Why am I so cranky if I'm indoors all day?
I had worked myself into a temper on Friday night, so Jon made me the greatest egg sandwich ever as a peace offering. He's brilliant at cooking eggs, he butters the toast, and we keep quality cheddar and bacon in the house, so the sandwich was so good, it was almost a shame to put hot sauce on it.
I spent much of Saturday at the Museum of Math in Manhattan with Julian and Junior. It's absolutely amazing and if Julian hadn't already gotten a membership, I would've bought one myself. It's similar to the math exhibits at the Boston Museum of Science or the Queens Hall of Science, but updated with multimedia toys like a walk-on light board. I find it interesting that most of the games are math of a level most people will never understand, theoretical stuff about shapes. My favorite exhibit was Human Trees, where they take a video image of someone and fractalize it, so you're looking at a tree made of you, and bc it's video, it moves in real-time. I wish that the museum did a little more to connect the math to other disciplines: the laser they used to show how you can make slices from a 3D shape could be related to biology and microscopes with a sentence and there's nothing about calculus. Overall though, it seems like the place to take a young person on a regular basis, maybe quarterly, to brainwash them into thinking math is fun.
We had lunch at Shake Shack and gelato and coffee at Eataly, speaking of things that make math fun. Julian and I declared Eataly to be an Italian embassy - there's an Eataly in Bologna, after all - and smooched. Then I headed to Brooklyn, where my Aunt B and 2 of her kids took us to dinner. Driving back to my place, I fell asleep, so Jon sent me to bed.
Which is good, bc Sun was a clusterfuck: we failed to set an alarm, we couldn't escape the road closures due to the NYC triathlon and had to drive all the way to the other side of the island, and then when we got to the parking lot, we discovered Jon hadn't brought the climbing rope. *sighs* Fortunately, we'd been sorta planning to climb with others from the club, who brought more than enough top ropes.
I'm not really sure why I'm disappointed with the day's climbing. I started with Black Fly, a delightful, slabby 5.5 that's the 6th climb from the parking lot. Nice Crack Climb (5.7) was too damp (for me) to make it over the crux. I made it up Nice 5.9 Climb, hanging the rope at each crux: I like it bc everything but those two moves is pretty moderate. I enjoyed No Picnic, an unusually challenging 5.5: the crux is a bulge that makes it difficult to get a restful stance. I styled Shit or Go Blind, a 5.8 roof, thanks to PEng's beta to stay to the left of the bush; last year, the guides we climbed with didn't give us that beta. I should be pleased, as that's as much climbing as I'd've done on a day when I was leading, and it was harder to boot; moreover, we climbed with interesting people I didn't know, including a NYC burlesque performer. Still vaguely dissatisfied.
Oh well, we had a delicious dinner at Red Lobster, with one of the best waiters I've ever had anywhere, and not just bc he pressed us to take biscuits home. We went to the Paramus Fairway and while I still find it absurd that there are more than 2 Fairways, let alone Fairways outside NYC, it was pretty awesome. They had all the coffee and all the cheese, which is probably why we spent $95 but I had nothing to eat all day Monday. oops.
I spent much of Saturday at the Museum of Math in Manhattan with Julian and Junior. It's absolutely amazing and if Julian hadn't already gotten a membership, I would've bought one myself. It's similar to the math exhibits at the Boston Museum of Science or the Queens Hall of Science, but updated with multimedia toys like a walk-on light board. I find it interesting that most of the games are math of a level most people will never understand, theoretical stuff about shapes. My favorite exhibit was Human Trees, where they take a video image of someone and fractalize it, so you're looking at a tree made of you, and bc it's video, it moves in real-time. I wish that the museum did a little more to connect the math to other disciplines: the laser they used to show how you can make slices from a 3D shape could be related to biology and microscopes with a sentence and there's nothing about calculus. Overall though, it seems like the place to take a young person on a regular basis, maybe quarterly, to brainwash them into thinking math is fun.
We had lunch at Shake Shack and gelato and coffee at Eataly, speaking of things that make math fun. Julian and I declared Eataly to be an Italian embassy - there's an Eataly in Bologna, after all - and smooched. Then I headed to Brooklyn, where my Aunt B and 2 of her kids took us to dinner. Driving back to my place, I fell asleep, so Jon sent me to bed.
Which is good, bc Sun was a clusterfuck: we failed to set an alarm, we couldn't escape the road closures due to the NYC triathlon and had to drive all the way to the other side of the island, and then when we got to the parking lot, we discovered Jon hadn't brought the climbing rope. *sighs* Fortunately, we'd been sorta planning to climb with others from the club, who brought more than enough top ropes.
I'm not really sure why I'm disappointed with the day's climbing. I started with Black Fly, a delightful, slabby 5.5 that's the 6th climb from the parking lot. Nice Crack Climb (5.7) was too damp (for me) to make it over the crux. I made it up Nice 5.9 Climb, hanging the rope at each crux: I like it bc everything but those two moves is pretty moderate. I enjoyed No Picnic, an unusually challenging 5.5: the crux is a bulge that makes it difficult to get a restful stance. I styled Shit or Go Blind, a 5.8 roof, thanks to PEng's beta to stay to the left of the bush; last year, the guides we climbed with didn't give us that beta. I should be pleased, as that's as much climbing as I'd've done on a day when I was leading, and it was harder to boot; moreover, we climbed with interesting people I didn't know, including a NYC burlesque performer. Still vaguely dissatisfied.
Oh well, we had a delicious dinner at Red Lobster, with one of the best waiters I've ever had anywhere, and not just bc he pressed us to take biscuits home. We went to the Paramus Fairway and while I still find it absurd that there are more than 2 Fairways, let alone Fairways outside NYC, it was pretty awesome. They had all the coffee and all the cheese, which is probably why we spent $95 but I had nothing to eat all day Monday. oops.