Thursday, September 26, 2013
I've lost most of my enthusiasm for keeping up this blog...
But I do have a great idea for a blog/novel/screenplay/television show about sandwiches. Stay tuned.
Tuesday, September 24, 2013
I am getting so behind on my blogging!!!
To get caught up, I'm going to do a quick round-up of day two of the hippie music festival, AND the story of the time I sat in a park in Charlottesville for like six hours because I'm basically the best person ever. So get excited.
I awoke Friday morning of said music festival not really at all refreshed or well-rested, but still ready to take on the day. The night had not been too noisy, though I had set my tent and sleeping bag up on a hill in such a way that comfortable sleeping was pretty impossible. I used the bottles of water I'd stolen from the (extremely meager) press tent the night before brush my teeth and wash my face, navigated my contact lenses into my eyes and set off down the mountain.
Barrett was also on his way into the festival, having been sent out to check in on the traffic situation, EMS calls, etc. I told him I'd meet him in front of the stage so he could help me work on my camping story, since I was behind the schedule I wanted to be on and was hoping to finish the story by noon.
Here is the thing about my mood at this point that you need to understand for the next part of this tale. It was not the most positive of moods. I had spent five hours the previous day in a parking lot of anarchistic (is that a word?) drunken humanity only to be told when I finally made my way into the festival and met up with another reporter that all that could have been avoided if I had had a slightly different media pass and been a little more insistent with it.
So as I approached the security checkpoint to enter the concert venue area and a man in a yellow vest snottily informed me, "Venue's closed, ma'am," I WAS NOT HAVING IT.
"I. Am. With. The. MEDIA," I hissed at the fellow, waving my camo wristband in front of him as authoritatively as I could. He hesitated for a second and stepped aside - a wise decision, as I was pretty much ready to punch anyone who told me to wait anywhere in the face.
Barrett and I connected and then immediately left the stage area, though, so I guess all my weight throwing around was unnecessary, but whatever. I spent about an hour roaming the grounds, chatting with people who had interesting setups or just seemed friendly, and this is what I churned out: http://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/article_9cee6d00-1823-11e3-a7bf-001a4bcf6878.html.
The rest of my day involved hiking back up the mountain to my tent and pretty much feeling like death. By about 2 p.m., when I planned to leave, I was super dehydrated and exhausted and chose to spend about 15 minutes laying on the ground while Barrett packed up my stuff for me. It was awesome.
The rest of the weekend was much less eventful, up until Sunday, the day of both Barrett's birth and his intense challenge thing he did. Perhaps if his "after action review" he just wrote (and I did a killer job of editing, because I'm awesome) gets posted on the interwebz I'll link to it here, but suffice it to say he spent 12 hours doing a lot of things (pushups, carrying bricks, more pushups, carrying telephone poles) that are difficult and I'd rather not do.
I spent about four hours (from 9 a.m., the earliest time the challenge was expected to end, to 1 p.m., the time it actually did end) creepily hanging out in a park in Charlottesville, literally sitting near a homeless man drinking liquor out of a paper bag.
Then I bought Barrett lunch, because, as noted: I am the best.
I awoke Friday morning of said music festival not really at all refreshed or well-rested, but still ready to take on the day. The night had not been too noisy, though I had set my tent and sleeping bag up on a hill in such a way that comfortable sleeping was pretty impossible. I used the bottles of water I'd stolen from the (extremely meager) press tent the night before brush my teeth and wash my face, navigated my contact lenses into my eyes and set off down the mountain.
Barrett was also on his way into the festival, having been sent out to check in on the traffic situation, EMS calls, etc. I told him I'd meet him in front of the stage so he could help me work on my camping story, since I was behind the schedule I wanted to be on and was hoping to finish the story by noon.
Here is the thing about my mood at this point that you need to understand for the next part of this tale. It was not the most positive of moods. I had spent five hours the previous day in a parking lot of anarchistic (is that a word?) drunken humanity only to be told when I finally made my way into the festival and met up with another reporter that all that could have been avoided if I had had a slightly different media pass and been a little more insistent with it.
So as I approached the security checkpoint to enter the concert venue area and a man in a yellow vest snottily informed me, "Venue's closed, ma'am," I WAS NOT HAVING IT.
"I. Am. With. The. MEDIA," I hissed at the fellow, waving my camo wristband in front of him as authoritatively as I could. He hesitated for a second and stepped aside - a wise decision, as I was pretty much ready to punch anyone who told me to wait anywhere in the face.
Barrett and I connected and then immediately left the stage area, though, so I guess all my weight throwing around was unnecessary, but whatever. I spent about an hour roaming the grounds, chatting with people who had interesting setups or just seemed friendly, and this is what I churned out: http://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/article_9cee6d00-1823-11e3-a7bf-001a4bcf6878.html.
The rest of my day involved hiking back up the mountain to my tent and pretty much feeling like death. By about 2 p.m., when I planned to leave, I was super dehydrated and exhausted and chose to spend about 15 minutes laying on the ground while Barrett packed up my stuff for me. It was awesome.
The rest of the weekend was much less eventful, up until Sunday, the day of both Barrett's birth and his intense challenge thing he did. Perhaps if his "after action review" he just wrote (and I did a killer job of editing, because I'm awesome) gets posted on the interwebz I'll link to it here, but suffice it to say he spent 12 hours doing a lot of things (pushups, carrying bricks, more pushups, carrying telephone poles) that are difficult and I'd rather not do.
I spent about four hours (from 9 a.m., the earliest time the challenge was expected to end, to 1 p.m., the time it actually did end) creepily hanging out in a park in Charlottesville, literally sitting near a homeless man drinking liquor out of a paper bag.
Then I bought Barrett lunch, because, as noted: I am the best.
Friday, September 20, 2013
Life among the hippies...
Sorry it's taken so long for me to get to this entry, one of my few real adventures. It hasn't been a busy week or anything, I just have not felt myself struck by the blogging muse.
But I hear the people are demanding more pithiness from me, so here goes.
Gather round, dear readers, and you'll hear the tale of the longest, most frustrating, strangest, most exhausting and occasionally pretty cool 24 hours of my life: the time I camped at a hippie music festival for work.
I was pulled into the coverage team for this music festival because one of my main skills is writing quickly and it seemed that I'd be a helpful person to have around for updates. But in one of the planning meetings for the event, when it became clear that no one was planning to camp, I felt like we were missing out an important coverage opportunity.
And so, filled with trepidation, I volunteered to be that person.
Prepped with a small two-person tent I borrowed from Barrett, a z-rest (also borrowed from Barrett) and a sleeping bag (you can guess where I got it), along with my laptop, a sweatshirt and a change of clothes, I set out for said festival around midday one sunny Thursday.
I know there would be significant traffic delays, but foolishly believed by going later I could actually game the system, coming at a point where everyone who was there with the purpose of seeing the band would already have made it in.
I was wrong.
After an hour's drive out to the festival site, I spent approximately five hours in the impromptu waiting area/parking lot created out of what was once meant to be a seven-lane entrance. It was instead about 15-20 lanes, as people would see their lane was not moving and simply drive farther to the right, figuring they could sneak around others and worm their way in.
Because, you see, people are terrible. The volunteers responsible for directing traffic in this section had apparently quit, so it was essentially anarchy. Peaceful anarchy, for the most part, complete with bubbles and guitars and people not wearing shirts and so, so many beers.
Unfortunately for me, I was working, alone and had no beers. So instead I ate an entire box of fruit snacks, drank three Gatorade and tweeted. A lot. If you don't follow my twitter, you are missing out. (E_kennedy68)
I also like, did my job, sending in updates about some of the madness, which helped contribute to a massively read story, so that was cool.
After about four hours of this insanity, people started to get a bit tense. (Many of them had been there even longer than I had, the longest wait I heard was about eight hours.) Turns out, these 15 lanes of traffic didn't just have to merge down to seven lanes to get searched, but INSTEAD TO TWO. Then they merged back out to seven searching stations. But in order to cross this little road thingie, you had to be merged down to two lanes (with the help of guards on horseback) and then split back up.
Even if the original seven-lane system had help up, this would have been torturous. In the process of the merging down I finally yelled at this one girl who totally pretended she had some authority in order to get a bunch of cars to cut me off, but then she helped me because of her intense guilt. So that was okay.
I'm getting kind of rambly and losing some pith, plus I've reached a natural stopping point. So I'll be back soon (maybe over the weekend, if not definitely Monday) to fill you in on what happened when I actually made it into the festival, and how I survived without fruit snacks.
But I hear the people are demanding more pithiness from me, so here goes.
Gather round, dear readers, and you'll hear the tale of the longest, most frustrating, strangest, most exhausting and occasionally pretty cool 24 hours of my life: the time I camped at a hippie music festival for work.
I was pulled into the coverage team for this music festival because one of my main skills is writing quickly and it seemed that I'd be a helpful person to have around for updates. But in one of the planning meetings for the event, when it became clear that no one was planning to camp, I felt like we were missing out an important coverage opportunity.
And so, filled with trepidation, I volunteered to be that person.
Prepped with a small two-person tent I borrowed from Barrett, a z-rest (also borrowed from Barrett) and a sleeping bag (you can guess where I got it), along with my laptop, a sweatshirt and a change of clothes, I set out for said festival around midday one sunny Thursday.
I know there would be significant traffic delays, but foolishly believed by going later I could actually game the system, coming at a point where everyone who was there with the purpose of seeing the band would already have made it in.
I was wrong.
After an hour's drive out to the festival site, I spent approximately five hours in the impromptu waiting area/parking lot created out of what was once meant to be a seven-lane entrance. It was instead about 15-20 lanes, as people would see their lane was not moving and simply drive farther to the right, figuring they could sneak around others and worm their way in.
Because, you see, people are terrible. The volunteers responsible for directing traffic in this section had apparently quit, so it was essentially anarchy. Peaceful anarchy, for the most part, complete with bubbles and guitars and people not wearing shirts and so, so many beers.
Unfortunately for me, I was working, alone and had no beers. So instead I ate an entire box of fruit snacks, drank three Gatorade and tweeted. A lot. If you don't follow my twitter, you are missing out. (E_kennedy68)
I also like, did my job, sending in updates about some of the madness, which helped contribute to a massively read story, so that was cool.
After about four hours of this insanity, people started to get a bit tense. (Many of them had been there even longer than I had, the longest wait I heard was about eight hours.) Turns out, these 15 lanes of traffic didn't just have to merge down to seven lanes to get searched, but INSTEAD TO TWO. Then they merged back out to seven searching stations. But in order to cross this little road thingie, you had to be merged down to two lanes (with the help of guards on horseback) and then split back up.
Even if the original seven-lane system had help up, this would have been torturous. In the process of the merging down I finally yelled at this one girl who totally pretended she had some authority in order to get a bunch of cars to cut me off, but then she helped me because of her intense guilt. So that was okay.
I'm getting kind of rambly and losing some pith, plus I've reached a natural stopping point. So I'll be back soon (maybe over the weekend, if not definitely Monday) to fill you in on what happened when I actually made it into the festival, and how I survived without fruit snacks.
Wednesday, September 18, 2013
Today I am sad...
So no new blog entry. But tomorrow, or possibly Friday, prepare to hear about Lockn', otherwise known as the night I slept on the ground while surrounded by hippies after waiting in a car for five hours.
Tuesday, September 17, 2013
Talkin' baseball...
Look, dear readers, the prodigal blogger has returned! No on tried to guess what my reference was to in that blog entry like three weeks ago, but in case you were wondering its James Joyce's short story "The Dead." Go read it instead of this blog, I guarantee it will be a better use of your time.
But for those of you who find my boring stories about my life more entertaining than possibly the greatest short story every written, we turn back the clock two (three?) full weeks to Labor Day, a day I spent at the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field.
My super cool older brother is the proud owner of 1/16th (I think) of season tickets to Chicago Cubs games, which equates to like 6 games a year (or so). After almost two years of summer schedules not lining up for me to be home at the same time as the Cubbies, I planned my Labor Day trip home partly around being able to make it to a baseball game, and so we went.
After driving up to Chicago Monday morning, we stopped at Andy's apartment, where I had the opportunity to meet the world's most adorable and most energetic kitten.
But for those of you who find my boring stories about my life more entertaining than possibly the greatest short story every written, we turn back the clock two (three?) full weeks to Labor Day, a day I spent at the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field.
My super cool older brother is the proud owner of 1/16th (I think) of season tickets to Chicago Cubs games, which equates to like 6 games a year (or so). After almost two years of summer schedules not lining up for me to be home at the same time as the Cubbies, I planned my Labor Day trip home partly around being able to make it to a baseball game, and so we went.
After driving up to Chicago Monday morning, we stopped at Andy's apartment, where I had the opportunity to meet the world's most adorable and most energetic kitten.
His name is Rufus, and he is the cutest. Zoom in on the picture for full cuteness.
Rufus is also a little terrifying though, because he's like four months old and only getting used to the whole "I have claws and a mouth" thing so likes to exercise both of those. Luckily, I managed to avoid scratching or biting (there was some biting, but it was just like playful nipping), but he did keep me up basically all night by deciding 4 a.m. WAS TIME TO PLAY WITH ALL OF THE TOYS.
I am getting ahead of myself. (But the 4 a.m. LET ME PLAY WITH EVERYTHING AND RUN EVERYWHERE AND LOOK IT'S A BALL AND OH THERE'S A STRING ON A STICK AND HEY WHAT IS THIS FOOT AND OOO THERE'S THAT BELL AGAIN AND NOW I'M IN A BOX AND I'M ROLLING THE BOX AND THIS IS ALL SO GREAT AND I AM A KITTEN AND LOOK THE BALL IS IN THE TRACK NOW LET ME RUN OVER THERE session was really a lot more memorable than the pretty terrible baseball game.)
The Cubs are awful, but were playing the Marlins, who are also awful. Early in the game, it looked as though both teams would score lots of runs and it would be exciting, but after about three innings of back and forth high scoring antics, the Cubs kind of forgot how to hit and the rest of the game was sad and terrible.
Still, Patrick Sharp (of the Blackhawks) was there and threw out one of the first pitches, so that was neat. And baseball games are always fun, especially at Wrigley Field, so hooray.
Post-game, we headed to a bar near the stadium that gives out free hot dogs for an hour before and after the game and ate lots of free hot dogs. THEN, we went to a bar near my brother's house that has half-price pizza on Mondays. We ordered a pizza, they burned it, AND SO WE GOT A FREE PIZZA!
A day filled with tiny kittens and free pizza. The end.
Friday, September 13, 2013
Pretty sure no one is reading my blog...
So that is sad. I still plan to write about all those adventures from last week, but I have to get over this depression first.
Thursday, September 12, 2013
Partyin, partyin, yeah! (Mostly an entry about game shows, though)...
When we last left my trip home, I'd survived a terrifying Costco encounter with a bird and was falling into the loving arms of sleep after a full-day of driving.
Saturday, I woke up, dined on a queen's breakfast of like four cups of coffee and cold pizza, and prepared for my brother and sister-in-law's Labor Day party.
The party was pretty much your standard party stuff - drinking sangria and beer, eating foods, chatting with family members and others, having arguments about Syria and the size of parking lots in Munster, all that good stuff.
But then, come evening, my brothers, my sister-in-law, my brother's friend and I sat down to watch some television at the end of a long day. And what did we find on the TV? THE CHASE.
The Chase is a game show, imported from Britain, that airs on Game Show Network. When first viewed, the rules seemed to make absolutely no sense, especially if you come in in the middle of an episode.
But eventually we figured it out.
Basically, there's a team of three normal people who are competing against "The Beast," this dick who is like a British trivia genius. He matches up against them in various quiz sessions where he is "chasing" them toward the bank, essentially, at which point they either win their money or are eliminated if they get caught.
Then, whoever's left at the end do a final chase against him, with similar rules.
It's stupid, and confusing, and THE BEAST IS THE WORST!!!
I always wanted him to lose, AND HE NEVER DID. It got to the point where my brother Paul started rooting for the Beast, because he likes to root for a winner.
This may be the worst blog entry I've ever written. Baseball game to come soon, and hopefully that will be more interesting and lead to fame. FAME.
Saturday, I woke up, dined on a queen's breakfast of like four cups of coffee and cold pizza, and prepared for my brother and sister-in-law's Labor Day party.
The party was pretty much your standard party stuff - drinking sangria and beer, eating foods, chatting with family members and others, having arguments about Syria and the size of parking lots in Munster, all that good stuff.
But then, come evening, my brothers, my sister-in-law, my brother's friend and I sat down to watch some television at the end of a long day. And what did we find on the TV? THE CHASE.
The Chase is a game show, imported from Britain, that airs on Game Show Network. When first viewed, the rules seemed to make absolutely no sense, especially if you come in in the middle of an episode.
But eventually we figured it out.
Basically, there's a team of three normal people who are competing against "The Beast," this dick who is like a British trivia genius. He matches up against them in various quiz sessions where he is "chasing" them toward the bank, essentially, at which point they either win their money or are eliminated if they get caught.
Then, whoever's left at the end do a final chase against him, with similar rules.
It's stupid, and confusing, and THE BEAST IS THE WORST!!!
I always wanted him to lose, AND HE NEVER DID. It got to the point where my brother Paul started rooting for the Beast, because he likes to root for a winner.
This may be the worst blog entry I've ever written. Baseball game to come soon, and hopefully that will be more interesting and lead to fame. FAME.
Tuesday, September 10, 2013
The time has come to set out my journey westward...
Here we go, the first of many a blog post about the exciting 10 days or so that I just lived. I'll try to be engaging and hilarious to make up for my lengthy absence, but I make no promises.
(Also, 10 bonus points to whoever can name what I'm referencing in the post's title. If no one gets it I'll give a second clue in the next entry.)
My week and a half of adventure began early in the morning on Friday, Aug. 30. It's been almost a year - since Thanksgiving 2012 - since I've made the lengthy trek home via car. I opted to fly for both Christmas and Easter, as though were fairly brief visits and the flying costs off a decent amount of travel time.
Still, there's something enticing about driving; as I put it a few times while home, it makes me the master of my own destiny. If I oversleep (as I did before my flight home for Easter), I'll be behind the schedule I'd set, but I'm still certain to make ti where I plan to go. And there's a certain allure to spending hours in a car, clearing your head, getting to know America, and laughing at amusing billboards.
That being said, driving home this time was pretty much the worst. experience. ever.
Nothing specific happened to make the drive so unbearable; in fact, on the way home I made pretty good time, conserved gas well, and didn't even have to drive the full 12 hours since I stopped in Indianapolis on the way. Plus, there's a new Katy Perry song out these days, always a plus for the long car trips. (Not for my voice/throat, or for anyone who happens to be driving next to me while I have my windows rolled down, but it's totally worth it.)
No, there's no heartbreaking story of getting pulled over or yelled at by random people in West Virginia or going to the world's most insane Wendy's (all previous Indiana to Virginia drive occurrences), but by about hour two of driving on 65 m.p.h. roads in Ohio, passing cops every 10 miles or so, I was so desperate to be on a plane it wasn't even funny.
Still, I made it to my brother's house in Indy, nommed on some pizza, and went with them to hit up Costco, fairly unscathed.
I think Costco is dumb, and this trip did not dissuade that impression. As Paul pointed out, he didn't feel like he was getting that great of deals, and you have to fight your way through a veritable warehouse to get a giant box of Cheez-its that isn't actually a giant box filled with Cheez-its but rather two normal-sized bags of Cheez-its placed in a slightly larger, occasionally comical, box.
Plus, occasionally there are birds:
(Also, 10 bonus points to whoever can name what I'm referencing in the post's title. If no one gets it I'll give a second clue in the next entry.)
My week and a half of adventure began early in the morning on Friday, Aug. 30. It's been almost a year - since Thanksgiving 2012 - since I've made the lengthy trek home via car. I opted to fly for both Christmas and Easter, as though were fairly brief visits and the flying costs off a decent amount of travel time.
Still, there's something enticing about driving; as I put it a few times while home, it makes me the master of my own destiny. If I oversleep (as I did before my flight home for Easter), I'll be behind the schedule I'd set, but I'm still certain to make ti where I plan to go. And there's a certain allure to spending hours in a car, clearing your head, getting to know America, and laughing at amusing billboards.
That being said, driving home this time was pretty much the worst. experience. ever.
Nothing specific happened to make the drive so unbearable; in fact, on the way home I made pretty good time, conserved gas well, and didn't even have to drive the full 12 hours since I stopped in Indianapolis on the way. Plus, there's a new Katy Perry song out these days, always a plus for the long car trips. (Not for my voice/throat, or for anyone who happens to be driving next to me while I have my windows rolled down, but it's totally worth it.)
No, there's no heartbreaking story of getting pulled over or yelled at by random people in West Virginia or going to the world's most insane Wendy's (all previous Indiana to Virginia drive occurrences), but by about hour two of driving on 65 m.p.h. roads in Ohio, passing cops every 10 miles or so, I was so desperate to be on a plane it wasn't even funny.
Still, I made it to my brother's house in Indy, nommed on some pizza, and went with them to hit up Costco, fairly unscathed.
I think Costco is dumb, and this trip did not dissuade that impression. As Paul pointed out, he didn't feel like he was getting that great of deals, and you have to fight your way through a veritable warehouse to get a giant box of Cheez-its that isn't actually a giant box filled with Cheez-its but rather two normal-sized bags of Cheez-its placed in a slightly larger, occasionally comical, box.
Plus, occasionally there are birds:
No one but me seemed concerned about this bird flying around Costco. But I was super concerned.
Anywho, we made it home from Costco, drank beers and watched Walk the Line/high school football (don't ask) and had a generally pleasant evening.
More adventures adventures to come soon! Hopefully.
Monday, September 9, 2013
So many adventures to come!
But today I am sniffly and unmotivated. So here are the things you can look forward to reading about:
1) My trip home! Possible sub-adventures include various lengthy drives, family parties, Cubs game, etc. We'll see how many turn out.
2) Hippie music festival. Sooooo many thoughts on the hippie music festival.
3) Going to Charlottesville to see Barrett do his big race thing where he got this sweet patch. Coolest patch ever.
Hopefully I'll get started tomorrow, when not feeling sniffly.
1) My trip home! Possible sub-adventures include various lengthy drives, family parties, Cubs game, etc. We'll see how many turn out.
2) Hippie music festival. Sooooo many thoughts on the hippie music festival.
3) Going to Charlottesville to see Barrett do his big race thing where he got this sweet patch. Coolest patch ever.
Hopefully I'll get started tomorrow, when not feeling sniffly.
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