Tag Archives: travel

Home Again

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I’m a bit wiped at the moment, but I did want to officially report my return to the Upper Valley. The drive from DC to Vermont went surprisingly quickly, listening to my collection of King Crimson with the sunroof open in the 70 degree air. I haven’t taken an exact total, but I drove roughly 4000 miles in just under a week… not too shabby, if I say so myself. It felt really good to have some time with the road. I’ve mentioned before that it’s a meditation for me, but it’s also a catharsis. If I don’t get on the road every so often, I get stircrazy and depressed. (Not saying I’m not depressed anymore, but it did help. Any time where you’re alone with your thoughts for an extended period is something of a double edged sword, but on the whole I think it did more help than harm.)

I’d like to sit down and write something a bit more substantial about the trip sometime soon… maybe for tomorrow’s post, once I’ve had a chance to slow down and rest for a bit.

Still Alive, Aromas

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Sorry for the lack of post yesterday… I spent the day driving. And then the night, driving, and then the morning driving… oh, and then the rest of the day driving. I started out in Tallahassee, headed west on I-10 into New Orleans (sorry I didn’t visit people), then north on I-55 up through Arkansas into Missouri, where I grabbed I-57 into Illinois, got onto I-64 eastbound, caught two hours sleep in a rest area, and spent the rest of the day driving I-64. I’m now at Aromas in Williamsburg, VA, but they’re closing up… starting to drive north momentarily. I should be back in New England sometime tomorrow night.

More of a post when I’m not moving anymore!

Tallahassee

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I spent today driving across the Florida peninsula from Daytona to Tampa… it shouldn’t have taken as long as it did, but I opted to take surface roads rather than the far more convenient interstate. It was in the 80s for the entire drive, and I made the most of it, windows down and blaring Animal Collective on the stereo as I drove down the road. Fun times!

I got out to the coast near Tampa in time for sunset (but not in time to stop and grab the camera (the Gandy Bridge is kinda long, and there was traffic). Really excellent, with plenty of rich golds illuminating the clouds. I continued to wander for a bit, then started meandering north on I-75, then grabbed I-10. I finally decided to stop in Tallahassee, and have holed up for the night. I need to decide whether to start heading north, or continue my westward trend… I couldn’t really afford this trip in the first place, so I should probably take this as a cue to start homeward. I’d really like to continue, but as far as the goal of the trip (a recharge and sanity check) is concerned, it’s been adequately accomplished, so it’s hard to justify staying out just because I want to.

I’ve been meaning to have a longer post… I think it may have to wait til I’m in one spot for more than an evening. Hope everyone is having a good 2007 so far!

Daytona Beach

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Let me just say, goddamn does it feel good to be back on the road. I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to truly describe my love affair with wandering and travel, but trust me, it’s real and stands the test of time. I took off on Sunday morning, and made my way south. I ended up spending New Years Eve in DC, which was an excellent time to say the least. The next day, I took off again, and wandered down into South Carolina… I could have kept going, but I wanted to stop in time to actually fiddle with Be My Patron and get that at least tentatively up (which it is).

Today, I’m in Daytona Beach, counting my blessings that hotels that are off-season and down south are so much less expensive. (I’m prepared to sleep in my car, but am just as glad that I haven’t had to, a sentiment I’m sure many could get behind.) I’ve stopped early tonight, in the hopes of catching up on some of the sleep I haven’t been getting the past few nights, and maybe work some more on my to-do list.

This whole trip has made it clear just how much I needed to get back on the road. I feel better about things when I’m out wandering. I don’t know when I’ll be heading home, I don’t know where I’m going next, and I like it like that. I’m scrambling to find things I can do to justify the trip, and moreso to justify making it longer. I’ve been keeping to this coast, mostly because I know the most people over here, and I can be home in maybe a day and a half if something came up. That said, if I can arrange for an interview, or some project that would be best done over there, then I’m all for heading westward. We’ll see what comes.

At Snikt’s For New Years

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I did in fact take off for parts south this morning, as I’d intended. I knew I was heading south because I was (and am) aiming for places where it’s a bit more comfortable to sleep in one’s car. I won’t need to do so tonight, however, as I ended up wandering over to my friend Kevin’s for his New Years Eve festivities. I’d had some intention to continue further south, just drive into the night, but after some frustration, spending some time with friends and family (my brother is here too) seemed like a reasonable excuse to stop. It’s good to see everyone (some of whom I haven’t seen in more than a year).

This is going to be a short post, but I did want to wish everyone a happy new year. May 2007 be full of happiness and joy for everyone. Still planning on updating tomorrow, but chances are good it’ll be a late in the day post, since I’ll be on the road for a chunk of it.

The Title is Often the Hardest Part

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It’s true. Coming up with a reasonable title is far more of a pain in the ass than just rambling on about my life. Mostly because I generally don’t really know what I’ll be writing about when I sit down, just a general sense of things and a vague notion that writing something might be a good idea. Today, I’m going to open by saying my nice shiny new replacement keyboard, the third on this less-than-a-year-old laptop, has a borked ‘B’ key. It’s not unusable, but I do have to pay attention to my writing to make sure it registers, and have to hit the key pretty hard. For the record, this laptop has given me more troubles than all my other computers combined (my 15″ 800MHz Powerbook might give it a run for its money, but that was also across 3-4 years of HARD use). I still recommend the line, I know this is just a string of bad luck, and they’ve been very responsive to my issues, but damn is it frustrating.

I’ve been thinking long and hard about what I’m doing for the next few days, concerning New Years and all that. Without getting too cryptic nor too personal, what I would like to have happen isn’t going to happen (I’d give it about a .0001% chance), and so I’m very much of the sentiment of going wandering for a few days to a week. I don’t know where I’d go, maybe south, maybe west. I’ve been feeling the wanderlust incredibly badly for a while now, and in fact was strongly considering wandering off back when I broke up with Erica at the beginning of September. I was asked not to go, and so I stuck around, because I’m a sap and like to feel wanted. I don’t really have that motivation anymore (unlucky at cards, unlucky at other things), and so the wanderlust is back in full force (it even brought reinforcements). If I were in a slightly better situation for doing so, the idea of taking off for an extended period and working as a freelance writer/photographer is immensely appealing. Sometimes it’s nice to be able to disappear off the radar, if only temporarily.

I still haven’t really decided whether I’m taking off tomorrow or not, but if I do, I may miss a few days, or have only some short posts, or have them delayed (or conversely, I may find wireless and muses wherever I end up going, and start writing profound, beautiful, lengthy entries every day). Just fair warning, since I really would like to keep up this regular posting thing, and would like to build a level of trust with the readers I have that they can expect a new entry from me on a regular basis. (For the record, if anyone is curious as to how many readers I actually have, Google Analytics records an average of roughly 30 unique visitors a day, with a total of roughly 300 uniques a month. Broken down a bit more, this means I have maybe 20-25 regular readers, and then a chunk of people who get referred by search engines or a link in a comment or forum post or by another post linking to me, but don’t really stick around. This doesn’t touch AT ALL on people reading via feeds, but still, I am what would be called small potatoes.) Regardless of whether I post much or not, I do still plan on finding a way to launch my new project on the 1st, so I’ll at least be making a quick post about that. If the 1st is the first time I get to post though, let me say in advance, Happy New Years! I hope it’s a great time for everyone, and heralds a new year full of love, growth, and happiness.

Roaming

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I packed a bag, and told my folks that I’ll be back sometime tomorrow. Got in my car, and started driving… wandered north on 91 until I hit 93, and then followed 93 South through Boston, until I ended up in Providence. I found myself on autopilot, getting off the same exit I always did, and wandering around town before ending up in the Apple Store at the mall. The mall is full of christmas shoppers, and I’m walking around thinking to myself that I’m coming slowly unraveled. It’s been the theme of the trip, really. I had Modest Mouse on for most of the trip, and kept on picking out the recurring themes of drifting and wandering and walking a hairy hairy edge on losing your mind. “The World at Large” continues to resonate strongly with me, with its followup, “Float On” a resounding mantra for me to keep in mind, that even if things end up a bit too heavy, we’ll all float on alright.

And now the update continues the next morning. Shortly after starting this post, I got a case of the shakes, and had to go find some food, fast. It’s something that happens sometimes. After eating a delicious chicken primavera (and subsequently handing my leftovers to a homeless man on the street), I climbed back into my car, and continued to drive. I’d been thinking of staying in Providence to photograph the streets late at night, but I found myself wanting to get wandering again. There’s still a lot of pent up frustration and hurt left over from the pseudo-exile that’s been imposed by the folks down there.

I ended up wandering east down 195, until I reached Cape Cod. I wandered up the Cape, until I ended up in Provincetown, at Race Point, where I stopped for the night. I wandered around the beach in the dark for a while, and then curled up in my car until morning. I was hoping to get some sunrise shots, but it was a remarkably grey dawn, with no color to speak of. Now I’m at the Rockingham Park Apple Store, again blogging. The free wireless access is truly a godsend for the itinerant blogger.

I have commitments back home tonight, and tomorrow, and again on the 21st. It’s probably for the best that I do. Otherwise, I don’t know where I’d stop.

It’s December Again

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I have, for all intensive purposes, disappeared for the past month, notwithstanding a one liner expounding the virtues of my dog. I’m not sure who exactly is interested in what’s been going on, but I figure it’s time to get back into the swing of things nevertheless. When we last left our adventures, our intrepid explorer was about to embark on a trip southward… well, that happened. I sauntered down to Silver Spring, where I spent a few days crashing with my brother and our friend Shane, and seeing several people in the DC area. Missed Hawk, missed Katy, managed to catch up (briefly) with Scott, Kevin, Andrea, Kyle, and Elizabeth, and in general had a good time. After that, I meandered further south down to Colonial Williamsburg, VA, where I spent Thanksgiving weekend with my friend Claire and her family, who were all simply fantastic. I had a really good time wandering around them, and getting to spend time with Claire was, well, like rain in the desert: cherished and far too rare. To any of you who happen to read this: thank you for letting me tag along.

My plans to continue southward were modified a bit, and I ended up heading back north after the weekend. I spent the week at home, and for the life of me, I can’t remember anything in particular about it, which is kind of unfortunate — anyone who has talked with me for more than 20 minutes knows how much I recount little esoteric minutiae, so having gaps kind of annoys me. I do know that the week was mostly in anticipation and planning for heading south again, this time down to South Carolina with Mike, Uri, and Kyle, to attend our friend Mariah’s graduation from Basic. Perhaps it seems a little odd to drive 2000 miles for essentially 2 hours of hanging out and a 45 minute ceremony, but the point was to show our support, and get out of the area for a while at the same time, so all in all, I’d say it was well worth it.

As ever, I drove the whole way. We had several very capable drivers in the car, they even offered, but I didn’t really ever feel ready to relinquish the wheel… I enjoy the act of driving and travel too much, I suppose. Which sort of segues into my next tidbit of information: I’ll likely be moving back to Seattle sometime in early January. I don’t know precisely when, but my current idea is to leave towards the end of the first week or beginning of the second. I still don’t have a job, nor have I lined up a place to live, but sometimes a leap of faith is necessary for progress to be made.

I say that it’s “likely” because there’s another idea that I’m working on at the moment. Without getting into too many details, I’m approaching a few schools that I think would benefit from it about designing a game design major for them. The first one I’m approaching is RISD, because I feel it’s the most obvious choice, and would benefit most directly from offering such a program. If they shoot it down, I have a few others I’m considering (including home turf, Dartmouth). There are a variety of reasons I’m looking into this, a lot of which stems from feeling confident that I could put together a strong game design curriculum that would make it genuinely competitive with other programs out there. I’ve also realized that as much as I despise the politics and hoop jumping of academia, I like to learn, and I like to share that learning with others… I’ve been giving some serious thought to applying to a masters program and becoming a professor somewhere. I’ll be putting together some basic information to send to the folks at RISD sometime in the next day or two, so hopefully we’ll see what sort of response they give soon enough.

That’s what I’ve been up to, mostly. I’ve been reading fiction again, which is nice (most recently, Anansi Boys, Stardust, and Good Omens… I also picked up Light, so that’s up next on my list). I’ve been working at pulling myself up by the bootstraps to get out of a really bad funk I’ve been in for the past few months, and while it’s still something of a rollercoaster, I think progress IS being made, slowly but surely. Some people in particular have really helped me, and I hope you know who you are. Several of them (but not all) have already been mentioned in this post, as a hint. One of these days, I hope I wake up and feel good and coherent and passionate again. Waking up and feeling like I’m “back” would be amazing beyond words.

Working Title

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So, it’s a few weeks later. I spent a week at Squam, which was excellent, and I got a decent amount of writing and reading done. I’m looking forward to continuing the trend this coming week at Peterborough. The week wrapped up with my heading down to Providence and bringing my friend Claire up for a few days to hang out. It was really fantastic to get a chance to hang out and talk with her after spending a full week in seclusion, and she seemed to really enjoy the general vibe of Squam. She also got a chance to meet Mike and Mariah, who came up Saturday night and hung out for most of Sunday, as Mariah was shipping off to basic on Monday.

Dropped her off Monday night back in Providence, and headed back north to Vermont. I’ve spent most of the rest of the week futzing with things and doing general update errands and chores (pay bills, etc). I’m hoping to finish up the last of those on Monday, so I can head off to Peterborough by Tuesday or Wednesday. This weekend, I went down to Carver, Mass, and went to King Richard’s Faire, which is a large renaissance faire, where my friend Andrea lives and works. While we’d made plans to head down separately, apparently several of the RISD crew decided to head to that faire on the same day, and once I found that out, I chatted with Andrea who was kind enough to provide free passes for them. It also made it nice to be able to wander around and be sociable, and hopefully cross-pollinate friends a bit, as I think they’d all really get along, and Carver isn’t that far from Providence.

It’s made for some long days, and I must admit I’m pretty worn out/tired, and looking forward to going back into seclusion for a while. I did want to update people a little bit about what’s been going on. All my computer doodads are still for sale, and I’m about at the point where I’m going to list them on eBay, because due to being in the right place at the right time for a good deal, I ended up buying the new machine before actually selling the old ones. While this is good in my ability to just transfer my data over from the old machine to the new one, it does mean that I need to act quickly on selling the old stuff so I can pay the credit card bill. So, please, if you know anyone who might be interested in any of it (see last post), let me know ASAP.

And Now

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Sometimes it’s more difficult to start a post than it is to write the rest of it.  Why is it that we have so much with starting things and ending things?  Once we’re into it, we can just glide along, but the wrappers on either side, man they’re tough.

When last we visited these hallowed electrons, I was in Providence, it was morning, and we were leading into a camping trip in Maine.  Well, the trip to Maine was excellent.  I really had a great time, wandering around, building campfires, taking the kayak out, and having some really excellent conversations with people.  I kind of wish I’d been able to bring Freya with me, as since it’s an island, she would have been able to run freely without worrying about her getting into TOO much trouble.  All told, there were eight of us: Kate, Andrew, Casey, Claire, Erica, Kelly, Mary, and myself.  Damn good times.

When we got back from Maine, Erica and I broke up.  This was my decision, and for my own needs and reasons.  It’s something I’d been giving a LOT of thought about, and decided it wouldn’t make sense to drag it out further, and that it would be best to do it in person.  It’s not because of anything either of us did wrong, and whoever she dates next is going to be a damned lucky fellow, because she’s fabulous.  It was just time to end it — I need to be single for a while, to re-center myself and get into a place that works for me.  I always kind of felt like it was new-agey bullshit when I heard reasons like that, but it’s not, and I’m not sure I can explain why to those who haven’t already gone through it.  I’m working on salvaging friends out of it, including Erica.  I came to really care about the people down there, and value them as friends, so I sincerely hope this doesn’t cause any rifts or distancing (or at the very least, none that are insurmountable).

On Saturday, I went to my former roommates’ (Kate and Andy) wedding, which was an absolute blast.  I took gobs of photos (which I still need to burn to DVD, dangit), and the bride and groom looked fantastic.  The theme of the wedding was 1920s-30s, and so there were plenty of people dressed out in vintage suits that really made the whole event feel classic.  There were pleasant conversations happening all around the space, and I think everyone was really charged to have a great time.  The wedding was at 5, but festivities carried on well into the night, with the band leaving around 11, and people continuing to hang out after that.  I took off shortly after the band left, and dropped my brother off in Montpelier before heading south to the Upper Valley.  I didn’t get home until around 1-1:30, at which point I was bushed and went straight to sleep.  Sunday, I woke up and went back north to Montpelier, to help my brother pack and move his things out of the house, since he’s taken that position down in DC.  (In case you were wondering why I drove back down rather than simply crash on a couch, I forgot to bring a change of clothes and didn’t want to pack and lug boxes in a dry clean only suit.)

Since then, most of my days have been occupied with getting my affairs in order for disappearing for a while to Squam and Peterborough; paying bills, picking up sundry items, digging items I want to bring out of packed boxes, et cetera.  Other than that, I’ve been spending time with my parents and hanging out with friends, and in general trying to keep things low key.  I’m really looking forward to this time alone (that said, if you want to visit for a day or two, as long as you want it low key, I’m willing to share the space).  It feels really good to have a set direction and plan with all this: WRITE!  Build some inertia with my writing, and if things start looking positive in that general direction (writing is a fairly broad category), run with it.  If that doesn’t work out (knock wood), I already have plans on what to try next, most of which involve getting a crap job and studying my ass off in one of several subjects.  It just feels good to have a direction with all this.

I’ll wrap things up with a quick note that I am selling a plethora of technological gadgetry.  I’m selling off both monitors (19″ and 22″, prices negotiable), a spare graphics card (X700), my vaio desktop (PCV-770, upgraded), aaaand my PowerMac G5 tower.  I’m reluctant to let that last one go, but the sad reality is that I would be better served for my purposes in reducing my overall office footprint as much as I can, and I can get equivalent power out of a fully specced 24″ iMac (which I can afford if I sell all the things I listed).  I also decided this evening to additionally sell my Palm Tungsten T (yes, the original Tungsten), with cradle, for $75.  If you’re interested, let me know.