Story Time I

First up, announcement: I’m not abandoning the road trip series. I have detailed notes of every day of the trip and it will be continued at some point. Those posts take at least an hour to write though, and since I am busy with school, it’s difficult to motivate myself to write for an hour after doing homework for 5+ hours. Anyway, to fill in the down time, I have a new project I’m starting here.

Basically, I’m going to be writing more frequently with dumps of random things that have happened recently. This was inspired by the atrocious awareness of Massachusetts drivers, bikers and pedestrians. I have so many stories of people who should have died, and Twitter doesn’t always do it justice because of the space limitations. Instead, those will now go here. Also, random quotes/anecdotes that I wanted to share, but had nowhere to put them, so enjoy!

I’m starting with an idiot in Harvard Square, because he led to the inspiration for this. I was driving and had a green light. As I, and the car next to me, proceeded through the intersection, each of us had to slam on our breaks and come to a screeching halt, because some moron decided to cross the street, against a green light. That’s bad. What makes it worse: he was texting on his phone AND NEVER ONCE LOOKED UP. WHAT THE HELL?!  Even after two cars almost hit him and splattered his brains on our windshields, he had a complete lack of awareness of the situation. I sincerely hope that message was of vital importance. (Note: this will be a recurring theme here. I frequently drive near the 50 million college campuses in Boston and I’m starting to believe all of them need to have a course during orientation to teach them that they are on an urban campus, and can’t walk wherever the fuck they like whenever the fuck they want. It’s a public safety/traffic flow issue).

Comcast

When I first signed up for my cable package, I flipped through the stations to see what came as part of my subscription. On all of the stations I did not receive, there was this message: “This channel is free as part of subscription.” No shit.

Comcast apparently does not have a centralized system across the country (this astounds me. How can you be a national corporation, but divide it into different territories where information cannot be accessed? Bank of America did this also. They broke it down even more though, where Northern and Southern California were different territories. How is this legal?). Anyway, I needed to cancel my service in California and open a new account in Massachusetts, because it was impossible to transfer my package and account. So I call Comcast to set up an appointment and order my new package, then I needed to call them again to cancel my old subscription (yes, I really needed to call again). When I inform the service rep that I’m cancelling my subscription, he asks why (as everyone does. When I cancelled my gym, they asked for so much of my current information that I could’ve sworn they were building a FBI dossier on me). I tell him that I moved and had to open a new Comcast account in Mass. Direct quote: “Sorry to lose you as a customer” ……… I understand these people work off a script, but does that limit their ability to comprehend what the person at the other end of the line is saying. YOU DID NOT LOSE ME AS A CUSTOMER. I CANCELLED THAT ACCOUNT TO OPEN ANOTHER ACCOUNT WITH THE SAME MONEY BECAUSE YOUR SHITTY COMPUTER SYSTEM CAN’T HANDLE ALL OF YOUR CUSTOMERS.

Last one:

I went to visit the doctor last week for some immunizations. Before he comes in, the nurse weighs and tests my blood pressure (which is fantastic by the way, not that anyone could tell that from these posts and my Twitter feed). She goes through the standard questions and we have this exchange (and picture her thick Russian accent, I think that adds to this):

Nurse: Do you do drugs?

Me (remember that I am an idiot and apparently deaf): Hmm… I mean, I drink probably twice a week.

Nurse: No, I said drugs. No one cares if you drink. Everyone drinks.

Duly noted.

Road Trip Day 2

So Day 2 was the least eventful day of the trip. I legitimately have no notes on the day, so this will be a relatively short post.

I’d originally planned on driving from SLC to Omaha Nebraska. Then, I actually looked at a map and realized that driving to Omaha would add two extra hours to my trip, one in the evening and one the next day, so I switched it to Lincoln instead.

My goal was to get out of Wyoming before the sun set. I didn’t want to have to deal with hills and mountains in the dark. Thanks to my singular focus, I met this goal with over an hour to spare. Wyoming wound up being an easy drive. The highway was only two lanes at most points, and there were some stretches where construction reduced traffic to one lane, but since I had the sun, I had no issues. It was a scenic drive,  and I attempted to take some photos, but other than that, not much to report.

The first food stop was Sonic. I needed a snack to tide me over, so I got a Cheese Coney, the first of three on the trip. Not exactly a culinary delicacy, but since Sonics have never been readily available wherever I’ve lived, I was fine using a meal on it.

I’d planned on having a decent meal after I entered Nebraska, but kept finding reasons (mostly imagined) to postpone a dinner stop. I finally decided to eat after 10pm, and of course it was a McDonald’s. Not exactly getting the food stops off to an auspicious stop, but I swear I make up for it later on the trip.

Last interesting note: I arrived in Lincoln after 2am. I had to drive through the downtown area to reach my hotel for the evening. I’m not sure when bars let out, but the streets were decently populated. More interestingly, I was stopped at two red lights, each time with another car. At both of these lights, the other cars essentially crept through the intersection until the light turned green. I realize that waiting at red lights when there are no cars or pedestrians going in other directions is frustrating, but do people in Nebraska realize that red lights are not optional? Not sure if they got the memo on that one…

Anyway, tomorrow is Day 3. I drove from Lincoln to Kansas City Missouri and took in my first game of the trip. There’s some good stuff coming up, so tune in (hopefully) tomorrow and you can see my thoughts on KC and Kauffman Stadium.

Road Trip Day 1

So I recently drove across the country and am back on my beloved East Coast. The drive itself took 12 days (as opposed to the 4 I took last time), and I made some specific stops at baseball games along the way. I took notes throughout the trip (some, while stopped and fully attentive, others, unfortunately while driving, and other things will hopefully be recalled as I type). I’ll write a post for each day of the trip. Some will be longer and more entertaining than others, but I wanted to try and document everything that was interesting. Hopefully reading this will be as fun as taking the trip was. As an overall assessment, I had an absolute blast and wholly recommend road trips to anyone, whether they be focused on baseball, camping, or some other personal interest. As for the format of these posts, you’ll get some detailed stories, some observations and some things that would have fit better at tweets, but were never tweeted for various reasons. Without further ado, here is Day 1.

So my day began running behind, as usual. I spent the weekend before in Massachusetts for a wedding, and flew back on Sunday evening. I needed to pack up the rest of my things Sunday night/Monday morning before I could leave. Of course, three days earlier I had already shipped a significant portion of my things onto a moving truck. I thought that fitting my clothes and bedding things wouldn’t be too difficult. Of course, it was too much. Apparently I own too many clothes. So I needed to make a stop at FedEx/Kinko’s to ship two suitcases East. Nothing like dropping an extra $90 after you’ve already paid $2000 on shipping costs to start a trip off right. Anyway, I finally hit the road at 11:20, two hours later than I wanted.

I passed the O.co Coliseum at 11:53am. The Raiders were playing a preseason game that evening. I’m not sure if it started at 7 or 8. However, they were already people WAITING OUTSIDE THE PARKING LOT TO BEGIN TAILGATING. How can you have absolutely nothing to do on a non-holiday Monday morning than to wait outside a stadium parking to BBQ and binge drink. Oakland, I am impressed and tip my cap to you.

1:49PM: I hear Starships for the first time. During the bachelor party for the aforementioned wedding, Starships became our theme song. I’m still not entirely certainly how or why it happened, but it did. The song currently occupies a space where I like to think I’m ironically enjoying it, but in actuality I probably just really like the song. I’ve yet to purchase it, but give it a week or two. I anticipated hearing it at least 20x over the next week. We’ll see if I hit that number.

There are certain parts of this ride that are easy, and other parts that aren’t. Obviously, driving through the flat Nevada desert with few cars and almost no cops around is easy. Mountains: not so much. 3 years ago, I took the same route. I entered Wyoming at around sunset, and wound up needing to drive through those mountains and hills to Salt Lake City in the dark. O, there was also a severe thunderstorm at that point. I was scared shitless and driving 50mph in the right lane with my blinkers on. If I could’ve seen into the cabs of trucks, I’m sure they were all either swearing at me for going to so slow or laughing. Regardless, when I hit the mountains in Eastern California I started peeing myself.

30 minutes before the California-Nevada border, I hit a rainstorm. I at least managed to keep my wits about me, but I definitely slowed down, started driving on the right, and my pants may have gotten damp.

Before I enter Nevada as part of this narrative, I would like to make one final discourse on California drivers. They are the worst drivers I have encountered in the union. I have driven fairly extensively through 30 states and DC, so I’d like to think my wholly personal experience translates to everyone else in the world. California drivers seem to get around thinking there is no one else on the road, and everyone else is capable to reacting to their own personal whims. Drivers on the east coast may be crazier (which will be a theme), but there’s at least a controlled chaos to everything. It all fits and makes sense. No such thing in California.

At this point, I will also make another diversion (get ready for lots of these). I somehow have acquired the bladder of someone who has had their bladder punctured by a knife 50x. I seriously need to go to the bathroom at least once an hour. It gets really annoying and frustrating when one constantly needs to stop. So while I’m not going to mention every bathroom trip, unless they were particularly eventful, imagine one between every paragraph in these posts. With that mental imagery, let’s move on.

I stopped in Reno for my first meal of the trip. I planned on making better food stops on this trip. Last time, I only ate fast food and chain restaurants, and wanted to change that this time and really get some local flavor and try some things I’d never eaten before. So of course, my first stop was KFC. I had Hot Wings and potato wedges. They were delicious.

Sparks Nevada in next to Reno. I went there to get gas. The city is so terribly shittily designed, that it’s almost incomprehensible. The simple act of leaving a highway to get gas and to return to the highway took about 5x as long as necessary. I hate this place.

7:15PM: I hear Starships for the second time. I missed the first verse. I’m kinda upset.

Roadside rest stops are interesting places. While I appreciate states putting in places to rest and relieve oneself, after dark, if not well lit and with conspicuous surveillance camera, they are creepy places. After I stopped at one in the middle of Nevada and got spooked, I resolved to only stop at gas stations from then on, which leads into this whopper of a story…

I got pulled over somewhere near Elko. I have been pulled over once before in my life, so it was a slightly nerve wracking experience for me. I’d just gotten back on the highway and thought that the cop pulled me over for jumping the end of the construction zone (with a speed limit 20mph less than outside). No, instead I’d been pulled over because he caught me in a DUI trap (yes I am serious). Now, I don’t claim to be a criminal law expert, but I’m still not entirely certain what the DUI standard was or how I got pulled over. Regardless, he had a real reason to stop me: when I entered the highway, I didn’t use a turn signal (which is especially embarrassing for me since I know I use them more than anyone else I know. Needless to say, I have yet to enter a highway sine then without using a turn signal). So I pull over the cop approaches my car. I pull out my license and roll down the window. The cop is very friendly, explains he’s on DUI protocol (bullshit) and we chat for a minute. He asks for my registration, but I point to the glove compartment and tell him because I have several bags against it, it’ll take me a few minutes to find my registration, and I’ll need to leave the car. He asked me what I as doing, and I told him I was driving back home from living in CA for the past few years. Unfortunately “home” is not the same state as my plates (for now!) so when he ran my plate and license I had to hope everything was in order (which it was).

As I’m sitting in my car breathing deeply, I see someone approach my car on the passenger side with a flashlight. I freak out, because I’m in the middle of nowhere Nevada. It was the officer, looking through my backseat at my belongings, trying to see if I had some illegals (or something) under my pillows. I roll down my passenger side window and we begin a new conversation.

Officer: Where did you say you were going again?

Me: Oh, well I’m coming from California and I’m driving to (the east coast). I just started this morning.

Officer: Oh, that’s nice. Well I should tell you, I’m getting a whiff of marijuana in your car. Are you transporting any drugs?

Me: No officer, I have no drugs in my car.

Me in my head: WTF???????!!!!!!!!!!! There were no drugs in my car and never have been at any point. This messed with my head because I had no clue what was going to happen next. I knew the car was clear, but I was worried about getting thrown into jail on some bullshit.

Officer: Well, I can tell you that I’m definitely getting a whiff. I think I may need to call down and get some dogs down here to sniff around your car. Is that fine with you?

Me: Officer, I promise you I have nothing in my car. I’m just trying to get to Salt Lake City tonight, but if you need to call in the dogs, then I’m fine with that. I’d just like to move along as quickly as possible since I still have 4 hours of driving tonight (note: I didn’t arrive at my hotel until 6 hours after this occurred).

Me in my head: WTF????????!!!!!!!!!! DOGS?!?!?!?! HE IS SMELLING THE TOWEL I SHOWERED WITH THIS MORNING AND DIDN’T HAVE THE CHANCE TO DRY OFF BEFORE I ENTERED THE CAR. WHO CALLS IN DOGS OVER A WHIFF OF POT?!?!?!?!

Officer: I’m sorry to ask again, but what were you doing in California>

Me: No problem officer. I just graduated law school and took the bar exam there, and now I’m going to (the east coast for additional schooling). This is kinda my post bar trip, I plan on seeing some baseball games.

Officer: You just graduated law school?

Me: Yes sir.

Officer: Well I’ll tell you what, I’ve been wrong about these things before. Pull about 50-60 feet up, and when you can see beyond my car, pull onto the highway.

Me: So you want me to pull over by the sign?

Officer: No, you don’t need to pull over, just pull forward until the coast is clear, then you can go.

Me: Wait… so there are no dogs?

Officer: No, I’m probably wrong here. Have a good night.

Me: So… I’m free to go?

Officer: Yes, no dogs, you can go.

After this, I took so long to calm down and get ready to leave, that the officer pulled away and drove off before I did. I then was freaked out and did not even bother driving the speed limit for the rest of the night. The limit was generally 75mph, but I was lucky if I was doing 65. I just couldn’t drive fast. The rest of the night was generally unmemorable. I didn’t make it to the hotel until 3:30 that morning.

Coming up Day 2: Salt Lake City to Lincoln Nebraska: not gonna lie, this will be the shortest entry of the trip. But I swear some good stuff is coming up afterwards!

Tailgating

So law classes sometimes bring out random memories. This will be a quick post about such a memory. Those of you who read this know that, at times, I can be dense. I know, shocking. So the event that brought this out was a case in my ethics class, where someone kept fucking up, and the judge kept trying to give the guy hints to stop fucking up and gently telling him what he should do, until the idiot lawyer was a complete lost cause and the judge had to sanction him. Here’s the story:

Before I spent my year in China, I frequently went to concerts. Not that I’d go to every show that came through town, but usually at least 4-5 shows a year. Since I returned I’ve been to three concerts: Misfits, Darkest Hour and some random outdoor electronic fest (which I should probably write about at some point, but synopsis: crazy music, weird clothing, and lots of people on drugs. Saw one kid need to be resuscitated by EMTs. It was weird). Before I left for China, my last concert in America was Warped Tour, which I attended with friend of the blog Alex. The main draws for us were Coheed & Cambria, Underoath and some other bands which I can’t remember at the moment and are irrelevant anyway.

This was the first concert we had attended together where each of us were 21+, so on the way to the venue, we decided to stop and get some beer to pregame the festivities. We picked up a Sam Adams mixer and some cups and continued on our way to the venue. We pay for parking and get our spot, pop the trunk and crack open some beers and just hang out for a bit before heading in. Within 5 mins, a plain clothes officer on a bike has pulled up next to us asking for IDs. We show him our age and he tells us there’s an open container law in this town. Keep in mind this is our first beer and I’m sober.

Me: “Really?”

Officer: “Yes, there’s an open container law. You can’t be drinking out of those bottles.”

Me: “Crap, do we need to pour these out?”

Officer: “No, but there’s an open container law.”

Me: “So what should we do?”

Officer: “You just can’t be drinking out of the bottles.”

Me: “Hmm…. Wait. We have cups! If we drink out of the cups, is there a problem?”

Officer: “I can’t tell you to drink out of the cups. I just want to remind you of the open container law. You need to keep those bottles hidden.”

Me: “So the cups are okay then?”

Officer who surprisingly hasn’t slapped me yet: “Just keep those drinks hidden. I don’t care how you do it.”

Me: “Gotcha.”

I am dense.

So It Begins....

So I hope to begin a new project on the blog, which I will explain in this post. Now, this is meant to be a 10 part series, and given the speed with which I post, I expect it to be finished sometime in 2016. However, given the nature of the concept, that’s actually not an issue. The inspiration of this comes from the Boston Globe. When I was in college, they separated the comics and crossword puzzle into a separate ‘life’ section (cannot remember the name of it for the life of me. anyone know what it was or if they still do it?). To beef up the content, they’d usually have a feature on something to do in the city and some random interviews/event listings/whatever. One thing that always caught my eye was an interview where they’d ask a local ‘celebrity’ to shuffle his/her iPod and list the first 10 songs that appeared, with no cheating to hide embarrassing selections. I always found this fascinating.

I am a music junkie. I have over 13000 songs on my computer and I do believe that I’m one of the few people who can say they actually have some of everything. Songs range from Bach to the Beatles, to Jay Chou to Bury Your Dead. I maintain my Super Awesome Playlist that forces me to cycle through all of my songs and not just keep listening to recent favorites until I get sick of them. While the playlist is no longer several thousand songs long (I changed my formula to make it a little more dynamic and adaptable to new music purchases), my goal every year is to listen to each song at least 1-2 times so I an try and rate everything and find new songs that maybe I’ve overlooked in the past or that I may now appreciate as my musical taste evolves and I get older.

I have music on pretty much all of my non-sleeping non-classroom time. I’ll run through somewhere between 100-150 songs a day. While I haven’t always been so extreme in my habits, I have always been listening to music. While some people define their lives by television or movies (or books/non-electronic entertainment for the more enlightened members of society), I use music. I can listen to certain songs and go straight back into the mindset that I had when that song was in heavy rotation, or perhaps my thoughts on the first time I heard it. While the nostalgia can be nice, it can also lead to unpleasant memories depending on the song.

So this is all a grandiose way of saying I want to do the random shuffle 10 song trick, and write an essay about each song and the mindset it puts me in. As a disclaimer, I may not be entirely honest with it being completely random. If a song elicits nothing out of me, I’m not going to write about it, just as I won’t write about songs that bring similar memories/emotions. This is slightly different than my usual posts on funny/stupid things that happen to me, and I may attempt to break things up with some moments of comedy, but this is my current course of action. I hope to knock out one or two before the end of the year, but we’ll see how that goes. Hopefully, this turns out to be as interesting a concept in reality as it is in my head.

(Current Song: Oasis “Morning Glory)