TRUUCKS!

Two years ago when Martin and I moved into this apartment on Monroe St. we were full of that risible enthusiasm you get when you move somewhere new. We thought this place was going to be great—we had space, 2 entrances, and a pink flamingo switchplate in the bathroom. I was particularly excited about the idea of moving away from the delivery trucks that idled outside my State Street Studio (the SSS) windows on most nights.

It didn't take long to realize that I had traded in late night diesel for early morning diesel. "TRUCKS!" quickly became a regular morning rallying cry at 1650, so much so that it made it into our wireless network's password: *Truckers3711 (I wasn't planning on telling you what it was, but I figure if you're reading this I'm probably OK with you connecting to Flying Poon Dragon whenever you're in the area). Our apartment enthusiasm withered; soon the inexplicably terrible recycling began, eventually the Egg War would break out. Along the way I never noticed exactly when the morning trucking stopped, but it did. Until this summer, when it came back like a bad case of the genital herp. Trucks: one of life's little hassles, just like Valtrex has been trying to tell us.

As usual, summer in Madison is beautiful, sunny, and full of road construction. Add to that a couple major constructions projects just down the street and you get... TTRRRRUUUUCCCKSSSS!!!! (that's an unrated version). Below I've created a googlemap showing the locations of torn up streets (RED), soon-to-be buildings (BLUE, PURPLE, GREEN), and the truck routes to/from them (PINK). N.B. their convergence around 1650 Monroe St.

View Madison Construction, OR: TRUCKS!! in a larger map

What's the point of all this?

⓵ A warning: if you happen to be sleeping over, make sure you don't wake up after about 6:30. You won't fall asleep again.

⓶ Last week while driving around central Nebraska, Katie stochastically yelled "TRUCKS!!!" at the top of her voice. I almost lost control of the car. I blame the night she spent on Monroe St. We already knew trucks could be dangerous; this experience taught us that the trucks rally cry could always be appropriate.

⓷ It comes in so many varieties(!):

The Digitally Remastered Collector's Edition: TRUCCKKS!
The Unrated Version: TTTTRRRUCKS@#!
The Hidden Track: TRUUU...                  ...CKS!
The Wide Screen: TTTTTTTTTRRRRRRRRRRRUUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCCKKKKKKKKKSSSSSSSS!!!!
The Director's Cut: TRUCKS!, TRUCKS!, TRUCKS!

⓸ Try one sometime, it feels good.

Surprise Parading

Around midnight central time Madison, WI broke out in spontaneous celebration.

Spontaneous Parading from wbarnebey on Vimeo.

And after a lap around State St. we liberally congratulated ourselves:

Tunnel of Love from wbarnebey on Vimeo.

Thrifting in Out of the Way Locales

This afternoon I rode over to The Bethesda House of Thrift  out on the eastside to do some perusing of previously worn garments and to continue my support of the sharing of Christ's love. I was in search of some Halloween accoutrement: a suit, some skinny ties, a pocket square, some un-nyloned socks to go with my sock garters. And there was great success, including a $1 suit (an orange tag special!) and my very first cardigan of my own. I think this trip was not only the highlight of my day, but also that of the little old ladies who work there. They really appreciated how good I look in a suit, even if it's one that was made in the '60's. 

On the way home I got caught in Madison's first snow flurries of the season.

This is my bike handlebar.

The Postman; Who Knows How Many Times He'll Knock

Ye Olde United States Postal Service and I have always had a somewhat hot and cold relationship. Luckily for them I'm a sucker for stamps and really like to mail things. I mean the actual mailing action, like putting envelopes or postcards(!) into mailboxes. I like it. Also, the little socialist in me likes a diktatorial national institution. The downside is that sometimes they deliberately try to keep you from getting your mail. For instance:

The Bait and Switch:
This episode began about 3 weeks ago when Il Postino tried to deliver a package to me while I wasn't home that needed a signature. Then he tried again 3 days later and left me a final notice. Which usually only comes after 3 attempts. The ingenious part of this plan though was switching the postal station were holding my package at for no apparent reason and no significant notification. This package was being hid at Madison's West side station, instead of the South side station which is both closer to my apartment and where I have always picked up my undelivered packages. Touché USPS, touché. You succeeded in returning my package to the sender before I could get to it, 1 point to you.

The Scavenger Hunt:
Today brought a new and exciting game to the mail delivery system. My mail (for apartment A) was delivered to Apt. C's mailbox. I got Apt. B's in my box, and I can only assume that Apt. B got C's mail (although I couldn't verify this due to a locked mailbox). I'm dying to know what ended up in Apt. AA! My postal game wasn't over yet though. I had been forewarned that I may be receiving an important package from Iowa City today, so I was on the lookout for it. Which is lucky because it was hiding on the 2nd floor landing, 2 stories above my apartment. Nice try Postman but I win this round.

Wisconsin News

MSN may have the 3rd highest average ticket price but I bet it has at least the 3rd most convienient bike rack also. Madison isn't exactly an airline hub of sorts, so it's not surprising that its flights aren't cheap. But how is Cincinnati #1? Doesn't a Delta hub do anything for you? Also, Atlantic City's average is only $100. But you can only fly to Florida (and possibly beautiful central Delaware), which isn't really that useful.

Milwaukee is revealed as the most coupon clipping-est city in the country (40% of adults say they do it). Followed closely by Rochester, NY (38%). The article correlates this to unusually high readership of Sunday newspapers in these cities. Which makes sense, but why is Sunday paper readership in these cities so high to start with? That's what I want to know.

Light of My Life

Lightning has been a consistent part of my life recently. Last week Julia and I were having dinner at a place right on the Sound when it started to drizzle. This didn't seem so unreasonable, being that we were in Seattle. We had an umbrella over our table, so we stayed outside; we were the only ones to chose this course of action. The weather situation quickly deteriorated from this bucolic scene into a full fledged storm. At one point we're pretty sure a bolt of lightning hit the top of our umbrella. Here is a picture I found of the storm on Flikr:

The waitstaff assured us that lightning is really very rare in Seattle, which I guess I believed, but was still a little surprised by this map of lightning flash densities:

That's dramatic, and something I had never really considered before. How do you feel about kids growing up on the West Coast who don't see lightning?

On our flight back from MSP to MSN there were some storm delays. Once we finally got up into the sky it was like a fireworks display off our starboard bow (Do airplanes have port and starboard sides? Do they have bows and sterns?). I can remember see lightning while flying before, but this was sort of ridiculous. Also ridiculous was the pilot, who continued to turn into the storm until we were bouncing along on top(?) of it. And while we're on the topic, it has become clear that Northwest Airlines pilots are the worst landers in all of commercial aviation. Seriously. Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of this storm.

My third and final lightning story. Last night Madison had a doozy of a storm. It woke me up around 4:15 AM. This was confusing because my clock said 3:01 (power outage?) and annoying because I was supposed to wake up at 5:05 anyway. Here is a picture taken last night, again from Flickr:

That's it. I don't have any other point.

Dancin' In the Streets

No one knew at the time how influential this 6 second clip would be to the world of Swaydom. It's a lifestyle that's sweeping the nation.