Whee. It was a weekend. Well, sort of.

Headed out to Ellensburg on Thursday afternoon, it was a nice fast drive. Jesse and Kevin caught up with us outside Hood River, so we stopped for dinner with them at Miner's (burgers the size of a small hubcap) and swam in the hotel pool. State duet performance with Evan on Friday went pretty well, we could have been better in tune. Oh well, still got a I,I,II... great for a junior and freshman at state. The drive home seemed much longer and much boring, didn't do anything on Friday night back at home.

Saturday wasn't bad overall, got some work done around the house. Got a call from Kevin around 9 to come rescue him and Ashlie from the white out dance (my prediction: it would suck. Correct.) Stayed at the dance for a while longer than I would have liked because we couldn't really leave... anyway... went to Sharis afterwards. Heh... Good story here... Our waitress comes to the table and points out two people making out on the sidewalk outside. "Why don't you tap on the window?" So, Ashlie taps on the window, and they both turn and look in. We finish eating, pay, and walk outside... guess who's waiting? The guy was there with one of his friends. I think the conversation went something like this:
"Did you think that was funny?" - Them
"Ummm... yea, actually." - Us
"It was all me." - Ashlie
"We're gunna beat the **** out of these two **** ****" - Them
"I'm sorry, they were drinking earlier... they really don't mean it." - Tough Guy's girlfriend
*is he always such a winner, or is he just that unique of a person when he's drunk?* - My thoughts, which remained unsaid since I'm not quite sure if I could outrun them to the car.
Anyway, we left, and Ashlie gave the guy the finger as we drove by. He gave chase, but there's no way he'd ever catch an Audi on foot. Very, very fun.

Sunday was another interesting day. Jesse, Kevin and I spent 3 hours looking for the perfect material for a movie screen. Tyvek is too expensive, nobody makes white tarps, canvas is too expensive, paper won't hold up... we eventually settled on insulating foam sheets with tyvek on the seams, painted it up and got it all put together. Yay. Have to test it this weekend, it better stay nice and sunny out. Also, if anyone has any good ideas for keeping what appears to be a small deer (or a goat...) off a 10x16 screen, I'd like to hear them. It takes a LOT of work to get it put up on end, like behind the garage, so I don't want do do that if we're going to be using it a lot... it's laying in a corner of the driveway right now. Quite a project.

Had to post something, but now I better go study for a few AP tests and such. Busy few weeks ahead.

So I'm lazy and didn't post. Get over it, maybe I'll post more if I get paid. Corbin says he'll pay, maybe I'll set up a pay-pal link...

Sitting in video today, doing nothing. This week has been WASL schedule, meaning long and short periods, mixed up classes, and shorter lunches with random other classes. I'm heading up to Ellensburg (CWU) for State Solo-Ensemble tomorrow, should be home late-afternoon on Friday if anyone wants to do something. I'll have the cell. Anyway... theres not a whole lot more to say. Chemistry isn't going well, we're all in the process of failing the AP test, but maybe the review sessions will help us get scores with numbers in them. Bah. I'll be back in a few days.

Hmm... so it's been a while since I've posted. Whine whine whine. Apparently it hasn't stopped you from visiting my blog, or you wouldn't be reading this. After all, I posted 5 days ago, unlike Dan!

Actually, there's not a whole lot I have to say... that I want to share with all of you, that is! Haha. My week has gone fast: get up at 5:40, jazz band at 6:30, school... school.... school... then I've been chilling after school, doin stuff with friends. Not a lot of homework, and no classes today because of the band thing.

I've been having a hard time finding things to post on this blog, mostly because I don't know who reads it. I'm sure the address is all over because everyone links to it. I guess I kinda feel the need to censor my posts, not to avoid offending anyone, but more to limit the number of people who know things. I think my parents and brother may have the address, so I'm somewhat limited in what I have to say here. Meh... oh well. If you don't see a post here for a while, its not necessarily because I've been doing nothing, its because I've been doing nothing that everyone would benefit from knowing (or something that I'd benefit from people not knowing.)

Thanks to the blogger server, this stuff hasn't published. When you see this, it's working again.

I'M HOME!!!

Today promises to be a long day. Sooo nice to be back in the warm and sun, it actually looks like spring outside! We left the hotel at Dartmouth at 5:00 this morning, got to the airport with no problems. Left a bunch of junk in the rental car, they didn't bother to clean it out for us, so we returned the favor. Note to self: leave mom about 10 people back in the security line. She got flagged again, so they searched all of our bags. Heh... I had to sit on mine to get it shut today, so the TSA guy who had to search it (and wasnt allowed to let me touch it) had a really fun time trying to get things back inside.

No problems with the flights, we had exit row seats for both of them, so I had legroom, and the people in front of me couldn't recline. Yay! Now I'm home, and its 80 degrees instead of 25, and sunny instead of snowing. If anyone wants to do anything tonight, I'm free, but lets not make it too late... stupid time zones!

Today is the final college visit of the trip. We got up later than usual (around 8:00) and went out for coffee and breakfast at a cafe across the street from our hotel. The tour met at the admission building at 10:00, we got there at 9:30 and the room was packed. At least 100 people (students and parents) decided to show up for tours today, so we filled out the forms and joined one of four tour groups. The tour didn't really share a whole lot more than we saw yesterday, except that a lot of the dorm-like buildings are actually classrooms. Still not sure what is where. After the tour was an information session led by the director of admissions. Here are some of the key points from the tour and the info session:

Programs

2 hours north of Boston in Hanover, NH

2 minutes from Vermont

"Dartmouth Plan" has students on quarter system, with summer quarter sophomore year and several off-campus study quarters

60% of students study internationally

Freshman housing gaurenteed, given in order of class afterwards (sophomores get waiting list at times)

Social life includes Greek system, college events, sports, community service and outdoor activities

Surrounding towns... small

All classes taught by professors, some discussion and lab sections use TA's

Admissions

All parts of application are important, including a peer reccomendation

SAT I and II tests are required (ACT can substitute for SAT I)

Early decision and regular decision, 13,000 apply, less than 20% accepted

$38,000 average cost

The info session and tour really didn't give me a great feel of the college; the college didn't seem to have the same feel that Cornell did. I'm not sure I could live here for four years, so I probably won't apply. I got my SAT scores back today online, looks like a combined total of 1410 (680 math, 730 writing). Also, I found out that I did not make state with my solo, so it looks like I can just concentrate on the duet.

Anyway... back to my day... after the tours, we got in the car and drove around the central New Hampshire / Vermont area. There's not a whole lot there. Meh. My dad had been having problems with his eye (an infection of some kind) so we stopped at the emergency room to get a perscription for some drops. Meh. There are only 5 radio stations, and 4 of them are christian talk radio. Meh. The other one is country and oldies. Meh. I have no cell phone coverage, if I'm lucky enough to get a signal, it's from the "PG 180" network. Meh. Welcome to the middle of nowhere.

Returned to Hanover and went out for pizza (gotta hit a pizza place in every town!) After dinner, we saw a play at the "HOP" (Hopkins Center for Performing Arts). The play was "Alladeen," it was about globalism and te outsourcing of jobs. Sounds boring, but it was presented with a combination of video, audio, and live action; it followed several workers in Bangalore, India hired by an American telephone sales company. Quite funny and very interesting.

Well, I have to get up at 4:30 (1:30, if I'm starting to adjust back to time in the 'Couve.) Be home tomorrow!

Travel to Dartmouth today. Woke up at 6:15... uggh. What happened to sleeping in during spring break? Left Cornell and Ithaca behind and travelled to the Syracuse airport for our 10:00 flight to Newark. Everything went fine until we checked in for the flight and found that mom had been dropped from the e-ticket reservations because she hadn't shown up... for the flight that didn't leave for another hour and a half. Got that fixed in about fifteen minutes, but it may be a problem heading home on Saturday. Because her ticket was different, she was flagged for a search at security. Meanwhile, I've found that taking my trombone mouthpiece out of my carry-on (it looks a bit suspicious through the X-Ray machine) and putting it in the bin with my wallet and phone keeps me from having to unpack every time i go through security.

