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My internet connection isn't so great this evening. Instead of a bunch of San Francisco photos, here's one of the Morningside Park waterfall. Shortly after taking this picture I was attacked by a Canadian Goose. No people or prodigiously pooping waterfowl were harmed.
Oooh, my first YouTube video. The video screen at Bleecker St. was either malfunctioning, or a brilliant piece of abstract video art this afternoon. The video looks especially good when looped over and over. If I can figure out how to do that I'll put it up on YouTube as well.
Civil War General and 18th President of the United States Ulysses S. Grant turns 185 today. The General Grant National Memorial, better known as Grant's Tomb, was dedicated on this day in 1897. A million people turned out for the event.
The tents are part of a Civil War encampment that the National Park Service sets up every year. Among today's activities are a West Point honor guard, speeches, a wreath-laying and "drill, surgical, musket and artillery demonstrations."
Grant's Tomb is 150ft high and is the largest mausoleum in the country. Before the age of air conditioning, winds off the Hudson made the grounds surrounding the park a popular place to visit in the summer.
I don't think people are supposed to be camping in the tents but the woman in pink crawled out of one while I was taking pictures. She asked what I was doing. I mentioned that I was taking pictures of the tents for Grant's birthday. She said "What tents?" I warily pointed to the tents and replied "These tents." I thought it best to not mention that she just crawled out one of them. She pondered my response and puzzled "Funny, they weren't here this morning." Assuming the Park Service didn't erect the tents around her, and because I had seen the tents on the morning bus ride, backing away without any sudden movements appealed to me.
While in San Francisco I managed to see two baseball games.
On Sunday I took BART over to Oakland to see the A's play the Yankees. That game had the greatest ending I've ever seen in a game. The A's are down 4-2 with two outs in the bottom of the 9th. Two men are on base. Marco Scutaro, who was 1-22 so far on the season is at the plate facing Mariano Rivera, perhaps the greatest closer in baseball history. With two strikes on him Scutaro hits a shot to left field. It hits way up on the foul pole. Three-run homer. The crowd goes crazy and Scutaro goes crazy as he circles the bases. Awesome!
A few nights later Jeff and I go see the Giants play the Cards at chilly AT&T Park. Barry Bonds is playing! In the eighth inning Barry Bonds hits a solo home run (home run # 738) into McCovey Cove to tie the game. In the bottom of the twelfth, Rich Aurilia singles in Randy Winn to win the game four hours after the game began.
I've now seen a game in fourteen different stadiums (stadia?). In no particular order:
1. Shea*, New York
2. Yankee, New York
3. Fenway Park, Boston
4. Cleveland Municipal* (R.I.P. - nothing like 3,000 people in an 80,000 seat stadium)
5. Riverfront, Cincinnati (R.I.P. - not really, it was an awful stadium)
6. Metrodome, Minneapolis
7. SkyDome, Toronto
8. Candlestick, San Francisco (no longer used for baseball but still there)
9. Kauffmann Stadium, Kansas City
10. Tiger*, Detroit (R.I.P.)
11. Dodger, Los Angeles (accidentally drank beer in the alcohol-free family section. Oops.)
12. Coors Field, Denver
13. MacAfee Coliseum, Oakland
14. AT&T, San Francisco
*multiple games
San Francisco has a two weekend-long Cherry Blossom Festival. The festival wound up last Sunday with a grand parade. I didn't plan it this way but I wound up at the end of the parade route exactly when the parade's honor guard arrived from the opposite direction. There was a giant carp held aloft by kids, much traditional Japanese clothing worn, people dressed as their favorite anime characters, taiko drumming, the mayor of San Francisco and much more.
A bit too sleepy to post anything of consequence this evening. This photo was taken a few blocks from my hotel on Broadway.
I have returned from San Francisco. It was a good trip. A little vacation, a little work, and a bit more vacation. Two exciting baseball games were seen. Caught up with old friends. A couple of burritos were eaten. The Cherry Blossom Festival Parade was attended. And many miles were walked.
More tomorrow.
These are going to make one hell of a double feature! Which one gets top billing?
Correction: In the April 2nd edition I identified the skull floating in the sky on the Montana quarter as being a cattle skull. The floating skull actually belongs to a bison, which makes the quarter even better. Nonetheless, I regret the error.
Note: I'll be away the next ten days eating burritos, going to baseball games, and working (two out of three ain't bad!). Posting here will be light.
