Happy Bicentennial St. Patrick's Old Cathedral!

Today marks the 200th anniversary of the laying of the cornerstone of the cathedral Steph and I attend. St. Patrick's Old Cathedral is the original St. Patty's, and although much more demure in stature than the new cathedral in midtown, it is just as awesome, and a lot less like attending mass at Disney World. Yesterday, the bicentennial mass was celebrated by the new Archbishop and followed by musical performances, vendors, food, and even a parade. I hope next week things get back to normal.

This One's Called... The Day We Almost Shaved The Cat

Hello faithful readers (including Danielle)! Today, we tried to shave the cat. Emphasis on the word tried. The cat does not want to be shaved, cut, brushed, or looked at for that matter. The cat, herein referred to as Indy, had a bad evening. I think ours was worse. Right about now he's lounging in some dark corner trying to address his half scissor cut, half shaved, half untouched pelt. The look of disdain in Indy's eyes at the moment can only be described as complete and utter loathing for anything sharp or human. Steph just asked me if we will ever try this again. I don't know. The cat grooming place down the street charges $80 a pop. Now I know why.

Indy, in all of his malcontent.

GuitarFest at the Sony Wonder Lab

On Sunday, we took a trip into the city to go to GuitarFest at the Sony Wonder Lab. What I thought was a celebration of all things guitar and music including live performances actually turned out to be an introduction to guitars for (little) kids. They were building 'guitars' out of paper towel rolls and Styrofoam for goodness sake! The live performances? Classical guitarists playing in a corner. Oh well.

The Wonder Lab, however, was pretty cool. This place is in the Sony Building and is a celebration off all things technology from Morse to Microsoft. Well, less Microsoft and more Sony, but look who sponsors. The lab is basically a miniature, free, more education oriented version of Disney Quest. Well, I guess it's more of Disney Quest's museum cousin, but it was still pretty interesting.

While in the lab, you are given an access card that tracks all of the activities in which you participate. Steph and I did some picture editing, robot programming, and even designed our own video game race tracks. I also schooled her at Guitar Hero III, but that's not even close to a fair fight. What we'll have to do next time: participate in a television broadcast, animate a cartoon character and use motion capture to make it dance, and perform invasive surgery via remote controlled lasers and video screens. All in a day's work!

Marco, here's a short history of video game platforms for you.

Day at the Met!

Today was a professional development day at work - and that means I have the day off! Steph and I took advantage of the rare weekday alone time and took a late afternoon trip to the Metropolitan Museum of Art. We went a couple of weeks ago with my mother, but there are so many exciting new exhibits we need to see.

First, we went up to the roof to view Roxy Paine's Maelstrom. The piece is actually the largest sculpture ever installed in the rooftop garden and was pretty awesome to experience. The structure is similar to a large tree root system that has been, well, uprooted and placed on the roof. It is pretty neat to wander around through its metallic limbs.

You can see a video of the installation here:




And some pictures:

Afterwards, we headed down to see the Model as a Muse exhibition, which included both fashion photography and articles of haute fashion from the last five decades. The exhibition was really interesting when you have the reference points of Top Model and Project Runway to draw from. Each room of the exhibit was separated by decade with an accompany piece of music that defined the era. Some of the choices were... interesting. In the 60's we were delighted with a French big band number; in the 70's, The Who's My Generation; in the 80's George Michael's Freedom (I Want It Now); and for the 90's, of course, Smells Like Teen Spirit was blasting from the speakers. Kurt Cobain, the anti-star, must be rolling in his grave. The exhibit did ironically end with a glimpse at the 21st century thus far sound tracked by Marilyn Manson's Beautiful People. Someone has a good sense of humor.

Welcome Back!

Hello everyone out there in cyber space! (Well, really just Justin DLC and Marco, for the main part) Sorry, I haven't updated in a while. So much going on lately.

Well, here's the skinny:

My hair was long and now it is short.

School year is coming to an end, and once again I am looking for a job. The city has a hiring freeze on, so I need to look in the private sectors and at charter schools. Fun, fun.

I've been writing and recording a ton of music. You can follow these developments, as well as download free music at my other blog page: anagentofchange.blogspot.com.

I'm trying to get in the habit of writing every day and actually finishing one of these novels I am working on. (Cristina) My biggest problem is that I seem to have trouble focusing my ideas, and as soon as I work on one, I get more inspiration for a different book. I'll work on that.

That's about all for now. New York Summer coming up quickly! That means a thousand free and interesting things to do. I will keep you posted!