Ithaca, New York

The real purpose for the trip was the jaunt to Ithaca, New York, to visit the regional office there.

For a software developer from the Left Coast, it was a little odd to think that most of my colleages hadn't even woken up, let alone gotten to work. Carsten, however, was already plowing away, three time zones ahead of anybody in San Rafael... and loving it.

The Ithaca offices sport the new Corporate Standard spaces, larger than a normal office, but entirely too open for a cave-dwelling Neanderthal like me. I noticed that both Jon and myself lasted about five minutes before the "open concept" had us running for cover in one of the hotel offices.
Ithaca Cubicles 2.JPG

Fresh snowfall 2.JPG Mid-week it turned out that Ithaca would give us a little snow flurry. Not much as far as Ithacans are concerned (a local had commented earlier that there should have been upwards of a couple of feet of snow on what was instead dry grass....) Coming back to the hotel after dinner, this Californian couldn't resist going outside into the fluffy stuff to take a few pictures. I quickly remembered why I didn't care much for snow. It's damn cold....

Cold or not, there's something peaceful about freshly fallen snow, especially when it's just a few inches thick. That soft barely audible sensation of it being packed under your every foot. The chilly stinging kiss as the flakes land on your face. The clean cold air filling your nostrils...
Lantern Tree and Snow.JPG

Pinecone in the snowdrift.JPG Not too far from the lamp and tree above I found a cute little vignette. The camera got the color wrong--it's entirely too orange--but it was pointed out to me that it suggests that golden glow of amber. Interesting....

The following morning, the heavy silver clouds had almost completely vanished. Toward the middle of the day nearly all the snow would be melted off, except where it was sheltered from the sun. But during the morning hours, the world remained blanketed in white.
Silver and Snow 2.JPG

Ithaca Falls (Sepia Red Filter).jpg I took Carsten up on his offer to get some pictures of the white stuff, so around 3 in the afternoon we headed to Ithaca Falls for a neat little cascade inside the city limits. More pictures are just around the corner, but let me tease you with this one...

Even though we ended up driving around to find a nice woodsy environment with a lot of vertical aspect to it, (and a touch of snow,) we eventually found it in a small wooded area almost exactly across the street from the office.
Stand of Trees 3 (Sepia).JPG

Philosopher Tree 2.JPG If a tree falls in the forest, does it make a sound? Philosophers have pondered that question for ages....

Playing with the sepia filter on my digital camera, I thought this combination of snow, leaves, and a decaying trunk made for an interesting picture.
Fallen Tree (Sepia).JPG

Cornell - Lincoln Hall.jpg On the last day I had some time to kill before hopping onto another dash-8 turboprop on my flight back to the Pacific time zone, so I caught a bus to Cornell University. It's a pretty campus, filled mostly with various brick buildings, almost all of which are either Victorian or even Gothic in design...

...except this odd building, housing the Johnson museum. It's quite a striking contrast from all the faux-archaic buildings in the nearby quad.
Cornell - Johnson Hall.jpg

Okay, want to see those pictures of Ithaca Falls? Let's go to the next page.

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