I always feel bad complaining about feeling busy when much of what’s making me busy is fun. So, I won’t complain, but I have been busy for the past month and a half or more. From doing a lot of coordination of the Sugar Hill contradance weekend to attending two separate weddings on the west coast, every weekend seems to have something scheduled. And every busy weekend means time that I can’t keep up with my normal personal chores. And every day off work seems to result in a clump of emails demanding attention. Next thing you know, I’m feeling scattered, even though there’s plenty of rest and relaxation going on in my life.

Saturday I spent hours taming my inbox. As I discussed last November, I like to have 38 or fewer emails in my inbox at any given moment (because I can fit 37 on one screen), especially at the end of a work day. I marveled then at what an impact the out of control inbox seems to have on my psyche, and the marveling continues. And, when I feel scattered, I never feel like I have time to write to my blog.

This got me thinking: I could develop a Scattered-David index… something like the Index of Leading Economic Indicators, that takes things like how many emails are in my inbox, how long its been since I wrote to my blog, maybe somehow it could track my purchases of plane tickets…. anyway, take raw data like that and compute some “Scattered-David index” that would give friends and family some sense of what’s going on with me when I’m feeling to scattered to post to the blog or what have you. The essential thing would be that it’d have to work without me doing ANYTHING, so I’d have to write a program to see how many messages were in my inbox and stuff, and have these programs run automatically every day or whatever. Once I had the number I could do things like show graphs and stuff.

Fun to think about. If I felt like I had more time to play with things like that, I’d probably give it a try. But, hey, I have to get a lot of work done this week before leaving next weekend for Boston for yet another wedding. I’m hoping things will be pretty calm between my return from that and Thanksgiving. Maybe I’ll even renew my efforts to blog more often. But meanwhile, at least my responsibilities are mostly fun and rewarding!

Well, it took a couple of weeks of waiting, but this morning the people are here to remove this tree. My parents discovered that it was dead when they were here at the beginning of August. When the guy came to give an estimate, he immediately identified the type of tree, said that it was a native tree and as such “volunteered” itself quite simply. But he said that this species also lived for a while and then died. So, there ya go. It’s all part of life…

They’ve got a very impressive wood chipper. Remarkable to see the tree disappear almost as soon as it hits the ground.

Well Hi! How are you? Great, glad to hear it! Me?? Oh, great great! Yeah, vacation was great, thanks for asking!

Those of you who also read Priscilla’s Blog have already seen the link to all of our pictures. We edited out about half of them, but there are still over 300. But, we’ve got them neatly arranged by place we were at, at there’s thumbnails and everything, so you can actually scoot through them pretty quickly if you, like me, have limited patience for looking at huge collections of photos.

Or you can just get the highlights here! First, that map there shows basically where we went. We flew into Denver, so if you want to follow along on the map (just click it if you want to) start on that side. You can zoom in and see the path with enough detail that you can use your inate-to-humans “snap to road” ability and pretty much know exactly where we went. Or, like I say, you can just look at the whole thing, it gives a pretty darn good overview, just not as cool (read: geeky). (Thanks once again to the amazing Gmaps Pedometer for making such things possible). I’m not going to type a play-by-play of everything we did. But here’s a text overview, with quick reviews and links to photos:

• Rocky Mountain National Park: We were more impressed than I expected us to be. If you go there, I highly recommend the Mill’s Lake Trail.
• Snowy Range Road: We had a nice campground and a nice scenic drive, neither of which were in our original plans.
• Grand Teton National Park: Amazing mountains, although not a lot of great trails or other things to do.
• Yellowstone: Big and famous, but unlike anything else on Earth
• Arches: From the mountains to the desert, and uncommonly beautiful desert at that
• Canyonlands: It seems like it’s gotta be as big as the Grand Canyon. Probably not, but awe-inspiring and beautiful.
• Manti-La Sal National Forest: Amazing campground on a mountain with amazing views of Canyonlands that sadly didn’t photograph very well.
• Bryce: I can’t think of anything as closely linked to my sense of visual beauty as this park
• Zion: Another home of yet another kind of rock formation. Also home to two unique hikes: Angel’s Landing and The Narrows.