On either side of the front entrance to our campus are the "Welcome to..." signs for New York and New Jersey. Leaving work on Tuesday I saw that New Jersey erected a new welcome sign. Exciting!
The sign design leaves a lot to be desired. Was it was designed in Powerpoint? Why is the state in a postage stamp? What do postage stamps have to do with New Jersey? Why didn't they use the swirly NJ as on the visitnj.org site? Should they have included an image with a symbolic connection to the state? Like square dancers? Why did they leave off "The Garden State"? Why did they attach a faded, decades old, no parking sign to the new welcome sign? There are no other ads between the border and the George Washington Bridge ten miles away. Does the sign violate state outdoor advertising regulations? So many questions!
More important for us New Yorkers, will New York State respond with a gussied up welcome sign of its own?
A friend of mine has been interviewing for jobs recently. This reminded me of a couple of job interview stories.
I interviewed for my current job on my birthday, when the job was in Michigan. Exiting I-75 in Saginaw I was almost sideswiped by an enormous customized Chevy van. The adrenaline rush of the near miss had got my mind off the interview and actually calmed me down. I had to meet with a project manager, a line manager and human resources. The first person I talked to was the project manager. We met via video conferencing as he was in Washington. The first words out of his mouth were "You're the guy I want to hire and I control the budget so the rest of the interview is a formality." That also calmed me down.
From that point on my biggest worry was whether I would get back to Bowling Green in time for the Maniac and Glen or Glenda double feature at the Dorothy and Lillian Gish Theater, which was located two floors below my office. That's the 1934, pre-code exploitation movie Maniac, which must be seen to be believed (note: cat lovers may find a couple scenes too disturbing), and should not be confused with the early 80s slasher flick of the same name.
But the real story I want to tell is about the guy who interviewed to replace me at Bowling Green. The standard procedure is for interviewees to fly into Toledo, where a faculty member picks them up and brings them to BG, getting an extra half-hour of one-on-one conversation. In this case the candidate booked a flight into Detroit and reserved for a rental car. Berry, the head of the environmental studies program explained beforehand that the department wasn't paying for the rental but the guy insisted.
The guy calls Berry around noon, telling him he's arrived at the Detroit airport. Berry says something like "Okay, we'll see you around one-thirty". The candidate pauses and explains that he may be late as he's meeting his mother for lunch in Monroe, which is about 45 miles from the airport. Berry's thinking that's kind of weird, but they guy had impressive credentials and references, and on paper was a good fit with the departmental needs, so I'll cut him some slack.
Guy calls up an hour later. He's about to leave his mother's place and is driving straight to BG. It's a good 45 miles away. Ten minutes later he walks into Berry's office. Now, Berry's an easygoing guy but he doesn't take to having his chain pulled, so he asks the obvious question "How did you get here so fast?"
The guy hems and haws and manages to change the subject.
The rest of the interview goes well. He meets with the faculty and the dean. He gives a class lecture and meets with the students. He gives a seminar for the faculty. He's very personable, the faculty are impressed, the students give him raves. The interview is successful enough that the weird timing thing from the day before has mostly been forgotten.
The candidate and Berry are in Berry's office waiting on some paperwork before the guy leaves. Partly as part of the interview and partly just to make conversation, Berry asks the guy what research he has been doing while on sabbatical that year.
Major hemming and hawing and evasiveness and vagueness and ohmygoodnesslookatthetimeIbetterleaveorI'llmissmyflightbye. He signs the paperwork and is out the door.
After the guy leaves, Berry's head is spinning in an incredulous "what just happened?" mode. He's also pissed because he has to make a hiring recommendation to the dean in a couple of days. Everyone else thinks he was great. Berry's the only person who experienced this guy's weirdness.
So he calls the chair of the candidate's department and asks what the guy has been doing on his sabbatical. The chair corrects Berry slightly, the guy is on leave, not sabbatical. Berry asks again about what research the guy is conducting while not teaching.
Once again, but this time from the chair, much hemming and hawing and evasiveness.
Now Berry's livid, and starts yelling at the chairman. It was months after this all happened that he told me the story and I can still see the anger in his eyes.
The chair finally admits the guy is not on sabbatical, he's on involuntary leave. He's banned from campus because, late one night at the beginning of the semester, he was caught peeking into a woman's dorm.
For the second time.
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