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We left Chicago with the fluid grace of someone throwing a beanbag chair.  Mike woke early, I next, then Suzie, and we left a standard deviation after I hoped as I vacillated between “stay” and “go”.  The day was bright but the roads were unkind and we missed a visit to someone due to delays from road construction.  Mike will never meet Banks.  We had lunch at a McDonalds where two middle-aged men were arguing over Christian rock.  We received no ticket on the way through Indiana.

Before dropping off Suzie, I asked my standard question of “how do we make this better next time?” to which I already knew the answer: don’t drive to Chicago after spending two days in New York City.  Suzie left our company and Mike and I puttered home taking turns being sleepy and being the driver.  Mike and I parted company in his driveway with a hug and wave and we turned our backs to each other and walked our separate ways to go become adults.

NYC+ was the last trip in the extraordinary run of good trips I had that spanned a six month arc and I set myself the 12th as the first day where I’d need to parlay my job into a career, switch industries, or go back to Act Sci.  Mike and Suzie had the first days of their next semesters to attend to so we all took a small lurch towards being our future selves.  I think I lingered too long in each place not for fear but for loathing of having to face that Monday.  Let’s see where it goes.

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During individual visits to Chicago I invariably have lunch with Peter at a fast food joint where we stay too long while on large group visits I invariably have lunch at a sit down place where we stay too short.  This time, we went to Mellow Yellow’s where I placed an overly complicated salad order and then left early to pick up mounting foam from Foamcore Heaven.

Foamcore Heaven is really just an overlay on a generic art supply store in Chicago that happens to have really cheap foamcore.  I illegally parked outside and stepped into a quiet store (all the batting and canvas absorbs sounds in the way only libraries do otherwise) where tattooed people were asking for overly specific items from the on-duty clerk.  At the head of the queue, I asked for my foamcore order, she almost winced when I rattled off the order but then sighed audibly when we she found that someone had already packaged the order and I had already paid for it.  She helped me put the order in my car, as a respite from the hipsters art-folk, I think.

Group Shadow

Summer Comes to an End

I met up with Peter, Suzie, Ty, Audrey, and Mike at the Chicago Botanical Gardens where my New York City Botanical Gardens membership got us free parking.  Peter was tired, Audrey was tired, Mike, Suzie and I were wasted, but Ty was excited.  The gardens proper are circumscribed by water and we spent much time watching the carp as we drifted into later afternoon.  There were myriad signs telling no one to feed the carp but based on their open-mouth greeting I think enough people ignored the sign to justify the carp’s efforts.  The sun hung in the sky and the afternoon stood still.

Ty was very excited to show me that there were squirrels and I took a picture of them.

Squirrel Alert

Here the group split and Suzie and I took pictures of the sun drifting beyond the water lily pond.  Normally I take photos with other people that have a technical eye and we swap settings and tricks.  Running around chasing the sun, angles, and perspective seemed puerile but was a welcome change.  The sun ran from from the commotion.

Placidity

Placidity

There is a relief in almost-boredom.  A simple enjoyment in watching a parade of nows march by at a tempo that is neither hurried nor dull and I felt swept in this current on the way out, while refilling a failing tire in the parking lot and then on the way back to Peter’s.  Ty wanted to see what the car was like in “Road trip mode” and we acquiesced.  I listened to a podcast, Mike took a nap, and Suzie watched a video on her laptop.  Four bubbles, four people that happened to be in the same car with the moment-to-moment unity of beach sand.

Back at Peter’s we diddled on our laptops, Mike went to bed early, and everyone else watched My Little Pony.  I tried the Jerde’s elliptical which was an exercise in muscular comedy.  The muscles at the top of my legs hurt but only sometimes and I felt my calves were underused.  My forearms got sore but I was able to use my laptop with some work.  The device lacked the forced tempo of a treadmill and when I got off I felt exhausted but couldn’t point to a muscle that had given out.  I showered and fell to the couch where slumping forward proved most comfortable.  The night petered out and I was ok with that.  I had successfully got my heart to 150 BPM for 50 minutes in another time zone.

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Whit Leyenberger is not just a friend of mine and was not just part of a cohort of friends that has incriminating evidence about me, but someone with whom I hope to find a kind of timeless friendship.  Whenever we catch up, there’s no “why didn’t you call” or “so how’s your family” but a near seamless resumption of whatever narrative we had last worked usually beginning with “remember the time we”.  It had been a solid two years since I saw him and I was curious to see what the intervening time had done.  I was used to the 9 month gap between summer camp seasons, but now, more than one year had changed.  We met somewhere near 14th street and I was glad to see his shining face again:

From 2011-09-09 to 10 People Shots

We had paninis for breakfast and talked a lot.  In there, I learned that he had a girlfriend of three years, worked at an Applebee’s in Harlem where he was the 0.75% of the staff that was white, had a brief bout as an honest to goodness starving artist, and that I could could crash on his floor in the future which very much pleased me.  We parted ways, returned, to the apartment we had rented, and made our egress from NYC.

All the People Pictures:

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There were a few points on the drive home where I think the entire car, possibly including the driver, were asleep.  The ride from New York City to Mike’s house was only about two hours but it felt may three or four times longer than my one hour commute.  Driving by Newark seems to fatigue me in a way that only the PA Turnpike does otherwise.

We said our good byes to Kacey, Mike cleaned his bathroom, I had a Fastbreak Bar, a relationship was ended, and we headed off to Chicago.  My car had again started to take on water due to a disconnected AC drainage pipe that my father was too far away to help me fix and the hydrological phenomenon christened “Lake Wanda” by Mike began to return.

Lake Wanda

Lake Wanda with Ear Plugs

The drive out to Chicago was rainy and somewhere in central Pennsylvania I was lucky enough to find the only Lil’ Ol’ Gas Station that both took American Express and had corn nuts, the closest I get to methamphetamines when I drive.  The route we took was the one I thought we always took but it felt new.  We weren’t digressing to Pittsburgh, or Cross Lanes, or Cincinnati, or Allentown and I think I found renewed novelty in the simplicity of “west”.  This novelty wore off quickly and as we drove through miles of night more and more brain cells were dedicated to holding onto the thought of “get there”.  Oh the rain.

Somewhere in Ohio we passed by a truck that was on fire.  Not just a little on fire but a lot of on fire.  The vehicle politely immolated itself well onto the shoulder and traffic was not impeded.  Sparks were coming from the drive train which indicated to me that it was a very hot fire.  The metals of the frame were starting to burn.  Mike and I felt the heat of the conflagration as we passed .  We tried waking Suzie but she slept through our attempts.  I wonder if our calls were translated into dreams or python code.

Somewhere in Indiana we were pulled over for speeding.  I was going 79 in a 70 zone and I was admonished by the officer for lying when I said we were going 76.  He told me not to lie and that if I did, he’d give me a ticket.  I received no ticket so I suppose he lied.  Irony.

When we arrived in Peter and Audrey’s welkin heaven I melted into the couch.  I was so tired of sitting I had to sit down.  Conversation was short and quickly descending into theory of self and the mind-body problem indicating it was time to call it a night.  Tomorrow, we had a/another garden to see.

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Suzie, Mike, Kacey, and I took the subway located immediately beneath the building in which we were staying to within a few blocks of where we were to have lunch.  At some point, Suzie bolted.  We caught up with her finding she’d seen the MasterChef contestant Derrick Prince and wanted to say hello.

From 2011-09-09 to 10 People Shots

In another bit of New York coincidence, lunch was delayed as the person we were meeting ran into her kindergarten teacher. (Appropriately) small world.

From 2011-09-09 to 10 People Shots

After lunch, Mike, Kacey, and I went to the New York Botanical Gardens and saw that my car had been ticketed.  I was clearly beyond the “NO PARKING” sign, but only after some Googling did I find that “NO STANDING” includes “NO PARKING”.  Thanks for explaining, New York City.

The Botanical Gardens were again gorgeous.

[flickr album=72157627550412087 num=30 size=Thumbnail]

That evening, we met up with Jon, a TI member whose life consists of extended bouts of the amazing interspersed with work as waiter and meeting Internetfolk.  He treated us to a lovely dinner in Little Italy followed by gelati.  At this rate, I’ll run into Jon in 2013 after he’s won the Nobel Prize in Chinese Fencing.

 

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My last fling of the already ended summer was to be a trip to NYC with Mike, Suzie, and Kacey, the last of whom I’d be meeting on the ride up.  I was tired from Suzie’s arrival the night before as we ate cheese in the office chairs around my kitchen table so I was worried about bringing out my A-game for meeting Mike’s friend Kacey.  In advance of this meeting, I asked if there were any triggers I should avoid, despite this, I managed to make a girlfriend, Hitler, Down Syndrome, and misogynist joke with the first 90 minutes of meeting her.  Good job, Terry.

Driving to New York was new to me and a combination of rain and fatigue made it harder still.  I stopped in Newark for gas which required me shepherding a gas attendant that was probably in his prime during the partition of India to the pump, showing him how to operate it, and then physically sliding his attendant car through the card reader so I could pump my own gas, all in one of two states where doing so is illegal.  We then stopped for a snack at McDonalds where a large man asked me for my change.  I gave it to him, it totaling some 72 cents, and he walked away from the parking lot whistling.  Newark, jewel of the Passaic.  [That’s for you, Kyle.  – Ed.]

Otherwise, the ride to New York was uneventful and the conversation for the evening could be summarized thusly.

The parking garage I wished to use was full so I had to resort to on-street parking.  I found a spot beyond a no standing sign but before a no parking sign, and we walked our things in the rain initially to the wrong apartment (sorry Mike, Suzie, and Kacey) and eventually to the right apartment which was on the 3rd floor (sorry Mike, Suzie, and Kacey).  The place would normally be considered cozy for four people but compared to the capsule of a room Mike, Suzie, and I had previously used at the Hotel Pennsylvania, this was an executive suite.  There was a kitchen-like area, a Venus flytrap/couch hybrid sometimes called a futon, and most importantly a floor space that nicely fit the air mattress.  There floor was laminate so every time I moved on the mattress it sounded like Kraftwerk’s version of whalesong.  Next time, I bring an extra sheet.

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The plasma television at work arrived quickly.  Amazon made sure of that.  The TV was unboxed quickly.  My area supervisor made sure of that.  The TV was mounted somewhat quickly.  Facilities made sure of that.  The TV was connected through a slow and tedious process that involved me eventually stepping in and saying “you’re busy men, how about I just do this?”  Computer support made sure of that.

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A house mate returned after some business travel and asked me about my new printer:

Him: How big will it print?
Me: 17″ x 22″
Him: Wow, how many colors does it use?
Me: 11.
Him: Impressive. Will it do business cards?
Me: Like standard 10 up business cards or individual ones?
Him: Individual ones.
Me: The minimum print size for this is 8″x10″.
Him: Well, I’m sure it’s very useful to you.

What printer on the face of the planet besides a business card printer will print onto an individual business card?  Franciscan Monk is the only thing I can think of or maybe a standard impact printer.  Maybe he has a foundry I don’t know about.  I’ve never been in his room.

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On my previous printer, I tore through different inks at different rates and was amazed to find that light magenta, AKA pink, was the color I most consumed.  I think it was due to a profile mismatch resulting in a ruddy hue suffusing each print but I’ve had no such problem on my new massive printer which instead is nearly empty of light light gray.  Not light light black, mind you, but light light gray.  I’ve run out of an ink cartridge that most printers simply don’t have.

My standard tactic with my previous printer was to always have a spare of each color on hand and I planned to extend that to my new printer as this often saves on shipping so added 1x of each of the 11 cartridges to my shopping cart and started the check-out process then stopped.

Was it the fact that the purchase totaled over $1100? No.
Was it the fact that it would take two paychecks to pay for ink? No.
Was it the fact that I would then have roughly 1/2 gallon of ink in my house? No.

It was the fact that the purchase was large enough to hit the one year no interest, no payments limit that the site from which I buy ink was offering.  I was going to finance an ink purchase.  It was with a heavy heart but my sense of financial prudence intact that I removed 10 items from cart, swallowed the slightly higher lifetime cost of multiple shipments, and hit the BUY button.  My tub of light light gray ink is on its way, cold and alone, with no friends.  I’m fine with that.

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Of all the life experiences I had culminating in my current job, working at RadioShack still ranks among the most useful.  It granted me the power to fake caring about what someone is saying AND set up a home theater system.  This skill was called upon when my area supervisor threw up his hands, yelled “I give up”, and asked me to select a flatscreen TV to replace the one in the CAD area that we used to play videos on tours.

My boss’s boss was keenly interested in the selection process and came by immediately upon learning the task had been passed to me.

Him: So, you’ll probably get a plasma?
Me: Plasmas generally consume more power and have burn-in issues if not properly maintained, that’s what did our last TV in.
Him: But the picture’s great.
Me: Modern LCD TVs are just as bright and rich.  We’ve figured out how to make good LCD TVs.
Him: But the contrast on plasma screens in remarkable.
Me: Backlit LED will do just as well.  I’ll see what the data says when I look for options.
Him: Ok. *leaves*
Supervisor: The guy that’s paying for us to get this and that can fire us requested a plasma.  I recommend you include that in your selection criteria.
Me: Noted.

First line from email sent at 4 PM that day. “I am pleased to announce I have selected the following plasma television for use by the CAD group”.