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My Roomba has become the 3rd pet in our household after Max the dog and Sneakers the cat.  When he gets stuck on a stack of papers or pinned under furniture, the housemates know how to extract him, tap his clean button twice and have our robovacuum continue on his merry way.  The other pets have also welcomed it into their hearts by having coping strategies beyond merely scattering should it come within 10 feet of them as they did when the Roomba was first acquired.  The cat now blithely jumps to a higher surface and lets the Roomba go about its business.  Max knows that the edges of his bed are sufficiently that the Roomba is stopped by the plush barrier and retreats to it when he hears the Roomba’s whirring.

Today, Max was a bit more splayed out than usual and the Roomba kept hitting his extended paws.  Max would dutifully nudge over an inch, the Roomba would hit him again, and Max would rotate a bit more.  The Roomba got Max to do two full revolutions before Max found a pose where he was entirely within the confines of his dog bed.  The Roomba now had another role, dance partner.

 

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The transition from “Internet acquaintance” to “Internet friend” occurs when I meet someone in meatspace.  After figuring out in what ways their profile image is a misrepresentation and catching how much the quality of their microphone mangles their voice, a connection is made and the person may emerge on the other side as “friend”.

Dan Bergman is a reasonably large fellow who loves dogs and is ok with one of those facts.  He was tired of being considered “the fat kid” despite being in his 20s and he seemed to appreciate the difficulty I’ve been going through to get my weight under control.  We left TI: Philly as both friends and rivals as we’d reciprocally challenged each other to be the first to 250 lbs.  He had 35 lbs to lose, I had 70 but the benefit of inertia.  Today he contacted me

“I was riding my bike today and as I sweat I reached into my backpack and pulled out one of the bottles of water you gave me.  I almost drank it but stopped myself.  It was enemy water.”

Apparently he got home in a bit of a daze.  Dan, I’m glad you’re taking the challenge serious, but drink the damn water.

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I made cookies for TI: Philly with the intent of shipping some to a friend now in California.  The half batch for him was prepared, placed in a zip-lock bag, and packed in a USPS priority box which I placed in the fridge until I had a chance to send it later that day.  Time ran out for me to send it before the weekend and on returning Monday evening and looking for something to eat, found the box I had forgotten to send.  I didn’t want to ship them at this point and happily ate them.  I did wind up shipping the cookies, it was just to me in the future.

Thank you, Conrad.  They were delicious.

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Dawn came at 11 am or so as we left our queen-size coffin and checked our bags in the basement of the Hotel Pennsylvania including our umbrellas as the forecast listed the chance of rain at 20%.  Oops.  We first head south to near the World Trade Center site which was still a seeming pile of rubble like every other construction project in America and here I found comfort.  While the destruction of the plaza was an event of such enormity the numerals of the date are their own memorial the site itself was being consumed by the American industrial beast with a determination that makes me proud.  The area around contains parks, restaurants, business complexes, and a coast whose inspirational view of New Jersey.

Heading east we hit Trinity church, burial place of Alexander Hamilton, James Watt, and Roger Morris.  The stained glass of the apse were exceptional in the small church and the ancient graveyard felt like it was stubborn in its stand against the encroaching modernity of Wall Street.

Trinity Choir

Apse glasswork with Suzie for scale

 

Wall Street was busy as befits Wall Street as it is nearly impossible to pass it on a vehicle with all the inter-building pedestrian traffic and this only clears up as one goes from business hub to the ring of aspirational stores that ring NYSE, the Treasury Museum, and the Federal Reserve.    The New York Stock Exchange had before it the largest American flag I’d ever seen and I had to climb over many European tourists to grab this shot of the tenderness of the symbol of liberty on the stone symbol of capitalism.  I think they make a good couple and would survive poorly with out each other.
NYSE Flags

We headed again East to have lunch in the shadow of the Brooklyn Bridge in the rain.  Roebling’s foresight in creating a bridge vastly larger that what was required has allowed his great grandchildren’s generation to see something transplanted from another world.  The bridge is sturdy in a way that was alien to both then and now using more materials than anyone thought necessary but without the advances of structural steel and engineering that allow for the almost gossamer radial span bridges that would come 80 years later.  Vendors were selling almost name brands at almost discount prices as tourists queued up for a boat tour.

Brooklyn Bridge

Next we went north through Chinatown with its legion juxtapositions.
McChina

Heading west towards the Canal Street subway hub led us through market stalls where I could identify only a 3rd of the fruits and vegetables and shops with more gold and silver in them than seemed possible interspersed with one-off branches for banks whose home business was from 20 different countries.  Both of these being stores of value that have in their own way become traditional.  I wonder what layer of meaning lied buried under my ignorance of Mandarin and Cantonese.

