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July 31, 2006

More on Pitchfork ::
travel, personal, photos, music — No Tags
12:01 pm

Well, that was a blast. In two days at the Pitchfork Music Festival I think I’ve just about made up for all the live music I missed since I started law school in 2003. It was an overwhelming experience, but for the first time in my life I went to a music two-day music festival in unbearably hot temperatures and didn’t walk away from the experience feeling sick and exhausted. Instead, I was completely psyched about the whole experience. Not sure what’s different this time around—probably it’s some combination of enjoying this music culture, being in better shape, and having a better understanding of how to take care of myself in hot weather (e.g., beer does not count as hydration).

In any event, I made it to Milwaukee this morning after dealing with Chicago construction and rush hour traffic. (After four years in Vermont, I forget to take such things into account when travelling.) I’m on a timed wireless connection—only have an hour—so I’m not going to go too into depth about the whole Pitchfork festival now. But I plan to write something up in the next couple of days. In the meantime, go check out my Pitchfork Music Festival Flickr set.

July 30, 2006

Chicago ::
travel, personal, photos — No Tags
11:29 am


Chicago
Originally uploaded by gjs.

So, I’m in Chicago for a few days for the Pitchfork Music Festival. I took this picture while I was stuck in traffic on Lake Shore Drive; the temperature was somewhere in the high 90’s and getting to the north side of town seemed near impossible at the rate we were going. I’d forgotten what it was like to live—not to mention drive—in a city.

In any event, things have been great since I got here. It’s been nice to catch up with old friends and to see some really great bands. And the best part is that I still have one more day of sweltering heat and great music. It should be fun.

July 22, 2006

Dancing little christians ::
personal — No Tags
5:25 pm


Dancing little christians
Originally uploaded by rho-bin.

My sister is in Stockholm, Sweden for six weeks on a trip for the Department of Energy. She’s started up a Flickr account, where she’s posting pictures of her experience there. So go take a look, and if you have an account yourself, make her a contact.

July 5, 2006

Buffalo trip: one final post ::
travel, narrative, personal — No Tags
7:41 am

I find I’m having a hard time constructing a cohesive narrative for the final day of my time in Buffalo, so I figure that, rather than forcing my story into something it just simply isn’t I’d do what comes naturally and just provide some random examples of things that happened yesterday:

Saw two of my cousins, Patrick and Janet. They are siblings. Patrick is moving to the Boston area in a month, and begins law school in the fall. We talked about the law school survival techniques I’ve picked up over the past three years, and how to deal with the unmanageable amount of work and stress that school involves. The way we left it was that I told him I was really excited for him. I hope that was OK —the last thing I want is to make it sound like law school is totally awesome because, really, it isn’t.

Talked with Janet about housing transitions, which we are both dealing with to some degree or another. Different stories, but the feelings are generally the same for the both of us, especially since we both have a particular aversion to moving, it seems.

Saw my cousin Jeff and his new son Sam. I have a particular affection for Jeff because: (1) we were born a week apart and visiting Buffalo when I was a kid was synonymous with having sleepovers at his house; (2) he’s an avid Simpson’s fan, so we can quote obscure lines from various decade-old shows and know what the other is talking about; (3) he’s a CPA, and I’m an attorney (why is this a reason that I like him? Don’t know!); (4) even tough our lives have taken very different turns and we’ve grown into different people, we still have quite a bit in common.

Oh, and lest you think this entire visit was about nothing but seeing family members, here’s one other thing. I saw no fireworks at all this year, except for a few off in the distance as Robin and I were driving out of Toronto. Why fireworks in Toronto, I do not know. Maybe it was some show of support or something. Or an excuse to party. In either case, I say that we start doing something in recognition of Boxing Day. For the sake of reciprocity, you know?

And finally, my plane doesn’t leave until 11:25, so I’m going to be here for quite some time. I have more than enough items on my agenda to keep me busy for the duration, but none of them I find particularly interesting. Why that is, I’m not sure.

Sidewalk bike swap, Toronto ::
travel, narrative, personal — No Tags
6:29 am


Sidewalk bike swap
Originally uploaded by gjs.

So, the trip is over and I’m waiting on my flight back to Burlington. With the free time I now have (missed my flight—first time that’s happened), I’m going to describe for you a spontaneous trip Robin and I took up to Toronto on July third.

You will likely find this hard to believe, but I’ve never been to Toronto. Yes, my parents now live in Buffalo and I grew up visiting Buffalo at least twice a year, but I never made it up there. I don’t know why, really—I wish I had an explanation, or at least something more profound than never making the trip a priority. So, this weekend, with both my sister and I in Buffalo and with a little down time before the small get-together my parents threw on the Fourth (more on that later), I thought a trip up to that city would (finally!) be in order. I even called up a couple of my cousins to see if I could drum up some additional interest. No luck there, but that’s to be expected—people do have lives outside my semispontaneous trips to Canada.

So Robin and I get up there and hit Queen Street and just start walking toward downtown. The weather was beautiful and there were tons of people out. We found a nice Thai place to eat for dinner called Friendly Thai (I took a picture of it but didn’t post it, because I truncated the sign so it read “riendly hai”), and then continued on our walk, not really sure where we were going to end up.

We then stumbled across The Cameron House, a nice little bar/artspace that has a front and back room for bands to play. The owner was working the bar that night, and was quite talkative, first about all the beers he had on tap (of which he had ratherly astonishingly intimate knowledge) and then about the place. He could tell from our accents we were American, and once the news spread to the other four patrons, they erupted in cheers because, well, the Americans were there. It was mostly welcoming , though I did sense more than a tinge of good natured ribbing. That was fine. I told them I was from Vermont, and we all agreed that’s not really America anyway. A house band started playing at some point, and Robin and I sipped beers, not talking too much. I was surprised how quickly I felt at home there.

Other things worth noting about Toronto, which didn’t necessarily fit well in the above narrative:

So overall, not bad. I figure now that if this whole attorney thing doesn’t work out for some reason, I could just chuck everything and move up there and do something. Who knows what that might be. In the meantime, I think just a trip up there in summer and with my bike (of course) for five days or so would be a lot of fun.

July 2, 2006

The things I neglected to mention ::
travel, narrative, personal — No Tags
9:53 am

So, I forgot to post here that last week my car broke down again, after it had been in the shop for an extended period of time. (I did mention that first round of maintenance, however, which took two weeks to complete). Had I remembered to post about that, I would have mentioned that I was on my way up to Burlington to see Devotchka at Higher Ground, and that about ten miles north of Randolph I looked down at my thermostat to find my car was off-the-charts overheating. So I pulled over to find the engine steaming and the fans under the hood still blowing. Oh, and there was rain. And the sun was setting, so we had failing light. Luckily, I had a cell phone and a AAA membership, so I was able to get a tow. And the good news (I guess) is that the only thing wrong with the car (this time) was a blown radiator. So, two days and $260 later, I was back on the road. I am fully aware of the immediate need to make a break with my car and get a new one, but that is something to be dealt with in the near future, not right now.

I also forgot to post about how I was planning on heading out to Buffalo. Well, that’s where I am now, and I’ll be here until Wednesday morning, early. It’s been a nice visit—the weather has been warm and the people generally friendly. My parents live in a particularly hip area of town, with lots of small, local shops, walkables streets, pretty nice bike shop, and lots of youngish people riding around on fixed gear bikes. Things are good here, it’s a relief to have the hyper familiarity of family after two weeks of the completely foreign world of simulated bar exams and post-breakup singledom.

Oh, and I also forgot mention that I found myself at a wedding shortly after I got here. Someone (that is, my sister) said there was going to be this party, and that some friends of ours were getting married. But she didn’t make the connection between the two and, for whatever reason, I was unable to piece together the clues of our conversation to figure out for myself what was going on. Needless to say, I’m glad I played it safe and brought some reasonably dressy clothes.

The wedding was a nice affair. They held it at the Buffalo Central Terminal, the city’s former train station that closed down in the late 1970’s and has since fallen into disrepair since successive owners sold off the fixtures and the plumbing (what you might also refer to as “assets”) and then ignored it after selling the place off for parts. The terminal is currently owned by a nonprofit corporation, which has plans to turn it into a multipurpose public space. The dusty art deco facades and broken out windows contrasted with the strung up lights and wedding decor (e.g., here and here) made for a dream-like, almost science fiction-like setting for a wedding. Oh, and the soundtrack was dominated by quiet, folky love songs by bands like the Shins and Built to Spill, which made for one of the best wedding soundtracks I can personally remember. For my part, I was completely satisfied to be happy for the bride and groom and generally enjoy the scenery.