All About Dafydd

11:31pm: Doubts,
( but only about the new apartment. )

9:54am: Re-lo
It is all but official - I'm going to be moving into a townhouse in the Chestnut Hill Village complex on or around Feb 13, 2010.

I'll have twice as much square footage as I do now (on paper at least - I'm feeling better about it being roomier than it looks), my own front (and back) doors, 3 floors, 2.5 bathrooms (though the single tub is one of the new-style, shallow deals), a dishwasher, a clothes washer and dryer, a whole room devoted to storage, and even a sort-of back yard.

And I even get a rent discount because I work for Drexel!

5:59pm: Melting plastic
This weekend was retail therapy weekend, and retail therapy it was. Bought stuff, am happy, had to bathe the credit cards in liquid nitrogen before they melted. I'll probably get carpal tunnel from cataloging the new books, and I've got a blu-ray dvd player that's not even actually a blu-ray dvd player ............

This weekend ended up being a hermit/cash-depletion weekend because it was reserved for my Mom's birthday. Should probably have made those plans before Thursday, 'cause she went out to State College to watch football. So next weekend will be another on-my-own stag-fest, with much of Saturday evening being spent at my Mom's having dinner and sharing pictures. Sounds like fun, huh?

12:06pm: Samhain
I'm only posting this because I posted about last weekend. This one wasn't nearly as interesting, mostly due to my own intestinal problems.

The highlight of the weekend was the (supposed to be) Henson-themed party hosted by a very good friend of Niki's. I went as Doc from Fraggle Rock (mostly because the costume only required me to wear regular clothes, though I did buy a white button-down shirt and a stuffed dog to stand in for Sprocket, though it isn't nearly as grey as Sprocket should be), and she went as Red. It was a nice party, with some great food (or so I assume - I wasn't in any shape to eat anything, but I certainly would have if I could have) and great costumes (not quite as Henson-themed as it might have been, though the Muppet-hunter was fantastic!).

The rest of the weekend for me was lots of not-eating, quite a few bathroom trips, some soaking in the bathtub (I'm really going to miss that tub!), and some playing on the computer. Niki got tons of stuff done as well, and I can only hope that she had more fun doing the same stuff she could have been doing at home but in my company ...

I'm not well enough to be at work today, but I'm really hoping that this is the last of it. The next two weekends will be stag weekends for me, but we've got some big plans for later in the month.

4:57pm: HP#1
This past weekend was ( under this cut )

9:52pm: The trials of traffic, or what I did on my weekend ...
Friday: had tickets for Alegria at Temple, which is, like, 10 minutes away. Left circa 6:45, figuring to arrive by 7pm or so, which was in plenty of time for the 7:30 start time.

Enter the traffic. Broad Street was slow for blocks, and jammed right up near the Liacouris Center. It took minutes to move a car length. Turning onto the side street leading to 15th street took minutes (yes, just the turning), and then traveling the block to 15th was many more minutes. Turning onto 15th - minutes. Traveling the two and a half blocks to the parking garage - many minutes. Entering the parking garage - minutes. Circling to the 5th floor - minutes. Parked, went over to the center, had to walk around to the front of the center to the will call window, went in, got money (for food - we hadn't eaten yet), used the lav, went up to our level (I got nosebleed seats 'cause I'm being frugal in the interests of saving money to move) ... arriving at at least 8pm, perhaps later.

Now, the traffic was all pretty much going where we were, which meant that we weren't the last ones into the place by far - tons and tons of people were trickling, oozing, and flowing into the center for at least 30 more minutes! Don't know what happened - the weather? people planning badly? the Liacouris Center just not being suited to such a crowd (as in access, not space)? But it was truly bad ... bad, bad, bad ...

The good bit was that we got comped seats down on the first level ('cause we couldn't see to get to our actual seats, and the staff didn't like us standing on the stair landing), where we got a good, if slightly obstructed, view of the stage, and an interesting partial view of the back stage area. So it wasn't all bad.

Heading home was an exercise in patience - being on the 5th (of 6) floor of the garage, it was clear we weren't moving any time soon. We got to the car at just about exactly 10, started it for the heat, and sat. There were cars trying to get out, and they might as well have stayed parked - they weren't moving. In fact, the line of cars in the aisle didn't begin to move until 10:34 (I checked). I didn't back out until there wasn't anyone behind me in the aisle, and the descent to the exit lasted until 11pm. (Then I managed to get us lost going home - didn't arrive until very close to midnight ...)

Saturday: first destination was a hotel in central Jersey, where Niki and her boss were accepting an award for her company. Arrival time, 11:45. We left slightly late, didn't get lost, stopped for Dunkin' Donuts and then for gas, and arrived at the hotel at 11:40 (would have been 5 minutes earlier if there had been a reasonable u-turn route, since we arrived on the opposite side of the highway).

Next, I headed back south to a restaurant we had passed heading to the hotel, but I misremembered how far away it was, and managed to drive right by it. By the time I realized my error, turned myself around, found the restaurant, once again failed the u-turn test, recovered, and made it to the restaurant, it was 12:30. The meal was great, and I was out of there and back on the road by 1:40. However, traffic once again slowed me down, and the bad u-turn by the hotel didn't get any better with further exploration, plus the wait to take the left back onto the highway once I was pointed in the right direction was much longer. I was supposed to be there by 2, but got there at 2:15. Fortunately, Niki wasn't freaking or anything .....

We headed for the hotel we would be staying the night in after a little retail therapy, window-shopping style, to calm me down. That trip was just fine, and the hotel was really nice, and very convenient to the super highway. There were even swans in the little lake out back. We chilled for a while in the room, then headed out to our second destination, an anniversary dinner for one of her family members. This time, we aimed for 6pm and even with a detour, we arrived exactly on time! Which was actually about an hour and a half early ... we were there before anyone else besides the staff!

The party was great - super food, neat entertainment (the videos and dancers were great even if I didn't participate except for on, not that there's any evidence of that), a really great evening. We didn't get lost returning to the hotel, nor on Sunday on the way home, when we stopped at another restaurant we'd passed on the way to the presentation hotel - a sushi buffet that was absolutely worth the $15 price: lots of different rolls and nigiri, as well as plenty of other dishes from dim sum to Chinese dishes, with a few American ones squeezed in, and plenty of soups and desserts. If only it was closer!

A stop at Target followed, and then home for a nice afternoon out of the weather (which wasn't that bad on Sunday) and the traffic.

