Category: Random

So I promised this a while ago, and I’ve been living here going on three weeks, I sure as hell should have something insightful to say about Boston! Right? Yeah, I guess.

There’s Boston, then there’s Boston College, and then there’s Boston College Physics. The three are somewhat distinct entities, and I feel like I should address them individually:

Boston (the City) is fantastic! I love it to death. There’s a million different things to do, and so many people! I mean, I live in a major metropolitan area, I will not strip Kansas City of that well-earned title, but it’s nothing like this. There’s just people everywhere. That was the biggest surprise was that it could even be possible for so many to live in so small a space. I’ve visited New York City, which I suppose is the quintessential example of such a place, but I never lived in New York.

Having lived in Boston, the sheer scope of the number of people living hear freaks me out just a bit. Those people, however, are all different races, and speak a host of different languages, which also surprised me. The most common non-English we get in KC is a modest bit of Spanish… Today we visited the Boston Aquarium, and I heard languages I couldn’t even identify! So that’s pretty neat, diversity and whatnot. To see what it really looks like, for once, has been nice. Missouri: You’ve got a long way to go.

Speaking of journeys, how about the T?! That is what the Massachusetts Transit Authority calls its bus/train/commuter-rail system. It is the best thing ever. Public Transportation is like… a hobby of mine, I suppose? Maybe that’s too kind of a word, and ‘infatuation’ better describes it. Riding the T is just fantastic. I went to the trouble of getting (for free!) a little card that has an RFID chip in it (remember those, debate folks?) that I don’t even have to take out of my wallet; you just slap the wallet against the console at the front of the bus, and it takes the money off!

Of course, eventually you need to put more money on… which I’ve done a copious amount. It’s too much fun though to just hop on and have it take you straight into town for 1.70$, and then not have to worry about parking, something happening to your car, the weather, drunk drivers, any of that! You just do your business in town, and provided said business is over before 12 AM, hop on the T and head home. BC is even the last stop for the train that I take, and so I can even nap on the way back without worrying. On top of all that, every time I ride the T is a time I’m not sitting my ass down in a car to burn fossil fuels, which also adds to the enjoyment of it all. (Caveat: Grocery shopping via public transport is sortof a hassle…)

Boston College: I have fewer good things to say about BC. Like, for me, right now, it’s great. I have a big old room, my suitemates are good dudes, the REU people are fun to hang out with, campus is fairly easy to navigate, and so on. But never have I been more proud of Truman. I don’t mean this as a slight to BC… but- well I’ll stop. The examples I present aren’t that lengthy so we’ll just hit it:

1) Papers
So it’s a silly complaint, but I’m gonna make it nonetheless. BC has no papers for me to read. Even during the summer (I can speak from experience) Truman has the USA Today / NYT / STL Post out there in full force for the summer students to read. I can see no sign of a news paper program here at BC, which I think is abysmal for any self-respecting academic institution. Even if the defense is that they subscribe to a lot of online sources or something, I’m gonna say that’s not good enough.

I’ve got a tech article in the wings where I compare the different feed-readers I’m trying, and how well they syndicate my news, which is something I’ve had a lot of trouble with recently. I’m go out on a limb, though, and say that I’m in the minority. Unless this news is readily available to students, I think it just encourages a lot of the apathy that’s already implicity in my age bracket. So yeah, the lack of a newspaper program is reprehensible.

2) Rec Center
So I can’t really comment on the nature or quality of BC’s recreational center because I haven’t been inside. “But Tom! How then could you possibly level an accusation of a shortcoming!?” Watch me. The reason I haven’t been inside the Rec here? It costs money per-visit! Madness, you say? Indeed. Their response? A 65-dollar all-summer pass. Really? REALLY?! That’s got to be a joke. It isn’t.

I had some of my fellow REU students assure me that this was well below what a full-time, equivalent gym membership would cost, but that really dodges the point. It should be free. You should be able to go exercise whenever you think you need or want to, and not have to worry about how much it costs… not have to factor it into your budget. Like with the newspapers, the dedicated kids are always going to find a way… but if Truman charged per visit? I don’t think I’d even be able to tell you what the inside of my OWN Rec Center looked like, because that’s not really my beat.

Point here is that if lowly Truman State can swing this, surely the illustrious Boston College should be able to as well, and I’m in awe of their failure to do so thus far.

3) Dorms and Residential Life
As mentioned above, this isn’t a huge bitch-fest about how much I dislike BC. Allow me to reiterate that I’ve been treated very well, and have tremendously enjoyed my time here. Stark differences remain though, and this category is the most telling one. BC has a beautiful campus: some manner of Gothic architecture graces many of the older structures, while the others are tastefully modern with overt and cohesive structural ‘tips of the hat’ to the Gothic style. It looks really good. Inside many of the main buildings you’ll find cutting edge equipment, new, clean and modern work spaces, and some of the most qualified instructors in the Boston area (which is saying something, given the looming presence of Harvard, MIT, and some 35+ other higher education facilities).

None of this, however, changes the fact that if I leaned hard enough, I could destroy the wall that separates me from the small hallway in my suite. At night, light seeps through the top of the wall and the ceiling because the two don’t actually connect in many places. As a result: you guessed it! These things are about as acoustically insulating as a facial tissue. The suite is designed for two people per room, with three rooms total (meaning 6 occupants) supported by 2 bathrooms and 1 kitchen, equipped with a GE oven circa 1950, and an average-sized fridge. In addition, there are two small, adjacent common rooms to stave off what must be the inevitable cabin fever.

I guess the punchline to all of this is that Ignacio Hall, where I live, is undisputed as the best dorm on campus. I had to hide my surprise when I heard that. Again, not that it’s uninhabitable, but only that… relative to all the other stuff on campus, it does not “wow” in an appreciably comparative way. Say what you will about ol’ C-Hall, but you could throw bricks at the interior walls of that room all day and into the night, and the worse you’d do was chip the paint. The outer-walls of the rooms here could stand such a test; they’re made from brick. You know how I know? THEY WERE NEVER PAINTED. You literally walk down a hallway composed exclusively of brick, with only the periodic door to break the pattern.

Ack. It also doesn’t help that laundry is expensive as the dickens (1.50 for a wash, 1.50 for 60 min. drying time). That’s one thing, I understand stuff costs what it costs… but the machines only take quarters. Annoying as that is, it would be ok if there was a change machine nearby. There isn’t. Perhaps someone like myself felt this was an injustice, and got them to allow you to place money on your ID, and then you could then in turn use that to pay for laundry. You can. JUST NOT IN THE SUMMER TIME BECAUSE THEY SUMMARILY SHUT DOWN THE ENTIRE SYSTEM FOR SOME UNKNOWN REASON. I swear, at every turn, I feel increasingly more thwarted.

So these aren’t huge issues. But they are issues. I’ll openly call out BC’s student government (http://ugbc.bc.edu/), and ask them “Where the hell have you guys been?!” I know I don’t understand the situation fully, but I gotta ask myself what these people have been up to, given their failure to address any of the issues mentioned above. To their credit, they have a professor evaluation system in place… which is open to the public so near as I can tell (it’s called PEPS), which seems like an awful idea. But again, I’m willing to acknowledge my ignorance of the entire field of issues.

Somehow, our Student Government, for all its flaws (and there are many!) and trouble getting students engaged, has managed to bite, claw, kick, and bitch its way to a point where students are in a good place; and in areas where it isn’t a good place, it’s one that’s getting better. All those times I felt like maybe we took ourselves a little too seriously, I suddenly feel less bad about.

Anyways.

BC Physics is a slightly less soap-boxy story (albeit more technical): You can ready my impressions of it over at the SPS REU Amalgamate Blog which I haven’t posted nearly as much as I should, having founded the damn thing. So it goes.

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So I learned today that there are exactly two reasons to play the theremin.

The first is that theremin’s are pretty sweet. It’s an instrument that you play by manipulating the oscillating electric fields surrounding the two antennae simply by moving your hands around it. In this way you can vary not only the volume, but also the pitch, using a physical principle called heterodyning.

The instrument was created in Russia following the Bolshevik revolution, and Lenin thought that they were so awesome that he had several hundred made, and Leon Theremin was made something of a national hero, as successful innovators/scientists commonly were Leninist Soviet Russia.

Theremins can be found in the music of some of my favorite artists such as Radiohead and Neutral Milk Hotel.

The second reason is Carolina Eyck:

Which I do not think requires an explanation, except that the thing she’s leaning on is a theremin.

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Hey there, Idiots.
(I bill myself as being crass, eventually you knew I’d make good on it.)

So how’s this blog thing working out for everyone? I’m really enjoying it, and surprised to still see a few comments crop up. The few, the proud! Thanks for sticking with me.

I did some (see: all) of my holiday shopping (can’t really call it Christmas shopping, can I? Do non-believers get to lay claim to the holiday yet? I think not.) on the 22nd, and I couldn’t help but feel guilty. I don’t even know why, but there in checkout-lane 16 at Target, as the woman scanned my meager assortment of items destined for gift-dom, I felt strangely embarrassed. Not so much becuase I’d put off my shopping, but that I was shopping for gifts at all. As near as I can tell, such a feeling is derived from the Counter-Culture Component of my personality (est. 2002), which I thought had since subsided.

Not doing stuff becuase everyone else is doing it is about as dumb as doing stuff becuase everyone else is doing it. And so, I’ve forgone that old dichotomy of either trying to “fit in” or “stand out”. I don’t really have the energy for that type of conviction these days. I just thought it was funny that I still have residual emotions from worldviews I held more than five years ago.

Since I’ve been home I’ve started doing this weird thing. Not necessarily new, but really weird. Have you ever fallen asleep in front of the television before? I know it happens on accident, but I’ve started doing it on purpose. Ethan accused me of turning into my father, but it’s different. Dad sleeps in front of the TV becuase he’s never done with what he wants to do. Going to bed is an admission of defeat to your day, so to speak (I know becuase I think along similar lines; as long as you stay above the covers, you might still finish that final task…). What I’ve started doing is different.

I went downstairs, blanket in hand, sat down, flipped on the set. At my house, since we pay for Super Mega Cable, we have this thing where you pick what movie you want to watch, and you can watch it for free. I use it mostly for the porn, but tonight I chose the Bourne Ultimatum. I’ve never seen this movie, but when it started, I promptly curled up and fell asleep.

I saw… maybe five minutes of the film. Matt Damon all running around a train station and whatnot. The real point of this story is that I took the trouble to load up a movie I’d never seen, and would otherwise watch, but with the express intention of falling asleep! What would posses me to do such a thing; how does one justify it?! I’m unsure.

Today I read a bunch of webcomics. It’s a thing I do. My apologies to friends/family who may have received unsolicited webcomic-links in their inboxes in the past few days… I’m kindof into them for the moment. Particularly the history/randomness of Kate Beaton, along with the stark (and on occasion, delightfully crude) insight of A Softer World. I’ve been enjoying both quite a lot, however:

There was a moment in there were it simply became too much. Reading hipster webcomics is bad enough, but in that moment Sufjan Stevens came up in my iTunes which had been shuffling about. I almost keeled over and died, such was the spike in my indie cred levels. Alas, that is not the real me, and a track from the Star Wars soundtrack was quick to follow Sufjan, bringing my cred levels back to within the acceptable tolerance range from “loser” to “nerdy guy”. Thank heavens.

Reading a lot of webcomics always instills me with this strange sense of purpose. I feel like I could make a webcomic. So strong was this feeling, way back when, in days long-since-gone-by (Brak Blog, c. 2004 to be exact), I actually MADE a webcomic! I did. Below is the cumulative sum of fruition that came of that dream:

Uninspired, I know. I am, however, pretty impressed with the art. Not great, but not… vomit-inducing. Sad that that’s the best thing I can find to say about it, but hey. A spade’s a spade, right? And that was four years ago. I’ve loved a lot of ladies, learned a lot of physics, and grown exponentially more pretentious since then. Perhaps the dream is not lost just yet?

I think that problem is that I put the cart before the horse. How about I hone my drawing skills first, THEN maybe try and include some variety of wit or wisdom. Guess what!? New blog-feature! I’ll steal our scanner from downstairs (Mom threw it down there because it didn’t fit with the aesthetic of our new office furniture…), set it up in the Command Center 2.0 next semester, and you’ll all bear witness to how terrible my art is.

Guess I’ll go draw now.
*CRAP!*

(Year-End Album Reviews Up Soon. I’M GLARING AT YOU IAN.)

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So it’s nearly 4 AM (at the start of writing!), and I know I do a bad job of getting sleep, but I’m finding it hard to care, following the evening I just had.

I noted, ever so briefly in the last entry, that we had a mouse problem. To bring everyone else up to speed: This little dude went to TOWN pillaging the food that Ethan and I left from the summer. He was a thorough little bastard, and did a number on the food, as well as pooping like… everywhere.

So we realized we couldn’t leave any crumbs, and had to put dishes away ASAP so he didn’t feast on / contaminate our leftovers. Yet still her persisted. Finding the little things that weren’t secured too well, eating crumbs we didn’t even know we’d left. All the while leaving generous portions of gifts for us to clean up: It was starting to drive me crazy.

Just earlier this week, we had a breakthrough though. Ian was eating his oats when he heard a noise from the pantry (bookcase-type-thing in the girl’s kitchen where we leave most of the food). Upon closer inspection, the mouse revealed himself! He dropped down and gave Ian a cursory glance before bolting behind the pantry, never to be seen again.

Later on, Ian related this story to the rest of the house, and he and I set to investigate further. Upon Ian’s discovery that there was a small hole in the wall behind the pantry, we moved the whole food-shelf-system to the middle of the room in order to patch the hole… with duct tape and a left-over chunk of a 2×4. Deducing that perhaps the peanut butter cup wrappers (early evidence of one of the mouse’s favorite treats in our food stocks) ended up in the girls bathroom (directlya adjacent to the kitchen) via a connection of holes, Ian and I set to investigate further.

There we discovered, beneath the cheap, crumbling base of the vanity, another entryway to the mouse’s network of byways through our house. This one was more difficult to patch, so we tabled it for later. We spend the remainder of the afternoon using Ian’s plexiglass-board and some expo markers to organize the information we had obtained and plan for future actions.

Later that evening, we got our second shot: Leah roused me from sleeping through my political science reading assignment to inform me that she thought she’d heard something in the pantry. I got up to investigate, and happened upon the mouse, perusing our foodstuffs, with my own eyes! I had Leah go get Ian. I needed backup. Charlie was not going to go down easy, I could tell.

[We call him "Charlie" after the American armed forces' nickname for Viet Cong soldiers. Also it's fun to say "Charlie's in the treelines," about anything of a generally adversarial nature.]

Ian came down to find me poised with a plastic bin to try and catch the mouse. He quickly grabbed a box to follow suit, but before either of us could really make a move, Charlie dropped down to the floor, and made a break for a corner. “Surely, we’ve got him,” I think, when no sooner does Charlie slip out under the back door and make his escape. Ian and I, though disappointed a little bit, promptly seal off this entrance/exit. At least we were making progress.

These actions gave us our only mouse-free day. For 24 hours, we were Charlie-free, and it was pretty beautiful. Ian and I made regular updates to the Board, representing all available information and our plans for future action. People just kind of shook their heads, as they typically do when Noble and myself are plotting something. By and large though, our campaign against the mouse was supported by our fellow housemates, given their vested interest in not eating mouse feces, a mistake I may have made earlier in the week… much to my chagrin.

Yesterday, and Charlie-encounter ended in his escape through yet another door, which was also promptly sealed off to prevent escape. Now we come to today. It began with yet another encounter between Ian and the mouse early in the morning. Clearly, we must have been getting to him, if he was forced to scrounge while there were people around. Charlie panicked as Ian began to corner him, confidant that all of the mouse’s exits had been cut off.

To no avail, he once more evaded detection. This evening, Ian and I had just gotten back late from doing some exploring with friends, and were literally getting ready to turn in for the night, when Leah came in with another mouse report. We investigated, Rob with us now as well, armed with the plastic bucket from earlier. We proceeded to all (mostly Rob and Ian) chase Charlie around the kitchen, watching in awe as he scaled easily to the top of our pantry/bookcase thing, only to escape AGAIN.

Ian convened an emergency strategy session, where we discussed constructing better perimeters to contain Charlie in any future encounter. As we began construction, we stepped out for just a moment, and the mouse made his move!!! While we were right there, taking advantage of our half-constructed fence, instantly probing its weak points, clever bastard that he is.

It was, I believe at this moment, that we declared war. I went back to the planning bored, sketched my idea for a trap, and began gathering materials:

-1 bucket.
-1 pair scissors taped shut
-2 audio cables, tied together
-1 plate of leftover cake icing

By using the scissors to prop up the bucket open-end-down, and tying the cords to the scissors, I could slide the cake plate underneath the perched bucket. When Charlie came to feast on the sweet, sweet icing, I would pull the scissors out from a distance, dropping the bucket over him, and trapping him hopefully. Ian and Rob set out to strengthen the perimeter so that when the chase was on once more, he would have nowhere else to run.

And so… we turned off the lights and waited in the silent darkness for Charlie make his move once more. Except we were playing for keeps this time. Someone was going home the winner of this test of wills, and Ian and I were hellbent on it being us. Charlie quietly creeps out to get some icing from the cake plate. I hesitate; pulling the string too soon could alert him and give him time to escape, particularly if he stuck to the periphery of the plate like he was doing. Soon a sound spooked him though, and my chance was gone.

Ian decided to move in to get the lights back on, so we could see him, now confident that he had nowhere to run. But run he did, to one of the last places he could hide: in a small nook under a single cabinet, from which there was no escape, we had him cornered, but inaccessible. Quickly, we created a NEW perimeter, a component of which was the bucket from earlier on its side with the cake plate sitting in it. We hoped this would give him no other option but to be lured into it, upon which we would promptly stand it on its end, trapping Charlie at the bottom.

We even placed a small mirror by the entry to Charlie’s last refuge. At the correct angle, and with a little help from the flashlight, we could literally see him when we poked his little head out to confirm we were still on the hunt. Fool that he was though, he was not patient enough. Our trap-perimeter complete, we turned out the lights, manned our posts, and tried to remain silent. Ian would use the faint light of the flashlight to maintain a clear view on Charlie’s position, while I would keep a hand on the bin, ready to flip it upright.

Many times Charlie ventured out, only to be instantly alerted to our presence by tiny little noises. In my confusion, I misread Ian’s signal once, and flipped the bucket up without Charlie in it, breaking the line for a moment, scrambling to replace it and maintain the perimeter. After several tries, Ian and I got our communication narrowed down to a single hand signal, and maintained complete silence. We both strained against our fatigue (it is 2 AM at this point) to maintain focus. I am crouched uncomfortably, wanting to keep my distance in case Charlie overcomes our barricade, but still needing to be ready at a moments notice.

My legs ache, and I’m getting tired. It’s had to keep still for so long, and at this point I’m starting to feel bad for not calling Laura. I’d tried to explain to her the direness of the mouse situation, but I think perhaps she gets a little sick of indulging my little… eccentricities, such as this one. This thought nags on my mind for a mome-

Suddenly a small shuffle-

-Ian’s thumb jabs earnestly, but still with restraint, into the air-

-I recognize the signal, pull hard on the bucket handle, flipping it upright.
As I do this, I can see through the dim light a small brown lump slide down the edge to the now-cake-filled bottom. I throw a box on top to seal the open end of the bucket, and the celebration begins.

Ian makes a very inappropriate sexual gesture while I triumphantly shout for Charlie to “suck… ON… MY… NUTS!!!!.” It was rude and amazing in the best way. High-fives and words of congratulations were exchanged. I have seldom seen Ian and myself more self-satisfied at the outcome of one of our crazy plans. I couldn’t believe we’d done it, after all that, Charlie was now our prisoner.

Which sucks for him, I suppose, but for god’s sake, he’s literally been shitting all over our food. It’s kinda hard to feel bad for him. I still did cringe a little as I heard him frantically trying to scale the slick plastic walls of his new prison, however. Maybe he’ll get something out of it? Maybe he will be the mouse-people’s John McCain. He’ll get out of this one day and go home and run for the Senate and grow all super old and have this badass war story to tell.

The plan is, at present, to release him in Thousand Hills State Park tomorrow.

I’m really tired now, so edits to this will follow along with relavant photos to the spectacle that has been this crazy, crazy Charlie hunt.

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[Really, how many of my posts start this way: "Sorry I suck at posting, etc."]

So yeah. Once more I dropped the ball on the old blog. Summer semester picked up, and turned out to be a lot more busy in July than I had expected. Once I got home, my life lacked anything even remotely akin to a normal schedule, which always spells certain doom for the blog.

July 15th marked the second birthday of Schrödinger’s Blog, which is pretty exciting! I was taking a quick peak over at the archives, and I think we’re already way ahead of the Brak Blog in terms of the rate at which I’m updating (despite little droughts like this past one). June was a great month for us in terms of content, and I hope now that I’m back at school I can keep that going.

Especially with my new devotion to personal projects that I actually like (see: radio show, blog, notstudentsenate), hopefully the blog will keep this upward trend going after my little vacation. Within the next few times I post, one will be the Update Post for 2.5, as that’s more than half done at this point!

That was the site-business. Now on to house-business: There’s only one item on the agenda here, and it’s spiders and how much I detest the little buggers. Between Ethan and I, we had to have killed maybe 20-25 of them. Does anyone know how big spider hordes are? It’s obviously more than 25, becuase upon my return to the house, we were once more infested.

Speaking of being infested… we also developed two bee hives in the back yard, as well as a mouse problem in our foodstuffs. I’m gone for like… three weeks, and this whole place goes to pieces. I swear. But things are really looking good. The house is currently 80% full, with only Leah not living here just yet, and things are going pretty well. We need to do some organizing, and we have about three times the requisite amount of cutlery a normal house would need… but it’s all good.

The last little bit of summer consisted mostly of my family vacation to Maine. Really, most of the trip was us hanging out and seeing National Park-type stuff. It was fun to be there (also the weather was 10x better than Kirksville, and 100x better than KC), but not exactly worth delineating every little detail. One item that was so absurd that I practically live-blogged it was the little trouble we had at the end of the trip at the airport(s).

We arrive in the Portland airport in order to head home, and instantly it becomes glaringly apparent that something is not quite right. There is a small line forming at our airline’s desk. Shortly after queuing up, we find that the plane is delayed to such an extend that we will undoubtedly miss our connections in Detroit, and then obviously also the one in Minneapolis. My father springs into action, well-traveled man that he is, and instantly is trying to rout us through another airline, change the connection; a whole battery of solutions apparently were attempted.

All the while a Lifetime Original Movie played out in the little sitting area right by us, where the small asian girl was in quite a state over the departure of her overtly indie man-friend. When he finally left, and she with him, there was quite literally a wasteland of used tissues left over for the rest of us to… notice. Reluctantly, I cleared some of them away, just enough so we had a place to sit while my father worked in vain to fix our airplane situation. It was eventually confirmed that, despite his best efforts, the best we could do was complete the first leg to Detroit and bunk there for the evening.

So we’re off to Detroit… but when our plane finally arrives it incurs a second mechanical failure, one which is quite time-consuming to repair. During THIS, I sat next to a young man who smelled like he had neglected to bathe anywhere in the past week or so. The plane was eventually fixed though, and we were on our way…

A first for me, we experienced some turbulence en route. I’ve had bumpy flights before, but this was honest-to-god, “Hey kids, I turned the seatbelt light back on becuase this shit just got real,”-turbulence. It was actually a little exciting, truth be told. Sure, we could have died, but my faith that my life is destined for far to boring things to end in a fiery crash assuaged any fears that I may have had. Mix in a crazy flight attendant with all this, and you’ve got all the makings of a good plane ride.

Even when the ride was over though, it wasn’t really over. Since we were so late, there were no open terminals for us to park at. Granted, the wait for a terminal was only around five to ten minutes, but this extended into something resembling a few hours as I begin to immediately regret my decision to drink an entire Pepsi during the flight. Oops.

The harrowing trip to Detroit was worth it though. That airport is a work of art. Between the speed-tram-monorail-thing that zips you between the two biggest wings the airport and a fountain that does something of a “show” by timing the pulses of water that it shoots, you’ve got enough entertainment to pass away an evening. The fountain was a little like the fountain in front of Union Station, if that rings any bells for the Kansas City people, but indoors. It occupied my time for a good half our, fruitlessly searching for repetition of the pattern. My interest in the fountain finally began to wane though, and it was then that I fell in love with the Denver Detroit (I made this mistake like a zillion times, BTW) airport: they had a Chili’s. A CHILI’S. IN THE AIRPORT. HOLD THE PHONE. I’M MOVING HERE. (here =/= Detroit, here = the Detroit Airport)

Too bad it was CLOSED since we got in so late. Opportunity missed, but still bonus points for having such a high-quality restaurant so close. The best part though, was the means by which you travel between the “upper” and “lower” portions of the airport (it’s divided into an H, with the trains that take you up and down the big arms, and a tunnel that bridges the two bigger arms together). See, normally you’d think: “Underground tunnel, OK. Lots of tile, sterile-feeling halogen lighting, maybe a handful of security cameras.” And normally you’d be right. But not in Detroit.

The tunnel was incredibly long, and the arched ceiling was filled with countless colored lighting elements that changed their pattern and shade depending on what tone the dramatic soundtrack music was playing in the background!!!! It was entirely excessive, and probably hated by most airport patrons, but as I road that powered-sidewalk (think Jetsons-esque ‘flat escalator’) thing through this orgiastic amount of light and sound, I couldn’t help but laugh with joy that someone, somewhere, had thought of such an awesome idea, and another person had thought so kindly of it as to contribute untold sums of money to make it a reality.

Eventually we arrive at our airline’s help desk, where we expected them to give us arrangements for a hotel and maybe some food, since their mechanical problem was the reason we were stuck in Detroit in the first place (as we missed all our connections by a number of hours). My parents stood in line while Erin and I stood guard over the luggage. Except we didn’t actually stand, we sat down. As I’m sitting there, typing notes that would eventually become this lengthy synopsis, a small child seats herself beside me.

Fine.
She shakes the poorly-secured row of seats slightly.
Fine.
She starts swinging her legs.
Fine.
She starts manically bouncing.

NOT Fine.

“Stop doing that,” I say. She continues. “Really. You’ve GOT to stop that right now.” She ignores me again. I tightly squeeze my cellphone, worrying that it will snap in my white-knuckled fist. Fortunately, just a few moments before I was pushed to a full-on rage-out, her parent sat down with her, and she had to stop.

Finally we receive a hotel voucher, and one for food too. When we hopped on a bus to the Day’s Inn, the driver even let me sit up front! My father got Titaniced (see: “There’s not enough room in this lifeboat, you’ll have to try another.”) onto another bus, which of course caused my mom to get a little worried. Our driver informs us at around halfway there, “Hey, guys. No rooms at Days Inn. We go to Quality.” Nobody seems to notice. Or care. They were all blissfully ignorant.

We arrive at Days Inn. True to the driver’s word, it is full. We literally run across the street to the Quality Inn, managing to snag a room. It is now 12:00, and we leave for the airport again at 5 AM. We could have gotten a whole five hours of sleep, but…

I was hungry, and so was Erin, so we ordered food. Food arrives at 1:15. I manage to spend two food vouchers (26 USD $) on a pizza, garlic bread, and chicken wings. Plus an accidental Mountain Dew. Yuck. The Fugitive is on (one of my family’s all-time favorite films). Erin’s ability to quote that film is both amazing and terrifying. [She is a golden god.] “What about bullshit, Sam?”, my favorite line, was noticeably absent from the TBS Superstation edit of the movie.

Finally, stuffed and ill, at 2 AM, we turn in, knowing we will need to awaken in 4:30. It is a poor excuse for a full night of sleep, despite awesome pillows. We awaken the next morning, and drag ourselves, like zombies, out to the shuttle. It is piloted by the same dude from last night (which then makes one wonder if he slept at all…). He seems to recognize me, maybe because I gave him a dollar or because he let me sit up front. That was cool.

We arrive at the airport. On the bus ride, we hear that some people are en route for a 7:30 flight. Meaning they got the airport about 3 hours before the flight. Why? They’re elderly, and have nothing better to do is my guess. One such old-timer is apparently an idiot. In the giant revolving door to enter the airport he is too eager to reach the other side, and he stands too close to the revolving bit. The door stops as a type of safety feature. Someone in the back pipes up, “You’re standing too close to it.” It moves again. Once more, the old man moves as if to make love to it (so close does he want to be to this door!). Once again it stops.

The cycle repeats itself, about four times total. My entire family, making it through on the pre-old-man-cycle of the door, wonders what has happened to me, a poor prisoner of the old man’s love affair (or perhaps simply woeful technological ignorance of the device’s true function) with the door. Around Go number three, I start to get irritated. The old man’s hurry is making this whole process take double what it should.

I shake my fist at the ceiling as if to say to my parents, “I will kill this old man in a duel if that’s what it comes to.” Finally, the revolving door cracks open a little bit. Thinking he can exit, the man jumps at the gap. The door stops, but it is wide enough for him to escape. He is in some hurry.

I finally exit that tiny, tiny hell, and shout angrily after the old man, at quite an inappropriate volume, particularly given the earliness of the hour, “KAAAAAAAAHHHHNNN!!!!!” It is the most epic moment of this entire fiasco.

We then got to ride the little express train, which was fun. While we waited for the plane, the couple across from me in the boarding area had matching light-pink Nintendo DSs. I wonder if they play each other online in “Brain Age” or “Separation Anxiety”. Probably not, though…

BECAUSE YOU’VE GOT TO [expletive deleted] PAY FOR THE [expletive deleted] INTERNET, HERE IN THIS [expletive deleted] HOLE. That’s a crime, I swear. To open up your laptop, flip on the wireless, and have every page you load display the same disgustingly cheery message requesting eight dollars for access to the internet… Bah. I don’t think I want to live in a country where airport wi-fi is not free. For heaven’s sake, we’re all stuck in the airport, the least you could do is give us something to do. And if we can make it work at KCI, nobody else really has an excuse, becuase let’s face it: Kansas City is, in many senses, the bare minimum in terms of things required to be a major metropolitan area.

As I sat there, waiting to get on the last plane to KC, I could feel that Mountain Dew from the hours previous in the early morning starting to give me trouble due to its overtly sugary, bubbly nastiness. I decided to purge it with a few bottles of water.

Suffice to say, this proved to be a poor pre-flight strategy.

All-in-all, I’m glad I’m back. Airports are trying, and I’m kinda sick of them for now.

EDIT: Ian informed me that this entry had some grammar errors after he read it. I neglected to proof it since I was tired when I first finished it. My bad kids. I proofed it, and hopefully I found everything.