Bulk.
“I’m going shopping.”
The IM message was simple enough. Since I am working the later shift this week, Earl and Jamie would be out grocery shopping when I got home from work. We would cook supper when they got home and we’d be stocked up on food for the week.
I busied myself about the house when I got home; I put the cars away for the impending snowstorm and I installed the markers along the driveway so I knew where the driveway was suppose to be when I had to find it after the bout with snow. I finished up outside and came in; I was folding laundry when I glanced out the window.
In came the Durango. It was trailed by a 55 gallon drum of kitty litter which was lashed to the car by the hitch originally designed to drag a camper across the state. Miles of rolled up paper towels hung out one window and crates of canned vegetables hung out another. There was a soon-to-be illuminated santa perched atop the vehicle. It was doing it’s best imitation of Imogene Coca in a rainstorm in Phoenix, Arizona.
My god he’d gone to BJ’s.
BJ’s Wholesale Club is much like Costco or Sam’s Club. While we don’t have the two latter chains in this area, we do have one BJ’s where lettuce is bought by the acre and pop is purchased by the vat.
As I propped open the door and worriedly looked for another vehicle, perhaps a rented U-Haul, loaded with other items, Earl came bounding in carrying three cases of various DelMonte vegetables stacked atop a gallon container of M&Ms.
“I spent $500!”
Sweet Jesus. We’d have to add a room onto the house to store all the stuff that needed to be hauled in from the Durango. We needed a new room, stat.
As I tried to keep the cat from being buried and a pathway cleared to the bathroom, stack after stack of “deals too good to be true” were brought into our kitchen that already has cracked tiles on the floor. I thought for sure the rest of the tiles would give way, though I secretly smiled because then all the stuff would make it to the basement on it’s own.
We have canned vegetables, a wide assortment of meats, pounds of pistachios, hectares of pop-tarts and barrels of barbecue sauce.
I officially decree that we are now ready for that big snowstorm.
60 Days.
I have decided to stop trimming my beard for 60 days. To keep peace in the house and maintain an appreciable landing zone, my mustache will stay trimmed out of my mouth, but my beard is going woolly until 1. I go crazy or 2. February 7, 2010. The latter is only a date of consideration.
Consider yourself warned.
Motivation.
Earl, Jamie and I took the long way home from Natick, Mass. today. I did what is known as “shunpiking”. I avoided all toll roads at all costs. Fortunately, this makes for a beautiful drive through the Berkshires and along the less-traveled roads of Upstate New York.
If you have an extra hour to spare, I highly recommend taking Route 2 west from Boston all the way into New York State. It’s pretty much a freeway or expressway 1/2 way across Massachusetts but it’s not as boring as the Mass. Pike and you pass through some lovely old industrial villages. West of Greenfield Route 2 is two-lane all the way to Troy, N.Y. as it winds and climbs it’s way through the Berkshires. Just east of North Adams, Mass. is the relatively famous hairpin turn. Off the end of the curve is a family restaurant. Earl and I have eaten there before. The food is good.
Once you make your way through North Adams and Williamstown, Mass., Route 2 crosses into New York State and makes it way down from the Berkshires into Troy. It ends shortly afterwards at Interstate 87.
After a bit more shopping at the surprisingly uncrowded Crossgates Mall, we continued our trek home by avoiding toll roads. The route of choice was one of the longest highways in the United States: US Route 20.
“Route 20” as it’s known upstate, has a decidedly “Route 66” feel to it in that you can tell it used to be a really important road as it crossed Upstate New York with the diners, nostalgic looking motels and villages with grandly built houses flanking the road. Like many of the state routes in New York, it has wide shoulders and a decidedly “open” feel to it as it makes it way over rolling hills and through some valleys between Albany and our point of departure, Bridgewater.
I have said for many years that I want to accomplish a “grand bike ride” before I’m unable to. I have had dreams of riding across The Empire State on a week long bike ride. I have toyed with riding the southern part by following former NY Route 17, but I think I’m going to pay homage to my Central New York roots instead of ride US Route 20 from the Pennsylvania Line to the Massachusetts Line some time during 2010. The ride today motivated me.
It’s always odd that I find the inspiration and desire to ride my bicycle around the first snowfall. Nevertheless, I’m recording this idea of riding Route 20 here in the blog so the motivation continues and I can mark it off my list of to-do items next summer.
Sign Of The Times.
This sign really tells a tale. Not only does it announce that one has crossed into New York, but the condition of this sign tells a little bit of a tale of how things are upstate – quite beat up but still standing. I think The Empire State still has promise with the right leadership and I believe she’s worth hanging around for. You heard it here first.
This photo was taken on Route 2, on the Massachusetts-New York border as one crosses from Williamstown, Mass. into Petersburgh, N.Y.
Grindr.
So yesterday I decided to try out the iPhone app called “Grindr”1. For those unfamiliar with the app, it uses the GPS function of the iPhone to find gay men in your proximity, obviously if they are using Grindr as well. It’s basically a hook-up or dating app done in a full 21st century way. You create a profile that includes your picture, your age and various other stats if you choose to and then it tells you who is nearby. Since I was in the mall when I started the app up, I opted to put just a face shot on my profile. I restricted my search to those ages 35 and over. My tag line read “happily partnered, just looking for friendly faces.”
There was a very nice man wearing a Santa’s hat in his profile picture 2,992 feet away from me. I told him he had a nice hat, he thanked me and said he worked at the Lindt Chocolate Shop and had just left work for the day. He liked that my profile said “friends only” as his said the same. We didn’t get to meet him face to face but he seemed nice enough.
The only other profile relatively closeby at the time belonged a guy named Matthew. I noticed his profile because he was another red-headed bear and strikingly cute. The information on his profile was sparse and he wasn’t online at the moment, but there was a link to his website. Turns out he is a avid (rabid?) Mac user (like me!2), is a bear (like me!) and is on Twitter (like me!). His website was created with iWeb, which is a good thing as far as I’m concerned. We didn’t chat or anything but I’m following him on Twitter now. If you have a picture of yourself with your Mac for all the world to see, you’re worth following on Twitter.
So while 98% of the guys using Grindr are probably using it to hook-up, find potential playmates and just trying to connect to do the nasty, I used it to just see who was nearby in just a curious exercise. I don’t know if I’ll use it regularly but it might be interesting whilst we’re traveling.
1 I used Grindr whilst sitting in the food court and that was pretty much it; I try really hard not to be obnoxious with my iPhone to others in my party.
2 I think it’s well established that I have nothing against non-Mac computer users.
Marlborough, Mass.
We are in Marlborough, Mass. for the night. It is our annual “get away from the regular mall” holiday shopping excursion. Every year Earl and I go to a mall that we are unfamiliar with to knock out the bulk of our shopping list. Even though the stores are usually the same as what we have in our general area, the different scenery and such makes for a fresh look on things that we see on a regular basis back at home. The mall of our choice this year was originally going to be in Hagerstown, Maryland, but we didn’t find any excitement to head in that direction so we opted for the Natick Collection in Natick, Mass. instead. We are staying in Marlborough because I’m very familiar with this area and Earl has spent the night in this hotel before.
The Natick Collection is part of the old Natick Mall. I used to go to Natick Mall back in the late 80s to eat at York Steak House; it has changed considerably in the past 20 years. The Natick Collection is quite nice and on the upscale side. There was a nice blend of people shopping and the mall wasn’t so packed to be uncomfortable but it was busy enough to keep it interesting.
We decided to buy a netbook but didn’t find any store selling them at the mall so we went to a nearby Best Buy in Framingham. We found a really nice one on sale for $249.99. When we went to the checkout, it ended up ringing for $299.99 with an additional charge for $140.00. The additional charge was a courtesy fee because “The Geek Squad” had wiped out all the software that came preinstalled on the netbook and had brought it back to the bare bones.
This fee wasn’t mentioned anywhere on the signage around the netbook.
For $439 we could buy a decent computer if we wanted to, so we decided to opt out of the purchase and headed back to the display to find a netbook that hadn’t been modified by The Geek Squad. All of a sudden all the customer service people swarming around the computer department came up missing and no one seemed like they wanted to help, so we said screw the deal and left empty handed.
Last week I tweeted that the Ithaca, N.Y. Best Buy gave me the best Best Buy experience ever. Their evil twin store is in Framingham, Mass. Major suckage.
We didn’t let the bad Best Buy experience ruin the day. It has been a great shopping experience and day all in all. Mother Nature is giving us some snow to make it all festive tonight. I forgot how amusing it is to watch folks in this area drive in the snow. They go slow but they’re not unreasonable.
A stop at the fairly new P.F. Chang’s topped off the experience on a pleasant note. All in all it has been a very good day.
Perky.
I decided at lunch time that I had enough of feeling a little ‘blah’ today so I pepped myself up with this…
I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again… I LOVE LAUREN! (and dig the groovy guest stars in this one!)
Jingle Bells.
The holiday season is in full swing and naturally folks are out buying a bunch of stuff at Crazy Eddie’s unbelievably low prices in an effort to make their loved ones happy and buy their way back to good graces after being mean as hell the rest of the year.
How’s THAT for gaiety!
I made a public declaration that I want little for Christmas this year, yet I want to shower others with gifts. I surpassed my allotted budget days ago and it’s only the 3rd. I just started shopping on the 1st. Perhaps I’m trying to make up for being mean as hell or something.
One of the things that makes me insane about this time of year is being forced to listen to Christmas music. I want to enjoy the soothing sounds of the holiday on my own terms. My mother used to crank up an album she had picked up at Grants or Two Guys; I think it was called “The White Family Christmas”. I have to admit I used to enjoy that album when I was a kid, even through the tiny speakers on the GE Wildcat record player. I liked the fact that we would listen when we were in the mood to listen.
The Big.Thing. in this area is for radio stations to go to all Christmas music in an effort to boost ratings increase ad revenue bring joy and merriment to the masses. (Don’t ever believe that commercial radio stations are there to entertain the public, it’s just another industry that has been perverted into a sole money maker and nothing more). Anyways, if I don’t plug in my iPhone when I get in the car, I can either listen to: NPR, all country Christmas music, all Christmas music that is lite and easy or all Christmas music that is fast and peppy. Well, there’s always death metal or a wide array of “you’re going to die and go to hell” Christian stations to choose from, so I guess I’m blessed to have choices. I usually settle on NPR.
At work someone wise decided that we needed the radio station of their choice pumped through the no-fidelity intercom speakers. The station of choice is the lite and easy station, which plays “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun” every day on the 30th minute of a given hour, which will be followed up with “Hold On” by Wilson Philips 45 minutes later, which will be followed by Cher and “Believe” exactly 37 minutes later. All of this is interspersed with Huey Lewis and the News and heaping helpings of Sheena Easton. She takes the morning train. To maintain my sanity, I bought a raffle ticket for a Remington 30-06 with scope so that I can shoot out the speaker.
On December 1, Sheena, Huey and friends were retired for continuous Christmas and holiday music. It is now December 3 and I’m now hoping that I win the gun instead of using my luck to win the lottery. I don’t think that this season of peace should involve the hopes of winning a gun in a raffle but I’m desperate.
I really just want some peace.
Glee.
I am worried that with this blog entry I am going to lose my membership card to The Ghey but I can not deny my feelings any longer.
I don’t really enjoy “Glee”.
I didn’t watch the first few episodes of the show. It took a couple of weeks for Earl to convince me that the show was worth watching. So one night I sat down and tried to sit through the episode without glancing at my iPhone or hauling my laptop up onto my lap. I survived the struggle but I didn’t really enjoy the experience. I decided to give it another week.
Again, I survived the struggle but I didn’t really enjoy the experience.
There are a few reasons as to why I don’t enjoy watching the show. First of all, I think that they need to ramp back Sue Sylvester’s hatred a little bit. I love watching Jane Lynch do her thing in just about any role she has appeared in but I have to admit that she actually frightens me as Sue Sylvester. Watching her makes me heart fall into my stomach. I don’t enjoy the experience of seeing her character on the screen. Perhaps it’s routed in some purposely forgotten experience from my middle or high school years but I just don’t enjoy her hatred, and the comedy involved with that hatred, for the Glee club at all.
Don’t even get me started on the fake pregnancy thing. I was so happy to see that storyline go away tonight that I almost said a little cheer. Not a fan.
Earl tells me how much he enjoys the performances on the show and I have to say that I have only enjoyed three performances out of the entire season thus far: “Defying Gravity”, “Jump” and “Say A Little Prayer”, and honestly I only enjoyed “…Prayer” after I saw the bears do it on YouTube. The “Defying Gravity” performance was really good and I had fun during “Jump” but the rest of the performances smack of mediocrity for me. I’m a perfectionist when it comes to performance, heck I have never enjoyed my own performances in my 41 years of trying, but when numbers are performed on “Glee” all I hear is a lot of autotune. I think I would enjoy the performances more if they were real. I know the actors can sing (for the most part), I don’t know why we have to electronically enhance them. All I can hear is that damn autotune.
I keep hearing how dreamy Mr. Schuester is, and I will admit that he is rather attractive but I guess he’s not my type or something. I don’t swoon. I like to swoon when I’m watching a television show but he’s just doing it for me. Puck, on the other hand, comes closer to making me swoon and I was quite relieved to hear that he is closer to 30 than high school age.
Speaking of which, they have this whole Stockard Channing on Grease at 35 thing going on with some of the students, which is fine I guess, but knowing this kind of kills any attempts at realism for me.
So there you have it, I’m not a fan of “Glee”. It doesn’t inspire me to join a chorus nor do I feel the need to tweet breathlessly about the latest episode. Take my toaster points, take my membership to The Ghey but I speak only the truth.
