According to the letter of the law, I was, however technically, previously a homeowner. We are now in a new house, though, and this is the first time I feel like a home-owner. Something about being there for the inspection and walking through all the components of the house made a notable difference--I am the person who knows the most about everything. Unpacking has been a bear: we had a storage unit already, and got a second to get things out of the old house in order to show it, and both of these had to be cleaned out by the end of the month. In other words, we spent two, two and a half months slowly getting everything ready to go, and now we fight the daily battle to bring order from chaos. At least most of the furniture is in place.
Random items of interest, loosely defined:
°After believing myself to have remained bookshelf-neutral for the last two years (no mean feat), it turns out we will need at least one more bookshelf, and this after having punted out all my cookbooks to a separate location.
°We had a maddening ant problem shortly after arrival. The ants were maddening because they would only ever show up one at a time, or in groups of ten or less, and never take us to their point of ingress. Patient walking around the foundation has found two candidates, which will hopefully put us on course to solving the problem.
°I mowed the lawn this weekend, for what I estimate to be the first time since 1998. It was in the course of doing so that I discovered, appearances notwithstanding, that almost none of the yard is flat or uniform in its slope.
°Talking with one of the neighbors, I learned that the previous owner nuked the lawn last year by applying undiluted weed-killer to it. The entire (dead) yard had to be dug up and re-sodded. This is why my lawn looks better than anyone else's.
°The lawn mower came with two sets of instructions, one from the mower manufacturer and one from the motor manufacturer. They frequently, amusingly, referred me to the other manual ("there's probably something about this in the other one, I dunno"). The assembly instructions were charmingly inaccurate and very forthright about it--("we don't really know what your lawn mower will be like when it ships, so here's a guess about what you might need to do"). More amusingly they would occasionally directly contradict each other ("DO NOT USE FUEL WITH ETHANOL IT WILL DESTROY THE MOTOR RIGHT AWAY" vs. the motor manual's "Anything 10% ethanol or below is fine and doesn't need treatment").
°The neighbors are all freakishly demographically close to our family, which we would not otherwise have been able to guess. They are all nice and laid-back, very much unlike our old neighborhood. I also believe I have met this neighborhood's Bobby Cobb, and he and I will get along just fine.
"Thou shalt not extinguish thine anger, but shall master it,
that thy conscience may not be blunted by adjustment
to wrong causes."
-The Dutch Ten Commandments to Foil the Nazis
Showing posts with label I assume if you're reading this you have at least a passing interest in the trivia of my life. Show all posts
Showing posts with label I assume if you're reading this you have at least a passing interest in the trivia of my life. Show all posts
6.4.15
6.1.15
I had the oddest sensation when I finished The Military Philosophers, of having come to the end of something quite significant, and knowing that though there was more, it was not going to be like what had come before, and it raised the desire to avoid starting in on a new book, to give me some time to think about and remain under the effect of that one. The sensation is odd because it's the very one that Nick has at the end of The Military Philosophers, after attending the end-of-war Victory Service at St. Paul's in London: the feeling that something momentous had happened that he couldn't quite appreciate.
1.1.15
Yo La Tengo, "Big Day Coming"
12.12.14
One of the things I find weirdly admirable about W.H. Auden is the fact that his two most famous poems--"September 1, 1939" and "Spain 1937"*--are not in his 900+ page Collected Poems, and do not appear in a variety of other collections of his work. I wrote a paper about this where I called it "denying legitimacy without denying authorship." The poems, he felt, took advantage of rhetorical tricks to say things that were poetically compelling but false: "we must love one another or die." They created a false moral and martial sense that he found politically irresponsible despite--perhaps because--of their popularity. He spent a few years attempting to fix the poems, eventually concluding that to say the true thing would be to destroy the poem, but he also could not be associated with something he believed to be false. But he also would not disown having written these things. The solution of declining to allow them to be anthologized is an elegant halfway position: he needn't deny the reality of having written them in the first place, but he also needn't give them the imprimatur of representing his current beliefs--or even an acceptable belief for someone else to have.
All of which is prolegomena to saying that I have very mixed feelings about writing on the internet. The archives of this blog are hidden to the casual viewer--not hard to find if you know how to look--because I've been writing it since 2002 and have held a wide variety of opinions since then, not all of which I would endorse today (like any person who writes for long enough, I am certain to say ill-advised things even if my opinions of the moment are always correct and true). And occasionally I write something that seems 60% done, and hit 'publish,' and think better of it--or come to realize I have communicated ineffectively. When that happens, I feel slightly more content than the rest of the internet to remove the offending bit and try again later. I know this is well outside standard internet practice, but it's the thing I feel comfortable with: there are many forms of writing which are irreversible, but this one isn't.
*Funny also that the decision to not anthologize has reduced the prominence of "Spain 1937", but not "September 1, 1939".
All of which is prolegomena to saying that I have very mixed feelings about writing on the internet. The archives of this blog are hidden to the casual viewer--not hard to find if you know how to look--because I've been writing it since 2002 and have held a wide variety of opinions since then, not all of which I would endorse today (like any person who writes for long enough, I am certain to say ill-advised things even if my opinions of the moment are always correct and true). And occasionally I write something that seems 60% done, and hit 'publish,' and think better of it--or come to realize I have communicated ineffectively. When that happens, I feel slightly more content than the rest of the internet to remove the offending bit and try again later. I know this is well outside standard internet practice, but it's the thing I feel comfortable with: there are many forms of writing which are irreversible, but this one isn't.
*Funny also that the decision to not anthologize has reduced the prominence of "Spain 1937", but not "September 1, 1939".
17.11.14
How Southern Drivers Become Unable to Cope With Snow
Snow is in the forecast for Durham this weekend, and though it will most assuredly not happen, I thought I'd share this story from last winter:
On a Sunday morning last year, I was making the decision about whether or not to go to church. Though the odds of precipitation were low, there was a very small chance of ice or snow while I was in the service. As a driver who learned to drive in the midwest, I have no fear of snow or ice and total confidence in my ability to navigate them. This is true even in Durham, where the winter road preparations are, let's say, haphazard: the city at least owns snow plows, salt, and brine, even if it shows little understanding of how to use them.
No, the real problem is the other drivers. The first year I was here, Durham received a quarter-inch of snow, and the local news featured stories of people who ran out of gas at intersections because no one would even attempt to drive. Last year, we had a snow of 2-4 inches that fell in the afternoon, and caused chaos. Admittedly, the storm came on quickly, getting the first half inch in about an hour. The preferred solution for many drivers was to abandon their cars by the side of the road or, when needed, in the road itself.
Faced with the possibility of drivers like these, I did the only sensible thing and decided to stay home.
And that is how to take a northern driver and turn him into a southerner who is afraid to go out because it might snow.
On a Sunday morning last year, I was making the decision about whether or not to go to church. Though the odds of precipitation were low, there was a very small chance of ice or snow while I was in the service. As a driver who learned to drive in the midwest, I have no fear of snow or ice and total confidence in my ability to navigate them. This is true even in Durham, where the winter road preparations are, let's say, haphazard: the city at least owns snow plows, salt, and brine, even if it shows little understanding of how to use them.
No, the real problem is the other drivers. The first year I was here, Durham received a quarter-inch of snow, and the local news featured stories of people who ran out of gas at intersections because no one would even attempt to drive. Last year, we had a snow of 2-4 inches that fell in the afternoon, and caused chaos. Admittedly, the storm came on quickly, getting the first half inch in about an hour. The preferred solution for many drivers was to abandon their cars by the side of the road or, when needed, in the road itself.
Faced with the possibility of drivers like these, I did the only sensible thing and decided to stay home.
And that is how to take a northern driver and turn him into a southerner who is afraid to go out because it might snow.
18.7.13
On Reading James Baldwin
At the end of the academic year, as a final reading for Classics of Social and Political Thought, I gave my students James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time. There were a number of reasons for this: one of the climactic scenes takes place in Hyde Park, at a house they could easily walk to; it updates the conversation on race through the mid-60s, and gives them something newer than W.E.B. DuBois to think about; it allows them an option on racial questions that avoids lionizing Malcolm X or martyring Martin Luther King, both of which flatten the contradictions that make them interesting and admirable. Baldwin ends by conjuring up visions of black America on the south side of Chicago, and everywhere. His repeated line is "what happens to all that beauty?"--all those lives that are lost or forgotten.
I also assign it because I read it shortly after the end of my freshman year of college, and it had a profound effect on me. Baldwin came to me from Cornel West, who directed me to DuBois, and Malcolm X, and many of the other highlights of black American culture. I assigned it because I wanted it to have the effect on someone else that it had on me: a life-shaking realization of what the world was like for people who were not me. One might be inclined to view this as an example of thinking literature can change people: it certainly changed me. But, I have come to realize, it changed me because I was prepared to be changed.
Some relevant facts about me not otherwise known to the internet:
*From approximately 7th grade to approximately 10th grade, I was bullied. I've had a very slight sibilant S since childhood, which sounds not unlike a lisp, on occasion. I was tall and skinny and not particularly interested in sports or cars; I liked to read. This made me a target, and the epithets of choice implied homosexuality. These threats were mostly that--threats--except for a few brief incidents. But the threat of violence is psychologically damaging in its own way. Sure, the kids in the pickup truck who stopped as I was walking down the street to yell "fag!" at me were probably not going to get out of said truck and make good on their threats, but probabilistic knowledge is cold comfort. I had some small consolation in the fact that the basis of their threats was untrue and, lo and behold, the threats dried up not soon after I started dating my first girlfriend, but there's something about knowing you might be subject to violence for no reason under your control that's hard to shake.
*From 10th grade or so until my sophomore year of college, I had long hair. I have been stopped and frisked by the police for the crime of sitting on a friend's car (and been singled out from the people I was with for that honor), and been frustrated by the indifference that attached to attempting to report someone's official misbehavior--city and state police shuttled me back and forth so many times, each denying responsibility, that I eventually gave up. I've had the experience of store owners send employees around to follow me and make sure I don't shoplift or otherwise cause trouble (and make sure I saw them so I knew it was intentional). When I took introductory philosophy as a freshman, the instructor asked if any of us had this particular experience--the only other one to raise her hand was the one person of color.
My experience was not the universe of experiences: I was only subject to force, never viewed as a threat. It was limited: only a few minutes or hours or random days through a small number of years. It also no longer applies: I look like the sort of person who gets called 'sir' when I wear a suit, and I do. (I additionally had the defiant-teen's ultimate defense, that the various charges stated or implied against me weren't true)
But I think about that radical element that's always been present in my political views, the way in which it was obvious to me that Baldwin was right, that the experience Malcolm X described actually happened, that Ralph Ellison had correctly apprehended both the white and black experience of racial interaction, and it becomes apparent that I responded to all that work because I was primed to recognize the truth in it. The victory it gives is minor: I'm not sure I'm a better person for having read it, though it does make one more aware of the ways in which one falls short, not an insignificant addition. You pick Baldwin because he recognizes all of it, including the continual struggle to be slightly better. It's hard to think of a more fitting task to direct people towards when they're young.
I also assign it because I read it shortly after the end of my freshman year of college, and it had a profound effect on me. Baldwin came to me from Cornel West, who directed me to DuBois, and Malcolm X, and many of the other highlights of black American culture. I assigned it because I wanted it to have the effect on someone else that it had on me: a life-shaking realization of what the world was like for people who were not me. One might be inclined to view this as an example of thinking literature can change people: it certainly changed me. But, I have come to realize, it changed me because I was prepared to be changed.
Some relevant facts about me not otherwise known to the internet:
*From approximately 7th grade to approximately 10th grade, I was bullied. I've had a very slight sibilant S since childhood, which sounds not unlike a lisp, on occasion. I was tall and skinny and not particularly interested in sports or cars; I liked to read. This made me a target, and the epithets of choice implied homosexuality. These threats were mostly that--threats--except for a few brief incidents. But the threat of violence is psychologically damaging in its own way. Sure, the kids in the pickup truck who stopped as I was walking down the street to yell "fag!" at me were probably not going to get out of said truck and make good on their threats, but probabilistic knowledge is cold comfort. I had some small consolation in the fact that the basis of their threats was untrue and, lo and behold, the threats dried up not soon after I started dating my first girlfriend, but there's something about knowing you might be subject to violence for no reason under your control that's hard to shake.
*From 10th grade or so until my sophomore year of college, I had long hair. I have been stopped and frisked by the police for the crime of sitting on a friend's car (and been singled out from the people I was with for that honor), and been frustrated by the indifference that attached to attempting to report someone's official misbehavior--city and state police shuttled me back and forth so many times, each denying responsibility, that I eventually gave up. I've had the experience of store owners send employees around to follow me and make sure I don't shoplift or otherwise cause trouble (and make sure I saw them so I knew it was intentional). When I took introductory philosophy as a freshman, the instructor asked if any of us had this particular experience--the only other one to raise her hand was the one person of color.
My experience was not the universe of experiences: I was only subject to force, never viewed as a threat. It was limited: only a few minutes or hours or random days through a small number of years. It also no longer applies: I look like the sort of person who gets called 'sir' when I wear a suit, and I do. (I additionally had the defiant-teen's ultimate defense, that the various charges stated or implied against me weren't true)
But I think about that radical element that's always been present in my political views, the way in which it was obvious to me that Baldwin was right, that the experience Malcolm X described actually happened, that Ralph Ellison had correctly apprehended both the white and black experience of racial interaction, and it becomes apparent that I responded to all that work because I was primed to recognize the truth in it. The victory it gives is minor: I'm not sure I'm a better person for having read it, though it does make one more aware of the ways in which one falls short, not an insignificant addition. You pick Baldwin because he recognizes all of it, including the continual struggle to be slightly better. It's hard to think of a more fitting task to direct people towards when they're young.
24.5.13
A few years ago, the AV Club ran a primer on Patsy Cline, and it was in the course of reading it that I realized that reading about her historical background is the same as reading about my grandparents' historical background, since they were alive at pretty much the same time--my grandmother was born two years after Cline--and, so far as I can tell, would have belonged to approximately the same social demographic, if not the same social circles. Consequently this was of great interest to me.
It's odd, being able to find out something of your own family's history from reading the history of a famous person, like being one of Rosencrantz's relatives who just happens to come across a summary of Hamlet that includes a bit of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, you know, for color.
It's odd, being able to find out something of your own family's history from reading the history of a famous person, like being one of Rosencrantz's relatives who just happens to come across a summary of Hamlet that includes a bit of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, you know, for color.
19.2.13
A Field Guide to Yo La Tengo:
Basic Information: Yo La Tengo's appeal lies almost entirely in their personality, but it can be hard for the uninitiated to know where to start. The band has been together in its current incarnation since 1991, consisting of married couple Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, and adorably weird heavyset man with strange hair James McNew. Amongst indie bands, they're known for their sense of humor. To wit:
(Additional hipster cred note: the video is a dead rip-off of De La Soul's for "Me, Myself and I")
They also perform pledge drives on New Jersey indie radio, with the (usually credible) promise that they can play anything (a number of these are collected on the aptly titled Yo La Tengo Is Murdering the Classics); they also perform an annual set of concerts for Hanukkah at Maxwell's in their native Hoboken, on something like the same premise. One of their songs has a dance. They are not people who take themselves too seriously.
Style: Indie guitar rock. Neither Georgia nor Ira can sing in the conventional sense, but they can maximize their skills with greater skill than technically superior singers. After McNew joined the band, they made two important musical alterations, and one important change to the lyrics. In their first three albums, Yo La Tengo tended toward typical late-80s fast guitar pop. Beginning with 1993's Painful, they slowed the tempo of the songs, and began using drone as the primary means of melody and harmony. The end result are songs that become intensely focused on the melody and its variations: the sound of the music attends the lyrical content closely, either heightening the mood or providing ironic contrast. Lyrically, Ira and Georgia began writing much more about (one presumes) the topics of their near experience, primarily marriage, and what it's like to be in a relationship that has gone on for a long time. The songs address fights and conflict just as much as romantic moments, and stress the happy mundanity of life with someone you get along with: monogamy has never sounded like a better proposition.
Where to Begin: There are two acknowledged classics, and two others at the same level, preference among which determines which "kind" of fan you are. The two classics:
I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One: in which the band goes eclectic. The earlier albums, as great as they are, tend to be exercises in doing one thing only (albeit better than anyone does it). This is where they branch out: bossa nova, country, surf, rinky-dink pop: short, catchy songs, longer exercises that don't overstay their welcome. The major lyrical themes all canvassed. Highlights: "Moby Octopad," "Suugarcube," "Deeper Into Movies." Personal favorite: probably still "Green Arrow." Avoid: "Spec Bebop," unless you like 12 minute atonal drone pieces.
...and then nothing turned itself inside out: the concept album. The concept, in this case, being "what it's like to be married to someone." Quieter and slower than any other album, but with more immediate returns than one might expect from a quiet and slow album. Highlights: "You Can Have It All," "Let's Save Tony Orlando's House" (named after one of Troy McClure's fake movies in The Simpsons), "The Last Days of Disco." Personal favorite: "Cherry Chapstick," a.k.a. 'the fast song.' Avoid: I've never been much of one for "Tired Hippo," but it's not a bad song.
Next:
Electr-o-pura: My personal favorite album of all time. Contains YLT's best 'single,' "Tom Courtenay." Possessed of the best guitar work of any of their albums. Look no further than to "Pablo and Andrea" for proof:
I mean, that guitar solo. Goodness. I'm not one to focus too much on lead guitar heroics, but it's incredible. Highlights: aside from the already-mentioned, "The Ballad of Red Buckets," "Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)," "Blue Line Swinger." Personal favorite: "Pablo and Andrea." Avoid: listen to this album all the way through.
Painful: some people think Painful is the great early YLT album. Those people are wrong. It has all the individual elements that would become great, but it lacks thematic coherence. But the tunes are solid. Has fiancee-reminding-me-of "Big Day Coming," which is a major plus. Highlights: "From a Motel 6," "Double Dare," "The Whole of the Law." Personal favorite: "Big Day Coming [Second Version]." Avoid: I usually stop after "The Whole of the Law," but there's no particular reason I do so.
Basic Information: Yo La Tengo's appeal lies almost entirely in their personality, but it can be hard for the uninitiated to know where to start. The band has been together in its current incarnation since 1991, consisting of married couple Ira Kaplan and Georgia Hubley, and adorably weird heavyset man with strange hair James McNew. Amongst indie bands, they're known for their sense of humor. To wit:
(Additional hipster cred note: the video is a dead rip-off of De La Soul's for "Me, Myself and I")
They also perform pledge drives on New Jersey indie radio, with the (usually credible) promise that they can play anything (a number of these are collected on the aptly titled Yo La Tengo Is Murdering the Classics); they also perform an annual set of concerts for Hanukkah at Maxwell's in their native Hoboken, on something like the same premise. One of their songs has a dance. They are not people who take themselves too seriously.
Style: Indie guitar rock. Neither Georgia nor Ira can sing in the conventional sense, but they can maximize their skills with greater skill than technically superior singers. After McNew joined the band, they made two important musical alterations, and one important change to the lyrics. In their first three albums, Yo La Tengo tended toward typical late-80s fast guitar pop. Beginning with 1993's Painful, they slowed the tempo of the songs, and began using drone as the primary means of melody and harmony. The end result are songs that become intensely focused on the melody and its variations: the sound of the music attends the lyrical content closely, either heightening the mood or providing ironic contrast. Lyrically, Ira and Georgia began writing much more about (one presumes) the topics of their near experience, primarily marriage, and what it's like to be in a relationship that has gone on for a long time. The songs address fights and conflict just as much as romantic moments, and stress the happy mundanity of life with someone you get along with: monogamy has never sounded like a better proposition.
Where to Begin: There are two acknowledged classics, and two others at the same level, preference among which determines which "kind" of fan you are. The two classics:
I Can Hear the Heart Beating as One: in which the band goes eclectic. The earlier albums, as great as they are, tend to be exercises in doing one thing only (albeit better than anyone does it). This is where they branch out: bossa nova, country, surf, rinky-dink pop: short, catchy songs, longer exercises that don't overstay their welcome. The major lyrical themes all canvassed. Highlights: "Moby Octopad," "Suugarcube," "Deeper Into Movies." Personal favorite: probably still "Green Arrow." Avoid: "Spec Bebop," unless you like 12 minute atonal drone pieces.
...and then nothing turned itself inside out: the concept album. The concept, in this case, being "what it's like to be married to someone." Quieter and slower than any other album, but with more immediate returns than one might expect from a quiet and slow album. Highlights: "You Can Have It All," "Let's Save Tony Orlando's House" (named after one of Troy McClure's fake movies in The Simpsons), "The Last Days of Disco." Personal favorite: "Cherry Chapstick," a.k.a. 'the fast song.' Avoid: I've never been much of one for "Tired Hippo," but it's not a bad song.
Next:
Electr-o-pura: My personal favorite album of all time. Contains YLT's best 'single,' "Tom Courtenay." Possessed of the best guitar work of any of their albums. Look no further than to "Pablo and Andrea" for proof:
I mean, that guitar solo. Goodness. I'm not one to focus too much on lead guitar heroics, but it's incredible. Highlights: aside from the already-mentioned, "The Ballad of Red Buckets," "Flying Lesson (Hot Chicken #1)," "Blue Line Swinger." Personal favorite: "Pablo and Andrea." Avoid: listen to this album all the way through.
Painful: some people think Painful is the great early YLT album. Those people are wrong. It has all the individual elements that would become great, but it lacks thematic coherence. But the tunes are solid. Has fiancee-reminding-me-of "Big Day Coming," which is a major plus. Highlights: "From a Motel 6," "Double Dare," "The Whole of the Law." Personal favorite: "Big Day Coming [Second Version]." Avoid: I usually stop after "The Whole of the Law," but there's no particular reason I do so.
6.12.12
I read this and apologized to my fiancee for being so un-feminist. She forgave me and is still willing to marry me. All's well that ends well.
30.11.12
Random observation: For some reason, IKEA (which I visited for the first time today) reminds me of nothing so much as a Jorge Luis Borges story. I'm tempted to say "Blue Tigers," but I think "Funes, His Memory" might work, too.
I'm also a bit lost as to the store's intended market (aside from 'trapped people who just want to get out already'), since everything appeared to be marginally-to-more-than-marginally more expensive than, say, Target, with no appreciable uptick in quality and an unappealing uniformity in style.
31.10.12
I have AdBlock Plus on my browser, and I never give out my email for anything other than necessary purposes, so my spam is rather generic, on the whole. Except in the last two weeks, I've received a notable influx from two different sources: dating websites and easy-online degree programs. I want to send back a reply along the lines of "HEY GUYS GUESS WHAT," but decorum is mostly preventing me at this point.
19.9.12
Adventures in Commuting, Part One of a Series That Will Have Too Many Parts:
All this time, I was worried about navigating the highways of Chicagoland, and it turns out that's not a problem at all: it's not that far of a distance, and even when the highway goes slow (and I caught the end of rush hour), it still goes. No, the problem will be navigating the six miles between the house I'm staying at and the highway. It took me 30 minutes to make it through an intersection this morning, because the intersection also had train tracks, and there were (long) freight trains running every 15 minutes. The return trip was the same.
General resolves/commuting lessons: must wake up earlier. Leaving five minutes after you wanted to get out the door and not having anything for breakfast is a recipe for spending more money 90 minutes or so later, after you've had the coffee you have to have because you're operating a large piece of machinery, and are hungry and cranky from the drive and amped up on caffeine. This will require some tweaking.
Related: what's the best place to get coffee in Hyde Park? Potential answer: the cafe that is in the basement of the building connected to mine, which would be approximately 3 minutes to walk. But ISO better answers.
All this time, I was worried about navigating the highways of Chicagoland, and it turns out that's not a problem at all: it's not that far of a distance, and even when the highway goes slow (and I caught the end of rush hour), it still goes. No, the problem will be navigating the six miles between the house I'm staying at and the highway. It took me 30 minutes to make it through an intersection this morning, because the intersection also had train tracks, and there were (long) freight trains running every 15 minutes. The return trip was the same.
General resolves/commuting lessons: must wake up earlier. Leaving five minutes after you wanted to get out the door and not having anything for breakfast is a recipe for spending more money 90 minutes or so later, after you've had the coffee you have to have because you're operating a large piece of machinery, and are hungry and cranky from the drive and amped up on caffeine. This will require some tweaking.
Related: what's the best place to get coffee in Hyde Park? Potential answer: the cafe that is in the basement of the building connected to mine, which would be approximately 3 minutes to walk. But ISO better answers.
21.6.12
We might have to have a housewarming just to give me the opportunity to make this cheeseburger dip. Well, not only for that reason.
29.11.11
Alright, so, bit of an unintended adventure yesterday:
I was returning home after Thanksgiving, and making remarkable time. Because I was making such good time, I kept on putting off lunch (first rule of long-distance driving: make the first stop as late as you possibly can). Unfortunately, this meant that when my car started overheating in Wytheville, VA, it happened at 3:00. Given that the average wait for a tow truck from AAA is about an hour, this did not give me much time to get it to a mechanic, and very little hope that my car would actually be fixed the same day. Worse, I've had this problem with the car before, and it was quite expensive. So I had visions of huge bills and trying to get from the mechanic to a hotel without a car in a town without cabs dancing in my head.
AAA did their usual bang-up job placing me on hold (they have an 800 number, but because my cell phone is from Michigan, they send me to the Michigan AAA first. Since my member number is from North Carolina, they usually then send me to that one. This is of no use when you are in Virginia, because they're the ones I'd need to talk to. This also happened last year in New Jersey, which necessitated no fewer than six transfers. Insanity.), but added a new twist by hanging up on me after ten minutes. I contemplating calling them back, but decided that, with time a factor, it'd be easier to just call a mechanic and get them to tow me, expense be damned. (and, really, if you think you're going to be spending $400 for a repair and who knows how much for a hotel, $45 for a tow seems reasonable) As I had the good fortune of landing at a gas station, I went in and asked if they could recommend a garage, which they did. I called the tow truck and spoke with a well-dispositioned gentleman with an accent like Larry the Cable Guy and the enunciation of Boomhauer from King of the Hill; communication miraculously ensued.
I made it to the mechanic, where I was informed by the man who ran it that he could get me back on the road that night, but since they shop technically closed at 5:00, labor might "cost extra." Obviously, he was in a position to set the terms of our negotiation, so I graciously accepted. And, really, I was quite glad he was willing to do it: he could've very easily and reasonably told me it couldn't be done until tomorrow. Unusually for a mechanic, he had me wait in the garage. I made conversation (one of the other mechanics lived in south Jersey for a couple years, so we talked about that. He had no idea where I had lived, which confirms my suspicion that "30 minutes east of Trenton" corresponds to no known location even for people who lived in New Jersey) and did my best to be polite given that, again, they were working overtime to get me back on the road.
The problem, as it turns out, was pretty simple, and required a $10 part (marked up to $30) to fix. This does make me wonder what a ride I was taken for the last time this problem occurred. As for labor, I was told that the overtime hour was double and the mechanic could therefore charge me for up to three hours of labor for 90 minutes work. He declined to do so and instead only charged me for one hour (at a rate which was approximately half of what it is in NC or NJ). As they were running my credit card for approximately 25% of what I thought the whole thing would cost I saw a sign that read "YOUR ATTITUDE DETERMINES HOW MUCH YOU PAY." Which, seriously, is an excellent policy, and one from which it appears I unintentionally benefited.
Lesson:
1. It's really amazing to me how much more smoothly customer-service interactions run when you are not actively hostile and perhaps even minimally friendly towards the people whose job it is to help you. I have my limits: no point in being nice to the TSA people, or the AAA woman who asks you to spell your name three times even though it's on her computer and will just hang up on you anyway. But you really do catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
I was returning home after Thanksgiving, and making remarkable time. Because I was making such good time, I kept on putting off lunch (first rule of long-distance driving: make the first stop as late as you possibly can). Unfortunately, this meant that when my car started overheating in Wytheville, VA, it happened at 3:00. Given that the average wait for a tow truck from AAA is about an hour, this did not give me much time to get it to a mechanic, and very little hope that my car would actually be fixed the same day. Worse, I've had this problem with the car before, and it was quite expensive. So I had visions of huge bills and trying to get from the mechanic to a hotel without a car in a town without cabs dancing in my head.
AAA did their usual bang-up job placing me on hold (they have an 800 number, but because my cell phone is from Michigan, they send me to the Michigan AAA first. Since my member number is from North Carolina, they usually then send me to that one. This is of no use when you are in Virginia, because they're the ones I'd need to talk to. This also happened last year in New Jersey, which necessitated no fewer than six transfers. Insanity.), but added a new twist by hanging up on me after ten minutes. I contemplating calling them back, but decided that, with time a factor, it'd be easier to just call a mechanic and get them to tow me, expense be damned. (and, really, if you think you're going to be spending $400 for a repair and who knows how much for a hotel, $45 for a tow seems reasonable) As I had the good fortune of landing at a gas station, I went in and asked if they could recommend a garage, which they did. I called the tow truck and spoke with a well-dispositioned gentleman with an accent like Larry the Cable Guy and the enunciation of Boomhauer from King of the Hill; communication miraculously ensued.
I made it to the mechanic, where I was informed by the man who ran it that he could get me back on the road that night, but since they shop technically closed at 5:00, labor might "cost extra." Obviously, he was in a position to set the terms of our negotiation, so I graciously accepted. And, really, I was quite glad he was willing to do it: he could've very easily and reasonably told me it couldn't be done until tomorrow. Unusually for a mechanic, he had me wait in the garage. I made conversation (one of the other mechanics lived in south Jersey for a couple years, so we talked about that. He had no idea where I had lived, which confirms my suspicion that "30 minutes east of Trenton" corresponds to no known location even for people who lived in New Jersey) and did my best to be polite given that, again, they were working overtime to get me back on the road.
The problem, as it turns out, was pretty simple, and required a $10 part (marked up to $30) to fix. This does make me wonder what a ride I was taken for the last time this problem occurred. As for labor, I was told that the overtime hour was double and the mechanic could therefore charge me for up to three hours of labor for 90 minutes work. He declined to do so and instead only charged me for one hour (at a rate which was approximately half of what it is in NC or NJ). As they were running my credit card for approximately 25% of what I thought the whole thing would cost I saw a sign that read "YOUR ATTITUDE DETERMINES HOW MUCH YOU PAY." Which, seriously, is an excellent policy, and one from which it appears I unintentionally benefited.
Lesson:
1. It's really amazing to me how much more smoothly customer-service interactions run when you are not actively hostile and perhaps even minimally friendly towards the people whose job it is to help you. I have my limits: no point in being nice to the TSA people, or the AAA woman who asks you to spell your name three times even though it's on her computer and will just hang up on you anyway. But you really do catch more flies with honey than with vinegar.
7.11.11
There's a section in Jeffrey Eugenides' The Marriage Plot where one of the characters talks for ten pages or so about the biological research he's doing. I got it, but not in a "I was able to follow that" sort of way, but instead in a "I already knew that" kind of way. Apparently I have been listening to my scientist friends all these years, after all.
1.11.11
As part of my Halloween costume this weekend, I had to shave. I said to someone that I was worried to do so, because of a long-standing theory that my beard holds all my powers. She thought I was joking, which I mostly was. However, in the three days since then, I have been constantly losing or forgetting things, culminating in yesterday's locking of my car keys in my trunk (conveniently timed for when I was supposed to be driving someone else somewhere and in the middle of a huge downpour for which I hadn't brought my umbrella).
Beard better grow back fast.
Beard better grow back fast.
26.10.11
Adventures in culinary consumption: being a dude who cooks, or is gradually expanding the collection of things he can and does cook, I made mashed potatoes for the first time this evening. Specifically, Alton Brown's. They were good. And surprisingly easy!
How is it possible to have gone this long without mashing potatoes, you ask? Well, I always ever fried or baked them. If I wanted mashed I would get the instant (I changed my mind upon realizing that my favored brand gives you 50% of your daily sodium if you eat half the package). And on those occasions when I, say, hosted Thanksgiving (3.5 times, all successful), someone else was always making to potatoes. So, just another step on the road to maturity.
How is it possible to have gone this long without mashing potatoes, you ask? Well, I always ever fried or baked them. If I wanted mashed I would get the instant (I changed my mind upon realizing that my favored brand gives you 50% of your daily sodium if you eat half the package). And on those occasions when I, say, hosted Thanksgiving (3.5 times, all successful), someone else was always making to potatoes. So, just another step on the road to maturity.
13.10.11
Now I Want Belle and Sebastian
Netflix, now as ever indulging my nostalgia: Netflix Instant has The Mysterious Cities of Gold, which I used to watch on Nickelodeon all the time when I was a child. It's not exactly the best show ever. But it is about Spainish colonialism in the 16th century. It seems my political theory interests were set when I was but a wee whippersnap.
But seriously: now I want Belle and Sebastian.
But seriously: now I want Belle and Sebastian.
3.10.11
Today in Completely Unnecessary Twitter Announcements
Oh yes: I am on the twitter now. At the moment it's mostly me retweeting sarcastic things about sports and writing sarcastic things from what I'm reading, but if I had more than four followers (or more than two non-porn-spam followers) that might change.
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