Hello from B-more

Arrived yesterday. Hanging out now in the L&S living room, with L&S&A&G (half of whom are friendly animals). Each quietly doing his/her own thing, though I will have to politely ask where the nearest power outlet is if this goes on much longer. And here's all that I wrote on the train yesterday.

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Just got on the train. Though I was in la-la goo-goo land while most of my fellow passengers were queueing up and so managed to miss being at the head of the line, I still snagged a window seat, which is to say: a seat with an electrical outlet. Plugged into it immediately so nobody gets any ideas. Now, my ticket says "reserved coach", and I dunno if that means I have an assigned seat, which would be the suck. I suppose I'll find out soon enough.

Hey, we're moving, right on time. Excellent. Let me tell you about some things I have seen lately, while traveling around locally.

A couple of weeks ago, in the Porter Square T station, I encountered a Tuva throat singer, accompanying himself on guitar. Quite a sound, and quite a sight, a leathery old chap with braids in his long white hair. I have not seen him since. I hope he shows up again, maybe instead of that increasingly ubiquitous blues guitarist with the claw-hammer voice. (I actually kind of like his music too, but I've shared a station with him four or five times this month.)

Yesterday, I walked past a long line of cars, held up by a driver who was unsure about the legality of red-light maneuvering at that particular intersection. (Can't blame the person; often as not, in these parts, intersections are posted NO TURN ON RED, enough so that one might assume it to be the rule rather than the exception.) The car did not respond to impatient honks, but it did finally slouch forward when a girl from some distance back cried out Right on red, duuuude! And I had to laugh at this because I was coincidentally thinking about the surfer-dude sea turtles from Finding Nemo, which I saw the previous night. (Again, but on a weeknight this time, and lo, I could hear the dialogue, and this made me glad I went. I led applause for the Boston-accented lobsters' one line.)

Just passed through Back Bay station. It reminds me of my first by-myself train trip, ten years ago, starting where my dad dropped me off at South Station (all the way from Bangor, Maine; this was a year before I got my driver's license) and going doing the central Florida for a couple of weeks to hang out with two groups of friends -- the high school pals I made senior year through my first forays into the BBS world, and a couple of professional animation hopefuls whom I met during my first years on the Internet in college. (One of them has since made it -- albeit in a freelance fashion -- and I'm proud of this; I like to brag that I know an animator, in the same way that I like to boast about knowing a zookeeper. (And I do know one, so: ha!))

Was that the most recent time I went to Disney World? Perhaps. No, that was the next year, 1994, the summer where I didn't do anything. Except go to Disney World. The summer of 1993 was a turning point in my life, though, even beyond that Florida trip. It was my first summer away from home -- I spent it as a UMaine employee, living on-campus -- and contained my first visit as a fully sentient adult to Boston, when our little group of university IT gnomes visited the MacWorld Expo. This would leave a lasting impression on me about Macs, Boston, travel, and life in general. Yep.

Now we're going through Providence. And this should give you proof that I am the world's slowest writer. Ta daaaa.

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Now idling in 30th St. station, Philadelphia. Between Providence and now I read some fiction (just starting the last book of UKleG's Earthsea Trilogy, and it's failing to hold my attention, but I suppose I'll get there eventually), and worked a lot on the MIGS proof of concept piece. Of note is the fact that this saw me using the fork() function, for the first time in any language. (Really, J? And you've been a programmer how long? Shut up, you.) Amused by the fact that it works a lot like the insta-cloning devices from David Brin's The Kiln People: You call it, and then you have to check whether "I" (the currently running program) is the original process or the brand-new copy of same, and act appropriately. That's pretty fun.

I "should" be working on my media log, probably; I've already let myself get rather behind in it... thpth. But I don't feel like it. Ho hum. One hour of this trip left, according to the itinerary. Guess I'll just relax and iPod the rest of the way.