My Second Day In Berlin

I started my second day with breakfast at Bell Chicco, a little restaurant on my street, Rosa-Luxemburg Strasse, that only sells breakfast. The owner did not seem quite as fluent in English as other Berliners but I had no trouble ordering. I had the big breakfast which was mainly three rolls and some cold cuts that I used to make sandwiches. There was also some fruit and vegetables which were arranged more for decoration than eating. I think I’ll order an American Breakfast tomorrow. My hotel does not provide breakfast but they do have an expensive restaurant where breakfast would cost twice as much.

I forgot to mention that I had dinner yesterday at Susuru, a Japanese Noodle Bar just up the street. I want to be more adventurous in eating out than I was in Paris, where I stuck to the first cafe I found that understood English.

My first goal was to try the U-Bahn. In order to use my Berlin WecomeCard for a discount on tickets, I have to show the BVG ticket which must be validated. Fortunately, the Alexanderplatz Bahnhof is a short walk from my hotel. I decided to take the U2 line to Potsdamer Platz. Although there are clear directions to the U2 line, it seemed like I had navigate quite a maze of stairs to find the train platform. I spent considerable amount of time researching the U-Bahn so I knew exactly what the ticket validation machine looks like. I have a photo of it in my notes. It is a 40 euro fine if you are caught riding the subway without a validated ticket. I also knew in which direction I should be headed, towards Ruhleben. My first trip on the U-Bahn went very smoothly and I arrived at Potsdamer Platz.

After taking several photos, I went to the Filmhaus Museum in the SONY Center, Deutsche Kinemathek – Museum fur Film und Fernsehen. This is a great museum if you are interested in contemporary German culture because nothing expresses a culture’s mythology like its films. I really liked this museum and saw photos and exhibits from many unfamiliar films that I want to find when I get back home. The exhibits on Marlene Dietrich were very extensive because she was born in Berlin. I have to admit that I have never seen one of her films. But I was familiar with The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari which I’ve owned on DVD long before I planned to visit Berlin. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is quite popular with the Goth community and it is frequently mentioned as a classic surrealistic film. Since my imagination is very surrealistic, I tend to explore anything with a reputation for being surrealistic. The exhibit on Metropolis, another classic German expressionist film was very impressive. As a vision of a German city of the future, it is now a perfect expression of Berlin. Now that I think of it, I bet some of the architecture around Potsdamer Platz was based on Metropolis. This could be the reason that Berlin is making such a big impression upon me. It is really a very science fiction sort of city now.

After my very slow tour of the Filmhaus museum, I had lunch at the famous Cafe Josty. This used to be a really famous cafe at the original Potsdamer Platz but now it is just a part of the touristy SONY Center. I ordered the Brotwurst and a Sprite. I made sure to drink two glasses of Sprite because I’m a bit worried about getting dehydrated. I almost passed out at work after becoming dehydrated so I buy more Gatorade now. Cafe Josty has candles on its tables. Unfortunately, I was holding my menu over the candle and it caught on fire! That was pretty funny. Fortunately I smelled the smoke and stopped the fire before anyone noticed. You would have been hearing about me on the evening news if I had burnt down the SONY Center!

After lunch I planned to walk to the Kurfurstendamm and visit another museum, The Story of Berlin. This was a bad plan because the famous Ku’damm avenue is too far to walk to from Potsdamer Platz. However, I did come across the Berliner Philharmonie first and then the Kulturforum, so I visited the Gemaldegalerie instead. The Gemaldegalerie was not high on my list of museums to visit but it was pretty amazing. It has one of the world’s leading collections of European art from the 13th to the 18th century. I saw many paintings by Rembrandt and a special exhibit on Caravaggio. I recognized his painting Amor Vincit Omnia from one of my art books. But I especially liked the paintings of Venice and took special notice of many Dutch paintings, as I may turn my attention to The Netherlands next.

Unfortunately, I know little about classic art since I have always preferred modern art. So I was very pleased to find the Neue Nationalgalerie a little further on. The architecture of this museum is kind of strange because it appears to be a completely empty one story building with walls of glass. It looks like an abandoned car showroom. You have to go downstairs to find the real museum. The Neue Nationalgalerie has many artworks by my favorite German artist, Otto Dix, plus other paintings in the grotesque style that paint society in an unflattering manner. And it was a real treat to find a lot of paintings by Max Beckmann. I should buy a book on that artist. However, what really impressed me where some metal sculptures that I have never seen before. I definitely want to learn more about these sculptures because they were very striking in their design.

The Neue Nationalgalerie has an excellent bookstore which tempted me to buy a lot of books. I restrained myself to only buying the English guide to Neues Museum Berlin, a museum for Egyptian art on the museum island, not to be confused with this museum, and a thin book on Berlin’s New Architecture. There was a thicker book on Berlin architecture but I did not want to carry heavy books around for the rest of the day.

After leaving that museum I made my foolish attempt to walk to to the Ku’damm avenue but eventually got tired and took the U-Bahn back to Alexanderplatz Bahnhof. I found an ATM (Geldautomat) near the exit and used my debit card to resupply myself with euros. Then I hobbled back to my hotel because being on my feet all day was becoming quite painful.

Once I had freshened up and rested my feet a bit, I put them to further abuse by walking down Unter den Linden to Dussmann das KulturKaufhaus, a department store devoted to German culture on media; books, CDs, and DVDs. This store would be equivalent to Borders in the United States. This place is a treasure trove for anyone studying German. They even have a entire separate area on one floor for English books. But my goal was to buy some DVDs that you just can’t get in the United States; Berlin Calling, Christine F., and Effi Briest, all films set in Berlin. I did download Christine F from the Internet but the DVD is surprisingly hard to find in America. You could make a little money by importing it. Fortunately, the Bahnhof Berlin Zoologischer Garten is no longer the haunt of teenage drug addicts and prostitutes. So far, Berlin seems to have been cleaned up like New York City.

Then I returned to my hotel room before heading out again to go up the Fernsehturm, the TV Tower. I chose a hotel near this tower because it makes it easy to find my way back. For the same reason, staying near the Eiffel Tower is a wise move in Paris. Only in New York City does this trick fail because nothing is really visible from anywhere in the city. The Empire State Building comes close but the skyscrapers are packed so tight you often can’t find even the tallest buildings from street level.

I did have some trouble finding the entrance to the TV Tower because it is not indicated in any of my guidebooks. You actually have to go around the back, the side facing the Alexanderplatz Bahnhof. I used my Berlin WelcomeCard again to get a discount on my ticket. You have to scan the ticket at the turnstile but at least there was no security like you find at the Statue of Liberty. When I reached the observation deck I had an excellent 360 degree view of Berlin so I took lots of photos. It was just like the Eiffel Tower or the Top of the Rock in NYC.

The only other thing I did on Tuesday, was do some shopping at the nearby Galerie Kaufhof. The interior of this department store is really impressive in some photos I found online but in real life it looks nothing like the photos. It is just your typical department store, like a Macys. I did find some batteries I was looking for and bought the latest Nina Hagen CD.

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Berlin On Monday

My flight from Williamsport was canceled on Saturday, after we had gone through security and were seated on the plane, maintenance warning required an abort of takeoff, so I had to come back to the airport on Sunday. This means I lost a day from my vacation. In the future it may be better to drive down to Philadelphia International Airport and fly from there.

I was seated on the aisle on the plane that left Williamsport but there was nobody in the window seat so I moved and got a good aerial view of the Lycoming Mall and the Berwick Nuclear Power Plant. At the Philadelphia International Airport I took a bus shuttle all the way from the F terminal to the A terminal. I like to joke that you need to take a plane to get from one end of that airport to another because it is huge. Being in the Philadelphia International Airport was interesting because I’ve been doing lots of travel preparation for future Philly trips. I saw the SEPTA train that shuttles passengers from downtown Philly to the airport.

During the 6 hour flight to Frankfurt Airport I watched three movies on the inflight entertainment system; The Tourist (how appropriate), Mr. And Mrs. Smith (also starring Angelina Jolie), and most of Red. I had a long layover in Frankfurt before a Lufthansa flight to Berlin’s Tegel Airport. I had to go through passport control and then security again to get to terminal A, but at least they don’t make you remove your shoes. During the long wait I found an ATM (Geldautomat) and used my debit card to withdraw 200 euros. There were free newspapers in the waiting areas so I used the opportunity to stash some German newspapers which you cannot obtain in the United States. The biggest news story was Guido Westerwelle’s decision not to run for re-election as FDP leadership. I had to learn a little about German politics to study the nation’s culture because the German news covers it a lot. I found a bookstore and bought a Berlin map (better than the one I brought), a small Berlin guide book (Polyglott on tour brand), and a copy of Tip Berlin magazine, a magazine I was unable to obtain at home.

During the hour flight on Lufthansa, announcements were made in German first and then in English, the opposite from the US flight. I was handed a Corny Free candy bar as I boarded the plane. This is an amusing example of the bizarre use of English in German products to seem fashionable. Is “corny” an adjective meaning the candy bar will not be corny? Television shows can be corny, but not candy bars. Or does it mean you can be assured that this candy bar will not contain corn? You certainly would not expect corn in your candy bar.

I had a window seat on the Lufthansa plane but did not see anything interesting out the window as we made our descent to Berlin except for lots of apartment blocks. After landing and collecting my bag, my biggest challenge was finding a taxi to the hotel. This is a fine example of those travel details which are simple enough, but require some experience because nobody ever explains how it is done. And it is hard to figure out when you are barely functioning due to jetlag. Finding the exit was easy enough, but once outside there was a line of taxis queuing up for a position in two taxi lines. Just waiting on the sidewalk was not doing me any good because this seems to be where cars will pick people up. After observing the scene for awhile, I carefully crossed over to the the taxi line, which is sort of a traffic island, and moved forward until a taxi driver beckoned me over to him. I just handed him a piece of paper with my hotel address printed on it in big letters. That was one bit of business I came well prepared for!

As we drove around Berlin, I observed all the signs and little details. Before this trip, I had a prescient dream of wandering a Berlin neighborhood which made a peculiar impression. I was amazed to receive the same impression at one point in this drive. It is highly unusual for a dream to accurately portray someplace you’ve never been before. In my experience, dreams are incapable of presenting anything that is not a distortion based on actual experiences. Of course, my dream did not show me exactly what something looked like in Berlin, it was more like a matching impression. Still kind of amazing because after seeing countless photos in Berlin, everything looks quite different in real life and makes a very different impression from what you expect based on photographs.

Television Tower

Now where was I? The taxi driver seemed to be driving all around Berlin but eventually we drew closer to the television tower and I recognized streets from Google Street Maps. I was worried that my hotel would give me some grief because I did not show up yesterday but they received my email and everything was cool. My credit card was rejected though because I forgot to notify them that I would be in Berlin. Fortunately, I have two credit cards. You should definitely hang on to your credit cards, even though they jack up the rates, because I don’t think it is as easy to get another card as it used to be.

I’m staying at a designer hotel which is truly a designer hotel, in the sense that it seems like something Apple would design. There is one big button for the lights and nothing works as you would expect due to the clever design. In the Information Technology business, designing something this way in complete disregard for usability would deserve a lengthy rant.

