Air travel joys

I had a nice hotel room with a big, fluffy bed in Chicago, so I was a bit sad to leave it, knowing I would be crashing at a friend's apartment soon, imposing myself on their lives like any good former New Yorker would. Sigh. I quickly got over it, though. I was, after all, heading to New York- a city dear to my heart and always full of excitement. I was also heading there to attend the New York Film Festival, where my latest film was going to be screened. I could get over the loss of a fluffy bed and pool.

Nothing, however, could ever make me happy about Chicago O'Hare (well, except for the UFO sighting (a video here), but that's neither here nor there- oh yes, puns intended).

Traffic to the airport was awful. For some reason, the cab driver seemed to believe that if you alternately slam your foot on the brake and gas pedals, the car would either fly over the offending vehicles, vaporize them, or somehow alter the spacetime continuum, making it possible to get to where you were going on time. Needless to say, none of those things happened. I got to the airport only an hour before my flight, though they "recommend" two.

I quickly learned that in the world of overbooking, "recommend" translates to "require." I was too late to check in and was bumped to a later flight, flying standby. Still, I flew out, eventually, and the trip out of the city was at least visually interesting.

Arriving at Newark airport turned out to be a mistake, however. $85 to get to Brooklyn? Ouch...

The Rest of Chicago

After three days of the Adobe MAX conference, I started craving art for art's sake, rather than art that is design which is supposed to maximize profits and provide a better, faster, and slicker "user experience." I didn't have time to go to the Art Institute of Chicago, which is unfortunate. I've been there once and wanted to return to the Joseph Cornell collection. I did get a picture of it from the outside, however:

I also got to walk around the city a little bit. Alone with my iPhone full of great music and its little camera, I was inspired by many city scenes:

I fell in love with that mirrored sculpture. I love photographing reflections:

This is a really cool water sculpture. The face towers are actually video images (that's my one complaint with my iPhone- no video) lit by little LEDs within glass or plastic bricks of some sort (see the bottom photo):

I really like Chicago. I think it's a beautiful city. I wish I'd been able to see more of it on my trip (as well as visit some of the folks I know who live out there)!

The User Experience

The title of this blog is one of many phrases I got sick of hearing while attending the Adobe MAX conference in Chicago earlier this month. Others included "integration" (mixed with a variety of other words), "client-side," "runtime," and "Adobe is the king of the world." Okay, I didn't actually hear that last one, but that was the general point of the conference, so I "sensed" it enough. In fact, many of the workshops and lectures I attended seemed to offer more of that sentiment than actual "information," but some of them offered some new tricks and tips that I have been able to use in my job and my creative life.

One of several Adobe pep rallies- this one was the unveiling of new products to the crowd of eager geeks (of which I was one- when I learned that Flash may start "integrating" inverse kinematics tools in their product, the animation nerd in me got all choked up).

I got so bored in one of my morning workshops that I encrypted my notes to keep from dozing off:

Indeed, I am a geek among geeks.

I also got a little sick of filling out surveys every half hour (that is NOT an exaggeration) and eating potatoes. The potato thing got so bad that one of the parties featured potatoes in a martini glass. Them's fancy taters!

To be fair, I won a great book on Flash video and learned how to shave time off of some of my projects. Mostly, though, I just received confirmation that I do things right. Oh, and I also got to attend an over-the-top party, the theme of which, from what I could gather, was "80's pop/geek culture and stuff that makes you go, 'oh yeah, I remember that!'"

BMX bikers and skateboarders show the crowd what can be done when you are not sitting in front of a computer all day:

A giant game of "Operation" (oh yeah, I remember that!):

Oh yeah! I had one of these:

And these (things are cooler when they are big): Remember this movie (I was deemed too intoxicated to go back to the future)? And the Fusion engine from the sequel (beer make car go fast): This conference really was just kind of over-the-top for the most part. The conference center employees revealed to me that it cost half a million dollars just to unveil the new products to the crowd- I can't imagine how much the party cost. Shareholders take note. Ahem.

I had fun, though:

Arriving at the party.

Preparing for the Segway obstacle course

The band. I actually like these guys. They did a swing version of the Spongebob Squarepants theme song and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" by Nirvana.

