+2 for me

I got a bonus state this weekend. And with a little effort, I could've added a third one.


Also, I should note that I showed some remarkable restraint today. We took the students to a water park, and at one point I went on the bumper boats ride. I was planning to just float around and maybe bump a few folks, but this little bastard decided he had it in for me and was just laying into me with his water cannon for a good minute or two.

So the bad news is I got a lot more soaked then I was planning to. The good news is it was a hot day, so I dried off quickly. That, and I'm not in prison on homicide charges.

A series of unfortunate decisions

I was a bit sad when I returned to the East Coast and had to deal with humidity again.

So then I moved to Washington.

I was pleased to get out of the humidity in Washington for a few days.

And I went to visit the humidity in South Dakota.

Conclusion: Six-plus years in the Northwest pretty much seals your fate as a weather wuss for your remaining time on this planet.

Initial impressions

* Driving in South Dakota is easy. You make a couple of turns out of the airport to get onto the interstate, and then you drive in a straight line for X miles until you reach your destination. The speed limits are 75 on the interstate and 70 on state highways, but it's a big state.

* Even here, a college town is a college town. The cafe where I had lunch today offered a full slate of vegetarian meals and had several varieties of oolong tea available in bulk.

* Working with a group of sharp, motivated college students does a lot to restore your faith in the world. (Also, I do surprisingly well in front of a class on one hour of sleep.)

Out of sight, out of mind

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Presentation leaves a lot to be desired

I've always thought that even at their best, a lot of fast-food ads don't do much to make sure their food looks, you know, appetizing in TV ads. Examples: Carls Jr., KFC's bowl thingy.

Now there's a site that proves these meals look even worse when you order them.

As an aside, I went to a highly touted local burger joint yesterday and was once again disappointed because it suffered from thin-patty syndrome. You know, the burgers that are the thickness you might find at a fast-food joint or in one of those packs of 20 in the supermarket freezer.

The burger tasted decent enough (it was "Virginia Kobe," whatever that is), but I was reminded of a similarly exalted place back in Portland that suffered from the same problem. I guess some people enjoy their burgers on that scale, but I prefer the ones that you almost need a fork and knife to eat. (But you must NEVER actually use utensils to eat a burger.) Actually, I have a whole thing on burger rules that I really need to get to one of these days, but I won't bore you with that right now.

Inappropriate picture

As mentioned below, the lacrosse games I went to on Saturday drew 52,000.

Naturally, I all I have is a picture of thousands of empty seats. It was taken between games of the doubleheader. During the games, most of the lower two bowls were filled, as were the lower rows of the upper decks along the sidelines. I was 25 rows up in the upper deck, but I like to sit high at sports events. Since it was a 70,000-seat NFL stadium, I was waaay up there, but the bonus was a nice breeze on a hot and humid day.

I discovered in Portland that my digital camera seems to be on its last legs, so I didn't bother to bring it to the game. But my phone does an OK job of taking pictures, and it's really much more convenient. I just need to take more appropriate shots.

Not pictured is the young girl who was sitting directly in front of me. If you've never been to a lacrosse game, it's common for youngsters to bring sticks to games and play catch in the parking lot. Why they bring them into the stadium, I've never figured out. Anyhow, the girl had a stick and decided to wave it around whenever the teams she was rooting for (Johns Hopkins in the first game and Cornell in the second game) did something good. (And for about 2 quarters of the Cornell game, she wasn't doing too much waving, sadly.)

She usually would just hold the stick straight up in the air and twirl it, which was fine. But she'd also swing it forward and backward, leaving me anticipating a bloody nose for much of the afternoon. But she never did whack me, so I guess I should point out to her youth coach that she appears to have decent stickhandling skills.

Notes from the road

I generally try to avoid Interstate 95 at all costs, but as I headed south on Friday afternoon, I noticed traffic wasn't all that bad. In fact, the worst part of my trip was on I-84 from Connecticut to Newberg Newburgh, N.Y; it took me nearly 2 hours to get that far, almost an hour longer than usual. I did decide to give New York City a wide berth, and I hooked up with 95 just south of the city in New Jersey. I mention this only because I spent a good portion of Friday pestering people about driving from Connecticut to D.C. So, now you know how I got here.

A few observations:

* Having lived in states without tolls for the past 8 years, I forgot that going any distance on 95 can be costly. I also resolved to get myself an EZ-Pass tag ASAP. I also thought that tolls in New York were bad, but I learned that Delaware is king here. In the 15 minutes it takes to get across the state on 95, there are 2 toll plazas that will set you back a total of $6. I'm guessing that since Delaware is a wee state, these tolls make up a significant portion of the highway budget. Either that, or they just want to make people actually stop in the state for a minute or two, instead of just breezing through.

* Also, I had not eaten at a highway service plaza for the better part of a decade. When I was a lad and the family took a trip to Washington, we stopped at a service plaza with a Roy Rogers. I remember this because not long after we departed the restaurant, we had to pull the car over to the side of the highway so I could vomit out the door.

So of course when I saw a plaza with a Roy Rogers on the Jersey Turnpike, I had to stop and grab dinner. (It also was getting close to 8 p.m. and I hadn't eaten all day, so maybe the trip wasn't 100 percent motivated by nostalgia.) In any event, I observed that the people who stop to eat at fast-food joints in highway service plazas probably shouldn't be eating anything resembling fast food. It was a pretty compelling illustration of U.S. obesity statistics. So, I had 2 pieces of fried chicken, a biscuit and a Coke, figuring I've still got 70 or 80 pounds to play with.

* My temporary housing is quite nice -- and it should be, given what the company is shelling out for this place. If anyone wanted to save large corporations money, they should tell them to pay market rate for stuff like this. It's not quite the military spending $500 on a hammer, but it's close.

* After driving for nearly 8 hours Friday, I decided the wise thing to do Saturday was to get right back in the car and take the 100-mile round trip to Baltimore to see the NCAA men's lacrosse semifinals. They set an attendance record with 52,000. My alma mater came up short, albeit in thrilling fashion.

* I moaned about the severe lack in dining options in Connecticut, but I'm off to a flying start in Virginia. On my way to Baltimore, I noticed a banh mi shop in a strip mall near my apartment. On the way home, I stopped in. The sandwiches were $2.50 each on the menu, so I decided to order 2 just in case they were on the small side. They weren't, so I got 2 meals for $5. There's also a pho place in this mall, so I'll have to try that place, too.

That's all for now; more to come, I'm sure...

Family planning

If you're not a parent and are looking for an excuse to remain not a parent, I recommend spending a week in a house whose residents include a 2-month-old boy and his older brother, who is just shy of 3.

My two nephews are great, but I have very little envy for my sister and brother-in-law at this point. I realized earlier tonight that I've been up before 9 a.m. for seven days straight, something that probably hasn't happened in at least 10 years. (Those of you who have normal jobs will scoff at that, but I'm used to working nights.)

In any event, I've had a lovely week hanging out in my old stomping grounds in Portland, and in a few hours I'll be headed back to Connecticut for the very last time (yay!). The movers come Friday, so I'll have a couple of frantic days of throwing stuff into the dumpster and scrubbing the bathroom before I go.

Stale blog alert!

In a few days, I'll be headed West for a week to meet my new nephew before I make the big move to D.C.

So apologies in advance if this blog is spotty for the next couple of weeks; I promise to get back on a regular basis once I'm settled.

100% drop in bling coming

One of my town's most famous residents is, sadly, leaving the neighborhood. I've never seen him, but I've heard reports that 50 Cent frequents the upscale grocery store across the street from my place.

The mansion used to be owned by Mike Tyson, and it seems that Mr. Cent has done quite a bit of work on the residence after buying it in 2003 for $4.1 million.

If you're interested, the house has 18 bedrooms, 37 bathrooms, a full gym, two billiard rooms, racquetball courts and a disco.

According to one real estate agent, 50 Cent has "put a lot into it, and it's all very tasteful, except the stripper poles."

But in fairness to the rapper, I doubt the agent knows there are stripper poles, and then there are stripper poles.