TomTom Saves Christmas

TomTom One, originally uploaded by Ludo2Besac.

My wife gave me the TomTom ONE Portable GPS Vehicle Navigator for Christmas this year. It is the perfect gift because I am always getting lost on the road. I configured it right away (with "Tim," the British male voice, because he sounds a bit like The Current DJ Mark Wheat) and we left the house to run some errands.

My TomTom had an opportunity to prove its worth on that very first trip. The roads were icy and slick. A recent two-car crash was blocking our freeway entrance ramp. The TomTom immediately charted a new route, and Tim's soothing voice guided me through Minneapolis' East Bank neighbourhood and back to the road. It was a GPS miracle!

Inspirational Vegas

I Win, originally uploaded by Kevin Labianco.

When I learned that I would be taking a two-day business trip in the midst of novel-writing season, I was concerned that the distraction would adversely affect my word count. In fact, it did quite the opposite. This was due to a combination of two factors: long, uninterrupted time in the air, and inspiration from being in a strange environment.

I don't have to explain the benefits of working on the plane. With nothing to distract me and a three hour flight stretching out ahead, I just turned on my laptop and plugged away. I typed over 5,000 words on both flights combined. That's 10% of my novel right there!

Then, the atmosphere in Las Vegas was tremendously helpful for stirring up my imagination. Everything on the strip was bright and sharp and designed to get a reaction. Plus it was a great place for watching and meeting interesting people. On the taxi ride to the airport, I told my driver I was from the Twin Cities, and he told me that he served with the founder of Groth Music. There are stories everywhere.

Geeky gambling in Las Vegas

pong slot machine, originally uploaded by lokialbertson.

While I was in Las Vegas, I stayed at the Tropicana. It's a little worn down and frayed around the edges, and totally underwhelming from outside compared to the other casinos on the Strip. But when I first walked inside, it was an impressive experience for my first Vegas casino. I didn't do much on that first night except for dinner at the Eiffel Tower, but on day two I walked across the street to the MGM Grand. That place totally blew my mind.

I didn't intend to drop any money in the machines until I saw this post on Kotaku the week before my trip. After that, it was my mission to find the Pong slots. I spotted them while walking through the MGM Grand, sat down, and promptly lost one dollar. It wasn't very fun. I think I was doing it wrong.

On my way back to my room I decided to try again with the Alien machine. Right off the bat, I won 50 cents on a 10 cent bet. I considered cashing in my considerable winnings and celebrating with a drink. Instead, I kept going in an attempt to recoup my full dollar of losses from before, and ended up losing it all.

Eiffel Tower restaurant vs. the Garden Lounge: Contrasts in Vegas dining

Paris Las Vegas, originally uploaded by Wolfgang Staudt.

On my first night in town, I made a reservation for dinner at the Eiffel Tower restaurant at Paris Las Vegas. This was a mistake. I was over-hungry after my flight, so I got a headache and felt sick. I only finished part of my five-course meal and sipped at my half-bottle of wine. On the bright side, at least I got to eat at a swanky restaurant with a great view of the fountain show at the Bellagio.

There was a doorman at the bottom of the elevator before you could go up to the restaurant; another man greets you at the top. They are clearly placed as roadblocks to keep out undesirables, but after confirming that you have a reservation, they are extremely polite. "Enjoy your evening with us," they said. After I got past the hostess ("we have a very nice table for you"), waiter, sommelier, and the guy in the bathroom who handed me a towel, I was thoroughly confused about who I was supposed to tip. I was throwing money all over the place. I spent almost $80 on dinner for one, and that was getting out cheap.

I had never done the ultra-fancy dining experience before, so it was interesting, but I also felt uncomfortable and out of place. Despite the impeccable service, tasty food, and nice atmosphere, I felt physically relieved to get out of there. The next morning, I broke my fast at the Tropicana Garden Lounge. Now this place was more my style. Kitschy decor, cheap food, smelled like syrup... and there was only one person to tip. I was at home.

What happens in Vegas?

Fremont Street, 1979, originally uploaded by Roadsidepictures.

