Yesterday was the free scoop day for Ben and Jerry's, and this year I made a determined effort to make it this year. The closest location was in the East Village, so I ran up there right after work, and promptly found myself as the most mature and the only guy in a suit (or a job apparently) in the entire massive line. And that's when it occurred to me that I might be too old or too mature for free ice cream. *sigh* Anyhoo, the strawberry was nice, the voter registration hopefully will stick this time around, and I even made a donation to the charitable cause. This location's theme was breast cancer research. I'm iffy on the whole breast cancer hype. I tend to think it's a bit overblown, especially compared to the real killers for women, heart disease and colon cancer. Not that I buy into the whole women's health angle anyway, being that women on average tend to live longer then men. Shouldn't we be trying to make sure the men live as long as the women, instead of making the women outlive even more men for longer periods of time? But then the dude with the money bucket said to think about it as saving a breast. That's an angle I can sink my teeth into! So I gave $4. :: Continuing the theme from yesterday, life in the big city is interesting. Got off the subway, and tromping my way up the stairs to go to my favorite bagel cart, when I was accosted by a chicken. Or at least some strange dude in a chicken costume trying to give away crap. As a general rule, I don't take stuff from people in animal costumes unless there are accompanying hot chicks in easily identifiable corporate logo'd uniforms. So I don't know what ChickenMan was trying to give away. But that's not the point. The point is, on your commute to work, have you ever run into a ChickenMan? No? Then your city sucks. :: Although I missed the classic white cherry blossoms, the authentic Japanese single petal row kind, according to mom, I managed to catch the also pretty pink cherry blossoms. These trees have grown some since my youth. Back when I was younger, they were very spindly. Now, I'm hard pressed to identify which tree is which kind (before they bloom, obviously), as they are bigger and look alike. It was a good afternoon for cherry blossom pictures, with the sunset and the clear blue skies. But I was so beat afterwards I was knocked out like a light on the long train ride home.

Thursday: Naked people having sex in Central Park tree Sunday: Queen Mary 2, largest passenger ship in the world, and Queen Elizabeth 2 depart New York in tandem, after fireworks show at Statue of Liberty Monday: #1 Draft pick tells San Diego to drop dead, moves to New York instead Life in the big city isn't a bed of roses, but it sure doesn't get boring around here. :: On Sunday I did a silly thing and froze my butt off with my co-worker and her daughter waiting for the Queen Mary 2 and the Queen Elizabeth 2 to leave New York. For the QE2, this is the farewell journey, as she is to be finally retired. For the QM2, this is the maiden voyage. For all this was a historic event, as the last time this happened was when the Queen Mary was replaced by the QE2 in the 1960's (or was it 1950's?). Two transatlantic liners departing in tandem is not an everyday sight. The QM2, the largest passenger liner in the world, certainly lived up to billing. It was big enough to blot out the sun (if it were up), or at the very least Jersey City. But what it lacked was the classic lines of the QE2, and reminded me of the H2, a bit too bloated to be truly beautiful. There were fireworks, there were oohs and ahhs, and there were horns. Loud deep foghorns. One of these days I'll save up the 17 grand and have myself a nice little ocean adventure. One of these days.

So we're beginning to get some resolution on the little emergency that began last week. Essentially, a check that needed to be written was written. Of course, it had to be received today, an important fact that people thought that they had told me (but in fact had not). So I called up to see if it was OK if they got the check tomorrow. And I spent 10 minutes with the nicest person on the other line, trying desperately to convince her that overnighting the check so they could process it tomorrow was just as good as having it messengered up today. And she spent 10 minutes politely telling me that it was not going to work ... because tomorrow is Saturday. Doh! I needed this weekend pretty badly, apparently. :: The QM2 and the QE2 are heading out of port on Sunday, so me and a co-worker and an ex-coworker have decided to get together Sunday night, pack a picnic lunch, and watch the two liners head out Sunday night. Expect pictures. In the meantime, Saturday I'll be running my head off.