After freshening up I went out for some sightseeing. It was only my intention to take some photos of the television tower but I keep going until I had walked all the way to the Brandenburg Gate and snapped photos of almost every sight in Berlin. I even ventured past that into the Tiergarten and found the Soviet Memorial. Mitte seems compact enough to walk if you have good shoes. That reminds me that TSA security in the United States will no longer allow you to have gel inserts in your shoes. So I put a pack in my checked bag but forgot they needed to be cut to size. Since you cannot pack scissors this presented a problem. I had to cut them to size with a kitchen knife.

My research on Berlin really paid off because I knew exactly what to look for to find all the landmarks. The only landmark I had trouble finding was the Marx-Engels Forum statues of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engles which has been moved and enclosed in a chain-linked fence. I get the impression that Karl Marx isn’t getting too much respect in Berlin these days. However, there is still a lot of construction going on.

Kark Marx in Berlin

Unfortunately, the Reichstag Dome was closed to visitors. I don’t know if that was just for today or if it will be closed indefinitely for security’s sake. I remember reading that it may be closed after Germany received some threats. I did take many photographs of the building.

Reichstag Deutschland

I’m not having much luck with my German. I don’t think my pronunciation is anywhere near good enough. It certainly is useful to be able to read a little German though. Fortunately, Germany really is a bilingual country with English being the preferred secondary language. So far I have found everyone capable of switching to English. I’m really impressed! But you do need to indicate your native tongue as soon as possible to provide the right social cue. I have decided to start every interaction with a “Hello” to get us into English mode. You definitely don’t want to remain silent and keep them guessing.

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Preparing For Berlin Trip

I am very busy preparing for my vacation in Berlin which is just a month away. Last month I intensified my study of German but this month I concentrated on improving my knowledge of the city. Google Street View is now available for Berlin so I’ve been using that to pinpoint the location of landmarks and buildings. Transportation is one of my major concerns so I’ve been searching for photos of various U-Bahn stations. Online maps and photo sharing sites make it easy to do extensive armchair traveling. Although I have read dozens of guide books this research is really helping me to know what to expect.

On Saturday I saw the new action thriller Unknown starring Liam Neeson. This is a great movie to watch if you are planning a trip to Berlin. The arrival of the main characters in Berlin was a very interesting sequence for me. It shows Liam Neeson arriving at Tegel Airport which is where I will be landing. I noticed that he did not have a problem finding the taxis because they were waiting for passengers right at the exit. And the taxi driver knew English. Liam Neeson went to the Hotel Aldon on Pariser Platz near the Brandenburg Gate. That luxury hotel is far too expensive for me but I will probably see it when I visit the Brandenburg Gate. I will be staying at the Lux 11 Berlin-Mitte hotel near the Television Tower. I wanted a hotel near the Fernsehturm so I will always be able to find my way back to the hotel. That Television Tower is visible from everywhere in the city. It is close to the Volksbühne theater.

I already have my Berlin Welcome Card and a BVG transportation ticket. You can order that online although it is more expensive when you factor in the shipping. But I figured it would save me the trouble of finding one in Berlin.

berlin-welcomecard_ticket-und-guide

I have enough Euros left over from my Paris vacation for this trip as initial cash for a taxi. The only thing that I still need to do is book my flight. In March, I plan to memorize the most useful German phrases. Although I can now read German a bit, my pronunciation and hearing skills are poor. I’m afraid that self-study through books does not develop those skills. But now that I have a car with a CD player I can listen to one of my German language learning CDs on the short drive to work.

After Berlin, the next European city that I visit will be London. I was planning to make Venice next but I don’t have the time to learn a third language like Italian. At least I won’t need to learn English for a trip to London! I’m not sure if I should continue to learn German after returning from Berlin or go back to studying French. My German is further along than my French and I have sunk a lot of money in the resources to learn German. German is a more useful language in Pennsylvania because the Amish speak a form of German.

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Chinatown NYC Trip

On Saturday, January 22nd 2011 I made my first trip to New York City for the new year. I was not planning on doing much traveling in the winter but my brother was going on this trip so I made a reservation too. He wound up cancelling. Although it was bitterly cold I was bundled up like a homeless person with too many layers of clothes and actually spent most of the day sweating.

My focus for this trip was Chinatown, a New York neighborhood which I’ve never visited on any previous trip. Since it was a very cold day in winter, Chinatown was not busy, with only a few tourists wandering about. I immediately made my way to the famous Peking Duck House restaurant for lunch. This is rumored to be former NYC Mayor Ed Koch’s favorite restaurant. I was a little too early so I had to wander around and take photos of the statue of Confucius in front of the Confucius Plaza Apartments, the Benjamin Ralph Kimlau Memorial Gate at Kimlau Square, and the statue of Lin Ze Xu. I was the Peking Duck House Restaurant’s first customer of the day when I went back. I ordered the fried squid which is a rubbery type of food, but tasty. You cannot order the Peking duck unless there are four people in your party. I was worried that it would upset my stomach but I did not experience any discomfort of any kind for the entire day. After lunch I found Ting’s Gift Shop where I wanted to buy a souvenir but I was not sure they were open. I should have been more daring and tried the door.

Lin Ze Xu

Next I went to the Museum of Chinese in America, a small museum in Chinatown. It did not take me long to view their exhibits because I did not read many of the descriptions. To be perfectly honest, I was not very interested and only went to this museum because it was something to do in Chinatown. I did buy an interesting graphic novel from the museum store, Johnny Hiro by Fred Chao.

Johnny Hiro (9781935233022): Fred Chao: Books

ISBN: 1935233025
ISBN-13: 9781935233022

After that I lost my enthusiasm for Chinatown and decided to go to the Strand Bookstore. I relied on my custom NYC travel guide on my iPod Touch for directions. It does not require a wireless connection and includes all the I research I’ve done for navigating the city. So I was able to determine that I should take the subway to the 14th Street Union Square station and then walk south to reach the Strand Bookstore. Before I reached the Strand I saw a little bookstore around the corner selling rare books. I thought it was the Argosy Book Store but it was too small and I now see that it was the Alabaster Bookshop. I had trouble finding any book I wanted and eventually settled for The Land of Green Plums by Herta Muller, a Nobel Prize winning author. I remember seeing this book on Amazon. The book is about how German ethnic minorities suffered in Romania under the dictatorship of the Ceausescu regime. Cheerful stuff! I’m actually trying to avoid this kind of German misery. In order to learn the language, I need to associate German with positive and pleasant things to offset the dreary chore.

Based on my previous visit to the Strand Bookstore, I knew to head down to the basement where they keep their books in foreign languages. New York City tourists from Europe should head to the Strand Bookstore if they want to find reading material in their language, although I doubt that most tourists want to find a good book to curl up with when they have so much to see in New York City. I specifically went to the Strand Bookstore to find books in German because I knew they would have them and they are expensive to order from Germany. I found an entire bookshelf of books written in German but it was hard to pick one without being able to read every title. I could figure out what some of the books were about. Eventually I found some nice hardcover books on a nearby bookcart. These books were brand new in shrinkwrap so they seemed a little better than all the used books. I bought two novels by Theodor Fontane, Effi Briest and Frau Jenny Treibel oder Wo sich Herz zum Herzen find’t .  Theodor Fontane is a famous Berlin novelist from the decline of the Prussian empire. I’ve already read an English translation of Effi Briest, the only one of his novels translated into English. So I consider the Frau Jenny Treibel book a real find. Unfortunately, literary works are beyond my level of German. I have trouble even reading a children’s book like Kleiner Eisbär, kennst du den Weg? I also bought Joseph Conrad’s The Heart of Darkness in German, Herz der Finsternis. At least I recognized the noun Herz which means Heart.

NYC Strand Bookstore

It was still only 2:00 pm so I decided to visit one of the minor museums on my NYC to do list, The Museum of the City of New York. This museum is way uptown on the Upper East Side. So I took the 6 train all the way to the 103rd Street station. I’m always getting mixed up by the street names on the Upper East Side so I frequently needed to consult a saved Google Map on my iPod Touch. The subway lets you off at Lexington Avenue. If you reach 3rd Avenue you are heading in the wrong direction, away from Central Park. If you are heading in the right direction you should cross Park Avenue and then Madison Avenue. Unfortunately, I don’t have that memorized.

Museum of the City of New York

Most of the permanent exhibits at the Museum of the City of New York were closed. This always seems to be the case when I visit a museum! What I could see where the exhibits Glorious Sky, Herbert Katzman’s New York and Denys Wortman Rediscovered: Drawings For The World-Telegram And Sun, 1930-1953. Denys Wortman’s cartoon drawings of everyday life in New York City were a particularly fascinating cultural artifact of the city. I liked them enough to buy a book of his cartoon drawings at the museum store. I also could not resist buying Store Front (Mini) – The Disappearing Face of New York, a great book of photos of classic New York City. The Museum of the City of New York museum store is a good place to find NYC souvenirs, although all the museums tend to sell books on the city itself.

I left the Museum of the City of New York at 3:30 pm so I still had four hours to kill until my bus left. I thought about walking through Central Park but that would have been tiresome for four hours. So I decided to visit the The Metropolitan Museum of Art again. The Met is always a great place to kill some time in New York City but I think I’ve finally seen everything there. I did have my camera with me as I viewed the exhibits and was not shy about taking photos so I have some great shots of what you can see there. Some notable artworks that caught my eye were; Jean Beraud’s The Church of Saint-Philippe-de-Ronde,  Paul Delvaux’s Small Train Station at Night, and Gustave Moreau’s Oedipus and the Sphinx. Since the Met is open until 9:00 pm I was able to spend several hours there and only left at 6:30 pm in order to make it back to the bus pick up spot via the subway and walking. On the bus ride home we watched the movie Wild Hogs because many of the other passengers were in NYC for the motorcycle show at the Jacob Javits Center.

Egyptian Sarcophagus at the Metropolitan Museum of Art

This may be my only trip to New York City this year. I have seen all the major tourist sites in Manhattan. I could begin to explore Brooklyn, as every New York City resident frequently urges you to do, but that requires extra travel from Manhattan. I definitely plan to make this my big year for exploring Philadelphia. There are three bus trips I could take to Philly; the Philadelphia Flower Show in March, the Philadelphia Zoo in July, and the Murals of Philadelphia and National Constitution Center. I’m not sure about the Flower Show because that does not interest me and it costs extra.

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A jQuery Table Sorter Parser For German Vocabulary Lists

I still plan to go on vacation in April. I will be spending a week in Berlin. I am putting a lot more effort into learning German in order to prepare for my trip. I have been studying German for over a year, but not very intensely. I have created a custom help file for my notes on the German language. Many of the pages in this help file are HTML tables of vocabulary lists with the German and English words in columns. As I add words and rows to the list, the alphabetical order may be lost. Fortunately there is a plugin for jQuery which allows you to sort a HTML table in alphabetical order. I have been using the tablesorter plugin to sort my tables without a page refresh or server side code.

The only problem with that solution is the definite articles. I usually include the definite article before the nouns because you need to know the gender of a German noun. For example, Katze is a feminine noun so I place it in the Deutsch table column as die Katze so I will remember the noun’s gender. Unfortunately, that causes Katze to appear below every other masculine and neuter noun. A neuter noun requires the definite article das which comes before die when sorted in alphabetical order. So das Schwein (the pig) appears before die Katze (the cat) even though K words should be listed before S words. I could have solved this problem by placing the definite article after the word: Katze, die but that looks awkward. What I really wanted was to sort the column based on the second word.

