existential fashion disaster

‘Tween season is ending. Camp orientation/training started today. Got a a good relaxing week in Wisconsin complete with Bingo, lots of Uno, a round of Mini adventure golf, a few boat rides, lots of good eating and a fair amount of laying around doing nothing. There are pictures. There will be yelp reviews, soon.

Macbooks down in price! Great timing! Cheap upgrade to Snow Leopard, too! Now, convince me not to switch to AT&T and get an iPhone … or convince me to switch, turn-by-turn GPS was one of the things holding me back from the iPhone and I guess that’s not an issue for much longer. I need a reliable phone ASAP. I’d love to wait for an Android phone on Verizon, but the chances that Verizon will cripple its coolness (app store and free access to all of googleness) is almost guaranteed… or convince me to wait and risk a few weeks of camp with a phone that turns itself off a few times a day. If I go all apple on hardware, will I be tempted by the apple counterparts to the Google stuff I use and love?

Looking forward to a trip out east next week… hope Sarah and I can shake our weird ailments before then.

We were invited down to the southern end of Illinois for Memorial Day weekend by our friend Deborah. Her grandparents live down there on a lake that’s heated by a coal power plant (though supposedly, the lake is there to cool the plant). It was a fun trip, full of large meals and the expected lake activities: boat rides, swimming, watercrafts. They own a couple jet skis that the whole family referred to as “Polarises.” I kind of chuckled each time I heard it, but I guess it’s the same as calling a photocopy a Xerox, or calling a tissue a Kleenex, or Band-aids or Q-Tips, though those are pretty common, now. I was just amused because when I hear Polaris, I think snowmobile… not as a generic term, but because I thought that was their main product. I wonder if some thing could’ve been a Yamaha or Kawasaki or LG if those companies had just focused on one product, instead of making everything. Actually, wasn’t “jet ski” a brand name owned by Kawasaki for a while? I looked it up; It was! There are tons of “genericized trademarks,” the examples they listed on wikipedia included Aspirin, Cellophane, Dry ice, Escalator, Kerosene, Laundromat, Linoleum, Thermos, Trampoline, Videotape, Yo-Yo and Zipper! I think some of the ones in their “still protected” list are pretty common, too: Bubble Wrap? Dumpster? Anyway, there are pictures at flickr … some from the boat rides and some random shots from the City Museum detour that we took on the way home. It was raining, and they wouldn’t let us go outside, so I didn’t turn out my usual batch of just-under-a-million shots.

I am looking forward to sleeping in more than one day a week… and being able to take some mini-vacations. There’s still all the season wrap stuff to get through, first, though. It seems an impossible task, right now, as I’m feeling completely exhausted. I guess that’s to be expected after an overnight for work, followed immediately by the wedding of our friends Jessica and Jason. This week shouldn’t be too bad. At some point, though, I need to start helping mom with her quilting shop web site.

Right now, sitting at the desk at the Y, all I can really think about is seeing Star Trek. I’ve heard so many good things about it… sure, some classic trek fans have their issues, but it’s trying to reboot the Star Trek world, not continue it. With a bunch of the Fringe team behind the writing and production, it has to be good.
update: Star Trek didn’t happen tonight, but we did a lot of research into how to set up a clothesline for Patti for Mother’s Day. Hopefully we’ll fit Star Trek in, tomorrow.

Good things coming up: more days off, mini-vacations, new Fable II downloadable content, macbook

In the bummer zone: Garmin announced more delays for the Nuvifone. The android phones are looking more and more attractive, even though they don’t have turn-by-turn directions, yet. Unfortunately, the only android phone even rumored for Verizon has a crappy-looking keyboard. If I didn’t think I’d miss the real keyboard, I’d already have broken down and gone with the iPhone. In the meantime, my phone is surviving… only shutting itself off once or twice a day.

I helped Doug pick up a new van, yesterday. It was a lot of work, since it had a wheelchair lift in it, that we didn’t need and therefore, had to remove. I haven’t driven it yet, but I’m sure it’ll make the memories come flooding back. The most recent van memories are of the big passenger vans that I drove for the Y. Some of them were just big 15 passenger vans with a school bus sign slapped on top, and others were a little more bus-like, with rubber floors and an aisle. Whether it was bring kids to after-school day care from school or to a field trip for camp, they were always fun to drive.

My fondest van memories are attached to the van that I owned: the big red van that we moved The Overtones around in. I paid the same price for that van that Doug paid for his, yesterday: $2,000. It had a huge rack welded to the top of it; the owner swore that it would hold anything I could get up there. On the back of the rack, there were some super bright flood-lights that were fun for freaking out tailgaters. It was the perfect size for the band. There were two big bench seats in the back and room for a third, but no hook-ups… this translated into plenty of room for amps, guitars and drums. We usually took one seat out, so we wouldn’t have to stack the equipment too high.

