Last month, I listened to Sarah Hepola reading her Slate article on NPR and it struck a chord with me. The article was about her shutting down her blog so that she could dedicate more of her time to other writing. I think a lot of writers start a blog as a way to hone their writing, only to find that the blog becomes consuming to the degree that it actually becomes their writing and they stop working so much on other things. Part of me would argue that this shouldn't necessarily be construed as such a bad thing. Part of me would say, why shouldn't the blog be just as valid a form of writing as, say, a novel or magazine article. I do feel that there are some blogs out their that could, in fact, be termed 'literary,' and which transcend the stigma of 'online journal.' And if you make money doing it, all the better.

Then there is the other part of me that wakes up some mornings and realizes that the novel I started about six months ago has gone untouched for three weeks and there is still no end in site and, you know, what the fuck am I doing? Well, like Hepola, one thing I am doing more of is blogging . . . go figure.

The dangerous thing about blogging when you're a writer is the rush of satisfaction you get from finishing something, and then immediately publishing it. I think this stems from a fact about writing that many writers, including me, don't like to admit: We don't actually like to write.

I should probably explain what I mean by this. It sounds strange, doesn't it? Shameful, perhaps? If you don't like to write, why do you do it? How can you even call yourself a writer in the first place?

Good questions, and they feed on the most basic fear of any writer: What if I am not actually a writer? What if I am an imposter? From various articles and books I've read on the subject, I know that even the most successful writers continue to ask themselves these things, even after publishing several works. They continue to wonder if their next novel, story, or poem will be the one where everyone finds out the truth: they are not writers, after all.

I think these questions plague writers because of how our culture uses language to describe activities that we enjoy doing. Bare with me while I work through this . . . I'm kind of fascinated by how language implies meaning, which I know can be kind of tedious for others . . .

We will say, "I like doing X." Which can be taken to mean, "I derive pleasure from the act of doing X, which is the reason I do it." Certainly, for many activities, this makes a lot of sense. Some people enjoy surfing. Which is to say, they derive pleasure from the act of doing it and, therefore, they do it. Likewise, some people enjoy the act of playing music. They derive pleasure from those moments in which music is being made by themselves, or with others, such as when playing in a band. People might talk about both of these activities in retrospect by saying something to the effect of: "I really enjoyed playing music with my band yesterday." Or: "I really enjoyed surfing yesterday." Meaning: "This thing I did was enjoyed at the time I was doing it. I remember that enjoyment and therefore I will aim to do it again." What they like about the activity is not having done it, but rather the actual doing of it.

Writing is not like that, at least not for me, and yet I tend to use the same language to describe it. When I'm at some social event and somebody asks me what I do, I will often respond first by saying I'm a Web developer (since this is how I make money and, therefore, seems more "practical"). Then I might add: "But I also like to write." Since I don't actually make a living writing yet, this is a socially-accepted way for me to describe something I do, while also justifying the act through the assertion that I like to do it. But every time I say it, I cringe because it rings false to me. I mean, it's not completely a lie, but it's not completely honest, either.

What I really want to say is this: "I like having written. And I continue to write because I feel compelled to do it. Because if I did not do it, I would probably drink too much, go crazy, or commit suicide, or all three. Which is funny because sometimes the act of writing also makes me drink too much, feel crazy, and instills in me a terrible urge to jump out of my fifth-story apartment window."

But that probably wouldn't go over too well at cocktail parties, would it? I would surely receive a blank stare, to which I might have to laugh uncomfortably and say something like: "I mean, not funny in a ha-ha way. More of an ironic sort of funny, you know?"

I'm sure some people out there enjoy the craft of writing, the process of it. They like sitting at their desk, alone with their materials. They may like the physical qualities of those materials, whatever they are: the feel of the pen in hand, the weight of a fresh piece of paper, the hum of the typewriter or the sexiness of a new laptop computer. They might get a rush of excitement simply from the idea, the promise of it all. And if that's you, then I say great! I don't mean to discredit you. In fact, I admire and envy you. Granted, I think you are most certainly a masochist, but even in this I'm green. I want to know that kind of devotion, even if it is self-destructive.

