David Rockwell, Collaborative Designer & Festival Designer, told us not to worry about lines: “Festivals are what we do…The people running some of the other festivals that have line troubles dont have as much experience as we do.”

The lines were indeed the problem. Not only did we wait for an hour and a half for a Lobster roll that we could have bought at East Seventh Street in Manhattan, we also found every other line so prohibitively long that we basically left after only two and a half hours. I had budgeted $80 for all the food and beer that was available. However the lines were so long that we gave up and stopped spending after a bland chicken sandwich and a lobster roll. Total damage $25.

What do Nashvillians know that we don’t?

via Newsletters : Food! Music! Brooklyn! Buy Your Tickets To The Great GoogaMooga Today!.

As part of this year’s LIC Arts Open, a week devoted to showcasing the numerous art institutions in Long Island City, the Jeffrey Leder Gallery staged an opening of recent paintings and drawings converging on the theme of minimalist techniques. Dina Muenzfeld curated this show, titled Reductive.

Dina saw me shoot photos of Ellen Schneiderman’s opening in February at the same gallery. She must have liked my snapshots because she asked me to shoot the opening. Either that, or she liked that I worked for free.

I was pretty happy with the photographic quality of the shots. There were for the most part very sharp and crisp. Shooting in a gallery is a little tricky because of the competing light sources and their various temperatures But since I bought a WhiBal card last summer, I have been able to mitigate the light noise. Also I can get pretty true colors, which I did in the photos from the Reductive opening and last July’s Staff Show at Philips DuPury.

After struggling to print t-shirts yesterday afternoon, Sarah and I headed to National Train Day at Grand Central Terminal. This celebration takes place in only four cities: Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia and New York City. Since we live only one subway stop from Grand Central, it seemed like we had to go.

While there were a lot of events for the occasion, we skipped most of them in favor of touring the train cars. There was an Acela train consist, a 40th Anniversary train (complete with gift shop), and a current Viewliner. But the highlight was the Twentieth Century Limited. This train consisted of vintage private cars, including the Hickory Creek, Tavern Lounge 43, the Cannon Ball, the Epicurus, the Birkin, and the Kitchi Gammi Club. We took our time touring these cars and were incredibly excited to learn about the Wine ‘n Dine Train that travels through the Hudson River Valley to Albany for a five-course meal and cocktails.

Weekend jaunt, anyone?

Knowledge in the Digital Age: Teaching, Learning, and the Googlization of Everything with Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan

All are invited: LaGuardia’s Library Media Resources Center is once again pleased to offer its annual Knowledge in the Digital Age speaker’s event. This year, Dr. Siva Vaidhyanathan has accepted an invitation to speak on the issues revolving around technology in the lives of faculty and students.

When: Tuesday, May 8, 2012 at 2 p.m. Where: LaGuardia Community College, E Building, Poolside Cafe Cost: Free Refreshments: Definitely

LIMITED SEATING AVAILABLE, register ASAP. To do this and to get more information on the event go to: http://knowledgeinthedigitalage.eventbrite.com/

The Library Media Resources Center and the organizing committee would like to thank LaGuardia’s College Association and the CUNY’s LILAC council for co-sponsoring this event.

Should you need ADA accommodation, please contact Charles Keyes by phone at 718-482-6018 or by email: ckeyes@lagcc.cuny.edu

(Via CUNY Academic Commons.)

I spent about $50 at a different place, let’s call it “Comedy Club Y,” putting me well over the $50 milestone. But instead of a $5 credit, it was only a $2 credit for using LevelUp at a place for the first time (“Comedy Club Y”). However, I received a new enticement:

…and after going back to “Comedy Club A,” this…

How much do I have to spend to get a credit?

Thanks so much for reaching out! While you are definitely correct that are certain businesses you will earn $5 after spending $50, this set of constructs is not the same for every business you will visit on LevelUp. At some you will earn $20 after spending $200, earn $3 after spending $25, etc. It all depends! The onboarding incentive also changes, so while you may have $1 waiting for you at one business the first time you pay there, you could have $7 waiting for you elsewhere. Does that help?

Tiers are confusing! It’s why consumers can’t understand airfares and cable/satellite bills. Nuance is fine for the law and academic scholarship, but it’s not for a consumer product.

The one event that caught my attention was Thirteen Steps Around Dutch Kills, a walking tour of Newtown Creek. It was led by a true expert of the area, so I was excited to take the tour. It was an eye-opening perspective. It’s not like I haven’t been around the industrial zones of Long Island City and Greenpoint. I have either biked or driven past those spots over the last several years. It’s just that one tends to overlook the industrial blight around Newtown Creek. Perhaps the best part was finally taking the ironically named Nature Walk path around Whale Creek, behind the new sanitation plant.

