Riverfront.

This weekend, we had the good fortune to be invited to a riverfront cabin in West Virginia to spend the weekend with friends, both human and canine.

We were treated to warm, dry weather, more food than we could eat, cold beer, water only a few degrees cooler than body temperature, and a welcome case of vacation amnesia.

Claddagh the dog showed off her training for the Women's 500 meter individual medley, rarely leaving the water in favor of chasing dragonflies and herding sticks.

Later, she shipped out for a tour as the first mate of the kayak.

Saturday night we sat around a fire and made s'mores, and I attempted not to ignite our marshmallows into flaming sugar bombs.

Big, big thanks go to Mr. Scout and his lovely wife, who made the whole thing possible. My brain, My wife, our baby, and my carpal tunnel THANK YOU.

Posted on August 4, 2008 9:26 AM | link to this entry | comments (8)

Summer Showers.

Somehow, we made it back from New York State yesterday, our jeep stuffed to the gills with new baby gear. Intermittent thunderstorms didn't dampen the beautiful baby shower my mother held for us on the front porch of the house, and we were overwhelmed by the generosity of our family, who brought thoughtful gifts and sage advice. Thank you, everyone.

The rest of the weekend was spent relaxing on the porch, eating too much cake, and visiting with my mother's brother, who I haven't seen in years (and who hadn't met Jen yet). As always, the weekend was too short, and we had to head home to the heat.

Posted on July 22, 2008 9:36 AM | link to this entry | comments (0)

Car Shopping.

I've lately been scouring back issues of Consumer Reports, reading on different cars, determined to find the one that will provide the best balance of mileage, protection, space, and value. Reliability is key, because if we actually do buy a car, it's going to need to last the three of us a good long time. I started with the Honda Fit, thinking small and nimble meant gas-frugal. When my neighbor found out what I was looking at, he told me to consider an Accord, which he claimed had comparable gas mileage and offered more protection. Consumer Reports put that myth to bed, but I then looked at a Civic, which isn't that much more expensive than a Fit but offers plenty of room and similar efficiency.

For comparable cars, I'm adding in the Scion Xd due to the mileage and reliability ratings, as well as the Nissan Versa and the Toyota Matrix. Even though Jen's 10-year-old Saturn coupe gets 40mpg, modern Saturns are out due to reliability issues and lousy gas mileage, and I'm ruling out any other American brands for the same reason. Subarus are out due to thirsty AWD, as is the Mazda3. I refuse to buy a Hyundai, Kia or Suzuki because I already own enough plastic toys.

Note: I also looked at hybrids but I'm not impressed with the available space: if I need to cart baby, luggage, and X-mas presents around, interior room will already be at a premium. I also looked at VW's TDI offerings, but their cumulative reliability ratings leave me shivering with fear.

To level the playing field, I'm trying to stick with the same basic setup in each car. As much as I hate the idea of a 4-cylinder for durability, it's the best mileage option. A stick shift is a no-brainer; we both prefer them, they're cheaper, and they get better mileage. Crash ratings are important to us, obviously, but I understand I can't own an Excursion and expect to afford the gas, so I'm going with the offense-is-the-best-defense strategy. Each of these cars have standard front and side curtain airbags and ABS brakes.

So what's the deal with the Civic getting 22 city and 40 highway? That seems like an awful big spread to me. If I lived in a more rural area, I'd say Civic all the way, but I'm in one of the more congested corridors of the East Coast. I'll take 33mpg in the city, thank you. I like the idea of a hatchback, and I intend on putting a good-quality roof rack on whatever we buy, as well as a hitch (if I can).

We also have two glowing reviews from Fit owners vs. one from a former Accord owner. My ex used to have a Civic, and I enjoyed that car well enough to consider one of my own. Much of the final decision will involve a test drive.

To be continued...

Posted on May 13, 2008 9:49 AM | link to this entry | comments (6)

Hospital Visit.

I'm currently upstate visiting my Dad, who's recovering from surgery on his ticker. He's currently waiting to get the stupid tube taken out of his throat so he can talk again instead of us having to struggle to understand his handwriting.

Posted on May 8, 2008 5:14 PM | link to this entry | comments (0)

A face only a mother could love

Jen and I took advantage of the one sunny day this weekend to get the hell out of town. We pointed the car at the Bay Bridge and visited Easton, MD, which happened to be hosting a Waterfowl Festival, which meant that the streets were blocked off and filled with people. From the website, I would have expected lots of guns, decoys and hunting equipment, but it felt more like a wine festival in New England. The town itself is pretty, and it's filled with lots of fussy shops filled with potpourri and "new antique" furniture—it's obvious there's lots of money there, which I would not have guessed. After walking around the town and checking out the sights, we stopped into the Restaurant Local to get out of the chill and have some cocktails, and stayed for a delicious dinner.

Posted on November 12, 2007 11:55 AM | link to this entry

Back from the FLA

Baltimore is a lot more comfortable than when I left last week. I had the bizarre experience of leaving 100° weather with humidity at rain-forest levels to travel south to a tropical state with less humidity and cooler temperatures.

Everything on that trip worked out better than I could have hoped, really. Despite working my ass off while I was down there, missing out on using the hotel pool entirely, we were staying only three miles away from the House of Blond Smiling Children, which made it easy for Jen to visit while I was at work. On Friday night I was able to back away from the computer for the evening, and we drove across Orlando to try Seasons 52, the first non-chain (well, it's an upscale chain, because this is Orlando, after all, and there is no escaping chains there) food we'd had in a week.

As it happened, I was working with a fellow who was an avid skydiver, and he gave me an idea for the perfect birthday gift: falling out of a plane strapped to a total stranger! After some discussion, he helped me pick the right local venue for Jen, who was genuinely suprised and thrilled to take me up on the offer. A short drive out 50 to the coast on Saturday morning led us to the Skydive Space Center, where a nice man named Terry hooked Jen up to a very simple-looking rig, gave her a pair of goggles and a five-minute briefing, and then led her into the plane. As she disappeared down the runway, waving from the open door, I hoped I would see her again in one piece, and also thanked God she understood why I wanted to keep my chicken ass on the ground.

After waiting under a deep blue Florida sky for a few minutes, we spied the plane at drop altitude, and soon saw the first parachutes blossoming, specks against the fluffy cloud layer overhead. They circled lazily for a few minutes, riding the thermals, and then began to come in for landings one after the other. I picked out Jen from a distance and started shooting pictures as she came in over my shoulder and landed facing away from me. The verdict: swinging under the risers made her queasy, but freefall was amazing and she'd do the whole thing again in a minute.

After some recovery, we sought out a restaurant in town which was recommended by two separate parties: The Dixie Crossroads, where we were told to sample the rock shrimp. It's a restaurant with a lot of local character, but the food is killer and the service is excellent. More importantly, the shrimp did not disappoint, and the comparison in taste to fresh lobster is true.

Making our way back home to the hotel, we passed several roadside attractions and sights unique to the area: Airboat rides, a petting zoo in the shape of an alligator, a dragstrip, and boiled peanut stands. Florida was good to us, something I wasn't expecting, quite honestly. The friends are great, the A/C is cold, we got to see the Space Shuttle take off, and everything is beautiful from 15,000 feet.

Posted on August 13, 2007 10:12 AM | link to this entry

Can you see her smiling from here?

In the air over the runway. Happy Birthday, baby!

Posted on August 11, 2007 5:37 PM | link to this entry

Corn fritters are awesome

These things are addictive.

Posted on August 11, 2007 3:07 PM | link to this entry

Dixie Crossroads, Titusville FL.

We have been told the rock shrimp at Dixie Crossroads is the thing to have when in Titusville.

Posted on August 11, 2007 3:00 PM | link to this entry

She did it!

She is a skydiver!

Posted on August 11, 2007 1:42 PM | link to this entry

Skydive Space Center

Titusville, FL

Posted on August 11, 2007 1:05 PM | link to this entry

Space Shuttle Launch

Wow, that went quickly. We didn't hear anything, but it sure did look cool.

Posted on August 8, 2007 6:31 PM | link to this entry | comments (2)

Dateline: Orlando.

I'm holed up in my hotel room working with the thermostat lever somewhere between 70° and 80°, staying out of the blinding soupy air outside. Jen told me that when she lived in Texas they tended to chill the air down to ridiculous levels, and that her time there was spent in either charring heat or freezing conditioned air, and I can see what she's talking about. I should have brought a sweater for staying inside.

Posted on August 7, 2007 9:57 AM | link to this entry | comments (3)

Signpost Ahead

That's pretty dark, but it's supposed to say "Orlando/Tampa". Time to throw away clean the lens on my phone.

Posted on August 5, 2007 11:19 AM | link to this entry

Back to the Land Of The Mouse.

Tickets are being purchased for another business trip, this time to sunny Orlando, home of the Mouse. It's been a few years since we were there (This child is now a part-time model and Harvard law professor), but we had lots of fun while we were there; instead of relying on Corporate America to entertain us, I went looking for some alternatives. Jen has already been to Gatorland and Kennedy Space Center, but I'd like to see both, if possible. Any suggestions?

Posted on July 25, 2007 2:56 PM | link to this entry | comments (9)

Blue Curacao

I started writing this from my hotel bed on Wednesday, in front of the Tonight Show, because I couldn't get to sleep. It wasn't because I was having a bad time, or that I wasn't relaxed, or that there were college students having a kegger in the room next door. It's because I had a cup of very strong European coffee after dinner, and I was waiting for the caffeine to wear off.

Curacao itself is the largest of three southern Caribbean islands (Aruba and Bonaire) off the coast of Venezuela, and features a full-sized runway, which avoided the need for a puddle-jumper connecting flight. The hotel we chose, the Mariott, is situated away from the center of the island's largest town, and has been a quiet oasis where we both regressed to levels of sloth not seen since the height of the Roman Empire. We had a few requirements when we were looking for our destination: Jen wanted a beach where people would serve us drinks while we sunbathed. We both wanted a hotel away from civilization but with enough amenities to make it feel like we weren't doing time in the joint. We also wanted to have a vacation where we weren't focused on going and doing and seeing and learning, but sleeping and drinking and napping and sunning. I'm proud to say our longest hike was the one from the beach back to the hotel room (or maybe to the restaurant on Friday night. Oh, the horror.)

Everything about the trip was fantastic. The flight down featured a surprise, which made rising at 3am for the taxi worthwhile: the only remaining seats available were in First Class, so we suffered the comfy seats, ample legroom, warmed mixed nuts, multiple wine refills, and jealous glances of the rabble in steerage on both legs of the trip southward. It will be hard to go back to Economy.

The weather has been perfect-we lounged on deck chairs under brilliant blue skies all week, and got more sun than we probably deserved. The beach at the hotel featured soft, tan sand and crystal blue water; the wind blew steadily across our chairs hard enough to warrant weighting down our towels, cutting the heat and humidity of the day back to a pleasant warmth. And yes, after an hour or so, a smiling woman stopped over to offer us cold alcoholic beverages. Perfect.

Curacao is noted for its diving and snorkeling, and we saw some breathtaking fish 20 feet off the hotel beach (but couldn't be bothered to schedule a snorkeling trip-this was about the leisure, after all) and enjoyed cooling off in the bathwater-like ocean. At one point, I was surrounded by a cloud of striped grunts and sergeant majors, watching a small yellow wrasse clean the mouth of a queen parrotfish as a long, narrow trumpetfish floated above us, nose down, surveying the rocks and brain coral below. Out over the sand, yellow goatfish quietly schooled as needlefish patrolled overhead. Instead of spending time getting certified (or re-certified), we were happy to snorkel at our leisure, and that was perfect.

Wednesday we broke down and left the siren song of the beach and the pool to explore Willemstad, the main city on the island, which is a pleasant mixture of European sophistication and island charm. In the central section of town, we found palm-lined streets lined with open air cafes, and after wandering the streets and alleys for a while, we stopped to have a cold beer.

After a while, the people next to us struck up a conversation, and as it turned out, the woman had lived in Baltimore for six years until moving to Texas earlier this year to be with her new fiancee. So we had a lot to talk about, and after agreeing to meet up in town for dinner the next time they visited, we parted ways and continued our wandering.

Our hotel was a perfect mixture of convenience and solitude; the ability to find something to eat at 11PM was only tempered by the fact that it was hotel food–a few crucial steps above eating out of vending machines (which I've done.) After sampling pretty much every offering at the hotel, Jen suggested we try a restaurant down the street called Hook's Hut on Friday, which turned out to be an open-air beachfront establishment with a run-down repair shed vibe, but which served excellent seafood and cold drinks.

The following night we tried a place called Sjallotte, a european-flavored restaurant conveniently located across the street but hidden within another hotel's grounds. Once we'd found the actual hostess desk, we were seated near the kitchen (which was not a bad seat at all) and enjoyed a delicious meal in the cool evening air.

Everyone on the island couldn't be friendlier, kinder, or more helpful. Our final days were filled with a mixture of happiness and sorrow as the hours ticked down until we had to leave.

Postscript: Avoid flying through the Miami airport, especially if it's an international connection. Saturday evening, we got in from Curacao and had to go through border security, then pick up our checked baggage, drag it through customs, and then attempt to figure out what to do next. We were technically outside the airport with our bags, so we had to re-check them and go through security again before walking across the airport to reach our connecting flight. Predictably, they lost our luggage, so we caught a cab home and filed a claim over the phone.

Posted on June 17, 2007 1:19 PM | link to this entry | comments (3)

On the road

Posted on June 8, 2007 4:52 AM | link to this entry

Not So Personal Injury.

Jen has been fascinated by the story of the quarantined tuberculosis patient for the last two days, and she and I talked about it at length this morning. A few things in this story stand out to me/us:

1. Why didn't the CDC tell the guy straight out not to fly? I realize they have limited powers over citizens, but I'd think that they would have developed protocols by now to deal with potentially deadly patients/carriers of rare diseases. Report the guy to the Feds and have them haul him in, for god's sake.


2. "Speaker said he felt as if the CDC had suddenly 'abandoned him.'" No, asshole, they were afraid you were going to contaminate even more people. They wanted you to visit a hospital, where your illness could have been treated or stabilized before you got on another plane.


3. " ...the U.S. border inspector who allowed Speaker back into the country, disregarding a computer warning to stop the man and don protective gear, has been removed from border duty." That's Homeland Security, folks. I feel safer already.


4. Why didn't his wife tell him to stay home? Her dad works for the CDC, researching tuberculosis, and his dad, a lawyer, was there when the CDC interviewed him. While I freely admit that our government is poorly managed, and most likely gave this man conflicting information, if I knew I had an airborne-spreading illness, I wouldn't get on an airplane.


5. "...Additionally, Speaker, a personal injury attorney, could sue the federal government for being quarantined on the basis of federal regulations that some scholars see as unconstitutional." If that happens, I hope the federal government lets each and every one of those other passengers sue the shit out of this guy.


6. From CNN: "He flew from Prague to Montreal, apparently in order to sidestep a no-fly order that could have stopped or delayed his return to North America. Once in Canada, Speaker and his wife drove across the border to New York, where he was treated at a hospital..." Sounds to me like he and his family knew exactly what the score was, and decided to put their own self interest (and wedding) in front of everyone else's health.


7. He's a personal injury lawyer. It seems to me that he'd have an even greater appreciation for the consequences of his actions than many other people, who might just claim honest ignorance. The fact that he went ahead anyway shows that the ethics classes he might have taken at the Naval Academy and the University of Georgia didn't stick too well.


8. Reasons to postpone a wedding, the short list:
   
   
   
   1. Realization your soon-to-be-partner is in love with someone else.
   
   
   2. Alien attack.
   
   
   3. Death in the family (has to be nuclear, because Aunt Sadie is too far off the tree to count).
   
   
   4. Being called to military service.
   
   
   5. Typhoon.
   
   
   6. Global thermonuclear war.
   
   
   7. The check for the reception bounced.
   
   
   8. Unexpected delivery of a child.
   
   
   9. Infection of an airborne, possibly resistant strain of communicable disease.
   
   
   
   

Posted on June 1, 2007 1:55 PM | link to this entry

Return From The Land of Cheese.

The Lockard Tour Van is back in town after a whirlwind three-night limited engagement to support Annie, who kind of got her diploma Saturday morning, and all I can say is that I'm still tired. Our first stop was Ashland, Ohio, to prepare for the graduation ceremony, and as we loaded up the van we were given our itinerary, typed neatly on a single sheet of paper. To the hour, our schedule was outlined in Times New Roman to keep the caravan on track, and even though it was handy to have, we used it to poke fun at Jen's dad good-naturedly throughout the trip.

Despite some last-minute drama, the graduation went off without a hitch, and even though the threat of rain loomed, it turned out to be a beautiful day. We shared a late lunch with Jen's aunt and then passed out back at the hotel to sleep off the carbohydrates. Before venturing out for a late dinner, we hijacked Jen's father into a visit to the CHEESEBARN, an inexplicably-named highway attraction up the road from our hotel. Unfortunately, the CHEESEBARN was closed and we weren't able to explore its wonders in detail.

However, we did stop for a picture out front.

Then we enjoyed a prolonged tour of the seedier side of Mansfield, OH, looking for somewhere other than a Perkins to eat dinner; the directions given were, shall we say, vague, and it took a while to get oriented until we found an Olive Garden to stop at.

Sunday morning we were under strict orders to be loaded and ready by 8:30, because the day was tightly planned: we were stopping in to visit with Jen's great aunt, who is in a retirement home, and then on to visit her mother's gravesite. Her great aunt is still sharp and funny, and we were presently joined by a group of cousins who helped us take over the entire front room of the facility.

Driving on to the gravesite, we passed fields that had been flooded in January of 2005 (we were some of the last cars allowed in before the state troopers shut the highway down that night), through the sleepy, worn-down town, and up the hill to where her marker sat in bright afternoon sunshine. The family had about ten minutes alone with her before a gaggle of extended family arrived, and then we stood around and caught up with folks we hadn't seen in two years.

And then, it was time to load up the van and get on the road. The trip back was uneventful, apart from everyone in the van (including driver) dozing off after lunch at the Sonic, and we were treated to a tour of the rolling hills of West Virginia and miles of empty countryside until we made it back to town last night. And I'll be damned if Jen's Dad didn't get us home a half-hour ahead of schedule.

Posted on May 14, 2007 9:28 AM | link to this entry

As far as my rental car can go.

We're back for a whirlwind couple of days before we leave again, this time to Ohio for a graduation which might not even happen. (More details on this as we get them.)

Getting upstate to see the family was great, and long overdue. My parents hosted my grandfather's birthday party at their house, and apart from a minor crisis involving aluminum foil, butter, and forty ovens worth of smoke, everything went off without a hitch. The weather even cooperated enough for us to get a few peaceful, warm hours on the front porch, something I always look forward to when we're up there. Grampy enjoyed the party and kept us laughing through the entire celebration, even though he hasn't changed the battery in his hearing aid this year and is as deaf as a post. Luckily he always had one of his children sitting with him and translating whenever anyone posed a question from across the room.

Back here in Maryland, we have finally picked up our new rug for either the blue room or our bedroom, whichever it looks best in. Choosing carpet is difficult at best in flourescent light, with small paint chips, and under the watchful, predatory eye of the carpet salesman, so we narrowed the possibilities down to two rooms. Unfortunately, the room it's most likely to go into is also one of the least used rooms in the main section of the house.

I've spent the last two days alternating between paying work and computer maintenance; the parts for Jen's Powerbook came in while we were away, so I stripped it down to the bare frame to replace the DC/power board and both display cables. I spent many nervous hours consulting various manuals and writing notes to myself while organizing tiny screws in yogurt containers. Strangely enough, what took me about six hours to disassemble took only two to reassemble, and it was with a deep breath and a long prayer to the Sky Pilot that I pushed the power button. I got the lovely startup chime, a few minutes of nothing, and then...the same two-thirds-black screen I had before I started.

Rooting around for answers, I'm hearing that it's the LCD itself from a parts vendor ($300), or could be the inverter board itself, the only part I didn't replace ($60) when I had the monitor assembly open. I'm now about $500 into this thing and the prospect of spending another $300 does not please me.

However, we did find a workaround for Jen to be able to run InDesign CS and CS3 on the same machine (to recap, CS3 takes control of all InDesign documents regardless of their creator version after it is installed and run for the first time, making it impossible to re-edit them in CS) by creating a second user on the same machine and using CS as that user. Not elegant or ideal, but it gets the job done for now. Adobe gets the big Middle Finger for that one.

Meanwhile, I have been afflicted with record-player disease for the past few weeks: this is when a snippet of one song repeats endlessly in the back of my head, all day long. Last week, it was Rental Car by Beck, which wasn't so bad, but this week I got the chorus to a Counting Crowes song stuck in my noggin when we heard it in the Korean grocery. I hated this band when they were big, and now I am cursed with the melody of their second-rate hit day and night. It got so bad yesterday that I stayed up until midnight to try and resuscitate our music server, which suddenly up and died a few weeks ago. From what I can tell, it stopped booting completely, so I transplanted the drive into a spare, only to be met with a flashing questionmark. This was too much to deal with at midnight, so I tested the third machine and realized it was my old work music server, the one with about 65% of my collection on board. Good enough! The main drive with all our music is fine, but it just won't boot in that particular machine. Strange.

Posted on May 9, 2007 10:05 AM | link to this entry

Porch and Lake

Posted on May 4, 2007 11:52 AM | link to this entry

Home Again

I'm back in Baltimore after a whirlwind tour of San Francisco. My internal time clock, which has never really been that accurate, woke me up at 7:45 EST after being forced backwards all week.

I didn't really get the chance to take a lot of pictures this time around, because much of my time was spent working, commuting, eating, or sleeping. The job itself is new and challenging, and I like the people a lot. While I was out there I was able to catch up with a bunch of friends, which made the trip twice as valuable to me—a lot of good people are out on the Left Coast now, and my work schedule has made it possible to visit with them and get paid for it, something I appreciate greatly.

Meanwhile, I've taken over some additional responsibility on a current project which should make April a very frantic month, something I view with a mixture of excitement and dread. There are a lot of balls to juggle in the upcoming weeks, and I hope I have the ability to do so.

Posted on March 30, 2007 11:00 AM | link to this entry

Calla Lilies

Another shot from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.

Posted on March 26, 2007 8:23 PM | link to this entry

Point Bonita Lighthouse

Through the fog.

Posted on March 25, 2007 6:11 PM | link to this entry

The Clock Is Ticking...

I have one more day (today) to prepare for my trip west, and I'm no further along than I was last Tuesday. This week has been spent putting out fires, taking care of current work, and fitting in the odd moment of personal time where I can—but mainly, it's been a series of twelve to fourteen hour days set up like dominoes, each crashing into the next.

I have a pile of junk on my desk (the "take with me" file) and another pile of stuff on the floor (the "might take it with me" pile) which is making it difficult to use the new Bluetooth mouse I bought at the Apple Store yesterday (yes, they had Apple TV there, but no, I didn't get to see it or buy one). It's a Logitech V270 optical mouse, and I'm probably going to take it back for an exchange. The buttons are too hard to press—I don't need to exacerbate my carpal tunnel here—and the scroll wheel does that annoying thing where it's slow to start and then speeds up too fast, like selecting text in MS Word in Windows: just when I get to the thing I want, suddenly I'm seventy-three pages past it. So it's back to the junk mouse for now.

I haven't been taking too many pictures these days, both because I don't have a lot of good subject matter and because time is at a premium. I'm hoping to change that when I'm in Cali, because I need a change of scenery to get some creative juices flowing. I was hoping to bring some illustration work with me to work on, but it's looking more like I'm going to be reading a new book in preparation for a project that's taken a completely different turn while I'm out there, as well as trying out some new software to help the process along.

Crap. It's 5:30 already, I owe two proposals this afternoon and I haven't packed anything yet.

Posted on March 23, 2007 5:14 PM | link to this entry

Going Back To Cali.

It's not quite official yet, but OK, it's official. The word on the street is that I'm headed back out to San Francisco at the end of this month for a project kickoff meeting with a new client (I'm keeping names and places confidential). I will be spending the next two weeks brushing up on several new technologies, a content management system, and my sparkling personality.

* * *

In other news, a brief interruption in Movable Type service here at Idiot Central was traced back to a botched install of MT-Akismet in hopes of stemming the tide of comment spam. I was about to freak out yesterday when all I got after logging in to the management section was a blank page, but I walked away from it for half a day and remembered what things I'd monkeyed with when the site started to go south. So, to sum up: When the manual says that MT-Akismet doesn't work with MT 3.1, it's not kidding.

* * *

I'm finding that installing and configuring a private VPN is about as easy as assembling a nuclear reactor underwater with directions in Chinese. I'm not a stupid man, but do they make this shit impossible to understand on purpose? Seriously, I haven't had to deal with this many acronyms at one time in my life! And it seems like the vendors all have different acronyms for the same thing. Just call it one word and be done with it, you dorks.

* * *

After a good bit of time in development, I've posted a replacement for (what I considered) one of the weaker illustrations at the Alphabet Project, the letter Q. I was trying something different, but I wasn't ever really happy with the solution. The new solution is in the form of a concert poster for a show I didn't attend, and it stars a lady I figured I'd find much more about here on the internets-but didn't. I wound up using screen grabs from a video I found online for photo reference.

I'm also working furiously on new art for a larger project, something I've been threatening to do for years, and something it took a well-timed and much appreciated push from my wife to actually begin: I made a down payment for an advertisement at the Directory of Illustration last week. The Directory is a combination of marketing tools which include a searchable website, a hardback book which gets distributed in the fall, and a pile of other resources for promotion. This means that my work will be seen by a ton of new people very quickly. This also means I need to have a page layout for the book by the beginning of May, and I have space reserved for 20 illustrations on their website right now. Part of my revisit to the Alphabet Project is to clean up the work I'm not entirely happy with, which means that Paul Bremer will get a rework. Mark Felt will probably get looked at (or maybe replaced). And Interpol will probably get cleaned up too. Once I've got that stuff looking tight, I'm going to post a handful on the other site and see if anything happens.

I don't think I'm going to be sleeping much in the near future...

Posted on March 15, 2007 10:30 PM | link to this entry

Rollover

Posted on January 20, 2007 2:03 PM | link to this entry

My Pops

Over a tray of clear liquids, which is a good sign. His appetite is strong and he's looking much better.

Posted on January 6, 2007 10:21 PM | link to this entry

Red Top Market

On the way back from New Jersey.

Posted on December 5, 2006 12:47 PM | link to this entry

View from the 26th floor

Posted on December 1, 2006 12:48 PM | link to this entry

Dinner on the road

Posted on November 19, 2006 3:59 PM | link to this entry

Wine Tasting in Sonoma

I didn't mention much about our trip to Sonoma last week, but I'll give a brief synopsis here: After reading a confusing map and crossing the same bridge three times, we explored the sunny hills of Sonoma, Napa's more spread-out and less traveled neighbor. Our first stop was the beautiful Schug vineyard, where Jen and I actually bought a delicious, dry sauvigon blanc (a white?!) and we got our first buzz on.

From there we tried Cline, where they offered a sample of fresh grapes from the vine and a selection of rich, full-bodied reds. (Cline also features the actual Red Truck from the label you may have seen.) After some more obfuscation, we found Ravenswood on a sloping hill outside town, climbed some stairs and sampled a variety of wines not offered outside the vineyard, of which we bought two.

Our final stop, after trying to find Gundlach Bundschu (it's somewhere outside of town, but all signs led to nowhere) was the Castle tasting room in town, where a wonderful lady led us through all fifteen or so wines offered. From Castle we walked around the square and found an Italian restaurant, paid a $15 corkage fee, and enjoyed a hearty dinner.

Posted on September 17, 2006 12:24 PM | link to this entry

Cable Cars

The boardwalk in Santa Cruz was pretty much closed for the season when we were there, which offered us the peculiar opportunity to walk around with everything closed. Jen told me The Lost Boys was filmed there—I could almost imagine one of the Coreys doing coke running around the empty attractions hunting vampires.

Posted on September 15, 2006 9:51 AM | link to this entry

Muir Woods

We're back in Baltimore after a wonderful trip to California. The weather is cold and rainy, not at all like the cool, sunny weather we enjoyed all last week, so I'm posting a picture of the redwoods with some sunshine breaking through the crown to remind myself how much I needed some fresh perspective.

Posted on September 13, 2006 3:29 PM | link to this entry

Stupid Dumb Technology.

I'd love to post a selection of photos I've taken in the Bay Area this past weekend, but I seem to be having a problem with Flickr's upload process-the photos never make it online.

Suffice it to say, we drank gallons of wine and got lost in Sonoma, hiked through Muir Woods and crossed the Golden Gate, attempted to have a martini at the Top of the Mark (but settled for a Blue Hawaii in the Tonga Room), and ate some killer sushi in Bernal Heights. Matt & Soph are as fun as ever, and after an evening of catching up, I felt like eight years on different coasts never existed.

Posted on September 11, 2006 12:53 PM | link to this entry

Offsite.

The last couple of days have been very busy. I'm set up in an office building in San Mateo where the workmen are still installing network cable, painting drywall and cleaning up dust. The desk I'm at only came out of the IKEA boxes a week or two ago. In a lot of ways I feel like it's 1999 again, except for the fact that I'm not an employee, and that I have to leave for home in a couple of days.

It's been a good week so far, though. I hit the ground running Monday morning, and put in an eleven-hour day before Eastern Standard Time caught up with me. The people working here are wickedly smart—smart enough that I feel like I'm too dumb to belong in a conference room with them—but they've been friendly and welcoming to the country mouse who blew in from Maryland and suddenly told them their cobbled-together business cards looked like shit and that there's been a design approved and ready since last December, had they seen it?

Today is my final day on site, and then I become virtual again, a voice on a phone and a blinking 6AM email message. I'm going to miss the excitement of feeling like a hired gun on a mission, but I won't miss the lousy hotel bed. I really shouldn't complain, though, because it's an exceptionally cheap room with a kitchenette, which came in handy for reheating my Thai leftover dinner last night, and it's less than a mile from the office. This part of California is strange, because in order to get from my hotel to the office, I cross two highway overpasses, one canal, and under two more overpasses. The grid structure here is very mixed as well, which means there's no empty space—malls adjoin suburbs, which are overshadowed by high-rise offices, which butt up to freeways, which dump out into feeder roads everywhere. I now understand why some of the first and most successful internet ventures incubated from the Bay Area were mapping applications, because I wouldn't be able to find my own ass with a flashlight out here without Mapquest.

Happily, my lovely wife is on a plane headed West to join me this afternoon, and we're going to spend the next three days enjoying the warm, sunny California air. My old friends from college have invited us out for cocktails this evening, and we're heading to Napa tomorrow to get shitfaced, and from there, the weekend is an open book. Which, I've recently learned, is the way I like it.

Posted on September 8, 2006 11:45 AM | link to this entry

Philadelphia Freedom.

We're back from the City of Brotherly Love and our third vacation weekend of the year. We started our weekend in Delaware at the Chadds Ford winery for a Pinot Noir tasting and class, which was given by a very nice man who knew a lot about wine. We sampled a flight of seven bottles, ranging from Tazmanian to French, plus two local wines. After getting on a respectable midmorning buzz, we drove up the street to Longwood Gardens to walk the grounds and enjoy the fresh air.

As with our last two visits to the area, the sky was cloudy and overcast, but there was a light breeze blowing and low humidity. I brought the TLR setup and embarassed myself by walking around with a black and blue cardboard box, pointing it at flowers and attempting to get some good pictures, until I got tired of being a dork. There wasn't enough control over the light metering or the focus to get consistent results.

We walked the entire length of the gardens and through the conservatory until evening, and then stopped in at the Terrace restaurant for a light dinner and a bottle of wine.

After dinner, at 9pm on Saturdays, there's a fountain light show set to music that lasts for a half hour, which was a beautiful way to cap off the evening.

Sunday, we drove into Philly and checked into our hotel, then went for a walk through the Rittenhouse Square area, where a bench called out to us. Heeding the bench's call, we sat and listened to the city around us, peoplewatching and enjoying the afternoon. I had read an article online about the Rosenbach Museum and Library, where the original manuscript of Joyce's Ulysses lives, as well as an entire floor's worth of rare and priceless first-edition books. (Jen wrote her senior english seminar on Ulysses, so I figured this was a slam-dunk.) We were shown in by a dour woman, paid a small fee, and got an hour's tour of the museum by a big man who knew a lot about books, antiques, and art. The book collection is immense; we could have spent hours ogling the bindings and titles on display. (besides Joyce, there's Shakespeare, Conrad, Melville, Milton, and a hundred other famous names I can't remember now.) We were, however, somewhat disappointed with the selection of Ulysses on display—two chapter title pages and a pair of envelopes. Later, we made reservations for one of Philadelphia's many BYO restaurants, and we were delighted with our choice: Twenty Manning, an upscale asian-flavored bistro a few blocks off Rittenhouse Square. The food was delicious, our waiter didn't sneer at our hoopty wine, and after closing the restaurant down, we walked halfway home in a light rain (before better judgement kicked in and we hailed a cab.)

Monday, we made like good tourists and drove down Market Street to Old City, and followed the crowds to the Liberty Bell (where Jen did not get in trouble for getting inside, like she did in 1976), and after being turned away by the screeners at Independence Hall for my Leatherman, which I'd left in my messenger bag, we walked over Ben Franklin's house, through Christ Church, Betsy Ross's house, and down Elfreth's Alley. Before leaving, we capped off our walk with a light meal at a quiet Afghan restaurant by Penn's Landing, which made us both sleepy and sated.

My impression of Philadelphia is a lot more favorable than the last time I'd visited; the vibe is young and lively, and there's a ton of history there to be had (and not just revoutionary history.) The city is full of architecture, old signage, and excellent food, and we're already talking about going back for a photo expedition when Jen gets her digital SLR.

Posted on August 28, 2006 10:02 PM | link to this entry

Home To Roost.

I'm back in Bawltymore. I stuck around Monday morning for a second game of golf with my family and Grampy, taking advantage of the mercifully cool weather and cheap greens fees. My second crushing humiliation game went much like my pool game—my skill level increases commensurate with my intake of Bloody Marys. By the seventh hole, after hitting with my sister's longer clubs, I was driving somewhat straight down the fairway and with reasonable accuracy.

Posted on August 8, 2006 5:02 PM | link to this entry | comments (2)

Back From The Swamp.

The rest of the East Coast is hot as Hades right now, but our little corner of the world is cool. We're holed up in the bedroom, with the A/C on 75° waiting for the Smackdown Episode of Project Runway to come on at 10. Apparently somebody's getting the axe, and we're placing bets on who it might be. (I say crazy basket-head guy.)

Today's business trip to D.C. was successful, although predictably hot. We met up with our contact at Union Station and ate lunch under the huge barrel-vaulted ceiling of the main hall. Then we traveled a few blocks south, where we had a meeting in an office with a spectacular view of the Capitol Building. This particular meeting was Jen's show, and she did a great job with the clients (and the work!) while I was happy to take a back seat and watch.

Whoops—it's time to go. Make it work!

update: Wow, I didn't expect that.

Posted on August 2, 2006 9:44 PM | link to this entry

Vacation

We're taking our monthly vacation in little trips this weekend because we're responsible for puppy-sitting. Today's destination is Longwood Gardens, where it will be hot in the sun but pretty to look at. Meanwhile, my business server is down again, so if you need to reach me, call my cell or email the idiot account.

Posted on July 28, 2006 11:47 AM | link to this entry

Virginia Travels

Jen and I are back from a quiet trip through the Virginia countryside to Monticello, Thomas Jefferson's home in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains.

We stayed at a quiet cabin in the woods called Montfair, which was better than any Motel 6 could have been. The cabins are owned by a family who are reviving an older campsite, and I'd recommend the cabins to anyone, including families with children. Every detail is thought of, from extra towels and fresh organic coffee to corkscrews and air conditioning. (By chance we met one of the owners of the campground, who turned out to be a fellow MICA graduate.)

Monticello is a beautiful, inspiring place set high on a hill overlooking the rolling mountains. There's a ton of things to do and see, and now that the second mountain is open, tours are available to learn about the history of the area as well. I learned more about the Founding Fathers on this trip than during twelve years of public school. Luckily, we missed most of the rain that plagued northern Virginia and Maryland, and by the end of our day we were strolling the grounds in sunshine.

Monday's journey back home took us north and through sleepy one-lane backcountry until we hit Montpelier, purely by accident. We stopped and took the tour of James Madison's country estate, which was also worth every penny. The house is currently under a massive restoration, so we were able to walk through stripped plaster and lathe and see the generations of changes made to the house since its beginnings in 1760.

What was meant as a relaxing, inexpensive getaway turned out to be more than we could have hoped for—we returned back to Baltimore happy, relaxed, and invigorated.

Posted on June 27, 2006 2:26 PM | link to this entry

Mr. Coffee.

I've been sitting here at my computer getting various things done and wondering what I ate that's making me so sleepy—granted, the two hot dogs from IKEA were probably not the better part of a balanced meal, but they were damn tasty. Then I remembered that I was up until 2:30AM on a conference call with a quartet of people on the west coast. (I'm not saying this to brag, but because I completely forgot about it until just now. Time to reheat some java.)

Jen and I decided to get the hell out of town early on Saturday, and we drove north to scenic Lancaster, PA to visit a mythical Pottery Barn outlet we'd been told about by friends months ago. I never realized what a cottage industry the Amish faith was until we passed the Dutch Wonderland and its attendant motels, spread over acres of old pasture; this odd attraction is now giving way to the modern amusement park, otherwise known as the outlet mall. Once there, we scored a pair of cabinets from Hold Everything on super-deep 50% discount, a pair of lights for the dining room (finally!) and a wool runner for the hallway at 2/3 of the price. The rest of the day was spent getting lost in actual Amish country and marveling at how much Lancaster County resembles Ireland. (I'd have a picture of the "Welcome to Intercourse" sign to show you, but we were hungry, and stopped at the White Horse Inn for a decidedly non-chain-restaurant dinner.)

Posted on June 5, 2006 4:07 PM | link to this entry | comments (2)

Home Again.

I landed in BWI at 6:10 this morning after taking a red-eye from PDX, with a whirlwind layover in Vegas. (Note: the Vegas airport blows. It seems the only thing they are interested in doing is putting as many slot machines in between you and your connecting flight as they can. Good times.) After Jen picked me up from the airport, we returned home and crashed for two hours of restless half-sleep before getting the day started. The front half of the lawn is now mowed—just in time for a meeting with one of our larger clients—but the back half is two weeks overdue. I'm sorting through a pile of cords, peripherals, papers, mail, and the remains at the bottom of my carry-ons trying to jump-start my brain, but it's pretty slow going. I'm going to need massive quantities of coffee and red wine to self-medicate my sleep cycle back to Eastern Standard Time.

Posted on May 23, 2006 12:54 PM | link to this entry

Have Gun, Will Travel.

I've been out here in Oregon for the past week doing some contract work with some old friends from the dot-com days. Right now I'm sitting on a couch relaxing after a day's ride from Brookings to Portland (the work was in Brookings, my plane is in Portland) through the redwoods in California, up the coastline on I-5 and into the city. Oregon is a pretty beautiful, interesting place. I feel at home in a state which features an espresso stand every quarter-mile, and where free wi-fi is offered at state parks and rest areas. Now, the whole state isn't like that—you can't get wi-fi in the mountains, but you can always get espresso. Seriously, I've seen more coffee joints than liquor stores, and the only thing that outnumbers both is adult novelty stores, which seem to be everywhere. And the coffee isn't watered-down bullshit, either; the McDonald's in Brookings sells better coffee than I've had in most Maryland Starbucks.

People here are friendly and welcoming; we had two people stop their cars and let us cross a busy street in downtown Portland, something I've not experienced since being in Maine ten years ago. Everybody waves as they drive past, something that must be difficult to do while speeding down the highway (no lie.) However, these people all apparently pack serious heat. Oregonians take possession of firearms seriously, like owning shoes—concealed-carry is not against the law, it's expected.

Classic cars are abundant, to the point where a native Easterner like me weeps when I see a mid-50's sedan in near-perfect condition, or a Scout with brushguards, mudders, and a winch pass by on the highway. And they're sold for pennies out here—T-bucket roadsters in the low teens, or early 60's coupes for two or three thousand (with a fresh motor).

We set up shop in a house about a half-mile from the edge of the water, opened up a card table, and got to work. The job itself is great—it's an application for mobile phones that could really take off with a large demographic—and it felt good to brainstorm out some ideas and develop some creative solutions with two people who are much, much smarter than me. And every day, weather permitting, our host C. would take us to a different beach to walk off some of the stiffness brought on by five hours of straight typing, which allowed for some great photography. The southern Oregon coastline is just incredible—miles of rocky surf, completely different from the Jersey shore I grew up on.

We also took some time to travel out of Brookings, into the mountains, and up a one-lane fire road to a remote firing range, where C. and J. broke out thir rifles and we commenced to exercising our second-amendment rights, in fine fashion:

J's Mini-14 is a compact, solid rifle with a utilitarian feel and a comfortable weight. We single-loaded and shot with iron sights, because the clip didn't make the trip and the scope mount was being uncooperative. I did some pretty successful plinking at the 50-yard targets (the close ones in the shot above) and some woefully inaccurate shooting beyond that. C's AR-10 is a specialty target rifle, and he has a huge scope mounted and dialled in for very accurate fire. The rifle is a lot heavier and offers more kick (being a larger shell), and I did some frighteningly good shooting at 75 yards (the medium-range targets above) before we packed it in. I've forgotten how satisfying it is to do some simple target shooting with a rifle, and I may look into a lightweight, dependable target rifle like John's in the near future.

We drove back into Portland this afternoon (Sunday) and J. took me to look at Powell's Books, a bibliophile's candy store unique to the Northwest. We hit the technical bookstore first, where I quickly dropped $25 on two used books that normally would have cost $70, and then to the "big" store, where my mouth fell open as we toured the multiple floors of books. My pusher J. convinced me to buy another book before we left, and then we headed off for some dinner.

Posted on May 22, 2006 12:30 AM | link to this entry

More Coastline.

Not a whole lot of time to write, so new pictures will have to suffice.

Posted on May 18, 2006 6:06 PM | link to this entry

Oregon Coastline

Down the street from the house I'm working out of, there's a short path down to the beach. We took a walk after a day's work and explored the coastline, and I took the opportunity to shoot some pictures. Follow the Flickr link to see some other shots.

Posted on May 17, 2006 12:11 PM | link to this entry | comments (4)

Twin Peaks.

I believe that's Mt. St. Helens smoldering there in the foreground, and (possibly) Mt. Ranier in the background, framed by the wing of my 737. It's 4:33 local time, (7:33 EST) and I've been up for 17 hours, with a five hour drive down the coast ahead. More to come...

Posted on May 15, 2006 7:23 PM | link to this entry

Home Again.

Back from Atlanta, at 11:30PM. Atlanta drivers are not concerned with southern manners, nor do they obey most commonly used road signage. Lessons learned: AirTran blows. Bodies: The Exhibition is worth the $20 admission, and will make anyone quit smoking, but they don't allow photography. The city of Atlanta itself seems to be comprised of many scattered groups of high-rise buildings linked together with miles of overpasses and tunnels. The Botanical Gardens are closed on Mondays, but Piedmont Park is not.

Posted on May 9, 2006 12:37 AM | link to this entry

I Heart New York, Part 2.

Highlights:

1. Staying in a hotel suite directly off Times Square/Boradway, overlooking the Jumbotron and across the street from the TKTS booth. Jen and I calculated that our suite, located on the 39th floor, would cost something like $4000/mo. to rent if it was a standard apartment.

2. Channel 2 is still CBS, 4 is NBC, 5 is WOR, 7 is ABC, and 11 is PIX. The way it should be. Also: Chuck Scarborough and Sue Simmons still rock the newsdesk. Word!

3. We had a client meeting in 30 Rockefeller Center, which was pretty fucking amazing. The building is timeless, and it fills one with a sense of HOLY SHIT THIS IS ROCKEFELLER CENTER.

4. After the client meeting, we were offered lunch and a tour of the building—the cool stuff. So, we walked the set of Dateline NBC, and happened to see Brian Williams in the hall. Then, we toured the Conan O'Brien set (a tiny little set, and freezing) and then the editing and control rooms for NBC. Imagine the control room at NORAD in about 1/10th the space—you get the idea. From there, we were led onto the set and stage of Saturday Night Live, which was awesome. (While we were walking the stage, the standard NBC tour group was peering down at the set behind a glass wall from behind the top bleachers. Suckers.) Next, a walk through the datacenter of NBC, which is the largest, coldest, biggest datacenter I've been in. Wow. Then, we walked from 30 Rock across the plaza (Passing Tom Brokaw in the lobby) and into another building, where we found ourselves on the Today show set. (And me, without my camera.)

5. The Munch exhibit at the new MoMA, which was phenomenal. Jen was able to see the original version of a print she's had for sixteen years, and we got to see some old friends, plus walk the halls of the new building, which is spectacular. Go.

6. HOLY SHIT THIS IS ROCKEFELLER CENTER.

7. St. Patrick's Cathedral, as the noon mass on Thursday was letting out, was beautiful.

8. Fifth Avenue, up to the park, is a beautiful stroll on a spring day. And the park itself was relaxing and peaceful. We sat by the water and rested our feet for a while, watching the ducks paddle around and a raccoon jump the fence into the skating rink to raid the dumpsters.

9. The train ride up and back is definitely the way to travel. 3 miles from our doorstep to the Amtrak BWI terminal, up to Penn Station, and a 5-minute cab ride to the hotel. Sweet.

10. Passing the Milford Plaza hotel, and remembering one of many old commercials from the 80's:

The Milford Plaza is
The Lull-a-bye
Of Old
Broad
Waaaaay!

Anybody remember the Ritz Thrift Shop? Crazy Eddie's? Potampkin Cadillac?

11. Rudy's Bass Shop (Our hotel looked down on the Sam Ash store on West 48 Street), a third-floor walkup, which featured a mid 60's Fender P-bass in sunburst/tortoiseshell and a nice old Rickenbacker 4001.

Posted on May 1, 2006 1:23 PM | link to this entry | comments (1)

I Heart New York.

We had a meeting here.

With people who work here.

Then, we had a day to ourselves and went here.

When we got home, we celebrated with these.

Posted on April 28, 2006 11:10 PM | link to this entry | comments (3)

One Hint.

Toto, we ain't in Bawltymore anymore. This hotel is pretty sweet.

Posted on April 25, 2006 3:31 PM | link to this entry | comments (1)

Boy, I Wish I Had $4,000.

Classic BMW for sale on Craigslist. I don't have a motorcycle license, but this is the bike I'd ride if I did.

Update: I'll link you to a Google image search of some pretty bikes. And another link to the BMW Airheads Club, a site about all things air-cooled.

Posted on March 22, 2006 12:58 PM | link to this entry

Update From the Kitchen Table.

Well, it's snowing like a sonofabitch up here in New York State. Originally my plan was to get on the road tomorrow morning, but I may be delayed on account of weather. In the last hour or so, half of Lake Erie just fell on my parents' backyard in the form of fluffy white powder. My black Jeep is a gray smudge in the parking lot up back. At least there's cold beer in the basement.

While I've been up here, I've had some technical difficulties. If you've been trying to email my alter ego, it looks like the server shat the bed, so I'd use the idiotking address listed on the right there until further notice.

In local CNY news, a guy who owns a "massage therapy studio" here in my parents' town just got popped for pouring his own poop down a floor drain in the Men's bathroom of the county courthouse. Repeatedly. It seems this crackpot individual, who is arguably not dealing with a full deck, has been doing this for some time. He lives in a permanently beached sailboat north of town, and writes long rambling letters to the editor of the local paper about matters random and bizarre. The town has apparently been giggling over this incident, and the aforementioned editor pointed out a few troubling questions: Why not dump it in the woods surrounding your house? Why not use the toilet instead of the floor drain? and most importantly, why carry it in an ice chest (the reason somebody finally noticed and called the cops)? An amusing postscript to the story is that the local sheriff's last name is Outhouse.

Posted on March 2, 2006 1:11 PM | link to this entry

Kulchur.

This weekend, my wife and I made an escape to the Big City and took in some art at the National Gallery in DC. There's a lot of stuff at the National we've both seen before, so some of their collection is (sadly) old hat; however, there were some exhibits that were fresh and exciting. In the West building, the Brown Sisters photography exhibit is a moving and incisive look at the history and relationships between four sisters over the course of 25 years. The Winslow Homer exhibit in the East building is a wonderful review of the artist's career, through his early years as an illustrator to his final years in Maine. It was wonderful to see Breezing Up in person, but it was also wonderful to see something other than the default example of his work used in most art history books. Finally, the Small French paintings collection is a quiet treat.

Posted on January 9, 2006 11:03 AM | link to this entry

An Unusual Ride.

Back in April of 2003, I was lucky enough to be sent to Bimini to dive on the reefs there for work. The fastest way to get to the island is on the small Miami-based Chalk's Ocean Airways. We flew down to Ft. Lauderdale and traded our shiny new Boeing 737 for a Grumman Turbo Mallard, a seaplane originally manufactured in 1947 for the US Navy. We trundled out onto the runway and took off from land for the 45-minute flight to the island. The plane was noisy, the flight was bumpy, and from my seat in the aisle (next to the landing gear) I could look five feet into the cockpit, where both pilots flew the plane in shirtsleeves with the windows open, allowing the smell of burnt kerosene from the engines to waft through the compartment. On our approach to the island, we were low enough to make out the beginnings of the reef, miles offshore. The pilots lined the plane up, and set it down gently in the harbor—for a brief minute, the window next to me was under the clear, brilliant blue of the water. We taxied up to the seaplane ramp and waddled back onto land, where the pilots turned the little plane around and shut it down. We spent the next seven days underwater in a completely alien world, learning all about fish, marine life, and diving, but I also was looking forward to my next ride on that ugly, beautiful airplane.

I was saddened to hear about the crash yesterday in Miami. The accompanying video footage is even more horrifying; The planes only fly three thousand feet or so above the water, but that's far enough. Equally sobering is the fact that the wonderful, friendly people of Bimini only have two ways to commute to and from the island—by Chalk's or by ferry. My guess would be that the plane was filled with residents of the island and not tourists—dive season is still months off. Either way, my heart goes out to those folks on the plane and their families.

Update: According to this site, N2969 was the plane that went down in Miami. There's still no word on the NTSB site about the crash, nor the FAA's (questionable) website.

Update update: Confirmed.

Posted on December 20, 2005 9:14 AM | link to this entry

Ruins

Posted on November 17, 2005 4:38 PM | link to this entry

Leaves

Jen suggested the idea to get out of the house and go for a walk in the park near our house on Sunday. We got lucky with the weather and the timing; it was 70° and sunny, and the leaves are all in mid-change. I'll write more later in the day, but now it's time to work.

Posted on November 7, 2005 10:43 AM | link to this entry

Trip Log Part Six.

Picking up where I left off....

We got up for yet another Irish fry breakfast in the room downstairs, and then walked down the street to the Catholic church for Sunday mass. I think we were both probably hoping for an old creaky church with character, but we got a newer (I'd venture mid-'50's) building that was obviously meant to hold hundreds. The service was also meant to get the faithful in and out the door, after a lengthy appeal for donations. It was fun to hear the service delivered in a thick Irish accent— it was sort of like watching a kung-fu movie you've already seen dubbed poorly in English.

Before leaving, we checked out the town's main landmark, Cahir castle. The castle itself is beautifully restored, and visitors are allowed pretty much the run of the place. Within ten minutes of entering the grounds, we were climbing the battlements and found ourselves in the outside towers overlooking the town. (The ten-year-old in me would have flipped over this.) Unfortunately, we were also sharing the place with a German couple who closely resembled Paris Hilton and one of the Gotti Boys. To give you the idea: Ladies, when you know you're going to be crawling through a 16th-century castle, it's a good idea not to wear a white plastic miniskirt with a hem above your ass. Because I might wind up climbing behind you on one of the spiral staircases, and I don't want to have your skanky German hoo-ha an inch from my face.

North of town lies another local curiosity: the Swiss Cottage. Built by the local landowner for his wife to entertain and play peasant in, it's a mismatched, one of a kind house that's been restored as close to original as possible. We paid our entrance fee and joined the tour. It's worth a look if you have the chance, but I wouldn't go out of my way just to see it.

From Cahir, we continued north to the Rock of Cashel to see the ruin of St. Patrick's Cathedral, which was billed as one of the most picturesque ruins in Ireland. We parked once in the town below the Rock, realized just how far away it was to walk, and then moved the car up.

The ruin is magnificent. It sits at the top of the hill overlooking the entire valley, and it's surrounded by old leaning headstones. On a normal misty, rainy Irish afternoon, I'm sure it would be picturesque, but on the day we visited, it was breathtaking—the sun was shining and there were only a few fluffy clouds floating past. We hitched a ride with one of the tours and heard about the history, then wandered outside to take in the view on our own. All around the base of the Rock there are grazing meadows, and we were surrounded by the sound of sheep softly calling to each other.

After a good long time at the Rock, we jumped back in the car and aimed for Kilkenny. Jen took the wheel of the Opel for the first time—she respectfully requested skipping the chance until we were safely away from Cork—and only scared me twice. (By this time, I'd scared her about thirty times.) After making it into town, we got directions to our B&B and checked in. Having the afternoon to wander through town and scope out a place to eat, we took our time and checked out the sights.

After looking for a half-hour or so, we came upon a swank-looking hotel/restaurant and stopped in for a bite to eat. Again, I had high hopes for our meal to come out looking like what had been described on the menu, but was presented with the most disgusting bowl of penne pasta I've ever seen. The Irish need to learn a little something about the science of cream and cheese sauces. However, the beer was cold and tasted good, and we retired to the bar for another drink. One drink became two, and soon we were pleasantly buzzed and had forgotten all about the lousy meal.

Our quiet conversation was interrupted by a heavily tattooed fellow at the other end of the bar who was making frequent and colorful use of the F-bomb, which punctuated his conversation in the place of conjunctions, verbs, and nouns. He stuck a finger in the face of our bartender and threatened a good old Irish beatdown to the entire waitstaff, going so far as to call the female bartender a F-ing C-t. At about the point where any self-respecting American barkeep would have introduced Tattoo Man to the business end of a baseball bat (and five minutes past a call to the local cops), Tattoo Man declared that he was "more F-ckin' Irish than YOU" and demanded to shake hands with the offending bartender. He and his posse of three drunken football fans then made a huge show of leaving, but not without kissing all the children in the bar.

We offered a drink to the bartender, who politely declined, and he told us the three choirboys had been drunk on arrival—in his words, "they were so droonk they fell in the doorway." The ruckus had been started when they cut Tattoo Man off and asked him to leave.

Then, we were hailed down by an obviously wasted local woman, who engaged us in a sweet but rambling two hour conversation about the Yorkshire Ripper, her books, Rod Stewart (this was, in fact, her entree to the conversation: "Are you here to see Rod Stewart?" yelled halfway across the bar) and Kilkenny.

After disengaging ourselves from that tiring experience (trying to follow the conversation of a drunk is like trying to catch a fly with chopsticks) we took the other exit from the restaurant and hustled back to our car—but not before taking some pictures of the castle from the bridge.

Posted on July 13, 2005 2:03 PM | link to this entry

Trip Log Part Five.

Hung Over On The Auld Sod.

Saturday morning Jen and I woke with some pretty serious hangovers—the beers, mixed drinks, and shooter had all conspired to lay us pretty low. We staggered downstairs to the restaurant to have some breakfast, then back usptairs to shower, and made it to the checkout desk with five minutes to spare. I got on the house phone and made a reservation at a B&B in Cahir for the evening, and we got on the road at about 1pm.

Because of the late start, we didn't have much time or range to sightsee, so we picked an easy destination and stopped at the Lismore Cathedral and Castle. The Cathedral is off the beaten path and very quiet; we were two of only a few to explore when we were there. The grounds of the cathedral are sectioned off so that the tourists don't trample the grass around the headstones, but the interior of the church is peaceful and cool.

Walking down the street, we found the Lismore Castle after some hunting, and gained admittance to the gardens. (The castle is owned by the Duke of Something-Or-Other, and predictably, he doesn't like tourists wandering through the halls.) However, the gardens are open to the public, so we ventured inside and walked the grounds. It's the garden (and the yard) you wish you had—acres of exotic and not-so-exotic plants growing in plots that made sense, but weren't overly planned or maintained—the whole place had the air of a fashionably overrun English garden. We got to climb one of the gatetowers from the original outer castle wall and peek over the edge (this would have been a dream come true for a 10-year-old Bill, let me tell you) as well as look in the windows of the castle (lots of drywall, unfortunately).

From Lismore we headed further north to Cahir, where we were pleased to find our B&B choice was an old-school storefront beautifully rehabbed into a private residence—best of all, it was walking distance to all the local pubs.

After checking in, we asked for a food recommendation and were pointed to a local pub which featured food better than the standard fare, and got seats at a table in the cozy bar section. I'd have to say this was probably the best meal we had in Ireland (in my opinion); tasty food served well with good beer. Returning to our room, we fell asleep to a documentary on Live Aid and Sir Bob on the Beeb which lasted at least three hours. (This is where Jen got the phrase "Feckofffeckofffeckoff" stuck in her head. Good times.)

Posted on July 1, 2005 12:39 PM | link to this entry

Trip Log: Part Four.

From Cobh, we drive back north and through Cork again to get out into the Western countryside. Stopping off in the town of Kinsale, we explored the back streets and the restaurant district to see what the town offered. Based on looks alone, its reputation as the gourmet center of Ireland is well-deserved. There are foo-foo gourmand cafes, Indian, Chinese, and sushi restaurants, one-named vanity restaurants, and of course, a handful of pubs throughout. It's got lots of little sidestreets with tiny shops and cafes tucked into back alleys, and it felt a little bit like Rome, which is a good thing. There is no first hand recommendation, though, because we weren't hungry and didn't eat anything. Sorry.

There are a bunch of historical sites to look at west of the city, starting with the Timoleague Friary on the coastline. Windy, twisty roads lead to a small inlet town with a huge ruin at the center. Jen and I explored the site for a good hour or two, after visiting what are arguably the wettest public restrooms in Ireland. (Taking a leak while watching water run freely beneath the soles of my sneakers wet. Yummy.) Timoleague is HUGE. Lots of rooms within rooms, filled with headstones. The possible creep factor was diminished by the sound of the grade school kids next door playing soccer at recess.

We had a light snack after exiting, and continued down the road to check into a hotel for the evening. YES, we wimped out on our third day. At this point, though, sleep was a rare and precious commodity, and we figured sleeping in a quiet hotel room was better than being in somebody's spare bedroom.

After dealing with our bags, we jumped back in the car with a locally-supplied map and started hunting down things to see. First on the list was the Dromberg Stone Circle. Jen and I joked about Stonehenge, and how we were both expecting Druids to be burning fires and chanting, or bolts of lightning to shoot from the sky, or (my personal favorite) a circa 1974 Robert Plant singing The Immigrant Song while smoke blew through his leonine hair. (Then I joked that Jen would get struck by lightning in a Rock Star Pose and be surrounded by chanting Druids while singing The Immigrant Song. I would be filming all this like a music video.) In reality, it was a foggy circle of rocks in a swampy field; not much to look at. I suppose we should have known better when we saw the "Visitor's Center": and abandoned trailer surrounded by broken glass and weeds. "STONE CIRCLE" was painted roughly on a fencepost with an arrow pointing down the pathway. Robert Plant was nowhere in sight, and I didn't see a single fucking Druid, just a German family who found it funny to climb on the rocks and take pictures. Still, it was cool, and meditative, at least.

Ahhh, Ahhh AAAAAAAAAAhhhh..... AAHH! Ahhh, Ahhh AAAAAAAAAAhhhh..... AAHH!

Next, we started hunting down castles in the area, beginning with Salem Castle. The maps all gave approximate directions with no instructions, so it was up to us to use the power of deduction to find them all. Along a narrrow, twisty road, we happened upon a sign, and followed the driveway up to a stable. A small Jack Russel/mutt mix came out to greet us, and we scratched his belly while we scoped the place out. It looked like somebody had built a house onto the side of the castle and then stopped before finishing everything, so it was kind of creepy. From what we could see, the owners were gone (A sign out front spoke of a B&B and guided tours) so we nosed around the driveway, said goodbye to Rover, and left quietly.

Next was Coppinger's Court, another castle that appeared vaguely on the map. After a trip down a very bumpy farmer's driveway and close encounter with a large black dog, we backtracked in the mud and found another one-lane road, finally getting close enough to the castle to take pictures. It sits in a farmer's cow pasture, on marked private property, so we took pictures from the road and marveled at its size. It's covered in bramble and vines, so it looks like it's got a Dan Haggerty beard, and that makes it hard to photograph.

Pleased with our success, I turned the Opel around and headed back up the hill slowly. We were startled to see a herd of cows spill into the one-lane road in front of us and mill around, unconcerned by our presence. Soon, a farmer chased the last one onto the road, waved to us, and shooed them all up the road towards the barn. We followed and passed the last of them as they turned up a leafy driveway.

Next up was another landmark we couldn't find (I can't remember the name), and finally Castlefreke, a huge ruin east of town that showed up on all the local literature. Finding it proved easy enough, but huge signs erected around the grounds made it impossible to explore, as were the ruins of the local abbey. This was annoying, as all the pictures sort of led us to believe we could get in there and poke around. We contented ourselves with shooting some pictures of the gatehouse to the local manor home, now part of a cow pasture (and home to a very horny heifer), and headed back to the hotel for some dinner.

At the hotel bar, we met a barkeep named Stephen, who kept us entertained and answered all our initial questions about Ireland. (Housing/land is as expensive there as it is here. Budweiser and Coors are considered microbrews and are VERY popular in Ireland. Harp is sort of dying out and hard to find in the East. Beef is extremely expensive in Ireland, as are fresh vegetables.) He treated us to a new (to us) shooter, the Baby Guinness, which consists of Tia Maria topped with Bailey's, and agreed that the fellow on keyboard serenading the lounge was "fookin' awful". We also met a fellow from here in Baltimore, who was attending a family reunion, and talked with him for an hour or so about the sights we hadn't seen yet. One of the things we learned was that our plan to bypass the Ring of Kerry to see more historical sites was in error: several people told us The Ring was one of the highlights of any trip to Ireland. However, we were seeing some of the best of the non-touristy places in West Cork, which made us feel a little better.

Leaving our friend a worthy tip, we stumbled back upstairs and collapsed into bed, pleasantly squiffed.

Next: Rosscarbery to Lismore, or: Finally, some craic.

Posted on June 27, 2005 12:29 PM | link to this entry

Trip Log: Part Three.

Kilrush to Cobh.

After a reasonably successful experience booking our own lodging, we decided to try having the Irish Tourism Office do the work for us. In Kilrush, we found the local representative in a tiny one-room storefront with a nervous representative at his desk. Explaning our situation, he swung into action and got on the phone to book us a room. Unfortunately, the first set of numbers he dialled were all busy, which threw him off. He began a humorous cycle of dialling, getting the busy signal, hanging up, getting up out of his chair, apologizing, sitting down nervously, and dialling again. We quietly browsed the shelves of thcochkes watching the proceedings, trying to be as unmenacing as possible. Eventually, he made it through and we got a room booked in Cobh for the evening.

After a stop at the gorcery store for bread, Nutella, apples, water, and cheese, and a stopoff at the B&B to return the key I had left in my pocket, we got on the road and headed south on the N20.

On our way through the countryside, Jen spied a ruin in the middle of town that we stopped to take a look at. It turned out to be the Buttevant Friary, unmarked on our maps and invisible unless spied from the road. Outside, it was surrounded by a cemetery and backed by a dairy pasture. Inside, it was a quiet, peaceful shrine to the damp gravestones it contained. We stood and marveled at the scenery and shot pictures for a long while, then kept going. Late in the afternoon, we reached Blarney.

The first view of the castle from the grounds is magnificent; a long pathway over a wide stream leads up to the base of the castle, and continues up around the hill to the entrance. 7€ gets you on the long twisty line through the castle, up windy spiral staircases and to the roof, where a spectacular view of the surroundng fields and trees surrounds the building. On the way up to the front of the line, the queue is essentially standing over the machicolations (essentially, holes in the floor that extend out and overlook the outside wall, so you can throw rocks on the heads of the guys trying to bust into your house) and realizing that it's a long way down. The Blarney Stone is inside one of these machicolations, so one has to sit down and lean out backwards over the abyss to reach it.

At first, as Jen and I climbed all four zillion steps, we were a little concerned that we'd be hanging our asses over the edge to kiss a damp rock by ourselves. (Based on our experience at the Cliffs of Moher, it was evident the Irish have a completely different viewpoint on public lands and liability issues: if this were America, there would be fifteen-foot high chainlink fencing around the entire site. That kind of hands-off laissez-faire is refreshing.) Thankfully, there's a nice old Irish man there to make sure one doesn't fall all ten stories onto the rocks below.

After fuflfilling the obligation of our heritage, we explored the rest of the tiny rooms of the castle and climbed back down.

Cork is one of the larger cities in Ireland, and as such, is more congested than the average town. Given that a major highway in Ireland proved to be a two-lane country road, driving through Cork was more like navigating a suburb of Baltimore. Crowded and confusing, but nowhere near the congestion of, say, D.C., or the insane speed of, say, the Taconic Parkway, or the utter confusion of Columbia, Maryland. For the most part, the Irish believe in helpful signage and reasonable traffic planning.

Cobh is a smaller seaside town, famous as the resting place for many of the casualties of the Lusitania disaster, and as the final port of call for the Titanic. It's also got some of the smallest streets I've ever driven on: because it dates back to the beginning of time, there's one lane for two cars. The houses are carved into the side of the cliffs, so finding a particular address is a challenge.

We stayed in an older B&B, a rowhouse under the giant cathedral in the center of town. Our room turned out to be a tidy, tiny third-floor attic room with a TV, shower, and two of the creakiest beds I've ever tried out. At least the view was spectacular. We got some dinner at a tiny cafe and fell asleep to an Irish crime drama starring a man with the best porn moustache I've seen since the Edge.

Tomorrow: Back through Cork...again!

Posted on June 25, 2005 9:36 PM | link to this entry

Trip Log, Part Two.

Wednesday morning we got up late and had our first experience with the typical Irish shower: There is a knob on the wall, again with indecipherable markings, and you are left to turn, pull, push, and squeeze until you get a constant flow of warm water. Jen figured this out and we washed the plane off, packed our stuff, and checked out. Back across the parking lot, we picked up our rental car: an Opel Astra, which was larger than I'd expected and a lot nicer than I was hoping for.

A Short Primer On European (UK) Motorcars From The Viewpoint Of An American:
1. First, everything's backwards. Sure, the wheel and controls are on the right, and getting used to that takes a little time, but I found myself still looking up and to the right to see who was behind me, and finding only the A-pillar of the windshield. Old habits die hard.

2. Shifting is interesting. Here in America, in our Chevys and Fords with automatic transmissions, there's a choice: P, N, and D. Put it in D and go. In (Ireland), there's a shift-like knob, no P and something called E. Then, there's a second area with a - and a +, which presumably is a Tiptronic-type manual-shift deal (I was hesitant to test this theory, for fear of leaving the transmission of our rental car in a smoking heap on some remote Irish country lane). So, putting the car in E means it's Easy or Elementary or something like that. Swell. The problem is when you go to pass some tractor on the M7 (Because they are everywhere, just like dairy cows are present in the middle of towns) and you get on the gas. The car sits and thinks for a few minutes: "Right. You want to pass this tractor, here, mate? OK. I'll just set this pint down here, and put my boots back on, and we'll have a go at it, eh?" Then, after about five seconds, it downshifts from fifth to fourth, which is about as helpful as a kick in the head. Then, it drops into third, and putting the pedal to the floor finally produces some speed. In an American-made car, say, my Jeep, for example, when you kick it in the guts, there's no thinking. It drops from third to first IMMEDIATELY, and you smoke the tires across the Wal-Mart parking lot or whatever. These cars all have a five-minute waiting period before they get going. Getting up to speed is the same way—there's a VERY noticeable lag in between gears, as if the guy programming the transmission decided to get all Grand Prix on us and make it seem like it's actually a standard transmission, instead of the wimpy automatic us poncey Americans request. This made my wife very motion-sick, which was not a good thing. (She got used to it.)

3. They have nice cars. This Opel was put together very well, felt solid, ran hard, and was designed (mostly) intelligently. (Clicking on the turn signal once gives you three ticks, and it shuts itself off. Clicking down hard gives unlimited ticks. However, shutting it off requres a light tap in the other direction, otherwise it's signalling the other way and confusing the people behind the car, who have spotted the Eurocar rental sticker on the rear window and who are hoping you're not making a right turn at that roundabout.) The buttons and dials all looked and worked well. One other gripe, though: Every time the car is turned on, the radio turns on too. Even when it's been specifically turned off. In this way, we got to hear the same Kylie Minogue tune every time we got back in the car. In Ireland, they like their Kylie Minogue. This is all in contrast to the Pontiac we rented to get back from Reagan, which had buttons like Fisher-Price toys for retards, locked the car every time it shifted into Drive, and felt like a cheap 70's disco couch.

Once I got onto the highway, and past the first three roundabouts, I was feeling better about driving. We headed north to the Cliffs of Moher. Apparently, we were graced with fabulous weather the entire time we were in country, because the Cliffs are usually socked in with fog and at about 200m of visibility, which is useless for something that big. We had cloudy skies and a slight drizzle but excellent visibility, so we hiked up the hill and took in the view.

By this point, it was late in the day (our perception of distance and speed was off) so we picked a B&B from the guide, made reservations, and headed south to Kilrush. Now, there's something odd that's happened in Ireland in the last couple of years since the Celtic Tiger thing happened: They've started building houses all over the place. Not nice houses, like the ones in pictures of Kerry, with whitewashed walls and thatched roofs, but McMansions made of cinderblock and wood, painted purple and orange and fucking aqua and surrounded by stone fences and gravel. In what is possibly the most verdant country in the world, people have gravel lawns, like cottages on the Jersey shore, and paint their houses to look like model homes in Miami. And what's with the palm trees, people?

Anyhow, it was my mission to avoid all such places, so we picked a house that looked old. Unfortunately, it looked old in the picture, but was actually new—which wasn't all that bad. The proprietor was a nice enough fellow, the room was big and featured a view of the harbor over a lush cow pasture (we woke the next morning to the most vocal dairy herd I've ever heard, and I've seen lots of cows), and we were a mile from town.

I was led to believe Irish folks like their drink (or at least, their pubs), and I was prepared to represent. Unfortunately, the pub we were recommended only held us, two other couples, and two bored barmaids. Dejected, we ate chips, drank a pint, and left, hoping the party would get started in the Southeast.

Next: Kilrush to Cobh, or: How many times do we have to drive through Cork?

Posted on June 24, 2005 1:33 PM | link to this entry | comments (1)

Trip Log, Part One.

Jen and I had one shared thought when we got to the door of our hotel room in Shannon. After being in transit for the better part of twelve hours, we were both intending to crank up the A/C to a level of arctic chill, get under some covers, and crash out to equalize our jetlag like we did in Rome. Unfortunately, we had some things to learn about the hospitality industry in Ireland. The room we were given was heated to about 95°F for some odd reason. I asked one of the housekeeping ladies across the way how to turn it down, and she obliged, but for the rest of our stay in the hotel it was ridiculously hot. (Note: There is a small knob on radiators in Ireland with indecipherable markings. Turn it counterclockwise. The other way will heat the room to the approximate surface temperature of the sun.) I opened the window and futzed with the radiator until I was reasonably sure it was off.

This was about 9AM local time, 3AM by my watch. We'd waited an hour to have a room available, and cought a nap on the couches in the "Reading Room", which was across from the hotel pub and really should have been called "Overflow Area": the couch I laid on smelled like the floor of a fraternity room.

Another new experience; The Irish believe in the duvet to the excusion of all other bedding materials. They give you a sheet and a blanket/cover that weighs as much as a lead apron, and expect that you will be content to sleep in a pool of your own sweat. We pulled it off, crawled into bed, and passed out uneasily for about 10 hours. I found that I was alternately hot and cold, so I put a corner of the duvet on my ass and left the rest of my body outside, and at least my vital organs stayed at a constant temperature.

At about 6PM local time, we got up and staggered to the restaurant, where we were one of three couples. The food was decent, the beer was tasty, and our waitress gave us some good advice for our trip. We had another beer in the pub and returned back to the room for more sleep.

Posted on June 24, 2005 10:42 AM | link to this entry

Our Lady of Knock

Here's a first very small batch of photos from Ireland. We're at Shannon, having some breakfast, and prepapring to go through Customs amid a whole flock of U.S. Army personnel in desert camo. Talk to you all soon-

Posted on June 23, 2005 4:26 AM | link to this entry

Greetings from Shannon.

Among other incredible acts of generosity, our neighbor S. offered to give us a lift to the airport. This was after a week of hosting jen and I while our floors were being refinished.

As per our normal departure schedule, Jen and I were at least three hours behind, but we managed to stuff all our crap into three suitcases (two for clothes, one for loot), fed the alarm, set the cats, and jumped into his truck. This truck is not any normal vehicle. It is the Starship Enterprise. For his work, he has outfitted the truck with wireless internet service and GPS, so he has a laptop and cellphone mounted to the dash like a police cruiser. He had us on the road and halfway to Dulles before we knew it, and dropped us at the American terminal in record time. We walked to the supiciously small International desk at the American counter and I asked the lady if we could check in for our flight to Boston. She told me that the Boston and International flights departed from Reagan National, not from Dulles. It was about this point that I felt physically ill.

You know the feeling you get when you realize you forgot your wedding rings an hour before the ceremony (I did) or overslept your SAT's (I did) or understand that you're about to get your ass beat (I have)? It kind of felt like that.

Holding my printout of the itinerary like a clueless retard, I turned back to look at my wife. I could see the thoughts crossing her face.

I think that she was probably first marveling at how she could have married such a moron. Then, I think she was considering how we could salvage the trip. The next look was probably a flash of anger, and I wouldn't blame her for that in the least. Finally, I saw the humor come out in her dimples, and she gave me the you-have-to-be-shitting-me look that my wife is famous for. At that point in time, I did the only thing I could think of.

S. answered the call on the second ring. "What's wrong?"

Before I had even explained the full extent of my stupidity, he said, "I'm turning around right now. I'll be right there."

He was gracious about the whole thing, God bless him, and he even had the route from Dulles to Reagan mapped out on his laptop when he pulled up. He had us to the terminal in a half an hour, which has to be some kind of record, and he was kind-he only gave me a handful of good-natured shit as opposed to the truckload I deserved.

The rest of the journey was pretty uneventful. Checkin, lunch and security. News that Michael Jackson was aquitted on the terminal CNN channel. A jump jet to Boston, which was mercifully smooth. A three hour layover in Boston (Logan is a boring terminal) and then a 757 to Shannon. This flight was shorter than NY to Paris but the service on American pales compared to Delta's.

Shannon is a little airport compared to other European desinations, but it's cozy, and situated in the middle of an expanse of pasture and farmland. I made reservations at the nearest hotel, so we walked out into the brisk, damp air and across the street to the Great Southern Shannon Hotel. At 8am, it was a little early to have a room ready for us, but they let us sleep on the couches in the lounge for an hour until they had an opening. As with Rome, we laid down and crashed for nine hours, and rose to catch some dinner at the hotel restaurant.

This morning, we're eating a meal at the airport restaurant, making plans for our first night in a B&B, and preparing for our first Irish traffic circle ("Look to the left, merge to the right", said our waitress last night.) Cross your fingers for us.

Posted on June 15, 2005 6:52 AM | link to this entry | comments (2)

Hello, Goodbye.

We're back from Tennessee//North Carolina and on our way to Ireland. By the hair of our teeth, thanks to Arlene. Stay tuned for pictures and travelogue. Stay well, everybody-

Posted on June 13, 2005 9:50 AM | link to this entry

To-Do Lists.

• Travel arangements for the two days we're not staying in bed and breakfasts: Made. I reserved a simple econo-style hotel for the day we arrive, figuring we'd just want to crash after a day of travel. Plus, it's next to the airport and our rental car for the week. The hotel for our final night is a four-star in Limerick across from the Bunratty Castle.
• Car reservation to get us from Dublin back to Shannon for our plane ride home: Check. It's an automatic economy... I was afraid to get anything larger for fear of the Irish country roads.
• 620 film for the antique Kodak cameras: Delivered this afternoon. I'm happy it got here so fast-I was afraid it would arrive the day we left.
• Floor update: He'll probably be at the house through the weekend, although we'll find out more tomorrow morning. We'll have to arrange for somebody to come set the alarm. It'll be great to come home to a finished floor.

Posted on June 8, 2005 2:40 PM | link to this entry

The Auld Sod and Peapod.

This morning, I made reservations for a trip to Ireland for our first anniversary. Originally, having fallen in love with the laid-back, Dolce Vita atmosphere of Italy, we talked about returning there, but plane fare and other considerations ruled out that idea. Other exotic locales beckoned: we talked about Barcelona, Tahiti (one of our honeymoon picks, sidelined due to the exorbitant cost and lengthy flight) and Paris. Gradually most of these fell aside and we seriously discussed Ireland. I've always wanted to see the country of my ancestry, and a self-guided tour seemed to be the way to go. We found a preplanned package online through AAA, including lodging and car rental, and signed up for it this morning. We will be driving a compact automatic over hill and dale on the wrong side of the road in search of blarney, real beer, and bland food for nine days in June.

Plane fare was shaping up to be the expensive part of the trip, but I found some dirt-cheap fares from American using Kayak.com, and got us a one-hop flight to Shannon thru Boston for less than the cost of the tour package. There are some more things to be ironed out (we need a place to stay in Dublin and Shannon for a night each and a lift across the country to our return flight, for example) but the major part is done. I'm absolutely thrilled to be going—it's been a dream of mine for years. The fact that I get to go with my wife and best friend for our anniversary makes it that much better.

In other news, we broke down and ordered $80 worth of groceries from Peapod last night. I figure $6 is worth the hour it would take to go and pick all this stuff up ourselves, and we have better things to be doing with our time right now. Besides, we are lazy consumerist yuppies. Now, to arrange for Starbucks to deliver to our door...

Actually, this is the first time the conveniences of the dot-com days have reached our leafy door; while hipsters in San Francisco and Manhattan could call Webvan back in '99 for a Penthouse, Coke and candy bar to be delivered to their door free of charge, we never got the option here in Mobtown. It's (relatively) cheap, it's available, and we're taking advantage of it at least once.

Posted on April 25, 2005 3:04 PM | link to this entry