Author Archives: bluedepth

iOS 5

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Since October 12th at 1pm when iOS 5 and iCloud were officially released by Apple I’ve been toying around with both products. I have a first generation iPad and a iPhone 4 with Verizon. I was able to grab the update from Apple at work and begin my install.

To set this scene properly, I should also state for the record that I have on all my machines, both at home and at work, Mac OSX Snow Leopard. I have resisted Mac OSX Lion because of it’s radical change in interface, some security concerns, and a general sense that if Snow Leopard isn’t broken, and Lion doesn’t bring anything new to the party, why fix what isn’t broken?

So once the download of iOS 5 for both my iPhone and my iPad were complete I started to upgrade my iPhone. The entire process worked well, however here at work we all use multiple Apple ID’s to manage apps and ownership of devices. Apple has changed the policy, so it’s just one Apple ID now, which at first filled us with trepidation. Turns out it’s not as bad as it could have been, and for that we feel like we have dodged a bullet. The install for my iPhone worked acceptably well and I was back up and working about an hour later. The update for my iPad was a bloody mess. The iOS 5 updater hosed my iPad, emptied it all out of all the data and even hosed all of my backups! It wasn’t the end of my world since I’ve been slowly moving all of my data to other cloud services such as Box.net and Dropbox. There wasn’t any loss, really, only a loss of my time and general inconvenience. I was able to get all my devices up and running shortly afterwards to my satisfaction.

Then I started to experience iCloud and ran into some problems. Apple rushed all of these products out without having their most-installed OS ready for it. This boggles my mind. I can accept that Snow Leopard doesn’t have an iCloud app yet and that Lion does, but what I don’t get is how iCloud is under-represented on the web and for common services we all know are running in iCloud. Things like web access to every aspect of iCloud, it should be a drive, it should have a place to access the Photo Stream. There is access for mail and calendar and so on, but it’s only fifty percent of what iCloud stores. Then there is no reference to IMAP addresses for the mail, no CalDAV addresses for the Calendar, and no CardDAV addresses for Address Book. These are of course all workarounds to enable Snow Leopard users to access iCloud. What bothers me most is that Apple doesn’t care about Snow Leopard users anymore. I turned on Photo Stream and noticed that there really wasn’t any way for me to get the Photos I put there, out of there anymore using any of the technology I already have. So I turned the feature off. As it goes, I was initially very enthusiastic about iCloud, but as I saw what it was all about and how Apple treats it, it’s just so much inter-device glue infrastructure and frankly, between my iPad and my iPhone, the glue is worth a short smile and a shrug. So this entire “cymbals and fanfare” around iCloud turned out to be a teeny-tiny firecracker that once it ignited, sounded more pitiful than exciting.

What did I really get out of iOS 5? The new notification center is marvelous. It is way past time for this. Online backup to iCloud is certainly good, but I may never really need it, and since I’m poisoned by my last experience with “Apple iOS Backups” in regards to my iPad, you can excuse me if I don’t stand up and cheer. iMessage is just BBM on the iPhone, so Apple beat RIM to the punch. It’s okay, it works, but it doesn’t fill me with fuzzy feelings. Behind all these weak good vibes from iOS 5 stands my biggest beef with Apple. They took Siri away! A week before iOS 5 was released I downloaded the free Siri app for my iPhone 4. It worked acceptably well. Then Apple pulled a huge whammy, Siri was no longer available for my iPhone 4 and I would have to get an iPhone 4S to use Siri. But it worked well on my iPhone 4! Why not include Siri on the iPhone 4 iOS 5 update? Why Apple? I feel cheated. Cheated by the company that I root and rah-rah for and this is a rather jagged little pill to swallow. I don’t see how the Apple A4 chip can’t cope with Siri’s information and how the A5 chip can. I feel like it’s a gyp, a cash grab from Apple. A way for them to shaft all of us iPhone 4 owners. After I celebrated the iPhone 4 on Verizon, now I’m actively looking forward to upgrading my device and that rankles! It’s a dick move Apple, and you know it.

So, iOS 5 and iCloud. Lion. All said it feels like Apple is slipping into a funk. It’s very reminiscent of the funk they were in when they dismissed Steve Jobs, and then when he returned, the funk dissipated. Now that he’s dead, the funk has returned. It may have been that Apple was really great only because of Steve Jobs and now that he’s gone, Apple is going to tumble, aimless and full of dicks trying to all grab at the company rudder and making a general mess of things. I can’t really feel a lot of gee-whiz-rah-rah about iOS 5 or iCloud.

