The archived ramblings of my time as a world traveler up to my current life in Washington, D.C.
Actually had a relatively busy week, but since it was all for the AP, and the AP has an awesome policy of not giving stringers bylines, it was done anonymously.
But for those interested, here's what I was up to this week, told in a list of reverse-chronological order links:
Thursday
Wednesday, part II
Wednesday, part I
Monday
Long drives are in my future.
Starting tomorrow morning, we'll be piling into a car packed with too much stuff, making a trek from D.C. to Missouri for the holidays. It's not going to be quite that simple, though. The itinerary includes stops in Indianapolis, Chicago and Cleveland, and while we're in Missouri we'll be hopping back and forth between Joplin and Springfield a few times.
I'm not sure how much relaxing there will be. Hopefully some, but it might be the sort of vacation leaving us needing a vacation when we return.
Yesterday we had a day of the sort we should have more often in D.C. but don't, because most of the time we sort of forget to leave the house or our neighborhood.
We started downtown for some Christmas shopping and stumbled across a Christmas Market of arts and crafts. None of which we were interested in buying, but it beat going to Macy's.
Then we abandoned shopping for the afternoon, instead wandering to the National Gallery of Art. We checked out an exhibition of photographic snapshots before heading over to a free screening of a Romanian film. We had originally thought about sticking around for a classical performace by the Leipzig String Quartet but when we left the auditorium after the movie, the line outside for the quartet stretched through the lobby and the museum's shop, clear from the east wing to the west wing. Thankfully, we'd already decided to give the quartet a miss, since I don't think we'd have made it in. Instead, we headed to Chinatown for some cheap dumplings and another go at Christmas shopping.
It's the sort of day I plan in my head fairly often, but rarely execute. It beat hanging out in the suburban strip malls and big-box stores trying to run down a few last presents.
D.C.'s first snow of the year is falling as we speak I write. There's nearly an inch on the ground already, which makes the thick stand of leafless trees in the park behind my house look far better. It makes most things look far better.
Except drivers. I'm about to go out and see just how freaked out the District's car-driving populace is in the face of a few frozen water crystals falling from the sky.
As happy as I am with the snow, this isn't my first snow of the season. I got that out of the way more than a month ago during my trip to Denver. That snowfall was also far more impressive than this one, but I'm hoping this one, unlike my last, sticks around a day or two.
It has now been slightly more than one year since we arrived back in the States after our overseas tour. Somehow, my time in New Zealand seems as though it occurred more recently than our stay in Missouri at the beginning of this year. I probably tell fewer stories about our trip now, which I'm sure those I'm talking to appreciate.
I expected the travels to feel like a break from the arc of my "real" life. Instead, being back feels like the break. Of course, I imagine a big part of the feeling is because my "real" life, or at least my career path, is still on hold. I've been getting some freelance work, but so little I have almost nothing to point to in terms of what I've been doing. I'd like to break out, have something to work on, earn some money. Gotta change something, but it'd be nice if I end up being able to do something at least related to what I want to do.
So after all my rambling about the leaves, I walked outside today and realized I can see through the forested park behind my house all the way to the horizon. This is a first; the trees have turned into a bunch of sticks thrust vertically into the ground. It can only mean any redeeming qualities the local nature may have are in hibernation, and I can only look forward to the damp bleakness of the D.C. winter.
Another photo showing off the fall - this one is better larger, so click on the photo to get a better view of the Washington Monument through the trees.
Have to say, for all that's wrong with D.C., catching glimpses of the monuments and capitol as you drive around is still quite a sight.
D.C. sucked me in when I first arrived back in April by greeting my stay with two months of wonderful spring conditions, including warm air, low humidity and colorful plants everywhere.
A few miserable months of summer gave me insight into why the District has a reputation for miserable weather. I hoped fall would provide another lengthy buffer zone before what I'm assured is going to be horrible wet and cold-but-rarely-freezing winter conditions. (I would far rather deal with 20 degrees and snow than 33 degrees and rain).
A few weeks have given me the fall I was looking for, but it certainly hasn't been consistent as spring. A week of hot and humid, followed by a week of nice crisp weather, followed by wet rain, back to hot, repeat. It didn't help when Daylight Savings went away, and the sun is now leaving the party in the early afternoon.
Yesterday I was out walking at about 1 p.m. and thought to myself how it was a perfect day - jacket weather with some crispness to the air, but calm and sunny. Then two hours later I was walking home in a heavy rain, and before I went to bed I looked outside to see a 30-mile-an-hour wind blowing trash up my street.
I have a feeling the nice days are going to get rarer from here on out. But we still have the lingering effect of one of the nicer aspects of the past few weeks - the trees turning.
Washington and its surroundings actually host a large number of deciduous trees, all of which have been showing off their color-changing abilities. It impressed a recent visitor from Ireland (not so many trees left on the island) and has made a few long, slow drives around the city a bit more bearable. Of course, the leaves are starting to disappear, making the journey to the ground and gutter in preparation for the miserable months ahead.
And not the basketball episode. At a recent George Washington basketball game, the pep band broke into the theme from The Office during a timeout. In my experience, pep bands' exploration of the TV theme genre generally consists entirely of the Sportscenter music. Perhaps The Jeffersons' "Moving on Up."
The Office strikes me as an odd choice. There's no message behind that song that could possibly be construed to push your team to greater accomplishment. Of course, I'm guessing the band didn't intend any message beyond "this is a cool show and its music easily lends itself to instrumental arrangement."
Tonight I'm at Howard University for a men's basketball game. Eight minutes before tip-off, and there are not quite 40 people in the stands. It's probably the sparsest crowd I've ever seen for a game, and I covered plenty of Southern Miss women's games. Unfortunate. I don't know if there's any past tradition here, and I'm sure the Thanksgiving break has something to do with it, but I always hate to see a team playing in front of empty seats.
My first clue they weren't expecting a huge amount of people? There weren't any ticket takers at the door. There wasn't anyone at the door. Just walk on in and have a seat.
UPDATE: A few more people did just that. It appears the crowd is now easily in the triple digits.
I just realized I never finished the story started in my past posts.
I obviously didn't end up with tickets, but for Game 3 Tom and I made our way downtown and found a spot in a bar just across the street from Coors Field.
For most of the game, it actually looked like the Rockies might have a chance. When the Red Sox broke it open late, we decided to see if we could find a soft spot in the stadium's defenses.
We wandered across the street around the eighth inning and walked around toward the back of the stadium. A few fans were starting to leave, but most of the gates were still well-guarded against the ticketless like us. We did find what looked to be a possible weak point, with a large open area between the fence/gate and the actual stadium. The ushers were some distance from the gate, and Tom and I managed to step just inside the fence. When we actually moved for the stadium, the ushers caught on. They intercepted Tom. I was in front and had a chance of getting in, but figured I'd stop as well (I would have had a hard time getting back to his place without him).
So we didn't get in to see the game. We did get to watch the game with a buzzing atmosphere, although the spirit was considerably lessened the next day looking at a 3-0 hole (and then a 4-0 loss).
Unlike most of the Smithsonian museums, it's not easy to just swing by the Udvar-Hazy center, which is a branch of the Air and Space Museum. The giant open hanger features a number of notable aircraft, including an SR-71 and the space shuttle Enterprise.
There are obviously far more planes and the like on display, everything from old crop dusters and home-made ultralights to an F-14. Since the displays consist of lots of parked aircraft and almost nothing else, it can get a bit monotonous, but the hanger held my attention for a few hours, at least.
I had been thinking of stopping in at the center for a while, but since it's all the way out at Dulles Airport - about a 45-minute drive into Virginia, depending on traffic - it wasn't quite worth a drive for itself. This weekend, however, I found myself headed out toward Dulles for the final weekend of my Ultimate Frisbee league. After a morning loss, I had the afternoon free to check out the planes.
The obvious, featured planes are cool to see - the SR-71, the Enola Gay, the Concorde, the shuttle - and the sheer number of smaller planes kept my interest longer than I'd anticipated. I wish they'd done a bit more with one or two of the planes - I wanted to see the inside of the Concorde, rather than just stare at it from a few feet away. One of the coolest exhibits tucked away on the sides, at least for someone who grew up in the Top Gun generation, was an F-14 sitting right across from a MiG-21. (The MiG-21 wings are unbelievable short. Even more than most fighter planes, it looks like a rocket with a cockpit on the top. The wings are little more than small fins on the side - the entire wingspan is only about 20 feet across, which means the wings themselves are only a couple meters long.
The center also features a tower with views of the incoming Dulles traffic - the museum is maybe half a mile south of the airport's runways, so you can see the smoke kick up with each landing and look to the sky to see the planes lined up one after another until they disappear into the distance.
The tower also has a mock-up of an air traffic control center, complete with radio chatter and a radar screen. The radar and audio comes from Newark airport and it seemed to be about a 15-minute taped loop. I'm not sure how often the radar and audio is changed; I was doubtful it was ever changed at all, but the attendant commented on how they had to edit the Newark traffic. (He said the Newark airport was often disrupted by U.N. diplomat helicopters who didn't bother with the niceties of following the controllers. I have no idea if there's any truth to this.)
Since, I've found myself every so often putting on live Air Traffic Control chatter in the background. I don't know why; I can't really follow it, but I like the sounds.
I got into Denver a week ago. When I landed at DIA, it was almost 80 degrees. On Sunday, I woke up to a significant snowfall - a couple inches of white carpet on the ground. It stuck, covered lawns - not just a few flakes dusting the ground. Most of the snow melted during the afternoon, but there was still a pile on the edges of Mile High during the Broncos game. There was even a brief moment late in the game when a few more flakes started to fall, which gave some energy to the crowd (even though it'd warmed up during the day, it was a cold night).
Ever since, it's been in the 60s or 70s. No winter trip here, although the snow was a nice taste of what I'm not going to get in D.C., where I'm told the winters tend to be cold, wet and gray rather than colder, crisp and snow-filled.
Not that I've taken advantage of the weather. Monday and Tuesday were spent staring at computer screens trying to get World Series tickets for the games this weekend, which turned into an exercise in frustration. So no tickets for me, unless something completely unforeseen happens. However, I will be making my way into downtown Denver to see some of the craziness and hopefully see at least one Rockies win before heading back to D.C.
I left the friendly confines of D.C. this weekend, heading west to Denver.
Originally, the trip was to see friends and go to the Broncos game Sunday night (which turned out to be a good choice; the Broncos pulled out a last-minute win). But since the Rockies made the World Series, I extended the trip to stay in Denver for the games.
This morning, the World Series tix went on sale. Or were supposed to. The online-only sales were completely ineffective as the servers were jammed. A few hours ago the team announced they were suspending sales (after they reportedly sold just a few hundred of the nearly 60,000 available today) and will restart sales "later."
I didn't hold out much hope to get tickets regardless; I just wanted to be in the city while the games were going on. But I can't decide if this helps or hurts my chances - since I've got nothing to do but sit at the computer all week, I've got more flexibility to deal with these online problems than most. So perhaps I'll get Series tickets after all.
In honor of the Rockies' World Series run, another in my intermittent series:
I don't remember the first time I saw a game at Coors Field. I'd guess it was in spring of 1998, or possibly the year before. I'd guess I've probably been to more games in Coors than anywhere except the old Busch Stadium, since I tended to stop in Denver on my way back and forth between home and school when I was in college.
I know for sure I was in Coors for the
1998 All-Star game and Home Run Derby. We sat in the very top row deep above right field for the All Star game. I don't remember much about the game itself. I do remember a few moments from the Derby - Mark McGuire hitting a ball 500 feet off the front of the Rockpile center-field bleachers, Ken Griffey Jr. coming out after he'd announced he wouldn't be competing, a few Jim Thome home runs landing just one section away from us.
Coors gained notoriety for the thin air and home runs (and now the humidor) but the stadium itself doesn't get enough mention.
Sure, it's just one more of the retro-wave parks (and when I was in Cleveland, Jacobs Field seemed to be a near-exact copy, with a white stone exterior instead of brick). But Coors has character and a sense of place.
The stadium's location was near-perfect. It sits on the edge of downtown. A walk to the park is through LoDo (lower downtown) amid bars, lofts and a crowd of fans. But being on the edge of downtown (behind the park are railroad tracks and the interstate) means the large parking lots behind and below the stadium don't break up the landscape.
The best touch, however, was the decision not to add upper decks above the left field seating, giving a clear view of the Rockies past the scoreboard. The row of purple seats in the upper decks, marking one mile above sea level, are a nice touch as well.
The stadium is spacious and clean, without an over-abundant feeling of shiny, plastic surfaces you can get with some of the newest parks. And I've heard tell you can pick up some Rocky Mountain Oysters if you look hard enough, although I've never found the particular concession stand.
Until the last month or so, the Rockies have rarely been a team which seemed destined for greatness, although they were rarely completely lousy. The consistent mediocraty brought the crowds down from the record highs of the first few years, but the crowd at the games is generally knowledgeable and quick to cheer. I'm sure the atmosphere this weekend will be electric (although if Colorado drops Game 3 it'll be a pretty fatalistic crowd on Sunday). I'd like to be among the throngs inside, but if I have to make do with being part of the throngs outside it won't be so bad.
Obviously, I've gotten out of the habit of posting. My apologies to anyone who might care.
I haven't left the District in a while or gone anywhere particularly interesting. I have, however, actually earned a very small amount of cash the past two weeks, thanks to some work with the AP and one with the Washington Post.
Not that they're high-status gigs. They're stuff like this. But it beats not making any money, I suppose. And we'll see if I can build it up.
There are a plethora of different police forces patrolling the streets of D.C., or at least driving their cars around.
On a given day, I can see marked cars from the D.C. Metropolitan Police (the city's main police force), the Uniformed Division of the Secret Service, the U.S. Park Police, the National Park Service, the Capitol Police, the Metro Transit Police. Every so often, I see a new one to add to the list.
Today, I saw a new one I hadn't seen before. Squad cars bearing the name of Homeland Security, next to the designation Federal Protection Service.
According to this list I can look forward to spotting at least a dozen more insignia on squad cars around the city.
It was several years before I experienced my second baseball stadium.
One of the benefits of going to school in central Missouri was the relative proximity of two baseball teams; the Royals and the Cardinals were each about an hour and a half away.
In my first few years of school, I was more likely to make the trip to Kansas City. The Royals were never any good, but that actually worked in their favor. Kansas City had the best ticket deal - you could buy half-price upper deck seats for (I think) Tuesday and Friday games. In practice, this meant for $4.50 you could sit anywhere in Kauffman Stadium, since I never saw an usher in Kansas City. (This spring, I discovered there are some ushers restricting movement, but only to sections about halfway down the left and right field lines. Want to sit behind home plate or in the first row behind the dugout? No problem. Want to sit halfway between third base and the foul pole? No way. I don't get it.) As a Mariners fan, Kansas City also gave me a chance to see a team I cared about occasionally.
The first game I remember seeing in KC was when the Mariners came to town late in the season and Ken Griffey, Jr., was sitting around 50 home runs with an outside shot to hit 60 (in the years before Sosa, McGuire and Bonds blew past the then-sacrosanct number). A group of nearly 10 of us piled into a couple cars for the drive down I-70, picked up our cheap tickets and found seats about five rows behind the first-base dugout. (This was probably late in 1997, although I'm sure I also saw games there in the spring of 1997 as well.)
Kauffman is rarely held up as a shining example of baseball architecture. That the team has been lousy for the last 15 years doesn't help. Neither does the dated design, straight from the 70s.
But I've always thought Kauffman got a bad rap. If the stadium outlasts the new stadium building boom, in a decade or so its reputation will rise based on nostalgia. Suddenly, it's going to be one of the last remaining "old" parks and it's certainly got an unique design. Before too long, I see a backlash against the new crop of parks, all of which are based on the same Camden Yards-style new-retro aesthetic. (It's currently the ninth-oldest MLB park, according to Wikipedia, and in a few years it'll be the fifth-oldest.) And when the backlash comes, Kauffman is going to be uniquely poised to pick up admirers.
And even now, there's something to be said for the park. Unlike most of the previous generation of stadiums, it was built for baseball and it has a design unlike any other park.
The seats wrap around the field, soaring high behind home plate. The top of the stands gently curves down to the foul poles, and the seats just barely peek out above the edges of right and left field wall.
Beyond most of the outfield, instead of seats, sit landscaped grass terraces, pools and fountains which dance after home runs. The large crown-shaped scoreboard in centerfield with the lineups spelled out in lights isn't high tech anymore, but in this era of HD video screens replacing scoreboards, the older light bulb scoreboards have a fraction of the same appeal as the hand-operated boards. (A companion on a recent trip to a game expressed regret at the fact full-video boards would usurp the old clunky animations on the light bulb boards).
The best part of Kauffman's design is also its greatest weakness. Because there are no seats behind the outfield, just a walkway and some concession stands above the terraces, everyone in the park can see out, beyond the stadium itself. Such a view in a stadium gives fans a sense of place, a sense of the character of the area the stadium is set in.
Unfortunately, the area the stadium is set in is the wasteland along I-70 in the city's western suburbs, surrounded by nothing but bare concrete parking lots broken up only by Arrowhead Stadium at Kauffman's flank.
If this stadium was moved to the location of parks in San Francisco (water view), Denver (mountain view), D.C. (monument view), St. Louis (arch view) or even downtown Kansas City, where at least you'd feel like it belonged to the city and was a part of its environs, it would be hailed as one of the good places to see a ballgame. If it was in downtown K.C. it wouldn't be a must-see in the way Fenway, or Wrigley, or even the corporately-named park in San Francisco is, but it'd still have a reputation as a pleasant spot to watch baseball.
Instead, it's ignored at best. The only excitement I can remember over Kauffman was when I was in school and a fan was hit by a bullet randomly fired from a car on I-70. That's right, go to Kauffman, worry about drive-by shootings! Not even Tiger Stadium had that problem.
As my college career wore on, I was far more likely to make the trek to St. Louis and Busch Stadium than Kauffman. I knew more people from St. Louis, for one, and there were far more reasons to go see the Cardinals: better baseball, the promise of memorable moments. My best baseball memories are still in St. Louis. The only stand-out memory of Kansas City is driving all the way to the stadium to see Randy Johnson pitch for the Mariners only to have the game rained out without a pitch thrown.
Still, I've got a soft spot for Kauffman, and it's not just pity. I'm confident the Royals owners are too cheap to get a new park, so I believe in a years to come more people will come to see Kauffman as I do, as a pleasant place to watch a game without the too-shiny corporate conveniences of the modern parks.
Gotta say, there's something not bad about coming down to the Mall and setting up shop with a laptop outside one of the Smithsonian museums on a day like today. The sun is out but the humidity stayed away, people are out and about and there's a huge fountain to my left. I bash this city's lack of character often, but the Mall is a definite exception.
An addition to my last post:
In the days after our jaunt by bike (up to and including today) I was sore in one place. It wasn't my legs or the part which had to endure the seat. It was, and is, my lower neck.
I was borrowing a bike with a seat not adjusted for me (and when I realized this, I didn't have the necessary tools). I knew it forced my neck at an odd angle if I wanted to look down the trail as I rode. I didn't realize it was so odd my shoulders and neck would have a dull ache for the next three days.
I finally got out of the city on a bike ride this past weekend, which I'd been wanting to do for some time.
There are a number of places which look close enough on a map to make me think I could bike there. Mount Vernon, for one. Great Falls, for another. That's where we decided to go Saturday.
Great Falls is a 14-mile trip up along the Potomac River (the trail follows an old canal which was briefly used to ship cargo into D.C. in the 19th century). Following the canal makes for a level ride, although the dirt and gravel path created a jarring ride which slowly worked its way to aggravation.
A relevant note: I haven't ridden a bike at all for several months for obvious reasons. Even when I first got to D.C. and actually had a bike, I did little more than bike around a mile or two of our house. I haven't ridden a bike for any extended length of time for several years.
On the way home from our jaunt it occurred to me I may never have ridden 30 miles in a day. This, perhaps, was slightly ambitious for our first day out. It wasn't a problem to make it back to Georgetown, although it would have been tougher if not for a snack stand where we could load up on extra drinks a few miles out of D.C. My legs were about done when we got off the trail and had to go uphill to get back home. My legs told me they'd actually been done some time before that once I stopped and my legs had a chance to tell me how they really felt.
I haven't been keeping to my running regimen as much as I'd like, and I'm just one for three on attendance with my Ultimate Frisbee season. The bike ride was much needed. I just might warm up with some shorter rides before I try another 30-miler.
I've read stories documenting the recovery of the airline industry, and two weekends ago I found myself in the midst of the renewed hordes of travelers.
From 2001 to 2005 I flew more domestic flights than the average American, as my job paid for me to more or less be a professional traveler. I rarely saw flights full enough to warrant a call for volunteers to give up their seats from the gate attendants.
Apparently, this year flights have started to fill up, and there's more call for the volunteers (generally in return for a free flight voucher). On our return from St. Louis to D.C. the plane was full, and both Kirsten and I volunteered in return for a free flight and the promise we'd get into D.C. a few hours late.
This did mean we'd be sitting in the St. Louis airport for six extra hours nursing hangovers (well, I was nursing a hangover) after attending a wedding the night before.
When it finally came time to board the second plane, a call for volunteers went up once again. Kirsten had to work the next day, but I was more than willing to stay in St. Louis for an extra night, on the airline, and pick up another free flight.
Alas, at the last minute I was told my service wasn't needed. So instead I was forced to fly home in the first-class seats we'd been upgraded to after being voluntarily bumped the first time. My vision of simply staying at the St. Louis airport indefinitely and professionally giving up my seat flight after flight in return for future free travel was to remain unfulfilled.
Before I moved here, I was no fan of D.C. Some of the neighborhoods around here have started to grow on me, but I'm still not a fan of the city's general character. Sure, the mall is great, but once you stroll out of the museums and memorials, the downtown area is just one big collection of concrete buildings.
One of my friends put it this way: D.C. is thick, not tall. And it's this I'll never be able to get past. Especially when I wander around through Manhattan for a day and return to D.C.
Sure, it's never fair to compare anywhere to Manhattan. But it's just so much nicer, for me, to wander around New York where the defining characteristic is vertical steel rather than horizontal concrete and where every block has a different shop or establishment to discover. At least here the museums are free.
I spent Labor Day weekend in the car driving through most of the Eastern Seaboard's metropolises. Friday I left D.C. for a not-quite-leisurely drive to Providence, Rhode Island, which was the first time I could use a Rhode Island address as a final destination.
The ride wasn't quite leisurely due to a deadline (my sister and I were headed to Providence to meet our younger cousin, who was flying into Providence that night and moving into her college dorm the next day), Labor Day traffic and a lack of any extra time built into our schedule to compensate for the traffic. A two-hour wait to get across the George Washington Bridge into NYC didn't help. We ended up stuck in traffic for 45 minutes just to get to the exit to drive an extra half-hour or so out of our way to avoid the bridge.
In the end, though, we made it to Providence less than an hour late, forcing cousin to wait just a few minutes (her luggage took some time to appear). We then stayed up far too late (just because) and waking up far too early (for me) to move her in.
The traffic on campus was as bad as the traffic on the roads - she ended up waiting in line to register for her key, to pick up her ID and finally to get up to her room (shared with three others). I was only 10 years out of my depth, but I did get asked if I wanted to open a student checking account, which was a nice gesture.
The moving-in and supply run to Target completed (Rhode Island, to me, consists of the one campus and a strip of big-box stores) we left cousin and headed south to New York City, where another cousin was putting us up for the night. Again, we stayed up too late (a few corner bars and one hookah bar and all of a sudden it's 3:30 a.m.). And again, we woke up too early, to meet a friend of my sister's for brunch. Then a walk through the city, including a Brazilian street fest. Fun times, including the sunburn (who goes to New York and gets a sunburn?)
The weather was perfect, a sunny, crisp late summer day. I started to think back and realized in my mind, New York has the best weather in the country. All my trips to the city have been in the spring or early fall, and every day has been sunny, upper 70s, low humidity. Perfect. Of course, the natives laughed at this slander of their city.
We left NYC late in the afternoon to head back to Baltimore, where we finally got some sleep before helping my sister's boyfriend move into his new house. Then back to D.C., where I stayed up late packing and woke up far, far too early to fly to Missouri, thus ending the tour of the East Coast.
I've lived in places before where biting insects were problems.
I grew up in Montana, where the mosquitoes only thrived for a month or two, but they were big and there was a lot of them.
I lived in Mississippi, where the mosquitoes came out late in the year, when the heat dipped to tolerable levels. As the sun drooped into the horizon, swarms of the little buggers swirled about your head and arms.
I also lived for a time in New Orleans, where I woke up every morning with another bite or two from an unidentified bug, a reminder of just how well the humidity nutured a variety of insects and just how poorly my window unit air conditioner kept the nature of the place at bay.
But the character of the mosquitoes here in D.C. is entirely different from anywhere else. Unlike mosquitoes I'm familiar with, the ones here are tiny and stealthy. You don't have to swat down black swarms. In fact, you rarely see them. But every time I walk outside, I end up with a few more bites.
It doesn't feel like New Orleans, where the bugs just seemed to be an unavoidable piece of the city as a whole. Here, the bites are far more of an aggravation for seeming out of place. And the mosquitoes seem a bit more malevolent for coming in single, clandestine raids instead of frontal assaults in battalion strength.
A constant source of irritability in the household has been a lack of storage space for all our stuff, a problem unlikely to get better anytime soon.
We have gotten slightly better at managing the spillover, keeping the piles from turning into scattered bits and pieces on the floor (and be we, I mean "not me"). But the biggest problem is almost zero closet space and more possessions than can be crammed into the spots for stowing we do have.
It's the only real complaint I have about the place. We got lucky with where we are; Kirsten found the apartment in about two days after she got the job offer. We're paying less than we would for other comparable places we've seen. We like the neighborhood. We're sharing a four-bedroom house, but we have the basement to ourselves - our own entrance, own kitchen, own bathroom. Even have a washer/dryer. As well, we can go upstairs to the house common area (which happened more before I ran the cable downstairs). The roommates are nice enough, and rarely home. So not too bad, if only we had a closet or less stuff...
So for the last couple months my bike has been out of commission, waiting for a new gear cable. My roommate had the technical expertise to do the job, but our timing kept being off and I had to make a couple different runs to the bike shop to get the right cable and parts.
This weekend, everything finally came together, or so I'm told. While I was out running around town, my roommate put the bike together and it was ready to ride.
Early this week, a combination of rain and sickness kept me from testing it out. Yesterday, I decided an evening ride was in order. I walked out to our back yard where it had been stored under the porch, and no bike. The other two bikes were there, as well as various assorted other items, but my bike was gone.
So now I'm wondering, did they wait until the new cable was installed? Did they decide only one bike was needed, and left the others there? And what to do this weekend, now my idea of a nice ride is out of the picture?
After seeing another game at RFK this weekend, I discovered the Nationals allow their fans to follow the out-of-town scores.
There isn't a dedicated out-of-town scoreboard, but the other scores are flashed up on some of the small video boards on the front of the upper deck throughout the game. Still makes it hard to see the game you're looking for with just a glance; you have to wait until it's the one on the screen. Kind of like waiting for a score on the ESPN ticker.
I'll take Wrigley's or Fenway's anytime.
I suppose it should be expected, but we didn't expect it to happen there.
We were just trying to take advantage of the nice weather Saturday afternoon. A drive through the park, then a stop to walk around and actually be in the weather. On our return, the car had either gained a dent or lost some structural integrity.
There weren't more than 12 cars in a lot with spaces for 50. Our space was in the midst of the few cars, nothing attention-grabbing about it. But someone decided their car also needed to occupy a piece of the space, the same spot our left rear corner was occupying.
Someone else walking along told us they'd seen the hit; they believed the man in the offending car was teaching his partner to drive. They'd told him a note would be left. Of course, it wasn't.
They managed to push our car well out of the center of the space. Other than losing a few cubic inches off our bumper's profile, there appears to be no real damage. Our new Glacier National Park bumper sticker, however, was torn and obscured. Insult, no injury.
I have two T-shirts featuring the silhouette of New Zealand. Apparently, this is just recognizable enough for people to know it is a landmass, but obscure enough for them to have a hard time knowing which landmass it represents.
While we were home for the wedding, I wore one of the shirts and had two people ask my why Italy was upside down. The other day I wore one out to the bar and a girl asked why I was wearing a map of Japan.
I don't know if I would have picked it out either, before I lived there. But it's not helping the American reputation for geographic knowledge.
I hadn't checked out the time required to get from here to there (a nearly-too-long-for-a-day-trip three hours each way). I knew nothing about where we were headed, except it promised sand, water and waves. That was enough.
A year in New Zealand spoiled me. I didn't take enough advantage of always living within a few minutes drive of the ocean waters, but I didn't really have to. I stumbled across enough beaches, rarely needing to plan an excursion.
Since we've been back in the States, I haven't stumbled across the ocean. Most of the time, I couldn't see water to the horizon no matter how badly I wanted to.
So we headed east until we hit the Atlantic. The waters weren't the blue-green of my memories, more of a green-brown. But the sand was properly pale yellow, and the sun shone just enough. Too much, really, for my skin, victim of my carelessness. Despite the obstacles, it was exactly what I wanted.
So here is my last post about the wedding, since it's been almost a month now - probably time to get this up.
Thursday
We drive from the farm to North Forty where the reception will take place and most guests are staying. We reserved most of the cabins for Friday and Saturday night, with my immediate family and some friends coming in on Thursday. As it turned out, a few too many friends decided to show up on Thursday, and sleeping spaces were at a premium. The weekend's shopping (we got too much food) was done during the afternoon. The food was packed away, the accommodations were all sorted out (although I almost ended up without a spot). Then away to Whitefish we went. Kirsten's bridesmaids actually organized a bachelorette party, or at least made of list of who would be around, and invited them to eat and drink. The guys weren't as organized, but it hardly mattered. Everyone piled into cars (we had two volunteers for designated drivers - excellent) then piled into bars. I had the presence of mind to order food before the shots started coming, then no more presence of mind. More drinks appeared - I don't think I bought many. Bars were hopped. Near the end of the night, we found ourselves in a bar with live poker tables. I managed not to lose all of my money. Closing time, we all made it back to the cabins. More drinks appeared, and I remember talking late into the night and then the morning, although I don't know about what. I went to bed slightly after one of our friends woke up and left to get a sunrise picture in Glacier.
Friday
It was a late morning for me, but not late enough. The rest of the family and friends poured in (although it seemed like most ended up coming on Thursday). The morning carried a bit of stress, not helped by the hangover. Kirsten fielded some calls from her dad, who ended up unable to make the wedding (this was known to be a likely proposition, but still caused some stress). Food preparation for the evening's meal started in earnest, with my family putting most of it together. Kirsten and I, along with a few others, headed to Glacier to scout the wedding location and choreograph the wedding. Jobs had been handed out and all were accomplished. The dinner (no rehearsal) was a hit. Friends and family mingled. An uncle was costumed. Gifts were given to my aunt and uncle for their 60th birthdays, and to my mom and dad for their 30th anniversary. A game was played. People retired early, to recover from Thursday night. (Everyone, as far as I'm aware, was in by midnight).
Saturday
The morning was still earlier than I would have liked, but far better than Friday's. Pancake breakfast fortified everyone. We enlisted guest to help erect a large tent for outdoor seating, as well as setting up tables and chairs. Others put together and set up decorations. Food catered for the reception arrives. Flowers arrive. (A small relief, since I made the arrangements). Kirsten leaves to have her hair done. A near crisis - the only real one of the weekend - I realize I forgot the cord to hook up music to the sound system. Kirsten wants music. I want music. I enlist sister's boyfriend to pick up new cord. He does. Crisis averted.
The morning seems to be a lot of rushing around, making sure everything is done. Then iron and put on wedding outfit. It seems all is done, now an hour to kill before heading out for photos. Someone remembers we should eat - good call. Photos are taken. Everyone arrives. (The parking was a worry, but doesn't seem to be an issue). Group portraits are done, everyone mingles. Our lemonade stand (served by my sister and her boyfriend) is a hit. It was 100 degrees Thursday and Friday. Today it's almost cool at 85. Everyone is seated, at 3:30 the music starts. Everyone in the seats pulls out their cameras. Ceremony goes well - music, reading, vows, reading, done. Everyone is invited to wade into the lake, most do. More photos. People head back to the cabins. Kirsten and I take our time, have ice cream at the nearby park village. (They don't have root beer floats. We order a root beer and a scoop of ice cream to dump together. Now we have root beer floats.)
We arrive, reception can start. Toasts, cake, food, keg, wine, talking. People sit inside and out. More mingling. First dance, then no dance (the music was good, but people were more interested in talking and drinking than dancing). Second keg is sent for, just in time. We open presents. More talking. Some late-night dancing when friends hijack the play list. The hall is to be vacant at midnight, so the keg is moved. It was a poor location choice, some of the guests who had intended to be sleeping no longer were after the keg and its attendant loudness were relocated. The frivolity went on into the early morning. Kirsten and I retired at 3 a.m. Reliable sources tell me the keg gave out at 4:30 a.m., when the remaining partyers drifted to bed.
Sunday
I try for an early morning, but I find the work I'd intended to help with is already mostly finished. We try to find places to put all the unused food. Again a morning of rushing, as people try to pack up and say goodbye. We arrange to have lunch with a group of friends. It's a slow-moving crowd. Afterward, Kirsten and I go back to the park with our photographers. We pose for portraits in the scenery for hours. And more hours. Just before the sun sets, we set up camp.
Monday
We plan on heading to Canada (still with our photographers). I realize I packed our passports in a shipment headed back to the farm. Kirsten is worried - we only have drivers licenses. No problem. We get into Canada. Then I'm worried - we see a front moving in, with black clouds, wind and rain. There's a bear at the Waterton visitors' center. The bear crosses the road. We get back on the road, take a short hike and avoid the rain. The front blows over, sun shines. We drive to Cameron Lake. Nice. Another short walk, then back to the townsite. A few drinks at the hotel (no we weren't staying there, we camped down below). Campsite had no fires, but a lot of ground squirrels.
Tuesday
Back to U.S. We drive to Many Glacier. Then we take a short walk. Another bear is there. We see the cinnamon-colored black bear about 30 feet away, looking through a rotten log. My companions are interested in hurrying down the trail. Kirsten and I leave the photographers to the park, and return to the farm.
Wednesday
We try and figure out how to fit everything we've obtained from the weekend into our packs. It's a futile effort, although we managed to fit most of it. Two 40 pound bags each will tax the baggage handlers Thursday when we return to D.C.
I'm convinced one of the reasons a long international trip is such a rare event for 20-something Americans is the lack of time in the socially acceptable life calendar.
I'm not talking about a few weeks or even a summer in Europe during college. One of the quickly apparent facts when you're staying in hostels in New Zealand or Australia or Asia is the relatively large numbers of English, Australians, Kiwis, Germans, Irish, Dutch, etc., who pack up and travel for months or years somewhere in the post-high school or post-college years.
It's common enough to have slang descriptions. In New Zealand, pretty much everyone was expected to have an OE, or overseas experience. Sometimes it came right after high school, delaying college for a few years. Sometimes it came during or after college. It seemed just as often it came in place of college. The Kiwis could go to Australia and work at anytime or go to the UK once with a two-year work visa. For your career, the choice to go live andbar tend in London was as valid as the choice to go to University, as long as you weren't planning on a specialized career. Or it was a chance to figure out just what you wanted to do before getting to school and being forced to choose a career plan. In England, the same idea is referred to as a Gap Year.
In the States, there is no term for it. There isn't even a concept. You leave high school, you go to college or get a job. You leave college, you better have a job. That, at least, is the general assumption present in most of the conversations about the future when you're in high school or college. When Kirsten and I were thinking about leaving and going to New Zealand for a year, the general consensus from everyone we told was they were envious, but it wasn't something they would even consider.
It also wasn't easy when we returned. I don't know how much having a year off on the resume affected either of us, but it definitely leads to some uncertainty when
you return with no job and no immediate prospects.
In New Zealand, a college degree wasn't as necessary to get into the general business world as it is here. It wasn't always a requirement. Life experience could also work, or even no experience at all; it seemed sometimes places handed out jobs hoping the applicant would figure it out on the job. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't, but it's a concept hard to embrace with an American work background. Kind of like the standard three-week business vacation around Christmas. (I saw family-owned shops closed in early December, with signs in the door saying they were closed for the holidays and would re-open in mid-February.
It was one more aspect of a generally more relaxed society. New Zealand is nicely isolated from the go-go world of America and Europe businesses. The small population makes the country pretty much an afterthought for multi-national corporations, which probably contributes to the more relaxed business (and general) culture. Not
that I have a job at the moment to compare, but I'm not looking forward to getting back into the U.S. work mindset.
I found some notes for blog entries I made while traveling which never got up here. The first one:
I'm not quite sure exactly how some of the people we met while traveling bankrolled their trips. I know people here weren't sure how we bankrolled ours (we worked in New Zealand, had some money saved, and used some credit cards). There were, I'm sure, people whose parents were paying for it. The English just saved up some money and then saw its value double or triple once they started exchanging pounds into other currencies. Other people had obviously laid out money for a round-the-world ticket and then squeaked by on odd jobs and low standards. We met a couple of people who had bought or inherited property they were renting, and using that income to travel.
One German guy we met in New Zealand had an even better system. He'd simply registered for classes. I didn't verify the details, but according to him Germany not only gave him free tuition, but also a living stipend and insurance as a student. So he simply wasn't showing up for his classes, since he happened to be about 11,000 miles away.
Once we got to Glacier, the weekend rushed by.
It seemed like all sensory input had a hard time making an imprint on my brain. It was hard to remember what people had told me five minutes later; it was hard to stop and take in the weekend. I tried to make time for all 100 friends and family, and in the end felt I didn't get enough time with any of them.
Staying up drinking until the wee hours of the morning Thursday night didn't help; certainly it made dealing with Friday morning tough. But mostly, the sensation was caused by the sheer amount of details and people to deal with. I didn't feel particularly stressed most of the time, but I did occasionally feel overloaded.
I probably didn't have to be. Most of the details were taken care of by others; our extended families took on several chores, and our friends pitched in with free labor whenever we asked. But since I had dealt with setting up much of the logistics and plans I felt I had to at least check on most of it (and Kirsten helped with some of the details I forgot to check on).
In the end there were no major crises, and everything went well. When it was all finished, I just realized I had very little grasp on individual memories of the event. I can pick them out if I try, but the overall impression on my memory is one big blur.
Two of my favorite quotes from the wedding came from friends who weren't even there.
A few days afterward, I checked me email and saw this message from Ryan regarding a blog post my brother Scott wrote:
I saw Scott's blog post, which was abbreviated in the RSS directory to "Today is my brother's wedding. It was a disa....", which I naturally extended to "disaster". I clicked on it with a beating heart, but as you probably know, the word was "disappointment". So I'm glad to hear that it was not disastrous, at least as far as Scott knows.
Welcome back to your life! Not having to plan a wedding anymore may be the biggest single relief in the world.
For those of you who would like to see a selection of photos put online by our official wedding photographers, Stephen and Gavin, instructions are below.
You can find the photos at http://www.pictage.com/336470. The event key is:
070707Eklund
Enjoy.
I'm battling to get into the jogging habit. (Sure, it might not be the best activity for me, but it's an activity, and it's one I think I can realistically do consistently. I'm still trying to find an Ultimate Frisbee or softball team to join, but until then, I've got to work with my brain and do what I can.) I had it for a while when I first got to D.C., then a number of trips (not least two weeks in Montana) broke any schedule I once had.
This week I've tried to start again. My first day I made the same mistake I always do when starting - run too fast at the start, nearly collapse from exhaustion five minutes in.
Yesterday, though, I managed to strike a more leisurely pace, one I could maintain for about 45 minutes. For more than another hour, I fought the urge to walk by forcing myself into a few short bouts of running. But after I lost my stamina, the afternoon mostly became about trying to walk the line between getting lost in a new part of town and keeping my bearing enough to return home. Part of me always hopes to get lost, just to figure out the challenge, but I also would just as soon be able to get back to the apartment within an hour of deciding it's time to head on back.
Most of my runs start in the finger of Rock Creek Park behind the apartment. It's easy to get lost in here; there's a number of named trails, but the signage is often lacking. It'll point you on your way, then the trail will pop out of the woods at a street intersection, with no indication of which way to go. It usually takes me at least a couple of tries to figure out where a trail goes once I decide to take it.
I've noticed a general problem with signs across D.C., at least outside of the National Mall area. Bus stops often list fares from at least two increases ago - if someone hadn't told me, I'd have had no idea I needed to get more change ready the first time a bus arrived. The road network to get out of downtown to Virginia is also less informative than I would like; until you've tried a route once, you have no idea just what lane you're required to be in to arrive where you want to go, or even where a particular road will end up.
But in the park, I mind the lack of information less galling. Getting lost is part of the attraction. Yesterday was no real exception - the signs lasted a bit longer than usual, but I still found myself taking random turns on sidewalks after the trail suddenly seemed to disappear.
I hadn't run west yet; I was pleased to find myself at the Potomac River and with the option of taking either one of a pair of trails I'd run into before, at a different spot. I've started to map out some longer routes in my head. Perhaps it'll come in handy if I ever get my bike fixed.
Stephen has put me to shame. Not only did he get a written account of the whole wedding up well before I did, but the writing was good, as well as the photos. I'm not sure I'll be able to compete.
So while I'm still composing my thoughts, go over to his blog post and check out the 29 photos he has up, along with a written account of his weekend as a wedding photog.
Before we actually headed up to Glacier National Park for the big event, we spent almost a week with my family on the farm where I grew up.
As usual for any family gathering, several aunts and uncles on my mom's side (who grew up on the farm) came out to spend time on the homestead as well. This time, there were some extra faces in the July 4 crowd. Some of Kirsten's family, as well as my best man and her maid of honor, came out a few days early to see the farm as well.
This worked out better than I had imagined - it was some of the only real time I felt I got to spend with anyone all weekend. It's sometimes a bit disconcerting to show friends aspects of your life that did not include them, but also always fun to see your childhood haunts through a different set of eyes.
(Although my childhood home has been going through an extended renovation ever since I left 10 years ago - brand new floors throughout, a re-roofing with expansion and a full deck have been added. I think my parents didn't know what to do with all their time once four kids left the house.)
We arrived at the farm one week before the wedding, Saturday night. On Sunday mom invited the town over for an open house/pre-wedding reception (a decent proportion of the town showed up - 30 people). Monday we drove up to Fort Benton for the blood test (Montana forced Kirsten to get tested for Rubella, for some reason). Tuesday the friends arrived, and Wednesday was a party for July 4. The afternoon was spent at my uncle's, 10 miles down the road. Kirsten's nephews and niece stole the show, running around trying to catch chickens and cows, petting the horse and demanding, and getting, a ride on the tractor (the much-anticipated highlight for any 5-year-old).
The crowd moved back to my parents' for the evening, capped off by the fireworks. July 4 fireworks always kick off fairly late back home, since the sun doesn't go down until almost 10 and darkness doesn't set in until closer to 11 in mid-summer. My best man, Tom, had taken the opportunity to load up on fireworks, as had my uncle, and all of them were shot off.
Before the fireworks, Kirsten's young relatives had taken it upon themselves to explore this new farm, as well (of course). The photo above is the oldest, Bradley, carrying stalks of wheat in our back yard.
As I was waking up the other day, my mind struggled to identify an odd weight on my finger. After a second, it clicked. The lump was my still-new wedding ring.
If I was writing a short story, this detail would serve as a metaphor for nagging doubt, or perhaps realization the marriage was dragging my life down from the heights of my dreams. Or something.
Thankfully, this isn't a short story. The weight isn't a metaphor, it's just an anecdote about my ring being too new for my mind to take for granted. The titanium ring is slightly raised and now prevents my pinkie from nestling up against my ring finger. My mind most often interprets this sensation as a swollen finger - to my pinkie, it feels like my ring finger has been injured and swelled to the point it has lost feeling. To my ring finger, my pinkie is insane. It's just a little bit of metal to haul around, most of the time unnoticeable. I'm sure before long my mind will become accustomed to the ring's presence and no longer bring nerves' signals regarding the ring to my attention.
For now, this marriage thing is new, but the ring is about the only evidence it happened. Well, the ring and the pile of newly-acquired kitchen products we need to find space for. Next month, I'll hopefully be covered under my new spouse's health insurance, which will make a big difference if I need it but none at all to my daily life.
As the wedding approached, many people asked if I was nervous. Generally there wasn't any nervousness, except on a few occasions when I wasn't sure some of the details for the reception would come off exactly right. But it was obvious the questions weren't about the ceremony or celebration itself.
The questions all had an undertone of "are you nervous about the whole idea of getting married?"
It is, of course, a valid question. Any major, irrevocable decision about life's path is bound to be accompanied by some nervousness. Especially if for you, like me, the phrase "growing up" sounds vaguely sinister rather than a goal to be embraced.
And there was some nervousness about the whole big-picture idea of getting married. For me, and, if she was telling me the truth, for Kirsten as well. It didn't happen as the ceremony approached, though.
For me, the real nervousness came not at the wedding, but rather at the proposal. That's when the natural and expected questions came to the fore: Is this really a good idea? What if it goes wrong? Does this mean I have to grow up and quit doing all those irresponsible things I do? (No.) That was a couple years ago. None of those doubts were seriously carried along to the wedding day. The big ones were dispelled over the past couple years, when, as Kirsten said, we've essentially been married anyway. Certainly while we were out of the country we were rarely apart, and we had to deal with the day-to-day details of living together and melding our different life visions together. Now, the only real difference the wedding made is I'm wearing a ring and I can get on her health insurance.
When we were looking into the details of our marriage in Montana we tried to find out who, exactly, could perform the ceremony.
Several people told us anyone could marry you in Montana. This was welcome news, since there wasn't anyone we knew in the area who fit in the traditional clergy/justice of the peace boxes and we didn't really want to hire someone just to do the ceremony.
We did have someone in mind - late in the evening after my brother's wedding, my uncle volunteered to officiate our wedding. I'm not sure he remembered his promise when we called him up several months ago to take him up on the offer, but he graciously accepted and did a wonderful job (complete with showing up to the day-before-the-wedding dinner dressed as a monk or jedi, depending on who you asked).
In the months leading up to the wedding, we realized Montana law did indeed limit who, exactly, could perform a wedding. I don't think my uncle falls into any of the categories, although I'm also fairly sure Montana wouldn't bother to check.
But rather than set us up for a possible headache, we found another provision in the law. Montana allows for a Declaration of Marriage without the need for a license or ceremony. Simply type up a statement which covers the specific details listed in the law, show up to a courthouse with two witnesses, pay the $53, and it's done. (Don't forget to get the blood test first).
I don't think many people take advantage of this option. Chouteau County officials said ours was the first Declaration of this kind they'd ever filed. They were happy enough to do it; they said it required less paperwork for them.
EDIT: I have been corrected. My uncle, is, indeed clergy. So we probably could have been fine under Montana's clause "in accordance with any mode of solemnization recognized by any religious denomination".
He says: The US Government is loath to judge the merits of various churches, so getting ordained through an ad in the back of a magazine is as legit as going to seminary in their eyes.
We were aware he'd gotten a back-of-a-magazine certificate. However, once we found the easy way out, we decided it wasn't worth it to check into how Montana determined if he was, indeed, acting in a manner recognized by "any religious denomination."
I'll get to the wedding posts in a minute, but I'll start by working backward. We arrived back in D.C. on Thursday night after nearly two weeks in Montana. Thankfully, D.C. was kind to us on the first day back. Humidity was at the low end, which made for a beautiful day (it wasn't until yesterday the soul-stifling mugginess returned, but at least we had a couple days to start the acclimation process).
Friday night we also took advantage of D.C.'s summer habit of free events. The National Symphony Orchestra was playing a free evening program outside in the Carter Barron Amphitheater in Rock Creek Park. Concert was good, although the accompanying cicadas were neither on time or in tune.
Saturday we had tickets to see The Decemberists accompanied by the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra. I've been playing the Decemberists nearly nonstop on my iPod for the last few months, so it was a show we'd been looking forward to. The symphony gave even more of an epic feel to their tragedy-story songs (which is most of them). A thoroughly enjoyable evening.
It was a much-needed ease into the return to reality after the break. Yesterday the ease was mostly gone; we spent the day in big-box suburban hell (Northern Virginia) to deal with a few wedding-gift exchanges and to use our new gift cards.
Now that the wedding is over, time to deal with the other two items on my list: figuring out how to maximize the space in our apartment and getting a job. Neither seems particularly enticing.
The Internet rumors are true - I did indeed get married last weekend.
We're now back in DC, so I'll get some impressions from my two-week trip to Montana (and the wedding) up soon. For now, thanks to everyone who made the trek to Montana or who sent us well wishes.
We're in Montana, and the countdown has officially begun - wedding is on Saturday.
Most of the details have been planned, now it's just case of putting the plans into reality and making sure nothing fell through the cracks. People keep asking if I'm nervous - haven't really had a chance to think about it like that lately. All the details can get in the way of the big picture.
I'm mostly looking forward to seeing everybody. My family has started to arrive, and a few friends will show up on the farm before heading to Glacier. Thursday we head north to meet everyone else up at the Park and further stress about the details. Thankfully, we should have a day or two in the park afterward to decompress.
Also have to enjoy ourselves this week. The weather out here beats D.C. - it was close to 90 yesterday, but no humidity means the shade is cool. And it actually gets cooler once the sun goes down. Might hit 100 this weekend - stay out of the sun (especially if you happen to have a hangover, as I'm sure I won't at any point).
I'm not necessarily opposed to all stadium naming deals. As long as the name isn't replacing a historically significant name and is on the stadium long enough to form a lasting recognition between the name of the stadium and the team which plays there, fair enough.
But there's a few problems with the current spate of brand-new ballparks with brand-new sponsor naming rights.
Stadiums in the first wave of the building boom have already moved on and changed from their initial name. I still think of the stadium in Houston as Enron Field, and I still refer to the Giants' park as PacBell.
The other problem is with so many new corporately-tagged stadiums, the names just blur together. I saw a game in Philadelphia just a couple weeks ago, and I had to look up the name of the stadium when I started to write this post.
The name (Citizen Bank Park) blurs away in my memory, and the park itself generally does the same. It has all the requisite new-retro styling. The concessions are varied and plentiful (and in a nice touch, a decent selection of microbrews are the same price as the big-name standards).
There are a few nice touches. The bullpens are both in centerfield, with the visitors' pen stacked a level above the home pen. When a visiting reliever is called into the game, he has to run down the stairs and past the Phillies bullpen staff to reach the field. Above the bullpens is a standing-room concourse, so fans can perch at the rails and look down at the pitchers warming up. It's like a balcony seat, with a pretty good view of the game as well.
There's also a few confusing touches. Television monitors are mounted above the back of the lower-level sections along the third-base line, so fans in the concourse or the further-back seats can see the action. There are no such monitors along the first-base side, even though the areas are otherwise symmetrical and I believe the price levels of the seats are the same.
I bought an upper-deck seat, but mostly stayed with the standing room crowd. I wandered the stadium, stopping to watch each inning behind the seats of a different section. (Ushers were stationed just about everywhere checking tickets, although I probably could have made it into a lower-level seat long before I actually did in the eighth inning).
The atmosphere reminded me of St. Louis. Same red-clad crowd, same general feeling of a baseball-savvy crowd. There was a surprising crowd of more than 42,000 for a Wednesday afternoon game. In a nice touch, the ushers prevented anyone moving from the concourse into their seating area during an at-bat.
The game was a good one, as well. Tied up late before the Phillies pushed past the White Sox for what was, in the end, an easy win.
I'm getting married in less than two weeks. It hit me today: in two weeks, I won't have to deal with any more details, any more getting ready for the wedding. After this, I won't have an endless to-do list to deal with. I might have some evenings free without the specter of details forgotten hanging in the air.
After this, all I'll have to worry about is finding work. Piece of cake.
