Cleveland, Day 3.01

WARNING: THIS PAGE MIGHT TAKE FOREVER TO LOAD. It's basically all pictures, and if you're connection speed isn't very good, then this could take quite a while to open. Sorry.

Here are just a few more pictures from our trip to Cleveland. I'll try and keep things in chronological order. These aren't all of the pictures, but these are the good shots that I managed to take, or at least bad shots of cool things (like the catfish sturgeon).

Here's the skull of a triassic carnivore, ceolophysis. This skeleton was pieced
together from a quarry of smashed skeletons, and paleontologists say that this
skeleton is comprised of at least three different individuals.

This is a quartz penguin, also from the Cleveland Museum of Natural History. Neat, eh?

Nothing wrong with adding the image of one of the largest skulls ever found - one from triceratops.

This is a neat building that we saw while walking through the empty
streets of Cleveland. Notice how there is nobody in the streets - unbelievable.

The 'Doc' warming up between innings. He was awesome.

Here is an early birthday present that was worn out to the game on Saturday.
We were recognized as Jays fans everywhere we went - mostly for the better.
We were told that the Jays sucked, at one point, to which the response was
"No, they don't." There was no rebuttal from the fans of the 0-5 Indians.

This is the Progressive Field scoreboard (more traditionally known as Jacob's Field.)

Here's a catfish sturgeon, the creepiest thing I've seen in a zoo since the Hellbender.

Here's a fossa, which is related to the mongoose, although it resembles
a cat. It ran on this wheel, but only with its front legs.

Here's a koala sleeping. This is what koalas do.

And here are some otters.

That's it for the photo-highlights of the trip. I hope you enjoyed following along with us.

Cleveland Day 3

Hi folks,

I've got to make some adjustments to some of the pictures I took at the zoo today, so I won't be able to post them all up, but I'll be sure to put some up that are okay as they are. In a lot of cases, the zoo is not lit very well, and you don't want to use a flash on the animals (and some are under water) so I'm going to some light photo-editing to touch'em up and get them ready to be online.

Things I noticed about Cleveland

There is nobody there. There aren't people in the streets, they aren't on the sidewalks, they aren't anywhere. I don't think I even noticed apartment buildings - there just weren't people around. It was a very quiet town with nobody in it.

Notice this empty street. This is what the city was
like all weekend. The absolutely only thing that you saw on
the streets were red lights.

But there were some very nice avenues that we were able to effortlessly walk down, like this charming little spot.

Pretty neat street, eh? It had its charm, and little shops
all along it. No pedestrians or cars, but there were shops!

Here's a neat picture of the city, too. Again, not a car or pedestrian in sight.

Going to the zoo, zoo, zoo

The zoo was pretty neat, but it was missing some things that we were hoping to see, including elephants, cassowaries and giant tortoises. But there were plenty of neat things, including some of the stuff I've added below.

Here's a neat alligator - it was a miniature type of alligator.

Here are some monkeys. One is a proctologist, as you can see.

... and a bald eagle.

I'll be sure to add some more pictures tomorrow. I hope you've enjoyed our updates over the last few days.

Cleveland Day 2.01

Well, it's Sunday morning, my fiance's birthday - and we're about to head out to the zoo. But we've got to get dressed, showered, packed and checked out before we do that.

Yesterday was pretty cool, though. Here's what it looked like:

Started the day off sleeping in real well, and then looking for somewhere to eat. We wound up at a place across the street from Progressive (Jacob's) Field, called Local Heroes (not pictured). Then, we went and found our seats in the ball park.

Progressive Field was neat - the bullpens are both in the right field, though.
There's some great standing room in the back, too.

The Jays had a good game, and Roy Halladay was awesome - although I don't know if he got the win for the game or not. The Jays have been pretty good over the last few games, and to evidence how well they've been doing, I made sure to take a snapshot of their battling lineup, which also shows their batting averages.

Look at those batting averages! Hard to beat a team with
a lineup like that. Granted, it didn't finish looking like that.

The Jays were doing awesome all game until BJ Ryan came in, loaded the bases on mostly walks, and then let a guy score a three RBI double in the bottom of the ninth! Not good relief work. Luckily, the Jays had a four-run lead, and were able to bring in another closer to finish the job that BJ f-ed up.

Now, the weather in the sun was wonderful, and I even got some sun in my cheeks. But the weather in the shade was like 35 fahrenheit. It was cold! At times I could see my breath, and was thankful that the Indians were giving away free scarves to people who came to the game.