So far Gmail has turned out to be pleasantly nice as far as experiences go. Some little polishing touches, such as the email address popping up if you hover the mouse ofer the email in the Inbox is a clever touch. Ditto for the first few words of text of the email next to the Subject. However, as I feared, the spam filtering is next to useless. The scary part is that there was already spam waiting for me before I had a chance to hook up the mirror link from my more established email accounts. I don't think I have time to be slogging through yet another pile of spam in my Inbox. If I want that, I'll get another Hotmail Account. :: The Queen Mary 2 came into town this morning. At first I wasn't all that thrilled about it, just another giant cruise liner, no biggie. But somehow at work we all got to talking about it, and then I got really excited about seeing it. So after work I hopped a train and rode up on to the West Side and Pier 92. The ship is HUGE. When you're up close, you don''t really see it. But when you get a bit further aways, and see it dwarfing it's pier, no slouch at an imposing 4 stories, and you realize it's a floating 10 story city block, you get a little bit of awe. It's a pity I left my camera at home, so no pictures for you to all enjoy. I'm seriously thinking of watching it and the QE2 sail out in tandem on Sunday night. Oh, and right across the street from the ship? The new Hustler Club. Perfect.

I seem to be on an email binge at the moment. Besides my old old college account, which nobody remembers (thus defeating the purpose of retaining it all these years), my defunct anonymizer account at Hotmail, and my current active account at a different provider, I now have two more. The first I set up last week to act as a secondary filter, because none of my accounts apparently filters incoming mail by people in my address book. I just started noticing that some personal mail was ending up being automatically tossed. So now I have a mirror account where Outlook Express filters my email, and I can have a quick way of knowing if I have to be careful in leafing through my spam folders or if I can get away with a half assed job. Tonight, because I am apparently an active Blogger member, I got an (apparently) coveted invite to sign up for Gmail. So far it doesn't look too impressive. But then, wait until I fill it with 5 years worth of email, and then we'll see how it holds up. I'm eager to see how this conversation thing looks, with replies to emails being grouped with the originating email (although back in my ancient internet days ... which was 10 seconds ago, we used to call that setup a BBS). At first I worried about my privacy, but considering that my current spam is addressing me by my full name and street address (no, I do NOT want v1cod3n or to refinance my mortgage, thank you very much), I suppose I don't have much privacy to protect anymore anyway. Anyhoo, if you feel like dropping me a shout out, my handle is LarimdaME. :: Besides The Best Blimp Story Ever Told, I was reading up on Metafilter on the Erdos Number 5 Sale on Ebay. And I got to thinking, the movies have the Bacon Number, science has the Erdos Number, what do blogs have? In the Blogmuck, isn't there a person we could use to track our degree of separation? Perhaps an Ernie Number might be a good idea. Sure as hell beats Technorati.

You won't find her name listed on the staff directory. You are hard pressed to find her name at all on the website. It's not spelled out what she does. And her office is tucked away in a corner up on the second floor. She must be just another harmless cog in the dusty machinery of yet another little school. But if you look hard enough, you can see her fingerprints everywhere. From the ubiquitous mention in every missive from school, be it be for a reunion or a fundraiser. From the low level adulation directed her way in every speech and announcement of school news. She's at the Old Boys reunion in California. That's her to the left of the podium at the Old Boys dinner. There she is at the door, every name of every guest laid out before her. When you go to visit, she's the first to pop up out of nowhere to say hello. And then she disappears because "she has so much work". A quick tour of the school later, and Stuart Johnson just happens to say hello, fondly recalling humorous anecdotes about you from 20 years ago. Things your own mother had long forgotten. She's everywhere, and yet she's nowhere to be found, a shadow always hiding in the background. Millions flow through the annual fund raising drives, the capital improvement projects, the annual reunions; millions that are quietly controlled behind the scenes. Quietly. All Hail the All Powerful Virginia Tracy, Head of School Development!

Haven't been in a bloggy mood lately, which is actually quite tragic because I have a few good posts already written in my head. It seem that the last of the winter blahs have me in their grips. Just before summer, pretty much in the peak of spring, I get the blahs and I couldn't care less about anything. Which is why I think next week I'll take a dy off work and just be a bum liek I wanna be. One of these freakin' days is gonna be all about me for a change.

