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Boston Symphony Orchestra

Monday, February 23rd, 2009

About a week ago my room mate and I went to see the Boston Symphony Orchestra. The tickets were cheap thanks to the < 40 = $20 program. That made it an excellent opportunity to check off Symphony Hall from my list of Boston landmarks to visit. I went as much for the architecture as for the music, but I forgot my camera. I did manage to take enough shots with my phone’s camera to string together this panorama, taken from my seat before the concert.

The music that night was Mozart’s 19th, 20th, 21st and 25th symphonies. Apparently, of those, only the 25th is commonly played. The 25th was also my least favorite. Of the others, a week later they all seem to run together. They were playing the more uncommon peicies because they were in the middle of a series of concerts in which they were playing all (or most) of Mozart in chronological order. I was glad that I didn’t goto one of the later on chronological shows, which include more like the 25th (so I’m told). My most interesting thought at the concert was how much it might suck to be a room mate of one of the performers, many of whom were young looking. Then I decided that the BSO could probably afford to provide practice space.

I would go back under any of two conditions:

I was on a date
It was a tour of the building including history and not a concert

Posted in Around Town, Dating, Panoramas | Comments Closed

Cranmore and Saddleback

Monday, February 16th, 2009

This post is about my two (so far) local ski trips this winter.

Cranmore

On January 24th Mary and I drove to North Conway, NH to give Cranmore a try. We mostly went because it would be cheap. That day they were running a deal where driver’s of hybrid cars get free lift tickets. Oddly, since passengers of hybrids didn’t get free lift tickets it actually discourages carpooling, which, given the distance, makes a larger environmental impact than the hybrid. For the curious, they asked to see the car’s registration to prove it is a hybrid; note that my registration doesn’t have any indication of such a status, but they were not concerned. It also came recommended by Kelly, who skied there frequently in her youth.

I was disappointed with the runs there. The vertical was 1200 feet, which seems respectable, and they had some nice lifts to keep the lines moving, but we took our warm up run on a blue and diverted to a black. We mostly diverted to get away from the crowd, but it was not difficult at all. The conditions were pretty good. It was clean and ~25 degrees out, but there was a howling wind, that was blowing snow up the mountain. This was not a problem as far as seeing, but it did manage to keep the slopes well groomed, as any tacks you made were covered back up by the snow you loosed. It was fun to spend all afternoon (we skied from 11:30-4pm) speeding down the relatively tame runs, but we did manage to do just about every black and blue there in that time frame. In short, it was a fun time, and it was cheap due to the free ticket, but I wouldn’t go back unless I was teaching someone.

Saddleback

Eleven people somewhat loosely associated with Wednesday Night Dinner went to Rangeley, Maine from February 6 – 8 to ski at Saddleback. Saddleback was a small, local place until recently when it was purchased and greatly expanded. They expanded their trials by 40% since last year, and they have plans to continue this kind of growth. When they are done it will be huge, at least as fat as New England standards go. It was also exceedingly cheap and not at all crowded. Of course, it is almost five hours drive to get there. That is why we spent two nights there. Also the lodging was part of a package deal that left us with $28 lift tickets. Since its so new and expanding everything, but most importantly the equipment was all brand new.

The skiing here was excellent and challenging. There were some glades and slopes that looked downright scary, some of which I did and some of which I skipped. The weather was warm, topping out at ~36 degrees, with little wind. Although it got overcast in the afternoon. Here are some icture highlights from the trip to continue the story:

The Cabin. There were 3 rooms (with an open kitchen/living space). There were 9 beds in the place and we slept 11. It was cozy, but cheap.

Breakfast was eggs and toast.

Before we could get the slope we first had to climb this ice covered hill between our lakeside cabin and the road. It was well below freezing in the valley (it was warmer up on the mountain by a lot) and so we ended up pushing all of the cars up the hill. I don’t recall having ever needed to use low gear on my car before, but clearly it helped here. What didn’t help is that due to the lake, we didn’t have much chance to get a running start. Luckily Sunday morning was much warmer and so it wasn’t a problem.

The view was pretty spectacular from the top of the ~4000 foot mountain. The lodge was at ~2000 feet. This view looks west down towards our cabin and New Hampshire. Looking north one could see Canada as well.

