I'm getting home this evening, but the trip isn't over yet. Late season snow storms shut down the interstate in Wyoming yesterday afternoon and it didn't open until 8:30am. It's about 15 hours at full speed to get to Portland from Laramie, and there was no way I was going to drive 75 on fresh snow and ice. So I booked a flight home from Denver. I have Fridays and Mondays off, so I have a return flight Thursday evening. Four days is plenty of time to drive from Denver. Maybe I'll even have time to catch a show!
As for now, I'm killing time, drinking beer at the airport. If you're lucky, in the next few hours I may load some pictures and posts from the past week and a half [she says to the one person that reads this].
Monday, March 31, 2008
Friday, March 28, 2008
My hair is ridiculous
After a couple days on the beach, a boat ride, several long drives and a nervy encounter with a Sheriff's deputy, my hair - unruly at the best of times - is now absolutely ridiculous. The masses of individual curls have formed a number of collectives to give the whole a more chunky, yet unified, hair society. I'm not sure whether to label it a syndicalist movement or anarcho-collectivism or what, but watching the revolution unfold has been fascinating nonetheless. There's blonde now, too! My hair has been on a darkening trajectory for years now, and while I was kind of hoping it would hit black before it all went gray, so as to have given me the full range of colors (I was born a redhead, it turned blonde, etc), I'll take random bits of blonde, too I guess. Multicultural societies are so much more interesting, aren't they?
Anyway, the boat ride was all kinds of fun. I guess. I like boats and I like birds and so a bird watching boat tour sounded just about perfect, right? The thing is, both bird watching and boat riding aren't things that lend themselves to a ton of words. I mean, what do you do on a boat? Ya stand there and look at things. It's windy. Everything smells fantastic, but really? You're still just standing there looking at things. I also realize that I can't maturely discuss birds, either. So let's just surmise the tour this way: We got on a boat! And there were waves! And there was a lot of wind and I got a little sunburned and we saw Whooping Cranes and a Peregrine Falcon and Egrets and Herons! And then we saw dolphins!!!!!!!!
Ok. Here's a warning to you: when entering the tiny Texas 'ville of Skidmore, you will notice the speed limit decreases to 45. This is cool, you'll probably slow down anyway. The problem is that shortly thereafter you'll notice the presence of a Dairy Queen and your brain will cease nearly all functions that don't directly pertain to getting ice cream into your mouth. Unfortunately, this meltdown coincides with the passing of a giant blinking sign that says, "SCHOOL ZONE: SLOW THE FUCK DOWN, ASSHOLE. WHAT, YOU WANNA MURDER CHILDREN?" At least, that's what I think it says. I didn't see it, obviously. I did, however, see the cop sitting alongside the road, and checked my speedometer to find I was traveling at 42. "Heyyy, that's under the speed limit! I'm practically Texan!" So when said cop pulled out a moment later with his lights flashing I knew it wasn't for me, so I kept on going for the Dairy Queen, found myself a parking spot and was about to step out of the car when I realized that I'd been blocked in. Shit.
After a somewhat confusing exchange - "I was going 42." "Actually, I clocked you a 38." ".....Wait, what?" - the whole school zone (30mph) thing was explained. Then the deputy proceeded to scare the shit out of me by having me get out of the car and ask me about 800 questions. When I told him I was in Texas visiting an army buddy, he brightened, but then seemed extra suspicious. "You look..... really young to have been in the army." So that led to 800 more questions. My life story later and dispatch finally confirming - over a loudspeaker that the entire town could hear, I'd like to add - that my car was really mine, I wasn't a serial killer, and it was pretty unlikely I'd smuggled a few kilos of coke or a guy named Jorge in my cooler, he let me go with a warning. Then he gave me directions to Austin that avoided the "clusterfuck" that is San Antonio traffic. Awwww, whataniceguy. (Really, he was pretty cool. I dunno why I get all nervous around the police when drill sergeants don't even bother me.)
The rest of the drive to Austin, though, sucked and we didn't get a hotel room until around 10pm. Too tired and frustrated to deal with heading into downtown, we went to the neighboring hotel bar and I sucked down whiskey sours while eavesdropping on the pilots and flight crew members who were also there drinking. Today, Tony is coming down for a doctor's appointment, and afterwards I hope to buy him things and get him to drive us around. Tonight is the New Model Army show, which I'm pretty damn excited about. In the meantime I'm sitting in my hotel room watching the humidity/smog grow into what I can only hope will be a ferocious thunderstorm.