Next weekend, another trip north for a Halloween party. Weekend after, another one, but basically at home. Then there's turkey day with my not-really-step-sister in Tenafly, and then the other side of Niki's family somewhere up there as well, followed by attending her high school reunion (never mind that I've never attended one of my own reunions, and there have been 32 of them!, and I will know no one at this one ...).

7:56pm: I've got a question
for court heralds specifically, and everyone else in general.

Why do heralds not bother to at least try to find out how to pronounce names? It isn't a new trend or anything, but hey, I recall an award given recently in Hungarian ...

I mean, Welsh isn't a dead language. It's not even obscure! And for sure, it isn't nearly as difficult to pronounce well as Gaelic, or even French! And yet, I get called up into court for huge awards to horribly massacred versions of my name. I mean, twice I've been summoned as "David Chowder!"

Hmph!


(This post is because I really wanted/needed to post something, and I didn't want to self-promote concerning Saturday evening ('cause that's tacky), or "dear diary" about Sunday night ('cause that's TMI to this rather mixed crowd).)

4:53pm: What a ________ (adj) weekend ...
My Mad Lib fill-in is boring, but from the evidence I'd guess that no one else's will be (evidence = 1 post on my FL from Friday 5:30pm, and a second on Saturday 9ish pm and that's it!).

My squeeze spent the weekend on the left coast, so I got to be a hermit. Played Evony, watched a Mythbusters marathon, went out for takeout sushi last night, and for eat in pseudo-TexMex plus buying some U-Haul small boxes today. And that's pretty much it (the Mythbusters marathon on DiscoveryHD turned into a Gone In A Minute marathon, which is now some episodes of Rampage!, at least until I change it over to This Old House hour). Don't I just live an exciting life!

I've already put 3 of the new boxes to use - 2 were filled with the Lego that very nearly filled the medium box I bought last time I went to the U-Haul store, which are really too big for much of anything that I need lots of boxes for (both Lego and books will make them too heavy - maybe blankets and clothes?, but I don't have 20 boxes worth of either, or even both ...), and the last holds the dregs of that. I'll either empty the other two too-large boxes (one from the little TV from the bedroom, the other from some other purpose or other) into, or use it to take apart some more Lego into. The library is soon going to be slowly vanishing into boxes, but I need to clear more space in there to stack the boxes before I start that process. Shelves are coming down as well - so far, only the newest ones that I stacked on top of dressers and other shelves that have now been stripped of their Lego cargo - but I need to find a good place to put them too. And with such a filled-to-the-brim apartment, finding extra areas to stack bulky stuff like boxes and Ivar shelving really isn't easy.

So that's what I've been doing with my hermit's weekend. Aren't you glad you're not me?

10:08pm: Niki's surgery report
According to the majorly hot (and somehow familiar ...) surgeon, Niki's surgery went fine.

However, her recovery is being delayed by complications (most likely due to her sensitivity to the anesthesia, when she falls asleep her oxygen saturation level (and just *how* do they measure that with a clamp on the tip of the finger?) drops well below save levels. She has been admitted to the hospital (room 428) for the night - once the last of the anesthesia clears her system (and you know that can take abnormally long with her, right?) she should be fine again and I will be able to bring her home tomorrow.

2:32pm: Upheavals
Well, there's no doubt in my mind any longer - I will be moving, and sometime soon.

I've been dreading this for a couple of months, basically since some fliers started circulating in the building concerning some rumors going around (that I hadn't heard) about renovations and leases being terminated and stuff like that. Turns out that they were basically true: the management company for my building is gut-renovating it block-by-block - to the studs (or whatever is behind those crappy plasteroid walls) tearout and re-assembly in a different configuration. In other words, not the kind of gentle updating that a neighbor could possibly live through, and believe me, the nailgunning, sawing, hammering, and whatever-the-hell-they're-doing-just-the-other-side-of-my-big-bedroom-wall-that-sounds-like-dental-drilling,
is barely bearable from the next block of rooms over.

I've seen the new plans - you can too here: http://www.apartmentguide.com/apartments/Pennsylvania/Philadelphia/Greene-Manor/12353/
Note the square footage and the prices - I'm currently in a little over 800 sq ft, and paying almost half of what the 900 sq ft 2 bedroom place is going for. Needless to say, I won't be transferring to one of the new units, since I've already outgrown the place I'm in.

So, I'm looking for a new place, preferably a house (on the vague assumption that I can get more space for the buck). I've seem some nice places and some real holes (online - I've not yet gone visiting). And, of course, there's the old conundrum - I can get 4000 sq ft for under $1000 a month if I want to live in a war zone, but if I want to live on a nice, tree-lined, quiet, safe(ish) block, I can only get about 1000 to maybe 1500 sq ft, and only if I can pony up $1200 to $1500 ... (The gorgeous Victorians, complete with huge yard, that rent for $10,000 a month aren't even on the radar, except in my dreams ...).

I've known that I need to move for far longer than those fliers and rumors - I really am running out of living space in my apartment, and I'm not one to easily dump those things crowding me out (my books, my toys, etc). Being forced to get off the stick and do it like this is actually quite a good thing, looked at in that way.

However, the crux of all of this is that I hate change. I find something that works and stay there. I've been at Drexel for 27 years. I've been living in my current apartment for 12 years. I drove my PT Cruiser for almost 9 years. Change sucks, especially when it isn't really change that advances me. When I move, it's pretty much going to be a lateral move - somewhere (I hope) that's nice and with more space, but still a rental, still virtually a nomadic just-post-college-student type of dwelling. Not that I want to own a house (despite the two lovely Victorians on Wayne between Johnson and Lincoln that are up for sale), but it would be nice not to have to debate war zones with square footage vs lawns and trees with high prices.

I like my life. I like my lack of major responsibilities (i.e. a mortgage plus house up-keep expenses). But its at times like this that I really feel my age, and wonder why, at 49, I have to scramble to be able to move from one temporary abode to another like a college student between semesters.

5:13pm: I guess I really am getting old
This past weekend I attended the annual writers' summit held for those who work on the Dargon Project (and their SOs). It was held terribly far away - out in Lancaster County, PA! - so the trip was a great deal of effort (a couple of hours driving rt30 to 322 to 222 to 272 to Adamstown ...). I managed to arrive at about 5pm, when several others arrived, and a few more re-arrived after arriving, leaving to purchase supplies, and coming back. At that time, there were only two people not yet there - one who was coming into the Philly Airport, and one who was coming from work in south Jersey.

The tale of the rest of Friday night had comical elements (Jim and Jon managed to finally pick up Claudia at the airport by traveling there by way of Allentown ...), good food elements (Liam, MaryEllen, Niki and I ate at this great steakhouse about 5 minutes from the cottages we were renting), game playing elements (a basic game of Carcassone got some people back into the swing of the game, and finally a meeting new people element as both Niki and Claudia were introduced around at various times to the whole attending crew.

The cottages were very nice - quaint, small, well appointed with nice bathtubs or showers, tvs in both living rooms and all bedrooms, and lots of air conditioners which were running from the moment I arrived. And it was the air conditioners that bothered me the most (aside from the outdoor hot tub between the two cottages that was deemed too mildewed to use). I have become, lately, rather temperature-sensitive - I'm comfortable with my apartment being 80 or 82 as long as a fan is going. Some of the AC units were set to 77, 74, 70, etc, and as they were window units, they were noisy to boot.

Saturday started on time, and the business portion of the convention went smoothly, if with some of the normal backtracking and over-hashing of stuff that really didn't need to be hashed in any way, shape, or form. I was dressed for a nice, summer day in south-east Pennsylvania - t-shirt, shorts, and sandals, and to say that I was freezing in that living room would be utterly accurate. Fortunately, at one point when I looked around the room and saw person after person huddled up or under a blanket or some other way obviously cold, I was able to get the temperature raised, but only a little as there were others who were not nearly as cold.

After a quick in-house lunch, and some brief research as to what to do, most of us set out for some sightseeing. We visited the oldest pretzel factory in the US (or so they claim) in Lititz (after missing the place and the huge plaster pretzel out front the first time we passed it), and then a rather rambling trip through nice countryside to Intercourse for a buggy ride through Amish farms. With better planning, we could easily have done more, and there was certainly more to do (we were so close to Strassburg and its trains, other buggy rides, antiques markets, Amish farms and shops and just maps and maps of points of interest to investigate had we decided to really spend time and/or effort. Still, this was more of a lark than a *must see now* type of thing, and it's not like the place is so far away that I couldn't go back to Paradise, Bird-in-Hand, Intercourse, Blue Ball, or any of the other places in and around Lancaster, Reading, Ephrata, Lititz, Strasburg, etc.

We had dinner at the same place as on Friday, and the food was just as good. Afterward, Carcassone happened again - the basic version plus 8 or so expansions, which adds rules, tiles, and time to the length of the game. It's been a tradition for the past few years to play at least one game, which we'd already done, but everyone was game for the longer version, even a few people who hadn't played the simple version. We started explaining things at about 10pm, and started playing at about 11 - some of this delay was caused by some excellent dessert provided by Niki, including a cake for Claudia's 65th birthday (I was not the oldest at the shindig) and lots of fruit with various dipping sauces.

The game was fun, even though the gang-up-on-Dafydd bits weren't taken as well as they should have by me. But as the game went on, and on and on and on, the AC unit in the next room kept blowing more and more cold air into the dining/game room. It got later and later, I got more and more tired, and colder and colder. My pleas to turn it up or off were reluctantly heeded, but only a little, and i was still cold in my t-shirt and shorts and sandals. And by the time I went upstairs to bed at 3:45am, I was literally teeth-chatteringly cold, chest-deep shudderingly cold. I got ready for bed, climbed under the quilt, huddled up for warmth, and prayed to get warm again.

Well, here's where the title comes in - I woke up the next morning (i.e. a few hours later) in pain and miserable. My head was spiking in pain, I had a hacking chest cough, and I was alternately sweating and shivering. While my pre-existing health conditions (thin blood, injured liver) had much to do with that, I'll bet that being exhausted by staying up so late, combined with those health conditions and my age, are what knocked me for the loop that kept me in the bedroom for 95% of Sunday (except for a long stint in the whirlpool tub, and a brief foray downstairs to consume most of a single piece of very good cheese pizza). And it didn't just ruin my Sunday either - I was so rocky on Monday that instead of driving in to work, I took Claudia to the airport and drove home to nap for most of the day. I went to work yesterday and today, feeling mostly better but not 100% just yet, which means that I won't be going to fencing practice tonight (which is a shame for multiple reasons ...). I'm hoping fervently that I'll be all better tomorrow.

I understand that the others had a good time on that Sunday - Niki was her usual great companion-self, but also left me to myself so that she could enjoy some time with well people, for which I'm glad. She left Sunday night because she had to go to work on Monday morning and had farther to go than I did. I also think I brought some of the unwellness in with me (I hadn't been feeling terribly well earlier on the Friday, and though that pain went away on the drive, there was some incipient head pain). And I certainly could have gone upstairs at some point that Saturday night to get a sweatshirt and long pants and socks, which might have helped. But I do wish that AC units were used to cool things down, not refrigerate rooms ...

And I wish I wasn't so generally unwell ... or old ...

12:29pm: Pennsic, the rest
( Or, what I forgot about )

8:18pm: Pennsic
( Should I or shouldn't I ... ok, I will )

9:20pm: Go West, Old Man!
I love it when a plan comes together, even when I have to fight my own inertia to make it work.

The whole 'pack a bit a night over the week before you leave' thing worked wonders - I was, for all intents and purposes, finished packing by about 7pm last night (i.e. Thursday). The Outback is capital-f Full, but everything except for the last-minute stuff was in there and ready. Which meant that I managed to get out of the house by about 10 of 10 this morning with no trudging up and down the stairs, sweating my ass off, exhausted and nearly dehydrated before getting anywhere near western PA! Sure, I had to lug a big suitcase (with toiletries, tomorrow's clothes, and stuff I couldn't pack earlier like my meds and my glasses, plus anything else I could think I might possibly need), a little suitcase (my dance carry(almost)all), my laptop bag, and my fencing bag down all in one trip as I left for work, but that wasn't nothin'!

Went to work, actually did some work-like stuff, and split in time to be on the road by 1:30, happily sitting in the parking lot that is I-76 (and that's before you even GET to the turnpike! - that road is seriously, stupidly, and totally BROKEN!!!!!!!!!!). Hit big weather around Harrisburg, then construction (of course), stopped only twice, once for gas, once for munchies. Arrived very near New Castle at the Super 8 on 422 at just about 7:30 - 6 hours, even with the stops and the weather and the traffic. Wow!

