Thanksgiving/Birthday

Greetings from Ft. Worth! Everyone knows that last Thursday was Thanksgiving, but yesterday was my 28th birthday. This is significant for a couple of reasons- one, I am now undeniably in my late 20's. At 27 you can at least think of it as mid-to-late 20's, but after this it's 29, then you know what. Two (and perhaps more importantly)- I am now only a year away from 11/26/2008, the magic date when my driver's license will finally expire and I can get a new one with my current address on it. Just like my checks, it still shows the address of my ghetto apartment, where I haven't lived for almost 3 years. And everytime I rent a car or check into a hotel (which is a lot) I have to say "No, I've moved" and rattle of my "new" address. I could just get the new one early, but it's like 75 bucks.

So Thanksgiving went really well. I was very fortunate to have my Mom, Jim, Carly and Daniel come and visit. The food was all great- I even managed to make a fantastic turkey. And by "make" I mean stick it in a broiler and walk away, only to return 3.5 hours later. Since Mom brought me my Grandma's aforementioned old broiler, we were able to stick the Turkey out in the garage and free up the oven for everything else. I'm no expert chef, but holy cow was that convenient! It had the added benefit of making the garage smell like delicious turkey all day, until Friday when it started smelling like old McDonald's grease long after the turkey was gone.

The only real hitch came when we realized I only own 4 place settings, and there were 5 of us. It wasn't a big deal, it just meant we had to do dishes after every meal. Seriously- on my own I do dishes maybe once a week. But I did at least 6 loads in 4 days. Plus, when I'm by myself it's only because I've run out of bowls and spoons, but this time that sucker was packed.

We had a lot of fun- one of the more interesting activities was mass DS games. Carly and Daniel are also proud owners of the Nintendo DS, so were able to have some nice multiplayer Mario Kart action. Now, Carly was never much of a gamer, but Daniel downright never played. In college, he showed a fleeting interest in Tony Hawk 3, but we could never get him in on any other games. The one time I came home and he was playing Nintendo all by himself almost brought a tear to my eye- but I digress. My point is that those two have been practicing, and they were schooling me. I'm not exactly The Wizard or anything, but getting beat by family was new. Of course, this lead to several heated exchanges like "You f**ker that race was mine!" and "I'm getting F'd in the A!" Good times. Of course, it's all wireless, prompting my mom to say "Why don't you guys see if it works from different rooms?"

Mom and Jim caught the train back Saturday and Carly & Daniel left early Sunday morning, so although we had been doing birthday stuff for a few days I spent my actual birthday mostly by myself. Kate did have me over to watch Jarhead and swap holiday stories, which was fun.

So now I'm in Texas for a week, then home for a week, then back to Grand Rapids for a week, at which point I'll just stick around for Christmas. Basically, I'm almost home free for the holidays! I guess I better start shopping.

We're a Blended Family

I have a beef with the Lexington Park post office. First of all, they're slow. They're also pretty rude. But I guess that's kind of to be expected.

More specifically, the one woman who works there may very well be some sort of android. My buddy Mike's favorite instance was when he was waiting in line once- Android lady talks really funny, and it's hard to convey in print, but she kind of says things like "Neeext, pleeeease!" always in the same tone. The guy in front of Mike walked away without his keys or something, and to call him back the lady said "Returrrn, pleeease!" Maybe you had to be there.

Plus, the post office is always absolutely packed. They finally implemented one of those take-a-number things to calm the unruly mob, so one time I went in and took a number- it was 31, and the little number display was on 29. I waited, and the lady looks up and yells out "Twenty-niiiiine!" and some dude walks up. When she's done with him, she again looks at the display (which hasn't changed), then yells "Twenty-niiiiine!" and another guy walks up. Again, she finishes up with him, and yells "Twenty-niiiiine!" I watch in irritated fascination as the cycle repeats itself, and it's pretty clear that the lady has no idea that she has just called for customer 29 four consecutive times, helping someone different each time. Since I've had enough, I yell out "Excuse me, are we using the numbers or not?" Everyone kind of stops in their tracks, including the guy who was on his way up, looking like he was caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Robo-teller gives me a blank stare, looks up at the display, and announces "Twenty-niiiiine!" in the same matter she always has. She takes a half-interested glance around the room for a few seconds too long before hitting a button to change the number, then yells "Thirrrty!" Again, no one moves until she says "Thirrrty-one!" and I walk up with my little number tag. There are two things that amaze me about this encounter: First, the lady called out 29 at least 4 times, never realizing that she had already called that number. Who knows how long this had been going on before I got there. Second, what the hell were the customers doing? There was no discernible line, so every time the lady said 29, someone who knew full well that they weren't number 29 sauntered up, and apparently that was okay with everyone. No one thought to question her, they just figured "Next time she calls 29, I'm going up there."

Also, the mail gets stuck in some sort of time/space vortex between here and the rest of the world, which means that by the time my Sports Illustrated shows up on Friday afternoon, it's all old news. When a relative sends Christmas cards to my brother, sister and I, I always get mine last by at least a few days. When Kate was in Florida I sent her a care package, and it made the trek from Lexington Park to Pensacola in a scant 20 days. Needless to say, the muffins I baked her were no good. Or in the most recent case, I received Senator Roy Dyson's campaign flyer in the mail on Thursday, November 16, asking me for my vote on Tuesday, November 7.

At some point, my house was occupied by Ronald and Ida Jolley. I know this, because I get their mail all the time. That lead to the best part about the Roy Dyson add- it was addressed to:
It's as though the county sat down and thought "Wait a minute, Ron and Ida Jolley used to get mail at this address, but it's been this Burgess guy for the last three years. Well, there's no need to check any of the hundreds of county records at our disposal, I've got this figured out: They must be living together now!" Oy.

More Travel

When I woke up this morning, my first thought was "I wonder what's for breakfast this morning. I hope there's waffles." Then I realized that I'm at home, not in a hotel somewhere. I've slept in my own bed thrice in the last 14 nights, but one of those was home at 10:30 pm, leave for the airport at 8:00 am. And it's not like I've been gone on one big trip- it's been 4 trips is the past 2 weeks. That's 6 commutes to airports (for at least 90 minutes a pop), 4 nights at my parent's house, 7 nights in 3 different hotels (all Residence Inns), and 10 flights on 10 different planes (including one puddle jumper that older than any of it's passengers). I'm not really complaining- I've had worse, and plus I've been able to visit family twice in there.

But I know you're thinking "Hey Marc, what really ticks you off about air travel?" Okay, I'll tell you. First, the baggage claim. The logical way to claim your bags from the clothes-snagging-accident-waiting-to-happen-yet-people-still-sit-on-it conveyor would be for everyone to stand about 3 feet back so everyone can see, wait until you spot your bag, step up, retrieve it, and be on your way. But what happens? Everyone wants to stand with their shins touching the rotunda, up so close that they form an impenetrable wall that makes it impossible to see what bags are currently available. This forces the second tier people to continuously push through to claim a spot where they can see and/or retrieve their luggage. This was especially pronounced on my recent Midwest Airlines flight, which had a really small baggage claim for a pretty full flight.

And it doesn't stop there. Several alpha travelers really, really want to get their bag quickly, so they try to cluster at the point in the claim where the bags come out of the little chute. However bad the crowd is around the rest of the carousel, it's much worse there. In the meantime, I have taken up my usual post, and the dead other end, where it's not so crowded. But "Oh," you say, "Doesn't it take longer to get your bag because you have to wait for it to come all the way around?" At the aforementioned mini-claim, I actually clocked it. It took under 45 seconds to make a complete revolution. All that pushing and shoving to save less than a minute.

And then, when I get out to the shuttle stop, who's already there waiting? That's right: all the jerks who were creating a stampede trying to get their bag first. This is where we find the other annoyance: complete incompetence in boarding the shuttle bus. I mean, you follow the signs to the stop. At Washington Reagan, they say:

Airport Shuttle Stop
Economy Parking
Garage Parking
Rental Cars

During high traffic times, there's an attendant that stands at the stop. When you approach, they ask you "Economy, Garage, or Rental Cars?" I know where to go, but the poor guy's just doing his job, so I indulge him and say "Economy." He tells me "Okay, get on the bus that says 'Economy Parking.'" DUH! What's sad is that the airport has determined that enough travelers can't handle this task on their own that they pay someone to babysit people and practically lead them by the hand to the correct bus. When the shuttles come by, they have big, illuminated signs that describe in no uncertain terms where the bus is headed. So I get on my shuttle.

It takes a while for everyone to get settled, and of course there's the one older, jerky couple who can't imagine putting their luggage on the rack by the door where it might be out of arm's reach, so they insist on carrying it all back to their seats, which takes at least 2 baggage claim revolutions. Once we're all packed in (I swear the guy next to me was half on my lap), the driver says "Is everyone going to the Economy lot?" Jerky old luggage toter says "Wait, Economy? We need to go to Rental Cars!" ARRRRRRRRGH. I die a little inside as he struggles to get his luggage back out. How did he make it through the multiple levels of screening? The busses freaking say where they're going on every side! And this isn't rare- it happens all the time. As Jerky shuffles out he gets in his parting dig, saying "Well the sign said this is where the Rental Car shuttle stops!" The sign says this is where they ALL stop! Jeeze, what do you do- go to the bus stop and hop in the first car that goes by? When you flew here, did you try to get on the first plane you saw? Note to people everywhere: You may occasionally have to look around and make a decision. That is all.

Totally unrelated fun fact I came across just now: If we adjust for inflation, minimum wage today is half of what it was in 1968.

Little Wisconsin

I'm coming to you tonight from the great city of Grand Rapids, Michigan. At work Thursday afternoon I was asked to cover a meeting here for a co-worker, and I didn't have anything else pressing going on, so off I went. The best part is that Grand Rapids is only about an hour from Lansing, so I was able to score some time with my family while I'm in the neighborhood. I couldn't tell you the last time I was here two weekends in a row- probably high school. I have more meetings tomorrow, but if I play my cards right I can probably hook up with the Burgess family for dinner again before I fly out Wednesday morning.

Here's the reason I write: The only way to get from D.C. to Grand Rapids is through Milwaukee. I have a fundamental problem with flying across Lake Michigan only to get on a puddle jumper and fly right back, but whatever. I don't make the schedules. In any case, as we were boarding the plane in D.C., I was couldn't help but overhear (eavesdrop) on the conversation a man was having with his daughter behind me. The daughter says "How long will it take to get there from Milwaukee?" The man answers, and I quote:

"Probably less than an hour. Wisconsin's not a very big state- I don't think you could drive much more than an hour and still be in Wisconsin."

-Guy Behind Me in Line

Yes. That is what he said. I've done a little bit of research here, and it's 40 miles just to get out of Wisconsin from Milwaukee. But, if there's any traffic whatsoever, that'll take well over an hour. Trust me- when Kate lived in Kenosha I got more than my share of Chicagoland traffic. In any case, their destination of Madison is a little over an hour away. For what it's worth, La Crosse is 3 hours away, Eau Claire is 3 hours 40 minutes, and to get from Milwaukee to Superior, WI is 6.5 hours! In case the point isn't fully made, to cross the whole state from Tobin to Superior it would take about 7 hours.

So how big an idiot was this guy? I stood there for a few minutes longer, and I couldn't take it anymore. I turned around and said "Excuse me, but where are you folks from?" I figured that they had to hail from Texas or Alaska, or some gigantic state. But no- they replied that they lived right here in Maryland. I said that Wisconsin was a pretty big state, and it took me over an hour to get from my home in Maryland to the airport- and that's with no traffic. Hell, it takes about an hour to get out of Maryland from my house!

For further information, Wisconsin is about 54,310 square miles, compared to Maryland, which is about 9,774. Honestly! Has this guy ever seen a map? It takes 2 and a half hours to drive across Connecticut (at only 4,844 square miles)! 1:06 to cross Rhode Island! I'd like to rant more, but what else is there to say? If I keep thinking about this I might pop a blood vessel.

Travel Notes

Okay, so I've been to Chicago, Lansing and New Jersey in the last 5 days, and now I'm finally back home to post some updates. I planned to do it last night, but I didn't get home until 9:30ish. I'm going to make a bold statement here: That was the worst traffic I've ever seen in DC. I think it had something to do with elections, because it took hours just to get to the beltway, but from there it was clear. Anyway.

I finally got the picture of my Halloween costume up. When I first saw the picture I thought "Oh Lord, maybe I have gotten a little skinny." For what it's worth, that's the most that I've ever looked like my Grandpa.

This whole round of travel started with an impromptu trip to Chicago for my E-2 stuff. The first weird thing was that as I was sitting at my desk at the Residence Inn, this ladybug kept attacking me. I would shoo it away, but it would always come back and get caught up in the lampshade. Finally, when I'd had enough, I grabbed him out of the air, stormed over to the door, threw him out in the hallway, then closed and locked the door. That's right, I locked the door- as in deadbolt and the security chain. As though the ladybug might be able to obtain a counterfeit magnetic key card and manipulate the handle of the door. Plus, what good would the security chain do? The lady bug would only need the door open like an inch to get in anyway. I'm telling myself I did it all out of habit- it wasn't threat-specific.

Since my flight the next day was so early, I returned my rental car the night before and caught the hotel shuttle in the morning. I had a brand new Chevy Cobalt that had 3 miles on it when I drove it off the lot. So after the meeting on Thursday I refueled it (I had to force it to take $2.00), dropped my stuff off at the hotel and headed back to Budget, where I returned the car with 19 miles on it. They have a new, asinine rule that if you drive less than 75 miles, you aren't supposed to refuel- they just charge you a flat $9.50, which is highway robbery. You're supposed to let them know if you do fill it up. So as I drop off the car, the girl says "Did you refuel?" I say yes. "Do you have the receipt?" "No (it was at the hotel with the rest of my stuff), but it was 2 bucks." "Okay, that's a $9.50 charge." I say "But I just filled it up." She says "You have to show me the receipt." I say "Okay, or, you can look at the gas gauge and see that the needle is above F, or you can see that the car only has 19 miles total on it, so there's no way it needs gas, let alone $9.50 worth." Without making eye contact she repeats "Gotta have the receipt," hands me my Budget receipt and walks away. I headed into the lobby to complain, but there were about 20 people in line and I was already getting cranky so I gave up and got on the shuttle. What annoys me the most is that Budget just made an extra $9.50 for absolutely nothing! I was forced to pay them ten bucks for 0.8 gallons of gas that was already in the car! That I already paid for! Grumble. It softens the blow to know that some small portion of that fee will come out of that girl's taxes. Of course some comes out of yours and mine as well, but who's counting?

On my way out of Chicago I had my first run in with the new TSA liquid/gel/paste guidelines. I usually put all the newly outlawed substances in my checked luggage so I don't have to deal with it, but this time I got stopped. The TSA professional rooted through my carry-on for a minute, before opening up my toiletry kit, grabbing my inhaler and saying "Ah hah, here we go." Now, this was my rescue inhaler. I haven't needed one in at least 2 years, but if I (or any asthmatic) had a freak attack in-flight, it would sort of be important. So the guys says "Let me see if you can take this on the plane" to which I reply "That's a rescue inhaler." He takes it, goes back to his TSA colleagues, they examine it, flip through a little book and discuss, and eventually decided that I can have it back. Which was nice, considering that it was emergency medication and I've had it with me on the last 200 flights. But the fun didn't stop there! He continued digging and found a little bottle of cologne that had all of 3 drops inside. Again, I didn't even know it was in there, so I've been flying with contraband for months without even knowing it. He again says "Ah hah! You're not supposed to have liquids." I point out there had to be less than 3 ounces left, and he says yes, but it still has to be in a plastic bag, and he asked if I had one. I said that yes I did, I had a little "snack" sized Glad bag with some Advil and Tylenol PM in it. He takes my little bag, opens it, drops in the cologne, reseals it, hands it to me and says "There you go," and walks away for good, leaving me bewildered. What the hell was the point of that? Isn't the whole plastic bag thing supposed to speed up security, which I was already through? Air travel is just getting annoying.

As a side note, I was pretty hungry when I got back to Baltimore, and I had a few hours to kill before my flight to Detroit for part 2. I ended up eating a sausage and egg McBisquit or whatever (and hating myself for it) but I noticed that my favorite combination Pizza Hut/Taco Bell was gone. I know you're wondering what has taken it's place- well, now it's a combination Pizzeria Uno/Ortega Taco. It's like the one restaurant left, and they thought, "Well, really the only logical choice for this location is a combo pizza/taco place. " Or maybe they just already had the personal pizza warmers and taco stands and went with the path of least resistance.

The second leg was actually travel for pleasure- I was able to visit my family in Lansing and watch Purdue do their darnedest to lose to Michigan State. It was a fun visit, and it's made me really look forward to Christmas when I can get back. As for the game, it was really a contest to see who could play worse, and Purdue sucked slightly less than MSU. I won't go into detail, but as Carly pointed out, had the teams traded kickers it would have been a blowout. Purdue K Chris Summers has only made 3 of his last 12! If this was the NFL, he would be cut. Of course if this was the NFL, MSU wouldn't have burned all their timeouts because they could never figure out who should be on the field.
Conversely, I got home in time on Sunday to watch the Colts dispatch the Patriots. Now, I like the Patriots as much as the law requires, but I do like to see Tom Brady pout when things don't go his way. I don't know who could watch the Colts play without thinking Peyton Manning is the best quarterback in the league, but moreover, did you see that catch Marvin Harrison made? Phenomenal.

After that I went to New Jersey, and it was New Jersey. I think I'm home for at least the rest of this week.

MySpace has a purpose!

Thanks to Gail's comment, I now have an actual family member in my MySpace friends list. I've been waiting for MySpace to connect me with a long lost friend like it does for everyone else, and it finally did- my junior high best buddy Jordan Green. Now, you can probably tell from his profile that he sort of chose a different tack through life than I did- he went goth in early high school and we totally lost touch. But through the magic of the interweb we've been able to exchange e-mails about his punk rock and tattooing and my like, running and working in a cubicle.

I used a lot of words to get to the point: check out Jordan's friends list! One of these things is not like the others! Whoo- I hope I'm not hurting his street cred on there.

Actually, a few days ago I added Cassandra, another old high school friend. She and her now husband Jason were managers at McDonald's when I worked there, so maybe they'd get a kick out of my Halloween costume. Cassandra's page is funny because her friends list includes 2 of the 5 Backstreet Boys, but I guess that's big talk from a guy who has Weird Al on his friends list.

Halloween Highlights

This was the fourth Halloween since I've relocated to Southern Maryland. For the first, Kate and I were our apartment and we were ready- we bought a bunch of candy, and had a grand total of like 5 trick-or-treaters. The first year in the house, I think we bought 2 big bags of candy to be safe, and we ran out so fast we had to break into our own personal candy (Fireballs, Lifesavers, etc) to keep up, and ended up closing up shop early when that ran out. The next year we were in Chicago, so we didn't pass out candy.

The point is, this year, I was ready. I had 4 bags of candy, 3 of them being wombo sized (90+ pieces) and the other one being the Kit Kats that I was semi-secretly hoping to eat myself. How many trick-or-treaters did we get? Maybe 50. The first bag was gone, and they made a dent in bag #2, but I have a ton left over. But moreover, did I miss the memo? When did kids stop dressing up, or even saying "Trick or Treat?" Oh yeah- Kate was over to help me out, mostly because I had some things TiVo'ed that she wanted to see, and it took me a while to get up and down the stairs (knee).

I think trick-or-treating was officially 6:00-8:00 this year. I don't know for sure, because no one ever pays attention to the "official" times. I had just gotten home from work and taken the picture of myself (in costume) that I couldn't upload when the doorbell rang. I opened it, and standing on my porch was a kid, at least 14 (if not older) in jeans and a t-shirt. He stood there and looked at me blankly for a couple seconds, and I said "Hello?" He said "Uh, trick or treat?" And I said "Oh...Already?" I looked at my watch, and it was 5:20. I went in the house and tore open bag #1 and grabbed a few pieces of candy. When I returned to the door I noticed that he didn't have a candy bag or a pillow case or anything, so he took off his backpack and opened it a little. I tossed his candy in, and he was off. How did he even know I was home? My lights weren't on, because it wasn't even remotely dark outside! I'm pretty sure he was on his way home from school, and just thought "What the heck? Let's get some candy."

Now, we had plenty of nice polite kids come by, and some really cute little kids, but I would say at least a third of them had no costume. And almost no one said "trick or treat." The doorbell would ring, we'd open it up to a bunch of silent children with open bags. We'd say "What are the magic words?" and they'd think for a second before responding. The kid who took the cake was a little guy in a Power Ranger outfit. He walked up silently and without hesitation stuck his hand in the candy bowl Kate was holding. She pulled it back and said "What do you say?" He muttered ".........tickortreat." Kate said "There you go!" and dropped a big ol' handful of candy in his bag, because it was winding down and we had so much left. He looked in his bag, looked Kate in the eye, grabbed another fistful out of the bowl and walked away without a word. We were stunned, and from the driveway his mom yells "Hey! What did I tell you about that?" so apparently he's a repeat offender. She added "Sorry, I think he's getting tired."

Everyone at work today had similar stories, so I guess it was a bit of an off-Halloween. But at least it was a beautiful night- we ended up just sitting out on the front porch by the end of it. My awesome neighbor Bill was out in his full (Captain Morgan) pirate outfit passing out candy and yelling things like "Arrr! Ye be plunderin' for candy tonight!" I guess you had to hear it. It was pretty funny.

The moral of the story is that when I have kids someday, they will dress up, they will say "trick or treat," and when they get candy they will say "thank you." Really, it's the least they can do for free candy. Plus, I think I'm going to do what my parents did and cap it at age 13. None of these groups of ten 16 year olds in street clothes asking for candy. Which reminds me- if you don't already have a firm grasp of life in Southern Maryland, we actually had a trick-or-treater who was smoking. That's right, smoking while going door to door asking for free candy. There's at least one problem with that, probably many more.