aalgar.com

Okay, so I’ve been here in my new apartment in Seattle for a week now. Sorry I haven’t made any updates in that time, but between all the settling in crap I’ve had to do, and the fact that the last leg of my trip just wasn’t all that exciting, it’s been a bit of a struggle to sit down and hammer out the last chapter of this epic saga for you.

One thing I feel I need to mention before I go on: it occurs to me, a week after I’ve left the state, that I did not see a single statue of Paul Bunyan or Babe the Blue Ox through the entirety of Minnesota. I am retroactively very disappointed about that. Just thought I’d mention it, while it was on my mind.

All right. When last you heard from me, I was stranded in Wall, South Dakota. I feel compelled to defend my masculinity on this point for reasons I can’t quite explain — specifically, my ability to handle snow. On my way out of Wall, I grabbed a local newspaper, which confirmed that the blizzard I’d fled was a nasty one, even by local standards. Again, I don’t know why I feel the need to point this out. For some reason, I just imagine someone somewhere thinking I’m a pussy for not pressing on through the snow. And for some reason, in complete contradiction of my normal programming, this really bothers me.

 

 

Anyway. I got underway Tuesday morning from Wall, and found, much to my delight, that I-90 was clear and the sun was taking care of any lingering bits of slush that might hassle me on my way out of the state. I did have one additional stop on the way, and in retrospect I kinda wish I’d just continued on. I speak, of course, of Mount Rushmore.

 shouldn’t have to explain why I needed to make this stop, I hope. Any American who’s seen North By Northwest understands — I wanted to visit (as Hitchcock called him) “the man who lived in Lincoln’s nose.” What I did not realize was that Mount Rushmore was a 35 mile detour off my path, which would have been a hassle under normal conditions. In the ridiculous North Pole conditions in which I was traveling, it ended up being a solid 2 to 3 hour diversion. And it wasn’t, I am sad to say, even really worth it.

Because, here’s the thing: there’s nothing to Mount Rushmore. It’s just the fab four American presidents, up there in rock, just as we’ve seen them in a million movies and TV shows. It’s not like some famous places, where there’s cool stuff inside or whatever. The rocky sculptures were really it. And yeah, I guess I’m glad I got that check in the box, but in general I was pretty unimpressed for all the effort it took to get there.

 

 

 

To make up the time, I hauled ass across the rest of South Dakota and into Wyoming. Well, you know those rumors about how there aren’t any speed limits out west? Filthy, filthy lies. And I have a goddamned Wyoming speeding ticket to prove it. The worst part wasn’t that I was going 20 MPH over the limit, the cop told me. The worst part was that he followed me for 2 or 3 miles with his lights on before I finally pulled over. Heh. Oops.

Somehow I still managed to make really good time across the rest of Wyoming and into Montana, without being pulled over again. I stopped in Missoula for the night, which was entirely unimpressive save for the fact that my hotel bed had “Magic Fingers.” Yeah, that’s just how thrilling this leg of the trip was, folks. Seriously. Even the dog was bored.

And here’s the thing: the next day wasn’t any better. True, it was my final day on the road, but before I actually made it to Seattle, I had to weather 8 or so hours of mountains. And when I say “8 or so hours,” I really mean about fourteen years. Because christ there are a lot of mountains in this area of the country. As I rolled down the eightieth or so identical rocky pass, I yelled out to no one in particular “okay, I get it! Mountains! Enough!” And I’m an atheist. I have no idea who I was really saying that to.

An odd thing happened when I crossed the Washington border: the mountains were still there, but they suddenly got a whole lot greener. They were still annoying in much the same way they had been, but now they had grass and trees, and somehow that made things just a little more bearable. Having traveled the breadth of my new home state, I can report with confidence that it is the greenest place I’ve ever been, and it’s actually kind of soothing in a way.

Apart from the mountains, there was really nothing of interest on that last day either. Oh, I passed signs for a town called “George, Washington” (get it?), which made me snicker and wonder if there’s a city elsewhere in the state called “Freddy ‘Boom Boom.’” Yeah, I was pretty desperate for entertainment at this stage.

Fortunately, I made it to the rental office of my new apartment complex in the early afternoon, without further incident. Whomever it is that watches over me when I travel (and this stuff just has to be orchestrated by a conscious mind — there’s no way this is just random) decided that this was just too easy, so naturally I had to hit one more major snag at the very end.

It seems, for some reason, that the people at the rental office, despite assuring me on numerous occasions that everything was fine and waiting for me, forgot some crucial piece of bureaucratic paperwork. Long story short: my new home has really low rent on account of it being income-dependent. Since I have no job and plan to live entirely off my savings, getting in under their requirements should not have been a problem. (What I do once I’ve signed my lease is not their business till I renew the thing in a year.) Only the guy who was supposed to have done all the legwork a month ago apparently didn’t. It actually looked, for a few minutes there, like I might be homeless.

Fortunately, it all got sorted out. I even got $100 off my first month’s rent for the trouble. Finally, I had a place. I was home.

The first order of business was, of course, to secure phone and internet. I managed to get these taken care of within 24 hours, and was almost immediately on the phone to the movers, regarding this whole “$2000 extra for my stuff” nonsense. Unfortunately for me, my indignance was met neither with apologies nor equal indignance. It was met with perhaps the worst thing of all: indifference. “Yep, that’s what we told you,” the useless rep told me in a voice that oozed “meh.” “We were wrong, and it now costs this much.” What’s worse is, the manager gave me exactly the same reaction. There’s nothing worse than working yourself up to a really good anger and getting little more than boredom from the target of your anger.

Nevertheless, my stuff did (eventually) arrive — and somehow the three Mexicans who had taken it had turned into one Russian guy named Igor. (My friend Mark called him an ethnic Transformer.) Igor, for some reason, demanded his $3600 in cash, which seemed a bit sketchy to me. But at this point, I really didn’t care. I was tired of sleeping on the floor and I really really wanted to watch every DVD I owned, simultaneously, for some reason. At least I have the satisfaction of having paid him in $20s. Had I put a little more thought into it, I’d have done it in pennies. Fuckers.

Anyway, so here I am. I’m all unpacked and settled in, and I really do love the new place. It’s like it was designed especially for me and my needs — everything fits perfectly, despite the fact that I brought along a fair amount of unnecessary sentimental crap. I have enough room to move around, and it actually looks like an adult lives here, provided you ignore all the comic book posters in my bedroom.

The neighborhood isn’t as sketchy as I remember it being, and I’m slowly getting to know my way around. I’m within walking (or bicycling) distance of many stores and restaurants, and a really fantastic area of downtown with a lot of interesting shops and stuff is only about a 10 minute drive. I even caught a “select cities” movie the second night I was here (the Beastie Boys’ concert film, Awesome! I Fuckin’ Shot That!). I’m easily impressed, I guess, but it feels really cool to finally live in a “select city.”

Oh, one thing I feel compelled to point out: it does rain a fair amount here, but not all the time. What happens is, it’s usually clear when I get up in the morning (I’ve had sun every morning I’ve taken the dog out for a walk). At some point throughout the day, it sprinkles for a bit. Then it gets sunny again. So yes, in the strictest sense, it does in fact rain every day. But it’s not perpetually rainy. My observations this past week put the rainfall at maybe 10-15% of the entire day. Enough to water the grass, but not enough to be especially depressing or anything.

Also, I’ve seen no one wearing flannel or listening to grunge, and there really aren’t any more coffee shops than in, say, New York city. So shut up already.

So that’s it. “Infinite Midlife Crisis” is over. This b–g will remain here for a time, but I will eventually fold this material into the archives at AAlgar.com. I intend to keep some kind of online journal thing, though I’m not sure just where yet. I have accounts here, at MySpace and at Live Journal, and I also have a lot of unused web space at Mac.com. So I’ll be setting up shop someplace in the near future — wherein I will continue to update you on my new life. I’m anxious to explore my home, and I’ve always enjoyed sharing my travel experiences with the web, so I’m sure there’ll be plenty of Seattle excursions on the coming months.

Thanks to everyone for your support in this endeavor. I actually made it. Can you believe it?

 

I left my hotel in Pittsburgh at about 10AM on Friday. The itinerary was fairly straightforward: I was meeting a friend from the Bendis board for lunch in Ohio for an hour or two, and I was hoping to make it to Milwaukee by 9 or 10. Naturally, things didn’t quite work out that way.

The hotel in Pittsburgh claimed to have wireless internet, but it didn’t actually work. I had actually called the tech support for the thing, but after sitting on hold for about half an hour, I decided that there must be an easier way. So I called my girlfriend and sent her to Mapquest. In hindsight, I probably should have realized that sending a Canadian who’s never actually driven a car to find me driving directions maybe wasn’t the best idea.

Actually though, as much as I cursed both her and Mapquest, it turns out that my difficulties were (big shocker) almost completely self induced. Had I given Amanda more precise instructions, I would have found my online pal in 5 minutes instead of the 2 hours it ended up taking. Instead, I zigged where I should have zagged and received, as a result, a fairly comprehensive tour of what I imagine all of Ohio looks like. (Hint: the same run-down, depressing, post-Industrial wasteland motif that’s worked so well for Pennsylvania all these years.)

