Different Travels, Part 2

Well, here we are again. And, surprise surprise, it actually is the very next day from the last post. It must have turned out that way because I didn't promise a next-day turnaround in my last installment.

Let's have first things first. My African-American friends carried on until at least eleven o' clock. I don't know how long they went after that, because being tired and sleeping trumped out being incredulous and staying awake.

I actually, at about a quarter of eleven, was out in the hall and bore aural witness to a woman issuing shrill, half-heard injunctions for them to sing louder. Sing louder?

Whiskey tango foxtrot, dearly beloved. Whiskey tango foxtrotin' foxtrot.

This morning at the hotel breakfast, I saw something I've never yet seen. It was a make-your-own-waffles setup. There were cups of batter, and a waffle iron, and one dumps the former into the latter, waits, and then pries out their waffles. Rather an amazing idea. I was going to try it, but there were too many kids around. Maybe tomorrow.

The training class was a good class, as these things go. I was pleased to see that my classmates were a steady set of fellows, and presented as not caring about Rangers or RECONs or any of that idiocy. (Remember, why it's idiocy I explained yesterday.)

On the other side, I was disappointed. These grown men were behaving like a group of third-graders with ADD. Little personal conversations always going on, and the guys at the back jumping up and hijacking the training schedule to tell their war stories, and to talk about all their vast and multiplicitous experience, covering everyone and everything toward which the inciting comment pertained.

And then there was the "Why the Hell" guy. It seemed that his whole purpose in life was to miss the point in a disgruntled and adversarial manner. For example, during a session on how to take good pictures while on a reconnaissance mission, we all saw a picture taken of the Hendry County Courthouse after a storm. All of us looked and saw it was a good shot: emphasis on the subject, good framing, properly exposed, well focused. That was why we were being shown the picture.

"Why the Hell would anyone take a picture of a courthouse? I don't see that there's any benefit to that." That's what we heard all day. It made me want to stand up and shout that that doesn't matter at the moment. It's a good picture, is what it is, and we aren't talking about why we photograph things. We're talking about how to photograph things well.

He pulled this same jive at a picture of semi trucks being staged at an airport. They were blocking off a runway. Still, you can see easily in the photo that there's another runway that they're not blocking. Even that wouldn't stop the "What the Hell" guy.

The root reason why his quoutbursts (that's a portmaneau word, hope you can unpack it right) were so annoying and ridiculous was his failure to recognize that it's far too late to fix these "errors" he perceives. We can't unphotograph the courthouse, and we can't unstage the trailers.

That realization does not touch him.

I think he's upper management material.

And now we come down to the real reason I'm writing all of this. Yes, it is interesting, and full of the bizarreness of human behavior. But I'm really bored. Can't wait until tomorrow, when I have more stuff to do, and then I get to leave and go home.

On the turnpike on the way down here, I passed through three tollbooths. The attendant at every single one of those tollbooths made a comment on my car:

First guy: Nice car! Me: Thanks.

Second woman: Is that a MINI Cooper? Me: Yes, it is. Her: Ethel, come look at this boy's car!

Third guy: Damn, man, you got a sweet ride there. Me: Word.

And you have to figure these people see thousands upon thousands of cars every day. And yet they found mine to be remarkable. Of course, everyone has always said nice things about it, but I expected toll attendants to be more jaded. Apparently the car is just that awesome.

And the African-Americans are starting again. I can hear that tambourine. I was wondering the other night whether they were just hyper-Jesus, or perhaps some kind of voodoo or Santeria. If they take a watermelon, fill it with honeybees, strip naked, rub themselves in Crisco, and carry the melon out into the ocean... definitely Santerias. I'm not making all that up, by the way. They actually do that stuff. And also things far stranger.

I don't really want to know. Last night, I thought about going over to the front desk and enjoining them most strongly to go over to those people and telling them to quiet down. Of course, it's a delicate issue. We don't want anyone to go saying that we abridged their religious freedom.

My take would have been that I have respect for their beliefs, and that they need to respect that I need quiet to be able to sleep.

Of course, I'm too far away from them for the majority of the noise to pass my walls. But I was thinking of the unfortunate souls staying next to and across from them... don't they deserve some intervention?

Of course, I decided "hell, no". If they're too chickenshit to make a necessary confrontation, they deserve to suffer.

I'm such a humanitarian sometimes.

And once again, it's going to be a long night.

Different Travels

Well, dearly beloved, it seems that I can't be home for more than a few days at a time. So I find myself once again off on the road. This time, I'm staying in Ft. Pierce.

The reason I'm here is for a CAP training thing: in order to be in the first wave in the event of a hurricane-related disaster, one apparently needs to be specifically trained for such. That's fine with me (otherwise I wouldn't be here), but I think the name of the program is a bit goofy. They've decided to call it "RECON", just like that, all caps. I haven't met my classmates yet, but I dearly hope they aren't there because of the name.

To explicate: there is another program in CAP called "Rangers". This originated with a comment made by a piece of brass, upon observing the hard-chargingness of the participants in the Hawk Mountain school back in the sixties or seventies. He made some statement or other, using the word "rangers" to express how hard-charging he thought they were.

Now, as you may have guessed, the ranger-types consider themselves better than the rest of us. In addition, as you may also have surmised, their ranks are swollen with individuals who never in a thousand years would ever have gotten to be called "rangers" in any other way. I'm talking obesity, mostly. Just gross obesity. It's disgusting, and the way they waddle around with their man-boobs outthrust calling themselves "rangers" is more disgusting.

Anyway, I hope that I don't have a bunch of wannabes in my class tomorrow.

For tonight, I have my own immediate problems.

First let me say that Ft. Pierce is really nice. Everything is bigger here, like in Texas. My hotel room is huge. When I went to the local Wal-mart to get a jug of chablis (after my last trip, having a hotel room without a jug of chablis just seems wrong) and some stuff to make sandwiches, it was at least thirty percent bigger than any super-Wal-mart I've ever seen. I could have comfortably driven my car down most of the aisles in there. I also saw a bank that was still open at eight in the evening, and the place where they're installing a liquor store.

It's just an amazing place. (How sweet the sound... ha ha. Couldn't resist.)

In spite of all that, it's full of the same people as anywhere else. I would say "full of the same trash as anywhere else", but that would sound too judgmental. I don't loathe or despise them, but I do look upon them with a sort of polite disdain. Let's try this: it's full of the same hoi polloi as anywhere else.

For example, there is a raucous group of African-Americans just down the hall from me. Mercifully, they are all the way at the other end of the hall. Else, we might have some trouble.

They are shouting and clapping their hands, and driving a herd of elephants around in their rooms, for all I can tell. I am absolutely positive that they have a tambourine in there. The strangest thing is that there are at least two older African-American females with them, and yet this craziness goes on. On my way to the ice machine, I witnessed one of them stick her head into one of the rooms, and then close the door; the noise level was unabated.

I have this crazy idea that they're doing some sort of tribal dances in there. The fact that the older females are dressed in their Sunday best only contributes to that idea.

Maybe that's why it started raining.

Oh, Jesus. I can hear them again. And quite clearly.

Clap clap, stomp stomp, jingalingalingaling.

It's going to be a long night.

Travels, Part (null)

Well, dear readers, it's a little bit later than the "tomorrow" promised in my last entry. About a week and a half later, to be vaguely precise.

And why? For a number of excellent reasons. One is that I was busy.

Busy smoking and drinking B&B in my Uncle Ken's basement. Maybe that's not such an excellent reason.

Let's try this one: I didn't want to use the wireless networks in all the motels in which we stayed. Using a motel wireless network makes me feel dirty. The same way in which taking a shower in a motel bathroom makes me feel dirty.

If I had one of those UV lights like they have on CSI, I would have to make sure to leave it at home any time I would be staying in a motel. My imagination was quite sufficient to conjure up all sorts of disturbing images of the splatter residue that was mercifully invisible to my naked eye.

Yeah, that's a good reason. Whew.

So, other than drinking, smoking, and staying in motels, what did I do? I'll mention riding in a car for hours on end now, so as to get it out of the way.

I rode in a car for hours on end. Done and done.

We also went to Philadelphia, which is a nice sort of place to go. Pretty much the whole place (at least the whole area which has in it the things you want to see when you go to Philadelphia) is owned by the national park service, so you get into everywhere for free, and you're allowed to take as many pictures as you like.

The exception to this is the Betsy Ross House, which is privately owned and operated, and where they charge you to get in, and you can't take pictures of anything. Of course, it might not even be Betsy Ross' house, and there are all sorts of myths (or at least apocryphal stories) that are shamelessly promulgated by the people that run the shack.

The thing that really stands out to you in sharp relief on a visit to Philadelphia is the whole prohibition on flash photography that seems to be in place whenever you visit somewhere you want to photograph. All day long during my visit I was cursing flash photographers: for being careless and using flashes for no reason, and for not having the right equipment for the job of taking pictures in low light, and for any number of other reasons.

I actually saw a woman using a flash to take pictures off of a tour bus. Sorry, my love, but your little flashbulb will avail you not at ranges of twenty and thirty yards in broad daylight. I also saw a man using a flash on the lawn in front of Independence Hall, with the bright sun shining full upon him. Idiots.

But now, I'm beginning to shift my ire to the people who put up the signs saying "no flash photography" or even "no photography (period)". As I was going through the pictures I took, I noticed the following things in them: eighteenth century furniture, original paint on the walls of historic buildings, and a whole portrait gallery worth of original 1780's paintings of the movers and shakers of the time. And what do they give as the reason you're not supposed to use a flash?

That's right... because your flash is damaging to wood, metal, paint, and for all I know, human flesh. But if that were so, why would the national park service be okay with setting anyone with a camera loose around all their stuff?

They wouldn't. Which means all that tripe about flashes being dangerous to old things is a lie. And the people who put up the signs know that they're lying.

But all disillusionment aside, I am home and glad to be back. Even though I have two weeks' worth of bills, invoices, and unpleasant news fresh out of my mailbox. Even though I have to pay for my cat being boarded in a kennel (or whatever finishes DOG is to KENNEL as CAT is to ___) when I feel she could have done as well to be set loose in the yard. Even though my house is a wreck and my car needs washed.

Tune in next time... current happenings show that there's at least a 60% chance that it'll be a rant against the Department of Veterans' Affairs. And with that, thank you and goodnight. Remember to tip your waitresses, and I also to weddings and bar mitzvahs.

Travels, Part One

I am on the road again. Unfortunately, this is unlikely to be enriched by photographs, because my camera is in the trunk of the car, and I have absolutely no desire to lug the whole operation in here to take some pictures of a hotel shower.

There are benefits to having a wonderful photographic apparatus, and point-and-shoot-ability is not one of them. Besides, I might get digital ick on one of my lenses.

Today we travelled from Ocala to beautiful, exotic Lumberton, North Carolina. Lumberton, among its many distinctions, is listed on exit signs over no fewer than fifteen miles of highway. "Lumberton, here!" they all say. So, to be specific, I will specify that we are at Exit 20 Lumberton, just in case there are other, separate Lumbertons out there lurking.

Small world, today. In the brochure rack of the Days Inn where we will be lodging tonight, there was a pamphlet advertising Gainesville as someplace people might like to go. That's right, our Gainesville, on a brochure at a motel five hundred miles away, being touted like it's Mount Rushmore or something. All of you G'ville residents, this is how some of your tax dollars are being spent. At the next City Council meeting, someone should ask about how the proposed revenues are looking for advertising in Lumberton.

Anyway, road travel is an ordeal. A bit of a comedian's patter caught by chance over the radio as we drove brought to my mind that children today may well grow up never knowing what a thousand miles with five people in a sedan is like. Now they travel in SUV's with room for a dozen, with DVD movies, video games, and fountain Coca-Cola laid on in every seat.

Our trip was not hellish, certainly not as hellish as the ones of my youth, when my brother and sister and I all shared the backseat for interminable hours. Four adults in a sedan is completely tolerable, except for minor factors which need hardly be whined about.

But whine about them I shall. You get dirty riding in a car in a way in which you seldom get dirty in any other way. When we got to the motel, the second thing I had to do right away was take a shower. (The first thing is between me and the motel.) You see, I was feeling absolutely filthy.

Fortunately, the shower at the Lumberton Days' Inn is set up just for filthy people. It employs a variety of speckled tile I have never before seen: the tile is the normal institutional white, and the speckles are the color of bodily filth. It's essentially bathroom camouflage, and one wonders how many of the speckles are actually speckles and how many of them would come off if scrubbed.

As I felt the filth rush off, and down the drain with the soap from the tiny bar, I forgot my disgust and began to be happy again.

I dried myself with the floor mat out of sheer ignorance. It was shamming being a towel, waiting for me to come along and be a schmuck.

Now, we go to find food. More tomorrow.