Dave Mancuso dot Com

If I were more energetic tonight, I’d tell you about my quest to find fireworks on Saturday at Knoebels. I can tell you that canvassing the entire staff of the park at every ride and refreshment stand would net you the information that both Shamokin and Millville had fireworks on Saturday night. Furthermore, Shamokin’s fireworks were to begin at 10:15pm, but wouldn’t be that long because “they didn’t have much money for them this year.” Millville’s fireworks were “very nice,” but when pressed, no one could say that they had actually attended the Millville fireworks. But they were at midnight anyway, so that was kinda late.

If you took the time to put the kids in the car and drive the 30 minutes to Shamokin, you’d find that 10:15 pm fireworks start at 10:00 pm, despite the evidence of roadside signs and local radio, due to the strange time warp the town apparently experiences (it seems to be the only conceivable explanation). Lucky for you that you started out early.

But the fireworks were pretty good.

OK–we’re back from Knoebels, which was a lot of fun and a great weekend (we camped there with Dawn and Mike–Dawn’s only a week from her due date, so events had an added dimension of suspense).

Drew, however, set new standards for whining and carrying on for the entire weekend. He really went above and beyond–he should get a trophy. As a result, we’re exhausted.

He’ll grow out of it–I know he will.

Right?

I saw a segment on the Discovery Channel tonight that referenced the Prelinger film archive on the Internet. If you go there, you should be able to get up to 1,900 clips of archival footage of old films, e.g. public service films on procedures to follow in case of nuclear attack. I can’t get there right now–perhaps the site is flooded with traffic–but I plan to keep trying. Cool stuff.

I flew all day from Seattle to Chicago to Philly, and then drove two hours back home at midnight to 2:00 am.

One comment: you know you’ve been in an airport too many times when you remember exactly where in the terminal the AC outlets are to recharge your laptop.

I walked several miles around the downtown area last night to find a good meal, but ended up at McCormick and Schmick’s again. The appetizer was seared ahi with spicy seasonings, which means that it was sushi without the rice, seared on the outside but raw in the middle. It was awesome.

The entree was tilapia crusted with Cajun seasonings (yep, I was in the mood for spicy food last night). Again, awesome. The asparagus side vegetable was very tasty, just as on my Saturday night visit.

After dinner on the way uptown, I saw a long limo made out of a Hummer. Wow.

Then I checked out a reception that 3COM put up in the Westin hotel. Nice party–good people. And I won a 3COM network jack, the NJ90 four port wallplate switch!

After that I went to check out the Animatrix–they had a private screening for NECC attendees. We saw three of the Animatrix animated shorts and then had a question and answer session with the Animatrix producer (and head of AOL/Time/Warner Animation), Ken Duer. AOL/Time-Warner gave us all gift bags with The Matrix:Reloaded Soundtrack too. The animated video shorts were good–nothing I’d ever let my kids see, but good. Anyone who thinks cartoons are for kids should watch these, but be aware that some of them are quite violent.

Just a note–I’ll be traveling all day tomorrow, returning home after midnight, and then going off camping the next morning for the weekend. I’ll fill in some posts when I get back. Have a great Independence Day weekend!

I spent the day yesterday being annoyed that there weren’t more of me to see all the sessions I wanted to attend.

I did get to talk to Jamie McKenzie a bit after his two presentations–that was cool. He was a superintendent in Pennsylvania until he got fed up and walked out one day. He lives out here in Washington state now and has made an incredible name for himself in educational technology. I particularly liked one exchange during his presentation:

Audience Guy (with an obvious axe to grind): “What do you think about getting more corporations to give schools their three year old computers? Should we push for that as a nation?”

McKenzie: “Well, it’s a terrible idea. These corporations foisting these old computers on schools–the repair and upkeep alone costs more than it’s worth. Kids need new technology, not old junk.”

Audience Guy (taken aback and now angry): “Well, how much power do you need, anyway? What would you need for just writing letters?”

McKenzie: “An Alphasmart. Buy an Alphasmart. That’d be a heck of a lot better than dumping an old junker on the class that can’t be supported. But hey, let’s have a drink later and talk about it! We obviously have diffeent opinions, but we can always knock it back and forth later.”

Amen. One of the toughest things in my job is finding gentle ways to tell people that something won’t work. My strategy is to not say no, but to give people a “different yes.” McKenzie liked that tactic a lot. It works well for me so far.

He also told us (several times) that we must ask for wild salmon in restaurants to get Pacific Northwest salmon. Otherwise you get farm-raised Atlantic salmon.

I went to a reception last night with N2H2, the BESS people. They had a nice get-together at Gameworks in Seattle. We got food, a couple of drink tickets, and an unlimited play card for all the games. I talked to them for a while. They’re very proud of the fact that they keep their database as open as possible while locking down what they have to. I run into BESS blockage all the time, but I understand the fence they balance on.

Sadly, my unlimited play card is probably wasted on me. I spent most of my time in the “classic” section, which is a small room with games like Pac-Man, Frogger, Missile Command, etc. I tried some of the other games, but I was just really bad at them. Oh well.