I just learned that I'll be traveling to Las Vegas next week on business. I didn't plan to blog much in November, but I have one request before I disappear. It's my first trip to Vegas, and I'm going to have some free time on Monday and Tuesday nights.

I have a room at the Tropicana, so I plan to entertain myself mostly by walking up the strip and people-watching, just taking it all in. I don't have a lot of money, but I do have a budget for some reimbursable expenses. Does anyone have advice on where to find the following things:

1. A relatively quiet pub (not a club) where I could get a well-mixed drink
2. A nice place to hear jazz (possibly the same bar as #1)
   
3. A fancy restaurant with good vegetarian food and wine

Also, are there any cheap can't-miss attractions on the strip? Conversely, which over-hyped attractions should I plan to avoid? Thanks, everyone! I am psyched about this trip.

You are too fat for this ride

focus group dialogue, originally uploaded by bijoubaby.

When I visited Disney World, lo these many years ago, we had a tragic/hilarious experience on the old Pirates of the Caribbean ride. Our boats suddenly stopped in their tracks, and we remained stuck for what felt like a very long time. While we waited, the audio track looped and the animatronic pirates went OCD on us, chasing girls in circles and taking swig after swig from bottles of rum.

Eventually, a Disney "Cast Member" came along and helped an obese person to disembark from a boat further up the line. Relieved of its excess weight, the boat buoyed up again and the ride continued. According to MiceAge ("its [sic] a larger world after all"--scroll down to the third article), the phenomenon is more common than I realized. Disney is doing renovations on the Small World ride for this very reason:

Quite simply, the boats weren't designed to handle multiple adults weighing more than 200 pounds, and they now routinely bottom out in the shallow flume and get stuck. The Imagineers who designed the unique flume ride system for the World's Fair assumed that adult men would average 175 pounds, and adult women would average 135 pounds. Needless to say, those 1960's statistics are hopelessly out of date in today's world.

Exactly how out-of-date are they? The CDC reports that average weight in 2002 was 191 pounds for men, and 164.3 pounds for women: "nearly 25 pounds heavier on average" than in 1960. Really, though, it's not the statistical average that's the problem; it's the hyper-obese outliers that break the system. Or it could be that the weight of a typical park goer in the fattest place on earth is slightly higher than the national average.

Three hours of IOWA!

So my wife and I left our apartment at 0800h. on Saturday morning and returned thirteen hours later, 2100h. Out of that time we spent around ten hours driving down to Iowa City and back up to Minneapolis with something on the order of three hours actually in the city itself. I drove the entire way. I was exhausted and totally spent by the time we got home. And it was all worth it.

The first thing we did when we got to Iowa City was to find Devotay (picture posted yesterday) and have lunch. We forgot to bring any cash, but scrounged up twenty-five cents to plug the parking meter on the street. After we got settled in and our food had arrived, I asked the waitress if she could give us a $1 advance on our bill so we could stay long enough to eat. She laughed and gave me some quarters.

I ran out and dropped in more change, then hurried back to enjoy my portabello sandwich and onion bisque, accompanied with a glass of 2002 Castillo Rioja (featured wine). It was all excellent. Devotay has won all kinds of awards for best restaurant in Iowa City, and they are well-deserved. Highly recommended.

After lunch, we reached the goal of our trip: the University of Iowa Museum of Art. Now I was expecting something on-par with my alma mater's art gallery: small, uninspiring, filled with student art and the occasional visitng exhibit. So when we walked into this place, I was totally blown away. Beautiful architecture, big space, fantastic artwork. They had original paintings by Miro, Rothko, Picasso, Gauguin, and Pollock (x2!). Holy crap. Also a special "collage" exhibit with Situationist and Dada art, and a TV playing the hijacked G.I. Joe PSAs.*

On to the main event. The manuscript was completed unrolled for display for the first time at this museum, and the whole thing was rolled out from end to end in a long glass case. It stretched through two gallery rooms, where tangentially related video and audio were being played. There were more people there than I expected for the second-to-last day of the exhibit; it must have been packed in the first few days.

