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richlayersHaving gotten that irony out of the way, here are pictures and storytime from my vacation.
Tiffany and I ended up heading down there ourselves. We were pretty sure but not completely sure we were on the right track, taking the red line from Harvard to Alewife... Until I was standing on the T, arm hooked over a rail, talking to Tiffany, and I see a guy sort of checking me out from the corner of his eye. I caught his eye and he said, "Nice shirt. I think we're going to the same place."
After that, we quickly realized that most of the people on the train were headed there. I should have taken that moment to call out, "xkcd?" and see what happened. In any case, we got of the T, raced up the stairs and outside, to see a neon yellow sign reading, "42.39561, -71.13051 FOLLOW ME"
So we did, and that's when we realized the entire population of people flooding out of the subway were all going that same way. Then I remembered I had a camera.
Walking into the park was like... oh wow, I don't even know how to describe it. I'm not sure I've ever been quite so excited and thrilled and pleased and amazed all at the same time.
There were xkcd reference decorations everywhere, and as far as I have been able to establish, they were not coordinated at all, it was just people taking initiative for one or two things, and then they all came together in a beautiful display of xkcdism.
There was a huge crowd, and as many of them as possible were on top of the official coordinates jungle gym.
At the exact time, there was a countdown, and as we all got down to 5...4...3... I realized that there were giant whiteboards floating by. On the first was the original Dream Girl comic, and then 4 more blank ones. I could see where this was going, and I dodged under the slide to be up at the front, Tiffany hard on my heels.
They were hooked up on the fence.
Randall Munroe himself, creator of xkcd, was there, and he looked pleased with the results of his little comic experiment.
He took a moment to explain "the deal," as it were, which I captured most of with video. (Have I mentioned that I like my camera?)
And then many people doodled on the whiteboard.
I got a few more shots of various whiteboard clips that I liked, but then it turned out that I didn't feel like uploading them. xkcd kindly provided high def images of all of them, which can be viewed here.
Tiffany and I spent some time wandering around enjoying the various sights that people were providing. We decided to get something signed, and started to slink our way through the crowd. We got pretty close, physically, to Randall, but were still a long way from him, temporally. Fortunately it was pretty fascinating to listen to him answering the same questions over and over again....
This guy gave me a playpen ball.
So I finally got it signed.
Then Tiffany and I got our picture taken with him, and this is probably my favorite picture from the whole trip. It embodies the very best parts of everything that was good about the journey!
Some other cool things we saw:
I kicked butt at Tape Measure. I actually just started extended a tape measure I found, and then people came and joined me.
Tiffany and I took over a corner of sidewalk and some chalk, to go along with all the doodling and math equations other people were contributing.
Later, we helped put away the whiteboard, and also Tiffany posed at the park entrance.
After that, we heard a rumor about a trebuchet that was set up at the back up park. The plan that had evolved was to walk over to Denehy (I think I spelled that right, otherwise it's Deheny) Park, which was much bigger than the original park. This in case of spillover, which wasn't really a problem, but then there was this trebuchet rumor, which turned out to be quite a fun time. "Is there a plan?" I asked, and was told, "Pretty much having a trebuchet is the plan. Kind of like when you have a rocket. It's self-evident, what you do with it."
"Well," I asked, "are there things to be shot? I mean, I see some hefty rocks over there."
"Sure. Rocks, lighter attendees...."
But as it turned out there were baseballs, and later some shoes all tied together, and after that someone's car keys, which fortunately got caught on the trebuchet, because it was getting dark by then and I don't think we could have easily found them after throwing them 100 yards or whatever.
I have video of this, too, but that whole uploading thing hadn't happened yet....
Then we went to dinner. Then we hauled a couch about a mile through the streets of Cambridge... I'm not sure what the EXACT reasoning here, was, but at least we had a handy couch to rest on whenever we needed a break.
Really, it was one of the most fun, best days of my life, and the only problem I had was that it ended. And then I had to come back to Kansas... so ready to move. And hey, my time here is up anyway. Have to move SOMEWHERE next year. I consider the trip to be research.
xkcd's most excellent write up of the event can be found here. (If you look really carefully, you can see me.)
