We started out in Philadelphia, then spent two days in New York. Our last weekend was upon us, though, and we in DC. We arrived early Friday afternoon and checked into our hotel in Rosslyn, across the river from Georgetown. Julia used to live in Rosslyn during college, and Mo’s girlfriend also lived in the neighborhood, making it a convenient location. We stayed in a Hilton, which was nice enough, but after the hotel in New York, it seemed wastefully gigantic.

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• Current Mood: Hungry
• Currently Listening To: "On The Run", Pink Floyd

Our first couple days in New York behind us, Wednesday Julia wanted to go shopping, so after sleeping in a bit to recover from the previous night’s barhopping, we headed out to shop first at the Century 21 store (where Julia bought a new purse), then to SoHo. Like our previous shopping experiences, we saw a great deal of things we couldn’t afford, but there were some nice, more affordable clothes that Julia picked up at places like Banana Republic and Esprit. After our shopping spree we went to a sushi place in Midtown for some all-you-can-eat sushi, which wasn’t bad. Post-dinner, we went to a couple bars in Midtown, then back to the hotel for the night.

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When we left off, we had just arrived in New York outside of Penn Station on the Bolt Bus. We grabbed a cab, not wanting to haul our suitcases on the subway, and headed down to Chinatown where our hotel was located, the Comfort Inn Manhattan Bridge. It is a fairly new hotel, in a very convenient location, and had a pretty good price for a New York hotel. As you can see in the review, I would recommend it no problem. And it has a pretty nice view:

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• Current Mood: Monday headache
• Currently Listening To: "New York State of Mind", Billy Joel

Julia and I left for our vacation on Friday, September 25th. It certainly didn’t start out well: due to a light mist falling and runway construction, our flight to Milwaukee was canceled before we even arrived at the airport. Fortunately, we were rebooked onto a direct flight to Philadelphia, but it wouldn’t be leaving for several hours. After spending that time at Ike’s in the airport, and enduring several more delays, we finally boarded for the uneventful flight to Philly.

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• Current Mood: Relaxed

Julia and I are heading off to Philadelphia, New York, and DC for a bit of a vacation. Neither of us have been to Philly, and Julia has never been to New York, so it will be a lot of fun. I’m taking my camera of course, and I’m looking forward to taking photos in a very urban environment.

Back in October!

• Current Mood: Excited

I’m a biker. Living in Minneapolis is a real treat for bikers, as we have dozens of miles of trails to take advantage of: the Grand Rounds circling the city, the Midtown Greenway, the Kenwood Trail, the path along Hiawatha and the LRT, not to mention all of the on-street bike paths there are. With more bike-friendly plans on the way (I’m not the only one to be happy that the insane center bike lanes on Hennepin are disappearing), it’s little wonder that Minneapolis is second in the country when it comes to people who commute on bike, despite our harsh winters.

Despite the bike-friendly nature of the area, though, if bikers continue to act like they are acting, we will soon wear out our welcome. I’ve always had an issue with bikers who blatantly disregard traffic laws: running stop signs and stop lights, going the wrong way down one-way streets, and so forth. In the past, the number of transgressions committed by bikers were outnumbered by the transgressions against bikers taken by people in vehicles, and so it balanced out. But lately, perhaps due to some kind of acquiescence on the part of drivers to the reality of biking, there are far more bikers acting like idiots than drivers.

I try to call my fellow bikers out on this when I can, but when I’m stopped at a stop light and some idiot zooms through, it can be a bit hard to catch up. Whether it does any good is questionable, but somebody needs to speak up.

I do this not because I love laws, but because I respect the laws of physics: in a war between vehicles and bikes, bikes will lose, and I see no need to antagonize drivers so they have an excuse to start in on bikers. When one biker disobeys the law, we are all put at risk.

• Current Mood: Chill
• Currently Listening To: "My Back Pages", Bob Dylan

A while back I talked about the troubles I was having with my mail being forwarded to my new place, and my attempt at using a certified letter sent to myself to find out why. I’m not sure if sending that letter helped a whole lot, but when I went to the post office and asked where it was, it seems that everything finally got kicked into gear, and this week I finally started getting forwarded mail. If only it had worked instantly like the real tracert instead of almost a month!

• Current Mood: Travel-y

I started wet shaving several months ago. Not to save money, as the Consumerist article talks about, although you certainly do. Truth be told, I don’t even remember why I decided to switch or how I stumbled upon it. It does take longer to shave, but I notice less neck irritation than when I used to use shaving-gel-in-a-can and a Mach Infinity Ultra Turbo Megablast cartridge razor. It’s a lot more relaxing too.

• Current Mood: Receding

I moved a month ago, and I have yet to received any forwarded mail from the U.S. Postal Service. I filled out the Change of Address form well in advance, and even got confirmation at both my old and current addresses. But I haven’t received any forwarded mail at my new place. I’ve checked with post offices at both my old place and new place, and they swear everything is set up correctly and working. But still no mail.

As a network administrator, I know what to do when I’m not receiving or transmitting things properly on a network: I pull out the old trusty tracert to find out where things are going astray. As far as I know, the USPS doesn’t have such nice network utilties, so I’m doing the next best thing: sending a certified letter to myself to see where it ends up. Hopefully, the tracking so provided will help trace which black hole my mail is currently disappearing in.

This is not an ideal solution compared to tracert: first, the results are not instantaneous, and second, the results are far from free; this is setting me back $5. But it’s the best thing I can think of at the moment.

• Current Mood: Relaxing
• Currently Listening To: "Life in a Glasshouse", Radiohead

Sadly, Misha has an infected paw, so he has to take antibiotics and wear a collar so he doesn’t chew on his paw. He’s taking it very well, but it is still sad to see him lounge around all depressed…

• Current Mood: Tired
• Currently Listening To: "Absolutely Sweet Marie", Bob Dylan