The hotel is nice - and comes with free internet, as you can see. There is even an add for an internet cafe in New Castle - I'll need to make a note of it and see if I can slip away next weekend to check my email. I had a nice little meal, and now I'm listening to Con Air (because the only table in the room faces away from the TV, and because though said TV has oodles of channels, it does NOT have BBC America, which means that I do not get to see the end of Torchwood: Children of Earth until I get back (and I just know that what happened at the end of part 4 isn't permanent! it can't be!!!).

I'll be going to bed early, and getting up early tomorrow to do my duty to Clan Dance Horse. Which means, of course, that I get the best tent position in our little 40x50 camp site!

6:09pm: The insanity begins
I decided to be somewhat productive this week, and in aid of that, so far today I have:

1) done two loads of wash (at least two more to go, and these are my tunics)

2) cleaned out the back of my car - upon doing which, I discovered that there is actually a bit of room in there! I took out some of the junk (including my battery-corroded air pump, which means a trip to Target or some such before the weekend), stowed some more (there are a couple of places to stash stuff out of sight back there), and load up the small tote I bought months and months ago with camping-related stuff (that would fit). Then I loaded back in the tables, chairs, and small tent that I keep back there because it's easier than toting them upstairs and back down whenever I need them. There's now room back there for at least one of the big totes without even putting the back seats down, which means that I'll be able to get the other two totes plus a cooler, plus the popup, quite possibly without obstructing my view. Which means that the extra suitcase and camp popups will fit as well, plus the hurdy gurdy, the didge, and even more stuff I can stuff in there. So, that means that the upgrade to the Outback did, in fact, get me more haulage room (and better gas mileage ...).

Tonight, I'll probably start packing my doublets and stuff, and tomorrow after doing the other loads of laundry, I'll put a tote or two in the car. I've decided that instead of spending two to three hours on the day I leave sweating my ass off lugging stuff downstairs and into the car, I'll pack incrementally and leave for work on Friday, then leave work early for Pennsic, since I get to be there for land grab for the first time since the very first land allotment day (when Lord Roger actually did the land grab stuff that I was there to do ...).

8:33pm: Part 2
of several things, but mostly that product install (in two ways).

After a very nice weekend that involved a great party and then a couple of hours in Wildwood the net day (once we found it, anyway), I drove into work on Monday for the beginning of the "on site" part of the product install that was started via phone last Tuesday. Our consultant arrived late, and then had not received any kind of briefing from the home office about what we had accomplished during the remote install - i.e. what obstacles we had encountered, where we left the install, etc. It took some time for him to catch up, then more time to get some clarification on the state of some of those issues that needed to be fixed. One of the problems was fixed, and he had to download the new version so we could continue the testing, though in the time it took to do the download and install it, I managed to write code to eliminate the need for that code fix ....... Throughout the day, the consultant spent a large amount of time just doing his slate of testing - basically going through every aspect of the product and making sure it was functional with our installation. He interacted with us not at all during this process, leaving those of us in the training room just sitting there trying to entertain ourselves in some other manner. By the end of the day (5pm and a bit later), we had run into an issue with logging in, and how the authentication was working that needed to be tabled because the people who could help with dealing with it had already left for the day. (That "part 2" was of the install in general ...)

Then, I drove across the bridge to substitute teach for Niki's dance class in Iron Bog. And once again, only the two local die-hards showed up (with the child of one of them). This time we didn't even go into the room - just stood outside for half an hour (I'd been there for 20 minutes or more before they arrived) waiting for others to show. When no one did, we called the practice over and left. (That "part 2" was a bookend to the other time I didn't actually teach Niki's dance class due to lack of attendance. With any luck, there won't be a part 3 next week when I again teach her class.)

Today was part 2 of the on-site install. Before I arrived, the tech people, the consultant, and one of our programmers managed to iron out the logon problem and had a version of a solution to the storage problem we had been left with last Tuesday. I'm not entirely sure what exactly was accomplished today besides that progress - most of the rest of the day was spent trying to figure out how to deal with running a specific utility that will alter how annotations to the current set of images is handled. Despite this utility working at other sites, there were rather large issues getting it to work here (and this was after many gyrations undergone trying to figure out what images to test the thing on, since we do not routinely use annotations as part of our business processes, but there are some scattered among our 1.8 million images). By the end of the day (and this time this "end" was after 6pm), the utility had run successfully against a single image. (Note that this utility is only for the purposes of converting "legacy" data - the stuff that has already been put into our system. I was a bit miffed that it took so long for this utility to be configured properly when it has such a small role to play in our upgrade.) Meanwhile, besides arguing against importing 1.8 million documents into the vastly different and vastly smaller test storage spaces just to test this utility, I did very little besides play an on-line game for the entire 7.5 hours I sat in that training room (I didn't take a lunch break).

I'm hoping that tomorrow goes better - the consultant has an agenda of things still to test, including other browsers besides IE7, which I predict will fail and cause more "why won't this work" scrambling (because after I showed that IE7 worked with their morning's fix, I also tried with Flock and Chrome, neither of which was successful). I can say one thing - I'm going to wear a long-sleeved shirt, 'cause that training room is cold and I'm not going to bring my space heater in there from my cube.

8:42pm: Back to work and actually working ...
Got to soak in my nice big tub today before work, and also managed to reconcile my finances from this most recent vacation (only lost track of about $18 in funds ...). Drove in to work to find that about a third of the parking lot I normally used was full of a movie set (big trucks and such).

Made it into the cube by 10:32, took a moment or two to catch up on email and took care of some stuff that had slipped up during that vacation, then tried to call into the conference call going on for the remote install of our new version of the imaging indexing software we use. I got an error, I got kicked to the receptionist who logged an issue with the tech folks. They got back to me, but the guy to called back had no clue what to do - to be fair, their conference call system is a third party product so they really weren't responsible ...

I waited for them to get back to me a second time, then I decided to try to call in again, which succeeded this time. For the rest of the morning I listened to the other 5 people on the call do stuff that I couldn't see, and helped out with my local knowledge when required. We broke for lunch, by which time most of the basics were installed (and it was all stuff I couldn't have done much to help with anyway - all background processes and stuff). After lunch, I got myself attached to the video-conference session as well as dialed back into the conference call session, and we were off trying to get some testing done. This time I was much more involved because we needed a user-eye view of the interface, and i was able to provide that in spades (none of the other users from our side could have done the same without much coaching). We spent about 4 hours debugging and testing and running into strange roadblocks and trying things and looking at logs and trying other things ... and eventually stopping with an interim fix in place so that the on-site tech folks coming in next week can actually work and test and play, before helping us debug the connection problem. I felt like we really accomplished something, even if we didn't end up with a perfect install - it was good being able to understand what was going on, providing a few relevant suggestions, being able to do direct manipulation of the tables when required, and, as I stated, manipulate the user interface without any coaching which would have further delayed us. Sean, the lead developer of the revamped product (who I had met at the Engage conference in Boston), was actually there to help, and he found some code bugs (aside from the data issues we seem to have) ... he certainly knows his code, and he was a big help as far as he was able (I don't think that the ultimate problem is code or product related, but rather some kind of permissions issue in our weird Windows world).

