You know what's fun?

in

Going into the house and finding piles and piles of black, smelly vomit. Yes, either the puppy I'm watching ate a poop and decided it didn't agree with her (shocker!) or she somehow got herself a chocolate flavored Powerbar or two. I found an empty wrapper on the floor, but that doesn't mean that she ate it.. could have just been an empty wrapper in Paul's gym bag. Clean up the puke, call the vet to find out how likely it is that the dog is going to die. She (the puppy) is just sort of laying on the ground, but doesn't appear to be in any actual distress at the moment. Vet sounds a little concerned, and we set up an appointment for later this afternoon. If the puppy is not more puppy-ish by then, I'll bring her in. Oh, and could I dig back through the garbage to get a sample of the puke? Sure! Why not!?!

An hour or two later, and the puppy is up and wagging, so maybe I won't need to bring her to the vet. Hope not, anyway. I think you can pull the ol' switcharoo with goldfish when they die, but not so likely with a puppy.

Randoms

in , ,

* Leaving this weekend to go on the family vacation to "Antigua":http://www.antigua-barbuda.org/. We'll be staying at a "lovely resort":http://www.eliteislandresorts.com/site/resorts.asp?islandID=1&resortID=11 on the south part of the island. I'm not super into laying on the beach, but there are a few things I think I'll be able to do: 1) Sleep. 2) Do lots of pushups and situps to get my flabby body back into shape in preparation for a winter of "Hueco bouldering":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001226/. 3) Catch up on some reading. 4) walk around with my climbing shoes and a chalk bag. "Virgin":http://www.geocities.com/tryhardvideo/virgingorda.html "Gorda":http://www.utoledo.edu/~kpugh/VG-guide/ is too far away to take a puddle jumper, but it's the same volcanic formation, I think.. so there's probably at least a little bit of bouldering to be had on the island. 5) The place we're staying "has a casino":http://www.eliteislandresorts.com/site/features.asp?featureID=106&resortID=11&islandID=1, and there's also "a nice looking one":http://www.grandprincessentertainment.com/casino.htm a cab ride away. I figure there will be lots of fishy tourists (not including me, of course), so if I can find some $2/4 hold 'em I'll be very happy. * It's been pretty quiet here. Paul and April got married in New York over the weekend, and are on vacation in Banff and Jasper parks in Canada. I think they come back a week after I get back, and it will be good to see them. I have to order more holds for "the woody":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001231/, and have some problems set for when they get back.

* Been getting out and about on my fixed-gear bike. It's a whole different kind of riding, but it's really nice to have something that's so cheap and so easy to maintain.

* "Poore Brothers Habanero Potato Chips":http://www.taquitos.net/snacks.php?snack_code=435 are the shit.

* My cat is a one-cat lizard-killing machine. I found 3 small ones scattered around the guest house just yesterday. You know that awful smell when you drive by a dead deer or something on the side of the road? Shrink that down about a fifth, and that's what the little treats are that my special boy is leaving for me.

Why it's sometimes easier to throw money at a problem.

in ,

Today my manager asked if we could put some spell-checking on some of the free-form text entry pages of our web application. We had talked about it generally for a little while, but now I guess it's a bit more urgent, and he also happened to catch me at a good post-release time with not a ton of crazy bugfixes and no time. There are some "home-brew solutions":http://www.wwwcoder.com/main/parentid/458/site/3526/68/default.aspx using Word, as well as "a free component":http://www.loresoft.com/NetSpell which has some promise, but the one I was drawn to was "this one right here":http://www.keyoti.com/products/rapidspell/dotNetWeb/index.html. It was a piece of cake to put into the form in question, even though it was totally dynamically generated (i.e. no textbox tags on the page at all.. everything created and inserted into a placeholder control at runtime). Just add a spellcheck control for each textbox, and a master one to pop the Javascript window which tests all the textboxes.

It's one of those things where I certainly _could_ have figured something out, but this solution was so easy and so flexible (and it helps that the client is _so_ paying for it) that it's just easier to send them a check and have something up and running in just a few hours.

Pixies - Mesa Ampitheatre

in

Last night I drove up to Mesa to go see "The Pixies":http://www.4ad.com/artists/catalogue/pixies/ at "the ampitheatre":http://www.cityofmesa.org/cencntr/amp/amphitheatre.asp. It was my first time seeing them live, although I saw Frank Black and the Catholics a few years ago in Pittsburgh. The show was awesome... it was like listening to a greatest hits album live.

*Update:* If you want a rough approximation of what they sounded like, go "here":http://accordionguy.blogware.com/blog/_archives/2004/4/22/37799.html for links to the mp3 and flac versions of an earlier show from the same tour.

Setlist follows:

Is She Wierd Subbacultcha Something Against You Tame Cactus River Euphrates Monkey Gone to Heaven No. 13 Baby Mr. Grieves Ed is Dead Planet of Sound Caribou My Velouria Gouge Away Isla de encanta Broken Face Wave of Mutilation Debaser U-Mass I Bleed Hey Gigantic Winterlong Here Comes Your Man Nimrod's Son Holiday Song Vamos (Encore) In Heaven Where is My Mind

They sounded fantastic, and good ol' Black Francis didn't even look as fat as he was a few years back. I guess they're doing a lot of touring, so that's a lot of good exercise right there.

Mesa itself is a strange place. It's a suburb of Phoenix, really... so it's all sprawl. Plus, they have a very high concentration of "Mormons":http://www.dooce.com/archives/nubbin/09_18_2004.html there, so it lends to the overall creepy atmosphere.

First Heuco Weekend!

in

This past weekend Paul, April and I headed down to a little-known climbing spot just outside of El Paso, Texas: Hueco Tanks. *Update:* Vince sent me some pictures he took as well. "See those here":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/?folder=20040919_hueco2.

"All photos I took here.":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/?folder=20040919_hueco We drove down late Friday afternoon, and got to the campground by about 11:30. The drive was uneventful, although I can tell you that El Paso is a crappy shitty stinky town. As soon as you hit the outskirts, you pass by a waste-treatment plant (think of the "one at my work":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001079/, times about 1000), and then a high-density feedlot. Yum. Anyway, get to the site, pull out the tents, and rack out.

Next morning was bright and clear. Our friends Vince, Tammy and James (along with Tammy's son Mars and friend Chris) were already there as well.

zzzzzz zzzzzz the tanks big sky

We get to the "state park":http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/park/hueco/, get checked in, and I get to watch an orientation video! Whee! "Don't step on plans, don't disturb wildlife, yadda yadda." Ok, done. Set up at our campsite inside the park, some awesome breakfast burritos and tooth brushing, and we're all off to hike in.

our site our site brush, brush

The warmup area is called Small Potatos, and has some small-ish rocks. I do my very first climb at Hueco, and then do a few other warmups in the area, and then an ultra-cool V2 called French Fry.

small potatos my first april on french fry

After the warmup we stopped at a climb called "No One Gets Out Alive", which is V2 or V3. Then up to the "Track 2" area, where they have "Daily Dick Dose" (V7) and some other fun things. I took a crack or two on DDD, but realized that I need a whole bunch of training and not eating if I want to have a good winter.

everyone eying up DDD vince on DDD

Paul quickly knocked off "P.F.O.S.", (V9), and we went around the corner to a cool highball arete called "Baby Face" (V7?). I took pictures of everyone trying it, and also a few shots of the awesome view.

paul on babyface tammy on babyface long shot

landscape landscape

Next up was Martini Roof, which was an awesome cave with all kinds of good huge jugs in the roof, with a few problems scattered about. A V5, a longer V6, and an ass-hard V10. Everyone was working on the 5, for the most part. I was close, but couldn't control my swing when I got near the end. It was a great workout, tho.

Last stop was Hebrew Sausage, an awesome V5 that's all slopers and heel hooks; really cool movement. The heel hook was starting to give me some trouble (I have a bit of a trick knee, and heel hooks and descents screw it up nicely), so I called it a day. We headed back to the campsite, cooked up dinner, and had pizza and beer.

Middle of the night it started raining! WTF? It was the first rain I had seen since I moved, and of course I didn't put the rain fly on my tent, so at whatever time in the morning it was I was running around like a maniac trying to get the cover on so I wouldn't get soaked. Paul and April were in the same boat, so I didn't feel too dumb. Heh.

Next day there was still lots of rain, and cloudy skies as far as you could see.

wet dreary bleh

The access issues at Heuco are strange: you have to have a guide for 2 of the 3 main areas, so luckily we had one Sunday to go see parts of the park that Paul and April hadn't seen yet. Luckier still we had a guide who was a hardcore climber, Anna Burgos. She's strong as hell, and cute as a button, but she "sounds like Shelly from South Park":http://feralboy.com/muzak/spears.wav. "Shtan, I'm going to go lishten to my Britney Schpears recordsh". Sorry Anna!

We checked out all kinds of stuff. The warm up area "called 'The Warmup Boulder', interestingly enough" had some great climbs, including an awesome V3 I did with a big dyno move on it.

Then on to some other stuff, including a cool 45-degree face with 2 awesome climbs on it.

tammy on a cool V2 crack paul on 'Hobbit in a Blender' april on the V2 crack'

Then on to a different area which had "Full Service" (V10) and "Dragonfly", which was an AWESOME V5. Crazy highball, cool moves. I can't wait to send it.

Last place we went had just one climb, "Ultra-Mega", which was a steep V7 with some really cool-looking holds on it. Paul and Anna both took some whacks at it, but Paul sent at the end.

paul working out the moves anna on ultra-mega paul sends

A last stab at Hebrew Sausage for a few people (with James sending in fine form), and then we were on our way back.

In summary: Hueco is an amazing place, certainly on par with Bishop, and I can't wait to get strong by going there every weekend.

"All photos here.":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/?folder=20040919_hueco

Rock you like a hurricane (or, more wildlife adventures)

in

Holy motherfucking shit. I was in my little guest house cave, finishing up some last minute "work":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/nizzle/ stuff, when April came running to my window.

"Matt, come outside! There's a huge scorpion out here!"

I go out, and sure enough, there's a big-ass scorpion out there. Like, "Clash of the Titans":http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0082186/ big.

aaaaaugh! big

First Paul is scraping at it with "a broom handle":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040916_scorpion/P1010013.JPG, then trying to "hose the thing down":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040916_scorpion/P1010016.JPG, and the finally "grabs the motherfucker":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040916_scorpion/P1010021.JPG with "chopsticks":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040916_scorpion/P1010022.JPG, which allows me to get a few good pictures of it.

oh my goodness

For all you bleeding-hearts out there, yes, we threw it out into the backyard scrub, where I'm sure it lived to _fright_ another day. Hah! I'm punny!

"All pics of the horrid encounter here":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/?folder=20040916_scorpion

Another day, another lizard.

in

As "per request":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001214/#comments, I have some carnage pictures today. Manson brought in another lizard this morning. I can always tell when he's got something, because he's just pleased as can be with himself; making little trilling sounds and rubbing up against my leg. pleased with himself whose alive? not me!

This time I figured I found it too late, as it was dead on it's back. Manson would flip it up in the air occasionally, and it would go plop. Then I noticed that when the cat wasn't looking he would try and sneaky sneaky crawl away. That little fucker was just _playing_ dead! So, rescued this one too, much to kitty's dismay.

c'mere! yeah you. go ahead, i dare ya.

Trouble in paradise

in

Well, it can't _all_ be perfect here in Tucson. I realized yesterday that I have two major gripes: * What the hell is it with everything closing early? I went out the other night to try and get a paint roller to help apply the weatherproofing to the backyard climbing wall (I would have said "backyard woody", but I know "Robn":http://firepile.com/robin/ would have had a field day with that), and the hardward store closed at 6?!?! Luckily there was a Target down the road, and I just barely squeaked in the door before they closed as well. AT SEVEN FUCKING O'CLOCK!!! What if I need some Target-ey goodness at 9? Boned. * Most of the major thoroughfares around town are 3 lanes each way. A rational person would think that the left-hand lane might be for, oh, I don't know... _passing people_ or something. Oh, no... not in Tucson. All three lanes move at exactly the same maddening pace; one mile an hour under the speed limit. Looks like I'll have to brush up on my slaloming skills.

Rrrrrriiiiip!

in

Well, if I thought "last time I got cat scratch fever":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/000470/ was bad, that was nothing compared to yesterday. We were getting ready to go climbing, so I was retrieving all the cats from outside. They always go in the backyard, so if they don't hop up on the little separator wall of their own accord, I need to carry them all the way around the house and through the front gate and courtyard. Unfortunately, the courtyard is where Morgan, the lovable chocolate lab, likes to hang out during the day. And the cats know it. They still haven't figured out that whole "dog" thing yet, so they tend to keep their distance. Anyway, bringing Manson in through the courtyard he started to get fiesty. I guess he wanted to be mobile in case that big snuffling thing showed up, so he started twisting and kicking and tore the everloving shit out of me in the process.

owowowow!

(I have another scratch on the other side from the front claws, but it's not nearly as impressive. It's sorta like the one I got in the first link above.)

In other cat news, they're very much enjoying the outdoors. I'll let them out for brief periods while I'm working, and only during the day. There are coyotes out at night, and I've seen and heard them, and I worry enough about Morgan, whose instinct still is to charge the cats once in awhile.

Mason (the evil eviscerator) even caught a lizard the other day! I managed to get it away from him still alive, although it was short one tail. I've always wanted to have outdoor cats that would bring me little "presents", but I guess I should be careful what I wish for, right?

Mt. Lemmon

in

Paul and April took me on my first outdoor climbing excursion yesterday. We drove up to the top of "Mt. Lemmon":http://www.rockclimbing.com/routes/listArea.php?AreaID=416 to check out what the local crag had to offer. First of all, the drive up the mountain is totally amazing. The desert floor drops away, and you completely change scenery going from saguaro to scrubby pines to full trees as you get higher and cooler (totally forgot to bring the camera). To get to the areas, you drive nearly to the very top, and then hike down, past the cliffs you're about to climb on. After a decent hike in, we tried out a few "warmup" problems (easy 11s). The type of rock on Mt. Lemmon is totally different from what I'm used to at the New River Gorge. The rock here is very sharp, with lots of quartz crystals. This is good because you can make use of a lot of blank-looking sections because of the friction, but bad because I don't have very good callouses built up right now, so today my tips are _blown_.

After the warmup we hiked a little further down to head to an area called "The Orafice". There were a few problems there that Paul and April wanted to work on there. To get there you have to shuffle across a foot-wide ledge, and then go around a corner and hook your harness into a safety line. P + A started across, and I looked and looked and looked and bailed. We were at least 500 feet above the rocks below, and one slip meant you were dead. I had visions of a foot giving way (it was sort of loose-looking choss), or a strong wind coming around the corner or something. That plus trying it with a loaded pack did not sound like my idea of fun, so as crappy as it made me feel I stopped. P + A were super-cool about it, and told me their first trip there they had bailed too, until some guy came and basically made them go across it.

Instead, we went down a really steep section of the cliff, past where a lot of the fire damage was from last year (burned trees and blistered rocks everywhere), and did a HARD 11 which was super-exposed, with a gorgeous view of the other mountains in the range, and all of Tucson spread out below that. Paul got the redpoint, and April and I both went up on TR. By the time I got to the top (long route, like 14 bolts or something) I was wasted. Not tired, so much, but no skin left, so all the prickly holds at the top felt horrible.

It was a fun place, but I'm still in bouldering mode, which is great because we're going to Heuco next weekend!!! Hot weather be damned, we're going to try and find all the shady spots, and just walk around and pick out some projects for the fall and winter. I've heard so many cool things about Heuco, combined with the video that P + A shot there, that I can't wait to see it!

Gearing up

in

Not much play lately, as I haven't worked out "a home game":http://www.homepokergames.com/arizona.php yet, although I might have an in for one this Saturday night (even though it sounds like a lot of dealer's choice garbage, there also was talk of some straight Hold 'Em). I've puttered a bit online, but trying to stay away from that as I don't want it filling up my spare time, as I seem to have a lot more of it now. I did take my first stab at two $20+2 SNG's on PartyPoker, and bubbled (i.e. finished the highest non-money spot) in both. Guess I'll stay away from those for awhile. I've been doing lots of reading. I'm pretty much done with Super/System, and the one I'm reading now is "Zen and the art of Poker", which is philosophy as opposed to actual strategy. It stresses patience, even emotions, and general Zen. As I like to consider myself having a bit of an Eastern bent, philosophically, it meshes well. Detachment at the poker table is a hard thing to do, but I'm trying.

Seems like the home games in Pittsburgh are "picking up":http://bigbrit.blogspot.com/2004/09/poker.html a "little bit":http://thisamericanstrife.blogspot.com/2004/09/labor-day-weekend-at-new.html of "steam":http://bigbrit.blogspot.com/2004/09/i-love-this-weather-now-i-know-that.html, which is awesome. I was especially happy to see that David cleaned up last night. He improved vastly from when "we first started":http://feralboy.com/log/archives/001029/, but sometimes played a bit loose, and had the _worst_ luck with pocket Kings. ;-) Nice that he finally caught some cards and was a big wiener.

At some point I'm going to have to check out the local casino action. "Desert Diamond":http://www.desertdiamond.com/ apparently has some low buy-in tournaments running pretty much all the time (and I feel like my tourney play is pretty strong right now), and "Casino del Sol":http://www.casinodelsol.com/ sounds like they have a nice poker room. Maybe I'll check that out this weekend. It would be fun to do like a once a month thing, go bring $50 and see what happens.

Settling in

in

Well, I've been in Tucson for a week now, and so far I love it. I'm more or less unpacked, but I'll take a few pictures of the guest house with all my crap in it once I'm fully set up. Just a few random observations about the place so far. First of all, yes, it's hot. It's been about 100 every day so far, but it's really tolerable heat. It doesn't seem to really come on until about 3 in the afternoon, and my little AC unit cranks out the cold if I need it to (or there's always the pool). It gets cooler at night, and it's been quite comfortable sleeping weather; no AC needed.

Haven't gotten to sample too much of the local restaurants, save for a really kickass Mexican place that I took everyone to while Laura was still here. I've seen a couple of cute places, but I still need to try out the local sushi, as well. Oh... I did go to "Beyond Bread":http://www.beyondbread.com/ the other day on the advice of my stepmom (my step-aunt lives here in Tucson), and it was tasty, although completely insanely busy!

They have "Trader Joe's":http://www.traderjoes.com/ here! We tried out the "2-buck Chuck":http://www.npr.org/features/feature.php?wfId=1963794 (actually 3-buck Chuck here), and it's decent! Must get a case. Also there's a "Wild Oats":http://www.wildoats.com/, so I won't lament a lack of Whole Foods too much.

One thing I wasn't suprised about was the amount of sprawl. Everything is all spread out. Laura explained it thusly: "On the east coast, they build up. Out here, they build _out_." Getting around isn't too bad either; much of the city is a grid layout, but they do weird things with streets that change names, or a same name that skips around without being connected.

I've seen some interesting wildlife as well. So far I've seen a few "HUGE moths":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040907_misc/P1010003.JPG, a small (e.g. one-inch long) scorpion stuck to the bathroom ant trap, a tarantula crossing the road (ew!), countless small lizards scurrying around outside my window, and something squashed on the side of the road that was probably big enough to have only been a "Gila Monster":http://www.desertusa.com/sep97/du_gilamonster.html. No javalinas yet, but I've got my fingers crossed.

Got to go for a couple of bike rides, including a fantastic one at dusk yesterday. There's nothing like rolling down an empty road with the sinking sun setting the mountains afire. It's a super bike-friendly town, with lots of the streets having an explicit bike lane, or at least a wide-ish shoulder. Even on the ones that don't, it seems that cars will give you a wide berth. Still trying to figure out how to fit a daily ride into my schedule; it'll probably be in the evenings around sundown. With Arizona not following daylight savings time(!), right now I'm on west coast time, or 3 hours earlier than Pittsburgh. I've been trying to go to work at 6, so getting up earlier isn't a good option for a workout.

We erected the "frame for a backyard climbing wall":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040907_misc/P1010007.JPG! I'll have pictures of that up shortly as well, but the t-nuts and holds are coming this week; the plywood is already drilled, so we might be climbing on it this weekend!

I've been letting the cats run around a little bit in the courtyard, and they seem to be having a good time with it. They might not enjoy it so much today when Morgan (April's sweetheart chocolate lab) comes back today from an extended puppy play date. I'm hoping they'll at least start pooping outside!

Oh, and people here are so nice that it makes me really uncomfortable. I miss East Coast Rude.

New design

in

Hey, things look a bit different around here, eh? I had been planning on a bit of a redesign to reflect my new surroundings, and I had a nice quiet weekend to do it in.

Much design inspiration -borrowed- stolen from "Eric Meyer":http://meyerweb.com/ and "Douglas Bowman":http://stopdesign.com/

It's still a work in progress, and I'm probably going to tweak the colors and also replace that top image, although I kinda like how it looks now, especially since I took it.

Interior pages will be upgraded as I get to it.

Oh, and if it looks all weird, do a shift-reload; you might have a stylesheet cached or something.

"Fuck everybody, we're bigger" (or, How to Go From Pittsburgh To Tucson In 3 Days)

in

Recap of my moving trip from Pittsburgh, PA to Tucson, AZ. I wasn't aware that the middle of the country was so boring. I thought there was going to be interesting things; that around every corner would be a big ball of twine, or an Elvis museum, or something else equally exciting. Turns out that most of this great land of ours isn't really all that thrilling.

Let's start at the beginning. The last few weeks have been mad packing and making arrangements in general; canceling utilities, setting up forwarding address, yadda yadda.

Friday night Laura was supposed to fly in from Newark, and we'd go out and get some drinks with friends. Turns out her connecting flight from D.C. never got off the ground, so she stayed overnight and came out the following morning. So Friday night was lots of last-minute packing and throwing stuff in the truck. I had promised my friends that were helping me move that it would all just be big stuff: the bed, the TV, etc, and I wanted to stick to that if possible. Caprice and I banged out a whole bunch of boxes and got them loaded. (I had such good moving karma from helping other friends move during my years in PGH that I actually probably didn't have to do anything. I could have just sat and had young nymphs feed me grapes or something while everyone else packed up boxes, but that didn't seem quite fair.)

Saturday morning everyone started showing up at around 9, and I think it all went fairly smoothly. I owe Joshua (and his lovely and talented girl Cynthia), Drew, Brian, Jen and even little Seb (he helped sweep) a huge debt o' gratitude for helping me get everything packed. My sister's flight landed, and I went to pick her up. A quick lunch and some calls to figure out a good course of action to handle the kitties and we were off, at 2:47 p.m. exactly.

The first thing I learned is that if you’re "towing a car(a picture of our rig)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010022.JPG you really want to make sure that you turn off the alarm. Otherwise as soon as you start driving you’re going to make the car thing it’s being stolen/moved and it’ll start howling its head off.

The rental truck wasn't that hard to drive, either. It felt like a van after awhile; granted, a really really BIG van, but just a van. We used the size to our advantage, too. Laura's mantra anytime we were in a weird intersection situation? "Fuck everybody, we're bigger!"

The drive out of Pittsburgh was uneventful. We took the same route as when I would go climbing in WV, so that meant I knew where the hell I was going. Get on 70, and go west, west, west. We cut through about 5 miles of WV, and then get into Ohio (people _live_ there?). We started to get some really good thunderstorms/lightning/heavy rain around Columbus, which cooled everything down enough to let the cats run around free in the car. Indiana was next, and we wound up stopping there for the night, in Terra Haute (hereafter referred to as “Terra Hate”). I was hoping to make St. Louis that night, but we got off to a later start than I expected. Anyway, we saw a sign for a Motel 6 on the highway, and figured that would be good, cheap place, as well as somewhere that it would be easy to sneak the cats into. Get off the highway, follow the little blue sign with the arrow, and start driving. And driving. And driving. Finally got to the end of the main drag, and no sign of the Motel 6. WTF? Ok, so we start heading back towards the highway, pass the highway, and nothing. Then we loop back around and finally see it; it’s hidden behind like 3 gas stations. Pull in, and go to the night desk. Nobody there, and no buzzer to call. We look around some more, then get annoyed and leave. At this point we’ve been driving around Terra Hate for at least 45 minutes just looking for a place to crash. Back out onto the main drag, and start down again. All the big name hotel/motels are booked solid. We finally find a little hole in the wall motel that’s relatively cheap. Bonus: pets are ok; just $5 per! Our room was pretty gross… pizza on the walls, and strange soap for the shower.

Turns out the reason there were so many people in town is that there was a truck show or something that weekend. Funny, I just figured there was always that amount of rednecks with “dick rigs” was par for the course in Terra Hate.

Sunday was a perfect day to drive; "overcast(Sunday morning in Terra Hate)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010023.JPG and not very hot. We let the cats "run around in the car loose(a cat's eye view)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010034.JPG all day long. I was really, REALLY worried about them before we started the drive, and Saturday we had them in carriers with the windows way down until we hit the rain in Ohio and it was cool enough for them to be out and about with the windows up enough so they couldn’t squeeze their fat bodies out. Sunday was cool enough so not bother with strapping them in, so we were off. We spent a ton of time "on 70(aaah, route 70)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010027.JPG; through Il-annoyed, then St. Louis. Pick up 44 south there, and then Springfield, and then onto 40 in Tulsa, OK. Got "a cool hat":http://moblog.co.uk/view.php?id=21791 at a truck stop in OK, too! Finally stopped at Amarillo, TX at about 4 in the morning, after putting on at least 1000 miles that day. Stayed at a "La Quinta":http://www.lq.com/, which supposedly has free internet, but I was so tired I didn’t bother to try and find out anything about it.

As an aside, it seems that people are Way Into Jesus as you make your way west (hence "Bible Belt", right?). It was interesting to see the weird sort of moral fight going on between adult shops and "religious organizations(a big cross silo)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010028.JPG. I first saw it in St. Clair Minnesota; there was a billboard advertising an adult mart at the next exit, and then right behind it one saying "porn ruins lives".

Monday was the big push… heading all the way from Amarillo to Tucson. I stumbled out of bed, loaded up the truck, and loaded Laura and the cats in and we were off. We were making great time, until we were about 2 hours east of Albuquerque. We were driving through some construction, when I started to notice the truck seemed to be pulling really hard, and wouldn’t kick into overdrive gear. Then on a long uphill, I noticed some smoke coming from the one wheel on the car carrier. Uh, oh. Pull off to the side, and there’s smoke everywhere. Brake fluid is "leaking onto the brakes(the naughty wheel)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010036.JPG, which are smoking hot, as are the brakes on the other 3 tires. Just. Fucking. Great. I figured the carrier’s disc brakes must have gotten stuck or something, so I called Penske service to figure out what we should do. Their roadside assistance was actually great; they called me back within about 10 minutes to let me know a repair truck was on the way, and he was only about "15 minutes later(help arrives)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010035.JPG than they said he’d be.

"Ricky(my homeslice Ricky)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010038.JPG got there, "jacked up the trailer(hoist it up)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010040.JPG, and started "poking and prodding(poking and prodding)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010041.JPG around. He said they might have gotten half-stuck just from me pressing the brakes and them not releasing, or from getting jostled hitting the skidplate of the trailer in a dip or something. We all decided that driving the trailer probably wasn’t a good idea, so we took the car off, and Laura drove that into Albuquerque where we picked up a new trailer. On the way we hit a "_torrential_(bad rain)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010054.JPG "storm(more bad rain)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010055.JPG; like with sleet and everything. It was fairly un-fun, especially driving the moving truck. Got to Abq, got the trailer, and we were on our way, probably only losing about 2 hours of time (since it was on our way anyway). Oh, just an interesting note, Albuquerque has a "minor-league baseball team":http://www.albuquerquebaseball.com/, the "Isotopes":http://www.abqtrib.com/archives/sports02/090402_sports_isotopes.shtml.

The rest of New Mexico was big, pretty, and funny (e.g. "Elephant Butte(Elephant Butte)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010059.JPG). A few INS(Immigration and Naturalization Services) checkpoints along the way, and one "spectacular sunset(purty)":http://feralboy.com/photoalbum/photos/20040830_TuconTrip/P1010062.JPG, and we were into Arizona.

Finally pulled up at around 11 p.m., where Paul and April were waiting with champagne! Woo! It was a fun drive, but I wish I would have been able to see some stuff along the way, like Carlsbad Caverns or something. Maybe next time.