Life and a meme.
Starting with life.
This weekend I had a job interview in Balitmore, MD. I'd never been before but I'm a fan of Ace of Cakes so I really wanted to go. I was also planning on going alone, but the morning of my departure, my Mom woke me up and asked me if I would like her to go as well. I figured it would be nice to have someone to talk to during my evening of No Internet so I agreed and we left around noon-thirty.
The drive was fine, I'd been the way before but never driven it myself. As we got there the traffic on the other side got bad, but heading into Baltimore was fine. We stopped just outside and got gas, then headed off the highway and let Garmin take us into the city where my interview would be the next morning.
We entered Baltimore in the WORST area. It literally was the ghetto. It was night and people were just walking around in groups. There was no police presence and few other cars on the street, so here we were, two women in a shiny black Toyota Rav4, with an Ohio licence plate and a GPS on the front dash going through hell.
I'm slowly freaking out, but my mother is nearly beside herself. At one point we get stopped at a red light, with people on the corners looking at us and no other cars in the area, so my Mom just yells at me to drive through it and I do. We managed to get through the area, but the building of my interview is only maybe 3 blocks away from the red light I ran and the area is not looking very much better to my eyes.
We decide to find a hotel, feeling very uneasy, and we pick one that's off the major North/South highway maybe 10 miles away from my destination in the morning. We found a Radisson Inn that was in the middle of a commercial development and the area seems ok, so we stay there.
Unfortunately the pipes in this hotel rattle violently every 5-6 minutes, causing me to get absolutely no sleep, but the one redeeming factor was The Soloist was showing on HBO in the morning, meaning I got my RDJ fix for the day.
My job interview went really well, for the most part. The TD was engaging and funny and I had a good time talking to him. I asked him more about Baltimore and he really played it up as being a good city, especially a good starting city to live in if it's my first time in a major city. He offered me the job and I told him I needed a little time to think about it. Then I told him about my plans to find Charm City Cakes and he told me that it would be really disappointing, especially because it's in a bad part of town. Having no desire to go back into the ghetto after the previous night, my mom and I crossed it off our to-do list.
After the interview my mom and I went to the Baltimore Museum of Art, which had a few really interesting things in it, including a 12 foot tall stainless steel sculpture that reflects light in a number of different ways. It was easily the coolest thing in the museum. Then, as it was already noon by that point, we decided to just get going driving back home.
Two hours into the drive back we were going to pass the Battlefield of Antietam, but we decided it might be interesting to check it out since we were there. It was the best part of the trip. If you've never been there and you're a history buff, I highly urge you to go. They have a small museum in the visitor's center where I brushed up on my history and learned some more. Antietam was the single most bloody day of fighting during the Civil War, and possibly in USA history. (I can't remember that last fact for sure or not.) 27,000 people were killed in about 14 hours of fighting. At one point in the battle, something like 9000 people were killed in 30 minutes.
Everything is kept almost exactly as it was, though the farms that existed at the time are still there, privately owned, and working. The thing that surprised me most, other than the tour and placards to each regiment, but that each state paid for monuments devoted to the men who served. And we’re not only talking gigantic monuments, but small ones littered around every site where something happened. There were monuments where the men camped the night before, monuments where the men died in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Even monuments that were relatively inaccessable due to being on top of a hill across the way which would have been a real hike to get to. I took pictures of tons of things, and I felt obligated to take pictures of all Ohio’s monuments, even though I don’t actually know anyone who participated in the battle.
(Mom told me of a relation on her mother’s side who fought and died in Alabama during the civil war, and is still buried down there, but that’s as much as I’m aware my family has been involved in the military.)
We drove back after spending a good 3 hours walking around Antietam and we spent the time by reading Sherlock Holmes to each other as the other drove. It was very entertaining as my mom hasn’t read them in years and I’m experiencing them for the first time. We got through about 4 of the short stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and I’ve only got a couple more before I’m done with that book.
The only hiccup in driving occurred right as we re-entered Ohio into the thickest fog I’ve ever driven in. It persisted from just after the state-line all the way to one exit before our exit, which we found slightly ironic. But we made it back and all in all it was a good way to spend 36 hours.
--------------------
1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book #1 -- first sentence
3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred
5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph:
Book #1--A Study In Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle
Book #2--Looking For Normal - Jane Anderson
Book #3--Star Wars Darth Bane Dynasty of Evil - Drew Karpyshyn
Book #4--Eats, Shoots and Leaves - Lynne Truss
Book #5--Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
(Heheh this should be interesting....)
In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course proscribed for surgeons in the Army. Fade out. "So you know his name?" Comfortable though we are with our modern usage, it has taken a long time to evolve, and will of course evolve further, so we mustn't get complacent. All was well.
This weekend I had a job interview in Balitmore, MD. I'd never been before but I'm a fan of Ace of Cakes so I really wanted to go. I was also planning on going alone, but the morning of my departure, my Mom woke me up and asked me if I would like her to go as well. I figured it would be nice to have someone to talk to during my evening of No Internet so I agreed and we left around noon-thirty.
The drive was fine, I'd been the way before but never driven it myself. As we got there the traffic on the other side got bad, but heading into Baltimore was fine. We stopped just outside and got gas, then headed off the highway and let Garmin take us into the city where my interview would be the next morning.
We entered Baltimore in the WORST area. It literally was the ghetto. It was night and people were just walking around in groups. There was no police presence and few other cars on the street, so here we were, two women in a shiny black Toyota Rav4, with an Ohio licence plate and a GPS on the front dash going through hell.
I'm slowly freaking out, but my mother is nearly beside herself. At one point we get stopped at a red light, with people on the corners looking at us and no other cars in the area, so my Mom just yells at me to drive through it and I do. We managed to get through the area, but the building of my interview is only maybe 3 blocks away from the red light I ran and the area is not looking very much better to my eyes.
We decide to find a hotel, feeling very uneasy, and we pick one that's off the major North/South highway maybe 10 miles away from my destination in the morning. We found a Radisson Inn that was in the middle of a commercial development and the area seems ok, so we stay there.
Unfortunately the pipes in this hotel rattle violently every 5-6 minutes, causing me to get absolutely no sleep, but the one redeeming factor was The Soloist was showing on HBO in the morning, meaning I got my RDJ fix for the day.
My job interview went really well, for the most part. The TD was engaging and funny and I had a good time talking to him. I asked him more about Baltimore and he really played it up as being a good city, especially a good starting city to live in if it's my first time in a major city. He offered me the job and I told him I needed a little time to think about it. Then I told him about my plans to find Charm City Cakes and he told me that it would be really disappointing, especially because it's in a bad part of town. Having no desire to go back into the ghetto after the previous night, my mom and I crossed it off our to-do list.
After the interview my mom and I went to the Baltimore Museum of Art, which had a few really interesting things in it, including a 12 foot tall stainless steel sculpture that reflects light in a number of different ways. It was easily the coolest thing in the museum. Then, as it was already noon by that point, we decided to just get going driving back home.
Two hours into the drive back we were going to pass the Battlefield of Antietam, but we decided it might be interesting to check it out since we were there. It was the best part of the trip. If you've never been there and you're a history buff, I highly urge you to go. They have a small museum in the visitor's center where I brushed up on my history and learned some more. Antietam was the single most bloody day of fighting during the Civil War, and possibly in USA history. (I can't remember that last fact for sure or not.) 27,000 people were killed in about 14 hours of fighting. At one point in the battle, something like 9000 people were killed in 30 minutes.
Everything is kept almost exactly as it was, though the farms that existed at the time are still there, privately owned, and working. The thing that surprised me most, other than the tour and placards to each regiment, but that each state paid for monuments devoted to the men who served. And we’re not only talking gigantic monuments, but small ones littered around every site where something happened. There were monuments where the men camped the night before, monuments where the men died in the morning, afternoon, and evening. Even monuments that were relatively inaccessable due to being on top of a hill across the way which would have been a real hike to get to. I took pictures of tons of things, and I felt obligated to take pictures of all Ohio’s monuments, even though I don’t actually know anyone who participated in the battle.
(Mom told me of a relation on her mother’s side who fought and died in Alabama during the civil war, and is still buried down there, but that’s as much as I’m aware my family has been involved in the military.)
We drove back after spending a good 3 hours walking around Antietam and we spent the time by reading Sherlock Holmes to each other as the other drove. It was very entertaining as my mom hasn’t read them in years and I’m experiencing them for the first time. We got through about 4 of the short stories in The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes, and I’ve only got a couple more before I’m done with that book.
The only hiccup in driving occurred right as we re-entered Ohio into the thickest fog I’ve ever driven in. It persisted from just after the state-line all the way to one exit before our exit, which we found slightly ironic. But we made it back and all in all it was a good way to spend 36 hours.
--------------------
1. Take five books off your bookshelf.
2. Book #1 -- first sentence
3. Book #2 -- last sentence on page fifty
4. Book #3 -- second sentence on page one hundred
5. Book #4 -- next to the last sentence on page one hundred fifty
6. Book #5 -- final sentence of the book
7. Make the five sentences into a paragraph:
Book #1--A Study In Scarlet - Arthur Conan Doyle
Book #2--Looking For Normal - Jane Anderson
Book #3--Star Wars Darth Bane Dynasty of Evil - Drew Karpyshyn
Book #4--Eats, Shoots and Leaves - Lynne Truss
Book #5--Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows - J.K. Rowling
(Heheh this should be interesting....)
In the year 1878 I took my degree of Doctor of Medicine of the University of London, and proceeded to Netley to go through the course proscribed for surgeons in the Army. Fade out. "So you know his name?" Comfortable though we are with our modern usage, it has taken a long time to evolve, and will of course evolve further, so we mustn't get complacent. All was well.