Valentine’s day has come, and almost gone, here in Rochester and was marked with the first true “blizzard” we’ve had in quite a while. While we’ve gotten off light compared to places like Oswego, over the last 20+ hours almost a foot of snow has fallen on the immediate area (more in some places). RIT canceled night classes, effectively closing the campus at 6.00pm. Here’s a shot of my walk out to the car at 4.00pm today:

As far as my car itself, I found it partially buried by the snow that had fallen since I arrived on campus around 8.50am:

For Dre and myself our outside day ended in much the same way as it began: shovelling the driveway. And it was literally the same amount of snow at 5.40 (yes, it took me more than an hour to make a normally half-an-hour commute) as there was a 7 this morning. One big difference however was Dre’s decision to make a celebratory snow angel at the end of shoveling this evening. I opted not to join her.

Before I got home, I did make a stop off for supplies at the local Wegmans (it still took me about an hour to get from RIT to Penfield). Thankfully, that gave me one last chance to take a few pictures of the Valentine’s display there. Wegmans, well, went a little over the top this year. More than a little. A lot. While from the outside things look normal:

Once you got inside, things got crazy. The following panorama of the Valentines display doesn’t quite do it enough justice. The entire center island was all flowers with two florists pulling together last minute bouquets. To one side was candies, to the other side chocolate cakes. Yesterday, they actually had one of the chefs (yes, our supermarket has floor chefs), in a tux, passing out chocolate covered fruit.

But in my opinion the cat’s pajama’s was this ice sculpture:

Yup, Wegman’s Ultimate Chocolate Cake (which while quite good is no where near “ultimate”) was complimented by an ice sculpture “vase.” If there was any question before, it’s been laid to rest, Wegman’s is no longer a store, it’s a shopping experience. Take that Whole Foods!

But Dre and I were not swayed by this crass consumerism. We opted for a quiet dinner (we went out for our night on the town dinner last weekend). And, provided we’re dug out by the weekend, we’re planning a date for Saturday night.

As I’m not ready with the next part of my analysis of the YouTube/LiveVideo tempest-in-a-teapot, I’m sharing something completely different: my commute to RIT. Winter has come to Rochester. Today it was 11 degrees (Fahrenheit) out when I left the house. Over the last few days we’ve been getting a lot of snow. I’m not quite sure what possessed me, but I decided to (carefully) document my drive to work. So from time to time I would rest my digital camera on the steering wheel and take a photo.

As an experiment, I’ve taken all of these pictures, placed them on flickr and geotagged them. The result, you can track my commute. The location of the photos are pretty much dead on. In fact, the act of placing them was really interesting in and of itself. Doing so caused me to relate to my picture, my commute, and the locations I pass by in a very different way.

What’s your commute look like?

Here’s the first picture, 12 more follow after the jump.

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Just a quickie… I tried out the Kodak Easyshare V705’s panorama tool. Man, my former employer really nailed this one. I’ve been very impressed with the camera - both in terms of lens technology and the user interface itself. It’s great to see Kodak continuing to live up to its boo-yah, non grab-ass vision outlined earlier this year:

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That’s about it. I’m currently closing a karma circle and writing a letter of recommendation for an excellent student who is hoping to get a summer internship at the NY Metropolitan Museum of Art.

RIT isn’t the first school that springs to mind when someone says “beautiful campus.” In fact, I’ve heard it described as “neo-grotesque” and the person who said that wasn’t being tongue-in-cheek. Yet, in the wake of the storm, a glistening layer of ice provided a new perspective on our “brick city.”

This was the view from my office window earlier today as snows continued to fall. That’s the Liberal Arts building in the background.

RITchie, the school’s mascot, covered in snow and ice.

Near the College of Imaging Arts and Sciences, there is a little garden. It’s always been a favorite spot of mine on campus. If you visit my flickr account you can see this little house from a number of angles.

To wax philosophic for a moment, seeing the campus this way made me think about my task as a teacher. It’s to get students to see the mundane - in this case media that they’ve been immersed in from day 1 - from a new perspective, in order to gain a new appreciation for it and develop a critical eye. I still am trying to get a handle on ways to accomplish this.

Last night, and into today, Rochester was hit by the big storm that came across the US. Like many places, this weather came in the form of ice. RIT canceled classes. So I have spent most of today grading (as I did yesterday). I’m almost caught up. I did manage to sneak out for a bit and take a few pictures. The one above is of the Hawthorn tree in our front yard. I hope the plants that we added this past summer survive this weather event.

Quickie — I’m currently blitzed with classes and applications to PhD programs (Cornell, NYU, and Columbia). I have a redesign for this site in the works, but that’s going to happen over my Christmas break.

I will say that its interesting to see the reaction to “social computing” as Time’s person of the year. I personally think it’s a bit of a ridiculous choice — I don’t think it’s had an effect that is yet socially significant enough. That said, let me present to you what will hopefully be the next viral YouTube video. Here’s the Assistant Dean of my College and a laser pointer:

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Things are slowing here. Some of our creators have given in to sleep (I think our collection is going to have a number of Eastman Variations). We attribute it to this hunk of kryptonite we discovered in Vicky’s soda.

BTW, make sure to check out the offical blog/archive of 24 Hour Comic Day located here.