Vince's Continuing Adventures in Ithaca
Spring 2004 Edition
Well it is about time for me to post some more pictures.
Many of you have wondered what would happen if you put me into the same
room with Bill Gates. Well wonder no more! Suprisingly there was
no matter/anti-matter type reaction.
He came to Cornell in February and thanks to my ECE Tech shop connections I got
a ticket. His talk was dissapointingly mostly a lot of marketing bilge.
He did make a few good jokes mainly referencing 80s microcomputer stuff.
I did manage to break out into loud unprofessional laughter when in answer to a
question he claimed with a straight face that "Windows does everything
better than Linux can" or some such nonsense.
And yes, we were getting snow late into April. But for those of you down in
Maryland who may be laughing about that, now that it's 90°F and 90%
humidity who's laughing now?
For my job I moved into a new office. It has a great view of the baseball
field, and if you lean over and squint a bit you can even see a much
coveted view of Cayuga Lake.
And of course, what picture update would be complete without a waterfall or
two. My parents visited in April and we walked the length of Cascadilla Falls
from Cornell down into Ithaca (and back!). But I didn't have a camera
with me, so no pictures of that.
In May Kristina was kind enough to visit. We originally had ambitious
travel plans but rain intervened. So instead we just went to nearby
Ludlowville Falls.
There is a cool cave behind the falls.
There is a winding trail that goes to the bottom of the falls. It was
very pretty but the spray was blowing right into our faces. Parties that
will remain nameless do not like being in pictures, so they were removed
from the lower left of this picture.
And finally I went exploring a bit on my own. I needed to go shopping
(blah) and after braving all of the traffic lights on 13 to do that
I decided I might as well visit one of the parks.
So I went to Robert H. Treman Park. I meant to just look around, but since
it cost $6 to get in I decided to go for the whole experience.
"Yield to Canoes and Kayaks" it might as well say. I found this ford a bit impressive. The
water was fairly high and I was suprised the cars going across it to the
camp area didn't bottom out.
It's just a short walk to the Lower Falls. They dam the stream into
a swimming area in the summer.
The sign said it was 2 miles to the next major falls, and I decided to go for
it. You can hear smaller rapids all along the trail, which winds around and
up and down. It's fun climbing a huge set of stairs, only to find at the
top.... more stairs. [OK, not as bad as Letchworth or Niagra, but there
the stairs spiral and aren't linear like this].
Walking in gorges is always a bit scary, especially when walking under
precarious overhangs. But in this case there's a huge rock just jutting
out with no support, waiting for an unwary hiker...
And finally about 45 minutes and many steps later, Lucifer Falls.
It makes a sharp turn at its base. I could have climbed a huge set of steep
stairs for a better view; I decided not to especially as clouds were building
in the west and distant thunder was coming closer and I remembered I was
2 miles from my car.
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