One thing that also just occurred to me, and is another bit of evidence of Apple’s dick moves is the lack of four-finger gesture control on the first generation iPad. There was a hack to turn this feature on and it worked, now it doesn’t and the hack is gone as well. Not being able to have this neat feature on my first generation iPad stings. It feels a lot like the whole case with Siri. It worked before, and now it doesn’t. What a dick move, Apple.

So, should you upgrade to iOS 5 and use iCloud? Sure. Why not? It’s free. You get what you pay for.

Biltmore Estate, Asheville, North Carolina – September 2011

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Last week, Scott and I went to visit my mother and stepfather in Rock Hill, South Carolina to celebrate my stepfathers 80th Birthday. We drove the whole way from Michigan and it took about 14 hours to get there. We were with my nephew, Steven Ryerson and his wife Lacy Hall Ryerson. We enjoyed moms wonderful cooking and had a wonderful time. That Sunday, Steven and Lacy had to return home to Virginia Beach and I have to admit that it was very nice seeing that part of my family. I haven’t seen Steven since 2004, and before that, since he was a little kid, the year itself is rather lost to my foggy memories. I’ve missed out on all of my nephew and nieces lives as children and now know them as adults. It’s quite akin to the feeling you have when a soap opera character you knew as a child has become a young adult in just two seasons. Wow they grow up fast!

That Monday, we all awoke early and loaded into the car and headed to Asheville, North Carolina, about two hours northwest of Rock Hill. We arrived at the Biltmore Estate, which was built in 1895 by George Washington Vanderbilt for his family.

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Here is the main structure. To call it a home is rather inaccurate, it is a chateauesque castle! The building is immense and carries with it a presence of awesomeness that simply floods over you and overwhelms your senses. The grounds are impeccable, the building itself has been conserved amazingly well for its age and a majority of the contents have also been conserved (preserved?) expertly by the Vanderbilt family. It is a private residence still, and the fee is rather steep to gain access, an adult pass is $55 for the pleasure of wandering this amazing place, the buildings and the grounds. Upon entry from the front doors you are immediately inundated with the grand scale of it all, especially some of the interior,

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This arboretum is where you land after first entering this castle. The room has a glass window cap which floods the entire area in natural daylight. There are hallways that stretch on in every direction from this central arboretum. Once you stop here, you proceed on to the main dining room, then on to the various rooms, bedrooms, and special purpose rooms that populate this castle. Amongst the first things you come across is the Loggia, which runs for a good portion of the rear length of the castle and is a covered overlook to the grounds that are behind Biltmore,

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All that you see in this picture was planned. Every tree and shrubbery was put there by human hands. The designer of the landscape, Olmsted knew that the grounds would start with a human-meddling look to them, but he counted on the natural growth and development of this landscape to transform a forest-on-purpose to what looks like a natural forest that just happened to play out behind Biltmore and roll along under the Loggia. The entire property is 8000 acres so pretty much everything you see in the picture above is a part of Biltmore, and so was planned.

When we exited the Loggia, we proceeded through the various rooms and it is obvious that Vanderbilt money was considered inexhaustible. These are after all the royalty of America and they made sure their humble abode shined with every ounce of prize and finery. The library is breathtaking, with two floors joined by a carved wrought-iron spiral staircase and filled with built-into-the-wall bookshelves holding original works in eight languages. As you tour, the impressiveness rots through your mind like drain cleaner. There is so much here to see, so many treasures, so much history. It’s a lot like folding The Louvre Museum and Versailles together and smoothing it out in rural North Carolina.

As I passed through GW Vanderbilt’s bedroom it struck me just how much this “home” is built to overwhelm. It contains nothing that is ugly or unsightly. Everything here is a beautiful treasure, the carvings, the artwork, the tapestries, from the floor to the ceiling and quite often even the floor and ceiling are in and of themselves works of art. Knowing all this, seeing all this, knowing it was open to the public and for a fee you could tour this overwhelming monument to wealth, excess, and ultimately the deadly sin of greed it was both a breathtaking experience of beauty and a gut-wrenching filthy display of greed, vanity, and pride.

