Driving in Strange Places

I have two jobs. I work my full-time day job, then head straight to my part-time night job. I leave my house at 8:30 am & walk in somewhere around 12 hours later. The way my time off has worked this year, I have 4-5 days for vacation, starting in a week and a half. It took until a few days ago to figure out when I'd be able to go, so now I'm scrambling to find someplace I can go last-minute within a few hours' drive or flight that isn't too expensive. I have two options so far: see my friend in Seattle; and get lost in the woods for a few days.

The friend has first priority, since I can pretty much walk in the woods anytime and I haven't seen him in about a year, but he won't know if he can spend time with me until this week (even if he can, I'll probably be on my own most of the time). I don't know the area at all, so, I'm relying on him to find a hotel for me, but he said I'd probably want to rent a car.

I was hoping the transit system would be decent or I could hoof it, because I have bad luck driving in new areas, particularly in cities. Middle of nowhere? No problem! But cities have hazards like pedestrians, cyclists, one-way streets, non-parallel streets, narrow alleys, no u-turns, heavy traffic, road rage. Plus, parking is practically non-existent in most cities, and when you can find it, it's expensive.

Some things that have happened to me while driving in unfamiliar cities...

...I was in a line of traffic at a dead stop in New York, and the guy behind me starts leaning into his horn. We're all completely stopped, so no one is going anywhere. He continues for a minute, then gets out of his car, walks up to mine and points to the space between me and the car in front of me, as if moving up three feet will make a HUGE difference in the flow of traffic! It was hot, I didn't have air conditioning, he was big and hairy and I was alone, so I rolled up my window, locked my doors and grabbed my tire wrench in case he decided he wanted to beat me up (hey, I wasn't going down without a fight).

...I was double-parked in Manhattan picking up my housemate at her parents' apartment, and a delivery van that was turning right cut too close and took off my rearview mirror. Okay, I wasn't lost and it was my stupidity, but I'd have never found the right parking garage without my housemate and I had to pick her up somehow (this was before cell phones).

...I was leaving Burbank airport and the instructions I had told me to turn left on some street to get to the freeway. I see the street name, turn left... and see the freeway entrance to my right, on the other side of a solid divider and I can't get over. Apparently, I was supposed to turn left at the NEXT light instead of the one I took and the streets seem to have the same name. The street I was on was busy and had a solid divider line, and it took awhile before I found a street where I could turn around and come back -- I couldn't turn right to get to the adjacent street because the berm seemed to go on forever (or maybe it was a railroad track or one of those freeways that's been built up, I'm a little fuzzy on that). A few months later, I was driving the same road with one of my bosses, who has the map, sees the intersection and says "Turn left!" I kept going. "You missed the turn!" If he made the same mistake I did, I guess I don't feel TOO bad about it.

Car wash

I washed and waxed my car yesterday, and I must say it looked good -- clean, shiny, smelling of Maguire's (that scent is almost lickable).

This morning, the pitter-patter of water hitting ground brought me to a gentle state of semi-wakefulness. Wiping the sleeep from my eyes, I threw on t-shirt and slippers and padded to the kitchen to start hot water for tea, then continued to the office down the hall, which faces the driveway, looked outside and saw... my car! Forgotten to put it in the garage last night. Grabbed keys, ran outside dressed only in t-shirt and flip-flops to save the wash job, but alas -- mud had splashed up from between the widely-spaced bricks and grime had splashed down from my neighbor's tree. I sprayed the ick off, parked in the garage and wiped it down.

Ran back into the house on numb feet just in time to answer the phone.

My boss: "Could you drive to the other side of the bay to pick something up?"

My heart sank as outside, the gentle shower turned into actual rain and the wind suddenly picked up. Couldn't tell him I'd just waxed my car and besides, I was cold, wet and wanted to hang up to jump into a scalding shower.

Me: "Sure, no problem."

I washed my car tonight...

Baseball

Ahhh, baseball. Sitting at the park downing a frosty beverage and garlic fries (yeah, it used to be hot dogs, but I haven't had a good dog in years, which makes me wonder if they ever were), lazily watching the boys of summer do their thing as I soak up the sunshine and spend quality time with my dad. Baseball is an ideal form of entertainment -- the subtleties of each pitch and play provide enough detail for the afficionado to be thoroughly absorbed in the game, while the "exciting" plays are far enough between that the casual viewer can relax and enjoy the scenery.

The question for today is...is it that important? The Rockies organization actively recruits Christian players and patrols their locker rooms to banish what they consider to be offensive material. Okay, they're a privately owned organization, and have a right (within legal limitations, of course) to conduct business in a way in which they see fit, just like the rest of us are free thinkers and have the right to either support or boycott their organization and the interests of its owners based on our own beliefs.

So what's wrong? Rockies chair and CEO Charlie Monfort was quoted in USA Today as saying "Christians, and what they've endured, are some of the strongest people in baseball. I believe God sends signs, and we're seeing those." First, he claims Christians are stronger than other groups (religious or otherwise) because of what they've "endured", then goes on to state he believes their recent success (compared to past seasons) is due to some kind of divine intervention.

I don't know. Maybe when it comes to groupwise suffering through the millenia, those of Jewish background may have the Christians beat. But regardless of who suffered more, and at the risk of alienating pretty much everyone, IT'S JUST A GAME, AND AN ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURE THAT EXISTS FOR THE ENTERTAINMENT OF THE MASSES!!! If there is an omnipotent being out there, what are the chances it would interfere with the results of a game...or series of games, for that matter, when in the greater realm of life, "winning" isn't really as important as the path you choose to take? I love baseball, and I try to make it out to at least a few games every year to support my home teams (I live reasonably close to both Oakland and San Francisco), but in the end, does it really matter in the greater scheme of things who wins? I like to see my teams win, but if they don't it's not the end of the world.