In addition to all of those links to photos, I’ve also got just a couple of google map projections of GPS recordings of trails that we walked. My favorite is definitely this one of the Fiery Furnace in Arches. The rangers warned us that the GPS wouldn’t work in there, which was largely true… but apparently it got enough glimpses of GPS satellites to give a sense of where we went, although I bet a lot of these data points are pretty inaccurate. Still, despite its lack of precision, I love that aerial view of the furnace. And of course, you can zoom in and out and see the whole park from above, if you like.

I also have projections like this one of the Flattop Mountain Trail and the Mills Lake Trail (both in Rocky Mountain National Park) if you (like me) can’t get enough of this GPS/aerial photo stuff. (Thanks once again to GPS Visualizer for making this kind of thing so incredibly easy and so deeply satisfying). (Ok, and yes, thanks also to Google Maps. But unlike the other two things, everybody knows about Google…) Anyway, as I hope is evident, we saw some amazing natural wonders, and we also had a great time. If all of this isn’t enough detail for you, I’m sure you’ll have no trouble convincing either of us to talk and talk and talk about it, so don’t hesitate to ask — at least, not for OUR sake. :)

Pri and I are getting ready for our vacation (very exciting). Yesterday we went to Campmor.com to do see if there was any camping equipment we should get before we go. There was. But one thing I thought of was a new filter for my water filtration system. (The language is confusing… both the high-tech piece of paper and the thing you insert it into are commonly called “filter”. I’ll call the paper “the filter” and the rest of it “the system”.)

Well, from everything I can tell, they no longer manufacture filters that go into my system. Rendering it essentially useless. This is distressing, since I guess I’ll now just throw away this perfectly functional product. At first, though, I thought that it was also unfortunate that I’d need to buy a new system, rather than just the inexpensive filters.

Well, apparently they also no longer make inexpensive filters. Looking at water filters and systems at REI and at Campmor it seems that the systems now cost only slightly more than their filters. For instance, I ended up ordering the Katadyn Hiker for $50. It’s filter is apparently good for about 200 gallons. If I’m worried that that won’t be enough, I can buy a replacement “cartridge” for it for about $40.

It seems, then, that the same thing has happened to these backwoods products as what happened to InkJet printers: the price of the systems has come down, with the manufacturers hoping to make their money on selling the filters. My joke about printers is: “Don’t think of it as buying a printer, think of it as buying an inkjet cartidge subscription”. For me, in the case of the filters, I can’t imagine paying $40 for the filter when I could pay $50 for a whole new unit. But, whatever the case, it seems lame to me. Maybe I don’t understand the economics of it… it’s perfectly possible that the 0.2 micron filters are more expensive to manufacture than the totally macro plastic casing pumps. So, maybe it makes sense. But, I’m more inclined to go with the other idea. If so, they might be pushing it too far. My brand loyalty is not going to be very strong if I can switch to another system for only $10 more than staying with the one I’m buying.

Would love to hear more about this if anyone out there knows anything…

When I called my insurance company to put the new car on, they explained that my best option was to transfer my existing coverage to my new car. But, by their rules, that means I have only 30 days to get rid of the old Saturn, or else start a new policy on it which would be expensive.

Meanwhile, there’s the van. The van was a gift from my parents, after it got old enough and of questionable enough reliability that they got a new one. It’s been very handy, helping me with several pickups of lumber, furniture, etc. It also helped countless friends of mine move.

But, during its last main job last fall, a scary thing happened. A big part of the suspension jetted up through the floor of the car. Eek! I asked some friends about it and most people thought it would be repairable. I took it to a garage, but they recommended a welder. I took it to the welder, but he said it might not be worth it, the van is old and rusty and it would cost at least a few hundred dollars to repair. I drove away to think about it.

Now, thinking is one of my favorite activities. :) I did some math in my head and calculated, after a while, that, for as little as I drive the van, it’d be cheaper for me to rent a U-Haul all of those times than to continue paying the insurance on it along with these repairs. Less convenient, sure, but still… My line to myself ended up being “if you used the van more often, it might be worth fixing, but since you don’t, it’s not worth it, at least not for you.”

So, long and short, I had two motor vehicles to sell. And, just as I don’t have a great deal of experiene buying cars, I don’t have any experience selling them… The other two cars I’ve owned in my life were junked at the end of their times.

Again, it’s great that it’s so easy to use Kelley Blue Book and similar sites for things like this. The KBB value of my car was $1050-1250, depending on condition, and it definitely isn’t in top condition. So, I was gearing up to try to sell it for about $1000. Turns out that before I even listed it on line, I hear interest from two different friends, and ended up selling it to one of them for $925. Her other car is a pickup, and by our calculations, the Saturn will pay for itself in about 7 months in fuel savings for as much driving as she does. Wow.

But I did eventually get up my courage to list it online. I cleaned it up a bit on the inside (finding all sorts of things (especially cheap kids’ toys) that were apparently left in there when some friend was moving things). I figured I would try on Craigslist first, because it’s free and easy.

A tip for people thinking of listing something on Craigslist: do it when you have some free time ahead of you. Listing this old beast for $200 negotiable, I had two replies the next morning, both of whom very specifically made offers to pick it up THAT DAY. I actually had several meetings and stuff that day, so I had to work to fit one of them in. But, he was flexible, and we worked it out.

He worked as a professional welder in Columbus, IN, and apparently does welding in his spare time as well. So, I think the van is going to a good home. He drove over in his big pickup, pulling a trailer behind him.

I asked if we wanted to test drive it or anything. “Nah” he said “as long as I can drive it up on the trailer, that’s all I care about.” No problem there! So, up it went, he handed me the agreed upon $125, and a few signatures later, the van was gone. So simple.

So, I’m a one car family again! :) I do like the new car, I’m happy about the whole experience. But, as a conclusion, rather than talk about the new car, I want to send a tribute to the old Saturn.

I have an approach to examining car expenses which is to look at the total cost of the car, including repairs (but not including gas or insurance) over the time that you owned the vehicle. I think you do pretty well if you can drive an economy car for $1000/year. So, if you buy a car for $13,000, never put any serious repairs on it, and it lasts for 13 years, you did well. If you buy an old car for $1000, put $2000 of repairs into it over three years, you did well. Or, if you buy a used car for $9000, drive it for two years with no repairs, and sell it for $7000, you did well.

Well, if I recall correctly, I bought the 1994 Saturn for $5500 in December, 1999. Over eight years later, I sold it for just over $900, so I my net expense was $4600. That car barely needed any maintenance. In fact, a year or so ago, I finally had a bunch of the preventive maintenance type stuff done on it, figuring that it had been at least seven years since it had any of that done. So, maybe I did $1000 of repairs over that eight years. Even at a full thousand, though, the total cost of ownership would be $5600 over eight years, an average of under $700 per year. And never once did it fail to get me where I wanted to go. That car served me extremely well, and it is just a bit sad to see it go. Of course, since I sold it to my friend, I’m hoping I can watch it continue to serve someone well for at least a few more years. Thanks, y’old Saturn…

(Note: If you haven’t already read Episode 1, you should read that first)

Before I left the dealership, I talked for quite a while with Maggie, who does all of their financial stuff. She’s also the daughter of the owner. I would guess that this place has only 6 full time employees. But I digress. Maggie was very helpful. I haven’t bought cars all that often in my life, so I was unsure about lots of things like whether I get the insurance first or the plates first, etc. She was very helpful, both giving official rules and friendly advice. This was nice.

It was curious, though, how we dealt with the deposit. I asked “How much should I leave for the deposit?” “Well, we really like at least $300, but we could go lower if you need. What’s comfortable for you?” Mercy. I explained that I just didn’t have $9000 sitting in my checking account, but that I could easily offer $1000, and wouldn’t that be a nice easy number? Needless to say, they were fine with that, and we ran $1000 on my debit card.

But in the spirit of asking questions, I also said “now, for the final payment, I should bring… what? a cashier’s check?” That was acceptable, she explained, but posed its own problems. If nothing else, they wouldn’t hand over the title to the vehicle until the cash was in their bank, so I’d either have to come back to pick it up, or they could mail it. “But the mail is not always as reliable as you’d like it to be.” She made it pretty clear that her preference would be for cash. But she certainly wasn’t insisting. But it did make sense to me to have the title and be done with the whole process. So, I figured I’d try to bring cash.

Now, it turns out that only a month or two before this, I actually did have over $9000 in my checking account. After a fair amount of deliberation and consultation with friends, I’d moved just a bit more than that from my checking account to a savings account with ING (4.5% on a plain savings account… I definitely recommend it). Of course, when I did that, I wasn’t thinking that I was about to buy a car. So, now I had to move it back. This is a simple enough process, but it does take a couple of business days. So, that was the real cause of the delay.

I paid the deposit on Monday. I arranged to pick up the car on Friday (Priscilla agreed to drive my old car back for me. Thanks, Pri!). But, I was getting closer and closer to having to face the prospect of dealing with that much cash.

I’m sure this is normal for some people. Even some people who aren’t gangsters. But it’s definitely not normal for me I learned. I was very anxious about it. I mean, I enjoyed it as an experiment. But the results of the experiment were definitely that I was anxious. I decided on Friday morning I should call the bank and make sure there were no special requirements to withdraw that much cash. The person who took my call did have to put me on hold and ask someone, but confirmed that yes, I could just go up to a teller, present them with a check made out to “Cash”, and they could give me the cash.

Ok. Naturally I wanted to do this right before we left. I didn’t want to have all that cash any longer than necessary. I walked through the process several times. I had a list in my brain of exactly what I would do. So, it was easy enough to do the mechanics of it, which allowed my brain to spin on things such as whether any hoodloms were taking note of what I was doing, ready to jump me between here and my car.

I entered the bank. I was glad it was cold, because I wore my winter coat that has a nice inside breast pocket. I walked up to the little work area with the plastic date-on-display and the pens-on-leashes. I took out my checkbook and wrote out the check for $8487.00. Eight Thousand Four Hundred Eighty Seven — DOLLARS. IN the memo field I wrote “I’m buying a car” in hopes that the teller and I wouldn’t have to talk very loudly about the amount.

I waited in line, thinking that at this point, I was still safe. Not only did I not have the cash yet, but someone would have had to have been snooping on me really closely to know that this wasn’t an every-day transaction. Then it was my turn. The tellers at my bank are invariably friendly, and so I wasn’t at all surprised by the warm greeting mine offered. “A rather special withdrawal today” I said as I cooly handed her the check. “OH! You’re buying a car!! Oh that’s great! What kind of car!!” So much for that idea. We chatted a bit about the whole thing. And then she explained that she’d need to meet with a bank manager and go back to the vault to get the money. Makes sense, I’ll wait in the lobby.

As I type I realize that I’m probably just outing my naievety to the world, because I’m sure many people go through this kind of thing more often than I do, but whatever. After sweating for a few minutes (not wanting to remove my coat that would soon be holding so much value), I saw my teller return from the vaults. I met her back at the counter, and she started her work:

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9- One Thousand

1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9- Two Thousand

The cash was wrapped in packages of $2000 each, so she counted out four of those (does it have to be so loud?), and then the remaining $487, which by that point seemed like pocket change. I had brought an empty plain brown envelope with me to carry this around in, so I put it all in there, and cautiously left the building.

My reasoning was that the walk from the teller to the car was the time to be most cautious. Once I’d driven away, someone would have to be following me to know what was going on. But here, anyone might have been able to overhear.

Well, naturally, nothing bad happened, I drove to the practice rooms at the School of Music to pick up Priscilla. I listened to her play through something on the harpsichord, sweating the whole time (not wanting to take off my coat).

But, all that anxiety was either unnecessary or did its job, because nothing else unusual happened. Maggie at the car dealership was very comfortable dealing with all that cash, and of course, once they had it, I was just a few signatures away from driving away in my new car!!

And so I did. It was a nice day for a nice drive, and I greatly enjoyed cruise control and an open sun roof, both firsts for me on a car that I own. Woohoo!

So, is this the end? No! I now have three motor vehicles! I gotta deal with that fact and several other things. You will be able to read about it all in part three of Car: The Mini-series.

In 1998, half way through what should have been a nine hour drive to my grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving, the engine of my Pontiac LeMans siezed. After renting a car to get home, I ended up purchasing a 1994 Saturn Sedan.

A couple months ago, I got to thinking… This car is 13 years old. It’s still running great, but it has some cosmetic issues:

• the drivers side window doesn’t close all the way, unless you assist it
• some of the trim is coming unattached, which makes it rattle, which drives me a bit crazy
• the odometer is frozen at 124,477
• it’s got some small body blemishes
• it’s got some interior blemishes
• the ceiling panel stuff is falling down

So I says to myself, I says: you know, you don’t HAVE to drive this car until it dies. You can afford a newer model. Think about it.

I did think about it. I went so far as to set up an RSS read for cars being sold nearby on Craigs List so that I could look for cars that might interest me. I’m not that picky. I was pretty sure I wanted another Saturn, used, and I just sort of watched what little passed by.

Well, while talking with Sue and Michael about their new car, Sue mentioned autotrader.com, and I figured I should check it out. Well! Different scene from Craigslist.

Let me say: I hadn’t realized that the world of used car dealerships was such a prominent item in the long list of things revolutionized by the Internet. But, wow, yeah, totally. When I was shopping for a car back in 1998, I remember visiting a couple of lots, saying the kind of thing I was interested in, seeing what they had, going for a test drive, wondering if I should put up with it even if I am not taken by it. You get the picture.

My point of view now is that the Internet shifts the balance of power hugely in favor of the shopper. Why? Well, the popularity of the Internet means that the dealerships feel compelled to list their cars on sites like autotrader.com. So they do. Then these sites allow one to do things like “show me all of the used, 4 door Saturns for sale within a 50 mile radius between $4000 and $10,000” (with all of those bold entries being up to the shopper). Turns out I had too many to choose from at that rate, so I added “with manual transmission”.

Do you see? Now instead of just asking a dealer what they happen to have, I’m specifying what I want and comparison shopping between essentially all of the dealers I’m likely to drive to. This would have been unthinkable pre-Internet. Obviously, this also puts pressure on them to list a low price, since they know I’m comparing them with other dealers.

As if that weren’t enough, the Internet also makes it easy to run checks like Carfax to see what the vehicle’s history has been like, and sites like Kelley Blue Book to see how the list price compares. Again, the intimidation typically associated with buying a car from a used car dealer is pretty-well squashed by the Information Age. I love it.

So, what do you know, I found a 2004 Four Door Saturn Ion with manual transmission and 38,000 miles listed at $8950, which was more than $3000 less than kbb.com’s suggested dealer price for that car (and still $1000 under the suggested private party price). Woah. Carfax.com told me that it was originally purchased from the Saturn dealership on the south side of Indianapolis, and had had only one owner. I furthermore visited the Saturn web site and priced what I’d likely pay if I were buying a similar Saturn brand new: just over $15,000. So, I reasoned, I’m getting a car three years older but $6000 cheaper. Going by my age-old per-year-price-of-owning-a-car perspective, the car “cost” over $2000 per year for those three years, without even knowing what maintenance it had. My goal is $1000/year, so I’d be lucky if I could do that well buying the car new.

So, I was pretty well convinced before I even left my couch (literally). Indeed, my brain started spinning on “there’s no reason not to buy that car is there? I mean, as long as it seems ok when you see it. You should see it. There’s no reason no to go look at it. You should call them tomorrow. Yes, call tomorrow.” so much that I had difficulty sleeping that night.

But, the next day did roll around and I called them up. “Hi, I’m interested in this particular Saturn. Is it still available?” “Yup” “Ok, I’ll see you later on this afternoon.” Again, the contrast in the experience of dealing with the used car dealer can barely be overstated. I drove up there and said “Yeah, I called about the 2004 Saturn” “ok, I’ll take you to it… there you are, let me know if you have any questions, of if you’d like to take it for a drive.” Sweet! I spent about 15 minutes alone with the car in the lot. Looked in the trunk, under the hood, sat in each of the seats, pressed all the buttons, etc. Everything checked out ok. Not that there weren’t minor issues, but nothing scary. The test drive was similarly reassuring.

So, ok. I actually felt a bit of awkwardness with the sales manager because it seemed to both of us like the process should be more difficult or something. He gave me a talk about the business, how long they’ve been around, how they want to encourage repeat customers and referrals and stuff. Mmhmm. That’s all nice. But eventually we just realized there wasn’t much else to discuss. So, I put a deposit on it, and said I’d be back later in the week to give the rest of the cash and to pick up the car. Done deal.

Did anything bad happen with the car? Were there problems at the bank? What else might have gone wrong? Or right? Stay tuned for the next exciting episode of Car: The Mini-series

y’know, one of those days where everything just seems to go wrong… Which I am inspired to write about because I hope there is some humor to be had in here, not because I’m looking for sympathy…

It actually started last night. After dinner and attending Bill’s recital with Priscilla, we went to The Union for a swing dance. I was in a weird mood, and quite spacy… as we were about to leave I said “I feel like I’m forgetting something, but I’m going through my lists in my head, and I think I have everything.” I’m going to take away a lesson from this, that next time I have this feel/think conflict, I’m not going to let the “think” side have its way quite so easily.

Somehow, long after we left, I remembered “oh, I took of my undershirts before I started dancing, didn’t I?” Yes, shirts. I’ve taken to wearing a cotton undershirt underneath a ThermaSilk undershirt underneath my normal visible clothing (it’s quite cold here these days). “Oh, and the long underwear, too”. But it wasn’t until this morning that I realized “SH**T! I left my new, wonderful, high-tech North Face GoreTex waterproof shoes that were a Xmas gift from Sue, Michael, Steven AND Kellie!” Now it was panic. Replacing the underwear, not that big a deal. Those shoes would be expensive to replace, and there was sentimental value attached to them.

So, I schemed to meet the Swing Dance club as they were setting up for their workshop today (the Friday dance was the beginning of The Big Red Swing Weekend). That part worked. I was really quite surprised (and panicked anew) when they said that they hadn’t picked up anything like I was describing (by this time I realized that I’d also left a fleece jacket… I mean, someone could have literally (and I do not use the word “literally” casually) left the Union wearing literally nothing but the things that I had left there, and in addition to passing all US decency laws, could have been almost comfortably dressed for a jog in the single-digit weather we’ve been having… in fact, except for the lack of socks, I don’t think this hypothetical person would have even turned any heads.

Well, no sense dragging out the drama, I’m trying to be brief. Turns out the clothes were still in the room where the dance had been, right under the chair where I left them. Thankfully, some group of IU students were setting up for some function in the same room. I thought I’d have to explain that I had been there the night before and left some things there, but instead, they didn’t even seem to notice me. shrug

So, this is not such a bad day, is it? No, I was (and still am) REALLY happy that I recovered all of my things. So, I felt (and feel) lucky. I came home, ate lunch, and sat down to do some things on the computer. I’d recently heard some advice to start with the thing that you want to do the least, so rather than play with the things I was excited about, I decided to do something that could count as work except that I don’t get paid for it. Uh, yeah, I’m not up for the description of what I was doing. But suffice to say that the thing I’d hoped to get done in an hour took…

…well, the rest of the day. I got very frustrated with the software I was using. I must also admit, though, that I made a terrible mistake and deleted 500 separate configurations. I was able to restore from a backup, but I undid much of what I had done today. Bother…

But, the real “bad day” feeling came from other things. Smallish things. My washing machine overflowed. Why? I don’t know. The spin cycle has been inching it off its perch and it’s not quite level. Maybe that’s it? Maybe it’s because I had my winter coat in there, and that blocked a drain in there? Or, heaven forbid, a frozen drain pipe? All I know is that I went to go to the bathroom (having to dodge the ironing board that fell from behind a door) and the floor around the washing machine was all wet. So, I set up a fan.

Eventually I ate dinner and gave myself permission to do whatever I felt like. I had to admit, though, I felt motivated to tame this computer problem. So I kept at it. Eventually it got done, but the day was gone. I had pictured myself calling some friends to see if anything fun was happening tonight, but it was after 8pm before I made any calls, and not surprisingly, no one was around. I folded my laundry and while hanging up a towel, I knocked over a glass candleholder in my bathroom and shattered it.

You get the picture. I was even starting to laugh about it at this point. “One of those days”.

Well, I made the best of it. Got away from the computer for a good long while and did some low-risk house cleaning while listening to some music. It’s funny, I don’t listen to music at home all that much, but sometimes it’s really powerful in influencing my mood. Tonight’s selection (Blossom Dearie followed by Queen) definitely lifted my spirits as I did some disgusting drudgery cleaning. I paused and thought about music being like a mood-altering drug, and wondered if most people who listen to so much more recorded music than I do are always getting that kind of reaction from it. I doubt it. But is that because they’re essentially addicts with high tolerances?

I don’t really believe that, but musing about this kind of thing was a good antidote to the trials of the afternoon… say what you want about scrubbing a refrigerator, but you can’t say it feels much like struggling with poorly written computer software. If you scrub, it gets cleaner, you don’t get intellectually “stuck” very often with this kind of work.

So, as I get ready for bed, I’m feeling pretty happy really. I’m lucky to be able to feel that way after one of my bad days. I’ll count my blessings…

A while back, my friends at the Indy Contra dance asked if I’d be interested in calling a dance before a performance of the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra. What?? Apparently the ISO was doing an outreach program and was in to having other arts organizations give performances before their concerts. Hey, ok. I’m not sure it’s a good idea for them, but I certainly don’t mind calling, and it’d be fun to get a free admission to an ISO concert, I’ve never seen them live.

So, last night was the night! And, I gotta say, I think it was a good idea on their part. While we certainly aren’t polished for presentation (contradancing is for dancing, not for watching) people definitely seemed interested and we had quite a crowd gathered around us (including from the balcony that encircled the space we were dancing in). I didn’t have my camera :( but Beth did so I’m hoping to get some pictures from her. Tom and Fred played a great selection of music for this event, and Priscilla and John (who both drove up with me from Bloomington) and all the other dancers did great.

The concert was also very nice. This Boris Giltburg fellow is really good, and it had been a while since I wrapped myself up in the world of professional orchestra performers like that. This turned out to be highly intensified by having John along, because he’s studying to be one (a trumpeter, no less) and had plenty of opinions and gossip to share about this unusual professional culture. Anyway, good concert, I especially liked the Shostakovich.

And… it was fun to be in Indy right before their long-awaited first appearance in the Superbowl. The city is really excited. Actually, I didn’t see a lot of riotous behavior or anything, people in Indianapolis are pretty mild mannered. But what was so striking is that EVERYWHERE had some “Go Colts” type stuff up. Seriously, as we walked the two blocks from the car to the concert hall, I’m not sure there was a single store front that didn’t have something Colts related in the window. Certainly there was no view of anything downtown without several Colts logos in them. And it was topped off by the orchestra projecting a Colts logo on the wall behind them during the warmup periods and the intermission (they turned it off while they were performing). Classy!

And, well, I’m with them! I don’t think I’ve ever cared as much who won the SuperBowl as I do this year. The Colts are a great team… highly skilled, smart, and nice! And, of course, the regional allegiance plays high. So, looking forward to the game tonight! Go Horse!! :)

Earlier this week, I had to come to terms with the fact that it wasn’t pure coincidence that I had such a huge number of deadlines yesterday and today. I knew I was leaving town, and so, when negotiating due dates with the people I work with, I was making sure they happened before I left. So, they all collected on Thursday and Friday.

So, after a flurry of work, I’m now on the road. I’m sitting in a cafe in Urbana Illinois, where in a little over an hour I will be the caller at their regular bi-weekly contra dance. I got here an hour and a half early, which was kind of on purpose. Somehow, I just couldn’t convince myself that if I left Bloomington at 6pm (EST) I’d still be in Urbana by 7:30 (CST) comfortably early for their dance. But, try it was, and now I’m kind of wishing that I had made that one last Xmas shopping trip before I left.

But really, it’s good. I feel under control, relaxed, and able to do something fun like write a blog entry instead of worrying about being on time. And, it really feels like I’m on tour/vacation, sitting in an unfamiliar cafe and wondering if they have free wifi Internet access here. I can’t see where they do, and even if they did, I would think twice about trying to get it working. I don’t have that much time, and those free wireless things aren’t always very friendly to Linux users. So, I’m doing the “type now, post later” thing. And yes, I won’t be able to post this until after the tour is over. Because, you see, after Urbana tonight, I’m off to E. Lansing, Michigan tomorrow night to call the dance there. And then, Sunday, I’ll head to Cleveland to stay with my parents. And, as soon as I get my Mom’s Xmas Internet access working, this will magically appear on my blog.

Oh, and don’t worry, Mom knows about this gift, so I’m not spilling any beans. :)