Rome
I don’t even know where to start. Rome is amazing. It isn’t a very large city, but it contains so many wonderful and amazing sights. Everywhere you go, there is something to see. From ancient sites to modern amazement, Rome is a city of so much culture and history. Rome is a bustling, multicultural city. There is almost no end to the amazing sights this city has to offer. The Roman Forum, Colosseum and surrounding area are such a marvel to behold. I could spend days just going through the section of the city. Other nearby sites like the Spanish Steps and Popolo Plaza really should not be missed. Then there is the Vatican with its’ crowning jewel, Saint Peter’s Basilica. Everything in Rome is so grandiose and amazing. This city really left an impression on me, and I cannot wait to go back!

Milan
I just really didn’t like Milan. The city was by far the dirtiest of any city I visited in Italy. The public transportation is a joke. This is the only city in which I encountered rudeness from the locals. I was robbed in Mestre. It isn’t what you think. Instead of a frightful tale of some armed thug, I was robbed by the very city of Mestre. Immediately after purchasing the subway passes, the subway closed down. When I tried to seek a refund, I was told the ticket would be honored the next day. (Thank goodness I wasn’t staying in Milan another day.) We walked across the city, and encountered train and bus strikes as well. Two attempts to take a taxi ended up with the drivers going to the wrong place and demanding payment. Even the restaurants were being jerks, forcing us to buy drinks to be seated and not letting us have cheese when other customers had some.

On the bright side, there are a few things worth seeing in Milan. Most notably is the Duomo di Milano (which can be seen in my Flickr photostream). Right next to that is the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, which is basically a high-end shopping mall that looks like a palace. The mall has every super expensive store from Louis Vuitton to Prada. In retrospect, I feel that if you go to Milan for more than 6 hours you are either insanely rich or you’ve been caught in one of their many transportation strikes.

Arezzo
A nice little town in the heart of Tuscany. About an hour outside of Florence, Arezzo is striving to make a name for itself. I enjoyed my time in Arezzo a lot. The people were very friendly. It is almost as if the entire city is striving to present the happy face of Arezzo. Really, the city has a lot to offer. My time here was too short, and I would love to go back in the near future.

Florence
It would really take a lot of time to see everything in the amazing city of Florence. Just the Uffizi Gallery alone is massive enough to take two days. The canal is beautiful, and lined with amazing little shops and restaurants. You have to go to the Accademia Gallery to see some exquisite works of sculpture. The Firenze Duomo is a beautiful and massive church. The attached bell tower offers amazing views of the city.

Mestre
This is an odd little town, that grew up into an even stranger little city. Mestre exists in the shadow of Venice, which lies just off the coast of the city. I always had an odd feeling while walking around Mestre, and at night that feeling only grows. The city seems to close down pretty early, and the night has a feeling all its’ own. Unless you are staying here and traveling to Venice, I would probably stay away from this city.

Venice
I am devastated to say that we missed Carnival, and by only a couple of days. They still had the lights and decorations up all over the city, and were just starting to take them down as we wondered the streets. That would have been spectacular to experience Carnival in Venice. Despite that, this city was still the highlight of my trip. I enjoyed every second of my time there. It is an amazing city, and I would head back in a heartbeat if I could. Venice has so much to do and see. St, Mark’s Square is breath taking upon first (and even second) viewing. The myriad of churches and cathedrals are only out numbered by the unique little shops that dot the streets of Venice.

The neighboring islands of Venice each have their own uniqueness. San Michele Island was selected to become a cemtary, and is a beautiful and peaceful place to check out while island hoping. Murano is world renown for their glass blowing. Lido is kind of like walking through the street of Brooklyn. I highly suggest checking out some of the other islands around Venice, as well as getting off the bigger streets on the main island. Those tiny back alleys contained some of the most amazing shops Venice has to offer. Wherever you go in Venice, you can’t go wrong.

Below is a slideshow of images from Italy that I have uploaded to Flickr.

