chriswelch.com

What's 50 degrees, has winds blowing at 15-20mph, and rains harder than that warm day in Sodom & Gomorrah? New York City this past weekend. Thank goodness for taxis. Saturday's itinerary included Central Park, the clothing district, Times Square, and eating at the most clever restaurant, "Jekyll & Hyde", where everything attached to the walls moved, including mummys, skeletons, the eyes of paintings, and flying gargoyles. Topping off Saturday was dinner at, according to Zagat's 2001, the finest Indian food in New York. It's a good thing there was nothing of mention at TCKTS cause the food was definitly better than anything we could have seen.

The rain and wind finally subsided Sunday and we headed down to Greenwich Village after a quick stop at Grand Central Terminal. What's great about the New York is the quirky shops and unique finds that can only be supported by such a diverse metropolis. In the village, guided by Mel's New Yorker sister, we stopped at a bakery known for its cupcakes. Now coming from a guy who doesn't like cupcakes very much, these were pretty good, but what was really amazing was that despite the cold rain that had once again decided to return, this little shop was packed out the door with people who wanted these cupcakes and their other interesting creation: "banana glop." They were so popular that customers were limited to a dozen of the tasty cakes per visit, and the bakery was open every night 'til after 11pm. I'm looking forward to my return visit.

A new milestone has been reached! The solar system which is featured under the Gravitation link, is a small little shockwave app that I wrote that uses some gravitation and motion equations to build a solar system model. I've had the script running on my desktop for 36 hours, which equates to the inner planet revolving around the star 116,640 times (54 rev/min * 60 min * 36 hrs), and still there have been no major galactic calamities (e.g. planets colliding). Pretty nifty, eh? If you're curious, Mercury, the inner planet of our great solar system revolves around the sun once every 87.97 Earth days. Some quick math equates 116,640 revolutions of my inner planet to approx. 21 Earth millenia. Of course this model isn't even close to being to scale, but hey, it's a neat thought.

I'm all done moving. It took me 2.5 hours to pack and clean, 1 hour to drive, and 5 hours to unpack, and clean. Discrepency...? The room is decent, the house is okay, the people are cool, although they spend entirely too much time concerned if I'm alive if I don't show up at a reasonable hour. Enough about that, I'm declaring a new tradition; every year, around fall, I will take a very nice weekend trip to the city. Last year, was the the Le Parker Meridien. This year Mel and I will be gracing the presence of the Hilton Midtown and the Radisson Lexington, both appearently very fine establishments. Highlights of this weekend's festivities will include seeing the city during the late night, something I'm looking forward to, Jazz and dining in the city that never sleeps, and meeting some long missed friends and family of Mel's. Until then, though, I see 12 hour days at work in my future. Good thing I love my job. Updates will be forthcoming!

Moving day is here. I'm sitting around all my boxes and half asleep. I made a significant update to the site this morning after going to see Frida. Fascinating movie. Fascinating they can show so many "melones" and yet not be rated ";M". So I continue my trek to make this site 100% XML/XHTML 1.0+ Strict compliant, and actually look good. It's getting there. Unfortunatly it is close to XHTML 2.0 Compliant, but I had to break it cause Opera and Netscape don't support <object> for shockwave files (take a look at the source). So I'm off to move. The wheels on the wagon go round and round....

Almost 12 months to the day of the contract being signed, the Knucklehead Sportswear site is now officially done coding. There are a few more administrative things that need to be done, but it's invoiced and ready to roll. Now maybe I'll be able to focus on having a life. For those who don't know, I'm moving to Port Chester, NY, to complete the final 3 month stretch of my 9 month co-op with Orange & Rockland Utilities as they race towards their Febuary 1st, 2003, Web site redesign deadline. And not only do I get to end my stay in the p.o.s. that is New Jersey, but as of tomorrow I'll be only 2 blocks from the Metro North, which means quick rail access into beautiful NYC. God Bless America ;)

Another day, another room. With the prospect of boarding with an older Italian man ahead, I wonder if there will be any room to practice for the summer's upcoming vacation ;) I'm moving again on Monday. I never would have imagined that by the time I turn 21 I will have lived in 7 different places during college! My new house, graced by a beautiful urban landscape and easy access to NYC (cha-ching) is going to do it for me. When I walked in the door for the first time and smelled the wafts of Italian cuisine coming out of the door I knew I had found home...

While trying to find a new apartment, I stumbled upon a place about 5 minutes from work. The ad read, "Share spacious home with 2 males." I called the number and the answering machine message picked up. "Here comesss the bee-eeeeep," the message said in a heavy lisp. I don't have a problem with it, but turn down the gas stove, gentleman, the flame's up too high.

I've finally done it! A year and a half the first version, the new site is up and running. Sporting a whole new look and easy to add-on architecture, expect to find the same nutty stuff that you've come to expect. There's much work still to be done, but this site will continue to be a work in progress.