I remember dancing to this song at a club in Erie, Pa. and about losing my mind. Ah, my college days.
Here’s Agnetha Faltskog with “I Won’t Let You Go”.
J.P.
Reader.
For those of you that are still whipped up about the death of Google Reader (I am still quite angry about it, don’t mess with my geek tools), my buddy Erik has found a fantastic solution that works brilliantly. It’s the bees’ knees.
Hobbies.
I like roads. I like driving on roads, I like designing roads, I like following roads to see where they go and I like seeing what signs say on roads.
I’m a road geek. I always have been and I always will be.
I have a whole website devoted to the roads of Upstate New York. Some people don’t understand why I have such an obsession with all things roadly, but I do. I have been known to drive two hours out of my way to see what the new exit signs on an interstate look like.
I haven’t been as engaged with my road hobby over the past year or so as I would like to be. Work has crept into my personal life a bit and I have been busying myself doing hobby things on tech with tech. I’ve been futzing around with Linux, tweaking config files and the like. While these little tech adventures occupy my mind and keep me busy, they don’t invoke a passion like being a road geek does. Tweaking tech feels like a job and when it doesn’t work right I start to get cranky. I don’t want to feel cranky, I want to enjoy the passion I have for a hobby.
I like it when I feel passionate.
This morning I dug out my little pocket video camera and mounted it on the dash of the Jeep. Earl had bought me a nifty camera mount specifically for this purpose and I hadn’t used it before. It’s nifty! I took some video of a stretch of road that I thought other road geeks, well, actually road scholars, might find interesting. I’m going to be adding it to my road website in the next week or so.
Taking that video made me realize my passion for this geeky little hobby of mine and it got my day started off on the right foot.
And starting the day off on the right foot is always a good thing.
Earl and I have a lot of travel planned over the next several months and much of it involves driving.
I’m going to be one happy man.
Careful.
So yesterday we drove the final leg home from our trip in Florida. Saturday night was spent with our friends Jeff and Mark north of Durham, N.C. We were on the road by 10:30 yesterday morning.
As we drove up Interstate 85 and crossed into Virginia, I noticed that the outside temperature was dropping and that it was hovering just around freezing. This didn’t really worry me because after all, we live in Upstate New York where we deal with this type of weather well into April. So I just kept moving along and everything was fine. It was raining and the road didn’t seem to have ice on it.
There were cars going off the road all over the place.
As we got closer to Blackstone, Va., I noticed that there was a little bit of slush in each of the lanes on the Interstate. If you stayed out of the slush, the road was wet. I slowed down a bit, just for safety’s sake. But then I had a brief moment of panic. What if the reason that I am able to drive in winter conditions in Upstate New York is because the folks up here take good care of the roads in the winter? There were no signs of salt or sand or brine on the roads; just a little bit of slush and a lot of wet.
More cars off the road all over the place, but not us.
I had a hard time trying to figure out why these cars were going off the road. Were they texting? Did they hit the slush and not know what to do? There must have been a dozen cars off the road within a 15 mile stretch and judging by the conditions of these vehicles, they must have hit the guiderails going pretty fast.
When the roads are wet with a little bit of slush, there’s no reason to panic. Just ease up on the accelerator a little bit and take your time getting to where you’re trying to go. And put down the phone and pay attention to what you’re doing!
All it takes is a little bit of common sense to be careful. Happy motoring!
Lesson.
So yesterday the three of us went to Epcot to tour around the front half of the park, otherwise known as “Future World”. Epcot is my favorite of the parks here at Walt Disney World.
Upon embarking on our trip for the day I noticed that Jamie was wearing one of his Hostage Calm shirts. He’s friends with Hostage Calm and has done a lot of the photography of the band. The particular shirt has large letters on the back “I support same-sex marriage”. The message is wonderful.
The worrier in me was concerned that the shirt might be a little too “politically charged” for Disney and I voiced my concern with this. My concern was vetoed and Cub held his ground. I sulked about it for a while and was overly sensitive for the first hour or so at Epcot.
I know, I’m an idiot. Plenty of people have told me that over the years but I am who I am and I’m always trying to be better. I’m certainly not ashamed of being gay, I’m certainly not ashamed of being married to a man and I have officially been out of the closet since my first day of college way back in 1986. I say “officially” because everyone always tells me there was really no reason for me to come out of the closet because people already knew. Humor me.