Fortunately, you can create a custom parser for the tablesorter plugin which sorts the column based on the logic you provide in your code. I was able to write a custom parser that replaces the definite and indefinite articles in the table cell with empty strings so they do not affect the sort order. I can add to my logic to handle additional requirements like disregarding possessive pronouns when sorting the column,  mein Vater.

   1: // add parser through the tablesorter addParser method 
   2: $.tablesorter.addParser({ 
   3:     // set a unique id 
   4:     id: 'Deutsch', 
   5:     is: function(s) { 
   6:         // return false so this parser is not auto detected 
   7:         return false; 
   8:     }, 
   9:     format: function(s) { 
  10:         // format your data for normalization 
  11:         return s.toLowerCase().replace(/die /,'').replace(/der /,'').replace(/das /,''); 
  12:     }, 
  13:     // set type, either numeric or text 
  14:     type: 'text'
  15: }); 
  16:  
  17: $(function() { 
  18:     $("table").tablesorter({ 
  19:             sortList: [[0,0],[1,0]],  
  20:         headers: { 
  21:             0: { 
  22:                 sorter:'Deutsch'
  23:             }         
  24:         } 
  25:     }); 
  26: });   

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Mifflinburg Christkindl Market And Clyde Peeling’s Reptiland

Today I visited the Mifflinburg Christkindl Market and Clyde Peeling’s Reptiland. The Christkindl Market gave me another excuse to visit Mifflinburg which has become my favorite town to visit due to the scenic farmland along Route 45. Since this was my second time at the Christkindl Market I knew exactly where to park and felt more relaxed. I took the shuttle bus to the market.

I bought a soft pretzel stick, a very delicious schnitzel sandwich with onions and horse radish, and a cinnamon stick. The buggy museum was open so I got a chance to tour a few of the exhibits but not the other buildings. I was a little surprised to find the building in this photo since the museum is usually depicted by the buggy factory. This must be the Education and Visitor’s Center.

Mifflinburg Buggy Museum

I also took a photo of the Heiss House which is part of the museum. I plan to do a proper visit of the Mifflinburg Buggy Museum next spring. I did buy a DVD from the museum gift shop.

There were several folk art vendors at the Mifflinburg Christkindl Market and due to my recent interest in Pennsylvania German folk art, I did make several purchases. I bought a framed scherenschnitte from Brenda’s Crafts. Scherenschnitte is the art of papercutting design. The piece of artwork I bought is a love letter with the outline of a man and woman cut out. I thought it was rather clever. It was a bit expensive but more affordable than a genuine antique. I also bought a fine example of contemporary Fraktur by Donna Selfridge Spangler.

After leaving the Christkindl Market I stopped in at the Wenger’s Grocery Outlet again although I only bought some oatmeal and cherries. On the way home I decided to visit Clyde Peeling’s Reptiland. This is another local attraction which I have driven pass many times but never actually visited. I would not recommend making a special trip to Reptiland but it is worth stopping in if you driving along Route 15 and have an hour to spare. I didn’t really plan to visit Reptiland today but I’ve been meaning to check it out so I did.

Admission is $12.00 and they stamp the back of your hand to indicate that you have paid. The first critter I saw was Rocky, their huge alligator. Reptiland has two alligators, Rocky and Adriane. Yes, they named their alligators after characters from the movie Rocky! We are a little too far from Philadelphia to be stealing their icons, in my opinion, but whatever.

Reptiland also has many glass cases with snakes, turtles, frogs, and other reptiles. Frankly, it was not as impressive as I expected. I imagined a real alligator pit and a good collection of reptiles but this would just be part of a small zoo.

Reptileland Snakes

They did have a good collection of tortoises. The largest specimens, which may have been Galápagos tortoises, were eating straw or hay which made them seem like dairy cows to me.

Reptileland Tortoises Eating Straw

I saw one of their shows consisting of a video and the chance to touch a boa constrictor and a young crocodile. They also brought out an owl, a Great Horned Owl, I think. The tour guide mentioned that owls are very common in Pennsylvania which is true. I often hear an owl hooting at night. There may be one nesting in the pine tree next to my house. I think I have squirrels in my attic. It is cute to see the cat looking up at the ceiling when it hears something scurrying around up there. One of the varmints has chewed a little peep hole in my back bedroom.

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Day Trip To Selinsgrove PA

Today I continued my exploration of Central PA by visiting Selinsgrove PA. Selinsgrove is another town that I usually just drive pass on my way to Harrisburg because Route 15 bypasses their downtown. For this trip I took Interstate 180 West instead of Route 15 South in order to avoid Bald Eagle Mountain which really strains my old car. Trying alternative routes is part of the exercise.

Susquehanna University is located in Selinsgrove. I recently bought a book published by the Susquehanna University Press, A Pennsylvania German Anthology by Earl C. Haag. This book provides many rare examples of literature written in the Pennsylvania German dialect. On my way back from Selinsgrove I stopped at the Street of Shops in Lewisburg and saw a group of Amish women speaking in the Pennsylvania German dialect. That was the first time I’ve ever heard it spoken in real life and it confirmed for me that the language is not dead, although only the Old Order Amish and Mennonites keep it alive. According to A Pennsylvania German Anthology at least one Pennsylvania German writer lived in Williamsport, Abraham Resser Horne (1834 to 1902). He was the pastor of St. Mark’s Luthern Church and you can download his Pennsylvania German Manual from Google because it is now in the public domain.

At 10:00 a.m. I went to the Susquehanna Valley Mall which is the sister mall to Lycoming Mall. It has a similar set of stores so there is really no reason to drive all the way down there. I bought a raison pretzel and a lemonade at Auntie Anne’s. Auntie Anne’s is an American chain of pretzel bakeries based in Lancaster, Pennsylvania. Their logo is a pretzel with a halo over it which may be due to their association with the Pennsylvania Dutch in Lancaster. I guess the Lycoming Mall has an Auntie Anne’s but for some reason I’ve always overlooked it. At Waldenbooks I bought a copy of Weekend Getaways in Pennsylvania by Bill Simpson. This was an ideal book for me because that is exactly what I was doing, a weekend getaway in Pennsylvania. This book has a chapter on Lewisburg which lists all the restaurants and stores. However it does not have a chapter on Williamsport. What is up with that? It also has a chapter on Pittsburgh but leaves out Philadelphia.

I also went to FYE and bought season 3 and 4 of It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia. This television show really has me stoked to visit Philadelphia. You can see many Philly landmarks in a few of the episodes and the opening title sequence is a montage of Philly sights. The cutting edge wit of the show also appeals to me. At the King of Prussia Mall I bought the It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia: A Very Sunny Christmas which has Danny DeVito buck naked in one scene. I really didn’t need to see that. You can’t unsee something like that! They should do an episode with some Amish characters from Lancaster. That would be hilarious.

After leaving the mall I drove into downtown Selinsgrove. First I went to the local bookstore, D.J. Ernst Books, where I bought a very expensive old book, Conrad Weiser, Pennsylvania Peacemaker by Arthur D Graeff, published by the Pennsylvania German Folklore Society in 1943. This is a biography of Conrad Weiser, a German Pennsylvanian pioneer, interpreter and effective diplomat between the Pennsylvania Colony and Native Americans. On page 266 there is some mention of Andrew Montour whose mother was Madame Montour, famous in local lore. Montoursville is named after her. So this book is quite a find!

I then had lunch at Emma’s Food For Life, where I had Cajun Seafood Kabobs, Wild Alaskan salmon and wild caught shrimp dusted with Cajun seasoning, skewered and grilled to perfection. Served on a bed of brown rice with vegetables.

Emma's Food For Life

After lunch I felt I had spent more than enough money on this trip so I headed home. I did pass an interesting store that I wanted to check out, Moonbeams In A Jar, a metaphysical bookstore, but I was uncertain about it being open and there wasn’t any parking so I skipped it. As I mentioned before, I decided to stop off at Lewisburg since it was on my way home. There was free parking so I was able to spend more time at the Street of Shops. I wasn’t as overwhelmed by this place as on my first trip and I wound up buying almost exactly the same thing I bought before. I did buy an Irvin Hoover print of a photograph showing two Amish women in a buggy driving pass a Pioneer Seeds sign.

As usual, I am probably being way too meticulous in my exploration of my home state. It is sort of a game for me to trace the connections between various aspects of the local culture. The Internet makes it easy to research anything. But you never know where something will lead you and exploring the area could provide me with new opportunities in our terrible economy. I am definitely improving my knowledge of the local resources that are available to me.

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First Friday At The Pajama Factory

This evening I attended the First Friday at the Pajama Factory. The Pajama Factory is an old factory that has been converted into artist studios, galleries, and craft shops. I have occasionally heard people suggest that what Williamsport needs to revitalize itself is some artist lofts. It is amazing that someone actually followed through on this idea and turned a dilapidated factory into a haven for creatives. This was the first time that I’ve been to the Pajama Factory even though it has been functioning as an artistic community since 2009. I’m a bit miffed that I did not know about an artistic community right in my own neighborhood. I drive by the Pajama Factory often but I always thought it was abandoned except for some small businesses.

One of their tenants is the Bald Eagle Art League which was exhibiting their member’s work in the Floating Gallery. I was impressed by the artwork on display but I especially liked the work of fantasy illustrator Terra Bidlespacher. I also visited the office of Susquehanna Life Magazines. Susquehanna Life is a Central PA magazine published in Lewisburg. I bought a copy of the magazine on my trip to Lewisburg and recently subscribed because it may be useful for my exploration of the region. By the way, I may visit Selinsgrove tomorrow.

The Pajama Factory has been compared to the GoggleWorks Center for the Arts in Reading PA. I thought GoggleWorks was sponsored by Google but now I see that they got the name from a former safety-goggles factory building. Their logo looks a lot like the Google logo. The Pajama Factory used to be the Weldon Pajama Company which made sleepwear. Since it closed in 1979 I don’t think I’ve ever know those buildings to be anything more than factory outlet stores. Being inside the Pajama Factory is kind of creepy because it is a funky old factory that feels haunted. However, it has been converted into studios so there are long hallways with many doors leading into workshops. The creative atmosphere puts me in mind of a Do-It-Yourself art school. I think you could also compare it to the Kunsthaus Tacheles in Berlin.

It is exciting to have a bohemian community so near to my neighborhood. Maybe we will be overrun by hipsters and get some cafés and alternative boutiques like Philadelphia’s South Street.  The Pajama Factory isn’t exactly in my neighborhood, which is Garden View, but it is inbetween the suburb Garden View and downtown Williamsport. Really just a five minute drive for me so I’ll keep an eye out for more events and shows taking place there.

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King Of Prussia Mall Trip

I wasn’t going to blog about this bus trip because it was just a trip to the mall. But I think it is worth a brief post. I was not impressed by the King of Prussia Mall. Although it may be huge and have hundred of stores, the actual selection of merchandise was rather limited. For example, there was not a single store with a decent stock of DVDs except for Borders. Even electronics were hard to find outside of Sears, Brookstone, Apple, and a Sony Lifestyle store. I cannot recommend going to the King of Prussia Mall unless you are looking for expensive clothing and fashion. The Christmas decorations were impressive with two massive Christmas trees.