Eventually though, I did meet up with The Human Target (aka “Ben,” but real-life names are so boring). We had a pleasant lunch at a deli that we arrived at using the “random turning” method of driving, then he showed me the titular falls of Cuyahoga Falls, Ohio (see picture). Very nice.

 

 

He also bought lunch for a cute valet chick at the hotel where I met him. I’d like to think he earned a couple of karma points for himself with this, but we may have inadvertently squandered them when she asked us to take our picture. So Ben, if you’re not getting laid on my account, all I can offer is my apology. She was no good for you anyway, man.

I got back on the road, and pointed the car toward Milwaukee. Checkers rode in the passenger seat the entire way, and was finally starting to adjust to the whole business. She even settled into a somewhat comfortable position and slept for awhile. I know the trip might not be the most fun thing in the world for her, but her beagle nose is being treated to all sorts of new smells, and so far she hasn’t pooped in my ashtray or anything. So I got that goin’ for me. Which is nice.

Milwaukee is a bit further out of my way than I had originally thought (2-3 hours, including a trip through the entirety of Chicago), but this was definitely worth it. TIP (Tony) and Jim are among my best online friends. They, along with a few others, really got me through some rough times last summer. And I probably would have gone even further out of my way had this meeting required it.

As I approached Milwaukee, I felt a very strange sense of dread creeping into my mind. Apparently I’d had a recent nightmare involving driving (gee, I wonder where that imagery came from). The dream involved being on a narrow road at night, surrounded on all sides by water. The road I was on was itself going into water, and the long line of fast-moving traffic behind me prevented me stopping or turning around. It doesn’t sound especially terrifying to describe it, but you know how it is with dreams: you sometimes just get those intangible feelings of dread or terror and you don’t know what to do with them.

So if you don’t already know this (I didn’t), take a look at Chicago and Milwaukee on a map. One of them is at the bottom of one of the Great Lakes. The other is a bit further along its shore. So I was driving, at night, along a lot of water with not much else around me. Yay, terror!

The terror was quickly replaced with irritation (which is sort of my default setting, sad to say) as I discovered that the exit I was supposed to be taking was, in fact, closed. I dutifully followed a detour, but ended up way on the other side of the city where I didn’t belong. I tried again, only to discover that the second exit I needed apparently didn’t exist. My Mapquest directions told me to get off at exit 1B. The exits went from 1E to 1D to 1A, then to 300.

Eventually (after 2 hours or so of driving in circles — I believe I may hold some kind of record for being lost in the most American cities) I managed to locate the hotel that Jim had recommended. Exhausted, I lumbered into the lobby and confirmed my reservation. And, being as paranoid about Murphy’s Law as so many years of traveling has made me, I asked if pets were allowed. “Oh no, sir,” said the lady behind the counter, just as nice as could be. “I’m terribly sorry.”

This was not her fault. In fact, she had even asked me how big my pet was, hinting at the fact that, if I were to slip past her with it in my jacket, she might accidentally be looking the other way when I did. When I was younger, I would have almost certainly taken it out on her. But I’m not that guy anymore. Now I just internalize it, which is just gradually subtracting weeks and months from my life expectancy. But I’ll let Elderly AAl worry about that. Or perhaps Middle Aged AAl if I keep traveling.

I called Jeanette (Jim’s girlfriend, also another good friend) and explained to her what was going on. She guided me to Jim’s apartment, and assured me that the situation would be resolved.

I met Jim outside some kind of frozen custard stand, and after a quick walk, took Checkers inside. Jim and I are both what I would call “pet-centric pussies,” so the meeting of his new cat and my dog was a major highlight of the trip. And, like one of those parents who traps you in a corner with a wallet full of fold-out pictures of their children, I shall now force you to witness the epic meeting of Superstar and Checkers.

 

Jim and Jeanette found me a place on the opposite site of town. Jim implied that it was a shady place in a bad neighborhood, but as amazing a host as he was, I’m gonna have to call him an idiot on this point. It was half the price of the original place I’d booked. They had free wireless internet, and they let me have Checkers. My car seemed safe enough from break-ins and such (thank god; my “dogs playing poker” painting is in there), and there was room enough to walk the dog when necessary. Also, they had a fantastic “all you can eat” porn option on their TV.

Jim was in the lobby with me as I checked in. The guy behind the counter asked how many beds I needed (which is code for “are you sleeping together?”). Sensing this, Jim defensively said “we’re not together,” adding “I have a girlfriend,” and then “I can show you pictures!” The guy didn’t really seem to care, but I had to play along. “Why are you ashamed of our love, Jim?” I asked.

I slept in that next morning (alone), which was much needed. A local foraging netted me some shitty donuts, but at least I was well-rested and fed. I got caught up on my b–g (I refuse to use that word, god damn it), and bided my time until the last member of our party arrived. TIP got in at about three, and after introducing everyone to me and the dog, we (minus the dog) headed out for our night on the town.

Again we come to a point where I had a great time, but there’s nothing especially to speak of. Because it wasn’t a disaster, you see, and therefore it’s not funny. I spent a great evening with some fantastic people (we were later joined by fellow Bendis boarder and indie comics creator Brian Defferding) and his girlfriend. (I backspaced over a number of adjectives — all synonyms for “hot” as I typed that sentence, just so you know.) Drinks were consumed (though not by me; I’m off the sauce for the moment), jokes were made, alliances were formed. It was fun. And, as I say, therefore boring.

 

 

 

 

I stayed up talking to everyone till something like 3 in the morning. I say “something like” because this whole crossing time zones thing is really fucking with my inner clock. I realize it shouldn’t be that big a deal to just subtract an hour as I proceed west, but it’s a bit more complicated for me. Consider this: most of my friends live in a magical glowing box on my desk. Gav lives in Ireland (+5). Jim and TIP live in the midwest (-1). Amanda lives in Vancouver (-3). So my social life, such as it is, involves a fair amount of math. It’s become pretty second-nature for me at this stage, knowing the time at any one of the homes of my closest electronic pals. Only now, I’m having to compensate for the traveling, and I’m completely lost.

 

 

 

 

However, one thing that has remained crystal clear is the feeling of three hours of sleep. That’s the same no matter where you go, and that’s what I had Saturday night/Sunday morning. Nevertheless, after an IHOP breakfast (with an extended coffee-sipping epilogue), I managed to make good time on the road that day. I surprised myself with this, because, as anyone who knows me can tell you, I am a complete wuss when it comes to sleep. Or, more precisely, I get cranky when I don’t sleep enough. I expected I’d make it maybe out of Wisconsin before pussying out, but somehow I managed to make my goal.

I stopped to check out the Mighty Mississipp’ as I crossed the Wisconsin/Minnesota line. And while I realize the pictures don’t look especially impressive, the stop made an impact on me. It wasn’t really the water so much as the symbolic significance of the river itself — the dividing line between the east side and the west side. I was now leaving the area of the country I had called home for all of my 31 years and crossing into an area I’d never been before.

 

 

 

 

 

 Yeah, Checkers wasn’t impressed either.

About an hour later, I passed signs for the Spam museum in Austin, MN. That would have been right up my alley, but I suspected that they probably weren’t open at 7PM on a Sunday evening. Sad, really.

I did, as I mentioned, make it to my goal: Mitchell, South Dakota, home of the Corn Palace. I wasn’t quite sure what the Corn Palace was supposed to be, but it sounded exactly like the sort of cheese I enjoyed seeing when I traveled. Unfortunately, as I discovered the next morning, the Corn Palace was not actually all that impressive.

A few things about the Corn Palace:

1. The web cam, which I had hoped to goofily wave to all my computer friends with, is not actually ON apparently.

2. Despite seasonal warnings that it was closed till May, it was open. There’s just nothing to it. The outside of it is the whole thing. Inside is just pictures of what the place looked like each year of its history (they change it every year apparently), arranged around the walls like pictures at your grandparents’ house. There’s also a very small civic arena in the center of it — about the size of my high school’s gym. But they seem to get names that I’ve heard of to play there, so maybe this is a mid-sized venue in this part of the country. (LeAnn Rimes is due in next week.)

3. You’d think the “palace” would be out on its own someplace. It’s actually just another building along a street in this town. Right next to “city hall,” actually, which may have formerly been The Gap.

4. It’s fucking COLD in South Dakota. Maybe colder than I’ve ever experienced. And I like it chilly.

 

 

 

 

 

I hit the road at about 11AM, and I only made it about three hours. (200 miles, most of which was being covered at about 40MPH thanks to the Hoth-like blizzard conditions across South Dakota.) 18 wheelers were pulling over (those that weren’t insisting on barrelling by me at top speeds) and I could literally not see beyond about 2 car lengths ahead, much less the road itself. I was, at least, vindicated by the hotel lady and another local standing in the lobby, both of whom agreed this was a particularly terrible storm even by South Dakota standards. So I stopped at Wall, which I had initially decided against.

Wall, South Dakota is home of Wall Drug, which I had heard is pretty much the “South of the Border” of the midwest. For the uninitiated: South of the Border is a tourist trap of the worst kind, nestled just south of the North Carolina/South Carolina border (get it?). It’s vaguely Mexican themed, with lots of junk shops and nothing actually useful, entertaining or in any way impressive. But their advertising is fucking genius. Billboards begin at Maine and Florida and dot the landscape for the entirety of the east coast’s highway 95.