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Below is a link to just a few of the Yelp reviews I wrote about places I dined at while in Italy.

My Favorite spots in Italy.

What's this?

The number of people present for the protest seemed to grow throughout the early evening. Pretty soon there were thousands of people there, making it one of the largest Occupy Wall Street protests to date. Everything was pretty low-key, protesters chanting in front of banks and an Armed Forces recruitment center. Despite the sea of protesters, everything was very calm and almost organized. I was applauding the police for keeping the protesters separated from the flow of traffic, and the protesters for not pushing their limits unnecessarily.

Sometime around 6:00 PM, a new group of police officers in riot gear arrived, with more on motorcycles and horseback. They had batons and shields, and seemed to be much more aggressive than the group who had been around all afternoon. Tensions mounted, and things got out of control quickly. It was difficult to tell exactly what was going on, but from my perspective it seemed as if police were grabbing the closest protests to them and arresting them without warning. Protesters began to struggle, and it wasn’t long before things turned violent on both sides.

I bailed at that time, and retreated to the far side of the protests. A lot of people retreated when that started, and a large group of protesters were chanting about returning to Zuccotti Park. I stayed in Times Square, and around 7:30 PM things calmed down again. I would guess about 1,000 people left the protest in that hour, but the media coverage hand drawn an equal number of curious spectators and tourists. By 8:00 PM, the number of people in Times Square had grown eve higher, and police had responded by erecting temporary fencing through out most of Times Square.

All in all it was an amazing experience. I was fortunate enough to talk to so many people, from so many background, and hear so many touching stories. I was amazed by some of the things I learned, and really impressed by some of the people I talked to. It was truly an incredible event, and I am so lucky to have been able to be a part of it.

Waiting in line at NY Comic Con.

The first thing I noticed upon entering the convention center was all the costumes. People everywhere were dressed as everything. There were characters from Bleach, Doctor Who, Silent Hill, X-Men, Voltron, Sailor Moon, Final Fantasy, and hordes more stuff I can’t even name. Despite the plethora of costumes, I saw my favorite cosplayer pretty early on that day. (I tweeted a pic of it here.) There were some truly awful costumes there, but the good ones more than made up for it.

Once making my daring break onto the convention floor, I made my way to the sizable Square Enix booth. They had tons of playable demos out, were giving away prizes, and handing out free gifts. Now the lines were pretty long, so I only played two of the demos: Wakfu and Final Fantasy XIII-2. The former had a short line, and everyone who played got a chance to spin a wheel to win a prize. I don’t really get the game, and didn’t enjoy playing it that much. On the other hand, Final Fantasy XIII-2 was well worth the wait. After standing in line for nearly an hour (something that happens a lot at this convention), I got to play about 45 minutes of the early game. Between the game play and the new extra long trailer they released for NY Comic Con, I feel a little less worried about this game.

Sqaure Enix’s booth at the 2011 NY Comic Con.

A picture from the new Final Fantasy XIII-2 trailer.

One of the benefits of standing in lots of lines, is that it gives you time to talk to people. While talking to some of the people in the Ultimate Marvel VS Capcom 3 line, I learned about a party Square Enix was throwing at a bar in Times Square that night. (More on that later.) I put a reminder in my phone and continued wandering around like a very happy puppy. While wandering I did get to see both James Marsters and Eliza Dushku of Buffy fame. Sadly I didn’t get to talk to either of them. (I did stalk/meet David Blue from Stargate Universe, but technically that happened in Times Square the night before. I tweeted about that encounter here.)

Later on I waited in a couple more lines over at the Intel booth. One line was to wins prizes on a Price is Right style wheel. Sadly, I was one click away from the grand prize, which usually means you get the least impressive prize… as I did. But then I waited in some lines to drive in a race car simulator. I would eventually get thrown out of the Intel booth for trying to use one of their display laptop to access Twitter. Apparently these laptops were to look at and not actually use. Oh well.

Intel’s race car simulator.

