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I’m back from Maine, where I was visiting my mom in Belfast. Belfast is a really cool town up towards the top of Penobscot Bay, on the Passagassawakeag river. Passagassa…? I guess flatulence was the theme of my trip. Anyhow, I did the following:

• Survived a ride in a small plane while the wind was gusting to 75 MPH(!)
  
• Learned all about smelt shacks
  
• Visited Acadia State Park and saw the Thunder Hole (a sign by the side of the road points to “Thunder Hole Public Restrooms”, reinforcing the theme of my trip)
  
• Went to the marine supply store with my stepfather Robin Staebler and bought a blinding emergency strobe to put on the Ultimate Water Gun’s helmet
  
• Bought a two-person backpacking tent from a local outfitter
  
• Saw my cousin Elizabeth, my cousin Holly, and my cousin Max, who flew down over the weekend to write about the Westminster Dog Show for Readers’ Digest (ironic, says everyone, since he doesn’t like dogs much)
  
• Read my grandmother’s diary during her sophomore spring at Vassar in 1930, in which she meets my grandfather and falls in love, and
  
• Looked at lots of family photos. That’s my mom in the picture above, with my uncle Bob. The inscription on the back reads “Sarah [my grandmother] has sensibly dressed Sally and Bob in denims.”

In one work day, I go hiking twice, get lost five times, am rescued by fifty firefighters, and lose a contest for a suitcase full of sake. Read all about it.


It’s almost seven-thirty in the morning, and I’m sitting at a workstation cubicle in terminal A of Boston’s Logan Airport. I’m on my way to see my mom in Belfast, Maine for the weekend (packing for a trip from New York to Phoenix to Maine resulted in some weird stares when I got off the plane in Arizona dressed like a polar explorer.)

Anyhow, I get lost a lot, but yesterday was a new record for me. All of the stuff above happened to me on Friday, and I wrote about it in exhaustive detail while waiting for (and taking) the redeye. You can read about it here!

I went to a place that I didn’t even suspect existed until yesterday — Fry’s electronics, a chain of colossal big box stores that sell everything — everything — that a nerd could want. Dan Evander, a programmer at [A client], took me there with his dad (also named Dan Evander.) Ever been in one of those colossal Wal-Marts? You know, the ones with the supermarket in them, and the bank, and the auto dealership? Imagine that Wal-mart done up in an Aztec theme, with towering fiberglass palm trees inside and doorways encased in twenty-foot snake heads. Imagine that ENTIRE store filled with aisle after aisle of electronic multitesters, plastic and foam eggshell equipment cases, pyramids of 45GB hard drive boxes, computer components, entire computers, HDTVs, car stereos, Lego Mindstorm kits (even the sold-out ones, like the Dark Side Developer’s kit), freaking EVERYTHING A GEEK COULD POSSIBLY WANT. Dan and his dad were mildly surprised that we didn’t have places like that in New York. What, are you freaking kidding me? This nirvana, this stately pleasure dome? I just don’t know how I’ll get my co-workers back in NYC to believe this.

I’m in the Pointe Hilton Tapatio in Phoenix right now, on Official Agency Business. Phoenix is cool and dry tonight — about 40 degrees right now, and very pleasant. The same couldn’t be said for the plane ride, however. I was assigned to the aisle seat at the very back of the plane — the row that doesn’t recline. It’s right next to the bathroom, too, so during the whole flight my face was inches away from the motionless pelvises of strangers waiting to use the lavatory. I had a CD walkman and a good book, so it wasn’t too bad — that is, until the flight attendants passed out the “MEATLOAF SANDWICH” meals. Those capitalized words were printed on the white plastic sheaths that the reheated sandwiches came in, and twenty minutes after the meals were distributed, my life got a whole lot worse. I won’t mince words — those meatloaf sandwiches were just the fartin’est food I’ve ever been witness to. All the strangers waiting for the bathroom, the ones with their butts at my eye level, the ones just inches away from my face, each one a piquant, lasting, and olfactorially vehement contribution to make in row 25. Where the hell were the oxygen masks? You don’t read about this in Savvy Traveler magazine! “…when traveling on long trips, be sure to ask what the airline will be feeding the passengers. If it’s curry, consider taking another airline or, better yet, canceling your vacation.”

A sporting flutter on horrible media wickedness


I saw the first episode of Survivor II: The Australian Outback on Sunday, and I was immediately hooked. (Maybe the fact that I didn’t see any of the shows from Survivor I contributed.) These people are awful! I tried to imaging going camping with any of them. With a couple of exceptions (Rodger), I would be trying to get them to stand under a poorly-balanced rock in less than ten minutes.

The one who annoys me the most is Kimmi Kappenberg, a bartender from Long Island. She has a mixture of stupidity, stridency, and boorishness that makes my blood boil every time she’s on screen. “Don’t build the fire over here, Keith, build it over there, in case we need to move it later!” Also, she wouldn’t shut up at night! I don’t think that she should be voted off the island — I think that she should be killed and eaten by her teammates.

So I went to InterTops, a graymarket Internet betting site, and signed up so that I could take a little action on the show. I put ten bucks on Kimmi to win at 10-1. That way, I won’t feel too bad if she actually comes through, defying all that is good and holy in this world. Then I put twenty bucks in on Keith Famie, who I think actually has a chance of winning, but I only got 4-1 on him. Elisabeth Filarski, the footwear designer with the goofy headress, was a hallmate at Boston University of one of my team members — Asad Khan — and the inside scoop on her is that she isn’t a goer, so I didn’t bet on her.

If only they offered odds on Temptation Island!

I went to a wedding in Maryland this weekend; Kate’s friend Karen Breame, who we both went to Westtown School with (though in different years), was marrying a guy who has a radio morning show in Maryland. There was an Episcopal service (Kate thinks that it’s a shame that churches have to be really explicit with their directions to the congregation — “sit,” “stand,” “please rise,” “please turn to page 332 in the red book of common prayer — that’s the red book, page 3-3-2.”) Anyhow, there was a reception and dancing afterwards, and the friends of the groom all work in radio, so they all were taking turns on the microphone and using their radio voices. And the removal-of-the-bride’s-garter thingy was embellished with the discovery of lots of stuff under the bride’s dress — the head of a Toy Story Woody doll, a set of car keys, a box of macaroni and cheese.

I realized that we were near the Appalachian Trail, so Kate and I drove a few miles out of our way on the way back to Greenbrier State Park, so that we could hike on the trail for 100 yards. Partly, I kind of liked the self-conscious foolishness of walking through the snow for two minutes in Manhattan clothes, taking a picture, getting back in the car, and declaring loudly “I hiked the Appalachian Trail today!” Mostly, though, I find the concept of the trail amazing. A small trailhead sign by the side of the road and a short blue-blazed feeder trail lead to a practically unpublicized path TWO THOUSAND MILES LONG. As a teenager, I often walked the six miles or so from Devon, PA to Paoli; I once dreamed that I stumbled on a single-seat chairlift bobbing along that route through the woods just out of sight of the road. In my dream, I was amazed that this wonderful thing existed — not exactly secret, but just out of sight, waiting to be stumbled on. The AT seems the same way. Anywhere you go on the East coast, this tremendous footpath is running just on the other side of someone’s backyard, or following a track through the woods behind a completely featureless industrial park. It’s magical to me.

So, for some reason (Cubicle re-compression syndrome? Vacation carryover?) I’ve still got the hiking bug really badly. I read Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods on Monday (thanks, dad!), Dan Bruce’s Appalachian Trail Thru-Hiker’s Handbook on Tuesday (thanks, mom!), and have been putting myself to sleep every night with 50 Hikes in the Adirondacks. I have an almost uncontrollable urge to take a leave-of-absence from [My employer] this summer for five weeks and hike the Appalachian Trail. Of course, the last hiking trip I went on, we spent one night in the Sheraton and the other night in a “Sir Edmund Hilary Three-Room Lodge Cabin”, purchased at the last minute because I HATE the rain. So I’m not sure how seriously I should take myself. Should I actually splurge and buy the Garcia Bear-Resistant Food Container, or just reupholster my reading chair?

Someone has taken my hint that Scriptural references to the Deluge in requests for the Ultimate Water Gun are more likely to be recieved favorably. Geoffrey Bab wants to take it to Orlando to overmaster fellow robotic engineers, and had this to say:

“And the waters prevailed exceedingly upon the earth; and all the high hills, that were under the whole heaven, were covered . . . all in whose nostrils was the breath of life, of all that was in the dry land, died.” Genesis 7:19

Hey hey! I’m back from vacation, and am a very different color. Vieques was great, the small plane rides to and from the island were safe (if bumpy), we were met by Sue Green, who manages my family’s house down there (the porch | the living room), Kate and I took a pontoon boat ride through Esperanza harbor and heard the local legends about Monte Pirata, ‘Pirate Mountain’, that may contain deep, ocean-connected caves, pirate gold, and a secret UFO base being monitored by the US Navy, went snorkeling, lay on the beach, took a kayak at night across an indescribably amazing bioluminescent bay, met and had dinner with friends from Kate’s hometown of West Chester, PA, including the guitar player from The Hooters, read lots of Dashiell Hammett, and now find myself unexpectedly back at my desk at work. Sic transit gloria mundi!

My Team At [My employer]

This is my team at [My employer]. As recognition for their hard work and their devotion to our mission, I purchased 100%-human-hair facial appliances for each of them. Here’s a photo of everyone:

• Alejandro Rubio, Senior Technology Analyst, sporting a classic “P.J. O’Pootertoot’s Pizza-Time Theater” handlebar mustache.
  
• Jason Robinette, Senior Technology Analyst, wearing a modified Kentucky Pork Chop.
  
• Bob Russell, Senior Technology Analyst, as Watson.-
  
• Myself.
  
• Ken Courtney, Senior Technology Analyst, wearing ginger “Sindbad the Sailor” whiskers.
  
• Asad Khan, Programmer Analyst, in a silver Wu-Tang special.
  
• Some guy that showed up in the lobby.^*
  

  
  

• Not pictured: Adam Hyer, Senior Programmer Analyst. I have something special planned for him.