And Wall Drug was no different. Apparently, according to the literature I picked up there, Wall Drug had been your typical small-town drugstore in the 30s. It actually wasn’t doing so well, until the proprietor’s wife decided to start posting signs offering free ice water to travelers. The signs multiplied over the years, and Wall Drug became some sort of legendary blah blah blah…

 

Yeah, junk shop. Wacky t-shirts, walnuts with googly eyes, and so on. I got a burger there, and it was vaguely reminiscent of the ones I got in my high school cafeteria. That’s the second time a South Dakota landmark has reminded me of high school. I swear to christ, if I see my old English teacher, Mr. Bach, on Mount Rushmore, I’m going to cry.

So that brings me to the present. I’m writing this from a hotel room in Wall, waiting for the snow to pass. It’s actually stopped falling, but the mile drive to Wall Drug showed me roads that only a luge competitor would love. It’s getting dark, which not only means icier roads, but also a reduction in my overall driving ability. So, needless to say, I’m in for the night.

I still have about 1200 miles ahead of me, and I have no idea when the snow will clear (the lady at the front desk said noon tomorrow). I was planning on getting to Seattle before the end of the business day tomorrow, but there’s no way now. We’ll see what happens, I suppose. Always an adventure.

I apologize again for the lack of frequent updates, especially during this, the most exciting portion of my adventure. It’s just that everything had to happen kinda fast, and I haven’t really found the time to regroup till now.

I’m writing this from a hotel room in Milwaukee. I’m about a third of the way across the country. I was once known — renowned, even — for disastrous things that happen to me while I travel (see: countless installments of my online humor column Sarcastic Voyage, as well as my book, The Sarcastic Verses). I thought I’d finally shaken that demon loose, thanks to good planning and what I’d hoped was a natural depletion of a finite supply of bad luck. I thought wrong.

Allow me to get you caught up to the present. My last day at work was Friday, March 10. This was a surprisingly lackluster affair, probably due to the fact that I’d taken to telling everyone the honest, harsh truth whenever possible already. It was great fun playing the Valuable Curmudgeon, but the downside of it was that there was no last day telling off to do. I couldn’t burn the bridge because I’d been very gradually singeing small pieces of it with a magnifying glass to the sun for the last couple of months.

Anyway, they gave me a very nice framed picture of the helicopters we’ve been working on. Which is good, because the one thing I really want in my new life away from that career is a constant reminder of the thing that drove me crazy enough to want to break loose.

Actually, it was a very nice gesture, and I probably will put it up somewhere in my new place. They even signed it, which was cool. One signature in particular really stood out. It was from the coworker with whom I had worked the longest (nearly all of my 11 years), and it was done using a custom rubber stamp with red ink. “SEE U IN HELL.” it said. A fitting send-off if I ever saw one.

So that left me six days till I was due to leave for Seattle, and about five until the movers were due to show up. This left me in a bit of a jam, as I couldn’t do a whole lot in the way of final preparations with all my earthly possessions taking up 90% of the space in my tiny apartment. Until the movers came, I mostly just had to sit and wait. Which is what I am generally inclined to do in my natural state anyway, so it wasn’t that big a deal.

The movers showed up on Wednesday: two young hispanic men and the lead guy, who not only communicated to them in Spanish and to me in decent English, but also talked on his cell phone in what sounded like Arabic. I don’t know about you, but where I come from, the kind of people who speak three languages aren’t usually working for moving companies. They’re usually spies. (And when I say “where I come from,” I mean, of course, my overactive, pop culture addled imagination.)

My community college Spanish served me well, as I occasionally caught the two younger guys (who did all the lifting) talking about me, and not in an especially flattering way. The impression that I got was that I’d packed my boxes too heavy. Also, they thought I was gay.

Once the Mexicans drove away with all my belongings, I began to make the final hasty preparations for my journey. Given that I had less than 24 hours to prepare, I’m sure I left some stuff behind and probably didn’t clean the apartment to my landlords’ satisfaction. But I suppose that’s one of the benefits of your parents being your landlords. They’ll probably get over it.

I was a little bugged with my mother, in any event. She absolutely refused to say goodbye to me, on the grounds that she would probably cry. I tried to explain to her that I’m 31 years old, and that my mother crying really wouldn’t embarrass me, particularly under the circumstances. I’m moving to the absolute furthest point I could possibly choose in the continental United States, and it’s the first time in my life that I won’t be right around the corner, or at worst, a few hours away. Crying would make sense. But she would hear none of it. Bit disappointing, really. She didn’t even remember to tell me to pack clean underwear, so I’m keeping this same nasty pair on the whole trip, just to spite her.

As the hour of my departure approached, I made my way to the last two items on my “to do in Maryland” list: turn off the internet and phone services. I probably could have done this days before, but I didn’t want to take the chance of either of them being switched off early, since both figured pretty heavily into my moving plans.

The internet took about an hour, mostly due to DirecWay’s horribly inefficient maze of phone prompts and operators who barely spoke English. As tedious as that was, however, it was nothing in comparison to what I went through with The Phone Company.

Those who have been familiar with me and my work will recall that The Phone Company has been a thorn in my side for well over a decade now. I remain convinced after my various entanglements with them that they are almost certainly responsible for the JFK assassination, as well as any number of other twentieth century horrors. I had thought that perhaps their power had been waning in this ever-increasing climate of telecommunications competition, but I’m not so sure anymore. I may just have to reopen the file on The Phone Company and their involvement with the 9-11 tragedy.

So here’s what happened with them, or to be more precise, what didn’t happen with them: they refused to turn off my phone. For some reason (”for my protection,” they kept saying), you can’t just call up the phone company and have your line turned off. For some kind of security reason, they require some extra verification that it’s really you calling them. This actually makes sense to me, and I had no problem with doing it. The problem was, they didn’t want to verify anything sensible like my social security number or my mother’s maiden name. They wanted information that was on my printed bill: my account number (not the same as my phone number) or my last bill balance. I tried to explain to them that I pay my bills online, and that I had turned off my internet service, so I had no idea what those things were. I also explained that any pieces of paper that might contain that information were in boxes on their way to Seattle.

“Look, you know it’s me,” I protested. “You can tell where I’m calling from. You’re The Phone Company!”

“Sir, anyone could be calling from your phone.”

“Yes, and anyone could steal a copy of my bill too!”

They wouldn’t budge. So my phone is still on in Maryland — another bill to pay for something I couldn’t use without Radio Shack’s longest extension cord.

Despite that minor setback (I guess I’ll take care of it from Seattle), I took off around 1PM on Thursday.

At about 4PM (I wasn’t even out of Maryland yet), I received a call on my cell phone. It was the movers. Apparently, the original weight of my stuff had been grossly underestimated, and instead of it being 3000 pounds of stuff, it was actually 6000.

I remember the conversation I had with the lady at the moving place quite clearly. I went through everything I owned in painstaking detail, and I mentioned that quite a lot of it was heavy stuff: books, comics, that sort of thing. She assured me in a confident — I’d even say arrogant — tone that she did this for a living, and she knew exactly what she was doing.

But somehow she was off by 100%. If she worked as a weight guesser at my carnival, she’d be demoted to elephant cleanup.

I got indignant with the woman on the phone (not the same one who had so poorly guessed the weight of my stuff), but she was proving to be fairly indifferent to my plight. So I bluffed: I told her I didn’t have the extra $2000 that this was going to cost me. (Yes, that’s two thousand. Two with four zeroes.) I told her quite simply that I couldn’t pay it if I wanted to. (This was a lie, but she needn’t know that.)

She told me she’d do some checking and get back with me. This was two days ago, and I have no way to reach these people right now. For all I know, all my stuff is sitting on the lawn back at my old place. (And if that’s the case, my sketchy neighbors have already made off with it.) So that’s weighing a bit heavily — ha ha — on my mind right now.

I made it to Pittsburgh without further incident, and had dinner with my friends Mark and Chrissy. This was quite nice, but since we didn’t explode into a fiery mess, it’s not really as interesting as the rest of my story. Fortunately (for you, anyway) Day Two holds just as much misery.

Snow loomed in southern Maryland last Friday, so the fact that I was heading to the other coast with my mother was extra sweet for that reason. For all the things I love about the east coast — and the mid-Atlantic region specifically — one thing we are not famous for is our ability to cope well with snow. Fortunately for me, it doesn’t appear that I’ll require this skill where I’m going.

We flew out the night of the tenth from Baltimore. It was a direct flight for us, with a quick stop in Chicago (we didn’t get off the plane). It went as smoothly as 7 hours on an airplane can go, except for the fact that I really wanted to get some sleep in and the chorus of screaming infants had denied my request.

I made the mistake of popping a couple of light, over-the-counter sleeping pills before the flight. The plan had been to get in a full night’s sleep before landing, to help assist in dealing with the jetlag. Instead, thanks to the complete inability for parents to control their damn poop factories, I just ended up being really drowsy for the next 24 hours. And as anyone can tell you — especially my mother and girlfriend — lack of sleep is one of the two things that can turn me into a total grouchy prick. (The other thing is lack of food, which also became a factor on this trip.)

My girlfriend, Amanda (whom I believe I have mentioned lives in Vancouver) took a bus to the airport, and was waiting for us when we landed. The whole luggage reclamation/car rental process went smoothly enough (though we ended up with a PT Cruiser, possibly the ugliest car ever created), and by about 11PM local time we were on the way to our hotel.