It was after 6 by the time I left, and nearly 7 by the time I got home (after some grocery shopping, 'cause there's almost no food in the place). And as I was walking in to the apartment, I realized that I hadn't gotten any transit passes or tickets (there literally was no time!). Oh well, I guess I'm paying the $5 on the train tomorrow morning ...

(I should also note that during the morning's listening-in, I managed to do the coding for another project I'm working on, so I did two things at once!)

11:39pm: Quick close to my second summer trip
Woke up at 9ish, left at 10ish. Interestingly enough, the last thing on the radio as I gathered the few bags I'd brought up was announced as "something by The Baltimore Consort ...", and what started playing was Jenny Plucked Pears! Then two more ECD dances were played (none seemed quite as mangled as their version of JPP ...), and the announcer lady on the very eclectic CBBC2 said that the piece was "some tunes from John Playford".

I set up the GPS and followed Gerty's directions to the highway, which very quickly turned into the New York Thruway. I soon realized that I hadn't managed to get gas before getting on the interstate, as the little orange light let me know (as if the needle pointing at 1/8 wasn't enough). My car's little in-dash computer does some cool things, like show the outside temperature, tell me how long I've been in the car since turning it on, and it also calculates (roughly) my momentary gas mileage, and my average gas mileage since last fill up (which is really the last time I cleared the trip odometer). As a function of these last, it also gives an approximate range left until I'm empty, and when I realized I needed gas I checked it to find I had about 70 miles left.

Well, the first rest stop I passed didn't have any gas - they were renovating that area (as in, the "Sunoco" sign was up, but everything else had been torn out - the pumps, the islands, the little operator house, everything!). I checked my approximate range again and found that it was down to 60 (though I had driven 30 miles so far). I debated whether to get off the thruway and get gas, then get back on (the thruway is toll) or wait until the next rest stop. I kept driving, and when I saw a sign that said "next rest stop 25 miles", I checked my computer to see I had 50 miles of range left ...).

Well, I made it to the rest stop and after a washroom break I filled the tank. I then went two more rest stops before I stopped for lunch (McDonalds - has anyone heard of their Angus 1/3 pounders? or is that a northern NY thing?).

The rest of the trip was uneventful, even the nasty 1-lane merges on I-81 just before Scranton. I made it home at about 6:30, and managed to get all 6 bags upstairs by 6:50 ....... I've unpacked almost everything I can unpack (I brought home Niki's bag so she wouldn't have to pay to take it on the airplane).

I've caught up on two People's Courts (I've got several more, plus two True Bloods, two Saturdays ago's Doctor Who, and last week's L&O: CI), gone through my mail (nothing interesting), and read my email. I still need to deal with my finances before going to work tomorrow, and I'll probably drive in because 1) I need to get either a weekly trailpass, or some zone 2 tickets (I didn't get a monthly pass because I'm only going to be using it for 3 weeks ... hmmm, maybe I should have gotten one ...), and 2) I may be at work late (for me) tomorrow, and I hate riding home on the train between like 5 and 6:30 ... I usually end up standing ...

6:51pm: Known World Teaching Symposium
( Gonna put this under a cut, 'cause it *will* be long )

2:11pm: States Meme
Put an X by the states you have been to. The average is 8; how do you match up?
Put an L by the states you have lived in.
Airports don't count!

Alabama
Alaska
Arizona - x
Arkansas - x
California - x
Colorado - x, L
Connecticut - x
Delaware - x
Florida - x
Georgia - x
Hawaii - x
Idaho
Illinois - x
Indiana - x
Iowa - x
Kansas - x
Kentucky - x
Louisiana - x
Maine
Maryland - x
Massachusetts - x
Michigan - x
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri - x, L
Montana
Nebraska - x, L
Nevada - x
New Hampshire
New Jersey - x, L
New Mexico
New York - x
North Carolina - x
North Dakota
Ohio - x
Oklahoma - x
Oregon - x
Pennsylvania - x, L
Rhode Island - x
South Carolina - x
South Dakota
Tennessee - x
Texas - x
Utah
Vermont
Virginia - x
Washington - x, L
Washington DC - x
West Virginia - x
Wisconsin
Wyoming

My count = x - 36, L - 6

1:40am: Lines and ceremonies
Today (yesterday, but I've not been to bed yet) was the wedding. I left after 11am again, hoping for open food places before I headed to Hamilton for the 3:30pm ceremony. I'd found a mall with a Mandarin Buffet in it, so I headed there, getting lost on the way. When I found the right road, and then the right shopping center, I saw this huge line wandering across the entire front of the place. I drove around, finally finding a way in and wondering what that line was all about - it wrapped around the front anchor store, it was such a hugely long line. When I was in the parking lot, I sort of followed the line around to see where it was pointing, and I was dismayed to find that it was the Mandarin Buffet! I don't know if they were giving away free food for some kind of weird Canada Day celebration, but everyone in that monstrous line was waiting to get into an oriental buffet. I'll bet that some of them are still waiting ...

I changed my mind about what to eat, and drove back to the infamous Lundy Lane where I ended up at a combination pasta/taco/sandwich place that was pretty good. I then headed for Hamilton via a back road - very scenic, very nice, and very direct (to a point). When I arrived in Hamilton (or so the signs said), I activated the GPS and made my way to the University and parked (I'll omit the circling and wondering and wandering and finally taking a wild guess), then walked to where I guessed (correctly) the right building was.

The ceremony was wonderful, with a bassoonist who looped himself to play a duet with himself as music. I talked with a couple of people (William and Rachel, and a woman I remember meeting but whose name I don't remember) at the pre-reception dinner snacks, then went through the receiving line and sat at what turned out to be mostly a baby table (two infants and a 2 year old, plus their parents, and then there were Del and I. At least the parents didn't all talk baby stuff the whole time). There were other baby tables (but I don't think that any one had more than two), and it was interesting in that all of those baby tables were on the SCA side of the room.