I left the Intel booth and went downstairs. I kind of walked into the beginning of a panel about two video game designers and how they influenced each other’s works. It was kind of interesting, as one was Japanese and the other was American. At the end they showed both of their takes on the other person’s work. I enjoyed it, and the chance to sit down.

After the panel I strolled around some more. I stumbled across booth with a jet fighter simulator. It had been dumbed down a lot, but it was still a bit difficult to control. I would have done it a second time, but the line was outrageous. Across from the flight simulator they had the Delorean from Back to the Future, the original Batmobile, and the Batmobile from Tim Burton’s Batman Returns. They were charging people money to go sit in the cars. Instead of doing that, I just waited for those people to get out of the way and snapped a picture of the Delorean with their Marty McFly look-alike.

The Delorean from Back to the Future.

By this point I was getting pretty tired. I took one last stroll across the dealer’s room, and then headed back to my hotel. Luckily I set a reminder for that Square Enix party in Times Square, because I had completely forgotten. I barely made it to the bar before the party got started, but I’m glad I did. This was a press party promoting the upcoming release of Final Fantasy XIII-2. They were doing trivia games, doing interviews for Machinima.com and Destructoid.com, and even had an open bar.

Square Enix provided an open bar at Tonic.

The open bar was an unexpected surprise from Square, and their FF XIII-2 coasters were quite neat. I stuffed a couple in my coat pocket and had a few more drinks. After drinking a bit more than I should, I entered their Final Fantasy trivia contest. It was really close, but I managed to win it in the end! I got a FF shirt, entrance in the VIP section, and met the art director of FF XIII 1 and 2. At this point I pulled out one of the coasters in my coat pocket and asked if Isamu Kamikokuryo would sign one of the coasters with his art work on it. His translator found a ridiculously large sharpie, and Mr. Kamikokuryo signed one of the coasters!

Isamu Kamikokuryo’s autograph.

A t-shirt I won playing Final Fantasy trivia.

At this point the party was coming to an end. Square Enix extended the party for half an hour, allowing the open bar to stay open just a bit more. After the party ended, I snuck up stairs into the VIP section while someone else tried to get the bouncer to let them up. The Square Enix people had already left by this point. I was up there for a few minutes, and one of the on air talent for Machinma, named Adam, came up to me and congratulated me for winning the trivia game, as well as for sneaking into the VIP section. He talked to me for a bit, but then left and the other on air talent guy, named Khail, started talking to me.

Me in the crowd, thinking about how to get up in the VIP section.

Khail was telling me that they were packing up, and that I was going to have to leave soon. He made small talk, and asked me about Final Fantasy. We had talked about FF a little bit earlier in the evening, and agreed on a lot of the games in the series. We talked about the San Diego Comic Con, an incredibly talented artist friend of mine, and then we started talking about our girlfriends. By the time we finally stopped talking, his camera crew was all packed up and they were down stairs ordering a round of shots for the team. Khail told them to get one more shot for me and told me I was part of the crew for the rest of the night. I threw on a Machinima shirt, and wore it for the rest of the time I was with them.

We went to the club level of Tonic, and they ordered me more drinks. The rest of the night these guys kept a drink in my hand. It was ridiculous. As the night went on, some people started dancing with us and taking pictures of us. These guys were not afraid to cash in their celebrity to get some attention, and they just acted like I was part of it all. Somewhere on the Internet are a bunch of pictures of all of us singing, dancing, and being generally foolish. Someone I don’t know requested to be friends with me on Facebook, and I think it is one of the people from the club. I’m pretty sure she was one of the girls with a camera, so I’m expecting some pictures to show up online sometime soon. Anyhow, I had a blast with these guys. Later that morning we went our separate ways, but we will always have our song.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LD9u2T6wzzc

My first day in New York was a mad house. I couldn’t decide what to do, and tried to take in several sites all at once. On the first day I visited Times Square, Rockefeller Center, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Guggenheim, and Central Park. All of these places are too large, and too busy to see everything in a single day. So after the mad dash around Manhattan, I returned to my hotel exhausted, and with a better plan for the days to come.

