41 posts tagged “travel”

Months ago, I agreed to teach some classes at a conference being held in Albuquerque for 9-1-1 professionals.  Weeks ago, I auditioned for a role in a play opening on April 11th, without knowing exactly when the rehearsals would be.  Now, I'm double booked.  This evening I leave for Albuquerque (a 180 mile trip), and I'll spend the night there, and attend the first day of the 3-day conference.  Then, tomorrow afternoon, I get to drive back to Farmington for rehearsal, and spend the night here, before leaving early in the morning for Albuquerque Tuesday morning.  Drive back Tuesday afternoon, then drive to Albuquerque Wednesday morning, to drive back to Farmington Wednesday afternoon.

All told, I will be driving 1,080 miles over the next three days.  I should just drive to California, instead.  Thank God for audio books.

More pics from Telluride:

There was a borded up building Telluride that had some interesting and confusing graffiti on it.  This one says:

SAVE THE WORLD
BAN THE PREIST
FREE THE NUGS
KEEP THE [PEACE SYMBOL]

Evidently, the author is using some code with which I'm not familiar.

This one says:

DON'T TAKE
THE PEACE
OR FEED THE
BEAST, BUT
KEEP OPEN
MIND'S, AND
BE OPL

Surely, this is advice we should all live by.

On the same building, this borded up window was made into a display for the Telluride's Bill of Rights, adopted by their City Council, I suppose.  The sign says, "Your Civil Liberties are Safe in Telluride."  Under the sign and above the display, someone else wrote:

"But Not Your Property Rights"

I'm sure there's a story behind that.

Never let a boogie board or a used ski go to waste.

Miguel County Court House

Some mountain views we took on the way out of at a sight-seeing pulloff.

This is Lizard Head Peak.  Check out the Wiki article on it; it's interesting.  The first guy to successfully climb it, in 1920, said, "A rottener mass of rock is inconceivable."  I would imagine so.  It's also over 13,000 feet at the top, so bring your oxygen.

In honor of my mother staying with us for a while, yesterday her and I went to Durango and took a ride on the D&SNGRR steam engine, which has been in operation since 1882, to Cascade Canyon, Colorado.  Visit the Railroad's web site for some fascinating reading about the train's history.  It used to haul gold and silver ore from the mines, and now it just hauls people.

During the summer months, the train runs all the way from Durango to Silverton, Colorado (thus the name).  During the winter months, the danger of avalanche is too high, so it only runs a little more than halway to Silverton, stopping at Cascade Canyon before heading back.  It's a short trip to nowhere, but people take it for the scenary, photography opportunities, and the experience of riding in an actual steam-powered train that was originally built in the 19th Century (although it has been rebuilt and refurbished many times since, of course).

Has nothing to do with the railroad, but I took a picture of this on the way to the railroad.  These are the doors to the General Palmer Hotel, a fixture in Durango.

A mural on the side of a building depicting Main Street in Durango as it looked in 1890.  There is an unfortunate shadow of a street light post ruining the shot, but you get the idea.

A sculpture of three young horses outside the train station.  One of the train cars can be seen in the background.

The front of the station.

A view down the Observation Car, which is an open air car where it's easier to take pictures of the passing scenary.  Unfortunately, it was too cold to spend much time in there, though a number of the passengers tried.  I went back into it a couple of times, then gave up.

A view down Coach #2, where we were seated.  A word of warning if you ride this train: the men's room in Coach #2 doesn't have a lock.

The Durango-Silverton more or less runs along the route of the Animas River.  This is a shot I almost didn't get of us crossing the river, with a footbridge in the distance.

I got this picture violating the rules of the Observation Car, which were to keep your all your appendages inside the car.  I'm such a rebel.

A couple of slightly blurry pics of another train we passed that had not stood the test of time.  It had been left on this side rail to disintegrate over time, but it still looked cool.

A view of one of the many points of rapids along the river.  You can also see the ice forming on the rapidly moving water, giving you an idea of how cold it was.  No swimming.