Dinner was good, the speeches were good, and then dancing began (Darius and Lynette did a 16th century Italian dance as "their" dance - which was the only non-modern dance done). More talking, more dancing, more eating, people slowly trickling out ... I wasn't the last to leave, but I did end up staying until after midnight.

I drove home by instinct, and made all the right choices, even the ones that seemed wrong. And now I'm here, writing this up, deciding whether I'm going to pack before I go to bed or after. I'll let you know "tomorrow".

7:13pm: A bunch of not much ... but not not much either ...
Today was a very ad-hoc day - nothing planned, nothing terribly plannable. Buffalo was right out (I sent an email last night trying to get on today's Graycliff in-depth tour ... when I got home today I found that they had replied that they could accommodate me on the 11 am tour. Now, I left the room after 11am, so why didn't I go to Buffalo? Because the time on the email is 12:06 pm. I'll be checking the full headers when I get back to work to see when they think they sent it, but it is truly bizarre to have a "come and join us at 11am" invitation sent more than an hour after the appointment time), and the day was looking rather grey and rainy (it rained early, but as it turned out, it never really rained again - at least not where I was). What to do?

(Note - I left so late for two reasons. One was that I got a call from Niki - a very nice touching of bases that was quite welcome even though I'll be seeing her in two days. The other was that I managed to reach a huge quest point in Fable TLC, and you can't save the quest progress in that game, so I had to finish killing a big bad guy before I could world-save and quit.)

I headed to the car with only vague ideas of how to occupy my time. First on the list was lunch, and on the way out of the lobby I picked up a brochure on a mall in St Catherine - Pen Centre. I drove out Lundy Lane, which has a bunch of eateries and tons of small, slightly seedy-looking hotels and motels (that's where both the Arby's and Pizza Hut are). I had thought to have Italian for lunch, but the several places I passed weren't quite open yet (it was about 11:15), so I kept driving. I passed several mini golf places, and a go kart place, as well as a few driving ranges. And I eventually found the "gentleman's club" strip - three or four places, large and prosperous looking, culminating in a Penthouse Club snugged right up against a two story motel.

I crossed a drawbridge with absolutely huge cranes to lift the roadbed over the fairly narrow Welland Canal, and passed a drive in movie place before getting on 406 to head north to St Catherine (I figured I could find something to eat at the mall's food court if nothing else). That reminds me - when I was driving into Buffalo yesterday, as I was changing from one highway to another I noticed something large moving overhead. Turns out that there was a rotating bridge whose end swings out over the highway when it opens! Pretty amazing site!!

I missed the mall (I'd expected some signposting near the right exit), but it was easy to turn around at the next exit. It was a nice mall, reasonably full (there were a handful of blank stores, but it seemed reasonably healthy, especially compared to many at home). I walked around, checked out the bookstore (nothing terribly interesting), had Taco Bell for lunch (it was subtly different from one in the States - they had fries, which seemed to be much more prevalent than nacho chips, though they did have those too), got a Icee Slush before returning to my car via a store called the Green Earth Store - I window shopped first, then moved the car and left the slushee in it while I went back in and ended up getting a wedding present for Darius and Lynette for tomorrow. The store had lots of really neat stuff, especially a bunch of sculptures from something called the "Vitruvian Project" - figure studies of men and women in athletic poses. I really liked them - there was one of a male back, shoulders to butt, being gripped by two arms, one around the back, one gripping that butt, and the arms looked male too.

I drove back into Niagara Falls (via yet another wrong turn) and then down onto the Niagara Parkway, heading north and eventually ending up in Niagara-on-the-Lake. I got some shots of Lake Ontario, old Fort Niagara, and some way-cool buildings, marveled at the mansions along the road looking out over the Niagara River, stopping at a few places along the way (there was a huge monument called the Brock Monument (without a single clue as to what or who Brock was, but he's way up in the air and pointing north (maybe northeast), and I stopped at Thompson Point without realizing until I got there that it was the other half of the Aero Car's route over the whirlpool basin). I also stopped at the Butterfly Conservatory, which was amazing, and well worth the $7 it cost (with the 1/2 off coupon). Over the past few days, I've taken a rather large number of photos and movies - my 1 gig memory card only has space for an estimated 192 photos left (it normally registers room for between 500 and 600). I'll be downloading them tonight.

I arrived back in Niagara Falls at just about dinner time, and in deciding between sushi and that Italian I'd wanted earlier, I ended up doing Italian because the sushi place looked decidedly closed. Next, I stopped at 7-11 to get supplies, and then returned to my room.

Tomorrow I head up to Hamilton for the wedding, and Thursday I'll be going back up there to check in to our hotel before picking up Niki in Buffalo and then starting the second half of the vacation - the Known World Dance Symposium. Yea!

(Edit - the Vitruvian Collection: http://www.passagems.com/TMS/passage_vitruvian.html
That wall plaque: http://www.passagems.com/accessories/p8155_det.html
Okay, what's the second man holding on to anyway?: http://www.passagems.com/accessories/h277_det.html)

6:23pm: In which I bemoan my lack of planning and slag off Buffalo ...
Last night I decided to make plans for today. Now, normally I plan like crazy for vacations - my first visit to Las Vegas back in 2002 involved intensive spreadsheet manipulation to achieve a schedule of seeing two shows a night, making sure that 1) the show wasn't dark that night and 2) the two shows were close enough together to walk to reasonably quickly. Everything was pre-booked and paid for, the schedule printed out as well as on the computer, and it all worked out really well (even leaving me some extra time to book extra trips in the gaps).

For whatever reason, I decided not to go hog wild with the organization for this trip. Don't know why. I just figured that I'd be able to wing it with no problem. The extra stuff I bought with the hotel reservation worked out well enough - just went and used them at the first opportunity. The major thing I wanted to do, though, was see the Frank Lloyd Wright architecture in Buffalo. Last night I logged in to some of the Buffalo tourism sites and figured out how to book in-depth tours to both the Darwin D Martin house and the family's summer home, Graycliff. (There are two more sites publically accessable, but both are 21st Century constructions of unbuilt plans, and aren't as high on my list.) I managed to mess up the reservation in two ways - the first was that the site wasn't clear, and I ended up booking two spots on today's in-depth tour of the Martin house because I clicked two buttons instead of just one (the page was terribly unclear as to what to do). The second mistake was that I didn't realize that I also needed to reserve for the Graycliff tour separately (as in, get a time, not re-pay) ...

