And stealing step, of slow advancing age.
So, what has been going on with me lately? Who cares? I don’t care who cares, I’m going to type it in anyways.
I moved groups at work, due to a few reasons. Some “personality clashes” with a new manager (this is code for “he is a jerk”, but we aren’t allowed to say that) along with my just being sort of tired of working on what that team works on, and being very tired of the team’s on-call schedule were just a few of these reasons. My new team is pretty cool, we’re having a few problems with focus right now but otherwise things are going well in that direction.
I took a trip out to Albany in late May for my sister’s wedding. The event itself wasn’t very exciting (massive, overblown and embarrassingly opulent, but not interesting), but the trip itself was not bad. I took a train from Seattle to Chicago, had 6 hours in Chicago, then a train from Chicago to Albany. The train to Albany was 6 hours late, and arrived after the rental company closed, so I had a kind of harrowing time getting to my hotel and then back to the rental car place the next day to get my car. Things were fine after that. After the wedding was a train back to Chicago (on time this time), 8 hours in Chicago and then the train back home.
I’ve come to enjoy rail travel. It’s expensive and slow, but the scenery is great and you have a lot of time to yourself. You’re also forced into conversation with strangers during meal times, which I found difficult at first but but appreciated as the trip went on, as a regular and short interval from my forced isolation. The train food isn’t bad, especially if you’ve paid for a sleeper car and you get to eat in the dining car for free. The dining car food is pretty good, but horribly overpriced. The only alternative is the lounge car, which is basically just pre-made sandwiches, microwaveable burritos, candy and other such garbage. Also, still overpriced.
Chicago was fun, but I did get a little bit lost on my first visit. Instead of heading east to Michigan Ave and the museums and everything, I accidentally headed south, with ended me up in what I can only describe as “The Post Office District”. Downtown Chicago has at least 4 full city blocks with nothing but post office buildings and facilities. I wandered around there for a while and eventually figured out where I was, but by the time I made it back to the train station, I was no longer in the mood to walk around, so I just sat around the station and waited for my train. On my second visit to Chicago, I wisely took a cab to the Aquarium. However, upon arrival, I discovered that it was “Kids Under 4 Get In Free” day. This is a hell day. I of course didn’t entirely realize what was going on until after I’d bought my ticket, so I did wander around for a little while, but had to vacate the premises fairly quickly. I took a cab back to the area near the train station and looked for somewhere to eat. I discovered, much to my chagrin, that there is nowhere interesting to eat in that area of the city, and ended up having a semi-OK reuben in a little bar, served by the world’s surliest waitress.
And now I am back in Seattle. It took me almost 2 weeks to write this post. I hope the next one doesn’t take as long.
With luck, some of Chicago’s famous slaughterhouses have “Kids Under 4 Get In Free” days too!
Thanks for the info about trains. I always wondered what that was like or how to do it.