The worst road trip EVER.

Okay. Maybe not ever. But it sucked. And here's why.

Part of this residency requires that we provide costumes for the kids of the program. This is obviously not something that we could have prepared for ahead of time, so we had to drive back to Shakes & Co.

We left The Hamptons on Friday afternoon, around 2:45 p.m., which was maybe not so smart. Friday + rush hour = just plain dumb. We drove the length of Long Island, and thankfully only hit traffic by Great Neck, which for those who don't know LI very well, is on the Western side, close to Queens, and is therefore practically a suburb of NYC. Anyway, we thought that this was understandable, and expected to clear traffic once we cleared the Throngs-Neck Bridge, which would skirt us past The Bronx and Yonkers, and all points North.

The traffic lasted for 2.5 hours. Kelley had to pee so badly, we had to exit blindly at New Rochelle at the "Ghetto Getty," as Allissa put it. I saw a car accident across the street, and a large man exit a hummer and start yelling at another guy in a van. The large man hit the white van from behind, but it looked like the van had just stopped, inexplicably ... anyway. There was lots of swearing. Lots of yelling. The cops finally arrived. The toilet at this Getty could have been something from a horror film, where the chanting incantations of some monster/serial killers name would materialize in the flesh and wreak havoc on New Rochelle.

This could only be an improvement.

Anyway, I asked to drive. And the traffic continued. And continued. We finally opted to take an alternative route, but not before we overheard part of a CB radio conversation over the auxiliary channel (we were playing our ipods) of the radio. It went something like this:

*gurgle gurgle* "your black ass!" *gurgle gurgle* "on the highway" *gurgle gurgle* "you don't like my truck?!" *gurgle gurgle*

Add in a Jamaican accent, and you'd just about have it. It was really hard to listen to the podcast we had been enjoying about the crappiest jobs the comedians and story-tellers were waxing funny about them.

So we finally made our circuitous way to the alternative route, which involved jumping on no less than 4 country highways. While I understand the awesomeness of GPS units, they kind of drive me crazy when they add 5 extra steps that are completely unnecessary. And give you the general 1,000 ft. area of an address, instead of the exact location. Ugh.

Oh. I should probably mention that our automatic volvo (the same one previously posted about with the tire problem) had lost its 5th gear. We couldn't really go above 65 mph at any given time without risking dangerous heat to the swiss cheese engine that was currently running. I swear that a hamster had been given the job of operating the engine in this car single handedly. And the hamster ran away. Far, far away.

On top of the missing 5th gear, neither the speedometer, nor the odometer were working ... most of the time. Occasionally when the wind blew a certain way, or a snappy song came on that the speedometer liked, we would have about 3 minutes of an operable speedometer/odometer ... and then it would fail again.

So here we are, driving on the back highways of Connecticut, no way to accurately judge our speed, except to not go faster than the fastest car, all the while struggling to stay below 65 mph so that the engine didn't over-heat and blow up; on highways without road lights. I don't know if any of you have ever been driving in New England, on the back roads, at night, without street lights - but it's dark. Crazy, dangerously dark. Add in some "Caution: Deer" signs, and we have ourselves a party.

We drive, and drive, and drive. Stop for gas. Note that the car is becoming more and more vocal. And start coaxing the car into just getting us to Lenox. I was not below petting the dashboard ... repeatedly.

We reach Lenox at about 10:00 p.m. That's 7.25 hours of driving a 4 hour route. When I finally parked the car in the company lot, it shuttered to a stop with a clang. It did what we had asked it to do; it took us to Lenox.

We have another company car now - a giant hunter-green buick with cushy seats, an operable speedometer/odometer, and an actual 5th gear. What it doesn't have ... is an auxiliary port for ipod listening enjoyment. Ah well.

On the plus side, we made it home in time to watch the rather droll and flat Golden Globes. Does anyone else think that Ricky Gervais was completely sauced?

And I made this fire!

"Ugg! Me make fire!! RAAAAAAAAARRRRR!"

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This blog post is brought to you by:

Garmin GPS

Ricky Gervais

Getty Gasoline

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Long Island Adventures, Part I

Since I was so incredibly terrible at taking pictures in Canada, I thought I would make up for it by documenting my time in the Hamptons. We have quite a bit of free time on the weekends; this is an understatement. Every Friday is a half day at school, so after a relatively quick staff meeting, we're out by 12:30-12:45 p.m.

I know. It's ridiculous. We joke that we're on a paid vacation.

So when we left school, we went home. I changed into my pajamas, and I watched hockey, paid bills, chatted with my beautiful Monkey, bought a plane ticket, and made some quesadillas. My partners decided to go to Easthampton for a movie, so I was alone for most of the evening. It was needed.

From the Ferry...

Saturday is where things pick up and get exciting. And by exciting, I mean as much as they can be in Eastern Long Island. We drove to Sag Harbor and took the Ferry across to Shelter Island. While on the Ferry, we had about 5 people, from passengers to Ferry workers, tell us that our passenger side front tire was flat. We had had some trouble with this wheel the day we left Lenox to make the 5 hour drive. Once off the Ferry, we pulled over at a single-pump gas station and took a look at the tire. It was, indeed, quite flat. Like, *really* flat. We borrowed the gas station owner's tiny air-compressor in an attempt to fill it - but it wouldn't hold. Anything. So we check the trunk to see what we have; a full spare, and a broken jack (this is a metaphor for life, I think). The gas station owner told us there was an auto repair shop just down the road. We thanked him, and went on our way.

"Just down the road" meant more than a couple miles. In fact we didn't find anything until we almost reached the North Island Ferry. This is where we meet Jeff and Earl. There was a small white sign that read "Auto Body Repair," in front of a drive way and a drive that winded it's way past two houses back to a beat up shop. Old, discarded planks of wood, metal, and randomly assorted objects littered either side of the driveway. We were worried they were closed. Or quite possibly that we had landed ourselves into a trap consisting of angry Long Island Mountain Men that demanded a blood sacrifice. We felt more positive of the first, until Earl and Jeff came out of the shop, and became increasingly afraid that it was the latter.

Jeff fixing our tire, as Kelley (L), Earl (C) and Allissa (R) look on...

We got out of the car and introduced ourselves, or rather Kelley did, and Allissa and I finally followed, thinking it might be bad form to leave Kelley alone in this situation. Safety in numbers, right? So we meet Earl and Jeff, who turned out to be most jolly, and were very ready to help us. Not only did they put our spare on the car, but they told us to return in an hour. Jeff (who was the mechanic...) said he'd take a look at our tire, and see if he could patch the leak. We said, "awesome!" and toddled off in search of food.

We found food. It was good. We returned to Jeff, who was, in fact, able to fix our tire. He even put oil on our corroded rims, to prevent further disintegration, AND fixed our broken jack. All for the sum of $20.00. Jeff rocks! We didn't have enough cash on us, so he let us go to the Chase Bank down the street and get some. Without requiring that one of us stay behind as a security measure. We were all pretty excited by Jeff and his extraordinary generosity.

As a reward for our honorable act, the gods saw fit to bestow us with a half-used round trip Ferry ticket for the North Ferry. Which means .......................

That we went to GREENPORT!!! WOOOHOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

"What's so special about Greenport?!" I hear you think. "What indeed!" I reply.

What I'm learning about the Hamptons, is that there are droppings of cute, quaint, and terribly small hamlets spread all around. The only things to do in these little bastions of civilization are shopping, dining, perusing real estate, and if you're REALLY lucky, there might be a movie theater. Going to the sea is also a major itinerary item, except that it's January, and there's snow on top of the sand. SNOW. Snow on a beach is just so wrong. And oh yeah. The wind. The wind is bone-chillingly wretched.

Anyway. The cool thing about Greenport were the signs of the shops. For example:

"The Doofpot" - "Uhm, hi, I'd like to buy a Doof, please."

"The Opportunity Shop" - "Yes, I'm looking for some opportunities. Can you help me?"

"The Coronet Soda Restaurant" - Soda Restaurant??

"The Whiskey Wind" - Need I say anything more?

Greenport also boasts an ice skating rink, a carousel, and a maritime museum. I actually really wanted to go to the Maritime Museum, but it was closed. It's a working-class fisherman's town, and had it not been -500 degrees Fahrenheit, I would have wanted to stay longer. (Okay, it was 8 degrees. But good GOD it was cold!)

As a respite from the aforementioned frigidness, I went into a cupcakery called 'Butta Cakes. Here was this cupcakery, with a basketball game on a big flat-screen TV, and one of the best cups of tea I had had in a long time. I almost died. It was almost perfect; or at least would have been had hockey been on the television, and had the cupcakery been in Calgary. Though really, I can't complain. The perfectness of this place is even heightened when I reveal that my cohorts went into some girly, colorful, and (probably) over-expensive clothing store called Impulse. I wasn't having any of that. But cupcakes and televised sports? Hell yes.

The after-math of my cupcake adventure...

We re-met, and went to a bar called the Rhumbline for a couple of beers and a plate of cross-cut fries. More televised sports in the form of The Jets vs. The Bengals. The bar was crowded with Jets fans, cheering at any little thing The Jets did well. First Down? Massive cheering. Defensive tackle? cheering. The transition between offense and defense? More cheering. One of the locals (I presume) walked by us on his way to go smoke, and asked who we were cheering for. All three of us at once: "The Jets, of course!" He walked away laughing and smiling. We looked at each other and exchanged glances of, "Yeah. We weren't born yesterday."

After our two beers, we needed to leave for our dinner invitation at one of the teacher's houses. My partners wanted some cigarettes, and had learned from our bartender that the dive bar next door (The Whiskey Wind) had a cigarette machine. We walk in, Kelley and Allissa buy their pack of smokes for $9.75. I find it unceasingly hilarious that both of my partners are smoking vegetarians, and that I'm the non-smoking super carnivore. Oh Life, you never-boring friend! Anyway, next to the cigarette machine, there was an email console. So that any bar patron could check their e-mail while they drink. Why? Who knows. But it needed to be documented:

Allissa checking her e-mail. At a bar. Awesome.

Took the Ferry back to shelter island and had a lovely dinner with the teacher and her Swedish husband, who poured copious amounts of alcohol and kept insisting we eat more. I don't think I've been that full ...ever. They were so lovely, and we had a lovely time. I received a phone call that night from my Fall Festival partner, Kelly (Yeah, 2 Kelly/Kelleys and 2 Alyssa/Allissa's), that her boyfriend proposed on Christmas. Congratulations to Kelly & Ryan! They make me happy.

Today we had a ridiculous 1.5 hour drive to Westhampton (which should have only taken about 35 minutes), and drove through Southampton on our way. I also took pictures of our house for your enjoyment:

Our red front door...

The white living room...

My white (and messy) closet. Err, "room."

The white, snow covered swimming pool...

The white entrance hall...

I still wish it had a toaster.

By the numbers:

Hamptons visited: 3 (South, West, and Bridge)

Hamptons left to visit: 2 (East, North)

Ferries used: 4

Hockey games watched: 3

Flat tires: 2

Cups of coffee consumed: ??

Scripts cut: 1

Pictures taken: 30

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This blog post is brought to you by:

Dark hot chocolate

Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire

The North Atlantic

Jeff, the Shelter Island mechanic

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Let's talk cars ... math included!

Because why not?

I took my car in to get an oil/lube/filter and tire rotation. $25.00 spent in the preventative care of my car. Money well spent, yes?

I was told that my transmission fluid is a little dirty, and I'll need to get the fluids flushed soon. This is not preventative care, so much as it's more ... urgent care. I was quoted roughly $140 for this little procedure. Which really, as car repairs go, isn't too bad.

At some point, I also need to get one of the hoses replaced in my engine, mainly because it's the factory hose, and soon I'll be running on borrowed time as to when it starts to fall apart. This piece of auto surgery will cost about $350. The part itself only costs about $25 - the labor is the sticky wicket on this venture.

Also, I have a monster crack in my windshield that I've lived with for 5 years. Luckily, it doesn't, nor has it ever impeded my vision while driving. But it's worth a fix-it ticket at least. This is also the 2nd windshield I've had on my car, so I'll be working toward #3 ... replacement windshields cost anywhere from $200-$250 for most small to midsized cars. The cool part, is that you can get companies to come to where you are, pop out your old windshield, and install the new one right there. I've seen it.

So let's tally this up:
$140 transmission fluid flush
350 engine hose replacement
225 replacement windshield (this is the median price, I figure)
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$715 total repairs

So, $715 and my car is as good as new... minus the 71,000 miles it already has on it.

Now, according to Kelly Blue Book, my 2003 Mazda Protege DX with my car's particular specs, would sell for $7,180. That would wipe out my debt AND put a little in my pocket.

Now, subtracting the $715 I would need pay BEFORE I sold my car, I'm really only looking at about $6,465 in profit. Still, not too shabby. My car is also completely paid for, so I don't have to worry about paying off a car loan.

Here's my predicament. Where I'm moving, I'm not really going to need a car. The Southern California megatropolis is one of the few thriving cities that has sub-par (and let's face it), crappy public transportation. LA County is getting better, but the OC really has such little hope. Trust me, friends ... I've seen cities with competent, even ingenious public transportation. It's not a myth!

I have a huge moral dilemma in owning a car. I realize that in living where I live at the moment, I need one. I really do understand that. But in this increasingly maddening climate rise, I cannot justify pumping more carbon emissions into the air than I absolutely need to (I have a similar moral objection to bearing children, but I'll save that for another time). And the only reason I do need to, is because I live here. And in fact, I want to leave. My solution then, seems clear. Sell the car, and go.

My hesitation arises from the "what if?" factor. What if I need to come back to work for a little bit? What if I will actually need a car in Calgary? What if selling my only financial asset at the moment is a bad thing? And so on, and so forth ...

But this is not a time for pragmatic fence-sitting. This is a time to be brave; a time to be bold. I think most of us have, or are now starting to have similar moral objections to the way our world is being treated. Yet we cling to this old dogma of stuff; the mantra that we are nothing without things ... things make us, things define us, things communicate our worth. Hooray for neo-capitalism! I'm actually very low-maintenance when it comes to collecting stuff. Music, DVDs, books; these are typically as far as I go down the road of acquirement. My car is, and has been, my Achilles' Heel in this category.

I've had the long standing belief that cars equate freedom, and liberty; just like Jack Sparrow waxes poetical about The Black Pearl. When I was 16, I was given a great freedom - not just because I passed the driver's test for my license, but because, for the first time in my life, I could dictate where I went, when I went, and didn't need to rely on others for the cargo of my person. This was a really big deal for me, because as a child of divorce, I spent about half of my time in a car with either respective parent. Driving was always such a hassle for them, even though my parents only lived about 35 minutes apart. And the day when I drove my car from my dad's house to my mom's ... on my own ... was possibly one of the top five days of my life, to date. It also doesn't help that my car was a college graduation present from my family. And the amount of memories, road-trips, and friends I've experienced in my car ... I've driven across the country twice. How many people can say they've done that?

What I'm trying to say, is that I have a ridiculous amount of emotional attachment to my car. Independence to an independent person is mother's milk; it's a necessity. I hate asking for rides almost as much as I hate borrowing money. It's simply not in my nature.

But what's more important? My emotional pride in the illusion of providing for myself? Or helping the planet? To me, that's essentially what this dilemma boils down to. What I need to remember is that public transportation is the happy medium in the crux of my problem; I can be independent and get to where I want to go, without sucking down fossil fuels or having a high carbon footprint.

I find this hard to remember, however, in an area where public transportation is treated like a bonus, and not requirement.

And maybe if I can be bold, and cast off my cloak of automobile attachment and dependence, maybe I can inspire others to do the same.

"Be the change you wish to see in the world."

Ghandi is my homeboy.
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This blog post is brought to you by:

The Weakerthans
Brie, salami, and multi-grain cracker finger sandwiches
My car: Trinity

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