Still going after all these years.
Ever since we lived in Boston and knocked off all the New England states in various weekend trips, I’ve wanted a graphical way to represent my travels. Looks like I just got it, courtesy World66:
Alas, my world map isn’t quite so impressive…
create your own create your own visited states map or visited country map
(via Bill Bumgarner)
My folks got here last night with Esta, having driven twelve hours up from Asheville to coastal NJ. Needless to say, blogging will be even lighter over the next few days.
I don’t have a large posterior. In fact, I recently had to punch a new hole in my belt after losing about twenty pounds. So why is it that each time I wear a pair of khakis with a rear pocket button, that the button catches on the arm of an airplane seat, pulls loose, and is lost?
I have two hypotheses. One is that there is a bitter undeclared war between airplane seats and pant buttons. The former, jealous of the latter’s freedom and mobility, scheme impotently for their destruction, and reach out to burst their threads and strike them loose at the first opportunity.
The second hypothesis is that there is an airborne Underground Railroad for pant pocket buttons seeking the quixotic pursuit of independence, and that through long hours of conversation with the airplane seats, they have converted the uncomfortable chairs to their cause. Now they whisper one to another about the fate of their peers, and urge hope to be kept alive. Someday, when the maintenance crew finds them, they will be free, and maybe go to Hawai’i.
I should perhaps have mentioned that, in addition to the outage on my static server, my blogging is being slowed by travel today (originally written Thursday 12/17). Lisa and I are currently (9:20 AM Pacific time) on our way to New Jersey, on a non-stop flight through JFK. With two dogs.
The first few hours of our day have been as uneventful as possible under the circumstances. We awoke an hour later than planned (future note to self: to avoid turning on the wrong alarm, always turn on both the night before taking a cross country trip!), hurriedly showered and took the dogs outside, then tried to convince them to eat, and were just getting them in their travel bag when the airport shuttle arrived. The drive to the airport was uneventful along the HOV lanes.
At the airport, we checked in and tried unsuccessfully to get them to attend to business before boarding. By the time all that was done, Lisa had missed her opportunity for Starbucks, as she was in the first boarding. (First class for these dogs all the way!) As I was back in coach, I had a few minutes to pop off for an espresso and croissant before my row was called. Such is my compensation for the cramped seat in which I am spending the next four and a half hours across the country—alas, no exit row set this time.
We are perhaps half an hour into the flight. Already Lisa has come aft to get the second travel bag; apparently our puppies are growing too restless to share their travel kennel. Meanwhile I can do little, from ten rows and a bulkhead back, but attempt to catch up on my reading in Peterson’s Jefferson, watch the western country unfold below me in great ripples of snowy mountains and vast expanses of arid plains, and write. And maybe catch a nap.
Nothing says “happy ending” to a vacation quite like a wedding—or at least a celebration of one. We got back an hour or so ago from the celebration of Shel’s wedding to Eric “Vik” Gamble (which happened with a small group of family the day before Thanksgiving). Shel was radiant even four days after the wedding and the reception was great fun. Here’s hoping that the happy occasion is a beginning to many more happy years.
I finally found my Bluetooth adapter, so I moved all the photos off the phonecam from last weekend. I’m especially fond of the photos from Santa Rosa (see right), of the town’s most famous resident.
It was a cold morning, but we walked out early for espresso. I had to see the statue, after having read about it on the museum website. That is, of course, The Great Pumpkin next to the statue, placed there on Halloween apparently.
Running like hell over three airports in the course of the weekend: $400.
Upgrade to first class so I could sit next to my wife for one leg of the flight: $75.
Two tickets for the Food and Wine Festival, for which I still owe George: $80.
Hotel room in Santa Rosa: $90.
Getting home at midnight Sunday with a system shipping on Monday that I’ve been working on for almost a year: priceless.
Had a blast on the road, really. But it’s good to be home.
I didn’t realize it until we passed the exit for the Schulz Museum on 101 this afternoon (though I mentioned that I thought we were in the neighborhood as we passed through Petaluma—remember the World Arm Wrestling Championships?), but Santa Rosa had the distinction of being Charles Schulz’s home for the last forty years of his life. This is where he built the famous ice rink; where his studio was; where grateful residents erected a statue to Schulz’s memory of his most famous creations; and where the museum honors his memory. There’s even a Snoopy Labyrinth.
