To reproduce, or not to reproduce… that is not really why we do it like we do it on Discovery Channel…

The New York Times published an article in the science times called, “The Whys of Mating: 237 Reasons and counting,” reviewing the original paper, “Why Humans Have Sex”, published in the Archives of Sexual Behavior. The authors determined four major categories behind our mating desires: Physical, Insecurity, Emotional, and Goal Attaining.

The top 8 reason why men and women have sex are the same, though not in the same order. After that…women list more the emotional reasons, while men tend to diverge towards the physical.

Moving + countdown

This gradual moving process is rather annoying (can’t wait for it to end!), but it’s done. I’m moved out of my most permanent “home” in my adult life and have begun the living out of boxes phase.
This also signals the eminent start of the countdown of my last couple weeks on Long Island; the first week of August is week 12. Tick tock, tick tock….

Montreal was amazing, she literally took my voice away…

One unexpected effect of the Montreal trip was laryngitis. I lost my voice on the night of the 6th and wasn’t able to speak more than a sentence until the 13th. Which really sucked. It was the first time that I ever lost my voice, and I think I would prefer some other major injury to that. Thank goodness for texting and IM….

Accidental benefits of absentmindedness…

I knit a pair of fingerless gloves a while ago, but I wasn’t completely happy with them as they were a bit loose on my hands. So I stuck them in a coat pocket and forgot about their presence when I threw the coat in the wash (cold water). Lo and behold, the gloved slightly felted and shrank a bit, solving the sizing issue. And they fit better across the palm, which used to puff out, as the thumb was directly inline with the rest of the fingers. (Gloves usually have the thumb slightly offset to mimic the natural placement of the fingers)

And now are in a new home, soon to be put to good use in upstate NY!

Your life in boxes…

Nothing makes it clearer that your life is changing than moving. I’m packing up my stuff this week, as my lease runs out at the end of the month. It’s an odd feeling… this house is the most permanent place I’ve lived in since I left for undergrad; until grad school, I was moving every year.
Which makes moving/packing a bit difficult – I’ve accumulated a lot of stuff over the past three years, as I expected to be in this house for another two (projected graduation w/Ph.D). But plans change, and I’m divesting myself of excess possessions (ie, furniture, clothes and shoes that I don’t wear, books that I won’t read, etc) to minimize that stuff that I’m moving to my parents house.
But in all this lies the question: what does one really need? I’m trying to pack my stuff for storage and at the same time pack for the next couple of months, where I’ll be living out of a couple suitcases and boxes.

Montreal Jazz Festival – aka, the second week

The title is slightly misleading… I didn’t spend ALL my time at the Festival, just nearly every evening and night. I visited the Jardin botanique de Montréal (Montreal Botanical Garden), and the Musée des beaux-arts de Montréal. The former was so huge, that we couldn’t see it all in one go… and that’s after walking around for four hours! Also walked up Mont Royal to get great great views of the entire city in multiple directions.
I did take a LONG bike trip along the length of the Lachine Canal, up the St. Lawrence westward, then back to Old Montreal by edge of the St. Lawrence River, passing the rapids.

Picture taken on canal map posted along the trail.

The path I rode is in red, though I went off of this map, and the park circled in green is the Parc des Rapides, where I walked about and saw this:

For the Festival, here’s some of the artists that really caught my eye (and ear!)

Carlinho Browne (Brazil) – Great dance music, though people were complaining that he wasn’t playing his older (aka, favorites) music
Nomadic Massive – Montreal funk…
Son de la Frontera – Spanish guitar and flamenco….
Ojos de Brujo (Spain) – Amazing live show!!!!
J’tadi – gypsy style… very upbeat
Shakura S’Aida (Toronto) – Powerful, yet cheeky, blues singer
Manu Chao – It was great music, but what amazed me was how enthralled the audience of thousands were of him
Seun Kuti – AFROFUNK!
Emily King (US) – young guitarist from Brooklyn with great vocals
God Made us Funky (Toronto) – interesting… great, amusing music with a lot of sampling
DJ Dolores
Nomo (Ann Arbor, MI) – one of the few instrumental groups that I saw/heard, but very good brass and sax playing
Wax Poetic (US) – avant-garde… not sure if I like them, but it was an interesting show

See… I can come back and finish….

“Queen star finishes PhD thesis after 30 years”

I read this and thought it was great… hey, I can be 50 and come back to finish my doctorate! 🙂

The First week…

The first 6 days (sunday-friday), a good chunk of my day was taken up with the International Bone and Mineral Society Meeting, for grad school. Not too bad – it just was very hard to sit in a conference center all day listening to seminars when there was a city to explore and great weather to do so.
In the afternoon and evenings, I got a chance to get to know the other people in the hostel, and walk about the city. The day arrived was St. Jean-Baptist Day, or Fête nationale du Québec (“Quebec National Holiday”), as it’s also called. So there was a hostel outing to this huge outdoor concert/party in Olympic Park. Which is a neat place, I’ll head back to it later in my visit. But it was cool – this huge crowd, totally reveling in the fact that they were Quebecois. The energy and atmosphere reminded me of the 4th of July festivities on the Mall in DC. Hmm… I think it was also the first time that I was at another country’s national holiday – meaning like Canada Day, or the 4th of July, etc.
Monday night, there was a private performance of the Metropolitan Orchestra of Montreal at the Notre Dame Basilica for the conference attendees. Which was rather cool, but I thought the program selected was a rather tame one with the typical Mozart and Beethoven’s 9th. At least it didn’t detract from the Basilica – an amazing piece of architecture!
Biking along part of the Lachine Canal and to the two islands in the St. Lawrence River – St. Helen’s and Notre Dame, was the free afternoon event through the conference…. a guided tour lasting over 2 hours, it was a lot of fun. Of course it was also on one of the hottest days there… almost 90 degrees… in Montreal! Yeesh… made me glad that I was a couple hundred miles north of my usual stomping grounds. On the islands, we were able to see the World Expo ’67 pavilions and exhibits that were still up, such as Habitat ’67. A really neat part of the bike ride was the we were able to go on the Grand Prix track and bike on it as there wasn’t a race going on.
L’International des Feux Loto-Québec, aka, the Montreal Fireworks Festival, was also going on during the two weeks I was there. We saw England’s entry into the contest on Wednesday night. Pretty cool… I wished that I saw some of the other entries to get a gauge, but the Jazz Festival took precedence.

…And I’m back….

Holy Moly…. I am in love with Montreal. At least in the summertime, anyhow. It is a very bike friendly city, especially in the downtown and in the canal/river region. I ended up renting bikes 4 times in the two weeks I was there – three short trips and one crazy long one that had me riding about 30+ miles.
One thing that really surprised me was that most everyone that I met through the two weeks were extremely friendly, even though I couldn’t really speak a word of French. Absolutely contrary to the rep of the Quebecois as a rude bunch…a delightful surprise.
The Montreal youth hostel lived up to it reputation – it was well run, clean, and organized a lot of events to showcase the nightlife, events and areas of the city. Most definitely would recommend them for anyone who’s looking for a cheap, but good place to stay in Montreal. Though next time, I would stay there for a couple of days and then find a temporary sublet if I were to stay in Montreal for more than a week.
And the Jazz Festival… it was amazing. Literally swimming in music, though the crowds were insane! I found a dozen artists that I’ve never heard before, but am going to follow now. Will update fully, with photos and the like. Right now, I’m still readjusting back into my regular life and getting over this bug that I caught in the last days there.