But let it be known: this is not me. I do not care for the materials. They only remind me what writing is: a difficult, lonely process which makes you feel entirely inadequate because of how confined you are by language. Indeed, the act of writing involves trying to piece together words to describe thoughts, concepts, feelings, and emotions. At best, your efforts will only symbolize the things you want to describe. They will never be the thing itself. Which means the whole impossible endeavor is, in its very nature, flawed, full of uncertainty and doubt.

Sounds pretty fun doesn't it? Wondering where to sign up? If the whole thing is shit, you might wonder, why the hell do it?

Ah-ha. Here's what I'm getting at: The pleasure for me is not in the craft, it is in the end result. And when that end result, however flawed and inadequate, comes close to touching upon the initial intuition that sparked it, well, there's not much that compares to that feeling. Indeed, I'd go so far as to say there is nothing that compares to it. It's a high - a tremendous, though fleeting, sense of satisfaction.

Which probably means most writers spend ninety-five percent of their time dissatisfied, desperately trying to reproduce that high.

Which brings me back to blogs. I think posting to a blog is alluring for some writers because it allows them to achieve a finished product quicker and more frequently, which, in turn, leads to a more frequent sense of reward and pleasure. To be blunt, it satisfies a fix. It has all the same characteristics of a fix: momentary euphoria, a sense of contentedness and well-being, and a deferment of all ailments. It's also something of a 'social' activity, the way other drugs might be, and in a way that most fiction writing is not. Unfortunately, it also makes the glaring reality of what you didn't accomplish all the more painful when you wake up the next morning.

For any addict, the first step to recovery is recognizing and admitting you have a problem. While I think that the blog is slowly developing into it's own stylistic form, the fact remains that I would like to finish at least one novel in my lifetime and posting to a blog is not going to get me there. Ideally, I'd like to find a way to integrate the two mediums, but there seems to be a lot of distance between them at the moment, which is probably a topic for another post.

Sarah Hepola dealt with the problem of not writing by halting her blog. This is what worked for her. While I recognize a similar problem and sympathize with the way she chose to deal with it, I don't think I'll ever reach that same resolution. I am, after all, a geek in addition to a writer. I have a fascination with the Internet and all the online technologies that go along with it. So, for me, my blog is not only 'online writing forum,' but also an 'online technology training ground.' I don't think putting a halt to the blog altogether will increase my writing productivity, although I do think it's important to recognize its potential for being a pitfall and try to moderate my urge to post.

The last couple of weeks, I've found a new motivation and drive to work on my novel and I've made some good progress.* A finished product is still not imminent, but I feel once again that I'm on the right track. Part of what has worked for me is coming to grips with the fear of writing and recognizing that it isn't the act of writing I actually enjoy. It's the having written. And you don't get there until you produce a lot of work, most of which will probably not be that good. Most of which, in fact, will be shit. But coming to terms with this has been freeing for me and has allowed me to work unselfconsciously. It's taken away some of the pressure and unfair self-criticisms.

So when I'm not doing work on the Web, I'm going to keep aiming for the long-term payoff of a novel. I'm going to try to post here with less frequency, or length, or both, but I'm going to continue to keep it handy for a quick fix when I need it.

*Note: A lot of this was inspired by Art and Fear, which I would highly recommend to anybody with a creative block.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Language  Writing 

Yet another nifty tool released by Google.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Google  News 

It is memorial weekend, which means operation Rolling Thunder is in full effect. Here's a shot I took from last year's ride. I don't think I'll go get a close-up this year. We've been getting enough 'ambiance' from the frequent chopper noises driving up and down Mass Ave.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  DC  News 

In 1999, I learned a hard lesson in why backing up my hard drive is so important. It all started while I was doing some work on an inventory spreadsheet for a bar in Dallas during a thunderstorm. Need I say more? Probably not, but I'm going to anyway.

Rain storms in Dallas are an interesting phenomenon. For one thing, they are seldom made up only of rain. Usually they are of the thunder-and-lightning (read, hellfire-and-brimstone) variety. There's not a lot of subtlety when it comes to wet weather in Dallas, especially in the spring, which it was on this particular day in 1999.

One interesting thing about a storm in Dallas: you can often see and hear it coming from miles away, even though you yourself might be standing in perfectly nice, even sunny, weather. As the storm gets closer and the decibel level of the thunder increases, you begin to understand the full impact of the storm. It begins to have real physical repercussions to your immediate surroundings. But by then, it's too late to duck and cover. You're in it, man. Suck it up.

