Well, There It Is.

This weekend, Stacey and I traveled up to Buffalo, New York, for drum corps championships. We caught semifinals on Friday and finals on Saturday. We also took some time before the show on Saturday to go to Niagara Falls. We went on the Maid of the Mist boat ride, which was nice but not nearly as wet as I hoped. The traffic on the way back to the United States almost kept us from being back to the show on time. Luckilly, customs didn’t give us much of a problem.

And here are things I learned this weekend:

• Although NY-17 is called the “Quickway” (as opposed to “Thruway” or “Expressway”) it might not really be. Especially if you need a gas station in the middle of nowhere.
• Getting an overtime penalty will make some corps angry. The Madison Scouts performed for too long in their quarterfinals appearance, and made up for it by starting their show before the announcer turned the field over to them.
• Banner plane pilots don’t always follow instructions. Parents of a Crossmen member hired a plane to fly a banner reading “BEST CROSSMEN SHOW EVER – WE LOVE YOU MELISSA” while the corps was warming up outside the stadium. Athough the instructions apparently were to fly far enough away from the stadium so the audience wasn’t distracted while watching the show, the pilot thought it was a Sunday football game. He circled the stadium for a half an hour, annoying the spectators.

Tonight Stacey treated me with good, free seats to see Anton Checkov’s The Seagull (the new version by the Eminent Tom Stoppard). The show was put on by Shakespeare in the Park in New York City. The cast was made up of mostly famous people, including Kevin Kline, John Goodman, Christopher Walken, Natalie Portman and Meryl Streep. Also, the guy who played the failing writer in State and Main played the failing writer in the play.

Tomorrow morning I’ll be on my way to Buffalo for Drum Corps International Championships. Watch for me on live TV Saturday night, on PBS at 8:00. Well I probably won’t be on TV myself, but feel free to tune in anyway. I’ll be back on Sunday…

In a little while, I’ll be taking my lunch break to check out an apartment. It’s on the third floor of an office building in a small town called Elmwood Park. The apartment was described to me as being a two-room apartment on the third floor of a building that also houses stores and a law office. Most of the heating is provided by the law offices, and there is no central air conditioning. It does have a full bath. The rent is $725 each month.

The place would be about fifteen minutes from the office where I work, I think. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s just not feasible to live in south Jersey and work in Bergenfield. Unfortunately, I’m still not saving much money by moving. The current costs of transportation will be replaced by a much higher rent and higher utility costs.

Last night Becca told me about someone who had people sponsor him to ride his bike through ten states. He used the sponsorship money to go to a foreign country. At the time, it seemed kind of selfish to take other people’s money for traveling since the guy would be the only one benefiting from the money. I thought the sponsorship idea is good for a “cause,” like research for an AIDS vaccine.

I’m going to spend this weekend in Buffalo (for drum corps championships) trying to come up with creative solutions for paying off my debt. There must be some way I can figure out how reducing my debt will benefit the rest of the world in order to find sponsors.

Since Becca will be leaving this weekend for graduate school in Texas, she’s been spending some time with Darren, Ali and me. Tonight, after a pizza/sushi dinner, she and Darren attempted to go to the local 7-11 to pick up some ice cream. Darren didn’t drive because his Pimp Van of Death is now missing tires, so Becca had to drive. They got to the end of the street but no further. Darren called me from the stalled car to request that I come meet them and the car at the end of the street to help push her stationwagon back to the house. After a little bit of physical exertion, a lot of waiting, and a little bit of yelling at and kicking the car on Becca’s part, AAA (after getting lost) eventually came to tow the car back to the place that “fixed” it two days ago. This place incidentally is the same dealership where I bought my car and where I bring it when I need a tune-up…

Lunch break weekend update. Yesterday I worked at another [DELETED]. Alissa joined me to help out. I have a lot of respect for the kids in the corps, spending every day of the summer working hard in the hot sun for 8 hours every day and ending their day with a performance under the lights. (Unless it’s an afternoon show, like yesterday’s.)

I arrived on the scene at 8:00 in the morning, the same time The Cadets took the field to begin rehearsal. After a few minutes, it was determined that rehearsal would not be possible. The field was covered in goose droppings. The staff picked up shovels as they told the corps to leave the field for a little while. Is there something ironic about seeing some of the biggest names in the marching music activity shoveling and picking up goose droppings?

A little while later, the corps came back on the field, but the field was still not clear of the stuff. So the corps members lined up with shovels along the 50-yard line from one sideline to the other and traveled down the field like a giant piece of farm machinery. All in all, the day went extremely well.

After the show, Alissa and I stopped for dinner at The Big Fish restaurant in Princeton. Wow. It was really good. Go there. Now.

So I took the Belief-O-Matic test that Alissa linked to. Apparently I am 100% Unitarian Universalist and slightly less of a Liberal Quaker, Liberal Protestant, Secular Humanist and Neo-Pagan. Interestingly, Taoism was number 12 on the list at 57% and Conservative Judaism didn’t even make the list (though Reform (49%) and Orthodox (25%) did).

This page has turned into a Not Weblog (which I had been saying all along) since I don’t really link much. Instead I write mostly about myself, as one would in a journal. Due to the lack of linkage (well, except for this entry), I have set up a new weblog (using the ever-popular and hopefully more reliable Blogger) called Leftover Bits of the Web. It also uses Dan‘s dotcomments for feedback. Please go there. I don’t have lots of time during the day to “blog,” but every once in a while (more frequently than here) I’ll get to throw something up there.

There are very few things more fun for me than seeing live music. Last night, I caught Barenaked Ladies at the PNC Bank Arts Center in Holmdel, New Jersey. I have wanted to see this band for years, and I finally got around to it, thank to Randi. Our seats were pretty far away on the lawn in the back but we still had a pretty good view of the stage over everybody’s heads, and there were large video screens to give us close-ups and silly videos. They played a good mix of their older and newer songs, and had a lot of fun bantering on stage. Apparently Bon Jovi was playing the same night at Giants Stadium. Steven from BNL told the audience that they were originally booked for Giants Stadium, but since Jon Bon Jovi is from New Jersey and BNL is from Canada, the Ladies were given the boot.

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Things I learned this weekend from my trip through the Mid-Atlantic States:

• When pulling you over for speeding, Virginia cops will try to frighten you with their mysterious ways and silly hats, but if there’s a cute girl in the car, they’ll only give you a warning.
• Not only is Econolodge cheap, it is also ugly, uncomfortable, noisy, leaky, and the remote controls for the television don’t work.
• The Jersey Shore doesn’t quite stack up to Virgina Beach’s beach, but at least you won’t see Norfolk’s own Eric the Half-a-Turtle on Atlantic City sands. (On the beach in Norfolk we saw a rock with strange patterns. On further inspection, that is, by looking at the other side of the “rock,” we realized we were now looking at the front half of a turtle or tortoise that seemed to be missing its back half.)
• The Abbey Road Pub and Restaurant has a Beatles imitation band that performs occasionally. According to our waitress, “they’re awful.” The food was good however, so if you’re in town, make sure you go, but avoid 9:30 on Friday nights.
• From what I am told, you should not sit in the sand if you are wearing a women’s bathingsuit. The suits are designed in such a way that a pocket is formed around the crotch. This pocket will collect sand and when you stand up it will spill all over you. No, I do not know this from first-hand experience. Only from word of mouth. And if you’re trying to read into the fact that I used the words “crotch,” “hand” and “mouth” within close proximity, stop. You have a dirty mind. An’ Mama don’ allow that ‘roun’ here.

This past weekend I drove to Norfolk, Virginia for work. I visited Harbor Park, home of the Norfolk Tides, a minor-leage basbeball team that feeds to the Mets. The stadium was nice. I wouldn’t say the same about the rest of Norfolk. The town was pretty much run-down. It seemed to be fairly religious place—there were churches on just about every corner. On almost every corner that did not house a church, there was a fast food place called Church’s Chicken or something similar. (“Our customers love us because we offer them BIG PIECES of juicy chicken at LITTLE PRICES.”)

During the evening, Alissa and I went to Virginia Beach. They don’t have a boardwalk like Atlantic City or even Seaside Heights. All the beachfront property seems to be owened by hotels, so all of the boardwalk-type shops are actually on the street. There was some sort of city festival going on while we were there, and there were numerous musical performing groups. On one corner there was a polka band with clarinet and accordion players, in front of one store there was a trio consisting of two marimbas or xylophones and a drum set, and on one blocked-off street we saw the “Beachstreet USA All-Stars.” This was a group of 12 or so Virginia Beach musicians, most high school or early-college aged, on sousaphones, trombones, trumpets, a snare and two marching bass drums. They played and marched (well, wandered) an entertaining show with audience participation. [DELETED].

On the way home, we stopped to see Gwen, Heather, and other friends. We ended up having Sunday morning (well, afternoon) brunch with them and I met a few more nice people.

It’s Monday evening at this point, and I have not been “home” since Thursday morning. I wonder what new suprises await me.

Strange lights were in the sky this past weekend. And you thought this kind of stuff only happened in fields and farms “down south.” I can almost hear Orson Welles delivering the newscast from his grave.