Not Necessarily Interesting News

I was on the phone with Cingular trying to fix our perpetually screwed up cellphone bill a bit ago and stopped talking in the middle of the conversation. I stood up to open my blinds to get a bit of light and watched one of the starlings that nest in our eves come screaming to the ground and starting flapping all over. I watched the bird flipping out for a few seconds and realized it had a snake in its mouth. It was bashing it on a tree root trying to kill it. It looked to be about a 10″ garter snake.

I was brought back to reality by the operator, ‘Sir? are you still there?’. ‘Yeah, I’m still here. I’m just watching a bird beat the hell out of a snake outside my window.’ The girl on the other end about freaked out. You could tell by her voice and accent that she was very ‘urban’. She’d probably never seen a snake in her life. That I could be so blasé about it stunned her. She said ‘well, I guess you _are_ in Texas.’ I told her yes. She then asked if I see a lot of snakes outside my window. I told her ‘No, but it’s not a big deal either.’

I wonder what she’d do if she ever saw a real snake. Oh, and the starling won the battle and promptly dissected the snake and fed it to her babies in the nest.

I picked up my new shades after work today and they are perfect. I had been wearing clipons that matched my glasses for the past 2-3 years and my Wayfarers had been relegated to being my ‘boat glasses’. Now with the new prescription I can wear them all the time again. I really missed wearing these things. When I was picking them up the guy at the store commented ‘Wow. These are old school Wayfarers. They don’t make ’em like this any more. They’ve changed the lenses.’ I looked around and it looks like they aren’t made anymore. If I want to replace them I’ll have to hit eBay’s ‘vintage’ section. I’m ‘old school cool’.

Saturday evening I was walking out of my bedroom and took off my glasses to rub my eyes(damn allergies) and an arm popped of my glasses. Great. Just what I need now.

I was just forced to change contract companies at work and the new thieves decide that paying every two weeks with a two week delay is just dandy. When you’re used to a weekly check with a 3 day delay this really screws your budget. I won’t get another paycheck for a whole month. No change in job, a slight raise in pay, and a royal raping while waiting for a paycheck. I hope they enjoy the $.32 in interest they make while sitting on my money. Bastards.

So, Sunday morning we head to the mall to find me some new specs. I hadn’t gotten a new pair in nearly 3 years so I had to get an exam first. Doc said that with my old glasses I was still seeing 20/20. Without my glasses I’m 20/400, or legally blind. We next looked over the frames they had next door and I found a pair I liked. Then I looked at the price. Ow. They were some really nice Marchon Airlocks. A frameless style in titanium. No hinges to break. Just really thin, really strong titanium arms that you bend to fold and put away. They were lighter than any glasses I’d ever had or seen. The wife said it almost looks like I’m not wearing any at all. It feels that way too. I asked about them and they girl said that they couldn’t do them in house in an hour because the lenses needed to be drilled. Crap. I really liked them. We looked around for a while and went back to that pair again. I really needed glasses right away. I decided to go ahead and order them plus some replacement lenses for my favorite pair of Rayban Wayfarers. Yeah, they’re old school but I’ve worn that style since around ’87 and I like the feel and style. The current pair I have I’ve had since around 1992, after I ran over my first pair with my truck, so they do last.

Since I wasn’t getting glasses in an hour, because I decided to wait a wek for the new ones, I went home and with some ingenuity and epoxy I was able to fix my old glasses, at least temporarily. And I did the job well enough that you can’t even tell. None of that white medical tape on this nerd’s glasses.

Friday I got a call saying that my grandmother was frantic because she got a call from the funeral home that handled my uncle’s funeral 2 years ago. They didn’t say why they needed to talk to my former aunt just that they really needed to get a hold of her.

I called the funeral home for my grandmother to find out what was up as I was the last to talk to my former aunt about 6 months ago. After talking with the guy I asked him if they somehow had my uncle’s remains there. He told me he couldn’t tell me that. I then said ‘I’ll presume you have them there unless you tell me otherwise’. He again said he couldn’t confirm that but I could hear in his voice that I was right.

Huh? How’d they get the remains back? I tried calling my aunt. Phone disconnected. I tried calling her work. No longer employed there. I did some other ‘searching’ and it appears she just picked up and moved to Indiana. WTF? She said nothing to me and I thought we were friends.

Long story short. My father went to the home and managed to get the ashes from them. Turns out my aunt moved and when the new owners started moving in they found a box in a back closet with the funeral home’s number on it. They called the home and dropped off the remains. My father had to sign a release saying that we wouldn’t scatter the ashes in case she came back for them. I seriously fucking doubt she will.

I was stunned. She left town leaving my uncle’s, her former husband’s, remains sitting in a fucking closet. A back bedroom closet. Fuck her. What a damned, and I don’t use this word often but it applies, cunt. I thought we were friends. We tried to keep her as part of the family after he died but she distanced herself from us. Then she fucks us with this last slap to the face. She could have left them on a doorstep early in the morning if she didn’t want to talk to us.