When I started my work that evening, skies were clear. There was no sign of rain in view. But after thirty minutes of work, I began to hear thunder in the distance, and as I've described, it got louder and louder, until all at once it was directly above and all around me. Then the rain started. We lived in a wood-framed two story apartment complex built in the early 70s. It had obviously withstood several storms, but it always made you wonder if this was the one that would bring things down.

Catherine was in the other room. I shouted out to her: "Do you think I should stop working?"

"Probably," she said.

"Eh. Damn Dallas weather. I bet it's gone in no time. I'll give it another minute or two."

Never underestimate the power of denial.

Sure there were lightning flashes right outside my window and sure I was working on a device that was powered by electricity and plugged into wall sockets that were already a bit unreliable and known to surge from time to time. It made no difference. Surely, my computer was impervious to lightning attack.

When the final damning bang sounded, loud and righteous, at what seemed to be frighteningly close proximity to our apartment, the lights flickered briefly and my computer screen went dark. And something told me this was no simple power outage.

Wait! Do-over. I want a friggin' do-over!

I put finger to power button. The green power LED came on, but the monitor remained black. Something was wrong. Try again.

Nothing.

The numbing reality lead to an immediate, all-consuming panic, like the sudden onset of a handful of amphetamines. I thought of all the files that were stored in that white box which hadn't been backed up for at least six months. Crying seemed to be a logical next step, but I was too stunned to cry. Instead, I spent the next thirty minutes exploring new ways to engage in the act of psychological self-flagellation, the likes of which I'm sure Catherine had never seen. I knew after she survived that little episode, she would stay married to me for life.

While all this went on, the storm blew over and the sun came out. Calmness. Silence outside.

What the hell!?

Somewhere in the distance there was another rumble of thunder.

Heck! I mean heck! Damnit!

To sum it up, I had to replace both the motherboard and the hard drive on that doomed computer. Insurance actually covered the hard costs of the replacements, but the fact remained that about six months of files were gone for good.

At that time, I didn't use my computer nearly as much as I do now. I had yet to start developing Web sites professionally. So, while the loss of files was still an upsetting thing then, it was not the terrible event that it would be for me these days. Today, pretty much all my personal and professional files are digital. Work files, writing, notes, finances, photos, music. It's all there. Want to understand absurdity? Just imagine all those important documents disappearing in a blip.

Needless to say, this experience showed me the error in my old ways. It brought me toward the light.

Amen, Brother.

God rendered my computer useless with a single blow and he could do it again!

The Truth, Brother - Speak it!

On that day, I made an oath to myself and to God: I shall henceforth be prepared.

That's it, Brother. Repent, repent of your wicked ways.

Since then, backing up has been something I've done regularly, albeit manually. I usually just set reminders for myself. And it's kind of a pain because it's something I've had to think about every time. But let it be known: I've still done it religiously.

This weekend, however, I finally decided it was time for a more automated solution, something that would happen whether I remembered it or not, something that would increase my chances of being protected. I've found two good pieces of software to help me toward this goal - one for Mac and one for PC - which I'll mention briefly below.

Mac - SuperDuper

Thanks to Michael over at Luminous, I was clued-in to a great application that makes the act of backing up your Mac quick and painless. After reading his review of SuperDuper, I tried it myself and love it. For you Mac people, give this a go. You'll sleep better at night and won't have to pay a lot of money for the extra piece of mind. In fact, if you can do without some features, you don't have to pay anything.

PC - KLS Backup 2006

While I have plans of switching to Mac full-time in 2007 (and am taking steps to make that dream a reality) I'm still primarily a PC guy, for now. So I needed some sort of backup utility for Windows. I'll start by saying that backing up Windows files, in general, is far more complicated and unintuitive than backing up Mac files. Even if you're really careful about keeping your files organized in a certain folder, which I am, you still have to do a bit of scrounging if you want to make sure you get all your program settings. I've tried several different applications, and have found that most of the personal utilities for backing up Windows machines are a pretty scary lot and don't help simplify the process all that much. Also, most applications confuse the user with backup methodologies and choices that most people don't want to worry about. With KLS Backup, you get some flexibility in this regard. You have the option of making custom choices with your backup if you want more control and know what you're doing. But if you don't, the software provides a pretty decent toolset for helping you find the right files to back up and make decisions on the best backup methodologies to employ. Again, let me reiterate: using this software is still not as easy as something like Super Duper for Mac. But I think any PC solution is going to require an investment in time to understand a few basic concepts. So far, KLS Backup is the most intuitive Windows utility I've found for implementing a backup strategy.

