Our Toronto Honeymoon – Day 1

We’re staying on Carleton Street near Yonge Street, which is in downtown Toronto. We got out today and did some walking on Yonge Street south of our hotel.

People seem much thinner here in Toronto than Indianapolis. In fact, I think I was the largest person I saw all day, which is not the case in Indiana. But it’s a much more pedestrian/cycling city, so that makes sense. It’s very easy to get around without a car right around where we’re staying; there’s a subway and lots of bike paths.

People are very stylish, which may also be about the part of town we’re in. The sartorialist would have a great time here in Toronto; there are tons of well-dressed, creatively-styled people to look at. I didn’t get too snap-happy with the camera because I didn’t want to be rude, but there were quite a few people rocking their look.

What we did today:

  1. Ate breaksfast at Fran’s Diner – a great 1940’s diner on College Street.
  2. Changed money at CIBC bank — do this in Indianapolis instead, and save a few dollars. We didn’t have the free time to do it home.
  3. shopped at Winners – like a TJ Maxx, only better clothes and PACKED, with lines to get into fitting rooms. People seemed very serious about their shopping – possibly because they were on their lunch hour from work.
  4. Sat in Barbara Ann Scott Park near skating rink.
  5. Walked south down Yonge Street through Dundas Square, where there’s lots of shopping.
  6. Visited a souvenir shop & bought a royal canadian mountie moose.
  7. Shopped at American Apparel
  8. Shopped at LaChateau
  9. Saw Dundas Square, which is like Toronto’s version of Times Square.
  10. Visited Eaton Center Mall – Shopped at Roots, Indigo Books
  11. Too photos of The Church of the Holy Trinity, Trinity Square Park & the meditation labyrinth. This was a beautiful little square tucked in behind the mall. Toronto has lots of lovely public spaces.
  12. Ate at the Elephant and Castle Pub for dinner. It’s a chain; we didn’t realize until we went in. But it was decent dinner.
  13. Back to hotel & saw Baby Mama at the Cineplex Odeon near the hotel.

Photo Set: our first day in Toronto.

Photo Collection: Wedding and Honeymoon Photos

I love traveling with Stephanie; she’s so much fun to go on a trip with, because I love talking to her and sharing things with her. I realized a couple things after looking at photos from Day 1 – we need to get people to snap pictures of us together, and we need to do goofy things in photos, because we really are having a good time, but in a few of the pictures Stephanie looks so posed. For our next travel destination we are planning to book a tour Niagara Falls to witness the stunning natural beauty of this place.

Breakfast at Fran's

Barbara Ann Scott Park & Ice Rink

Sam the Record Man

Dundas Square

Trinity Square

Labyrinth in Trinity Park

Sergeant RC Moose at your service

Continue ReadingOur Toronto Honeymoon – Day 1

On the Tarmac for 6 hours for SXSWi

Yesterday we had one of those nightmarish plane trips you hear about on the news every so often. Our American Airlines flight to Austin, Texas had a (supposed to be) short stop in Dallas/Fort Worth airport. The first leg from Indianapolis to Dallas went smoothly, and we got on the plane 1717 for the 36ish minute flight from Dallas to Austin.

As we got to the runway, they made the pilot turn back to de-ice the plane. The airport had known the storm was coming in, but the didn’t have the de-icers prepared near take off, so the captain had to turn around and taxi back to where they were located, which took an hour and a half. I’m paraphrasing what the captain was telling us here; I don’t really know beans about plane de-icers.

Note that this wasn’t a very big storm by northern standards; less than an inch of snow and some sleet. Something that Indianapolis airport handles regularly and Chicago and New York do in their sleep. Six inches of snow, according to the news. And Dallas doesn’t get snow often, so I guess I should allow them to act like big babies about it.

In the process of waiting behind the other planes that had arrived at the de-icers first (planes that were taking off after ours) our plane ran out of fuel, and had to return to a gate to refuel. It took two hours to clear a gate for us to pull in and refuel, and in the meantime, 50 other planes got in line for the de-icer ahead of us.

We waited two and a half more hours for the traffic jam at the de-icers to clear, and then American Airlines canceled all their flights out. They told us over the intercom that the whole airport canceled flights, but we found out later that wasn’t true. All through the process of sitting on the plane, the airport would tell captain one thing and then another; he was obviously pretty frustrated with them when he was making announcements of the intercom, and he appeared to think we were getting the shaft. At one time, after saying “I’m sorry, I don’t know anything.” for the hundredth time, he joked “I do know I’m the captain of this plane. That’s one thing I do know.”

In the last hour of the trip, passengers behind us opened a betting pool on when we would actually take off. None of them won.

We decided to get a rental car and drive (3 and a half hours) to Austin. American wouldn’t release our luggage to us though; they’re putting it on a plane this morning. They say.

On the shuttle from the airport to the car rental, we heard that only American canceled flights and all the other airlines continued. I’ll have to check on that on the news this morning. So we got to the hotel about 10 p.m. – 9 hours after we originally were supposed to arrive. — updated: all the flights were canceled, not just American.

Needless to say; I’m not flying American ever again, and I’ll definitely never fly into Dallas, where they’re too big weenies to deal with a bit of snow. I’ll give them the snow. I wish they’d done a better job of managing the planes, because ours really got shafted.

Somewhere in the confusion of packing I put my iPhone charger in my checked luggage, which frustrating. I can charge it by tethering it to my laptop, but that’s pretty inconvenient.

What’s even less convenient is that I put my CPAP machine in my checked luggage; something that the airlines advised to do because TSA is too stupid to recognize what it is and tends to pull people out of security lines for them, thinking they’re improvised explosive devices.

Fortunately, I did not die of sleep apnea last night. I did have a pretty rough night though, and feel like crap, which is of course the way I want to start out our trip. Also, I’m wearing the clothes from yesterday, which is lovely.

Continue ReadingOn the Tarmac for 6 hours for SXSWi

SXSW Interactive 2008

I’m getting final stuff prepped to take off for SXSW Interactive 2008 in Austin, Texas tomorrow. I’m going with three of my design team co-workers; one from here in Indianapolis and two from Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

We’re staying in the Courtyard Marriott right next to the Austin Convention Center, so we’re in the heart of everything, which is pretty keen.

I went to the city-county building this morning and voted absentee for Carson for the special election next week, since I won’t be back until late Tuesday.

Attending this event last year was a huge learning experience for me when it came to site design work on the job. Over the last year I’ve had the chance to create some designs that I’m really happy with based on some design principles that I learned last year, so I’m excited to be able to go again and see what new things I pick up.

Ironworks BBQ

Photoset of SXSW Interactive 2007

Continue ReadingSXSW Interactive 2008

Taking a quick trip to Iowa

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I’m headed to Iowa after work today, with my mom. We’re going to visit my Grandma Groenwoldt, who is in the hospital and not feeling well. I haven’t seen her since my road trip in 2001, when I stopped to see her at her little retirement village apartment. It’s sort of a rush trip so I’m feeling somewhat frazzled; like I’ve forgotten lots of things. I’ll also be missing Jennifer and Patrick’s wedding, which I feel really bad about. Stephanie will be going, though, so hopefully she’s take lots of photos.

Continue ReadingTaking a quick trip to Iowa

Route 66 Road Trip Morning, Day 17 in Joplin, Missouri

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We made a lot better progress yesterday on the trip home; all the way to Joplin, Missouri. And we even got a couple of stops in at the Cadillac Ranch, the Bug Ranch, and the restored U-Drop-Inn Gas Station in Shamrock, Texas.
Stephanie at Cadillac Ranch
Our contributions to Cadillac Ranch
Cadillac Ranch
Bug Ranch
Beetle Speedometer
Phoebe at the U-Drop-Inn
Phoebe at the U-Drop-Inn
See all Photos from Santa Rosa, New Mexico to Joplin, Missouri.
Today, we head home, to finally see our pets and our house again. Needless to say, we’ll anxious to be back.

Continue ReadingRoute 66 Road Trip Morning, Day 17 in Joplin, Missouri

Morning, Day 16 in Santa Rosa, NM

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We made it back to our desired destination last night, although rather later than we wanted. The restaurant we ate at in Flagstaff was an old Route 66 place called Granny’s Closet, that used to be home of the very first fiberglass muffler man/lumberjack statue. They donated it to the University of Arizona as a mascot, but have a smaller replica at their cafe. I actually have a picture of the original from my friend Laurie, who sent it to me years ago.

Lumberjack Giant
Lumberjack Giant

Lumberjack at Granny's Closet

Traffic around Flagstaff was terrible; we tried to make a 45 minute hop off the road for lunch, and it turned into 3 hours because traffic in town was slow, and then they had 2 exits to I-40 closed due to construction and traffic backed up for miles. Very strange way to handle construction. That put us behind the curve by quite a bit, but at least we made it in.
We also hopped off to get gas at round dome gas station, and indian blankets at the Meteor City Trading post, but those were both short stops.

Dome Subway

Meteor Crater Trading Post

Giant Dream Catcher

Dinosaurs in Arizona

Today we have about 600 miles to drive; we’re going to try to make it to Big Cabin, Oklahoma, which is halfway between here and home.

See All Photos from “Kingman, Arizona to Santa Rosa, New Mexico”

Continue ReadingMorning, Day 16 in Santa Rosa, NM