A view in the Concession Car, where Mom and I went to get something quick to eat.  If you want something hot, it's going to be microwaved, and you have to be rail thin (get it? rail thin?) to work behind that counter, but they had a pretty impressive array of junk food and a full bar, to boot.  You could get whatever drink you wanted, and then immediately dump it down the front of your shirt because you're on a train and bouncing around like a human pinball.

Running out of time, but I have many more pictures, so stay tuned.

After a power outage last night, here is another delayed post:

I woke up the next morning at 4:30 am, my head splitting.  Although I did not get drunk at any point the day before, I had been drinking throughout the day, and apparently it was enough for a hangover.  Despite my near-migraine, I awoke with my brain pumping out haiku.  The Haiku slam-off was that day, and I had been hoping that I could come up with thirty haiku so that I could compete.

I went to the hotel's vending machine and found tylonol there, but it wouldn't take my dollar, so I went to the front desk and exchanged it for quarters, and it wouldn't take them either.  I was a foot away from relief, and the machine was out of order.  The clerk didn't have the key to the machine, so I went out to look for a convenience store.

We had found a CVS pharmacy the day before, but it turned out it wasn't twenty-four hours, and it was closed, so I just walked for a while.  Finding nothing open that would have tylonol or excedrine on the menu, I made my way back to the hotel.  Out front was an attractive, though slightly inebriated woman sitting on the stoop.  I passed her without speaking at first, but my desperation for medication overtook me and I stopped and asked her if she had any tylenol I could buy from her.  She said no, but she smiled dreamily and asked in turn if I had a hotel room she could crash in for a couple of hours.  It hadn't occurred to me before this point that this woman could be a hooker, but in retrospect I think she was.  I said, "No, sorry," and turned and walked the way I had been going, on past the hotel so she wouldn't know I had just lied to her.

I didn't think bringing a drunk probably-a-hooker to our room at five in the morning would do much for my marital status.  This could only happen to me.

A quick glance over my shoulder confirmed my suspicion that she was following me, so I picked up my pace a little, and ended up doubling back behind a restaurant to lose her.  ::sigh::

Finally, I got back to the room, sans Tylonol, and drank coffee instead.  When seven o'clock rolled around, my sweet and loving wife went out to the CVS and got some Excedrin for me.  While she was out I wrote the following haiku:

Only takes one bite
To turn man into a beast.
That, and a full moon.

Poets and liquor:
A deadly combination,
But quite effective.

On the bathroom floor,
We take the most solemn oath:
Never again, God.

Crispy tempura,
Scallion, wasabi, and rice.
Where are my chopsticks?

Hooker follows me
Four blocks in middle of night.
Hey, you, want a freebie?

You load sixteen tons,
What do you get?  Yeah, that's right:
You get sixteen tons.

Veins throbbing out beat,
Sounds like Latin jazz on speed.
Give me Tylonol.

My headache was mostly gone by the time the next event rolled around, and I wasn't going to miss this one.  I had hoped to get enough haiku together to participate, but you needed 30 pieces to do the Head to Head Haiku competition, and I was shy a few, so I just watched.  It was a hell of a lot of fun.

Here's how it works: they started off with sixteen contestants, and they get paired off.  When the two poets get on stage, they are randomly assigned a headband, red or not-red (white).  Red goes first, and reads a haiku.  Then he steps back, and not-red reads.  Three judges then hold up either a red or white flag to show their preference.  The poets then read again, best three out of five win.  After the preliminaries, they brought the winners back up for semi-finals, best two out of three, and when it was down to just two poets, they brought them up for best five out of nine.

Unlike other slam events, at the Head to Head Haiku the audience is not allowed to make any noise until after the judges raise their flags, so as not to influence the judges.  If you like a poem and can't wait to applaud, you are told to wave your hand in the air to make "the sound of one hand clapping."

I will definitely participate next year.

Another neat old building we saw after the competition.

We had a late lunch at McCormick and Schmicks, which is a chain restaurant, but it's one we don't have at home, and they have pretty good food.  This one had Texified decorations, including these armadillo-shaped wall sconces.  Only in Texas would people put up with restaurant decorations in the shape of an animal most commonly found as road-kill.

That night, we went to Ego's, which is a dank, dark, hygeinically-challenged bar.  They also happen to be one of the regular slam spots for Slam Austin, and it was where Team Farmington was scheduled for our first bout.

The chairs in front were reserved for the judges.  We sat at a table right behind them.

The person who acts as "team captain" is called the Slammaster.  In our case, that's Zoey.  Incidentally, what do you call a female Slammaster?  Slammistress?  Strix suggested Slaminatrix.  I like that, but I digress...

Zoey informed me that on the way to Austin she had discussed the lineup with the other team members and they all agreed I should go first.  Whether to give me a chance to get out there right away before I got too nervous or because they wanted to get through their weakest poet, first, I don't know.  She also had me draw for the team order.

There's a strategy, if you can call random order a strategy, involved with team order.  Judges usually start off more critical at the beginning of a bout, and score poets higher as the night goes on.  Therefore, for the first round, you don't want to be first if you can avoid it.  A member of each team gets to draw, and since there were five teams, we wanted number five.  I drew a four, which was close enough to make my teammates happy.

Again, most of the pieces were very good.  It was at this event that I made the following realization about slam poetry.  It's not poetry.  It has poetic elements, like rhyme, rhythm, alliteration, and metaphor, but it's not poetry.  Meter is lost in the delivery, so don't bother.  The pieces that do best are delivered with high energy and feeling by poets that concentrate on the performance as much as, or possibly even more, than the content.  Many of them are barely controlled rants.  Some of them are very funny, which seems to score well with the judges but not as well as the "poignant" ones.  It is a performance art much more than it is poetry, and all I had in my head were poems that I had written.  My poetry lends itself to slamming because it's free-form and has lines in it that are designed to be emphasized for poignancy, but they are not slam pieces.  If I make it back to NPS next year, I will definitely have some pieces that are designed specifically for slam.

So, three poets down, it was my turn.  You'll be happy to know (unless you hate me), that I did not freeze up this time.  You have three minutes to deliver your piece, or suffer a time penalty, but my piece is barely a minute forty-five, so I read it slowly and with emphasis.  I fully expected to be lambasted by the judges, but I wasn't.

There are five judges, and they use Olympic-style judging.  Different slammasters describe the scoring differently, but for my purposes here we'll say that 0.0 is for a poem that spontaneously causes your eyeballs to implode.  10.0 is for a poem that causes your molecules to shift into a higher plane of existence.  Most judges deliver anywhere from a 6.0 to a 10.0 (if they really, really liked the poem).  The top score and the bottom score are thrown out, and the poet's score becomes the middle three added together, for a total possible score of 30.0.  I scored 25.7.  I was a little disappointed at this, simply because I knew I needed better for my team, but personally I was pleased.  That's a respectable score for a first-time performer at NPS.

The rest of the night I got to relax and enjoy the show, as much as you can relax in an overcrowded bar so dark you can't see the floor (for which I am grateful).  The order of the second and third rounds are determined by score order - whoever scored the highest in the last round goes first - and Tish and Zoey performed for our team in those two rounds.

And now I have to go.  More later, everyone.

Monday, Strix and I had lunch at La Traviata.  It was very tasty.

We saw this mailbox after lunch.  I just like it.  Feed your mail to R2D2; he's hungry.

After lunch, we made our way to the Hyatt on the other side of the Colorado River to register for the Slam.

The hotel was having a convention for Texas propane companies at the same time.  There were a bunch of Texas businessmen there to sell "Propane and Propane Accessories," while the tatooed, freaky, hippy poets wandered the hotel looking for the registration room.  I found it quite amusing.

After registering as a poet and getting Strix her audience wristband, we went looking for a couple more geocaches that were on that side of the river.

Check Bat Wit Me Later

This is a giant weather-vane piece of art, paying homage to the fact that there is a huge colony of bats living under the Ann Richards bridge.  I can't help wonder if the fact that they chose this bridge to name after her was made by her detractors, thinking she was "batty."  At any rate, there is supposed to be a geocache somewhere near this sculpture, but it's a bit public, being right on a very, very busy street.  Note to those who plant geocaches: put them somewhere people can get to them without looking like terrorists.

More of the guitars from Austin's public art project.

Here's a closer look at the guitar on the right.  It's decorated with bumper stickers, including one that says, "Austin Sucks!  Don't Move Here."  I suppose this could be interpreted two ways.  Either the sticker means that Austin really does suck and they're trying to warn the tourists, or it means that they really like Austin and don't want it to be ruined by people moving in and overpopulating the place.  Your guess is as good as mine.

View from the 1st Street Bridge, near another geocache.

Some odd grafitti from the walkway along the bridge.

So we found one out of two geocaches, and headed back to the hotel for the poet orientation.  Strix enjoyed wine down at the hotel bar, while I went upstairs.

View from the 17th floor of the Hyatt.

Poets at orientation, several minutes into the "meeting."  Worse than Mensans.

The meeting was mercifully short, and consisted of the organizers telling us not to make a bad name for the Slam by acting out of order.  We were also told that there were seventy-five teams there, and seventy-four of them were going to lose, and the sooner we "wrapped our brains" around that fact, the better time we would have.

After the orientation, I joined Strix for some cheese and wine down in the bar, then we headed toward Ruta Maya coffeeshop, where the kick-off party was held.  We wouldn't have walked if we had realized how far it was, but we had a nice, if hot, walk.  There was also another geocache on the way we wanted to hit.

Yet another guitar.

Items in the window of a little shop that sold Dia de los Muertos and other Latin art.  I couldn't get shots of it without reflections on the window.

 Some stenciled outdoor art.

Yet... more... guitars.

A costume shop with a very fanciful sign.  I think this was actually the movie poster from Star Wars Episode Two, Attack of the Clowns.  Yeah, I know, but I'm not sorry.

An old-fashioned barber shop.  No smokin', no cussin', and no horsin' around.  That doesn't go for the people using the ashtray right inside the door or reading the Playboy that was in the magazine rack.

Another bout is about to come about, so I must head out.  More later.

Saturday morning, we flew out from Albuquerque on ExpressJet, direct flight to Austin for the National Poetry Slam competitions.  I hate flying, with the the lugging of the luggage and the stripping down at the security checkpoint.  (It always takes longer when I get female security personnel, I don't know why.)

As we expected, stepping off the plane was like walking into a sauna.  It doesn't take long at all to acclimatize to the dry air in New Mexico, and going back to 95% humidity is quite the treat.  On top of that, of course, is that it's August and really damn hot, humidity aside.

We're staying at the Extended Stay America, which is expensive for what it is but it's downtown and close to the slam venues, and since we're staying here for a week it will be nice to have a fridge and microwave.  The other poets from Farmington are staying at an Econo Lodge way out on the edge of town, but I didn't want to commute in for our competitions, and we don't have a car.

After enjoying the air conditioning of our room for a little while, we went out and took in some of the sights of downtown Austin.

Anyone know what this building is?  It's cool.

A lot of cities have public art programs like this one.  Someone, usually a business, sponsors the piece, and the artist gets an undecorated form, and they get to decorate it how they want.  In Austin, they have guitars.  In Kansas City, it's cows, and in Milwaukee, its "beasties."  This guitar is decorated with old computer boards, with printer connectors for the struts.

There were a number of these horse-drawn carriages downtown.  I also saw a few bicycle rickshaws, believe it or not, but didn't get a picture of any of them.  I have only seen them on TV images of foreign countries up until now.

Downtown Austin is a justaposition.  High class restaurants and night clubs are a block away from places like this, the Dirty Dog Bar, with a picture of a dog... um... being affectionate with a woman's leg for its sign.  No, we didn't go in.  There are also a number of massage parlors and tattoo joints that looked like each ink came with a free case of hepatitis.  One massage parlor's sign said, "Modeling and Oriental Massage."  Modeling.  I'd never heard that take on it before.

It also became clear while walking around downtown Austin, that it has a serious, serious homeless problem.  There were places where the homeless outnumbered the tourists, restaurant patrons, and bar-goers combined.  Most of them were just hanging out, and a few were panhandling.  Some of them were too busy talking to themselves to be bothered talking to other people.  I'm going to take a stand and say that Austin has a problem with the homless, but the homeless apparently do not have a problem with Austin.

I'm also going to go out on a limb and say that Austin has a drinking problem.  I have never seen so many bars and clubs in such a small vicinity.  Many of the homeless carry coolers that they keep their cheap beer in, and I saw one man just tossing his empties in the grass.  Drinking seems to be the local hobby, which is fine with me since I'm on vacation and not driving.  When in Rome, do as the Romans do.  But I worry for Austin as you would worry for a friend that's hitting the bottle too much.  If there were an AA meeting for cities, Austin should go.

More guitar art.  I couldn't get a full shot of it due to an unusually high concentration of homeless people congregating here.

Another pic of one of the horse-drawn carriages.

Another thing Austin has a lot of is really neat old buildings.  They were built with style, and they have been well preserved.

By this time, I was getting pretty hungry, so we at a Vietnamese-Thai restaurant called Mekong River.  Whenever we're out of town, Strix and I try to find cuisine that we couldn't get back home, and Vietnamese fits that category.  After perusing the menu, however, we both got dishes that could be better described as Thai food.  Strix had the pineapple curry with tofu.  I had a dish called the "Rated R Shrimp."  I think the "Rated R" part of the name refers to the spiciness of it.  It's shrimp and vegetables, served in a sort of hot and sour sauce.  It was very tasty.  Strix enjoyed her curry, too, but had them box it up so she would have room for an order of sweet sticky rice, which we shared.  If you've never had sticky rice desserts, you should.  It's rice cooked down in a coconut milk mixture, and in this case it was topped with custard and a coconut cream sauce.  Very good.

If you don't think you would like Vietnamese or Thai food, Mekong also has a New York style deli, right inside the restaurant.

We went back to the hotel for a while, mainly just to get out of the humidity and to nap off our dinner, then went back out at nine to a place called Antone's.  Antone's is a dirty-looking blues bar, but it boasts a history of some pretty impressive performers and draws an eclectic and generally clean crowd.  Ten bucks a head got us in to see Gary Clark Jr.  He was truly amazing, and his bass player Nick Current also sang on a couple of songs, too.

Nick, by the way, looked like he wasn't sure if he wanted to be Brian Setzer or David Bowie, but he did know how to play and belt out the songs.

If you go to Antone's, don't bother with the mixed drinks.  They're overpriced and taste a little watery.  Stick to the bottled stuff.

Another good reason to come to Antone's: this is where some of slams are going to be.  My bout is slated for a different venue, but I hope they have a bar.  My poetry will probably sound better if the audience if half-sloshed.

More later.  Ciao!

I'm home.  The airline lost my luggage - again - on the way home.  Actually, it wasn't lost, it was just delayed, but same diff.  I lost my cell phone by leaving it in my hotel room at the Westin Charlotte, and oddly enough the housekeeping staff couldn't find it.  My feedreader says I have 547 unread articles in my inbox.  Traveling sucks.

Here's a recap of my day.

My flight out of Albuquerque was an hour late to board, then we sat in the plane for over an hour while the plane fueled and while, according to the captain, "they waited on paperwork." I couldn't help wondering if this was a euphemism for "reconstructing the starboard engine with chewing gum."

What this means is that I missed my connecting flight in Houston. They put me on the next flight, but that meant I was going to get into Charlotte after midnight, so I wasn't happy.

I said, "My luggage will automatically be transferred to my new flight, right?" Sure, no problem!

So then I get on the second plane and spend another hour on the tarmac while the plane waits for it's turn to take off.

Side note: I certainly hope they work well as a floatation device, because they don't work for crap as a seat cushion.

You can probably see what happened next. I arrive after midnight, and no luggage. In fact, they have no idea where my bags are. So now I am 1700 miles from home with nothing but shorts and my "Yo quiero Taco Bell" t-shirt.

And finally, I'm writing this on my phone because Internet access for my laptop is 10 dollars per day at the hotel.

This day sucks.

Somewhere over the midwest.

I'm at the Albuquerque airport, just waiting. My flight was supposed to leave at 1:40, but it's been pushed back to 2:15. That did give me time to grab some lunch, but it means I'm going to miss my connector. Instead of arriving in Charlotte at 9:09 pm, I'm going to arrive damn near midnight. Ugh.