The subway ride north was steamy as the water absorbed in the rain combined with sweat when exposed to the perpetual warmth of the subway terminals to create a steamy cloud of unwashed humanity.  This smell goes between comforting, disgusting, and funny depending on one’s mood and disposition.  We got off north of central park and began walking west to the Cathedral Church of St. John the Divine, the Episcopal seat of the Diocese of New York.

New York buildings possess a grandness to themselves but the cathedral possesses a sense of grandeur that is something apart.  Most big buildings are surrounded by other big buildings gradually dwindling in size but the cathedral has gardens, sculpture, fountains, sheds, convent/monastic structures, and educational facilities.  The trees are much larger than those that normally line the street so the steeple always looms with no obvious path through the grounds until you find the massive doors.
Vagrant outside St. John
The inside is vast enough that there is something akin to mall walkers that walk around the nave without entering the church proper whose whose surface area is 121,000 square feet.    The ceiling rises 120 feet in some areas which creates a sense of cloistered openness as if one is in a grotto surrounded by miles of rock as the mishmash of Gothic, Byzantine, Roman, and more modern elements come through as veins from some architectural quarry held up by the 8 main granite pillars that plunge over 70 feet before striking bed rock.  The doors have a set of prayer candles near them that had prostrations in a dozen languages for everything to solving world hunger to the lose of a cat.  The celestory is magnificent and the glasswork was awe-inspiring even when the building was wrapped in the inky greyness of the day.

I had dragged Mike and Suzie 30 blocks to see the church and after some time in it, I think we all found the trek worth it.  St. John’s the Unfinished again inspired in me a notion of the numinous for the second time in my life.  THe first time was tinged with a sense of the divine, this time a sense of humanity.
Candles and John the Divine

Our final stop was a Hungarian pastry shop where gruff 20 somethings read Camus next to MacBooks.  I had a poppy seed pastry and we unleashed a flurry of text messages to our respective parties when a clock check indicated we need to leave.  We made the southbound Northeast Corridor train with little time to spare and sunk into our seats with a sense that had escaped, not in the sense that we were being held against our will but captivated.  We would return.

The evening wound down in Princeton over dinner with a friend consisting of brick oven pizza and artisanal cheese.  How can I refuse something with “artisanal” in its name?

[flickr album=72157627192699315 num=10 size=Thumbnail]

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Mike, Suzie, and I picked up the New Jersey Transit Northeast Corridor line at Princeton Junction Station northbound for Penn Station.  The forecast called for rain so I included two umbrellas in my packing which looked ridiculous as we sat down on the double-decker train for the 80 minute ride into New York City.  The Northeast Corridor route has two stretches where the monotony of urban hardscapes alternating between asphalt and building gives way to an organic syncopation as one approaches Newark, NJ.   The gravel mounds that serve to support the track disappear into a skeletal trussing that allows the train to pass the Passaic River and the marshes of  Newark County without pretension.  Somewhere south of this I think I figured out what the lyrics to Pearl Jam’s “Daughter” meant and I felt sad.

The Pennsylvania Hotel is a pylon of rooms seemingly packed with the density of a neutron star.  The bed occupied most of the room and with the air mattress inflated one couldn’t actually circumnavigate the sleep surface.  It was after 10 PM on a Sunday in New York so we went to Time Square.  The closest analog I can think of to New York City sidewalks is to the halls of an underbuilt high school where traffic lanes are an emergent pattern like the streams created by water pouring down a sand heap.  Time Square itself moves between frenetic and glacial foot traffic and passing each wave of people is a process similar to pulling oneself through a door made of jello.  After we crested Time Square, we kept walking on to Central Park and then south to the hotel again covering about 5 miles of busy streets despite it then being past midnight on a Sunday.

Suzie had some things to take care of, so Mike and I took the queen-size bed with the intent that I’d migrate to the floor on Suzie’s return.  I woke up a few hours later with a knee in the small of my back from Suzie who didn’t wish to wake us so I scooched over and noted “knee there”.  I woke up a few more times with similar causes and slowly Suzie turned into a kind of Vitruvian Man/star fish hybrid with at least six arms and legs where the discovery of each nudged me over a little more.  That night I learned that I can sleep with one leg on the bed and another on the floor supporting my body.

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Those who chose to rested well did and I reaped the benefits of my simple dictum of “I get my own bed”.  My walk to the lobby was midway between a stroll and a lumber and I smiled slightly at no one having died.  The taste of in my mouth was not victory, just non-defeat and I was fine with that.

