This is where I am right now. Just saying.

I am clearly a big fan of order.

So, as Danny and I had to present at IEEE VisWeek 2008: InfoVis (below), We thought we might as well make a weekend of it and hang out in Columbus.

Most Nobles are High.

So we stayed right downtown, and right across the street from the conference at the luxurious Red Roof Inn. And I say that sarcastically but the place was actually really nice and considering we had no room reservation until we walked into the lobby I think we did pretty well.

So we head up to the room to drop off our things, and as we walk into the room we notice they have left the microwave running for us. No seriously, the microwave was on. And on for some riduculous amount of time which may have been 13 minutes or 13 hours left, who knows. But the whole room smelled like a hairdryer had been running for too long.

So we turned that off, and left the microwave door open. And went out to explore the streets of Columbus. As we quickly learned, many exciting people hang out in Columbus, and many of them want to be photographed. We were twice (within fifteen minutes) approached by people who wanted us to take their picture. I don’t understand it. I just shoot the pictures.

The first man asked me to take his photograph, and then said he was a social worker, offering it up as a reason for his need to be photographed. Check.

Our second and more exciting subjects, asked us why we were taking pictures. Well, buildings? art? tourism? Then after checking to make sure we were not the po-lice they posed for us. Then after we took their pictures, they asked us what we were going to do with them. Here, we offered no answers … “umm, nothing?”

Right…

To see our photographs, click on my Nobel & High shot above for my full set, to see Danny’s click on his book lofts picture below for his full set.

We had dinner at Tony’s Italian Ristorante which I think I would only give three stars. The food was alright, but not spectacular, and probably not worth what we paid.

Then we went straight to the Book Loft. The Book Lofts are these old rowhouse type cottages that have all been merged together with seemingly just some saws and some bookshelves. The place is broken into thirty two rooms and there are maps in each room to help you find your way around as well as little yellow sticky notes on the floor to help you find your way out. It’s a maze. A maze of books. Heaven.

So I told Danny to cut me off at ten, and I think I only got nine! (And a stylish dark brown canvas bag so that I can advertize for them around Pittsburgh I suppose.)

Then we headed back to the hotel and we planning to you know, make some slides for our presentation the next morning, but instead got hungry and I convinced Danny we should go get a snack. Turns out I picked a restaurant that was, with no exaggeration twenty feet from the door of the hotel. I didn’t even need a coat! Flatiron Bar and Diner was a great pick. They specialize in southern, cajun/creole, and it was a neat building, good atmosphere, good food. Danny got the gumbo and I got fries covered in balsamic vinegar, red pepper flecks, and melted Vermont cheddar. So good. And my lips tingled with the spicyness.

Annie, Sam, Lucy, Gran, Allison, Great-Gran, Eva, Andrew.

Last weekend I drove to he Akron-Canton Airport, picked up Katie who had flown in from Boston, and then we went to my Aunt Carol’s house to surprise my grandmother for her 89th birthday. While the rest of the family knew, it was at some point decided to make this a surprise for my grandmother.

When we walked in the door, we were thankfully not met with a heartattack, just a series of questions. Why are you here? Aren’t you supposed to be in Boston? Why aren’t you in Boston? How did you get here? Why are you both here? Did you drive her here?

After the, what we are told was not surprise, but, shock subsided we had a wonderful weekend, with all five of the grandchildren and all six great-grandchildren. Including fun games such as stick the hat on the turkey and fishing for skittles. Pictures are here.

I don’t mean Pittsburgh. Though maybe in some very indirect way I am benefiting the Pittsburgh community by reviewing its fine dining (and other) establishments. (Like maybe as a city becomes more popular on Yelp, the internet elite will flock here, naming it a technologically savvy mecca for the young thus infusing the city with fresh new yuppie-hipster blood) I have used Yelp for quite a while, probably a few years, to help me find places to go, especially while traveling. On the roadtrip last summer Yelp decided most of our food choices and even occasionally how we should spend our evenings.

Two weeks ago while I was in Houston visiting Amy and for Kelli’s wedding I actually broke down and (finally!) created myself a Yelp account. I then proceeded to review a number of the places Amy & I liked on the road trip, as well as a bunch of the places I commonly eat around Pittsburgh.

So, head over to http://pgage.yelp.com and read about what I like to eat, or even better become an active web citizen and sign up for your own account. I am sure you have opinions about food; and what better way is there to force your own tastes onto others than by participating in content creation on the internet.

I spent the last (several) days in Houston, and Katy, Texas. First visiting Amy, really down in Webster/Clear Lake by NASA, hanging out at her apartment and the pool; down to Galveston for a day; viewing The Incredible Hulk at a theater where a waitress (actually like three waitresses and a waiter) served us dinner during the movie; shopping for a wedding present, some legos at the newly opened Baybrook Mall Store, a tie, and of course I bought a few books, before we drove up to Katy, TX. It is there that my eldest paternal cousin, Kelli Johnson, married Justin Davis. (The photo above can be clicked to see a bunch of photographs from the wedding, or just click here for the full set. ) It is also there that Amy, Katie, and I saw Wall•E, and I got to see much of my family and other such things.

However, I am glad to be back in Pittsburgh, catching up on e-mails and meetings and work related things, as well as friends here. Now I just need to get some sort of functioning version of Reading to the Rain up so that I can post the seven books I read on the trip.

So basically I took a bunch of pictures many of which are of these four sculptures. The sculptures are separated into two pairs. “The Arts of War” are “Valor” and “Sacrifice” and they each guard one side of Arlington Memorial Bridge, which leads from the Lincoln Memorial to Arlington Cemetery, and “The Arts of Peace” which are “Music & Harvest” and “Aspiration & Literature” which are situated on each side of Rock Creek Parkway, just north of Arlington Memorial Bridge.

This includes the picture above, that is Sacrifice in the foreground and Valor in the background. Anyway I guess I had never been back around there (they are basically behind Lincoln) and so many of the pictures feature them, and you can read more about them here.

Turns out I went to Chicago three and a half weekends ago and well, never got around to mentioning it here. So now I will. My old RIT roommate, no that is silly … two of my absolute best RIT friends (ok), Ben and Allison moved to Chicago after they both graduated from RIT last summer, and while I thought I would make it out there to visit in January things were too busy and finally got out there this May.

Elliot and I drove out there, conveniently with Elliot using the no-gas lever in his car, causing it to require no gas while still going – I know, ask him about it – and got in Friday night. We went out to eat Mellow Yellow one of the fine Hyde Park Dining Establishments (I mock but it had good food).

Saturday morning we went to the Museum of Contemporary Photography, which had some really interesting stuff, and was totally free – so go do that other Chicago people, though today is the opening of Talkin’ Back 5: Chicago Youth Respond. We were there for their last exhibition and I think we all agreed on most enjoying the work of Dionisio Gonzalez one of his pieces, though not one we saw – those don’t seem to have found the internet, pictured below.

After the MOCP we wandered, had a snack at the Corner Bakery, Ben rushed us around while taking pictures, we saw Iron Man (review forthcoming… that is how far behind in film reviews I am) for the second time, met up with Ben’s law school friends and ate Thai downtown, and played a bunch of Mario Kart. Oh also I forced everyone to go to Noodles & Co. because I miss that restaurant so much in Pittsburgh. If I could wave my non-existent magic wand and make one chain decide to set up shop in Pittsburgh it would easily be Noodles & Co., easily.

But enough about noodles, let’s talk about cats. Ben & Allison got a cat, her name is Izzy, like Isabella, but not like The Fountain (look Austin commented!) also, she doesn’t like to come out and play until you turn off all the lights and pretend you are going to sleep. Then she will let you pet her and even take bad pictures of her in the dark. Like this one:

Anyway great times were had by all, and I already miss Ben & Allison terribly, and am excited to go back. And yes, it was my last fun trip (alright, and first) with Elliot before he heads back to Seattle. Both his pictures and my pictures are up on flickr.

I think most people have a sense of how to get from home to work everyday. They can probably find things along the way, and possibly short distances from this path, but much further than that and they quickly become lost. And this extends outward from the streets we frequently traverse to the states we travel in. The east doesn’t know the west, the west doesn’t know the east, and everyone thinks that in between is simply a void.

And I certainly fit into this group. However as situations demand knowledge my trip this summer required that I become a bit familiar with that middle area that is best known as the void one flies over to get to California. For example, Colorado which I picture as mountainesque and full of ski resorts and yuppies borders Kansas which I picture as filled of farmers and people who don’t believe in evolution (I know, stereotypes). So to later practice this newfound geographic sensibility and also hopefully teach those around me I play the Geography Game.

For beginners a good place to start is to look at a map, like that above and attempt to label all fifty states (there are only forty-eight on the map, the other two you can just name). If you can do this (which I find most people, yes even PhD students–my largest focus group, cannot do). With practice though, they normally can be taught.

From here we move on to level two, starting with just an outline of the contiguous states. This is a bit harder, and people complain they do not have the artistic talent to properly complete this task. I tell those people they are wrong and we are not looking for perfection, just a reasonable likeness. At this point we start to see “holes,” the places that end up left over once all the states are drawn in. The void where one just can’t figure out which state (or piece of state, or multiple states) are necessary to fill in the blank.

This which I promise is a surmountable task then beckons people on to level three. Starting from scratch. Yes, a blank sheet of paper. At this point we are normally presented by the participant with an outline of the country that always reminds me of Kim Dingle’s United Shapes of America in which she made an oil painting based on a collection of drawings of “the shape of America” which were drawn by real life Las Vegas teenagers (high school students). Though I think with adults the results wouldn’t have been much better. Tip for people who want to actually do this well–don’t start with the outline! Start with the states you know best, and work outward from there, like doing a jigsaw puzzle where you go on a prominent color instead of the edge pieces.

I have a whiteboard in my apartment, which is nice because that way people can erase, but paper and pencil is also valid. I have America down, easily after the trip this summer, and Canada is pretty straight forward so those two can be done together (can you name the ten provinces?). And with that all set, I have moved on to the next obvious choice…

My Current Challenge:

(This is actually going pretty well, I can draw it reasonably, at least the major outline and the western bits. Eastern Europe is much harder, both the country shapes and also figuring out which is which, another month or two.)