10:10 AM, Jun 5, 2007
A Trip, eh!
First, an administrative notice. I haven't posted the pictures from Sarah's weddding or from the big party this past weekend, because my computer's in the shop. All I have at home is my Linux server, and my work laptop, should I choose to plug it in and change its configuration, which I don't. The dude at the computer store told me it would be ready on Wednesday. Administrative sub-notice: screw you for thinking I'm some kind of n00b for paying someone to work on my computer. I know I'm capable of doing the work myself. I've done it before. The issue is that I absolutely
hate working on my computer, and I don't mind giving someone else money to do it for me. It's for this same reason that I don't take my garbage to the dump myself.
Now, on to the meat and potatoes...
After a couple months of half-hearted planning, I have made the largest step toward this year's iteration of the Great (
geographic adjective) Brew Trip. Erp and I went to the
West Coast last year, taking the train from Los Angeles to Seattle, stopping in San Francisco, Chico, and Portland along the way. During and after that trip, we'd determined that it was such an unmitigated success that we started talking about doing it again in 2007.
We started talking about where, and the East Coast immediately came to mind. However, as the weather began to warm up, we pretty quickly eliminated the East Coast from consideration, on the grounds that it would just cost too much and take too long. It would probably have to be a two-to-three-week trip, or have to be divided into separate trips. There's just too much to see.
Our next idea was to do something in the Midwest. Loathe as I was to agree to something like that, I started plotting routes and pinpointing breweries and beer bars to visit in a Chicago-originating circuit of Lake Michigan, including stops in Indiana, Michigan, the Upper Peninsula, Wisconsin, and back to Chicago. It was determined that it would involve some 1600 miles of driving- a greater distance than what we traveled from LA to Seattle last year. So we decided against that, and opted for another idea of mine.
Canada.
I have purchased my ticket, as has
Alex. Erp is not inspiring confidence, as he is still unconfirmed, and will soon be purchasing a home. Three would be great, and I really hope Erp can make it, but two will do. Alex and I will fly to Detroit and spend the evening there. The next day, we'll take a bus across the border into Windsor, Ontario, and spend some time there.
Over the next week or so, we'll be showing our faces in Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, and we'll end up in Quebec and fly home. For the intra-city transportation, we'll be using Canada's vaunted
VIA system, along a route that is so heavily traveled in Canada, that it's referred to as, "The Corridor."
More details will follow, but I'll be spending my 4th of July in another country.
bahua interjected:
When I got a new motherboard a few months back, I snapped a pin off my CPU while I was installing it. It worked, but would do a nasty little stall about once every twenty minutes or so, in which the audio and video would get looped for a couple seconds. I found out that a much better, faster proc than what I had(and that initially cost me over $300), was for sale on newegg for $60 with shipping.
I used the opportunity to get the system cleaned up inside: tidy up the wires and cables, so I can actually move things around and work with the damned thing.
3:33 PM, Jun 6, 2007