Ithacaview.com

Swan Lake Re-Ducks

admin — Mon, 28 Apr 2008 11:26:24 +0000

The Ithaca Ballet Company (that’s right, Ithaca has it’s OWN ballet company) performed Swan Lake this weekend at the historic State Theatre this weekend. I am not a fan of ballet and went because my wife and 5-year old son were eager to go. However, since it is now my second ballet in 4 months (and second for my entire life), I am now a bit of an expert when it comes to fathers’ who only have sons and men who don’t think Cher is a goddess. As an expert I can only say: where was the death scene (dance?) of Prince Siegfried and Odette? Why did they just scamper off the stage like they had to use the facilities? Is Rothbart (good name for a candy bar, by the way) supposed to buy it in the end? Was this classic story manipulated into a feel-good story for the sake of the kiddies? Huh?

I don’t care really. It doesn’t matter to me if the guy in the evil black outfit dies in the end, as long as he finishes the repairs on my house Monday morning. After all, he is our contractor.

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All Roads Lead to Cornell or a Repair Shop

admin — Thu, 10 Apr 2008 10:40:22 +0000

So according to the Journal, the Board of Public Works voted unanimously to give up ownership of University Ave to Cornell in exchange for Cornell’s promise to fix that prime example of pre-Roman donkey cart paths. (see
City set to give up University Ave.)

As far as I can see, the only people who will be sad about this are car repair and tire shops. In fact, I suggest we go further. I marked in red a few roads that I recommend the City of Ithaca also gives to Cornell as long as they promise to fix them.

To read why, glance at my notes on Ithaca roads on Helpful Guide for Californians.

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Same Sex Partnerships in Ithaca?

admin — Tue, 08 Apr 2008 12:14:55 +0000

You don’t say…

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Proof: Ithaca is in the Twilight Zone

admin — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 11:07:08 +0000

Picture it if you will, another talented celebrity who called Ithaca home (as opposed to the majority of celebrities who are verifiable muttonheads). Twilight Zones’ Rod Serling penned episodes here and taught at the Ithaca College Communications School from 1967 to 1975.

See? This place isn’t just great because of lefties and eccentric physicists (see Richard Feynman on the left). It can call mostly sane, classic television celebs its own as well. According to the Ithaca College website…

[Serling’s family had a cottage on] Cayuga Lake where in an airstream trailer behind the main house - some of the most memorable scripts in television history were crafted.

As a Binghamton, NY native he wasn’t far from his hometown. However, he obviously liked Ithaca more since the Rod Serling Archives is located at Ithaca College, not in Binghamton.

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No Doubts of Greatness

admin — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 20:55:36 +0000

If you had any doubt that Ithaca is an awesome place to hang your pants at night, check out this article in the Ithaca Times.

Is Ithaca the new South Florida?

But why the hell did they have to say South Florida? Ugh!

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Sticker Shock

admin — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

In some great European cities, the only way to really get to know the culture is to visit the cafés. In most American cities you get a feel for the local culture by turning to the op-eds column of the local fish wrapper. In Ithaca, you look at the backside of cars. Ithacans treat the rear of their cars like personal message boards. Glance around the parking lots of Wegmans, Ithaca Bakery, or Greenstar and you will find a huge variety of bumper stickers with messages from the mildly left to the absolutely way-out, orbiting another planet left. Leave it at that and it’s just a lefty political thing. But it goes far deeper.

Hand an Ithacan a bumper sticker, no matter how meaningless, and they will paste it on their car. They can’t help themselves. Shops have learned to take advantage of this auto-stick culture. Ithaca Bakery has a bumper sticker, so does Gimme! Coffee. Why? They’re just stores. So there must be something else and I may have figured it out after only living here one winter.

Road salt.

The damn stuff eats everything except bumper stickers. If you cover the back of your car with stickers, your car won’t dissolve as quickly. And when it does finally succumb, the stickers will hold together the rusty bits.

Brilliant!

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Billions and Billions of… Stamps?

admin — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Two Carl Sagan stories in two weeks? But this one’s topical…

Good old Carl, one of the many great Ithacan resident overachievers (served as the professor of Astronomy and Space Sciences & Director of the Laboratory for Planetary Studies at Cornell) might just get his own series of stamps. You can peruse them all plus find a link to a petition (currently offline) at our favorite local rag, The Ithaca Journal.

I won’t spoil it by showing them all to you here but take a look at this one. It’s my favorite since it shows Dr. Sagan at 2 a.m. explaining to us what we could be viewing if it weren’t for the cloud-covered Ithacan winter sky behind him.

BTW, sign the petition or I’ll send my robot deer over to gobble up your hedge.

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An Obamanation - How Ithaca kept Hillary from a clean sweep

admin — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

Regardless of your political views (except you conservative-types who should know by now that - like Ithaca - this blog is not a nice place for you), you will get a chuckle out of THE POWER OF ITHACA (queue dramatic music here). On Super Tuesday, Hillary was sitting back with a glass of celebratory Finger Lakes Chardonnay when it suddenly turned sour in her mouth. One little town kept her from a clean sweep of New York: her home state whose voters she had spent hours in voice lessons learning to imitate. She had been betrayed! But who could do such a thing?

Why, Ithaca of course!

I can’t claim to be a supporter of either candidate at the moment (honestly, they both need some help and I can’t vote here because my resident status is all screwed up - get it together NY DMV!!!!), but my adopted fellow Ithacans know how to give a candidate the finger. Take a look at the map. Pretend you are Hillary fuming over that spot of bird-poop spoiling your near-perfect victory pie. I bet she regrets not paying a visit like Obama did.

In a town where bumper stickers and yard signs rule, Obama signs outnumber recycling bins. It could be that they gave the signs and stickers away (Ithacans love free bumper stickers for their Volvo 240s - they cover the rust), but at least he had his cronies do it "personally".

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Which Planet Are You Orbiting?

admin — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

As you wander through the Commons you can be excused from missing it since it's not near a cafe or pizza place, but once you find it you feel an undeniable urge to discover more. Ithaca has an inventive tribute to the late, great Carl Sagan. It's not just some boring statue with a bust that could be any guy and engraved with "Carl stopped here in 1988 to buy a hotdog during a festival" at the bottom. Oh no. This one takes effort.

Collectively it is known as the Sagan Planet Walk. Start at the pedestrian crossroads of the Commons and you will find a statue to the sun that's about 6ft (1.8 meters) tall (by itself showing that locals know for certain that the rest of the world revolves around Ithaca).

The rest of the solar system is laid out proportionally according to actual distance and size (see map). For example the sun is really 1,392,000 km in diameter so the hole in the statue is 278mm (11 inches). Uranus is 47,000 km in diameter so its hole is (contrary to crude jokes) 9.4mm (.37 inches) and it is located 574 meters (632 yards) away from the sun (near the library) which is proportional to its 2,870,000,000 km actual orbit radius. Bored yet? Well you shouldn't be. Pluto, the furthest, is 1,180 km away or .6 of a mile and on the side of the Science Center.

Now that I have found Pluto, I will go back with my sledgehammer and adjust the planet walk according to the official 2006 revision of the Definition of a Planet.

BTW, I miss the snow. I thought it was supposed to SNOW in winter.

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Fossils Over 40

admin — Tue, 30 Nov 1999 00:00:00 +0000

My 5 year old son and I decided to go hunting for buried treasure. We agreed that the best place to look was in the stream near our house since you wouldn't have to dig. and it didn't take long before we uncovered our treasure: fossils.

Now, my 40th birthday is rapidly approaching and I must have been subconsciously looking for something nearby that I could claim to be older than me (even my doctor is younger than I am. Ack!) because the first one, an intact fossilized mussel was right in front of my hand as soon as I reached into the stream. My son had just gone to the Ithaca Museum of the Earth and learned about fossils. He was so excited he ignored the freezing cold water and plunged his hands right in to look for more. It wasn't long before we were rewarded again with the most amazing butterfly-shaped brachiopod impressions. The treasure gathering continued until our hands were red and painful from cold. We were frozen, wet, and muddy but no 5 year old ever looked more proud as he carried his buried treasure up to the house.

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