Plotting the route from the airport to our hotel (3 blocks from the famous Space Needle) was easy with the map I had, apart from one snag: we could see the road we needed to get to from the freeway, but there was no exit for it. This, like many of my trips to the west coast, would end up being a recurring theme throughout my visit. Fortunately we found a U-turn and caught the exit we needed coming back the other direction.

I woke up early (even for me) the next morning, not having slept a whole lot. I did my best to push the natural crabbiness down as far as it could go, and joined mom and Amanda for our continental breakfast. After that, we headed to mom’s room to Mapquest my potential apartments and plot our visits accordingly.

We hit a few places in the morning, but none of them were particularly promising.

 

One of the places I passed on. Mom was impressed with the pool. Personally, I’m not a fan of swimming in other peoples’ filth, but what do I know?

 

Another place I passed on.

 

And another. Or perhaps the same one.

The place I was really looking forward to visiting was called Coronado Springs. The pictures I’d already seen looked great, and the place had been very communicative with me to this point. The rent was definitely in my price range — so much so that I feared it was in a really shady part of town.

And I will admit, it wasn’t in the best neighborhood, but it was probably no worse than where I’m living right now. And, oddly enough, the actual grounds of Coronado Springs were really well taken care of, and patrolled regularly by security. So while the surrounding neighborhood was maybe not a place I’d spend a lot of time in alone after dark, the complex itself was kind of an oasis. I really liked the place quite a lot.

Coronado Springs, the place where I want to live.

 

The individual “cottages” at Coronado Springs.

And more.

 

Still more.

 

And even more.

 

This picture was on Coronado Springs’ website with the pictures of the cottages. I was understandably confused at the time, but this building is behind the others. It has the exercise room, laundry room, etc.

 

I spoke with some people, took a tour of the 1-bedroom place I had my eye on, and promised to come back to fill out an application after we’d been to a few more places. We drove around a bit longer and looked some more, but mom pretty much called it when she said that my mind was already made up, so most of that was pretty half-hearted.

 

Scenic stuff from the car.

 

One of Seattle’s many bridges.

 

Some… water stuff. I dunno, my mom took these.

 

Ooh, mountains!

That evening, we headed out to a casino, to give mom something more to do than stare at the back of my head from the car. By this point, I was feeling the effects of my no sleep/no food regimen, and had become quite the crabby little bitch boy. I ended up dozing in the car while Amanda and mom had dinner, saw a band and did some gambling, which was probably for the best anyway. It meant that I wouldn’t embarass myself any further than I already had, and it also gave them some opportunity to bond a little.

Sunday morning I woke up early (again) and took a walk from our hotel to the Needle and the general vicinity. For all the trouble we’d had in the car, I had to admit that the whole area made a lot more sense on foot. Also, I walked for an hour and I only counted one Starbucks, so I’ve been horribly misinformed by the hippies I know.

After Amanda woke up, we headed back to Coronado Springs. I filled out an application (the place is income-dependent, but I don’t think that’s going to be an issue), and as of this writing (a week later), I await a decision. It’s kind of nerve-wracking not being 100% sure if I’m going to be living there or not (especially since all my other plans pretty much ride on this), but I hope to hear something in the next day or two. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

I tried to scope out a potential comic book shop, but I had those same damn navigation issues again. Since we really had nothing else going till that evening (mom was taking a break from us, and we were to meet up with her for dinner at the Needle later), I was content to just get lost for awhile. And I’m kinda glad that I did — the area we’d been traveling was pretty much the down-by-the-docks/industrial part of town, and it was good to actually get out and see the parks, little shops and other areas where I’d more likely be spending my free time. We saw a shop that was dedicated entirely to space paraphernelia (astronaut helmets, etc.). How could you hate a city with a space shop in it?

So, at about 6, we met up with mom for dinner at the — Needle. (I keep wanting to call it the Stratosphere, since the hotel in Vegas is modeled after the same building.) The meal was overpriced, but nice… and the view was amazing. The spinning did get to me toward the end there, but I made it out without incident.

 

The view (one of many) from the Needle.

 

 

No caption necessary.

 

 

I refuse to caption this one too.

 

 

You can stuff your captions in a sack, mister.

 

Imagine your own caption, it’s probably more clever.

 

 

Caption? We don’t need no… okay, I’m done.

 

 

Me and Amanda.

 

 

Amanda and me.

 

 

Us.

 

We called it an early night after that and headed to bed. Monday morning, we finally saw a little of the infamous Seattle rain (it had been sunny and about 60 all weekend). It was just a bit drizzly, and nothing like the foot of snow that was waiting at home for us, so it didn’t concern me. We got Amanda on her bus and got on our flight again without incident. Traveling back was another long day (longer for the time difference), but there were no major disasters, which is always a pleasant surprise when I travel.

So overall, it was a pretty long trip (jetlag affects me more in my old age than it used to), but productive. I got a genuine feel for my new hometown, and I hopefully got a decent place to live. I had held off making this post in hopes that I could announce my impending residence at Coronado Springs along with the pictures… but I guess most of their office is out sick this week so they’re a bit behind. So I wait.

Today is 25 days till I leave here. The excitement is definitely starting to mount.

I love going to New York city. Really, I love everything about it. I enjoy the drive, even the part that involves the Jersey Turnpike. I enjoy the surly toll booth attendant outside the Holland Tunnel who says “a $20 bill?! Jesus fucking christ!” And I especially enjoy the transformation that overcomes me as I emerge from the tunnel a self-imagined New York Driver.

The thing about New York, as compared to any other American city I’ve been to, is that even an idiot country rube like me can figure out the layout. It’s a simple series of numbered streets in a perfect grid, with the streets alternating One Way directions. This means I can ignore the tedious process of getting my bearings and looking for landmarks and concentrate on what I call Offensive Driving.

We got to our hotel on Friday night at about 11. The hotel we stayed in wasn’t the best I’d ever seen, but it wasn’t horrible or anything. It was up 5 flights of stairs (which was much fun to navigate after drinking heavily on Saturday), and the room itself was something out of a 40s movie. We shared a bathroom with everyone on the floor, there was a radiator, and one single light bulb illuminated the whole room. I was half surprised there was no Murphy bed in the wall.

The “caretaker” (I guess that’s what he was) was a rather infirmed elderly black gentleman. (Think Scatman Crothers in The Shining.) I felt bad for him as he descended the 5 flights to get us checked in. I felt less bad when he kept us up all night with his odd noises, most of which involved very owl-like hooting.

So we didn’t get a whole lot of sleep Friday night. Saturday ended up being pretty damned awesome regardless of this, however. We made our way to Midtown comics at about noon, where I spoke with someone about getting Tales of the Odd carried in their store. “Well, normally we need 10 copies of a new indie book,” the guy said. He paged through a copy, grinned a little and amended his statement. “You know what? Bring me 15.” I sold them at printing cost, but this wasn’t about making profit. So now my book is available at the best comic store in NYC (and a sister location) and my ego has been sufficiently stroked. Amazingly, the day got even better from there.

We took off from Midtown to visit our friends Jason and Keren. Jason (aka Littleguy) I have known since high school, and his longtime gal-pal Keren I have known almost as long (since his first year of college).

We ignored the warnings involving their new location on 117th street, exactly 100 blocks beyond where we were staying. Apparently their apartment (which was ENORMOUS for NYC standards) is in Harlem, but I wasn’t really uncomfortable or anything. Then again, I spend a lot of time in DC, so the race thing really isn’t an issue for me.

LG felt the need to share with us a horrid piece of late 70s “entertainment” known as Legends of the Superheroes.

The first was a variety show/celebrity roast of sorts, featuring the following:

 

 

 

Yes, that’s TV’s Adam West and Burt Ward as Batman and Robin, 10 years after their show went off the air. And yes, Hawkman’s mask is apparently made of cardboard.

Ed MacMahon hosts the full hour, and after sitting through the entire thing, I finally understand why the whole superhero concept gets such a bad rep. It would take a hundred Bendis-caliber writers to undo the damage done here.

The “roast” is surpassed in entertainment value only by the second installment, which is presented as a sort of action/comedy thing.

Mind you, the production values haven’t improved a bit, and most of the “plot” involves a succession of supervillains trying to cause incidental mechanical damage to the Batmobile. But it’s worth the price of admission for the big climactic chase scene, involving Batman and Robin on jetskis, and the rest of the makeshift Justice League following in canoes, rowboats and paddleboats.

This is maybe the worst thing I have ever seen, and I sat through all ten seasons of horrid MST3K movies. Somehow, though, I just could not look away.

After this, LG and Keren took us on the “quick New York cliché tour.” We saw a small section of Central Park (including some weird art thing involving orange fabric that really didn’t impress me), had an authentic NY street hot dog (meh) and rode the subway. Really though, we got to hang with two good friends, and that was a lot of fun.

We also got a chance to sample real “mofongo.” This is something maybe three people reading this will understand and/or appreciate, but to we two Otters, it was a religious experience of sorts. It was also pretty damned nasty.

 

As best we could tell, it was some sort of fried chicken skin/potato concoction. There was some gravy that came with it, but that reeked of rotten seafood and no one had any desire to see if that improved the remarkably bland flavor of the stuff. Really, we weren’t even sure what ethniticy exactly was responsible for our mofongo (our guesses were Puerto Rican or Cuban)… but again, it was more about the experience than the actual results.