Jell-O shots. Without alcohol. Still pretty, though.

This was a huge virtual graffiti wall connected to Wii remotes. You worked with another player to create your wall and then a picture of the wall was sent to flickr. But I took my own picture:

Chicken Little and the Notion of God

Well, Colorado is in for another storm. Earlier this week, I awoke to winds so strong my ears were hurting from the change in pressure. Today, the temperature has plummeted 20 degrees (Fahrenheit) since this morning and is going to keep dropping as an Arctic front moves through the region this weekend. Don't get me wrong. I love weather phenomena. I used to chase tornadoes when I was a teenager. In fact, one of my favorite cable channels was The Weather Channel. I am a weather geek, but boy, I'm getting sick of being indoors! I guess I prefer my storms to be a little faster...

(From my film "Petrichor." Click image or link to play Quicktime.)

There have been some interesting things falling from (or through or beyond) the sky lately, and I wanted to comment on some of them.

First of all, the weather has put me in a pensive mood. I recently recalled going through bouts of insomnia as a kid. I was absolutely terrified of aliens (if you read my posts below about my early fears, you will understand this). One year my brother and I both got cable television in our bedrooms as a Christmas gift (woo hoo- a kid's dream come true). I found that watching the Weather Channel was the only thing that helped me sleep. While I will acknowledge that the lack of action-packed story lines at 2:00AM might have contributed to this, I must also add that I felt an odd sense of security knowing that I wasn't the only one awake in the world. I think it also comforted me somehow to know that satellites were monitoring the Earth's atmosphere. I thought that if there were UFOs, surely the National Weather Service would see them and alert us all (or at least the person standing in front of the weather map, appearing to hover above us all from his Star Trek Enterprise-like view in the television studio). In a sense, it was almost like verifying God's existence on a physical level: I was being watched from above by wiser forces...

I'm not so sure how safe I feel anymore knowing that there is a bunch of bus-sized space junk floating around over our heads. This sense of unease was confirmed early this week as a "Russian rocket body" fell through the Colorado skies at 6:15 in the morning. I'm sorry I don't have a photo. Most of the images were taken by local news traffic helicopters, so they have a monopoly on the images. I HIGHLY encourage you to click on the link and watch this clip, though- it is incredible.

It is also an incredible example of media stupidity. Thankfully, the video above is silent. When the clip was first released, the news media were calling it a "meteor shower," saying that it was the Quadrantid meteor shower. They then went on to say that the shower is named after an "extinct" constellation. Well, I wrote my first angry "letter to the editor" (I think this is a sign of aging- the older we get the more letters we end up writing).

First of all, I wish meteor showers looked like this! This is clearly something bizarre. From my first viewing of it, I knew it was not a natural object- it was too scattered. It would be highly unlikely that a solid, dense meteor that large would break up in that way. Additionally, it looks a lot like the footage of space shuttle Columbia when it exploded in the atmosphere.

Secondly, there is no such thing as an "extinct" constellation. Yes, the Quadrans Muralis constellation is obsolete, but it didn't go extinct! With the exception of a handful of supernovae, the stars have remained pretty much fixed throughout recorded history! I digress...

Well, I got a response and the web site, at least, was updated. Turns out a Russian rocket body fell from the sky, Chicken Little. Strange how it took NORAD five hours to identify the object, yet they were quick to say that they knew it was coming all along and that we really shouldn't find such a thing remarkable. Huh...

In related...news...I was tickled to hear this NPR report on a UFO sighting at Chicago's O'Hare airport (here is the interviewee's report, as well). Their story pretty much sums it up. Strange!

Tonight I will be missing one of the brightest comets in 30 years: comet McNaught. I encourage anyone in the Northern Hemisphere with a clear view of the Western horizon to take a look right at sunset. I've heard it's spectacular! I've tried to see it several times now, but each attempt has been thwarted by either mountains, bad timing, or dense cloud cover. Damn! I even dreamt about it last night. I don't have a camera in my dreams (well, at least not one that will let me share images in this reality...yet), so I will close this lengthy post with another video clip from my storm chasing video "Petrichor."