15+ years later, I'm obsessed with The Feelies all over again. Deb and I went to see them on Saturday, and it was spectacular.

At one point in college, a girl I was similarly obsessed with asked me if I wanted to go to NYC with her on a particular weekend. I said, "Hmm, well, see, the thing is, The Feelies are playing at the Chestnut Cabaret that Saturday, so....."

"Oh, I see," she said.

At this point I could feel my roommate glaring at me. I looked over at him and he mouthed, "WHAT THE FUCK ARE YOU DOING?"

"....But The Feelies will be back," I recovered. "So yeah, I'd love to go to New York with you." But it was a near thing. That's how great The Feelies were, and are again.

The rest is a story for another time.

More here

I'm back from NC/TN and the Dragon. I had a really fantastic time, and I'm sorting through all the pix, some of which will be on Flickr soon.

This is an atypically straight stretch of the Dragon. We were not going slo.

Ahhhh.....baseball. And cheesesteak. And Victory Hopdevil.

And the Phanatic.

I was working for a scientist or chemist or something, and in a parallel story arc, we were trying to determine whether the world was susceptible to an oncoming plague (which I guess we weren't actualy sure was really oncoming--such is science). This scientist was also the Devil's official dog breeder. So we were at this farm in the country, and the sky was a really dark blue in the early evenin, and there's this sillhouette of the Grim Reaper (not exactly the Devil, I know, but Pure Evil nonetheless) against the sky over by a fence as the scientist is selecting which puppy from a recent litter is good enough for the Dark One himself.

I found myself holding a golden Lab puppy, which made Death loom larger somehow, and blackout more of the sky. I realized this was kind of a special dog and put him down (or handed him back to the doc), which made the Beast retreat slightly. Apparently I wasn't to be trusted with the Foul Fiend's own hound.

Back in the farmhouse, the doc and I and a couple of other people were setting to work on what was up with this plague. I then disclosed that I had been involved in a similar investigation trying to debunk another crisis; in that case, though, the panic had been started and we were trying to defuse it. (This time we were trying to decide whether there was anything worth panicking about to begin with.) I was very clear with my new colleages that I'd had nothing to do with causing the initial panic, and asked that they didn't disclose my involvement in the investigation.

After some discussion (during which I realized I was mumbling, which in real life means I'm talking in my sleep), the scene shifted and I realized that the whole plague/dogs of Beelzebub thing had itself been a dream. In the new dream, I was recounting everything to some people (nobody I know) and realizing that I needed to expand it into a screenplay. So we started coming up with names for the characters, and writing a script.

At a certain point, I went off to make a coffee run for my writing partners, paid for the coffee and was asked for my social security number. It being a dream, I gave it (never would do that in real life). I was waiting around for the self-serve coffee caraffes to be refilled, getting a little anxious about how long it was taking, when I checked my wallet and realized that several thousand dollars had appeared in it. I didn't really count the money, but there was a thick stack of bills in there all of a sudden. I attributed this to fact that Lucifer realy wanted us to make this movie about him and his dogs, and that's why he had made the baristo ask me for my SSN. (Because, being the Red Serpent, he was going to report the income to the IRS??)

I kept wandering around waiting for the caraffes to be refilled, marveling at/somewhat frightened by Satan's power. I continued to ask where the coffee was (mumbling in the dream which means I was mumbling aloud in my sleep), and why couldn't I get my coffee, and then finally I woke up.

Weird dream. Not sure it's any good as a screenplay, though.

Goddamn, those 10th Anniversary Edition MX5s looked good.

Here's what I spent my free money from the gubmint (and then some) on: brakes. I finally feel like the car stops as well as it goes.

More (though not much) here.

"We are Grope Claim from the UK. You must be the USA."

I went to my first real autocross a couple of weekends ago. It was pretty great. My dad was in town to take some pix and offer moral and technical support.

Flickr set here

Blocks driven: 3

Lane changes by Jetta Man: 6

Lane changes by me: 0

Times Jetta Man used directional indicators: 0

Times I used directional indicators: NA

Car lengths Jetta Man was behind me at end (Linnaean Street): 1

Inches by which top of Jetta Man's head cleared steering wheel: 2

I saw Stop Making Sense (for the umpteenth time) at the Brattle tonight. All the art school kids thought it was...hilarious. I mean, they were laughing at pretty much everything. It's a great movie, but I never considered it funny.

Also: if you're going to get up to go to the can 4 times during a movie, why not just stay home and watch it?

I'm overdue on writing about the rest of my Florida/racing school vision quest experience, but I wanted to write a quick summary of a talk Deb and I went to on Tuesday afternoon, discussing the role of declining biodiversity in increased rates of infectious disease in humans. Dr. Richard Ostfeld of the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies in NY, showed that in the case of Lyme disease (caused by Borrelia burgdorferi), the most efficient reservoir host (white footed mouse) happens to be one that tolerates the fragmentation of its habitat and close proximity of humans better than its competitors and predators (foxes, deer, possums, squirrels).

So as forested plots become smaller (due to encroaching development), larger animals, which such favorable hosts for Borrelia disappear in favor of mice, which actually thrive (rather than merely survive) in such circumstances. That means nymphal and adult deer ticks are more likely to feed on an infected host, which in turn makes any given tick more likely to become a carrier, and thus any given deer tick bite of a human is more likely to infect us with Lyme disease. Yikes.

Really fascinating and well-presented (though Deb correctly pointed out that the tone had been brought wayyyy down for the non- and pseudo-scientists in the crowd).

And it's a whole new reason to be mad about the loss of fox habitat.

Total road miles from front door: 1292
Avg speed, including stops: 59 mph
Avg fuel "economy": 29 mpg

Observations:

• VA, NC, SC and GA are crawling with highway patrol cars. CRAWLING, I say....
• ...which led to (only!) one "oh shit"-moment.
• Instead of maintaining I-95, I hope SC is teaching kids to read.
• Super 8 is at least three steps above Motel 6 (not just 2).
• The smoke from the recent forest/wildfires in western NC and VA was blowing east over I-95 between Petersburg and Rocky Mount, NC. It cut visibility down to about a mile, made the sky orangey/brown, and made everything smell like....wood smoke.
• There are way fewer vans than I expected.
• The driving hasn't gotten boring yet. In fact, it's improved. Boston to Richmond is sucky; but that's no surprise. South of Richmond, the traffic abates, the roads improve (except for SC), and the land flattens out. The air smells different, too. I haven't driven south of DC since I stopped living in Chapel Hill, and I'd forgotten how (and the degree to which) things change mile after mile. It feels good, I have to say.

Last leg is tomorrow, an easy 200 mile run to Palm Beach (with a brief stop at the Kennedy Space Center, which I last visited when I was 8). Thursday is a day off by the pool.

And then....

I left my job in early December, when I realized a long period of dissatisfaction wasn't fixable. There's somewhat more to the story than simply that, of course, but that's what it boils down to.

Hence the chillin'. I've been slow about getting the Job Search Machine spun up to full speed, partially since I'm unsure about what I want to do with my life, and partially because I really enjoy not having a nine-to-five. So the motivation has been stronger to do "less" on that front, and "more" on all the others, rather than the other way around.

A big part of what I need to do with this break is get my life on track (or confirm that it is already on track). But that's quite a task. (New apt? Dog? What kind of job? Where? Why?)

So instead there's been the sleeping, and the eating and the housecleaning and decluttering (I even bought a shredder), and the going-to-PA, and the going-to-NYC, and (starting this weekend, because it seems I need an adventure) the driving-to-Florida-for-racing-school. Last weekend I realized that I had a unique opportunity to make use of my Skip Barber grad discount and take a (further discounted) class at Moroso Park. I'd been hoping this particular class would come to Lime Rock, but it looks like that won't happen till spring of 2009 at the earliest, after my special deal expires.

So off I go to drive MX5 Cup cars in the sun for 3 days. Whee!

I've done this kind of wandering around before, though not since my voluntary sabbatical in 1999. That was a 4+ week jaunt through VA, NC, TN, AR (no, I'm not kidding), MO, KY, WV, VA (again) and PA. That was more ambitious (though less purposeful, and I had a copilot, so maybe it doesn't count. Plus, that time, I was merely taking a break from a job I intended to return to.

Before that I have to go back to 1992, when I was truly jobless (and without prospects, even), and did a long solo swing from PA to FL and back, with lengthy stops in NC and AL. That was a bit of a long haul (in a 1986 Golf, no less--I was stylin'). It also seems like an unimaginably long time ago. Yeesh.

Other stuff continues apace. The trip to NYC was to see some friends who just had a little tyke, and some more friends who're about to. The wheel in the sky keeps on turning, I guess.

Deb got me hooked on It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, Dexter and Weeds (in increasing order of brilliance). And we watched the Super Bowl last weekend with the usual suspects; we enjoyed the taut contest, even if everyone else was bummed out by the outcome. (I'll confess I was really not displeased, despite how much I hate my NFC East rivals, but I do hope I was gracious about all of it.) And now baseball is on the horizon.

So. There it is. I'm busy, but not. Regardless, I'm filling the time with the simple yet important things.

If the thunder and lightning (!) that that's happening as I type this doesn't portend the end of the world (or, I suppose, even if it does): The road is calling.

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