We rode a lift up with an instructor and we discussed these two trails that looks like there was all kinds of debris in them. He said that it was only the tops that had the debris and that bottoms were clear, and of course ungroomed. He told us how to cut over safely. There we found the best conditions of the day; although, they were not untouched power by any means. I found I was able to cope (and have fun) with the natural, soft moguls that had developed. It was great. Of course, the story with the trail is that they didn’t finish cutting and clearing it all before the first wave of snow; this picture looks up at the debris field of course.

In closing:

Don’t take my word for how great this place is.
Don’t ever give it a try.
Continue to take your slight shorter drives to your much pricer, smaller, and more crowded resorts of choice.

Posted in Car, Reviews, Trips, Wednesday Night Dinner | Comments Closed

Mystery Science Theater 3000

Sunday, January 18th, 2009

The creators, Joel Hodgson and Trace Beaulieu, of Mystery Science Theater 3000 gave a talk at MIT on Saturday the 17th. I took it as an opportunity to go do something unique and convinced my friend Mary to come along. We started early, watching an episode she had on dvd to get in the mood and then headed down to see the talk. It was in 26-100, the same lecture hall in which many of the ROFLCon events took place. The hosts/moderators opened with a montage of their favorite MST3k clips. It was hilarious. The unexpected part is that it was hilarious even though it was entirely out of context, which I previously thought necessary for that kind of humor. Perhaps they slipped just enough context in under my nose to make the clips work.

There were some other interesting clips, mostly from before they made it big, on to comedy central. This included the first few minutes of the pilot, which they used to sell the local station in Minneapolis on the show. That is the station they were on before being on cable . They also showed the entirety of the “best of” clip reel from the 22 episodes they made there, which was used to sell comedy central on the show. I certainly learned a lot about the history of MST3k, of which I was previously not at all aware.

The creators, stand up comics by training, took every opportunity to make a joke, which made for a fun evening. After the talk we came back and watched another episode, which I think made for just enough MST3K for one night. I also learned that they have a new similar project called Cinematic Titanic, which is straight to dvd, includes the full original cast, and also includes a live tour. They will be at my favorite, the Somerville Theater on February 20th and 21st. Mary and I are totally going!

Posted in Around Town, Reviews, TV | Comments Closed

Handbell Christmas Concert

Monday, December 22nd, 2008

The second time I ventured out into the snow on Saturday was to go see my buddy Krishna play a holiday concert with his hand-bell quartet.

Start MBTA Rant

This time the bus was more than 25 minutes late. It is as if they just didn’t run one of the buses. I waited at my stop for a about 15 minutes, about half of which were early, just in case. Getting tired of waiting I walked down a few stops until I found a girl who’d been waiting longer than me. We chatted for a bit and I decided to continue walking up to the major street, which has more than one bus running on it. While I was doing this the bus passed me going to other way, but I made it to Concord Ave. and caught a different bus before it caught up to me. The subways didn’t help me make up time forcing me to wait as long as possible for each train and so I was 15 minutes late and missed 1/4 of the concert. Thanks MBTA!

End MBTA Rant

The concert was fun. The quartet plays almost 5 full octaves, which being more than one octave per person involves a lot of running around and other interesting ways to play more notes more often. They do a lot of the arrangements themselves because many of the songs they wanted to play are not commonly arranged for such small groups. Some of the songs they played:

Deck the Hall
Jingle Bells
You’re a Mean One, Mr. Grinch
Sleigh Ride
O Tannenbaum

Sleigh Ride was particularly good. They had some help with the background sounds, the whip and the snow falling. That helped to prevent me from noticing the notes that they dropped from the song in order to be able to play it. They followed up the concert with an encore performance of Sweet Caroline / Take Me Out to the Ballgame, which is the quartets signature song arranged last spring to honor the Fenway Park tradition. I was glad I ventured out to see them play. As I learned at dinner afterwards half of the quartet is leaving Boston, so this was likely their last performance.

Posted in Around Town, Rants | Comments Closed

Halloween 2008

Tuesday, November 4th, 2008

This year’s Halloween was a lot of fun. I went to a party hosted by Mary, a new friends of mine whom I met through another new friend of mine, Sparky. They were both on the hike in the blue hills a few weeks back. After Paul told me about his awesome Dr. Horrible costume I decided that I needed to get creative this year. My old stand by priest outfit never did me much good, and it is definitely lame. After some significant brainstorming on the way to a Wednesday Night Dinner at Pho Pasteur in Chinatown I came up with my idea. I would go as the Red Line (the subway line serving Cambridge). I dressed in all black, the priest outfit actually, and pinned a red ribbon from my feet along my legs and back, over my shoulder and onto my arm for the line. I marked and labled each spot. I think it came out pretty good.

