Been back home in California about three hours now. Must keep reminding myself that my self-imposed sentence here will be over soon…
Pictures soon from Charlotte, Greensboro, Baltimore, Schenectady, Albany, Niagara Falls, Pittsburgh, Arlington, and assorted other locales where groceries are cheaper, homes can still be purchased by mere mortals, and Waffle Houses are plentiful…
The great thing about moving to Charlotte (yeah, that’s on again, it seems) is that Mark and I both found our ideal houses there. Mine’s the Craftsman on the left, his is the Tudor on the right, each is in Dilworth and neither is within our means. But we’ll be a helluva lot closer to our goal there than we ever will here…
Anyhow, as much as I’ve kidded the hubby about falling in the love with the exact same neighborhood in 27 different cities, we’re pretty much compatible with respect to this issue, and I could live quite comfortably in a Tudor if I had to, thanks…
Unrelated: much like a good deed, no two-week vacation ever goes unpunished either. Remind me to go into how much this week sucks, if I ever have a second. Or don’t…
John McCain is a man for whom I have immense respect, even when I occasionally disagree with him. But this time, he really should know better. Come on now. Is legislation really called for in this particular case? Ultimately, if any number of overpaid jocks want to commit steroid suicide, who the hell cares? It’s not like their jobs have any earth-shattering significance to the republic…
I’m still working on the text, but if you want to see pictures from the Great East Coast Tour of 2004, here they are…
For those of you who have been waiting patiently (all four of you), the commentary and full story of the Great East Coast Road Trip of 2004 is there for the reading. Enjoy…
Y’know, if it doesn’t involve another design change nor an additional 15 or 20 years of waiting for the damned thing to be built, I’m just as happy as a clam to have the Bay Bridge named in honor of Emperor Norton…
And while I’m still reading today’s paper, I feel compelled again to mention how Tim Goodman just gets it, completely and totally:
But I realized, as I bought a bunch of TV series on DVD that I’d already seen, that it’s not about the watching. It’s about the owning. Rare is the person who says, “I’m going to buy the first season of ‘The Simpsons’ out of curiosity. But not the next four years. And not the 12 to come.” Ours is not that culture. “I really loved the first two seasons of ‘The Sopranos,’ but I wouldn’t dare buy the next three seasons. Oh my, no. Who has the time?”
As consumers, most of us say, “I’ll take all four of these seasons and I’d like to be wait-listed for Season 5 and the yet-to-be-shot Season 6. Here’s my Visa with Uncle Junior and Bacala on the front.”
Americans are collectors. And worse, completists. Count me among you.
Me too…
Somewhere between 750,000 and 800,000 people live within the city limits of San Francisco. Approximately twenty-six of these residents were born and raised and have roots here. Thus, San Francisco is one of those cities that people leave in droves for the Christmas holiday. one happy result of this trend is that it often makes last minute Christmas shopping relatively painless…
On the other hand, buying groceries can be a rather monumental task, what with the supermarket-to-humans ration here being about a third of what it is anywhere else in the country. I headed to the Safeway about 6:30 and was horrified to find that they were out of butter. Not just out of the butter that was on sale, mind you, nor the butter of the type that I wanted, but completely 100% out. There wasn’t a stick of butter (or, this being California, a cake of butter) in the entire store…
It was a really long and very cold San Francisco day, and I was glad to see the 12-Folsom finally coming down The Embarcadero. Once I finally got on the bus, I realized I only had a five dollar bill. We were almost to my stop on the edge of downtown Greensboro before a nice platinum-blonde lipstick lesbian (who was strangely flirty) gave me change so I could pay the fare.
I got off the bus and walked a couple of blocks toward Elm Street. For some reason, the stop wasn’t at its normal place, but I didn’t find this terribly odd. I was, however, surprised by all the clutter in the streets: barricades, concrete barriers, etc. Then I realized that I was in a roped-off area along with an older lady who had been on the bus with me. And all of a sudden, there was a crowd of onlookers by the ropes – hundreds of them.
I heard a pop like a firecracker, then a horn and a bell, and a shout. Instantly, I knew what was going on. I turned around, and within seconds, a 12-story building a block a way was being imploded. Thinking fast, I suggested that the older lady and I run away quickly before we were enveloped in a cloud of dust. I was particularly worried about the dust, because I was already a little stuffy. We ran across all the debris in the street, debris which didn’t come from the building, but which had already been there when we arrived.
A couple of blocks away, we figured we’d safely outrun it all. There were still lots of spectators milling about. Everyone looked a little lost because they apparently had torn down a different building than the one everybody was expecting. We waited a while to see if they’d go ahead and bring down the right one too, but I got bored and decided to walk home.
After hiking the three or four miles down Spring Garden Street to my parents’ house, I found Mark there waiting for me with several friends I hadn’t seen in years and whose names I couldn’t remember. Mark and I decided to go to bed.
And I woke up with him this morning back in San Francisco, ready for another day at work. I hope today and tonight will be slightly less eventful. I’m rather tired.
More people I hate:
