spain involves removing the ashtray and spraying Drakkar everywhere.

Still, this may be the best hotel I’ve ever stayed in. I want the hotel decorator to come and visit my house immediately. Everything is modern and minimalist and ergonomic and just so not British. It’s Hotel AC Gijon. It’s a chain. I unhesitatingly recommend it, and not just because they gave us our rooms at 7am on a Saturday, when every sensible Spaniard is home with a hangover.

We to took a long hike around the city center this afternoon and walked along the sea, then returned to the hotel exhausted. Chris took gobs of photos of la Biblioteca Gijon for your viewing enjoyment. They have a cute and comfy reading room filled with middle aged men reading the newspaper.

We watched Pedro Almodovar’s Carne Tremula tonight on one of our laptops and now appreciate Madrid even more. I think this is one of Almodovar’s most accessible and least creepy films. If you want to check out a great piece of Spanish cinema but don’t want to yell “Oh God please don’t do what I think you are going to do” every five minutes, then this is the film for you.

Hi to everyone. I just read my London comments today and am Really grumpy to have missed the Women’s Library. But we also missed Westminster and The tower, thanks to some bad info about closing times. I also planned to become a reader at the British library, but we didn’t have time to return. So, feh. We’ll be back. And next time I’m bringing my 12 postgraduate degrees so I can stay.

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The British Library is the boss of you

We saw The Producers last night in the West End. I know, I know. I live in New York. I just never get into The City. It’s five hours away. Besides, when The Producers was running with Harvey Fierstein and Matthew Broderick I was rather involved in school and didn’t have time to pop down for a theater weekend. So we saw it here, and it wasn’t bad.

So, there are some peripheral benefits to hanging around a conference that you aren’t attending. Chris is having a great time at the Neilson/Norman group thing, btw. Hi Chris’ family! Besides rubbing elbows with Jakob yesterday, I met a guy in the elevator wearing an eBay shirt who ended up knowing my cool friend Jake (hi Jake) who was just hired there to do UI design. Jake gives me Professional Hope, because he used to do approximately the same thing I’m doing at the lab, but now he’s raking in Bank down in San Jose. Of course since I live in Ithaca, I own a lovely house, and he lives in an apartment with roommates, so there is some justice.

Could one of my delightful British readers explain to me this towel rail business? It seems like such a good idea, a nice warm towel after your bath. But the thing really just warms up a couple stripes on the towel that cool down by the time you’ve gotten it out. We cranked it to 10 and waited 20 minutes or so. Are we doing something wrong? Should we crank it up to 11?

Our hotel is odd – it’s as if someone wanted to pattern it after a US hotel, but they were only allowed to see one for ten minutes and weren’t allowed to write anything down. The room looks fine, but the details are just off. I went to the sink a minute ago and there was No Water. There’s a closet near the door, but it has No Clothes Rod. Put your jacket on the floor! There’s No Fan in the bathroom, so water steams up the room and the windows are covered with mold. The room has a high-tech card lock, but a door next to the bed opens right up into the next room and is only locked with a little closet knob. Strange.

I forgot the camera yesterday. Sorry y’all. That’s ok, though. There was no photography allowed in the British Library exhibit room anyway, and that’s where I spent all day so you aren’t missing much.
 
Except that you are! Because if you aren’t standing in the British Library RIGHT NOW you are just not as happy as you could be. I was BLOWN AWAY by the fabulousness of the building and the collections. The new building wasn’t complete the last time I was here, so everything was new to me. Let me just say, I’ve been from one side of this galaxy to the other and I’ve seen a lot of strange things, but I’ve never seen anything like this: Shakespeare’s First Folio, the oldest manuscript of Beowulf, Pope’s handwritten transcription of the Iliad complete with his sketch of the shield of Achilles, Jane Austin’s writing desk, the draft of Jane Eyre, the illustrated manuscript of Alice in Wonderland, the Jungle Book, Finnegan’s Wake (Joyce’s handwriting is a mess! No wonder he’s so disjointed), the lyrics to A Hard Day’s Night written on the back of a greeting card, shall I go on? Ok. Admiral Scott’s diary left open to the horrible last page written as he froze to death, Sir Thomas More’s last letter to Henry VIII vowing loyalty, pages from Leonardo’s notebooks, a Gutenberg Bible, one of the first printed Papal Indulgences (hee), a stack of illuminated manuscripts, some hilariously inaccurate old maps with sea monsters hanging around Florida, and well…damn…just, damn.

