9/11 Memorial

We tried to go up to the observatory in the new World Trade Center tower today. We didn’t. We’ll try again tomorrow. Unrelated to why we didn’t go up, my wife and I both had some difficulty while waiting in line for tickets. Somehow we each, when faced with the possibility of going to the top of the building that replaced the two that were attacked on 9/11, both got major cases of paranoia and cold feet. It was tough. It will be tough when we try again tomorrow too.

The kids didn’t understand, and they were getting upset with our flip flopping on going up vs not going up. I told them that for people who remember 9/11/01, going to the top of that building is just hard to do. For people who don’t remember the events of that day, it won’t really make sense. In the end we couldn’t get a ticket anyway so it didn’t matter (as mentioned, we’ll try again tomorrow) but in an attempt to make them understand, we walked over to the memorial.

I didn’t know any of the 9/11 victims, or any of their family. The one person I know who was caught up in the events made it out okay (physically at least). The only connection to a victim that I have is through work. One of the airline passengers worked for the company I work for now. It was three years before I was hired, but people still talk about her and the company posts a remembrance on our internal homepage every year. When I was first hired in July of 2004 I had my orientation in a training room in Canton that was named for her.

When I walked over to the memorial with the kids I tried to explain that the fountains are the size and shape of the buildings and they are located where the buildings actually stood. I said that was important, but the real important part was the names. I told them to look at the names and then try to understand that each fountain is completely surrounded by names. There are thousands of them. I was hoping that would sink in a little and maybe they’d get an idea of why their mother and I are so affected by everything.

As I looked down at the names that were right in front of us couldn’t believe it. That random spot on the corner of the North Tower fountain just happened to have the name of the woman who worked for my company. When I put my hand down on the list of names to try and emphasize the scale of the tragedy, it was her name I touched

My orientation was held in the Flyzik room.

Monday in New York

Just a few New York moments from today. (yesterday, actually. It’s 1:35am on Tuesday morning. Damn, I need to go to sleep!)

We went to the top of Rockefeller Center. It’s cheaper and faster than the Empire State Building, and it has this great view of the Empire State Building!

It also has a killer view of Central Park.

Nothing special, just a cool chandelier at the restaurant where we had lunch.

I love these subway signs.

Many more pictures to come, I’m sure.

M&M’s

As New York visits go, today was very subdued. We are staying near Times Square and we didn’t really venture beyond much at all today. We went to a few stops and had a relaxing day. We also spent some time in the hotel room and watched both Captain America movies.

Tomorrow is Rush, so it will be a busier day.

I have to say though, that the epicness of the M&M store in Times Square cannot be overstated. I could live in that joint!

Jupiter and Venus

This is from Friday night. I went outside and right there in front of me as I walked out the door were two planets, just saying hi. I had to grab a pic.

Birds

I filled the bird feeders yesterday while the weather outside was beautiful. Today is the first day of summer, and it’s father’s day… therefore mother nature is literally pissing on us. It’s been pouring rain like the end of the world all day.

That isn’t slowing the birds down one bit though. They are outside chowing down. I saw a cardinal, a woodpecker, and some black and white colored thing I’d never seen before, all out there at the same time. I grabbed my camera and they all split on me. Jerks. I hung around for a few minutes, always hoping to get a clear image of a bird in flight, but it was too dark out and the shutter speed was too fast and the ISO was too high and I was left with this ugly mess. I got a decent picture of a bunny though, so that’s a win.

This is the goal, of course this looks like cow shit.

This guy eats like a pig. Every minute or so he’d come back for more. Enjoy, little birdie friend.

I had just decided to close the window and pack it in when the cardinal came back. I think he had been hiding on the roof waiting for the camera to go away, but he just couldn’t hold out any longer.

Oh, here’s the bunny I mentioned.

The Sky

Here’s another picture of the sky. Why? Because my step kids are amazing. What more reason does a fat dude need?

Middle School Promotion

I won’t share pictures of my step daughter’s Middle School Promotion ceremony. I will say I am tremendously proud of her and I can’t wait to see what comes next. She’s amazing and High School starts in the fall!

Here’s a picture of the sky though. Enjoy.

Random Pics

Just some random pics from Flickr because it’s Sunday and what the hell, right?

Sailing

The search function on the new Flickr is pretty awesome. The search function on the new Google photos is better. Google photos’ search page prompts you with faces, places, and things. One of the things on my search page is sailing. Here’s a bunch of examples of what it found…

For comparison’s sake, here are a few of what Flickr found when I searched for sailing.

Well… I can’t actually post anything because Flickr’s search didn’t actually find anything when I plugged in sailing. How about sailboat?

Again, nothing. What about if I search for Boat?

I went back to Google Photos and searched for Boat. Google’s results returned much faster, but there weren’t as many hits. Both sites had a ton of false positives but I think Flickr had more.

So there is a wicked unscientific comparison of the search functions built into Google Photos and Flickr that is really just an excuse to put a ton of pictures into a blog post.

Methuen Library

Last weekend we went to the kids’ piano recital at the Methuen Library. They are under age so I won’t be sharing pictures of the performance. You’ll have to settle for a couple of pics of the hall itself.