We're Back

Ugh! 1500 miles pulling a trailer is no joke, and the real dagger is that it's sandwiched with loading and unloading said trailer. Still it was a pretty mellow trip back across the country. On the way out to Fargo we took four days to drive out and we did the drive back, along a slightly longer route so we could avoid Chicago and its traffic, in three days with your faithful narrator under the wheel the entire time. The only thing really noteworthy about the trip back was that both nights there was a problem at the hotel.

The first night we stayed at a newly renovated Marriott in Cedar Rapids. When I got to the hotel at 9pm I was pleased; the staff was nice and the pool was open until 11pm. The pool being open late is key because you have to do something to wear out a three year-old that's been sitting in the car and watching "The Bee Movie" all day. I was much less pleased when I turned down the bed to lotion up BabyRat after her bath and there were visible stains on the sheets. Blarrrgh!

Needless to say we changed rooms, but nasty sheets is a violation of the basic agreement between innkeeper and traveler. You expect that shit at an hourly motel off of Rt. 1 somewhere, but not at a Marriott in Iowa. Having seen BigDaddyRat issue verbal beatdowns to hotel desk staffs around the globe, I knew that I would get something if I went down and complained but I wasn't sure what. After consuming a large room service breakfast I went to the front desk and laid out the scenario, they gave many profuse apologies and offered to buy our breakfast. Not being a greedy skinflint, I didn't push my luck and accepted the offer but later regretted letting them off the hook too easily.

The next night we stayed in the thriving metropolis of Dayton, OH at a Holiday Inn that had allegedly won some sort of "qualitly" award according to the guy I talked to on the phone. When I made the reservation I was pretty clear that I wanted to stay at a nice hotel and I was assured that it was. Call me crazy, but when I say a "nice hotel" I think that implies that it's not located next door to a strip club like the one our reservation was at in Dayton. But by the time we get there it's already after 8pm and I don't feel like driving around Dayton looking for a better hotel so we stayed. After BR went to sleep we tried to watch TV but the it wouldn't turn on and they also totally fucked up our breakfast order.

After eating a throughly unsatifying meal, I strolled over to the front desk at check out time and registered my complaints. Fresh off of having punked myself the day before I was determined to cut a better deal for myself this go 'round. So this time I graciously accepted their offer to buy our breakfast, but I continued to press the issue and got 50% off of our room for the night.

Another day on the road and naturally we made it back to Metro DC just in time to get stuck on the fucking Beltway at rush hour trying to get over the Legion Bridge. I spent more time stuck in traffic trying to cross the Legion bridge that day than I did the entire time I was in Fargo, no joke.

Once we made it back to the safe confines of the Rat's Nest on Capitol Hill I soothed myself (and the family) with an application of ribs, chicken, and collards from Kenny's Smoke House. Deliciousness shoots and scores!!

Over the next few days I bamboozled a couple of my teammates into helping me unload our trailer (thanks again Skip and Coach) and mostly concentrated on stuffing myself with as much of DC's local flavor as my stomach could stand. I've been to Sova, Peregrine, and Sidamo for coffee and we've eaten at Sticky Rice, the new Matchbox, and Taylor (twice) since we've been back home.

I am in love with Taylor. There are precious few places to get good sandwiches (Deli City and Mangialardo's) in DC, but they tend to adhere to that weird DC phenomenon of closing at 3pm. Taylor doesn't do breakfast, but they do stay open until 9pm and they deliver. I doubt I will ever have them deliver because they're only about three blocks from the Rat's Nest, hardly seems worth the $2 charge.

Stay tuned for my next post on the EPIC FAIL of Ludlow-Taylor ES.

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No Way I'm Posting Tommorow

I just don't see it happening. This week has been a bit intense to say the least and I've still managed to post everyday so who knows?

Flying sucks ass these days and flying a with a bunch of low budget schmucks like United makes it even worse. I'm only linking to their site in the futile hope that someone from United will notice that they're being put on blast and try to appease me with some free tickets or a refund for baggage fees ($15 for each bag both ways, fuckers) or at the very least maybe they will stop sucking so much ass.

I know that airlines are getting pinched and trying to cut costs wherever but the industry as a whole is running at a loss over the course of its history and that's not likely to change anytime soon. And these are the prick motherfuckers are trying to sell me extra leg room when I check myself in because shit is tight?

I did my part today, I rolled up to the curbside check-in an hour and twenty minutes before my flight was supposed to take off with ID and itinerary in hand. The thought was to get there in enough time to grab a quick bite before we got on the plane. Too bad United's technology was deficient and I was directed inside to check-in where I got to wait in line for twenty minutes before the automated check-in kiosk hacked up a hairball. Then I got to wait around in a little area like a fucking veal calf until a human got around to dealing with me and the other people who were rejected.

Here's the thing about the baggage fees, why are you making me participate in another transaction once I get to the airport? I just spent $1600 on plane tickets, I don't care (that much) about the last $60, what I do care about is having to dick around with buying something else once I get to the airport. Even if it only takes 30 seconds to complete a credit card transaction from start to finish, that's a lot of time the airlines are quietly stealing from their customers.

Christ, I can't even talk about this shit anymore because I'm getting pissed all over again thinking about the Friday afternoon shit show at the security check-in at National. If every Friday afternoon you have lines out the wazoo at security don't you think maybe you should put on some extra people or just not keep doing the same thing that brings lines, delays, and annoyance to all involved?

The next time I travel on business I'm probably just gonna get that "Clear" thing hooked up for myself and charge the cost back to my company. I really don't like that shit though; rich people and sleazy fucks who work the system like me get over and everyone else can eat a dick? That's not nice but it is very American.

Who's making money off that shit anyway? I dunno, the more I look into this thing the less I like it. " . . . the first branded consumer product in what we call the voluntary identity credentialing industry," that's some real Orwellian shit right there.

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T Diamond Ranch

So after the call was made for Obama last night at 10pm our (central) time, we hit the road for Montana. I caught an hour of sleep before we left the in-law's place and slept the first two hours we were on the road before I took over behind the wheel at about midnight. We drove across western North Dakota and Eastern Montana until about 5:30am when I had to pull over to rest. I caught another two hours of sleep in the car and then not too long after we resumed our trip our route took us off the interstate.

Once the sun was up I could see that Montana is beautiful, it reminded me of the phrase "magnificent desolation". We stopped for breakfast in the thriving metropolis of Roundup, MT before coming into the home stretch of our trip. About 20 minutes outside of Lewistown it started snowing; I'm not sure of the geography of the area, but apparently we entered some mountain range. There was much rejoicing when we finally pulled into the driveway of the T Diamond Ranch.

After greeting everyone and a lot of hugging and excitement, BabyRat and my nephew/Godson (n/g) demanded to go out and play in the snow. We made a snowman and burned off some of the energy that BabyRat had built up sitting in a car for 12 hours before we had lunch. I won't bore you with the rest of the day, but it was pretty standard fare.

After we get the kids to bed and the adults are hanging out I realized that it's 10pm and I haven't done my blog post for the day. So I'm trying to excuse myself to bang out my 500 words for the day, but I'm not really sure what to tell people. I don't really want to tell them, "I'm a blogger" for two reasons. The first being I would feel like an unmitigated tool referring to myself as a blogger and the second is then they may want to read my blog. It would be fine for my sister & brother-in-law, but somehow I'm not comfortable with the idea of my brother-in-law's parents reading my piece of shit blog.

I realize this hesitance to tell people I have a blog is a weird bit of cognitive dissonance when you consider that anyone in the world can google "hill rat" and this blog is the second hit. I want people to read this blog, but I guess I just don't want certain people to read it lest I feel like I have to censor myself even further. Does this makes me a phony because I don't want some people to see behind the carefully constructed facade I present to the world?

Do any other bloggers feel the same way? It's kind of like I have a desire to keep my online life and identity separate from the rest of my life even though my life in meatspace is pretty much all I ever talk about.

PS - Special to my NaBloPoMo peeps. I pushed the send button on this post at 11:20pm Mountain time on 11/5/2008. Fuck that time stamp.

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On the Road, Part 2; I Hate Chicago

We left Merillville, IN about 10 am on Thursday morning with our destination for the day being Wisconsin Rapids, WI; hometown of DC friend, Butterburger (BB). BB is your typical, reserved, unemotional MidWest guy. Last year his girlfriend, the Child Bride; so named because she's only 25, 13 years younger than BB and myself; was complaining that he was "emotionally unavailable." I had to explain to her that with the Packers posting double digit wins and making a Super Bowl run in what turned out to be Brett Favre's last season, that was about as emotional as BB was ever likely to get. So when BB very nervously approached WifeRat about the possibility of us stopping by his parent's house on our way to edge of The Great White North I knew that we had to make it there to see his ancestral homestead. It was just too bad that we had to pass through Chicago on the way there.

There was massive construction just north of where we had stopped on the southern edge of the Chicagoland area, so we got on the road and were immediately sitting still on the interstate. Dagger!

In the new and improved RatMobile there is a DVD player. I am not a fan of facilitating the couchpotato-ification of America's youth through constantly available video entertainment. So for the seven months that we've had our new whip, the DVD player had remained unused. WifeRat and I knew that during a four day cross-country trip our resolve would probably falter. So after two days on the road and hitting our first significant traffic issue, we cracked and asked BabyRat if she would like to watch one of her DVDs. BabyRat was initially baffled by the question but when I flipped down the screen, she had let out one of her patented gasps of excitement and amazement that had her paralyzed with glee for at least 30 seconds.

We make it through the traffic after about 15 minutes and then the tolls start. I swear I spent at least $20 dollars on tolls in the couple of hours I was driving through Illinois. If I had known how many tolls there were going to be, I probably would have bought one of those stupid iPasses when I hit the state line. Even with annoying traffic and exorbitant tolls, I was way more aggravated than I should have been and I realized that I was starting to get sick.

On the rare occasions when I fall ill, WifeRat gets very bossy with me because I don't take good care of myself when I'm sick. After lunch she insisted on taking over at the wheel and I let her; I took some pills and fell asleep in the back seat with BabyRat. I wake up about 90 minutes later feeling much better and get back in the pilot's chair for the remainder of the day's drive.

Wisconsin Rapids

We finally make it Wisconsin Rapids about 5:30pm and everyone is happy. I'm happy to not be driving anymore, BB is happy that we're there, WifeRat is happy 'cause she's handed a Leinenkugel Summer Shandy the minute we walk through the door and BabyRat is happy because she has been given a Big Wheel to cruise around on by BB's younger sister (we'll call her BabyButterBurger or BBB) who also happens to be in town from Seattle.

After enjoying some dill cheese curds and finishing off the last of the Genesee pounders we all head out to dinner at a little road house kind of place about 5 minutes from Casa d' Butterburger that I was shocked to discover served sweet potato fries.

After an uneventful meal, we head home and almost get hit by a train. I heard the train whistle, looked for flashing lights, gates, or something to indicate that a train was nearby and saw nothing. After crossing a few sets of tracks, I see that there is a train on the last set of tracks we have to cross less than 300 yards away. I prudently stop and immediately jump out of the RatMobile to ask BB in the car behind us why the fuck don't they have . . . something to let a person know a train is close by.

I wake up the next morning feeling like ass and apparently I looked pretty bad too, because everyone was asking if I was OK. BB's Mom is upset that we have to take off first thing in the morning and depriving her of time with BabyRat, who she fell in love with in about 9 seconds.

Petal to the Metal

It's now Friday, the 4th of July. After three days in the car already, with 8 hours of driving to go, WifeRat steps up her game; she shoves my feebly protesting ass into the back seat of the car after being escorted to the edge of town by BB and the Child Bride and proceeds to put in a monster day behind the wheel.

Most of the rest of the day is a blur, I'm intermittently baby wrangling in the back seat and having fever dreams & sweating my ass off. I manage to gag down a few bites of chicken noodle soup when we stop for lunch before BabyRat decides that she wants the soup and takes it from me by force. We make it to the in-laws place sometime in the late afternoon and after happy greetings and such, I promptly fall back asleep on the couch. I wake up long enough to eat half a steak and go back to sleep while everyone else goes to watch fireworks. Worst. 4th. Ever. But we made it to the Hinterlands.

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On the Road, Cleveland Doesn't Rock

After a few days delay (we originally planned to leave on Saturday), we finally hit the road for NoDak yesterday. The last time we drove out there, it was just WifeRat and I and we made the trip in two very long days; but 12 hour days in the car just don't work with a three year-old in the mix so we decided that we would take four days to travel out there and hopefully see something cool on the way. I'm still waiting to see something cool, but the trip has been pretty relaxing so far.

Our first stop was Cleveland, we stayed at an Embassy Suites downtown by Jacobs Field that kind of sucked. No doorman to take your stuff up to your room and the valet wouldn't park our trailer-laden car, but he did direct me to a legal on-street spot where I could park overnight. Maybe I'm being a prima donna, but a high-rise, downtown hotel should have a doorman. Am I wrong for thinking this?

We get to the room and WifeRat and BabyRat immediately put on their swimsuits and are heading for the pool when they decide to hit the head. The bathroom in the room smells like sour old towels, so while they go to the pool I go back downstairs to ask for another room. The staff at the desk gave us another room and comped us a couple of movies for our trouble. After humping all our junk to another room, I celebrate by diving down to the bottom of our cooler and having a shot of Grey Goose (from the freezer that we just cleaned out, what was I supposed to do leave it in DC?) and a can of PBR.

Now I have to find provisions for dinner and fortunately there is a grocery store near the hotel that, in addition to having fresh fruits and vegetables, also has 6-packs of Genesee Tallboys for $2.99 (I'm enjoying one as I type this). We feed the little one and get her to sleep and are settling down to watch a movie when I realize that I need more food. I run next door to this sports bar to grab some fried horribleness and return to find a fired up WifeRat who has been on the phone beefing with the front desk because they're charging $10 for internet access in the hotel.

Now this thing with hotels charging for internet access is a long-standing beef of mine. Hotels should do one of two things, either provide internet free of charge for their guests or, if it's such a cost burden, add the price of internet access to the price of the room. But this idiocy with adding a separate charge for internet is bullshit and must stop immediately; it really pisses me off.

We left Cleveland this morning, but not before I browbeat the morning manager into refunding my $10 for internet access. It wasn't the money, it was the principle.

We stopped today in Merrillville, IN because we didn't want to deal with downtown Chicago pulling a trailer. I'm currently in a non-descript "suite" hotel that doesn't charge for internet access. We had dinner at some Mexican joint, WifeRat had a pair of margaritas and was asleep before BabyRat.

Tomorrow we're going to Wisconsin Rapids, WI to see Butterburger's (friend from DC) ancestral homestead. Butterburger is at his folk's place for the week, so we're going to make that our destination for tomorrow and then the final push for NoDak will happen on Friday. I'll keep you posted on our progress.

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Leaving Town, pt. 2

OK, so the schedule slipped on us a little bit and we're not leaving until tomorrow (actually, it's already today since it's now 1 am) morning for the big move.

Packing up all our stuff has been a good exercise for our family and has forced us to get rid of a lot of junk, although it makes me sick how much stuff we waste and hoard. I watched this thing on the Story of Stuff and originally I was kind of annoyed by the presentation.

[quickrant] I wasn't even so much irked by the message (everyone has too much stuff), but really it was the messenger that I wasn't feeling. It was just so typical; an over-educated academic that's been at leisure to navel gaze on the topic of "stuff" is now going to put up a website to preach to the world. Bollocks! [/quickrant]

But after throwing away so many pens, hair clips, food, clothes, shoes, etc. I can't help but think that I buy entirely too much shit. I'm not even talking about the environment or anything, I'm just talking about how much of my money I waste on things that I eventually just throw away. I gave away five pairs of perfectly good (at least wearable and functional) shoes that I probably spent close to $500 on when they were new, that's some seriously wasteful shit. The plan is that rather than using this as a pre-text to buy the next pair of kicks that catch my eye, I'm really going to make an effort to wait until I really need a new pair of shoes.

Then there's the stuff that you have, don't have room for, but want to keep anyway, so you end up on the storage area merry go 'round. Yes, I actually pay to keep stuff that I don't really have access to; it's a nightmare and it is my penance for being an over-consuming dickhead. Seriously, the more I think about this, the more I hate myself.

I have to stop and go to bed now.

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Leaving Town

Swiss Family Rat is going to be departing for the Hinterlands of North Dakota for six months in less than a week. WifeRat recently got tenure and in that fine academic tradition now gets to take a sabbatical.

All of WR's colleagues told her that it was imperative that she get out of town for her sabbatical; otherwise, people would constantly be calling her and saying, "Hey, your on sabbatical right now, could you do XYZ?"

Originally we talked about going overseas somewhere, but a couple of things held us back. The biggest thing (for me) was that even though I've lived overseas before, it was under the imperial banner of the US Army. Given the current state of the world, I'm not altogether sure I want to be living outside of the US. I dunno, maybe I'm being paranoid and silly but I just don't feel like the time is right. Also, BabyRat is only 3; I want her to have a good strong memory of life in another country, if we went now she would remember but it would be more of a vague impression.

Anyway, WifeRat is from NoDak and the bulk of her family still lives there so I hit upon the idea that we should head out that way for a while. BR would get to spend some time with her other Grandparents, WR gets out of town for her sabbatical, and HR, well there wasn't that much in it for me other than doing right by my family.

More on this later.

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