Anyway, the boat ride was all kinds of fun. I guess. I like boats and I like birds and so a bird watching boat tour sounded just about perfect, right? The thing is, both bird watching and boat riding aren't things that lend themselves to a ton of words. I mean, what do you do on a boat? Ya stand there and look at things. It's windy. Everything smells fantastic, but really? You're still just standing there looking at things. I also realize that I can't maturely discuss birds, either. So let's just surmise the tour this way: We got on a boat! And there were waves! And there was a lot of wind and I got a little sunburned and we saw Whooping Cranes and a Peregrine Falcon and Egrets and Herons! And then we saw dolphins!!!!!!!!
Ok. Here's a warning to you: when entering the tiny Texas 'ville of Skidmore, you will notice the speed limit decreases to 45. This is cool, you'll probably slow down anyway. The problem is that shortly thereafter you'll notice the presence of a Dairy Queen and your brain will cease nearly all functions that don't directly pertain to getting ice cream into your mouth. Unfortunately, this meltdown coincides with the passing of a giant blinking sign that says, "SCHOOL ZONE: SLOW THE FUCK DOWN, ASSHOLE. WHAT, YOU WANNA MURDER CHILDREN?" At least, that's what I think it says. I didn't see it, obviously. I did, however, see the cop sitting alongside the road, and checked my speedometer to find I was traveling at 42. "Heyyy, that's under the speed limit! I'm practically Texan!" So when said cop pulled out a moment later with his lights flashing I knew it wasn't for me, so I kept on going for the Dairy Queen, found myself a parking spot and was about to step out of the car when I realized that I'd been blocked in. Shit.
After a somewhat confusing exchange - "I was going 42." "Actually, I clocked you a 38." ".....Wait, what?" - the whole school zone (30mph) thing was explained. Then the deputy proceeded to scare the shit out of me by having me get out of the car and ask me about 800 questions. When I told him I was in Texas visiting an army buddy, he brightened, but then seemed extra suspicious. "You look..... really young to have been in the army." So that led to 800 more questions. My life story later and dispatch finally confirming - over a loudspeaker that the entire town could hear, I'd like to add - that my car was really mine, I wasn't a serial killer, and it was pretty unlikely I'd smuggled a few kilos of coke or a guy named Jorge in my cooler, he let me go with a warning. Then he gave me directions to Austin that avoided the "clusterfuck" that is San Antonio traffic. Awwww, whataniceguy. (Really, he was pretty cool. I dunno why I get all nervous around the police when drill sergeants don't even bother me.)
The rest of the drive to Austin, though, sucked and we didn't get a hotel room until around 10pm. Too tired and frustrated to deal with heading into downtown, we went to the neighboring hotel bar and I sucked down whiskey sours while eavesdropping on the pilots and flight crew members who were also there drinking. Today, Tony is coming down for a doctor's appointment, and afterwards I hope to buy him things and get him to drive us around. Tonight is the New Model Army show, which I'm pretty damn excited about. In the meantime I'm sitting in my hotel room watching the humidity/smog grow into what I can only hope will be a ferocious thunderstorm.
Wednesday, March 26, 2008
Some thoughts on Texas
- Texans require television with their meals like the rest of us require silverware. Sure, there aren't any TVs at Taco Bell, but then there isn't any silverware either.
- Texans drive sloooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww. Like, under-the-speed-limit slow. The only people that have blown past me when I've had the cruise control set at a mere five mph over the limit have had out of state plates.
- Related to above, it's actually faster on highways than the interstates, because you can drive 110mph down the flat stretches. There aren't any overpasses for the cops to hide under and hardly any other cars to negotiate with.
- We saw a huge brush fire late at night en route to Killeen. At least, I hope it was just a brush fire, because I'd feel bad if I was oooing at someone's house burning down.
- There is a deer goddamn infestation in central Texas. There is just no way that there is enough edible plant life to sustain that large of a population. I pretty much drove down the centerline the whole way, only moving over for the firetrucks headed towards the above mentioned brush fire.