I was moved by the artwork, overwhelmed by the library and the dining room. By all the art loaded into this building and while walking through what is called the “Halloween Room” which is actually a part of the basement that was painted by the Vanderbilt children in Halloween motifs a new thought struck me. For all of the amazingness of it, for all the wonder and grandeur, and all the other words that indicate excess and stunning I was assailed by the lesson of Biltmore, for it does have one. That lesson is, “You cannot take it with you.” GW Vanderbilt is dead. He could not take his treasures with him. All the beautiful things that line this place are kept things. Yes, the Vanderbilt family still owns Biltmore, but it has evolved out of being a home and into being a spectacle. It’s a warehouse for sad objects that are kept, the beauty concentrated in this one place and stuffed behind an entrance fee for a for-profit management company.

I earlier made a connection between Biltmore and The Louvre. Both are palaces, grand chateauesque castles. One of them is in the new world and one in the old world. There is a fundamental difference, The Louvre honors what it keeps and is open to the public for the betterment of everyone who visits. Biltmore keeps what it keeps and is open to the public, and benefits the rich family who maintains it. Both are gilded cages for beautiful things, except one shines just a little bit brighter.

In the blazing light of excess and splendor it struck me right between the eyes, the inanity of keeping things. Yes, all of what is in Biltmore is beautiful, impeccably conserved, and it contains many wonderful things, but it in the end turns the stomach. Too much sweetness and wonder all gathered up becomes saccharine and sickening. The flood of overwhelming beauty keeps a lot of this sickness out of your mind while you are actually there, exposed to it all. Eventually when you come down from the high and begin to think about the why and wherefore behind what you experienced, only then do you feel your skin crawl, and then the shame sets upon you. Or at least it did to me. In 1895, and for the intervening years until 1930 this place, Biltmore, was the private residence of people who one could argue fully realized a kind of American Dream.

The Vanderbilts didn’t really earn their vast sums. Many of them inherited their fortunes. This took the vigor out of the family, sapped them of fight, strength, and in many ways, it also sapped them of honor. Yes they were wealthy beyond thought, but they were too comfortable, too couched. Too much. It wasn’t that any of them actually had to start from rags, they stood on a giant moneymaking machine and rode it through to the start of the 20th Century. This Biltmore Estate is a testament to a kind of gut-wrenching disgustingness. All the beautiful things jailed to die very long deaths of monomaniacal keeping. It wasn’t until the cork of the West fell out of the bottom during the Great Depression did the Vanderbilt family decide that Biltmore should be made open to the public. I can only imagine back in 1930, with all the unemployment and all the hungry people, in the face of all that suffering that it had to make their stomachs do backflips when they sat in the Tapestry Room, looking out the windows, past the Loggia, to the 8000 acres of planned woodland. Then they did the only thing they could bear to do with their deep guilt, and that is secure the property and open it up and let the rank and file proles wander through. A little scrap, and an even more abstracted version of “You cannot take it with you”, for as the Vanderbilts died and couldn’t take Biltmore with them, the lame proles who wander through like cattle can’t really take what they see with them, except in their memories.

But for all of this lofty talk, there is more to show. Of course, what castle would be complete without statuary?

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During our visit to Biltmore, another hallmark of American Plenty was on display. Tiffany and Company had a display of some of their lamps:

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And finally, one last parting glance at Biltmore:

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It is a beautiful place, the Vanderbilts should be thanked for preserving such a thing and all the wonders it contains. Most of my comments come from a very deep place that finds this kind of excess troubling. While the Vanderbilts wanted for nothing and arguably couldn’t even get rid of their money if they wanted to, there were millions of others who were clustered around cookfires and standing in long lines looking for work and struggling with the ache in their empty stomachs, while people like the Vanderbilts went for a swim in their indoor lit-and-heated swimming pool. The disparity leads to despair, at least for me. How much good could have been done if Biltmore wasn’t built, but the funds that might have gone into it and all the things in it went to feeding the teeming masses of unemployed hungry? How can anyone with a straight face declare that obnoxious wealth is defensible when there are hungry children clustering around cookfires with their unemployed parents? It’s the heartache of the liberals. This place, Biltmore, is a shining example of why I hate rich people with every single fiber of my being. So wealthy that life lacks any challenge, then faced with people who know nothing but challenge? The question comes in my mind: “How dare you!” and this I like to think will drive the coming conflict between the rich and poor in the coming years. Like all inequalities, it will be resolved with time and suffering. At least Biltmore will stand, perhaps as a place to conserve beautiful things, and maybe as a symbol of wretched excess and the hazards of allowing greed to overwhelm humanity.