I kept on driving it after that band fizzled. I remember loaning out my services as van and driver to a friends band a couple times. The craziest van memories include the time I was carpooling home from the tech job in Marlborough, when a crazed cop pulled us over and decided to search the entire van for drugs. I think he found some rolling papers in Sands’ bag. We just hung out by the police cruiser with the other officer, whom we lovingly referred to as “back-up,” and stared in wonder as he tore through every inch of the beast. I think he broke the handle on my sliding door, too. A few months after I downgraded to a station wagon, I borrowed the van from my Dad, to help move my friend Becky back to Charlton, from NYC. I knew Dad was a little hard on vehicles, but the van had stayed pretty strong when I owned it, so I trusted it to handle this move. We made it all the way down to the city, got it loaded and then got all the way back up to Massachusetts, off the highway, to within 5 miles of Becky’s house, and the right front universal joint let go. The wheel slammed into the back of the wheel well and we stopped dead. It happened while taking a corner at 4 or 5 miles per hour or less… had it happened on the 150 miles of highway between NYC and Charlton, we’d have likely flipped and/or rolled and died. We had several hours to contemplate our luck as we sat around and watched tow truck drivers scratch their heads. The first tow truck driver showed up with a regular truck, took one look at the situation and realized that it wasn’t going to be simple at all. The next guy showed up with a flatbed, and we still had to use a couple hydraulic jacks in place of the useless wheel. I think we moved all of Becky’s stuff to a couple other vehicles, in between tow truck drivers.

Dad had taught me how to listen and feel for unusual noises and vibrations that might be signs of trouble… and yet, in the few months that he had driven the van around, since inheriting it from me, he had managed to ingore any signs that there was trouble. And he had plenty of experience with vans… we owned no less than 4 or 5 while he was operating his Pressed4Time franchise (corporate dry cleaning pickup and delivery service). I don’t remember getting the first van, but when he grew his route too large to handle himself, he hired a couple of guys and we went van shopping. I remember buying this enormous conversion van. It had a wooden bench in the back with the kind of cushion you’d find on patio furniture and some sort of bed-contraption in the middle, I think. I thought it was so cool. I was fairly sad when it got the standard white paint job and the clothes racks and support beams were installed in place of the bed-thing. If I had a day off (or faked sick to take a day off), I’d ride around in the back of one of the vans, rolling around with the clothes, all day, popping into some of the offices with Dad and helping carry clean clothes in and bags of dirty clothes out. I definitely preferred hanging out in the back of the vans than going into the super-hot dry cleaners at the end of the run.

Yesterday was a long day, but so much of it stirred up fond memories. I guess it’s the nature of vans, being so versatile, that you always have some custom attachments that you may or may not need… and you do a bit of converting and customizing, yourself.

Reviews:

Watchmen. I read the comic book graphic novel on the Monday before it was released and saw the Movie on the following Sunday. I will say, first and foremost, that the movie captured most of the visual style and the mood and tone extremely well. I liked the realist take on what superheroes might actually be. —– SPOILERS —-> The premise of an alien attack, even a really good-looking faked one, bringing the entire world together is a pretty strong concept. I wasn’t entirely happy with the vilifying of Dr Manhattan and the additional irony/nuclear allegory  thrown into the storyline with the whole “trying to recreate his power and then having it used as a weapon” concept. I think the faked alien attack would have been stronger, it was far more psychological weapon, even with it’s lower death-toll. —– END SPOILERS —– I also think the mid 80s setting has much more meaning with people of my age and older. Without some research into the political climate of the times, a lot of references would go over younger peoples’ heads. Still a strong movie, though, just a little watered down.

I Love You, Man. Got a couple free passes to a “sneak preview” last week. This one comes out in a couple weeks and I recommend you see it… especially if you like a slightly raunchy comedy. We may have to see it again, we were laughing so hard at some of the dialogue that we missed two or three more lines, which were probably just as funny.

The Decemberists - Hazards of Love. I got a chance to hear this one early and was impressed. I’m not a huge Decemberists fanboi or anything, but I have a couple of their older albums on my ipod. Their musicianship and arrangements are always interesting; I’ve never given the lyrics a thorough listen… but that’s just the way I’ve listened to music, since about the time I started playing music myself. The single for this album caught my attention, since it was such a different style for them. It had much more bite, and lyrics that even drew me in. This album really is, as the buzz insinuates, a Rock Opera. After a very slow build-up (the first couple of tracks) it’s got a healthy dose of “Arena Rock” style… which was really unexpected, but fits with the classic rock operas. There’s still plenty of that classic Decemberists vocal interval, but instead of seeming redundant, it just strengthens the rock opera feel. There are plenty of other recurring musical themes. The almost cliche-sounding guitar solos, organ solos and sometimes simply the choice of effects are almost a recurring theme to themselves. Whatever you call it, it sounds like it was fun to play, and from what I’ve heard of the lyrics, it sounds like a strange little story, too.

We had a Transporter movie marathon at the house yesterday (I did end up taking the day off)… and I can review all three of those in about one word: redonkulous. …which is not to say that they aren’t fun to watch… but you can only cram so many over-the-top car stunts, gun stunts and striptease-fights into one sitting before your brain turns into twinkie filling.

Sundays at the front desk are really boring. Common activities include: Reading a week’s worth of Boing Boing and BBGadgets. Checking the balances on all the gift cards in my wallet. Trying to update my wishlists. Posting a twitter message, if I remember. Browsing old friends’ social networking profiles to see if anything awesome is going on… Today, an old friend called and told me they were A) married B) quitting their job C) moving to NYC and D) moving to China sometime around September. They had to call, for me to find out, because their intricate web of friends and past lovers requires them to constantly delete their online profiles and such.

So… I had a fun birthday. We hit Olive Garden on Thursday and had some friends over on Friday for dinner. I prepped my Puerco Pibil on Wednesday and Sarah and her mom cooked it all. I think everyone liked it. Sarah also made some awesome little banana cupcakes with yummy honey-cinnamon frosting. I also got a couple more Apple gift cards. I want to resist the urge to replace the Dell with a Macbook… at least until the end of June, when I’ll almost definitely be in tax-free New Hampshire. The Dell is still running, but it’s loud again, and blowing out the dust doesn’t seem to help… it also takes forever to boot, and weighs about ten pounds… which is too much to carry to work, four days a week.

I slept in, yesterday, for the first time in who-knows-how-long… and will get to sleep in again tomorrow. Unfortunately, I don’t think I have another day off until March 23rd… unless I request another weekend day off. I was going to do that when I was at work, today, but I forgot. Maybe I’ll call them tomorrow and put in the request.

My car’s thermometer read -5 this morning. I’m pretty sure that’s the lowest I’ve ever seen it display. I dunno if it was really that cold, but it was impressive. Winter’s starting off strong. I’m kinda glad I don’t need to go out to work, every morning, during this season. I think most of my shopping is done. I went kinda big for the family, so I’m sorry if I ran out of money and didn’t send you anything. Of course, if you don’t keep some sort of online wishlist updated, you shouldn’t expect anything from me anyway … Cookiepalooza may not have been as impressive this year, but the cookies are still delicious. I think we made 6 varieties and might make one more before christmas, as well as the chocolate covered pretzels… and maybe some more of the favorites.

Last call for hang-out requests while Sarah and I are at Mom’s house the weekend after Christmas!

Been trying to keep myself occupied while Sarah is off at her photo/web design/newsletter gig. I’ve done a lot of Mac shopping… not for the eventual replacement laptop(s) for our old limping ones, but to replace the G4 that’s been my trusty backup since sometime in 2001. It’s always been quirky, being a mac, but now it’s just plain unstable and Sarah and her mom and I all use it a fair amount. Sarah will probably end up doing most of her work it, since her laptop can’t really handle much. It’s crashing about once or twice daily. I don’t know what’s causing it, and it’s never actually crashed while I was using it, but I shouldn’t expect wonders from a machine with so many weird hardware upgrades. I’m not in a place where I can invest in a new Intel mac to replace it, so I’ve been browsing craigslist and ebay for decent G5s. It’ll be sad to retire the G4. Maybe it can be made stable and live on in some semi-retired state. It is kinda loud, though, might not be worth it. Maybe I can find a home for it.

In other news, Thursday, the Mazda is getting an oil change and the master window switch replaced, again. The first time it was because the Auto button wasn’t working. Then the replacement made the right rear window non-operational. It’s been a long process, and a learning experience, since I’m now on my extended warranty and have to pay money for repairs. I also have to pay a whole bunch of money to have my windshield replaced. I woke up, Sunday morning, to find a starburst and cracks branching off in multiple directions right at the top center of the glass. Illinois doesn’t have that nice separate glass policy that Massachusetts did… so I have to pay my full comprehensive deductible. I’d say that maybe I could get some cook pictures of the work in progress, but we’ve lined up sealcoating for the driveway for the same day, and that smell gives me an almost instant headache that lasts for a whole day.

Tomorrow, I think I get rained on during our first day trip of the season.

I hate the paperwork related to the every day operation of the adventure ed. program. It’s just like homework, when I was in school. I did the work already. The team is progressing. Why do I have to write about it? Boo homework. I don’t mind doing the survey result statistics, because the whole reason we do the surveys is for comparative statistics… but the journals don’t help the team at all. Boo homework.

