Watch Out for That Piano!

Since I'm taking classes again, I have to coordinate my vacation with spring break. I got a chance to head out to MASS MoCA out in western Mass.

First up is an art installation with a falling piano. It's really amazing to see everything positioned in such as a way that it represents the explosion of impact, yet everything is completely still.

Next is giant wall paintings of Sol LeWitt.  His style is to give instructions and sometimes sketches accompanying his instructions, and have someone else actually do the installation and painting. This is done in such a way that the art can be repeatedly created, which is certainly a very different way of thinking about art.

I attempted take a panorama of one of the LeWitt art walls because it was so large and could not be captured in a single (or 3) shots).  But as proven from the previous time I tried to use the panorama feature, it creates this fish eye perspective that distorts the actual view quite a bit. Nonetheless, it gives a good sense of the scale of the installation while capturing all the details. 

One of the art walls happened to have a light source above and center.  I almost look prophetic. :)

Modern art might not be something I naturally gravitate toward, but I think MASS MoCA has enough variety that even the noobs like me can still appreciate it.

Linsanity

Although I'm not much of a sports fan in general, I wouldn't pass up a chance to see a pro game in person.  It just happened to be I got a pair of company tickets to go see the Celtics play the Knicks at TD Garden.

Linsanity has been the talk of the town for the past month so I most definitely had to go see what Jeremy Lin is all about.

It was pretty crazy to see him make some amazing shots. He was practically falling over on some of them.  But at the same time, he turned over many simple plays, almost tripping over his own feet a few times. At the end, my conclusion is he's fairly inconsistent, so he's got some ways to go before he can be counted on to really carry any team.

Outside of the game (which was pretty exciting considering the Celtics looked like they were about to lose, and then in the last few minutes, managed to tie it up to go into overtime, and then winning it at the end) the company seats were pretty nice.

It was at the same level as other company boxes, but not as extravagant. It's at a "sports deck", and had tall bar height leather swivel seats, and a bar counter for food and drinks. Definitely way more comfortable than the regular seats beneath.

This also gave me a chance to test out the panorama features on my Galaxy Nexus. My first attempt at using it, and it turned out pretty nice.  It's pretty clear that any panorama shot is going to have a weird perspective due to the positioning / origin of the photo and how it all gets stitched together. But it does a pretty nice job of showcasing the space I was in.

All in all, a pretty positive experience, both via the game, and with my smart phone. :) I just need more opportunities to try out more of its features so I can write about them.

Enter Smart Phone

After some peer pressure I caved and upgraded my little 3 year old flip phone to the latest and greatest release of Android devices, the Galaxy Nexus.

And I just figured out how to take a screen shot.

That's my current home screen, complete with 3D clock and weather. I have lots of thoughts but not the time yet to thoroughly review, so I'll just start by saying I'm still faster typing t9 at the moment since Swype doesn't exist yet on Ice Cream Sandwich. But speech to text is a pretty good substitute when I'm in a quiet environment. I miss having arrows to move around the screen or to correct text typed incorrectly, but the wealth of apps and connection speed, at least on 4G, is pretty sweet.

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