Road Trippin' in the Midwest: Madison, Part 1

Hello from Madison! I'm in a coffee shop right now and should be looking at Craigslist for apartments or jobs or something... but I figured that I'd take some time to fill you all in on how things are going here so far.

Yesterday was apparently the beginning of Daylight Savings Time, a fact that our blessed phones remembered and we forgot. It wasn't until we had headed upstairs and taken a look at the clock on the oven that we realized that the time had switched. Fortunately our alarms were on our sainted cell phones, which update automatically, so we were able to get out of the house on time.

The drive was nice and pleasant- plenty of bright sun showing us fields of dead grass with barely any snow in sight. We got a little lost on our final approach to Madison but were able to arrive with a little bit of time to spare. We're staying with one of the graduate students from the English program by the name of Renee, and she and her boyfriend filled us in on the good places to live in town... once again, something that I should be doing but am not.

But I digress.

We then headed to the English dept. mixer, where Rachel got to talk with lots of profs, current students and prospectives. We migrated through the various disciplines with strange names like Mid-Mod, Contemporary American, Early-Mod and (of course) Victorian, plus a few others. I managed to confuse quite a few people with my name tag which read:

Max
H-B
Physics/Education

Which of course was a great ice breaker and introduced me to the whole equation. Everyone was really nice, and I managed to find at least 7 people who knew where Elmira was! Apparently there are quite a few upstate New Yorkers at Madison, so we got to talking about the Finger Lakes and all the other parts of the Southern Tier. Small world, eh? I also ended up talking with a few people about my possibly becoming a high school teacher. One of the Upstate NYers' wife had just gotten a job as a teacher, so he filled me in a lot about the local situation, which was both sobering and reassuring. There are LOTS of teachers in the area thanks to two colleges with education programs, but on the flip-side I'm math and science which puts me ahead of the pack and might only have to do a 30 minute commute to work, which I can handle.

We then migrated to the Victorians and wandered out to find some dinner, which we found at a place called the Old Fashioned. It's a classic Wisconsin restaurant with old fashioned (hur hur!) advertisements for classic Wisconsin things like butter and beer on the walls. The feel was very German with a bit of Irish thrown in there, and the beer list (like apparently everywhere in Wisconsin) was immense and impressive. We ended up going for the eponymous Old Fashioneds for our drink, though Rachel and I went for the applejack version. Who knew that a drink that included a combination of whiskey, cherries, soda, oranges and worcestershire sauce could be so tasty?

And of course, since it was Pi Day yesterday, I had to have some pie:

It's a classic Wisconsin-style apple pie, which means there is a slice of cheese melted on top. Surprisingly tasty.

We then continued the theme of the night by heading to the impressively titled "Drinks and conversation, informally organized along the lines of academic interest areas." Which basically means "Let's go to a bar and drink and talk about English!" I had a nice chat with some prospectives about Americorps, Carleton and (of course) Upstate New York, when a funny thing happened. A guy walked up to me and I knew that I recognized him from somewhere.


Amazingly Zack works for the same company that I do (CommonBond Communities) and is also an Americorps member (not the same program, but I work with MCAs all the time). We had met only a few times before, but we managed to recognize each other and a good laugh about the whole Small World thing.

We then headed back to our hosts' place to sleep, though Rachel stayed up for a while chatting with our host about classes and other English-y things. She seems to really enjoy the place so far and everyone that we have met has been really nice and helpful. Plus, the weather is gorgeous right now, which is always a plus.

Anyway, I should get back to stuff that I should be doing while I'm here, so until next time...

"To any foreigner, English is exceedingly difficult. Even the angels speak it with an accent."
- written in Clara Clemens copy of Pudd'nhead Wilson

Road Trippin' in the MidWest: Holidays Edition

Hey everybody, welcome to 2009! It's been a while since I rapped at ya (yeah, I actually just said that), so let's do a quick recap of the past two weeks:

1. F%(& a Duck Day: Friday before Christmas, the day before I planned on going home, we get news that snow will cover the entirety of the eastern half of the United States from Saturday evening to Tuesday morning, forcing Ms. Carroll and I to flee home much, much earlier than expected. I cancelled my appearance at work the next day, bundled everything into the car, and conked myself out with meds to sleep. At 4:30 in the morning we roared off into the night... and had quite a pleasant drive. It was still F%(& a Duck Day because I had wanted to get a lot of things done on Saturday... but oh well.

2. What is the What: while driving home we listened to What is the What, by Dave Eggers. It's a biographical tale based on one of the Lost Boys of Sudan and his surviving the genocide and eventual migration to the US. The man, Valentino/Achak/Dominic (depending on the year, as he has many names) is hit with one disaster after another, continuing through his life in the US. But, it's a great listen (and read as well I presume), can be funny at times, and has a very unique and engaging storytelling style. Highly recommend it, though it is incredibly long (approx. 20 hrs on cds)

3. Home: home was good; the entire fam (+ auxiliaries) was there and everyone was actually nice to one another for once... a genuine Christmas miracle. I made lots of heffezupf (German sweet bread), played in the snow, and got all sorts of wonderful things for Christmas. I also played a lot of Wii, in particular Star Wars Lightsaber duels (blocking is for sissies!) and Rayman Raving Rabbids (a bunch of psycho rabbits capture the main character and force him to fight in a gladiatorial arena through various ridiculous and hilarious mini games, i.e. shooting bunnies with plungers, making the bunnies dance, cow flinging, etc.). Now I need to get one for my house. Grr.

4. Trip back: started off on Saturday night but first made a detour to Barnes and Nobles. Ran into friends, got dragged into a Euchre game, but eventually made it out and on the road. Winds were very intense, forcing us to stop midway through Indiana to rest and wait it out a bit. 1.5 hours later I said screw it and we continued on through the howling dark. When the sun came out everything was fine, though, and we managed to make it home and watch Dr. Who and eat pizza. Side note: wisconsin can be very pretty on a cloudless day at dawn with snow and frost blanketing the countryside.

5. Duluth: Went up to see Rachel's parents on Monday night, and Rachel actually drove most of the way! Had a lot of fun and good food up there, and actually got some presents from Rachel's parents. First is Fallout 3, the most awesome game in teh history of ever. The other is a wacky websites page-a-day calendar, which is also amazing. For instance, today's website is Everyday's A Holiday, which, you guessed it, tells you what holiday it is today. I think I'll just randomly link in websites from now on from there. Today happens to be the festival of sleep! Anyway, purchased beer and root beer at Fitgers, did some more reconnaissance for my secret project, and eventually headed home.

6. New Year's: we had a booze train, lots of good food and drink, good friends and a glowing polar descending from a tree in lieu of some oversized disco ball. 'Nuff said.

7. For the entirety of New Year's Day I played either Warhammer (I have shiny new Eldars now!), Order Of The Stick, saw people playing games, or watched Spinal Tap. I may have OD'd on fun.

8. ...and that brings us to today, where I am sitting in the computer lab, watching people watch YouTube.

So, until next time...

"New Year's Day--Now is the accepted time to make your regular annual good resolutions. Next week you can begin paving hell with them as usual. Yesterday, everybody smoked his last cigar, took his last drink, and swore his last oath. Today, we are a pious and exemplary community. Thirty days from now, we shall have cast our reformation to the winds and gone to cutting our ancient shortcomings considerably shorter than ever. We shall also reflect pleasantly upon how we did the same old thing last year about this time. However, go in, community. New Year's is a harmless annual institution, of no particular use to anybody save as a scapegoat for promiscuous drunks, and friendly calls, and humbug resolutions, and we wish you to enjoy it with a looseness suited to the greatness of the occasion."
- Letter to Virginia City Territorial Enterprise, Jan. 1863 , by Mark Twain

Return of the Blog

Wow, it's been a while since I updated this thing, hasn't it? Well, most of the reason for that was me studying for the physics GRE which absorbed my nights for quite some time. The GRE was last Saturday... but I didn't take it. The why of this is because ETS apparently never got the money for my test and never bothered to tell me about that until I called on the Thursday before the test asking for my registration ticket. Now, granted, there were a few things I could have done here- like, realize that there was such a thing as a registration ticket in the first place and check my credit card statements. But still... couldn't you send me an e-mail besides the confirmation e-mail that I thought guaranteed me a place at the test saying that you never got my money? Oyveh Maria...

Anyway, with that out of the way until freaking APRIL (grumble grumble death plot grumble) I now have a lot of free time on my hands. Some of this I have spent cooking things, and other parts of it doing geekier things... like brushing up on Warhammer 40K.

Now, before any of you freak out that I'm going to be broke playing this game, two things:
1. I'm already broke, how much worse can it get, and
2. I'm not actually buying any pieces, codices or books; just borrowing, proxying, and pirating like a good boy.
Since Russell is already gung-ho for Abaddon Chaos and Pechous wants to be the Space Marines I am forced to play with the Eldar, aka Space Elves. (No, seriously, they even have pointy ears and everything!) So I stole the codex from online and looked up army lists, deciding on Alaitoc because I love stealth and snipers, and they have them aplenty.

Another thing that I have done with my life recently is go up to Duluth to go see Rachel's parents and get my snow tires. While we were there the Carrolls took us out to Timberlodge Steakhouse (Would you like to load your [insert already kind of unhealthy food item here] with [insert incredibly unhealthy sounding dressing/food item here]?) and to a concert featuring the British Quartet Cantabile.

They were described to us as a "singing/comedy group", which sounded kind of wierd, but describes them perfectly. Basically they are an accapella group that has toured all over the world singing songs quite beautifully and/or disrespectfully, and ESPECIALLY if the songs in question don't have any words. For instance, their first song was a medley of a bunch of famous orchestral pieces where they sang all of the different instruments at once, mocking it along the way. They also sang some really beautiful pieces without a hint of irony; one that especially got to me was "Bist Du Bei Mir." It's a German song that can be sung in three or four parts, and I have sung it many times in my youth with my brothers and my church choir, and I also sung it the last time I saw my great-grandmother alive. Hearing it sung excellently before a crowd was really awesome and definitely put a smile to my face as I tried to sing along.

However, what was probably their best piece was also the last of their program, where they took a Frank Sinatra song and sang it as if it were a broken record, skipping their words, changing keys in wierd ways and speeding up and slowing down at random. All in all, hilarious.

Well, I don't want to bore you too much, so I'll talk about how work has been going in my next post. Again, sorry about the delay in posting, and hopefully I'll be able to keep more in touch from now on.

Until next time...

"The reason I dread writing letters is because I am so apt to get to slinging wisdom & forget to let up. Thus much precious time is lost."
- Letter to James Redpath from Mark Twain, 6/15/1871

Road Trippin' in the MidWest: AustenCon '08

This weekend milady Carroll and I headed out at 4 in the morning to go to the Windy City. The reason for our excursion was that Rachel had won the undergraduate essay contest put up by the Jane Austen Society of North America, or JASNA for short. She was then offered a chance to come to the JASNA annual convention, or, as I like to call it, AustenCon '08.

To help us stay awake on the trip down and up I had purchased a collection of 16 Sherlock Holmes radio dramas from the '40s. All of these dramas were brought to us "by Clipper Craft Clothes... with a finely sewn Clipper Craft suit, you'll be the smartest, nicest, and best dressed man in the room... for only 45 dollars!" I could probably go on, but then I'd want to kill myself. The dramas themselves were appropriately hokey and entertaining, and Inspector Holmes proved himself to be quite a dick (in more ways than one). I'll probably do a rant about that one later, after I've gotten my hands on some more Sherlock Holmes books. So far I've read Hound of the Baskervilles and listened to the dramas, and I want to read/hear more.

My first view of Chicago brought about two thoughts: 1) that the city looked pretty ugly from I-90 and 2) WOW that tower looks evil. Apparently the latter was in reference to the John Hancock building, which totally looks like a great big black monolith jutting up from the city and casting a huge, black, withering shadow on all it surveys. Oh, and our hotel was right next to it! As part of our package deal, we got to stay two nights at the Ritz-Carlton, which was fan-freaking-tastic. The room itself didn't really stand out (though the window sill was large enough to stand in), but the price tag more than made up for itself in the bed and bathrobes. I have never, ever slept in a more comfortable on more comfortable pillows than that one. And the bathrobes were soooo freakin sweet I wanted to steal some.

After we had dropped off our things in the room Rachel headed out to take part in the Con and I tried to fall asleep. Unfortunately I was still running on adrenaline and hunger, so that was a lost cause. I decided to head down into the bottom of our hotel that connects to Water Tower Plaza, a shopping mall on Michigan Ave. I went up to the 7th floor, checked out an Auntie Anne's and went over to check out a California Pizza when I recognize a familiar face staring at me from inside the restaurant shaking his head and laughing. It turns out that Des was going out to lunch with his OUTLaw people directly below my hotel. He directed me to a place called Wow Bao, which serves Bao (I know, what a surprise!). Bao are Chinese dumplings filled with awesome, and are relatively cheap too.

Des later caught up with me eating Bao and we headed over to his apartment, which was conveniently located 5 blocks from the Ritz. On the way I got a tour of his law school which is located almost directly next to the Ritz. The library was the most amusing part, thanks to the communal chess game (make a move and then flip the card saying which color's move it is), the supreme court collectible cards, and the incredibly distracting view of the lake.

We hung out together for a bit, came back to the Ritz to see Rachel and guide her to her next event, and then went out in search of dinner. Unfortunately all of the deep dish pizza places were filled to the brim, so we wandered into the city until we came to a place called the Hop House. When I have more money, I want to come back there, because the selection of beer is nothing short of amazing. I, poor person that I am, opted to instead to only have the Wild Burger Trio, which is a collection of three mini-burgers made out of various tasty animals. I chose kangaroo, ostrich and wild boar, and all were delicious. We then headed back to the Ritz, and Rach and I eventual passed out at some point.

The next day I got to see Des sing in front of the NorthWest alumni in his accappella group and tagged along as he went about his chores. Later I got word that I was invited to the AustenCon banquet and ball, and therefore needed to find a suit ASAP. For those not in the know, the ball at AustenCon is performed in traditional dress by many of the members, and I had been told that I couldn't come when we left Minneapolis. So, my top hat, leather gloves, tuxedo, dancing shoes... all of that about 7 hours too far away to help me. However, this did give me the opportunity to go shopping. I purchased a sweet new vest, a red silky shirt (the first red article of clothing that I own!) and some charcoal pants to match the vest. Shoes and socks were borrowed from Des.

The ball was pretty sweet- the traditional dances were lots of fun and Rachel's main AustenCon pal was a really interesting person to talk to. We also had a parade down Michigan Ave, which was very hilariously awesome in concept and in execution. We later retired to the hotel and called it a night.

The next day, several interesting things happened. First, I accidentally got the room charged to Rachel's credit card instead of to JASNA. Second, it started raining. Third, we had to be out of the hotel by noon and pick up the car by 3. The first was fixed after a period of frantic worrying and a great Thai lunch (though it is still on Rachel's card... stupid banks...), the second did not short out my laptop, and the third unfortunately made Rachel miss seeing Des' apartment and also stopped us from getting Dunkin Donuts coffee. Grr.

But, all in all, the trip was pretty fun for me. I got to have a lot of conversations with Des about my various mythologies that I daydream about, about what kinds of books we like, various tv shows, and other sundry topics. I got to buy a sweet new vest. And, I got to stay in a Ritz for (practically) free. Stay tuned for a special guest host who will explain even more!

Until next time...

"When you feel like tellin a feller to go to the devil--tell him to go to Chicago--it'll anser every purpose, and is perhaps, a leetle more expensive."
- Snodgrass' Ride on the Railroad, 11/29/1856 by Mark Twain

Coming to a State Near You (Well, for most of you...)

Hey folks, I'm currently in a lovely hotel in Escanoba, WI after driving for 16 hours, and will be in Minneapolis on Monday by 3 or so; if you're in the area, give me a call or drop by 3532 Fremont Ave S. And as a bonus present, Rachel will be there!

p.s. Lake Michigan was really pretty today!


p.p.s. if you are ever in Mackinaw City, WI, be sure to check out Mancino's Pizza and Grinders. I had what is most likely the best hoagie I have ever had called a cherry chicken club. Italian bread, covered in cheese, cherry mayo, dried cherries, and chicken, and all toasted. Holyfreakingshitamazing. Pic below

p.p.p.s. dammit, can't get photos from phone to pc! aarrrgghhh!!! edit: got it working!

p.p.p.p.s. I just kinda wanted to do this one for the heck of it. Yay!

Down By the Sea...

Hey all, sorry about the delay- got a little carried away with the housework and geekery yesterday to find time to post. But now I'm here, so here we go!

A Midsummer Beach Bum

As I stated last time, we decided to forgo our third New Hampshire vacation for a trip down to the shore in Berlin, Maryland, where the Ryans, friends of my parents, live. The trip down was pretty uneventful- nice weather, including a brilliant rainbow, characterized the voyage. We got down late at night and stayed up a bit drinking and chatting with the Ryans before heading to sleep.

The next day we got up early and went over to the Peach Festival at the Ryans' church in Ocean City. The Festival does indeed have peaches, but it also has plenty of other food and a sizable flea market where the proceeds go towards the church and their charity. I got a whopping huge burger, a big bowl of peaches and ice cream, and purchased a cheap zen water fountain thing for my desk and the most badass coffee thermos that I have ever seen. Seriously, the thing is at least a foot and a half tall and feels like its made out of steel rather than that namby-pamby nalgene stuff. I'm pretty sure that it would make a pretty effective weapon or hammer in a pinch, too, because it definitely has some heft to it. After I had bought it I found out that it was actually Mr. Ryan's old thermos, and that he had earlier joked about finding a buyer for it with my parents. Well, shows them...

We then headed out to Assateague Island. The island is special not only because of its spectacular beaches, but because of its interesting assortment of wildlife. There are your herons and other birds of course, but also small deer... and wild horses. They got there thanks to a Spanish galleon that had sunk off the coast a few centuries back. A few of the horses on board managed to escape and have now adapted to the salty vegetation on the island, becoming smaller and more potbellied in the process. We didn't see any of the horses until we drove back from the beach, but in the past we have swum almost next to them on hot days.

Saturday was a beautiful day for spending at the beach. The temperature of the land was 75 degrees and the water was 69, so it never got too hot or cold in either environ. The sky was almost perfectly cloudless, and the water was incredibly clear. I spent the afternoon floating in the surf or sitting on a lawn chair drinking a beer and reading more of The Chronicles of the Black Company (a really good book- I'll do a review of it when I finish it).

We then headed home to eat steamed and seasoned blue crabs, which are just about the most delicious yet annoying things in all of creation. I say just about because the Ryans had another couple over to cook, and the husband was amazing. He created what I now want to characterize as "the steaks of Heaven." Seriously, these were the most delicious things I probably have ever tasted; even the fat was too good to pass up. This succulent steak was served with sauteed onions and followed up by desert kabobs and coffee liquor.

Seeing as we were already stuffed, I objected at first to my sister Liesel and her boyfriend Tim's idea to go down to the Boardwalk, but was wrangled into it to save the Ryan's daughter and my pseudo cousin Erin from having to be alone with the two. As I predicted, we ate even more at the Boardwalk, because 6 or 7 crabs, a steak, onions, and kabobs were clearly not enough. There we got enough fries to fill a bucket larger than my head, deep fried oreos (Tim's idea), and Polish ice (served by actual Poles!)

The Delaware Adventure

The next morning we got up and went to church with the Ryans. The pastor there was a hoot, and his sermon, about the different kinds of "storms" that we face in our lives, was pretty good, if a bit long on the personal examples (though the one about losing the buffalo steaks did make me cry a bit). What we didn't realize at the time, however, was that it was quite prophetic.

A little bit after we took off from the Ryans my mom noticed that our battery gauge was dropping down. We unplugged everything, turned off the AC, but it kept on dropping. We managed to eke out enough power to get the car into the automotive department of a Walmart, where we got the battery changed after a 40 minute wait. (We were actually pretty lucky- they had originally said that it was going to be 4 hours before they would even look at it) We started on the road again, but we noticed that the gauge was continuing to drop. This necessitated our stopping in Smyrna, Delaware, where we went to a local Autozone to get a new alternator and wait for a mechanic. This meant a lot of waiting around, as the mechanic originally went to the wrong Autozone before coming to pick us up. Still, the wait wasn't bad- I got to get an exceedingly delicious apple from an Acme, got to read some more, and Bug and Tim got Chinese food. Our mechanic was really friendly and really quick, and we headed off yet again. We got a little lost on some of Delaware's smaller highways while trying to avoid the interstate, but we made out pretty well...

That is, until God decided to pour His Wrath upon the world.

Our first glimpse of The Wrath was the sky turning a sickly black color in front of us, with lightning streaking out all over the place. Then the rain started, pouring down so hard that even when we were at a complete standstill we could barely see the road in front of us. We later heard hail hit our car as the rain continued to pour and the lightning and thunder continued to duel in the skies above. Fortunately I am still under Thor's protection (see Road Trippin' in the Northeast: New Hampshire Strikes Back! for the origin story, blog fans! -ed), so we made it through the storm ok, but it was still a pretty tense 20 minutes.

The rest of the ride was nice and quiet, and we reached home just after my brother did from his excursion at the beach. (he also had car trouble- seems his oil was actually smoking...) I'll have another update sometime today probably about the last two days before I head off again, this time to Ye Olde Boston Towne to meet up with Nik and The Girl (yay!). So, until next time...

The corpses of doomed men fall/

the gods' dwellings are reddened with crimson blood/

sunshine becomes black the next summer/

all weather is vicious; do you understand yet, or what more?

- a reference to Ragnarok in the Voluspa

Road Trippin' In the Northeast: New Hampshire Strikes Back!

New Hampshire Strikes Back!

Click on the pic above to see all of the NH picks!

So, just 3 hours after returning home from The Philadelphia Adventure our party lost Timmy Tim Tim etc. and gained my mom and the Herzl-Betz Auxiliaries, Greg and Danielle, for the journey North. The trip was pleasant- we had pretty good weather, and the only stops we made were for coffee and beer. The latter was due to an urgent request from Siegi and my dad, who had already driven up to NH on their motorcycles and were tired from cleaning. Oh, and there was something about a radioactive bat as well, but I've forgotten that bit...

We got to NH very late, around 2:30 in the morning, and promptly fell asleep. It was probably due to this that we didn't get started on our first hike the next morning until about noon. By that time the sky had become cloudy and a light drizzle had begun falling sporadically. Siegi and my dad, who had gotten up early, joked that everything had been perfect between 7 and 11 that morning- the buffalo had been out, the sky had been blue, unicorns were spotted on the hills, etc.

Still, events would prove that our delay was quite fortuitous. We decided to climb Mt. Sugarloaf, a relatively easy hike located in the White Mountains that takes less than an hour to ascend and is often covered in wild blueberries. As we followed the trail, we noticed little plastic bags hanging from some of the trees. Inside the bags were envelopes titled "I Love Megan" and sealed in wax with a heart. Sensing ridiculousness, I was naturally very curious as to what was going on.

The terrain was quite slippery and muddy thanks to the rain, but eventually all of us, including the little dog, made it up the mountain, when the sun decided to come out and play again. At the top we found a small tarp with another of the letters hanging outside of it... and inside of it, a white dress. Traversing the bald top of the mountain, we discovered a table set up with champagne glasses, a mound of portable cooking equipment and supplies, and a man putting on a tuxedo. Apparently the man had decided to propose to his girlfriend of nine years after months of deciding how to do it properly. Seeing all of the effort and ingenuity that he had put into the proposal, I don't see how she could say no, especially considering how she was beaming when we encountered her on our descent. One thing was definitely for certain: this man has definitely set the bar for ridiculous proposals. I'm sure I'll find a way to top it when the time comes, but daaaaamn will it be difficult.

The remainder of our day was spent at our house playing games, as it rained the rest of the day except for between 7 and 11 at night. (dun dun DUN!) Munchkin was trotted out for a few short games, but the true game of the night was, as usual, Life. Every year that we have come up to New Hampshire we have played Life almost every night for time immemorial. Some of you may be wondering how we manage to be captured by this game. The answer: getting far, far too much into the details of exactly why everything is happening to you in the game. Some examples from our game on Saturday night: Greg began the game as the first member of his family to pursue higher education and became a very well paid policeman who caught people who ran too fast (spun a 10) and too slow (stock bought on 1), though his ire was directed more at the latter than the former. Unfortunately only a little bit after he had bought a home with his wife he was fired and forced to work as a police themed stripper to make his bills. To reflect this he declared that his wife was staying with her mother until he got back on track and removed her from the car. Later Greg got to switch salaries with another person, which was emblematic of his finally making it in a big budget action movie. His wife came back (he bought her pearls), and life was good... until I stole his salary, symbolizing his brief stardom and new life as a bit star. His loveless marriage resulted in no children (probably due to his wife leaving him during their younger years) and he unprofitably retired to a retirement home, where he spent the rest of his days wishing that he hadn't landed on that "You lose your job" space...

You can ask Rachel about my career in Life, because it's all her fault that I lost. Damn Tibetan orphans stealing all of my money and distracting my other 4 kids from their studies...

ANYWAY, on Saturday we traveled to Mt. Cabot and began our ascent early enough to get the majority of it done between 7 and 11, the magical hours when everything is awesome in NH. Mt. Cabot has a special place in the lore of the Herzl-Betzes, as it was on that mountain that our entire family almost died. When I was only 2 or 3 we were climbing the mountain when large black clouds came rolling in and unleashed great gouts of lightning and rain. I vividly remember running down the mountain as fast as my little legs could carry me as lightning and thunder crashed around us, visualizing a forcefield that would protect us all from the storm.

Therefore it was rather eerie when we found most of the trail to be overgrown and, due to the recent rains, basically a muddy stream bed. We joked that a curse had befallen the mountain the day we ran, but nervous glances at the sky affirmed that it was indeed still sunny out. The ascent was slow, as large swaths of mud and slippery rocks threatened to end us at every step. Greg, the dog and I got to show off Matrix-style wall running as we desperately tried to avoid sinking into the mud. We were partially successful- I still got one shoe pretty much filled with the muck, but still not bad considering.

We eventually made it to the lower outlook after about an hour and a half of hiking and enjoyed the spectacular view. After about a half an hour we glanced at our watches and noticed that it was already 10:30. We worriedly glanced at one another and slowly looked out across the valley. Sure enough, grey clouds could be spotted on the horizon as it was, after all, almost 11. The descent was much quicker than the ascent, and Greg, Siegi and I paused to wait for the girls at a stream crossing. The sun was shining, the water was refreshingly cool, so it was alright. After the girls finally arrived, I looked up through the trees and saw only grey. It was after 11.

Fortunately we managed to make it back to the car before the storm hit. After washing up back at the house, we headed into Littleton to do some shopping. Littleton, NH has two amazingly cool stores: the Village Bookstore, and Chutter's Candy Shop. The latter is famed for having the longest candy counter in the world, as you can see from the picture on the album. It's a pretty sweet place (no pun intended), with all sorts of random candies that you would never find anywhere else. For instance: watermelon flavored coconut bars; candy chews called Mint Juleps; and more fudge than you can shake a stick at, with flavors including Reese's.

The rest of the night was spent packing, as well as the next morning. Our drive home had a few interesting side quests, including:
- hurriedly dumping our trash in a dumpster behind a supermarket before the employees came back out
- Greg answering every single conceivable question about his choice to become a priest and what he can and can't do (the latter consists of two things: sex, and acting out against the Church)
- finding an incredibly hippie diner called the Moon Dog Cafe that served amazing curried chicken salad wraps and other food. Hell, they even made a ham and swiss sandwich amazing by piling on unbelievable amounts of those two ingredients. And they let the dog in!
- shredding my tongue, almost dislocating my jaw, and getting at least 3 times my daily sugar intake maximum, all from the same jumbo jawbreaker
- and ordering drive thru at the slowest Taco Bell in existence.

All in all, the trip was a lot of fun despite the rain. I also got to talk a lot with Greg about my superhero comic idea, and heard a lot about his possible plan of writing a story about aliens that are governed by Catholic morality and have found increasing amounts of faith as their technology level increased. Unfortunately I may have to borrow them for my comic and kill them... *sigh* Leave it to a guy called Dr. Wrath to destroy our first contact species to fulfill his twisted sense of protecting the Earth...

That's it for now; until next time...

"Travel has no longer any charm for me. I have seen all the foreign countries I want to except heaven & hell & I have only a vague curiosity about one of those."
- Mark Twain's Letter to W. D. Howells, 5/20/1891

Road Trippin' In the Northeast: The Philadelphia Adventure

So, I've been traveling all over the Northeast this past week and just got back from rainy New Hampshire. Since I've been away for a while, I think I'll split my trip log into two parts, beginning with my trip to the City of Brotherly Love.

The trip was conceived as a birthday present from my sister to her boyfriend, hereafter known as Timmy Tim Tim Tim Tim Timmy, as I have taken to calling him behind his back. Their plan was to head down to our apartment just outside of Philly and go to an OAR concert on Wednesday night. Seeing as they are barely 18, my parents decided to send me along as a chaperone of sorts. Timmy Tim Tim... etc. is a good enough kid- has a good sense of humor, knows his place, generally likable- but still, gotta keep on eye on him.

The trip began well enough- I decided to let my sister get some highway practice in on the first leg of the journey, which was the high adrenaline affair that I expected it to be. After that I took over, with Hallisson guiding us past traffic jams to Philly. It was a pleasant trip, filled with nice conversation, a lot of OAR music and occasional rants on my part against the other drivers. We eventually made it to our apartment, which is located in the borough of Narberth, which is located just outside of Philly. It's a very quaint, almost Pleasantville-esque neighborhood, with a downtown consisting of lazy one way streets and plenty of mom and pop shops scattered among the pricy and trendy independent merchants. The reason I have an apartment down there is because my Oma and Opa used to run several apartment buildings there and still own that building. My Oma keeps the first floor tenant free so that we always have a place to visit when we want to go down to Philly.

The first night was fine- we went to a good Japanese restaurant within walking distance of our homebase and had amazingly delicious eel dishes there. (side note: Snow peas make delicious appetizers in lieu of bread) We then went to the local movie theater and bought fairly pricy tickets for Hancock, as Liesel and Timmy Tim etc. hadn't seen it yet. While watching it I came to the realization that my brother Siegi is either Hancock or Will Smith, because a lot of his vocal patterns, facial expressions and body language were exactly the same as my brother's... plus I could totally see him as an alcoholic superhero who's just trying to do good. (Hi Siegi!). We then retired to the house, watched some I Survived a Japanese Game Show on our exceedingly old black and white TV (vacuum tubes people, vacuum tubes in the tube!) and went to bed.

The next day the adventure began. Now, those of you who know me well will question my use of the word "adventure". For me, adventures are generally bad things- I either get lost, hurt, or something bad happens to me or others around me. Well, here it's pretty accurate. We began by heading over to IHOP for breakfast (8 dollars); not bad, just way, way too much. We then headed over to U Penn to check out the campus (parking: 13 dollars), but no one really had any information for me as apparently all of it is now online for the graduate program. Though, in their favor their bookstore looked like a B&N and there were nice tennis courts right next to the physics dept... and its 15 minutes from my apartment by train.

We piled into the Alpacamobile and headed to the Philadelphia Zoo. Unfortunately, Hallison decided to prove her evil nature by taking us on the Schuylkill Expy (pronounced School-Kill). That was pretty harrowing, as the directions came fast and furious and ended up with me half a city in the wrong direction before I could finally get my bearings. Even when we got to the Zoo it took us 15 minutes and 2 U-turns to figure out where to park, as the nice lots were for members only. It turns out that non-members get to pay 12 dollars to park in an incredibly sketchy alleyway that is bordered by razor wire on one side and a chain link fence leading to the railroad tracks on the other. We also had to park half a mile from the entrance, which did not put me in a better mood. We paid admission (20 dollars) and got to go in. The Zoo was pretty cool; lots of very interesting animals in awesome exhibits (golden tamarins walking across the path in front of me!), awesome factoids (pumas can jump 30 feet across and 16 feet up!), and peacocks roaming freely throughout the zoo. However, it was exceedingly hot that day, and we had forgotten to pack water (3 bucks a pop). Fortunately the drive home was a bit easier this time, and we retired home to eat delicious cheesesteaks from the winner of the 2006 best cheesesteak place in philadelphia (located in Narberth across from the movie theater!).

We then headed to the concert but not terribly early, as our tickets had defined seats on them. I programmed Hallison to take us there without using the highway, which not only saved us a lot of aggravation but also took us on one of the most unique paths I've ever driven on. In downtown Philly the most dominating feature is easily the city hall, and the streets don't let you forget it. Instead of moving in the normal grid pattern, the streets all go around the city hall in a big circle, forcing you to recognize that it exists and is older and more powerful than you. This was kind of annoying from a driving stand point, but the effect was really cool. Finding the concert was a bit of work, but eventually we found parking in a formerly empty lot (10 bucks). There were plenty of tailgaters there, which should have prepared us for the concert...

As soon as the concert began, I really, really wanted some whiskey. The concert had beer selling for 7 dollars a bottle, yet people still bought it in large quantities. I know this because it became a popular past time during the concert (which was standing room only, I might add) to throw the bottles into a different part of the crowd. Two of these bottles hit me square on the head (thank God they were plastic), and at least one hit Liesel. Also, drunken crowd surfers nearly knocked me to my knees with a blow to the back of my head as they crashed to the ground in my direction, which did not put me in a better mood. And the cover band was really annoying- they kept on trying to get crowd participation, but a) nobody knew the words to their songs, and b) they weren't very good. OAR, on the other hand, sounded much better than on the cd, and to their credit they did what they could to calm the crowd down and just get everyone to enjoy the concert. Still, in the end I think I'll just stick to music at home, as I don't think they're worth the aggravation.

We got home uneventfully, I got my whiskey on the rocks, and it was sleep time again. In the morning we headed home, but the adventure was not finished with us. Getting out of Philly we ran into a huge, 7 mile long traffic jam that not only pissed me off royally but also got me distracted enough that I accidentally went through the EZ Pass lane instead of the ticket lane at the toll booth. This resulted 2 1/2 hours later (at least 1 1/2 of which was traffic) in $22.75 in toll instead of our usual $3.25. After that, however, things finally became smooth sailing- Hallison took us on a very meandering root to save us more traffic woes and led us to a little gas station on route 6 that had this:
Yeah, read it and weep!

The lack of money is the root of all evil.
- More Maxims of Mark [Twain], Johnson, 1927

Road Trippin' In the Northeast: Niagara

As mentioned last time, yesterday I traveled to Niagara Falls. With me were my friend Danielle and her friend, Ingrid (center and right, respectively). Danielle is kind of like a sister to me as she's my sister's best friend and I was her Senior Buddy when she was a freshman at Notre Dame HS. Ingrid, on the other hand, is a 25 year old Chemistry student from Norway who is one of Danielle's friends, and being a foreigner, was the main impetus for this trip.

The drive up to Niagara from Elmira is about 3 hours, plus a little bit more time. We spent the ride up talking about a lot of things, from the Dark Knight (still so awesometastic!) to the foibles of Scientology (all hail Xenu!) to the differences between the Norwegian and American higher educational institutions (Norway: college is 3 years long and a masters is 2 years. America: 4 and 3). So, before we knew it we were pulling into the Goat Island parking lot to take a look at the Horeshoe Falls from the American side. It was a really, really hot day out- I would estimate around 95 with a burning sun up above. Even standing close to the river didn't give us any relief, so we decided to trek down to the Maid of the Mist, pausing to take pictures and clamber down to the river whenever possible. When we were above the American and Horeshoe Falls we saw some really cool rainbows that formed out of the mist; in all of my times coming to Niagara, I'm not sure that I ever saw those, so I was pretty psyched.

Everyone and their mother knows about the Maid of the Mist- you go on a big boat loaded with people in blue plastic ponchos and drive out past the American Falls and get as close to the Horseshoe Falls as nautically possible and wait there for 5 minutes, then go back. Not exactly the most exciting thing, but Ingrid was almost jumping for joy, so I guess it was worth it. What was also worth it, and what I will probably do instead of taking the Maid from now on, is clambering up the wood and rock steps to the lower observation point. There you can get right next to the American Falls and get completely drenched by the mist and sprayed water. Even walking up to the observation point the air was so full of water that just by breathing you can easily get your 8 cups of water for the day.

So afterwards we were pretty much drenched, ponchos be damned, but the hot day decided to favor us a bit by almost instantly evaporating the water from our clothing. Cooled down and having our fill of crashing water, we headed over to the Canadian side to have lunch at the Hard Rock Cafe. I had forgotten how expensive those places were, but dammit, sometimes a man needs a salad and a beer.

Not many times, but sometimes.

...Let's move on.

We meandered down the Canadian side of the falls as water began to fall from the sky as rain. I had the foresight to bring along my rain jacket, but the women folk did not. C'est dommage. The rain started to pick up, and we realized that we didn't really want to get any more soaked, so after walking all the way down the Canadian side we decided to reverse course and walk back to our car. We stopped by the duty free shop to pick up trinkets and left to exit the country. Luckily we each had two quarters, because apparently you need to pay 50 cents to leave Canada. At the American side we had the usual light banter with the customs officials: are you traveling together, how do you know each other, are any of you going to switch from being just friends to being family members... yeah, that last one was actually asked. Apparently Niagara Falls is a popular honeymoon destination for internationals... something about a place called Chino's. If anyone knows what that's all about, post it; I'm kind of curious now.

We walked back to our car in the rain, fired up Hallison (my gps for those not in the know) and headed out to go shopping at the Niagara Outlet Mall. Yeah, I didn't know it existed either until Danielle and Ingrid told me. Our trip there took us through some of the seedier parts of Niagara and included one illegal three point turn after we got stuck in the line for the Indian Casino and one possible hooker sighting. Yay!

The outlet mall was basically a collection of a bunch of clothing outlets that had banded together to attract customers and sales. We each went our seperate ways, and I actually found myself finding things that I wanted, like a sleek black belt and a nice black and grey dress shirt that I can't wait to try out. We had dinner there, as apparently the outlets grew a food court to accomodate their prey. There I made the mistake of eating at a chain called Wimpy's. It's an american food place that apparently prides itself in three things: being able to stack four hamburgers on top of one another; being able to put gravy on anything, even salads; and really, really aggravatingly poor grammar. On the menu, you could order fry's, or fry's with gravy, or sweet potato fry's (really bad, by the way). Not fries, but fry's. And on a statement saying that they would only use organically grown tomatoes (yes, they spelled it correctly, Thank God) they used their instead of there. Plus, the service was lousy and took for freaking ever. So, there is a new rule: never, ever trust a restaurant that makes repeated grammatical mistakes on their menu. Ever.

After reighning (is that the right one?) in Ingrid from shopping we headed home, accompanied by Hallison's sweet croonings. Once home I watched Dr. Horrible Act III again and promptly purchased the season. Good job, Mr. Whedon, good job. You've made me finally purchase something on iTunes. But seriously, that thing is AMAZING; I've already watched it one and a half times today. So, so good, can't wait for more. Neil Patrick Harris, you rock my world, and we finally got to see Bad Horse. He didn't do much, but you could tell from the way his black, soulless eyes gazed malevolently around the room that he was truly the Thoroughbred of Sin.

Today I haven't been doing much; went to church, fixed some things around the house, and worked on a few side projects that are finally coming together... I'll probably do a post about them in the near future when I have more to show. So, until next time...

"So I thank my girlfriend Penny
(yeah, we totally had sex...)
She showed me there's so many
Different muscles I can flex:
There's the deltoids of compassion,
There's the abs of being kind.
It's not enough to bash in heads-
You've got to bash in minds!"
-Cpt. Hammer, from Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along-Blog

Road Trippin' In the Northeast, Part 2

Greetings, and welcome back! When we last left off, the Herzl-Betz Expeditionary Force was going to sleep. Unfortunately, during the night a rather large porcupine decided to resume its assault on our house. Now, assault may seem to be a strange word to use when referring to a woodland animal's actions against a house, but I use it here in its fullest sense. The picture to the right is an example of what the porcupines have done on their latest round of attacks. Apparently they somehow figured out that the door contained wood on the inside, so they chewed through the aluminum frame to get to the wood. Determined little suckers, eh? At least they are not chewing on the foundations of the house anymore- apparently they don't like cedar shingles.

As we prepared to head out my mom checked to see if her new key worked in the door, and at least to her cursory examination it seemed to work fine, so we headed out. Our first stop was at another piece of land of ours in nearby Jefferson, N.H. We met up with our forester, Dana Blaise, who walked us around the property and told us how he was going to conduct the tree harvest. Apparently our land has an unusually large population of oak for the northeast and Dana wants to try to increase that population even more to help sustain the local wildlife.

After that we headed into town to get keys made and visit the local maple store. Among the usual items they had something called maple cream soda. Surprisingly enough, it tasted almost like I was drinking carbonated maple sugar; kinda weird, but fortunately I like weird.

We then moved on to the point of our trip- hiking. We decided to tackle Mt. Cherry, which falls just under the 4,000 foot mark. The day was pretty hot and the trail was surprisingly steep for what was listed as a moderate hike. The only way my mom scaled the mountain was thanks to a walking stick that Rachel had bought for me, and even our dog needed to be carried in the backpack for part of the way down.

After the hike we were pretty tired and definitely ready to call it a day. Unfortunately when we got back to the house we found that all of the keys that we made didn't work. Apparently when my mom checked the keys she didn't realize that the key didn't actually lock or unlock the door; it simply turned around and around. Fortunately I had my pocket knife with me, which I used to unscrew a screen, make a few small incisions in the screen and sneak in through the kitchen window.

The next day was just more driving, which wasn't all that bad. Normally when I'm cooped up with my mom I get really annoyed with her, but this trip was different. We actually had conversations and a good time together. I don't know if it's just me mellowing at my old age of 22, but I guess its a change for the better.

And, as always:

Robin: "You can't get away from Batman that easy!"
Batman: "Easily."
Robin: "Easily."
Batman: "Good grammar is essential, Robin."
Robin: "Thank you."
Batman: "You're welcome."

Road Trippin' In the Northeast, Part 1

So, as intimated in my last post, my Mom, my dog and myself all went up to our place in New Hampshire for the weekend. Our trip didn't start off under the most auspicious circumstances, as one way or another we had managed to lose all of our keys to our house up there since the previous summer. We decided not to freak out about that, as our caretaker had spares and we could therefore get in as long as we called ahead of time.

I was supposed to drive the first segment of our 7-8 hour trip due to my theoretically getting a decent amount of sleep the night before while my mom did her usual freaking out about packing the car. Unfortunately I had spent some time watching Hellboy (good movie by the way) and the remainder of my night was spent alternately trying to get my awake body asleep and fighting off nose bleeds. So, come the next morning at 6, we were both fairly exhausted and groggy. Fortunately Dunkin Donuts coffee is one of God's miraculous gifts to the world, and we were soon off.

We drove across New York and had almost reached the Vermont border when we decided to stop in Hoosick, New York to get lunch. The place that we stopped at was called the Big Moose Deli and Gift Shop, and true to its name the place was completely and utterly moose themed. Outside there were huge chainsaw log and plaster sculptures of moose. Inside there were little meese swinging on tires, moose brand beer bread, moose alarm clocks, moose magically expanding boxers ("Just add water!"), and more moose themed candies than you could shake a stick at. We purchased a few moose-knacks as well as an amazing wrap filled with all manner of chipotle goodness... not exactly moose related, but still good.

We next crossed the Vermont border into Bennington. We didn't do this on the way up, but on the way back we stopped at the Vermont Confectionary, which is located just outside of Bennington on Route 9. This place is pretty amazing- I don't think that I've seen that much candy in one place except at the world's longest candy counter, and even that might not have been as much. The people who owned the confectionary were really friendly and surprised us by knowing not only about Carleton (where their best friends had apparently gone to school), but also about Haverford, Hamilton and Muhlenberg (the schools my siblings are going/went to). We had a nice long conversation about Minnesota and Wisconsin winters as well as the pros and cons of liberal arts schools for the sciences, and I had the best mocha milk shake I think I've ever had.

We continued to meander through Vermont on Route 9, which took us through plenty of back country. The views were quite gorgeous, but unfortunately the stress of driving a suburban through narrow, twisting and often steeply inclined roads with really slow drivers kind of took away some of the beauty. Fortunately this stopped when we got onto I-91 to drive halfway up Vermont. (Fun fact: there are only two rest stops on the entirely length of I-91 north, and they are within half an hour of one another! I-91 south only has one!)

We finally entered into New Hampshire and drove into Littleton, a cute little town in west-central NH. In this town they have the World's Longest candy counter as well as what is probably the best local book store that I have ever seen. We stopped at a local Lowes to see if they had any sheds that we could use to store our sickle bar mower in. This is a really big deal for us, as otherwise we have no way of cutting the tall grass around our NH property, and currently the 42 inch wide mower is behind a 37 inch wide door- not exactly the easiest prospect of getting in and out. Unfortunately the sales people weren't terribly timely or helpful, so we simply left more tired than before.

We drove on to our home base in Lancaster, NH and were greeted by our closest neighbor, Randy, and his dog Lady. Apparently the first time my mom and sister tried to get to our property after he moved in, his dog almost scared my sister to death. She's a bit lively to be sure, but she's also really sweet and had a great time playing with Orio. Randy talked with us for a while and eventually gave us a dozen eggs his chickens had laid, as apparently they lay more than he knows what to do with. Oh well, great for us...

So we finally got into our house and moved all of our stuff in. For dinner, we decided to stick with New England fare and had lobster dipped in butter pared with local brews, both of which were good and one of which restored my faith in hops (though I'll get to that later). Before heading off to bed, I broke out our scythe and started whacking away at some of the tall grass surrounding our house. Finally, tired and exhausted, we prepared for our hike for the next day and went to bed.

Well, that was day one. Seeing as this post is already huge enough, I think I'm going to leave off day two for another post, either later today or tomorrow. I'll put pics up on Facebook pretty soon.

Until then,

"The gentle reader will never, never know what a consummate ass he can become until he goes abroad. I speak now, of course, in the supposition that the gentle reader has not been abroad, and therefore is not already a consummate ass. If the case be otherwise, I beg his pardon and extend to him the cordial hand of fellowship and call him brother."
- Innocents Abroad, by Mark Twain

p.s. Consolation prizes! Ms. Roberts: 5 xp. Lurie: forgiveness for not returning my key ring. Teagle: The right to name one of my Heroscape squads.