But you can eat Mexican food in a city where you used to live. Which is pretty much as good.
Strange bedfellows
As the news crew idled outside the Utah Republican Party offices early Wednesday morning and I took an Eastern-time-zone predawn run, I enjoyed a rare moment of solidarity with my right-wing brethren. Trump got hammered in Utah the day before, even though he assured voters there that he loved the Mormons.
The Two Towers
I snuck in a run before heading to the airport today, and cruised a ways up the West River Trail, my first time there since sometime last summer. In addition to a new megawatt solar array in a former cornfield, I found this nice stone cairn and got an up-close look at progress on the highway bridge.
NECCA Circus Spectacular 2016
We had a great time at the show, which celebrated reaching the $1 million mark on their fundraising campaign. Although I am still concerned that the new facility they’re building will be too “shiny”, there’s no question it will make their lives easier than wrestling with the grungy but charming quarters they’re in now.
Water world
On a street that maybe didn’t even exist a few years ago, I was impressed to see that three different political entities lay claim to the waste water.
Vegas, baby!
I guess I’m over it… I’ve never been a person who loved to visit Las Vegas, but I’ve never been a person who disliked going there, until this time. The noise and smoke and overpriced food and the sledgehammer tactics to make you WANT… enough already, I’m too old. And all that was the scene *inside* the trade show. Outside, the casinos and shops and escort-service touts and discount-show-ticket hawkers are worse. In and out as quickly as possible (and sorry, cousins, for not calling: schedule was too full to even think about a visit).
Still and all, it is a marvel. I was glad to see real Flamingos at the Flamingo, and I did enjoy imagining that I might win big so I could buy a new suit. But, when you can’t get a drink until 10 AM, it’s hard to keep the dreams alive…
Step right up, step right up, everyone’s a winner, bargains galore
A couple of weeks ago we got invited to B&K Green Mountain Auctions with Sherry and Prov. We had a great time, and bought a pair of nice nesting end tables and an old wall clock that might turn into something someday, or it might not…
Many of the people in attendance, who were mostly old men, were obviously regulars, and we could see how they end up with barns packed to the rafters with stuff… you could easily fill a pickup for $50 or less. Of course, most of what you bring home that way is junk, but you always hope for that antique whatsit to be worth something someday.
They’re there twice a week… and Lee is glad that we don’t really have a place for me to store stuff.
And PS — if you don’t know the reference in the post title, it’s worth tracking down. I never really got Tom Waits until I heard this song…
Fast Eddie’s
Fast Eddie’s made good donuts and burgers, and they hosted the hot rod club on Saturday nights, but they didn’t open last summer, and we figured the owners just gave up and stayed wherever they go in the winter. Now, however, there’s a sign in the window saying they’re accepting applications, so maybe they’ll reopen.
A lion in winter
As I fly west and south to a place where even the slightest hint of winter is strictly a matter of chance, I praise the stoic lions who keep our porch safe.
Only a game
Last Wednesday during my training class, I signed up for the optional evening training session, which was OK. When we finished, about 10 PM, I was planning to take Uber back to the hotel. However, chatting with one of my fellow students who was headed to the metro made me change my mind and take the train instead. It had been a long day, and I certainly was tired, but why not.
It turned out that I was in the subway system at the same time as several thousand dedicated but disappointed Washington Capitals fans. They had just suffered a 4-
3 lost to the Montréal Canadiens, and this year that’s an embarrassment. A couple of stops after I got on, all the fans got on too, and suddenly the train was packed. I was happy to give up my seat to this gentleman so he could sit next to his lovely wife.
They expanded my mental model of hockey fans… I don’t know if I’ve ever seen hair as perfectly lacquered, and partcularly at that hour after attending a hockey game.
Confucius say
Better to make front page as Wintry Mess than Hot Mess.
House of Sweden
I’ve spent the last two days attending a software training session, held at the House of Sweden, home to the embassies of both Sweden and Iceland. It’s a triumph of modern Scandinavian design.
Yesterday’s rain and fog gave way to windy sun today, two very different views of the Potomac.
Thank you
My home this week was the little conference center hotel at Gallaudet University.
The campus is beautiful, situated behind a tall fence in a neighborhood that is just beginning a period of gentrification.
The little breakfast restaurant was nice, staffed by deaf people as is only to be expected. I communicate a lot, and I felt really alone being so utterly unable to talk to these folks. They understood me pretty well… I was clueless.
But that’s why we invented the Internet. It turns out that Thank You is even easier to sign than to say… and so I tried it and it worked! One phrase made a big difference, to me at least, even though I think my accent was off.
First world problems
Stuck in airport sucks.
Stuck in airport directly under the TV speaker playing Republican debate sucks purple donkey dick.
Brattleboro Adventure – the Auckland Edition 