I Hate Going Downtown: Parking Garage of Doom
There was a concert tonight. It promised to be a doozy. It was the Fiftieth Anniversary of the founding of the University of Rochester Symphony Orchestra. I have a bit of a connection with URSO: I played trumpet with them for four years, served as webmaster for two years, and was the recording tech for two years. I was in the orchestra for the Fortieth Anniversary concert in 1995, a pretty impressive shindig that included a piece conducted by the orchestra's founder. This time they were performing at Eastman Theater. They were going to perform Beethoven's Ninth Symphony. You know, the one with the choir that has to sit still for an hour. The one the European Union uses for a continental anthem. They were going to combine UR's choir with Nazareth's. There had been good publicity in the paper earlier in the week.
Knowing how much ass this would kick, I'd been talking up this performance quite a bit. Co-worker Barry was unable to make it, but his wife, mother and kids (including a French horner and a saxaphonician) were planning to go. I announced it to the Chorus. I picked up ddmerillat so he and I could go.
We pulled into the East End Garage at 7:50. This was much closer than I would've liked to have cut it, but such is life. I didn't think there'd be a problem. There was, however, an extraordinary problem, the nature of which still eludes me. It took us about ten minutes to wend our way up to the second level. And then everything stopped. We could see lots of movement on the lower levels, people giving up and leaving, but the third level was at a standstill. I was running low on gas, so I turned off the engine. After another fifteen minutes at a full stop, the guy in front of me asked if I could back up to let him onto the exit ramp. He, too, wanted to be listening to Beethoven. We gave up and went home. I might've considered driving around the garage for a while if I'd filled up the car this morning, but it clearly wasn't meant to be. No frickin' justice.
Knowing how much ass this would kick, I'd been talking up this performance quite a bit. Co-worker Barry was unable to make it, but his wife, mother and kids (including a French horner and a saxaphonician) were planning to go. I announced it to the Chorus. I picked up ddmerillat so he and I could go.
We pulled into the East End Garage at 7:50. This was much closer than I would've liked to have cut it, but such is life. I didn't think there'd be a problem. There was, however, an extraordinary problem, the nature of which still eludes me. It took us about ten minutes to wend our way up to the second level. And then everything stopped. We could see lots of movement on the lower levels, people giving up and leaving, but the third level was at a standstill. I was running low on gas, so I turned off the engine. After another fifteen minutes at a full stop, the guy in front of me asked if I could back up to let him onto the exit ramp. He, too, wanted to be listening to Beethoven. We gave up and went home. I might've considered driving around the garage for a while if I'd filled up the car this morning, but it clearly wasn't meant to be. No frickin' justice.