We parted company with LG and Keren at about 7PM, which gave us about an hour to travel 100 blocks, get freshened up and meet our Bendis Board pals at the designated watering hole.

The choice of drinking venue was a scant 6 blocks from our hotel (the Cedar Tavern), so we trudged through the chilly evening to meet up with friends, most of whom we had heretofore only known as pixels on a screen.

There really aren’t a whole lot of details I can share: partially because I don’t remember a ton of them and partially because the evening involved a lot of inside jokes. We bitched about people on the board that we didn’t like, commisserated over common interests and raised a lot of hell. It was the most fun I’ve had since my birthday.

Here are some pictures. You figure out what’s going on, I don’t feel like captioning them:

 

 

 

I did the smart thing and started chugging water with every other drink as the night progressed, so I didn’t really have much of a hangover on Sunday.

We didn’t sleep much again though (thanks to Hooty), so we just took off for home around 7AM. We were back home before 1PM (I took a wrong turn at Alber-koiky), and napping for most of the rest of the day.

All in all, though, this was probably my best trip to New York ever, and I have had several good ones. I covered all the bases, really: old friends, new friends, comics promoting, comics buying (oh yeah, I dropped a ton of money at Midtown after selling my book), drinking and debauchery, touristy gawking. Yay us!

“Our Trip to San Diego, 12/29/04 – 1/2/05″

This is me and Lauri, in our hotel room. We spent a lot of time in our hotel room on this particular trip. Every married couple needs that sort of vacation every now and then.

This is me and my friend Jenn at the beach. Jenn is one of my oldest and closest friends.

This is me and Lauri at the beach. Aww, we’re so cute.

This is Jenn on New Year’s eve, making punch.

This is xAdam – another old friend – on New Year’s eve. The thing he’s pointing to is a “luge.” It’s a giant block of ice with grooves carved in. Someone stands at the top and pours a shot of liquor down a groove, while someone else waits below for the chilled liquor to slide into their mouth. I tried it with a shot of tequila – it was kinda neat.

This is xAdam, gleefully operating the luge.

This is us on New Year’s eve. One of us is clearly having more fun than the other.

This is the “peppermint pig” – a really bizarre Christmas gift from my mother. Apparently this is some kind of New Year’s tradition. You’re supposed to put the pig in the little cloth bag, then whack the hell out of him with the little hammer. This symbolizes… um… the destruction of candy pigs. I guess.

I may mock this seemingly ridiculous superstition, but even I know better than to oppose it.

This is my friend Dave’s girlfriend, Vanessa. She went absolutely nuts about “the HUGE stop sign,” so we indulged her and snapped a picture. I guess it is pretty big.

Lauri and the enormous sign.

This is the absolutely gorgeous meditation garden we found in Encinitas on New Year’s day with Dave and Vanessa. The enlightenment and self-awareness practically bored itself into your skull.

This is one of the many breathtaking views from the meditation garden. God, I hate California. Why do I keep going back?

I’d like to say I was thinking something profound as I stared at that view, but chances are I was just falling asleep.

This, sadly, is the only picture we got of Dave and Vanessa.

This is us in the meditation garden.

This is our cat. It’s also Lauri’s way of finishing off the film so you wouldn’t have to wait another week for these pictures. I swore I’d never be one of those people who posts a picture of his cat in his LiveJournal, but LOOK! ISN’T SHE JUST ADORABLE?!

 

In the interest of brevity (which is my new self-inflicted writing philosophy), I will not be providing the usual tedious essay detailing my recent trip to Pittsburgh. Instead, I will be presenting the trip through a series of pictures and short statements. Join us, won’t we?

 

This is the route from my house to Pittsburgh, site of my friend Mark’s wedding. The red dot signifies Towson, Maryland — where They Might Be Giants were playing the night of our trip. Note that Towson is not exactly on the way to Pittsburgh from my house. I did not learn this fact until I began falling asleep 2 hours north of Towson and 2 hours south of Pittsburgh.

 

This is the They Might Be Giants show. Or it might be a UFO I saw at the Recher theater in Towson. My cell phone sucks at taking pictures. Good thing it’s just a cell phone and not a camera. The show was awesome, by the way… but Lauri and my friend Jenn (along for the ride) seemed pretty bored.

 

This is an idealized picture of Breezewood, Pennsylvania, where we had to make an emergency stop for the evening. Breezewood is little more than a dozen motels, gas stations and cheap restaurants nestled at the foot of the mountains, just over the Pennsylvania border. I’m sure it must look like heaven to a truck driver (or a bad trip planner), but it’s not actually all that impressive. Still, there’s more to do there than in my hometown.

 

This is the official logo of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. Pennsylvania is very proud of their turnpike, which is strange to me, because it kinda sucks ass. You have to pay to get off of it, and there are lots of potholes. Nevertheless, there are actually historic markers indicating where and how the turnpike began, and all sorts of amazing things that you never realized you wanted to know about a stretch of crummy road.

 

This is my friend, Mark. I’ve known Mark since 1991 or so, and since then he has become one of my closest and dearest friends. We lived together in Philadelphia for a time, and it was he who organized, programmed and promoted my hit adventure game, Brain Hotel. Mark was the reason we came to Pittsburgh.

 

This is Chrissy, Mark’s new bride. My official opinion of Chrissy is “I approve,” which sounds kind of obnoxious, I know. But, as I mentioned, Mark is a very close and important person to me, and his happiness matters. I always fear that my friends are going to end up with someone who doesn’t match their wit and creativity, or stifles them in some way. Happily, Chrissy does none of this. I haven’t gotten to know her tremendously well yet, but I am eager to.

 

This is the Holiday Inn in Monroeville, a suburb of Pittsburgh. I found this hotel completely at random on my recent trip to Chicago, and it ended up being where everyone involved in the wedding was staying.

 

This is my friend xAdam. xAdam is Mark’s brother, and was the best man at the wedding. He gave a speech that made me cry. Goatsucking bastard.

 

This is my friend, Data. His real name is Mike, but we all had goofy nicknames in high school, and they thought he kinda looked like Data from Star Trek, so the name Data stuck. I really only knew Data in passing, until we saw him in Chicago last month. That trip led me to suspect that he’s a really clever, funny individual and this trip confirmed that suspicion. Data, like me, was a groomsman in Mark’s wedding.

 

This is my friend Jason. We used to call him Littleguy, but he’s not very little anymore so we stopped. I occasionally slip and call him LG occasionally, but he doesn’t seem to mind. Jason lives in New York City, and was also a groomsman in the wedding. You may remember him as the voice of Impo in Brain Hotel.

 

This is me in a tux. My hair looks more mulletish than I would like, but I’m calling that my transitional period. Eventually I’m going to have beautiful, flowing locks like Fabio. Or, more probably, I’ll get frustrated with the idea of growing my hair and shave it all off. Either way I think I look pretty fat right now. I probably should do something about that.

 

This is the logo for the restaurant outside the Holiday Inn. We started our drinking here the day we showed up. The result was poor Mark getting about 30 phone calls within 10 minutes regarding various details of the forthcoming rehearsal and dinner. It is notable that Mark was actually planning a wedding at this point and really didn’t need 30 phone calls asking about pants. But that’s just how we are.

 

This, I think, is what it looks like inside the restaurant at the Holiday Inn. It’s hard to tell, because it was opening and closing at random intervals during our stay. They would open for breakfast until 11, then close till 1 for lunch, then close again at 3 for some reason. You really had to time things just right to survive in this Holiday Inn. The restaurant had some Irish name, but I’ll be damned if I can remember it. O’Hulligans or something. It doesn’t really matter.

 

This is Mark talking to Data at the rehearsal dinner. As instructed by Mark, neither man is wearing pants.

 

This is what it looks like inside Cosmic Bowling, where we effectively had Mark’s bachelor party. Really it was just the lot of us singing karakoe in the bar next door, then bowling in the dark. It was actually a lot more fun than it sounds like.

 

This is Jason and his longtime gal-pal Keren at Cosmic Bowl.

 

This is me and my longtime gal-pal Lauri at Cosmic Bowl.

 

This is Jason, Data’s longtime gal-pal Wendy and Data at (you guessed it) Cosmic Bowl.

 

This is the cover to William Shatner’s 1968 album, The Transformed Man. This album contains his… um… dramatic rendition of “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds,” which I flawlessly duplicated at the karaoke bar at Cosmic Bowl.

 

This is the movie most of us were quoting as we bowled. In honor of my favorite movie about bowling, my drink of choice for the evening was the White Russian (many of them). This was a very complicated bachelor party, man. Lots of ins, lots of outs.

 

These are pictures are from the wedding itself. They should be pretty self-explanatory.

This is the ring bearer. Poor kid didn’t realize he was only carrying symbolic rings (neither did any of us). The priest says “the rings please” and the kid steps forward, only to be shoved to the ground by a vengeful Adam! “Stay down, punk!” he says. “I have the rings!!”

This is xAdam, Mark and Chrissy at the reception. They wisely put the wedding party at a table facing the wall for some reason.

This is the new Mr. and Mrs. Darin at the reception.

This is Jason, looking really menacing.

This is me, Mark and Jason, cuddling on the bed not long after the wedding. This is seriously my favorite picture of the trip.

Turn your head sideways and this is Jenn, Mark, Lauri, xAdam and Jason.

This is the Human Pyramid we made out in the hallway at about 1 AM (I’m sure the people down the hall loved us.) Top: Keren. Middle: Jenn, Lauri, Wendy. Bottom: xAdam, Jason, me and Data.

The more imaginative, yet less inspiring Human Cone. The following are pictures of the lot of us, minus the person taking the picture:

Everyone but Data.

Everyone but Keren.

Everyone but xAdam.

This is Mark, Jenn and my wife. That perplexed look was on Mark’s face most of the time we saw him.

These are seriously hung-over things we did Sunday before we left, including a reprisal of the Human Cone and about the only word we could spell out using three people.

Thursday, August 12

Day 1 of our cross-country odyssey — we’re driving to Chicago for a comics convention, wherein we’ll meet some of our favorite creators and a whole assload of people from the Bendis board.

Right now we’re in Pittsburgh. One of my best friends lives here — Mark, the guy who produced Brain Hotel. I’m supposed to be in his wedding in a month, and somehow, by amazing coincidence, we happened to pick the same hotel in which the guests will be staying and the rehearsal dinner is scheduled. That’s just bizarre.

Today we’ll meet up with him and his fiancee for breakfast, then it’s off to Chicago. I think splitting up the trip was a good thing, but there’s still 7 hours ahead of us. I brought plenty of Audible though, so we should be fine. More, undoubtedly, when we arrive.

It feels nice to get away from work for a few days.

Part 1: Getting There Is Half the Trip

I’m told that the tiny corner of highway we saw just off the Pennsylvania Turnpike is pretty representative of Pittsburgh as a whole. If this is the case, I must state my disappointment — it’s just like home, with about 800% more strip malls and old people. Actually, I’ve been to Pittsburgh once before (during the desperate “I’ll drive anywhere to get laid” period of my single life), and there is a bit more to it than Wal Mart and IHOP. I think I saw a Target, too.

Seriously though, Pittsburgh is your typical Pennsynvania town, with all the mild depression and industrial waste that description implies. Much of this state is absolutely gorgeous, but you can’t escape the feeling that they peaked during the coal and steel days of yesteryear and never quite managed to recover. Maybe someday.

Regardless, I’m a pretty simple guy to please, and the existence of a Krispy Kreme two blocks from our hotel was enough for me. I’ve experienced the sugary death that is double-K before, but this was Lauri’s virgin experience with the artery clogging little buggers. You haven’t lived till you’ve had just one glazed Krispy Kreme donut, fresh out of the oven. The phrase “melt in your mouth” just doesn’t do it justice.

Here’s a clever segueway: my friend Mark wouldn’t live if he ate a glazed Krispy Kreme donut fresh out of the oven! Seriously, he’s diabetic or something.

Mark is one of my closest friends. I met him when I was in high school, and we lived together just outside Philadelphia for 2 years. We’ve been talking about collaborating on something creative pretty much since we met — about 15 years ago — and “Brain Hotel” represents the final entertainment splooge from that decade and a half of wanking. So, suffice it to say we’re close.

Mark is getting married in about a month. Unfortunately, this is about the only detail you’d get out of him if you asked him directly. Mark exists in this strange state of perception that allows him amazing focus on computer programming and art school but total cluelessness when it comes to things like his own wedding. I only suspected that I was meant to be part of the wedding party until we visited him and his fiance, and I only just got my invitation Monday night when we got home.

So it was good to see his intended, Chrissy… not just to find out what the hell is going on next month, but also because she seems like a really cool person. (As my relationship with Mark has become a long-distance one, I have only met Chrissy once before.) Mark is continuing a streak carried by all of my high school friends: ending up with mates who are really worthwhile partners. Remember, I knew Mark (and the rest of our little running crew) during that very strange late teens/early 20s period of our lives. This is not, generally, prime dating season. So when I think of any of my pals from that time settling with a girl, I get nervous. We all had our share of romantic disasters in those times, and it’s hard to reconcile those memories with modern versions of those same people, finding nice, stable women. It really is a pleasant surprise.

So we had breakfast with Mark and Chrissy. Mostly we talked about the game, just because we’re both so damned excited about it still. By about noon, full of self-congratulation and pancakes, we said our goodbyes and headed out on our way.

To say that this country is vast is a ridiculous understatement. I have still seen maybe 5% of our great nation, but I am still left with the overwhelming impression of the scale involved. Between my trip to North Dakota a few years ago and this jaunt from the east coast to the midwest, I remain convinced that a person could hide forever among the endless farms and backroads of the midwest. Really, we only went about 800 miles, and across five states (MD, PA, OH, IN and IL), but it really made an impression on me. But then, for someone with ADD, really pronounced boredom tends to have that effect.

We had originally intended to visit a slew of bizarre attractions, as advertised by Roadside America, but it turns out that most of those attractions were situated along the route we didn’t take. I was really looking forward to seeing the Museum of Objects Swallowed By Mental Patients and Dan Quayle’s Birthplace, but it just wasn’t in the cards, I guess. Maybe next time.

By about 7, we were passing out of Gary, Indiana (which has my vote for funniest town name) and into the outer limits of Chicago. The traffic was a bit much, but the slow pace gave us an opportunity to gawk at the city a bit, as our hotel was pretty far in. We caught glimpses of the Sears Tower, but I have to admit that most of the rest of the skyline was not recognizable to me. Thankfully, this would be remedied later in the weekend.

Part 2: Lord and Lady Nerdington

We checked in to the Hyatt O’Hare at about 8PM Central Time. After settling into the room (okay, throwing our luggage down and connecting the laptop to the internet), we decided to wander a bit. We were tired, but our legs could definitely use the movement.

One of the main reasons we’d decided to attend this convention involves the Bendis Board. I’m not sure I’ve properly explained the board in this forum before, so allow me to do so now. Lauri and I are, to no one’s surprise, huge comic book fans. The habit takes me on a 2-hour round trip drive every Wednesday, costing me an average of $40 (plus gas). So comics are really our thing right now. I was into comics for much of my adolescence, but like most fanboys, I lost interest in the early-to-mid-90s, as writing quality fell and “speculators” (those guys who treat comics as investments) took over. But after the surprisingly good Spiderman movie in 2002, I decided to check in on the current state of the art. This led me to a title called Ultimate Spiderman, written by a guy named Brian Michael Bendis. I was immediately hooked on his realistic dialogue, heart-wrenching plots and odd sense of pacing. Within a few months, thanks to Mr. Bendis, I was back off the wagon and I had dragged my wife along with me. A few months after that, she discovered Bendis’ online message board, which was (and remains) a fascinating collection of comics fans, professionals and the home of some of the most bizarre conversations ever. It really has become our home on the internet.

So this Chicago thing wasn’t just an excuse to miss work or buy a bunch of crap we didn’t need (though those are fine reasons in themselves)… it was also a chance to meet the “family” that we’d become a part of over the last year or so.

We did end up meeting several of them on Thursday night. They were loitering on the sidewalk outside the convention center, apparently waiting for other board members to show up. A few people assumed, in true geek fashion, that our mob was some sort of advance line for the convention, but we assured them that we were just clogging the walkways for fun, not for any good practical reason.

The second half of the group did not materialize during the half hour or so that we stood with everyone, and finally our stomachs got the better of us. We excused ourselves and headed back to the Hyatt for an overpriced steak and buffet meal. Turns out this was the best decision to make anyway, as no one showed up for another 2 hours or so, and by that point I probably would have resorted to cannibalism. Yeah, nerd meat is kinda stringy and fatty, but I would have settled for anything by that point.

Anyway, we got to bed at a decent hour so that we could get up at a decent hour and get a jump on the convention events. This turned out to be something of a joke. We waited patiently from about 8:30 until the doors opened at 10, scoring our free bag of worthless crap and being herded through various lines like so much socially awkward cattle. They finally let us in with the impatient throng at 10, but by 10:30 the doors were open to the general public, and anyone could just stroll in without waiting. Still, they did a great job of building our anticipation, especially since we didn’t know what to expect.

Lauri’s never been to anything like this. I’ve been to a couple of Star Trek conventions, but nothing like this. Even the seasoned comic con guys said that the scale of this thing was unlike any other. Imagine a neighborhood with about 500 houses, each one of them populated by a pimply-faced collector of toys and funny books. Now imagine the entire neighborhood having a yard sale on exactly the same day. Only this yard sale is sponsored by big corporations and features famous people from comics and science fiction. Okay, I’m painting a really bad picture of this, I know. Just trust me: I could have easily spent a million dollars at this thing and probably would have wished I’d gotten more. And that is not an exaggeration.

The whole experience was a major sensory overload for us both. I imagine I looked much like I did the first time I visited New York City, all wide-eyed and gullible. Yeah, it was crowded, but it was crowded with our people. I could stop any of these people and find something in common with them within five seconds. Okay, except the weirdos in costume. They’re kinda creepy.

So we bought some stuff, met some of the smaller creators (including a number of up-and-comers from the Bendis board) and bought more stuff. By the time it was all over, we ended up with:

• two “classic DC” action figure sets: villains of the Silver Age and Metal Men (I do love me some cheese)
• a stack of books about 3 feet high, including Alan Moore’s hard-to-find Miracleman series
• Waldorf and Statler (the old hecklers from The Muppet Show) action figures (Lauri got these for me… isn’t she awesome?!)
• the complete run of The Tick animated series on DVD
• 2 t-shirts for me (black Spidey and Green Lantern) and I don’t know how many for Lauri

…and probably a lot more I’m forgetting. I’d mention how much I blew on crap, but there’s a good chance my mother will read this, and I really don’t want to hear that lecture. It was a lot though, believe me.

Part 3: Hobnobbing

Probably the coolest thing about comics is that they are such a cult thing. I mean, sure… I’d love it if mainstream America knew how great Bendis or Millar were, but there’s also a very cool “secret club” feeling that goes with being a comics fan. The practical upshot of this is that some of the biggest stars of the medium turn out to be really down-to-earth people, unlike their counterparts in Hollywood.

I mean, okay… Joss Whedon and Kevin Smith were both at this con, and we had no chance of seeing either of them, precisely because of their success outside of comics. But aside from those two (who both seem like they’re still really down-to-earth, personality-wise), the vast majority of comics writers are just amazingly accessible to just about anyone. Even a schmuck like me!

The first time this point really hit me was as we were walking “Artist Alley” on Friday. There, we spotted David Mack — a fairly successful writer/artist who had done work for Image and Daredevil. He’s also, as my wife continues to point out, a really good looking guy. Neither of us is really into his stuff, unfortunately, but we stopped and chatted with him anyway. Lauri decided to buy one of his books (a whopping $3.95), and once Mack discovered we were from the Bendis board, she had a stack of 6 or 7 freebies, all signed by the creator. He also posed for a couple of pictures with her, and he seemed to take it well when I told him to get his hands off my wife.

Yeah, I was kidding.

One guy we met isn’t quite a comics celebrity yet, but he should be. He goes by the name of Benito Cereno, although we strongly suspect this is a pen name. Benito has been writing backup stories in Robert Kirkman’s Invincible, and between that and his always entertaining posts on the Bendis board, he has earned a solid spot in my mind as a truly entertaining guy. His big pimp project is a graphic novel called Tales from the Bully Pulpit. It’s the story of a time-traveling Teddy Roosevelt, who joins forces with the ghost of Thomas Edison in order to defeat Nazis on Mars. And it’s a lot weirder and more fantastic than my description.

Benito’s a great writer, but he’s also fantastic to meet in person. The guy was just “on” all three times we saw him (though what he was “on” is a subject of much speculation). We talked to him for a good 20 minutes in the Hyatt bar on Friday night, and I laughed my ass clean off. Literally.

Really, this guy is doing things with comics that I haven’t seen anyone else do… or at least, not well. He has fast become one of those people whose work I will deliberately seek out. And if you think I’m an ass-kiss when it comes to him, wait till you hear about our experiences with Bendis.

Bendis had a Q-and-A panel scheduled for 3:30, so we were sure to be in the auditorium by 3. We saved a row of seats up front for our board pals, but there turned out to be several more than we had anticipated. Bendis ended up inviting them all up on stage with him, which just shows what a classy sort of guy he really is. (He actually just invited people from the board who didn’t manage to get a seat, but some people got kinda greedy and gave up their front-row seats to soak up the glory. We felt kind of awkward doing that, and stayed put.)

So Bendis had teased us on the board for weeks about a big announcement that Marvel didn’t want him to talk about. Speculation was rampant, but no one really had any idea what he might say. “We’ve been kicking around this idea,” he began, pausing long enough to let us twist some more, “about a Batman-Daredevil crossover.”

I swear half the geeks in attendance ruined their jeans after that.

Here’s the deal: Batman is obviously a hot property. Marvel’s answer to Batman is Daredevil, which has done quite well in the hands of Kevin Smith, and now with Bendis. A crossover between the two is a fanboy’s wet dream come true. It’s also probably not going to happen.

The announcement sort of backfired, as a representative from DC spoke up from the back of the room. Apparently Marvel’s editor-in-chief said some pretty bad things about their Distinguished Competitors (”DC has Batman and Superman, but doesn’t know what to do with them. It’s like being a porn star with the biggest dick and not being able to get it up.”), and they refuse to play ball until he’s gone. It got kind of ugly after that, and it wasn’t really planned to go down this way, but it turned out to be a really entertaining look behind the curtain of the comics industry. The whole thing sort of threw Bendis off for the rest of the day, which was understandable. But I felt like I’d been there for something really special — something, if you’ll pardon the hyperbole, historic, even. It was pretty cool.

So Bendis shook off the awkwardness and proceeded into his Q&A. He answered a lot of legitimate questions, a few silly ones, and hinted heavily at what was on the horizon. It was a lot of fun, and I got a chance to bust his balls a little. “On your message board,” I said, “you always tease us and say that ‘all will be revealed.’ So we came all this way, found out about one or two new projects, and you teased us on about 15 more!” Not missing a beat, he came back with “but you got to see me get yelled at by a guy from DC!”

After the Q&A, we all herded into the next room over for another Bendis event: a writing seminar. Some of the board people who had been onstage at the previous event kind of insinuated themselves onstage before Bendis even showed up, which I thought was in really bad taste. Being the nice guy that he is, though, he didn’t say anything.

He was still a little flustered by the whole debacle from before, but the man did give some great writing tips. I walked away very much inspired, and I hope this will reflect in the comics work I do in the coming weeks and months.

We adjourned from that, and went our separate ways for a bit. Several of us met up in the bar at the Hyatt that evening, where we saw (once again!) Bendis! I got to shake his hands and chat with him for a second. Two impressions solidified in my mind that evening:

1. This guy is such a class act. He doesn’t even drink… he just came down to see us.

2. His hands are so soft, like baby hands. I wish I wrote comics for a living.

A few other creators were there that night, but I didn’t recognize many of them. I did almost spill my drink on Geoff Johns (Flash, JSA, Green Lantern), but the Bendis thing was the highlight of the evening.

We all met up in the same bar the following night, but the place was impossibly crowded by then. Apparently Joss Whedon was there when we were, and I was so prepared to make an ass of myself and approach him… but I couldn’t find him. Mostly I just stood around trying not to drink, as I had seriously overdone it the night before. (And what sucked was, no one else would drink with me. I felt pretty pathetic about that.)

I guess I left too early on Saturday night, because some pretty awesome stuff happened not long after I went to bed. My board friend Flonk challenged Lou Ferrigno to arm wrestling which he (Flonk) naturally lost. And then Bendis showed up with Millar and a very drunk David Mack. I haven’t seen the pictures yet, but I’m told Mack put on quite a show. I’m sorry I missed it, but not very sorry that Lauri did.

Yeah, I’m kidding.

Part 4: Otters, Assemble!

Sunday we kind of shifted gears a bit. We hit the con one last time, because we still had money in our pockets… but we were out by noon. Our plans for this day centered around the actual city of Chicago, which neither of us had ever seen before. Fortunately, we had a built-in tour guide ready to show us around.

Before the trip, I would have refered to Mike Moylan as “a friend by association.” Data, as he was known in high school due to his resemblance to the Star Trek character, left the area before I joined the social circle that also included Mark. I heard stories about him, and had known him prior to my own “creative awakening,” but I only saw him on two short visits he made to the area about 12 years ago. We shared friends and interests, but we had never really spent much time together. But, thankfully, this trip was an opportunity to fix that.

Data and his wife Wendy picked us up at the hotel and proceeded to show us Chicago. We walked the river front, we saw the Field Museum (in which he and I traded some fantastic MST3K-style heckling), we consumed vast quantities of Italian food, visited the boardwalkish area known as Navy Pier and topped the evening off with drinks in the Hancock Building, which is almost as tall as the Sears Tower but has a bar instead of just an observation deck. Weather-wise, it could not have been a better day: it was about 80, with no humidity and not a cloud in the sky. It definitely made a solid impression on me — Chicago has now earned a spot on my “favorite American cities” list, with DC, Boston and New York.

After about 8 hours of serious bonding, Data and Wendy have now moved solidly into the “friend” category. We’ll see them again at Mark’s wedding in a few weeks, and I can’t wait. They really are a blast.

We were pretty exhausted after our day of sightseeing, but we did manage to hit the Hyatt bar one last time. There, we chatted with a few lingering Bendis board folks, but didn’t see anyone famous. (I guess we got pretty spoiled by this point.) Even though we only spent an hour or two among geeks and geeky things, Sunday managed to be every bit as fun as the rest of the trip, for entirely different reasons. It easily elevated the trip from “fun distraction” to “we definitely have to do this again.”

The drive home was, as expected, long and uneventful. Like a trip to Vegas, I needed to give myself a day to recover from the sensory overload and readjust to my pale, monotonous daily life. We got everything you could ever want out of this vacation: new friends, old friends, cool stuff, famous people and a new location to explore in greater depth at another time. Everyone I told about my vacation reacted with incredulity and scoffing when I told them we were going to Chicago, and I guess it isn’t exactly the place you think of when you think August vacation. But I can’t imagine having more fun anywhere else.

Click here to see a slideshow of pictures from the trip!

Well, here I am in Texas.

Here’s the thing about Texas: for years I had built up in my mind, for one reason or another, that this was a horrible, horrible place. I had a nasty breakup right before almost moving here for a girl. A good friend of mine had two of those — one with the same girl. I work with Texans, and they’re always going on about how much better things are in the lone star state.

But here we are, and it’s really no different from anywhere else aside from the signs and little pictures of the state outline everywhere. Seriously, if not for that and the occasional “y’all,” the Dallas-Fort Worth area could be any other American city.

Been hanging out online with a couple of cool kids from Pennsylvania lately — a very like-minded married couple we met on the Bendis board. I love when you meet people you click with so effectively.

Not a lot else going on… I’m here on business all week, hope to enjoy spending some time with people I don’t get a chance to see usually. When we get back, my number one priority will be wrapping up the game. Wish me ducks!

This is our last full day in Texas.

It’s been an interesting week — not so much “fun,” but interesting. I’ve always said that I should go someplace and see what it’s all about before I comment on it, and now I have. I can now definitively say, following my experiences in Texas this week, that pretty much everything you’ve heard is true.

Guys actually wear jeans and cowboy hats and consider it “dressing up.” Highway signs — actual official printed signs — say “don’t mess with Texas.” Men talk about huntin’, fishin’ and drivin’ their big trucks, and the letter “g” is conspicuously absent from the end of most words. The women are, I will admit more attractive, and the food is amazing (more about that in a minute), but for the most part, I feel very much like a stranger in a foreign land.

Did you know that Texas is the only state allowed to fly its flag at the same level as the US flag? I don’t know the story behind it (I bet every Texan does though), but it is a little unnerving. On the surface, Dallas-Fort Worth is no different from any other major American city I’ve been to (a list that includes San Diego, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Baltimore, Washington DC, Boston, Philadelphia and New York City) — all the standard trappings are here. (Or, if you prefer, “trappins.”) The major point of divergence comes from the intense local pride — a pride that, to an outsider, smacks of some secret shame or feeling of inadequacy.

I’ll give you an example. We were cruising around the very suburban Fort Worth area on our first night here, and we passed a typical suburban strip mall. In this strip mall was a Home Depot — not an uncommon site in any of the strip malls in this fine country. Only here, it’s not just Home Depot — it’s Texas Home Depot. I swear I’m not making that up. Everything here is like that. Lauri counted something like 25 occurences of the word “Texas” or the familiar silouhette of the state before she gave up and stopped counting. And this was within about half an hour of driving.

I realize now that “King of the Hill” is not so much an exaggerated comedy as it is an animated documentary. Nearly every man I’ve met here could be Hank Hill (or some combination of Hank, Dale, Bill and Boomhauer). Beer is a garnish, grilling meat is a science and love of the Dallas Cowboys is a religion. When I expressed my own football preferences — a Washington Redskins fan, and consequently, a Cowboys hater, since birth — I was reminded of what happened to the last visitor Dallas had from DC, back in 1963.

Speaking of that, I do regret not having visited Dealy Plaza, as well as a few other things we had intended to see while we’re here. The problem is, the laws of spatial geometry as I know them do not seem to exist in Texas. The same road can go in three different directions without any kind of designation, such as “north” and “south,” to indicate the difference. Or, at the other extreme, the same road can literally have five different names. The hotel from which I am now writing this is right off of 121/183/Airport Freeway. And no one seems to think this is all that unusual. On the first day I was to report to Bell Helicopter Plant 1 for work, I struggled a little to find my way in. I worked out a pretty smooth route back to the hotel, however… and I assumed it would serve me well the rest of the week. The next morning, when I went to reverse the directions, I found myself once again hopelessly lost. The problem was, when I went home, I took Hurst Boulevard (also highway 10) to Westpark Avenue to Airport Freeway. When I went back, I took Airport Freeway to Westpark… and couldn’t find Hurst Boulevard. Apparently, from the other direction, highway 10 is called Euless Boulevard. This wouldn’t have been so much of a problem if the road had also been labelled “highway 10,” but it was not. That pretty much sums up the week we’ve had trying to get anywhere.

We did eventually find a branch of Lonestar Comics however, which made us happy little geeks. Lonestar Comics operates one of the larger and more reputable mail order businesses on the web, and we were eager to check them out. It took two days and a bit of unconventional navigation to make it there, but the trip was well worth it. This store, one of about half a dozen around the Fort Worth area, was well-stocked and well-staffed. Plus, I snagged a copy of “The Dallas Cowboys and Spiderman,” which to me is the perfect way of saying “I’m a comic book geek who visited Texas.” When I get back to my scanner at home, there will be a much more indepth look at this gem, I can promise you.

Oddly, in my own backwards way, I enjoyed the work part of the trip more than the rest of it. I am glad that Lauri came along (I would miss her if we were apart for a week), but we haven’t exactly done much to report. Work-wise, I met a ton of people that, to this point, I have known only on the telephone. The nature of my work involves a fair amount of schmoozing, bribery and plain ol’ begging, so meeting people in person is definitely a plus on that front. We have managed to hang with some of the more helpful and friendly of my coworkers, including the quintessential Texan, Mr. Mike Steele.

Mike, to look at him (or even talk to him on the phone) is a dumb ol’ Texas redneck. He calls people “bubba” without a hint of irony, he’s notorious for his drinking and he never takes off his dark glasses at work. By all accounts, on the surface, Mike isn’t worth a whole lot. But there’s a whole lot more to him than surface. He happens to be the smartest Dispatcher (Bell Helicopter speak for “parts guy”) I have met in my three years with this company. My job involves a number of elements, and Mike has taught me everything I know about one of the key elements. Mike’s genius is his ability to appear as if he never does anything and doesn’t know anything, yet work circles around everyone in his department.

Not only that, but he’s also a lot of fun. I’m pretty down on Texas in a lot of ways, but Mike manages to personify all of those things that I enjoy about people from around here. He can be loud and extreme, but he’s not obnoxious. He loves to have a good time (read: LOTS OF BEER), but he’s a fun drunk. And he, more than anyone else I work with, is great for a pep talk when I’m having a crummy day. So it was pretty much a no-brainer that we’d go out with him and have a few one night. For that alone, I’m glad we came.

This is not to say that I have not enjoyed the company of my other coworkers, because I certainly have. The others are just not as colorful as Mike, and consequently, don’t make for great storytelling. I enjoyed the company of Michele and David, Suzan and Kenney and the guys in the GBS Admin office at Plant 1. I just don’t think any of them ever called me “bubba.”

The other positive thing about this trip has been the food. At a time when my personal goal is to lose 20 pounds, I think I’ve probably gained that much this week alone. From chicken fried steak to Texas BBQ, our taste buds have not been disappointed. I’ve enjoyed Mexican food of the quality that I expected in southern California, leading me to the realization that my unsophistocated American pallette truly craves “Tex Mex” over genuine Mexican food. And the steak… I’m drooling just thinking about that sucker. Thursday night, on the advice of many locals, we headed to a place called Saltgrass, allegedly home of the best steaks in Texas. (Though oddly, many people also mentioned Outback, which we have at home and pretty much everywhere else in America.)

Long story short, Lauri and I both got 24 ounce Porterhouse steaks from this place, and outside of fulfilling our marital vows, we have never experienced such simultaneous bliss before. I tend to exaggerate too much as it is, so anything I say to describe this steak will not do it justice. Take my word for it though: this was an awesome motherfucking piece of meat. It alone was worth all the things we’ve endured on this trip.

So that’s Texas, or at least this part of it.

Pros: Food. Southern hospitality. Finally, after three years, learning how to do my job. Better-than-average-looking women. The ability to knowledgeably insult Texas and Texans. Free high speed internet in the hotel room.

Cons: Shockingly open racism and sexism. All Texas, all the time. Roads by Escher. Lauri’s inability to locate the leopard-print cowboy hat that she promised a friend.

Here’s what happened when we tried to leave Texas today.

We are greeted this morning at DFW airport with incredibly long lines. So we get in the back and slowly trudge our way forward. At this point, it’s a good hour before our departure time. As we inch closer, I notice some “self-check-in” kiosks. There is no clear indication that we should be using these instead of standing in line, and the fact that hundreds of other people have opted to stand in line says to me that they’re not for us.

But we check them out, and sure enough, anyone can use them. Problem is, it’s 28 minutes before our flight departs. The cutoff time is (I’m not kidding) 30 minutes. Even though it hasn’t even started boarding yet, we have apparently missed our flight.

The lady behind the counter hands us boarding passes for the next flight to Baltimore. We proceed on to gate C-24, where we check in, just to be safe. “You’re fine,” they say. “Those are good boarding passes.”

They move our flight to gate C-4, where we again check in and find that our boarding passes are good.

The flight moves once more to gate C-3. We don’t check in this time, because we figure 2 other people already told us our boarding passes were in order.

So they start boarding the plane, and eventually our row comes up. They scan our boarding passes and… nothing. Consulting the computer, they discover that we were “no shows” for our earlier flight and are no longer in the system. Never mind what we were told at two other counters — these passes are no good. The lady at the counter does her best to find us a flight, but the best she can do is Dulles, which is about 50 miles from BWI, where our luggage is now headed.

Fearing no other alternative, we take the tickets and head back to gate C-21, where the Dulles flight will be departing in another 2 hours. Almost immediately, we’re paged over the intercom. The lady from the other gate apologizes and informs me that she found another flight to Baltimore, back at gate C-2, leaving in an hour. So we rush back down, check in with the desk and wait for the flight that finally takes us out of there.

All I can say is, Texas must have really liked us, because it sure as hell didn’t want us to leave.