Also, I think I've discovered the solution to the American Auto Industries problems. Just slap this logo on the car, and every American will buy one.

Seriously, I saw more The North Face jackets than
I did Indians gear. If The North Face was a sports franchise,
it'd be grossing more than the Maple Leafs, Man U and the
Yankees put together. People LOVE The North Face - so
much that it makes me suspicious.

I plan to make a jack exactly the same called, The South Face. My slogan: Yes, I know you have a North Face jacket, hell, everyone does. But do you have a South Face jacket? A zillion dollars later (by only next year) and I will then sell the company and tell everyone that I made the jackets out of something horrible, like vellum, or something.

There are many more things to relate about our trip yesterday, but I'm getting the stink eye to pack my things up and get out of the hotel room so we can get to the zoo.

I'll post more (may be tonight?) with more pictures about our trip.

talk to you all soon,

Cleveland Day 2

We're getting ready for baseball today - making sure that we've got warm coats. Yesterday there was a four hour rain delay, which I truly hope won't interfere with our baseball game. The Jays beat up on the Indians (who have had a lot of struggles - they'll have those kinks worked out of their lineup before too long - because they just seemed to be unprepared to compete at the professional level).



Anyhow, the cool part of our trip this morning is complimentary coffee in our room from Wolfgang Puck. Puck is a famous, celebrity award-winning chef with nine restaurants, three national awards, and has been on six shows as himself.

So when Puck decides to put his name on something, you can probably know that however it tastes, that's exactly what it's supposed to taste like.

So the coffee? It isn't bitter, it isn't strong, it's pretty smooth, it doesn't need sugar or anything else. It was very nice.

- - -

After that, we're going to go out and find something to eat, take a shuttle to Progressive Field, watch the game, eat some ball-park pretzels and then find somewhere to celebrate the post-game festivities. I'll be back to post up some pictures soon.

And the weather? Well, it's forecast to be: 41 degrees, feeling like only 32. I don't know anything about Fahrenheit, regrettably. Probably means that it's cold, though. I think we want to have it around 65 degrees. So a high of 44, but sunny, which is better than rainy.

Anyhow, we'll be back in a few hours, and we'll have some more details for you then.

Cleveland Day 1

Hi folks - from Cleveland, Ohio.

The entire car ride down, the only thing that was going through my mind was this song:



And I don't know any of the lyrics, only the part that goes "Ohio" so - I have been stuck with it for a long while trying to figure out what it was. I was somehow convinced that it was a Stevie Nicks song - when of course I should have guessed that it was more Neil Young genius. Its political message, lasting power, and sardonic melody are unmistakably Young.

Anyhow, entering Ohio is always a pleasure because the Michigan interstate routes are less well funded than the Ohio interstate routes - meaning the ride gets smooth and comfy as soon as you cross the state line. It's beautiful.

Our trip started out around 9:30 this morning, and despite some obnoxious detours in Detroit, everything went very smoothly. The trip was alright - and we rolled into the Cleveland Museum of Natural History with no trouble. It was our first stop in the city.

First - Dr. Michael Ryan from "Paleoblog" was indeed out of town in Korea at a conference, like he said he would be. I asked to meet him anyhow, just in case his trip was cancelled. It would have been neat for the curator of vertebrate paleontology at the museum to meet with us.

While the presentation isn't the most impressive we've ever seen,
that doesn't mean that a big faceoff between a Tyrannosaurus and a
Triceratops isn't cool.

The dinosaur exhibit at the museum was a little out of date - it looks like it was installed some time in the mid-80s and there hasn't been a lot of money to update the exhibits, and that's unfortunate. I think some shag carpet might have been the icing on the cake, actually.

Turkey vulture in an outhouse.

There was an absolutely awesome live exhibit out back of the museum, with deer, falcons, eagles, vultures, raccoons, an otter, foxes, hares, and bobcats. That was a real highlight of the visit. My fiance and I were absorbed with the raccoons as they played and scrapped with each other.

He's playing with a rock. He played with it a lot.

Our hotel room is great - the bed is enormous and comfortable - and I napped in it almost immediately. Another great note is that Quantum Leap was on tv here. Cool.

Our tix for the Jay's game tomorrow should be great - third baseline in the lower bowl - should be awesome. The Jays were rain-delayed this afternoon for the opening day; so maybe we'll get a double-header tomorrow afternoon? Hard to say. Should be a lot of fun, anyways. First ball game of the season!