Tag Archive for 'driving'

Sarah says I take too long to write a blog

Published on August 15, 2010 in Family & Friends, Photo, Random Thoughts and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

Frank, Sarah’s little brother, is now 21. We went to Famous Dave’s, a chain BBQ place, last night, and he did not get carded. Sarah didn’t get carded either, but she wasn’t that surprised. It made me think back to when I was 16 and my sister was 26 and the two of us were wandering around Key West, Florida, during the week that my brother got married. We stopped into a bar, because there’s more of those than anything else in Key West. She got carded; I ordered a Sprite, the bartender asked if I was sure that’s “all I wanted.” My sister was upset… in a few more years, I’m sure that getting carded no longer upset her.

I also took a trip down memory lane, earlier in the week, when an old ex-girlfriend apologized to me on facebook, in case she was ever heartless or selfish. She wasn’t and I told her so. It got me thinking about past relationships… there are a few people I should probably apologize to; I guess I have a few regrets, but I think I only really hold one grudge, maybe two. Facebook is certainly good for bringing up these random memories and feelings.

In other news, camp is almost over, though I got roped into an extra week. It’s going to be a low-enrollment/more chilled-out version of camp, but it’s still another week of getting up early and going to the city. My hope is that my seniority and 15+ years of camp experience will mean that I’m running the show as the fill-in director. My history in these matters is that I’m promised a director’s position and/or I fill in for one until a decision is made and then it isn’t given to me… no such promise was made this time, so maybe this will be the time it happens.

The commute to camp has been made much nicer, this summer, by the set of Ultimate Ears SuperFi 5vi that I picked up when they went on super-sale at Amazon. Unfortunately, the cord busted on the first set, so I had to get myself another set, but Logitech customer service got back to me about my complaint and replaced the first set for free… in the meantime, the cord started to separate, right at the jack, on the second set. I put some electrical tape on there to hold it together until the replacement set came. sadI’m hoping they replace them as well. The foam tips are the most comfortable, but it makes me sad that they fall apart after a week and half or so. I think my ear canals are too small or something because all of the various sized silicone tips irritate my ears a bit and seem to wiggle their way out. The cord is obviously cheap on this model, both have broken and it makes lots of contact-noise when I’m walking around, but if I ever upgrade to something better, I might look into those custom ear-molded ones.

I’m also still playing the music on my commutes from my iPod. I was hoping to be just be carrying the Droid. I am carrying an extra battery for the phone, so I don’t have that excuse anymore, and it’s not that it’s not capable, but the lack of gapless playback (for those few albums that really need it) or built-in volume normalization (for regular shuffle) or a shuffle-by-album option (for when I feel like reconnecting with my albums, which is most of the time) makes me continue to carry my iPod. There are alternative music apps that attempt to solve these issues (at least the gapless and shuffle by album), but none puts it all together. I’m sure that future versions of Android will get these features in, especially if the rumors are true and they start using android as an OS for a media-player type device. Will these features make it in before I upgrade to a new phone?

I’ve found the phone very difficult to use this summer. I’m not sure if it’s just too humid at my mostly-outside job, or if I sweat too much (likely) but the touchscreen gets all freaked out and thinks it’s being touched all over the place and renders the phone useless until I clean it off… and even then, I can only get good response from it for a few seconds until it starts freaking out again. If I go somewhere cool and dry (air conditioned) and give it some time to recover… and give myself some time to recover and not be so sweaty … it works just fine. This wasn’t an issue at all in the Winter and Spring; It will probably affect when I decide to upgrade to a new phone. I’ll be eligible for a bit of a discount in early July, and that humidity will just be starting to bother me again. So whatever awesome android phone is available on July 06, 2011, you can pretty much bet that I’ll be buying one. If it continues to happen on the next phone I own, I’ll have to seal my phone in a ziploc bag all summer, or something.

I’m pretty sure I have a legitimate use for the wireless tether feature of the Droid. We’ve booked ourselves a few days at a cabin in Gatlinburg, TN, in late September. The rental policy said something about having “local Knoxville area access numbers…” Dial-up? Awesome. I don’t think I know anyone in the area (unless EJ is still around there, somewhere), so this one is going to be pure vacation, for me, and no attempting to visit friends/family. That stuff will have to wait until sometime around the holidays. It’ll be one of the longer roadtrips we’ve done in the past couple years, and I’m excited about that.

Lazative naming is funny.

Published on December 23, 2009 in Family & Friends and Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: .

My new favorite naming convention for businesses/shopping plazas is the combination of the street names it resides at. We drove by “Scharrington Dental” tonight, which is near the corner of Schaumburg and Barrington roads. I  go by several on my way to the teams course in Northbrook: Waukdee plaza, at the corner of Waukegan and Dundee; Dunsten plaza, at Dundee and Pfingsten, Dunhurst shopping center, at Dundee and Elmhurst. Is this a Chicagoland thing? I don’t remember such lazy and non-creative (lazative?) naming conventions anywhere else that I’ve lived. It makes me chuckle.

BTW our holiday schedules have changed a bit: here at home, Doug is spending some time in the hospital dealing with an infection. This may delay our Christmas dinner and gift-opening to another day… maybe even next year. Out east, we’ve shifted family days around a little and I think Tuesday afternoon/night and all day Wednesday are still free, if you’re looking to hang out with us, while we’re out there.

still don’t know

Published on September 12, 2009 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , , .

The Palm Pre is out of the running; I got to feel one at work and the keyboard is just too small. I’m a texter with big thumbs. So, it’s back to a waiting game… wait for that first android phone’s price and date to hit Verizon, the phone should be a Motorola with that spiffy new Motoblur UI slapped on top of Android … or wait for the Nuvifone, which isn’t Android and doesn’t have a release date or price yet (or carrier, officially),  but will almost certainly have the best GPS and probably handle gmail without any problems, at least. Or give in and get an iPhone; It’s so tempting.

In other news:

Work starts back up soon, one meeting next week and then officially back to a regular schedule the following week. I think we have Fridays off this season.

Got the annoying clicking noise the rear wheel(s) of my car were making fixed… it took three tries, but we got it done. Now I hear every click and creak the car makes when I hit bumps and stuff… still need to do whatever needs to be done about the little ding in the windshield.

And we’ve been using our game consoles a lot over the break… picked up the X-Men Origins: Wolverine for xBox 360 and Fat Princess for PS3 … and I might dig into our most recent purchase, Mini Ninjas during this last week off. Fall TV season be damned, we’re playing our video games!

I like vans.

Published on April 5, 2009 in Family & Friends. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

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.

bigvan 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. oops 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 pressed4time (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.

recently…

Published on February 14, 2009 in Random Thoughts. Closed Tags: , , , .
  • made it through a Friday the 13th without once thinking about it.
  • watched my first blu-ray movie.
  • used soap that sounds too much like food.
  • replaced the battery in my car. Three years isn’t too bad for a battery, right?
  • prepped the new staff and ourselves for the next season of work.
  • developed a healthy addiction to our new video game systems.
  • signed up for a blog that sort of tracks that addiction.
  • enjoyed Olive Garden a couple times. There’s something strange about a place that brings you salty breadsticks in a plastic basket, wrapped in a paper towel… but has their own house wine. The food is good, though, so we’ll continue to go back.
  • tried to update my wishlist, and failed. If you’re feeling generous, Apple gift cards are still the best bet, for my inevitable macbook purchase.

cameraphone memories

Published on November 30, 2008 in moBlog. Closed Tags: , , , , , .

It started at the beginning of the month, when I parked my car in a way that was eerily familiar. Then a couple weeks later, the christmas trees arrived, and another familiar scene unfolded. I got my phone out again and tried to snap a similar picture. Then a scene/memory [/event?] from Thanksgiving of 2005 reappeared. That may have been the last time I saw gas below $2. I’m kind of amazed that it’s down below $2 again. I was tempted to find a similar sign and try to recapture that picture on my phone… but the tree one wasn’t as good as last year’s tree pics, so I decided against it. I think I just need to have my camera with me all the time, in November. Now I know, for next year. Unless, of course, whatever phone I replace mine with has a really good camera… doesn’t seem likely.

I think this would be a good time to mention that I’ll be at Mom’s house the weekend after Christmas. Sarah and I will only there for a few days, but we might have a little bit of free time if anybody wants to get together.

browsing

Published on October 14, 2008 in Computers, Family & Friends and Work. Closed Tags: , , , , .

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.

proud of Woonsocket

Published on September 26, 2008 in Family & Friends and Photo. Closed Tags: , , , , , , , .

marinadeI 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.

rearranging schedules

Published on August 30, 2008 in Family & Friends. Closed Tags: , , .

So … the vacation was postponed when Sarah’s Uncle passed away early this week. His memorial service isn’t until this coming Friday. Everyone’s been somber this week, but Mom had the next two weeks off work, so we all tried to be flexible and move the trip back a little bit. Then I got a call yesterday… my grandfather passed away. They’ve got a wake/funeral set up for Tuesday/Wednesday… so, I’ll be heading back just about as early as originally planned. As it stands, now, I’ll be flying back on Tuesday. Sarah and her Mom will drive out Saturday. We’ll have our vacation, and all drive back together at the end of the following week. We played with the idea of me driving and them flying, but decided that this way was more cost-effective; I’d probably be more comfortable long-haul driving than flying, but it costs the same amount of gas to transport two people as one, and my ticket doesn’t cost that much more, even though it’s last minute. I am sorta bummed that I can’t use United Miles on one-way trips, but I’ve got an itinerary on hold and ready to buy.

Gotta get through all this memorial stuff, and then we can vacation, as planned. That’s my mindset.

So, for those of you who are back east, I will be around for almost two weeks, a little busy until Thursday, and then joined by Sarah and her Mom on the weekend and for the rest of the following week. I will resume taking requests to hang out and/or suggestions for activities, now.

family vacation

Published on August 24, 2008 in Family & Friends. Closed Tags: , , , .

We have yet to fully convince Sarah’s younger brother Frank, or get confirmation that we’ve convinced him, but Sarah and her mom and I are heading back east in a couple weeks. Technically, I haven’t received my work schedule for this season yet, so I may cut into the first day or two of work, but I haven’t seen Mom in a long time, so it’s worth it.

The plan is to drive out there on Tuesday the 2nd and stay until Monday the 8th (or maybe Tuesday the 9th, if we need an extra day). We’ve penciled in a King Richard’s Faire outing with my sister and her kids for Sunday, and we want to see some Boston and NYC, but otherwise, plans are fairly open. I think we should do a little candlepin bowling, eat breakfast at the counter at Carl’s Diner, if it’s still open and see any of y’all who live out there and miss me. Put in your requests for activities/hang-out time now.