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30
May 11

Happy Memorial Day

Many of the men and women in my family have bravely fought for this country of ours, but we’ve been lucky enough that they’ve all come home. A few were wounded in action, but in so far as I know, they all made it back home dating back at least to World War II.

I remember once, as a child, when my great-grandmother told me that I had uncles who fought in the Civil War. This was big news, impressed as I was at that age by the Civil War. My mother rightfully pointed out that lots of people had family members in that particular war. But my great-grandmother might have watched the Battle of Bull Run as an onlooker. (To a little kid she was very, very old.)

So, while I can’t say today I’m thinking of friends or family members who’ve paid with their lives, I thought often of my trip to Gettysburg with friends a few years back on a very warm Memorial Day. (Here’s a slideshow I made of the day.) Everyone that is able should make that trip at least once.

Today we caught the train from Boston, which required a cab, Dunkin Donuts and then a quick ride in the quiet car to southwestern Connecticut. At the train station yet another person asked Wendy for help with directions or details. I’m making her a sign that says “I’m new here.”

On the way you see this, in New London:

Sign

This is the Bank Street Roadhouse, according to Flickr, which yields to reviews on Trip Advisor and Yelp that the place is so, so, with average this, average that and attractive bartenders. A picture of the front of the place I found makes it look far more reputable.

The Yankee’s dad picked us up at the train station. We headed home and then out for Pepe’s pizza. Ordinarily I don’t take, let alone publish pictures of food, but Pepe’s is the stuff angels eat:

Pepe

Seven of us were there, we made short work of three pies.

Hope you’ve had a lovely Memorial Day, and I hope you’ll check out my slideshow.

Tomorrow: New York City!

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28
May 11

Wendy invades Boston

Our friend Wendy has flown up to join us in New England. She’s from small town south Alabama. The largest place she’s ever lived has less than 250,000 people. She drives hours out of her way to avoid Atlanta. She’s never been to a northern city.

That, in fact, was the first time she’d ever seen a subway.

She got in today and we showed her around town. This is my third time in Boston, so I’m practically a member of the Chamber of Commerce. We took her over to Faneuil Hall. She saw the street dancers, who promised to leap over these four volunteers:

They were great. We had burgers for lunch at a place where the premise was that the staff insults you. This must be the place to which career waiters aspire. I don’t get the appeal, but the sandwich was good and our server wasn’t that bad. They made fun of Wendy, though.

We walked around, through some of the ancient churches of Boston I’ve written about here before. We took the DUKW tour. Tried to do this a few years back, but the airline hosed us and the Duck people were unaccommodating. I’m bitter, but The Yankee wanted to take the tour and offered to pay. I can hold a grudge over principle and lack of customer service, but she made me relent.

That’s our ride. Says the site:

Teresa is named after the Liberty Tree, which was the famous elm tree that stood near the Boston Common. The Liberty Tree was one of the places the “Sons of Liberty”, would gather to protest British rule. On Occasion they would hang lanterns on its branches to symbolize unity. The Liberty Tree was so despised by the British loyalists that they cut it down in 1775. That only enraged the colonists even more. To show their support for the revolution, people started hanging flags with a picture of the tree.

It is a reproduction DUKW, though the company does apparently still have a few original World War II amphibious trucks still in their fleet. One of those is below.

Our guide was good. Loves his town, great with the kids and big on trivia. I would have preferred more history — Boston has tons and tons, of course — but it was a beautiful day and a fine time was had by all.

This is in the Charles River Basin:

In the distance you can see the Harvard Bridge. Our guide told us the story of how the MIT kids didn’t like the bridge leading to their campus being named after their cross-town rivals. At one point in the mid-20th century one fraternity made their pledges measure the bridge using their smallest member as the unit of measurement. The bridge, then, is precisely 364.4 Smoots and one ear long.

Our guide told us that a few years back Smoot came back to MIT for a reunion and took a Duck Tour. They asked him why he was laid down head-to-toe spanning the length of the bridge instead of measuring him and using a rope or something like that.

“MIT students, wicked smaht right? Engineers. He said ‘It just didn’t occur to us,'” our guide said.

He also told the story of when the mayor of Boston bailed out the Rolling Stones.

This is supposedly one of the remaining authentic DUKW’s. Soldiers piled into this thing and stormed beaches. She has a significantly more comfortable life these days.

We had dinner in Little Italy at a place called Giacomo’s. The reviews on Urban Spoon aren’t great. Seems people find the service lacking. The lady that waited on our table was entirely forgettable, but the food came quickly and tasted fine. I chalked it up to the difference in Italian and American dining culture.

So we finished dinner, found a gelato, caught the T back to the hotel and started working on tomorrow’s presentations. Tomorrow, also, Wendy will begin her assault on Beantown.

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27
May 11

We are taking a trip

She’s wearing my aviators, but she’s not flying the plane.

The Yankee flew the car, though. And that was a problem. Just as we got on the freeway and up to a NASCAR speed the whole thing began wobbling. It felt as if a tire was going out of round. We did not, she said, have time to go back home and swap cars. We were, ahem, riding it out.

After a while we ran over something and the wobbling improved. Later it returned. We stopped to check the tires, but everything seemed OK. And then we ran over something else. We stopped again to discover we hadn’t been hitting things, but rather were slinging rubber from the back passenger tire.

On the side of the freeway, having left home late and running to the airport, we found a tire exposing the steel-belted bits. We’d lost a chunk of tire about the size of your hand. This required a tire change. That required pulling all of the luggage out of the trunk and then the fastest tire change ever. Also, we had to add a bit of air to the tire. Our personal air pumps are a bit slow when you’re watching the clock.

We made it to the park-n-ride shuttle. We hustled through airport security, feeling safe with the oh-so-cursory attempt of security theater taking place — better than too much, I say — and then to the plane. Which was delayed. A flight attendant was late.

Oh, they’d leave you, but for one of their own, they’ll board half the flight, count their crew and then take the passengers off the plane. The flight attendant was late because her flight had not shown up. This happens so frequently they have back-up flight attendants waiting to spring forward and offer you a bag of peanuts.

Now, this trip is one-part conference and we’d done something we’ve never done before, which is to fly into the town on the day of our first role in the festivities. The Yankee had to chair a panel in this afternoon’s sessions, which made the plane and the shuttle to the hotel fun. Our room wasn’t ready. We were hours beyond the checkout time, but people weren’t leaving. The Westin in Boston is just that awesome, apparently.

The Yankee, then, changed into a power suit in the locker room. She broke a locker. And that was just how the day went. But, we made it here. She got to her panel on time. We had dinner with friends — her dissertation chair, who is also on my dissertation committee and a guy I went to Auburn with who’s now working toward his PhD at North Carolina — at a place called Dry Dock Cafe. It feels like a restaurant in a mall, but the soup and salad and crabcakes are great. Everything else was fried. The appetizer, nothing more than kidney beans, relish, garlic and mayo (all to taste) was wonderful.

And that was the day. We’ll be in Boston over the weekend through the ICA conference and then on to the next part of our long journey. All down hill from here.

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22
May 11

That’s gonna leave a mark

It is so hard to say goodbye to a four-star hotel. Especially when you know you’ll never stay at a Ritz again.

Though, I will say this: our ironing board was missing a foot, making it rickety. And the electric outlets in our room were installed upside down. Maybe it is really the Rits-Karltown, and we were mistaken.

But the towels, good heavens the towels were luxurious. You dried yourself clouds who had the misfortune of getting too close to the laundry room. The wait staff waded down into the infinity pool to bring drinks. People there fell all over themselves to help you. Breakfast this morning was the best buffet you could ever experience. The place smelled of potpourri and there was fine oak in dark accents everywhere you looked. Everything was granite-topped or better. Fine place.

After breakfast we checked out and went back to the lake house. Dave wanted to take us all out on the boat, so there we were, enjoying the sun and the breeze and a quiet stretch of Georgian lake and pine scenery.

Dave broke out the jet skis and people took turns riding them. One of them came free and The Yankee wanted to ride. She invited me along and I’m thinking She’s never driven one before. I’ve never been on one before. What could go wrong? I ask you again WHAT COULD GO WRONG!?!?!?!?

You drive a jet ski a little differently than other things that are not nautical. We putt-putt away and she says “How do you turn?”

“Wide. It doesn’t spin on a dime.” She turns the thing back in the general direction of the pontoon and guns it. We accelerate. We’re moving at a good clip. I glance down at the digital speedometer and see 52. (It should be noted we were on the slower of the two jet skis. And, if you are unaware, when you get in the 40-plus range on water, that is serious.)

I say “Slow down!” just as we cross a wake and are both elevated out of the seated position.

In the moment I had left before my savior called me home I decided it was either me or both of us. I pushed her shoulders down, forcing her back toward the jet ski and pushing me away. I fly off the thing somewhere in the neighborhood of 50 miles an hour. (Let’s call it 65, just to be safe.)

I managed to get my body turned to the right and tuck my right arm back in something close to a normal position and have mostly exhaled when I hit the water. And, if you’ve never done this: hitting the water at 145 miles per hour is not unlike hurling yourself into a sturdy wall.

I go under. And all of these are the first seven rapid-fire thoughts, occurring much faster than I can type them or you can read them:

1.) OOOOF!
2.) I’m glad for this life jacket.
3.) This is what death feels like.
4.) I’m going to die now.
5.) This is what broken ribs feel like.
6.) Wind, knocked out of me.
7.) Force breathing, force breathing.

That all happened in the amount of time I hit the water, submerged and the lake halted my flailing and flopping. I’d landed on my right side, feet towards the still-traveling jet ski, head back pointing at nothing in particular, and I took it all on my rib cage.

I haven’t absorbed a good shot like that in a long while. She said that by the time she had the jet ski turned around to find me she could already hear me grunting and straining to breathe. (The best way to do it, I believe, is just force your body to do it. The first two or three tries are no fun at all, but at least after that it is over and you can breathe again.) So I was in the water, thankful for the lifejacket (which I ordinarily hate) because I didn’t have to worry about swimming. I could just sound like some martial arts expert chopping a noisy tennis player in half while the tennis player volleys.

She turns to come back and I waved her off because that was all I could think to do. I really wanted to breathe and didn’t want to have to floating into her novice jet ski self. Finally I got it together enough that I brought her in, but I couldn’t climb on the stupid thing because I was wet, weak and slick from sun block. So she had to almost pick me up, like you see in westerns from time to time, but with much less grace. And that was pretty much my day. Before everyone got done with the boating I had gotten good and stiff.

I had some Advil at the lake house and then we hit the road. Just got home, in time to take some Ibuprofen and am moving verrrry gingerly. I haven’t bruised up, I can breathe, I don’t think anything is broken, but I got beat up good!

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20
May 11

Weekend trip

Packed for the weekend. Loaded the car. Changed the oil. Got gas. Found it six-cents-a-gallon cheaper almost immediately thereafter. Considered a haircut, but I was already late and there was a wait. Bought a shirt. Left town.

I stopped at the state line at the self-proclaimed world’s largest fireworks warehouse:

Click to embiggen.

That’s with the free Panorama app on my iPhone, staring into the sun and, thus, guessing. Nevertheless, the place is big.

I’d been tasked with getting sparklers. We’re attending a wedding in Georgia this weekend and the good people of that state frown on sulfur on a stick. Strictly in an advisory role, I thought I’d stick my head in this place. If it is the world’s largest, and if it is 20 minutes from my home, I should get to know the folks.

Their sparkler section is as big as apartment I once rented. The place is wonderous.

Worked my way up to Atlanta to pick up The Yankee. She’s been out of town at a conference this week and is coming home just in time for our friend’s big day. Somehow managed to avoid interstate tangles and then moved through the line at the airport at an astonishing four feet per minute. The terminal drop-off road has three lanes and for the most part only the inside and the center lane are used for disgorging airline passengers. It doesn’t matter on what end of this mess your person waits. You still have to make it through the crowd. They’ve just left, or are just dreading the airport experience and so rules and safety don’t mean a lot to them in that first/last moment of freedom. How people don’t get maimed here daily I do not know.

There actually was an ambulance on the curb with the lights on. Couldn’t say what the problem was, but it is both sobering to know the airport has its own medical fleet. If you must get on board that rig you’ll be waiting for 90 minutes before you can depart. No cell phones, and no checked bags. Also, the EMTs give you a Freedom Rub. It is entirely possible you wind up at one hospital and your belongings are discovered en route to Croatia. This is not the place to be hurt or ill.

Anyway. Picked up The Yankee and we headed east, to a lake about halfway between Atlanta and Augusta. That’s where our friend’s wedding is tomorrow. Checked into our posh hotel, headed out to the site of the big ceremony, the family lake house, and enjoyed a beautiful evening. Most people we did not know. The Yankee went to school with the groom — and his best man, who was there tonight. She knows the parents of the groom. We also know the bride, but that’s about it. We’re strangers to everyone else. Lovely people, though, and a charming place to see the big event tomorrow. It will be perfect, with a side of Georgia in May.

Went back to our hotel, the Ritz, where they have a fire out back and let you circle around for S’mores. I had two. Because, really, how often do you get to have S’mores? Answer: Not often enough, and that should be remedied.

Hit the pool, and then The Yankee hit the wall. She’s been traveling for the better part of the last two days and it is late. So here we are, ready to relax. (We ended today with S’mores and will start tomorrow with a lake and an infinity pool. Done and done.)