Month: September 2011

Random memory of my father

My father and I took a car trip, just the two of us, from Binghamton to Lake George. I was 9 or 10 and was supposed to be the navigator, but we got off course, and we ran out of gas somewhere called Speculator, in the middle of nowhere. I thought Dad would get mad, but he took it all in stride. We walked along the road, and the stars in the sky were huge, as he pointed out. He stopped at someone’s house, got us enough gas to get to a gas station, and we went on to Lake George. Truth is, I don’t remember that much about Lake George, but I do remember the night before quite well.

My dad would have been 85 tomorrow.

Pride in the Job QUESTION

The Moolala story was going to be on Good Morning America Tuesday morning; instead, the story was on World News Tuesday night.

What have you done at a job, either your current one or an earlier one, that you took real pride in? I had one of those experiences this past month.

I was answering the phones in my office on the Friday afternoon before Labor Day; the office manager was out sick, and since the secretary retired, there is no backup. Understand that answering the phones is NOT specifically part of my job description. But I simply can’t stand an unanswered phone at work. (TOTALLY different at home, BTW; that’s why God invented caller ID and the answering machine.) In fact, over a year ago, I specifically requested and got phones that would pick up the main lines.

There’s this woman on the phone, Lauren from ABC News, who calls about 2 pm. She’s working on a series of stories about people who lost their jobs but subsequently started their own businesses. The trick for me is that it’d have to be someone who had waived confidentiality as one of our clients.

As it turned out, at our annual meeting in May, I happened to be seated near the Rosenbergs, for whom I also did some library reference work. They were receiving an award from us for their startup, Moolala, a “self-serve yogurt café.” I pointed Lauren from ABC News to their story, and a couple of others, on our webpage. Then I requested that Lauren send me an e-mail to explain what she wanted, so I could forward her message to our internal listserv. She did, and I did; the director of one of our Long Island centers facilitated the connection between the network and the entrepreneurs.

Lauren had told me the story was going to be on Good Morning America Tuesday morning; this turned out to be incorrect. Instead, the story was on World News Tuesday night. Here it is.

If I hadn’t insisted the phone be answered, the Rosenbergs, and by extension, the organization would have missed an opportunity.

I’m rather happy about this outcome.

Ask Roger Anything: Equinox Edition

Sometimes you just have to embrace the spam.

What the title says. You (i.e., YOU there) get to ask me ANYTHING. And I HAVE to answer. Honesty, though evasiveness is allowed.

Just recently, I got a question from a previous iteration of this meme:

Hey there, i read your blog site often and i individual an equivalent one particular we was just wanting to know if you get plenty of junk e-mail remarks? If you are how do you avert this, any sort of tool and also the things you can encourage? I am a great deal of lately it truly is cruising people crazy hence any kind of assistance is greatly loved.

So this was a spam comment about getting junk e-mail. I LOVED it! It made me laugh out loud.

But in answer to the query: yes, I do get a lot of junk mail. I have the Akismet thing that comes with my WordPress, and in less than 17 months, I’ve gotten about 75,000 spam comments. This is why I approve of all my comments.

That said, I don’t get a lot of rude, weird comments here. I HAVE it on the Times Union site. But ever since I said to one guy in particular, in my comments, “Please go away,” he has, and so have all the other stalkers. Who knew it’d be that easy?

And as I’ve indicated before, sometimes you just have to embrace the spam. I mean, I know the nasty spam comments are not really directed to me. But I do like to pretend that the complimentary notes are actually real. Case in point:
I enjoy you because of your entire work on this web site. My mother takes pleasure in participating in internet research and it is easy to understand why. I learn all about the lively ways you present effective tricks through your web blog and in addition encourage contribution from visitors on the theme while our girl is undoubtedly studying a lot of things. Take pleasure in the rest of the new year. You are always performing a wonderful job.

I mean, why WOULDN’T I want that to be honest, to be sincere? Alas, it’s from some dating site trying to get traction.

Anyway, the answers to YOUR questions will appear soon, assuming you have any. Oh and for the record, I usually participate when others initiate this, as Jaquandor did recently.

Toronto: The City Pass, Part 2

The highlight may have been a Rube Goldberg-type machine.

The third full day in Toronto we dedicated to going to the Toronto Zoo. It is on the eastern edge of the city and required both train and bus to get there. One could make the case for driving there, I suppose. One of the selling points of having the City Pass is that one could avoid lines. Never was this more true at the Zoo, where we avoided at least a 15-minute wait just to get inside.