Reflexive Response

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An hour or so ago Scott told me that a Marine Corps recruitment detachment went to a gay resource center somewhere in Nebraska.

I was immediately upset, sure I was going to hear about gay bashing, or some unfortunate gun-related injuries or fatalities. The first words I said after hearing Scott mention this was “Oh God, they’re hunting” and all I could think of were all the regular citizens about to be victimized by “The Military” out of control.

Turns out, they were just recruiting. After the end of DADT, there apparently wasn’t any ill intent.

I got to thinking about my response, that I assume that if the word “Military” or any of it’s synonyms are used, like any of the branch service names, that innocent citizens are at risk of being hurt or killed. My attitude towards the military is really close to my attitude about police. I have no say in the powers that society has bestowed upon them, but I really distrust both. While the police are a general nuisance, a kind of endurable pervasive threat, the military is somehow worse. Perhaps it’s because of what we ask these people to do for a living, hunt and kill others on our behalf, that when they come home, we can’t shake the feeling that their original mandate to kill hasn’t stopped.

I still really don’t understand why anyone who is gay or lesbian wants to serve in either structure, Police or Military. Why walk into such threat and general unpleasantness if you can help it? You know that they don’t like who and what you are, so why endure it if you don’t have to? The same reason you don’t walk into any southern baptist church on Sunday (technically any church, but I digress). Why expose yourself to risk if you don’t have to?

I think that these attitudes will stay with me, likely because I’ve culturally iconified military and police homophobia and bigotry to such an extent that I can’t think of them as anything but threats to my happiness and safety. It’s very similar to the homophobia, bigotry, and hate pouring out of religions. I wouldn’t be caught dead in spitting (or stoning) distance of a church, just as much as I’d avoid a military recruitment detail. You don’t leap the fence at the zoo to pet the lions, tigers, and bears!

I’m sure this entire post is going to upset the usual suspects who don’t like my attitude about the police, the military, or churches. To them, all I can say is a lifetime of menace has done a number on me, and other people who feel as I do. You may not like it, and that’s too bad. You can’t really undo thirty years of menace and fear just by repealing an unpleasant law. This is going to take a few generations to work itself out. I wouldn’t hold my breath waiting…

Service Follow-up

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Randi, I can only assume that your silence-in-reply on my previous email to you means that what you write in the quoted email here is actually a regularly scheduled script that runs when one of your employees closes out a service visit report that has an email attached to it.

Embarrassing.

Oh, and by not replying to my earlier email, I’m pretty much done wasting my time communicating with you. This will be the last communication from me to you.

Have a happy life.

On Sep 20, 2011, at 10:08 AM, Randi DeSantis wrote:

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Thank you for your recent visit to our service department. It is our hope that we were able to service your vehicle to your complete satisfaction. We strive to provide you with the best customer service possible, and I hope that this was the case at your last visit. If for some reason this was not the case, I want to get involved to get that corrected. Please call or email me to let me know what I can do to assist! We never want to leave a customer unhappy with their experience here.

Thank you again for choosing Maple Hill Auto Group for your service needs. We look forward to assisting you again!

Best Regards,

Randi DeSantis
Customer Service Director
Maple Hill Auto Group
rdesantis
(269) 342-6600 X 541

PS We encourage as much feedback as possible- and want the world to know how we are doing. If you would like to comment on your experience, please do so at any of these links!

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My 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe – Check Engine Light

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Randi,

At the beginning of this week I fueled up my 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe and everything was normal. Two days after that the Check Engine light illuminated. The behavior of the vehicle was unaffected and so I figured I just didn’t secure the gas cap properly. I brought it to Maple Hill Auto, as I have for all my service, (loyal to a fault) and they performed an oil change and cleared the check engine light after testing the vehicle. I paid $13 for the oil change and $45 for the repair. I drove the vehicle away and later that night the Check Engine light came back. I drove the vehicle to Maple Hill and they told me that they were going to change out the Vapor Canister and that they wanted to keep it overnight. They claimed they tested the system 3 times and the light had stayed off.

Today, while driving from my workplace, which is Walwood Hall on Western’s East Campus to my Gym on Stadium Drive, nearing the intersection of Drake and Stadium the Check Engine Light came back on.