- A Killeen in Ireland is an unconsecrated graveyard or a children's cemetery. I find it morbidly fitting that Killeen, TX is the home of the U.S. Army's largest post.
- Holy suburban strip mall chain stores! Blech!
- Shiner Bock, the official beer of Texas, is kinda meh.
- We saw a flamingo!
More later...
- Texans drive sloooooooooooooowwwwwwwwwwwww. Like, under-the-speed-limit slow. The only people that have blown past me when I've had the cruise control set at a mere five mph over the limit have had out of state plates.
- Related to above, it's actually faster on highways than the interstates, because you can drive 110mph down the flat stretches. There aren't any overpasses for the cops to hide under and hardly any other cars to negotiate with.
- We saw a huge brush fire late at night en route to Killeen. At least, I hope it was just a brush fire, because I'd feel bad if I was oooing at someone's house burning down.
- There is a deer goddamn infestation in central Texas. There is just no way that there is enough edible plant life to sustain that large of a population. I pretty much drove down the centerline the whole way, only moving over for the firetrucks headed towards the above mentioned brush fire.
- A Killeen in Ireland is an unconsecrated graveyard or a children's cemetery. I find it morbidly fitting that Killeen, TX is the home of the U.S. Army's largest post.
- Holy suburban strip mall chain stores! Blech!
- Shiner Bock, the official beer of Texas, is kinda meh.
- We saw a flamingo!
More later...
Tuesday, March 11, 2008
All I Wanted in the End was World Domination and a Whole Lot of Money to Spend
It's been awhile since I've posted anything in my main blog. Just haven't felt like it. It may be awhile yet. But at the end of March I'm heading on a roadtrip to Texas and back, and I plan on writing about it on the travel blog.
In a way, roadtrips actually require more work than an overseas journey with a multiple layovers. Despite all my daydreaming, it's difficult to just jump in the car and go. My tires are getting old and bulgey, the 60,000 mile tune up was due 14,000 miles ago, the oil definitely needs to be changed, and the back windshield wiper is going to drive me absolutely nuts if it isn't replaced with something that doesn't make a giant fart noise everytime it's deployed. It was probably two years ago that the Jiffy Lube guys insisted that I needed a new battery, I'm sure that the air filter needs replacing by now (and getting a fancy one actually makes a noticable difference) and I wouldn't be surprised if there's an issue with the radiator cap again. I make it sound like I'm driving a disaster on wheels; in reality my car has not once given me a problem over two cross-country trips, a winter in northern New York, and a lot of time sitting dormant on the curb. It's time though that I returned the love and get the little things taken care of.
Other preparations have been taking off, though. I've acquired a partner for the trip, Suzanna, a girl who plays on both of my soccer teams and who will no doubt hate me by the end of the journey. The play-your-ipod-through-the-radio device has been a total flop, so I've instead bought a giant stack of blank CDs and will have my laptop handy to burn onto disc anything that I have a sudden hankering to listen to. I even bought a pack of mini-Sharpies to label them with! Although we're missing SXSW (a big music convention with seemingly hundreds of bands playing in many venues in Austin) by a couple weeks, there are a few shows while we're around, including the one that caught my eye – New Model Army. Sure sure, they're probably older than my parents, but they're pretty fucking cool, and they don't tour the U.S. very often (something to do with visas being denied. They're political or something, heh), so I was excited to see them scheduled when I'm going to be in town. The online ticket buying process seemed a little fishy, though, so I sent Tony into Austin and he procured us some tickets.
It so better be warm at the beach. I've been having drool-worthy dreams about warm sandy beaches, cheap Mexican food, and affordable surf/beach attire. I've been throwing out the clothes I can't stand anymore and the result is I don't have much to wear and very little desire to pay a bunch of money to change that. What I would give to be sitting in a depression in the sand, clad in loose fitting shorts and a tank top, with a beer in my hand.
And to not short change any credit here, I am also looking forward to seeing those snow packed mountains in Utah. The few times Mt. Hood has poked out here, it's been gaspingly gorgeous. The Rockies I'm sure are even more impressive. Be prepared for a lot of through-the-windshield photographs posted.
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