Pi Girl

We finally got the wedding photos up from Janice and Serkan’s wedding reception. Check out the gallery. Jason did a nice job, especially capturing those “moments.” I think my favorite ones are all of the ones with Janice and her maid of honor, Jen. But these 2 photos were the absolute best of the bunch. They just say so much.

Technically, Janice and Serkan were married in December of 2006. Or April 2007 if you’re Turkish and got to go to the first celebration. But we finally got to celebrate here in the States on Saturday. Jason has the photos and I have no idea what they look like but if they’re good, I’ll post a gallery. I danced to an interesting mix of music, drank lots of wine and managed to not get any of the chocolate fountain on my dress. And it was so nice to see the Ithaca group again, I don’t get to see them nearly enough.

So, last night was the Emmys. And the only really enjoyable parts were Ricky Gervais, Stephan Colbert and Jon Stewart. Oh, and this brilliant piece. It’s not so much that I think a medley of 30 tv theme songs needs to be done or is all that great itself. But it makes me think I should move Josh Groban higher on my list of awesome people. After all, he did that Jimmy Kimmel bit.

Wow, it’s been a while. Sorry about that. It’s not that I’ve been all that busy, I guess it was more that I didn’t have much to say. I’m looking for work. I’m enjoying a long vacation.

While I don’t entirely mind being home all day, I feel a little lost. I can’t exactly make permanent plans like volunteering or joining some group because I will get a job at some point. And it will make me busy again. And I’m fairly certain I will be moving which will take me away from whatever it is.

So, I watch a lot of tv, catch up on chores and doctor’s appointments and make a ton of plans to keep me out of the house.

The fun part is I’ve been able to play with alot of friends on their vacations: I’ve been to the lake with Jen and Amber, to see the Northern Blend rehearsal in Watertown with Sandy, to the Bay with Jason and the in-laws, to Maryland to see Janice’s new digs, anywhere and everywhere around town with Michelle.

I do have some interviews lined up. I hope they’re the right opportunities and pray I’ll find something before my severance runs out. And while I’m excited about those opportunities, I feel bad whenever one of my local friends asks how the job hunt is doing, and I have to report that no local companies are calling me back, just the ones too far away for me to stay here. And I have to lump Jason into that local friends category because I know he really likes his job here. But unless I win the lottery, we can’t really sustain ourselves on a newspaper photographer’s salary alone.

So, I guess to sum up my life in a nutshell at the moment, I’m relaxing and de-stressing, but my life’s in limbo while I try to impress potential employers which is kind of stressing me out, especially since it might mean that I have to disappoint some friends when I do find something (and I WILL find something), which has me bummed. But hey, I’m getting a lot of sleep now.

Another NASCAR weekend has gone by at Watkins Glen. Seeing how I am no longer in the news business, I managed to not hear about any of the race until my mother mentioned there was some big crash. She claims she only watched it to see if she could see Jason there.

However, I did work up at the Glen for my Crystal Chords Friday and Saturday selling t-shirts to rabid fans. Have I mentioned how much I love my Crystal Chords?

It’s gotten to the point where I am no longer surprised that every single person (minus the kids who are the only ones with any sense whatsoever) is drunk and holding a beer in their hands at all times. Or that women with boobs bigger than D cups are walking around braless (it’s still gross, I’m just not surprised). Or that a bunch of guys are walking around in afro wigs stopping every 20 seconds to chant about their favorite driver.

But there are those idiots I need to have a talking to. You might argue that because they’re all drunk, reasoning with them won’t work. However, when most of the drunks are walking around with their beers in coozies to keep them cold, I tend to think there’s some sanity tucked away somewhere. So, I offer some advice you may want to tuck away for next year.

1. Put some shoes on. I don’t care if you’re so drunk you can’t feel the rocks, glass and burning tar from the sun that you’re walking on. You probably also can’t feel all the blood rushing from your cuts either. If you thought to put shorts on, you make the extra effort to throw on some flip-flops.

2. If you’re going to make a motorized cooler, ride it! You are easily the biggest dumbass in all of the NASCAR events at Watkins Glen I have seen over the last 8 years. I get that you are just so inventive creating a wagony type contraption that is hooked up to a lawnmower motor. And look, you can keep your cooler on there. However, what is the point of this contraption if you’re just going to pull the wagon around, exerting more effort than if it was just a roller-cooler. You put a seat on there, clearly it was meant to give rest to your weary feet. If that’s not why it was created, then I blame you, and you alone, for the crappy state our environment is in.