I went to Borders twice because that was the only store with anything I might want. The whole trip was made worthwhile by just one purchase, a Job Search Philadelphia book published by Adams Media. This book lists many Philadelphia employers by industry. It should prove to be quite valuable if I lose my job because I would consider moving to Philadelphia if that happened. For some reason, this book cannot be found on the Internet, not even on the publisher’s web site. So it was worth the trip just to snag this book.

I also found a copy of Culture Shock Berlin which I have started to read right away. This book was written for people who are moving to Berlin, not tourists, but it still provides a wealth of information about the culture.

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Thomas T. Taber Museum

Today I approached Williamsport like a tourist and visited a few places I wouldn’t normally consider. First I drove out to the Olde Barn Centre in Muncy. This antique store is housed in a huge barn way out in the countryside. It is quite similar to the antique malls in Lewisburg. Unfortunately I did not find their antiques very interesting so I only bought a cheap print of a German village. I don’t know if antiquing is ever going to be one of my hobbies. The artwork I’ve seen is really bad and you can’t even find any decent trinkets. Maybe I should check out some of the high end antique stores instead of these glorified country stores.

The Olde Barn Centre is near the Lycoming Mall so I could not resist a visit to the mall. I went to Borders and bought a book on Pennsylvania Caves and Other Rocky Roadside Wonders by Kevin Joseph Patrick. Pennsylvania has many caves which are popular tourist attractions but I have not been in one since I was a kid. That curious mental block which prevents residents from visiting local tourist attractions has prevented me from even thinking about Pennsylvania’s caves. But I do remember Penn’s Cave which you tour in a motorboat and I vaguely recall Indian Echo Caverns. All I remember is that we visited some Indian cave and got some Indian blankets which we had for a very long time after that. It was probably this place which is in Central PA.

Instead of going home after my trip to the mall as usual, I went downtown and made an unprecedented visit to the Lycoming County Historical Society’s Thomas T. Taber Museum.  Of course, I knew exactly where this museum is located but I have not entered the place in years, not even for a social event. Actually, although I drive through or around downtown fairly often I never really go downtown on any kind of business. I’ve probably been to New York City more often then I’ve been downtown this year.

I did have a reason for finally checking out this museum. I’ve recently become more interested in historical societies after visiting the Lancaster Heritage Center Museum and browsing the Union County Historical Society web site. As part of my effort to explore the state I have ventured into Pennsylvania Dutch country which requires a lot of background information to understand. I have found several reasons to take an interest in the Pennsylvania Dutch:

  1. Technically all of Central Pennsylvania is Pennsylvania Dutch country although us northerners are not particularly aware of this.
  2. The Pennsylvania Dutch are more accurately known as the Pennsylvania Germans and this includes many religious groups besides the Amish and Mennonites.
  3. Pennsylvania German Folk Art is interesting from a design perspective because it uses an unique style of font, Fraktur, and hex symbols. As a web developer I can see the potential in adapting Pennsylvania German Folk Art for local web designs.
  4. I am currently studying German to prepare for my trip to Berlin. German is still spoken in Pennsylvania and you can find some material written in German (usually associated with the Pennsylvania Dutch).
  5. There is a form of shamanism practiced by the Pennsylvania Germans known as braucherei. I’ve been interested in shamanism for a long time and never knew that there was a local variety. There are even Central PA New Age groups that practice this form of shamanism. There was a workshop in Selinsgrove recently.

The Taber Museum did not have much of anything associated with the Pennsylvania Dutch. The only thing that caught my eye was a fine example of fraktur folk art by Henry Young. I have put a red border around the Henry Young fraktur in the image below.

Taber-Museum-Fraktur

Recently I bought a very fine example of fraktur on eBay. I guess this does not qualify as folk art because it is only a scrap of writing, although it is a fine piece of calligraphy. I think it might be a Himmelsbrief or “heaven’s letter” but Jesus is addressed in the third person so maybe not.

Pennsylvania Dutch Fraktur

So if you find anything written in German in a Central PA antique shop there is a good chance that it will be a piece of Pennsylvania German Folk Art. If the dealer thinks it is merely German you may be able to buy something really valuable for far less than it is worth. Actually I doubt that Central PA antique dealers are that misinformed but I have seen Pennsylvania German Folk Art on eBay that is not properly identified by the seller.  Also the fraktur I bought was surprisingly inexpensive so even the genuine article might not be worth much.

The Thomas T. Taber Museum has a very impressive model train collection, the LaRue Shempp Model Train Exhibit. After my visit to the museum I saw the movie Unstoppable which was just released. This film is set in Pennsylvania so everyone is eager to see it. It is an exciting action film about a runaway freight train. Unfortunately the movie uses a lot of fictitious names for Pennsylvania towns and it was partly filmed in Ohio but otherwise it really captured this aspect of the state. We have freight trains near where I work so I see them all the time. Here is a link to the Lycoming Valley Railroad which runs trains in Newberry.

Before I left the museum I bought a hundred dollars (yikes!) worth of books to aid my exploration of Pennsylvania:

This book on railroads should interest anyone who liked the movie but I hope it will also point me in the direction of some other interesting places to visit in Pennsylvania.

I also bought this book on the Pennsylvania Dutch Country which should clarify the extent of this culture.

And finally I bought their book on my hometown. I’m pretty sure I’ve met one of the authors, Robin Van Auken, several times because she was involved in many local web sites.

Next week I will be taking a bus trip to the King of Prussia Mall. This will be on Black Friday so it will be a madhouse. I still have plans to explore Philadelphia as extensively as New York City. Ultimately the main purpose of all this travel is to improve my knowledge of the region so I can find work when I need to.

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Day Trip To Lewisburg PA

Today I went to Lewisburg PA. Lewisburg is only a 30 minute drive from Williamsport so it is considered to be part of the area. However, today was the first time that I ever ventured into downtown Lewisburg. Usually I just drive through the town on Route 15 heading south to Harrisburg. That is not to say that I don’t have some history with the town. Back when I was working for Kolb Net Works, we did some work on the Susquehanna Valley Visitor’s Bureau web site and I remember paying them a visit to work on their Access database. And I remember eating at Country Cupboard at least once.

I arrived at Hufnagle Park in downtown Lewisburg at 8:00 a.m. Hufnagle Park has plenty of parking spaces and it is deserted at 8:00 a..m. because most places open at 10:00 a.m. However I did discover that there are parking meters there so I’m glad I brought plenty of quarters. I was driving a rental car with Virginia license plates because my car is being repaired after a minor accident. Everyone must have thought I was a tourist from Virginia! For the first hour I walked around and took many photos. There were several places that I wanted to visit for which I could find no photos online. So one of my goals for this trip was to get several photos for my personal tourist guide which I created for my iPod Touch. At 8:00 a.m. the streets were deserted so that was perfect for taking photos. I did not get too many people or cars in my photos. Also, it makes me nervous to have a lot of people around when I’m busy taking photos. I did not see anyone else in Lewisburg acting like a tourist by snapping photos of everything in sight.

Lewisburg Hotel and Bradley Shoemaker Gallery

Nothing was open until 10:00 a.m. so after one hour of taking photos, I bought a copy of the local newspaper at the CVS Drugstore, The Daily Item. After that I went to the Barnes & Noble Bookstore where I was able to kill a lot of time by browsing for books. Lewisburg is a college town, home to Bucknell University, so this Barnes & Noble store was a lavish place as if it was part of the campus. I bought three regional publications that I usually can’t find anyplace else; Pennsylvania Magazine, Susquehanna Business Life, and Central PA Magazine. Susquehanna Life is actually published in Lewisburg and I shot some photos of their office. I also bought another one of those Arcadia Publishing books on Lewisburg since the purpose of my trip was to explore the region. I accidentally gave the cashier my Borders card which amused her.

Barnes & Noble Bookstore

At 10:00 a.m. all the stores opened so I started doing some serious shopping. The first store I went into was Bradley Shoemaker Gallery. There I bought a very expensive print of Bradley Shoemaker’s watercolor painting, Spring Snow (Mifflinburg). This was a bit extravagant but I’m really enchanted by Mifflinburg which is surrounded by Amish farms, dairy farms, and Victorian homes. There may be a bit of nostalgia in this because there used to be a dairy farm behind my house and I remember walking pass its corn fields to get bottles of milk. It was a small dairy farm out in the suburbs. I went to Mifflinburg later in the day because it is also along Route 45, west of Lewisburg.

After putting the large print in my car, I walked to Roller Mills Marketplace. This place is difficult to describe because it is quite unlike any store that you find today. Basically it is an old flour mill that houses 400 antique dealers. Apparently antique dealers rent out space in this building which creates a huge collection of partitioned areas filled with Americana. It was like being in a dream about grandma’s house which had become an endless jumble of antiques. It would make a fine museum. Although the selection was enormous and bewildering I did have trouble finding anything really distinctive that I wanted to buy. I was tempted to buy an old railroad stock certificate like the one I saw at the Museum of American Finance in New York City. They were only $5.00 but I could not find one for the Elmira and Williamsport Rail Road Company which would have been special. Eventually I found a Chinese Soapstone Carved Foo Dog Seal which I bought.

Roller Mills Marketplace Entrance

I then went to the Street of Shops which is somehow associated with Roller Mills. This was another indescribable wonderland of antiques and flea market finds. Imagine a mall made up entirely of flea market stalls, country craft stores, and antiques and you may be able to picture this place. Judging by the photos online I was expecting a shabby department store but it is actually somewhat impressive. It did strike me as being kind of shabby but I can definitely see the appeal for anyone tired of mass produced crap. You can find a lot of unique items at the Street of Shops. I went down into the basement area which is an immense flea market, like a huge indoor yard sale. There was really too much there for me to take in. It would take you hours upon hours to really look through everything they had. In the end, I only bought three things; a vintage pornography photo (not very risqué), a jar of Jake & Amos Hot Chow Chow, and a print by Dick Brown entitled "Buggies on Quilting Day" (actually a photo). Chow chow is a Pennsylvania Dutch Food which I’ve never had before. I think it is basically mixed vegetables which have been pickled, pickled mixed vegetables.

Street Of Shops in Lewisburg

I left downtown Lewisburg after my visit to the Street of Shops. Ordinarily, I would have gone home after such a busy day but I still had several other places I wanted to visit. However, there was really no need to cram so much into one day because Lewisburg is close enough to visit whenever I like. I drove back up Route 15 and stopped at the Country Cupboard empire. Country Cupboard is a restaurant which has grown into a huge enterprise. I actually found an online review which uses the word "empire" to describe what this place has become. In addition to the buffet restaurant, the complex now includes a country mall, country hothouse, and a Best Western hotel associated with Country Cupboard. I only went into The Shops at Country Cupboard. I found a peculiar mini-mall filled with high end country crafts and gifts. Everything looked very slick but kind of cheesy, sort of a retail fantasy country life designed for tourists. The bakery did make a slightly better impression upon me so I bought some more Pennsylvania Dutch Food including; Wos-Wit Mustard Chow-Chow, Brandied Peaches, White Russian Gourmet Coffee (OK, so that wasn’t Pennsylvania Dutch Food), and a pictorial guide of Pennsylvania. Country Cupboard had a collection of books on the Amish and even those Amish romance novels that have become popular with Christian women.

After leaving Country Cupboard I drove back south along Route 15 and then west on Route 45 towards Mifflinburg. First I stopped off at Ard’s Farm Market, a small grocery store and restaurant. Ard’s Farm Market was much smaller than I expected. I grabbed a grocery cart but there wasn’t much to fill it with. Ard’s Farm Market is sort of like the genuine rural version of the Country Cupboard, not quite an empire but more authentic.

I then proceeded to the Carriage Corner Restaurant where I finally had something to eat. I’ve been meaning to try this restaurant after seeing it on my previous trips to the Christkindl Market and Oktoberfest. One online review describes the food as bland and the clientele as elderly. I did find it to be exactly so, but it was still an interesting experience. I had the orange duck which is something I’ve never eaten. Duck seems to be a very fatty bird. Before leaving the restaurant parking lot I snuck a few photos of the Carriage Corner Restaurant because I could not find any decent photos of this place online.

Carriage Corner Restaurant

After my late lunch I drove into downtown Mifflinburg and parked near the library. I then walked to the only bookstore in town, La Vieille Maison des Livres, but I found the front door locked. This was the only disappointing part of my trip. This bookstore does not have a web site so I did not know their hours. I did take a photo of the storefront because you can’t figure out exactly where the store is located using Google Street View.

La Vieille Maison des Livres

I probably should have spent more time in Mifflinburg but I felt conspicuous so I headed back on Route 45. On the way, I saw a tractor drive by which briefly held up traffic. I guess that is part of rural life. Before I went home I stopped at Wenger’s Grocery Outlet and bought some groceries. Wenger’s Grocery Outlet was definitely the most interesting place I found on my trip because the store is run by Mennonites. There were two buggies parked in the grocery store’s parking lot. It is very surreal to see a grocery store staffed by Mennonites. It sort of makes sense when you consider how much of their income is based on selling produce at farmer’s markets and roadside stands. This just takes that to a whole new level. All of  the cashiers were Mennonite teenage girls and the deli section was staffed by Mennonite women. They sell discounted groceries that are pass their due date and farm produce. There was gospel music playing instead of the usual grocery store muzak. I saw that they were selling those Amish romance novels just like everyone else.

I’m a bit reluctant to mention this, but I have a sneaking suspicion that my sister got involved with Mennonites back when she lived in Pennsylvania. Maybe she even converted or was baptized as a Mennonite. I may have been too dense to realize this when I was younger. I remember she was friends with the Walkers which is a common surname in Union County. I never could figure out what Christian faith she was involved in but being around Mennonites reminds me of her friends. They certainly weren’t Old Order Amish but I remember visiting a house with a cherry orchard.

While driving back to Williamsport I saw some more Amish driving a strange cart behind some horses, heading towards Elimsport which I’ve recently learned is an Amish community right here in Lycoming County. I don’t want to develop an unhealthy fascination with the Amish, but I am exploring Pennsylvania and they are more of a part of this area than I realized. Well, in two weeks I will be going to King Of Prussia Mall and hopefully that will restore my obsession with Philadelphia, the wealthiest city in the state.

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Day Trip To Lancaster PA

Yesterday I went to Lancaster City PA. The city of Lancaster is located in Central PA. Williamsport is also located in Central PA but we are in the north and Lancaster is in the South. Although it only takes two and a half hours to drive from Williamsport to Lancaster, there does not appear to be much interaction between the two cities. I’ve never known any local groups to organize a trip to Lancaster and the local media rarely mentions the city. I guess it is too far away to be considered a local town. Various other cities to our south are considered to be part of the region;, like Milton, Lewisburg, and Selinsgrove which I always drive through on my way to Harrisburg. So although I’ve lived in Central PA all my life, this was my first visit to Lancaster PA. It only really occurred to me to visit the city because it is mentioned in all the travel guides for Philadelphia.

I was pleasantly surprised by Lancaster. It is twice the size of Williamsport PA and somewhat similar to our city but it does appear to be more prosperous. I found Lancaster to be very chic with many cool stores. The 300 block of North Queen Street is a pocket of bohemian culture like Philadelphia’s South Street. Lancaster also has some museums, an art gallery row, a convention center, and all the trappings of a major city although it does not seem to have the scale to quite pull that off.

Driving to Lancaster is not as straightforward as driving to Harrisburg. To get to Harrisburg you can just follow Route 15 South pretty much all the way without bothering too much with exits. But to drive to Lancaster you need to take several highways east. I found the directions so complicated that I spent almost an entire day studying the route. Fortunately, this served me well because the only mistake I made was taking the first US-322 exit which was West and not East.

When I finally arrived in Lancaster at 8:30 a.m. I parked at the Prince Street Garage on 111 North Prince Street. I was able to park on the first deck and found it quite convenient to return to my car throughout the day. The first place I visited was the famous Central Market which opened at 6:00 a.m. This is the country’s oldest indoor farmers market. The first thing I bought was a small framed painting of a rural scene in winter. Then I went to the German Deli and bought a Christmas Stollen and Jagdwurst “Hunter’s Bolgna” by Schaller & Weber. I was familiar with the name Schaller & Weber because it is a deli in New York City’s Yorkville neighborhood right next to Heidelberg Restaurant. The German Deli had a wide variety of German food. After that I bought a book on the Central Market from an Amish woman, some goat cheese from Linden Dale Farm, and a jar of plum jam from Esther Sangrey. Other than the Amish standholders at Central Market, I did not see any Amish in Lancaster City and I did not pass any buggies on the roads and highways. I did see several large farms along Interstate 283 West.

Central Market

I walked around the downtown area and took a lot of photos (check out my Flickr set). I killed some time by having breakfast at the Red Rose Restaurant, which is a pleasant, upscale restaurant on Kings Street with great views of the Lancaster County Courthouse. Most of the stores and museums open at 10:00 a.m. So after breakfast I went to The Demuth Museum. The entrance to this museum is a bit hard to find. You actually have to walk through an archway to the garden out back and then find the door back there. This museum is devoted to the work of Charles Demuth who was born in Lancaster PA and lived in the house that is now his museum. Charles Demuth is best known for his painting The Figure 5 in Gold, 1928 which I’ve seen in books on modern art. I think I’ve seen this painting at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. I don’t think the Demuth Museum even has any of his major works, but they did have three rooms of exhibits which did not take me long to view. One room had Charles Demuth’s bed with a view of his garden below. The museum was running a special exhibit on the artist Elie Nadelman. Before leaving I bought two books, Out of the Chateau: Works From The Demuth Museum and Elie Nadelman and the Influence of Folk Art. This books were very expensive for how thin they are.

Demuth Museum

After returning to my car to stow my museum purchases I went to another museum, the Heritage Center Museum which is also on King Street. On the top floor I saw their printing presses which are part of an operating print shop with printers to explain the process of printing. The second floor was an impressive Masonic Lodge Hall with some decent exhibits on early American furniture and Lancaster historic artwork. Another gallery on this floor had an exhibit on Amish culture called Amish Choices. I discovered that the Amish learn High German and English in school besides their own dialect. I find that interesting because I’m currently studying German in preparation for my trip to Berlin. All during my stay in Lancaster I was tempted to surprise someone with some German but I really don’t speak it very well.

The Lancaster Visitor Center is on the ground floor of the Heritage Center Museum so I found myself in there and picked up a few brochures. The lady handing out the brochures and directing visitors asked for my zip code which revealed that I was from Williamsport. She remarked that is getting cold up there as if we were so far north that our weather is artic. LOL.

Lancaster Visitor Center Close Up

That was the last museum I visited although Lancaster also has a quilt and fabric museum and a contemporary art museum. After that I went shopping. First I checked out the 300 block of North Queen Street where all the quirky stores are located. I took some photos of Mommalicious, Rachel’s Café & Creperie, and Zap & Co. But I only went into Zap & Co which is a very cool store filled with vintage clothing and retro design merchandise. You could tell that the owner was really into design because there were many design books strewn about the store. It was a really amazing place, packed full of high quality antiques and retro culture like cocktail lounge decorations. All of the historic buildings in Lancaster must have had an effect on me because I bought a really expensive Art Deco lamp for $200.00. Normally I would not buy something like that but it did make for a better souvenir than any of the tourist crap. I would much rather have a fine antique to remember Lancaster by, something with history like the historic city, than a cheap trinket.

Zap & Co

My second major purchase was a giclee print from Red Raven Art Company on Lancaster’s Gallery Row. Lancaster has many art galleries, art museums, and even art supply stores so it seems to have a vibrant cultural life. I wonder if this is the influence of Philadelphia which causes nearby towns to flourish as artist colonies when the hipsters discover potential loft spaces? (Actually the explanation is that Lancaster is home to the Pennsylvania College of Art & Design). Unfortunately Williamsport is rather mundane as far as culture goes. I’ve always thought it was a cultural wasteland. People have disagreed with me on this but I don’t think Williamsport can compare with Lancaster. I suppose our Millionaire’s Row would attract artists if we were closer to Philadelphia. Those old mansions would make fine museums and art galleries.Any way, I bought a print of Steve Wilson’s painting Autumn Ghost. I saw this print online while looking through Red Raven Art’s online store. This was another expensive purchase but it appealed to me. While I was in Lancaster I daydreamed about a rural witch living in a rundown farmstead protected by a hex. This was a dream about the isolation of rural PA which can seem somewhat idyllic if you want to get away from it all.  Steve Wilson’s painting Autumn Ghost really fit in with my gothic daydream. When I filled in my address on the sales receipt the gallery sales clerk mentioned that he was originally from Williamsport.

Gallery Row Lancaster

I was planning on staying in Lancaster until around 6:00 p.m. when it would start to get dark but I felt I had accomplished enough to leave early. But before I left I went to Yorgos Restaurant & Lounge and ordered two pancakes, primarily in order to use their restroom. Fortunately I did remember to check out a bookstore before leaving. I walked all the way to DogStar Books in Chestnut Hill. This was a pleasant walk because I saw many more historic buildings in that part of town. At DogStar Books I bought the Cambridge Illustrated History of Germany by Martin Kitchen.

DogStar Books Lancaster

Unfortunately, I did not study the directions for the return trip so I got lost a few times on the way home. I did turn on my GPS system which seemed to automatically program itself for the correct destination. It has been unplugged since I had my car inspected so I thought it would have lost my home address. Anyways, I wound up driving pass the Dutch Apple Dinner Theater and drove through Harrisburg’s airport because I followed the GPS instructions too closely. But it did eventually help me to reach Route 15 North and then I was home free.

In conclusion, Lancaster PA looks like a great place to live. It is far more sophisticated than you would think based on the Pennsylvania Dutch stereotypes. Lancaster has an Amtrak station so you can take the train to Philadelphia or New York City. If I had to find a new job I might look for something in Lancaster. There were a few warning signs though. I saw some religious nuts with signs warning sinners about hell (this was kind of comical, a literal warning sign) and a homeless man asked me for some change. There were also some Hispanic newspapers which indicate the ethnic diversity of the city.

