25 Things About Me

The rules, as stated by the Facebook instructions in the chain letter, state:

If you've been tagged, you are supposed to write a note with 25 random things, facts, habits, or goals about you.

I ignore most chain-letter requests like these, but I've received three in the past two days from friends with whom I haven't kept in touch as well as I ought to have (and I haven't written a blog entry in a few days), so why not? 

1. At 34 years old, I have never used any illegal drug and have never used any tobacco product of any kind.

2. I hate daytime and "reality" TV shows.  Prime-time TV isn't much better.  I can't understand how so many cable channels manage to stay in business, given the horrible shows they decide to air.

3. After college, I topped out at 212 lbs.  (Thank you, B.U. meal plan.  Thank you, Dunkin Donuts.)  I currently weight ever-so-slightly just under 180. 

4. I don't write nearly as well as I like to think I do.  My sentences tend to ramble, I use too many parenthetical asides (like this one!), I don't get to the point fast enough, and I don't transition from subject to subject as smoothly as I should.  In fairness, one is taught to find his or her "own voice" when writing ... well, I guess this *is* my own voice, because I speak like this as well.

5. My college years were essentially wasted, education-wise.  I was an engineering student for the first two years.  After much internal debate, I couldn't see myself being happy in that line of work, so I transferred to Communications as a journalism major.  Bad decision.  I don't know what I was thinking.  Given my need to fulfill requirements of the switch in majors, my responsibilities as a Resident Assistant (heightened by some of the cretins who lived on my floor), and the general sadness and malaise resulting from my father's death from a heart attack during my senior year, I lost a lot of motivation to do more than the minimum necessary to just get through.  I was never an intern or co-op, I had no clip file to speak of for prospective journalistic employers (see #6), and I didn't have the contacts that many others who spent four years in the program did.  A journalism career seemed unlikely from the start, and my engineering days left me unable to do simple multiplication, never mind Modern Physics or Electronic Circuit Theory.  So four years and countless thousands of dollars later ... I don't know.  I should have just taken it to Las Vegas instead.

6. I tried working for the B.U. newspaper, the Daily Free Press, but it
was a bit disastrous. I attempted to write actual news stories during my Junior year (my first year as a COM student), but my first two experiences were horrible.  The very first went unpublished (I don't recall the reason, nor the topic of the story).  The second assignment was to interview members of the Senior class to find out why they were upset that the traditional Senior Week clambake was to be alcohol-free.  I went to the Student Union and started asking "Are you a Senior?  Are you a Senior?"  It was tough to find a sampling of the population willing to answer my questions.  Eventually I got a couple of quotes from a few people, and the response was, in general, "yeah ... it's really not a big deal."

Apparently it *was* a big deal to whoever the editor of the Freep was at the time (a Senior, I assume).  The only "negative" quote I got was used and taken somewhat out of context, so when the story ran, it was much shorter than the one I had turned in, and it had a much different tone.  I got an angry voice mail from the person who was quoted.  I called her back and asked for her e-mail address, so I could send her the version I had actually written, prior to the edits that were made in the print version. 

On a personal level, this cleared things up with the person who was quoted, but it left a really bad taste in my mouth in regard to the process as a whole.

As a senior, though, I wrote a poorly-conceived, semi-half assed bi-weekly column in the Op-Ed pages.  Though they make me cringe to re-read now, this experience was actually a lot of fun and ultimlately led to my creation of a poorly-conceived, semi-half assed blog that seems to get published even less frequently.  Go figure.

7. I have been to Japan, Belgium, England, and France, but I have never been to Canada or Mexico.

8. Everywhere you turn in my apartment, you can find something with a Red Sox logo on it. 

9. I have never been arrested and have never received a ticket for a moving violation.  I got a parking ticket once, over ten years ago.

10. I used to have long hair, but genetics failed me.  Now, I buzz it down or shave it off altogether.  What used to be 7-8 inches long now rarely even gets to 7/8 of an inch!

11. I have no tattoos or piercings.

12. I often wonder how different my life would have been if I had been more aggressive and much braver in my teens and early 20s.  If I could have been more of the me that I am now back then, I probably would have had a lot more fun. 

13. I consider myself a liberal, not a Democrat.  The names "Democrat" and "Republican" seem too divisive to me, in a way.  "Democrat" is a party, "liberal" is a mindset.  I'm not so eager to claim loyalty to the former, but my values and morals lead me to embrace the latter.

14. I am not a religious person (here's some of the reason why), but have no problem with anyone else who is.  I do think that religion and politics is a potentially toxic mix, however.

15. I have literally thousands of bootleg concerts archived on DVD-R.  I am working on a comprehensive list in MS Excel format. 

16. I have downloaded music and not paid for it.  Most of it has been deleted almost instantly, however, because so much of it is terrible.  I'll see a band written up in a music-related blog, so I'll check it out to see if it's worth buying, and so often it's just awful ... so, so awful.  The vast majority of today's popular music doesn't excite me at all.

17. I am a movie snob. 

18. I left all of my wonderful friends and a city I absolutely love (Boston) in 2003 to move to Portland, Oregon ... to follow a girl.  We've been married since September 2006.  I still can't quite believe she puts up with my nonsense, but she does. 

19. I met my wife in Harvard Square at a book signing.  We were waiting to meet the eternally awesome Bruce Campbell (who is as cool and gracious in person as you could ever hope he would be). 

20. I miss Portland dearly.  I miss the rainy days, the gauntlet of homeless panhandlers downtown, and the coffee shops every fifty feet in any given direction.  I miss Powell's World of Books.  I miss Fred Meyer.  I miss the Mission and Cinema 21.

Mostly, I miss my friends.

21.  I have a co-writing credit for THQ's "WWE Smackdown vs. Raw 2008" video game.  My friend Bryan wrote the storylines for the game, and asked me if I'd be interested in helping him re-write some of the commentary by the announce teams.  I wrote more than 4000 lines of dialogue, but it was never used.  Apparently they couldn't get the voice-overs recorded on time, so all my work sits in a spreadsheet somewhere ... I haven't played the 2009 version, so I don't know if any of it was used for the newest version, though I doubt it.

Some of the "articles" I wrote for the WWE magazines used as in-game plot devices were used, though, so as you play the game, some of what you read is stuff I wrote.

Though it was disappointing to play the game and not hear the dialogue that I wrote added into it, it was a great experience.  I have the THQ contract, check stubs, and original electronic files to prove I actually worked on it.

Now if I could just unlock the closing credits and take a screen shot of my name in the scroll ...

22. I have small feet (size 8 or 8.5).

23. I own a lot of clothing that never gets worn.  Dozens of t-shirts, at least 14 polos, close to 20 button-downs, and 15 pair of pants. 

24. I have tried on numerous occasions to enjoy wine, but I just don't like it.  I'm also not a big fan of hard alcohol.  If you offer me any variety of Sam Adams beer, however, I will not turn you down.

25. I don't read nearly as much as I should.  I have so many bookshelves full of novels that I'll "get to eventually", but never seem to. 

Thank you, Dr. Lowery

I am not a religious person in the slightest, but I want to compliment Dr. Joseph Echols Lowery for a truly powerful and beautiful speech today during the inauguration. In a day full of high-points, his was perhaps the peak, at least in my eyes.

Thank you, Dr. Lowery, for an absolutely wonderful benediction.

***

God of our weary years, God of our silent tears, thou who has brought us thus far along the way, thou who has by thy might led us into the light, keep us forever in the path, we pray, lest our feet stray from the places, our God, where we met thee, lest our hearts, drunk with the wine of the world, we forget thee. Shadowed beneath thy hand may we forever stand -- true to thee, O God, and true to our native land.

We truly give thanks for the glorious experience we've shared this day. We pray now, O Lord, for your blessing upon thy servant, Barack Obama, the 44th president of these United States, his family and his administration. He has come to this high office at a low moment in the national and, indeed, the global fiscal climate. But because we know you got the whole world in your hand, we pray for not only our nation, but for the community of nations. Our faith does not shrink, though pressed by the flood of mortal ills.

For we know that, Lord, you're able and you're willing to work through faithful leadership to restore stability, mend our brokenness, heal our wounds and deliver us from the exploitation of the poor or the least of these and from favoritism toward the rich, the elite of these.

We thank you for the empowering of thy servant, our 44th president, to inspire our nation to believe that, yes, we can work together to achieve a more perfect union. And while we have sown the seeds of greed -- the wind of greed and corruption, and even as we reap the whirlwind of social and economic disruption, we seek forgiveness and we come in a spirit of unity and solidarity to commit our support to our president by our willingness to make sacrifices, to respect your creation, to turn to each other and not on each other.

And now, Lord, in the complex arena of human relations, help us to make choices on the side of love, not hate; on the side of inclusion, not exclusion; tolerance, not intolerance.

And as we leave this mountaintop, help us to hold on to the spirit of fellowship and the oneness of our family. Let us take that power back to our homes, our workplaces, our churches, our temples, our mosques, or wherever we seek your will.

Bless President Barack, First Lady Michelle. Look over our little, angelic Sasha and Malia.

We go now to walk together, children, pledging that we won't get weary in the difficult days ahead. We know you will not leave us alone, with your hands of power and your heart of love.

Help us then, now, Lord, to work for that day when nation shall not lift up sword against nation, when tanks will be beaten into tractors, when every man and every woman shall sit under his or her own vine and fig tree, and none shall be afraid; when justice will roll down like waters and righteousness as a mighty stream.

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around -- (laughter) -- when yellow will be mellow -- (laughter) -- when the red man can get ahead, man -- (laughter) -- and when white will embrace what is right.

The Last Day

I never wanted George W. Bush to fail.  I honestly never did.

I would never wish such a comprehensive failure upon any President at any point.  There's too much at stake domestically, and - especially these days - too much going on in the world for there to be too much room for error.

Yes, there are many initiatives proposed by the Bush administration that I'm glad did not come to fruition.  I'm glad that Harriet Myers is not on the Supreme Court, for instance.  I'm certainly glad that Social Security wasn't privatized (imagine the millions of seniors who would have lost literally everything they had when the stock market crashed).  But hoping that these particular things, among others, would fail to become reality because of my own morality and political conviction is much, much different from hoping that the President himself would be a failure.

I realize that, for any president, there are two serious, innate issues regarding the position:

1. Nobody can really be ready to be President on day one.  Or even year one, for that matter.  Where would one begin to learn what needs to be known?  There are so many issues one is expected to master in such a short amount of time that, even for a VP moving into the Oval Office like George H. W. Bush did after Reagan's second term, there's always going to be a learning curve. 

2. The world is a throws nothing but knuckleballs, and no matter how many contingency plans are drawn up, awful stuff happens that nobody will be prepared for or would ever "look forward" to happening.  9/11.  The current economic situation.  "Paul Blart, Mall Cop."

But how one prepares, and the willingness to accept help from those who know better and can share wisdom ... I believe that makes all the difference in the world.  And this is how George W. Bush ultimately failed.

George W. Bush failed because he was an ideologue, unwilling to listen to those with differing opinions, unwilling to bend his own opinions the slightest bit even in the face of the plain truth.  And then, when his idealogical decisions did not yield the results he expected, he lied, created alternate histories, relied on obfuscation to escape public examination, denied reality, and then went on vacation.

For instance, the way he consistently changed the reasons for the Iraq war:  first, it was to get the 9/11 terrorists.  Then, when America caught on to the fact that 9/11 was not Saddam Hussein's doing, it was because Iraq had WMD's.  When none were found, we were told that we went to war because we had to fight terrorists "there before we have to fight them here", ignoring the fact that Al Qaeda was not based in Iraq, and were not fighting from an Iraqi base until after the US decided to attack.

Or by altering scientists' reports on global warming and climate change because he didn't like what they had to say.

Or look up Major General John Batiste for more gory details.

George Bush failed by decided to simply look the other way to appease his "free market ideals" (until recently, when it was too late).  How else to explain recent complaints of corruption within the FDA?  ("In their letter the FDA dissidents alleged that agency managers use
intimidation to squelch scientific debate, leading to the approval of
medical devices whose effectiveness is questionable and which may not
be entirely safe.")

George W. Bush failed because he surrounded himself with yes-men who were either too afraid to tell him "no", or who were willing to manipulate the power they came to wield in order to gain politically, financially, or personally, rather than by using the power to help those who needed it most: the American public.

The accusations of cronyism in the Bush administration have echoed for years, and there is no need at this point to rehash the names ... the obvious, Michael Brown - head of FEMA post-Katrina - is just one of many.  But it is widely accepted that Brown was unqualified for the position to begin with, but he was a "Bushie", so he got the job.

George W. Bush failed because, frankly, he thought everything would be so much easier than it actually was, is, or ever could be.

George W. Bush failed because even as circumstances changed, he never did.

And this is but a drop in the bucket of scandal, outrage, and hackery that we've experienced as a nation over the last eight years.  Again, not worth rehashing, because what's done is done and I have already done all I can as one voice among millions:  I voted. 

I voted - very proudly - for Barack Obama.

Now, the overwhelming failure of the previous administration (a 22% approval rating doesn't happen by accident, or because of a handful of minor missteps) is being replaced by the much celebrated audacity of hope that we've heard so much about over these past few months.  I certainly have hopes of my own.

I hope that he will learn from the mistakes of the Bush administration.  I hope that the mistakes that he himself makes - and he will make mistakes, I have no doubt - are easily remedied or minimized.


I hope that President Obama lives up to the potential of President Elect Obama.

I hope that the media will finally do its job and harshly question the
President when it is appropriate to do so (which is ALWAYS).

I hope that the American public gives President Obama sufficient time to right the ship, and doesn't expect him to have everything fixed in just a few days.  It took eight years of mangling to get where we are now, and it can't all be fixed immediately. 

I hope that the Obama administration sets realistic and honest goals and time-frames to accomplish them -- none of these magical "we need six more months" (in Iraq) statements that never seemed to quite get the job finished.

I hope they don't waste time, either.

I hope that President Obama follows through on his promise to consult with the Republican minority and to give it a voice in his administration.  I hope that the Republicans accept Obama's offer to listen without becoming so cynical to think that Obama isn't really listening, and that he's only doing it to look good in the public eye.

I hope that the Republicans also realize that they were overwhelmingly voted out of office for a reason.

I hope that we head in the right direction, more than anything else.  Because despite what dudes like Ann Coulter and Sean Hannity say, I love this country.  Always have.  I just want to be proud of it again.

Tomorrow is a good first step. 

Link dump

The stuff one stumbles across ...

1. OK, so I was reading The Consumerist and came across this a about Microsoft's "Songsmith", some software of which I'd been blissfully unaware ("Microsoft Attempts to Kill Music Forever with Songsmith Commercial").

A post in the comments section led me to MeFi music, where someone had run the isolated vocal track from Van Halen's "Runnin' With the Devil" through the software.  Check out the results here, and make sure to turn your volume all the way up, even if you're at work.  It's important.  Trust me.

2. Via BoingBoing, I found this impressively incorrect (yet valiant) effort:

Star Wars: Retold (by someone who hasn't seen it) from Joe Nicolosi on Vimeo.

3. Via retrosabotage.com, Super Mario has to live with his decisions in a modified game level.

4. Via Instructables.com, how to make an amazing Atari 2600 lamp that looks like an old joystick.

5. Near and dear to my heart and my interests through the 80s, Scott Mortimer of Merrimack, N.H. is attempting to put together an entire set of 1983 Fleer Baseball Cards.  The catch?  To have each card autographed.

6. Who did that voice-over?  Find out on voicechasers.com.

Fire, Inc.

Everything gets tied together somehow, doesn't it?  In weird, subtle ways?  In ways that are unremarkable, won't change your life, and fill up a blog entry to make it seem like you've written something semi-substantial rather than just "here's a link to a video on YouTube?"  Know what I mean?

At the very least, there are moments collected through life that seem so disparate and unrelated that all the sudden seem to become one and serve as a direct bridge between your own personal interests that you start to wonder what kind of cosmic, karmic glue is holding everything together in the first place.  That "it really is a small world" kind of feeling.

Twenty-ish years ago were the days when there were only three TV networks, cable was in its relative infancy, and "Superstations" still roamed the planet.  Channel 38 in Boston was one of them and, as such, they aired a lot of feature movies and local sports events (Red Sox games with Bob Montgomery and Ned Martin, lots of Bruins games, etc.).  Most evenings they would air a movie (or two) on "The Movie Loft", hosted by Dana Hersey.  Anyone who grew up in New England in the 80s remembers his voice. 

My brother and I would stop everything we were doing if "The Warriors" came on.  A cult classic in every sense, and worthy of its own post at some point.  I think I gave my brother "Warriors"-themed Christmas gifts at least two or three times.  An old VHS tape for sure, defiinitely a poster, perhaps a t-shirt?

(If you've never seen "The Warriors", by the way, the film is 30 years old and you've had plenty of opportunities by now.  And also, shame on you.)

"The Warriors" was directed by Walter Hill, and co-starred Deborah Van Valkenburgh.  Five years later, the duo paired up again in 1984's "Streets of Fire".  I'd seen that one on the Movie Loft many, many years ago, too, but remembered little about it other than Rick Moranis was in it. 

But the music, and the soundtrack ...

I remembered a song from the soundtrack being quite the hit on WTAG, Worcester's a.m. easy listening pop station: "I Can Dream About You" by Dan Hartman.  The song was very catchy, and I remembered it because the Hartman is a white guy, and in the movie it's performed by a black doo-wop group. 

But that was it ... I had no recollection of the plot, the stars, the rest of the soundtrack ... anything, really. 

Thanks to the ability to stream Netflix movies via my XBox 360, I added "Streets of Fire" to my queue, figuring maybe I'd revisit it if the mood hit me.  Nicole beat me to the punch, seeing in my list, and asked if we could watch it the other night.

It was absurd, ridiculous, and absolutely fantastic in a way that only disposable 1980's movies can be.

So not only are Deborah Van Valkenburgh (as Reva Cody, sister of the film's "hero") and Rick Moranis in it (as Billy Fish, a music agent), so is Michael Pare (as Tom Cody, misunderstood rebel with a heart of gold).  Amy Madigan (as the singularly-named McCoy) plays almost the exact same character as Pare, except as a woman.  A very cute, very young (19 years old) Diane Lane is Ellen Aim, Cody's former love interest and current love interest of Billy Fish (her manager), and the leader of the band Ellen Aim and the Attackers, who are apparently worshipped as god-like figures in whatever the hell city this movie is supposed to take place in.

More, you say?  Willem Dafoe plays the villain, Raven Shaddock, who kidnaps Ellen Aim during a concert at the beginning of the movie, apparently just for shits and giggles.  I don't think they ever actually explain his motivations.  But if you were Shaddock, and thank your lucky stars you're not, you'd probably be ready to kidnap someone on a whim, too - having to wear latex overalls without a shirt and being surrounded by bikers whose motorcycles burst into flame with only the slightest provocation will do that to you.  Literal "Streets of Fire" in this movie throughout. 

(Not good enough?  Robert Townsend is in the doo-wop band, Richard Lawson (who was part of the paranormal research team in "Poltergeist") is a police officer in a town where EVERYONE has a shotgun, and Bill Paxton plays Clyde the Bartender, because why wouldn't he.)

The kidnapping takes place as the band plays "Nowhere Fast" - a song I didn't remember at all up until Nicole and I watched the movie the other night. 

Here's where it gets a little weird for me:  literally minutes after the song ended, the movie barely fifteen minutes in, I had to look the soundtrack up on IMDB.  "Nowhere Fast" was performed by Fire, Inc.

The lead singer of Fire, Inc.?  Laurie Sargent. 

The same Laurie Sargent I had seen countless times in concert in Boston in the earlier part of this decade with Orchestra Morphine after Mark Sandman died, then with their post-Morphine project, Twinemen. 

Some of the best shows I ever saw (and taped!) were OM and Twinemen at the Lizard Lounge in Cambridge, where I would literally sit in the front row of the tables set up around the "stage" (in reality, just an empty spot on the floor in the middle of the room) mere feet away from her microphone. 

Laurie Freakin' Sargent.  Who knew?  I wish I did, because if I knew then what I knew now (and had the song stuck in my head to nearly the point of torture - wonderful, wonderful torture), I'd have been compelled to say something to her about it.

This is an absolute gem of overlooked '80s awesomeness, and for days, I have not been able to get it out of my head. 

I downloaded an mp3 of the song and put it on my iPod, and it's all I can listen to.  Seriously.  A 24-year-old song I hadn't heard for the better part of two decades and didn't remember at all is now just about the only song I have heard for the past three or four days. 

Bring the dog out, listen to the song.  Wash the dishes, listen to the song.  Surf the internet, listen to the song.

I can't make it stop.

The Warriors -> Walter Hill -> Streets of Fire -> Fire, Inc. -> Laurie Sargent -> my ears

So here you have it, with my not-so-secret hope that maybe this gets stuck in your head, too: From the "Streets of Fire" soundtrack, "Nowhere Fast" by Laurie Sargent and Fire, Inc.

Aaron Perrino: I challenge you to dare Laurie Sargent to perform this song with you live with Dear Leader someday.  And if she says yes, make sure I know well enough in advance to be there with my minidisc recorder.

Burning and freezing. Also, anyone want a stupid dog, cheap? (Christmas '08, Part I)

We'll probably keep him, because we're suckers - and because we know that we can provide the best home for a dumbass dog such as he is, all things considered - but Joey's really been tempting us to take a trip to the hot dog factory lately.  I'm mostly just kidding (but not completely).

He survived our occasionally white-knuckle drive in the wintry mix on the way to see our families before Christmas with little difficulty (he's actually a great car dog), but once we got there all bets were off.

First, he still feels compelled to mark any "new" house, at least a little bit.  Second, he'll eat any food that he can reach (even stuff on counters), so we have to keep an eye on him constantly.  Third, he had to spend the better part of a week with his old friend/nemesis Rocky, who was kinda freaked out to see our white half-husky/half-jackass again, especially on his own home turf.  Fourth, in order to keep him calm during the day when there were so many people (and another dog) around, we had to both give him his anti-anxiety medication , Clomacalm (a life-saver if ever there was one), in the morning, and keep him on a leash in the house to make sure he didn't do anything stupid while unsupervised.

Ah ... but the devil is in the details.  (Or is it 'the best laid plans'?  Which cliche am I reaching for here?)

Nicole's mom came home from work while we were in the living room watching TV.  She came in to say hello and take her coat off, and she put an open bag (the re-usable grocery sack kind) on the floor.  On top of the pile of items in the bag was a little paper gift bag full of homemade cookies from one of her co-workers.  Not missing the opportunity, Joey (still on his leash) swooped in and grabbed it in his mouth.  Nicole managed to tear the cookies away from him, but the bag ripped and a shredded strip of paper fell to the floor between Joey's feet.  Nicole's father went to grab the debris and you can guess what happened.

Without so much as a growl or warning of any kind whatsoever, Joey chomped down on his hand and wouldn't let go until I smacked him a few times (pretty hard, with an open hand) across his backside.  The bite drew blood, which Nicole's dad ended up partially smearing across Joey's snout while trying to free himself, so it looked pretty bad when it was all over.

Joey had bitten me several months ago under different circumstances (long story short: I was trying to prevent him from choking on a bandage we'd applied to a cut he had on his leg, and he got defensive), but I thought that was just an unfortunate situation propelled by his own physical discomfort more than by any aggressive tendencies.  Turns out, he's just kind of a douchebag sometimes, I guess.  Also, there was no blood in my case.

In the end, a trip to the doctor's office the next day led to a prescription for light antibiotics but little else.  Joey's future is questionable regarding further trips to Massachusetts, to say the least.

Worthy of note, in an unfortunate kind of way, was the incredible streak of bad luck with Nicole's family as it related to hand injuries:

Days before, Nicole suffered second degree burns to her hand due to a work-related incident.  When one works in the food industry, as she does, there's an inherent risk of injury because of dangerous machinery, hot stoves and ovens, and everything that goes with using fancy-schmancy kitchen/factory equipment.  It should come as no surprise, then, to learn that her burns resulted from a freak oatmeal incident in the cafeteria.  Go figure.  Pretty nasty stuff, to be honest.  There's going to be a nice-sized scar, and her skin is slowly growning back over the pinkish strip of gross that she's currently keeping clean.

Not to be outdone, while we were visiting her family over the holidays, her mother burned her hand in a freak coffee-pot accident involving a mystery stream of scalding hot water, resulting in a nice patch of blistering skin on her wrist.  Fortunately (?), Nicole had burn cream of her own with her and was able to jump-start the healing process without the need for a doctor.  Then, the bite.  Nicole's two brothers survived somehow, and I tempted fate by not wearing gloves or keeping my hands in my pockets for the rest of the trip. 

***

The trip to Massachusetts was a mess.  The plans we'd made fell through for the most part, because of the weather and because of my family's work-schedule.  We had hoped to go to Worcester for the first half of the week to see my family, then go to Boston for the second half to see Nicole's, but the lingering cleanup from the previous week's ice storm and the threat of additional snow led us to take our chances on the slight window of opportunity we had to get out of New Jersey late on Saturday afternoon and go straight to her family's place. 

It had snowed pretty hard in New Jersey on Friday morning and afternoon, slightly harder in Massachusetts.  The forecast called for additional snow starting Sunday morning - up to ten inches, according to weather.com.  We knew that if we didn't get out on Saturday evening, by which time the roads had been pretty well plowed and salted from the previous day's storm, we'd probably have to sit out Sunday, and possibly Monday too, since everything was going to freeze over.  Since we're the only people in America without a four-wheel-drive SUV, apparently, we didn't want to risk travel on icy roads. 

We packed up and hit the road as the sun was setting, so it was dark for pretty much the entirety of the trip.  And when I say "packed up", I mean we could barely see out of the back window because of the bags full of gifts, clothes, and travel supplies.  Plus, Joey was in the back seat, which prevented us from putting bags there with him, in case he got curious and wanted to start gnawing on things.

Somewhere in New York state, past the Tappan Zee bridge, we pulled into a rest stop that apparently hadn't yet escaped the last Ice Age.  Not only were we freezing cold when we went to use the restrooms, I had to push the car from the front bumper while Nicole had the car in reverse with the pedal down because we had no traction in the snow that had built up from the snowfall the day before.  Then, when we finally got out of the parking space, I had to go to the back of the car and push while Nicole was in drive because we got stuck AGAIN.  Once we got back onto the highway we were fine, but we were questioning our decision to leave our apartment in the first place.

Then, in Connecticut, we couldn't tell if we were seeing black ice or just really wet, dark pavement.  In the right lane, cars were cautiously traveling at a snail's pace.  In the left, people were zooming by well over the speed limit.  So who knew?  All we knew was that we could barely see out of our back window, and had to be careful not only for ourselves, but for our dog.  The best moment, in retrospect, was Nicole trying to see the road more clearly, turning on the high-beams.  In a surprising development, we discovered that snow was actually falling fairly heavily, a fact we weren't aware of with just our regular beams on.  Ignorance being bliss, she said "Ohhh ... kay ..." and turned the high beams back off.  What we couldn't see couldn't hurt us.

Anyway, we finally made it to Boston a little after 10 p.m., and barely an hour after we arrived the streets were covered in at least an inch of fresh snow.  The next morning, I opened the curtains and raised the shade to reveal a sloppy wonderland that we'd barely missed along the way.  We didn't move the car again until Christmas day, which was a-ok with me.

The adventure will continue in Part II!