pix or it didn't happen

Wed 10/7 @ 11:18 AM

Denver meetup was a nice time; got off to a rocky start since the place we were meeting for food beforehand turned out to be closed on Tuesdays, so folks showed up and immediately had to figure out somewhere else to go, and koeselitz (pictured, and my thoughtful host in Denver) and I were a little late getting out to the meetup ourselves. So we eventually established with the barkeep at P&S that several other folks had come in and left in sequence, assured him that we’d find them and bring ‘em back, and then headed out and found them across the street getting some food at a hotdog joint reportedly owned by the son of local legend Binky The Clown. Got some food, headed back to P&S, and spent the next couple hours talking and drinking and having a nice, sicko-friendly laidback time.  Thanks, Denver!  I hope I didn’t give too many of you this Chicago cold. All of the meetup pictures here.

Denver meetup was a nice time; got off to a rocky start since the place we were meeting for food beforehand turned out to be closed on Tuesdays, so folks showed up and immediately had to figure out somewhere else to go, and koeselitz (pictured, and my thoughtful host in Denver) and I were a little late getting out to the meetup ourselves.

So we eventually established with the barkeep at P&S that several other folks had come in and left in sequence, assured him that we’d find them and bring ‘em back, and then headed out and found them across the street getting some food at a hotdog joint reportedly owned by the son of local legend Binky The Clown.

Got some food, headed back to P&S, and spent the next couple hours talking and drinking and having a nice, sicko-friendly laidback time.  Thanks, Denver!  I hope I didn’t give too many of you this Chicago cold.

All of the meetup pictures here.

pix or it didn't happen

11:13 AM

Nadir.   I spent most of Denver in the guest bedroom at koeselitz’s place, scraping along on antihistimine and kleenex and naps.  I’m lucky I didn’t get sick sooner in the trip, but I wouldn’t have minded dodging that bullet entirely.

Nadir.  

I spent most of Denver in the guest bedroom at koeselitz’s place, scraping along on antihistimine and kleenex and naps.  I’m lucky I didn’t get sick sooner in the trip, but I wouldn’t have minded dodging that bullet entirely.

Day 28: Down and Out in Denver

Mon 10/5 @ 4:47 PM

So I’m sick.  Hopefully as sick as I’m going to get, to feel better already in the morning, etc, but right at the moment I’ve got a sore throat and a bit of a headache and some minor sinus action and I’m spaced out on cold medicine.

I’ve managed to squeak by with an apparently ridiculously robust immune system up to this point, so really I’m thankful that it took four weeks for it to happen, but I would have preferred it not to happen at all or to at least wait until I got home and could be a zombie in my own house instead of moping around in someone else’s.

I have a hard time getting out from the immediacy of the situation when I’m feeling blech-o like this — like some part of my brain is in charge of constantly distracting me and reminding me that OH HEY YOU DON’T FEEL WELL HEY HEY HEY or something — and so I should probably try not to go on at tedious length about not feeling well and just read a book or something.

The tail end of the trip looks like this: Denver meetup tomorrow evening; fly to NYC the next day (since the only way from Denver to Portland is via JFK or Boston); karaoke wrapup meetup in NYC that night (since Denver->NYC->PDX in one day would be torture); and then home to Portland the next night on a direct flight.

I hope I’m not a zombie for these last two meetups.  Denver I can be low-energy and make it work, as long as I can at least be social; NYC karaoke party isn’t really something you can smile wanly through though, I don’t think, so I sure hope I’m close to 100% by then.

This has been a fantastic trip, I hope I can end it on a slightly better note than the one I’m sounding right at the moment.

pix or it didn't happen

4:37 PM

you know the way things are going / they’re gonna crucify me Being a long-haired beardo has its ups and downs.  One of the ups is that if you’ve got a dozen friends and a lot of beer and a questionable idea, you can make something like this happen. Photo by mefite pjern, who takes some pretty good non-blasphemous photos too.

you know the way things are going / they’re gonna crucify me

Being a long-haired beardo has its ups and downs.  One of the ups is that if you’ve got a dozen friends and a lot of beer and a questionable idea, you can make something like this happen.

Photo by mefite pjern, who takes some pretty good non-blasphemous photos too.

pix or it didn't happen

4:34 PM

Full disclosure: while in Chicago, I ate neither a hotdog nor any deep-dish.  I did eat some tasty things, though, including this: a dark beer and a steak-and-egg burger, at Billy Goat.  The sandwich is what it sounds like: a thin steak and a fried egg.  Hot damn. The beer is also what it sounds like: dark beer.  They only sell two kinds: light and dark.  Both are good, so I’m okay with that.

Full disclosure: while in Chicago, I ate neither a hotdog nor any deep-dish.  I did eat some tasty things, though, including this: a dark beer and a steak-and-egg burger, at Billy Goat.  The sandwich is what it sounds like: a thin steak and a fried egg.  Hot damn.

The beer is also what it sounds like: dark beer.  They only sell two kinds: light and dark.  Both are good, so I’m okay with that.

pix or it didn't happen

4:30 PM

Chicago!  Epic 2-day meetupfest that included a gay bar, softcore karaoke, short-form community theater, and a partial screening of Lawrence of Arabia, among other things.  Tremendously fun crowd in this town, and Eamon (pictured left, giving Juliet Banana a reason to be concerned) was a great host. And he seems to have the same sore throat I have, a couple days later.  Nice work, Chicago.  But I forgive you, because it was a good couple of days. Meetup pictures for Chicago are in two sets: - Day one photos - Day two photos

Chicago!  Epic 2-day meetupfest that included a gay bar, softcore karaoke, short-form community theater, and a partial screening of Lawrence of Arabia, among other things.  Tremendously fun crowd in this town, and Eamon (pictured left, giving Juliet Banana a reason to be concerned) was a great host.

And he seems to have the same sore throat I have, a couple days later.  Nice work, Chicago.  But I forgive you, because it was a good couple of days.

Meetup pictures for Chicago are in two sets:

- Day one photos

- Day two photos

Backlogged in O'Hare

Sun 10/4 @ 8:12 AM

Chicago was a great time, and I haven’t posted anything from it yet because I was too busy having a great time.  More later when there’s more later.

Currently sitting in E9 at ORD, waiting on a plane that was apparently late out of Boston and has managed to touch down as of a minute or so ago, four minutes before it’s supposed to be taking off again.  Chicago has been the only case of late flights so far this trip, and it’s been coming AND going.  Odd luck.

I’m at E9, but I’m flying out of E8.  But there’s not a goddam outlet in E8, and I think I found the only one in E9, and only one of the two plugs actually works.  And so some other guy looking to power his laptop (and who gamely tried the dead outlet that I warned him was dead) has now just had some sort of argument with presumably his girlfriend over the subject of him wandering further from E8 in order to find power.

Should I have broken out the powerstrip from my bag and made of myself an epicenter of pluggery?  Balancing the desire to be helpful with the desire not to be at the center of other people’s drama.  Erring on the side of self-preservation.  What would Merlyn think?

I have just discovered that I can produce a little checkbox on the side of the tumblr dashboard, labeled “Let people answer this”, by throwing in as the final character in the text box here a question mark.  Is that how you produce a comment box for entries?  Is it that simple?  Is this some questionable fucking UI design?  

And how are you all doing, anyway?

pix or it didn't happen

Fri 10/2 @ 9:31 AM

My host in Utah, mr crash davis (mark ii: jazz odyssey), who along with his lovely non-mefite wife and yours truly comprised what will certainly be the smallest meetup on this whole trip.  Beer was drunk, stories were told, a quiet good time was had by all.

My host in Utah, mr crash davis (mark ii: jazz odyssey), who along with his lovely non-mefite wife and yours truly comprised what will certainly be the smallest meetup on this whole trip.  Beer was drunk, stories were told, a quiet good time was had by all.

pix or it didn't happen

9:28 AM

They have mountains in Utah, it turns out; the view from the SLC area is gorgeous in that Rocky Mountains way that’s easy to forget about when I’m in New England or LA or even at home in Portland where we see only fringes like Hood. It’s also cold, which was a shocking and sort of refreshing change of pace after a lot of warmer-than-Portland destinations in the last couple weeks; I actually had to put on my thermal for the first time. After a late flight into SLC and a night’s rest, I spent the day wandering through downtown Salt Lake City, taking in the sights such as they were.  Lots of construction in the core, some of which I have to wonder might be in trouble what with the downturn; the temple is pretty and staid (and I got through the grounds, hippie hair and Flaming Christopher Walken t-shirt and ipod-and-headphones headgear and all, unmolested by the local religiosa); Gilgal sculpture garden pretty and strange and empty.

They have mountains in Utah, it turns out; the view from the SLC area is gorgeous in that Rocky Mountains way that’s easy to forget about when I’m in New England or LA or even at home in Portland where we see only fringes like Hood.

It’s also cold, which was a shocking and sort of refreshing change of pace after a lot of warmer-than-Portland destinations in the last couple weeks; I actually had to put on my thermal for the first time.

After a late flight into SLC and a night’s rest, I spent the day wandering through downtown Salt Lake City, taking in the sights such as they were.  Lots of construction in the core, some of which I have to wonder might be in trouble what with the downturn; the temple is pretty and staid (and I got through the grounds, hippie hair and Flaming Christopher Walken t-shirt and ipod-and-headphones headgear and all, unmolested by the local religiosa); Gilgal sculpture garden pretty and strange and empty.

Day of weird flying

Wed 9/30 @ 7:33 PM

So:

For my SFO-LGB flight, they announced Final Boarding Call like five minutes after they announced pre-boarding, with barely a chance to announce by-section boarding in between.  It was odd — presumably the product somehow of a VERY empty commuter flight down to LGB — and left me feeling annoyed about feeling guilty about not racing to board ASAP.

Now, in Long Beach, the gate for LGB-SLC is packed to the gills, warmer in here than it probably ought to be just from the human biomass.  We should be boarding already but aren’t, even though the plane is there and deboarded.  Not that that’s super weird, but it’s easily the first time on the trip that a gate seemed not just full but *crowded*.  

Glad I have an aisle seat.

But further weirdness: security seemed to be on its toes tonight.  In a meticulous, managerial-review sort of way, is what my gut says.  The initial security agents very politely conversational while checking passes and IDs, a little less casual about the actual checks as well.  Folks helping with xray prep being a bit more thorough about binning things out conservatively to avoid overlapping items.  Folks doing secondary screening being almost apologetic about what I suspect is a higher-than-normal, less-justified-than-normal rate of pull-asides.

The highlight of all that security stuff was the moment, a bit after I stepped into the main security-screening room, when someone shouted loudly-but-not-nervily “OH FIVE BRAVO”.  

And the cry went up, like some middle school basketball team joining in a motivational chant: OH FIVE BRAVO!  OH FIVE BRAVO!

X-ray belts stopped, screenings halted, agents blocked the portals, and everyone blinked and looked around.  A woman gave me a look, as if to say “what fresh hell is THIS?”, and I shrugged and made some small comment speculating on all of the above in some unrefined sentence-long fragment.  We shrugged together.  And then the ALL CLEAR came down, with an ALL CLEAR, ALL CLEAR following it like post-game highfives, and we were moving again.

Weirdness clumps, I suppose.

Also, I am basically a ninja about security-screening preparedness at this point.  Down to a science.  I know where my shit is and where it goes and when and what the best order to do this stuff is to avoid hiccups and minimize my x-ray belt bogarting.  Not that those around me seem in particular to appreciate this, THE PHILISTINES.

Time to board.  SLC, here I come!

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