In the evening, I sacrificed yet another softball game for a tour of nineteenth-century drinking establishments. It was basically a tour of watering holes in Lower Manhattan that have been around for a long time, such as Fraunces Tavern, Delmonico’s, and the Paris Café. Despite having lived in New York for over a decade, I had never been in these spots since I never went below Chambers Street unless someone was in town or I had to report for jury duty. I felt a little under-prepared as there were people there in costume. I really appreciated that because it made the experience a little more authentic.

In March, our Verizon FiOS broadband had significantly improved, not in terms of upload and download speed, but the latency and packet loss had improved dramatically. I had posited that Verizon technicians had done some work to improve our connection. I was very happy.

The monthly SamKnows report arrived today, and it looks like it reverted back to a pretty poor connection. SamKnows performs hourly tests for download, upload, latency, and packet loss. In April, our download speed remained robust at a little over the advertised 25 Mbps rate. However, around April 18th, the upload speed plunged to about 7 Mbps, less than a third of the advertised 25 Mbps rate.

At the same time, the packet loss climbed dramatically suggesting that there was a compromised connection on the upstream causing this problem. This is unacceptable. The reason I came to Verizon was for the robust upstream. I upload a lot of files, as is the joy of being a media scholar and shutterbug, and I need a zippy symmetrical connection.

If anyone in the neighborhood finds this and wants to report their results, please share in the comments.

The Columbus Capital Base Ball Club plays by the rules and regulations of base ball as adopted by the National Association of Base-Ball Players on December 12th, 1866, when the team was founded.

The Gotham Base Ball Club of New York play games according to 1864 rules, when pitchers pitched underhanded, a foul ball was not a strike, a ball caught on one bounce was a put-out and the fielders wore no gloves. The team was founded c. 1853.

The Flemington Neshanock Base Ball Club plays by 19th century rules, uses authentic replicas of 19th century equipment and wears 19th century uniforms. As was the custom in the middle 19th century, all fielders play barehanded and do not wear gloves. The original Flemington Neshanock were established in July 1866 and comprised mainly of the town’s prominent constituents.

I am most intrigued by the Gotham Club and the 1864 rules. The lack of fielding gloves makes it seem a lot like Chicago style softball.

I guess there’s always next year.

The third annual Tribeca Disruptive Innovation Awards, hosted by NYU Stern School of Business, on April 27. The 11th edition of TFF runs April 18 to 29.

Lifetime Achievement Awards will be given to Jack Dorsey, founder of Twitter and Square, and John Wood, founder of Room to Read. Wood has opened over 13,500 libraries around the world at a cost of $5,000 per library. The Book of the Year honor will go to Thinking, Fast and Slow by Nobel Laureate Daniel Kahneman. DARPA (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) will be returning this year with Agency Program Manager Dr. Gill Pratt showcasing the Hummingbird, DARPA’s prototype nano-drone, as well as a new prototype making its debut from DARPA’s M3 program—the Cheetah. The roster of other award winners is a colorful and eclectic group spanning several realms of culture and society, among them pop superstar Justin Bieber and manager Scooter Braun, honored for the historic discovery of Bieber on YouTube and his subsequent social media rise; producer Rick Rubin, for founding Def Jam Records 30 years ago in an NYU dorm room; and oncologist Steven A. Curley for his advances in cancer treatments.

While there are a good number of heavy hitters attending, I suspect that the larger-than-normal detail is due to Justin Bieber.

I don’t think I saw this level of security when David Cameron spoke on campus in March, and he’s only the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom.

(Via We Are Movie Geeks.)

On April 1, NYC Runs staged a ten-kilometer race on Roosevelt Island. Steve asked me to come over and take photos for this race, hoping that I would shoot photos from the Central Park Ekiden in February. After finally clearing a bunch of to-dos from my list, I have processed some of the photos from that day.

I have to admit that these are not very great shots. During that weekend, I was not very mobile due to a painful ingrown toenail that hobbled me for the better part of a year. Consequently, I basically sat or stood in one spot and snapped shots as runners scurried past my camera. Most of the shots were of runners crossing the finish line. As a result, almost all of these shots are of runners reaching with one hand to turn off his/her stopwatch. The composition of most shots were similar, with the runner in the center of the frame, a consequence of relying on auto focus.

After I had shot the photos, Steve asked if there were any shots of the Manhattan skyline or of the tram. Unfortunately, because I shooting the runners crossing the finish line as I facing east towards Queens, most of the shots featured a power plant in Long Island City. Getting the tram would have been difficult, in any case, because I didn’t even see the tram while I was there. The only saving graces were a few shots of the Queensboro Bridge and of the FDR Drive in the background. I hope those help create a sense of the race’s location.

Anyway, I’m glad that my toe is feeling better and can move around.