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Some work tasks require vigilance and not much else.  The test that waits for weight to drop, or a bag to burst, or a filter to fail all require nothing but attention and the technical acumen of a banana slug.  Normally, these tests mandate I check something periodically but I was tasked with troubleshooting a computer daemon where if it failed and was left unattended for six minutes or more it’d crash a server.  So, I had a lot of watchful waiting in my future.

My solution was to set a recurring alarm on my phone for every 330 seconds and to glance at the computer I remoted into and then go back to other things.  I knew I was going to have to do this for at least six hours and chose to play a video game to pass the time as it was 2 AM with little else to do.  The work computers aren’t particularly powerful so I opted for “And Yet It Moves“, an indie platformer that cost me $10.00.  The game ran well enough and I soon got into the rhythm on being interrupted glancing over, scanning for red, and returning.  I thought I had struck gold when two hours and 30 minutes into the minimum six hour observation period I beat the game.  I kept forgetting that “Indie” was old English for “short”.

So, I needed something I could do on a low power machine that fine with interruption and that I could get from the Internet without work noticing.  Time to download Freecell.

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I am an advocate of the idea that the biggest criterion in road trip partner selection is tolerability.  This may not seem like an insight of any worth but please do not conflate friendship with amicability as, for instance, Kyle is a good friend of mine but after seeing each other two days in a row there is a good chance blood will be spilled on the 3rd.  In comparison, Joe Naylor and I have had weeks where we spent 120 or more hours within 50 feet of one another and only after weeks of this am I hit with shoes.  Chris, Suzie, Mike, and I don’t appear to get on one another’s nerves and in cases where there’s tension, it’s usually my fault, often coupled with some sesquipedalian failure where I’m too clever by half.

I think breaking sleep synchrony was a genius move on Mike’s behalf, in that the first driver for the next day would call it a day early, and this may be the only mechanism for recovering from entering a road trip pre-fatigued.  This time, he graciously chose to call early nights; next time I need to volunteer.  Having Chris as a 3rd driver proved to be a blessing and I look forward to Suzie eventually getting her license should road trips still occur then.

This trip also marked I-95 losing its magic for me.  My first trip to Florida where I drove gave the road a grandness as a unifying force of the east coast, it is not.  Spurs and bypasses go around and back to major cities and enough of life is on some other corridor that the road no longer has the mental dominance in my internal US map that it once did.  There were stretches where I knew without signage where I was despite being four or five hundred miles from home and caught myself going “oh, this again”.  The only other stretch of road as far and as familiar is probably the stretch of I-35 between Dallas and Austin.  Maybe there’s a region beyond Boston where I-95 has majesty, but now it, like the PA Turnpike is another road that is as freeing as a straight jacket.

I think we were more human this trip.

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We woke at around 10, I with the intent of going to Miami, Chris, Suzie, and Mike with the simple imperative of “home”.  Miami would require a 28-hour day so with man-tears I contacted Mitch and Alex to say that this wasn’t a good time for a reunion and we headed north.  I started driving and near the top of Georgia, lost focus on the road for a moment only to have it return with a stopped but growing in my vision.  I hit the brakes, hard and swerved into the right lane when I found my brakes weren’t properly engaging and fishtailed into the grassed area next to an off ramp.  Somewhere in there, my engine had cut out and I was relieved when the car started properly.

No one died, so I bought some peach rings while getting gas (hey, we were on an off ramp) and again, north.

Chris departed at Greensboro, NC and Mike, Suzie, and I again went north.  I was having trouble sleeping so started to listen to Solaris on audiobook.  It. Was. Amazing.  My love of some parts proved quite audible and were dubbed “bookgasms”.  If you have an audible account, get it.  I finished it as the sun rose over Philadelphia.

Good trip.

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Bob’s house had an almost hypnotic draw to it with clean white lines, wifi, and perpetual Starcraft II matches on the big screen.  Pulling away from the last nearly required a crowbar but my imperative to move on turned me into the jerk required to jump start the next leg.  We arrived at the hotel in the early afternoon and for the first time in the trip had a space to our own.  Suzie had a chance to luxuriate and do girly hair maintenance things while Mike, Chris, and I attempted to use the pool.  We found the pool, the towels, and the lightning that made the trifecta of attempting to enter a body of water in Florida and frowned as, yet again, there would be no pool visit on this trip.