3. Listen to your children. For one thing, you haven’t completely corrupted them yet so you should enjoy every bonding moment you can with them. For another thing, they do not want to get caught in the next severe thunderstorm that brings hail without rain gear. Again. Just because the sun is out now does not mean it will stay like that. I know because I have the iPhone with the doppler radar so I can tell you exactly when it’s coming. So if your kid is begging you to be practical and buy the $4.50 poncho, put down the hoochie shirt you were going to buy for your mistress and get him the poncho.

4. Only buy t-shirts from the nice ladies in the Crystal Chords shirts. They want you to enjoy your NASCAR experience. And if they say it can only be enjoyed with 20 $6 t-shirts, you should listen to them. And then visit them again next year.

The photo gallery from the trip is now up. We’re still captioning them so depending on when you read this, there may or may not be details on them. So, uh, good luck.

In the meantime, I think these photos sum up our trip beautifully.

Here we have the most of what we saw of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. It’s a giant floating hot dog and Phish cups! It made me want to go in the museum, but the price and lack of photography privileges won out.

Welcome to the love nest, or Champagne Lodge. Try not to trip over the jacuzzi that fits 4 people or be confused by the zillions of mirrors.

A view of Chicago from the Sears Tower. I don’t know what any of these buildings are, but they’re really there and not a scale model as this photo might suggest.

Meet my cousin’s daughter, Maya, and his son, Ramsey, with their grandma, my Aunt Joanne. Maya is too cute for words so you know Jason was all over showing her new stuff, like letting her take photos with his camera that’s not even his. Also, it’s a little hard to tell from the angle but Ramsey has the Cassidy eyes and he is known to his mother’s family (they’re Palestinian) as “the blue-eyed baby,” which is a very good thing, I’m told.

I’m back, my vacation was awesome and if you followed my twittering journey, you read all about it. Jason is still toning the photos so those will be coming soon. To sum up the week, without getting too long and boring …

Sunday - we took off on our adventure. We got as far as Cleveland, which was a good half way point. On any given day, we never drove more than 6 hours, which was easy to handle. Jason picked a posh hotel in the theater district to stay at and the area seemed nice, but it was dead on a Sunday night. So, we went to dinner at Bricco and had fun gourmet pizzas that were awesome.

Monday - we toured Cleveland a bit. It’s a nice city but the most exciting thing (for me anyway) was the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. It’s a cool building on the lake, and we looked around a bit. But, since we weren’t staying long and they wouldn’t allow photography, we opted not to spend the $22 per person fee to get in and just took photos in the lobby and spent money in the gift shop. We walked around the pier for a bit, then in a desperate search for lunch landed at White Castle before hitting the road again for Chicago. We stayed at our awesome love nest, the Champagne Lodge. Wait til you see the pictures. This place was a total love nest. And there all these little cabins that look like quaint little houses from the outside. Almost like a Donna Reed show or something. Except the windows are not windows, but mirrors. And when you open the door, the black and white world gets a whole lot more colorful (think Pleasantville).

Tuesday - we actually explored Chicago. We went to the Sears Tower, Millennium Park where we saw the Bean and a cool water fountain and a funky snake-like pedestrian bridge. There was a symphony giving an open door rehearsal in the stadium which was pretty cool. We took the free trolley around to some sites and ended up on the other end of the park to see the Buckingham Fountain. We ate some deep dish and also met a friend of Jason’s and chatted with her for a while back at the Bean.

Wednesday - we went back to Chicago, where we saw the Water Tower, took a horse and carriage ride, strolled the Magnificent Mile (hello, Apple store) and took in the Navy Pier. We did ride the ferris wheel and Jason learned I don’t like heights when I’m in a small contraption swinging at 150 feet with nothing between me and the ground. We then met up with some old college friends at an Argentinian steakhouse restaurant. Dinner was good but service was slow so we managed to catch the last train back to Willowbrook where the hotel was.

Thursday - we said goodbye to the love nest and hit the road for Bloomington, Indiana. Many people know it as the home of Indiana University but I know it as the home of my Aunt Joanne and Uncle Walt, who I do not see nearly enough and wish I could spend time with more often than once every 4 or 5 years.

Friday - My aunt and uncle gave a tour of Bloomington and we stopped for breakfast with my cousin’s wife, Rana and their beautiful kids, Maya and Ramsey. Seeing how I’ve never met my cousins, we also went out to my cousin Barbara’s house, which is out in the country where she and her husband teach tennis lessons on their courts. After a wonderful visit, it was time to hit the road again. I was a little tired of endless corn fields, so we took the suggested scenic route along southern Indiana, where there are hills and headed toward Cincinnati before heading north. We stopped in Mansfield, Ohio for the night where we couldn’t find any hotel rooms because apparently, it was motorcycle race weekend. We finally found a place called Spruce Hill Inn and Cottages which is a ski resort. More cabins in the middle of nowhere, except it’s so in the middle of nowhere, there’s no cell service. And the cabins, while they tried to be love nesty, were more like a grandmother’s guest room. At least they had a jacuzzi in the room, which was good enough for us.

