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Wall-E

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I just saw the movie Wall-E with two of my nephews and my wife. I’ve honestly got to say that I have never seen an animated movie that worked so well on so many different levels.

The movie has an important message that is gotten across in a delightful and entertaining manner. The premise of the movie is that Earth has been “temporarily” abandoned by its inhabitants because of pollution and disregard for its resources. Earth has gotten so bad that it will no longer sustain life. Wall-E is a robot working on the abandoned Earth. His job is to collect trash, compact it and stack it. The ultimate goal is to restore the Earth to a state that will once again support life. His best buddy is a cockroach. The animation was stunning. The characters became so real and the movie became so engrossing that the “animation” became transparant in that it was as if I was watching “real live characters”. The screenplay ( I guess you still call it that even for animation) was excellent. Overall I’d have to rate this as one of the more enjoyable movies I’ve ever seen…the message was great, the movie was emotionally touching, the animation was spectacular and I was sad when it finally ended. I was so wrapped up in the movie that I just wanted it to go on and on.

The movie has numerous nods to other sci-fi movies, which are fun to pick out. Allusions to “Close Encounters”, “Star Trek”, “Star Wars” and others. Plus there are some interesting sound effects that will amuse the careful listener…such as an Apple Computer Start-up Chime.

Wall-E has a personality trait that is funny…he likes to collect items of interest before collecting and compacting the trash. He carefully places his collectables on a series of movable trays and it’s a riot to see what he’s collected.

To be honest, I had tears streaming down my face on more than one occasion during the movie. It was an animated movie for goodness sake! What’s that all about? Well, it’s about a movie that was so well crafted and seemed so real that it hit all the emotional buttons that a movie with real live actors would hit. It’s truly a family movie but has enough adult content to keep the adults as engaged as the kids. Highly recommended.

And do you -really- think that Wall-E looks “exactly” like Johnny 5 from Short Circuit?
Wall-E and Joynny 5

One day in New York City…

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I had a fun day yesterday. A friend of mine is hosting a Rotary Exchange Student from Spain and the young man had a desire to visit New York City. So we hopped in the car and 4.5 hours later were in Mid-town Manhattan. It was hot and humid in the big apple, but that did not deter us from visiting some of the sights… NBA Store, Times Square, Trump Tower, Battery Park, St Patrick’s Cathedral, Hard Rock Cafe, Stage Deli, Apple Store and of course the beautiful George Washington Bridge.

One unexpected surprise was the viewing of the art project. I had read about this and seen other photos of the project, but had “forgotten” about it until we were at Battery Park and noticed one of the waterfalls. What a thrill to see these. There are actually 4 of these waterfalls and we were lucky enough to see 3 out of the 4. Here are the photos of the waterfalls…
New York City WaterfallsBrooklyn Bridge WaterfallBrooklyn Piers WaterfallPier 35 Waterfall

My first bike race – Race4Hope

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I was excited to be in my first bike race this morning. Officially called the Race4Hope, it was the second annual race to benefit cancer research and is a held in memoriam for Dick Shaffer.

It was a beautiful day for the race; mostly clear skies and just a slight breeze, temperature probably in the mid-50’s. I’m not sure how many participants there were just yet as I have not received the official race results, but I estimate there were in excess of 125 riders. I’ll update my blog with the exact numbers once the results are released.

I was pretty happy with my ride… my time was 1:19:57 for the 23.42mi distance. That translates to an Average Speed of 17.6mph, and a 3:24/mi pace. I even had a small cheering section at the finish line…Linda was there to document the finish and here are the photos she took.


Please…no comments about my big fat butt. Thanks 🙂

It’s for the birds

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This year we started seeing Baltimore Orioles in our backyard. It’s the first time we’ve seen them. They are beautifully colored with a very distinctive song. We soon learned that Orioles like to visit the hummingbird feeder to partake of the same sugar water that Hummingbirds drink. So I bought a feeder that is specifically for Baltimore Orioles. It looks similar to a Hummingbird feeder but is a bit different in how the sugar water is “presented” to the bird. Well, the Oriole just doesn’t get it yet and continues to feed on the Hummingbird feeder. I guess I don’t really care as long as the Orioles stick around. They are so cool.

As for our Hummingbirds, they are totally amazing. It is somewhat of a miracle to me that they return every year on the same day, plus or minus a day or two. Every year! This year was no exception. We try to remember to have the hummingbird feeder outside a week or so before they are “scheduled” to return. This year we put the feeder out on May 2 and within 5 minutes there was a Hummingbird feeding at it. As if he was waiting for us…dumb humans, I’m hungry. What took you so long!

Back to my old stomping grounds

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I had some work to do today for a client of mine in Ithaca. The weather was pretty nice so Linda and I decided to spend the day together in Ithaca. She walked the commons and picked up some goodies for an impromptu picnic for later in the afternoon while I was working. I finished a bit earlier than I had anticipated which enabled us to do a few extra things.

One of our first stops was at a really cool B&B called “City Lights B&B” on Mecklenberg Road. It’s a really unique place with some beautiful gardens and incredible views of Cornell University and Ithaca College. If you’re traveling to Ithaca and need a B&B for your stay, check out City Lights.

After our visit to City Lights, we headed off to Taughannock Falls. This is a great time of the year to view the falls since there is a good amount of water flowing in the Spring. The sky wasn’t very colorful but the falls were just gorgeous and I got there at a good time of day for lighting on the falls.

The day was topped off by a visit to the Cayuga Lake Creamery for the best ice-cream ever. I’m going to have to ride a lot of miles on my bike tomorrow to burn off all the calories I consumed today… but it was so totally worth it. Burp!

Here are some photos I snapped of the day…

Stop needling me will ya?

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Long story short, that’s me with accupuncture needles sticking out of my forehead and ear.

So do you really want to hear the whole story? OK, here goes.

I attended an open house this past weekend for “Healing Point”, an accupuncture clinic in Fayetteville, NY. I wanted to learn more about accupuncture and how it works. I had attended a public forum at Crouse Hospital the previous week and Dr Yoo was one of the speakers. He operates the Healing Point clinic.

There were 8 to 10 other people in attendance. The presentation began and after a while, the Doctor asked us if we would like to experience accupuncture. Everyone was interested in trying, some a bit more reluctantly than others (count me in as one of the reluctant ones). I have had a phobia of injection needles for as long as I can remember. It is major trauma for me to get my annual flu shot. So to willingly submit to a guy offering to stick needles into my forehead, ear and hand seemed a bit far-fetched to me. But I did it anyway. Part of my rationale was that maybe it would help alleviate the anxiety I have towards needles (it didn’t). Or maybe that there would be some benefit that would be immediately noticeable (there wasn’t).

What I did experience was the sensation of tapping into the “Qi“, otherwise known as the energy flow in the body. I also learned that accupuncture needles are not the same type of needles that are used when you get an injection…they are not hollow. Accupuncture needles have a blunt, rather than sharp, pointy tip and are more like very thin wire than needles. And when they are placed, they are sort of spun and/or tapped in. It’s a very unique experience.

Dr Yoo explained before placing the needles into the web of skin between my thumb and forefinger, that the needle would let me experience the feeling of tapping into the “Qi”. He said I would definitely feel it and that really put me at ease. OF COURSE IT DIDN”T PUT ME AT EASE! I think I began to sweat. He explained that there would be a sensation and asked me to describe it when it happened. He then inserted the needle into the area between my thumb and forefinger. As he was doing so I really didn’t feel anything…no pain of the needle going in or anything. But all of a sudden there was an instant of total weirdness. It felt like for the briefest of moments there was a jolt of electricity in my hand running towards my fingers. It was there and then it was gone, as quick as that. It didn’t linger. Dr Yoo said that that was the “Qi”. He placed another needle in my other hand and the exact same sensation occurred. I can honestly say it was one the oddest sensations I’ve ever felt. Not pain, not uncomfortable but just… weird.

I am interested in Eastern medicine such as accupuncture because Western medicine is so focused on drug therapy and the treatment of symptoms instead of treatment of the cause. It seems responsible to investigate alternatives. After all, how long has Western medicine been around? 100 years or so? While Eastern medicine has been around for at least a thousand years? Seems like a no-brainer to me.