The zoo is massive. We saw only about 40% of it. We went to the Malay and African sections but never even got to the Americas or Australia or Eurasia. We considered taking the train around, and we might do that on a future trip. We’re already thinking about that.

The only comparable facility I’ve been to is the San Diego Zoo in California, and that was over a decade ago, maybe two decades. The SD Zoo was $32 per person then, whereas the Toronto Zoo retailed for under $25 US.

There were some extra features, such as rides, which we did not use. But we were pleased that the splash park was part of the admission. It was a particularly warm day – I got a bit of sunburn – so it was a welcome relief. To give you what a full day it was, the Daughter fell asleep on my shoulder on the bus trip back to the train, and then fell asleep again on her mother’s shoulder on the subway ride back to our hotel.

The BONUS appeal of the Toronto Zoo, though, happened some days after we got back to Albany. The Daughter was watching her new favorite show, Dino Dan, which is a TV series about “paleontologist-in-training Dan Henderson (played by Jason Spevack) and his friends, who uncover clues about the past and secrets of the dinosaurs. The show combines live action with CGI dinosaurs.” On one episode last month, which I was only half watching, the Daughter correctly identified as having been filmed at the Toronto Zoo; I immediately recognized the elephant and lion areas myself. Someone put a bit of the episode on YouTube.

I will revisit the zoo later in the year.

 

We went to the Ontario Science Centre on our way out of town and may have given it short shrift. The quirky thing about this building is that the 6th floor is down, while the 1st floor is up. The Daughter enjoyed the reptiles, and especially the area where one plays with a hot air balloon, lights, bubbles, and a lot more. She particularly liked dancing to her image altered by some nifty effects. Most of our time was spent in the play area.

But the highlight may have been a Rube Goldberg-type machine similar to, but not exactly the same as this one. The one we saw had a bunch of billiard balls, and the patrons had to keep loading the balls into the machine, from a half dozen locales, to keep the effect going. The kids LOVED it; heck, I loved it.

There are City Passes for about a dozen other cities in North America. I’m not sure I’d use it for a city I’ve visited, such as New York or Boston; I’ve been to the Empire State Building. But for a city I’ve never been to, such as Seattle, I think it would be ideal.

Toronto: The City Pass

Casa Loma, built in the 1910s for some $3.5 million, back when that was real money, is a castle

When I was thinking about us taking our trip to Toronto, I asked you fine folks for some recommendations. Some of you, especially Jaquandor, suggested a number of venues. As it turns out, all of the suggested locations are available from some program called the City Pass. In this case, five attractions at about 45% off the regular price, with nine days to see them all.

On our first full day, we took the subway to the CN Tower. Well, close to the CN Tower. We walked to an adjacent plaza as the signs suggested, but were obstructed by new construction. We followed the detour signs and ended up exactly where we had started. We got to our destination eventually and purchased the one child and two adult City Passes.

The CN Tower, which is one of the tallest human-made buildings in the world, was the most touristy of the five locations, with long lines. Recommendation: get there early. Don’t stop to go to the bathroom; you’ll have plenty of time to do so while waiting in the queue. Still, the view of the city was magnificent, especially overlooking Lake Ontario. The glass floor was wonderfully scary. The IMAX movie was entertaining.

Next stop that day: the Royal Ontario Museum, which featured several things the Daughter particularly liked, such as dinosaurs and mummies. I liked the Chinese sculpture. “Biodiversity is a core theme” there.

The next day, we went to Casa Loma, the former home of once-rich industrialist, financier, and military man Sir Henry Mill Pellatt, who controlled about a quarter of Canada’s finances for time. He brought streetlights to Toronto, helped create hydroelectric power at Niagara Falls, as well as several other ventures. Casa Loma came into the hands of a not-for-profit shortly before his death, and around the same time as the death of his wife, Lady Mary Pellatt, the first Commissioner of the Girl Guides of Canada.

The building, built in the 1910s for some $3.5 million, back when that was real money, is a castle. We walked up the turret, some seven stories; the trick, actually, was climbing DOWN some of the spiral staircases as others traversed upward. The site also lovely gardens. Note that if one takes public transportation, it’s three blocks up, then about four flights of steps. It was a good thing we didn’t go to the CN Tower that day, for it was quite overcast.

Having the City Pass, or at least some prepaid ticket, saved us some time getting inside.

More soon.

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