I am going to drive the vehicle to Maple Hill tomorrow morning at 7:30am and hand it over to them. I am in a quandary over this, this will be the third time that Maple Hill has attempted to fix my 2007 Hyundai Santa Fe and I am nearly out of faith, patience, and understanding on this. I think we really ought to have a sit-down meeting and discuss the path we should take.

The ownership of this vehicle has not been without it’s unpleasantness. Total Brake system overhauls for $600, made more bitter when I learn that Hyundai overpacks the pads and nearly guarantees pad and rotor failure. Another $600 extortive boondoggle surrounding the 60,000 mile service which includes a charge for checking the fuel system when it doesn’t have any serviceable parts and ultimately comes down to an A/C check and a replacement air filter. I did it myself. Then there is the $400 loss surrounding a tie-rod end that I was under the false impression that my extended warranty “should” have covered and come to find out that it wasn’t. The company that stands behind the extended warranty that Hyundai resells hid behind their fine-print and screwed your customer on a repair that really should have been covered.

So here we stand. I own a car with a extended warranty hosted by a slimy shiftless fine-print dodging company and now I’ve got repetitive failures and nobody seems to be able to fix the problem properly. Randi, I’m quite tired of handing Maple Hill Auto my credit card and there is only so much I’m willing to take before I have no choice but become the ugly angry customer that I really don’t want to become.

Tomorrow at 7:30 I will be bringing my Santa Fe in for service. Please let me know when you would like to have our sit-down meeting.

Thank You

Andy McHugh – 269-216-4597

Paris Day 1

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LiveJournal 11/22/2003 –

Paris Day 1

Nov 13 – 5:20 Central Time

We have boarded the 767-300 bound for Paris, France. The aircraft is relatively full of passengers. The leading thing I’ve come to see so far is how very fast the spoken french is that surrounds me, from the other passengers to the french-speaking public address system.

Nov 14 – 11:11 French Standard Time (GMT+1)

Nous Arrivons! 🙂 We discovered that the nearest metro stop is closed but that only means a short jaunt down to the next station. Our room at the St. Jacques is very small but wonderfully cozy.

We discovered to our chagrin that at certain times the RER train that shuttles people from Roissy Airport (CDG) progresses along it’s route to Gare Du Nord in a non-stop fashion. We were on that particular non-stop train. After getting off at Chatelet we discovered to our irritation that Paris Metro has seen fit to close the Maubert-Mutualite metro stop, which would have put us within a 100-meter stones throw from our Hotel. As it was, we had to walk a little to get to our hotel and once we dropped off our bags and washed up a little from the cramped airplane flight to Roissy, we headed down to Le Musee Louvre. Along the way we caught some great sights of Paris, some architecture, some of the Ponts, and lots and lots of artwork at Le Louvre.

This was how we planned Paris. We found a big folding map of the city and bought some posterboard and some thumbtacks, then we mounted the map on the board and tacked down each location we wanted to visit, allowing us to visually see how all the attractions we were interested in related to each other. Instead of wrapping around Paris by Arrondisement we discovered that we were primarily Seine-bound with side trips to Marais, Montmartre, and Denfert-Rocherau.

This was our hotel room, we pretty much arrived, exploded our belongings in the room like mad fiends and tried our best to rescue the first day for Le Louvre. As Hotels go, St. Jacques is very tiny, but instead of taking the standard American pig-headedness about things, Europe IS TINY ANYHOW. Not only is space at a higher premium than it is in Tokyo but many Europeans are on the whole, not exceptionally vast in size, unlike Americans. Also I would hazard that Americans grew up with further limits on personal space, we need much more of it than the Europeans do – Americans need 2 meters around them being empty to feel comfortable, Europeans need about 10 cm. 🙂 Anyhow, while in Rome, do as the Romans… so we put up and enjoyed what we had.

The view from our 1st floor (1 floor above street level) room wasn’t the most moving of vistas. We were staying on the left bank in the Rue des Ecoles neighborhood and this was pretty much all that was to be seen, little shops, little awnings… even if the view didn’t inspire poetry – it was Paris. This salient fact took about 2 days to sink in, that I was actually IN Paris…

Scott spotted this fellow. My camera doesn’t have any zoom function on it, but if you look dead center there is a little figure above the shop-windows in the middle of the frame. This was a makeshift sculpted man-figure which looked like he was “growing” out of the surrounding building. I named him the Verdant Figure. Next time we visit and I take digital pictures it will be done with a vastly superior camera.

