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At work today I had to do a (mandatory) web survey that wants to know if I’m actually me or just someone else pretending to be me. There’s something emotionally appealing about option #3 that almost made me click that one.
Select the appropriate statement then click the Submit button:
- I attest that I have read and understand the above statement. I attest that I am the person listed at the top of this page and I assure that I will complete the required ethics course work with the highest degree of integrity and professionalism.
- I attest that I have read and understand the above statement. I am NOT the person listed above, and would like to confidentially provide information before continuing with the course.
- I attest that I have read and understand the above statement. I am NOT the person listed above, and would like to continue with the course. I understand that my activities may be considered fraudulent and that this course will be flagged by the software and my institution will be notified.
Will I have minions someday to perjure themselves on my behalf? Time will tell.
Much later that VERY SAME MONTH (this time), a selection of highly curated shots from wedding pictures from C&A’s shindig. The full mega-set of 264 (distilled from 800+ and 15GB of originals) is over here, or you can pick from other contributors here. Make fun of your favorite private dancer!!
Just an aside – having seen them a few times since the wedding, the standard married person brain rot has not set in yet. I’m setting the over/under at a very liberal six months and/or whenever they start cranking out little ones. Schedule your friend-time appropriately.
Dog and I are officially back home. When we first crossed the bridge over the pike she started to get excited. When we took that sharp left down Brighton at Union Square she was doing backflips. She more or less remembered which building we live in (though my inexplicably disappearing awning throws me off) but is beside herself with all the new new (or old new) smells along the same old new walking routes. And of course she enjoyed it thoroughly when we saw our first rat of the new new in front of the same place where we’ve had fun with them previously.
I’m still lacking in the internets department and have been putting off a thousand other undealt-with problems but at least I’ve got the critter and we’ve each got our own small respective corners to hang in. As of this morning, a major accomplishment in that we’ve got the heat working. I mentioned to the guy who was fixing the furnace (as he lay on his back in a pile of wires, bolts and metal miscellany) that I had been contemplating fixing it myself, making him laugh out loud, somehow managing to be both derisive and good-natured at the same time. It was the same guy I used before, I like him. He was an hour late but as I’m regularly and obnoxiously incapable of staying in time with the world myself, I understand.
 Dog and I went hiking up in what the flickr geotagger randomly identifies as Melrose, Medford or Winchester today, in the eastern Fells. We followed some semi-paths through the woods along the shore of Quarter Mile Pond up to the shore of the surprisingly large Spot Pond. Trying to find a different way back, we got completely utterly lost around the wrong side of another of the smaller lakes south of Spot. There hadn’t really been much of anyone out and about so it was a surprise when we came across a very large group hiking single-file through the brush in the general directly I thought I needed to go. I tried to inconspicuously merge in the middle of them but the lack of a pack and me being the only one with a giant dog was a dead give-away that I didn’t really belong. It turns out they were a part of the AMC, and very friendly. One of them had a topo map with him and between that and the (finally useful!) iPhone compass the critter and I said thanks and struck off east south-east to find the promised dashed line back to civilization.
Point being, it’s Saturday. A weekend day. A do something day*. There need to be more of these.
*Long runs don’t count. Unless the route is new and totally bitchin’.
It’s not that I’ve stopped writing here. It’s that since I’ve gotten back to Boston there’s not been many periods of both time and internet access.
But that’s not to say things haven’t been interesting. In the ten days (!) since day 9 I’ve started a new job, reconnected with some almost forgotten friends, shot (parts of) a wedding, registered to vote, rebuilt my laptop, gotten Mass plates and a license, gone to a top shelf baby niece birthday party, moved into my house (nearly freezing to death in the process) and purchased some real furniture in a less futile than I might secretly have liked attempt to convince myself that I’m an adult. Oh and played with my puppy who I missed something fierce.
There’s a ton of stuff yet to do before I hit full on functionality – more logistics than I care to think of still hanging. But the really the heavy lifting, the mandatory requirements of East Coast living reborn, all of that is done, all the parts are working now. Two more weeks and things will be so smooth the transition will begin to be forgotten.
What a long strange trip. With today, it’s all over, all forty-four hundred miles of it. The last forty-eight hours from Austin were so blurry, so fast and so far, a very modern cannonball run. I’m ready to do it all again (after some sleep), more off the clock, next week, next summer. You should come along next time, we’ll wear the boots, keep the backseat empty, hit the biker bars, rock the country mixes and stick to the dirt roads.
Tomorrow, to Brigham and the resumption of the workaday routine. It almost breaks your heart.
It rained all day. We drove just shy of 1000 miles. It was long, wet, cold, dangerous at times. We missed everything we might have wanted to see in Tennessee, Graceland, the Grand Ole Opry, the muscle car museum, the yesterdaze pinball museum, the world’s most amazing quilt shop. Were it not for a coincidental and providential meeting with YJP’s family in Crossville Tennessee today would have been easily been deemed the worst day of the trip. But the road finally dried out, the mandatory mileage got done, we’ll just have to come back another time to see what there is to see.
Tomorrow, home.
I haven’t written up ACL yet but will tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the larger narrative is I’ve finally escaped from Texas only to find myself stopped in Rockport, AR having fallen short of the goal of Little Rock. There’s some debate as to whether we’re technically in Rockport or it’s larger neighbor Malvern but I’m going with the former for it’s acoustical aesthetics. The part of Arkansas we’ve been through has been extremely foggy, forcing my mind to foreshadow ahead to unpleasant low budget horror film scenarios. (OK, verified hotel door is locked.) Speaking to the desk clerk has already destroyed my ability to speak non-accented English. There’s a Waffle House (open 24 hours!) within piglet chucking distance next door and while my new copilot (and manual transmission operator extraordinaire) doesn’t know it yet we’re having some breakfast eggs there tomorrow. Today’s post-Austin miles have almost entirely taken place after dark so I didn’t see much countryside but did pass through both Midlothian and Hope, AR, home to very many multicolored signs about the former president.
Tomorrow, Tennessee! If we survive the night.
I’m a couple days late posting this due to connectivity issues, but month nine of my project 365. The full set is on flickr or here on quasify. Of note, this month there are more shots of VC (3) than mmmja (only 1!!)… That imbalance will get fixed in October, I promise.
I’ve reached the end of Phase II of the trip back to Boston, some 2372.2 miles later. After a bit more poking around (the curiously deserted) Big Bend this morning I flat out hauled across Texas at near warp, nine hours later arriving in Austin in time for YJP’s kickball shenanigans & dessert. I’ll be taking a little break from the eastward migration for the exciting Austin City Limits updates starting tomorrow. I’ve just been messing around with the ACL iPhone app which is great – a perfect way to keep track of who and what and where to see. I’m unfamiliar with more of the bands this year than last so things may be hit or miss. Hopefully I’m just clueless and it’ll all be great. The never-ending road trip will continue again Monday with the second co-pilot and new & exciting & as of yet unconquered mountain passes.
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