In exciting/fun news, one of Sarah’s polaroids from our trip back east is shot of the day on Polanoid … she even gets a gift card! Woot!

I really meant to blog more from back east. I’ve had a draft sitting here since before Sarah and her mom joined me out there, but I don’t think I logged back in after they got there, and we came back right before I started work, so things have been fairly busy. Today is a real day off, though. There’s some sort of testing this week that throws off all the school schedules, so here I am, with some free time. Yesterday was a day off, too, but most of the day was occupied by the Mazda dealership and the crazy extended warranty people. I just finished preparing some pork for tomorrow’s dinner. It’s marinating, now… while I was cutting the meat, Sarah noticed that the marinade had separated. It reminds me of Jell-O 1-2-3. They don’t make that anymore, which is too bad. I remember liking it. Enjoy the picture. I’ve posted a few other pictures from the trip at Flickr in a set called Back East 2008.  I think we need to come up with more creative names for these trips. It was a good trip though, action-packed and fun-filled. Without further ado, here are some of my thoughts and reactions and recaps of it:

I did a lot of wandering around in between my grandfather’s funeral and the day Sarah and her Mom arrived. I didn’t make a checklist this time, I sort of winged it. I missed Putnam and Providence and Western Mass, as well as Sara and Drew, but I’ll try and make it up to them over the holidays or something. The most impressive changes were in Woonsocket. I drove around most of town on one of my first free days, while doing some errands.

Improvements since I lived in Woonsocket:

Starbucks: closed
Tim Hortons: opened a second location, with a drive-thru
Main St: more than half of the storefronts were occupied and open

Also, the Game Stop had a Wii Fit in stock.

I caught up with some people and did a little sightseeing around Worcester & Millbury and Webster & Dudley. I ate at Jimmy’s pizza, played Werewolves of London on the jukebox. I did some shopping for New England treats at a Market Basket (where I found the Coffee Milk on the same shelf as all the other milks). I helped Mom start to remake her living room and move beds around.

The girls arrived on Saturday night, right in the middle of what was left of the storm Hanna. They survived their long drive, though, and I was very proud of them. Sarah’s posted a pretty good recap of the first couple days at her livejournal. We saw some family, toured through Plymouth, hit King Richard’s Faire and then went to NYC and played tourist some more; visited the Statue of Liberty and ground zero and a good deli.

Tuesday, we had a little more rain, so we kept it local and did some indoor-type activities. We started with breakfast at Carl’s Diner in Oxford. The serving size has not gone down. We sat at the counter, for the maximum effect. I don’t believe we ate another real meal for the whole day. We did hit Friendly’s for some ice cream, that evening. I believe that was also the day we took in some Candlepin bowling at Mohegan in Webster. It’s still kind of a dive, but its charm is intact.

Wednesday, we met Mom in Worcester, after dropping my car off at the Mazda dealership for an oil change (and to look into the weirdness it went through on the drive out there). We headed to Lexington to visit the historic Battle Green, visited the cemetery where my Dad and my Grandfather are and then met up with Mom’s friend Joyce at Bruegger’s Bagels for lunch. I hadn’t had a Herbie Turkey in a long time, and it was very tasty. Then we drove downtown and walked around Quincy Market and Faneuil Hall, had some cream puffs and then went to my cousin Mark’s place, in Braintree, for dinner. Mark made us pick records to play, and then made us play his XBox 360 and his Playstation 3. He cooked his awesome mac & cheese and some amazing burgers for us.

Thursday, we took in Purgatory Chasm. We walked down the chasm and back up on the East side of it. It was very nice, good weather for it. We also went up to Dresser Hill and got some food and shakes. I don’t think the Dairy stuff is as good as it once was, but it’s still the only place I eat fried clams. That night, we went to the outskirts of Worcester and saw Mark’s group, The Accident that Led Me to the World, play in a barn attached to a huge farmhouse that about 20 people lived in. They call it a Collective (read: commune) and the show was a potluck. Lots of friendly modern hippie-types, nice big wood-burning stove in the kitchen, bunch of pretty good music. It was something I’d never expect from Worcester.

Friday, we decided to hit the Big E on opening day, as a stopping point on our way back home. It was fun to go down the avenue of states and expose Patti to all the local culture and flavors. We wandered through some of the vendors and a good chunk of the crafting section. We ate a little and walked a lot. Looking back, it wasn’t a good choice for a stop on the morning of a big drive. We were still pretty exhausted for the first few hours of the trip home, and we ran into torrential downpours and Tornado warnings, but we survived. I think I slept through most of Saturday.