After a long day traveling around Skye, we had dinner in Portree and went back to the B&B. Due to my “in the moment”, spontaneous nature, I decided that even though it was 9PM, we needed to experience a night out in Skye.  Without much convincing, I was able to get Corinn back into the car and we headed north towards what is called the Quiraing.

If you didn’t know already, the Quiraing is an area where you can only get to on a single-track road, out in the middle of no where. It’s not on a primary road, nor is it traveled much, but will give us one of many authentic reasons as to why Skye is so awesome.  I only heard about this location through Corinn, never have I seen actual photos, but this was a great opportunity for me to experience first hand.

Oh, and I forgot to mention two more things: 

• Some of the tallest points in the Quiraing are cliffs that range between 200 to 500+ meters above sea level.
  
• I have a severe, fear of heights.
  

During our travels, we hit the spot where I started to feel my palms sweat.  This was the road that winds down to the lower part of the Quiraing, but before we went down, we got out of the car to take a moment in.  And when I say got out, it’s really an average of Corinn's enthusiasm of jumping out with excitement and me cowardly and slowly clinging onto the car door as I stepped out.  Corinn immediately ran up the cliff and took a look out while throwing out her arms and exclaimed, “THIS IS SO FRIGGIN’ AWESOME!” Meanwhile, I’m clinging to the ground telling her to get down because I was afraid she might slip and fall!  I was definitely freaking out.  What’s better?  She momentarily forgets about my fear of heights and suggests I take a photo at the top of the cliff.  I attempted to walk up the steep, slippery path, but I couldn’t go much farther before the height and the midges got to me.

Yep... Beautiful, but frightfully scary!!! 

If you don’t know what midges are, imagine tiny mosquitoes in dense, constantly biting swarms though they don’t leave marks.  However, when they get into a swarm, it’s best that you’re not in the middle of it, much like I was.  Corinn ended up fleeing to the car while I attempted to get a panoramic view of the valley and cliffs we observed.  I was biting my lip because the stinging pain of the midges got worse as I tried to stay still in one spot.  They got into my ears, eyes, hair, beard, nose, etc.  It was horrible; it very much felt like my whole face expanded and was on fire with pain.  Best of all, we brought midge repellent for a day/night like this, but the only night where we needed it badly, we forgot to take it with us as it was left back in the B&B.  Once I got the photos, we left the scene after one more shot of us with the view in the background.

As we headed down the road, I clung onto the door.  Strange, but as you went further down the single-track road, the cliffs didn’t look as bad as they did when looking down them.  Maybe that’s always the case; I had the same memories of when I was looking up at the high dive in a pool vs. looking down from a high dive, which always felt worse.

Despite the midge attacks, the view and experience was incredible.  Once we got out further, I jumped out of the car to look back and take several photos of some awesome moon shot opportunities behind us.  As I was setting up and taking photos, Corinn stayed in the car, facing me, laughing with the windows up.  I couldn’t hear, tell or understand why she was laughing, but I thought it was hilarious that when she did laugh, she would sometimes sync up with the hundreds of sheep in the land, baaing in the night.  After almost 30 minutes go by as I was taking photos, Corinn points behind me and when I finally took the hint, about 11 sheep were standing no more than 10 feet behind me, staring.  They snuck up while I was busy and I didn’t think much of the possibility of sheep around me until just now.  The sheep stared at me with almost blank, yet curious looks on their faces.  Some torqued their head much like a curious puppy would. Eventually, I chased after them for fun and they stumbled a bit and then ran off.  Corinn loved this, but didn’t have her small camera with her to preserve the memory of this night.  She dubbed this “phenomena”as “sheep creep”.

Here are some of the shots I took during the sheep creep to share of the unusual, surreal beauty that the Quiraing shares. 

Last, but not least, what I looked like after heading back to the B&B, hours after the midge attack:

So the day began great... Corinn and I packed early, my mom came by to pick us up, we were able to get to the airport more than on time, and we were happy.  Our flight was scheduled to leave at 6:40PM but after we loaded up the pilot received word from Newark that due to thunderstorms we were going to have to wait in Burlington a bit longer.  The captain took a chance that we would be able to leave at 7:30PM and kept us on the tarmac.  But by 7:45PM, there seemed to be no clear sense of when we might leave, so we were loaded back into the airport. 

By then, Corinn and I had not eaten anything since 11AM and were disappointed to see that the food courts in the airport were all closed.  We didn’t have any cash on us or our cell phones... We also found out that the only ATM available happened to be out of service.  As the night wore on, so did people’s patience.  There was a long line at the service counter of people wanting to know if their connecting flights were delayed or canceled in Newark.  Corinn was the last in line to talk to the lady at the service counter; it was unclear if our flight to Scotland would be delayed or not, but we were assured that we would be leaving Burlington tonight.  In case we didn’t make our connection the Continental agent assured us that they would put us up in a hotel, and we were even booked a pair of first class tickets for the next day.  Just in case.