I can't talk much about it, since it is work related, but today was one of those tragically terrible days. It started out well, but then I got a call, and it was bad news. And then every subsequent call I made after that just made things worse and worse. Towards the end, I was just too afraid to pick up the phone. Sadly, I can't talk about it, but maybe this dramatization will help: ... The Vet: I'm sorry, your dog died. The Fire Department: Because the entire block burned down. The Landlord: Including your house. The Fire Inspector: Started by your other dog, who electrocuted himself chewing power chords. The Hotel: And your credit card is no good. The Bank: Because you have no money. The Police: Since your identity was stolen. The Credit Card Company: And you owe us $10,000. The Mortitian: So we threw away both of your dead dogs. etc.

So today is Easter. The day when good Christians (except certain subsects) and even better Catholics (Yay home team!) celebrate the resurrection of the Lord Jesus, and of course what it all means (We're still not too sure, but then there's a reason these things are called Mysteries.). Of course, there are a lot of other things that lead up to this day too, like that whole Passion thing. Which, in turn explains why I haven't been blogging recently: I've been busy trying to save my soul (probably didn't work ... rats). However, I did get to FINALLY go to see the cherry blossoms up in Central Park. Or at least, I was going to, when I got sidetracked via my old church. It was 3pm, and I figured I should go to Good Friday services, and I was right there anyway. I met a few old familiar faces. Good times. But back to the story ... So I get to Central park, all a fearful. The Mass went long, the weather reports predicted rain, the sun was setting, and the blossoms in my neighborhood are just about to hit full bloom. And yet, the sun was out, the sky was crystal clear blue, and the blossoms? Well, in a VERY unusual turn of events, they are lagging the ones in my neighborhood. Usually it's the other way around. They hadn't even begun to sprout. So all my fear and cursing was for nothing. I'll go back next week and bring an "after" picture. :: Once again, I was pretty much the only Korea in the Bensonhurst procession. That's where the old line Italian churches: St. A's, St. Dominic's, St. Benedict's, etc., gather together and have a giant procession through the neighborhood to one of the churches (the hosting church rotates). It's a big deal, with cops shutting down the streets (It's like a big slow religious freight train. You just have to wait it out. Which must have sucked for the pizza delivery guy we spotted.), the bishop coming in to lead the march and give a speech, and nearly 2,000 faithful eventually marching or waiting at the hosting church. You buy candles, you sing old Italian hymns, you get surprised and strange looks from the Italians. It's cold, it's slow, it's tiring, and it's a lot of fun. I wish I wasn't the only Asian there tho. :: So after all the church, all the food, and even the trip up to visit my grandfather's cemetery plot, I come home and deal with the rest of my life. Which means FINALLY doing my taxes. And I got to thinking. Today is all about celebrating Jesus' victory over death. Which is no small thing. But the old expression is that the two things you can't avoid are Death and Taxes. So Jesus defeats Death, but what does he say about Taxes? Crap. So when the world ends, and we all are resurrected, we'll also be audited?! I guess this means I better find that stupid 1099 form.

I didn't get to go to the cherry trees today. At the last minute (today) my boss decided to take very seriously a presentation tomorrow. Not that it isn't important, it's a good business opportunity for the office and one of our guys in particular. But it's not a 2 hour presentation. Maybe half an hour, tops. It isn't worth spending a whole day writing a presentation from scratch. Time much better spent on formulating a strategy to follow-up the audience members, to turn participants into clients. And if even if you want to ignore my sage advice, the day before the event isn't the best time to be doing this. Which is bad enough, as things I got yelled at for yesterday got swept off the table to make way for the presentation. But as I'm closing up my desk, I get some last minute tasks to get ready for tomorrow. Hunched over the copier, I watched the light recede into sunset. Maybe I'll get lucky tomorrow and the storm will head South.

The three things every young man looks forward to in a package from his mother, opened with great fanfare in front of his co-workers. Now I have to make a salad to go with the dressing, hook up my mother with cheap internet access, and make sure I don't lose the measuring cup (which I swear looks like the cup that comes with a bottle of cough syrup). :: The cherry trees in my neighborhood are beginning to bloom. Since they are all in shade, or are on the East facing sides of all the houses, they tend to be a week later then the ones in Central Park. Which means that those bad boys should be approaching full bloom. Tomorrow it will once again be time to revive the annual ritual of welcoming my tree pollen allergy by photographing the cherry blossoms. The best place in Central Park is right by the 91st Street entrance, next to the Guggenheim. There are maybe two dozen trees on each side of the staircase leading up to the jogging path around the reservoir. Each dozen is arranged in a meandering staggered row, with a path between. 'Tis the best place to get dressed up in all your Sunday best and have your picture taken. I also happen to like the canopy of white, especially when the sky is that perfect afternoon azure. Look for pics tomorrow night.

After work I wanted to swing by Century 21 and pick up some more socks. My days of living with socks with holes in the are over. And to boot, my coworker wanted to go there to pick out some clothes for her daughter for Easter. I had forgotten that buying clothes for girls usually involves selecting different outfits, matching them up against one another, mixing the parts around, until after all that alchemy, a perfect outfit emerges. Until that magic moment, somebody has to hold the clothes. It's usually the guy. That would be me. Half an hour into it, and three more racks of clothing to go through, I realize I'm in a minor circle of Hell, and it's called the Juniors section. :: Sometimes I forget, in my rush from work to home to the computer to bed, that I used to be a pretty decent cook. And that raw ingredients aren't that hard to come by. Coming home from shopping, on a lark, I got myself 2 lbs. of eye of round, and made some steaks. They were simply delish. And cheap to boot. Of course, everything from the chinese supermarket is ridiculously cheap ... which makes me wonder where they are getting this beef from. If in fact it is beef. :: Lotus Notes only outputs emails as raw machine-friendly text files, without attachments. Which is to say, a lot of attention is paid to the headers, the footers, the routing, the tracking, the version, the security tags, and other management details. Not so much attention is paid to the actual content of the emails, and the attachments are simply dropped. (For those of you keeping score, this means Pine is a better email tool then Lotus Notes. Because Pine attaches your attachments as UUencoded text.) The raw machine-friendly text files are hard to read, and there are no programs I've found that can easily parse the code. I'm 30 megs over my email limit. Internal company policy explicitly states that emails are to be deleted according to the normal deletion schedule, which is 3 years. Anybody smell a problem? But ever the wannabe geek, I've come up with a workaround. I've exported the messages as raw machine-readable text files (for archival purposes only). I've detached and organized the attachments by date, sender, and subject. But what if I want to read the emails? I use the print as PDF option, and output the emails as I see them (although the wider ones with graphics are cut off ... but they are usually just internal rah rah rah type memos). But Lotus Notes doesn't have a pdf option, and Adobe Acrobat is too pricey, you say? Meet Cute PDF. It's free, it's spyware free (according to AdAware 5.0), and it works pretty well. Wish you could customize it a bit better, but then, you might as well spend the money and get Acrobat. So now I just print all my lotus notes as PDFs, store in a nice big directory, and all is good in the world.

Got a credit card promotion in the mail today. It turns out that if I use my credit card to buy a plane ticket, my companion can fly for free! a) Note to credit card companies: Do NOT print promotion offers on postcards. With my name. And my address. And what card I have. Why not just print my card number and social security number on it while you're at it? b) While meant to be both uplifting and exciting, for those of us without companions to get free tickets with on fun Florida vacation, all this makes us want to do is crawl into bed and drink. Which, I'm sure you, the corporate juggernaut, don't really care about, except that it means I won't be out shopping this weekend. Using my card. Racking up even more credit card debt I don't need. OK, so I suppose I should thank you for making me too depressed to shop ... but still.

Yet another co-worker is leaving for greener pastures. Literally this time, as he will be working in the landscaping business. I'm happy for him, as it seems like he will be a much happier man this time around. I'll be more then a little sad, and not just because I'll be picking up his slack. He was a nice guy, who, despite what other said, did most of his fair share on the job. And the office gets a little emptier, and a little less friendly. So we took him off to eat pizza and other assorted Italian food, as that is his favorite. We chose Pizzaria Italiano, a pizzaria/restaurant run in the old Italian style on Exchange Place. The place was a little cramped, and there was a lack of chairs. So our waitress went across the street and borrowed a chair from Blimpie's. The food was good, if a little heavy, and the waitstaff was very helpful (and not to mention distracting due to very tight elastic tops) if not a bit deaf. But they didn't have my pineapple and ham pizza. I've been talking to them about it for a freaking week. And they always promise to get it. Promise, promise, promise. But when it came time to put up or shut up, they had nothing. So, despite all the reasons to go there again, I probably shan't. And they're pretty pricey to boot.