Garth Bigelow - Thoughts

This month needs a serious proofreading, but I have spent so much time on catching up, I haven't even had time for a second reading through. I will get to this next week. This weekend the computers will be down as I put the new system in place.

Karen emails. It's all a mistake. She misaddressed (Annie had a similar story, I don't know why more people don't use either the address book or just hit reply. I never type in an address from memory. It's both more prone to mistake and simply more difficult to do.) an earlier email telling me she wasn't coming. While my anger dissipates, I'm still unsettled. I can't quantify the problem, or the emotions. The situation I am looking for is so artificial and unsustainable that it probably can't exist in nature. I know I'm not making sense. So I drive the problem from my mind today, and most likely tomorrow. Then I will attack it fresh, and hopefully figure out what is bothering me and what course of action should be taken. It is possible that it is best that I remain alone, but I don't like that answer. But as I say I'm not dwelling on this consciously today.

Fred arrived, with a piss poor excuse for his absence the other day. I like Fred but I wonder if I wouldn't have changed to another trainer if any traveled to this seemingly business forsaken area. For the first work out in a month it went surprisingly well. Hopefully it won't take too horribly long to get back to where I was and beyond. Strangely (or not so I guess) I'd like to have a few muscles when Tracy arrives.

I've put off doing laundry each day this week, redefining what it is wearable shirt each day. Today I force myself to ready a single load to take over to Shaun's house. As I am preparing to leave he calls me saying that Mike is on his way to ready my machine to be able to remotely control two of Shaun's computers. It only ends up taking minutes although we have the problem of controlling my printer instead of his, but I have a week or so to conquer that.

Shaun and I talk while the laundry cleans and dries. It doesn't seem to me he is any better, not that much time has passed or that he has managed the requisite sequestering himself from stress. But I was hoping that hope itself would have some positive effect.

I wake up this morning and reread last nights email for Karen. Now I'm angry, and I start to work on a reply. Then I realize that we really don't have any type of relationship and so I have no grounds to be angry on. And I think on that for awhile. I try to figure out what's missing from her email; the why. Can't be she forgot because she said she had been following along with he updating my site; hard to forget someone when your reading about them. But I realize what bother me most is my complete powerlessness in this situation, which springs from the fact that I really have nothing to offer in this "relationship." And I start to feel needy and really hate that feeling.

I come to the conclusion that I'm not getting what I need from this situation. Immediately following of course, is the realization that I have no idea what my needs are. So now I'm pissed and depressed and have no idea of a course of action. I never end up with a sendable email. She'll read this of course, I guess that will have to do. Maybe my illness will take pity on my and strike this day from my memory.

Also just to do something productive I bite the bullet and order the computer I keep putting off. I didn't want to spend the money, and it always feels like a better deal is seconds away when getting a machine, but the main machine was destroyed in the lightning strike and there is so much to have in place before Tracy gets here to take full advantage of that situation. So $1400 later I will have a computer powerful enough for menu editing. The current menu editing computer will replace the destroyed machine and everything should be hunky-dory production wise. It should be here in two weeks.

First Kevin was supposed to come by at lunch to finalize a trade for DVD masters that we had started before my trip. Never called and I couldn't reach him on the phone. Fred was supposed to come around 3 and get me back on the track to exercising. No call, and I can't reach him on the phone either which never happens (not the not showing, that happens way too frequently but I can always reach him on the cell phone).

Then Karen was supposed to come over that night. I spend most of the afternoon and evening working on updating this site, trying to catch up from the trip, and when I look up I realize it's 8:30 and no Karen, nor any email or call. So I email, and I get this response that basically tells me how great it would be is she was here. No explanation of why she isn't, why she didn't email to tell me, or anything like that. And all this after yesterday's email about how much I'm missed. Add in that this is the third cancelled get together and I'm a bit miffed. But it's night and I don't trust my thought processes at night, so I ignore the email and go to bed.

I damaged my website during my trip and so stopped posting. While I took some notes, this was finally posted on Sept 1st, so the events are recalled through my faulty memory.

Originally I was going to take the boat to Wood's Hole, have Fred pick me up and later take my to Logon. be had seemed so taken back by how much he had spent, and I was feeling a little flush as my money had been no good since I got off the plane (Every time I didn't eat alone someone else picked up the tab) that i decided that it would be easier on me and Fred if I simply shelled out the cash to fly up to Logon. The only downside was that the schedule would have me waiting for many hours once I got there. And Fred would have to mail the items I left at his place to Florida.

Mom had had to take an early boat for a doctor's appointment in Middleboro, but Annie had offered to take me to the airport. So great is my faith in her that I never made a backup plan - very unlike me. But my faith was well placed as she showed up exactly at 8am and off we went. After a quick but nice goodbye I tried to make sense of the airport, got my boarding pass and figured I had time for a quick breakfast at the airport restaurant. My bagel arrived much slower than I expected and I literally wolfed it down to get to the gate on time. The gate personnel however were not on time. 15 minutes later we started the ritualistic removal of shoes and metal designed to make us feel safer flier. Then they had us sit in a waiting room as the time to leave came and went. As I had tons of time to kill this did not bother me, beyond the complete lack of anyone telling us what was going on or even if we were in the right spot. One newspaper, and few pages of a magazine later we were allowed to walk out on to the tarmac and climb into the plane. I've taken the flight 3 times before. In my youth we called this White Knuckle Air because it's course of following the coastline makes for a very bumpy flight in the little 9 seater aircraft. However this flight could not have gone smoother and the landing was particularly impressive. Now I had 5 hours to kill. I had figured that some of that would be spent finding the terminal that JetBlue was in, but it turned out to be right there next to CapeAir. Had I not had to walk the mile or so to the baggage claim and back, I would have had to only go about 20 feet.

I proceed to get my boarding pass explaining to the clerk that I have hours to kill. He asks if I wish to be on the 10:30 flight instead. Had I been thinking straight this would have been a no brainer, but I'm thinking that I have no way to contact John who is picking me up, and I'd rather kill time in Logon than in the Orlando airport. The correct answer of course is always keep your options open, if I take the flight might be able to reach John, if I don't I'm stuck in Logon. And then what never even occurred to me, bad weather and an idiot trying to bring dynamite on a plane somewhere might delay flights all over the country.

So I kill time. It's now 2:45, both the big board and the boarding clerks are adamant that the plan will take off on time at 2:40 despite the plane not even having landed at Logon yet. By 3:15 the plane will be there "any minute", the big board still insists the arriving plane will be on time and that our plane will leave on time. Just shy of 4pm they let us board and twenty minutes later we are in the air.

We land and I take time to put in both earplugs and position my iPod before heading to baggage claim. Big signs tell us to go to baggage claim A11. Twenty minutes or so later the Carousel alarm goes off, signally that baggage will be coming out. Several minutes later they do this again. The belt hasn't moved. Every 5 to 10 minutes they ring the alarm. God bless my iPod. Then a guy with a large baggage cart comes in from outside, looks squarely at a sign on the door (I happened to be watching out of boredom) saying 'Do not open or alarm will sound" and opens the door. An alarm shrill enough to hurt me through the plugs and iPod goes off. Many people react in signs of pain. In the twenty minutes it takes, during which we suddenly shift to the carousel one over (I've got the volume up on the iPod, I never heard the notice) for the baggage to finally come out, the alarm is never turned off and never saw anyone approach or look at the door from our side.

I grab my bag, and get the hell outside. It's humid as hell but I'm an hour and half late for John to pick me up and I can only pray he is still circling (note to sell - only use picker uppers that have cell phones in the future.) and so don't dare wait near the door as in the original plan. I take off the iPod. I can still hear the alarm but it's fainter. I remove an earplug only to have a uniformed man blow a whistle mere feet from my ear. I'm sure some time passed. Thankfully John arrived soon after and I basically collapsed into the car. I remember John having a lot to say, but I wasn't really coherent.

I had let Shaun's stepson Mark stay at my house while I was away. Jehovah Witnesses are noted for their habit of really cleaning up after they use a place. The kitchen was cleaner than it had been since I moved in. I had my counter back - for a few minutes anyway.

That's my last coherent thought. After that it's a blur until morning. perhaps I went straight to bed.

I damaged my website during my trip and so stopped posting. While I took some notes, this was finally posted on Sept 1st, so the events are recalled through my faulty memory.

This time I had put the large pillow under my feet allowing me to stretch out fully on the couch, and with the aide of extreme sleepiness I was able to fall asleep on my back - a feat I would have thought impossible except that I accomplish it watching TV in my reclining chair rather often. It was the best nights sleep I was to have on the Island.

Lloyd and Uncle Charlie were leaving on the 11am ferry, a final breakfast was scheduled for 8 at Linda Jean's. I can't remember why my mother did not come. Perhaps she was wiped out from the cookout. I took the caravan to Circuit Ave, and with the aide of the early hour and possible certain parking superpowers inherited from my mother I was able to find a parking spot in front of the Reliable Market, a short hop from Linda Jean's. On the way I snuck up on Cindy as we secured a table. Everyone was remarkably on time. I think this was the first meal on the Island that I didn't go into full and it was delicious. New England just doesn't do hash browns, and while Florida has a few places that serve them (Waffle House, etc.) it's still mostly home fries in both areas. But northern home fries are so much better, and Linda Jean's home fries are some of the best; heaven.

After breakfast Lloyd needed to retrieve his laundry from Cindy's and I tagged along. I love listening to Lloyd's stories and mostly in the past I've done just that - listen. I'm a bit intimidated by Lloyd's life experiences. It makes me feel guilty about my intellectual laziness, and I usually don't feel qualified to interject much. It was odd to hear Lloyd talking from a point of view that insecurity and pettiness where his major motivators. I'm not sure whether it was this or just my own closeness to the death but I was talking a lot more and really enjoyed are talks. Like most of my family, Lloyd has many more memories of me than I do of him. We sat under a large tree in Cindy's yard with a wonderful breeze and it was very pleasant.

Cindy and I waited by the sea wall to the left of the Oak Bluffs docks while we waited for Lloyd and Uncle Charlie to gather their things and check out of the hotel. The beach that I had spent so much of my younger youth is completely washed away. The docks where I did a lot of underage drinking in my high schools years, also very different from that time. And yet it did seem as alien as I would have expected. The water still sounded the same, the docks were still docks.

At 83 Uncle Charlie looks amazingly well. He would look great for a man in his sixties. It's really rather amazing. We said our goodbyes and off the Island they went.

I went back to Shirley's meaning to just catch up on eBay, but decided to lie down and stare at the fan for awhile. The next thing I knew it was 5 hours later. The day before I had gotten what was possibly Andrue's number from the computer at Island Entertainment. For some reason I had procrastinated on calling, but as I was leaving tomorrow, I waited no longer. The number was still valid but I got a machine. I left a message, but knowing Andy's schedule I figured that would be the end of it. I drove back to mom's and we talked for a long time.

I wasn't even aware of having fallen asleep but I must of because my mother said that Sarah, Andrue's wife, had called, and that mom had not been able to wake me. I called the number and got Sarah. I've only met Sarah a handful of times and to be honest I had not really taken a liking to her. No reason, and quite possibly jealousy. But she really showed unique insight in making sure than Andy and I got together, despite as I would later learn it their anniversary.

We sat out on the front "porch" and talked and talked. Reminiscing about the old days, and with Andrue that covers a lot of ground; I knew him in 4H when I was 6, I went to High School with him, he visited me in college, I lived with him on the Cape when went that went bad, We spent some time in Chicago, he was the reason I wrote Ultimate Universe, he followed me into Scientology, I was part of his escape. And we talked about his life now, and how much he loves Sarah. We said he never imagined he would have kids. Surprising since it was all he ever talked about from college on. One tidbit that came up was that it turns out the Tanya Tilton was the first major crush for both of us (I spent one year in Tisbury as a child so Andrue and I were both in 2nd grade together.) Neither of us had ever mentioned that to each other (nor to her I imagine.) For the second time that day, hours flew by unobserved until we finally became aware of how dark it had become. It was after 9pm.

I damaged my website during my trip and so stopped posting. While I took some notes, this was finally posted on Aug 31th, so the events are now recalled through my faulty memory.

I awaken at dawn, stiff, a bit tired, but still remarkably good considering I've only had one slightly bad day during this entire trip. I'm going to meet Annie at nine. Mom and I talk for a bit, and she's talking about getting someone over to put these sliders under the desk. It doesn't seem like a tough task, but it takes me longer than it will to do the job to convince her of that. She doesn't have the the right type of sliders - she has ones for legs and the desk has these L shaped supports, but I make it work.

I then leapt in the Van and head off to Island Entertainment. On the first uphill the van starts acting strangely - it bogs down when I step on the gas and then eventually suddenly starts building up speed. It does this on each hill. I have many theories based on my lack of knowledge about cars, but built upon having driven many vehicles, for many many miles over the years. I had a torque converter go once, it felt something like this while it was dying. A clogged fuel filter could feel like this. More than anything it feels like the van is running out of gas, but the needle says half full. Eventually I get to the very busy intersection of Vineyard Haven-Edgartown Road and State Road. The Island has an unwritten policy against traffic lights. No matter the damage, no matter the lives, no matter the sanity and ease of flow, no traffic light will protect it's streets. In my opinion if it were to suddenly bow to reality and allow them this intersection would be the second one installed. There are four cars at the stop sign ahead of me, depending on the kindness and generosity (i.e.; the number of Islanders) of the cars in the slow constant flow of traffic that has the right of way it will take between 5 to 20 minutes to clear this last impediment on my journey. The van starts acting like it is going to stall. Finally my turn comes and a vehicle waves me into traffic, I step on the gas and the van rolls into the intersection and dies. I throw it into neutral and crank it; plenty of juice but it doesn't catch. I picturing traffic rapidly backing up all the way to worse intersection on the Island. Next I realize that anywhere the vehicle can go is uphill. followed by that: no one can get around me in any direction. I wait for the car horns that will send me into blackness.

Miraculously no one honks. Completely blocking traffic has the advantage, that while it feels like forever, several people quickly arrive to my aide. One forms a plan that we can back the beast into two u-turns that will land it through the slim stone pillars into the one available vacant lot. This requires being able to turn the wheel three times fully one way and then the other - power steering with no power (several silent thanks to Fred's work on upper body strength are given) and following directions involving left and right while seated backward and talking about which way the van should go. Regular right and left are not my strongest ability, three times removed is not a puzzle I'm good at. But with much frustration and effort we almost achieve the task, grinding the van into the very edge of the curbing between the pillars. But it's out of the way.

I call Mom. She is going to come get me. I realize I given here the wrong location. I call back; luckily she is still there. I go over what she said and realize I can remove myself from this equation as AAA is going to get the car. I can walk the rest of the way to Annie's. I always want to remove myself from stress. I call Mom again, and luckily again, she has not made it out the door yet. And off I head, slightly less than a mile but all uphill. I pop into Cronig's for some water, and burst into flame as I enter. Despite the cold air-conditioning (much cooler than Annie's will be, if they even have the A/C on) I am sweating profusely. Just the sort of look I want. I hang out there as long as I can, but I don't seem to be acclimatizing any so I bite the bullet and walk the last few yards to Island Entertainment.

It is the usual chaos I remember from the place, and Annie is three calls deep and dealing with customers. I sit in front of the fan and concentrate on not sweating. I hung out for a couple hours and honestly couldn't tell what if anything we talked about. Being around Annie always regresses my mind back somewhere around first grade. I love that feeling, once confused it for real feelings, and appreciate the calming effect even more so now from within the storm of my mind. Words are unimportant here.

Still it isn't terribly long before the chaos presses in on me and say my goodbyes. I walk one more block up to Woodlawn and order a Pilgrim Sandwich. This completes the three foods I wanted from this trip (Prime Rib from Benjamin's, Fried Clams from Jerry's (Wimpy's was close enough though I still feel a little cheated) and a Pilgrim from Woodlawn). For those that do not know, this is a Thanksgiving dinner in sandwich form and it's a true taste treat. After savoring the sandwich I called mom to pick me up. We went and poured dry gas in the Van and were able to get it started and back it up further into the lot. Mom said her local mechanic Binky would not be able to get to it for a few days.

After visited I retreated back to Shirl's but she was there. her house consists of a bedroom and bathroom that form the rear house, and then a multiroom main house that she rents out. So I spent a few hours there in the living room of the main house. Not as calming as her room, but much better than nothing. I watched TV, dozed a bit I think and regrouped.

That night we were invited to a cookout a Joseph's. Joe is on my Aunt Jeanne's side of the family. I don't have a good grasp of that part of the family line (I'm weak on most aspects on my family genealogy despite the best efforts of my mother to get me interested) but if I have it right Cindy and Shirley are Jeanne's daughters and Joseph is Shirley's kid. I was pretty out of it by the time we reached his house, and their were both kids playing and house construction going on so I kept both earplugs in which removed me even further from the festivities. Mostly I took the opportunity to eat very little and see if I could recover from my state of continual fullness. But everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves.

I took ten pictures at the cookout - these two survived.

A lousy picture of Shirley, but the only one that came out.	Marsha, Cindy and Uncle Charlie

I damaged my website during my trip and so stopped posting. While I took some notes, this was finally posted on Aug 30th, so the events are now recalled through my faulty memory.

I awoke as usual at first light. While Mom had two TVs watching it from the midst of the visual clutter with no place comfortable to sit of lie made TV meditation only marginally better than nothing. Mom returned home around 7 and said we were going to some restaurant near Net Result with Cindy, Shirley, Lloyd, and Uncle Charlie. The idea being that there was outside places to sit to get away from the noise. Unfortunately the outside places were not under anything and so sun became an issue for me, but one of the picnic tables was slightly blocked by a tree and had a very nice view of the lagoon which has very nice associations from my childhood for me.

The place itself was chaotic and noisy and seemed only to serve breakfast sandwiches, which I was not in the mood for. desperate to get out of there I settled on a bagel and dumped my order on Mom (whom I think was preparing to do the same thing to me (with her hearing aides she has a problem with noise as well)). I had the camera with me but handed off picture taking responsibilities and thought that several pictures where taken, but instead the camera ended up in motion picture mode by accident. But that gives us a 30 second shot of everyone except Mom and Uncle Charlie.

This clip is about 4 megs, so if you have dialup you might want to avoid clicking on it. Video Clip.

It seemed like I had just gotten back to Mom's went there was plans to go to lunch at Nancy's, only I was thinking Linda Jeans, so luckily I was being driven by Lloyd and I ended up at the right place. There is some bad blood between me and daughter and the owner of Nancy's going back to my childhood (as my mother reminded me later) but this was not on my mind at the time.

We were joined by Lloyd's friend Arlene who was on the Island for the day. I had coconut shrimp and a real Caesar salad; delicious. Everyone but me had a lot of drinks. This led to a tricky problem at the end of the meal. We had two cars, one had to moved within the hour, Uncle Charlie needed to return to his room to rest, Lloyd to freshen up. Nobody felt sober enough to drive, and I don't drive if anyone else is in the car. It was like one of those mental puzzles (you've got a goat, and tiger and a head of lettuce and boat big enough for one...) and nobody was on mental footing enough to the ideas to come around full circle with anyone remembering the plan when it did so.

One of things that came out of lunch conversation was that Shirley had a uncluttered area I could relax in that also had high speed Internet. I don't remember who drove who, but I ended up back at Mom's van which I had left in Cindy's yard which is right next to her sister Shirl's house.

The place was cozy and an so peaceful on the senses. I'm not sure I would have lasted another day without this place. I connected in and did eBay and then stretched out on the bed and was going to watch TV, but the soft colors, gentle breeze was too calming and the ceiling fan provided a great focus point so I ended up meditating until Shirley came home several hours later.

I wandered over to the Cindy's to say goodbye and an offer to stay with Uncle Charlie at the motel was extended to me (not sure where Lloyd was planning on staying but I suspect he is the type to sleep anywhere. I weigh in my head whether sleeping on an uncomfortable bed or sleeping in a room with someone else is the lesser of two evils recoverywise. As mom has said she has done the "hard part" of cleaning off the couch, I decide to give the couch a try.

Originally I had borrowed the camera to take pictures of places I had marked on the map I setup of my childhood. But I didn't feel up to it. This turned out to be a bad decision as I never did feel like it and procrastinated each day, as so have no pictures.

I'm sure that the couch had been worked on, but my eye was too untrained to discern the difference. But an hour or so later, taking care to try to preserve the integrity of the piles the couch was now cleaned, and after some searching I turned up some sheets. While better than the bed, the couch too was not very easy to sleep on. Another four sleeping pills helped but not terribly.

I damaged my website during my trip and so stopped posting. While I took some notes, this was finally posted on Aug 30th, so the events are now recalled through my faulty memory.

No breakfast this day, packed up my room at the Cascade while watching Angel, not as relaxing as straight watching but puts the mind at ease some. I used my foldable laundry hamper to pack up my laundry and a few other items I would not need on the Island. I would leave this at Fred's, to pick it up when returning to the airport. This left room in my suitcase for the king sized film pillow that Jia had purchased at my behest. Once packed it took two trips to get everything down the stairs to the car.

I got to Fred's earlier than needed, but he can get locked into these amazingly long winded conversations, and I like to plan for everything. I dropped off my clothes, which left me with the two rolling carts; very manageable. I presented Fred with the bill, almost $400. he was as surprised as I had been when he offered to pay for everything. It's very strange for Fred to be off his game when it comes to money. It worries me that he might be working himself much too hard.

After he cleaned a car we drove down to the Hy-line Ferry. I had sprung for the high speed ferry (an option that was not available when I lived here) both because it had a better schedule and because it was half the time I would have to be in chaos. It turns out this twin hulled baby is very quiet, a completely different experience from the old vessel I was used to. I ended up only using one ear plug to protect me from one guy screaming into a cell phone and one child crying.

Mom picked me up and we went back to her apartment directly. I'm used to her place being extremely cluttered, but it seemed overly so this time. This was the first time I was aware of feeling the kind of pressure of I do from noise from a visual source. Sort of a visual noise if you will. She had lost a few days to the hip trauma and so the place was not in the condition she had wanted. Also she had purchased a new computer desk and a handyman was busy assembling it. I felt the need to flee and had to find where I was going to connecting to the Internet, so I borrowed the car and headed out. I decided to stop and see if Annie was at Island Entertainment. I bumped into her sooner than I was expected as she was just inside the door.

I got the longest hug of my trip that made me feel much more centered. Annie has a real earth mother appeal to her, that at one time use to return me to my childhood, and now has a equally calming yet rather different effect. We made an appointment to get together on Wednesday and she gave directions to the West Tisbury Library as a source to get online, which I would not have thought of.

This worked out very well. It was easy to find, I was able to plug the laptop in and catch up on the eBay. As a benefit I was able to return back to Mom's via the airport roads and thus bypass the insane island traffic.

Sleeping presented it's own challenges. Mom was staying at her friend Marsha's, but her bed is about as wide as I am and rests against a bookshelf in the middle of the room primed to fall over if touched. I took 4 sleeping pills but still did not get a good nights sleep.

I damaged my website during my trip and so stopped posting. While I took some notes, this was finally posted on Aug 29th, so the events are now recalled through my faulty memory.

Today was the first day of the vacation that I wasn't perfect. If I didn't feel that Fred had paid so much more my presence this would have been a down day. using my mind so much the day before had definitely cost me and I was feeling a bit not in real time and slightly spinny. Still it is amazing to me that I was having less bad days on this trip than I would have had at home. I'm still working on why that is, but I haven't come to anything but very vague theories. Anyway I forced myself to go to work for Fred.

I was glad I had kept the car, as it was raining - the first non-perfect weather day of the trip - so I drove to Trek and picked up Fred.

My morning routine today was much like yesterday except that Fred joined me at the SunnySide and TV was abandoned almost completely.

I find two things irritating about being sick and having others know: one is those that treat me with extreme kid gloves, the other are those that tell me to have a positive attitude and imply that I can fight my weaknesses with willpower. Fred is one of the latter. He just doesn't get it.

I was so foggy it was much harder programming today but luckily we had gotten the bulk of the "clever" problems figured out the day before, and for once Fred hadn't overloaded the programming. There was one thing Fred wanted that I wasn't able to do, but I think overall he was happy with the work.

My head really hurt when I left Trek. John called and said Mrs. Power wanted us over for dinner rather than going out. As I wasn't up to driving and eating out sounded hard to endure this was perfect. I've eaten over at John's many many times in the past and his mom is an excellent cook. I was a little worried because they can get into very heated arguments and be very loud. I'm not sure if it was because of me, or because she has been ill lately that they was no yelling tonight. By the time we sat down to eat, I was having a lot of trouble controlling my right arm. I'm not sure why, since I am very open about talking about my condition that I try so hard to conceal the symptoms with most people. I did my best, but some of it must have been showing because John turned off the TV in the background, which they never do. I came very close to having a seizure I think, but took a Dilantin and pulled back from the brink. I ended up taking three on this trip which is more than I usually take in a month.

After dinner, I sat around while John installed the new Lan card in his computer which fixed everything. Thankfully I was not needed; plug and play is a marvelous thing. As seems to be a running theme, I don't remember getting back to Jim's.

I damaged my website during my trip and so stopped posting. While I took some notes, this was finally posted on Aug 29th, so the events are now recalled through my faulty memory.

Fred paid a lot for me to work two days for him (he picked me up at the airport (over an hours driving each way (partly through the dreaded collapsing graft tunnel)), paid for my lodging while on the Cape and supplied a rental car) so I felt obligated to be sharp and as a good programmer as I was still capable of being.) I was rather nervous of discovering that I just wasn't capable of performing any more.

My morning routine was disrupted a bit in that I had to be at Fred's by nine, so I pulled the TV watching to a minimum and skipped eBay (I could catch up at Fred's or later a John's, I don't remember which I did.)

The day was a success, I think there was only one thing that I couldn't do, and I knew I couldn't do it without wasting Fred's time trying. The rest went smoothly.

John called just when I was performing the final backup and said he was about 20 minutes away. Perfect. Fred had been turning away customers all day, because he was out of cars. I began to feel guilty because I hadn't used my car at all since I got back from Lorne's and most likely wouldn't use it except to get my things from Jim's to Fred's on Monday morning. But you never know so I kept the car. I walked back to Cascade and waited for John.

John and I drove around for a long time trying to decide where to have dinner. I became determined not to make a decision and see how long it took him to light on a place, but after awhile I gave up and noticed that where Howard Johnson's use to be (and had been many restaurants in my time in Hyannis since then) was yet another place that looked pretty good. I can't remember the name of the place. We were able to walk right in. The place was fairly pricey which is no surprise in Main Street Hyannis in the height of the tourist season. I ordered scallops. I use to be allergic to scallops so they are a nice delight when I can find good ones. had these been cooked a bit more, they would have been good ones, the raw material was certainly excellent. And while it is strange to get worked up about mashed potatoes (although I have one other time in the past at a Bahama Breeze in Georgia) the mashed were incredible.

I damaged my website during my trip and so stopped posting. While I took some notes, this was finally posted on Aug 29th, so the events are now recalled through my faulty memory.

Good news, I have not lost my money clip. I had apparently put it in my shoe when I put them both in the pan at the airport and it had become lodged between the gel insert and the shoe.

This morning I had to get the Cape Cod Times instead because the other was sold out. It was amazing the number of typos, including one in a headline. I put that aside for Karen because we had discussed the shocking lack of competence when it comes to both fact checking and simple spell and grammar checking in today's journalism. As bad as it is in the USA Today it was ten times worse in the Cape Cod Times (I know I have tons of mistakes on these pages, but I'm not a professional journalist.) It was weird getting use to the bias in the public and the paper. I had forgotten just how very far to the left Massachusetts swings; so much more so than anywhere else I've been (admittedly I've never been to Los Angeles.)

The SunnySide has added outdoor dining on the sidewalk of Main Street in the 3 years since I had been there. Of course, sun phobic that I am, I did not partake, but Nikki was cleaning off one of the tables while I was leaving and we talked for a little bit. She said something which brought up my illness, and we had the obligatory round of "poor Garth".

I don't remember the rest of the morning, I assume I spent it watching TV. John called me earlier than I expected; he often sleeps until into the evening. He drove me to his house and I rewired things a bit to set up the wireless router I had left at his house the last time I was in town (when was that?) and with minor problems I had the laptop set up and online. I took this opportunity to set up all the eBay auctions for the rest of my trip.

John, of course, has gotten himself a nice Hi-Def TV system and we watched Dr. Who in glorious richness of picture and sound.

When I went to put his system back the way it was and one of the computers refused to come back online. I putzed around with it for an hour or so and concluded that most likely the LAN card on the motherboard was slightly dysfunctional. As he had had trouble with it in the past, and it had just started working mysteriously that seemed a correct diagnosis.

Wimpy's — Osterville

This family favorite has been serving the public since 1938 when it was only a five-seat hamburger stand. Wimpy's is known for its traditional Cape Cod home cooking specializing in fresh local seafood, which is also available in their fish market on the premises. The chef's daily specials and the warm hospitality make this hidden jewel a favorite with the locals. Their casual atmosphere is complimented with four burning fireplaces and a large lounge with a comfortable bar.

On the phone the day before I mentioned to John that I wanted to go to Jerry's for Fried Clams. They don't have whole belly fried clams in Florida, and while it surprised me, I missed them. And this little nothing shack in West Yarmouth had the best fried clams I could remember (Just now I was looking on the net for a website (you never know) or a picture and instead found this quote: [James Hibbard of Hyannis said... Jerry`s dairy Freeze. I think they have the best fried clams on the cape.] so it's not just me.) But John didn't know if Jerry's was still in business and he said Wimpy's was just as good.

Eventually 6pm rolled around and John, Randy and I went to went to dinner. John had called ahead for a reservation and it was a good thing he did as even with them we had to wait about 15 minutes for our table and the waiting area as packed with people waiting. The place was bit loud but with my new trusty earplug firmly in place (I found on this trip that one plug lowered the high-end noise to bearable levels while allowing me to still hear as well as ever.) I was mostly fine. In the end the Clams were very good but not as good as I remember Jerry's being and John agreed. But we exchanged many tales of the past and a good time was had by all.

I was sort of hoping for a poker game, but I'm a bit slow at night, didn't have much in the way of disposable cash and they probably didn't bring it up thinking I was too fragile for the experience (which they were probably right.)

I damaged my website during my trip and so stopped posting. While I took some notes, this was finally posted on Aug 29th, so the events are now recalled through my faulty memory.

Today is my day to visit Lorne, but it is also Sage's birthday and they are going sailing, so I am supposed to meet up with them at there house at 5pm. Knowing Lorne I figure that means 5:30 at the earliest. There really isn't a good spot at Jim's for my take on meditation, so I watch TV for a few hours, and go down to Jim's and handle the eBay. Then even though I'm still stuffed from the night before I head over to SunnySide. Turns out Nikki still works there and she fills me in that Joanne has moved down to the West Coast of Florida.

I break out Shaun's camera and decide to head back to Middleboro to take pictures of the house I grew up in and the Herring Run next to it.

The yard has changed a lot, but the house is, correctly or not, a lot like I remember it.

I have a lot of memories of Emil's house. The shutters use to be bright orange and the house was a slightly darker green (the same paint job i think, just lightened with age). I think Emil and I were the only ones that liked that color combo (but we both had problems with color perception), I know my mother hated it. Other than the shutters being painted and the clothes line in the back the place looked almost identical to my memories of the past.

Needing both to kill time and having an urge for a chicken salad sub, I drove up towards the rotary and found a Pizza place. The sub turned out to be great. Food just tastes so much better up North than it does in my little area of Florida. Everything just has more flavor, is fresher and seems to be put together with more care. It might have something to do with the area being a tourist trap, and maybe as much as I begrudge the government any non-necessary involvement, it might be the overzealousness of the food inspectors; something that is noticeably lacking in Florida.

The house looks much nicer than these pictures make it look, and it has a huge yard in the back that she use to keep a garden in.

I went in and set her computer to doing some basic maintenance, while hooking in the Internet with the wireless to my laptop. I planned to update my website, but in attempting to update the laptop from the site I did something wrong and moved the data the wrong way, wiping out the last six weeks. I knew I could fix it from home, so updating the website would have to wait until them. I posted a quick note to that effect along with the previous days events.

Jia had left me directions Lorne's but I couldn't make sense of them, so I used the computer. Turns out Lorne lives much closer to my sister's than I thought.

I arrived at Lorne's at 5:30, Luckily Lisa was home as Lorne was late even for him and did not arrive until almost 7. Being as it was after sundown I don't remember much about the party (my memory gets very bad in the evening) but I have these pictures:

Budha (this is the correct spelling, I guess dog's don't rate the extra 'D'). He is part Chihuahua which is why he vibrates like that.

Sage, receiving a Razor scooter that I think is almost identical to mine. Alas, I did not find out about her party until the day before, and I am not one to rush a present so she got nothing from me. She seemed very appreciative of each present and remembered to thank each person. She even seemed much more aware and carded about card more than any child I can remember.

By the way, in this picture it looks like they live on a small lake but that Route 104 out the window there.

I don't remember leaving or driving home at all, but I woke up at the Cascade, safe and sound.

I damaged my website during my trip and so stopped posting. While I took some notes, this was finally posted on Aug 29th, so the events are now recalled through my faulty memory.

I woke up at Jim's expecting to be in pain both from the chaos of travel and from sleeping in a bed other than my own, but instead I feel great.

Bill is handling everything eBay back home except for dealing with the customers and sending out the invoices, so I head down to Jim's office to get online and answer questions and send out the invoices. Twenty minutes top and I'm off to breakfast.

I used to stay at the Cascade, which I did often during the summers when I wasn't on the road because getting back to Marthas Vineyard was expensive and difficult that time of year. Jim always set me up with a room that wasn't quite rentable, or one that was was at very reduced price. Most of the time I would have breakfast at the SunnySide just down the street and read my paper. Today was no different, and while the place and the menu seemed not to have changed I recognized none of the staff.

After breakfast I walked over to Trek Rent a Car to get my rental car from Fred. Rather speedily for Fred I have Buick LeSabre. He explains that the A/C doesn't kick in through the main vents for 20 minutes or so, but what do you want for free?

I figure I will tool around Hyannis and see if anything is the same, but no sooner am I in the car than Jia calls. Mom has dislocated her hip and is being discharged from the Hospital in Wareham at noon. Her car is in the Lobster Pound in Buzzards Bay. So I am needed to help Jia get Mom to the boat and Jia back to her car. I am given very vague directions on where the Lobster Pound is, so I decide to head up to Buzzards Bay early find it and take some pictures of the last place I lived. I find the Lobster Pound but no car. In telling my sister this we rearrange the plans that I meet her at the boat, to get her back to her car. This is much less stressful plan, so I like it much better.

Jia figures that they will be there by 1:30 but I doubt they will be there within an hour of that given traffic and having to find the car. Once again, I decide it's better to go get there and kill time. I was expecting to get a magazine or paper at the drugstore in Woods Hole, but it has become a cyber cafe. Suddenly one of the towns few parking spaces opens up and I snag, chuck all the quarters I have into the meter and go off in search of more quarters.

I use the same earphone and earplug method to survive the chaos of the Steamship waiting area, and Mom and Jia are much more on time than I expect.

Afterward I drop Jia off at her car and we head to her house. Somehow I beat her by a good twenty minutes.

I know I did some work on her computer but it seems like we headed straight off to Benjamins - the only restaurant I have found in the last ten years where the Prime Rib has actually flavor. I've only been to here a few times but I love it. It is very atmospheric and the cooking is amazing. Despite having had a large breakfast I finished the whole meal and left feeling very full. I think I was full for the rest of trip.

For once I started preparing for my trip a couple of days before. I got my laundry done, started writing up lists of what I needed to pack and do before I left and started assembling my luggage in the spare bedroom. It rapidly became apparent that I could save myself a good deal of stress if I purchased a rolling laptop case with plenty of a room for all my electronics that would become my only carry on bag. After checking several stores that all had one or less models to choose from I went to Office Depot which had several models, all priced at more than I wanted to spend. But I ended up buying the cheapest model that looked like it would do what I needed.

By 9pm the night before I was supposed to leave, I had everything ready except getting the laptop setup with everything I needed to run eBay while on the road, but as often happens after the sun goes down I was just too scatter brained to deal with it, so I figured I would go to sleep early and tackle it in the morning.

Well this morning didn't come as quickly as I expected. I was supposed to meet John for breakfast at 9am, and barely finished my morning meditation/relaxation in time. Then he was late, and I ended up leaving the restaurant not long after he arrived so that I could finish programming the laptop, and putting the finishing touches on the other computers. I end up doing a real half-asses job, as well as forgetting my address book for the main computer so I have only the email addresses that are in my head (ha ha).

In the long run I only forget my sneakers - my slip-ons being great for around the house and bopping into the store, but too loose to walk in comfortably. Gearing up for the chaos to come I take an extra Xanax in the hopes that seeing as I am actually stressed it will have the calming, energizing, focusing effect it has in those conditions rather than the floaty sleepy effect it has otherwise.

Being my father's son, I plan for every reasonable travel delay, and given that they've raised the terror alert again, I allow two hours at the terminal. It takes maybe 15 minutes to get the security checkpoint. I pull my laptop out of the case as instructed, and remove all the metal from my person. While it isn't mentioned anywhere I can see, I've read in the paper that iPods are now on the verboten list, so I hope that they don't notice it buried among the cables and electronics in my bag. As I try to remove various pieces of metal the Xanax is really starting to kick in and make me fuzzy headed. I walk through the detector. Buzzz! Oh, my watch (I never wear my watch but the display on my cell phone is messed up, so I figured I might need it.). Into the bucket it goes. Bzzzt. Oh, look three quarters. Plop. Bzzzt! why am I wearing cargo pants. A mints packet made largely of foil. "That'll do it" she says. Nope, bzzzt! I'm beginning to get flustered. My belongings are all spread out in many little blue pans and my laptop has been out of my sight for far too long (damn news - warning us about air thieves taking advantage of just this kind of situation (we'd all have a lot less stress if we never watched the news)). Then my fingers find it in one of the final bunch of lower pockets: my eBay Powerseller steel business card holder (I'd wondered where that had gotten to. I wonder how many times it had gotten washed?). No Buzz! Yea, I'm through. It feels like it takes forever to get everything back in my pockets and get my carry on reassembled, but I'm passed the problem area with a ridiculous amount of time to spare.

One light rail ride and a people mover later (no walking for the overly obese constituency of central Florida) I am at the check in area. Too much time to kill. The concession area is mobbed and you have to keep all your stuff with you. One of the causalities of the war on terror was the loss of storage lockers at the airport waiting areas. As I am almost always overearly I often end up using lockers at transportation terminals. So I slowly limp around and find a barely inhabited coffee counter, where I stump them by ordering Ice Coffee (this only happens to me in the extremely hot states which has always struck me as ass backwards) but after I train them in the fine art of pouring coffee over ice cubes, I pull out my money and discover that my money clip has been lost at the security checkpoint. Now my money clip is one of few favorite possessions. I'm not sure why, it has no sentimental value, but it was one of the best collectibles I procured while in my coke collecting phase. Even so, I calculated the long hustle back to the gate, the people mover and the light rail, with all my possessions in tow and then trying to talk to the security people and I concluded "Maybe I can find another one on eBay".

While chaotic with people the ambient sounds are remarkably low. I haven't needed the ear plugs and I'm just using songs on the iPod not the relaxation chants, as I read my USA today and sip my ice coffee hoping it will push some of the fuzziness out of my head.

When it becomes time to board I decide I am one of those people that needs extra time to board. I guess Jet Blue has no criteria because no one questions me. I luck out, the middle seat is unoccupied and lady by the window has zero desire to talk. I stare at the TV while listening to my iPod. The engine noise forces me to add to the ear plugs which as advertised block out the whine without blocking out the flight attendants. The flight is quick and painless.

So far my biggest worry point has been about meeting up with Fred. Turns out we bump into each other before the baggage carousel starts turning. I've now got both ear plugs and "Inner Peace" chant going on the iPod. The chaos of the baggage claim takes on surreal calmness as if I'm watching a bizarre French film from the safety of my living room. My bag is in opening the five. It's still very daylight when we get eventfully out of Boston.

Fred wants to stop for dinner on the way home. I'm not terribly hungry but food is so much better back east that I have lots of meals on my mind for this trip. One of the lesser important stops to me was 99's coconut shrimp and that is where Fred wants to stop. Great but filling.

We get back to the Cape about 8:30. Fred has forgotten that he was supposed to secure my logging. I know Fred is busy but this is the second indicator that he does not grasp how fragile I am. Luckily Jim is able to fit me in. Sounds like not booking ahead is going to be costly for Fred though.

Once in my room, I wait for the air conditioner to add a chill in the air, unpack my bags (which is unusual) and go straight to bed, ear plugs intact. I had thought that the silence would make it hard to sleep, but I think it is the noises in the silence that are the problem, for I went right out and stayed asleep until the sun came up.

On the 15th I am flying home for what could be my last major trip. No matter how hard I try to think of it positively, I can't seem to help but think of it that way. That this trip is going to show me whether I can still handle traveling. While I am prepared with iPod, Ear Plugs, extra Xanax and Dilantin, sleeping pills, special pillows, blind fold, and white noise machine, I still can't imagine that I am going to pull this off without some serious payback.

Only time will tell and hopefully I'm worrying about nothing, but it's been effecting my sleep a lot this week. While I am excited seeing everyone, I'll also be very glad when this trip is over.

Weird pattern today: I think most of us have songs that remind us of certain places and certain people. Today, at the massage center, at lunch and at the Post Office there were songs playing that key - one each - to women in my past. Most of these were songs I haven't heard in some time.

First was "Jack and Diane', which is tied directly to Sarah in my mind, then "Summer of '69", Becky. A half hour later at lunch was "Break My Stride", Natalie, which was very strange because I haven't heard this song in at least ten years, and finally "Total Eclipse of the Heart", which Kate used to dance around me to. Very very strange.

Tracy finally came through with her travel dates last Friday. The company didn't give her the dates she wanted, instead they gave her the only dates that wouldn't work for me because it conflicted with my Protocol checkup, which given the extra travel time involved as now I had to get to Memphis instead of Charlotte which is infinity harder to getting to quickly and easily, I figured would probably take 5 days minimum. All of them falling in the middle of tweleve days she can get off.

So, even though I figured it was pointless I called Caren (the NITIC and not to be confused with Karen my friend) to see if there was any chance the appointment could be moved a couple weeks in either direction. She sounded optimistic (but then she always does) and said she would get back to me. She said they could move it to October 4th - but that it would have to be in Charlotte! Now, I've been inwardly bitching about the move Memphis since I first was informed about it. Some days things just work out perfectly: easier trip, I'll be freshly implanted when Tracy is here and now all the dates work out pretty well.

While less official than the IQ test the Protocol gives me twice a year, I'm trying to remember to take this IQ test once a month or so to chart any deterioration of my thinking potential. The PHD test claims to be the most accurate on the web (of course I could put a site and claim that) but the values match those given to me at NC so so far they are giving me some piece of mind.

Congratulations, Garth!
Your IQ score is 138

The Classic IQ Test

What's Your IQ?

Your Intellectual Type is Visionary Philosopher. This means you are highly intelligent and have a powerful mix of skills and insight that can be applied in a variety of different ways. Like Plato, your exceptional math and verbal skills make you very adept at explaining things to others — and at anticipating and predicting patterns.

Mondays I am typically taking a extra lot of orders to the Post Office as the last orders are shipped on Friday afternoon and the weekend is a busy time for orders. So today, as usual, I have what looks like a hefty ungainly bundle as I walk toward the doors. I've become use to people trying to help me with the door. This is unnecessary as I have become quite adept at dealing with doors with hauls like these.

But today a women nudged ahead of me, slipped into the Post Office and made no effort to help. The act itself didn't surprise me, but more that it seemed out of the ordinary and that made me realize what I hadn't really noticed before. That in general people down here are a bit friendlier than back home. On the Cape it would not have surprised me in the least to be nudged a little by someone trying to get passed me. It happened all the time (less so on the Island). The fact that self-centered rudeness seemed out of place may be one of the better things I have to say about the area I am living in.

I was trying to look up some cover art the other day when I tripped onto a site that had some DVDs for sale that i was not aware did not exist on DVD. Some of their stuff obviously came from some of my convention work, but some stuff I hadn't seen anywhere. I decided to get one each of the three top quality designations to check out the quality and how there were assembled. In trying to figure out how to pay, I came across their wanted page and realized I had several of those item. I sent them an email, and long story short it turns out they live in Altamonte Springs which is 20 minutes from here.

I like their attitude, they are very open about what they do and how they do it. We bounced ideas and stories of each other for hours and it did wear me down at all. I'll probably have more to say on them later, but for the moment I have a new source of material and a potential new friend or two.

Just as they were leaving long lost Jason arrives for a short visit. I know he is very busy of late with his new fiancé taking up much of his time, and the craziness turmoil in his family right now. So I don't press him about doing the wiring to get the ceiling cans and power outlet for the waterfall. I can't afford either project at the moment anyway. I do mention that my biggest concern is lack of accounts as I was trying to push him for setting up another account. He says he will ask around to his many friends. Knowing Jason he will come through.

So that puts material, accounts and a crew to handle the extra work almost all together a roughly the same time. I can feel things trying to work despite my not having the energy or drive to make them happen.

And last night breaks my streak of 7 weeks without spending the night in a hospital.

Nothing serious. Last night a boil decides to blow up to the size of a golf ball. I'm not allowed to ignore these things so I drive over to Stone expecting to be drained and sent on my way. Nope, after making me wait almost 2 hours to be looked at (far from a record, almost fast in fact, but Cat's Cradle ran out in the first hour so it seemed longer) they drain me, dry me and bandage me, but want me to stay over night. Maybe they thought I had better insurance than I do.

Last week it was computers exploding, this week another hospital bill: in both cases another $900 bill at a time of low income.

I come home and flip out because a light bulb blows, pop an extra Xanax and float the bulk of the day away in a depressed daze in front of the TV. Luckily the TiVo is loaded up with the Kingdom Hospital TV series which is proving to be fairly entertaining.