gwax's rumblings

Yesterday, in returning from a week long, Christmas related stint in my home state of Massachusetts, I had a particularly intriguing synchronicity.

I was flying Virgin America, which is an excellent airline but that’s an entire discussion of its own right. As a matter of good fortune, I was flying Main Cabin Select, which provides, amongst other things, the option of checking in through the First Class line. The regular line was proceeding rather quickly and a young lady behind me in line made a comment to the effect of it seeming a mistake to be in the First Class line. My motivations being as they are, I took a few moments to chat with this nice young lady but didn’t make it far before it was my turn to go forward and check my baggage.

Conversations cut short are unfortunate but such things happen. I proceeded through security, got to the gate, waited a while and boarded the plane where who should end up in the seat next to me but the very same young woman who had been behind me in line. This was a pleasant coincidence but not terribly surprising insofar as there are not very many Main Cabin Select seats on any given plane. Shortly after taking her seat, this young woman says to me, “nice ring” and, as I glance over, it turns out that she’s an MIT graduate as well; there’s a pleasant extra level to this coincidence and a good source for conversation topics.

As we’re chatting about various things, this young woman (who I am going to refer to as Margaret because it’s easier than continuing to use qualified generic nouns), mentions that she was on the crew team and I mentioned that I had been on the sailing team. Somehow, in discussing sailing, I mentioned spending summers on Cape Cod, which raised the question of where. My answer, of course, is Woods Hole and, lo and behold, Margaret’s family also has a place in Woods Hole. I should note that Woods Hole is a very small town and it’s quite rare that I encounter someone in Woods Hole that I have not met before, especially someone within 5 years of my own age. As a result, rather unsurprisingly, it turns out that Margaret and I have at least a dozen mutual acquaintances and friends.

Overall, it was a fantastically surprising coincidence; so much so that it makes me wish that Mr. Data were on hand to tell me what the odds of the coincidence were. Certainly there exist certain biases to correct for, which make it such that the coincidence isn’t purely random but I am not terribly inclined to enumerate all of the non-random factors that may have contributed. Why such a coincidence happened, I can’t say, but it did, and that’s great. The end result is that I’ve narrowed the gap of people that I don’t know in Woods Hole and made a connection with a pleasant new person in this world.

Today is Wednesday of my Sunday through Saturday week in Cancun. It is currently the evening, about 11p and, before I go to sleep in preparation for tomorrow’s activities, I thought that I should check-in with y’all. I think that Im going to structure this as a summary of some of what’s been going on and follow with some more general thoughts that have been crystalizing.

It being Cancun, the obligatory sun bathing, swimming and strong, frozen beverages have been happening but, as that is largely not interesting in any detail, I’ll leave it at that. I have been staying with friends at the Royal Sands, a timeshare resort. This is one of five timeshare resorts owned by this company and I have to say, it’s pretty sweet; honestly, if my family didn’t have property on Cape Cod, I would strongly consider signing in to this whole timeshare thing. The amenities are nice, the weather is fantastic and, let me tell you, the water is amazing. Evenings here have primarily finished off with games of Dominos, Fluxx and Set,which has been a wholely pleasant experience, and makes me want to play more casual games with friends.

This morning, we traveled to the Mayan ruins at Chichen Itza, which were truly fantastic to see. The degree of engineering, architectural and astronomical knowledge expressed by the structures of the ruins is truly impressive. I am certain that the experience was greatly enhanced by the quality and character of our tour guide. One of the major things that caught root in my mind as a result of the experience is the impermanence of everything that I am doing with my life. Even a relatively modest Mayan dwelling still exists and expresses something about its inhabitants; what mark have I left on this world that will not be gone two generations from now? For that matter, what mark am I really leaving now?

Certain, deeper things seem to be gaining focus for me as well. One that seems truly clear is the degree to which I have missed the Atlantic Ocean and Woods Hole. Hopefully, my plans to work remotely from Woods Hole this summer will succeed and I shall get some substantial time there.

Another thing that occurs to me is that I need to spend more time with my good friends and, perhaps, make a few more.

Today, for the first time, my travel was slowed down as a result of not checking baggage. With a two hour shift, it is now 4:00p, and I am eating a so-so ham and cheese with a freely provided Tecate. Having just left Mexico City, I feel as though I almost didn’t make it.

So, I debarked my first flight, passed through immigration and proceeded in the direction of “Connecting Flights”. Before reaching my gate, I encountered a checkpoint where I was asked how many bags I had checked. Having checked no bags, with the intent of expediting my journey, I said as much and was told to go back through immigration and go to customs. Passing immigration again, I was told to continue as I had the first time. Please realize that my inability to speak or understand Spanish was not to my advantage. Returning to the checkpoint, again, running out of time to catch my flight, I was turned back once more. This time, asking for very precise instructions from the quite competent English speaking head of the checkpoint. It turns out, what I had to do was go through immigration, again, ignore “Connecting Flights”, and pass through customs as though Mexico City were my destination. It was then necessary to turn around, pass through a different entrance and find my gate as a domestic flight. With about twenty minutes before departure, I was very pleased to catch my flight.

All is now well and that was a mighty tasty Tecate.

As I write, I am sitting in seat 20E on a Mexicana Airbus A318 en route from San Francisco to Mexico City. It is 9:30a; I am writing on my Nokia N810 (a device, which I will have to tell you of some other time); I have just consumed a wholely decent omelette; and, I it is my intention to publish this as soon as I next encounter Internet access. The omelette has arrested my attention and is what prompted this post.

Though the omelette fell somewhere between edible and passable, this really is more of a “thought that counts” sort of thing. I have become so accustomed to the nickel-and-dimeing of bankrupt United States airlines that I was astonished to be offered food: “omelette or enchilada?” It took me two tries to understand through the Mexican accent, but that’s probably a failing on my part. Not only is there food but there appears to be free beer, though, it being 9:30a, I opted for milk.

Based on my experience thus far, I’m liking Mexicana and feeling reminiscent of British Airways. If you’re reading this, as is, nothing has interfered with my opinion sufficiently to justify revision.

Since I returned to Massachusetts and got my computer set up, I’ve been meaning to write about my trip back from Minnesota. As time goes by, I see that as less and less likely to happen so, instead, I will give you a very brief summary so that the important points can be touched upon.

Having made only a few hours of headway, my clutch decided to wear out 20 miles north of Madison, WI. This was incredibly unpleasant, requiring that I be towed to Madison to have my clutch completely replaced. As bad as it was, my clutch going was not all bad; I was able to reacquaint myself with my old friend Amrys, whom I had not seen in far too long and who happens to currently be living in Madison. Amrys was friendly enough to provide me with company, a couch to crash on and a brief overview of Madison, including an introduction to a quite pleasant breakfasterie. My car was fixed by noon the day after it broke and I was able to get underway once more. The car provided no more problems from that point.

On leaving Minnesota, I had commenced listening to Frank Herbert’s Dune in audio book format, which is a monstrously long audio endeavor. The second leg of the Journey took me to Ithaca, NY and I was only just finishing Dune shortly before I arrived. Now, I must say, as a way to entertain myself during 17-19 hours of driving, listening to Dune served fantastically well. Listening to Dune kept my attention so well that I didn’t, even once, find myself bored by the driving and completely failed to notice Ohio, even though receipts clearly show that I stopped in Ohio.

I stopped in Ithaca, NY so that I might be able to visit with a few friends that I have who attend Cornell. Over the course of one day and two nights, I spent some time hanging out with my friend Liz, some time hanging out with my friend Hannah and, in 45 minutes time, picked up a sunburn. How white must I be to get a sunburn from 45 minutes of New York state, early May sun. It was a good time, which was followed by the final leg of my journey, the Ithaca, NY to Concord, MA stretch.

The Ithaca, NY to Concord, MA leg of the journey was pretty much uneventful and filled with the fantastically amusing audio book rendition of The Areas Of My Expertise by John Hodgman. I would like to go on record highly recommending The Areas Of My Expertise.

There you have it, a brief summary of my pilgrimage back from Minnesota.

Well, not so much Dodge as Minneapolis but the point is the same. As I write this, I am in Chi-town visiting my friend Jamie. I’d been meaning to get out of Minneapolis in a “get away from it all” for a while sense and I’ve been wanting to pull a big road trip for a few weeks. So, when I discovered that I had an old friend 6 hours drive away, I found a brilliant means of satiating my desires. As it stands, I haven’t been doing altogether too much her but relaxing with a change of scenery and people is really nice. Of course, I’m not terribly looking forward to the amount of work that I’ll have to do tomorrow night but it’s worth it so, so be it.

I spent the long weekend down in Hartford, CT for the 2006 Fencing Junior Olympics (JOs). The JOs are the largest 20 and under fencing event in the US and they’re held in a different location every year; this year they were held in Hartford, which is so close to home that I couldn’t really justify not going. It was a lot of fun watching the fencing, cheering for members of my club and hanging out with fencing people. The fencing started really early every day, ran late every day and tended to be followed by a long, late dinner, which made for very short nights of sleeping. I would normally be fine with sleeping little over a long weekend for an event but I was fighting a cold at the same time, so this weekend has really taken a lot out of me. I feel mighty drained right now, but it sure was a lot of fun and man, oh man, watching all that fencing really makes me want to do some myself; I can’t wait for club tomorrow.

I spent this past weekend in Ithaca, NY visiting Liz at Cornell. Ellen and I drove out late Friday and came back mid-Sunday. It was very chill and we didn’t do much but it was a good change of scenery and company, which pleased me. I’m pretty sure that a good time was had by all. And I’m being lazy, so that’s all the blog updating that you get for now.

I finished the return trip to Massachusetts today and am writing this from my room in Concord. Total trip mileage was 3553 (keen, it’s symmetrical). I’ll probably get myself back into the city tomorrow, though it might take more than one day.

Today was an interesting one. I started at a rest area in Virginia where I ignored the two hour parking limit and got eight hours of sleep. Between there and New Jersey, things were pretty uneventful. However, an interesting thing happened when I stopped for lunch and gas in New Jersey, I picked up a hitch-hiker heading for New York. Mind you, this was no normal hitch-hiker, this was Ludovic Hubler (you’ll want to click the British flag if you can’t read French)(also, it’s kind of flakey in some browsers). I’m sure you’re asking who is Ludovic Hubler and why should I care? He’s this French guy who is hitch-hiking around the world, trying not to spend any money at all on travel expenses. He started in France, hitch-hiked across the Sahara, across the Atlantic, to Antarctica, up to the US and I gave him a ride from the middle of Jersey to New York.

That’s my exciting news of the day; I picked up a hitch-hiker. The first time I ever pick up a hitch-hiker and I get the hitch-hiker to end all hitch-hikers.