Well, it's happened again folks. Another year has come and gone. I have spent more time than I care to admit over the past few days writing up this year's "obligatory New Year's post" full of retrospective analysis and other useless drivel, but after reading my uncle's elegantly simple New Year's "top ten" blog post I decided to throw it out and go with this instead, not that this is any improvement...
The Top Points:
Bus Driving - I loved being a bus driver in Vail; well maybe not when I had to deal with unruly drunks, but the rest of the time it was great. In fact, in recent days I have been struggling with some profound nostalgia for the bus driving, but that's another blog post.
Europe with Dad - Europe was better than I anticipated, and it was great to have so much quality time with Dad for the first time in a long time.
DC or Bust - This was kind of a big move for me psychologically and I think I've been learning a lot about myself along the way (I'm not sure exactly WHAT I've learned, but I know that I've learned a lot). While it has been mostly all positive for me, it has also not always been easy or smooth.
The Less-Good stuff (and general ideas for 2008 resolutions):
Not enough exercise. Not enough healthy eating.
Not enough movies. Not enough musical discoveries.
Not enough socializing. Not enough friends. Not enough fun.
Not enough personal enrichment. Not enough foreign languages.
Too much dependence and freeloading.
Too much time wasted on the internet.
Hmm, I realize that based on the bullet points it looks like I had more bad than good this year, but that's not true. In fact, I would say that 2007 was a pretty good year for me, probably a 7.5 or 8 out of 10. Thanks to everyone who helped in your own way to make 2007 a great year for me. Special thanks to Mom, Lisa, and William for subsidizing my life through their gracious and generous hospitality, without which I would not have been able to go to Europe or move here to DC. Here's to an even better 2008! Happy New Year!
Before I get to my recent vehicular sighting I want to talk about how very excited I was yesterday to receive my fixed-gear bike in the mail after Mom had it packed up and sent off last week. It was almost like Christmas morning, opening that big box, removing all the parts and laying them out on the floor, finding the necessary tools for assembly, etc... Of course, I have owned this bike for some time now and I knew it was coming in the mail, so there wasn't that same Christmas-morning element of surprise. Anyhow, I am so happy to have this bike back, I missed it! Last night after I finished putting it back together I was so excited about getting to ride it around DC today, but naturally it is wet and drizzly today. I guess it is supposed to be windy too. Not the best bike-riding weather.
Ok, now for the cool vehicular sighting. I knew these existed because I had seen them in TV shows or movies or whatnot, but until a few weeks ago I had never actually seen one in real life and I must say that I was in awe. This awe-inspiring vehicular entity was what I would probably call (perhaps wrongly) a "hook-n-ladder" firetruck. After doing a little bit of internet research I have learned that they are actually called "tiller" trucks. These are the long fire trucks that tow a ladder trailer-style and have a separate cab at the rear end for another driver to steer the rear wheels independently of the front, allowing the truck to better negotiate crowded and narrow city streets. Now, I've seen plenty of firetrucks in my lifetime, even plenty of big firetrucks, but when I saw this "tiller" truck approaching I knew there was something different about it. As it went past me and around the corner I could not help but be amazed by the grace and beauty of the whole thing. I then thought of the Seinfeld episode where Kramer drives the rear end of one of these fire trucks. I think it might be one of those life-altering experiences. I think it would be strange to be responsible for making sure that the rear end doesn't run over anything but not really be able to control the speed or the front end in any way. Anyhow, since my first sighting I have seen these trucks at least two other times and each time I have to stop walking to sit and watch in awe as it goes by, gliding around the corner like a truck half its length.
My second major vehicular sighting was a hybrid taxi cab (it was a hybrid Camry), the only one I've seen here in DC. Since moving here I've been wondering why taxi companies still use big gas-guzzling American V8 sedans like Ford Crown Vic's for their fleets. It seems to me like they would have a lot of incentive to phase those out in favor of more efficient cars like the Prius or something. I'm sure that the Prius costs more initially, but with all of the time spent sitting around idling and with the stop-and-go, high-mileage nature of Taxi cab driving patterns, I have a suspicion that the huge gasoline savings alone would pay for the difference pretty quickly. Plus I would be that the Prius is equally (if not more) spacious than the big Crown Vics, and it is probably a lot easier to maneuver through city traffic as well. I suspect that it is just a culture of resistance to change that keeps the Prius out of taxi fleets, which is unfortunate. Maybe one of these days I'll run some numbers to see how the Prius actually stacks up economically to a Crown Victoria...
Those are the two biggest vehicular sightings of late, although I did also see two Bentley's and a stunningly beautiful Maserati yesterday in swanky Georgetown. OH! And I also saw a beautiful, huge, brand-new bus perform one of the most expertly-executed turns I have ever seen. Like the "tiller" trucks, it was an awe-inspiring sight to behold. I'm sure you wish you were there.
As much as I was hoping I wouldn't, I have actually found myself missing being a bus driver the past few days. Only two months away from it and I already look back fondly on that job. I really did like driving those buses. I wonder if I could get a very part-time job driving one of the fancy double-decker tourist sight-seeing buses around DC. That would probably be fun! hahaha
Here is a short video of a "tiller" truck rounding a corner. Beautiful, isn't it?
I have recently become kind of self-conscious about blogs, blogging, and the stigma of being "a blogger" and as a result have had some difficulty thinking of good topics to blog about. Almost everything that I think of to potentially blog about seems too... well too SOMETHING. Too political. Too whiny. Too boring. Too cliché. Too polarizing. Too hard to articulate clearly. Too egocentric. Too, etc...
So that's why my blog entries have been kind of sparse lately. Sorry.
DC is great. I am so glad I moved here (although I do miss driving the bus too). My job is fairly interesting and I haven't really messed anything up yet, I don't think. I have been enjoying living with Lisa and William in their beautiful new freshly-renovated home and I am very gracious for the sacrifices they have had to make in order to accommodate me, but I have also been looking for somewhere else to live so I don't have to continue mooching off relatives. Unfortunately, that housing search has not been going very well yet. I'm not worried about it; I'm sure I'll find somewhere eventually.
In honor of me having a 9-to-5 job now, today I'm putting up videos of two different versions of the same song (9-to-5) by everyone's favorite punky British gal, Lady Sovereign. The first video is a cover by the Ordinary Boys featuring Lady Sovereign, then the second one is Lady Sovereign's original version (as I understand it). I like the Ordinary Boys cover version of the song a little better, but I think I like Lady Sovereign's video better because I'm a sucker for voice-overs and double-decker buses. There is actually a third, more home-movie-quality video also (the first version of the Ordinary Boys' cover before they made this video which I posted here) but I thought it would just be too overkill for me to post three videos of the same song, so you can see that video at this link:
It "snowed" today in DC. I tried not to be too cynical towards the people who were freaking out about it though. I knew it was going to be tough though when I woke up this morning, saw a few flakes of snow floating in the air, and then heard on the radio that some schools in Virginia were going to be closing early today to to the snow (in my entire school career the only times I remember missing school due to snow was when there was over a foot of snow on the ground). Then, after I got to work I learned that several of my co-workers (including my supervisor) had a pretty tough time getting to work this morning due to the "snow," and thus they arrived a few hours late. I still couldn't actually see any visible snow accumulated on the ground at this time, so I was honestly pretty perplexed as to why this would have caused them to be late, but nonetheless, I was able to bite my tongue and curb my cynicism. Later in the evening, as the snow slowly began to "accumulate," (in SOME places, there must have been 1/4 - 1/2 an inch of snow) I was amazed by how slowly some people seemed to be driving, and how nobody seemed to know how to properly clear their car windshield of snow.
So, in summary, I knew that people in DC don't generally take well to "snow," but even so I was still rather surprised by the response to even this seemingly minor "snow." That is all.
In other news, today was my second day of working at the Alliance to Save Energy, and I think I am going to like it there. I still don't know exactly what I will be doing there, but I think it will be all-around a good thing for me.
It's official, I managed to convince someone to actually pay me to come work in their office as a barely-paid intern. Due to funding issues, I will technically be working for two organizations; The Alliance to Save Energy will be sharing me with The International Emissions Trading Association so that I can get a full-time schedule. As I understand it, I will spend half of my time working on the Alliance's International Team helping to establish an "energy efficiency center of excellence" in Beijing (whatever that is), and then for the IETA I will mostly just be doing random administrative stuff, but I'm sure I will learn a lot just by osmosis there too. At a mere $9/hour, it is among the lowest-paying jobs I have ever had (I made more babysitting when I was in high-school), and I will probably have to get a supplementary job and/or live on rice and beans for the next few months, nonetheless I am excited about the position. In the past few months of undoubtedly tireless job-searching, this was one of the most interesting positions I found. I am also pretty pleased that it only took me about a month here in DC to get hired somewhere. I was kind of expecting it to take quite a bit longer. Also, this was the only interview I had, which is good because I hate interviews.
So I guess the next step is to find somewhere else to live so my kind hosts can have their house back. I have been waiting to look for housing until after I knew more about my job/income situation, but last night I went to look at a room for the first time. The house was on a beautiful street in a beautiful neighborhood, but the guy who lives there is probably at least 60 and was all depressed about his dog dying a few days before; not exactly the kind of housemate I am looking for. I've emailed a few more people about rooms though too, so hopefully it won't take me too long to find a place.
Actually, I will be spening the next two nights in a hostel because Lisa and William are having the floors finished today and tomorrow and we have to be out of the house. I don't really feel like having to get dressed up for work when I'm staying in a hostel (I don't know why), so I told the temp agency that I don't want to work tomorrow and I have decided to go for a short road trip instead.
About a week ago I signed up for a car-sharing network they have here in DC, called Zipcar. It is like a car rental, except that they have cooler cars which are located all over the city and you can reserve them by the hour online. It is pretty cool. In order to mitigate some of the guilt that I will feel for this unnecessary driving excursion, I decided to spend a few more dollars and spring for a Prius. I haven't decided where to go yet, but I'm thinking of maybe Annapolis, MD and Frederick, MD. I have 180 miles to blow; beyond that costs extra. Hopefully it will be fun...
Today was a good day, though not quite as good as I had been hoping for. I had been hoping to hear back about an internship that I interviewed for and am really excited about, but alas, I didn't not hear from them. I did, however, start my first day as a 4-day temp at the World Wildlife Fund. I am just subbing for an assistant because she is taking next week off for Thanksgiving. Normally she would be able to just take time off and not need anyone to replace her, but several of her superiors are about to go to the Democratic Republic of Congo for a few weeks for a conference or something, so they need someone in the office.
I didn't really do very much today. My two big tasks were to design some certificates that will be given out at a ceremony in the D.R.C., and to make sure that some expense reports were turned in to the accounting department by 3:00 today. Oh, and I also had to coordinate with a visa service and return some passports to people who are going on this trip. I must say, these four passports were by far the most impressive passports I have ever seen. They all had lots of stamps from lots of exotic places and most of them had lots of extra pages to accommodate all of the stamps. Overall it was a fairly easy job, but it seems like a great place to work, full of interesting people. One of the guys who I am helping to coordinate with on this trip is Bruce Babbitt, former governor of Arizona. I will be meeting him on Monday I think. Hopefully I will hear back about that other internship on Monday too. But then I will have to think about how much I really want that internship, which pays a lot less than even this temp gig, or if I would maybe rather try to get a job here at the WWF... gosh, who knows...
On an unrelated note, here is proof that some people have way too much time on their hands. I saw this story online about an old photo which allegedly MIGHT contain an image of Abraham Lincoln. You can then click on a link which takes you to increasingly zoomed-in images of the photo in question, eventually trying to convince you that a specific tiny blob in the photo must be good ol' Honest Abe himself. It's pretty ridiculous...
And finally, here is a YouTube video of the latest cheesy yet catchy Puerto Rican reggaeton song that I have become addicted to, "Sexy Movimiento" by Wisin & Yandel. I'm not going to lie; there are a lot of annoying things about this video (mostly the mild objectification of women and annoying displays of "bling" and machismo), but you might like it anyway.
Since I have mostly been using the metro and not riding on buses, I have had to make most of my observations of DC bus drivers from the pedestrian perspective. This past weekend, however, I finally rode on a few buses. Last Thursday I rode the bus to Georgetown and back. I was impressed by the skill with which the drivers deftly maneuvered the buses in and out of traffic and around all the parked cars and everything.
Then on Saturday I took Greyhound from DC to Baltimore to have dinner with Dwight and Jennifer for their anniversary. Before leaving DC, the bus driver got up and gave a speech about the rules on the bus, keeping cellphone conversations quiet, picking up the trash, no lewd behavior or inappropriate conversations. He then proceeded to offer sort of a short sermon, or a long blessing/prayer for the bus, the passengers, and the voyage before us. He ended by saying something about how he loves each and every one of us like his own family and that we will all have failures in our lives, but that failure makes us stronger human beings. Here I thought I was just taking a simple 45-minute bus ride up the highway, but this guy made me start to wonder if perhaps I was getting myself into something much more than that.
The bus ride ended up being pretty uneventful. The driver did run over one curb as we were heading out of town, however. He also was listening to his iPod the whole time and talking on his cellphone a fair bit as well, which seemed pretty inappropriate to me.
In other news, I had my first interview yesterday. I think it went well, but it's always hard to know for sure how it really went. They said that they won't be making any decisions for about 2 weeks. Yesterday I also saw a fairly important international figure. I was about to cross a street downtown when some motorcycle cops came and blocked off the intersection for a motorcade. I looked down the block to see if the motorcade was coming and I saw that they were just parked on the other side of the street and there was a crowd of people there. So I moseyed over there to take a look just in case it happened to be someone REALLY famous. When people started getting in their cars I couldn't recognize anyone, and then a cameraman standing nearby said it was the Turkish Prime Minister, so no wonder I didn't recognize him. This morning he was in the news though, here's a BBC article about his meeting with Bush. Anyway, it was still kind of cool.
Suit shopping didn't go as perfectly as I had been imagining as almost all of the stores I went to had little or nothing in my size (I need to bulk up), but I did end up purchasing something late in the afternoon. It's nothing fancy; just a black three-button suit from Men's Wearhouse (the only place that had any suits small enough for me). It won't be ready to pick up until Monday evening, and naturally the place that I am really excited to have an interview with called me today wanting to schedule an interview on Monday. At first I told them I would prefer to come in later in the week so I could wear my suit, but then I changed my mind and asked if they don't really mind that I don't wear a suit if I could go ahead and come in on Monday. So I won't get to wear my new suit to the big interview that I am really excited about... Oh well, I still think it will be good to have a suit, and maybe I won't get this job anyway and I'll still need a suit for more interviews later.
So I've been in DC for a full week now and I have made a little bit of progress. In the next two days I should be scheduling two interviews for next week. I'm not going to go into much detail about the interviews in case they don't work out, but I will say that I am pretty excited about one, and not quite as excited about the other. I feel like I have a good shot at both of them, but probably better chances at the one that I am less excited about. Anyway, I am excited to finally have some interviews on the horizon and I am pretty sure that neither of them would be happening if I were still in Colorado instead of here.
My goal for tomorrow is to buy a suit to wear to these and future interviews. In preparation for this I have spent most of the day today online trying to learn about suits since I have never shopped for a suit before. I learned that three-button is sort of the current suit fashion, but almost to the point where it is almost passé. I learned that non-vented tends to look better and sleeker, but might not be as comfortable (but doesn't really have anything to do with ventilation). I learned that flat-front pants are probably better for skinny guys like me, and pleated pants are better for bigger guys but most skinny guys should avoid pleats. I learned that worsted wool generally seems to be the preferred fabric.
Although a few of my more frugal relatives would probably suggest that I go first to the local thrift store for my new suit, I will not be going that route. I think I will start by going to Express on M street in Georgetown even though they don't really have suits and it will probably be a waste of time. I will probably end up buying SOMETHING there anyway though because I seem to have no self-control in that particular store (is it the trendy music that they play in the dressing rooms? who knows...). After Express in Georgetown, I will probably go to Macy's downtown. If Macy's doesn't do it for me, then I will probably go to the Men's Warehouse, which appears to be more expensive, but also probably has a better selection than Macy's.
I am a little bit worried about going solo without a non-biased second pair of discerning eyes, but I also shop better alone because I don't feel like I am wasting someone else's time, so maybe going solo will be good. I'm not really looking forward to spending the money on a suit, but if it helps me land a job more quickly then I guess it is probably worth it.
So things seem to be happening and I am excited about it even if nothing is really set yet. Hopefully I will totally dazzle these people with my awesomeness and they will want me to start right away. Once I get a job squared away, then my next order of business will be to find an apartment to live in. After that, I suppose an awesome girlfriend would be the next order of business.
Last night I went out for Ethiopian dinner with Lisa and William. The last time I had Ethiopian food was when I was 8 and came to DC with my family to visit Lisa and she took us to an Ethiopian restaurant. I remember hating it profoundly and being very crabby. Lisa says that shortly afterwards, I told her in all seriousness that, "it was the worst experience of my life." It has been kind of a joke in our family ever since.
Well, I've grown up a lot in the past 15 years and so when William proposed that we go out for Ethiopian food last night, I was all for it. It ended up being delicious and it might be one of my new favorite kinds of food. I have also looked up how to say "Ethiopian" in Spanish, just in case I find myself needing to ask any Spanish-speaking girls out on a date to Ethiopian food. You never know, can't be too prepared... Incidentally, it is etíope.
I went to Safeway this morning to buy some groceries. Since I never shopped at Safeway in Colorado, I didn't have a Safeway discount card, so when I checked out at the register, I asked the cashier if I could have one. After filling out the form, she handed me my new Safeway card and congratulated me, "Congratulations sir! Here is your new Safeway Club Card!" I didn't think it was a big deal to get a grocery store discount card, but since she used the word "congratulations" I decided that I should just chock it up as one of my first accomplishments in DC.
It might be the several beers that I had tonight at the Sierra Club free beer night at a local bar, but so far, almost 12 hours in, I am LOVING DC. I met more interesting/smart/motivated/attractive people tonight than I have meet in almost a year of being a bus driver in Vail and living in Edwards, CO. I almost can't think of a more perfect way for me to start out what will hopefully be a wonderful new chapter in my life, I am just that pleased. It might be a bit early to pass any judgment, but I think this might be one of the best decisions I have ever made. I think I made a good first impression with at least 9 people, maybe 10. One of them was a pretty attractive dark-haired girl who I suspect speaks Spanish, and another is a lobbyist who deals with transit system issues.
That's all I really have to say about it right now. I have precisely no plans for tomorrow, but I hope it will be awesome! Alright, I'm going to take all of my things off of my bed and put them back into my duffle-bag and go to bed dreaming about how awesome tomorrow might be. Night all!
I don't REALLY have time to be blogging right now since I should be furiously sorting/packing/cleaning/tidying, etc...
Last night was my last shift as a Vail bus driver and I'm not feeling any nostalgia yet, but I guess I did only clock out a few hours ago. I have enjoyed being a bus driver and I think I will miss it sometimes. Nonetheless, I am feeling mostly excited about my impending move to DC. Actually, the past few weeks have been a bit of an emotional roller-coaster; most of the time I feel really good about this whole DC move, but sometimes I can't help feeling a little more pessimistic and worrisome about all the unknowns (and sometimes wonder what the hell I am getting myself into).
Anyhow, I am planning to head down to the Denver/Boulder/Berthoud area today before flying out tomorrow morning, but looking around my room I wonder how I am possibly going to finish packing today. My room is a disaster even though I've been "packing" for the past few days now. It would be easier if I were driving out there and could simply throw everything in my car, but since I am flying there I have to decide what to take in my luggage, what will be living at my dad's house, and what needs to just be thrown out or given away.
On that note, I guess I should stop writing this blog and get to packing!
After a few weeks of pondering, contemplating, calculating, planning, and preparing, I think I am finally committed to moving to DC. A few weeks ago I took the first big step towards making the move when I told my boss that I didn't want to be scheduled for any more shifts (I guess you could say that I quit, but "quitting" sounds so hostile to me for some reason). This morning I finally took the next big step and bought myself a plane ticket. I guess it wasn't a REALLY big step though because thanks to credit card miles the ticket only cost me $50, but still, psychologically it feels like a big step. I feel like I'm committed now. I feel like I'm past the point of no return since it was a non-refundable ticket and there is now way I will ever see that $50 again.
I still have no job or apartment prospects yet, which certainly adds to the stress and uncertainty of the whole thing, but I'm pretty sure it will all work out all right. Even though I don't think they have the space to spare, Lisa and William are being so kind as to let me stay at their place while I look for a place to live. And as for the job, well... I've been sending out a few resumes and cover letters, but have not heard back about anything, which is disconcerting. I'll probably just getting whichever McJob I can after I've been there for a month or so.
So my last day of work is October 21st, and then I'm flying out on the 23rd. Pretty exciting (and a little bit scary)!
Today's video is "Always On This Line" by Sarah Blasko. I first heard of Sarah Blasko not quite a year ago when my sister came back from Australia where she went to one of her concerts. She kind of reminds me of Sarah McLaughlin for some reason, but it might just be because they look a little bit similar and are both named Sarah. As for this video, I think it is neat to watch, but I'm not sure what it is about being in front of a microphone that makes her dance like that... maybe she has some Norwegian blood in her system.
I completely forgot to commemorate this blog's 2-year anniversary a few days ago (October 6th). Last year on that date I posted a "First Anniversary" entry in which I did a fairly thorough analysis of the blogging and commenting that had transpired in the previous 12 months (including a neat Excel graph!). I got a little bit of criticism for being over analytical, so I won't make another month-by-month graph, but I still think it's interesting to look at some stats.
Overall, there seemed to be fewer comments this year compared to last year. Interestingly, the aforementioned "First Anniversary" post had the most comments with a total of 11. In second place was "Useful Degree" with 10 comments. Finally, in third place was "The Wave" which elicited 7 comments. Those numbers are down markedly from last year, but it's probably my own fault for not posting as much as last year.
On the First Anniversary post, I counted 107 total posts, but since then I only count 65 posted entries in this second year. I do, however, have a lot more unpublished "draft" entries, indicating that I was still writing plenty, but I didn't like what I was writing so I didn't publish as much of it.
Like I said, I'm not going to make a month-by-month graph for your viewing pleasure, but there are some month-by-month trends that I notice. Last year I noticed that I tended to post more blog entries when I was busy with school, and I notice that trend again this year as last October through December were noticeably my most prolific months. Those were also the three months when I was going crazy finishing school, working at my linguistics job, AND getting hired and trained for my upcoming bus driving job. Conversely, March, July, and August were all pretty lackluster months. I must have been feeling particularly dejected in July because I wrote a lot of drafts, but only managed to publish three entries; one about a dream date with Judi Dench, another called "Deleted" which almost doesn't even count as a real post because I didn't really even say anything in it, and finally one post about my road rage incident.
Okay, so it looks like I've gone and over-analyzed my blogging habits again this year, but I think it is interesting and I enjoy reflecting upon it a little bit. I also enjoy going back and reading my posts and remembering what I was doing and thinking in months past. Anyway, keep the comments coming because I always enjoy them, and I'll try to keep writing posts, not necessarily for your entertainment, but more because I enjoy reading them months and years afterwards.
Today I'm putting up a video from M.I.A.'s awesome new CD, Kala. The song is called "Jimmy." Like most of her videos, this video is kind of strange, but I think the song (and all the other songs on the album) is pretty cool.
My uncle sent me a link for this lesser-known 2008 democratic presidential contender and I just had to pass it along. Hillary and Obama not really doing it for you? Well there IS another choice!
Sadly, this promising candidate isn't even listed in the Washington Post's so-called "full coverage" section on the presidential field... at least not yet anyway...
I am sure that will change when more people discover this man who embodies so much of what I think America wants and needs in a good president. He is smart, articulate, and judging by the size of the American flag on his website, he must also be very patriotic. It is also obvious that he is highly committed to being president and has been chasing this goal his entire life. Here's the #1 reason listed on his "Reasons for Candidacy" page:
"The United States Federal Congress has encouraged me to want to become President of the United States so that I can do what the President of the United States of America is supposed to do and complete the federal and military government biography and autobiography in development in Eye Spy Community-Military Intelligence (All Three) Business and Commerce Intelligence Education across the board National and International."
If you are still floundering about which presidential candidate to support, give Lee L. Mercer Jr. a look. You can read about his stance on all the issues (especially the "Concern of Circumstances" issue) at his website,Mercer for President 2008. Please spread the word and help get this guy elected!
I went to the ER yesterday to get my ankle checked. Luckily since I hurt it at work it was covered under worker's compensation (which is good because I only have a high-deductible health insurance plan that is pretty much useless unless I have a major health issue).
I don't have a lot of experience in hospitals, but it seemed like a pretty standard visit. My vitals were taken (I was happy to see that I have excellent blood pressure), and then I was wheeled down the hall in a wheelchair to wait for my X-rays. After a few quick X-rays, I waited a while longer to see the doctor and hear the verdict. While I was waiting, some paramedics brought a girl in on a backboard and put her on the bed next to me. They closed the curtain, so I couldn't see much, but I heard everything. She and her husband had hit a patch of ice on the highway and slid into a stopped car on the side of the road. I think she was mostly okay, but I don't know how her husband fared.
Finally the doctor came and told me that I had not broken anything and that it was just a sprain, so I should be back on my feet in a few days and everything should be back to normal in about two weeks. I had been imagining all the worst scenarios, so I was glad to hear that it was just a sprain.
For my birthday back in March, I had invited a few of my good friends to go to this Cuban restaurant in Denver for dinner and mojitos. My sister was also planning to attend, but then that day, hours before we were planning to drive down to Denver together, she broke her ankle snowboarding and couldn't attend the birthday festivities.
Well tonight she was celebrating her 21st birthday and I was maybe going to go out for a drink or two after I got off work, but this evening, just hours beforehand, I tripped going down some stairs and hurt my ankle pretty bad. I haven't been to a doctor yet so I don't know if it is broken or not. I have been walking on it all night, so I'm thinking (and hoping) that maybe it is just sprained pretty bad...
So yeah, kind of weird coincidences...
And another coincidence, this is an excellent opportunity to put up OK Go's "Here It Goes Again" video that Catherine suggested in her comment on the last post. It is an excellent opportunity because in this video these guys are doing some moves that I probably won't be doing for a little while with a bum ankle
I think I had my first famous bus passenger the other day while driving the Intown route. I say "I think" because I'm not actually sure if it was who I think it was, or if it was just a look-alike, a body double perhaps. Anyhow, body double or genuine article, either way she is the closest thing to a famous person I've had on my bus during my entire illustrious bus-driving career. I think this person might have been none other than the legendary Denver Channel 7 News anchor, Bertha Lynn. She is definitely the most famous local television personality with whom I have been in close proximity ever since I met the venerable Ernie Bjorkman way back in elementary school.
I didn't realize who I thought it was until she came up to the front of the bus to ask if the bus stops at the Marriott Hotel. I simply replied, "Yup," and she said, "Awesome," and that was the end of the "conversation." In addition to her striking physical resemblance to Bertha Lynn, I was also tipped off by her rather distinctive television voice. She also seemed to be looking at me in a way like she was half expecting me to recognize her from the TV. I thought about asking her if she was indeed Bertha Lynn, but then I thought I would feel silly if she wasn't. What if she wasn't even from this state and I start asking her if she is one of our treasured local icons? It might be uncomfortable. So then I thought about simply telling her that she happens to look like a local television personality, and then if she really WAS Bertha Lynn, she would have the option of either lying to me and saying that she was not who I claimed her to look like, or she could fess up and spill the beans.
In the end I did neither of these things. I simply pulled up to the stop, opened the door and let her get off the bus just like any other Jane Doe, never knowing the full truth of the situation. Now I will live the rest of my life unsure if Bertha Lynn is the most famous person to have graced my bus with their presence or not...
For some reason I've spent an inordinate amount of time over the past few days thinking about and making plans for what I would do if I woke up to find that the world was being taken over by zombies. I'm not sure why I've been thinking about this. Maybe working night shifts is starting to get to me. Maybe it's because I saw like 5 minutes of some zombie-esque movie on TV the other night.
Most of the plans I've come up with involve going to the Vail bus barn (since I know the code to get in the door) and stealing various large vehicles. Which vehicles I steal would depend on several factors like what kind of zombies they are, how many other survivors I have with me, what time of year it is, and probably just what kind of mood I find myself in at the time. At the top of the list would probably be one of the snowplows they have parked in there because I figure the big plow would come in handy for plowing through crowds of zombies. It would also be useful for getting through the snow in the winter. The driver's cab in the snowplow is also relatively high off the ground and it would be hard for the zombies to attack me there. One problem with the snowplow, however, is that there isn't much room for cargo and stuff. I mean, there is the dump bed in back, but if there are zombies all over the place, I don't know how I would make it from the cab to the dump bed to get stuff...
That is where a bus would come in handy. Although a bus wouldn't be as well-suited for plowing through crowds of hungry zombies as the snowplow, I think that it could probably still get the job done if need be. The bus also has the added advantage of lots of room for things like other survivors I might come across, extra cans of fuel, perhaps a bed... Also, since I am a bus driver I have a bias towards taking a bus. The driver is relatively more exposed to attack, however, in the bus. But depending on what kind of zombies they are, this might not be a problem. If they are mean, scary, zombies that run really fast like those portrayed in movies like Resident Evil or Dawn of the Dead (I think...), then the large exposed windows of the bus might not provide enough protection. If, however, they are the more lethargic zombies portrayed in the farce movie Shaun of the Dead, then I think we will be fine in the bus.
The question then becomes, however, which bus to take because there are 6 different kinds of buses in the fleet. There are the old big ones with three doors, but they tend to break down the most so I would probably not take those. There are older and newer versions of the the slightly smaller and generally reliable ones. There are the really old, very reliable, but also very slow ones. There are the newest and sportiest ones (if you can use the word "sporty" to describe a bus). And then there is the big, fancy, new hybrid electric one. If there are enough other survivors, then we can each take a different kind of bus and it won't be an issue, but if it is just me then I would have to decide. The hybrid would be a good choice because it gets about 30% better fuel economy than the other ones, which would be important because getting out to fuel might be a risky proposition with hungry zombies running around. It has a big open floor plan so you could bring along a lot of stuff. It has a nice big back door that would be relatively easy to conduct drive-by zombie attacks through. And it's my favorite bus to drive. One problem with it, however, is that it is the biggest bus in the fleet, so it would be harder to maneuver around whatever sorts of obstacles I might encounter.
I think the other one I might take is one of the new, "sporty" ones because they probably have the most power for driving through crowds of zombies. They also have good air conditioning, and their doors close quickly.
If there are a few other able-bodied people to drive then I would probably also have someone take the Toyota Highlander hybrid, someone in the ambulance, and maybe even one of the fire trucks. Ideally I would find enough other people that we would head out as a convoy with all of these vehicles in our arsenal.
One of the first things I would do once I had secured the vehicles is try to locate and rescue one of the town of Vail mechanics so they could come along and fix the trucks and buses and whatnot when they broke down. That would definitely be the first order of business. Then I would go to Ace Hardware and get all of the gas cans I could find there, and go fill them up and bring them along. I would then book it for the grocery store, probably driving at high speed through crowds of zombies the whole way there. After I had stocked up on supplies, I guess I would try to drive to some relatively unpopulated areas. I suppose some firearms might be in order too...
So yeah, that's the plan. I'm glad that I'll know what to do in the event of zombie take-over... what a relief. What will YOU do?!
I have been wanting to move out of Edwards ever since before I even moved back here after graduating from school last December. This was only supposed to be a temporary transitional thing for me. I thought I would get my ya-ya's out driving a bus for a few months, find something cool to do for the summer, and then have some sort of real-ish job-ish thing lined up for the fall. Well, here we are knocking on Fall's door, I have been driving the bus all summer and I have nothing else lined up for the near future. I have spent lots of time online looking for jobs and internships and such. I have found a few interesting things that I am or will be applying for, but so far no real leads. While it would be ideal to get a cool job lined up before I move somewhere, I am starting to feel like maybe I should just move to a cool city even if I don't have an awesome job already lined up. Even if it means that I just move there and end up having to get some sort of part-time bus driving job or something, maybe it would be better to at least be living somewhere that I enjoy and then trying to find an awesome job once I'm already there.
There are lots of places I think I would possibly enjoy living; NYC, DC, Seattle, Portland, San Fran, Chicago, Denver/Boulder, Boston, maybe the Twin Cities, etc... (not to mention all of the cities outside of the US that I would also like to live in). If I were to choose right this very moment, however, I would probably choose DC because a significant majority of the cool/interesting jobs and internships that I've found online in recent days are located in DC, so I think there would be better chances of me eventually finding a cool work situation there later on. Plus, DC was ranked one of the best cities in the USA for young people in some magazine that I read a few months ago. Plus my aunt and her husband live there and they are cool people. Plus it has a great public transit system, which often correlates directly to how cool a city is. I haven't actually spent any significant time in DC though, so I don't really know for sure if I would actually like it or not. I think there's a good chance that I would like it though.
So yeah, I am halfway seriously considering just packing up my stuff and moving to DC even if I don't have a job already lined up there. I think I might have enough money to scrounge by for like a month or maybe two months with little or no employment before I went broke and had to beg my aunt to let me sleep on her couch. And I suppose even if it took me a little while to get a job that I really felt emotionally invested in, it would still be better to have a ho-hum job and live in DC than to have a ho-hum job and live in Edwards.
Since moving out of Boulder back in December, I have been coming back to the Denver/Boulder area at least once every couple of weeks. I love Boulder. I loved it when I lived here, and absence does indeed make the heart grow fonder. I was in Denver only three days ago hanging out with friends and playing at Water World (for the first time since I was a wee young lad), but already I am back down again. This time my excuse for coming down is to help Granny buy a new and hopefully much improved car. Every time I come back though it just makes me wish I were still living here and going to school. Sometimes when I'm here I like to come to campus and pose as a student. In fact, I'm sort of posing as a student right now since I am writing this from the UMC student center since Granny doesn't have internet. I'm even wearing my leather messenger bag just to help blend in, even though there's nothing in it. Maybe I'll come back tomorrow when there are actually students on campus. Maybe I'll ride my bike too fast around campus like the good old days. Who knows, maybe I'll even take it to the next step and go sit in on some big lecture class. Haha, well maybe I won't do that, but I will probably at least come hang out on campus for a bit tomorrow and soak in some student vibes.
School isn't the only thing I love about Boulder though. I also love things like the awesome bike paths. I love that people USE the bike paths. I love the trees. I love the old houses. I love the less-old, dumpier houses. I love all the young people. I even kind of like some of the old crazy people. I love that you can get print versions of The Onion. Oh, and the Flatirons, they're cool too.
Anyway... I think I'll go ride my bike around for a bit before it gets too dark out. Adios people!
My mother and I are sitting here in our IKEA-wannabe living room looking at the latest IKEA catalog wondering how they can sell their stuff so cheaply. We decided it must be because they use child labor. Picture all those poor little blond-haired, blue-eyed Swedish kids slaving away in stylishly-furnished IKEA sweatshops, forced to sit in ergonomic chairs and to work under the light of attractive, affordable, sturdy floor lamps...
So, I almost got in a fight on the highway today on my way home from work.
They are doing construction on I-70 near Vail this summer and it routinely causes big traffic jams on the highway. The few times I have been stuck in this traffic, I have noticed a bunch of people who think they can do whatever they want and decide to drive in the shoulder past all of the stopped traffic. It made me so mad that today I decided to wait in the right lane and watch for people doing this and pull into the shoulder myself to block them off, flip them off, and let them know that they are jerks.
So I did it. My first customer actually pulled onto the shoulder from right behind me. They were in the left lane and then pulled into the right lane right behind me and then right into the shoulder from there. When I saw what they were doing, I quickly pulled into the shoulder, honked my horn at them, and flipped them off. Well, they decided to stop and make more of it, acting like they wanted to fight with me. When I first decided upon this course of action, I didn't think it would result in any physical altercations. I thought I would simply flip them off and let them go on their merry way with them hopefully feeling at least a little bit guilty for their selfishness, and with me feeling at least a little bit vindicated. So when this guy stopped and wanted to make a bigger issue out of it, I didn't know what to do. So I rolled up my windows and locked my doors and motioned in an annoyed manner for him to keep going, but I also kept flipping him off too just for good measure. Luckily he decided to leave without incident.
Unphased, I kept watching for these hated shoulder passers. I saw a few coming, but I wasn't able to pull in front of them in time, so I had to be satisfied with merely flipping them off from the lane I was in as they passed unhindered on the shoulder. Then I saw another car coming and pulled in front of them and flipped them off through my sunroof. They got mad and made a two-handed "what the hell is this car doing?" sort of motion, and then they gave me a sarcastic two thumbs up and exaggerated smile gesture as if saying sarcastically, "Good job! You are a really great vigilante! Keep it up!". After a few seconds of flipping them off some more and giving them a "you should wait in traffic just like everyone else" motion, I let them pass while they continued to give me the sarcastic two thumbs up and I continued to flip them off. I wanted to say back to them, "yes, I AM good at this, and yes I WILL keep it up, you jerks!"
Yeah, it was pretty immature (REALLY immature), and probably not very smart of me (some might call it plain dumb), and it probably just made me even more mad than if I had done nothing (I was fuming), but I don't really regret doing it either. The people in the cars around me might have thought I was just as much of an ass as the people passing in the shoulder, but I like to think that maybe I was also their hero for doing what they wish they had done. It probably had no real effect on the people who I flipped off either, other than just make them angry, but I also like to think that maybe I made them feel at least a smidgen of guilt too. So, I probably won't do it again in the future, but I think I'm glad I did it anyway.
PS: Don't worry. I pretty much always contain my emotions quite well when I am driving, especially when I'm driving the bus. Even though there are so many thing to get mad about when driving the bus, I am really good about maintaining my composure and not letting those things upset me.
I almost wrote another blog entry today, but it sucked, so I deleted it and wrote this one instead.
Anyway, today's video is "Break" by The Cinematics. I had never heard of them before yesterday when I randomly and on a whim downloaded their album from iTunes just because it was on the discounted "Up & Coming" list and the one or two songs I listened to sounded decent. So I bought the whole album and I actually really like it! Go figure. I don't really like this video that much though. Fluorescent bulbs as decorations in music videos is so overrated.
This morning I had a dream that I was on a date with Judi Dench. At the beginning of the date I was madly in love with her, but by the end I was rather put-off by how rude she was and how she was constantly stuffing her face with sweets and cakes and pastries and very small, very expensive cappuccinos. She was wearing this strange, sparkly white dress but she kept spilling cake and pudding on it. Who knew Judi Dench was such a slob? At least I was looking really spiffy in my white T-shirt. It was probably the worst date I've ever been on.
Later on, I was spraying all the plants in town with a Coca-Cola/Water mixture to attract snakes to town to scare away all of the bunnies. Apparently the bunnies were really wreaking havoc and everyone thought snakes would be better. Or wait, maybe we were trying to attract bunnies to get rid of the snakes; I don't remember. I squirted one guy in the eye with the potent mixture after he made fun of my green shirt, but really I had only squirted myself in the eye since I was experiencing a bout of multiple personalities and that guy was just my alter ego. It turned out that my alter ego and I were fighting over some woman who wasn't interested in either of us, but I was pretty sure that she was slightly less uninterested in ME than in the other alter ego me who I had squirted in the eye with coca cola.
This woman had a flock of dogs following her everywhere she went. Each of the dogs was like a representation of one of her former boyfriends. There were some really mean, nasty, mangy looking dogs, and a few nicer looking dogs. My dog representative was a Weimaraner. My alter ego's dog was a Pomeranian.
Here's a video of a Pomeranian wrestling with a bigger dog:
A week or so ago Mom pointed out to me that the local newspaper, the Vail Daily, was looking for contributors to their blog. So I wrote the guy telling him about my interest in cars and whatnot and he replied saying he was interested and to send him a blog. So I did; he liked it and he put it up on their website.
The blog topic recommendations have been noted and I might write about them soon, but for today I just want to put up some videos of a hilarious episode of my favorite automotive TV show, Top Gear on BBC (also the source of the last Bus-Jumping video). In this hour-long episode the guys head across the pond to the good ol' US-of-A for some hoot-hollerin' fun. They start by buying each of themselves a car for under $1000 in Miami which they then drive to New Orleans with plenty of funny moments in between.
It is worth watching all six ten-minute segments, but if you want to just skip the funniest part, go to Part 4 and fast forward to approximately 7:30 in. In this segment the boys have been challenged to go camping and only eat whatever they can find dead along the side of the road. After finding and passing-up a few candidates they finally find a squirrel that might work, but Jeremy decides to keep looking and this is where he returns triumphant with his hilarious findings. Really the whole episode is worth watching though, so if you like this part you should watch the rest too.
Top Gear in America, Part 1
Top Gear in America, Part 2
Top Gear in America, Part 3
Top Gear in America, Part 4 (this is the funniest one, FF to about 7:30)
I have been feeling kind of "blah" since coming back to Edwards after being in Europe. I feel like my whole life is sort of in limbo because I don't want to live here much past, say, September, but I don't have anything lined up either... In the mean time I am just driving the bus hoping to save up enough money so I can maybe afford to do whatever it is I end up doing when that magical arbitrary September deadline rolls around. Anyway, as a result of this "blah-ness", I have been experiencing writer's block with this blog lately. I have been trying to write blogs but I just haven't been able to write anything that I felt like posting. So if any of you have ideas or suggestions for blog-worthy topics, let me know. If I like your topic idea then maybe I'll try to write a whole blog about it. I'll take any and all suggestions into consideration. I would list some of the topic ideas I've had lately just to get you guys started, but I wouldn't want to stifle your creativity. Thanks in advance for your help.
Now that I've been home for a few days and have had some time to reflect on my trip to Europe, I thought I should write an entry about it before too much time passes and other more blog-worthy things start happening to me and I never get around to writing anything about Europe. I'm also trying to put together a Google Map showing our route and some highlights and whatnot, but no promises...
So, to make a long story short, it was a great trip. After booking the airfare both my dad and I confided in each other that Germany was actually nowhere near the top of either of our travel wish-lists and that we both would have probably preferred to go somewhere else. Despite that, we both loved Germany and the other places we went as well. I was actually surprised at how much I enjoyed Germany. Here are some of the things I liked about Germany in general:
Carbon Conscious - One of the very first things I saw after arriving in Germany was vast fields of flaxseed and windmills. Flaxseed is used to produce biodiesel and Germany is one of the world's leaders in biodiesel production and consumption. I think I read somewhere that most (all?) diesel sold in Germany has some blend of biodiesel and higher blends are readily available. In our few days driving around in the car we saw many gas stations offering biodiesel, and it was always the cheapest offering too (probably thanks to government subsidies). Gasoline in general is quite expensive though (approximately $5/gallon) which I actually think is a good thing because I think it probably makes people drive less. But expensive gas isn't the only thing that helps remind Germans of the carbon their cars emit; new cars sold in Europe all seem to include a carbon-emissions figure on the sticker right along with the gas mileage and the horsepower. In general Germans and other Europeans just seem to be more aware of the impact their activities have on the planet and I like that very much.
Cars - Because it is expensive to own a car and difficult to park it, there just don't seem to be quite as many cars as in the US, but there are a lot more cool cars. I think per-capita there are more Bimmers, Benzes, Audis, and Porsches there than there are Fords, Chevys, and Toyotas here. On this trip I also saw several very special cars which I will probably never see again for the rest of my life. So the car-watching is quite a bit better there, but even the more plain-jane cars there are better. Small and efficient is the name of the game rather than big and bulky like here.
Public Transportation - As cool as the cars are, Dad and I were happy to return our rental car and go back to the fantastic public transportation. Between the trains, trams, buses, and subways we easily, cheaply, and comfortably got everywhere we needed to go. Actually, it was the 3-hour trek between DIA and Dad's house in Berthoud that was the hardest part. On a slightly unrelated note, German tram drivers have some pretty good bus-driver waves, but since they don't have to steer they seem to have a broader range of wave possibilities, but that's another blog...
Laissez-Faire - I've written and re-written this bullet three times now and I just don't know how to articulate it, but the basic idea is that Germans are pretty laid-back. Yeah, I'll just leave it at that.
And now for the highlights of the trip, in no particular order:
Berlin - I loved Berlin and if I only spoke German I would love to live there for awhile. It is a pretty big city, but it has lots of neat little old neighborhoods scattered throughout the city, each with its own distinct flavor. Although the wall came down nearly 2 decades ago and the city has for the most part integrated itself back together pretty seamlessly, I still found the history and the legacy of the wall to be quite fascinating. I'm not sure if I liked Berlin or Munich better, but Berlin might be the favorite by just the slimmest margin. I do think though that where I would describe Munich with words like "lovely" and "laid-back," I would describe Berlin with words like "interesting" and "vibrant."
Munich - With its attractive old town, English Garden, efficient public transportation, pretty Isar River, and most important, its fantastic beer gardens, Munich is a real gem. And its proximity to the Alps means skiing probably isn't too far away from here either. Hmm, maybe I'll have to re-think putting Berlin in first place.
Budapest - Budapest certainly lacked the aesthetic beauty of Munich and the vibrancy of Berlin, but it had a character all its own which I enjoyed. I wrote in a previous entry that Budapest was "gritty" and had sort of an Eastern-Bloc feel to it, and I guess still haven't thought of a better way to describe it. I guess none of those descriptors make it sound very good, but somehow I really liked it. I also felt like the Hungarians were some of the nicer people that we came across on the whole trip, and I was also pretty intrigued by the Hungarian language which is a pretty crazy language with no close linguistic relatives. Finally, Budapest has several big thermal pools, one of which we visited and it was very pleasant. It was sort of like Glenwood Springs pool, only less stinky, more elegant, and with slightly more good-looking people.
Driving - The driving portion of our trip was fun not just for the actual driving (curvy narrow roads and fast-paced autobahn), but also for all the quaint German countryside that we got to see.
M.C. Escher Museum (The Hague) - I knew that I liked Escher before going to this museum in The Hague, Netherlands (who doesn't like Escher?), but I gained a new appreciation for his art after seeing this museum. I hadn't realized that much of his work was done with wood block carvings, which kind of blew my mind. I also got to see a lot of his pieces which I had never seen before. He must have been a real genius. I bet he was good at puzzles too. I bet he kicked ass at scrabble too. We also went to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam which also made me better appreciate Van Gogh, but not as much as Escher.
Mercedes-Benz Museum (Stuttgart) - I'm not really a big fan of Mercedes-Benz because I'm pretty sure they haven't sold a car with a manual transmission in the United States for several decades now, but despite that I loved their huge, fancy museum full of millions of dollars of old, rare, and one-of-a-kind cars. Dad and I went about two hours before closing when we got to Stuttgart and only managed to see about half of it, so I had to go back the next day to finish it. The best part, however, was the buses on display. They had a big fancy new one, but you couldn't sit in the driver's seat unfortunately. Luckily they had another older bus in which you COULD sit in the drivers seat. So I waited for all the other little kids to hurry up and get out of it so I could have my turn at the helm and boy was it worth it. They also had a sweet video of a bus doing 360's on a sheet of ice doing ABS brake testing or something. It looked so fun, I hope I don't accidentally try it someday...
Audi Factory (Ingolstadt) - Audi also had a museum that looked suspiciously similar to the Mercedes museum, but it wasn't nearly as good. Audi DID have a factory tour though which was very interesting despite our lackluster tour guide. It was neat to see the whole process of assembling the car and seeing the big robots deftly maneuver themselves through their confined workspaces, not seeming to care about all the things that they almost collide with as they run through their programmed motions. I think the most important thing that I got from the tour, however, was the realization that everything is infinitely connected. When you go buy a car from a car dealer, it seems very simple, but then you get thinking of every single part on that car, thousands of parts, each of which had to be assembled with the other parts, each of which were produced using tools which were constructed of many other thousands of parts which were made from materials which were produced in some other factory which had more tools to produce the materials which are used to produce the... well I could go on and on.
And finally, a few disappointments:
BMW Museum - Under renovation, they only have a temporary exhibit which I didn't even bother going to. But hopefully the renovated one should be fantastic when it is finished, supposedly in just a few months.
Porsche Museum - Under construction, the current museum is pretty underwhelming. At least it was free though, and it did feature a Porsche Cayman cut in half... Rumor has it the new Porsche Museum will also be big, fancy, and amazing like the Mercedes one... I guess I'll have to go back and see it.
Nürburgring - The only disappointment with this was that I didn't do my homework and so I ended up showing up there and having no way to get a ride around this public race track. So I just stood at the entrance/exit point and watched all the Porsches and sport bikes and stuff go in and out from the long, curvy track dubbed "The Green Hell." I'll just have to plan on going back after I turn 25 and rent a car and drive on it myself I guess...
Stuttgart - Home to Porsche and Mercedes-Benz, I was hoping for a lot from Stuttgart, but this ended up being probably my least favorite German city. That's okay though because Germany seems to have more than its fair share of charming cities, so if it has a mediocre one here and there I guess it is only fair.
Amsterdam - As I mentioned previously, A'dam was just too debaucherous for my taste. I guess some people like it though. Good for them.
Ok, I guess that's it! It was a good trip! Hopefully I'll do that map thing... eventually... maybe... but we'll see I guess.
All good things must come to an end. Dad and I will be flying back home to Colorado bright and early tomorrow morning. It has really been a great trip, better than I had even imagined it would be. I don't have time right now to write about my overall feelings and impressions from the whole trip, but I will write about the past few days.
Basically we did a lot of driving through some very picturesque German countryside and ended up in Stuttgart on Friday. The car was a fun adventure, but we were happy to get rid of it. We think that Dad managed to get two photo-radar tickets in a 5-minute span towards the end of our last full day of driving. And then the morning that we had to return the car our GPS system decided to freak out as we were approaching Stuttgart so we spent an extra 45 minutes and probably €15 of gas driving around lost in Stuttgart. Eventually we found the place though and we happy to go back to using public transportation.
Our first night in Stuttgart we wandered around trying to find some dinner and ended up having some beers outside at a little french restaurant. Dad and I were sitting there having a conversation about something and I noticed that this guy sitting next to us seemed to be paying a lot of attention to our conversation. After awhile he finally leans over and in some labored English asks us where we are from. It turns out he has been studying English for 3 years and was enjoying listening to our "beautiful language." I do this all the time when I sit next to people speaking other languages, so I know exactly how he feels, but I'm sure this is the first time I've ever heard anyone feel this way about English just because English is so ubiquitous. It was kind of refreshing to hear someone say that English is a beauiful language. Anyway, he obviousy just wanted to practice some English and we obliged. We had a nice little simple conversation. He said something about how the USA is "such a wonderful country." I guess that in lots of ways it is, but we told him that we feel much the same way about Germany and that we think in many ways Germany is better off than the USA. Before we knew what was going on he had paid the waitress for our bill as well as his own and left before we could even offer to buy him another drink. It was kind of a neat encounter.
The next day we had the misfortune of being stuck in Stuttgart for a huge futbol game. This is the second time I've unknowingly ended up in a European town on a futbol game day and I've decided that I don't like it. Part of me feels like it is the sort of thing that I should enjoy and a unique cultural experience or whatever, but mostly I just dislike the unruly mobliness of the whole affair.
The highlight of Stuttgart was the amazing and huge Mercedes-Benz Museum. Dad and I went inthe afternoon on the first day we got there, unfortunately in the two hours that we had we were only able to get through half of the museum, so I had to go back the next day to finish it. Today we went to Ingolstadt, home of Audi, and saw their museum which was not as good as the Mercedes museum, but we also did a factory tour which was much more interesting. We saw the automated robots and the whole assembly line for the Audi A3. It really makes you realize all of the work that goes into making a car. I was very impressed by the whole thing.
And so now we are back in Munich where the whole trip started. I wondered if I would find Munich as appealing the second time here as I did when we started here a month ago. I wondered if after seeing a bunch of other cities if Munich would still seem as cool, and in fact it does. Anyway, I only have a few hours left of daylight here before we hop on the plane in the morning so I had better to go the beer garden for the rest of the afternoon. I'll hopefully write something about my overall thoughts and impressions shortly after I get back home. Tchüss!
So, let's see... we left Amsterdam on Saturday, spent two nights in Düsseldorf which was a pleasant city. We ended up staying in a budget hotel which felt pretty luxurious compared to the dorm-style rooms we've been staying in. On Monday morning we rented a car and left Düsseldorf heading south towards the famous Nürburgring Nordschleife (we got a dorky looking Mercedes Benz A-class. I'd add a link but that would be hard on the computer I'm on so look it up yourself if you are interested). This is one of the world's longest, curviest, and most challenging racetracks, and it's open to the public. For a mere 19 Euros per lap you can take your car around this amazing track that winds its way through the trees and hills around the sleepy little town Nürburg. This track is featured in the playstation racing game Gran Turismo 4 too. One lap takes approximately 10 minutes if you are well-practiced, and maybe 9 minutes if you are real hot shit.
Anyway, you definitely can't take a rental car on the track. Apparently if you do take and rental on the track and the rental company finds out about it they will do anything from charge you $2000 for maintenance or they will ban you from future rentals. Rumor has it that rental companies even pay track employees to report rental cars being used on the track. But I had heard about a Ring Taxi where for a mere 180 euros, three people can ride around the track in an expertly-piloted BMW M5. I was under the impression that you could just sort of show up and hop a ride on this thing, but once we got there we found out that in fact you have to make prior reservations and it only runs on Sundays anyway. So I ended up just sitting at the entrance to the track watching all of the cool bikes and Porsches and other cars go on and off the track. I also found out that there are a few companies which rent cars out specifically for use on the track, but they have a minimum age limit of 25, so I'll probably have to plan a return trip for my 25th birthday or something.
This morning we hopped into the dorky Mercedes (at least it's black though. It's starting to grow on me too. I hope I don't want one when I get back home) and turned the magical GPS system towards Heidelburg for a quick lunch stop and then on to Würzburg (kind of in the middle of nowhere) where we are now. Much of the drive was done on Autobahn highways which are very nice. I think that much of the section between Heidelburg and Würzburg was no-speed limit. Dad and I still can't really figure out how to tell when there is and isn't a speed limit, so we judge it based on how fast the other cars are going. I was cruising at around 90-100 mph for much of the way and I was still just keeping up with the most of the cars and was definitely not even close to keeping up with some other cars. People really know how to drive well on the highway here; they are generally very good about staying out of the left-hand lane except for passing, it's great. I could learn to get used to it, haha.
We left A'dam (Amsterdam) this morning after spending two nights there. Overall, I guess I didn't like it that much. Sure, it was pretty with the canals and neat old tall narrow apartment buildings crammed together and stuff, but it seems like unless you are there for the sex and drugs then it doesn't offer a whole lot. I guess I like the "whatever goes" nature of the place, but it is just too debaucherous for my taste. We ended up staying at a Christian hostel right in the middle of the infamous Red Light District (kind of ironic?). We didn't know that it was a Christian hostel until shortly before we arrived there and had already made our reservation, but it ended up being fine. They had some Jesus stuff posted on the walls, but they didn't try to turn us into born-again christians or anything.
Since we were pretty much right in the Red Light district, we ended up walking through there a few times trying to find dinner and stuff. Basically there are just lots of sex shops, porn stores, and lots of flirty women dancing in their underwear in the window trying to get the attention of the guys (or girls) walking by on the sidewalk. Some of them were pretty good looking, but you only have to look at them for a second before they start winking and gesturing at you and it just made me think, "stop looking, and walk away quickly." I don't know, the whole thing just wasn't my cup of tea at all.
A'dam's other main attraction (of the green leafy variety) didn't bother me though. I didn't partake (yeah, I know, when in Rome do as the other tourists go to Rome to do...), but I certainly got some whiffs of it walking by the "coffeeshops."
So all in all Amsterdam seemed pricey, a little touristy, and just a little too sleazy, but don't let that stop you from going! Today we are in a smaller town called Utrecht, just a half an hour down the road from Amsterdam, then tomorrow I guess we're going to The Hague to see the M.C. Escher museum, and then we'll be going to Dusseldorf for a few nights and then hopefully renting a car for a few days...
I found a Bugatti dealer here in Berlin and actually got to lay eyes on a real-life Bugatti Veyron yesterday. If you remember from a post or two back I listed all the cool cars I've seen in two weeks of European car watching and mentioned that the Bugatti Veyron was really the only super cool car that I had yet to see, so you can imagine how thrilled I was with this discovery. The Bugatti Veyron, as far as I know, is currently the world's fastest and most expensive street-legal production car. Unfortunately I was not allowed into the showroom to touch or drool on the Veyron, but instead had to marvel at it's beauty from a few feet away through the showroom window like a kid standing on the sidewalk looking through the candyshop window. Anyway, I'm pretty sure that for the rest of my life I will never again see another one of these cars.
We are about to leave Berlin and go to Amsterdam for a few days. I really liked Berlin and I am quite sure that I could move here to live for awhile. It is a pretty huge city and I didn't roam very far from the city center, but Berlin doesn't have a very centralized city center and really it seems like it's more about the numerous little neighborhoods throughout the city instead. It makes for a city with lots of pretty interesting and diverse feels and characters.
You know the saying, When in Rome... (do as the Romans do), so this morning I had a beer with my breakfast. Yup, it seems that in Germany it is entirely acceptable to have beer at 9 in the morning, with or without food. In fact, it seems more common to have JUST beer for breakfast than to have it WITH breakfast. I was hesitant at first just because it felt so wrong to order a beer with my morning eggs, but I decided to go for it anyway. I opted for a smaller .3-liter heffeweizen and I must admit it was very nice. I don't know if it was the fresh morning air or the delicious Heffeweizen, but it just didn't really even taste like beer. In fact, it almost looked just like that all-natural unfiltered applejuice that you can get for $5 a glass in fancy breakfast places. Anyway, I think I will have to make this a regular thing for the rest of my time here in Germany and hopefully it won't become a habit when I get back home too.
I've also had plenty of different kinds of sausage, but that isn't as blog-worthy as the breakfast beer.
Since becoming a bus driver back in December, I have become susceptible to varying degrees of Bus Envy. Basically it is a feeling of envy when I see bus drivers who are driving bigger buses than I ever get to drive. For example, since Grayhound buses are bigger than the buses I got to drive for the Town of Vail, I got a little twinge of bus envy when I saw Greyhound buses, but it was often neutralized by knowing that they spent most of their time just driving on the highway which is boring, and also that they had to deal with lots of crazy sorts of people. Sometimes I felt envy towards the ECO bus drivers because their buses were slightly longer than the Town of Vail buses. But nothing compares to the bus envy I've had here in Europe. Not only are there lots of big, long, beautiful buses, but also most of them have manual transmissions (extra envy), AND they get to drive them through the crazy traffic and narrow cobble-stoned streets of europe (yet more envy). I'm pretty sure that being a bus driver in Europe would be at least like 3.4 times more fun than in the USA. Every time I see one of those beautiful huge manual-transmission buses go by I imagine to myself how much fun it would be to drive.
In addition to bus-watching, I've also been doing plenty of car watching which has also been quite rewarding. Car-watching in Europe differs in three primary ways: 1) There are lots more diesel cars, 2) There are lots of small and European-brand cars which are unknown in the USA, 3) There are more expensive cars that I rarely see in the USA. In the past week and a half I have seen several different Ferarris, more Porsches, BMW's and Mercedes-Benzes than I can keep track of, an Audi R8, at least one Rolls-Royce Phantom, a Lamborghini, a few Bentlys, a few old Minis, lots of crappy old Soviet-era crap-mobiles, and several $100k VWs. Plus it is interesting just to see all the tiny econo-boxes and minivans and stuff that don't exist in the USA.
So whether it be buses or cars, it's been pretty good vehicle-watching so far. I think the only really special car that I have NOT seen yet is a Bugatti Veyron, but I'll be keeping my eyes peeled no doubt.
We just got to Berlin today after a quick spin through Leipzig and a few days in Dresden. Berlin is huge and I think I will really like it a lot! Aufwiedersehen!
I don't have much time to write, but the short of it is that Prague was neat, but it was full of tourists. We came to Dresden yesterday, but there isn't much to see here so we are hopping on the train in a few hours. We were originally going to go straight to Berlin from here, but after looking at the train schedules we have decided to take the short and fast train over to Leipzig for a few hours and then take another short and fast train from there to Berlin later today. I think Berlin is going to be pretty neat and I'm looking forward to it. We're planning to spend more time there than we have spent anywhere else yet because it looks like it's a pretty huge city with lots to see and do.
Anyway, I hate writing summary-style blogs like this. Sorry. Maybe I'll have time to write a proper entry once we get to Berlin.
Dad and I ended up sitting next to a table with two Spanish guys at breakfast this morning. While we were waiting for our food to come I was sitting there trying to devote at least some of my attention to my conversation with Dad, but I was also trying to eavsdrop on the Spaniards to my left. At first they were talking about the normal sorts of things, like how much this trip cost them, how it's worth it anyway, etc. But then I heard just the tail end of them talking about me and Dad. The part I heard went something like this:
1: Do you think those two are gay? 2: You mean like a couple? 1: Yeah, do you think they are a couple, or are they just father and son or something? 2: Oh, they're probably just father and son.
That's when I decided to surprise them and so I told them in Spanish that we are indeed just father and son. They got this sort of shocked/embarassed look on their face as they realized that I had heard what they thought was their secret conversation. I think it's actually the first time I've ever been able to catch someone talking about me in another language like that. It was pretty satisfying.
Anyway, after they took a minute to get over their embarassment we had a nice little conversation about being in Budapest and whatnot. I'm pretty sure that they were a couple themselves, so maybe they were just looking for some more gay companionship or something, but I enjoyed just getting to speak some spanish to them. Dad thinks that they were confused because I "look mature beyond my years and because he looks gay beyond his years." Could be... hahaha.
That wasn't the first time that someone failed to immediately come to the conclusion that Dad and I are just father and son. When we got to the hostel here in Budapest, the girl that checked us in thought that we were brothers and acted all surprised and shocked to learn that we were father and son. At first I thought she was just trying to flirt with Dad or something because I don't think we look anywhere near the same age so as to be brothers. Maybe in Hungary people have really old/young siblings or something. Who knows...
Budapest is definitely a 'grittier' city than Munich and seems to have a certain 'Former Soviet State' sort of feel to it (whatever that feels like...). I think I like it though. I can't say if I like it more or less than Munich though beause really they are just different. Munich is prettier, but Dad and I have decided that the Budapest girls are prettier. Munich has more fancy cars, but Budapest has more funky old cars that I've never seen before. Munich is flatter and has more bicycles, but Budapest is hillier and might have cooler architecture. Plus, Hungarian is a crazy language which means Budapest gets some extra bonus points.
The highlight of today was probably going to one of Budapest's many thermal pools. The one we went to was in a parque just a few metro stops out of the city center. It is kind of like a fancier, classier version of the Glenwood Springs pool if you know what that's like. There was also sort of a circular lazy river thing that you could swim in and it was kind of like bumper-bodies. It was pretty fun. Anyway, tomorrow is our last day here and then we will be taking a night sleeper train to Prague. The Spaniards said that two days is enough to see Prague, but what do they know?
Last night Dad and I went to an Italian restaurant for dinner. The place was hoppin' and so we got seated in a booth with a large German man who was trying unsuccesfully to get a table for one. He quickly realized that we didn't speak German, but he didn't hesitate to try conversing with us in his slightly limited English. When the waiter came to take our order I ended up ordering a pizza for some reason. When the pizza came, the portly German man said to us, "you come from the land of good pizza, and yet you order pizza in Germany." We proceeded to explain to him that pizza isn't good in all parts of the country, but anyway I just thought it was a funny comment. So from now on the United States of America shall be known as The Land of Good Pizza.
We'll be getting on a train to Budapest in a few hours.
I've been in Munich (München) for about two davs now and I keep typing z's when I want to type y's because the keyboard is a little different, but that aside my time in Munich has been very pleasant. Munich is a pleasant city with charming narrow winding streets, attractive architecture, and plenty of big green trees. On the first day here we went to a huge museum featuring all sorts of technology including lots of old and different kinds of engines, planes, mining equipment, computers, lasers, and the list goes on and on. Someone told us that if you were to spend 1 minute at each display, you could be there for 33 days (and I believe it). I started feeling jetlagged pretty early in the day, but I soldiered on and we decided to go to another museum which was pretty strange and quirky (but not really in the interesting way). The whole time I kept thinking that it was the sort of museum my uncle Dwight would probably enjoy; I don't know why. Lots of people ride bikes here and Dad and I took a bicycle tour today through part of town into a huge park with a beer garden in the middle. Beer doesn't grow from trees in a beer garden, but it is served in humungous mugs. I have yet to buy a really big mug of beer, but I have certainly had plenty of beer today. When we aren't seeing the sites, we've been riding around town semi-aimlessly on the plethora of trams, buses, and subways, or sitting at outdoor cafe's drinking beer and eating sausage. I am still having a hard time with the whole not being able to speak German thing since I am more accustomed to being able to speak the language when I go places, but despite that we've been able to get around fine and stuff (although we've certainlz had our fair share of confusions). We will be taking a sleeper train to Budapest tomorrow night. I'm sure Budapest will be cool, but I could almost imagine myself living here in Munich someday if I had to; it's that cool.
Maybe it is too cliché to say this, but I love the rain. I love the smell. I love how it makes everything look shiny and clean. I even love how it feels to hydroplane through it on the road. It is raining right now and I think the sound of the rain on the roof of the house is probably one of the best sounds to go to sleep to. Someday in another life when I am wealthy and can build my own house I think I will build some sort of rain machine that will shower water onto my roof whenever I want for an on-demand rainy sound. But then maybe I would become too desensitized to it if I could just turn it on and off whenever I wanted to. Or maybe instead of building an artificial rain device, I could just move to Seattle (since I want to anyway). Allegedly they get lots of rain there (It has always been beautiful and sunny when I've been there). I wonder how much is "a lot" and how long would it take for me to get tired and annoyed by it. Being from Colorado I bet that my idea of "a lot of rain" isn't even CLOSE to "a lot" of Seattle rain. In Colorado it doesn't usually rain for more than a few hours straight, and then it often clears up and the sun comes out and makes everything nice again and so rain is sort of refreshing and cleansing, but I bet that in Seattle it can get to feeling kind of stifling. I guess I wouldn't know unless I lived there...
Anyway, in other news, the bus driving gig is nearing its end (sort of) and I'll be going to Europe for a month in just a few weeks (is it that soon already?!). As for summer plans, the only two suggestions I got on the previous post could be combined into one road trip to the East Coast; bring my uncle Dwight his stuff from his college days, and help my Aunt and her hubby with remodeling their house. Lately I've also been thinking that maybe I would like to try to go to Rio de Janeiro to study Portuguese for a month or two, but that is probably the most expensive thing I could do this summer. I have also been told that I can get as much work as I want driving the bus, which pays pretty well. I should probably also try to take the GRE this summer. Then, I am going to try to get a job in Antarctica for next season. So maybe I'll drive the bus to rack up enough money for a trip to Rio, go to the East Coast for a couple weeks, go to Rio, and then hopefully go to Antarctica... Yeah, that kind of sounds like a plan.
Today's video is a kind of F-ed up Antarctica-related video by Of Montreal called "Wraith Pinned to the Mist."
The other day I was driving the Intown bus through the pedestrian area in Vail. I was going about 10 mph (maybe 12, max) and a skateboarder was approaching me from ahead coming the opposite direction. Just as we were about to pass each other, he suddenly looses control of his skateboard and it whips out from underneath him and flies directly under the bus. I slam on the brakes hoping to avoid running it over. After I stop he runs behind the bus, presumably to try to recover his board. Then I see him come around the other side where he discovers that the board is lodged securely under the rear tires and so he motions for me to keep going, so I do. As I start pulling away I hear the crunch of cracking wood, he picks up his board and starts running the other way and I continued on my merry way. I felt a little bit bad that I had probably ruined his board, but at the same time I had done my best and it wasn't my fault at all. But really it wasn't entirely his fault either. I mean, people fall sometimes, it happens. It was just bad luck for him that his board chose that particular trajectory...
Anyway, that evening after I got off work instead of going straight home like I usually do, my gimpy sister and my mom and I decided to go have dinner at a nice place in Vail right by the creek (we rarely go out to dinner together, and almost never to nice places in Vail by the creek). I told them this story about the broken skateboard while we were at dinner. Then towards the end of dinner, Mom looks out the window of the restaurant towards the creek and sees a skateboard sticking out of this strangely-placed trashcan. As we left we went to investigate this skateboard, and we determined that it was almost surely the same broken skateboard. This was kind of Twilight-Zone-y because the incident happened about two blocks away from this trashcan, and because the chances of us ever seeing this trashcan located in such a strange place is almost zero. It was strange. But I sure did get some satisfaction out of seeing my handiwork. That guy must have been pretty pissed, but really he could only be mad at himself.
In other news, for some reason I didn't get that Middlebury scholarship that I had applied for, and I haven't made any contingency summer plans, so if anyone has any good ideas for how I should spend my summer, I'd love to hear them. I AM going to Europe with my dad (Germany, Czech Republic, and Hungary most likely) from April 23 to May 23, but from May 23 until around Octoberish I don't know what I'm going to do. Maybe I'll just stay here in Edwards and drive the bus sort of pseudo-full-time and ride my bike a lot and go camping and hiking and stuff (you know, try not to be a lazy turd). The biking and camping and hiking sound fun, but honestly I think that I have had enough of living in Edwards already (again), and another four friendless months here doesn't sound that appealing. I've also thought about going back to Chinese Summer Camp in Minnesota again, but I'm pretty sure that job doesn't even pay minimum wage (but I do get all the rice porridge I can stomach every single morning!).
Today's video is "Princesa" by Sacha Nairobi. She doesn't even have a page about her on Wikipedia (not even on Spanish Wikipedia), so she must be kind of a nobody, but I think she's from Venezuela. This song is basically about how she used to be a rich princess with no love, but now she's poor and in love and she prefers it that way and such. It's a strange video though that provoked some questions in my mind. Why does she have a white dove on her head? Why is she riding a large pink wooden horse on wheels? Why is she rolling in the mud with pigs? Why is she milking goats? I get that she's poor and all, but even poor people don't go roll around in the mud with pigs just because they are poor. I suspect she's kind of into bestiality.
I'm also adding a bonus video because I feel like it. This Starburst commercial makes me laugh every time I see it:
