by Orlando C. Fernando
Diary 1998 | Diary 1999 | Diary Early 2000 | Diary Late 2000 | Diary 2001
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Philadelphia Freedom! Every year, the Philadelphia in-line skate club called Landskaters organize a citywide weekend skate near Independence Day. The event consists of four skates through the varied neighborhoods of this fascinating city. Four of us from the Rochester In-Line skate club attended and one one of us was able to do all 4 skates. The rest of us did 3, roughly about 40 miles! We stayed at the University Sheraton hotel in the heart of the city, where you can easily walk down the street and grab some Philly cheese steaks or hop on the subway system. It was the most organized skate I ever attended. Dozens of skate patrol and police bikers helped to clear the street paths ahead of time so us skaters can ignore traffic lights. The Artic Wolf water truck was our friend through all my skates, as we had periodic breaks to refill our water bottles or even grab some oranges. Skaters were mainly between 20-40 years old, though a few 50+, teens, and one kid even registered for the fun. They come from all around the nation and all ethnic backgrounds. Quite friendly and socialable too, sometimes wild! Picture in-line skating meets "Real World" meets "Pacific Blue" meets "Baywatch". No road obstacle was a surprise since pretty much everyone announced them before you encountered them. Hole! Pedestrian! Sharp turn to the right! Stop! (followed by raising of both hands) $45 covered our skate fee and the hotel was reasonable at approx 45$/room/night.
And when you returned home on Sunday evening, your legs would be sore,
your wheels a little shorter, your brake pad a LOT smaller, your pads
with a not-so-fresh feeling, and your excitement for a wonderful social
fitness experience through the roof! Easily the most fun skate of my life!
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Through the Falls. I have brought several friends and relatives to Niagara Falls whenever they come to visit me, and this natural wonder of the world always captivates me every time I go. The falls is so powerful, it can spray you along the street about 1/8 of a mile away. The Maid of the Mist is a tourist boat which gets very close to the falls short of being completely engulfed by the rushing waters. Everyone gets goofy blue raincoats, and rightly so, because you WILL get wet! You can tour through the tunnel behind the falls. The downward pressure is so strong that we can only walk within about 10 yards of the cave openings. The water rushing down creates grey and white swirls splashing well into the tunnel. Again, the goofy blue raincoats are necessary! The Niagara River connects Lake Erie to the west with Lake Ontario at the east, two of the Great Lakes of the US-Canadian border. The Rainbow Bridge, along with the Whirlpool Bridge and Peace Bridge, crosses the international borders. Hope you have your passport or driver's license! After spending all day there, you can shop, eat, or entertain at Clifton Hill, a street running into downtown Niagara area. Or you can opt to go 7-10 miles east to the quaint area of Niagara-on-the-Lake, with quaint shops, good restaurants, and winetasting vineyards. (If you go in August, be sure to pick up a very juicy tasty basket of peaches at any of the roadside fruit markets.) |
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Lilac Loop. This year's Knock AIDS for a Loop benefit skate has changed names to "Lilac Loop 2000" for this year. The planners for our Lilac Festival took up the advertising efforts. But was it for the best? Well, the weather was not the best this year, after having a bad storm the night before. Although the loop was relatively dry, many suburbs were still wet, discouraging several skaters from showing up this year. In addition, people who just begun skating for this great cause last year never received their mailings for this year! That makes for quite a few hundred people that probably questioned if the loop skate would even be held this year! Despite the low turnout, we did have about 150-200 people attend the skate. The founder of the benefit gave his words of encouragement and started off the skate. Oh, that was another difference. Rather than Monroe Ave., we had parked and started the loop from the opposite end - High Falls Garage/State St. I'm sure that made the city happy (they still charged $2 for parking despite the fact that it was Sunday morning). One thing we were never short of were volunteers - enough to spill of the registration charts! Many parents, kids, and members of the community, as always, cheered us throughout the skate, always curious to know what lap we are on. Rochester In-line Skate Club had a good turnout, and quite a number had swept the course beforehand and warned of any obstacles. Look at the Inner Loop memories for 1998 and 1999. |
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Whazzup Wasabi???!!! I believe this Budweiser sequel commercial had debuted during the American Academy Awards. The fever now works its way to a Japanese restaurant! (2284 KB, zip file of mpg movie) |
March 30
Night at the Fights. Nope, it was not out to a boxing
match, but rather to an ice hockey game. A couple of Xerox colleagues got a
bunch of us together to head to the Blue Cross Ice Arena downtown. The local
team Rochester Americans (most know as the Amerks) were playing Wilkes-Barre/Scranton.
The first period was for the most part uneventful...until the enemy scored a
point! Despite several power play opportunities, the Amerks had a fight on their
hands to win. Oh and literally too. About 3 brawls ensued throughout the course
of the game. Two temmates even managed to get themselves both in the penalty
box at the same time. They still even had the kid hockey teams at first intermission.
These poor little tykes were tripping over themselves and some even accidentally
checked each other. A funny but cute sight to see!
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| For the most part in the game, Amerks generally had more "puck time" (control of the puck), more power plays, and far more shots on goal than the other team. Face offs such as near goalside like this one were pretty frequent. | The Wilkes-Barre/Scranton scored a quick goal when most of us weren't looking. I ponder as I stare at the board at first intermission. Not to worry, we had 2 periods left to tie then beat them. | A brief team fight ensued at the visitors goalside - just nearly everyone bunching up together as if they were going to crush each other to death. This was the part of the game most referrees had eyes and did their job. | We tied at the end of the 3rd period, and neither team scored during overtime. (I thought they do penalty shots as a double overtime? Guess not in this division.) Everyone left with 2 seconds left on the clock. One of the Wilkes-Barre/Scranton players complained of injury. Final score 1-1. |
 A decent bargain of $294 at buy.com. |
Pictures on Demand. After a year and a half wait and a generous tax refund, I've finally made my purchase on a digital camera. It's the Hewlett Packard Photosmart C200xi and it's a great starter camera.With focus, flash, exposure, and zoom control, it's got lots of flexibility in trying to get a decent picture under various light, indoors, and outdoors. I'm still trying out all its variations to perfect my picture taking, but I have come a long way already. It's very satisfying to take a picture and be able to see the results immediately (via LCD screen on the camera rear) and upload them with minimal effort to PC. I could also have purchased a photo printer, but I am not interested yet at this point. How's the pictures stored - flash memory. The 8 MB storage card can hold 17-80 pictures (depending on what quality setting you use). When full, you can send it to your local friendly photo development store to get them developped onto normal photo paper. If you want to transfer them over to the PC instead, you use accompanying software and cables to hook the camera with the computer and upload the pictures. It's really not hard, trust me. Can't wait that long when visiting relatives? You can even hook the camera up to a TV via video cable to show your homies your current pictures in a mini slide show! |
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Whazzup 2???!!! The Whazzup phenomenon continues. This time someone took the soundtrack and make a completely different video. Enjoy! (1245 KB, mpg movie) |
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Whazzup???!!! The Super Bowl in the US is famous for showing high-quality TV commercials during the breaks. One very popular commercial was by Budweiser beer, showing a bunch of friends in various houses calling each other during the game to say "Whazzup?". Everyone said it as very exaggerated street howls from a couch potato watching the game alone to good ol' Doogie calling from his cell phone. Well, an anonmyous person took the commercial to new heights by dubbing the audio into different clips of the "Superfriends" cartoon and made it into a movie file. The end results were even more pants ripping than the first! And, no, it was not authorized by the Cartoon Network despite their logo. Go to The Ad Critic to see this most excellent spoof, along with the original Budweiser commercials. If you don't get caught saying "Whazzup?" a million times after the 10th showing of this. Enjoy! |
January 17
Dream Computer 2000. After much convincing by several computer
comrades, I've decided to make my next major computer purchase a homegrown one.
Going to the local computer show, I've gotten the parts with a computer-knowledgeable
co-worker. Here's the specifications:
| Super ATX Case |
31.90
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| Tyan ATX Motherboard & Intel Pentium III 500 Processor (sold separately): |
426.70
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| Quantum 19 GB Hard Drive: |
160.19
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| Cyberdrive 48-Speed CD-ROM |
36.90
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| 128 MB DIMMS RAM chip |
177.07
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| Case Fan |
8.00
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| Ensoniq Sound Card | from old pc; no charge |
| 3.5 Floppy Drive | from old pc; no charge |
| 3COM Ethernet Card (for cable modem) | from old pc; no charge |
| Voodoo 3 2000 PCI 3D Video Card | from old pc; no charge |
| 17" Monitor | from old pc; no charge |
| TOTAL WALLET DAMAGE: |
*$856.24
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*=including taxes, 2% credit card charge, and $7 show admission
In about 2 sittings (roughly 5 hours), the new dream pc was in workable condition and Windows installable. And to think that I was going to buy a similar full system next year from Gateway for over $1500, including software I'll never use, internal parts that I didn't really need, and certain peripherals that wouldn't upgrade (unless they were with Gateway parts).
Nothing personal against Gateway. I was very happy starting out the PC world with my G6-266m computer of yesteryear (mid-1997). $3700 out the bank, but they had good parts and their tech support still rules. But it is now time to be more economical and practical and only upgrade with the parts that you really want. And when you watch and assist in your dream PC being put together right from the motherboard to final cover screw, you learn its true reality.
January 1
Bring the Noise! Well, I had an enjoyable time in Christmas
in Connecticut (a coworker tells me that was an old movie) and New Year's in
Canada. Imagine a basement full of dancing people and receiving a cell phone
call just 10 seconds before the countdown. That's what happened between mom
and I. Forget about talking, how about hearing what the other person is saying?
2000 certainly came up with a blast (no, not the Y2K bug kind). My mom had to
go outside of her restaurant and I had to find an empty closet in the basement
in order to talk! Seems like across the world New Year's came in style. England
has the new millennium building in Greenwich. France had impressive fireworks
by the Eiffel Tower. Australia was tops with their spectacular 30 minute fireworks
show. If I can, I'll try to post pictures from some lucky friend that was there
at that lucky moment.
After the Champagne. So what will we resolve to do this year, or for the next 999 years to come? Let's just all continue to be as nice as we were at Christmas. I want to see less sorrow, less gut, less useless TV, less infomercials, less split skate wheels, less bitter cold, and less filling. :) Oh and the positives? More trips, more skiing (any will do), more ice skating, more concentration, more prayer, more communications, more toys for my godson, more computer speed, more dancing, more female fitness directors in the gym :), and more warm summer time evenings.
Copyright 2001 by Orlando C. Fernando.
(Superman picture is Copyright 2001 by Hanna Barbara Productions.)This page
is for personal use only and not for reselling nor distribution to people outside
his intended audience.