A Note about Location

For the past year, I've used two external hard drives to back up data, the idea being that if one hard drive fails, I'd still have the other backup on hand. Also, there are certain large files I only keep on an external drive, so they need their own backup to the second drive in order to be safe. But backing up to two different hard drives still doesn't do any good in the event that there is some physical disaster to my apartment. A recent episode in our building where a toilet overflowed and flooded the two apartments directly below it brought the reality of something like this into sharp focus. I've seen where denial has gotten me in the past, so this week, I started a strategy where, once a week, I bring the second hard drive to a safe-deposit box at a nearby bank. Because of my account at the bank, the box is free for me, but even if it weren't it would only cost about $50/yr, which is certainly not cost-prohibitive. There's also the investment in time spent physically transporting the drive to the bank, but I definitely think it's worth it and will help me rest a little easier at night . . . not to mention putting me right with God.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Tech 

Welcome to Nicolasix, Summer Edition. While the layout is mostly the same, you will notice a few changes:

The main navigation menu has moved to the top of the page, where it has always wanted to be, but until now, has never been able to muster up the self-confidence or poise.

I also threw in some very 'Web 2.0-ish' grayscale fades (because I'm nothing if not fashionable and hip and I need that reflected in my site).

Since it's summer and all, I removed the picture of me waking up and, in it's place, put a big juicy lemon. Now, if you think I'm going soft on you with the bright happy color, I will remind you that the lemon is one of the bitterest of fruits. So suck on that.

And for a little bonus entertainment, try clicking on the Greek symbols over on the right, above the RSS heading. Go ahead. All the cool kids are doing it. It's fun.

I'll wait . . .

See? Now, couldn't you just play with that shit all day and all night? It works a little better in Firefox, but should still do it's thing if you're using IE. Oh, and it's brought to you by the good folks at script.aculo.us. (Thanks Thomas, if I'm ever in Vienna, I'll certainly buy you a beer.)

So there's more changes to come, but that's all for now. Leave me a comment. Let me know what you think. And let me know if anything looks (or behaves) funky in your browser.

link to this | comments (11) | File:  Blog  Web_Design 

So far, 2006 has been quite a year for landmark birthdays. Catherine and Matt H. both turned 30 in February; Papapol turned 90; Melanie turned 21; and in a couple of weeks, Ian turns 60.

Well, this weekend, there was another 30th, and this time it was Emily's. We hosted a surprise party for her at our apartment. We were a little apprehensive because it was the first party we've had of this size since our move to DC. We used to have big parties at our old place in Dallas. But we had more space there, not to mention a balcony. We've always felt our apartment here in the District wouldn't really be conducive to party-throwing, unless it was the kind of party that people spent naked and in close proximity to one-another. But I don't think they call those 'parties.'

Anyway, we were pleasantly surprised to find that, with some creative re-arrangement of furniture, and an ample supply of a social lubricant known as 'tequila,' our place can comfortably accommodate 15-20 people.

We served up some Tex-Mex fare: chicken and beef tacos, black beans, rice, guacomole. And did I mention there was tequila? Zack was nice enough to bring some 1800 Reposado for birthday shots. I can testify to the fact that it was as smooth going down the first time as it was the fifth. I also made some of my secret-recipe margaritas, which tend to cause spontaneous, irrepressible grinning for those who imbibe them, as is evidenced by these photos.

Thanks to everybody who came and thanks to Mat and Zach for helping with the preparations. And a big Happy Birthday to Em, whose actual birthday, I believe, is still a couple of days away.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Friends  DC  Birthdays 

A nifty new texting service offered to dc technofiles from dcist.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  DC 

Read a couple of the missions on this site, particularly the Best Buy mission. I love it. Sort of Fight Club-esque, only a little kinder and gentler. Thanks, James, for the link.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Random 

Last weekend we went down to Lexington, Virginia for my 10-year college reunion. Here are some pics from the trip. It was a great time, primarily because we got to spend so much of it with our friends, Sarah, Randy, Julie, Jesse, but also because I got to catch up with several classmates and professors I hadn't seen in a while. While I had a lot of fun hanging out with them and seeing the campus, there was also an odd mix of feelings accompanying me on the trip, some good, some not.