Here’s the thing. I grew up in a household where we didn’t talk about politics, we didn’t talk about religion and we certainly didn’t talk about sexuality. That’s all ok, and I wouldn’t change my childhood for any other, and I know that it was decades ago but some things take root and are hard to change. Add that to my firm belief that change will only come when people come to their own beliefs on their own. I don’t believe in forcing religion on another, I don’t believe in forcing political beliefs on another and I don’t believe we should do the same with one’s views on same sex marriage. Being true to ourselves and demonstrating who we are should be a big enough billboard. I have faith in people and believe that they will find that same-sex marriage is really no different than any other marriage. Each marriage is unique unto itself; it’s not the gender of the participants that make it unique. Now, add all of this to the words of a co-worker way back in 1990, “If I met you outside somewhere I’d shoot you between the eyes, you fag”, and you might understand why I’m sensitive to this sort of thing.
I know, I need to calm down.
So I’m sulking and a little bit sensitive about it all when we first arrived at Epcot. We rode the Nemo ride and then stopped for lunch. A woman came up to Jamie and vocalized her strong support of same-sex marriage (later I noticed that she was from Earl’s hometown). She was a Disney cast member and she was looking after the tables in the “Seasons” food court. Later, an older gentleman came up and voiced his support as well; his son had just married his husband in Maryland. A third person supported the message on Jamie’s shirt as well.
So I stopped sulking after the first encounter. I calmed down. No one was cranky about the shirt, I was the only one that was worried about it.
I learned a lot at Epcot yesterday.
Changes.
People, gay men in particular, that hyperventilate and get downright evil when a man decides to shave his beard down to a goatee or grow a beard or change it up a bit and go with just a mustache need to calm the hell down. It’s not the critic’s face and quite frankly it’s none of their business. When I read comments from others about someone’s decision to change it up a bit and they scream in anguish usually reserved for the likes of nuclear explosions, plagues and famine, someone needs a reminder to keep things in perspective.
When I shaved off my handlebar mustache for charity last fall you would have sworn I had just slapped my grandmother and sold her into slavery. Shaving off that monstrosity of a mustache boosted my self esteem ten-fold and it made me feel good about myself. Will I grow another one? Perhaps.
A fellow blogger recently shaved his big beard down to a mustache. The cries from the peanut gallery sound like he just betrayed his country and sold the launch codes to the Russians. Calm down people, it’s only facial hair and odds are he’ll grow another beard someday.
I enjoy looking at beards. I also enjoy mustaches and clean shaven faces. But what’s more important is the person inside. There’s a lot of beautiful people out there and they all look different and can choose to change how they look without needing to hear judgment and the like.
I was recently chastised by a beard fan because my charity “promoted the destruction of facial hair”. No, my charitable efforts helped raise money for homeless kids, and if losing a mustache for a while was going to help a teen sleep somewhere other than the streets then I’m going to shave it off and raise the money.
This has been bugging me for a while and I finally felt the need to get it off my chest. It’s only hair. It’ll grow back when the owner wants it to.
He’s still the same guy inside.
Spring.
So I’m seeing these Facebook updates about people being disappointed that winter weather is still upon the place we call home.
Last check of the calendar, it’s still winter.
Even though you’ve all convinced yourself that it’s spring by setting the clocks ahead a couple of weeks ago, Mother Nature knows best. It’s not spring. It’s winter.
And that’s why we travel to Florida at this time of year, to find some spring. Because as much as we think it’s spring because it’s light until 8 pm, it’s not really spring. Not yet.
Next time I’ll tell you why the trains don’t run on time.
Tuesday.
So today we are doing something at Disney that we have never done before. We are not going to a park today. Instead of getting on a bus/boat/monorail train, we are going for walks, relaxing by the pool and just taking a few moments to slow down, breathe a little bit and just chill out. Later tonight we’ll be headed over to Downtown Disney for dinner and a little bit of strolling amongst the shops.
The weather has been gorgeous thus far. My spirits have lifted considerably with seeing all the sunshine. It feels good. I walked a couple of miles through the woods this morning and organized some of the extraneous thoughts in my head. I had a brief conversation with a woodland friend.
Sunday upon our arrival we carried on our tradition with our first stop being Tomorrowland at the Magic Kingdom. We always ride the TTA first and we enjoyed our annual ride. Afterwards we stopped at the Carousel of Progress (which is starting to show a couple of technical difficulties that I’m sure that Disney will correct soon) and then we were onto Space Mountain. For the first time ever we rode the ride on the “right” side instead of the “left” side (using the line into the attraction as a guide), even though we didn’t use FastPass. The lines at all the attractions thus far have been less than 20 minutes. Riding Space Mountain felt like an entirely new ride because it was assumedly a mirror image of what we’re used to. It felt faster, but I think technically the ride is the same regardless of the which side you ride on.
We had dinner at the Crystal Palace for the first time and was able to hang out with Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet and Eeyore.
Yesterday we went to the World Showcase at Epcot. This was the first time that we took the Monorail instead of a bus. Since we are staying at Wilderness Lodge Villas instead of Saratoga Springs, we took the boat to Magic Kingdom, then the monorail to the Ticket and Transportation Center and then a second monorail train to Epcot. It was kind of exciting for me because I had never ridden the Monorail through Epcot before. Even though this is my ninth time here there’s always something new happening. I love it.
World Showcase is one of my favorite attractions in all of Disney and we toured it clockwise this year. Like at Magic Kingdom on Sunday, wait lines for the attractions were less than 20 minutes; we were able to get on most of the attractions immediately. In the past we’ve usually waited 45-60 minutes for the ride at Norway but not this year, however, I was able to sneak a quick picture of the Norway Cruise Line lady; I take her photo every year. I don’t know why I do this.
While walking through China I snapped a photo of a Happy Cat.
Another first for me this year was enjoying one adult beverage while in Germany. I didn’t snap a photo of the Altenmünster Oktoberfest I enjoyed, but it was quite enjoyable. One is enough though, after all, we’re at Disney.
Of course we made a stop at Canada where we enjoyed the “O, Canada” film in 360 Circlevision. This is my favorite film in World Showcase and the geek in me enjoys the fact that many elements of the original film from the 70s are still present in the new version that was produced in 2007. Canadian Idol winner Eva Avila rerecorded the beautiful “Canada, You’re a Lifetime Journey” track at the end of the presentation.
Last night we went to Downtown Disney for dinner at Earl of Sandwich. I bucked the trend and went with a salad. It was delicious.
The stress has melted away considerably and I’m finding my solid footing again. Ah, the magic of hearing the words “Welcome Home”.
Savannah, Ga.
So this morning we left Harrisburg, Pa. and made our way down to Savannah, Ga. in around 11 hours. The drive was not unpleasant; I changed up the route a little bit and opted to try out something called “E-ZPass Express” in the Washington, D.C. area. This helped keep things interesting.
As we got closer to our hotel, we decided that we needed to get some supper. Ruby Tuesday usually has a decent salad bar so we decided on finding the nearest one. Apple consulted Siri on his iPhone 4S. I consulted Google Maps. Both agreed on the location right around the corner from our hotel. Earl used Apple Maps for navigation.
The billboard said Exit 104.
Siri said Exit 102.
We decided to get with Exit 102. I exited, turned right onto US 80 and went 1.6 miles. I was then told to turn left onto Pooler Parkway. So far so good. Once on the parkway, we were promptly told to make a U-turn. On the parkway. I found a spot and spun the car around.
Proceeding in the direction we had just arrived from, Siri loudly proclaimed that we reached our destination. We were on top of the bridge over US 80. There was no Ruby Tuesday anywhere to be found.
To illustrate, see graphic below. We start at the yellow dot. We are going to point “A”. Siri took us along the makeshift red-line.
When we finally arrived at Ruby Tuesday, courtesy of Google Maps, I banished Apple Maps from Earl’s phone and installed Google Maps. I declared that no one in my family shall ever use Apple Maps again. Those who are smart will obey.
Apple really needs to get its act together.
Just for kicks, while relaxing in the hotel lobby, I asked Siri where Embassy Suites was located. Mind you, I was sitting in the lobby.
Siri told me that the closest Embassy Suites was quality Quality Inn Suites and was located on a road called International Blvd. 87 MILES AWAY.
Oy.
Tomorrow we shall continue the trek.