The entrance to the Rainbow Room at the GE Building.

30 Rockefeller Plaza.

St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

My new plan consisted of spending the next day at the American Museum of Natural History. This place is a giant and diverse treat for science geeks. Pretty much a whole floor of dinosaurs, a giant center dedicated to astronomy, and more biodiversity than I’ve ever seen collected in one place. This museum is a mess to navigate, but well worth the effort. True science geeks should probably plan two days to take in everything this museum has to offer. (I just hit the highlights of stuff I wanted to see, and still got kicked out before I was finished.)

Photo of me from Egyptian temple at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

While in the area, I decided to take in a Broadway show. I narrowed it down to three choices: The Book of Morman, the Lion King, and the Phantom of the Opera. Seeing as the first two were completely sold out, I decided to take in Phantom. As luck would have it I scored some fourth row tickets, and a chance to go into the theater before anyone else to see some backstage preparations and the orchestra warming up before the show. That was a treat, but the show itself was so much better. I highly recommend checking out Phantom on Broadway.

Image of the empty Majestic Theater before a showing of Phantom of the Opera.

The next day I returned to Central Park. Now I can see the appeal of Central Park to New Yorkers. It is a massive park, with several different types of terrain for several different types of activities. However, visiting as a tourist it actually ranks pretty low on the scale of things you have to see. Yes it is giant, but in the end it is mostly still a park. They have a water reserve, some play houses, and a zoo (which is actually quite tiny). Most large parks have something similar to all of the things you will find in Central Park. With all that said, there were three things in the park I wanted to see firsthand:
The Alice in Wonderland sculpture,
The Ancient Egyptian obelisk nick named “Cleopatra’s Needle”,
The snow leopard habitat in the Central Park Zoo.

Alice in Wonderland has long been my favorite fictional story. I’ve read all the stories concerning Alice, have a growing collection of Alice memorabilia, and have been to the home of Lewis Carroll and the real Alice in Oxford. The Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park is something I’ve known about since the early 1990’s. I don’t remember how I first heard about it, but looking up pictures of the statue online was never enough to satisfy the urge to see it up close. I have to admit I always imagined the statue was larger in real life, and seeing people crawling all over it was a little disappointing. Still, I’m glad I made the time to hunt it down.

Two images of the Alice in Wonderland sculpture in Central Park.

The first time I heard the term “Cleopatra’s Needle” was in an episode of a Nickelodeon show titled “The Tomorrow People.” I’ve always been interested in Egyptian, Greek, and Roman artifacts, and I really liked the show in question when I was 12 years old. Since then the concept of this artifacts has held a specific power over my imagination. Over the years I’ve come to realize the true history behind this obelisk, and it’s related artifacts in Paris, London, and Luxor. That history hasn’t ruined any of the magic I have associated with these artifacts. I had been lucky enough to see the London and Paris obelisks while traveling through Europe in 2009. So when arranging the trip to New York, I had already decided this was one of the items I had to see, no matter what. (Three down, one to go.)

Cleopatra’s Needle

Honestly, I like zoos. I know they can’t offer the ideal habitats for the animals living there, but what they do offer is more important to the future of these animals. I’ve traveled to Zoos on four continents, and always enjoy photographing rare animals when I get the chance. When I learned the Central Park Zoo had a snow leopard habitat, I knew I would find the time to check it out. The Zoo itself is very, very small, but the snow leopard habitat is well worth checking out if you enjoy seeing big cats as much as I do.

The male snow leopard from the Central Park Zoo.

After spending the day at the park, I went down to the Empire State Building. The whole time I was there, my phone refused to work. (I found out later that AT&T sucks in New York.) So I wondered around the 86th floor observation deck for a little while before heading down. Once I reached the street level, my phone updated and I received a message saying that I should go to the observation deck at Rockefeller Center instead of the Empire State Building. I can understand why, because I was honestly a bit underwhelmed by the Empire State Building. (Although, while up there I couldn’t help thinking about the Doctor Who episode “Daleks in Manhattan.”)