Maybe we can squeeze in a visit in the morning before we return to the wine tastings…
I feel a bit like a stuffed Thanksgiving bird, and it’s only the first day of the month. We’ve just spent a day in Sonoma County with George and Becky at the Wine and Food Affair. We started at J Winery, but our favorite winery of the day was probably Acorn, who did some magnificent things with the Dolcetto and Sangiovese grapes. From there it was on to a half dozen others, of greater and lesser quality. Thankfully there was enough food along the way to keep us from turning into total sodden souses.
Tonight we’re staying in Santa Clara, which turns out to have three world class French restaurants and a pretty decent southern Italian place within walking distance of the Courtyard Marriott—probably the only place in the world where that’s true.
Delayed this afternoon in getting out of Boston, I was infuriatingly stuck in a terminal with no wi-fi. Now, having run down one laptop’s battery on the plane writing some thoughts, I’ve had to fight tmobile, who forgot that I ever logged in, and sit in another lounge (in San Francisco) that has no power. But I’m on my way home.
Thought to be expanded later (as soon as I finish the essay): the transformative power of blogs lies in voice and connection. More to come.
Continuing the “rate the airport” madness with O’Hare and Logan:
O’Hare:
Total: -7 points.
Logan:
Total: 4 points and the winner.
Notice I didn’t say I was being objective with these…
I’m scoring the airports on this trip, because I know something is going to go sideways on the flight and it will be interesting to try to compare the experience objectively.
SeaTac:
So far SeaTac is pretty neutral (or, less favorably, scores a big goose egg).
We’re heading to Portland this weekend to visit Shel and Vik. That I have been focused on work and inlaws too long this week is evidenced by the fact that the only thing going through my head right now is Paul Simon’s “Graceland,” with these words:
We’re going to Portland, Portland,
Portland, Oregon,
We’re going to Portland.
For reasons I cannot explain
I’m driving four to eight hours south
To Portland
And I may be seeing fender bending
Every mile from Tacoma
Or maybe there’s no construction there now
But I have reason to believe
It’ll take until late eve
To get to Portland
Esta has already written about our experience at Rough and Tumble 2003. I can only add a few impressions, and of course the linked photographs. For the most part the photos didn’t come out very well. Some of it was just the mud and the rain (though Esta is right—it was cleaner than I remembered it).
Probably the most disappointing aspect of the day was that between the mud, the rain, and the fact that it was the afternoon of the last day of the show, we didn’t see the crowds and carnival-like atmosphere that we saw in years past. But it was definitely steampunk.
More than twelve hours after my last post, I’m back in SeaTac. As Esta alluded earlier, our plane taxied away from the gate, only to pause before getting to the runway, turn around, and start heading back, to the pilot’s somewhat apologetic explanation, “We got a light on the hydraulics, folks, and we just need to head back and check it out…”
We waited at the gate for over an hour, while the kids in front of me got crankier and nastier at their mom, and the mom got crankier and nastier at Dad, until finally the pilot announced that the plane needed hangar maintenance and that we needed to deplane. In confusion, with no explanation of where to go, we ended up at a sort of confused huddle line around the American Airlines ticket counter, where we got no acknowledgment except for a guy handing out pieces of paper with the 1-800 number for the booking department.
I decided to try the Yahoo travel number first, since I had booked my tickets through them. Big mistake. The voice recognition software, which is OK if you’re calling from a quiet office, got hopelessly confused with all the background noise around me and so asked for corrections twice after every thing I said. You’d think they’d program it to default to number entry after a certain number of failures. Eventually I hung up in disgust and called the airline number. Our line still hadn’t moved. I got through to an agent after a minute, who started checking out possibilities. A promising itinerary, which would have put me at Dulles at the same time as my original arrival in BWI, turned to a blind alley after the American agent was unable to raise United. Finally I got rebooked on a red-eye, went home, slept, had dinner with Lisa and her folks, and came back to the airport.
And here I am, again, enjoying(?) the WiFi and a Black Butte Porter, waiting for a time when it’ll be late enough to merit going down to the gate. I have an hour and a half until I board, almost enough time to watch a movie on the PowerBook. Maybe I’ll start looking at the Weblogs.com data.
Oh, the punch line: I at least got upgraded to first class for the first leg of my journey. I might get some sleep tonight after all.