aalgar.com

Some time ago, I had a rather remarkable visitor. It was the epic poet Homer, having navigated the treacherous seas of the space-time continuum (is there anything those old Greeks couldn’t do?), and he was carrying a small notepad. He told me that he was having some trouble working out the finer points of his story about a dude who has trouble getting back home, and he asked if I wouldn’t mind being observed on a simple expedition. Those notes would eventually become The Odyssey — one of the cornerstones of modern western literature. True story.

For those of you who have not witnessed the utter cosmic disarray that occurs whenever I attempt to move beyond about a 100-mile radius of my present location, allow me to encapsulate: stuff goes wrong. Lots of stuff. So much stuff, in fact, that scientists have considered renaming Murphy’s Law after me, or at the very least giving me the benefit of sharing one side of a hyphen with the long-forgotten Murphy. (Eddie? Audie? That chick that Dan Quayle hated?) This is also a completely true story.

Mind you, my most recent trip was not a vacation. (I am presently in a financial position that makes pleasure trips nigh impossible.) I was headed back to southern Maryland — the region where I spent 25 of my 33 years; a region which my family still proudly calls home. Since relocating to Seattle in early 2006, I have managed to make it back home for Christmas each year, but that’s about it. My mom, fulfilling her legal duties as a mother, frequently gives me crap about not coming back more frequently. But it was the failing health of her mother — my last remaining grandmother of the three I started with — that convinced me to head back a few months early.

The honest fact of the matter is that she may not be there by the time my next Christmas visit rolls around. I hate to get too heavy in what is otherwise meant to be a fluff piece, so this will be the only time I mention it. But just so you know — this is pretty much the only way anyone could lure me back to the region at this time of year.

Mom booked me a pair of non-stop flights, which I’m certain she considered a favor to me. And in the practical “less stuff to go wrong” sense, she was almost certainly right. But in the sense of “I may be 33, but I’m really still a squirmy 5 year-old who can’t sit still for five hours,” this was probably not the best choice. I will say that I’m glad my iPhone can play Tetris as well as movies and music now, but even that only occupied me for so long. Why I can spend upwards of 10-12 hours sitting at my computer (or the computer at the various jobs I’ve held over the years) without so much as a potty break, but utterly crack at the idea of sitting in a reclinable seat with a view of the entire continent… no man can say. I guess I have control issues or something.

I did notice this adorable gay couple on the flight. And yeah, I realize when I say stuff like that, I sound like an old person trying to sound hip and progressive. I don’t know what to tell you — I’d love to be blind to such things, but the fact is, even since moving to Seattle, I rarely see same-sex couples displaying affection openly. And I’m not talking about the tonsil-scraping kind of affection; just simple hand-holding on take-off and landing. Those subtle reassurances that couples give one another. It shouldn’t be a big deal to me, but it kinda is. It’s cool to see them not telegraphing “we’re gay, live with it!” from 30,000 feet, but also not afraid to act like two people who are together would act. I had been preparing myself for a return to the rural Navy-centric town in which I’d grown up, so I guess this just caught me off-guard. In a good way.

Eventually we landed at Fred Sanford International airport, which is located in Baltimore, my absolute least favorite place to be in the entire United States. You know all the filth and murder they show on The Wire? Yeah, that’s cleaned up for television, trust me. Naturally, this would end up being where I got stranded for several hours. Naturally. But I’m getting ahead of myself here.

I collected my luggage, stepped out of the airport and into the oppressive mid-Atlantic heat/humidity. When I left Seattle, it was about 70 degrees. Now it was in the mid-90s with the humidity also in the mid-90s. When summer hits in this area, it feels (and often smells) like you’re being held in someone’s damp armpit for about four months. This was probably the thing I missed the least. But hey, since I got laser surgery, I don’t have any glasses to fog up when I step out of the air conditioning. (You know me… always looking for that silver lining.)

So I headed for the rental car facility. This airport has one of those satellite buildings where all the rental agencies are forced to live in peace and harmony. Also, there is a food court. It’s like a very specific mall, where you have to be at least 25 to get anything.

I’d reserved a car through Enterprise, and went over to pick it up. I actually had trouble understanding the guy behind the counter at first, as I hadn’t encountered the unique Maryland accent for quite some time. But eventually I was able to work out that he was offering me an upgrade from my reservation, for a small additional fee. It’s not usually my style to accept anything from a pushy salesman, and I’m not sure why I decided to do it this time, but that’s where all my troubles began.

“Sorry,” he told me, handing back my debit card, “it’s been declined.” We quickly figured out that, because of the $200 deposit that Enterprise takes from debit card users, my balance was about $20 shy of what I was being charged. “Fine,” I said. “Give me something smaller and try it again.” But naturally, they couldn’t do that. They can only charge the same card once in a 24 hour period, you see. For your protection.

(This same “protection” philosophy is why it takes me 20 minutes to log into my bank account, or why I have to give a blood sample to the phone company to check my bill balance.)

Of course, this is the only card I have. So basically, I was screwed. Fortunately I was in a snazzy little consolidated facility with all the other rental places within a few steps of one another, so finding an alternative shouldn’t have been too difficult. I even requested the car for a single night, to ensure I would have enough money for this transaction — I could always put more money into the bank the next day and extend the rental. But it turned out that Enterprise had the most generous policy of all when it comes to debit cards: most of the other places (well, the ones that actually had cars without a reservation) wanted at least a $500 deposit. So, yeah. No car for me.

I called my parents, who did everything they could do to help from 100 miles away. My mom is currently taking care of my grandmother, and was not in a position to leave her for a few hours. My dad was prepared to head up and get me, but while all this was happening, my younger brother had taken the family boat out and gotten stranded. It wasn’t his fault, mind you — it was something about a bad repair on the engine — but the end result was the same. He was stranded in the middle of the Chesapeake Bay, while I was stranded in an air conditioned building. It suddenly put my problem into a bit of perspective.

Fortunately, I do still have a couple of friends remaining in the area. I called my friend Bob (whom I have known for over half my life), and he very graciously agreed to ditch his plans for the evening (sorry!) and cart me down to the nether-regions of Nowhere.

In an odd way, this ended up being a good thing. I mean, I had taken Bob from a production of his Beer Media Tech podcast, not to mention a few hundred miles out of his way when all was said and done. But I also hadn’t seen the guy since Christmas, and it hadn’t initially looked as if I’d have time to spend with him at all on this trip. So it gave us a little time to talk. Which was nice. We got to my parents’ house on the water sometime around 1AM and decided to take a romantic walk out on the pier.

 

My parents’ pier (click to see full-sized).

 

I mean. Uh. Nothing.

He ended up staying in one of the spare bedrooms (a different one than I did, all right?), and headed out early the next morning. I eventually got up sometime before noon — I actually keep pretty sensible hours, but I was trying to stay on west coast time — and was greeted to the vicious sounds of my family’s guard dog as I made my way downstairs.

Fira, my brother’s daschund, who could fit in my pocket when I last saw her, clearly did not recall our last meeting. I guess she thought I was an intruder of some kind, and was barking out warnings to the otherwise empty house. I’m actually mildly curious to see what would have happened if this exchange had continued for any length of time, but as it happened, both my parents stopped in almost immediately. The dog, seeing that I was not a threat, proceeded to lick me, nibble my toes and drag various squeaking toys toward me for the duration of my visit. Oh, the torture.

 

My brother’s weiner dog (click to see full-sized).

 

There’s not a ton to relate about the actual visit itself. I spent a fair amount of time breathing in second-hand smoke (everyone but the dog smokes — and even that’s a matter of time, I think), watching a lot of mindless TV (Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader? Are you fucking kidding me?) and being taunted for my recent unemployment and weight gain. (Both of these things, I should point out, are things I deserve to be taunted for. I’m not complaining.) I read the local paper, discovering that the most amiable drug dealer I’d ever met was going to prison (sad!), and that Kenny Loggins’ star had fallen so far that he was playing the Calvert Marine Museum.

I also spent a bit of time with my little brother, who remains the sanest person there. If you’d made this statement to me 5 years ago, I’d have called you a filthy liar. But I have to say, the kid has really grown up. He’s working, going to school and all-around keeping out of trouble. I’m kinda proud of him. He did, however, absolutely insist that the US was occupying the Netherlands. Now, I know I’ve been out of the loop on world events for some time, but I think I would have heard about this. If anyone wants to enlighten me, please do.

I was also hoping to get on one of my parents’ jetskis for a short time, but we couldn’t get them started. There’s no possible way I can express my disappointment without sounding like a spoiled rich kid, so I’m just going to leave it there.

 

What’s left of the beach at my grandmother’s house. When I was a kid, it was literally 10 times this size. (Click to see full-sized.)

 

Me, my brother and the little dog (click to see full-sized).

 

Me, dad and my brother (click to see full-sized).

 

My brother, my mom and me.

 

So yeah, after a few days of togetherness, it was time to get the hell out of there. (I love them all to death, but you know how it is. I’m sure they felt exactly the same about me.) On the way out of town, I located a can of the elusive Orange Blast Jolt, which meant the following:

• Jolt, which I had to order by the case via various websites when I lived here, was now plentiful
• a specific flavor of Jolt that I could not even locate in Seattle, was also plentiful
• my shrine is now nearly complete, missing only the nearly-impossible-to-find Passion Fruit Jolt

I got to spend a little time talking with my mother on the way to the airport (she was otherwise occupied with my grandmother for most of my visit), and I tried once again to convince her just why I’m so “pessimistic” (her word) about traveling. I don’t think I really got through to her till the text message I sent a few hours later:
“all westbound flights have been grounded for weather. So I am stuck.” I would have heard her laughing her ass off had I not been instructed to turn off my cell phone. See, being asked to sit still for what ended up being 2 hours was not enough: we also weren’t allowed to access our carry-on luggage (or even to get out of our seats) or use any electronic devices. Fun!

We did finally make it out of there though. I attempted to sleep on the way home, but the pilot was one of those who loves pointing out every tiny navigational detail, and since our route had to be altered a few times, he took absolute delight in telling us exactly how we’d been diverted. “We were going over Pittsburgh, Columbus, then to Cincinatti, Gary, Chicago… but now we’re going over Cleveland, Indianapolis…” Ugh.

With all the delays (and a baggage delay unlike anything even I have seen before), I ended up exiting the airport sometime around 2AM. All the good buses had long since stopped running, so I had to take a ride all the way downtown, then right back into the direction of the airport to end up at my apartment (which is only about a 10 minute drive from Seatac). Most of you probably already know the kinds of people riding a bus at 2AM, but I’m still fairly new to the city and I usually drive my own car. So this was a new, and not terribly pleasant experience for me.

But I did end up making it home, somehow. I had to be up in 4 hours to pick my dog up from the kennel, lest I be charged an extra day… but that was domestic trouble, which is somehow infinitely more manageable than the kind that inevitably strikes when I’m out in the world. I guess there’s really only one thing for it: I am never leaving this damn apartment again.

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.