View from the Empire State Building.

I spent a lot of time wandering around Manhattan, Queens, and Brooklyn during my visit. Queens has lots of great places to eat, Manhattan has all the bustling big city flair, but Brooklyn stole the show for me. I took several strolls through both Brooklyn and Williamsburg at varying times of day. I always felt safe while in Brooklyn. There was always something going on regardless of the time of night, but unlike Manhattan, Brooklyn’s late night scene was more artistic, low key, and culturally oriented. I went to a street fair, took in two great music gigs, went to a flea market, and walked along the East River while in there. Brooklyn joins the handful of North American cities in which I could see myself living.

View of Manhattan from Williamsburg.

Pic of TEENS playing at the Glasslands Gallery.

New York has tons of great food, and Queens has tons of great food without that Manhattan price tag. Seriously, I think it would be pretty easy to eat at a different place every day of the year, and always get good food. Being such a multicultural city, you can find almost anything here. Everything I had was great. The Thai food, the Middle Eastern food, and even the pizza and hot dogs were all delicious. Despite that, one of the dishes I had stands out to me more than any other. At a Romanian place, I ordered something called “creier pane” which the menu describes as “calf brain pan fried in breadcrumbs batter.” I’m not saying it was delicious, but it wasn’t half bad either.

Picture of fried calf brains from Romanian Garden in Woodside.

On Friday I snuck into the 2011 New York Comic Con. Later this week I’m going to write a separate entry about my time at Comic Con, the Square Enix press party for Final Fantasy XIII-2, and my time with the guys from Machina.

On Saturday I went down to Zuccotti Park to spend some time with the Occupy Wall Street protestors. I followed along as many of them marched to Times Square for the global day of action on October 15th. Later this week I’m going to write another entry talking about those experiences, and the impact it has had in Tucson as well.

Sunday marked the end of my trip. I really didn’t want to leave, but I had to return to work on Monday morning. I have never understood the draw New York has on people until I was leaving that day. The cities which make up New York City are a diversely populated, smorgasbord of lights and culture, the likes of which I’ve never come across in my travels. Sure the city is insanely expensive, dirty, human infested, and an absolute madhouse, but I don’t think it would be as wonderful as it is without those necessary flaws. The people of New York have every right to be proud of living there, because it really is as great of a city as they all say it is.

Below is a slideshow of images from New York that I have uploaded to Flickr.

Tendril offers their customers the Ability to monitor and understand their real-time electricity usage. The test program will give users a Tendril Translate (a device that translate between old electric hardware and the new Tendril hardware), a Tendril Transport (internet meter-reading device), a Tendril Load Control Switch (electric network management system), as well as access to the Vantage Web Portal (which is the site which allows real time access to your energy use).

Some of the other products Tendril offers (which are not included in the current test program) are in-home power displays and smart outlet devices. The smart outlets, which they call the Tendril Volt Outlet, allow users to monitor and control the power in individual rooms or even individual power plugs. TEP is thinking about expanding the project to include these devices, should the initial testing phase go well.

Tendril's Vantage Web Portal

The above image is a screen shot of just one of the tabs on the Vantage Web Portal. It shows my monthly billing history, a two week energy comparison, energy used that day, and energy usage of each day for the past month. Each of these menus is interactive, and can be expanded on to show more detailed views. There is even more useful data on the other tabs.

So far I’ve had nothing but great things to say about the program. The technical support people are great, I’ve noticed a huge drop in my energy usage, and I’m really excited about the prospect of future offers with the program. I think it would be pretty neat to get a few of the Volt Outlets for testing. It seems like those things would have a lot of uses ranging from energy saving, party tricks, to home security. Either way, I’m pretty happy to be a part of this project.