Tiffany and I ended up heading down there ourselves. We were pretty sure but not completely sure we were on the right track, taking the red line from Harvard to Alewife... Until I was standing on the T, arm hooked over a rail, talking to Tiffany, and I see a guy sort of checking me out from the corner of his eye. I caught his eye and he said, "Nice shirt. I think we're going to the same place."
After that, we quickly realized that most of the people on the train were headed there. I should have taken that moment to call out, "xkcd?" and see what happened. In any case, we got of the T, raced up the stairs and outside, to see a neon yellow sign reading, "42.39561, -71.13051 FOLLOW ME"
So we did, and that's when we realized the entire population of people flooding out of the subway were all going that same way. Then I remembered I had a camera.
Walking into the park was like... oh wow, I don't even know how to describe it. I'm not sure I've ever been quite so excited and thrilled and pleased and amazed all at the same time.
There were xkcd reference decorations everywhere, and as far as I have been able to establish, they were not coordinated at all, it was just people taking initiative for one or two things, and then they all came together in a beautiful display of xkcdism.
There was a huge crowd, and as many of them as possible were on top of the official coordinates jungle gym.
At the exact time, there was a countdown, and as we all got down to 5...4...3... I realized that there were giant whiteboards floating by. On the first was the original Dream Girl comic, and then 4 more blank ones. I could see where this was going, and I dodged under the slide to be up at the front, Tiffany hard on my heels.
They were hooked up on the fence.
Randall Munroe himself, creator of xkcd, was there, and he looked pleased with the results of his little comic experiment.
He took a moment to explain "the deal," as it were, which I captured most of with video. (Have I mentioned that I like my camera?)
And then many people doodled on the whiteboard.
I got a few more shots of various whiteboard clips that I liked, but then it turned out that I didn't feel like uploading them. xkcd kindly provided high def images of all of them, which can be viewed here.
Tiffany and I spent some time wandering around enjoying the various sights that people were providing. We decided to get something signed, and started to slink our way through the crowd. We got pretty close, physically, to Randall, but were still a long way from him, temporally. Fortunately it was pretty fascinating to listen to him answering the same questions over and over again....
This guy gave me a playpen ball.
So I finally got it signed.
Then Tiffany and I got our picture taken with him, and this is probably my favorite picture from the whole trip. It embodies the very best parts of everything that was good about the journey!
Some other cool things we saw:
I kicked butt at Tape Measure. I actually just started extended a tape measure I found, and then people came and joined me.
Tiffany and I took over a corner of sidewalk and some chalk, to go along with all the doodling and math equations other people were contributing.
Later, we helped put away the whiteboard, and also Tiffany posed at the park entrance.
After that, we heard a rumor about a trebuchet that was set up at the back up park. The plan that had evolved was to walk over to Denehy (I think I spelled that right, otherwise it's Deheny) Park, which was much bigger than the original park. This in case of spillover, which wasn't really a problem, but then there was this trebuchet rumor, which turned out to be quite a fun time. "Is there a plan?" I asked, and was told, "Pretty much having a trebuchet is the plan. Kind of like when you have a rocket. It's self-evident, what you do with it."
"Well," I asked, "are there things to be shot? I mean, I see some hefty rocks over there."
"Sure. Rocks, lighter attendees...."
But as it turned out there were baseballs, and later some shoes all tied together, and after that someone's car keys, which fortunately got caught on the trebuchet, because it was getting dark by then and I don't think we could have easily found them after throwing them 100 yards or whatever.
I have video of this, too, but that whole uploading thing hadn't happened yet....
Then we went to dinner. Then we hauled a couch about a mile through the streets of Cambridge... I'm not sure what the EXACT reasoning here, was, but at least we had a handy couch to rest on whenever we needed a break.
Really, it was one of the most fun, best days of my life, and the only problem I had was that it ended. And then I had to come back to Kansas... so ready to move. And hey, my time here is up anyway. Have to move SOMEWHERE next year. I consider the trip to be research.
xkcd's most excellent write up of the event can be found here. (If you look really carefully, you can see me.)
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