Almost Everyone

My  evening involved going to New York City with Suzie and Mike, but for now, Cody and Ashley wanted to eat and Cody was happy to find a Cici’s Pizza (somewhat) nearby so he could continue his 40 day streak of eating there.  We drove to New Jersey, went to Cici’s and had crappy pizza and for the first time felt old.  The group member’s ages went 18, 19, 20, and then me at 27 and I felt everyone else was communicating in secret nods to avoid me catching wise to them.

Ending Notes:

  • The medallions I had made for this meet-up had an adhesive back.  Several people immediately stuck them to laptops. I hope they don’t cut themselves.
  • Hot weather sucks.
  • Liquor stores seem to stock lime but not lemon juice.
  • “I get my own bed” is a good policy.
  • Cinci was the meet-up, Philly was the re-union.

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Fragmentation was my concern for the weekend and it was realized almost immediately when our group of 17 was reduced to 11 for visiting the Mutter Museum, a collection of medical oddities hosted by the College of Physicians in Philadelphia.  The others either had no stomach for seeing a colon the size of a punching bag or chose sleep as their cardinal concern; as they wish.  The walk to the museum was already warm and I was wearing a polo shirt for the first time in years with the exception of for Scouting events.  I felt out of place, under-dressed, and like I was failing to maintain a notion of group until I encountered a surprise mood changer: the receipt for museum entrance which had the phrase “Team Interrobang” on it in no less than three places.  Whenever I sign or receive documentation that treats my TF2 team like an actual entity I feel like I’ve fooled the world.

I took the museum at a slower pace than most, spending two and a half hours to go through the displays as compared to 60-90 minutes for the rest of the group.  Even malformed skeletons become boring if you look at enough of them.  The group moved on to lunch and I took in more of the museum, violating my own cardinal concern and before leaving to retrieve my camera from the hotel (the Mutter allows no cameras) I signed the guest book on the group’s behalf.

Those who made it.

I returned to the hotel, downed some more water, looked at the sweaty mess I was turning into, grabbed my camera, and headed for Reading Terminal to meet the re-assembled group for lunch.  Along the way, I remembered I was in a city:
PaintParallel

I love pictures of pictures.

I wasn’t just in any city, I was in my city or as close as I could claim to any other metropolitan area and again Philadelphia rewarded attentiveness.

LightHDRofPenn

Between monuments of industry lie monuments of history and I am tickled by the image of William Penn walking a highway of sky from one nexus of modern antiquity to another.

I had certainly taken my time, and by the time I reached Reading Terminal everyone had eaten and decided to return to the hotel.  So, we walked back.
Fade to Looney

The above occurred on the way back as the notion of an afternoon at historic sites dissolved in the heat of the day.  I like how each figure is slightly less sane as one goes from right to left and in retrospect the resolve the crank in the back is exceptional considering the heat.  We also passed another Philadelphia landmark, the fat raving lunatic, as someone near Walnut Street spoke of their triumphant comeback to Philadelphia politics.  The person in question weighted somewhere north of 300 lbs and was wearing gym shorts and a pit-stained t-shirt.

I again drank water and coolness as the notion of visiting the Liberty Bell or anything more than a half mile or so from the hotel died.  Some people were tired, others were still recovering from a long previous evening, so I invoked a mental preparation I had made weeks in advance: The Nerd Protocol.  Team Interrobang is a bit more social than one’s standard group of Internet folk but there are still cleavages.  Some people dislike others, there are internal rivalries, and the full spread of emotion from love to loathing exists within our community.  But sometimes, these go to excess, and should there be an explosion, I would draw upon the fact that there were still enough nerd’s nerds that I could escape to a museum.

The Brotherhood of the Social Awkward went to the Academy of Natural Sciences and I had an absolute ball.  I blasted out a text message notifying people, and one person took a cab getting there before the seven of us who had walked.  There was a special butterfly display which I paid the two extra dollars to see and I knew I was in the company of those secure with their masculinity when the fellow who arrived early responded to my query of “did you get the butterfly pass?” by pointing to the pink pin on his shirt and saying “you bed your ass I did.”  The first stop was the live animal show led by a shapeless woman who loved the animals far more than she loved the audience.  Her first guest was a Harris Hawk native to the Southwest:

Harris Hawk

Docent: Can anyone tell me what the Harris Hawk eats?
Child #1: Grass.
Docent: No, think desert.
Child #2: Fish.
Docent: Closer, but no.
Surly Team Member: Sand.

Her second guest was a very white red fox eliciting my favorite question-response from a docent, possibly ever:

Audience Member: Can a fox and a dog mate?
Docent: Not naturally, but I wouldn’t put it past science.

Ah, science, we’re about coulda not shoulda.