The flights were uneventful, both were on the same small airplane and took about 45 minutes. We arrived in sunny Manchester, NH around 1:00. Picked up the luggage (the plane was too small to carry on everything) and spent a half-hour trying to get the rental car. The conversation went something like this: "Yeah, we have a reservation for Vines, a full sized car. Umm, we're all out of those, how about a small car? No... We paid for a full sized car. Oh. Well, we don't have any of those left... Eventually, we got a Jeep. Not bad, but still, wouldn't you think that by reserving a rental car, they might have one for you?

The rental place had no maps or directions, so we found a gas station with a decent map of New Hampshire. The town of Hanover (90% of which is Dartmouth College) is about an hour away from Manchester, along the Vermont border. We got to Dartmouth and found our hotel around 3:00. After tea in the cafe downstairs, we went out and wandered around the campus. We walked for a few hours and probably saw almost the entire campus. Most of the buildings are labled with just the name of the hall and don't give much in the way of what department they house. Actually, almost all of the buildings look like dorms, or the dorms look like the classrooms, I suppose it goes both ways. It's a good day to be out on campus, as the temperature finally climbed into the 50's and the sun came out for part of the day.

We had dinner at a restaraunt a few blocks from our hotel. Out the window in the hotel is the center of campus, so everything is nearby, much like at Cornell. The Dartmouth campus is a lot smaller than Cornell, and yet it seems harder to get around and more difficult to get a feel for what is where. For example, the map doesn't help a lot. Maybe the tour and info session (starting to know exactly what to expect with these) will help a bit. Thanks to the location in the center of campus, I have a great wireless internet connection in the hotel, not sure how it is in the rest of campus. I'll post a good overview of Dartmouth tomorrow, along with whatever else I end up doing. It's unlikely I'll spend the whole day here, the town itself is only a few blocks long.

Today was Cornell. Very nice campus, and it seems like they have exactly the same programs I'm looking for. They have a lot of technology classes through the college of arts and sciences, along with the music classes, which are open to anyone in any major. It was gray, foggy, and a balmy 40 degrees today, perfect for a walking tour of campus. We started the day at the College of Arts and Sciences information meeting, then we visited the music department and took a tour of the freshman housing. Also ate lunch at one of the dining places in the North Capus freshman dorms. Heh... all you can eat buffet, picking and choosing from choices including Kosher, Vegan, Pizza, Grill, Ethnic, and probably a dozen others. Good food, too!

To save you some time, here are some interesting points of the Cornell visit:

College of Arts and Sciences

990 Freshmen, 1100 Seniors

25% of students Double Major

Major is declared between frosh orientation and end of sophomore year

AP credits count for graduation, not for major, use the AP tests to test out of intro level classes

Writing seminar classes emphasized as part of liberal arts

Honors programs available, writing is very important

All courses taught by faculty, only writing seminars taught by PhD students

Admissions

Admissions Requirements fit with Skyview grad req's

28% of Applicants are admitted

Roughly 30% admitted are early decision

Mid-range SAT 1450

Essay, written application portions essential

Need based financial aid, no merit scholarships

Housing Tour

All Freshmen live in North Campus residence halls

Single, double, triple, and quad rooms available

Rooms have TV hookup, internet jacks, desks and beds

All you can eat buffet option for meals, also cafes and other restaraunts on campus

Rec rooms throughout residence halls for study, TV breaks

Most of campus is covered with wireless internet

Music Department

All programs and classes open to non-majors

Less than 50 music majors, more than 10 faculty

Practice rooms, storage lockers in Lincoln Hall music building

Jazz bands, wind ensembles, marching bands, choirs...