I got up early and was ready to go by 9, but my tour was at 11. Even though I needed to be at the site early, the GPS told me it would take about 30 minutes to get there - much *too* early! I decided to get breakfast and after a detour back to the hotel to get Canadian money (since I was going to Buffalo, I only had American cash on me) I had a small meal and set out in time to arrive exactly when I needed to.

The Darwin D Martin house complex is an acre's worth of Wright's Prairie Style masterpiece. Five buildings, several interconnected, form the complex, all unified by building materials, style, and siting. The most distinctively different is the gardener's cottage (it's stucco instead of the Roman brick, and it has had an extreemly sensitive extension added to the rear), and the most surprising is that the pergola, conservatory, and carriage house have been fully restored just a few years ago after being torn down and replaced with three apartment buildings - the recreated buildings are perfect, and seamlessly joined. The main house itself is in serious disrepair, having sat vacant for 17 years, and though it has been slowly reclaimed, there is still a great deal of work to do. Still, the building is a fantastic piece of work, very distinctive, very elegant, very much a new solely American style that breaks the boxes of the small Victorian rooms but maintains a great deal of the Victorian attention to detail and styling. And to see Wright's actual art glass, in place! This was the first Prairie Style house I've seen and been in, and I'm glad I have done so. I will absolutely come back to see the finished restoration!

The tour took two hours, and we got to see areas that are not usually open - the second floors of the Barton house (a small first-stab building on the corner of the site - sort of a "proof of concept" for Martin (it was built for his sister, and named after the sister's husband, as they did back in the 19-oughts), and the main house (the gardener's cottage, largely restored and, as I said, expanded, by the last owner, has a second floor but it isn't yet accessable because of the lack of a hand rail (as per Wright's norm) and the difficulties of adding it in due to regulations). The gift shop is great, and I managed to restrain myself to just a t-shirt and a book.

I had originally planned to see Graycliff after the Martin complex, but it occurred to me (with the staff's reminder) that the in-depth tour might not happen every day or every hour. The Martin complex only has one in-depth tour a day. As it turns out, Graycliff has even fewer - one every Tuesday, and every other Saturday. I also wanted to tour some of the other marvels of architecture of Buffalo, but had very little information to go on in that regard. I picked up a pamphlet at the visitor's center of the Martin complex that said there was a bus tour, but not much more - just giving a phone number and a website. I looked elsewhere in the book, found an address, and went looking for it - eventually found it after circling rather a bit, but it was an office or something - no sign, no banner, no nothing. I found another symbol - visitor's information for Buffalo - and drove into downtown to stop in there, passing through one of the "mansion rows" of fantastic Victorian architecture in the city, wishing I had time to stop and photo nearly every one of them. I managed to park (not clearly marked) and find the right places in the visitor's center, but there were no tours available, and the bus tour didn't even have a rep there. I left with a flyer and broken dreams, and drove around some more looking at the cool buildings while trying not to run into other cars and such. I eventually found an address that the bus tours left from, and finally - and I mean, finally! - found the place but saw no busses. I decided to bag any further exploration and turned on the GPS to take me back to the hotel.

I got to go over the Peace Bridge (instead of the Rainbow Bridge which I'd used before), and drove up the QEW very nearly right to my door. I took a detour to Pizza Hut for Lunch/Dinner, and then got some soda before ensconcing myself back in the room and taking a nice long jacuzzi soak.

So, I'm going to see if I can get a spot on tomorrow's Graycliff tour, and maybe see if I can reserve a bus tour as well for tomorrow, all without a phone (the room has one, of course - but I worry about the international charges ...). If these do not pan out, I'm not sure what else I have to do. Maybe the Moses Power Station, maybe the whirlpool boat ... maybe I'll find a zoo or something ...

But I have to say that Buffalo is not tourist friendly - at least if you don't plan ahead. With all of the ways that Niagara Falls makes it easy to walk around and do stuff at the drop of a hat, I guess I'm a bit spoiled. If only the bulk of that "stuff" wasn't so midway-ish ...

7:49pm: Short day ...
Woke up to rain, and consequently took my time getting out of the room. I started out driving up to an outlet mart mostly looking for lunch but hoping that there might be some interesting stores. Sadly, the parking lot was so packed that it raised my blood pressure unacceptably just looking for a parking spot - people blocking through ways waiting for people who were leaving, idiots driving badly, people walking badly ... just a bunch of idiotic nonsense. So I left. Stopped at the Arby's that I'd passed on the way out and had lunch, then stopped at a drug store to get some shampoo ('cause mine ran out and the hotel doesn't supply any). Next, I drove into town to pick up the Niagra Parkway and drove north. I stopped at a truly kitchy souvenier mall that had a cool glass store where, unbeknownst to me, they actually MADE the glass pieces! I shopped without buying, and then continued north in the rain. I ceased my northward trail at the "floral clock" which was just that. Then I started back south and stopped at the Adam Beck II Power Station for the tour. It was nice - I think the place is larger than Hoover Dam, and the niggling question of why the stations (two on the Canadian side, and one on the American side) are so far from the falls themselves - they actually dug a canal and some tunnels to get the water from above the falls down to the stations. My next stop was to be Bird World, though it took me a while to get to it (parked in that surface lot I had decided not to yesterday since I wasn't planning to be as long and walked all the way down to the Niagra Parkway). It was a little expensive, but nice - several floors of birds, reptiles, bugs, and other cool things. It had stopped raining when I'd left the power station, and it actually cleared up while I was in the aviary, so the walk back to the car was rather warm (it was 65 when I left the hotel, and the sweatshirt was welcome ... it was 75 and sunny on the walk back and I was very sweaty). I bypassed the car looking for food, and after walking a lot and not finding the one Mexican place in the entire city (I'd passed it several times and I was sure it was close, but I couldn't find it), I returned to the car and drove along that same street ... the Mexican place was farther than I would have wanted to walk (but as it turned out, actually well within walking distance of the hotel ...). I had a nice dinner there, and then drove the four blocks back to the hotel.

Tomorrow will probably be a Buffalo day ... I've only got tomorrow and Tuesday for that anyway. Well, maybe Thursday before I pick up Niki. Also, the Robert Moses power plant on the American side of the gorge is where the Tesla generator is (or was).

And, today was Pride Day in Toronto ... hope it was nice in the rain.