We went around the displays and I found a strong photographic parallel as shown below:

20110722-1537-PhillyFriday-Edit-2 and Humanity Mirrors Nature

The butterfly exhibit was nice, as the 85°F/80% RH room was still much cooler than it was outside and I got to use the word “Lepidopterologist” a dozen times.  The staff member took kindly to the fact that there was a bunch of non-child, non-threatening men in her area and let me take a picture of her be-butterflied head.

Natural Jewelry

Thank you, un-named staff member.

We hit every exhibit in the museum, and we all kind of died near the apiary, so we amused ourselves by mismatching the bee quiz tiles.

Funny Match UP

We made dinner plans and I felt glad that we’d finally have our group together time, but one person had to bow out due to feeling ill.  The motto of the weekend seemed to have emerged as “close enough”.  This followed into our evening activity of karaoke where Andy and Adam did a surprisingly good rendition of “A Whole New World” from Aladdin and I got to do “What A Wonderful World” in the style of Louis Armstrong.  I think I do a passable impression.  I don’t go to bars much as someone who doesn’t drink but enjoyed karaoke.  I put in a few requests but they didn’t jive with the culture of those present so I’ll need to find another place to do show tunes and popular rock of the late 90s.

I made peace with someone, and again the day ended.

 

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Meet-ups, in retrospect, are the part of Team Interrobang I wanted from the beginning.  In a limited way, a video game with friends is a “meet-up” that just happens to be virtual and where the agenda is implied by the medium, e.g. playing the game.  Joining together in meatspace should be easier as we’re born with and then subsequently develop the total toolbox for engagement without intervening contrivances but when the locus of contact is that intervening contrivance such is not the case.  Meet-ups are combinations of excitement and boredom, subterfuge and conspicuousness, and sublime and the quotidian, and of course, sweets.  Philadelphia proved no exception.

While Suzie slept, I baked two berry cheesecakes, four dozen cookies, and 3 lbs of truffles and was happy with the results of each.  The enemy for my baked goods were the same as for myself, the heat, and even with the aid of insulated storage containers, I doubted the truffles would suffer the daytime high of near 100°F well.  But, chocolate re-freezes so I packed the raspberry choco-spheres in parchment paper and they went into my car as everything I touched became coated in sweat.  Getting to Philadelphia was uneventful, parking even less so, and the actual check-in process, minus a hiccup was also dull.  A portent, I hoped.  Parties trickled in, and the evening started at around 8:00 PM with the command of “food”.  Dinner was about a block away and even this almost proved too much due to the heat.  Still, on route, I captured something ellusive: Ben Start enjoying himself.
ShasHasFun
The wait for a table for a table for 17 was about 20 minutes, well long enough to appreciate the blast of air conditioning and to be ok with the restaurant’s somewhat liberal definition of sufficient arm space.  The group was large enough that it broke into three subgroups of which the center had focused on facial hair, including both Ken’s beard:
MmmBeard
and Ben’s beard:
BenBeardBow

I want to make a comment along the lines of “two beards, both alike in dignity” but such isn’t the case.  Ben’s beard is something I’ve simply always know him to have and the idea of seeing his chin seems less likely than me seeing him nude.  Ben’s beard and he have a symbiotic relationship, each supporting the other in defining the greater Overben.  Ken’s beard seems more something willed into existence.  One day, Ken wished for a beard and, after invoking some C++ commands, he recompiled his face and there was beard from non-beard.  I picture him fluffing it out slightly, looking in a mirror and saying “let’s see what this thing can do” keying off a montage of him going about town with people stopping to stare in awe and point while ZZ Top music played in the background.

Dinner wound down, and even a short visit to Rittenhouse Square had us all drenched in sweat, so we returned to the hotel where I forced people to try truffles.  The response to them was so orgiastic we were told by the hotel staff that we were too loud.  They offered us a room on their conference floor where we learned “room” was defined as the landing room for the bank of elevators.  Hazaa.  We sat, we drank, and the evening wound down.  Gha, it was hot.

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I’ve run out of reasonably usable space in my office to post pictures so I’ve started putting them on the wall outside my work area.  One of them is probably my new favorite building shot:
Reflections Explained

No one said anything but I received a heck of compliment when someone opened the door to my area and ran into someone who’d be staring at it for a minute.  A picture so good it hurts.

</ego boost>

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Me: You look bummed, what’s up?
Coworker: I threw out my back a few weeks ago, and I can’t exercise.  Now I’m fat and unhappy.
Me: I’ve never found exercise to really change my mood.  I just listen to books on tape or play video games most of the time.
Coworker: That’s now how it’s supposed to be done.  The point of exercise is to go into a zone of personal pain for 30 to 60 minutes.  The whole time will suck and your body will hate you.  When you’re done, the pain is gone and your body thanks you for not doing that to it all the time.  From that comes the feeling of joy.

I guess I’m doing it wrong.