Yes, we have his remains but can’t follow through with his wishes to scatter them at Lake Powell because of the way she left them behind. Not only that, we’ve lost nearly everything that was Roy. None of his photography, books, memories. Nothing. The only thing anybody got after he died was his camera that I borrowed that she never asked to get back. That’s it. A camera. I cherish it as it was his pride and joy and we spent some good times together taking pics with it. I assume that most of what defined my uncle is now sitting in a city dump somewhere and rotting. This pisses me off to no end.

J, wherever you are, if you read this: Fuck you.

It’s been a hectic and screwed up past few weeks. I guess I’ll catch up a little here.

Let’s see. We did a Boy Scout campout weekend before last. The week before that we went to Corpus Christi for the Blue Angels which my son loved immensly. I had the Defender throw a u-joint that required nearly a week for me to repair.

I’ll post pics and details from those soon. Read the next entry for the most screwed-up thing to happen lately.

I was going through our photos from our trip and remembered this.
We were driving through rural New Hampshire last week and I noticed this tree. It was a bit taller than the rest and didn’t look quite right. I’d heard about what I was seeing but had never seen one in the wild. We drove another 1/4 mile closer and were able to get nearer to the ‘tree’. That’s an interesting disguise they’ve got on that cell phone tower. It was the only one that we noticed in New Hampshire. The rest seemed to be your normal run-of-the-mill towers. Of course, we could have missed them in all their camo’ed glory.

Now I’ll go through my impressions of New Hampshire and New England in general.

The scenery was beautiful, even at the juncture between winter/spring, what the locals call ‘mud season’. Coming back to Texas after a week up there was a bit of a shock. We got used to the varying shades of gray and browns everywhere. White snow, gray sky, brown tree trunks, dark mud were what we got used to seeing. We got back and the green of a Texas spring nearly hurt our eyes the first day.

New Englanders are friendly once you get out into the countryside. Bostoners were rude and pushy and I couldn’t wait to get out of that town. We had a great time spending a few hours with the maple farming people outside Concord. Manchester, NH didn’t impress me and I don’t think I could live there. It’s just seemed like Austin North. Concord was kind of the same way. It was okay but seemed a little long in the tooth. Everything north of Concord was very nice. The same with the western part of the state. The area around Hanover/Lebanon, where Dartmouth is, seemed ideal. There semeed to be a small but thriving high-tech market there. There and in Keene, about 40 miles south, are where I’m concentrating my job search. Talking with a small business owner in Keene my wife said we were scouting a possible move and said we’d visited Portsmouth. He started laughing before she could finish the sentence. Even New Hampshrites know that Portsmouth is way overpriced. It’s beautiful but there’s no way anyone can afford to live there.

Housing. Not cheap. At least near the bigger towns, especially Portsmouth, Manchester, Nashua, and Concord. Keene and Lebanon were getting reasonable, especially if you’re willing to drive 20-30 minutes into town.

Cost of living. Taxes are low to non-existent, except property taxes. Those are high, very high. I guess it all comes out to a wash. Payrates seem a bit low, lower than around Austin for sure. That makes a move tough. To move, we need a house that costs about what ours does and a job that pays like mine currently. Living on one income can be a very close balancing act in these days of rising costs and even slower rising pay.

Recreation. More that you can imagine. Winter sports of every type. Skiing, snowboarding, cross country skiing, ice fishing, snowshoeing and more. Summer; hiking, mountain biking, boating, fishing, river running. and more. It’s got Texas beat to all hell and back in the recreation department. One of my biggest complaints about Texas is it’s lack of public land. Yeah, there’s state parks here and there but in how many places can you start at a trailhead and hike for two days without having to double back on yourself.

All told, we’ll do the move if I can find a good paying position in a company in one of the outlying areas of the state, ideally near Keene/Lebanon or north of the Notches. Those are few and far between but not impossible to find.

I’m a little behind writing this but you’ll get over it.

We woke up this morning to more rain. Oh boy. Across the street from our hotel there was going to be a job fair so I decided to go check it out and see what the market is like out this way. I got a few business cards and made some contacts but nothing solid. It was mostly manufacturing type jobs and such. I was amazed at what people were wearing to a job fair though. I was wearing khakis, a button down blue shirt, and tie. There were people in there wearing dirty jeans and ripped shirts. Way to impress possible employers.

After the fair I picked up the wife and kid and we walked around downtown a little more before grabbing lunch and hitting the road. On the way out of town we passed a most sad sight, at least to my eyes. It was an abandoned Land Rover repair shop. It was a real graveyard of Land Rover history. There were many Series IIAs and even one Series I I believe. There was a SeriesIIA 109 out front in reasonable shape and asking around I found out it had been sitting there for ove 2 years. There was a parts building that the roof had collapsed on exposing many what could be valuable parts to the elements. I dried my tears and we got on the road.

We made it into Manchester for our flight out right on time. The rental car guy didn’t look too pleased at the dirtyness of the 4×4. If I have a 4×4 I’m gonna use it. It was a real mess. Found out we did just shy of 1,000 miles over 7 days. Not bad in a state that’s less than 200 miles long and 70 miles wide. We saw just about every part of that state.
The flight home was uneventful and we got in after 11PM. I do recommend Airport Fast Park for long term parking out at the Austin Airport. They were waiting for us in front of baggage claim and drove us to our car. Even though it was offsite they are faster than onsite parking. They pick you up at your car and drop you off at it in their lot. They load and unload baggage and even give you complimentary bottles of water if you like.

We had a great trip and I’ll write up a detailed impression in the next couple of days once I find some free time.

Today is our last full day in New Hampshire(okay, so we stayed in Vermont, but we could see New Hampshire from here). We woke up to a sleet/snow/rain mix. Beautiful. We wandered out into the cold to drive south towards Keene, about 50 miles south and the last part of the state we had yet to visit. First we drove through Dartmouth and checked out what the town was like when it is alive. We noticed lots of construction and expansion of the colleges which is a good thing I guess.
We decided to take a road south that folows the Connecticut River that forms the border between New Hampshire and Vermont. After about 20 miles of that I got bored so I consulted my GPS and turned left up into the hills. We followed many dirt roads and came to many dead ends that were blocked with deep snow. We passed several maple farms and even saw some wild turkeys. Shannon is still disappointed that she didn’t get to see a moose. She now thinks there is no such animal.
We passed many covered bridges along the way. Most of them are still quite functional and not there just for decoration. In fact, only one of the 1/2 dozen or so we saw today was off limits.
We pulled in to Keene around 2pm under heavy rain. We were surprised at how busy this little town is. The downtown section is very much alive and quite busy. Main Street Keene is known as The Widest Paved Main Street in the World. Ok, yeah, it’s wide. We ate at a small diner on Main Street where the food was quite good and very reasonably priced.
With the rain and such we decided we just wanted to crash in our room and were back in the hotel before 5pm where we are sitting around watching TV and getting ready to fly back home tomorrow. There also happens to be a job fair at the hotel across the street tomorrow so I guess I’ll drop by and see what’s on offer before we drive back to Manchester to fly home.

We got up early and headed down into Boston this morning. Being Easter the streets were pretty deserted at 9am.

After a bit of driving around semi-lost we happened upon Boston Common. Being Sunday, on-street parking was free and there was no time limit. We parked right across the street from the begining of The Freedom Trail. It’s a walking tour of Boston that takes you past all the historic buildings like the Old North Church, the site of the Boston Massacre, and Faneuil Hall. The Hall was interesting as it’s where many of the decisions leading up the the Revolutionary War were made and discussed. You think of things like the Old North Church as historical landmarks and such but as we passed Easter services were in session. The church has been there nearly 250 years and is still used every week for services. There are many churches in Boston and we could really tell when Easter services had completed as the sidewalks started to get busy. Hearing the church bells seemingly competing for your attention was facinating. To get back to where we parked I took Shannon and Dakota on the subway which they were both very excited about it.

My impressions of Boston: I had been here before about 9 years ago for less than 24 hours on a business trip so didn’t get to see much. This time I had a bit of time to look around. Bostonians are crazy ass drivers. If you decide to let someone merge in from a side road they jump into the spot with nary a wave of acknowledgment. In Texas, not waving a thank you is considered to be rude as all hell. It’s as if they smell weakness and they took the spot from you, like they beat you at something. The idea that someone might actually let them merge seems to be beyond their comprehension. Likewise, the pedestrians are fearless. They walk out in front of you without even looking. It’s like they _want_ to be hit. To sum up: Boston as a concept, the history, the old buildings, the historical sites, etc, is quite fascinating. In real life, I hated it. The people are too cold and too into what they’re doing to even notice your presence. Yeah, tourists get old and get in your way too much, I’m sure. To me, Boston belongs to all Americans and we are nice enough to let you Bostonians live in our history, in our country’s birthplace. You should be thankful to us for letting you have the honor of living in such a history filled place instead of moving you out and turning the whole place into some sort of history exhibit.

After leaving Boston, we decided to head north into west New Hampshire and drove all the way to Lebanon/Hanover. I wanted to check this area out as it is where Dartmouth University, yes, that Dartmouth, is located. I applied for a job there last week that I’m really hoping will pan out. The area was beautiful, as is most of New Hampshire of course, and a lot more affordable to live in. We found a place about 15 minutes out of town on 8 acres for about $150K. Having our own little spread with a few maple trees we could sugar for fun would be nearly a dream come true. We’ll keep dreaming.

Tonite we ate at our first chain restaurant this trip as most everything else was closed for Easter. I hadn’t eaten at a Chili’s in forever and now remember why I hadn’t. The service sucked and the food was so-so. Our waitress couldn’t even remember that I was drinking Coke after I told her and brought me a refill of iced-tea. Shannon’s coffee was cold the first try and on the second had grounds in the bottom of the cup. I guess it’ll take another 6-7 years for me to forget how bad they suck before I try them again.

We’re staying in a place across the river in Vermont tonite. It’s still strange to us how close together all the states are up here. In a couple hours we drove from Boston, clear across New Hampshire, into Vermont.