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New York City In October

Yesterday I made my final trip to New York City for this year. This was sort of a checklist trip to get some tourists sites off my to do list. The first thing I did was go to Carnegie Deli on 55th Street for lunch. Unfortunately Carnegie Deli had one those sidewalk sheds over its storefront so I did not bother taking a photo. I ordered a Bacon Lettuce and Tomato sandwich and had a cup of coffee. The sandwich had two inches of bacon and two inches of tomatoes so I had to take some of it off to eat the sandwich. The walls of the Carnegie Deli are covered with photographs of celebrities who have dined there. I overheard another customer talking about the Woody Allen film Broadway Danny Rose which was filmed there. I was not aware of this when I picked this restaurant for my trip so I will have to check it out.

The next item on my itinerary was Top of the Rock at the Rockefeller Center at 1:00 p.m. However it was only 11:00 a.m. when I left the Carnegie Deli so I had two hours to kill. I really did not have anything planned to fill this dead time. I did go to the Austrian Cultural Forum on the nearby 52nd Street. This is an unusual building that is probably overlooked by most tourists. I took a few photos of the building but I did not go inside because I was not sure they were open.

Austrian Cultural Forum

After that I walked down Madison Avenue which was closed for a street fair. I would have thought that midtown was too posh for these street fairs. Most of the vendors were selling the usual tourist crap but I was tempted by a vendor selling international CDs and another vendor selling Buddhist and Indian statuettes. But I did not buy anything because I did not want to be burdened by packages just yet. However it did provide a convenient way to kill some time.

Madison Avenue Street Fair

I did come across a store that is pictured in a German guidebook to New York City which I bought on http://www.amazon.de, Sephora at 597 5th Avenue. Sephora is a chain of cosmetics stores. This is a particularly elegant store not far from the Rockefeller Plaza. I see it is near the American Girl Place which is extremely popular with many people on my bus. According to Wikipedia, American Girl is a line of dolls, books, and accessories based on pre-teen girl characters that originally focused on various periods of American history from the viewpoint of girls and has now expanded to include dolls of and stories about contemporary girls. American Girl Place is a store that sells American Girl dolls, clothes, and accessories

Sephora

After a long wait at the Rockefeller Plaza, it was finally 1:00 p.m. and time for my trip to the Top of the Rock. I had to wait until then because I bought my timed ticket online. The elevator whisked a group of us over 70 plus floors in less than a minute. I was impressed because I did not feel any movement. There was a cheesy video playing on the ceiling of the elevator to keep us entertained during the ride but that hardly seemed necessary. It was a bright sunny day with clear visibility so it was a great day for visiting the Top of the Rock. That must have been why it was slightly crowded. I was not expecting the plexiglass windows all around which can cause reflections in photos but there are narrow slots between the plates of plexiglass where you can hold up your camera for a better shot. I took lots of photos of the Empire State Building and the view downtown.

Downtown View From Top of the Rock

And I shot photos of Central Park and the view uptown.

Central Park from the Top of the Rock

I will be using these photos as my Windows desktop background for a long time! I took 467 photos on this trip which is a new record for me. After taking the elevator back down I kind of got lost in the maze of shops below the Rockefeller Plaza but eventually I found my way back to street level and outside.

My next destination was the American Folk Art Museum on West 53rd Street. I picked all my tourists sites in midtown and walked everywhere instead of taking the subway. I wanted to visit the American Folk Art Museum because I am interested in outsider art. Outsider art is often created by untrained artists who feel an unusually strong inspiration, sometimes quite visionary. That interests me because I'm quite familiar with mystic inspiration and the visionary power of the unconscious mind. Unfortunately, this is not quite the perspective of the American Folk Art Museum which is more focused on quirky examples of American crafts. The museum is a bit narrow and very vertical so you have to climb several steep flights of steps. The fourth floor was closed but there were other floors above that. I saw lots of quilts which were somewhat interesting to me because I may visit Lancaster PA. The Amish are famous for their quilts and I think there is a quilt museum in Lancaster. Most of the American Folk Art Museum's quilts were not made by the Amish.

American Folk Art Museum

Before leaving the museum I bought a book at the museum bookstore, my first purchase of the day. I bought Outside Art, Spontaneous Alternatives by Colin Rhodes. I selected this book because it was a small paperback and it looks like a good introduction to Outsider Art.

My next stop was the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum which required a long walk cross town. You should take a bus if you are going a long distance cross town but I did not want to try that aspect of public transportation that day. Getting on a bus can frequently be awkward because you need exact change or a ticket. Then you have about 30 seconds to figure out the machine that collects the fare before the people behind you or the bus driver gets testy. Even the local public transportation bus system gives me this kind of grief. After a few years without needing to ride the bus you'll find the fares have increased and the entire system has changed.

So after a long walk I made it to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum which is on the far West end of midtown on the Hudson River. My bus always passes the Intrepid on its way to the Lincoln Tunnel so I've been meaning to visit this museum. I used the walkway to cross 12th Avenue. This walkway takes you right to the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum as I discovered during my research in preparation for this trip. I even took a photo of it. This is not the best photo of my visit but it is photos like this that are really valuable when you are trying to find your way around a city. Fortunately we have Google Street View too!

Walkway to Intrepid Sea Air Space Museum

The Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum is kind of expensive so I went with the general admission ticket for $24.00. I guess it is expensive to maintain a museum which also happens to be an aircraft carrier. The Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum is definitely one of the most awesome tourist attractions in New York City, giving you a rare opportunity to walk around an aircraft carrier. But first I went to Growler Submarine exhibit. The Growler is a 1950s Cold War submarine which carried hydrogen bombs that were delivered by rocket planes. They even had a hydrogen bomb rocket plane pointed at Manhattan! LOL! I don't think this was a nuclear submarine since it was not powered by a nuclear reactor and it did not carry modern nuclear missiles. Instead it would have delivered the hydrogen bomb via rocket propelled jets. You have to step through a hatch to prove you are nimble enough to do the tour before they let you onboard the submarine. The submarine itself has been retrofitted with stairs and glass panels to protect the equipment.

Growler Submarine

The equipment in the submarine did look very dated with a 1950s vibe. It reminded me of an old mechanics shop or a 1950s garage with oily gear.

Growler Periscope

After exiting the Growler I had to take a time out to replace the batteries in my camera. Then I went over to the British Airways Concorde which was parked nearby. This airplane has been converted into a museum just like the submarine, with areas roped off and all the seats encased in glass. You could not enter the flight deck but you could take a photo of the cockpit.

British Airways Concorde

Then I walked up a gangplank into the Intrepid where I saw the crew mess and galley with cheesy sound effects of public eating babble. Some of the mess halls were decorated to make the crew feel more at home. I took the elevator up to the flight deck. The flight deck has many jets and helicopters including; A-12 Blackbird, F-14 Tomcat, UH-1A Huey, MIG-21, F3D-2 Skyknight, and the IAI F-21A Kfir (Israeli Fighter).

Intrepid Flight Deck

Kfir

After taking hundreds of photos on the flight deck I went down to the hanger deck where I saw some more interesting exhibits including; the Intrepid's massive propeller, Mercury capsule replica, FJ-3 Fury airplane, and various space exhibits.

Space Capsule

At the Intrepid Museum Store, I bought a Hot-Wings F-14 and the book Intrepid: The Epic Story of America's Most Legendary Warship. I'm not very fond of military history but I figured it might be interesting to read more about the ship.

I left around 4:15 p.m. and my bus would not leave until 8:00 p.m. so I had several hours to kill with nothing else planned. I started to think about finding a restaurant and then I remembered that Hallo Berlin was nearby in the Hells Kitchen neighborhood. I've been to New York City so often this year that now I know what restaurants are in a neighborhood! I asked for a table for one. I will have to learn how to say that in German for my trip to Berlin next year. Ich möchte einen Tisch für eine Person. I ordered a glass of red wine and a meal of Wine Herring with Apple and Gherkin slices in creamsauce and German Fries, Stringbeans, and cucumber salad (according to their online menu). I don't know if I've ever had herring before but cutting it was exactly like sawing through a piece of black rubber. According to Wikipedia, Pickled herring is a delicacy in Europe, and has become a part of Baltic, Scandinavian, German, Eastern Slavic and Jewish cuisine. The cucumber salad was very good and the German fries had curry sauce on them I think. Hallo Berlin is a cool place where you can find traditional German food and enjoy the European ambiance. They don't dress in traditional costumes, Trachten, that make other places seem so cheesy. The place is decorated with many banners and framed beer advertisements.

That still did not kill enough time so for the next three hours I wandered around Manhattan and took photos. Many of my photos did not turn out well because my camera does not handle low light conditions well. I did try to take a lot of photos around the Times Square Church area because this is always where the Susquehanna Trailways bus drops us off and picks us up. I did discover that there is a subway station hidden in the Paramount Plaza subconcourse, on the other side from the Mars 2112 restaurant. It looks like a 1 train station. That would make it the closest subway station to our drop off point.

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Unrealistic Project Deadlines

Recently I’ve been offered projects with unrealistic deadlines. This has got me thinking about the issue. Unfortunately, many entrepreneurs and business people lack experience in initiating web development projects so they make some common mistakes. How you propose a project can give web developers the wrong impression. If you just follow the bad examples you find online, you will be sending warning signals to web developers and then you will find it difficult to get anyone onboard.

In order for your project to appear attractive to a web developer you must avoid the following:

  1. Setting an unrealistic deadline
  2. Offering experience in lieu of payment
  3. Offering a partnership in lieu of payment
  4. Holding out the carrot of prospective work
  5. Asking for a clone of a major web site
  6. Hinting that there will be feature creep
  7. Asking for work on spec

Web developers are frequently burned by accepting these projects so you will be sending warning signals if you propose a project under these terms. Web developers will mercilessly mock anyone who comes to them with these kinds of projects. Here are some examples of the kind of scorn you could inspire.

http://clientsfromhell.net/ – a popular web site that mocks the client from hell. Don’t be this guy!

Top 10 Ways to Fire the Client From Hell -developers will ditch a bad project

I suspect that many business people just don’t know any better so I’ve decided to write a few articles on the proper way to pitch your web development project.

First I want to discuss the unrealistic deadline. A project appears to have an unrealistic deadline if the scope of work exceeds what a single developer can achieve in the given timeframe. Unfortunately, there is inherent complexity in web development so you can’t really accomplish much of anything right away. There will always be unexpected technical problems that cause you to lose time. Then there are projects that are simply ridiculous. It is equally important from a client’s perspective to make reasonable requests. You will certainly not get what you ask for when you are asking for the moon. And if you do find an unscrupulous developer who will undertake a project that he cannot complete then you will just be wasting time and money. The following factors will prevent a project from being completed on a timely basis:

  1. Proprietary application frameworks. If a web site was built from scratch by a previous developer, then it will take time for a new developer to figure out how it works.
  2. Code and platform conversions. Converting a project from PHP to ASP.NET or ASP to ASP.NET or ASP to PHP is a time consuming process which will require a lot of testing. Also, moving a site from Windows to Linux or vice versa always causes unexpected technical problems.
  3. Being asked to clone an existing web site. Major web sites like eBay, Amazon, and even Twitter were not developed by a solitary programmer in a week. These sites represent major IT projects that probably required extensive planning, a huge budget, and a team of expert programmers. Also building a web site to scale so it can handle that kind of traffic is not a trivial task.
  4. Revolutionary concept and new technology. If it has never been done before, then it will take extra time to figure out how to accomplish it. Also, with new technology nobody is going to have the extensive experience to bat something out right away.

I am not very enthusiastic about projects which need to be done in a week, yet promise technical difficulties which will surely take longer than a week to solve. Accepting these kinds of projects means dealing with an unhappy client who may refuse to pay his bill.

As I mentioned previously, web development has a certain inherent complexity. Any attempt to cut corners or speed things up will fail. Various schemes have been tried to turn the whole process into a cookie cutter operation for greater efficiency. All of these schemes have failed. For example, outsourcing the work to India usually fails, especially when it is done to cut costs, because the last thing you want to do is introduce another factor into the project, like all the issues that come from dealing with people from another culture. Then there are the rapid web development platforms like Ruby on Rails. These work fine for the initial stages of a project but eventually the complexity worms its way back in and then you are wasting a lot of time working around the limitations of Ruby on Rails. Web application frameworks like Drupal do seem to offer some promise for rapid web application development but first you have to master the framework.

In conclusion, it is important to set a reasonable deadline for your project. Unrealistic expectations will not be met. You will probably just drive away the professionals who are capable of completing your project if you make unreasonable demands. Of course, for the right budget you may be able to hire a programmer rockstar who will make a superhuman effort to complete an impossible project on time, but your budget will have to be considerably higher than $300. LOL!

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Travel Plans

I’m very busy with several projects so I need to keep my clients informed about my travel plans. I will be making my final trip to New York City this Saturday, October 30th. I plan to have lunch at Carnegie Deli and then view NYC from the Top of the Rock. After that I will make a short visit to the American Folk Art Museum and finish the day at the Intrepid Sea-Air-Space Museum. Next month I will go to the King Of Prussia Mall instead of NYC. The King Of Prussia Mall is in the Philadelphia area. This will mark the beginning of my extensive exploration of Philadelphia. It is not that I think the King Of Prussia Mall is a good place to start at, it is just that the local bus company offers a tour bus to the King Of Prussia Mall next month for early Christmas shopping.

I have started a new set of iPhone friendly travel notes for Philadelphia. Currently I have over 80 topics in my notes on this city. I intend to look for work in Philadelphia if I lose my day job so I’m exerting a lot of effort in learning more about the city. I don’t have any definite plans to move to Philly. I’ll just concentrate my efforts towards getting a job there if I wind up unemployed for a long stretch. In the meantime, I’ll just visit the city as a tourist.

I’ve been watching the TV series Parking Wars on DVD. This show offers a fascinating glimpse into the local culture. It is also interesting to watch fellow Pennsylvanians deal with car registration and car insurance problems. Very educational for any driver in this state! Speaking of which, I need to get my car repaired after being rear-ended. Fortunately, the damage was minor and the other driver’s insurance will pay for everything.

I will finally be making my trip to Berlin next year in April. I really need to do more work to be prepared for that trip. I have begun to make more detailed travel notes for Berlin, but they don’t need to be extensive because I will only be in the city for five days. New York City and Philadelphia require more research because I will be visiting these cities often. I’ve almost finished reading my last Berlin guidebook so I will concentrate on learning more German. I’ve been studying German for over a year but not very consistently. I’ve only read two books on the language. Everyone says you can survive in Berlin without speaking German but I’ve seen numerous examples of street signs, notices, etc in German which would be confusing if you can’t read German.

It looks like the economy is going to get even worse. I continue to travel because I think it is good preparation for finding work. It encourages me to pick up new skills and makes me more confident in dealing with unfamiliar situations. For example, in Philadelphia I will make use of public transportation and learn how to use their system.

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Mifflinburg Oktoberfest 2010

I’ve just returned from the Oktoberfest celebration held in Mifflinburg PA. It was a beautiful day with clear skies and crisp fall weather. The sun was bright and you could get hot in the sun but the air was cool. I’ve bought a few tourist guidebooks to help me explore Pennsylvania but none of them include Mifflinburg. However, Mifflinburg once again struck me as being one of the most charming areas of the state. The town itself has many fine old buildings along the main street with classic storefronts. Along Route 45 you will see many large farms with huge barns and grain silos, surrounded by fields of corn. The Mifflinburg area has authentic Pennsylvanian charm. It is sort of like Lancaster but without the tourists. This town is to the west of Lewisburg, only one hour from Williamsport.

The Oktoberfest event was held in the VFW Fair Grounds to the west of the town on Route 45. It was just a field like where carnivals are sometimes set up. You could say the Oktoberfest was like a small German themed carnival. There were a few food stands, some large beer hall tents, and a few other stands. The cars were parked on the grass.

I bought a 2010 Mifflinburg Oktoberfest Collector Stein and two beer tickets but I did not actually have anything to drink. I was reluctant to drink any alcoholic beverages because I had an hour drive home and did not plan on staying long. I bought enough food to feel full anyways. I had a bratwurst with sauerkraut, some ice cream, a funnel cake, and a Pepsi.

2009CollectorMug

After eating all that food I watched the Black Run Bohemian Dancers perform many traditional German dances in traditional German costumes. I did not see any Amish or Mennonite farmers in the crowd so they either avoid Oktoberfests or there aren’t really that many in the area. Maybe the farms are all dairy farms. When the dancing was done I bought a bag of roasted peanuts and left. There was an old farm behind the field and I could see miles of corn fields and farmland surrounded by mountains. It was very picturesque. On the drive home I saw a farmer’s market, a large garden store with a huge greenhouse, and a farm that seemed to be selling antiques. In other words, this rural area seems to be worth exploring if you are looking for someplace like Lancaster only without the buses of tourists.

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Wall Street

On Saturday, September 25th, I made my eleventh trip to NYC this year. On this trip, my objective was to explore the Financial District. I’ve been paying a lot more attention to the economy after the financial crisis so Wall Street has been on my mind. The financial industry is very important to New York City. I suspect that much of the improvement in the city is due to the vast wealth created during the real estate bubble.

I brought along a guidebook on Philadelphia to read on the bus. I wanted to send the message that their passengers may be interested in visiting that city as well. I was expecting someone to ask if I was sure I was on the right bus, but nobody noticed or said a thing. There will be a bus trip to the King Of Prussia mall in November. I may go on that trip but it is not exactly within the city.

When I arrived in New York City I found the subway system was still all screwed up on the weekend schedule. I went to the 50th Street and 8th Avenue station but it was closed so I had to walk to the 42nd Street station. A MTA worker was trying to direct people to the right train. She asked me where I was going and I said downtown. She kept asking me this question until I finally specified Wall Street. She was really exasperated with me, but hey, don’t keep asking the same question over and over, expecting a different answer. All she had to do was ask me to be more specific. Any way, she told me to get on the 3 train instead of waiting for the 2 train. While I was on the train, a rude tourist was bold enough to take my picture. He was with some other people and I think they were speaking Russian. It looks like New York City still has a problem with Russian spies!

When I arrived at Wall Street I quickly found the Trinity Church and Museum of American Finance. I must have been at the Wall Street / William Street subway exit, exactly as planned. Although I did not know exactly where I was going, I did immediately find Delmonico’s Restaurant, Intesa Sanpaolo on 1 William Street, the New York Stock Exchange, and the Federal Hall National Memorial. I took lots of photos of these famous landmarks because you can’t actually enter any of them. The Federal Hall National Memorial is open to the public but it is closed on Saturdays.

NYSE

I then walked up Broadway and found the Zuccotti Park, aka Liberty Plaza Park, where I saw Isamu Noguchi’s Red Cube and Joie de Vivre by Mark di Suvero, public sculptures. The Red Cube looks a lot like the Alamo cube on Astor Place in the East Village. I also found the Chamber of Commerce there and you could see where the Freedom Tower is being built. According to Wikipedia, that skyscraper is officially named One World Trade Center.

Isamu Noguchi's Red Cube

After that I remembered that I really wanted to see the Charging Bull statue at Bowling Green before lunch so I backtracked down Broadway to the Bowling Green park. The Charging Bull was mobbed by tourists and photographers so I could not get a good photo of it. I guess you would need to be there early on a Sunday morning to find it deserted. There is free WiFi at the park so I sat on a bench and sent a tweet using my iPod Touch. A little further down Broadway I found the National Museum of the American Indian and then Battery Park with the ruined remains of German sculptor Fritz Koenig’s The Sphere. This sculpture used to be located in the plaza between the two World Trade Center towers. It was crushed when the towers collapsed. It now serves as a reminder of the tragedy. There is also an eternal flame near the sculpture.

Fritz Koenig's Sphere

I was ready for lunch so I made my way back to Williams Street. When I planned this trip, I picked out Crepes du Nord as a good place for lunch. Delmonico’s Restaurant is far more famous but it strikes me as being a really expensive and exclusive restaurant. Crepes du Nord is fancy but casual and not too expensive. It is a small restaurant with very limited seating. Fortunately I lucked out as there was only a single couple there even though it was around Noon. A few other customers came in as I was eating and nobody was dressed up for the occasion. I ordered a glass of white wine and a Crêpe Complète, Sunny-Side-Up Eggs, Ham, Gruyere for $9.00 and a Dulce De Leche, Caramel, Fresh Banana, Whipped Cream for $7.00. This was a slightly heavy meal. I would recommend that you only order a single crêpe.

Crepes du Nord

After lunch I went to the Museum of American Finance. This is a very small museum that should not take you more than a half hour to an hour to tour. They had a large exhibit on the financial crisis but it was nothing but a timeline which I did not bother reading in full. There was a video screen repeating a short clip from the old movie It’s A Wonderful Life, the bank run scene. An exhibit about the evolution of United States currency was slightly more interesting. They even had a bar of gold which was probably fake. I saw one of Mayor Bloomberg’s financial terminals. This really appealed to the geek in me. It had Bloomberg monitors and a special Bloomberg keyboard. However, what really surprised me was an old stock certificate with a local connection. I saw a Elmira and Williamsport Rail Road Company stock certificate! There is another town by the name of Williamsport in Maryland, but this was definitely my Williamsport in Central Pennsylvania. I took out my camera and took a photo of the stock certificate because I wanted proof that I had seen it.

Elmira and Williamsport Rail Road Company

In the museum’s gift shop, I used my credit card to buy a DVD on Wall Street and the book A Colossal Failure of Common Sense: The Inside Story of the Collapse of Lehman Brothers.  Both the book and the DVD feature the Charging Bull stature on the cover. They also had expensive statuettes of the Charging Bull but I returned to the real thing later on and bought a cheap replica from the many street merchants lined up there. While I was on my way there I came across the Fraunces Tavern, an 18th century building which is one of the few remaining colonial sites left in New York City. George Washington ate there.

Charging Bull Close Up

I then walked east for several blocks until I made my way to the FDR Drive which I followed to the South Street Seaport. A lot of tour buses park underneath the FDR Drive. The South Street Seaport has a bad reputation for being something of a tourist trap but I think it is interesting if you want to explore the history of New York City as a major shipping port. The only reason New York City ever grew into such a large and important city is because Hudson Harbor made it an ideal location for shipping and commerce. The South Street Seaport was not the focus of my trip so I did not try to board any of its ships or visit the museum itself. Instead I just went into Pier 17 and explored the mall. The mall was not terribly impressive. I suspect it is responsible for the everyone being a bit down on the South Street Seaport as a tourist destination. Even their Gateway Newsstand was completely devoid of books and magazines. I didn’t buy anything there except for a bottle of coke. There was some great views of the Brooklyn Bridge and I took some photos of the ship Atlantica as it cruised by the pier.

Ambrose Docked

When I left the South Street Seaport I walked up Fulton Street until I reached City Hall. Once there I entered the J&R Music Store. I am quite familiar with J&R because they publish a popular electronics mail order catalog which has been around for ages. They have been a major computer retailer since the early days of PCs. Here I made the only business related purchase on the entire trip. I bought a book on Object Oriented PHP which is precisely what I need to study for my current project. I’m busy converting a library of ASP functions to PHP and there is some OOP involved. This was pretty much the first time I used my New York City jaunt to do anything relating to my profession. J&R has a very annoying security procedure where they check your bags before you can leave the store. Any Wall Street firm that needs some PHP work done should give me a call. LOL. Unfortunately, the financial world does not hold the IT world in high regard. Personally I consider the Information Technology world to be the true meritocracy, where intellect is sure to find its reward, while the financial industry is just made up of big time crooks. Put some programmers and stock brokers in a room and one of the programmers will be the smartest guy in the room.

NYC Park Row

City Hall was closed for remodeling and appeared to be completely sealed off with very tight security. I did see the fountain in the City Hall Park though. Although it was only around 4:00 p.m. I decided to take the subway back uptown so as not to miss my bus. The 6 train was really crowded on the trip uptown. I got off at 33rd Street and could barely squeeze my way out. I had four hours remaining so I decided to visit the The Morgan Library & Museum on 36th Street and Madison Avenue. The Morgan Library itself was closed for remodeling. That was very disappointing because the major draw of this museum is to see the library. However, they did have some galleries open with four exhibits so it was not a complete loss. I saw exhibits on the drawings and sketches of Edgar Degas, a major exhibit on Mark Twain which included his letters, notebooks, and personally inscribed books, a collection of black and white drawings by pop artist Roy Lichtenstein, and vintage photographs of Anne Morgan’s charity to rebuild France after the first World War. In the Morgan Library bookstore and gift shop, I was tempted to buy a biography of J. P. Morgan but it looked really thick and I’m tired of buying books that go unread. I just bought a small pack of cards on New York City buildings instead.

Grand Central Terminal

As I was walking along Madison Avenue I eventually found myself near the Grand Central Terminal so I decided to pop in to find a newsstand. Although I had taken photos of its exterior on a previous trip, I had never seen the main concourse so that was pretty cool. I found a Hudson News shop and after looking at every shelf of magazines I finally found the International magazines where I really hit pay dirt. This newsstand has the best selection of European publications in the city. I bought French, German, and even Italian magazines.

That was the last place I visited on this trip. After that I just sat in the Rockefeller Plaza for almost an hour before heading over to the Times Square Church where I waited for the tour bus to pick me up. While waiting there I did see a crazy lady walk by screaming profanities at everyone she saw. Everyone seemed to be quite amused by her antics but I liked her style, making humanity take notice of her bitter condemnation. On the bus ride home we saw the Disney film Old Dogs which featured many scenes in New York City including the Grand Central Terminal which I’d just seen that day. That is what I like about visiting New York City. You gain a new appreciation for its frequent appearances in pop culture.

I accomplished most of my goals on this trip and even squeezed in several extra tourist sights that I was not planning on seeing yet. My next trip will probably not be confined to a specific neighborhood as I try to make it too several other museums and tourist sights still on my to do list.

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Philadelphia Obsession

I’m currently doing the kind of intensive research on Philadelphia that I previously did on New York City. I have created a new help collection for my notes on Philadelphia which now contains 12 topics. I have several good reasons for taking an interest in Philly:

  1. It is the closest major city to Williamsport
  2. Any travel I do that requires flying means I’ll be going first to the Philadelphia International Airport
  3. Williamsport steals from Philadelphia. We now have a mural and a gastro pub!
  4. When I take the Amtrak train to NYC, it goes through Philadelphia.
  5. Philadelphians aren’t snobbish towards tourists from other parts of Pennsylvania

My next trip to New York City is only a week away. I will be exploring the Financial District. I plan to visit the Museum of American Finance and take photos of the New York Stock Exchange and the Charging Bull sculpture. It will be exciting to see Wall Street after all I’ve heard about the place over the years. I’ll be there on a Saturday so it should be almost deserted. I’ve heard that neighborhood is kind of dead on the weekends. Once winter sets in I’ll probably stop my monthly visits to New York City because the weather may be bad. I also need to start saving my money for my trip to Berlin in April 2011.

I don’t know when I will start to visit Philadelphia instead of New York City. Unfortunately, I don’t have as many transportation options for this city. There are never any bus trips to Philadelphia from Williamsport. It does not make sense to drive to Harrisburg and take the Amtrak train to Philadelphia because driving directly to Philadelphia is faster and cheaper. So most of my trips will probably be three hour drives one way. My first objective will be to get familiar with SEPTA, their public transportation system, and to find a place to park my car for most the day.

I recently finished reading the Fodor’s Guide to Philadelphia and I’m currently reading the Insight City Guide: Philadelphia which has more photos. Insight Guides are my favorite travel guides because they feature the most inspiring photos. You really want to visit a city after seeing their photos.

I’ve also been watching a few movies that were filmed in Philadelphia. I watched 12 Monkeys again which has a few scenes outside City Hall. Then I bought the DVD of Trading Places. This movie shows you what Philly looked like in the early 1980s. I don’t think the One Liberty Place Building or the Two Liberty Place skyscraper existed back then so the city looked very different. There is an extended scene on an Amtrak train which is completely unrealistic since those trains don’t have private compartments. I also watched M. Night Shyamalan’s film The Sixth Sense again after buying it on DVD. I’ll probably get his other movies later on although they’ve been getting progressively worse. However, the very best movie I’ve seen is The Answer Man starring Jeff Daniels. This film was shot in Philadelphia’s Old City neighborhood and it really captures how the city looks today. Many of the scenes where shot in an actual bookstore in Philly. Since I like to visit bookstores when I travel that makes this film ideally suited to my tastes.

Tonight I watched the DVD of In Her Shoes, a film based on a novel by Jennifer Weiner, a journalist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Most of the Philly novelists seem to have worked for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Their entire newsroom is probably working on a first novel. I’m currently reading Jennifer Weiner’s novel Good In Bed. It is a very funny book but I’m mostly interested in the local flavor. For example, an early chapter has a scene that takes place in the Reading Terminal Market. I have also ordered some trashy novels by the Philly writer Duane Swierczynski who writes crime thrillers. Unfortunately, there is not a lot of reading material available to serve as inspiration.

I recently lost a lot of money getting my car repaired to pass inspection so I am pleased to have found my first business connection with Philadelphia. I now have a new Philly client! Philadelphia seems to be a very technology friendly city with many freelance web developers. I have found a Philly Technology blog to keep me informed about the local scene and they have a coworking space, Indy Hall, which is famous in the online freelance community. I think I first read about them on WebWorkerDaily which appears to have changed recently.

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Mobile Web Site Design – Scale Images

I continue to develop my expertise in designing web sites for mobile devices. I’ve been dissatisfied with the display of my travel notes on my iPod Touch. Wide images would force the page width to exceed the limited width of the screen which is only 320 pixels. This made the page hard to read unless I zoom in and scroll around. However, I did not want to resize all my images because I also use my travel notes on the desktop as a regular help file. Ideally I want a style sheet for mobile devices that reformats the page to look decent without changing any of the content.

The solution I found was to use jQuery (i.e. JavaScript) to scale the images to 320 pixels. My code checks the width of every image on the page, and if the width is greater than 320 pixels, it surrounds the image with a div that has a CSS class to scale the image. However images with a specified height tended to look distorted so I added some code to remove the height attribute from the img tag.

   1: $(document).ready(function() {
   2:     $("img").each(function(i) {
   3:         var width = $(this).width();
   4:         if (width > 320) {
   5:             $(this).wrap('<div class="scaleimg"></div>');
   6:             $(this).removeAttr("height");
   7:         }
   8:     });
   9: });

A couple of things to note here. First, jQuery does work on the iPhone and iPod Touch. It does not appear to effect performance. Second, I could have set the width to 320 pixels instead of wrapping the image in a div. I was experimenting with some CSS to set the image width using em relative sizes so I took that approach. I surrounded the script tags with conditional comments to prevent Internet Explorer from using the JavaScript. Help files use Internet Explorer to display help topics which are actually web pages, so I don’t need to worry about other browsers.

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Moving To The Big City

Should I move to the big city some day? I’ve been going to New York City once a month for this entire year and the long trips are quite a drag. Now that I have finished reading all the guidebooks on New York City, I have begun to read some guidebooks on Philadelphia, the other major city I can easily get to. I plan to explore Philadelphia when I run out of things to see and do in New York City.

It has always bugged me that Williamsport is kind of isolated. It takes at least three hours to get to any major city like Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, or New York City. Of course, this keeps the cost of living way down because nobody from the major metropolitan areas can live that far away from their workplace. Any small community in range of a big city runs the risk of an invasion and redevelopment.

There are two things that tie me down to Williamsport; my job and my house. Given the way the economy is going I may lose both. That is when I should give some serious thought to moving to Philadelphia or New York City. One of the few good things about an economic recession is that it can light a fire under your ass and force you to make some major changes in your life. Frankly, I’m inclined towards the inertia of remaining where I am with just the occasional trip to the big cities.

I think it is important to make such decisions objectively. People can get way too invested in their city and feel a pride that does not belong to them. For example, New Yorkers can feel very proud of the fact that they live in Manhattan but if their high rent keeps them in poverty then they really have nothing to be proud of. You should not let the glamour of your city mask the meanness of your existence.

There are three factors to consider when deciding where to live:

  1. Quality of Life
  2. Cost of Living
  3. Job Opportunities

You can have a low cost of living but a poor quality of life. This is my situation in Williamsport. On the other hand, you can have a wealth of cultural activities to choose from, great restaurants, a wide variety of shopping places and none of that will matter if the cost of living there is so high you can’t afford anything except your rent. That is how it is for many people in New York City. The job market in an area is also a crucial factor because it does not matter if the cost of living is really low if you cannot find a job. And a high cost of living may not be a disadvantage if you can easily find a high paying job.

I think the ideal situation is to live near a major city but not actually in the city. For example, if Williamsport were closer to Philadelphia then it would not be so bad. I could head into the city to work and attend cultural events while living in a quiet community with a low cost of living. A half hour drive into the city would not be so bad. Unfortunately a three hour drive into the city wastes a good part of the day.

Technically I don’t even live in Williamsport. I live in the suburb of Garden View. I am also too much of a hermit. Today I went downtown for a change of scene. It was pretty dead down there on this Saturday morning. But I went to Julie’s Coffee for a cappuccino and omelet.  This coffee shop has large glass windows with an excellent view of the courthouse and other buildings downtown. Then I went to Otto’s Bookstore and bought some more travel guides on Pennsylvania. This was a pleasant break and compares well to my experiences in the big city. It did not eat up my entire day and cost me hundreds of dollars.

For now I will continue to invest some time in exploring New York City and Philadelphia. I will also continue to reduce my pile of useless possessions which would make it difficult to move. I have discovered that it is easy to get rid of large items on Craiglist if you offer them for free. This saves me money because the garbage man charges extra when I throw out heavy items. I also lose money when I sell heavy stuff on eBay because the postage can exceed my estimate.

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