I was greeted at the party by an Obama pumpkin, and a scary Sarah Palin pumpkin, among many others. I didn’t carve a pumpkin this year. I went upstairs and found a room full of good costumes. Mary was a tropical bird, which after a short demo I was able to guess; apparently, I was the only one to guess right all night. There was also a girl with a green double ended triangle over her head which I deduced, after some pause as being from The Sims. There was Able Lincoln and his girlfriend sexy Darth Vadar (in combat boots). There was a Mormon (with biblical flash cards), a fairy godfather, Colonel Sanders, and Whitney made a convincing butterfly, even if she doesn’t think so. The best costume at the party was a guy who came with a home made KISS costume, including home made 6 inch platform boots. The party was fun, the highlight of my night was schooling Mary in Wii Tennis, Bowling, and Golf before she came back and beat me by a slim margin in golf.

Posted in Around Town, Fun | Comments Closed

50 States Party

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

Last Friday I attended a 50 states party, an attempt to better educate ourselves about the 50 states during this election season. In reality it was just a party, with some pretty tame costumes. There were about 25 people there, but not quite 25 states as many people just assumed no one else would dress as California. I went as Kentucky (pictured) and was pretty happy with how my costume turned out. Actually, the cheap Kentucky bourbon was not mine, but it fit the theme. The chicken doubled as dinner and a costume, so I think that’s worth extra points. A few of the other states and the costumes that I remember being there.

Kansas – John Deer Tractor Driver
New Jersey – Indian Gas Station Attendant
Louisiana – Make Levees, not War
District of Columbia – Beltway

Ohio – Joe the Plumber
Hawaii – Hula Girl
Maine – Lobster
California
Alabama
Missouri
Maryland
North Carolina
Pennsylvania
Texas

That’s about all I can remember as far as the represented states go.

Posted in Around Town, Wednesday Night Dinner | Comments Closed

My Third Geohash

Wednesday, October 15th, 2008

Last Saturday, October 11, 2008 I went on my third geohash expedition. Geohashing has been dead in Boston for about two months now, but we decided to go anyways. The hash was in Canton, MA near where my friend Sparky, whom I met at the first geohash meetup in Hopedale, grew up. It was also near the Blue Hills reservation, which has an abundance of hiking trails and a great view of Boston from the top. The plan was to go to the hash around 2pm, go hiking, and then get some dinner. Sparky and I joined our usual Thursday Night Social Gaming compatriots Mary and Whitney for the expedition. At the hash we met a xkcd forum user, Greg, who was also at the hash where I met Sparky. The hash was in front of a suburban home, and the residents of that home were there, outside, so were not able to get closer than about 120 feet to the hash, which was well into their yard.

The hiking was more successful. It was a popular activity in the nice weather, so much so; that the parking lots were full. But the trails were not. The hike up the hill was very rocky, as in walking on large slabs of rock making up the hillside. Whitney pointed out that it was decidedly different from hiking in Michigan, where the rocks live under the ground and there aren’t any hills. The hike up didn’t seem to cover all that much elevation, but the view from the tower at the top was worth the hike. The hike down took much longer, but took a more circuitous, less rocky route. All and all it was a great use of a beautiful October day. For more info on the trip, check the meetup page.

Posted in Panoramas, Trips, xkcd | 2 Comments »

Las Vegas Trip Five

Monday, October 13th, 2008

In September I went out to Vegas for work again. This time I got three nights all in the city and none in the middle of nowhere, which was sweet. This meant more time for touristy stuff. Having done the same thing, namely watching the Belagio Fountain all night, many many times before I struck out in search of something new. I did stop by the fountain. I took the above new version of the same panorama I took last time. This one came out much better thanks to hugin. I stayed in a different hotel this time. It’s a high rise and I had a fun view from my room.

I discovered that at MGM they have a Viacom affiliated network test audience place. You go, you watch whatever tv show they tell you too, all the while giving them constant feedback on a little dial, and they give you a bunch of useless buy one get one free coupons for your trouble. I’d gotten off work early on Monday so I decided to try it out. I got there at 7pm, when there should have been a showing, but there weren’t enough people for it so they delayed till 7:30. There is not much you can do in the MGM in thirty minutes. It’d take 80% of that time to just walk to the slots and back. That seems like a design problem, but it is true. I was looking at the lighted map, like in a mall, for something to do having already decided that the nearby arcade was not worthwhile, when I noticed the old lady who was also planning to do the 7:00 show was doing the same. She recognized me as well and I spent the time making painful small talk to her and her husband. Not nearly so painful was that as watching the third episode of “The Ex-List.” It is a new CBS show that is like “My Name is Earl,” which I don’t watch. The premis is that instead of winning the lottery and going around righting wrongs from his past, this time it’s a girl who had a psychic tell her she must be married to one of her ex-boyfriends within a year. Each episode focuses on one of the ex’s and clearly you know it will never be the one. This is similar to the premise for “How I Met Your Mother” but it sucks a whole lot more. The show is a drama, not a comedy to start with, and the back story for this episode was the main character’s sisters’ wedding. It was painful, that’s all I’ve got to say.

Another night I decided to check out the Chipotle on the strip. There is one now! My buddy Matt informed me of this wonderful new location. It shares a dining area with a Panda Express and a New York City Pizza by the Slice. After Chipotle I check out The Venetian hotel. I wanted to take some pictures to compare to my parent’s recent trip to Venice, and someone told me there were some interesting free shows, living statues and the like, inside. I got the pictures but I saw no living statues. It is an impressive place. On the second floor there is blatant rip off of the forum shops at Caesar’s Palace, but with a canal through the middle, on which there are gondolas with pollers who sing in a non-english language.

Posted in Panoramas, Trips | Comments Closed

Josh & Sarah’s Visit

Tuesday, September 23rd, 2008

A friend of mine from college, Josh, and his more interesting that I imagined sister were here last week. Unfortunetly for them we were still at about 50% unpacked during their short stay. She was here to look at a graduate school and he was here cause it was essentially a free trip. We had a lengthy debate about the definition of self evident truths, as in the deceleration of independence, and how that relates to middle eastern societies who clearly do not hold that women are created equal. Essentially the truths must either not be self evident, as it is commonly defined, or someone must be in denial. Of course, we got nowhere, but it has been quite a while, since college really, that I’ve had as much fun with pointless debate.

He also brought me 3 christmas tree shaped pina-colada air fresheners. You know, the kind traditionally used in a car and traditionally in some sort of pine fresh scent. You see, when I was moving to Boston in August of 2006, I stayed with Josh in New Jersey as a layover. Before I went we had this conversation (spelling and grammar have been improved to protect the innocent) :

Josh: oh – well I am not killing you I might as well not upset your stomach – any foods you don’t like – or inversely any food you’re particularly fond of?
Me: I’ll eat anything. I am particularly fond of rice and pasta
Josh: nice – I like easy. Lets see, not kill, not disgust … I think that covers the basics of hospitality the world over
Me: yeah, I can’t think of anything else; not kill covers a lot of ground
Josh: hell, I’ll even throw in not intentionally injure … permanently injure I mean
Me: That’s quite an offer, can I get a free car air freshener thrown in?
Josh: I don’t know about that – we are staring to cross the line of things I can give to you with no financial penalty to me whatsoever to things that actually cost money … eh what the hay sure
Me: rofl. good. I think we have a deal: non permanent injury + air freshener, for the low, low cost of an air freshener
Josh: pinefresh okay? or do you want some weird flavor – like pina-colada?
Me: oh man pina-colada sounds good now that you mention it
Josh: damn, I so only offered that with the almost complete conviction that you wouldn’t choose it. Okay since I live next to a gas station that can probably be arranged
Me: wow thats a fancy gas station.
Me: oh, did you know, that EC and Sandeep are now officially dating

Josh didn’t have them when I arrived on the trip, but let no one say that he didn’t come through in the end. I even got two air freshers worth of interest.

Posted in Visits | Comments Closed

Outer Banks Trip

Sunday, August 24th, 2008

This year my family’s annual trip to the Outer Banks of North Carolina with one of my best friends from back home’s family was in August. I got back about a week ago but I’ve been too busy with moving to write up a post. The trip was fun, but I was too busy flying my new kite, watching the Olympics, and playing some Diablo 2 to take out my camera. I did take out the camera during my flights there and back.

First things first, in the Boston airport under some of the seats they now have new electric sockets for charing phones and laptops. They also have usb charging ports, so those of us with the right cable can use those and free up the electric socket for someone else: