DID YOU KNOW? Henry Ford briefly held the land speed record: 91.3 miles per hour, set while driving across a frozen lake in 1903.
Yesterday I skipped out on the undoubtedly colorful Folsom Street Fair because I had to go to a memorial service. No condolences necessary: it's nobody I knew. I joined the Berkeley University Chorus this year and apparently one of its most beloved members passed away in June at the tender age of 93.
Gosh, people living until 93--that scares me. To me it just means Sarah Palin is one step further from the presidency.
But, yeah, so the director, Dr. Kuzma, told us that the dearly departed loved Christmas music and always gave her all at the Christmas concerts and was totally vivacious and wonderful and universally beloved. She always had parties at her house and made everyone come over and sing Wagner. So, I mean, cool; for that, I'm happy to sing at the memorial service of someone I don't even know.
No, really--you can't expect that kind of maturity out of me. My motivation was actually far more selfish. Just a week or two ago I posted on my listography about things that are perfect and the first thing I thought of was "Bogoroditse Devo" from Rachmaninoff's Vespers.
Honestly, it is the most beautiful pieces of choral music I have ever heard, let alone performed. I don't think I'd turn down any opportunity to sing it again, really. I remember one time with Colin 1 we were just hanging out in my room and I happened to just turn it on because it's the first track on my District Chorus 2003 CD. He was like, "This is beautiful" and I just stopped and I was like, "Yes, yes it is." Listen to how the soprano/tenor duet just hovers around 1:30, and then the basses come back in and everything just breaks apart. It's fantastic. I noticed this time around that the writing is just filled with parallel fifths and octaves, too. So many mistakes. But it all works, and does so amazingly, and does so using only the seven notes of the F major scale with no accidentals throughout the entire piece. For real, Rachmaninoff. Perfect.
So, I mean, I took this all as a sign from heaven that I should skip the Folsom Street Fair again this year and go sing at this memorial instead, both for my own enrichment and that of the attendees. Not that most religions would not signal me to skip the Folsom Street Fair. Anyway, you know? I'm glad I did. Our choir kind of rocks, and getting to that one big three-note crescendo just gave me chills every time.
Please play this song at my funeral, if I ever have one.
29 September 2008
28 September 2008
I want what you want
DID YOU KNOW? No Republican is currently running in the 2008 Arkansas senatorial election.
Folsom Street Fair is today and although I'm not going, I've had the bridge of Young Americans stuck in my head all day ("have you been an un-American, just you and your idol singing falsetto 'bout leather, leather everywhere and not a myth left from the ghetto?"). I only have the shortened single edit saved on my computer, so I was looking around on YouTube for something to satisfy my curiosity. I clicked on this because it was 6:42 long and that seemed long enough to be the full version. I found no bridge, but instead perhaps the emblematic 1970's musical medley, helmed by David Bowie and Cher. It is required viewing for the human race.
If memory serves me correctly, there's an interview with David Bowie where he's talking about the recording of his next album, Station to Station, and the interviewer is like, "What do you remember about the recording of the tracks for that album?" and his answer is "Cocaine." Given that, I'm kind of surprised that he was even able to learn all of these songs.
Seriously, watch it.
Folsom Street Fair is today and although I'm not going, I've had the bridge of Young Americans stuck in my head all day ("have you been an un-American, just you and your idol singing falsetto 'bout leather, leather everywhere and not a myth left from the ghetto?"). I only have the shortened single edit saved on my computer, so I was looking around on YouTube for something to satisfy my curiosity. I clicked on this because it was 6:42 long and that seemed long enough to be the full version. I found no bridge, but instead perhaps the emblematic 1970's musical medley, helmed by David Bowie and Cher. It is required viewing for the human race.
If memory serves me correctly, there's an interview with David Bowie where he's talking about the recording of his next album, Station to Station, and the interviewer is like, "What do you remember about the recording of the tracks for that album?" and his answer is "Cocaine." Given that, I'm kind of surprised that he was even able to learn all of these songs.
Seriously, watch it.
25 September 2008
Do you realize??
DID YOU KNOW? Stephen Colbert and Spider-Man.
Anyone who's spoken with me in the past three weeks can tell you that I'm obsessed with Sarah Palin. I'm just kind of glad that she's distinguished herself beyond just being a woman: win or lose, she's totally going down in history the most absurd American political figure of our generation. And I used to be obsessed with Traficant.
Anyway, I read a lot of blogs about her, and I'm really just curious as to how I think certain things, and then within minutes the entire blogosphere seems to figure it out independently and posts about it start trickling in, and then get picked up by other blogs, and then, well, in a few minutes it's all part of the electoral vocabulary.
1. She looks like Tina Fey.
I mean, duh, but I was there at 10:44 AM on annunciation day when everyone was just figuring it out and searching for the perfect public-domain picture of Tina to juxtapose against the one picture of Sarah they had. It was pretty excellent. I figured it out beforehand and sent Ruth the cryptic text message, "Tina Fey!"
Okay, so maybe you're not impressed by that realization: after all, Tina Fey did pretty much singlehandedly make glasses sexy when she became the next Mary Tyler Moore. But how about this one?
2. Clay Aiken looks like Sarah Palin with a pixie cut.
I mean, I was pretty proud. I sent Ruth an IM over gchat with a link to this image and the heading "Sarah Palin with a pixie cut." I guess she didn't notice, because ten minutes later, she was the first of three people to send me a link to the Gawker article about Clay's spectacular revelation. I scrolled down a little bit and browsed through the comments, and right there at the bottom of the first page was, "ew he looks like sarah palin now."
I said, "Dag, now people are going to think I stole it."
3. Her Katie Couric interview is like taking an oral examination you didn't study for.
I watched this one for the first time with Colin 2, and seriously, all I could think of was my transport prelim when Professor Graves asked me a solid mech question and I had never actually studied solid mech, and I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to have studied it, so instead of admitting that I just kind of stammered for like five minutes and wrote random stuff on the board.
And then Sarah used all of those same phrases. "My understanding is..." she says in the first segment, two or three times, because she has no idea if the principles on which she's predicating her argument are correct or not--just like me talking about deformability! Then she talks about being in the process of making some sort of a decision and Katie's all, "Can you give me some pros and cons?" and she's like "UH." JUST LIKE ME, when I was like, "It would depend on the equation that governs the force for a solid" and Professor Balsara was like, "Can you give us an example of a common one?" and I was like "UH" and Balsara was like, "Oh my God it's freaking F = kx. Dang."
So I was very proud to have made this observation and I decided that it must be totally unique and I even left it up for awhile on some internet status alert and then I started reading the blogs this morning and everyone had their own ill-preparedness experience to which they could relate Sarah. The book report for the book you hadn't read. The symbolic logic final for which you were hungover. Man, there is just no actual creativity anymore.
Anyhoo, I have an oral presentation and a German paper due tomorrow and I can't think of anything else to say, so I'm just going to stop with this sentence.
Anyone who's spoken with me in the past three weeks can tell you that I'm obsessed with Sarah Palin. I'm just kind of glad that she's distinguished herself beyond just being a woman: win or lose, she's totally going down in history the most absurd American political figure of our generation. And I used to be obsessed with Traficant.
Anyway, I read a lot of blogs about her, and I'm really just curious as to how I think certain things, and then within minutes the entire blogosphere seems to figure it out independently and posts about it start trickling in, and then get picked up by other blogs, and then, well, in a few minutes it's all part of the electoral vocabulary.
1. She looks like Tina Fey.
I mean, duh, but I was there at 10:44 AM on annunciation day when everyone was just figuring it out and searching for the perfect public-domain picture of Tina to juxtapose against the one picture of Sarah they had. It was pretty excellent. I figured it out beforehand and sent Ruth the cryptic text message, "Tina Fey!"
Okay, so maybe you're not impressed by that realization: after all, Tina Fey did pretty much singlehandedly make glasses sexy when she became the next Mary Tyler Moore. But how about this one?
2. Clay Aiken looks like Sarah Palin with a pixie cut.
I mean, I was pretty proud. I sent Ruth an IM over gchat with a link to this image and the heading "Sarah Palin with a pixie cut." I guess she didn't notice, because ten minutes later, she was the first of three people to send me a link to the Gawker article about Clay's spectacular revelation. I scrolled down a little bit and browsed through the comments, and right there at the bottom of the first page was, "ew he looks like sarah palin now."
I said, "Dag, now people are going to think I stole it."
3. Her Katie Couric interview is like taking an oral examination you didn't study for.
I watched this one for the first time with Colin 2, and seriously, all I could think of was my transport prelim when Professor Graves asked me a solid mech question and I had never actually studied solid mech, and I wasn't sure whether I was supposed to have studied it, so instead of admitting that I just kind of stammered for like five minutes and wrote random stuff on the board.
And then Sarah used all of those same phrases. "My understanding is..." she says in the first segment, two or three times, because she has no idea if the principles on which she's predicating her argument are correct or not--just like me talking about deformability! Then she talks about being in the process of making some sort of a decision and Katie's all, "Can you give me some pros and cons?" and she's like "UH." JUST LIKE ME, when I was like, "It would depend on the equation that governs the force for a solid" and Professor Balsara was like, "Can you give us an example of a common one?" and I was like "UH" and Balsara was like, "Oh my God it's freaking F = kx. Dang."
So I was very proud to have made this observation and I decided that it must be totally unique and I even left it up for awhile on some internet status alert and then I started reading the blogs this morning and everyone had their own ill-preparedness experience to which they could relate Sarah. The book report for the book you hadn't read. The symbolic logic final for which you were hungover. Man, there is just no actual creativity anymore.
Anyhoo, I have an oral presentation and a German paper due tomorrow and I can't think of anything else to say, so I'm just going to stop with this sentence.
23 September 2008
Am I right? Am I wrong?
DID YOU KNOW? Garfield minus Garfield.
Two news items from yesterday, important enough to displace my baked penne with homemade tomato sauce as the "most bloggable thing that happened to me yesterday."
The first thing is that the LA Times, for no apparent reason, did a profile on Berkeley Bowl, a much-beloved supermarket 3/4 mile from my apartment and outside of Monterey Market, my fresh produce purveyor of choice. Within, they tell the story of poor Raphael Breines:
I have to admit that I did eat about a dozen grapes on my last trip to the Bowl, but that's because they have like 20 different kinds and I wanted to see which one I liked best. Verdict: the cheapest kind. Then I actually bought two pounds of grapes, and somehow avoided any police intervention. I mean, Cedar Point was a month ago, but I still think it's valid for me to use the phrase, "any further police involvement."
Also, breaking news: Fruity Pebbles are good enough for Michael Pollan and so should they be for you. Also, I no longer trust him to give food-related advice based on the fact that he shops for cereal at Berkeley Bowl (seriously, it's almost impossible to find a box of anything there for less than $4--that's what Safeway is for, Michael).
The other thing is that the format of the vice presidential debates has changed. The Democrats apparently came to the bargaining table insisting that the candidates be positioned at lecterns, apparently just because they like the word "lectern." As for their opponents:
Like, I'm TA-ing a class this term. If Sarah Palin came to me and you were like, "This is my first chemcial engineering class. Can you design the midterm such that each question can be answered in under two minutes?", then I would respond, "No Sarah Palin, I think that the midterm we have written is fair, and we can't change it just because you object to it, because that would be unfair your colleagues." Seriously, I don't even know if Sarah Palin could pass Chemical Engineering 140.
But she could become a Miley Cyrus concert organizer.
Lectern.
Two news items from yesterday, important enough to displace my baked penne with homemade tomato sauce as the "most bloggable thing that happened to me yesterday."
The first thing is that the LA Times, for no apparent reason, did a profile on Berkeley Bowl, a much-beloved supermarket 3/4 mile from my apartment and outside of Monterey Market, my fresh produce purveyor of choice. Within, they tell the story of poor Raphael Breines:
And, yo. Am I missing something here? The way the article reads, this dude walked into Berkeley Bowl, ate two apricots and left, and then was surprised to be apprehended in the parking lot. In what society is that acceptable? Am I reading this wrong? In what way is this not theft?
The produce emporium -- one of the nation's most renowned retailers of exotic fruits and vegetables -- creates its own bad behavior. Kamikaze shoppers crash down crowded aisles without eye contact or apology for fender-benders. So many customers weren't waiting to pay before digging in that management imposed the ultimate deterrent: Those caught sampling without buying will be banned for life -- no reprieves, no excuses. (Not even "I forgot to take my medication.")
Raphael Breines, who was ejected last year for eating on the premises, said he couldn't decide between two types of apricots, so he sampled both. Security stopped him in the parking lot.
"They treated me like a thief," said the 37-year-old park planner, who was photographed and required to sign a no-trespass agreement. "Technically I was stealing, but I wasn't trying to hide anything. I was just deciding which type of apricot to buy."
Breines, a longtime customer, sent an apology letter, asking to be reinstated. His request was denied.
I have to admit that I did eat about a dozen grapes on my last trip to the Bowl, but that's because they have like 20 different kinds and I wanted to see which one I liked best. Verdict: the cheapest kind. Then I actually bought two pounds of grapes, and somehow avoided any police intervention. I mean, Cedar Point was a month ago, but I still think it's valid for me to use the phrase, "any further police involvement."
Also, breaking news: Fruity Pebbles are good enough for Michael Pollan and so should they be for you. Also, I no longer trust him to give food-related advice based on the fact that he shops for cereal at Berkeley Bowl (seriously, it's almost impossible to find a box of anything there for less than $4--that's what Safeway is for, Michael).
The other thing is that the format of the vice presidential debates has changed. The Democrats apparently came to the bargaining table insisting that the candidates be positioned at lecterns, apparently just because they like the word "lectern." As for their opponents:
Okay, really, Sarah Palin? I like you bringing Tina Fey back to SNL (although she is less enthusastic), but this is not the way the universe works. It does not exist only to serve you. Again, is there something I'm missing here? Who would possibly agree to this on that basis?But in the negotiations, the Republicans wanted to limit the amount of time available for their neophyte candidate, Palin, to be questioned on a single topic.
...
Both sides got what they wanted. Palin and Biden will each have 90 seconds to respond to questions, with a two-minute period for discussion between the candidates to follow.
Like, I'm TA-ing a class this term. If Sarah Palin came to me and you were like, "This is my first chemcial engineering class. Can you design the midterm such that each question can be answered in under two minutes?", then I would respond, "No Sarah Palin, I think that the midterm we have written is fair, and we can't change it just because you object to it, because that would be unfair your colleagues." Seriously, I don't even know if Sarah Palin could pass Chemical Engineering 140.
But she could become a Miley Cyrus concert organizer.
Lectern.
21 September 2008
I got 99 cookbooks.
DID YOU KNOW? The 2004 Washington gubernatorial race was decided by 129 votes out of 2.8 million.
Can I just say that I am totally in love with Heidi? Seriously, after realizing she lives in San Francisco I may break into her home. I could go find her at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market and then follow her back to wherever she lives. I would get a snack from Roli Roti as well, for the way home. The way to her home.
This is a good plan.
Because seriously, 101 Cookbooks. It's totally awesome. I'm trying not to be all about "la la la I'm going to follow a recipe" anymore, but every single recipe I see on 101 Cookbooks is pretty much outstanding. It also doesn't hurt that I think Heidi is actually a magical gnome that lives in my pantry and devises recipes based on what she finds (although she always adds in goji berries or some other superfood like that, which I usually omit). How else to explain the fact that I had bought four cans of chickpeas (intended for hummus) two days before she came out with her Lemony Chickpea Stir Fry?
And oh man. What a perfect dish that is. You can make it in one skillet. One skillet! Really. I omit the tofu (shockingly) because tofu/chickpeas just seems like a texture violation to me, and toss in some preserved lemon and cilantro just to brighten things up to total luminescence. Oh man. One skillet. It takes 20 minutes to make. Chickpeas are packed with fiber, and then you toss some dark greens in there too (usually kale or chard, although last night I tossed in some radish greens and spinach). That's all! One skillet, healthy, delicious, and refrigerator clean-out with stuff I always have on hand.
Heidi, you are a genius. Like Prince.
You can tell I really want to follow Heidi home because I am absolutely giddy over the fact that she responded to my comment on this recipe. I was all, "This was awesome with preserved lemon and cilantro and she said "HS: ooh! Sounds tasty!" That's right, Heidi Swanson totally knows who I am. And, I mean, if I'm going to break into her home, that's actually a bad thing. Dag.
Anyway, yeah. I'm just posting it because it was absolutely the most delicious thing in the entire world after running 18.38 miles through the hills yesterday. I really think I'm ready for that marathon to which I perhaps too hastily committed myself, first in bloggery and then in financial reality. But yeah, Heidi's Lemony Chickpea Stir Fry on top of some brown rice. Perfect. It used to be pasta with a can of emergency tuna, some peas and corn, and scallions, but this has totally usurped that, and cooks just as fast anyway.
This is the one.
Can I just say that I am totally in love with Heidi? Seriously, after realizing she lives in San Francisco I may break into her home. I could go find her at the Ferry Building Farmer's Market and then follow her back to wherever she lives. I would get a snack from Roli Roti as well, for the way home. The way to her home.
This is a good plan.
Because seriously, 101 Cookbooks. It's totally awesome. I'm trying not to be all about "la la la I'm going to follow a recipe" anymore, but every single recipe I see on 101 Cookbooks is pretty much outstanding. It also doesn't hurt that I think Heidi is actually a magical gnome that lives in my pantry and devises recipes based on what she finds (although she always adds in goji berries or some other superfood like that, which I usually omit). How else to explain the fact that I had bought four cans of chickpeas (intended for hummus) two days before she came out with her Lemony Chickpea Stir Fry?
And oh man. What a perfect dish that is. You can make it in one skillet. One skillet! Really. I omit the tofu (shockingly) because tofu/chickpeas just seems like a texture violation to me, and toss in some preserved lemon and cilantro just to brighten things up to total luminescence. Oh man. One skillet. It takes 20 minutes to make. Chickpeas are packed with fiber, and then you toss some dark greens in there too (usually kale or chard, although last night I tossed in some radish greens and spinach). That's all! One skillet, healthy, delicious, and refrigerator clean-out with stuff I always have on hand.
Heidi, you are a genius. Like Prince.
You can tell I really want to follow Heidi home because I am absolutely giddy over the fact that she responded to my comment on this recipe. I was all, "This was awesome with preserved lemon and cilantro and she said "HS: ooh! Sounds tasty!" That's right, Heidi Swanson totally knows who I am. And, I mean, if I'm going to break into her home, that's actually a bad thing. Dag.
Anyway, yeah. I'm just posting it because it was absolutely the most delicious thing in the entire world after running 18.38 miles through the hills yesterday. I really think I'm ready for that marathon to which I perhaps too hastily committed myself, first in bloggery and then in financial reality. But yeah, Heidi's Lemony Chickpea Stir Fry on top of some brown rice. Perfect. It used to be pasta with a can of emergency tuna, some peas and corn, and scallions, but this has totally usurped that, and cooks just as fast anyway.
This is the one.
20 September 2008
Tomato and tomato and tomato
DID YOU KNOW? There is an Apples to Apples Bible Edition.
I wish I could take credit for the title, but that is indeed Ruhlman's paraphrase on Shakespeare.
I mean, I wish I could take credit for the contents of this entry, but no, that's also Ruhlman. It exists mainly because the DID YOU KNOW is one of my favorites ever and because my lunch was actually really delicious. I decided to eat a big one because this evening I'm going on my last (oh my) long run before the Golden Hills Marathon: 18 miles, two cities, two counties. Oh man.
The lunch was a caprese salad, and basically the same one Michael Ruhlman talks about in his blog entry above. I chopped up a few heirloom tomatoes from Berkeley Bowl this morning and let them sit in some salt and basil. Then I ate it with some sourdough that I baked yesterday, some fresh mozzarella from Berkeley Bowl, and a honeycrisp apple. Yeah, basically just what Ruhlman says. Oh, I added a sprinkle of herbes de provence to the mix. But that's about it as far as changes go.
I did go crazy on tomatoes at Berkeley Bowl this morning, though. I bought three different ones (also motivating the entry title). I bought the three heirlooms for the caprese salad, an absurdly cheap box of cherry tomatoes (2 pounds for 99 cents) for lunch add-ins later this week, and then 5 pounds of Roma tomatoes for a fresh tomato sauce to keep throughout the winter. I still haven't gotten around to making "The Sauce" from the secret DeAngelis family recipe yet, but you know, that uses canned tomatoes, so I can pretty much do that anytime.
I also bought a pound of basil and some pinenuts for use in pesto, two monster zucchini, a "mystery bag" of 25-cent-per-pound slightly bruised stonefruits... basically, a couple weeks of produce for just under $50. I'm starting to warm up to Berkeley Bowl, although they don't have tahini as cheap as my most beloved Monterey Market.
Oh my, I love grocery shopping.
I wish I could take credit for the title, but that is indeed Ruhlman's paraphrase on Shakespeare.
I mean, I wish I could take credit for the contents of this entry, but no, that's also Ruhlman. It exists mainly because the DID YOU KNOW is one of my favorites ever and because my lunch was actually really delicious. I decided to eat a big one because this evening I'm going on my last (oh my) long run before the Golden Hills Marathon: 18 miles, two cities, two counties. Oh man.
The lunch was a caprese salad, and basically the same one Michael Ruhlman talks about in his blog entry above. I chopped up a few heirloom tomatoes from Berkeley Bowl this morning and let them sit in some salt and basil. Then I ate it with some sourdough that I baked yesterday, some fresh mozzarella from Berkeley Bowl, and a honeycrisp apple. Yeah, basically just what Ruhlman says. Oh, I added a sprinkle of herbes de provence to the mix. But that's about it as far as changes go.
I did go crazy on tomatoes at Berkeley Bowl this morning, though. I bought three different ones (also motivating the entry title). I bought the three heirlooms for the caprese salad, an absurdly cheap box of cherry tomatoes (2 pounds for 99 cents) for lunch add-ins later this week, and then 5 pounds of Roma tomatoes for a fresh tomato sauce to keep throughout the winter. I still haven't gotten around to making "The Sauce" from the secret DeAngelis family recipe yet, but you know, that uses canned tomatoes, so I can pretty much do that anytime.
I also bought a pound of basil and some pinenuts for use in pesto, two monster zucchini, a "mystery bag" of 25-cent-per-pound slightly bruised stonefruits... basically, a couple weeks of produce for just under $50. I'm starting to warm up to Berkeley Bowl, although they don't have tahini as cheap as my most beloved Monterey Market.
Oh my, I love grocery shopping.
18 September 2008
Some mother's son
DID YOU KNOW? The word "grenade" is derived from the word "Pomegranate."
I think in my next home I will not have a bed in my room; just a really comfortable couch. I think this is a very good idea. For some reason it reminds me of Sam's Mom.
Sam's Mom sent me an e-mail yesterday. She said,
I got home after a long, long, long day of chemical engineering. I had to teach class in Professor Radke's absence at 8 AM. Then I spent all day coming up with lesson plans and things and then Colin 2 and I had to do a review session at 7:00 PM. More than 100 out of the 116 students in the class packed into a room that we had somewhat generously reserved for 75 people. I felt like Barack Obama. I made a joke about this: I wrote CHANGE on the board in really big letters and then I said, "So what we're talking about is change. Change you can believe in. Change in unit mass per unit time. Which is accumulation, and that's equal to in minus out." And then I jumped up and down because this is the most important concept in all of chemical engineering.
I got home kind of crazy tired. It was the first day I have ever packed a lunch and a dinner when I went to campus. Dinner was delicious, though (brussels sprout curry). Anyway, I got here to discover the package that Sam's Mom had mentioned. I opened it and discovered the very important voter registration card so I can (sadly) tell Pennsylvania that I no longer live there. Then I opened the secret pocket of cardboard and discovered... well, I should have known.
Four North Dakota State Quarters.
In case you haven't heard, I collect these. This is good for a lot of reasons. First of all, they're beautiful and I think having them just enriches my life. Second, I now know what more state quarters look like than any 22-year-old in the world. By the way, seriously? Total unfair advantage to later states. Seriously, compare Utah to Pennsylvania. You can tell who had an extra eight years of quarter-making technology at their disposal. Finally, it gives me an easy topic of conversation in any social situation where change is being made.
So with this, the three Ruth bought me after a lucky laundry run, and the one Adam found the other day, I've made two dollars in North Dakota State Quarters this week. And that is just fantastic.
I went to sleep on the floor still thinking about chemical engineering. The problem I wrote for tomorrow's midterm just wasn't working out. You had to make some assumptions that I told people never to make, ever. They were logical assumptions, but if you're going through it rigorously you can't make them. Or you could do it the other way and be like, "Yeah, I know it's logical but we told you no!" Or just put in awkward language to make it perfectly clear. We were already on our third revision of the midterm and it was pretty close to perfectly clear, so I really wanted to make it go all the way.
I had an epiphany as I fell into a dream about re-grading probem sets. I could totally rewrite the question so that this thing, would be what you were trying to prove with the data that are given. So I did. And I think what I wrote was fair. It's not intuitive, but you need to think. I'm all for making people think, like in The Sound of Music when I wrote in my program biography "he almost made district band and almost didn't make district chorus." Silv was like, "I don't like that. It's weird. You have to think about it." and Sam's Mom replied, "Well, I'm all for encouraging people to think."
So I wrote out the problem and showed it to Colin 2 this morning and asked if he thought was okay. He gave me a high five and said, "Aww Dad, those kids are gonna poop themselves!"
And that's how your first midterm was written.
I think in my next home I will not have a bed in my room; just a really comfortable couch. I think this is a very good idea. For some reason it reminds me of Sam's Mom.
Sam's Mom sent me an e-mail yesterday. She said,
I mailed something to you on Saturday. It's just that card from the bureau of voter registration and something else. The something else is in between two pieces of cardboard but there is also another piece of cardboard in the envelope so that the card wouldn't get bent. I just wanted to tell you so that you wouldn't think both of the cardboards were trash and inadvertently throw the other thing away. Please let me know if/when it gets there.
I got home after a long, long, long day of chemical engineering. I had to teach class in Professor Radke's absence at 8 AM. Then I spent all day coming up with lesson plans and things and then Colin 2 and I had to do a review session at 7:00 PM. More than 100 out of the 116 students in the class packed into a room that we had somewhat generously reserved for 75 people. I felt like Barack Obama. I made a joke about this: I wrote CHANGE on the board in really big letters and then I said, "So what we're talking about is change. Change you can believe in. Change in unit mass per unit time. Which is accumulation, and that's equal to in minus out." And then I jumped up and down because this is the most important concept in all of chemical engineering.
I got home kind of crazy tired. It was the first day I have ever packed a lunch and a dinner when I went to campus. Dinner was delicious, though (brussels sprout curry). Anyway, I got here to discover the package that Sam's Mom had mentioned. I opened it and discovered the very important voter registration card so I can (sadly) tell Pennsylvania that I no longer live there. Then I opened the secret pocket of cardboard and discovered... well, I should have known.
Four North Dakota State Quarters.
In case you haven't heard, I collect these. This is good for a lot of reasons. First of all, they're beautiful and I think having them just enriches my life. Second, I now know what more state quarters look like than any 22-year-old in the world. By the way, seriously? Total unfair advantage to later states. Seriously, compare Utah to Pennsylvania. You can tell who had an extra eight years of quarter-making technology at their disposal. Finally, it gives me an easy topic of conversation in any social situation where change is being made.
So with this, the three Ruth bought me after a lucky laundry run, and the one Adam found the other day, I've made two dollars in North Dakota State Quarters this week. And that is just fantastic.
I went to sleep on the floor still thinking about chemical engineering. The problem I wrote for tomorrow's midterm just wasn't working out. You had to make some assumptions that I told people never to make, ever. They were logical assumptions, but if you're going through it rigorously you can't make them. Or you could do it the other way and be like, "Yeah, I know it's logical but we told you no!" Or just put in awkward language to make it perfectly clear. We were already on our third revision of the midterm and it was pretty close to perfectly clear, so I really wanted to make it go all the way.
I had an epiphany as I fell into a dream about re-grading probem sets. I could totally rewrite the question so that this thing, would be what you were trying to prove with the data that are given. So I did. And I think what I wrote was fair. It's not intuitive, but you need to think. I'm all for making people think, like in The Sound of Music when I wrote in my program biography "he almost made district band and almost didn't make district chorus." Silv was like, "I don't like that. It's weird. You have to think about it." and Sam's Mom replied, "Well, I'm all for encouraging people to think."
So I wrote out the problem and showed it to Colin 2 this morning and asked if he thought was okay. He gave me a high five and said, "Aww Dad, those kids are gonna poop themselves!"
And that's how your first midterm was written.
14 September 2008
Surfin', Safari!
DID YOU KNOW? Tina Fey was barely able to rehearse her astonishing performance on SNL this week because she was busy filming an episode of 30 Rock with Oprah guest-starring.
So, Milwaukee? So, Couchsurfing.
It's basically my goal in life to recommend this two things to every single person I see. Seriously, Milwaukee. Greatest city that any civilization has ever produced. Outstanding. No weaknesses.
Let's see how much I can compress this. It's going to be the SPAM of blog entries, seriously.
Because I promised you.
When you last left your hero, he had attracted the attention of the Sandusky Police Department twice in one day and become too dizzy to walk straight. Twenty dollars in hand, having eaten his emergency S'Mores Pop-Tart last night to quell fears of his own death, he stumbled back to Lou Mitchell's for four eggs, four cups of coffee, and whatever accompaniments Lou decided to give him that morning.
He wandered back to Union Station to find his partner (not in crime, for once) Ruthie had brought his bag with her, as promised. Empowered by caffeine and architectural tours, respectively, the pair skipped onto the next train to Milwaukee--where, unbeknownst to them, they would face their destiny.
They ate cheese curds. He bought the greatest white cheddar ever produced by the hand of man. They got on a bus. It had a video screen telling them what stop they were at. It took them to the Miller Brewery.
They took pictures.
They went through the bottling station. They watched a video. They climbed fifty-something steps. The smelled hops. They drank three beers. They watched a grandmother try to procure alcohol for her underage grandson. Then they headed north.
Because there was this dude named Ian and Sam had found him through Couchsurfing and they were staying in his house while they were in Milwaukee. Well, the first day. Then they were going on a road trip, and they were going to come back and go to a hotel.
So they went to a Starbucks and hung out and went to Ian's house at the appointed hour. They called him. He said, "Here's where my spare key is. Go inside and turn on Sportscenter. Also, the news is coming at 5:30."
Ruth succeeded at Duck Hunt while Sam pieced his life slowly together. Ian's roommate came home first. Then the news came. Then Ian came. There was a lot of confusion. But then they got on the news.
No, really, they were on the news in Milwaukee.
Click on "video."
Someone thought they were dating.
Then Ian produced beer, scotch, and friends from the very aether, and before our heroes knew what was going on, a swarm of Couchsurfers descended upon the house. They had names. They all went to a music festival. First they went to a supermarket, where they met an ivy league graduate who had been freaked out by Steer Roast some years before. They also bought some subs, which were the most delicious subs on the entire Earth at that moment in time. They spent so long doing this that there was no more music when they finally got to the river. Time passed.
Then Sam fell asleep with his eyes open.
This was a trick he had learned in one of his past lives, in which he was a goldfish.
Sam woke up in time to move into a chair for his last two hours of slumber. Ian and all his roommates went to their jobs, but said they'd see Sam and Ruth tomorrow, a deal which Ruth had skillfully brokered in Sam's absence the previous evening. Enterprise came and picked them up. They were going on a road trip.
So they went to a museum of honey, where they watched a slideshow. A real slideshow.
They went to a museum of dead squirrels. It was in the basement of a funeral home. This meant that they had to walk inside and ask someone where the museum was. This is not an establishment that sees a lot of walk-in business, when you think about it.
They went to a museum for mustard and ate every single mustard that had ever been produced.
Sam crossed the Mississippi River in a car for the first time in his entire short but eventful life. He wished it had been a police car.
Ruth was hot.
They got cheese popcorn and they ate it while singing Radiohead a capella underneath an infinite glowing sunset en route to a bar in Iowa that was closed anyway. They went to Arby's for the second time today and slept at a rest stop on the Minnesota border.
Their suspicions that Minnesota was far more welcoming than Iowa were confirmed.
They went to a museum of SPAM but first they ate spam and eggs and all in all your hero ate so much SPAM that his kidneys nearly failed. It was like a pilgrimage to Mecca. They saw a letter from Dwight Eisenhower on the subject of SPAM. They learned more about Hormel than any other MIT graduate has ever known. Sam discovered that he's a youth medium and that this saves tons of money on souvenir t-shirt purchases (although this would cease to be true if he continued eating SPAM).
They listened to Beck over and over and then they went here, where there is no bottomless pit but there is the world's not-largest bicycle. They crossed the Mississippi again. Ruth returned the car. Nichole, who they had met earlier that evening, picked them up at the rental car place.
They went to the Lakefront Brewery, and if there is a heaven it will either be Trachimbrod or it will be the Lakefront Brewery. Among other things, they ate fried fish and danced polka. Nichole brought three friends and one of them was the son of Sam's high school musical director.
Seriously, what?
What?
What?
Your hero does not remember what happened after that and the reason he is providing is that this all happened one month ago.
Your hero went running the next morning and got lost on the docks in Downtown Milwaukee and he blames this on the fact that there are two rivers in this stupid city. Ian's roommate Adam made him a better breakfast than he deserved. Then Ruth escorted him to a real Catholic wedding.
They were wondering how long it would last. Sam's only frame of reference was a Catholic funeral, and he did not remember how long that lasted because he was too busy crying. It lasted one hour. They took a bus with some old friends. They went to Starbucks. They played Pictionary and produced a new piece of art for their living room because Sam forgot that camels exist.
They went to a reception and there was more food than entire counties eat in a day. There was a chocolate fountain. There was Stephen Flowers (not this one). Thanks to him, there was the best rendition of B.O.B. that our heroes have ever done. There was a garter toss and Sam, quite literally, kicked him in the rear end in order to get the garter (it was a diving catch and your hero is awkward athletically).
It was beautiful. Not just the wedding, but Sam winning at anything.
It took him back to high school.
Your heroes and friends closed out the reception. Then they went gay cage clubbing. Your hero doesn't even know anymore, okay? It was Nichole's idea.
And Couchsurfing again proved itself to be the greatest single invention of mankind. The wheel can bite me. Your heroes went out to breakfast with their new friends and went to the Milwaukee art museum for free. There were a lot of exhibits but mostly Sam just sat in a room for 20 minutes and freaked himself out. He told everybody else to do this but they were all like "Sam you are a crazy person."
He thought, "My, this is what this room has done to me."
It was really freaky.
Then your heroes watched olympic women's indoor volleyball (more or less Sam's sport of choice), acquired pizza, and were chauffeured to the airport. This is because Couchsurfing is awesome. Then they got back to San Francisco and it was freezing.
There is a man and his name is Chris Glazner. In descriptions of his life, the phrase "shot, stabbed, shipwrecked, hit in the head with a nail sticking out of a board, and had a tree fall on you while you're barbecuing" is often used.
Now your hero can use, "tittilated, caffeinated, filmed for a news broadcast, driven through three states, picked up by police, reconnected with someone from his high school in a Michigan Brewery, and late to a wedding at which he was performing because of international public transit." And all of that happened in one week.
Oh, and add "he drunk-dialed a senator."
So, Milwaukee? So, Couchsurfing.
It's basically my goal in life to recommend this two things to every single person I see. Seriously, Milwaukee. Greatest city that any civilization has ever produced. Outstanding. No weaknesses.
Let's see how much I can compress this. It's going to be the SPAM of blog entries, seriously.
Because I promised you.
When you last left your hero, he had attracted the attention of the Sandusky Police Department twice in one day and become too dizzy to walk straight. Twenty dollars in hand, having eaten his emergency S'Mores Pop-Tart last night to quell fears of his own death, he stumbled back to Lou Mitchell's for four eggs, four cups of coffee, and whatever accompaniments Lou decided to give him that morning.
He wandered back to Union Station to find his partner (not in crime, for once) Ruthie had brought his bag with her, as promised. Empowered by caffeine and architectural tours, respectively, the pair skipped onto the next train to Milwaukee--where, unbeknownst to them, they would face their destiny.
They ate cheese curds. He bought the greatest white cheddar ever produced by the hand of man. They got on a bus. It had a video screen telling them what stop they were at. It took them to the Miller Brewery.
They took pictures.
They went through the bottling station. They watched a video. They climbed fifty-something steps. The smelled hops. They drank three beers. They watched a grandmother try to procure alcohol for her underage grandson. Then they headed north.
Because there was this dude named Ian and Sam had found him through Couchsurfing and they were staying in his house while they were in Milwaukee. Well, the first day. Then they were going on a road trip, and they were going to come back and go to a hotel.
So they went to a Starbucks and hung out and went to Ian's house at the appointed hour. They called him. He said, "Here's where my spare key is. Go inside and turn on Sportscenter. Also, the news is coming at 5:30."
Ruth succeeded at Duck Hunt while Sam pieced his life slowly together. Ian's roommate came home first. Then the news came. Then Ian came. There was a lot of confusion. But then they got on the news.
No, really, they were on the news in Milwaukee.
Click on "video."
Someone thought they were dating.
Then Ian produced beer, scotch, and friends from the very aether, and before our heroes knew what was going on, a swarm of Couchsurfers descended upon the house. They had names. They all went to a music festival. First they went to a supermarket, where they met an ivy league graduate who had been freaked out by Steer Roast some years before. They also bought some subs, which were the most delicious subs on the entire Earth at that moment in time. They spent so long doing this that there was no more music when they finally got to the river. Time passed.
Then Sam fell asleep with his eyes open.
This was a trick he had learned in one of his past lives, in which he was a goldfish.
Sam woke up in time to move into a chair for his last two hours of slumber. Ian and all his roommates went to their jobs, but said they'd see Sam and Ruth tomorrow, a deal which Ruth had skillfully brokered in Sam's absence the previous evening. Enterprise came and picked them up. They were going on a road trip.
So they went to a museum of honey, where they watched a slideshow. A real slideshow.They went to a museum of dead squirrels. It was in the basement of a funeral home. This meant that they had to walk inside and ask someone where the museum was. This is not an establishment that sees a lot of walk-in business, when you think about it.
They went to a museum for mustard and ate every single mustard that had ever been produced.
Sam crossed the Mississippi River in a car for the first time in his entire short but eventful life. He wished it had been a police car.
Ruth was hot.
They got cheese popcorn and they ate it while singing Radiohead a capella underneath an infinite glowing sunset en route to a bar in Iowa that was closed anyway. They went to Arby's for the second time today and slept at a rest stop on the Minnesota border.
Their suspicions that Minnesota was far more welcoming than Iowa were confirmed.
They went to a museum of SPAM but first they ate spam and eggs and all in all your hero ate so much SPAM that his kidneys nearly failed. It was like a pilgrimage to Mecca. They saw a letter from Dwight Eisenhower on the subject of SPAM. They learned more about Hormel than any other MIT graduate has ever known. Sam discovered that he's a youth medium and that this saves tons of money on souvenir t-shirt purchases (although this would cease to be true if he continued eating SPAM).
They listened to Beck over and over and then they went here, where there is no bottomless pit but there is the world's not-largest bicycle. They crossed the Mississippi again. Ruth returned the car. Nichole, who they had met earlier that evening, picked them up at the rental car place.
They went to the Lakefront Brewery, and if there is a heaven it will either be Trachimbrod or it will be the Lakefront Brewery. Among other things, they ate fried fish and danced polka. Nichole brought three friends and one of them was the son of Sam's high school musical director.
Seriously, what?
What?
What?
Your hero does not remember what happened after that and the reason he is providing is that this all happened one month ago.
Your hero went running the next morning and got lost on the docks in Downtown Milwaukee and he blames this on the fact that there are two rivers in this stupid city. Ian's roommate Adam made him a better breakfast than he deserved. Then Ruth escorted him to a real Catholic wedding.
They were wondering how long it would last. Sam's only frame of reference was a Catholic funeral, and he did not remember how long that lasted because he was too busy crying. It lasted one hour. They took a bus with some old friends. They went to Starbucks. They played Pictionary and produced a new piece of art for their living room because Sam forgot that camels exist.
They went to a reception and there was more food than entire counties eat in a day. There was a chocolate fountain. There was Stephen Flowers (not this one). Thanks to him, there was the best rendition of B.O.B. that our heroes have ever done. There was a garter toss and Sam, quite literally, kicked him in the rear end in order to get the garter (it was a diving catch and your hero is awkward athletically).
It was beautiful. Not just the wedding, but Sam winning at anything.
It took him back to high school.
Your heroes and friends closed out the reception. Then they went gay cage clubbing. Your hero doesn't even know anymore, okay? It was Nichole's idea.
And Couchsurfing again proved itself to be the greatest single invention of mankind. The wheel can bite me. Your heroes went out to breakfast with their new friends and went to the Milwaukee art museum for free. There were a lot of exhibits but mostly Sam just sat in a room for 20 minutes and freaked himself out. He told everybody else to do this but they were all like "Sam you are a crazy person."
He thought, "My, this is what this room has done to me."
It was really freaky.
Then your heroes watched olympic women's indoor volleyball (more or less Sam's sport of choice), acquired pizza, and were chauffeured to the airport. This is because Couchsurfing is awesome. Then they got back to San Francisco and it was freezing.
There is a man and his name is Chris Glazner. In descriptions of his life, the phrase "shot, stabbed, shipwrecked, hit in the head with a nail sticking out of a board, and had a tree fall on you while you're barbecuing" is often used.
Now your hero can use, "tittilated, caffeinated, filmed for a news broadcast, driven through three states, picked up by police, reconnected with someone from his high school in a Michigan Brewery, and late to a wedding at which he was performing because of international public transit." And all of that happened in one week.
Oh, and add "he drunk-dialed a senator."
11 September 2008
Waldszenen
DID YOU KNOW? Teller, of Penn & Teller, legally changed his name to Teller. Just "Teller." He now possesses one of the few US passports with only a single name on it.
I thought of a great entry title today. It will be "Ruth is beauty; beauty Ruth." I felt really good about it. Ruthie, it's your job to do something beautiful and give me a chance to use it.
Sunday. Sunday will be my last blog entry on Midwest Wedding Explosion and I will have told you everything that happened. I promise and I am setting this as a goal and you know that I always make a concerted effort to reach goals, like how I actually registered for the Golden Hills Marathon because I blogged about it and therefore became obligated.
What's up with me? I'm TA-ing. It's pretty fun. One of my students came up to me after my class and mentioned my MITblog. I... am not sure about that. But he seems cool and did very well on his first quiz.
A few pictures about what's up. Let's start with my dinner last night. I'm kind of into eating out of my cast-iron skillet recently, and I'm really oh my into these amazing Blue Lake Green Beans I got for crazy cheap at Berkeley Bowl last week. I'm also into salt and using it with a heavy hand and yes it makes my food so much better.
And how about some Sutro Baths?
Thanks to my beloved high school friend Shana for suggesting it to me. Seriously, it looked so haunting and astounding that I was there in the week. Why don't you suggest things for me to do? Yes, you.
I thought of a great entry title today. It will be "Ruth is beauty; beauty Ruth." I felt really good about it. Ruthie, it's your job to do something beautiful and give me a chance to use it.
Sunday. Sunday will be my last blog entry on Midwest Wedding Explosion and I will have told you everything that happened. I promise and I am setting this as a goal and you know that I always make a concerted effort to reach goals, like how I actually registered for the Golden Hills Marathon because I blogged about it and therefore became obligated.
What's up with me? I'm TA-ing. It's pretty fun. One of my students came up to me after my class and mentioned my MITblog. I... am not sure about that. But he seems cool and did very well on his first quiz.
A few pictures about what's up. Let's start with my dinner last night. I'm kind of into eating out of my cast-iron skillet recently, and I'm really oh my into these amazing Blue Lake Green Beans I got for crazy cheap at Berkeley Bowl last week. I'm also into salt and using it with a heavy hand and yes it makes my food so much better.
And how about some Sutro Baths?
Thanks to my beloved high school friend Shana for suggesting it to me. Seriously, it looked so haunting and astounding that I was there in the week. Why don't you suggest things for me to do? Yes, you.
08 September 2008
Troubled bridge over water
DID YOU KNOW? Wendy's has coined the term "soquid" to describe the phase properties of its popular Frosty dessert. This term has not gained acceptance in the scientific community.
So, about Cedar Point.
I decided that I really, really wanted to go to Cedar Point and Ruthie was kind of going along with it for a while. The plan involved sleeping in the Sandusky train station twice and seemed kind of feasible, but then prices went up because I did not act on Amtrak tickets early enough (let this be a lesson to you all). I devised no fewer than five plans to get us there on a combination of Greyhounds and Amtrak and I don't even remember, probably also prop planes and stealing camels and whatever, all working around limited Amtrak availability and time constraints and Oprah's taping schedule. I went through all this while Shirley was preparing all my samples in lab (she's such a good undergrad) and sent an e-mail that I think was three pages in length to Ruthie detailing all these plans, how they would eat up a little more than a day of our chicago vacation and, with park admission and transportation costs, fall in the range of about $120-$200. After a few exchanges from that e-mail, she came to the following conclusion:
I'm cool with skipping it.
Which, I mean, cool, Cedar Point has a different value to everyone and in just a moment you'll see how much value it has to me, and I'm not going to force someone else to take an overnight Greyhound and a 3 AM Amtrak just so I can ride some roller coasters for twelve straight hours. I equivocated and said that Cedar Point is only 11 hours on Amtrak and $100 away from Harrisburg, so I'd find some other time to go.
But let's be serious; it took me four years to organize my friends to take a day trip to Hersheypark from Harrisburg, and that's 20 minutes and, Idonno, probably $18 worth of gas or something. Also, the fact that I spent four hours looking up Amtrak and calling up stations to ask about locker availability suggested that I was already a little more committed to the execution of this idea than I am to most. So over curry that night that I told Ruth that I was going to make it to Cedar Point and that I had formulated a cunning plan and that it was all going to work out and we'd meet up the next day in Union Station and take the train out to Milwaukee. No probs. No probs.
So I bought my overnight Greyhound ticket and my Amtrak ticket and that problem was solved. They came in the mail and I kind of filed those away and also in my head filed away the idea of actually making it to Cedar Point from Amtrak. I knew, from my morning of frantic searching, that the Greyhound station was 7.5 miles from the park. See?
I also knew that there was a Sandusky Transit System but I was kind of unclear as to how to actually reserve a spot on that, or whether it would actually work, or whether it ran late enough to get me home from Cedar Point, or whether it actually went to Cedar Point. Also I was born after 1982 so I'm afraid of talking to people on the phone to get information. If it's not on the internet, it's not knowable.
By this point you may have said to yourself, "Sam, are you really going to a theme park alone? Isn't that super lame?" but believe me when I tell you that this thought never even crossed my mind for one moment, because yo, it's Cedar Point. And anyway, in the end, it turned out to be a good thing that I decided to go to Cedar Point alone, because I don't think I would have really felt comfortable asking Ruth or, well, anybody I know to take an overnight Greyhound ride out of Chicago wearing athletic clothes, wake up before we reached Sandusky, jump out of the bus, and then run down the side of the highway for 7.5 miles to get to the gates of the greatest theme park on Earth before 8 AM.
Because that's what I did. I left Second City improv early, ran a mile in Chicago after misunderstanding the transportation system, made it to the Greyhound station with six, yes, six minutes to spare, accidentally hopped into the seat with the least legroom out of every seat on the bus (traveler's tip: there is a considerable variation, like a factor of two or three). After carb-loading on a strawberry biscuit at a 3 AM Hardee's rest stop and downing a large coffee and Krispy Kreme (oh my God) at a gas station on the outskirts of Sandusky, I was ready to go. I started my stopwatch and headed on down Marin Avenue, with only a vague idea of where I was actually headed.
Luckily Sandusky, Ohio is not so much a town as a collection of hotels for people who want to visit Cedar Point and housing developments for peope who want to work there. So, you know, I just followed the massive signs leading me toward Cedar Point and turned onto any road that had Cedar Point in its name. It was a little uncomfortable because of the heat, but honestly nothing caused me any sorrow until I got to the Cedar Point Causeway. Which Cedar Point Causeway? This one.
The only bridge into town, so to speak. And the only road in all of Sandusky, Ohio you're going to find that bears this warning.
Well... you know? It didn't say anything about running.
So in the end, this is the value I place on going to Cedar Point. I'll spend an extra $150 and take an overnight Greyhound, run seven miles and knowingly defy posted No Trespassing signs, just so I can ride the greatest roller coasters in the entire world. And you know? I'm not going to ask anybody else to do that with me and expect them to agree to it, but dang, it sure was an interesting experience.
And then this is the point in the story where the cops show up. I was about a mile along the Causeway when I saw the police car speeding down the other side of the road. His lights weren't on or anything, so I knew what was going down, but I at least wanted to feign ignorance, so I didn't watch as he made a u-turn behind me. Of course, it's 7:15 AM and the park doesn't open until 10:00, so there's really no other human activity to speak of along the causeway, so he wasn't holding up traffic or anything when he pulled up beside me to ask,
"You just out for a run?"
"I'm trying to get to Cedar Point."
"Really?"
"Yeah, I just got in on a Greyhound last night."
"Well, you know there's no pedestrians on the causeway."
"Oh, really? I didn't see that. Sorry!"
You know, this wasn't my first time lying to police; I also had to do it to run the Boston Marathon, but let me just say that the Sandusky police are way nicer than their counterparts in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. Although he didn't really understand the logical progression that led me to "run to Cedar Point at 7:30 AM on a Tuesday" (honestly, does anyone?), he was pretty nice, gave me a ride to Cedar Point, saved me the $10 parking fee (I wasn't quite sure how that was going to work anyway), gave me some tips on where to go, and wished me luck. I always want to sound more bad-ass than I really am (I tell people I'm from Oakland), so I'm definitely glad to add "rode in a police car" to my list of anecdotes, even if it wasn't actually for an arrestable offense. Dang, Sandusky policeman, why did you have to go and ruin my dreams like that?
So I called Sam's Mom from behind a trash can and related all of this to her, just so she could know that I was still alive, and I'm not sure at what point I broke her sense of worry, but seriously, she was remarkably unfazed by "So, yeah, I just got out of a ride in a police car," merely stopping me to question "Was it in the front or in the back?" We decided that riding in police cars is fine as long as you're in the front--which, you know, is advice that I'd like to pass on to my own children some day.
I hung up a little early to preserve battery, and let me just say that dang, I was the first person in Cedar Point that day. I don't know who narced on me as I was running across the causeway, because I beat the cleaning staff. I beat every ticket agent. I beat Snoopy. I beat everyone. Which turned out to be a good thing, because a line started forming at the entrance about 45 minutes after I got there. I was really anxious to go stand in it, but realized that I didn't buy my tickets in advance. Oh, what a fool I was! I thought, as I tried to hedge my bets as to which of the dozen ticket lines would open first.
And, you know, riding in a police car, endorphins from six miles of running. I was in a pretty good mood, too. So I struck up a conversation with an older gentlemen who was pacing back and forth in front of the ticket booths and looking expectantly at his watch.
"You waiting for tickets too?" I asked.
"Well, we just have to exchange these vouchers we have."
"Oh really? That's cool. Where did you get them?"
So sometimes it pays to be polite, because you learn a lot of interesting things about people, like that this man was a retired teacher in Southern Michigan, this was his first time at Cedar Point in a while, he had brought his wife, son, and daughter-in-law, his son was a farmer, his son had just bought a $100,000 John Deere tractor and gotten five Cedar Point vouchers out of it, the vouchers give you a free ticket and also let you get into the park an hour earlier than everyone else. In turn, he learned that I was just visiting for the day after a wedding in Detroit, I was really excited about Cedar Point, so much that I took a Greyhound and got picked up by police, that I was just planning to buy a ticket and go in at the regular time.
Sometimes these things work out.
So, free ticket in hand I ran to my first actual Cedar Point roller coaster with this dude's son and daughter-in-law and we rode it. Raptor. It was amazing. Like, astounding. Greatest hanging coaster of my life, and it's older than the entire Chinese women's gymnastics team. The kids wanted to head off to another ride and I wanted to do Raptor again and again and again, so we parted ways, and, well, that was the beginning of my adventure, or rather, the part that actually took place inside Cedar Point.
And, you know, going to theme parks with other people, I get the impression that people generally tire of theme parks long before I do, or they get fatigued, or get headaches, or get hungry, or want to watch a show or something. Basically all I want to do is power-walk, stand in lines and ride roller coasters. Yo, being alone in a theme park? Kind of suits me perfectly. With other people you have to make conversation as you wait in line for hours and hours for the entire day and you run out of things to talk about and it gets hot and you're sweaty and tired and in line and you're slowing down and don't want to power-walk. Basically I just stood in line, read my Cedar Point map over and over, and ran from coaster to coaster, even when disorientation and sleep deprivation made it impossible to do so in a straight line. I also took a 15-minute break for overpriced Chick-Fil-A, but that's pretty much it.
Also, you know how there's always a line for the front car? How it's like twice as long as the line you already stood inside to get to the boarding station? That also does not happen when you're in a theme park alone. Instead you wait like two minutes and then inevitably some other single rider has made it to the front of this line and you're like, "OH! I'M A SINGLE RIDER!" and you run up front and the ride dude is like "Oh, it looks like he just crushed something important" as you hop over the bar but you don't really care and BAM! you're in the coaster on the front. It's truly fantastic.
I missed the three oldest coasters in the park just because I really wanted to ride Wicked Twister in the front again, but seriously, eleven out of fourteen is by no means bad, especially for an MIT student (usually I'd be lucky to turn in that many problem sets for a given class in any semester). I also hit up a few non-coasters, which were also outstanding, and satisfied a craving for Dippin' Dots that has been lingering for many months. All in all, one of the greatest thirteen-hour stretches of my short life.
And then it came time to get home which, you know, is a challenge when you hitched a ride in a police car and the only way off of the island is closed to pedestrians. After a few half-hearted and unsuccessful attempts at hitchhiking in the parking lot (turns out I kind of look like a crazy person after sleeping in a Greyhound and spending 13 hours riding roller coasters) and deciding that I couldn't swim with my cell phone in hand, I decided that I'd been lucky enough for the day and that I'd call a cab. I texted Google to get the number and was on the line a minute later. Why, there was a cab picking up fifty feet away from me in two minutes, and it would cost only five dollars to get to Amtrak! Lucky!
Or is it?
So I'm greeted by this middle-aged lady with seriously, the most rocking side ponytail I've ever seen. It turns out that it's her job to take all the underage Cedar Point workers and shuttle them from Cedar Point back to their dorm or into downtown Sandusky. Oh yay! Meeting new people! This had worked out so well for me previously in the day, with all the free rides in police cars and free Cedar Point tickets and legal single-rider line jumping. Surely this could only become a more exciting day.
And you know, that's right. It did become more exciting. The kids I met in the cab were really fun, although they also could not understand why I ran to Cedar Point. I was just in the middle of explaining when they ended up back at their dorm. Some mother needed a ride to her hotel and the cab driver asked if she could be taken first. "Okay, whatever!" I said. "I don't need to be at that station until 3:50 AM anyway! You seem really busy!"
So even if you're getting a cab ride that costs five dollars, this is not a good thing to say to a cab driver. Just make a note, so when you're dizzy and sleep deprived and you smell bad, this is still not something that comes out of your mouth. So we went to the hotel and dropped the mother off. That was cool. She was such a nice mother. The cab got another dispatch just after leaving the hotel and you know how it's always weird when you only hear one side of a telephone conversation? This is the half I heard:
"Okay, Frank, where is it? What's the name? Oh no, Frank. No. I ain't picking her up. I am not picking up Pam. She was in my cab last week and I saw her and I think she pooped her pants. No, Frank. I am telling you, Frank! My cab smelled like poo all night. I ain't picking her up. And all she wants to do is talk."
Then to me:
This is when I started to get worried.
Whatever. Then we got a call from the dorm and had to go back there. Okay, whatever. That works. We picked up eight Cedar Point kids. I was cool with that. Then one of them asked, "Oh man, Shelly! How did your window get all busted up?"
Oh my. Did not notice that before.
"Someone just did it last night, when the cab was outside my house! Tryin' to break in to get my money, I guess! Or maybe they were just mad or something, I don't know."
Well, I mean, at least they weren't successful in breaking the window. I took a little comfort in that. She drove all eight kids to a tattoo parlor in downtown Sandusky (it does exist). Really, all eight of them. They were all going to a tattoo parlor. Then Shelly turned back to me and concluded, "You know, you don't want to go to the train station and wait around! There ain't nothing to do there! There ain't even a TV or anything. I'll take you to this place where you can get 35 cent wings. What night is it? Tuesday? Yeah, wings are only 35 cents."
I convinced her I wasn't hungry, but I guess we were already in downtown Sandusky and Shelly wasn't really in the mood to leave. So the next offer I got was to go to a bar. Whatever. From my endless combing of Sandusky maps prior to Midwest Wedding Explosion, I had mostly figured out directions to Amtrak and I recognized a few streets from our tour of its environs. I was really just ready to get out of Death Cab for Spammy, so I accepted her next offer to take me to a bar instead, and promised that I'd call her back when it was time to get back out to my train. And, you know, she was generous about that too:
"Now, I ain't tryin' to say anything about you, but there are two gay bars down this road and three straight bars on this street here, and I'll take you to whichever one you want."
I had exhausted my supply of money on refrigerator magnets, so I settled for heading to an ATM. "Gay bar in Sandusky" really just sounded like the perfect ending to this story, so I decided to look for that first. After about five minutes of searching I found a decidedly unwholesome establishment called Crowbar. I paced by a couple times, but was unable to see anyone inside despite the loud techno blasting from the door. And seriously, I'm not that much of a wimp anymore. Well, maybe I am. But in any event, I'm not yet courageous enough to walk into something called Crowbar alone, especially when it seems completely empty. Although come to think of it, I was still wearing running shoes, and therefore I could have probably outrun any potentially dangerous customers.
So I found a bar in which I could, you know, regroup. I don't even know what it's called. Which sucks, because it would have definitely been a first Yelp review. It was at that very moment, as if by magic, that Ian sent me a text message, asking "how's your Midwest adventure?"
I responded, "Alone in a bar in Sandusky drinking Jack, watching women's gymnastics, and listening to 50 Cent karaoke."
And seriously? Sanduskians are awesome at karaoke. Not just the surprisingly fluid take on 50, but also some hardcore belting on "Before He Cheats." I was terribly impressed. I was also terribly impressed that a Jack and a Killian's cost me less than 5 dollars in total. I debated sticking around for a while longer, just because of the relative warmth, but decided that it was time to head over to Amtrak to see what new adventures that would hold.
I had lost my directions cheat sheet, so all I really had was left in my head. It was something like "right here, left on Monroe, right here." All I really remember about it was Monroe. Why? Because it was dark and I had no freaking clue where I was and I crossed Washington St and I had no idea where I was and I crossed a street called Adams St and I had no idea where I was, but I was starting to notice a pattern. Because I got a 4 on AP US History, I wasn't quite sure how many blocks after Jefferson St I needed to go, but I figured it was fewer than 40.
So, you know, it's 1 AM by this point and I'm walking through downtown Sandusky, where people smash cab windshields with crowbars and go to Crowbar and get tattoos eight-at-a-time and let me just say that this was the most frightening walk of my entire life. Like Evelyn Couch in the book I had just finished reading, I eat heavily under stress. Luckily, I was able to stop into an all-night laundromat on my way to the train station and grab some Pop-Tarts from a vending machine that also dispensed tampons (50 cents each). I was going to eat one and save the other one for tomorrow morning, but this was some serious stress. This was two Pop-Tart scary.
This entry is really long already, which is why it's taken me two weeks, so I'm just going to spare you the gory details and highway underpasses and my crippling fear of cats and tell you that I got to the train station and that it was closed, but there was a sign on it (next to the reassuring "no handguns" sign) that said, "Call this number for after hours access." So I did.
"Hello, Sandusky Area Police Department."
Well, I mean, why not see some old friends?
"Yo, I'm here at the train station. There's a sign that told me to call here."
"Okay, someone will be right there!"
So then the police showed up for the second time in 24 hours. This guy was also really nice and let me into the train station, warning me not to let anyone who didn't look like they had a ticket inside. After availing myself of the restroom facilities, I deduced that the only place not visible from the outside was under the single bench. So I fell asleep there.
Time passed. A knock at the door. Oh my. I hit my head on the bench and writhed for a little bit. Against my bette judgment, I decided to stand up and see who it was.
And, you know? I kind of wish it were a homeless man with a handgun, but no, it was just eight Taiwanese tourists. I felt kind of bad just sitting in my relative warmth, so I let them in. It turns out that they did not want to sleep, but instead to sit around and talk loudly and eat a bag of popcorn. Oh my. The following hour and fifty minutes was perhaps the longest of my entire life, but after all, after a long, long day, I was finally on the 3:50 (now 4:30) over to Chicago.
So, seriously, in the end--two encounters with police, eleven roller coasters, seven miles of running, five dollars of taxi, eight tattoos, 50 cent karaoke. This was the most adventure-filled day of my life, hands-down. It nearly broke my blog. But after fourteen days, I'm back, and ready to blog out all over you.
And then there was Milwaukee.
So, about Cedar Point.
I decided that I really, really wanted to go to Cedar Point and Ruthie was kind of going along with it for a while. The plan involved sleeping in the Sandusky train station twice and seemed kind of feasible, but then prices went up because I did not act on Amtrak tickets early enough (let this be a lesson to you all). I devised no fewer than five plans to get us there on a combination of Greyhounds and Amtrak and I don't even remember, probably also prop planes and stealing camels and whatever, all working around limited Amtrak availability and time constraints and Oprah's taping schedule. I went through all this while Shirley was preparing all my samples in lab (she's such a good undergrad) and sent an e-mail that I think was three pages in length to Ruthie detailing all these plans, how they would eat up a little more than a day of our chicago vacation and, with park admission and transportation costs, fall in the range of about $120-$200. After a few exchanges from that e-mail, she came to the following conclusion:
I'm cool with skipping it.
Which, I mean, cool, Cedar Point has a different value to everyone and in just a moment you'll see how much value it has to me, and I'm not going to force someone else to take an overnight Greyhound and a 3 AM Amtrak just so I can ride some roller coasters for twelve straight hours. I equivocated and said that Cedar Point is only 11 hours on Amtrak and $100 away from Harrisburg, so I'd find some other time to go.
But let's be serious; it took me four years to organize my friends to take a day trip to Hersheypark from Harrisburg, and that's 20 minutes and, Idonno, probably $18 worth of gas or something. Also, the fact that I spent four hours looking up Amtrak and calling up stations to ask about locker availability suggested that I was already a little more committed to the execution of this idea than I am to most. So over curry that night that I told Ruth that I was going to make it to Cedar Point and that I had formulated a cunning plan and that it was all going to work out and we'd meet up the next day in Union Station and take the train out to Milwaukee. No probs. No probs.
So I bought my overnight Greyhound ticket and my Amtrak ticket and that problem was solved. They came in the mail and I kind of filed those away and also in my head filed away the idea of actually making it to Cedar Point from Amtrak. I knew, from my morning of frantic searching, that the Greyhound station was 7.5 miles from the park. See?
I also knew that there was a Sandusky Transit System but I was kind of unclear as to how to actually reserve a spot on that, or whether it would actually work, or whether it ran late enough to get me home from Cedar Point, or whether it actually went to Cedar Point. Also I was born after 1982 so I'm afraid of talking to people on the phone to get information. If it's not on the internet, it's not knowable.
By this point you may have said to yourself, "Sam, are you really going to a theme park alone? Isn't that super lame?" but believe me when I tell you that this thought never even crossed my mind for one moment, because yo, it's Cedar Point. And anyway, in the end, it turned out to be a good thing that I decided to go to Cedar Point alone, because I don't think I would have really felt comfortable asking Ruth or, well, anybody I know to take an overnight Greyhound ride out of Chicago wearing athletic clothes, wake up before we reached Sandusky, jump out of the bus, and then run down the side of the highway for 7.5 miles to get to the gates of the greatest theme park on Earth before 8 AM.
Because that's what I did. I left Second City improv early, ran a mile in Chicago after misunderstanding the transportation system, made it to the Greyhound station with six, yes, six minutes to spare, accidentally hopped into the seat with the least legroom out of every seat on the bus (traveler's tip: there is a considerable variation, like a factor of two or three). After carb-loading on a strawberry biscuit at a 3 AM Hardee's rest stop and downing a large coffee and Krispy Kreme (oh my God) at a gas station on the outskirts of Sandusky, I was ready to go. I started my stopwatch and headed on down Marin Avenue, with only a vague idea of where I was actually headed.
Luckily Sandusky, Ohio is not so much a town as a collection of hotels for people who want to visit Cedar Point and housing developments for peope who want to work there. So, you know, I just followed the massive signs leading me toward Cedar Point and turned onto any road that had Cedar Point in its name. It was a little uncomfortable because of the heat, but honestly nothing caused me any sorrow until I got to the Cedar Point Causeway. Which Cedar Point Causeway? This one.
The only bridge into town, so to speak. And the only road in all of Sandusky, Ohio you're going to find that bears this warning.
Well... you know? It didn't say anything about running.
So in the end, this is the value I place on going to Cedar Point. I'll spend an extra $150 and take an overnight Greyhound, run seven miles and knowingly defy posted No Trespassing signs, just so I can ride the greatest roller coasters in the entire world. And you know? I'm not going to ask anybody else to do that with me and expect them to agree to it, but dang, it sure was an interesting experience.
And then this is the point in the story where the cops show up. I was about a mile along the Causeway when I saw the police car speeding down the other side of the road. His lights weren't on or anything, so I knew what was going down, but I at least wanted to feign ignorance, so I didn't watch as he made a u-turn behind me. Of course, it's 7:15 AM and the park doesn't open until 10:00, so there's really no other human activity to speak of along the causeway, so he wasn't holding up traffic or anything when he pulled up beside me to ask,
"You just out for a run?"
"I'm trying to get to Cedar Point."
"Really?"
"Yeah, I just got in on a Greyhound last night."
"Well, you know there's no pedestrians on the causeway."
"Oh, really? I didn't see that. Sorry!"
You know, this wasn't my first time lying to police; I also had to do it to run the Boston Marathon, but let me just say that the Sandusky police are way nicer than their counterparts in Hopkinton, Massachusetts. Although he didn't really understand the logical progression that led me to "run to Cedar Point at 7:30 AM on a Tuesday" (honestly, does anyone?), he was pretty nice, gave me a ride to Cedar Point, saved me the $10 parking fee (I wasn't quite sure how that was going to work anyway), gave me some tips on where to go, and wished me luck. I always want to sound more bad-ass than I really am (I tell people I'm from Oakland), so I'm definitely glad to add "rode in a police car" to my list of anecdotes, even if it wasn't actually for an arrestable offense. Dang, Sandusky policeman, why did you have to go and ruin my dreams like that?
So I called Sam's Mom from behind a trash can and related all of this to her, just so she could know that I was still alive, and I'm not sure at what point I broke her sense of worry, but seriously, she was remarkably unfazed by "So, yeah, I just got out of a ride in a police car," merely stopping me to question "Was it in the front or in the back?" We decided that riding in police cars is fine as long as you're in the front--which, you know, is advice that I'd like to pass on to my own children some day.
I hung up a little early to preserve battery, and let me just say that dang, I was the first person in Cedar Point that day. I don't know who narced on me as I was running across the causeway, because I beat the cleaning staff. I beat every ticket agent. I beat Snoopy. I beat everyone. Which turned out to be a good thing, because a line started forming at the entrance about 45 minutes after I got there. I was really anxious to go stand in it, but realized that I didn't buy my tickets in advance. Oh, what a fool I was! I thought, as I tried to hedge my bets as to which of the dozen ticket lines would open first.
And, you know, riding in a police car, endorphins from six miles of running. I was in a pretty good mood, too. So I struck up a conversation with an older gentlemen who was pacing back and forth in front of the ticket booths and looking expectantly at his watch.
"You waiting for tickets too?" I asked.
"Well, we just have to exchange these vouchers we have."
"Oh really? That's cool. Where did you get them?"
So sometimes it pays to be polite, because you learn a lot of interesting things about people, like that this man was a retired teacher in Southern Michigan, this was his first time at Cedar Point in a while, he had brought his wife, son, and daughter-in-law, his son was a farmer, his son had just bought a $100,000 John Deere tractor and gotten five Cedar Point vouchers out of it, the vouchers give you a free ticket and also let you get into the park an hour earlier than everyone else. In turn, he learned that I was just visiting for the day after a wedding in Detroit, I was really excited about Cedar Point, so much that I took a Greyhound and got picked up by police, that I was just planning to buy a ticket and go in at the regular time.
Sometimes these things work out.
So, free ticket in hand I ran to my first actual Cedar Point roller coaster with this dude's son and daughter-in-law and we rode it. Raptor. It was amazing. Like, astounding. Greatest hanging coaster of my life, and it's older than the entire Chinese women's gymnastics team. The kids wanted to head off to another ride and I wanted to do Raptor again and again and again, so we parted ways, and, well, that was the beginning of my adventure, or rather, the part that actually took place inside Cedar Point.
And, you know, going to theme parks with other people, I get the impression that people generally tire of theme parks long before I do, or they get fatigued, or get headaches, or get hungry, or want to watch a show or something. Basically all I want to do is power-walk, stand in lines and ride roller coasters. Yo, being alone in a theme park? Kind of suits me perfectly. With other people you have to make conversation as you wait in line for hours and hours for the entire day and you run out of things to talk about and it gets hot and you're sweaty and tired and in line and you're slowing down and don't want to power-walk. Basically I just stood in line, read my Cedar Point map over and over, and ran from coaster to coaster, even when disorientation and sleep deprivation made it impossible to do so in a straight line. I also took a 15-minute break for overpriced Chick-Fil-A, but that's pretty much it.
Also, you know how there's always a line for the front car? How it's like twice as long as the line you already stood inside to get to the boarding station? That also does not happen when you're in a theme park alone. Instead you wait like two minutes and then inevitably some other single rider has made it to the front of this line and you're like, "OH! I'M A SINGLE RIDER!" and you run up front and the ride dude is like "Oh, it looks like he just crushed something important" as you hop over the bar but you don't really care and BAM! you're in the coaster on the front. It's truly fantastic.
I missed the three oldest coasters in the park just because I really wanted to ride Wicked Twister in the front again, but seriously, eleven out of fourteen is by no means bad, especially for an MIT student (usually I'd be lucky to turn in that many problem sets for a given class in any semester). I also hit up a few non-coasters, which were also outstanding, and satisfied a craving for Dippin' Dots that has been lingering for many months. All in all, one of the greatest thirteen-hour stretches of my short life.
And then it came time to get home which, you know, is a challenge when you hitched a ride in a police car and the only way off of the island is closed to pedestrians. After a few half-hearted and unsuccessful attempts at hitchhiking in the parking lot (turns out I kind of look like a crazy person after sleeping in a Greyhound and spending 13 hours riding roller coasters) and deciding that I couldn't swim with my cell phone in hand, I decided that I'd been lucky enough for the day and that I'd call a cab. I texted Google to get the number and was on the line a minute later. Why, there was a cab picking up fifty feet away from me in two minutes, and it would cost only five dollars to get to Amtrak! Lucky!
Or is it?
So I'm greeted by this middle-aged lady with seriously, the most rocking side ponytail I've ever seen. It turns out that it's her job to take all the underage Cedar Point workers and shuttle them from Cedar Point back to their dorm or into downtown Sandusky. Oh yay! Meeting new people! This had worked out so well for me previously in the day, with all the free rides in police cars and free Cedar Point tickets and legal single-rider line jumping. Surely this could only become a more exciting day.
And you know, that's right. It did become more exciting. The kids I met in the cab were really fun, although they also could not understand why I ran to Cedar Point. I was just in the middle of explaining when they ended up back at their dorm. Some mother needed a ride to her hotel and the cab driver asked if she could be taken first. "Okay, whatever!" I said. "I don't need to be at that station until 3:50 AM anyway! You seem really busy!"
So even if you're getting a cab ride that costs five dollars, this is not a good thing to say to a cab driver. Just make a note, so when you're dizzy and sleep deprived and you smell bad, this is still not something that comes out of your mouth. So we went to the hotel and dropped the mother off. That was cool. She was such a nice mother. The cab got another dispatch just after leaving the hotel and you know how it's always weird when you only hear one side of a telephone conversation? This is the half I heard:
"Okay, Frank, where is it? What's the name? Oh no, Frank. No. I ain't picking her up. I am not picking up Pam. She was in my cab last week and I saw her and I think she pooped her pants. No, Frank. I am telling you, Frank! My cab smelled like poo all night. I ain't picking her up. And all she wants to do is talk."
Then to me:
This is when I started to get worried.
Whatever. Then we got a call from the dorm and had to go back there. Okay, whatever. That works. We picked up eight Cedar Point kids. I was cool with that. Then one of them asked, "Oh man, Shelly! How did your window get all busted up?"
Oh my. Did not notice that before.
"Someone just did it last night, when the cab was outside my house! Tryin' to break in to get my money, I guess! Or maybe they were just mad or something, I don't know."
Well, I mean, at least they weren't successful in breaking the window. I took a little comfort in that. She drove all eight kids to a tattoo parlor in downtown Sandusky (it does exist). Really, all eight of them. They were all going to a tattoo parlor. Then Shelly turned back to me and concluded, "You know, you don't want to go to the train station and wait around! There ain't nothing to do there! There ain't even a TV or anything. I'll take you to this place where you can get 35 cent wings. What night is it? Tuesday? Yeah, wings are only 35 cents."
I convinced her I wasn't hungry, but I guess we were already in downtown Sandusky and Shelly wasn't really in the mood to leave. So the next offer I got was to go to a bar. Whatever. From my endless combing of Sandusky maps prior to Midwest Wedding Explosion, I had mostly figured out directions to Amtrak and I recognized a few streets from our tour of its environs. I was really just ready to get out of Death Cab for Spammy, so I accepted her next offer to take me to a bar instead, and promised that I'd call her back when it was time to get back out to my train. And, you know, she was generous about that too:
"Now, I ain't tryin' to say anything about you, but there are two gay bars down this road and three straight bars on this street here, and I'll take you to whichever one you want."
I had exhausted my supply of money on refrigerator magnets, so I settled for heading to an ATM. "Gay bar in Sandusky" really just sounded like the perfect ending to this story, so I decided to look for that first. After about five minutes of searching I found a decidedly unwholesome establishment called Crowbar. I paced by a couple times, but was unable to see anyone inside despite the loud techno blasting from the door. And seriously, I'm not that much of a wimp anymore. Well, maybe I am. But in any event, I'm not yet courageous enough to walk into something called Crowbar alone, especially when it seems completely empty. Although come to think of it, I was still wearing running shoes, and therefore I could have probably outrun any potentially dangerous customers.
So I found a bar in which I could, you know, regroup. I don't even know what it's called. Which sucks, because it would have definitely been a first Yelp review. It was at that very moment, as if by magic, that Ian sent me a text message, asking "how's your Midwest adventure?"
I responded, "Alone in a bar in Sandusky drinking Jack, watching women's gymnastics, and listening to 50 Cent karaoke."
And seriously? Sanduskians are awesome at karaoke. Not just the surprisingly fluid take on 50, but also some hardcore belting on "Before He Cheats." I was terribly impressed. I was also terribly impressed that a Jack and a Killian's cost me less than 5 dollars in total. I debated sticking around for a while longer, just because of the relative warmth, but decided that it was time to head over to Amtrak to see what new adventures that would hold.
I had lost my directions cheat sheet, so all I really had was left in my head. It was something like "right here, left on Monroe, right here." All I really remember about it was Monroe. Why? Because it was dark and I had no freaking clue where I was and I crossed Washington St and I had no idea where I was and I crossed a street called Adams St and I had no idea where I was, but I was starting to notice a pattern. Because I got a 4 on AP US History, I wasn't quite sure how many blocks after Jefferson St I needed to go, but I figured it was fewer than 40.
So, you know, it's 1 AM by this point and I'm walking through downtown Sandusky, where people smash cab windshields with crowbars and go to Crowbar and get tattoos eight-at-a-time and let me just say that this was the most frightening walk of my entire life. Like Evelyn Couch in the book I had just finished reading, I eat heavily under stress. Luckily, I was able to stop into an all-night laundromat on my way to the train station and grab some Pop-Tarts from a vending machine that also dispensed tampons (50 cents each). I was going to eat one and save the other one for tomorrow morning, but this was some serious stress. This was two Pop-Tart scary.
This entry is really long already, which is why it's taken me two weeks, so I'm just going to spare you the gory details and highway underpasses and my crippling fear of cats and tell you that I got to the train station and that it was closed, but there was a sign on it (next to the reassuring "no handguns" sign) that said, "Call this number for after hours access." So I did.
"Hello, Sandusky Area Police Department."
Well, I mean, why not see some old friends?
"Yo, I'm here at the train station. There's a sign that told me to call here."
"Okay, someone will be right there!"
So then the police showed up for the second time in 24 hours. This guy was also really nice and let me into the train station, warning me not to let anyone who didn't look like they had a ticket inside. After availing myself of the restroom facilities, I deduced that the only place not visible from the outside was under the single bench. So I fell asleep there.
Time passed. A knock at the door. Oh my. I hit my head on the bench and writhed for a little bit. Against my bette judgment, I decided to stand up and see who it was.
And, you know? I kind of wish it were a homeless man with a handgun, but no, it was just eight Taiwanese tourists. I felt kind of bad just sitting in my relative warmth, so I let them in. It turns out that they did not want to sleep, but instead to sit around and talk loudly and eat a bag of popcorn. Oh my. The following hour and fifty minutes was perhaps the longest of my entire life, but after all, after a long, long day, I was finally on the 3:50 (now 4:30) over to Chicago.
So, seriously, in the end--two encounters with police, eleven roller coasters, seven miles of running, five dollars of taxi, eight tattoos, 50 cent karaoke. This was the most adventure-filled day of my life, hands-down. It nearly broke my blog. But after fourteen days, I'm back, and ready to blog out all over you.
And then there was Milwaukee.
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