So there you have it. Cornell. Actually, it's the only place I've visited so far that hasn't managed to elimanate itself. (NYU had the overwhelming city, Ithaca didn't have the coursework or the programs I was looking for.) Right now, the only real drawback Cornell has is the location. Ithaca is a long way from home, 7 or 8 hours by airplane and bus. I guess it's also quite cold here in the winter, which apparently includes the month of April. Someone yelled "ITS COLD HERE ALL THE TIME" during our tour. Oh well, cold isn't so bad. Still have a few colleges to look at, then I still have to apply and get accepted.

After all the tours, we went back to the room and rested up. Afterwards, we went out and explored Collegetown and the Ithaca area. There are about two blocks of the "Ithaca Commons" which make up downtown Ithaca, with pizza places, ethnic and vegan food. (Sound familiar? This is Upstate New York, one of the most liberal areas in the country, other than the good old Northwest.) Drove along the shore of the big lake nearby, but it was getting very hazy and almost misting. Still quite cold, meh... no sun today. We had dinner at a little pizza place in the commons, it wasn't quite as good as the NYC pizza. (No surprise there!) Tomorrow we leave the hotel at 7 for a 10:00 flight out of Syracuse to Manchester, by way of New Jersey. From Manchester, we'll rent a car and drive 45 minutes or so to Dartmouth. We have a hotel on campus, not sure if we'll have internet or not. If so, expect more posts soon. If not, I'll backdate my posts when I get home. Be home Saturday afternoon!

I'm starting to dislike my alarm. Woke up today at 5:30, packed up and left the hotel. We caught a cab from NYC to the airport. Waited around the airport for a while for our flight to Syracuse, which left at 8:30. We got to Syracuse around 9:30 and rented a car. It's about an hour drive from Syracuse to Ithaca, on highways and rural roads out in the middle of nowhere. (Officially, the "Finger Lakes" region of New York.) Everything is still covered in snow, it snowed out here a few days ago, and it looks (and feels) a lot more like February than April.

We got to Ithaca College around 11:30 and explored the campus for a half hour until the tour started. Take an online tour, that way I don't have to go over everything. The tour took a little over an hour, and covered the entire campus. The college itself is similar in some ways to Central Washington University in the way the buildings are set up. They don't really have much of an engineering program, but they have great Communications, Music, and Audio Technology programs. The buildings are all new within the last 40 years, many seem newer than that. There are different housing options and quite a few places to eat on campus, but the campus itself is relatively small, has little or no graduate study, and is set off a ways up the hill from downtown Ithaca. After the campus tour, we ate lunch at the campus food court, then took a tour of the Communications building, with the radio, TV, journalism, and audio/video programs. The audio and video prouction programs look interesting, that might be a way of combining music with technology.

After we left Ithaca College, we headed through town to Cornell. We are staying at the Statler Hotel on campus, the hotel is part of the college of hotel administration. The hotel is nice, and I figured out how to get into the internet about 20 minutes ago, although we get several of Cornell's wireless networks, none of them are strong enough out here to connect to. We have a great view of the main quad from our room, nearby are the arts quad and the engineering quad. Most of the housing is a 10 minute walk across the river, but its not too bad to walk around the campus when the wind isn't blowing. We spent over 2 hours wandering around campus. Take a virtual tour here! I realized that taking picures of all the buildings on campus is pretty much a waste, since almost all the schools have online tours like this one. Try it, maybe you'll see a few places I visited.

Came back to the hotel after the walk and rested up, then we went downstairs to the restaraunt for dinner. It was very good, lots of food. I'm full! It's about 9:00 here, but I've been up for a long time already, so I'll probably go to bed early. I'll describe Cornell more tomorrow after I take a guided tour of campus and go to the information sessions for the college of arts and sciences and the university as a whole. Should also get a chance to explore the town of Ithaca tomorrow. I'll be online for the next hour or so, unless I'm not. So there. Ha. Better not snow / rain / sleet tomorrow, it was nice today (by nice, I mean sunny, and it eventually came above freezing to almost 45 in the sun, before windchill.) I'll get another post in tomorrow.

Slept in until 9 today, the sofa bed wasn't too bad. A few springs here and there, but I've had much worse. Took advantage of the free continental breakfast in the lobby, then we went down to Washington Square, home of the center of New York University. It was a good 30 degrees, with wind gusts above 30, so the walk through the city was a bit brisk; far from blocking the wind, the buildings create a wind tunnel. Sooo cold!

Follow along on the interactive map! NYU is centered around Washington Square Park in Greenwitch Village, Manhattan. There is no defined "campus," only a loose cluster of buildings, all of which have purple flags out front with the NYU emblem. THe tour started at the Himmel Student Center, where we joined 100 other people in an hour long information session about the university's programs, majors, requirements, admissions, etc.
Some highlights of the NYU visit include:

Readily avalable internships

A bad mascot: The Fighting Violet (Students prefer to use the "Bobcat", which is actually short for "BOBst CATalog", the library search system.)

NYC Culture and surrounding events

$42,000 tuition, including room and board

Accepts 4's and 5's on AP tests

Average SAT 1300 - 1450

28% Freshman Acceptance rate

Politically active campus

Famous alumni frequently help on campus, including Adam Sandler and Spike Lee

On-campus housing gaurenteed every year, each room has a private bathroom.

After the information session, we took a tour of the campus including the library (A giant, rust colored building with many miles of books), a residence hall, the arts & sciences building, and the business school. After the tour, we ate at a restaraunt on campus suggested by our student tour guide. We visited the bookstore, found a good chemistry guide with all the stuff I need to know (hopefully) to pass the AP test.

Overall impression of NYU: Interesting visit. I don't think I'm really the big-city type, NYC is great, but it'd be old after a week, and I'd go insane without some open space to myself where I can think. The buildings seem nice, but there doesn't seem to be a large emphasis on engineering, or computer science. The music programs sound good, especially music technology and the other music - related things. The residence halls are great, private bathrooms too, but I dunno, I don't think it's for me. I'll have the pictures up and linked to sometime within a week of when I get back.

In the afternoon, we headed down to the WTC site. There isn't a whole lot to see down there, it looks like a giant construction site. Still, it was nice to see how the area is recovering. Walked from there to Wall Street, there weren't any tours of the stock exchange running, but I saw the NYSE and the other large buildings of the financial district, as well as the monument where George Washington took his oath of office.

We walked to the waterfront and took the Staten Island Ferry out into the harbor. We had great views of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, as well as South Manhattan and the Brooklyn Bridge. The Statue of Liberty has been closed since September 11th, it's supposed to reopen this summer. It wasn't as big as I thought it would be, but maybe that was just my perspective from the boat. We got off on Staten Island, then we got back on and went back to Manhattan. We took the subway up to Macy's, near Times Square. Heh... amusing side note... we were on the "local" train that makes every stop, the express train was on the track next to us. Ours leaves, mom says "well, we'll just catch it at the next station." Blank silence. My dad and I laugh. Express trains go for 2 or 3 stations without stopping. I'm sure that would have been even better if ya had been there, but oh well.

Went through Macy's, then we walked back to the hotel. Stopped at a street vendor for a pretzel and at a souvinier shop on the way. (Some of you may see things from there, ya never know.) Relaxed at the hotel for a bit, then we went out to a really great sushi place 6 or 7 blocks south of the hotel, Sushi Samba. We got a sushi platter with all kinds of sushi, sooo good. Yum. I guess my mom doesn't like sushi, but my dad does, so maybe we'll try and find somewhere in Portland / Vancouver that has some. Any suggestions? Well, I should go, I have to leave the hotel at 6:00 tomorrow to catch an 8:30 flight to Ithaca, NY, about an hour by plane from NYC, it's a college town with Ithaca and Cornell colleges. Not sure if I'll have internet access there, so I'll keep the journal and upload it when I get a chance. Have fun in the warm sun, its still cold here!

I have occasional AIM access, and I have my phone. Send me a text message any time, or call me if ya wanna, but just don't call after 7 PM (that's 10:00 here) because I'm probably not awake. Although, I see that it is after that time right now. Night!

First full day in New York City! Checked out of our hotel and moved to a different one about 15 blocks away, this one seems much nicer. (The card on the door here says "do not disturb"... at the other hotel it said "dont do it.") Anyway, after getting settled in, we went to Starbucks across the street from the Empire State Building (from now on referred to as the ESB) for breakfast. It wasnt raining yet, so we decided to go up the ESB.

An hour and a half later, after a line which gave me Disney World flashbacks (go in, looks good... turn the corner, awww....), we finally made it to the 86th floor observation deck. By this time, it was cloudy and starting to rain. The view was great, we could see all of Manhattan and into New Jersey, out to the Atlantic and all over New York City.

By this time, it was getting late, so we stopped into Grand Central Station (GCS) for lunch. They had a pretty decent food court with some really good New York pizza. GCS is a really, really huge building above ground, and it stretches for blocks underground too, not a place I'd want to be lost in.

Visited the United Nations building in the afternoon. It was really weird to see so many different people and hear so many languages at the same time. We had a good tour of the Security Council chamber, the General Assembly, and several of the other large meeting rooms. They had just finished shooting part of a big movie ("The Interpreter," if that means anything to you) inside the building, and as we walked outside we were directed to go around because they were preparing a helecopter stunt scene. We went around the block to see if we could see it, but it didn't look like anything was happening anytime soon.

Stopped by Rockefeller Center, home of NBC studios, but the studio tours were sold out through Wednesday, so it looks like thats not going to happen. Oh well. We saw a bunch of places we've seen on TV, like the "Today" show set you can see from the street. Headed back to the hotel on the subway, pretty easy with a MetroCard.

Went out for dinner at a pizza place a few blocks down Park Avenue. We didnt get tickets early for any of the Broadway shows, so it looks like we're out of luck for the evening. Just heard on the news that the high temperature for today was before dawn, and its very cold and windy outside, it's supposed to be 35 degrees with 35 mph winds and a possibility of snow showers tomorrow. Fun fun!

That's about it for today, tomorrow I'll visit NYU, then I'll probably go see Wall Street and go on the Staten Island Ferry to see the Statue of Liberty. By the way, along with internet access, I DO have AIM access, so if you see me online, feel free to talk! I'll probably be on in the evenings around 10 when I have a connection, so for all of you back in Pacific Time, that would be 7:00-ish.

3:45. Alarm goes off. Uggh. Stagger out of bed, can't really remember much of what happened between then and the airport. Watched my bro get on his plane, had a few more hours to kill. Saw Mrs. VA and her husband in the coffee shop, waited, slept, waited, finally got on the plane to NYC. My dad took the free 1st class upgrade he got with his frequent flyer card, so I had an extra seat next to me to stretch out in.

Plane got in around 4, got to our hotel in the meat packing district of Manhattan around 5. It looks like a nice hotel... in a few months. They havent finished building it yet, so we were probably the only people there. After looking around the hotel, we went out and explored the Greenwitch Village area and Washington Square, the center of NYU (NYU doesnt really have a "campus," its just a collection of buildings in generally the same area.) After dinner we went out to Times Square, quite an amazing place at night. Everything is lit up, there are dozens of giant video billboards surrounding the road. MTV studios, a really big Toys R Us, a military recruiting station with a really, really birght display, and a bunch of other business type places and entertainment places. After exploring the square, it was back to the hotel, where we found that the AC didnt work and that the sofa bed was still wrapped in plastic. Greaaaaat. At least I know that bed is "clean" if you know what I mean... Ha! Not a bad night, but not too great. Something exploded in my shaving kit, so its covered in goo.