This is where I've chosen to spend my long weekend

Can I call 'em or what?

Hippie state native

As usual, I've been letting my bottles and cans pile up beneath the sink, and on Sunday I finally hauled them out to the car and headed to the supermarket.

So I wandered around Wegmans for a good 10 minutes the other day looking for the bottle and can return machines. I started near the main entrance. No dice. Then I went down a level to the wine section. Nope. I went back up to the main level and went outside to the loading dock area. Nada.

I finally went to the customer service desk and got a blank look from the woman there before she told me, a puzzled tone in her voice, "We don't have one of those at this store."

And then it hit me: They don't have bottle and can deposits down here, ergo no bottle and can return centers at supermarkets. I guess after 30 years of living in states where they do charge deposits that it's a hard habit to break. Until Sunday, I hadn't even noticed that I hadn't been paying the extra 60 cents on a 12-pack of soda. (It also dawned on me that I haven't seen homeless people picking through the trash for refundable cans.)

But it is nice to know I can just dump the things out with the rest of the curbside recycling. But living in crunchy states has had another effect on me, as I'm constantly annoyed that several of my neighbors don't seem to have a problem with dumping trash into the recycling bins. Sigh.

Handyman

My mom liked to tease us kids about our hands. She'd grab one with both of her hands and say, "So soft. Never seen a hard day's work."

This is a woman who'd been in the kitchen since she was a child and had a longtime cook's ability to reach into a hot oven without a mitt and grab a pan without so much as batting an eyelid. "Asbestos Hands," my sister dubbed her.

I was reminded of this the other night when I was slaving over my new desk from Ikea. "Gustav" is its name. (And, by the way, having finally made my first trip to an Ikea -- awesome! I realize I'm well behind the times here, but I don't care. Also, I'd like to know how many people Ikea employs to not only figure out how to deconstruct furniture so an idiot like me can put it together, but also how to get all those pieces to fit snugly together in a tiny, tiny box.)

Anyhow, the assembly of my bookcase ("Billy") went smoothly. But Gustav came with many, many screws and required a good deal of, um, screwing. And all those times I've been at Lowe's and thought, "Gee, I really should pick up a cordless drill" but did nothing about it came back to haunt me.

And as I watched a fat blister grow on my middle finger, I thought about how my mom would have scoffed at me. (And how she'd probably have scoffed at furniture made of pressed wood and held together with screws, nails and dowels, as opposed to the hardwood with finely crafted dovetails she always sought out.)

But damn if I didn't still feel some sense of accomplishment, even if it was packaged and sold to me by a bunch of Swedes.

Shiny new laptop, Part II

You might remember that my previous employer incorrectly believed I would enjoy being able to work from outside the office.

It turns out my current employer is of the same school of thought, so they whisked away my desktop computer yesterday and handed me a laptop. This is all being done in the name of "business continuity," so that if, for instance, a snowstorm prevents us from getting to the office we can still work. Because who'd want a snow day? Not me!

Aside: The weather scenario was actually how they explained the decision to us, though it was totally obvious someone in a corner office somewhere was really thinking: "TERRORISTS!!! What if someone decides to take out our strategically important office park with a dirty bomb???" Living in the nation's capital is fun.

I think I'm actually OK with getting the laptop, which is a decent machine and comes with the bonus of company-paid access to WiFi pretty much anywhere, meaning I can use it a Starbucks or at a hotel without paying whatever outrageous fee they charge.

But the carrying case they gave me for this laptop is the most god-awful thing I've ever seen. It is proof that when you try to please everybody, you please nobody. Whoever designed this bag decided it would be grand if you could: 1. Carry it like a briefcase. 2. Wear it like a backback. 3. Sling it over your shoulder like a messenger bag. So, this thing probably has more straps and belts than your average dominatrix dungeon (not that I would know anything about what such a place would contain.)

I guess you could tout that as a safety feature -- it's so ugly no one in their right mind would steal it.

Go ahead, push the buttons for every floor

To go up two floors from the parking garage to my desk at work, I have to take one elevator, walk across the lobby, and then take another elevator. It probably takes a little over a minute, or, as I learned on Gizmodo, nearly twice as long as it takes the elevators at Taipei 101 to go from the fifth floor to the 89th.

I was in the Taipei 101 building in January, but after the observation deck had closed. So we wandered around the shopping mall at the base of the tower -- which is pretty darn impressive in itself, with various levels dedicated to Asian luxury shops, European luxury shops and U.S. luxury shops. (I had the most fun, though, checking out a supermarket obviously aimed at U.S. and Canadian customers, with various goodies from home.)

There also was the requisite food court and a section of upscale dining, where we had, a bit surprisingly, somewhat mediocre Chinese food (Shanghai cuisine, I believe.) Moral of the story: Fine dining and shopping malls don't mix anywhere in the world.

Hey, two posts in one day!

Washington's Chinatown, which consists of such authentic eateries as Chipotle, McDonald's, Legal Sea Foods, Ruby Tuesday and so on, along with quaint shops including CVS, Urban Outfitters and Bed, Bath & Beyond, has been much more accurately described as Chinablock. And even that might be a bit of a stretch.

Thus, it's nice to go to New York's Chinatown, even if the traditional neighborhood -- like its counterparts in Toronto, San Francisco and Vancouver -- is a shadow of its former self, with much of the population gone to the outer boroughs and the suburbs.

Before I headed up to New York, I found what looked to be a gem on Chowhound. The camera phone shot doesn't do it justice, but this steamed pork bun was about 50% larger than what you'd get at your standard dim sum place. Plus it was filled a pretty impressive portion of barbecue pork, and not the bright-red variety found in most buns.

The absolute best part? The buggers cost 70 cents each, so I had two. (Interesting side note: There is, sigh, a Starbucks down Canal Street from this place, so I decided to brave the tourists and go in there to sit and snack on my buns. This Starbucks does not attempt to make a nod to its Chinatown location -- I don't think the one in D.C.'s Chinablock does, either -- but I did note that one large bank in Chinatown has broken from its corporate color scheme and put up a giant red sign, red being the color symbolizing good fortune in Chinese culture. Someone in marketing is up for a bonus, methinks.)

Anyway, as part of my trip to New York I had decided to cram as much food down my throat as possible, so I hit up a burger joint in the West Village I've read a lot about and been dying to try since it opened last fall. For fancy-pants burgers, I have long been partial to this one in Portland, which had the bonus of being available across the street from the office. The Pinesburger also is hard to beat. I really, really like BLT Burger a lot. The burger I had could have used a touch more seasoning, and the bun is a bit wimpy. But damn, the meat is good. Plus, the bar snack is this ridiculously amazing spicy, cheesy popcorn, which the bartender said they make in-house. Toss in a couple of Brooklyn Lagers, and I was quite content.

But that didn't mean I didn't grab a slice of pepperoni before hopping on the train home.

Road warrior

It occurred to me last night on the train from New York to D.C. that I've racked up a decent number of travel miles this year. Maybe not so much for someone who travels regularly for work, but quite a few for the average person. Yesterday's trip falls into the Somewhat Silly category -- as opposed to personal or work -- as it struck me that I'd spent about six hours on the train and a few hundred dollars to go to the bank.

(Long story short: It was a transaction that had to take place in person, and this particular bank's closest location was in New York.)

So -- not that you're terribly interested, but more for my amusement and personal informal recordkeeping -- is what I've been up to this year:

JANUARY

• In Ithaca for New Year's
• In Taiwan to visit family
• In Ithaca to visit friends

FEBRUARY

• In Portland for an Oscars party (this being the other trip that falls into the Slightly Silly category)

MARCH

• Job interview in D.C.
• Visiting Ithaca again
  

APRIL

• Another job interview in D.C.
• Conference in Miami

MAY

• Vacation in Portland
• Catching up with friends in New York
• Move from Connecticut to D.C.
  

JUNE

• Teaching in South Dakota
• Vacation in Ithaca

AUGUST

• Consulting trip to Florida (And, yes, it was a surprise to me anyone thought I had something interesting to say.)

SEPTEMBER

• In Ithaca yet again

OCTOBER

• Vacation in San Francisco and Portland

NOVEMBER

• Banking in NYC

So, if you're keeping score, that's about 40,000 air miles and a few thousand by car.

No wonder I'm tired.