Tales (of horror) from the Road

We're off on a mini-vacation, driving to Cincinnati for the wedding of two friends. I've been on some pretty horrific road trips and spent the night is some truly scary motels before (a motel in the middle of nowhere eastern Ohio where we were stranded in a snowstorm and were the only people staying there; the hotel at Mammoth Cave in the off season; a Motel 6 in the not-so-nice part of our nation's capital...and those were all on one trip), but last night was the worst yet.

It was getting late and we saw an exit with a number of hotel options. We were in a small town on the western end of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. In the interest of fairness, I'm not going to say where.

My Kentucky Boy chose a Super 8 because it advertised free breakfast and free wi-fi.

The first sign we should have run was that the lobby smelled vaguely of dog urine and the night manager was, shall we say, not the smartest person we'd ever met. But we signed the little slip and got our bag out of the car.

The Not-So-Super 8 didn't have an elevator, so we had to drag the bag up to flights of stairs to our tiny hole. The tiny hole had two small double beds and a tiny TV and a thin layer of dirt and grime. We quickly removed the comforter and held out hope that at least the sheets had been washed.

I was on the fence about showering in the morning. There was a good chance I would come out dirtier than I had gone in. But I braved it because I needed it to wake up. I had to dry myself with an 8x10 piece of sandpaper. I would have used two of the four, but one had an ominous dark smudge on it.

We dressed and figured we would load the car, eat our "free continental breakfast" and be on our way. "Brekafast" for an allegedly full motel consisted of 6 half-sized muffins and some juice. There was a toaster available, but I'm not sure what we were supposed to toast.

As a final insult, as we were leaving the boy asked the day manager where the restroom was. The only restroom was in the grimy little in-room bathroom, so he had to retrieve the key and go back up.

At least we were really grateful to see our room in the (much more expensive) hotel here in Cincinnati.

First the radio star, then the rest of us.

The terrorists have got it all wrong. Forget about nefarious plots. Just scramble every TV station in the world except for VH1.

VH1 is home to a plethora of horrible TV shows. Horrible TV shows that, just like a car wreck, we can't look away from. (and it makes us end our sentences in prepositions)

I have watched "50 Cutest Television Kids" more times than I care to own up to.

I lost several hours this weekend to "100 Hottest Teen Stars."

And what college student in the late 90s didn't lose hours of her life to "Pop Up Video" This may have been the worst one of all. At least with the others you can do three other things at the same time and you won't miss anything. But with "Pop Up Video," every time you heard that little 'bloop' noise, you just had to look up. My friends and I lost an entire New Year's Day to this one once.

If you want to destroy this country, just trap us all in an infinite loop of mesmerizing trash TV and then walk right in and take what you want.

Yes, me too

There is nothing wrong with staying up late at night because you've only made it to page 500 of a 750 page book and you have to know what happens next.

There is nothing wrong with secretly hoping your sister decides not to bring your 2 1/2 year old nephew to visit because it will interrupt reading time.

There is nothing wrong with rejoicing in learning that the list of leaked plot points you read two days ago in a moment of weakness was wrong.

There is nothing wrong with contemplating the havoc you will wreak on your local post office if a book isn't delivered to you on the promised day.

There is nothing wrong with striking up a conversation with the grocery checkout boy about the Border's wristband he is still wearing that let's you know that he started reading long before you.

There is nothing wrong with sending a taunting text message to a friend who is out of town and won't get her book for another day.

And there is nothing wrong with an adult yearning for closure in what is marketed as a children's book series and spending an entire Saturday seeking that closure.

Midyear reviews

One of the many bizarre additions to my life since going corporate has been the annual review process. In our company, that means a several step process including writing objectives, writing an annual personal development plan, a midyear review and an end of year review. The entire system was developed by human resources types and has only minimal actual relevance to laboratory workers. We would treat it as such except that end of year bonuses are tied to the ratings on the final process, so we have a little motivation to try and take it seriously.

Right now is midyear review season. Everyone spent last week writing pithy comments about how they were progressing along towards their objectives and this week we're all getting called into our managers' offices for half an hour of deep and insightful examination of our performance.

Back in grad school, "performance evaluations" were usually limited to belittling comments in lab meeting and the occasional impromptu dressing down just for fun. This whole process is still kind of foreign to me.

I have, however, noticed there are two basic approaches to the whole review:
(1) Thoroughly nonchalant. This person dashes off his/her comments in an hour or so, doesn't really worry too much about what will be said and probably has little to worry about. There may be offhand jokes with their manager about the whole matter.
(2) Bitter. Somewhere in this person's past is at least one very honest review. But it wasn't their fault. It never is. Their manager hates them.

So far, I am falling into category 1. I'll keep you posted.

Oh, to have such a troubled life

I recently switched gyms and the new one isn't so much a gym as an upscale YMCA on steroids. It has a babysitting room, karate classes, dance classes, gymnastics, a computer room, a full-sized baseball academy, indoor and outdoor pools, the list goes on and on.

Any place with this kind of facilities, of course, runs a decent sized day camp. Monday, as I was coming in, a harried looking mother was retrieving her two children from the aforementioned camp. I didn't get a good look at the girl, because her brother (roughly age 8) distracted me. He was remarking, in a very exasperated way, "No, I didn't have any downtime today."

I wanted to turn to him and scream, "You're a child at day camp. Your entire day is down time. Don't you understand?" But I didn't think it would go over so well with his mother...

One nation under...

Somewhere in the wave of intense patriotism that followed September 11, 2001, small American flags appeared on just about every highway overpass in the country. Who put them there? Where did they come from? I have this image of a single person in a beat up Toyota Tercel driving all night and all day to track down every overpass in the country. Just when s/he thinks it's time to rest they realize that the first flags they placed all those months ago are now tattered and worn and need to be taken down and brought to a local American Legion hall or desperate Boy Scout troop to be disposed of and the whole terrible long night starts over again.

A few weeks back, though, this amusing image was replaced by a more disturbing one. A modern day version of those old black and white photos of occupied territories and dictatorships of the Eastern Block where the leader's photo and the newly instated flag looked down from every free space.

I don't usually get political in this blog, but the current administration has created such a culture of fear that we have become a de facto version of those oppressed people. We still have plenty of freedom, but, until recently, to object was to be branded an enemy. The "You're either with us or against us" mentality meant we all had to accept it or defend ourselves against a pack of people questioning our loyalty.

I am not saying that I hate the flag or that I don't feel a small rush of pride when I see it, but I wonder if maybe I would feel better about it if I saw less of it.

Sometimes, really stupid people get sick

Sometimes I wish the moron TB patient from Atlanta would just go away. He is continually trying to play himself as some sort of victim of the horrible CDC who was just doing what he thought was okay.

He was not some ordinary, uninformed Joe Schmoe. He is an educated man, an attorney. He has family who work in infectious diseases. Regardless of who told him what, I find it hard to believe that he didn't know that all TB is highly contagious, especially to those with whom you spend several hours in a confined place breathing recirculated air.

Even if he wasn't totally aware of the risks, most people upon being told they had TB would call up their uncle who worked on it and get his advice. And any ethical researcher would say "Well, I know you wanted to get married in Greece, Andrew, but if you get on an airplane, you run the risk of infecting a lot of innocent people. Why not drive to Atlantic City instead?"

But instead, the arrogant jerk got on a plane, risked infecting dozens of people, including his new wife, and now calls the press every few days explaining why he is the victim here. And he expects us to pity him.

The Church of Trite Phrases III

They've changed the sign at that church again. Now it says, "The tongue weighs almost nothing yet few can hold it."

I think I've finally figured this place out.

The way to be a proper Christian is to stand quietly by and accept the world as it is. To not object or ask for change or be different. Just hold your tongue and accept the status quo and be like everyone else and wait for G-d to do it all for you.

I will leave my personal feelings about organized religion out of this. And I was not raised as a Christian. But my understanding of Jesus, as a person, was that all he did was speak out and try to change things. The entire foundation of Christianity, as far as I can tell, was about the exact opposite of everything this church preaches on its little lighted sign.