Saturday - we headed back home to Elmira. But along the way, we stopped in Salamanca, NY for the Seneca-Iroquios National Museum. I was hoping maybe a casino stop would happen too but the museum turned out to be way more interesting than I thought it would be, so we got right back on the road for home afterwards. Finally, after driving 1700 miles, we were home.

I’ll let you know when the photos are up.

It was looking a little scary for a few days but as of right now, I can say that my vacation next week is back on! Jason and I have a whole week off - together, even - and have very few plans on the table.

We had originally planned to use the week to visit Korea, but that idea fell apart on us so we decided to the keep the week anyway and do something fun. We asked ourselves if there was any city or region within reasonable driving distance that we had never seen or haven’t seen in a long time that we wanted to revisit. And we chose Chicago.

I think Jason has only been there once or twice. I went there once with Jason for a wedding. We tried to plan a few extra days for sight-seeing but it didn’t quite work out for us. I got as far as a day at the Navy Pier and most of the wedding before getting really sick with a not so fun case of ketoacidosis. I spent most of the rest of the weekend in the hotel room either sleeping or throwing up while Jason watched pay-per-view movies and called my mother in a panic over what to do about me. So I don’t really have fond memories of Chicago and I think the city needs a chance to redeem itself.

So, I found a fun hotel to stay at. It’s a little out of the way, but the reviews were great and the rooms were the right price. I’m calling it the “Love Nest” but it’s actually called the Champagne Lodge. We’re going to stay there Monday-Thursday and then swing through Bloomington, Indiana to see my aunt and uncle before heading back to Elmira.

This is the part where you come in. We intentionally have no plans outside of this basic outline and purposely plan to take 2 days to drive out and 2 days (3, if needed) to drive back just so we can stop at fun or interesting places along the way. My question to you, my knowledgeable readers, is what should we do or see or visit? Is there a food I simply MUST try or an experience I’ve been missing out on? I want to know. Anything is up for consideration, as long as it’s sort of on the path from Elmira to Chicago to Bloomington to Elmira (so, Ohio, Indiana, western Pennsylvania).

I’ll have the laptop so I can blog, but it might be more fun to just follow me on Twitter.

This past weekend, we were hit with Indy racing fever up in Watkins Glen. The media is all afrenzied with the drivers and covering an event that basically builds its own city at Watkins Glen International from the fans that come in. And if that weren’t bad enough, the Crystal Chords are there too, selling t-shirts and discount merchandise. It’s our big fundraiser every year; we get a big trailer in a prime location and taunt fans with $6 tshirts from last year’s events; we get 10% of the profits so it’s in our best interest to sell sell sell.

Now, I’ve been up there many times in various roles to work or cover the NASCAR race but only once before for the IRL race. And my, what a difference a league name makes. I realize NASCAR brings in more people (and more money for the CCs) but I have officially decided that should I ever become a racing fan, it will be for the IRL. And here’s why:

1. The camping. As we rode through the camping sections, it was noticeably empty compared to what I’m used to. But that wasn’t the only thing. The people were camping, not partying til 6 am, not decorating every inch of their site in driver and driver’s sponsor memorabilia, not screaming at the girls walking by, and they all looked to be sleeping in tents and rvs as opposed to a couch they found on the side of the road that they will probably just soak in beer and torch after the weekend is over.

2. The vendors. Across the street street from our trailer was a bookstore and a vendor selling miniature antique cars. Next to us was a photographer selling matted framed photos of the race. You think they would be there at NASCAR? No way, it’s all in your face, loud-mouth, loud music, lots of flash. Not that there’s a problem with it, and it was certainly present at IRL, but it wasn’t all low brow stuff, you have high brow options too.

3. The people. Ok, I do have to admit that NASCAR does have a slight edge on the people-watching. But the thing is, as wild and crazy as they are, they’re all the same wild and crazy people. At IRL, only 10% of the fans fall under wild and crazy dumbasses. And that’s a-ok with me. But seriously, I don’t care how drunk you are, put a t-shirt on because you do NOT have the body to get away with it. And I’m talking men and women here. Although the guy who walked around with the 32 on his chest because that was the only place he applied sunscreen does get props; it was stenciled on there. I actually asked him how he did it and he told me he used duct tape and has been doing it every year since 2000. Um….congratulations?

