mytbc

Springtime in Georgia: Part One, Purpose and Planning.

A trip report documenting my March 2010 visit to Katie.

1. Purpose and Planning
2. Getting Started
3. To London, Sir
4. Back in the US Airways
5. Terminal A-West, Philadelphia Born and Raised

So it was Christmas, and what had I done? Someone told me that war could be over, if I wanted it. I wouldn’t mind that, but I’d prefer that song be over. It’s terrible. But as much as I want war to be over, or even perhaps to never have to hear that song again, there was something I wanted even more.

I’d spent the previous Christmas in the states with my girlfriend, and having to instead spend this Christmas at home, with my family of all people, reinforced just how much I missed her. Sure, I’d last seen her only three months ago in September, but suddenly I wanted nothing more than to be in Georgia, with my arms squeezed tightly around a certain Ms. Fuller. Unfortunately, my work don’t allow people to take time off around Christmas. I think it’s something to do with the company actually being run by Satan. Also, since I’d only started in September, I would need to wait until I’d been there long enough to get two weeks off, so just after Christmas I asked my boss when I could go on holiday.

Eventually the news came back that I would be allowed two weeks off in March. Now I knew the dates I could go for, it was time to look at my options for airlines. My last trip had been with US Airways. It had not been particularly enjoyable, except for the hiccup in the weather giving me a mini holiday in Philadelphia itself. However, due to the frequent flyer scheme I’d joined, I was looking for star alliance airlines to get me to Atlanta.

That leaves me with Continental Airlines, US Airways or United Airlines. For some reason, United are never competitive on routes from Glasgow. Probably due to them not flying there, and forcing you to connect through London Heathrow on a bmi flight. On the dates I was looking at, Continental were proving to be about £20, £30 more expensive than US Airways. However, the direct Glasgow US Airways flights I’d taken in the summer were seasonal, so like United I’d have to connect through London.

This wasn’t actually a negative for me, as by flying through London the route would be 9000 miles, as opposed to about 7500, which would be enough to get me Silver status in the BMI Diamond Club frequent flyer scheme. Actually, if my British credit card worked on the American US Airways site, I’d have thrown a couple of extra segments in for free, through either Chicago O’Hare, Washington Dulles or Charlotte, just for the extra miles. Always come in handy. As it was, I booked through Tesco, who appear to own Lastminute.com, so that at the very least I could get clubcard points, and indeed British Airways air miles.

The planning all cushty now, it was time for the most difficult task. Waiting. And waiting. Still, at least it wasn’t boring. My boss went off sick, and the replacement boss I got in didn’t know about my holiday, then when I told him about it, tried to tell me I couldn’t take it. In fact, it escalated so much that I had to threaten to quit my job, and only found out the day before I left that it was actually fine for me to take my holiday, but the compromise was that I’d only get paid for one of the two weeks. Like I say, company run by Satan.

Stay tuned for the start of the journey, all the excitement of a transatlantic trip in the back, my encounter with America’s finest border agents, and finally making it to Atlanta and my woman, some bits about what I did while I was there, and the return journey itself. Considering the trip itself was in March, and that it’s now the end of May. Expect me to finish this trip report sometime in the next three or four years, perhaps.

Around Philadelphia!

Continuing my rewrite of this old trip report, part one here, part two here, I present part three, my day in Philadelphia.

Not knowing how long I would sleep, and to pretend that staying in hotels was old hat to me, I’d asked for a wakeup call at 7AM. Of course, my body was still on UK time, so when I woke up at 5AM, my body thought it was about 10. I spent a couple of hours dilly dallying around my room, packing up my meagre belongings, sniffing the t-shirt I’d been wearing for what seemed like days, and wishing I’d thought to pack spare clothes in my carry on. My alarm call came at precisely seven, and I thanked the robot voice for their courtesy, checked I had everything, and left the room.

Power was back on in the lobby by this time, so checkout was easy, and I caught a shuttle bus to the airport. I was hungry, and had no money. However, I did have some meal vouchers left, so I went through security and found Philadelphia Airport’s McDonald’s, which is about half a kilometre from the security checkpoint, right at the end of Terminal A-West. Having stuffed myself with pancakes, I logged onto the free weekend wifi, and found out that Katie had not had as easy a time as I getting home.

You’ll remember that Katie was flying Continental, through Newark. Newark and Philadelphia are close enough that the same storm caught both airports. However, where US Airways put me in a hotel, and got me a flight within 26 hours of my original, Continental gave Katie two choices. Two nights in Newark, or the last flight that night to Cleveland, then the first flight to Atlanta the next morning. She’d done that, and gotten into Cleveland at 1AM, and caught her flight to Atlanta at 6AM, while I was pottering about my hotel room. Still, I was pleased she was home, even if she was going to look like a zombie when I finally saw her that night. Having passed on details of my flight that afternoon, I went looking for the train into town.

The train was easily found, as I’d passed the station the night before, trying to find my hotel shuttle. However, the train was cash only, and I had none, so my real task was finding an ATM. Found one in the baggage claim, withdrew $20 and ran to the station in time to catch the SEPTA train R1, heading toward the city. I’d done no research, so had no idea where I was going. On the conductor’s recommendation, I bought a return ticket to Market East station, which cost me a reasonable $9, being a weekend.

All I knew of Philadelphia prior to visiting was that the citizens spend most of their days playing basketball on the playgrounds. Well, that and I knew it had the Liberty Bell, since I had seen the Lego one that morning. Basically, because I had no idea I was going to spend time in Philadelphia, I had no idea what was there, what there was to see or visit. My train got me into the city centre for about half past eight on the Saturday morning, and I aimlessly began walking.

The first thing I did was find a 7/11, and bought myself a Mountain Dew, just to remind myself I was back in the USA, then I headed toward the big tall buildings that I assumed marked downtown. Wandering around between these giant buildings felt like being on a movie set. It’s a feeling I have to shake off nearly every time I’m in America, having grown up seeing American style roadsigns, buildings, businesses and people only in TV shows and movies, seeing them in person is a little unreal, like being in Disneyland and meeting Mickey Mouse.

As exciting as skyscrapers are, I quickly grew bored of them, and decided to see what other delights Philadelphia had in store for me. My stomach, though, had other ideas. It suggested that before I do some more sightseeing, it might be worthwhile finding a public lavatory, or it would be more than a smelly t-shirt I’d be worried about. I fairly quickly found a McDonald’s, and ignored the sign saying that the restrooms were for customer use only. While using the toilet, there was a knock on the door, and a man asked if anyone was in there. I said “Yeah,” which I think the employee took to mean “Yeah, come on in” as he unlocked the door from the outside, and got more of a view than I think he was bargaining for. He apologised, and scurried from the room looking very embarrassed.

My stomach’s objection having been dealt with, I left McDonald’s and noticed a sign for tourists, saying how to get to the Liberty Bell. Well, that sounded like something to do, so I started walking in that direction. I soon found myself in Chinatown, which was once again like being in a movie, though this time the movie was Rumble in the Bronx.

It wasn’t long before there were no more signs saying where the Liberty Bell was, so I figured I’d missed a turning. I didn’t particularly care, because now the tourist signs were pointing me towards the waterfront, which I imagined would be interesting. They were also pointing me towards something called Elfreth’s Alley, which sounded boring. It was not. In fact, Elfreth’s Alley was the highlight of my time in Philadelphia. The longest continually habited street in America was their claim. Only dating back to the 1700s, it was still older than the country it is in. Do yourself a favour; if you cannot make it to Philadelphia to visit it in person, at least click here to take a virtual tour of it using Google Street View.

In the alley is a little museum, where for $3 it is possible to see what one of the houses would have looked like inside in the 1700s. I think they’re used to large groups, because the woman showing me around on my own looked a little out of place giving her tour to just me. Still, it was an interesting tour, and I learned more about the street than I would have on my own. Well worth the $3. I continued my walk down to the river, saw some boats and things, and noticed the time. My flight wasn’t until about 4PM, but I had to find my train station, get a train to the airport, have some dinner, and be at the gate for 3.30PM. It may have only been around midday by the time I got to the waterfront, but it was about time to be heading back.

On my journey back towards Market East station, I finally found the Liberty Bell. A visitor centre across the road from it provided me with toilets, air conditioning and a film about the founding of America. It was terrible. I considered visiting the Bell itself, but the queues were long, and I’d already seen the Lego one. What more was there to see? Well, apart from the fat man sitting outside with a sign saying that Obama is Usurper.

A quick train back to the airport, an almost effortless trip through security, a voucher traded for a hotdog and fries, and I was ready to board my plane. I was slightly annoyed with my new flight, as I’d lost my window seat. Luckily, however, a regional jet meant that I at least got an aisle seat, none of this stuck in the middle nonsense of a mainline plane. The flight passed quickly, a can of cola was consumed, and I landed once more at Hartsfield-Jackson. Downstairs to the people mover, and I was soon at baggage claim with Katie’s parents, and a completely zombified Katie. I think she’d had about two hours sleep in the last three days, and she certainly looked it. Quite obviously, my bags never came out on the belt, obviously not having arrived on the same flight as I had.

The lady in the baggage office was only letting one customer in at a time, so after waiting a few minutes I asked her if she might have my bags. She said she probably didn’t, but offered to let me look in their storage room, see if they were in there. They were, and I got to take them without her checking that my baggage claim stub matched the bags I took, so I guess I could have taken just about any bags I figured looked nice. I’ll bear that in mind next time.

And so, my journey was ended. I was, once more, in Georgia with my lady. This time for five weeks. Five amazing weeks, which I should perhaps write something about. For now, make do with this trip report. And perhaps soon, the trip report for my latest journey to Georgia. Nothing like a full 24-hour travel day to make you feel good.

Lick my Flatmates again

Oh, Hitler Finished all the Juice wasn’t the only lick my Jesus inspired photocomic we did. Two years, one month and one day later, we did another.

Here it is.

The Cuttlefish that Love-Machined the Flip-Flops

Lick my Flatmates

Way back in the dawn of time, I realised that the lease for my bedroom in the university residences was going to run out. As I planned on doing a second year at university, it behoved me to find somewhere to live. Being poor, I couldn’t afford a place on my own, so I spoke to my friend Andy.

“Andy, dear” I said. “Shall we get a flat together, and live forever like J.D. and Turk, until you get married and I knock some girl up?”

He was agreeable, and thus it was sorted. Andy and I would find a flat together, and we would be flatmates! Then, walking along the road one day, we bumped into our friend Tom, who I was engaged to marry (though that later fell apart, after I met his parents). Somehow in the conversation, he decided that he was going to live with us, and thus it was sorted. Andy, Tom and I would find a flat together, and we would be flatmates! Then, later, on MSN Messenger with my friend Paul, I found he had applied to Strathclyde University to do Architecture, and didn’t want to go into halls after a bad experience with halls at Abertay, so I invited him into our little band of agreeable fellows, and thus it was sorted. Andy, Tom, Paul and I would find a flat together, and we would be flatmates!

There are many advantages to having flatmates. Splitting the cost of rent and bills can save you a packet. The lack of crippling loneliness where the longest conversation you have in weeks is “Would you like cashback with that?” Only having to clean the toilet one time in four that it needs cleaned. The ability to borrow a tenner, or make a pizza hut order worthwhile, having a film night, helping each other with various tasks. Many, many advantages indeed.

One of the greatest, though, is that you actually do things. This blog, to me anyway, often feels like I’m reliving past glories, as I don’t seem to actually do anything these days. Wake up, work, internet and sleep. Except for Tuesday, when I don’t even go to work. When I lived with my friends, we actually did stuff. Well, except for Andy. Paul, Tom and I were a creative force. Perhaps nearly everything we did was terrible, but that’s not the point. The point was we did things. Today, I am going to share one of those things.

Paul and I do terrible things to webcomics. Does anyone remember Men In Hats? It was an incredibly awesome webcomic, at least it was when I was 14. Paul and I killed it. Perhaps not directly, but it was not long after we painted murals at our school based on Mr. Farber’s comic creations that he revealed that he was stopping the comic.

Then came Lick My Jesus. We apparently killed this one so well that the website is no more. See?. The only trace of them I can find these days is their guest strip for Ryan North’s Dinosaur Comics. Rather than paint characters from their strips on our walls, which would be difficult with it being a photocomic, we decided instead to do a guest strip for them.

Every so often, they released a round robin style strip, which was written by having one person draw three frames, then showing only the last frame to the next person. They used that frame as inspiration for their three frames, showing the last frame to the next person, and so it continues. Sort of like a purely visual form of Broken Picture Telephone. That was how we wrote ours, and then we photographed it, added our speech bubbles, and put it on the internets.

Here it is.

Hitler Finished All The Juice

How can you know where you’re going, if you ignore where you’ve been?

I’ve recently been trying to work out why I want to “blog”. I originally started this blog with the idea of tying together different online personas, linking to all the content I’ve put on other websites, Youtube, Flickr, that kind of thing. There’s a problem with that though, I seldom actually add content to the internet.

I think I’ve come up with a purpose for mytbc now, though. I have always fancied myself as a bit of a writer. Never a particularly good one, but at least I wrote. Except that outside of this blog, I haven’t since, ooh, first year of university. This kind of flies in the face of my belief that I am a writer. I may have the potential to be a writer, but if I don’t write, then I’m not one

Like I say, though, I don’t think I’m a particularly good writer. Still, like the old joke goes:
Q. “How do you get to Carnegie Hall?”
A. “Well, first you need to get to New York…”
It’s something like that anyway. The point is, if I want to be a good writer, I need to write more. There will be times in my life where being a good writer will come in handy. Whether that’s writing reports for a job, or even something simple like being able to make up a good story for my children when putting them to bed, knowing how to put words together in coherent sentence that attracts the reader’s, or listener’s, attention will be a good thing.

Practise, then, is the key. And if that’s the key, then perhaps this blog is the lock? I shall use this blog to refine my writing skills, become a better writer.

The problem with saying I want to be a better writer is that better is a comparison word. Better than what? Well, better than I used to be (which I hope that I am), and better than I am now. I recently discovered an old notepad which contained some fiction I’d started writing, before abandoning it after six and a half pages. It does contain two different ink colours, so unlike most of my stories at the time, I came back to it at least once. Using my forensic skills, I have been able to date it to around Spring 2001. For your amusement, and my chagrin, I have decided to share it with you, unedited. To all those who care about tiny grammatical and syntactical errors, I am sorry. This is apparently how I wrote when I was fourteen. Enjoy.

A strange woman rode into town upon a donkey. She rode up the general store, dismounted and entered

“Good evening, ma’am” said Smithson. Robert Smithson was the General store’s only employee. He had worked there since his father, Robert Smithson Sr, had unfortunately died when 10 tonnes of tinned Baked beans fell on him during a delivery.

“Hello sir. Take note. By Dawn tomorrow I wish to have A new donkey, 10 tins of Baked beans, stop Blubbering man, an assistant, 3 2 litre Bottles of perrier water and a map of the county. Think you can do that,” she almost whispered

“It’s possible, I think” he replied with a tear in his eye, “By noon tomorrow I could get it done but it’s a bit 50:50 for dawn”

“I’ll see you at noon then. Make it so”

---

The sun was at it’s highest for the day. At 12 noon exactly the stranger walked into the store. A note on the desk said something about meeting at the gallows. She couldn’t really read it because the handwriting was really terrible.

She got on her Donkey and raced to the gallows and saw Smithson standing there with everything bar the assistant.

She sighed, “I thought you said everything would be ready”

“It is” he assured her.

“Then where’s the bally assistant” she said with the evil look that woman do so well.

“I’m it.” As he said it a smile rose across the woman’s face before she burst out laughing.

“You, Ha! you. No offence but, you probably don’t know anything about surviving in the wild. I’m sorry, but” And she burst out laughing again.

Smithson showed her all his Scout badges and said, “Scout’s honour. I can help you. Please. My life here is really boring and I want adventure”

“Fine. If you’re useless I’ll drop you at the next town. My name is Stone, Rosie Stone”

“Robert Smithson. I’ll try not to let you down. I’ve already packed everything in mule packs”

They made their way out of town to the sound of a cat meowing.

---

They rode nonstop through the Desert until nightfall, except for toilet Breaks. Editor’s note: I seem to have been incapable of starting a b word with anything but a capital B. It’s really annoying me They stopped to make camp at about nine o’clock. This doesn’t add anything to the story but the chronicler, that’s me by the way, is a sucker for useless facts. If you don’t like them, tough. Just to spite you lot I’ll write ten paragraphs about Smithson’s toenails.

Ow. Stop it. My slave-driver is whipping me. Stop it. Ok, I will get back to the story, but I will put those paragraphs in somewhere. [the chronicler cackles evilly, and is hit over the head with a chair. The slave driver smiles]

---

Sorry. I’ll get back to the story now. The campfire was blazing away and smithson was flossing his teeth. Stone, our heroine who you’ve already met, was washing her hair in the river.

“You’re hair is already looked nice, so why wash it?” Smithson asked her. Editor’s note: I admit it, even I once used the wrong your. Oh, the shame. The shaaame.

“I wash it every night so that when I’m asked on a date I can truthfully say that I’m washing my hair” she replied.

“I see. So where are we headed?” He asked.

“Yonder”

“Yes, but which direction is Yonder”

“Aaah” She replied mystically. “Yonder is in no particular direction. It all depends where you are in relation to Yonder. From here it is due North, but 300 miles north from here it is due south. At dawn we head to Yonder, donkey dealing capital of Yondershire.”

“Yes ma’am.” he said, and promptly fell asleep.

“wee idiot” Stone whispered to herself, and followed the lead of her companion.

All that was heard that night was Smithson snoring and an occasional fart from the donkey

---

At Dawn they broke camp, and headed for Yonder. I would tell you every bit of conversation they had, but you’d soon get bored. To prove it, here’s a snippet

“Is that a tree?” asked smithson.

“No, it’s a flattened hedgehog.”

“How about that?”

“No, that’s my donkey.” Stone sighed.

It continued like that for three hours. Aren’t you glad I decided not to put it all in. Let’s have a hip hip hooray for me. Perhaps not, the slave driver is smiling at me again.

Eventually Smithson managed to identify a tree and Stone lowered her palm from his throat.

“Is that a tree?” asked Smithson, pointing at a road sign saying “Yonder, 3 miles”. She punched him in the mouth.

Three miles is a long way when you’re unconscious and riding on a donkey.”

So, there we have it. Am I a better writer now? Undoubtedly. Am I a good writer now? I don’t think so. Will there ever come a time when I will be satisfied with my own writings in such a way that I would use the word good?

No, probably not. But that just means I’ll ever be striving to be better, which can only be a good thing.