To get to Le Louvre from the Left Bank you’ve gotta cross bridges! We crossed on Pont Chance but we got a chance to get these pictures of Pont Neuf, right before we found our way to Le Louvre.

Walking up and through the exterior of Le Louvre dropped us off in the courtyard inside the huge palace that is the Louvre itself. It’s very important to note the style of architecture here because it becomes important soon.

This is why noticing the architecture is important. Off in the distance you see the sudden shift from classical shapes to what I.M. Pei created in the dead center of the courtyard of Le Louvre. This immense glass pyramid looms like a huge figure and it almost succeeds in stealing the thunder away from the surrounding palace facade.

Wandering through Le Musee Louvre we saw an endless parade of famous and decidedly not-french pieces of artwork. I felt betwixt about this, all these priceless pieces of human history from all over the world and only a few of the pieces are honestly French, but most of them are in France. On one hand, yay for the fact that there are people to care for these precious objects, and on the other hand, boo for essentially grave-robbing and carting off huge chunks of priceless artwork like some selfish impudent child.

That particular argument left aside, we did get several photo-op chances with some of the worlds most lovely pieces of artwork. Scott is standing in front of Venus de Milo. The way they framed this sculpture made it alternately difficult and rewarding to photograph properly. To Scott’s left are 2 casements of floor-to-ceiling french windows and in this picture, right behind Venus’s head is a very bright spotlight mounted from the ceiling. I had to get just the right angle and in this picture I found it. The lights and the weather outside helped create a inner glow to Venus that if I was able to use flash I probably wouldn’t have seen as my flash tends to wash away a lot of the warmer oranges and reds in photos.

One thing, about this photo-op that struck us both as very odd was the sheer number of Asians that plagued this statue. The ability for me to get an unobstructed shot of Scott in front of Venus de Milo could only happen when this huge mass of Asian people were forcibly removed by their tour manager from the scene. Off to my right there were three Asian men battling with a tripod and fumbling with their own cameras. Nowhere else in the entire Louvre did we see any exhibit draw on a particular group of people – for some inexplicable reason Asians apparently like to cluster around this one statue.

The Egypt exhibit at the Louvre was so full of wonders and sights that we quickly became quite numb to the display of all the tablets and figures and sculptures. This was one of the first tablets we photographed. Out of deference to the French and to these priceless pieces of artwork I didn’t use my flash on my camera and many of my pictures did suffer from it, as my camera lengthened exposure time to capture enough light to get a good image. Many of my photos after that were all rendered a slightly bit blurry, as there was a catch-22 in place, no flash, no tripods – not that I had my tripod on me, I didn’t. Not using the flash did give me peace of mind knowing that I wouldn’t have this garish flash-glare ever present in my photographed works. I like these series of photos because they help show off objects that were set up to glow under their lighting, you can sort of see that glow in the photo.

This is where it all began. I was stunned to learn that the actual Codex Hammurabi was on temporary display at Le Louvre. This basalt pillar contains the text of Hammurabi’s codified laws. To the left and right of this wonderful piece of human history is a helpful guide to what the codex actually says in both English and French. I was lucky to get this shot because this particular piece was being mobbed by curious french people who didn’t know enough to get out of a camera frame. The lady to my right was particularly tricky because she enjoyed the wobbling from left to right to make out the text on the codex itself. It felt awesome to be next to an object so profoundly old as this one.

This is Amor and Psyche. I consider this to be the best photo I have ever taken with my digital camera. Not only do I enjoy the myth behind Amor and Psyche, and all the psychological underpinnings to the story (which served as a good portion of my most memorable readings back in SUNY Buffalo when I was in school). This was one of the few pieces that I knew I had to see to make my Paris visit complete.

You can’t possibly miss this figure when visiting Le Louvre. At the top of the primary staircase is Nike, Winged Victory. The only thing that could have helped would have been more ambient light for photographs. Off to my right of this picture is a huge display including an artists reconstruction of Winged Victory’s form before she lost her arms and head to time. Evidently someone discovered a coin with Winged Victory’s complete visage pressed into the metal of the coin, then the French government paid an artist to draw a likeness-representation of what Winged Victory might have looked like when the artist who completed her was just finished. What you never expect is that she had a sword. Unlike the previous picture this one is so massive it almost can’t be done justice in photographs.