Anyway, my point is that there are other types of people besides the crazy drunk rednecks. And most of them wear clothes. That fit. And are comfortable and/or appropriate for being out in the hot summer sun all day. Some of them bring their dogs, the kids don’t look like they’re babysitting their parents and a lot of them are drinking water. They know how to show their love of their favorite drivers. Which brings me to …

4. The drivers. Now I don’t really know much about Danica Patrick. But I have to say, I absolutely applaud that in every gigantic poster of her and all over her trailer, she is wearing her race gear. Buttoned all the way up. Just like every other driver. She’s not trying to be all Playboy bunny or fake boobs just to get attention. She’s there to race and race fair. They all race fair. The race on Sunday had a lot of crashes. And the S-G reported that all the drivers who caused those crashes publicly or personally apologized to the drivers they took down with them. That’s just classy. Unlike NASCAR, where all the teams point fingers and tempers flare and oh, the drama. The IRL drivers understand they are not just drivers but also role models. And it shows.

And finally …

5. The atmosphere. WGI set up stages all over the track with musical performers, all local acts. On Saturday, Jana Losey set up right across from us so you know I was in heaven. On Sunday, Virgil Cain was there, rocking out. It just made selling t-shirts so much more enjoyable when I could dance to a beat and sing along to some sweet tunes. Then, there was a marching band, the Statesmen marching through; we didn’t get to hear them actually play, but they marched through with the drum corps going and you couldn’t help but get excited (we were totally like little kids - “it’s a parade!!!!!!!”).

Now, am I going to be a groupie anytime soon? No. The scary drunk sunburned guy with no teeth who hit on me in the parking lot while I was trying to leave reminded me that I am cursed with the crazy person magnet gene and frankly, I don’t need to make it worse by going to the one place where all the crazy people gather. So, I’ll just sell my t-shirts and get the hell out of there when my shift is over but at least I wasn’t bored. And I’m left knowing that there is some sanity left in this world. Even at the race track.

One of the best traditions in Elmira is Wisner Market. Really, it’s a Farmers’ Market in Wisner Park, but who wants to say all that? Every Thursday in summer, the park comes alive with vendors and entertainers. The city closes the street dividing the park and everyone who works nearby walks over for lunch. Or for the goodies. Mmmmm….chocolate browny popcorn.

Since today was the first day of the Market this year, I managed to pull myself away from my desk to head over there. It was almost a nice day, aka, it wasn’t raining and the sun was kind of out. Instead of my popcorn, I opted to get some cinnamon buns from the Mennonites (they have the best bread).

While I was deciding which buns to get, the woman next to me was getting her change back for her purchase. Her change came to something and 50 cents. The girl behind the table handed her the change and this woman looks at it and says, “don’t you have any quarters?” The girl smiled and politely said no, they were out. Then the woman got all huffy about all the *gasp* dimes! in her hand. So, the girl counted out the dimes for her. “..4..5.. that’s 50 cents.” She was being so nice and polite but you could tell this girl wanted to run and cry from the looks this woman was giving her. The woman then left but I was so embarrassed to be anywhere near her for fear someone might think I was actually associated with this woman. When it was my turn, I got my something and 25 cents back in change and gave her a big thank you when she gave me 2 dimes and a nickel.

Now, seriously, why would someone pull attitude with the Mennonites? Because she gave you 5 whole 5 dimes instead of 2 quarters? Were you mad that you couldn’t do the math in your head? Or did you think the girl was lying to you? Or are you so freakin’ lazy that you might have to put more objects into your pocket for your walk back to your office? Heaven forbid the Mennonites try to crimp your lifestyle. At the Farmers’ Market.

We had dinner last night at Beijing Garden with some friends. While I drove around Wisner Park, looking for a parking spot, we saw a bunch on protesters on 2 different street corners, each holding signs and waving to passing cars.

On one side of the street were the anti-gay marriage protesters. On the other side were the pro-gay marriage protesters. Actually, as I understand it, the anti- protesters have been there a while with their “God hates gay people” crap so a teenage girl decide to stand out there with a “God loves everyone” sign and it inspired a bunch more people to join her (and I think it goes without saying that girl has entered my People Who Rock hall of fame).

I tried to read all of their signs but I still have to obey the laws of the road, but I did notice one guy had infiltrated the antis and was holding a sign that said. “Who farted?” I was highly amused by the number of cars honking their support. And then everyone would cheer. Now, how are they all supposed to know which side of the street the car was honking for?

As we met up with our friends for dinner, we pointed out the protesters to them, and the one who lives in the building above the restaurant said, “wait, is today Thursday? Oh yeah, today is gay marriage day. Tuesday is for the war protesters.” Seriously? Elmira is scheduling it’s protests now?