Between an apartment that is too hot to sleep through the night and some black mold that I've been cultivating in my bathroom for the past few months, I've spent the past few weeks on an off being sick. Ironically, whether I was sick or not I was still laying on the couch watching How I Met Your Mother, so who could tell anyway.
I had always wanted a month off between my last job and my next job. London, Russia, Legoland in California, Eastern Europe, Los Angeles, cross country road trip, whatever. Unfortunately, I didn't know I would have a full month off until halfway through it, and since I have a girlfriend who couldn't take a few weeks off last minute half of those places didn't matter anyway.
Instead, I planned a small road trip. Two days near Astoria and one in Portland. First day of the trip ran into a cop while passing someone in the left lane. Given that he was going in the opposite direction, I'm not sure how he thinks he knows how fast I was going unless he has a very fancy radar gun (possible). For the first time in a while I was nervous but quickly got over it. I had made a conscious decision to speed, especially on the long and drawn out routes that I'd chosen because they were curvy. I was actually speeding again before he was completely out of sight.
Then, on the way to portland, I drove as fast as I liked, excepting only for traffic that blocked my way. Very fast. It was nice. Nice curves. Anyway then I got to the slow part and was no longer going fast. A while later I see some cop on the side of the road outside of his vehicle and not holding a radar gun, staring directing at me. I glanced at him and frowned. Then he hopped in his car and came after me. This time I was not nervous, but I made one mistake. The first time he asked one of those gay entrapment questions I just glared at him silently, but after I handed him my paperwork he repeated the entrapment questions, and I was shaking my head thinking "no, fucker, I'm not going to answer that shit" however I think he took the head shaking as a definitive "no" to one of this stupid questions. Something about did I know we were in a "construction zone." Construction zone my ass. There were some cones on the side of the road and no other construction equipment for miles. He and his partner--maybe the cop that showed up in another car briefly--probably had some kind of ticket gig going where one cops spots them and the other pulls them over. I spent the next hour assuming that was the case and trying to come up with a way to waste their time if I was ever pulled over again. Rumors of Oregon cops being assholes about speeding were confirmed when he gave me a ticket for 73 on a highway. Any road trip I might do--like the one I almost planned all the way down to Legoland in California for the week--needs to cross this hellish state. I'd probably accumulate 3-5 tickets, or have to drive slow, before making it through. I don't like that choice. Anyway the cop like hesitated when he was coming back to my car the second time. Maybe I freaked him out by being completely silent and glaring at him, but who would shoot a cop after they have all your information and can prove you were in the car? It doesn't make any sense.
After the second stop I felt more chagrined despite not being nervous during the stop. It was partly due to the fact that the savings account I have set aside for speeding tickets is budgeted against one ticket every 2.5 months. I just got two tickets in a week, and they are for jurisdictions so far apart I am certain I am going to have to pay two different lawyers.
I have been surviving in Philly and Seattle by just being careful, but Oregon seems like another story. Oregon sounds like the horror stories I've heard about Ohio. It makes me wonder if I need to get a radar detector again. What I really need, I would think, is a device that measures that frequency and, upon receiving a signal of relevant intensity, automatically emits a jamming signal that would cause those devices to fail (and while we're add it, might as well jam whatever frequency they use for their radios). Unfortunately such a device would also have the side effect of interfering with air traffic control and also getting the FCC's attention real fast. Maybe we could put a cap on the top so the signals don't go up. I would also need a way to dispose/destroy it in case my car was impounded. Come to think of it, I'm never really going to have time to let my car get impounded just because I felt like playing road ninja, and according to news articles people who blog about doing illegal things usually get caught that way. Still, it would be a nice to have. I hate these fuckers with their flashy lights and their stern voices acting like they caught me doing something wrong. When I watch COPS or any show involving a car chase I always root for the person being chased, trying to analyze how the people fail based on the video. Guys with a lot more skill than me regularly get caught. The police fuckers just have too many resources. The best way to get away, it seems, is to loose them early on before they have a helicopter, and you have to do it by completely outclassing them and getting them to screw up before you do, which is incredibly difficult because these are trained professionals with extremely fast cars. Only high end sports cars can truly out run them on the high way, and if you take it off the highway, there are a lot of innocent people that can appear out of nowhere, and if they trap you for long enough the cops actually, apparently, just start shooting at you, which I think is unfair. One thing is for sure: my car is built for curves, and NOT top speed, and compared to their pursuit training, the best I can accomplish is to become an amateur rally car racer and google their training methods. Its a start.
Anyway this post was supposed to be about...whatever. This vacation sucks. Going on vacation alone sucks. I think I've done it--or at least I've had many adventures alone before--but this one just sucked. I'm in Portland alone on a Friday night and since I'm not single and everything interesting was probably closed the most exciting thing I could think of was to see a movie alone. Also it was a completely blue sky today but my phones fucking GPS unit couldn't narrow it down more than a five mile radius. I supposed I'll take that to heart the next time the cops look up my position without obtaining a warrant. Anyway, driving South on 101 was mildly pleasant, especially when I found a station playing Irish music, but I felt like I was just scouting for when I was going to bring the sportbike.
There is a column in Astoria that is a tourist attraction. The engineers who designed it decided that it should have a single spiral staircase all the way to the top, and that spiral staircase should make it really awkward for people to go up and down at the same time, which, it turns out, happens constantly at a tourist-frequented tower with only one staircase.
Despite the obvious problems with the tower I dreamed about having a secret agent girlfriend that would fly into Seattle. We would leave at 3 am from Seattle on a pair of motorcycles and ride the twisties to that tourist tower in Astoria and arrive as the park opens. In real life my girlfriend will never own a motorcycle and doesn't want to ride mine. Yet.
Anyway, when I think about where I want to be this weekend, besides the obivous illegal/expensive stuff like racing rally cars and riding sportbikes on highways in the middle of the night, where I would actually prefer to be is just at a party with friends. And I admit I haven't done everything I could to be with them. I didn't look that hard for a tech job back east because this opportunity on Seattle fell in my lap, and I didn't even go to Dan's wedding reception. Last I heard Dan and Jester are no longer friends because of wedding-related drama. For all I know Dan hates me now, which would be sad because he is one of my favorite people.
No matter what tickets I by, or hotels I reserve, or TSA agents I allow to pet my balls in the name of "safety," or destinations I find, or projects I think of, they all seem to suck without friends. I don't even like going to sit down restaurants alone. I may have failed to have a nice relaxing trip to properly de-stress before my new job, but I think I have at least discovered that the pursuit of fun doesn't work alone. This means that completely shutting people out when they become annoying is no longer going to work. So, either I am going to become way more friendly to people and start having fun parties, OR I'm going to finally go to Rally School even though its more expensive than flying.
One nice thing about this trip, though: my hotel in Portland has air conditioning.
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