This is the lady everyone comes to Le Louvre to see. La Jaconde, The Mona Lisa. Le Louvre does a good job at psyching you up for seeing this worldwide treasure, a long hallway of wonderful paintings and sculptures warming you up for entry into Leonardo DaVinci’s style of artwork line the entry gallery and you have to walk about 500 yards to get down to where they keep this particular painting. When I turned the corner the first thing that came into my head was “Wow, there it is!” and the second thing “Wow, it’s tiny!”. I was raised on popular images of this painting, closeups and representations in movies that this painting was some vast 5×8 monstrosity requiring two men to carry. The truth is, The Mona Lisa is not as big as popular culture leads her on to be. However, what this painting does have is gravitas – the mysterious smile, the knowledge that it’s a truly unique item, and the adoration it receives from the public is palpable. This picture gets about as much eye-time as any of the Christian iconography in Le Louvre, a fact that tickles me pink.

Paris Plans

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LiveJournal 11/12/2003 –

The plan of attack: 

Four days in Paris France, 10 hours of usable time before the 9-to-5 world closes after sundown… On with the show!

Day One – Friday:

Le Louvre Museum
Musee D’Orsay

Day Two – Saturday:

Hier, Ad’jourhui, Demain – Fancy shop Scott has his eye on…
Musee Caravalle
Musee Picasso
Centre Pompidou
Moulin Rouge
S. Dali Museum
Sacre Coeur
Bibliotheque Nationale

Day Three – Sunday:

Notre Dame
St. Chapelle
Tour of the Catacombs
Musee Rodin
Asian Art Exhibit
Eiffel Tower
Arch De Triomphe
Musee Monet

Day Four – Monday: 

Sculpture en Plain Air
Musee de Cluny
Cemetery Crawl (Oscar Wilde, Jim Morrison, and set to tounge-in-cheek sing a love song to Abelard and Heloise…)
Other things if we can fit them…

Flights :)

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LiveJournal 11/10/2003 –

From Kzoo to Chicago:
Train: 351 
From: Kalamazoo on 11/13/03
To: Chicago on 11/13/03
Departs: 10:39am 11/13/03 
Arrives: 12:26pm 11/13/03

From Chicago to Paris:
Flight: American Airlines Flight 42
Depart: ORD Terminal 3 on 11/13/03 at 5:30pm
Arrive: CDG AEROGARE 2 TERMINAL A on 11/14/03 at 8:35am
Seats: 29J, 29H (Boeing 767 Jet)
Meal: Dinner / Continental Breakfast

PARIS YAY!

From Paris to Chicago:
Flight: American Airlines Flight 41
Depart: CDG – AEROGARE 2 TERMINAL A 11/18/03 2:30pm
Arrive: ORD – Terminal 5 11/18/03 4:45pm
Seats: 11G, 11E (Boeing 767 Jet)
Meal: Lunch / Snack / Brunch

From Chicago to Kzoo:
Train: 352
From: Chicago on 11/19/03 
To: Kalamazoo on 11/19/03
Departs: 2:10pm 11/19/03
Arrives: 5:31pm 11/19/03


Ducks in a Row…

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LiveJournal 11/8/2003 –

Paris is coming… we fly away on 11/13/03 at 4ish from Chicago. So far we’ve got most of what we talked about done:

1) Cat sitter is set for the 15th, maybe we can talk her into also stopping by on the 18th too…
2) Metro and Museum passes are bought, all we need now is to wait for shipping
3) Train tix have been bought, I had to spend an extra $20 for last-minute ordering, gah!
4) Hotel is all set
5) Airfare is all set

All we have to do now is set up a schedule of what we want to visit and actually GO and I have to get travelers cheques from AAA.

Paris Travel Plans

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LiveJournal 10/22/2003 –

Since we’ve passed the point of no return for France we’re starting to consider what it takes to get out to Chicago to get our flight and then get back from Chicago to Kalamazoo. As it turns out we can catch the train into Chicago on the 13th, have lunch there, then get on the plane to Paris at 5:30. Getting back is a whole ‘nother thing. On the 18th the only train leaving Chicago does so at 6pm. I’m not willing to land at 4:45 to catch a train at 6:00 when you’re talking about Chicago. So factoring in travel I have to take another day off from work – all in all it’s no big problem it’s just a wee pirahna nibbling away…