One Hundred

One hundred blog posts. I'm actually kind of surprised this has survived so long. It continues to be more or less what I want it to be, which is a combination travel journal / photo album / thought recorder. It's not perfect, but that's a failure more of the writer than of the medium; what I want is to become better able to...for lack of any better expression, show you the places I go, not just in pictures, but in words. I'm not great at either, though I pretend I'm getting better at it. Sometimes the descriptions work, usually they don't. If I ever have to make a living off writing, I may be in trouble.

I started this blog back in November of 2005, right before leaving for Seattle, to visit McNeil Island Prison, by far one of my most interesting trips. Since then, I've recorded entries about at least fifteen other trips I've been on. I've been on the road more than that, for certain, but not all trips warrant a blog post, and others might only have been mentioned in passing. I've been all over this country, and traveled to a few others in the meantime; I hope this trend continues.

So, the start of the summer is as good a time as any to take stock of where I'm at. I'm single. Sarah and I broke up about a month ago. It's never fun, but it was mutual, amicable, and that's really the best you can hope for. I've been told, as a kind of backhanded compliment, that I'm easy to break up with. That's fine. Better that than endless drama that does no one any good. We both handled it like adults, and there's no reason that we won't still be friends. End of topic.

What I'm Into:

• I've earned my yonkyu rank in aikido back in February, and I still go to class relentlessly, if I'm in town to be there. It's easy to get behind if you start missing classes, and it's hard to build that endurance and flexibility back up; travel makes it tough, so it's pretty much a requirement of mine that, if I'm in town, I'm in class. If I'm diligent, maybe I can even test again in another year or so. Come to think of it, I need to do some studying, as I'll actually be teaching the class this week.
  
• Still taking pictures. I still succeed more through volume than talent, but that's how that goes. I'm still learning more about taking pictures; I almost never use the "Auto" setting on my camera anymore, opting instead to search for combinations of aperture and shutter speed to accomplish what I want. My next step is to learn more about white balance settings, and light metering. In the mean time, I take a lot of pictures. Some of them even make it to my gallery.
• Fitness: Well, before tonight, I'd have talked about starting a 13-week running program. But %&#@ shin splints have put a damper on that. Session Three (tonight) just didn't happen; I ran for about a minute, total, and walked for about fifteen, logging just a mile. It's galling; I hate the idea of not being able to do something, especially early on. But I'm acquainted with pain; I deal with it at every aikido class I attend. This is a different kind of pain, the kind that is your body saying "If you keep this up, you will injure yourself." And as much as my pride might say otherwise, it's time to take a step back and recalculate how to meet my goals of: losing ten pounds during the summer, and improving my endurance. Running seemed ideal. I'm not a natural runner, and get completely winded after a couple of minutes; the idea that someone can run for thirty, forty minutes is utterly foreign to me, and I want to see if I can do it. I've got a pretty good guidebook on running, with a 13-week program that starts you off nice and easy, repetitions of running 30 seconds, walking 4.5 minutes. Apparently that's too much for me. I say shin splints, but it's really "Tibial Stress Syndrome", where you get some inflammation at the point where a set of muscles attaches to the front of your tibia. So it's back to the old drawing board. I'm going to do some research, talk to the folks at the place where I bought my running shoes (a very knowledgeable bunch), and see what to do next. I'm not giving up, just recalculating.
• School: Well, they don't offer any classes I need during the summer; I will probably be taking Calculus II and some sort of dynamics class during the fall. Come to think of it, I should probably pay my parking ticket so I can find out what I made in Calculus I...

No work travel lined up right now, so I'm thinking that it's time for a vacation; weird, given that I've been traveling so much lately. But it's been work, and a lot of it. An actual break would be nice, and I've got the vacation days to do it.

Time to start on the next hundred blog entries. And if you're still reading the nonsense I write down, hey, thanks.

Matt

In Transit: Greeneville, TN, 5/21 - 5/23

Another trip, driving this time; the rental car in question is a Pontiac G6 GT, which is pretty nice. At least it has cruise control, and comfortable seats, which makes it a step up from most of the cars I've had lately.

Staying in Johnson City, rather than Greeneville itself; there's some sort of conference in town, and all the hotels are booked. This isn't so bad, other than the 40 minute drive to get to the customer site; at least Johnson City has more to do. One restaurant caught my attention: The Stir-Fry Cafe. They do a variety of Asian dishes; I went for the Thai food, because I've been craving it lately, and found it to be a little bland. It might have been better if I'd asked for it to be made spicier. I wasn't too impressed, but I liked it enough to give it another try, should I find myself back up that way.

The drive to Greeneville (birthplace of Andrew Jackson) takes you through Jonesborough, notable for being the oldest town in Tennessee (est. 1779). So there's some history here, though I did not make the time to take any pictures. Four weeks of traveling, and the extent of the excitement I can handle at this point involves staying in the hotel and watching TV. Nearby to the area is Broylesville, named for another group of my ancestors. We've been here a while.

When the customer requested that I stay an extra day for more training, I had to find a different hotel; I ended up in the Holiday Inn back up in Johnson City, which I can't recommend. It's an older hotel, and it shows. And the Internet access was very, very slow; I was connected wirelessly, and felt like I was on dial-up. Had a hard time getting to sleep, especially after watching a very depressing hockey game.

Yes, Anaheim eliminated Detroit from the playoffs. So, as the price of their temerity, I've got to lay The Hoodoo on them. You'd think they would have learned better by now. My call for the final round: Senators in seven. I cannot say, of course, that I am happy about the Wings being eliminated. But this season, which was supposed to have been a "rebuilding" season for them, after losing Yzerman and Shanahan, still ends on a plus note. It's a defeat, yes, but at least it's not a failure. There are some great young players coming up (Quincey on defense, Hudler and Filpula up front), and both Zetterberg and Datsyuk had outstanding playoff success to go with their regular season success. There's a reason that the team signed Datsyuk to a huge deal before the playoffs started (a bit of a risk in the mind of some, as his previous playoff records had not been good), and I know that they'll offer a similar deal to Zetterberg when his current contract expires.

Still...curse you Anaheim! Currrrrrssse!

So I got back in to town on Wednesday and went straight to aikido class; I've got to keep on top of my practice since I'll actually be teaching the class next week while David's gone. It's a weird feeling as, in my own mind, I'm still barely competent enough to tie my own belt. But I also don't put too much weight on it; I'm just supposed to go over some basic techniques that the other students will be needing to know for testing.

Didn't sleep well last night, either, so I was already low on energy when I went running this evening. I picked up a running guide that includes a 13-week program for building endurance; tonight was session one: 30 seconds of running, followed by 4:30 of walking, repeated seven times. Things are feeling a bit tender now; I may be a hurtin' bastard in the morning. But I've soaked in some Epsom salts, and as long as I can go again on Saturday, I'll be doing pretty well.

The Chosen Bun

The Chosen Bun
Originally uploaded by Blackwyr.

New pictures are up, from my trip up to North Dakota. There's an emphasis on panoramas this time, as opposed to the macro stuff I've been trying lately.

In Transit: Bismarck, ND, 5/12-5/16

(Written 5/16)

On my way back from Bismarck, actually, sitting here in the Minneapolis airport waiting for my delayed flight back to Atlanta. Actually, there's nothing here to differentiate this airport from any other. A layover in an airport does not count as visiting a city; I could be anywhere, it doesn't matter, I'm in An Airport, existing out-of-phase with the rest of the world until I step out of another airport at my destination.

I'm not allowed to watch playoff games any more, at least through the first two periods. When I do (like Sunday night), the Wings lose. When I don't (Friday night and last night), they win. I am allowed to check the score online; I just can't watch the game. Oh, and Chris Pronger sucks; I desperately want the Wings to ruin that cement-headed moron's playoff chances. You want tough, you whiny jackass? How about after you send Holmstrom off to the dressing room to get stiches after a dirty hit, how about watching him come back and set up yet another goal? I know I'm not likely to see it in the playoffs, but I really wouldn't mind seeing Bertuzzi eat Pronger. Or even just treat him like he did Regehr and toss him around like a ragdoll. If Pronger wins the Norris Trophy this year instead of Nick Lidstrom, it'll be because there's no justice in the world.

...whew. Glad that's out of my system.

I arrived in Bismarck on Saturday; there were flights available on Sunday, out of Nashville, but they were all expensive and had me getting in to town very late. This way, I had a spare day to do some sightseeing. Believe it or not, there are things to see in North Dakota.

On Sunday, I drove about two hours west to get to the Badlands. I stopped at the Painted Canyon, which is nothing short of spectacular; there's a one-mile trail that ends up feeling rather longer than that given that, well, it's a canyon: it's a bit steep. But the weather was cooperative; the temperature was in the 80s, with a steady breeze to keep you from getting too overheated. The canyon, and the Badlands as a whole, is the result of some impressive erosion and the occasional coal vein fire; the soil is dense and clay-heavy, and just doesn't absorb water quickly enough to avoid getting washed away. Flash-flood country? Oh yeah.

Theodore Roosevelt National Park is wonderful. There's a 30+ mile road loop that takes you through the park, with many small trails (anywhere from a third of a mile, to a little over a mile); you just park at the trailhead, grab your camera, and go. I got my exercise, some sun (and some sunburn, but not too bad), and what I hope will turn out to be some great pictures.

The park sneaks up on you when you're driving out there; you get used to the low, rolling hills that make up the bulk of the terrain in North Dakota, then you climb over a hill and "Holy crap!", the Badlands are all right there in front of you. It was the off-season, so the guided horse tours of the park weren't available, but I'd have jumped at the chance; it's the sort of area that you think should be seen from horseback. Heck, I felt more manly just having driven through it.

I'd tentatively planned to drive back out there on Tuesday night, but the weather wasn't clear, and it turned into a very long day at work, so I wasn't much for having to make the drive again and make my early flight the next morning.

Bismarck itself is a sleepy town; there's not much there to write home about. The capital building is the tallest building in the state, and that's not saying much. I've been craving Thai food; there are no Thai restaurants. Let me put it to you like this: in the capital city of North Dakota, the traffic lights blink until about 7:00 in the morning. 'Nuff said.

ECF Game Two

Where, exactly, are the Buffalo Sabres? I mean, Chris Drury shows up at the ends of losing games, does something heroic (like setting up last night's tying goal with 5.8 seconds to go), then buggers off. And last night's game wasn't exactly a blowout, but now the Senators have a two-game lead, and play the next two on their home ice!

I predicted that Ottawa would win this series; I just didn't anticipate it ending so soon. I could be wrong, mind you; in 2002, Detroit dropped first two games at home in the first series, before coming back to win four straight, but that was against perennial choke-puppy Vancouver. The Senators aren't going to roll over and die, and Buffalo has a hard, hard task ahead if they want to win this.

I'd like for the Sabres to make a better showing of themselves, and I think they'll steal a game in Ottawa, but the Senators have all the momentum, and they know it.

Game One: Suck It, Anaheim

Detroit 2, Anaheim 1. About what you'd expect from a game with two great goalies, and a load of defensive talent. And this time, the Wings were the ones out-shot, on home ice no less.

But for this night at least, all is good.

In Transit: New York City 5/7 - 510

It Shouldn't Do That
Originally uploaded by Blackwyr.

Monday. I love flying out of Chattanooga, if only because I can arrive at the airport, get my ticket, and be through security and at the gate in under 15 minutes; that's very rare. It's not all perfect; wherever you go, you'll probably have to take a connecting flight to a nearby airline hub (usually Atlanta, Charlotte, Memphis, or Cincinnati) unless there happens to be direct service. And it's more expensive because of that. But sometimes it's worth it, especially when it means not having to drive two hours to get to a larger airport.

This trip will end up with quite a bibliography; the books I'm taking with me are Newton's Wake by Ken MacLeod, and Sir Thursday by Garth Nix. I recommend both, especially the former; I'm becoming a big fan of MacLeod's books. It seems like there's more politically slanted science-fiction coming out of the British Isles lately, and I'm curious to see how (if) the trend will further develop.

A brief layover in Charlotte, NC, and I'm back on my way to New York. Upon touching down, I took a cab ride to the Red Roof Inn I usually stay at (on 32nd Street; reasonable rates for Midtown if you have to travel that way), stowed my bags, and walked a few doors down for lunch at Mandoo, as is becoming my ritual. On the phone with customers, the expected appointment failed to materialized, so I was left to my own devices. So what I did was find a sports bar, have dinner, and watch the sixth game of the Detroit/San Jose series.

Watching the Sharks be dispatched in six games was fun; I correctly picked all four of this round's winners, though I didn't quite get the number of games right in each series. My picks for next round: Detroit beats Anaheim (yeah, yeah, I know the columnists are picking Anaheim; they picked San Jose, too, so heck with 'em), and Ottawa beats Buffalo (tough call!).

I got very little sleep that night, about three hours. For some reason, I never sleep well the first night in the city. Still too much ambient noise, perhaps, even though my room this time was much higher up than the last, and on the back side of the building (more on this later).

Tuesday morning came all too soon. I bought a ticket for the Long Island Railroad, and met our sales rep out in Babylon. It beats hell out of taking a cab ride, and is far less expensive. It helps that my hotel is only two blocks from Penn Station, from which you can get to damn near anywhere you want. The visit was a bust; the software was glitchy, and I had to call in to get some new hardware sent up. Back to the city. That afternoon (and early evening) was spent at a customer site downtown struggling mightily with an ostensibly easy problem that we had failed in the past to take care of over the phone. Early night this time; three hours of sleep, and working all day, will take it out of you.

Wednesday was just busy; two customer sites in the city (at buildings full of models; good times), back out to Babylon to solve that problem, and done. A simple summation of a very full day, mind you, but everything works now, because I'm awesome. I'm learning more about navigating this town; fewer expensive cabs rides, more walking (at least I'm getting some exercise), more efficient use of metro stations, and I can still get around in a timely fashion.

That night, I had dinner at Shanghai Mong, a Chinese/Korean fusion restaurant a few doors down from my hotel in the other direction. It's an interesting place; the "solo" dining area is a circular room, ringed with a bar and chairs. There are mirrors in front of each chair, which is kind of disconcerting, especially when, flanking the central surface where you see your face, are the words "You Are A Princess". I brought my camera with me, and garnered some curious looks from the staff when I took a picture of the mirror, a page of the menu (featuring the painful-sounding "Cramelized Bananas"), and finally a picture of my meal: a fantastic dish of Szechuan Chicken. So good. Spice-wise, it was near the top edge of my tolerance; I was sweating slightly by the time I was finished, and my sinuses had cleared nicely.

The building behind the hotel had a boiler fire on Thursday morning, directly outside my window; it was an impressive display, and a little intimidating. I think my priorities have become a bit skewed, though; my first thought, upon seeing flames, cinders, and billowing clouds of smoke shoot out the top of the ventilation system next door was "I should get pictures of this." So I did. My next thought was, "Perhaps I should put some pants on."

So here I am at the airport, killing time until my flight leaves (scheduled for about 30 minutes from now*). I have, while in New York, bought six more books. There is a fantastic comic-book store a block over from the hotel, across from the Empire State Building, and they've got everything. I bought two Hellboy collections (Wake The Devil and The Conqueror Worm), a PS238 collection (To The Cafeteria...For Justice!), and the second Astonishing X-Men collection (Dangerous). I also picked up two more books at the airport here: The Planets, by Dava Sobel (well-known for her book Longitude), and Don't Know Much About The Universe by Kenneth C. Davis.

Buying comic books in collected form is a no-brainer. The Japanese have been doing it for years upon years; most manga start out serialized, it's true, but in massive magazines rather than individual issues for title. For my part, given the always increasing prices of single comic issues, simply waiting a little while for them to be gathered in trade paperback (and if they're at all popular, they will), is the best way to read comics. You get a full story, rather than serialized in chunks, pay less for it, and they take up far less space in your house. I also find that it encourages me to track things down by creator (writer or artist), which is really the only criterion that matters to me any more. I wonder how long it will be before some titles go to trade paperback volumes only? I know I'd be all about it. It won't hit the mainstream as long as companies can make money twice, of course, on issues and books, and the need for maintaining name presence remains strong (there are so many comics out there, that it's important to keep a monthly title out there reminding people that you exist).

Oh, and you can sell the collections to used book stores if you want to get rid of them. If you started collecting comics any time in the last 20 years, your collections are worthless. I know; I've got one. Doesn't that suck? It surely does. Maybe once the industry as a whole undergoes a sea-change (it's coming), those collections will start being worth something again. But the 80s and 90s were really a bubble for the industry, and the collectors items you picked up in the hopes of them being worth something are instead worth no more than you paid (and perhaps less now), because everyone else bought them too. The massive quantities in which these issues were pumped out killed the scarcity that might have lent them value.

That's my rant for the week. Once I get back to Chattanooga, I'll post this up to my blog, along with new and interesting pictures (I took a lot of pictures on my cell phone this time, so we'll see how they came out). Then I'm in town for a day, and flying back out on Saturday to Bismarck, North Dakota.

*(Just delayed, as flight to and from DCA often are; looks like I'll be getting out of here at 12:15 instead of 12:00.)

In Transit: Tallahassee, FL, 5/2 - 5/4

Harbor
Originally uploaded by Blackwyr.

So this travel report is a little late; it's only now that I've gotten around to processing some pictures.

On Wednesday, I rented a car and drove down to Tallahassee on a mission of mercy to help out some customers that were having equipment trouble at one of their client sites (yes, a prison). I met with them that evening to discuss our plan of attack, went back to the hotel, watched some hockey*, and called it a night.

The next morning, I visited the prison and fixed the problem in remarkably short order. I got out of there about noon, had lunch with the customers, and was then left to my own devices. I had reserved my hotel room for two nights, in anticipation of further problems, so I decided to do some sightseeing. The manager at the hotel recommended St. Marks, to the south of the city, down on the Gulf Coast. My mother recommended Cape San Blas, also on the Gulf Coast, but farther west. So I figured, heck with it, how long a drive could it be? I'll do both.

My rental car this time was a 2007 Nissan Sentra. It had a little more vigor to it than my previous rental car, which was a point in its favor, but that's about all it had going for it. It also did not have cruise control, and whoever designed the front seats had only a passing acquaintance with human anatomy. The bucket seats were deep, causing one's shoulder to turn inward toward the torso, and the headrest was canted forward at a sufficient angle to require one's head to tilt forward; basically, you had to curl yourself up to sit in the seat, and tilt the seat back to be able to look straight ahead in anything resembling a normal posture.

I mention all this because I was driving for about 10 straight hours on Thursday afternoon.** My back still has not forgiven me.

I started out at St. Marks or, more specifically, the St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge. There was a small visitor's center there, with some information about the area and a small boardwalk trail around a nearby pond. I got to see some alligators closer up than I might have preferred, mindless dinosaurs that they are, and I got my exercise fanning away the insects come to feast on my skin. But the weather was cooperative, not too hot, not too humid (yet), and it was a pleasant hike through the woods.

From there, I drove down to the St. Marks Lighthouse. Somehow, these are always a bit of a letdown from all the cool pictures you see. Of course, those pictures weren't taken with the sun dead overhead and enough haze to leach out the colors that might otherwise have been there. It was still quite interesting, though, given its age (the original construction was in 1831), and the fact that it's still in use.

The Gulf Coast Highway is two lanes for most of its length. I can't recommend driving it if you're in a hurry. But it's also picturesque for that length, and a leisurely drive seemed in order. It just turned out to take far longer than expected. I eventually arrived at Cape San Blas and St. Josephs Peninsula. As far as I can tell, if you want to hang out on the beach and stay away from the crowds, this is a fantastic place to do it. The northern tip of the peninsula is all national park, and the beaches are pristine.

At this point, it was getting late, so I figured I'd continue up Hwy. 98 and pick up I-10 back east to Tallahassee. Three hours later, after much swearing, bad traffic near Panama City (thanks to the brain-damaged college-age troglodytes that descend upon it), and the eventual decision to just drive north (in the logic that at some point, I would have to find I-10), I finally made it back to the interstate. A journey west that took about eight hours only took an hour and a half driving back east. Figures.

On Friday, I drove home, making good enough time to swing by the office and determine that they had not yet cut me an expense check. Thanks.

On Monday (tomorrow!), I leave for New York City. Surprisingly little on the agenda at this point, but that won't last. I've even bought new shoes for this trip!

*(I tried to stay up for the whole Wings/Sharks game, but I just couldn't do it. West coast games are killers on my sleep schedule.)

**(In addition to the 6.5 hours on the road Wednesday and Friday.)

Sabres / Rangers Game

Chris Drury is a hockey god.

I'm cheerfully stealing that phrase from one of ESPN's analysts, John Buccigross. And it happens to be true. No one else scores the big goals quite like him. He doesn't score tons of goals, or flashy goals (not habitually), but when you're one goal down at the very end of the game, he's the one you want on the ice, because ice is clearly what he has in his veins in place of blood.

7 seconds to go, and he ties it. A huge goal by a guy that seems to specialize in them.

Don't get me wrong, I'd rather the Rangers win the series, though I'd have to apologize to Amelia for doubting them, but could the Sabres have possibly made a better choice in free agency than signing Drury? I don't think so.

In other playoff news, I seem to have accurately divined the fate of the Canucks, defeated in five games by Anaheim. The Rangers have been more tenacious than I expected (and I should have more faith in Brendan Shanahan), and the series between them and the Sabres will go to at least six games, where I'd expected Buffalo to kind of roll over them. Ottawa is whomping on New Jersey with slightly more vigor than I'd expected, and could finish them off in game five tomorrow.

And, well, game five between Detroit and San Jose is tomorrow as well, with the series tied 2-2; whoever wins game five usually wins the series, and I don't think this'll be an exception. We'll see if home ice at the Joe Louis Arena makes a difference.

R.I.P. Walter Schirra, 1923-2007

One of the original seven American astronauts died yesterday: Walter Schirra. Perhaps most notably, he was the only one of the seven to fly in the Mercury, Gemini, and Apollo programs. He was 84 years old. I remember reading about him and the other Mercury astronauts when I was in high school, in an old book (now out-of-print, I think) called We Seven, made up of essays by the astronauts themselves.

"I left Earth three times. I found no place else to go. Please take care of Spaceship Earth."

(Edit: nope, that book IS still in print. Have to find a copy.)