While eating tuna nicoise with sparkling water next to a four-story stack of leather-bound books, I decided I want to be a geek for the British Library. These people have their ACT TOGETHER. If I have to go back to school and get 12 more degrees to do it, then that’s just what I’ll do. Because wow. Seriously people, wow.

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3am in London

Well. They insist on calling it "9am" here, but you get the idea. I’m in Kensington, at Chris’ conference hotel enjoying their wireless connection. Or rather, their "wireless" connection. It only works in the lobby or the business centre (a room full of noisy hotel employees) but not in the room. In the room you can pay a separate per hour fee for an ethernet connection. Apparently UK hotels haven’t caught on to the wonders of PRINGLES CANS for expanding a wireless network yet. Get on it, people.

There’s this weird attitude toward bandwidth here that I’m finding difficult to understand. Everywhere you can see ads for expensive per-hour internet services, and the BBC news treats open wireless connections as Horribly Dangerous Vulnerabilities rather than an egalitarian sharing of resources. It’s as if a broadband connection were some sort of precious substance that must be protected from Unwashed Hackers who will Eat it Up. Which just seems silly. I’ve never run out of Internet. A broadband connection isn’t like the hot water for the shower. I don’t get charged more if I use more, within reason. You have to download a hell of alot of Daily Show episodes to put a dent in it. So if someone wants to sit outside my house and check their email, they can go ahead. I’ve got a firewall, I’m running OS X. Help yourself, enjoy. I’m certainly not going to make you buy a scratchcard with a 34 digit code that expires in 24 hours.

Yesterday was a foggy blur of various transportation methods. Highlights included the gay flight crew singing showtunes quietly in the back of the plane (hooray!), my melted airplane dinner (the whole thing! melted! including the packet of cheddar and the moon pie), and realizing we left the paper tickets to Madrid back on the bookcase at home. Paper tickets. Whoever heard of such a thing?

We wandered over to Westminster last night, but missed the last flight on the Eye. Gotta say, despite about 30 episodes of The Prisoner and all the James Bond movies, seeing Big Ben all huge and lit up as you come out of the subway is Very Impressive. Yesterday was Rememberance day, so we visited the Battle of Britain memorial and I got all choked up. Maybe it was the jetlag, but the awfulness of it all really hit me. If you get a chance, watch the Masterpiece Theater production Piece of Cake. It’s a great account of the RAF’s role in the Battle of Britain.

I’ll be taking it easy today, posting when I can, and taking photos with Chris’ friend’s Digital Rebel. I’m still moving a bit slow, despite the three cups of tea I poured into myself this morning at breakfast, but I hope to get to the British Library today, and as well as locate some of the Big City Shops that we poor Ithacans don’t have access to normally. Lush, here I come. 

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 NEWS FLASH! I’m three feet from Jacob Nielson! He’s drinking tea! And discussing the semantics of user testing vs. user centered design with other speakers! I’m eavesdropping! But, being Midwester, I feel guilty about this, so I’ll toddle off.

 

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Books, Life

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The worst part about this post is that I pretty much just lifted it from an email to a friend. Don’t tell, ok? Bad blogger.

I’m running around with alligators hanging from my ankles this week. The work-related travel starts Saturday, so Things Must Be Prepared. Stuff Must Get Done. The NSDL waits for no man.

I have this fantasy where I sit in a hip London sushi joint upgrading this site whilst eavesdropping on conversations in a variety of awesome UK dialects. That’s my idea of a good time. It could happen.

We cleaned our gutters this weekend. I made bread and soup. I created a JSP interface for tying item-level records to their associated subassets. I brushed the cat. I tried to teach my friends’ daughter to say "mop" like the trashcan droid in star wars.

Life in Ithaca is domestic and lovely.