Sometime in the deep dark long long ago of my semi-adulthood, Kyle moved to Florida.  We were fake good friends when we were together in Bucks County as we were both bored and under-engaged.  He moved to Florida and we took turns disappointing the other person in calling, emailing, or even notifying about the goings on of the others life except for semi-annual marathons.  The dam broke when Kyle moved back in 2007 and I decided that I was going to give this adulthood thing a try.  We both made a genuine effort and I think it paid off and it was with simultaneous joy and dread that I saw him off again this year.  He had a future that was not in Warminster as I should have had a future that was not in Feasterville and within months I had a visit date on the calendar.  I was doing it right this time, dammit.

The car ride to the restaurant, dinner, and the drive to our evening spot had the liquid grace of gravel in coal tar with a verbal staccato borne of fatigue.  I had forgotten the pidgin borne of a thousand eyebrow raises, smirks, laughs and eye rolls that formed a sort of linguistic secret handshake where each motion says “I know you”.  I didn’t know how to integrate the bottom-up narrative I had of Kyle with the top-down narrative I had of Mike, Chris, and Suzie.   I had forgotten how to talk to him.

After getting gas and act of sticker terrorism, we went to some site of golf potentiation and traded quips in the noisy quietude of an open cab vehicle.  Words began returning.
Shotcrobatics

This shot?  Totally safe to take.

Chris in Praise

Chris shows/fakes joy.

NOM

Fenris.

Suzie Drove

Suzie drives.

I think there was a novelty to being in neither a car nor on foot that made the mini-adventure freeing.  The bugs became annoying and then mouth-filling around dusk so we left for ice cream.

Coldstone Creamery combined two things I love: ice cream and people who try too hard.  In this store, one could watch such awesome ice cream prep maneuvers as the scoop drop, the ingredient over-add, the stale cone pass, and awkward tip request.  Each of these moves was delivered with a practiced amateurishness, a phrase that I didn’t even think was possible until I just wrote it.

Mike, Suzie, and Chris returned to the hotel room and Kyle and I returned to his house for what turned out to be the real visit.  We asked each other non-specific questions with no definite answers and gave none and we were at peace again.  I returned to the hotel room, took a long walk, changed my cell plan, and turned in for the night.

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Suzie, Reuben, Chris and I stayed up late prattling like school girls and Mike opted to be the responsible one and sleep a reasonable amount.  Thank you, Mike.

We rose at the crack of 10:30 and I picked off the last of the fruit salad after Reuben’s dad showed us the glories of a man and his quest to make a bear suit and after learning that, while awesome, the Atlanta Aquarium cost $40 a head, we opted for the vastly freer Fernbank Science Center.  Along the way, we picked up Grant at the University of Atlanta where in the distance of three blocks I was reminded of all the things I hated about college including loud bad music, people with the sartorial splendor of sock puppets, and liberal arts majors yelling about things.  On the way out, we passed a vagrant asking for money to whom I yelled “quijon, unt brocojantore!” my stock response to panhandlers.  It’s a line I picked up from an MCI commercial for international calling from at least a dozen years ago and it seems to silence them.

The science center was about as good as free science center can reasonably get but at least had clever signs:
Tiny Lungs

Inside, they had displays on bees and space.  I can’t really think of what else you’d need in a science museum after that with a display of a monkey in a capsule and a depiction of the lunar surface reminiscent of a failed under-chocolated brownie but we pressed on and explored their nature trail.  The mark of an urban nature trail is that it is paved and terminates at an artificial duck pond, this one had both and our group registered its approval by placing a TI sticker on the sign-in log.

We stopped for lunch at “The Varsity”, a classic-style of eatery where cashiers shout for the next person and you’re passed if you don’t make up your mind quickly.  The food tasted of grease, orange, and repressed racial strife which seemed appropriate considering the comparatively small portions and after crushing our frosted oranges, we headed again south.

Driving to Tampa was uneventful and it was good to see Bob again.  His is a face I’ve never seen marred by sadness nor a wit dulled by cynicism.  We ate at Steak ‘n’ Shake and my triumph of the evening was leaving with no food on my shirt.  Bob had brought the housemates that seemed to compose his ersatz but happy family.  Also attending were <tk lord slapnut> and his adorable daughter Zoey.  She received TI stickers with great jubilation and proceeded to slap all the ones she could get her hands on (10 or so) to her car seat.

Bob and I went on a question “for that guy that was on our team whose head was kind of misshapen.”  It was Surprised Face.

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I had the goal of reaching Greensboro, NC by noon to pick up Chris Dodds and then meet Aidan by lunch necessitating Suzie, Mike, and I leaving my house by 4 AM.  Part of why Mike and I get along well is a valuing of time. If we set a deadline or target point, we intend to keep it, and having previously done spot-on departures at 8 AM and 6 AM, we considered 4 AM a reasonable next step.  Suzie literally didn’t sleep but still nearly missed our 4 AM departure time and as the target minute approached and she hurriedly packed in not-quite terror as Mike and I simply began shoving her belonging into things, some of which were my car.  4 AM rolled around and we were beyond the boundary of my driveway meaning that, having reaching our target leave time, the road trip gods would shower favor upon us.

The drive to Greensboro, NC was uneventful but I slept fitfully.  Mike enjoys podcasts, as do I, but I have great trouble falling asleep in the presence of human speech (work meetings excluded) so when I woke to Gary Whitta and Will Smith on Tested, I smiled, having planned for this, and put in ear plugs… which succeeded in merely dampening the road noise making the voices come through clearly.  I then put on noise-cancelling headphones which also just made the voices still further clarion.  Mike politely switched to music until I was back to sleep and then switched back to podcasts until I was awake again when he switched it back to music but only after I talked to him for like 45 minutes during time I said I had to sleep.  I am still a terrible passenger.

We picked up Chris on time and strolled around Greensboro attributing quotes on statues to the wrong people as Aidan was running late.  I also got a nice picture of a very pretty rain spout/gutter track.
Tonemapped Rain Gutter

I enjoyed meeting Aidan, but on reflection it was somewhat odd. One could say I met a fellow member of Team Interrobang or one could say I abducted an under-aged student I met online, taking him from his French class, took him to a pub, surrounded him with beer, took dozens of pictures of him, and then trespassed on school property to return him. He didn’t seem to mind.

Technology, bringing people together
I don’t know if Chris’s tattoos would help or hurt him being charged with pederasty.

After our hurried late lunch, we arrived early for a hurried early dinner where we met Chris and Jody who gave us the fruit of her apiary. It’s a testament to the maturity of my group that no one made a “we tasted your girlfriend’s honey” joke but that may have been from us having been dead tired. Dinner passed nicely at Carrabba’s and I learned far more about barrel-racing and Mac repair than I thought I would today.

2326-toatlanta-20110825

Chris and Jody may be relocating in a bit. I look forward to their new home being possibly more on the way to other points I tend to more often traverse.

Our last stop for the day was outside of Atlanta to stay with Reuben. Reuben was glad to see us:
Reuben Derps

I had experienced a 36 hour day by the time I called it a night. I’m glad there was fruit salad.

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I had six items on my To Do Before Florida and realizing I’d only be able to finish two, I opted for the important one: drag Mike and Suzie to the Churchville Nature Center and photograph the shit out of them.  Why there now?  Because everything looks good over the Churchville Reservoir during the golden hour.

Friends w/Framing
If they were both 40 to 50 years older, this could have been used in a Cialis commercial.

Mike Sad
Mike’s frown doesn’t look like a frown so much as an upside down smile, a la a Kiddy City commercial from the very early 90s.

Eye as Mirror
I’m a sucker for “eye as mirror” shot. Although in every one that contains me I look like a stalker, the 200mm lens here didn’t help.

Finally, humility:
Gratuitious Sunset HDR
This photo simply sucks. It lacks composition, balance, proper tonemapping technique and is an abuse of the tools humanity has crafted to make good pictures great.

We returned to my house after dinner and the evening wound down. Mike got to bed early (unusual for Mike), I largely skipped sleep (unusual for me), as did Suzie (in no way unusual for Suzie).

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Dad: I thought Sneakers was peeing everywhere because his litter box was a solid block but he’s still doing it.
Me: When did you clean out his bin?
Dad: Two, three weeks ago.
Me: You have to do it more often, probably weekly.
Dad: Why would people put up with that?
Me: Well, you changed diapers a few times a day for years.
Dad: Good point.  I like the cat more than most babies.  I can change the litter once a week.

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OA work weekends are events driven partly by planning and partly by force of personality on behalf of the youth and adults of the lodge.  Normally, a non-trivial part of the latter is Mike Shavel and his attention to people’s needs that borders some people wrongly interpret as obsequiousness.  He has attended near every lodge event for the past five years, sometimes going to comical extent to do so, “I traded two vacations for the right to be away on Mothers’ Day” and such.  Mike was away this weekend and event turn out was unusually high.  The weather held up and after a successful auction, I spoke with another adviser:

Me: Seems like everything went well this weekend.
Adviser: Yep.  A bit heavy on the last minute registration but that’s a happy problem.
Me: What about the ceremonies?
Adviser: Still below where we should be, but better than usual.
Me: The food seemed ok too.  Nothing ran out even with the attendance overage.
Adviser: Yeah, don’t tell Mike.
Me: Why?
Adviser: He might get the idea in his head that he can spend time with his family.
Me: Someone’s gotta keep his bald spot growing.

Maybe we’ll get lucky and there will be a freak lightning strike during the lodge meeting.