Not Gone Yet !

Back again - twice in two days. This must be a record or something - certainly for this year !

Voting!

There's the normal shambles of indecision. Who's running ? Ask 95% of all citizens of the US and they'll say "McCain & Obama" ( or "Obama & McCain" ! ). However, in this "land of the free" there are other choices:

Republican Party has nominated John McCain
Democratic Party has nominated Barack Obama
Libertarian Party has nominated Bob Barr
Constitution Party has nominatedChuck Baldwin
Green Party has nominated Cynthia McKinney
Ralph Nader is running as an independent, whatever that might mean here.

For all know there may be more, but hardly anyone knows that they exist. I'll ask my wife when she gets out of the polling booth area if she noticed anyone else.

For those used to getting given a piece of paper and a scruffy bit of pencil and being ushered into a cloth cubicle like those used for privacy around your hospital bed (but much smaller), American Elections are Modern and use Voting Machines ! These used to be mechanical gadgets that punched holes in some of Hermann Hollerith's Cards (the ones we used to program on !) but there were too many mistakes along with too much corruption in Florida and Ohio (?) two elections ago and since then there's been a big drive to go all-digital !

That's great, but now the authorities are realising that with digital machines come viruses, worms, trojan horses, and problems with power cuts, power spikes, power sags, peaks, and other nasties, along with lightning strikes and the problem that one professor exposed just last week: given 18 minutes alone in a booth any self-respecting teen studying comp. sci. should be able to hack into the voting machine and change all the votes cast so far that day !

Good one, that. Let's all go back to the way of the Athenians ..... black or white stones into an old amphora.

A little Crazy So Far.

Am I all alone in this, or do any of you out there also think that things have started to go a little more than normally crazy in the world recently ? A few months ago I blogged here about Zimbabwe, and how strange it was that the UN was suggesting making Zimbabwe the head of the council for economic advice for the Third World. Well, it happened. Now, after another 18 months, Zimbabwe's economy has deteriorated to the point that they can't pay for the paper and ink to make a passport for the head of their own opposition party to travel to the next country to meet the Zimbabwean government for meetings about what kind of government to have ! 1500,000% p.a. inflation ! That means that the price of a loaf goes up by about 10% in the time it takes you to ask the price of a loaf (about 21 seconds, on average) !!

Since then, as we know, the global economy has gone nuts. Not, of course, that I'm suggesting that it's all the fault of a few octogenarian power-crazed Zimbabweans still paranoid about being controlled by Britain or the US that are to blame, but ...........

Things that have happened since I got married at Christmas last:

• My wife T and her daughter M came to live in Pennsylvania, as mentioned in other blogs.
• Lots of banks announced that they'd been writing mortgage agreements for people who hadn't a hope of paying them off. This has been going on forever, mind you, and only recently grown. When I first got a mortgage I was offered one for 30 years. As I was looking at retiring at the normal age, and that was only going to be 25 years into the future, I must have looked at the bank official as if he had two heads ! "How am I going to pay off the last 5 years", I asked, "if I'm no longer working? Should I print the money ?". He seemed to think it a normal thing to do, so we went elsewhere and got a better deal on a shorter duration.
  
• Over the summer the price of petrol rose from about $2 per gallon to over $4, and our rent went up considerably. They didn't seem to be connected, except in the minds of the rental agents.
  
• I got a new job, in New Jersey, about 35 miles away from where I lived. As a result, we moved to a new apartment about 5 miles from the new workplace. Better agents !
  
• T joined the company that I now work at, in the call centre. Obviously I can't tell you much about what goes on, for fear of accidentally releasing personal info onto the Internet, but the function of the company is to manage the health care given to people injured in accidents, mainly in NJ.
• As the summer moved on, the banks started reporting more product of their own stupidity. Some banks failed altogether - several in the USA and, apparently, almost the whole of the Icelandic banking sector over the first two weeks of October !
• Several banks have been absorbing government bail-out money like sponges take up water, and with about as much benefit to everyone.
  
• My son, N, insisted that I (and not his mother !) come on a scouting camp trip last weekend. His mother was very happy not to have to go, and even more so after the event: we got several inches of rain over the time we were there, so, while it wasn't a bad weekend, it was rather damp !
• M has moved schools, seems to like the new school, and has joined the Band and other musical groups. This results in things like phone calls at 1 am (as last night) begging for a lift home, as they're been away at Hershey (yes, the chocolate place) in a competition.
• 
  

So those are some of the highlights. We've trekked to see The Yarn Harlot a couple of times; Stephanie is definitely one of the best speakers out there. I can say this because I love going to see her - with or without the knitter of the family - despite the fact that I don't knit and that almost all her talk is knit-oriented.

That's the catch-up, such as it is. Next comes more blogging, I hope - if electrons don't go up in price !

No News, Good News.

Well, the no news part is that there's still nothing from Fish about the possible tour here in the USA. On the other hand, this has emerged from Marillion's very own Lucy Jordache:

We are strongly looking at Montreal for a convention type event two weeks after our Dutch Convention next year. [ ... ] Certainly when we go on sale with the Holland convention we would announce this one too so you will have a choice.

I just can't wait to take off two whole weeks for Marillion!

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The Adventure (4)

Just to round off some more of that series, we followed I-80 through Wyoming. Tola and I had shared the obligatory hot tub in the hotel after the wedding, but what we hadn't thought about was that Tola had a hang-nail on one finger and , while if was well on the way to being cured, was still showing some raw skin. That was on Friday night. We repacked the RV on Saturday and were well underway on Sunday, but when Tola woke in Evanston on Monday morning it was to a red, swollen, and painful finger.
Monday we spent driving the breadth of Wyoming - about 400 miles - in a brutal crosswind of about 40 mph. Remember; I was driving what is, basically, a Ford 450 with a large long sail attached! For about 80% of Wyoming I drove with the steering wheel angled at about 30 degrees to the right to counter that southerly wind.

400-odd miles later, however, it was late on Christmas Eve night and her finger was getting hotter, redder, and larger by the hour, so we pulled off at a township called Kimball to look for a doctor, saw some very welcome signs (above). We found the hospital and some wonderful people who looked at Tola and dutifully caled in the on-duty medical authority - the dentist ! What the heck, Dr. Jay did a great job of diagnosing the problem and prescribing what was needed. It was almost midnight on Christmas Eve, too late to go to midnight mass, so we pushed on to the next Flying J ! Next day we stopped in North Platte, NE, and got the prescription and eventually things started to get better.

Christmas night saw us driving through Omaha, NE, over the bridge into Iowa at Council Bluffs and on to the next Flying J! Basically, we'd found out niche (as Flying J customers) and were seriously regretting not having Frequent Fuellers cards. I think we skipped 2 or 3 between UT and PA, but no more than that - . I have to say here that Wyoming and Nebraska are hulking great wide states !

Your Inconstant Friend

As always, I have to start by apologising for not blogging more often - I'm just that kind of an overwhelmed person with too much to do in each 24 hours. And then more stuff (like tax season) comes alone :(
As some of you may know, I'm somewhat of a Fish fan, so when this emerged from his web site I was truly amazed !

The major surprise is that out of the blue I have been offered a 4 week North American tour in June. This will include the Nearfest festival and will take in a number of US cities, coast to coast, as well as three shows in Canada. This tour is looking very positive and Yatta is confident we can make it work. The dates are already going in the book and I will let you know more about the routing and other details once I get them in this coming week. It's the first tour over there in a very long time and we will need to call on every resource we have available to make it happen.

It is highly likely that Mexican dates will be added at the end of the North American tour.

So, if I'm very lucky, I'll be able to get to see one of my favourite artists. You should too - he's got a new CD out, his music's great, and he puts on a fantastic show.

Marillion have this to say on their site:
Marillion are back in the studio to finish writing and recording Album 15. Some early-to-mid-2008 festival dates are expected, but look for an extensive tour for the new album in the second half of 2008!

Since 1997, Marillion have changed their modus operandi and become much more "user-supported". Before then they relied on labels, but since what might easily have been the non-tour or the tour from hell, they're been releasing CDs on a pre-subscribe basis, so you pay now for a CD that'll be out in 6 months time. For that you get an extra disc, or your name on the sleeve, or something special. The record companies also see that it's a viable product and take it to distribute. Neat.

More later - I've got to go see some soccer

The Adventure (3)

Leaving Idaho Falls after lunchtime on Sunday we finally felt that we were "on our way", and started listening to the weather forecasts in earnest ! Lots of lovely cheer there - not ! Reports of giant pile-ups and many people dead in blizzards from Texas and Oklahoma north to Michigan. Were we really doing the right thing ?
We trundled south down I-15 in to Utah (passing our favourite ice cream truck-stop (stopping for ice cream and souvenirs, of course !) and on south towards Brigham City and Ogden (quick wave to Nana and Aggie in passing, but I guess they never noticed us in the gathering gloom of the evening !). Left (east) at Roy and onto I-84 to take us through the hills and out of Utah. Listening to the radio (we found that the CD player would play CDs if they were "warm" and then only about half-way - then it would just quit) we caught this absolutely hilarious LDS version of the 12 days of Christmas. It wasn't the one here (nor this one - also very good), and I'll try to track it down - it was from a radio station in eastern Utah and absolutely cracked us up.
Finally we merged onto I-80 East and so Sunday night saw us parked for the night in the Flying J truck-stop in Evanston, WY. Were we tired ? Oh yes (we thought) as we dragged the duvet over ourselves and fell asleep.

The Adventure (2)

So I got to the house in this huge (30-foot long) RV to find all the boxes waiting for loading. We loaded and loaded until dinner-time and felt pretty tired

So we then went out to Deseret Books for some CDs and presents, and to YarnToday to talk to Tola's Stitch'n'Bitch group.





Here's Miste, who was adamant that I couldn't take anything but a horror-pic of her. I think that she's absolutely wrong, but then, I'm just a man, so what would I know about it !

After that we took in Walmart for some supplies and went back home and continued packing the wagon ! You just would not believe how much will fit into one of these trucks, and that's what we found out ... we didn't actually leave until about 2.30 on Friday afternoon ! Talk about being late !
Anyway, we finally got on the road and went north to Malad to get a marriage licence (thanks to Shirlee in the office there !) and then on to Rexburg to the marriage ceremony. 90 minutes late - sorry everyone !
We had a great reception - pictures to come ! - and then retired to the CottonTree Inn in Rexburg. Nice room, jetted tub, comfortable bed, etc.
Next morning we headed out to Tola's parents and she, I, and her brother Guy repacked the wagon so that we could actually get at the bed to sleep ! That took all day, meaning that we started off a whole day late, and haven't caught up at all.
Sunday we stopped off to see Tola's brother Josh in Idaho Falls. His wife Charity gave birth to a new son, Riley, on Wednesday.

An Abrupt Change of Life

Well, I've gone and done it ! Here's the itinerary, just for those who consider masochism as a spectator sport:
Wednesday morning, 3.30 a.m.: I'm rung up by the taxi driver, asking to know where I am ! I tell him he's early - 24 hours early. No more sleep tonight :(
Thursday morning, 3.30 a.m.: I'm rung up by the taxi driver again. This time I tell him where to come to meet me and bring bags out. 4.30 sees me in line for a Southwest flight to Chicago Midway, and then to Salt Lake. Flight leaves at 7 a.m. On time ! Next flight leaves Midway at 9.25 on time ! These Southwest Airlines people are Good !
Thursday afternoon: take taxi to CruiseAmerica in Salt Lake. Got to see instruction video of how not to destroy an RV camper. In English, and then, for fun, in Dutch (well, waroom niet :) ? ). Do the walk-around and then get on the road. First instruction is to turn left on 4500, but not that it isn't marked in the direction I'm going ! I turn by doing a right-right-right-left around a 6000 block, go back the way I came, and find the road, nicely signposted (on this side of the light!).

Thursday afternoon was nice in Salt Lake City. By Ogden it was threateningly dark, and then, just as I bore right before Brigham City to go to Logan, the sleet began. 30 seconds later it was full-out snow and I was in that for the next 22 miles. Could see ploughs heading from Logan through Sardine Canyon, but none in front of us, so I just stayed behind the truck in front of me and hoped.

(this is the first of a catch-up: we're having breakfast in DesMoines right now, and the next one will be from Davenport or further east)