Finally, 10:30PM rolled around and we re-boarded the flight, yay!  Our flight to Scotland should have flown out by 10:15PM originally, but because of the delay, we still had a chance to get there just in time.  When we landed in Newark, we sat on the tarmac for a good 30 to 45 minutes waiting to park at a gate.  Four gate changes later it was 12:20AM and of which the flight coordinators issued 4 gate changes.  By the time we got off the plane, our flight to Scotland was gone, boo...

Corinn and I were very saddened and incredibly hungry as we hadn’t eaten for 12+ hours at this point... Keep in mind that we’re trying to lose weight at the same time and dinner tends to be the largest meal in our day, not to mention usually eaten at 6:30PM.  Corinn got in line at Continental Customer Service and I ran for food; McDonalds was the ONLY place open in the Airport, but that Quarter Pounder with Cheese couldn’t have tasted better... though it set us back 500 calories and the fries were 510, yikes!

After a heated conversation, we discovered that Continental  was  not going to honor the hotel stay voucher (pretty much the reason why we decided to stick with the flight out to NJ sooner than later) and we got put on an earlier flight of which we lost the first-class seats.  What made it worse was when we were the absolute last people in line before customer service closed, which meant rooms were going to be hard to find.  When we called hotels around 1AM, no one had the $55 rate for distressed passengers which Customer Service had promised.  In fact, when we called all the hotels on the long list we were given, none of the hotels had rooms, supposedly.  Just out of simple curiosity, I then played a game where instead of asking if they had a room for a distressed passenger, I called back and asked if they had a room.  When many of the hotels confirmed they did have a room, I asked what the rate was.  Once they gave me the rate, I then asked for the distressed passenger rate.  The response fell within one of these situations or claims:

• “We don’t have a distressed passenger rate.”
• “I just rechecked and we don’t have rooms available.”
• “It’s $150.”
• “Let me transfer you...” (very very very long wait to no one)
• Hang up.

We found a Travel Lodge, not on the list, which would house us at $68.  After confirming, we ran down to baggage to pick up our stuff, but discovered it was in transit to Scotland and could not be recovered... So this happens to be the ONLY trip where we didn’t pack a carry-on for a situation like this...

...Nuts...

After about a 30 minute ride from the hotel courtesy shuttle into NJ, we arrived, signed the paperwork and then went to the room.  It’s your typical fixer-upper.  It was kind of disturbing though to find that the bed still had questionable sheets, but Corinn went down to the front desk to get replacements and finally we were able to sleep at 3AM.

The upside to today was that I got to spend it with Corinn and I finally got a Skype account so we can make calls through our computer!  I thought that was pretty cool when we dialed Charles and Mary in Scotland, the family that we’re spending the time with this week.  Not sure what we’re going to do with an 11AM checkout time and almost 8 hours between that and our flight.  I’m hoping day two will be much better than this...

I have 4-letter explicitives to describe the past week and a half, but I feel there's a following to this website that does not need to see that.  Basically our hosting provider hosed our website and my vacation... But after many, many hours and days trying to resolve the issue, we are not longer hosed.

Houston... We're back online.

So since I have a week of vacation (Yay!), I'm now in the process of searching for a M.F.A. or Ph.D. program.

Why do I want to do this?

Well, it's a pretty easy answer... I want to 1-up Corinn. 

In all seriousness (or as much as I can deal with), it's been one of the many lifelong goals of mine since I was in high school.  One of my friends asked me back then if I wanted to pursue anything after a 4-year degree.  I answered, "Yeah, I want to get 7 Ph.D.'s!"  I think he about died laughing.

Obtaining a Ph.D. is ultimately my goal, but to find one in the arts or creative side of computing is fairly scarce and difficult.  I'd like to obtain a doctorate through a reputable university/college... So far the only one that I think encompasses everything I can want in a degree is Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, NY.  The Doctorate is in Electronic Arts which sounds pretty cool already.  I just wish somehow that a degree like this would allow me to continue working at the EMC as I'm really into the work we're doing.  I also wish it wouldn't potentially set me back $50,000 a year!  Lastly wishing, this particular program requires that I already have a Masters level degree before participating in the Ph.D. program.  I wonder if I could wiggle myself out of this requirement…?

In any case, RPI seems like the only college at this point to offer a degree in the field I'm interested in.  Ann DeMarle, my boss and infamous wonder, told me at one point in time to look for a program that will allow me to research my thesis.  I remember when she gave me this advice, I thought to myself, "I need to come up with a thesis prior to applying?!" If this be the case, while it probably is, I guess I should start jotting down what exactly I want to do research in; maybe that'll help me explore the concept for my thesis.

The next question for me to figure out, probably even before searching for a degree program, is to understand what I want to do after I obtain the degree.  A slightly big concern is that I might be unemployable...?  Then again, many people with a Ph.D. at IBM and Pixar have done research on future proponents of computing.  Teaching is another function I’d like to fulfill when I feel like I have had enough experience to do so.  This is why I'd prefer to get a Ph.D. or an M.F.A. as both are currently considered terminal degress... And terminal doesn't mean that it'll kill you thought spending 2-8 more years on this type of program might kill me!

Talking about teaching, for those interested, here are some useful links I’ve discovered in my search:

• A good application timeline to plan by for Graduate School Searching
• How you can plan for financing Graduate School
• Another set of ideas to pay for Graduate School through Fellowships and Assistantships
• Search a huge database(Petersons) for Graduate Schools
• Here's another international database(GradSchool.com)
• Ask not what your education can do for you - ask what you can do for your education (or something like that):  The interview process
• Common Graduate School Lingo

Here are other programs I'm considering:

• Digital Media Ph.D. - Georgia Institue of Technology
• Fine Art Ph.D. - Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
• Fine Art D.F.A. - Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
• Creative Media Ph.D. - Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
• Studio Arts M.F.A. - Purdue University
• Computer Science Ph.D. - Purdue University
• Design and Technology M.F.A. - Parsons The New School for Design
• Animation M.F.A. - Savannah College of Art and Design

If anyone viewing this blog has any suggestions or recommendations, let me know!!! 

Why is it that everytime we do taxes, it has to be so much friggin' work and painful?

In our home, even though Corinn is the CFO, I'm the CTO (Chief Tax Officer).  On a side note, Sam's the CFO (Chief Fuzz Officer) and does a great job at that.  So I've taken on the duty ever since we've been married to complete the taxes and boy do I earn my title.  We've been broadsided in years past due to some huge mix-ups at my company, but in the end, we are still alive.  This year was another one... But I had struggled to make sense of why things didn't go so well for us.  It seems that no matter how well you plan, something always pops up.

I use both software and by-hand means to make sure the taxes come out the way they should.  It usually takes me a good long weekend to do so.  In the end, I verify that all the numbers look good (or not so favorable) and then we move on to sending the fed my forms.  Again, I try to get this done in a weekend ahead of time because I'm slightly impatient and if we are anticipated to get a return, I want to make sure I get it at the optimal time so we can earn interest.  If we have to pay, I usually wait until the week before April's national taxday to mail stuff in for the same reasons.  Ideally you want to owe nothing and the feds owe you nothing.  If you sway too far in one or the either direction, you get penalized (which Mc-Stinks).

So, this weekend, I came upon new stumbling blocks, but in the end, I think everything went as smoothly as it could have.  I'll be working all next weekend at the EMC, and other days will probably be the same way, so I needed to finish everything ASAP before I forgot.

February, March and April will be hell for me as the EMC is finishing up some projects and I'm sure we'll be starting some more.  I'm auditing a class at the college, but I've neglected to do homework for it (though not really required to) because of the lack of hours at the end of my days from work.  I haven't taken a single vacation day yet and still have comp-time leftover.  On a daily average, I'm putting in about 10+ hours, but several weeks ago, I put in 150+ hours within 10 days.  Last week, I put in about 55.  I'm looking at this upcoming week to be at least 70 because I'll need to work the weekend.  This has been a rare weekend recently where I didn't really work (except for checking e-mail).  I could use some time off... but I'm not sure when that'll happen next, when it will be appropriate or if it'll be possible at all.

I think the only things that keep me at the EMC are the types of projects we work on (save the world type stuff) and the people involved.  It's a lot of high stress work, but when I think about it (if I have time to think), the time invested is worth it.  I'm not even sure if I'm doing a good enough job!  I guess maybe I am if my boss kept me on for the past year and 3 months?

I am concerned though that I'm losing much of my life to work and not enough of it is towards spending time with Corinn, friends and family or even home projects/events that I should be doing and want to do.  Maybe life is like this in general... I cannot tell.  It's slightly depressing though that I do come home exhausted, eat, have small talk with Corinn and then eventually go to bed after reading for work, or doing homework.

Is this even the right job for me?  I wish I was the guy running on the ground with the students instead of managing them a lot of the time.  I was supposed to start a Master's degree in November, but I had to put it off due to how much work the EMC required me to do.  I'm afraid that I won't be able to start an MFA or PhD until 2 years from now and it feels frustrating to know this.  Ugh.  At the same time though, I wouldn't want to give up an opportunity that I do have to stay at the EMC and work on projects that do matter to me.  I just wish that things weren't so rushed and that my time revolved around student schedules the way they do.  It's a double edge sword having students be the workforce in a field like this, but at the same time, they're a joy to work with and when they put the right time into the projects, they work well and hard to get tasks done.  For some, the EMC is a side thing, for others, it's a part of their lives it seems.

I'm feeling burnt out.  I cannot enjoy a weekend because as soon as it hits Saturday night, I'm worrying about work or feeling guilty, as I did yesterday, that I didn't work.  I cannot play a game at home without thinking that I should be doing something else instead of relaxing.  Maybe it's just in my nature to be high-strung...

Ugh...

I realize that most of my posts, when I have an opportunity to do so, happen in the late nights/early mornings...

Oh well.  Time to sleep.