I’m also reading a Great Long Book  Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell.
My favorite quote, which reminds me of the much-mentioned view outside my window:
"In winter the barren trees shall be a black writing but they shall not understand it"

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Halloween

laiapumpkin.jpgWe had a great Halloween – I put a bunch of candles out in the yard, and we got bombarded with neighbor kids until we ran out of candy. Then Chris dug up the confetti eggs from Easter and we started giving those out. They got a great reception, especially from the middle-school boy contingent. I think we’re going to get more and just give out cascarones next year. 

If you’ve ever been around us, you know our fondness for confetti eggs.  Chris’ family mails them up from Texas, and we usually have a carton or two kicking around the house JUST IN CASE. When our friends Kim and Brian had their daughter Anika last Easter, we brought confetti eggs to the hospital and cracked them all over the room, to the horror of the nurses. Kim swore we almost got her bounced from the maternity ward.

So for Halloween, Chris was Number Six and I was the new Number Two. We finally finished watching all the episodes of 60’s tv show The Prisoner, and wanted to pay costume tribute. Clay and Mike helped us carve scary pumpkins. Owl the cat obliged everyone by hopping around with his back fur up and looking extra halloweeny. I carried him to the door and offered to put him in the kid’s bags a few times. And at ten o’clock the ceremonial Four Teenagers Without Costumes showed up to finish the day.

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Cornell Catering is trying to kill me Part II

deadlycateringI was leaving work, tired and hungry, when suddenly a uniform-clad minion appeared at my elbow and offered me a snack. This happens occasionally. The Lab rents out its atrium to various groups on campus who bring in the caterers and the cashbar. We’re usually not invited, but this day I had decided to exit the building next to the caterer’s kitchen.

Big Mistake.

“Have some chicken”, she said “It’s encrusted with almonds!”

Note to self: when the devil tries to get you, he uses words like “encrusted”.

“Are you sure those are just almonds?” I asked, thinking back to dozens of near-death moments brought on by my stupid peanut allergy.

“Oh yes”, she said “Toasted almonds!”

At which point my stupid Lizard-brain caused me to reach out and grab one. I took a bite as I walked to my car, thinking “How nice to be offered appetizers at work”.

By the time I got to my car I was trying to subtly vomit as well-dressed elderly women passed me on the way to their party. My lips swelled, my throat became a piece of granite. The usual.

I’ll spare you the really graphic details (trust me, it gets worse), but suffice it to say the Epipen came through again, along with some medical attention from my handsome EMT boyfriend. Hi guys! Thanks for the life-saving! Again!

All of which leaves me with the growing suspicion that a) I am really stupid for once again eating food of unknown provenance, and b) Cornell Catering really is trying to kill me.

Why, Cornell Catering? Why?

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Recent goings-on, presented in rhyming couplets

1. An identity crisis might ensue,
Skipping the SLA meeting for a workshop on XHTML2.
*Sorry SLA. You’re great and all, but semantic, accessible, device-independent webpages whoop your ass.

2. A morning dogwalk at six.
Instead of eating the cat, he just licks.
* Dogfriend Odin has been staying with us. He thinks the cat is veeeery innnnteresting.

3. While lining the attic with insulation,
Five thousand spiders in formation.
* Bravely, I battled on.

4. Attempting to recall possessive case,
I call the hotel in Spain. Hablas Ingles?
* I apparently suffer from Fear Of Spanish. Que Oy.

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I’m going to see London! I’m going to see France!

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I’m going to London! And Spain! (not France – that was just to make the title funny) There’s a nifty-looking XHTML2/Xforms workshop in northern Spain next month, and we’re going! To Spain! And London! For two weeks!

I love mixing vacation with geeking!

If anyone wants to meet me in London and spend a few dozen hours drooling on the British Museum’s documents room, let me know. I’m making a beeline for the handwritten Jayne Eyre manuscript, and I’m not leaving until I achieve enlightenment. Or at least a higher state of consciousness. Or a sore butt. Whichever comes first.

Chris is also going to a Neilsen Norman Group workshop, hence the London stopover. I’ll just be sponging off the hotel room and bopping around for five days trying to drink as many IPAs as I can wrap my head around.

More on all of this later. Right now, I’m going home to celebrate by putting up some storm windows and raking leaves.