It's strange that I only spent four years at W&L. I guess college is such a pivotal time filled with so many new ideas, sensations, and emotions, that it plants itself more firmly in your memory. It makes the four years seem like twenty. But the alarming reality is that I've been away from Lexington two-and-a-half times as long as I was there. I've had two different 'careers,' first as a bartender, then as a 'web guy.' It's strange that those lives know nothing of each other and the person I am now bares only a slight resemblance to the person I was then.

For me, it's the smells more than anything that bring the memories back. The trees outside the freshmen dorms, the musty smell of the old buildings on campus, the library stairwells - as soon as they hit me, I'm taken back 14 years to my first year there. I feel again a sense of excitement and independence, a strange mix of contentedness, opportunity, and fear. And eventually, it's all supplanted by a lingering sense of sadness. Because it's over. The dreams I had then have either happened or they haven't, and either way, it's not quite what I thought. And I'm suddenly that guy who I used to see ten years ago, snapping photos, talking about how things have changed, reflecting on the past. And I used to think, no way that would ever be me.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  College 

Monday, my horoscope read: Enjoy the outdoors - even if the weather is not what you expected. You mustn't let such uncontrollable forces control you. Now, I don't normally read my horoscope, but I did Monday because I spent part of my morning on a commuter metro car from West Falls Church to Metro Center during rush hour, packed in, butt-cheek to butt-cheek with fellow passangers, my nose buried in a Post Express, which I read from cover to cover to avoid having to look up at the woman standing directly in front of me. How did things come to this? Good question. I'll get there in a minute . . .

But first, the trip to Vegas (the one I took this weekend, not the one I took 10 years ago) was a lot of fun. We met Catherine's family in Vegas for her sister's 21st birthday. As is proper in Vegas, I slept very little, drank mightily, and gambled heartily. We stayed at the MGM Grand. We ate some great food, saw an incredible Cirque du Soleil show called Ka (which I highly recommend) and played a decent two nights of black jack in which there were several ups and downs, but we ultimately came out $50 ahead.

These pics tell part of the story - the part where it was appropriate to have a camera.

So I was already running on minimal sleep for the weekend when Sunday evening rolled around and I boarded a flight from Las Vegas to Los Angeles, where I would take a second flight to DC, arriving around 5:30 am local time. Catherine had to go to Kansas City for business, and we had parted ways in Las Vegas. I was sad to be traveling alone, but I didn't know how sad I would be until the next morning when I arrived.

The trip was destined to have a snag.

I had managed to avoid two potential pitfalls, which gave me a false sense of security. First, on the flight to Los Angeles, a snooty flight attendant threatened to gate-check one of my bags. The same thing had happened on the way from DC to Vegas. TED is a bit trigger happy about checking bags. They don't even let you take it down to the plane to see if there is still space available. They will just tell you at the gate that the overhead area is all filled up and that you need to check it. I knew a gate-check would end badly for me since I would be changing planes in LAX. If they checked the bag to IAD, I figured it would get lost. And if they checked it to LAX, I would have to exit the terminal in Los Angeles, pick up my bag, and then go through security again. I begged and pleaded with the attendant and was allowed to 'take my chances' in finding an overhead space for my bag on the plane. As it turned out, when I got on the plane, I saw at least three spaces for my bag, one which was directly above my friggin' seat! This really annoyed me. A tip: if you're on a TED flight and they try to gate-check your bag before you even get on board, insist that you'd like to take your chances in bringing it on. Both times this happened to me, there were spaces available when I got on the plane.

So I had dodged one bullet, but found another waiting for me at LAX. There was a group of high-school kids going on a field trip to our nation's capital. Yes, tourist season is in bloom in DC. For the past few weeks, I've noticed groups of kids walking around the city. Now I faced the terrifying prospect of being trapped in an enclosed space for 5 hours with one of them. Actually, I'm not sure if these kids were high-schoolers, or if they had just escaped from a maximum security prison. It was hard to tell. I just hoped I didn't end up in prison as a result of the flight. Fourty to fifty angst ridden teens on a red-eye flight from LAX to DC? Who had thought this was a good idea? I figured I would end up seated right smack in the middle of the group and I could not be held responsible for my actions. I needed to know who to blame when I was put before the judge for passing out kool-aid laced with dangerous levels of Xanax.

The group of kids wound up seated in one area of the plane, to themselves. I was far in back of them, seated next to a man who only spoke Chinese and who slept most of the way. Amazingly, I was able to sleep for most of the trip. Bullet number two dodged.
When I de-planed at Dulles airport, it appeared that all was good. Now, I would just pick up the car, which was in the remote lot, head home, get some more sleep, and hopefully feel better by the afternoon. It was a surprisingly cool morning in DC - 40 degrees - but it was nice and sunny. Maybe I would try to do something outdoors! (I had yet to read my horoscope, mind you.) The shuttle dropped me off in the Green lot, and that's when it hit me. Catherine had driven to the airport. Not me. I had NOT driven to the airport. Instead of me, it was Catherine who drove. As you can see, my brain slowed down to single-processor mode in an effort to fully grasp the lamentable reality of this situation. Since I had not driven, it meant I did not have the key. Since Catherine had driven, she would, ipso facto, have the key. In Kansas City. It was starting to make sense in my head. Still, in an act of desperation, my brain told my hand to go ahead and reach in my pocket anyway. My hand only laughed as it found a few spare coins. No key. Silly brain. No key here. But you knew that, didn't you? You were only playing, right? My brain would not be put off that easily. It told my hands to unzip the outer compartment of my suit case. This is futile, said my hands. It is not there, you idiot. Stop this right now. My hands found keys, but they were my house keys, no car key. See? You better start thinking of an alternative! The bus was rounding a corner at the far end of the parking lot and heading back in my direction. I ran to catch it before it went back to the airport. When I got back on the bus, I got some funny looks from the people inside. I started to say something, started to tell them about my situation. But I didn't want their sympathy. I just wanted to sleep. I knew if I said anything it would probably be something sarcastic. So I just kept my mouth shut.

I suppose I should look on the bright side: I found two alternate low-cost ways to get to and from Dulles Airport from downtown. This is good to know for anybody who normally avoids Dulles because of the parking or ground transportation expense.

Option 1: Washington Flyer has a shuttle that runs from the airport to Falls Church West every half hour on the 15 and 45. It's $9 bucks or $16 round-trip (they've added a $1 fuel surcharge to the normal rate). It's pretty convenient and relatively inexpensive. Still, after you pay $16 round trip, plus metro fare, you might be spending as much as $24 using this method. I got a one-way ticket and figured I might try option 2 for coming back to pick up the car later in the day.

Option 2: Metro has a bus (the 5A) which runs every hour and has five stops, including Dulles. The others are: L'Enfant Plaza, Rossyln, Tysons Westpark Transit station, and Herndon-Monroe Park & Ride. I took this bus back to the airport to pick up my car later in the afternoon after having a nap. The total fare, including metro ride to Rosslyn, was $3.65. So for under $9, it's relatively easy to get to and from Dulles, as long as your flight falls within the hours when the bus runs. (The first bus leaves each end around 5:30 am and the last bus leaves around 10:30 pm.) The bus is larger and more comfortable than most metro buses and even has luggage space overhead. Total trip time was about an hour, which is probably a little faster than driving, parking, and taking the shuttle from the parking lot to the airport.

So yeah, true to my horoscope, I spent most of Monday outdoors, taking various forms of public transportation. And while the weather was better than I could have expected, the circumstances that led to my time outdoors were certainly 'out of my control.' Still, I think I made the best of it.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  Vegas  Travel  Family 

Read Express has launched officially. This will definitely give DCist a little competition as the main online news blog for the DC area. Especially because RE has great features like the local links area, which uses Google Maps to search for things to do by Metro Stop. Awesome idea and great execution. Here's a look at the Gallery Place stop, for instance.

link to this | comments (0) | File:  DC  Google  News 

I just got back from Vegas this morning on the red-eye via Los Angeles. It was a crazy weekend, but more on that later. For now, here's the wrap-up to my last post, which I never got a chance to get live before I left.

I intended these posts to be about my first time in Las Vegas 10 years ago. But in the end, they've sort of become about the getting there, and the new contact I made along the way. Strange how that happens - how in the telling of something, it winds up being something else.

So here's where things stood: Alex - my new traveling companion who'd been kind enough to share his cereal with me earlier in the morning - and I were on our way to Las Vegas. We were both on solo trips in search of new places. Maybe in search of ourselves. But we had other lives away from here, and in the six-hour car ride to Sin City, we chatted about those lives.

Alex was a Physics major and was almost through with school. He just needed to go back home and take some final tests. He thought it was strange that so many Americans didn't know what they wanted to do with their lives. I guess that means he thought I was strange, because I was pretty clueless myself. He said that in Germany you did your basic schooling, then you did civil or military service, then you specialized in what you wanted to "do." I told him that knowing what you wanted to do seemed strange to me. I said just about all the people I knew had spent four years at college learning Highly Important Things, and that they were now stumped as to what they were actually going to do with that knowledge. Speaking for myself, I had just graduated with a fancy Greek designation and a nice GPA, and my immediate ambitions (as soon as my trip out west was over) involved embarking on a prestigious career as a bartender. Here's a bit of irony: Alex really liked technology and thought I should "get into computers." "Ha!" I said with disdain, "I'm sure that will never happen . . ."

So we chatted a lot about school and that evolved into a more general discussion of culture. Alex said he felt a lot of Americans he'd met were kind of insincere - that they would say they were going to do something and then not do it. He gave an example of how he'd asked a woman for a ride in Corpus Christi and she had said she would "really like to," but then gave half a dozen reasons why she couldn't. He could tell she was lying and that she really just didn't want to. So he didn't understand why she hadn't just said that. It kind of rubbed him the wrong way. "She was probably just scared," I told him. "And at the same time she felt she should not be rude." He understood. He just thought it was kind of annoying. "Yeah, I guess Americans can be pretty annoying," I said. To think: this was pre-Bush. I wonder what he thinks now.

Somewhere along the line, the conversation shifted to our girlfriends. We were both in relationships that needed space. Actually, mine needed more than space. Mine needed a nuclear bomb dropped on its ass. But that's another story. Alex said he and his girlfriend never argued and I said that was good and he said it wasn't, that they had reached a boredom where they didn't even feel it was worth while to fight anymore. I thought it was an interesting observation, and kind of sad, and I could see what he meant.

We both felt conflicted about traveling alone. On the one hand, we liked the freedom of it. On the other hand, we both admitted that there was a constant nag for companionship and a connection to people that made us long for home.

We stopped at Hoover Dam and looked around a bit. This was pre-9/11, so you could still drive right over Hoover Dam on your way to Vegas from the east. Apparently, post-9/11 they began construction of an alternate route and they closed off traffic along the dam, which was probably not a bad idea. Anyway, I remember getting out and doing a mini-tour of the dam, which was a lot of fun. And somewhere there is a picture of Alex and me and Lake Mead in the background, but I can't find it.

When we got to Vegas, we exchanged contact info. Then, as easily as he had stepped into my campground that morning, he walked off west on Charleston Boulevard toward Las Vegas Boulevard (yes, its a cliche, but he really did walk off into the sunset). I remember how thin and insubstantial he looked beneath his huge backpack. He still carried his wooden walking stick, which seemed odd and out of place clicking against the hot Vegas concrete. It made a strange visual image: this person who looked like he'd just hiked the Appalachian Trail, walking along a city street, his jeans faded and dirty, his old leather shoes thin and worn. It's the last time I saw him or spoke to him. I never did drop him a line.

So there it is: Vegas. Sometimes a story about a place isn't so much about that place as it is about the getting to it. I've had lots of other Vegas memories since then, but when I think about that first visit, I inevitably think about that ride from the Grand Canyon and Alex walking off toward his life, and me driving off toward mine. We had shared a brief moment in our respective timelines, we were on the final legs of journeys, and now we were both about to head home. I think we had both been grateful for the temporary companionship, the chance to speak to somebody other than ourselves, but now we were equally grateful, and a bit relieved, to be on our own again. And, for me, Vegas sort of went on to become a symbolic delineation, a turning point, between two halves of my trip. Up to that point, it had largely been about escape, about not confronting the decisions I had to make. Ironically, Vegas, the great adult playground, the great escape itself, helped bring reality back into focus. And after four days exploring it, I wound up leaving with a new resolve.

link to this | comments (2) | File:  Vegas  Travel 

Steven Colbert at the White House Correspondents Dinner this past Saturday, April 29th. If you haven't seen it, prepare to be uncomfortable.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

If the links don't work, try searching on YouTube.

link to this | comments (3) | File:  Politics  News