October 10, 2007
Concert-going creating potential border security problem? ::
legal — tagged civil liberties, legal, music and travel
9:29 am
Brian over at False 45th has a nice review of The National’s recent show up in Montreal. I’m sorry I missed it, and having seen The National at last year’s Pitchfork festival, I understand, at least partially, what I was missing out on. But, unrelated to the show itself is Brian’s increasingly tense and interrogatory interactions with the border guards:
One last note, I think the border agents are becoming increasingly suspicious of my brief three-hour trips to Montreal. The questions are getting more and more detailed and are being asked with an increasingly surly tone. On the way in, I was asked what I did for a living, what company I work for and where they were located. Then the agent quickly mixed in, “Do you have $10,000 in the car?” On the way back, the border agent asked me where the concert was, what street the club was located on, what were the cross streets and what roads I took to get to and from the club.
Brian’s story implies that US Immigration maintains a database of each citizen’s border crossing activities. It’s probably keyed by the the car’s license plate. The government’s doing this is probably not a problem on its own, though it does raise a civil libertarian flag—mostly because it suggests that although border guards are able to collect extensive information on when and how often a person crosses the US border, that by itself isn’t enough to warrant increased suspicion, and potentially raises a lot of false positives. To my mind, making brief trips to Canada every month or so does seem a little out of the ordinary, but on its own I’m not the sort of behavior that suggests nefarious activity. Yet the increased suspicion of the border guard, implied by his pressing questions, seem to suggest that such border-crossing jaunts are treated like that. Yet, Brian’s activity is really very ambiguous, and has a completely innocent explanation. If the guards had a little more information, they’d know that.
January 25, 2007
Robin’s New Orleans trip ::
photos — tagged disaster, family, flickr, katrina, new orleans, photos, robin and travel
9:27 pm
our house
Originally uploaded by rho-bin.
My sister just got back from a week-long trip to New Orleans, where she helped with post-Katrina rebuilding efforts. She’s been posting photographs from that trip to a rapidly growing flickr set, which is worth taking a look at.
December 24, 2006
Healing: A song list ::
music — tagged broken leg, buffalo, family, indie rock, music, personal and travel
12:13 pm
So I’m back in Buffalo for Christmas. The trip here was exhausting. After an eight hour car ride I tumbled from my dad’s car with a stiff leg feeling very, very cranky. My time here overall has been fun, and it’s been nice to show family members that, even though I’m still on crutches and have still-unhealed surgery scars, my condition has improved dramatically from the day I was discharged from the hospital. Also, it’s been fun to show off my x-rays and watch people squirm when I point out the fracture that starts from my hip and spirals around my femur.
So, with introductions aside, I put this mix together a couple of weeks ago while in the hospital, high on Percocet. I’m pretty happy with the sound of this one, much moreso than Winterish or the Fall mix. In part the outcome is the result of my immobility at the time, which allowed me the concentration and time it takes to make a good mix. But also, I think it’s an indication that drugs and rock and roll really do go together quite well.
Halloween by Matt Pond PA: Is it un-hip for an indie rock snob to actually like Matt Pond PA? No matter what the critics might say about the band’s artistic shortcomings, I fell for this song long before it would have otherwise been tainted by other’s opinions. And it’s dramatic lyrics, combined with the piano, acoustic guitar, and pedal steel make for a really seductive sound.
Pushover by The Long Winters: I first found this song over the summer, through a Music for Robots post. Since then the track has appeared and reappeared on a variety of playlists and mix CD’s I’ve put together. I finally picked up the CD at Amoeba Records when I was in SF in August.
Don’t Call Me Whitney, Bobby by The Islands: “Bones, bones, brittle little bones,” go the opening lyrics of this track. When I first added it to the list, I didn’t even think about how apropos to my condition the song actually was—I was thinking more about just how pretty the song is. But boy, does this one fit perfectly.
The End’s Not Near by Band of Horses: Band of Horses covering a song by The New Year for the OC Soundtrack. I really don’t know that much about The OC, but the track is really great—it’s an interesting reinterpretation of the original version of the song, in which the band makes the song their own.
Steps and Numbers by Appleseed Cast: They’re such a curious band, which moved from a straight ahead (and pretty annoying) Midwestern emo outfit to a post-rock band with a melodic, unique sound. So far, Low Level Owl has been the high point of their sound for me, but I also haven’t heard any of their most recent releases. But that’s on my to-do list, definitely.
Sukie in the Graveyard by Belle and Sebastian: I don’t love the album, but I do love this song. It does a great job of snapping the mix back into line after the more airy, nebulous sound of the previous track.
Hard Bargain by Ron Sexsmith: Ah, the underappreciated Ron Sexsmith. This is a great track that emotes a feeling of being beat up but willing to come back the next day for more.
Song for the Myla Goldberg by The Decemberists: This is the first song I heard by the Decemberists, and it’s the one that caused me to really fall for the band. But it’s never made it onto any of my mixes. So now’s as a good a time as any to finally add it to my song list. And the lyrics, especially the tongue-twister “I know New York, I need New York I know I need unique New York” always makes me smile, especially when I sing along and get it right.
This is the Way by Devendra Banhart: An interesting song in which Devendra sings about his physical self. One thing about this broken leg, as well as the healing process, is how aware of my physical self I have become during this time. With that in mind, the track works really well here.
Radio Campaign by M. Ward: Hey, I’ve been into M. Ward since August, and I think I’ve had one of his tracks on each of my mixes since then. So here’s another one. Here he pleads, “come back, come back my little peice of mind…” As I sit here, leg aching and knowing that I couldn’t get up to visit friends, get food, or go to the bathroom without a big production, I really know how he feels.
Paper Thin Walls by Modest Mouse: after the more intellectual, introspective stretch of tracks, I needed something to change the tone a bit. I found this song on a whim and thought it was perfect. Do you remember when the Moon and Antarctica came out in, what, 2000? And do you remember how new and exciting the track was? I sure do, now that I’ve heard this song. Now the album is back in my iTunes rotation.
A King And A Queen by Okkervil River: There’s an element of melodrama to all of Okkervil River’s music, and it provides me with a feeling of catharsis every time I hear it. This slow, acoustic number is a perfect example. Did I mention that my roommate went to high school with the lead singer? I’m totally serious!
Sleeping In by The Postal Service: One thing I like about the Postal Service is the sense of calm the songs seem to bring in the face of apocalyptically bad news. This song is a perfect example: here the singer dreams that global warming was simply a reward for humans being so good to each other. “No we can swim every day in November,” the verse concludes. It’s definitely not something I’d want to maintain in my entire life, but while I’m healing it makes me feel just a little bit better.
Throwing Things (Acoustic) by Superchunk: I pulled this track off of Superchunk’s Incidental Music, a compilation of the band’s singles and b-sides from the early 1990’s. This is a wonderful acoustic rendition of the electric original, and can make me weep if I hear it at the right time.
Reconstruction Site by The Weakerthans: this is probably John Samson at his most melodic and fun. This great sing-along tune can help me see the bright side of just about any dismal situation.
The Ballad of Daykitty by Lou Barlow: Lou Barlow is so strange—his music can range from exploring the deepest, darkest emotions to just having fun. This track, which closes out Barlow’s Emoh release, is an example of his later line of songs, in which he sings of a cat who, after much flirtation, decides to come and live with him.
November 30, 2006
Last post/first post ::
personal — tagged buffalo, family, thanksgiving and travel
11:59 pm
As I’m writing this post, we seem to be closing in on Midnight. So, depending on when I finish this up, it could wind up being the last post of November or the first post of December. We’ll see what happens—you’ll be able to tell how inspired I was as I wrote this based at least in part on the end date.
So the trip out to Buffalo went pretty well. I noticed that it was the first Thanksgiving I’d spent with my family in four years, which is strange. It’s not like Thanksgiving is a particularly huge event with my family, but it is a fairly substantial American holiday, and you’d think I would have made some effort at some point to get out to see them. But alas, no. My excuse? Law school and being involved in a long term relationship.
Anyway, now I’m back in Vermont, where it was 60 degrees and sunny today. Totally creepy. But the job is keeping me busy, and I’m still able to bike like crazy. Josh can back me up on this—he saw me on one of my sprints through Barre the other morning. So I don’t have much time to think about the probability that these unseasonably warm temperatures signify a more significant climate change brought on by global warming. On the bright(er) side, they’re predicting snow by this weekend, so things could be quite different by Monday.
Update: Check out the time on that post!
November 23, 2006
Thanksgiving ::
personal — tagged buffalo, family, holidays, sick, thanksgiving and travel
11:51 am
I’ve been sick for the last week or so. It’s nothing serious—mostly a post-nasal drip thing that has kept me from sleeping all that well. So other than having a perpetual sore throat and felling a little groggy during the day, I mostly feel just fine.
Oh, and with it being Thanksgiving and all, I am once again in Buffalo hanging out with the family. This is the fourth time I’ve made it here in 2006, and it’s the first Thanksgiving with my parents since they moved here. With that in mind, I don’t necessarily feel like this trip is heavy with meaning, but it also isn’t entirely meaningless, either. There should be some photos and possibly a more lengthy narrative posted here once I’ve been here a while and have had some time to let something happen.
September 24, 2006
Weekend round-up ::
personal — tagged canada, funny, montreal, music, travel and vermont
12:13 pm
Well, quite a bit has happened since the last time I posted about passing the Vermont Bar Exam. (Yes, by the way, I mention it again because I’m still so psyched about passing.) Mostly my life has involved not having enough time during the day and not getting enough sleep at night. But I’ve been reading a lot, keeping up with things online, hanging out with friends, and travelling. So all in all, the fact that I’m exhausted really isn’t that big of a deal—I’ll be sure to get some sleep sometime soon.
So on Friday evening one of my roommates comes home with a friend of his from high school. They were planning on going out to eat, I asked to join them. We decided on this local Indian place, which is attached to the lobby of this hotel just south of town on Route 12. So it’s kind of an innately surreal place to begin with. We get there and I find that it’s one of those places run by an Indian family—it’s clear from watching the four or five people standing at the front counter that they all know each other and are chatting about whatever.
So we come up to the front counter, and the guy there says to us in heavily accented English, “hello, 27!”
We tell him we want to place an order, and his response is the same: “27.” But this time he hands us menus. One of us said we loved Chicken Tikka, I told him that I would like the Chicken Vindaloo, extra spicy. Then one of the other guys of the restaurant group says that it will be the best Indian food I’ve ever had. Anywhere. Something about his use of superlatives made me trust him less. But before my roommate could place his order, everyone in the restaurant group cleared out and filed into some back room, leaving us there alone.
It was unclear what was happening. I asked myself if I’d even placed an order. Then we started looking around and noticed that only a few of the tables were actually set, and others had pots and pans strewn all over them. The room smelled like paint, and the kitchen wasn’t in working order—there was equipment pulled from the walls and more pots and pans strewn over countertops that should have had dishes in various stages of preparation. Then when I noticed the table with the half-empty bottle of Black Velvet on it I realized what was going on—the restaurant wasn’t open, it was in the midst of renovation. And—could it be?—the proprieters of the restaurant were getting drunk.
Oh and 27? The restaurant is scheduled to reopen on September 27th. I’ll be sure to be there, ready to order my Chicken Vindaloo.
So then yesterday Brian and I headed up to Montreal to see Lambchop. The show was really great—Lambchop is a particularly interesting band for their ability to fuse soul and country western music and come up with a gentle, folky, but impassioned sound that is very unique. Also, I was really impressed with the crowd at the show—whereas in many venues in the US crowds would only give half their attention to a band like Lambchop, whose music lacks the immediacy of other louder and faster bands on the indie rock scene, I really got the sense that the crowd was paying attention to the music and getting into it, even though it took a certain amount of work to do that. And they cheered like crazy at the end of every song. So how great is that?
August 30, 2006
SF trip rundown/wrap-up ::
travel — tagged california, friends, narrative, san francisco and travel
10:43 am
So, my weekend trip to San Francisco was bookeneded by two extreme travel experinces (I already noted the return trip, and my trip out included a six hour delay at O’Hare) but the trip out to San Francisco to visit Maureen was really fun. I’m glad I went. As I like to do after long trips, here’s a list of the events worth remembering:
1. Landing in SFO after the six hour delay in O’Hare, and being able to get all the way to Noe Valley on the Bart and the MUNI bus system after being awake for something like 18 hours. Then staying up for another three hours catching up with Maureen and meeting her friend Heidi.
2. Driving down the coast on Route 1, visiting beaches that, although they were at high tide, were still beautiful, with a landscape like nothing I’d ever seen before. (It was my first time seeing the non-urban areas of Northern California).
3. Driving further south on Route 1 to buy organic, locally grown strawberries from a farmstand. I also had hot strawberry cider, which was kind of funky and had some serious pulp in it, but it was sweet and I enjoyed it.
4. Driving, somewhat accidentally, all the way to Santa Cruz before heading back to San Francisco on Route 17 (Google map). I remember when I was a skateboarder kid, Santa Cruz stood in my mind as an idyllic, untouchable land where the weather was always warm and the skateboarding was never hindered by winter. Seeing the city was impressive, if only for the realization that it was a real place, with real people in it. Also, there was a nice health food store that carried tasty vegan cookies. And Route 17, with all its twists and turns, is a really fun road to take, especially at high speeds.
5. Making dinner on Saturday night. It included marinated tofu and rice, and was something Maureen put together herself. That always makes me feel better than going out to a restaurant.
6. Walking from Maureen’s place on Elizabeth to the 24th Street Mission Bart station on Sunday morning. There’s something about San Francisco streets on Sunday morning that makes me feel, I don’t know, at peace. I remember feeling the same way the last time I was in San Francisco.
7. Visiting SFMOMA with Maureen, seeing tons of artwork I was familiar with, and some that I was not so familiar with but still enjoyed. There was an extensive exhibit by Matthew Barney (see his Wikipedia article or his flash-intensive website), who is probably one of the most prolific artists I’ve ever encountered. His work, which utilizes all different forms of media, took up almost an entire floor of the museum and included Bjork as one of the subjects/characters, dealt with, among other things, Japanese culture surrounding its whaling industry. I found the whole experience left me numb, but mostly because there was so much to process. Now, two days later, I’m still thinking about it. What that says about its quality, I’m not sure, but I think the exhibit is worth seeing.
8. Taking the ferry to Sausalito. You get an interesting view of the San Francisco skyline that you can’t get anywhere else. Also, I remember seeing the new Bay Bridge as it was being constructed—the new bridge paralelling the old one, extending out only so far into the bay, then abruptly ending. Also, as we got closer to Sausalito we could see the fog come over the mountains, which reminded me of condensed air cascading from the freezer on hot summer days.
9. Being totally exhausted by the time we got back to Maureen’s place on Sunday afternoon. She took a nap, I read a book. Then I got starving and went out for burritos. Came home and dozed on the couch with a cat purring on my lap.
10. Wrapping my mind around the strange weather in San Francisco. There’s no rain there this time of year, just fog. Also, the temperature is actually colder than it is here in Vermont, with daytime temperatures hovering around 65 degrees or so. And it gets cold at night—cold enough for sweaters and furnaces. This is not the California I learned of when I was a child. But of course, you would get out of the city and have to strip all your layers of thermals off start seriously overheating.
And just to give an update on my baggage: as I suspected, it was on the United flight on which I was confirmed, not on the flights on which I flew standby. So I arrived at the Burlington airport at 10 AM today to find my baggage sitting with the others at the airport’s miniature baggage claim area. Not too bad, I must say.
August 29, 2006
Insane travel ::
travel — tagged california, flight, narrative, travel and washington dc
1:25 am
Earlier today I pictured myself in exactly the position I am in right now, awake at nearly 1 AM, typing away on my computer because my body thinks the time is three hours earlier. But the way I got here is totally different than what I had in mind. See, I just got in two hours ago from a trip out to San Francisco to visit Maureen for the weekend. The trip was a lot of fun—I was happy to catch up with Maureen, to meet new people, and to see a part of California I hadn’t seen before, including a pretty long trip down the coast that ultimately landed us in Santa Cruz before heading back North to the city—and getting back home today was a truly and adventure.
It all started when Maureen dropped me off at SFO on her way out of town to LA. I was two hours early for my flight—more than enough time to get checked in, get my baggage checked, and to hopefully spend most of the rest of the time waiting (impatiently) to board the flight. But when I went to check in using one of the computer terminals, I found that my flight had been delayed for so long that I was going to miss my connection. So, the computer rescheduled my itinerary, placing me on a flight that was scheduled to leave at 10 PM (yeah, that’s right. It was six hours later than my original departure time). But the program did put me on standby for another set of flights, the first of which was scheduled to leave SFO at 12:45, which gave me almost no time to get through security and get to the terminal before the plane left.
I made it in time, and I got in on standby. The new plane was a 767, a plane so enormous that looking out the windows somehow made the entire world seem small, even while parked at the terminal. I noted as we taxied toward takeoff that we left SFO late, which meant I had very little time to catch my connection at Dulles. Knowing the connection was likely to be the last one of the day, I tried not to stress out too much at the possibility of being put up in some anonymous, plastic-coated hotel room in suburban Washington, D.C., or worse, spend all night in the United terminal at Washington. So as the plan zig-zagged across the continent, I occcupied my mind by reading, by cataloging the trip, and by trying to find the Clif bar that I’d bought earlier, which had fallen under my seat.
One surreal aspect of flying is that sometimes you find yourself in a city you never expected to be in, that’s thousands of miles away from your planned destination. When you find yourself there, it’s like a vivid dream. Washington/Dulles was like that for me. Also, I wasn’t dressed for the weather. At 9 PM (for me, it was only 6), the temperature was hovering at 90 degrees—roughly 20 – 30 degrees warmer than anything I’d experienced while in San Francisco—and with my long pants and thermal undershirt, I definitely was over-dressed for it. I got off the plane to check the terminal I needed to get to to catch my connection to Burlington, which turned out to be halfway down the next terminal. And the entry was blinking an alert that the flight was boarding. I had to run.
I ran harder than I thought I could. I ran past crew members hustling toward their own flights. I cut between befuddled families who you could swear it was their first time in an airport. At one point, I seem to remember hurdling a roller bag someone had in tow, but it may be my tendency to aggrandize the facts for the sake of a good story. But no matter what, note that nowhere between the C and D terminals in Washington/Dulles are there any fast-tracks, so you must rely on your own athleticism and endurance.
I got to my terminal to find it empty. Desolate. There was one woman at the boarding gate, demanding my name, I told her I was on standby, and then told her my name after she asked for it again. “I called your name, you weren’t here,” she told me. “Late connection,” I replied, feeling oddly like I had something to apologize for. She wrote my seat assignment down on my standby ticket and let me out on the tarmac, where I caught a flight up to Burlington. At the end of it all, I got here an hour earlier than I was originally scheduled to, but my bags didn’t make it with me. I assume, for the sake of my own sanity, that they will arrive tomorrow, on the flight I should have been on had all of this fallen apart at some point. Come to think of it, as I write this, I realize that my bags have just taken off from SFO and are on their way to meet me.
So, earlier today, I thought I’d be in the situation I was in now. But I figured I’d have my checked baggage with me. And that I would have flown through O’Hare, where I would have had a two-hour layover, during which I could have grabbed dinner. So things turned out a little different than I expected—at the end of the day, though, the adventure, and the opportunity to tell the story, made it worthwhile.
August 11, 2006
Summer, continued ::
personal — tagged buffalo, new york, travel and vermont
9:24 am
So, I finally found a place to stay, starting September 1. It’s a shared house in Montpelier, with two other people. The house is north of the city on Elm Street, and is right on the Onion River. It has a nice little back yard with lots of trees, a garden space, and a little lawn furniture set. I look forward to spending the warmer part of September in the back yard, reading. I’d also like to set up a bird feeder, but we’ll see what my housemates think about it.
I’m particularly looking forward to this because I’ve been semi-homeless since I took the bar exam back in July. I have kept my stuff in storage over at Rick and Sarah’s place, and have kept only a minimal amount of clothes, hygiene supplies, and tech equipment (and of course my bike!) with me. I’ve been staying with friends in South Royalton and have been travelling a lot (e.g., my Pitchfork/Milwaukee trip last week) which has made it seem that my life is more like it’s temporarily transitory than totally up in the air. Now that I have a definite end date of September 1, I’m more comfortable with my life, and feel that I can just enjoy my time rather than get stressed out about getting my life in order. Now if I could just find a job.
The weather has been really beautiful here, too. Last week it was hot and humid, weather akin to, as David Foster Wallace has said, living in someone’s armpit. But after a series of wet days the weather finally broke and we’ve had really cool nights (it got down to the 40’s last night) and dry, warm days in which the temperature doesn’t get much above 70. It’s been perfect for bike riding, and I’ve been taking advantage of it, going on 30-35 mile excursions over mountains and through towns I would have never imagined biking to just a year ago. So it’s a great summer, and I will be sad to see it go.
And yesterday I helped a friend move down to New Haven so she can attend Vermont Law’s joint degree program with the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. She paid and fed me, and even reimbursed me for mileage on my car. And the best part? She was actually packed before we got there, and we got the van packed in less than an hour. The drive down to New Haven was really no problem either, and we got her stuff moved into her place in even less time than it took to get it all into the van (fewer stairs involved in the unpacking phase). It was a fun trip, and it was nice to make a little money. But even better was making new friends, which I’ve tried (with a fair amount of success) to make a recurring theme in my life this summer.
January 10, 2006
Alabama ::
travel — tagged civil rights, narrative and travel
7:30 pm
Well, that was quite a week.
It’s hard for me to believe that we left for Alabama just last Wednesday. Over the past six days, Jessamyn and I saw a significant part of central and southern Alabama, including the cities of Birmingham and Pelham (day 1), Selma and Montgomery (day 3), and Tuscaloosa (day 5). We saw a lot of civil rights history, including the Civil Rights Institute and Kelly Ingram Park (my flickr photos), the Edmund Pettus Bridge and the National Voting Rights Museum in Selma (where I got one of my favorite photos from the trip), and the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery. We also saw much in the way of tourist traps in the state, including the Vulcan Statue in Birmingham and the Old Depot Museum in Selma.
One interesting observation about the two sets of historical destinations: I sensed that at one time there was a substantial disconnect between civil rights history and “other” history in Alabama. (That is, there was civil rights history, which was wholly distinct from economic history or, for lack of a better term, “mainstream” history.) However, those in charge of “mainstream” history seem to be making an effort to connect the two lines lines of narrative. For example, at the Vulcan Museum, which described the iron works in the city of Birmingham, one display talked about how the industry used to force convicts to work in the iron mills as part of their punishment around the turn of the 20th Century. According to the display, that practice was only challenged when the inhumane working conditions led to the death of a white worker. Although the display did not explicitly state that the practice was the result of racial discrimination, I could easily draw the inference.
And to top it all off, we had an excellent time staying with Jonathan and Julie, friends of ours who Jessamyn first met through her international network of librarians. If Jessamyn and I can make new friends each time we venture out of state, then I think that’s more than enough incentive to continue exploring different parts of the United States.
January 7, 2006
Edmund Pettus Bridge, through the window of the Voting Rights Museum ::
travel, photos — tagged civil rights, photos and travel
9:35 pm
Originally uploaded by gjs.
Another one of my favorite photos from the trip.
January 5, 2006
Kelly Ingram Park ::
travel, photos — tagged civil rights, photos and travel
6:25 pm
Statue, Kelly Ingram Park
Originally uploaded by gjs.
Part of a larger Civil Rights memorial at Kelly Ingram Park, much of which memorialized the lives of four girls who died when the 16th Street Baptist Church was bombed in 1963.
May 24, 2005
Trip, Updated ::
travel — tagged SCOTUS, travel and washington dc
10:55 am
In addition to the post below, I wanted to send an update on my trip. Sarah and I went to downtown Washington for some tourist-y stops. First, was the Supreme Court. Although we didn’t get in to hear the opinions released, we did spend some time in line, which gave us an interesting idea of the dynamics of the Court. There were, of course, the pro life demonstrators, the student group, and the press; someone also decided—not sure if it was security or Justice Rehnquist—that only the first 20-30 people were going to get in to hear arguments. Which makes a little sense, I suppose: at this point in the term when the Court wants to announce opinions and get on with their day, allowing 45 middle and high school kids in to the courtroom would probably cause an unreasonable delay.
[Side note, for legal buffs: luckily, the opinions released yesterday were pretty dull. Though there was a development in the Medellin case, which SCOTUSBlog covers effectively. There was also an opinion on shackling capital murder defendants during the sentencing phase of their trial. Seven Justices said you can’t do it, while two (Thomas and Scalia) would have decided that such an action was constitutionally acceptable.]
After that, we went to the National Gallery (mostly by accident), where we saw an albino squirrel and a really imressive rotunda. Then to the National Archives, through the sculpture garden, onto the Metro, and out to lunch with Rick. I also met Jessamyn there.
Afterward, Jessamyn and strolled around DuPont Circle, got some coffee and played a game of dots. She then headed out to Virginia, and I back home. Overall, quite a nice day. Oh, I forget how easy the Metro makes things.
Photos, for those interested.
May 20, 2005
Greg: 1, Crisis: 0 ::
narrative — tagged family, narrative and travel
11:41 am
I don’t know how many of you have been following the travel planning process that Jessamyn has discussed on her site. For those of you who haven’t, here’s the rundown: Jessamyn is currently in Pittsburgh, PA, doing a library talk. (In fact, she may be presenting as I write this.) Tomorrow, she will get on a bus for Washington, DC. Tomorrow afternoon, I will get on a plane in Burlington, VT, and fly down to Washington to meet her. While there, we will be spending some time with friends. We’ll then come back next week. I’ll be in town for all of a day and a half before leaving town again for my sister’s graduation from Cornell University.
And here’s where things get bad. I took Jessamyn to the airport yesterday (again, up in Burlington). When I got back to Bethel, I noticed a grinding noise coming from the rear wheel of my ‘94 Honda Accord. I’ve owned the car long enough to know what that noise meant: seized up caliper, worn down brake pads, and a damaged rotor. I was going to have to get work done on my car before I took it on the 6+ hour trip to Ithaca.
Now, for those of you who don’t live in Vermont, there’s something you should know about auto repairs in this state: they can take a really long time. Especially in the Spring, when everyone seems to take their car into the shop to get all the repairs done that have built up over the winter months. For example: when Jessamyn had to get her radiator replaced a few weeks ago, it took two and half weeks just to get an appointment. Then it took another day for the part to get there. So clearly, with my upcoming schedule, I was going to have to try to find someone to do the work, and fast.
Luckily, I was able to find a guy. He’s way out of town, up on a dirt road. He’s also one tough dude. (At least that’s what I could surmise from my rather brief discussion with him). When I dropped my car of with him a couple of hours ago, he said he was going to try to get the work done today; if he couldn’t, he said I could leave the car with him and pick it up when I get back from Washington next week. Needless to say, hearing this made me quite happy indeed.
Of course, I am quite aware that I should temper my effusiveness at this point. There’s still quite a bit of time between now and the time I leave for things to go seriously wrong. But still, I can’t help but feel that—at least in this match—that I have beaten a crisis.
Update: I got my car back! Not only that, but the mechanic actually drove my car to my house. I of course had to give him a ride back to the garage, but still, I really thought that was some pretty great service. With that said, if you ever find yourself in need of automotive repair and you’re in Bethel, Vermont, I highly recommend the fine mechanics at North Road Auto & Tire.