9:51pm: Doing the tourist stuff, eh?
When I booked my hotel, I also purchased two extras (besides the jacuzzi in the room, no, *right* in the room, not even in the bathroom ... sadly enough, it's big enough for two, and I'm only one ...) - an Adventure Pass, and a helicopter ride.

I heard on the news last night (I think) that it's supposed to be rain-ish Sunday through Tuesday (lucky me - I guess I brought it with me, eh?), and the helicopter only flies in good weather, so I decided to use my two extras today (and I tried out the jacuzzi this morning, too). I got up earlier than I'd expected (I went to bed at 2:30ish after a marathon session of Fable TLC) but it was okay. I ended up getting out and about at roughly 10:30. I was pretty confident of being able to get where I wanted to go - the map looked pretty simple - but I was wrong. I drove and drove and drove, circling several times, finally deciding on parking up in the city but having to change my mind when I saw the 3 hour limit. I drove around some more, and finally pulled into some parking that was close by the water (and spent $20 C on it).

I walked across the Niagra Parkway to the Table Rock area, where the Niagra's Fury and the Journey Behind the Falls attractions were - these were two of the 4 attractions on the Adventure Pass, along with two days' worth of rides on the People Mover (a bus that runs along the parkway daily, and the incline railway). My entry into the Niagra's Fury was for 11:20, which shows how long I was wandering on foot and in the car. Some of that foot wandering was expected - the Horseshoe Falls are right there at Table Rock, and I took many pictures of what I could see: unfortunately, today was a low-mist day, so the center of the falls was mostly obscured (but there was a bonus for that which I'll get to later).

Niagra's Fury was essentially two movies - one an animated flick about a beaver, an owl, a polar bear, and some mamoths giving the geologic history of the falls going all the way back to the ice age (yep, I ended up seeing Ice Age anyway ...), and the other a surround movie about rain and snow and water, with a moving platform over a pool of water and plenty of jets and sprays and such (we got issued a raincoat beforehand). Kinda hokey, but okay.

Journey Behind the Falls merited another raincoat, after which we took an elevator down to some tunnels that led to two viewing ports and two platforms that were practically down at the water's level. Lots of water, lots of spray, some very cool photo ops ... worth doing!

When I got back to the surface, I ate at Elements, a second floor eatery with a lovely view of the falls (which were still obscured in the center by mist). The burger was okay and overpriced - I should have done the Pizza Pizza or the sushi. I went out and got on the People Mover, which took me via several stops to the Maid of the Mists area. The trip was great - lots of info, lots of water, lots of great shots, and two really cute guys that I got spy shots of ....

Once again at the top of the gorge, I tried to get something to drink, but the frozen yogurt place that had some freezy drinks was not only out of vanilla soft serve but also the freezy drink machines weren't frozen ... I ended up back on the People Mover without refreshment, and rode up to the Whirlpool Aero Car stop which took a bit of time (the map isn't to scale). The Aero Car was not one of the attractions I had a ticket for, but just up the road from that stop was the helicopter ride place. I walked up there (it was rather warm by this time, so I was sweating and a little tired from being on the go for so long) and as soon as I presented my voucher I was whisked onto a copter (sitting across from another very cute guy - more spy shots!) and up in the air. Lots and lots of pictures later we were on the ground again, and I actually checked out the pictures they'd taken as souvenirs - they turned out pretty good, so I got them, as well as one of the group in the copter which showed my back but the guy's front. After some shopping and a drink, I walked back to the Aero Car stop and got back on the people mover.

It took me back south to the White Water Walk, which was the least well designed of all of those I visited - we all stood in a line out the door in the sun with no shade and very few seats for rather a long time before finally getting in yet another elevator and going to another tunnel that led out near the waterline well below the falls where there are some Class 6 rapids (and here I thought class 5 was as high as they went ...). There was a platform right by the tunnel, and a boardwalk that down the river along the rapids, with two landings down right at the waterline (which I didn't bother trying). Very refreshing, and visually neat ...

I managed to get back to high ground just in time to get on the People Mover south - I was pretty wiped and very ready to head out. There's one more thing I really want to do - the power plant - and there are plenty of other things to do along the river and falls, and I've got three more days to kill. I'll probably be back if the weather doesn't suck totally. The People Mover arrived back at Table Rock at just the right time, because thanks to the sun's position and the low mist, there was a spectacular rainbow right over Horseshoe Falls! I got plenty of mist-dotted shots of that, including a few where the bow stretches across the water just above them.

Finally it was time to leave. I walked back to my car and then spent far too long getting out of the lot thanks to some really thoughtless people who couldn't grok that there was a single file of movement and the lane wasn't all that wide ... not to mention the idiots who were walking in the middle of that lane 'cause their stroll to their cars was far more important than anyone else wanting to go somewhere else.

I drove around some, trying to find the hotel and stopping for gas along the way. I actually managed to find the hotel, and then went on a search for dinner. More driving around and around, until finally I parked again (another $20) in the Clifton Hill area. I walked up to one end of the ramp but there were only stairs behind the door marked 6. So I walked to the other side of the garage and ended up taking an elevator from the 6th floor to the "UL" floor. After walking along a very badly designed hall (that started in the lobby of the Sheraton and went through an arcade before ending up exiting onto the street) I found the Rainforest Cafe, which I chose to eat at (so that I wouldn't end up wandering for hours trying to decide on something). It was okay - better than the burger, but not much. I probably should have gone to the Quizno's I later found.

After dinner, I walked out onto Victoria Street, which is chock full of weird attractions (haunted houses, Brick World, bowling, mini-golf, arcades - tons of ways, including food, to separate money and people for dubious returns). I went up to the Skywheel, where I got one of the "climate controlled gondolas" all to myself. More good pictures as dusk was falling and lights were coming on - nice! Almost made up for braving the crowds on the sidewalks that weren't nearly wide enough for the gawkers stopped by the streetside attractions that were acting like barkers to bring folks in.

Got back to the parking garage, took the elevator up to 6, and went to find my car ... and couldn't. I used the panic button on my remote eventually, and heard a response from what seemed like the floor under where I was. I ignored it, and looked again, then hit the button again, and once again, a honking from one floor down. I walked down the stairs from level 6 to level 6 ... yep, two levels, one number. *sigh* Only in Canada ... I hope ...

Drove back to the hotel, taking a back street or two that I'd reconnoitered earlier, and after getting supplies for the night, I'm here doing this.

Pretty nice day. I hope they continue like this.