10 of 30 - IV - Davis Adventures
So I survived my trip up here.
Road Rage in the Central Valley
The trip was pretty uneventful, other than an odd occurance of road rage.
I drive in the right-most lane available, unless passing vehicles (in which case, I move into the right-most lane available to pass them). The Five is a two lane road through most of the Central Valley.
Frequently you get slow trucks in the right lane and a long queue of cars lined up in the left lane. As hanging out in the left lane when there is room in a lane further right is against my sensibilities, I usually cruise up behind the truck on the right lane, turn on my blinkers, let a car or two to my left pass by before moving into the left lane myself to pass a truck. I can see how this could be interpreted as "cutting in line" by other cars in the queue -- but hey they shouldn't be hanging out in the left lane!
Anyway, in this particular incident I came up behind a truck, turned on my blinkers, let the car to my left pass me, and moved in behind it, as usual. Having passed the truck I moved back into the right lane and presumably would have passed the car on my left. But it moved into the right lane. I then moved back into the left lane. The other car then moved into the center between the two lanes!!
It then permitted me to pass it on the right, and I looked over to see some guy veritably frothing at the mouth as he gave me a vigorous display of his middle finger. I just looked at him quizzically as I passed, because I really don't know what he had to be upset about other than that I guess I wasn't following his conception of driving behaviour (note that he hadn't even been a car I'd moved in front of in passing!)
Seeing as this individual was obviously unstable I decided to put some distance between him and I and discovered the golf can get to 105 mph without too much trouble. I had to move in front of him soon to pass another truck (but there were several carlengths between us already), in my rear-view mirror I could see he was still shouting expletives at me as I left him in my dust.
Adventures in Davis, Day 1
Upon arrival in Davis I decided I ought to make the most out of the Saturday night experience and started looking for a ruckus to cause. I determined that the best I could come up with on short notice was Britta and friends going to the Cantina, a bar I've never actually been to on G Street.
First I needed to get gas however. So I hopped on down to the gas station down the street (Lake and Covell for those following along at home). Who should be in the Circle K there, but Chad Van Shoelace (which was particularly suprising because he no longer lives in Davis)!
I parked in front of the Foyerhouse, and walked to Aggie Liquor to get some cheap alcohols to consume previous to being in the bar. At Aggie Liquor I found a guy playing his guitar out front. He was pretty decent. Then a guy showed up to buy beer who started freestyling to the guitar and he was actually really good. A crowd started to form to watch the two. It was pretty cool. I ended up hanging out there for about an hour I think.
Then I continued on my way to the Cantina. Outside of Froggy's I ran into ASUCD President Kareem Salem, and Chris Harold. I thought it was kind of funny that Kareem was one of the first people I ran into this time, because he was also the first person I ran into LAST time!
Anyway, it turned out Britta & co were at Woodstocks Pizza, which was fortunate because I wasn't really looking forward to being in Cantina, & I was rather peckish. We all walked back to Britta's place on M street and watched some Matt Damon movie.
This morning I awoke on the M Street couch. The group from the night before (pretty much all of whom had crashed at the M Street House) was headed over to the Dining Commons for brunch (presumably to use up a freshman friends remaining swipes, which would roll over at the terrible ratio of $2/swipe into meal credit for the campus fast-food places, if unused this year). I had made lunch plans with Tarisha Bal the night before however so I parted ways and met Tarisha at Plutos for lunch.
Subsequent Plans
Other than being in Court in Woodland, and trying to fill my old room here, I'm also planning on finally investigating the steam tunnels on campus. I've recruited some other adventurers for this quest already, but if interested please contact me! I think we'll do it tomorrow evening. Now I find out if campus police read this lj (=
Tarisha apparently got this grant from Roadtrip Nation to go on a huge cross-county road trip from June 18th through 29th (and document it). I really want to go. I figure (A) I couldn't afford to go Europe or any of those other fun things people do after they graduate, the least I can do is roam the States; (B) If I get a job between now and then, I could just tell them I need to give my current employment two weeks notice, which is of course entirely acceptable and could bring us up to the 29th (and hey, I could tell Dave I'm starting a new job in two weeks or whatevs, hence not lying about two weeks notice, and he'd surely let me have my last day whenevers). