They seek, in short, to do for America's public signage what spell-check software has done for interoffice e-mail: smarten it up and make it easier on the eye. Their weapons: Wite-Out, markers, ink pens, tape, and nerves of steel.
This country faces many threats: war, poor economy, the environment, and college republicans, to name a few. But I have long maintained that none are as serious as the prevalence of the misplaced apostrophe.
Every day I receive email from co-workers at all levels that misuse "your" and "you're", or "its" and "it's". Even worse, I'm in charge of all hiring for my job, and have the displeasure of reading each application that we receive. I would say that 75% of these will have a typo somewhere, usually in the two line response to our question asking what makes them a good candidate for this position. Many of them will answer with something like "I am a good candidate for you're group because of my atenttion to detail".
But I have been noticing lately that more and more printed signs in stores and restaurants are falling victim to this plague as well. This usually arises when mistaking plural for possessive, and it is everywhere. But at some point, when this becomes prevalent enough, does it just become accepted as the "correct" way of writing? Are we already there?
Anyone who has been fortunate enough to go to one of Andrew's BBQs knows that this is not a man who fools around when it comes to outdoor cooking. For the short time that Andrew lived in Boston, he would smoke some kind of meat or fish almost every weekend. I have been on the receiving end of more than one brisket that has resided on the smoker for 72+ hours, and required him to wake up multiple times over two nights to ensure that the temperature was just perfect. Unfortunately, Andrew moved back to his hometown of Austin last year, and aside from the occasional Redbones visit, my BBQ consumption has dropped dramatically. On the plus side, my cholesterol is no longer at crisis levels, and I've gone down a waist size.
So when Andrew told me that we would be having a crawfish boil during my Austin visit, I knew that this would not be a half-hearted endeavor. (By the way, we're a bit out of order here. I'm probably the only one concerned about this, but for the sake of documentation, this was day 2 of the Austin portion of the trip- after the week in Dallas, but before the trip from FL to NY).
Anyway, the successful journey of one of these little crustaceans from a Louisiana swamp to our table is a multi-step, all day affair.
Step 1: Locate Crawfish.
Understandably, Andrew's wife Mary was not very enthusiastic about the idea of buying the crawfish a day early and having them smell up the garage for 24 hours.So Andrew and I set off on Sunday morning for several unsuccessful attempts at locating a bag of these things. Obviously, crawfish aren't the kind of thing you find crawling around any stream- They're local to swamps and rivers in Louisiana and Southeast Texas. And since they need to be cooked alive, they're shipped in small quantities weekly. And as we quickly learned, when they're gone, they're gone.After finding no success at a few supermarkets, a visibly stressed Andrew called one last place who told us they had 2 sacks left if we could get there in a hurry. We raced across town (remember this is Texas, so across town = 30 miles) to a dimly lit cajun shop and picked up 33 pounds of Texas crawfish. Victory!
Step 2: Dump them out and pick out the dead ones
Unfortunately, not all of the little guys survive the trip, and the dead ones don't taste very good, so they all get picked out. Luckily, Lauren didn't seem too traumatized at having these things crawling around her baby pool...
Step 3: Purge
Purging involves dumping an entire container of salt on the crawfish, and then washing it off. Put simply, this step gets rid of the poop. Apparently there is some debate as to whether or not this is effective, but it certainly seemed worth the small effort to me. I'll spare everyone the picture of the water post-purging (safe to say, I think it worked).
Step 4: Boil them up
We used a turkey-frying pot (aka, the most terrifyingly unsafe thing I have ever seen- the fact that people fill these up with boiling oil blows my mind) to boil up the fish. The recipe for the water is pretty simple- 2 full containers of salt, a package of cajun seasoning, lemons, and a few sticks of butter. In the basket with the fish, we added potatoes, corn, onions, and sausage.
Going in, and coming out, 15 min later.
Step 5- Dump them out and eat. Repeat.
There's not too much to it- just rip off the tail, peel off the shell, and eat the tailmeat. And drink lots of beer- this is some spicy stuff. About half of the people with us sucked everything out of the heads too, but I wasn't quite gutsy enough for that this time around.
There's not a ton of meat in the tail, so you end up eating what feels like hundreds of these. We did 3 batches before we got through all 33 pounds, and by the end were drunk and stuffed with sliced up fingers. The person next to me at the table literally didn't move for 2 hours- just slowly and methodically made his way through everything in front of him.
Start to finish it was basically a full day of prep and cooking- I think it took a full 2 hours to just get through the eating portion of things. But it's a damn good way to spend an 80 degree day in March...
The big misshapen circle is complete, and I'm back in Cambridge. And after 15 days, 3 flights, 12 states, 7 beds, 3 hotels, 1300 miles in the car, 1 breakdown on the highway, and more rest stops than I can count, it is very nice to be home again.
I have a giant backlog of movies, photos, and stories from the trip that will be appearing over the next few weeks, probably in no particular order. But as I expected I'm enjoying blogging, so I'll also be throwing other things out there as they come along.
But in the meantime, no more traveling. For as long as possible.
Despite a lack of posts this week, the drive did in fact go great. Of course, part of the whole idea of this was to post from the road- as it turned out, after a day of driving 500+ miles the last thing you feel like doing is putting together a long post describing the events of the day. But detailed notes were taken, so the day by day will come later, along with other random things that I ran into during the entire two weeks.
Anyway, the drive took 3 days, Grandpa and I arrived in NY on Friday afternoon, and came to CT on Saturday night. Back to Boston tomorrow, and I'm itching to get home. But in the meantime, coming to Guilford to spend the holiday with the family is a great way to wrap up this seemingly endless journey.
After arriving at my third city in a week, a day of rest at the beach was just what I needed to recharge a bit. But the relaxation doesn't last long- at 4:30 tomorrow morning a determined 89 year old man will be knocking on my door, and we'll be in the car and on our way to NY by 5 a.m. Gotta miss that traffic...
In Austin, you almost forget that you’re in Texas. Austin is everything that Dallas is not. Not only are there hills, but there’s even trees. The city has managed to stick to its roots and keep out most major chains (very proudly wal-mart free), so you end up with endless independent stores, restaurants, and bars, and a community determined to preserve it. Of course Austin is most famous for the live music scene, and it doesn’t disappoint- you can’t go into a bar or restaurant there without finding at least a few feet of space reserved for a band. Even the airport had a live band playing on the way in.
So after a week of Dallas, Austin was exactly what I needed. Best of all, my trip happened to coincide with the South by Southwest festival, so after meeting up with Andrew, Mary, and their two ridiculously cute children, we headed straight from the airport to downtown for a beautiful 85 degree day of music.
South by Southwest is basically the biggest thing that happens in Austin all year, and it’s hard to describe the scale of the event. A huge section of downtown closes down, and every bar/venue hosts music all day for about 3 days. The “bigger” bands require some very expensive passes, but you if you choose to go the free route, you can still manage to bounce from venue to venue and see some serious music.
Since we had the kids we stayed away from the bars for the first part of the day and headed down to Waterloo Park, which had 3 stages of rotating acts all day. This was the Saturday schedule:
Couldn’t get near the comedy stage because of the crowd, but caught excellent sets by White Denim and Langhorne Slim. Headed down to 6th Street after the kids went home and hit the bars, where things definitely get a bit crazier- Huge crowds at every single venue (and there’s hundreds). Everywhere you look, there’s a band playing for free that you would want to see, not to mention the people playing the VIP shows. Bottom line- 6 hours at this thing only makes you want to take a week off and do it all. I know where I’m going next March.
Just a few more pics and movies from an absolutely surreal evening at the rodeo in Fort Worth. The movie I posted earlier was the second break in the rodeo, where a bunch of middle aged guys got to chase around a calf. Bizarre as this was, it was nothing compared to what came before it, which was a bunch of 10 year old kids chasing around a speeding and angry calf (sadly did not record this one). I did manage to get some video of the under 10 division, who got to chase some sheep instead of a calf, because that's much more safe:
Other than that we saw some horse racing, bull riding, and some serious ropin:
Yes, I was probably the only guy there feeling bad for the calf...
I’m a few days behind and there’s much to tell about Austin, but first a bit about Dallas. All in all, it was a decent place to spend a week. Actually, to be honest, in 4 work trips to this area I have yet to really do anything in Dallas city limits, aside from a visit to the Texas State fair back in October. Our office is in Lewisville, about 15 miles outside of the city (aka, “the metroplex"). Coming from New England it's odd to come to a place that not only was developed on seemingly limitless space, but has been mostly developed in about the last 20 years. Everything here is new. And huge. And since everything here was developed with cars in mind, anywhere you go is likely on a 4 lane highway. Going out for the paper in the morning? Chances are you're hitting 70 on the speedometer at some point on the way to the 7-11. Ironically, for a place we're you're driving everywhere you go, the roads are full of giant gas guzzling trucks and SUVs (as opposed to Boston, where everything is within a mile and everyone drives hybrids). I mentioned to someone from here that I had a Subaru and I really think that they had to stop for a moment to figure out what I was talking about.
Of course with all of this driving, it would help to have some good music in the car, and for the third trip in a row, I forgot to bring CDs. Being left to the mercy of Dallas radio is not something I would recommend. I've identified 3 major options- Spanish speaking stations, religious broadcasting, or country music. Needless to say the radio has been on "seek" pretty consistently, but I did find the Steve Harvey show in the mornings, which I have to say (with no irony) is just about the funniest thing I have ever heard. Otherwise I settled for country, and 5 days of that absolutely deserves a post of it’s own.
Anyway, sprawling overdevelopment generally doesn’t increase a city’s character, and the burbs of Dallas are no exception. Driving down the highway you are treated to the repeated view of endless shopping centers, with big box stores placed like lego pieces everywhere you look. The shopping centers are so big that the parking lots connect for miles- you can literally drive from one city to another without leaving a parking lot. I wasn’t joking when I said that I wasn't sure if the town I stayed was just a shopping center. It’s not- but it’s close. It includes this area of retail Pleasantville- a massive planned community of stores, restaurants, and homes that went on for blocks- I tried to walk it all and maybe got through half.
So to sum up- great weather, bad radio, and way too much time in the car. Not a bad place to spend a week, but I'm happy to be off to Austin and vacation.
(that's Big Tex by the way, in case you were wondering)
A mostly uneventful day of traveling and I'm here in Dallas. Southlake, technically, but I honestly have yet to figure out if Southlake is an actual town, or just a really big shopping center. More on this later.
The weather is nice and getting nicer- sunny and in the 50s today, and steadily working its way up to 87 (!) on Friday. Of course the pollen count increases right along with the temperature, but after a miserable February in Boston I'll take some itchy eyes if it means I can go outside without a jacket.
Saturday, March 8, 2008
Resolution number one this year was to start writing again. Of course, given how long it has been since I wrote in any real capacity, saying that I’m writing “again” is a bit of a stretch.
But for a lapsed writer of any level, a blog seems like the perfect place to get into it again, right? I read endless blogs- by friends, journalists, 5 year olds- but I’ve always hesitated to start one myself. Who really cares about my random thoughts on a day-to-day basis? And does the world need another blog? Probably not. But recently a unique trip has come together for me, and keeping a journal of it seems as good a reason as any to get started on this. If it sticks, I’ll keep it going after the trip is over.
In short, here’s the itinerary- I like to think of it as a trip to Connecticut by way of Texas and Florida.
1st leg is a week in Dallas for work. I guess this will be the least exciting part of the trip (though there apparently are rodeo outings planned- very excited about this). From there I head off to Austin to visit some friends and hopefully catch a bit of South By Southwest.
The second week is where things get more interesting.From Austin I’ll fly to Florida to meet up with my grandfather, who is spending the winter at my Aunt’s house. After a day or two there, my grandfather and I will jump in the Buick, hit I-95, and make our way to Baldwin, NY.I’m thinking we’ll do it over 2-3 nights, and hopefully get a few side trips in. From NY I’ll head on to CT for Easter, and then back to Boston after that.
So all in all, about 5000 miles to make a huge, misshapen circle around one quarter of the country. And as long as there is a wi-fi connection to be found, I plan to report in from each stop.In the meantime, I’ll hopefully find a way to dress up this very boring-looking page...