The scroll itself was a bit overwhelming; too long to take in all the details in an hour or two, and probably too long to read even if we'd had all day, which we didn't. I walked along the length of it and just enjoyed being so close to the thing, looking at xxx'd out text and pencilled corrections and big ink Xs across paragraphs and pages. The paper was all taped together and repaired in rips and yellowed with age. The end of the scroll was supposedly chewed off by a dog. It looks the part. I went back to the beginning and read the first few sentences and I was ready to go.

We decided to skip dinner in Iowa City, which was planned to take place at the Red Avocado, an organic vegetarian restaurant. I was bummed to miss that. But we stopped at Steak & Shake on the way out and managed to get home at 2100h, just as I was reaching the limits of my driving endurance. I top off at around 11 hours a day. After that, forget about it. Anyway, it was a great trip and a really fun day overall. Iowa City, thanks for everything.

*Specifically, these:
Your ass got sacked.
Body massage.
I'm a computer.
Porkchop sandwiches.


Categories: travel, books, wine

Kerouac weekend

Today, I am excited that our new digital camera has arrived in the mail. New photos may be coming soon to this blog. I'm even more excited about my impending trip to Iowa City to see the On The Road manuscript this weekend. It's on display at the University of Iowa through this weekend. This is as close as it's coming to us in Minnesota, so now is our best chance to see it. This is the first stop on its tour when it has been fully rolled out for display. If J. were willing, I'd read the whole thing right there in the museum.

So we're on the road to Iowa City, an exotic, assuredly scenic place that I have never visited. If anyone has a recommendation for a good vegetarian eatery or wine bar, by all means share with the rest of the class. I always like to search out good restaurants when I go out of town. The eating out, it is something I avoid while at home, but usually a very pleasurable part of my vacations.

Speaking of terrible segues, I totally forgot that The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy is coming out this summer! I think I blocked it from my memory, actually, because I was so afraid they would flub it. But I just saw the trailer (albeit without sound, here at work) and visually, at least, it looks very promising. Certainly prettier than the BBC version. And after reading interviews with some of the people involved, and realizing that the project is based on a screenplay by Douglas Adams himself, I'm allowing my hopes to be got up.

All Request Day: Japan

WhyLaw says, "I would like to hear more about why you went to Japan, how you went to Japan, and what you did while you were in Japan. And if you speak Japanese."

That's a tall order! I could write enough about Japan to fill a book. In fact... I did! But that's a fictionalized account of my time there, and even if it got published, it wouldn't be an honest answer to your question. So here's the straight dope.

Basically I went to Japan because it was a foreign country where I really wanted to go, but I knew I'd have more problems trying to go there on my own than say England. The nice thing about study abroad is that everything's set up for you in advance. Plus, my school had a good Japanese language program so I could learn quickly while I was there. This was good since I didn't speak a lick of Japanese, really, when I went over there. By the end of my time in Japan I was okay with it; I could order food, ask for directions, talk about the weather; really, I could get along by myself without much trouble. Hmm... that just about answers 3/4 of your question, I think.

Now for what I did while I was there. There's so much to tell. That trip was sort of the final nail in the coffin for a 1.5 year relationship with my girlfriend at the time, for one thing. And I made a really good friend that went with me on wacky adventures all the time. I went to class sometimes, but I barely remember anything about school. I went to a bathhouse, visited temples, ate raw chicken... oh, that reminds me, I became a vegetarian in Japan. I lived with a host family and met students from all over the world. I read, for the first time, On the Road and Catcher in the Rye and Slaughterhouse 5. I went to dance clubs and tattoo parlors and a mountainside hot spring on the island of Shikoku...

Too many memories to count. And yes, I would go back in a heartbeat. Well, that wraps up today's responses. Be sure to drop me a line with additional requests, and remember, the sky is the limit. See you tomorrow, when I talk about college, comics, and romance.

Bahamas Week part four

We woke up with the roosters on Friday morning for one last time and watched the sun come up during our cab ride to the airport. Once again there was a delay at Bahamasair while the two employees worked for over half an hour to try to book a flight for the guy in front of us. They gave us the finger one last time on the way back to Florida: they didn't offer us anything to drink, but the stewardess mixed something for herself and sipped it in the back of the plane. At least we did have a $30 voucher to spend at the Fort Lauderdale airport that Bahamasair had offered us after the initial screwup, so we went to the food court Sbarro's for pizza and chocolate cake.

We checked into a hotel in a much better area of Fort L. and spent the whole day exploring the Riverwalk and Las Olas region of the city until we were all tired and sore. It was a nice touristy part of town bordered by a very sketchy part of town. I'm not a big fan of tourist stuff, so I took my wife out into the real city. We came around one corner to see a guy sitting handcuffed on the sidewalk w/ his back to the wall, surrounded by cops. Also there was a maniac going nuts honking his horn and screaming at a traffic light, who then made a U-turn and stopped in the middle of the road. I don't know what his problem was. Another person suddenly tried to go through a red light and hit the brakes in the middle of the intersection. All this happened while we were waiting to cross the street, which encouraged us to be really alert in the crosswalk.

Our task for the day was to find a restaurant at which to celebrate my birthday. I looked at the menus and wine lists of half the joints on Las Olas. Some were too expensive, some were just nothing special, one was too snooty, and most of them were really similar. Homogenization of the American Dining experience at work. We've got a hundred restaurants here and you can order the same thing in every one. We ironically chose a place called Panini Noodle (which give me a break, what a terrible name), that itself is not unlike my beloved Pizza Lucé in Minnesota: young servers dressed in black comparing tattoos,* exposed wooden beams in the ceiling, and sleek lighting and ambiance.

I ordered a glass of Cavit Pinot Grigio (which is a good value Italian wine) along with my panini dinner, and since my parents were paying, a slightly pricey Port for dessert. The four of us (minus my little brother, who would have thought it was gross anyway but had already gone into the cool shop next door) shared a crème brûlée. We were all sick of walking and flagged down a cab to take us back to the hotel.

I was craving a Dunkin' Donuts the whole time we were in Florida. My mom thought she had seen one nearby during her walking, so we got out the phonebook to try locating it, which turned into quite an ordeal. I called the front desk and asked where the closest one would be. She gave me an address, which means nothing to me, so I asked how to get there on foot. She responded with a smug chortle. "Well," she snuffed, "you're not going to walk, are you? It's two miles away!" Discouraged, but not defeated, I went down to the computer room by the hotel lobby and posted this after hitting up the Dunkin' Donuts website and finding a store just three blocks away. I walked over with J the next day and sure enough, there it was. The whole trip took twenty minutes and I got a half-dozen of my favorite donuts. Krispy Kreme can suck it, Dunkin' Donuts is the bomb.

Going through security, a supervisor told me I couldn't take my box of donuts on the plane, and actually grabbed it away from me. It turned out he was joking, but seriously, I get searched and hassled by enforcement types so often that I didn't even say anything. There's no point in arguing with people who have guns. I guess J. could see the disappointment on my face, though. "He's about to cry," she told the guy as he handed the box back and called me gullible. It was true, and I was angry with myself for not demanding that he give them back, but like I said before it wasn't the first time that I'd been singled out and I wasn't going to make a stink about donuts. Mostly I was damn glad to get my donuts back.

But and so but then we exchanged our tickets for a couple of seats right behind first class, which afforded us excellent leg room, a happy ending after all. I was paranoid about my donuts for the rest of the day, ended up eating them all, and felt pretty sick the next morning. THE END.

*I glanced over as a girl was covering up the intricate colorful work on her shoulder, and her coworker rolled up his trouser leg to show off an old-school ship on his calf which I couldn't get a good look at even though I craned my neck and leaned across the table so much that J. asked what in the world was wrong with me.

Categories: travel

Bahamas Week part two

Our flight went without a hitch on the way from Miami to the Bahamas, and the plane landed on the island of Great Exuma after we were treated to a pretty bird's-eye view of the neighboring islands. At customs, Bahamian personnel opened and searched our luggage (which you will recall was in fact our wives' luggage due to the earlier mix-up and therefore contained exclusively women's clothing and underwear), but thankfully made no comment and waved us through.

A native islander greeted us by family name when we walked outside. It turned out that he had transported the girls to our villa when they arrived and had returned to wait for us, not knowing whether we would be coming that day or not. When he made a comment about our luggage, my dad asked him if our wives had bags when they arrived. That was a negative. It also turned out that, as is SOP with Bahamasair, they had failed to communicate with the fairer half of our party and inform them of the luggage/arrival situation.

But when we got to the villa for our happy reunion we didn't even care that our luggage was AWOL or that the quick ride cost $40, or that we were all starving and had nothing to eat, because we were in the Bahamas at last. I mixed myself a drink with the complimentary fifth of Bacardi gold and went to bed early with J.

Roosters woke me up at 0500h. the next morning and continued crowing all day long. When we got up and out of the house we discovered that February Point was Chicken Central on the island. Heidi Bond would have been in heaven down there, I'm telling you. All different types of beautifully-plumed roosters, fat hens everywhere, and at least one family scurrying around with a half dozen little juvenile chicks. Every time we walked down the street, we saw chickens tilting forward with their necks stretched out and wings held up yet tucked in and folded, dashing away from people and cars. At night we saw hens perched high up in trees and calling from their roosts:

"bukbukbukbukbukbukbukbuk buh-KAWW!!
bukbukbukbukbukbukbukbuk buh-KAWW!!"

It was a beautiful thing. Our first full day was productive. An unseasonal cold front was still blowing in from the north ("It was so cold the other day, I had to wear a jacket," our driver had exclaimed on the previous day). You know what they say about a bad day in the Bahamas better than a good day in Minnesota, but it kept us out of the water and we decided to rent a car for the day to explore the island's interior.

We headed south and mostly failed to find a beach or anything interesting, although we did see a group of wild goats in the road ("Look! deer," said my mom). It was when we drove into Georgetown that we saw a car with "RESPECT MY GANGSTER" printed in Gothic letters on the rear window. In town we bought some food at the island's one grocery store and brought it back to the villa to make ourselves some lunch. Our luggage was delivered from the airport, and I immediately shaved and applied some Old Spice, for which J. was extremely grateful.

That evening, we went to the island's "fancy" restaurant since it was out of town and we had the rental car. The maitre d' made a fuss about seating us without reservations, but reluctantly allowed us a table in the back. The room was empty except for one group in the corner, and nobody else came in for the entire time we were there. The average price for an entree was about $30, which made my parents' jaws drop open. Luckily, they accomodated my request for vegetarian meals for my wife and me, and charged us only $10 each. My dad and brother got $30 chickens and my mom ordered $25 shrimp. I also got a $3 bottle of Kelik, "the beer of the Bahamas." The label touted it as "export quality," although we wondered whether it had ever actually been exported anywhere. It was pleasantly good.

Since my parents had paid our airfare down to the island and basically covered all other costs for the week, proclaiming it to be a family vacation, I paid for the dinner that night. Paid through the nose! With my wallet still hurting, we drove back to the villa and I plunked down to read more Infinite Jest, which seemed to have an infinite number of pages remaining even as I crossed the 200 mark. The book really started coming together around page 200, and it kept getting better.

The Jest was just what I needed to keep me distracted and occupied in the times when I would normally be pounding through the intricacies of my own book-in-progress. It was hard for me to be away from my novel and I was feeling withdrawal symptoms already. In a way, however, it was a relief to get away from it. David Foster Wallace (the author of Infinite Jest) talks about writing here and describes the process as like a "hideously damaged infant that follows the writer around". The extended metaphor is grotesque, hilarious, and absolutely captures my own experience with it. When Holly Lisle writes that your book is not your baby,* this is not the kind of baby she was talking about.

Okay, that's all the time I've got for now. Tomorrow: beachcombing, grilled cheese, and must-see-TV! More photos will be up tonight.

*Encouraging authors to think of writing as an active, grueling ordeal with frequently flawed results; rather than as a natural gestation period that unfailingly produces a perfect, adorable infant

Categories: travel

Bahamas Week part one

J. and I left our apartment at about 0730h. on Saturday morning to drive to my parents' home. About halfway there she realized that she had forgotten to pack our camera and (being a photography major and enthusiast) was very upset. It was too late to turn back or even stop to buy a disposable camera, so I did my best to console her, but she was near tears when we pulled up in the driveway. I ran in the house and got my brother to lend us his nice digital camera. This cheered her up somewhat.

My college-aged brother drove us all down to the airport and dropped us off at the terminal and said goodbye. Our youngest brother, my parents, my wife and I checked in our luggage with Northwest and had a hassle-free flight down to Indianapolis and from there to Fort Lauderdale, FL. I got started on reading my book, Infinite Jest. I'll have a lot to say about this book, but just to give you an idea of the scale of the thing, it clocks out at over 1,000 pages with so many words squeezed into each one that it could easily have been formatted at 1,300 or more. Don't even get me started on the footnotes.

And but so I started reading Infinite Jest in the airport and got swept up into it right away even though I had no idea for the first few hundred pages what it was about or what kind of book I was really reading. My initial reaction was delighted confusion. Tonnes of different characters & storylines & tidbits, non-chronological, with a system of year-naming that is not elucidated until about halfway through the book. Great writing. I read maybe a hundred pages or so that day. In Florida we took a cab out to our hotel, which was expensive with small crappy rooms but an excellent pool in the back. We elected for dinner at the nearest place, which was a Denny's across the street.

This was a very bad idea. The restaurant was packed and severely understaffed, filled with kids and one cranky waitress. We were ready to order dessert by the time she finally got around to our table for the first time. The food was crappy but we didn't bother to complain, except for my mom who couldn't help herself. The other tables were trashed with food all over them; I felt bad for the people working there. Chalk up one more bad experience at Denny's, maybe the worst restaurant of all time.

My mom attempted to avoid buying an expensive breakfast in the hotel restaurant by taking a cab to buy groceries, but the ride cost $18 and so her plan sort of backfired. This hotel sucked. There was no hot water in the shower. The courtesy van they sent us had no trailer and we couldn't fit all our luggage inside. "We'll have one here in say five minutes," the driver promised us.

"I don't know why he said that," a hotel employee told us a half hour later. "It's not true. But one should be arriving soon."

So we were late to the airport and there was a problem with our scheduled flight on Bahamasair. The plane broke. "No worries," said the Bahamasair man, "plenty of room on a Continental flight. You're all booked for it." We tear-assed down to the opposite side of the airport with all our luggage. Of course, we weren't booked on the flight and they had only two available seats. Damn you Bahamasair! That's what we get for trying to save money by using a government-owned airline.

Anyway, my mom and wife were permitted to board and my dad and brother and self were put on standby. We checked our baggage and got special treatment at the security checkpoint, which means we went to the front of the line and got searched extra-carefully. Lost track of the women. When we arrived at the gate, the door was closed and a very unhelpful woman told us we were out of luck. "Nope, you're on standby," was all she would say. "You're not getting on the plane."*

"What about our luggage?" my dad asked. "It's been loaded already." She suggested we try the baggage services office.

After a big fuss at the office they managed to get some of our luggage off the plane and delivered back to us at the terminal. Only one problem: it was our wives' luggage. We returned to Bahamasair and updated them on the situation. They got us a new flight and a taxi voucher. We told them to please pass along the message to inform our wives, when they arrived in the Bahamas, that we had their bags and they should retrieve ours, and that we would be arriving that night. So with the girls' bags in tow, we took a cab down to Miami and took an American Eagle flight down to Great Exuma at last. Above please enjoy a photo of our view on the way there.

Next time: we arrive in the Bahamas and hijinks ensue.

*It turned out that at the same time all this was going on, there was a problem passenger making a big fuss on the plane that J. and my mom were on. Long story short, he and his wife got booted from the flight, which means that at least two of us could have boarded and flown down together (and actually all three of us could have, since J. saw other available seats). This of course only could have happened if the woman at the gate had been helpful in any way, which she was not. Damn you too, Continental. I hate you all.