Additional Things to See

Wow, we are already in April! 2012 is certainly racing ahead. A few more things peaked my attention recently:

April 27-29 - Chiller Theater (goodness, check out the guest list!!!)
May 10-13 - 2012 New York City Metro Show, first one, too. Have to miss it, unfortunately...

May 31st - June 3 - Philadelphia Comic Con (ditto!)

October 11-14 - New York Comic Con

October 19-21 - Star Trek London

Is this turning out to be a year of conventions?!

Incidentally, Happy First Contact Day!!!

Things to See in the Upcoming Months

Well, let see:

January 18th - The Secret Science Club presents Astrophysicist and Cosmologist David Hogg (didn't work out but I find the concept of a Science Club very intriguing; definitely something to check out further)

January 21st - the tickets go on sale for William Shatner's Broadway one-man show Shatner's World: We Just Live in It at The Music Box Theater (got a good seat for the opening night!!!)

January 20-22nd - Antiques Show at the Armory (Lexington Ave & 26th St; pity but due to a cold I couldn't make it)

January 21-22nd - Americana & Antiques at the Pier (Pier 92 NYC; similar to above, still feeling quite blah)

January 23rd - A Universe from Nothing with Lawrence Krauss at Hayden Planetarium (fantastic presentation!)

January 28th - RUGM Open House (got some very nice specimens!)
February 1st - A walkthrough trip to a LEED-certified DAS showroom on 6th Ave, arranged through SKYed

February 2nd - No Bones About It with Carl Mehling at AMNH (as usual, a great program)
February 14th - Shatner's World opening night (hysterical!!!)

February 25-26th - The Morristown Armory Antiques Show (found the animal print I've really wanted to purchase!!!)
February (end) - the third Propworx Star Trek Auction (well, this is not really a physical location but a great event nonetheless - Update: turned out to be a bit less than great, the props were somewhat less interesting and much less affordable than last time)

March 6th - Museum Inside-Out with Sidney Horenstein at AMNH (fascinating things about the museum building itself!)

March 31st - New special exhibition opens at AMNH - Creatures of Light. Subject matter is bioluminescence!

In addition, a whole host of fantastic new exhibitions are opening at the Metropolitan! Hopefully, I will eventually get to post further info on all of my trips.

Generally speaking, lots of plans as usual; the to-do list has grown to the size of a small notebook. Shoot, trying to get everything sorted and organized seems to be an exercise in futility half the time!

Happy New Year!!!

HAPPY NEW YEAR TO ALL!!! HERE'S HOPING TO A KINDER AND GENTLER YEAR!

P.S. Also hoping to publish some updates with photoes from last year. There is no denying - 2011 was a rough year but it also had plenty of moments worth to be remembered fondly. As Albert Einstein said: "Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow."

Adele

Well. So, the concert I was so looking forward to did not happen... What a pity!

There are still issues with Adele's throat. I do not know what the powers that be are thinking but this has been going on for months now, and this is yet another string of concerts that had to be cancelled due to her illness. I am torn between feeling bad for her and wondering where the hell common sense is in this situation.

I do hope she gets well soon and the concerts resume at a later date. Meanwhile, I am glad that I found out about the tour cancellation quickly enough and cancelled my hotel reservation in time.

Morris Museum

Last Friday, I had a chance to drop by the Morris Museum. Haven't been there in quite some time. It is one of those little museums which, even with their limited resources and exhibition space, can still harbor a golden nugget of wonder.

In this case, it is probably one of the best exhibitions this museum has ever had - Musical Machines and Living Dolls: The Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata.

Fascinating excurse into incredible mechanical prowess of XIX to early XX centuries. The "living" dolls were like little snapshots of their time period. But the musical machines were particularly interesting. I loved the timeline presented at the end of the hall, placing the mechanical musical machines as the forefathers of the music carriers that followed (i.e. vinyls, tapes, CD's).

The Millionairess

What a fantastic performance!!! Truly exceptional! Even though this was not an actual play - it was a reading, not a full production - the actors were still playing. Amazing! Kate Mulgrew was incomparable and brought the house down on several occasions!
This was one of the monthly Project Shaw readings (the 65th one, by the way), and was held at The Players Club in Gramercy Park.
There is some more information, as well as helpful links and wonderful photos here.

Lots of Plans

Lots of plans for this fall. Generally, this has turned out to be one eventful year...

...sigh...I really need to do more posting.

September 26th - The Millionairess with Kate Mulgrew
October 6th - Shatner signing his new book at Barnes & Noble on 5th Ave - MISSED :(

October 7th - Adele's concert in Atlantic City (Borgata!) - CANCELLED :(

October 12th - Scenes Behind Paleontology visit to AMNH with Carl Mehling

October 16th - a fossil-collecting trip to Saint Claire, Pennsylvania with the Rutgers Museum of Geology
October 19th - potentially (no confirmation yet), a site visit to Ground Zero as part of a AACE meeting
October 28th-30th - yet another Morristown Antiques Show

November 5th - Explore Lower Manhattan walk with AMNH's Sidney Horenstein

November 28th - Andre Rieu's concert in Newark

Hopefully, between all this, I'll be able to fit a trip to Philadelphia I have been promising my relatives for a while now. And then we nicely move into the holiday season! Can't wait!

The 10th Anniversary

The 10th Anniversary of 9/11 was yesterday. Feeling restless and uneasy, couldn't make myself settle down and actually do something, including even making this post. The memories are still heavy. Watching the television programming was almost unbearable.

Wow, What an August!

This has certainly been an extraordinary month!

The 45th Anniversary Las Vegas Star Trek Convention has been incredible, fantastic, simply out of this world!!! An absolutely unique experience!

Then there was the 5.8 magnitude Virginia earthquake that shook the entire East Coast.

And then, of course, there was the hurricane Irene....sigh....what a mess! My family and I got lucky in so many ways compared to people in other states, other New Jersey counties and towns, even our own neighbors. But still, this is one experience I do not want ever to repeat again.

I intend to dedicate separate posts to everything mentioned above and in the previous entry in the future, so I am not going to go into further detail here.

Where does the time go?

I have been meaning to do regular updates here on things that both deeply interest me and momentarily capture my fancy. And look at this, haven't been to my own blog in almost three months.

So much is going on: the sad - the last flight of the Atlantis, Leonard Nimoy is retiring from the convention circuit, Borders is closing (heartbreakingly complete liquidation), the end of the Harry Potter movie franchise, and the exciting - Las Vegas Star Trek Convention, screening of The Captains in New York, Andre Rieu and Adele concerts, a visit to the largest antiques show in New Jersey. Of course, let's not forget this disturbing heat plume under which more half of the country is suffering currently.

I have got to buckle down and write here more often. Not that that many people are reading this, just for my own benefit. Sometimes, it is nice to put your thoughts down.

P.S. Speaking of time. Yesterday I have finally discovered what this strange gilded hole with streaming steam and running numbers at the Union Square in New York is. It is an art installation called Metronome, representing different notions of time. I am still not quite clear what steam has got to do with it, but another interesting fact about the Big Apple learned!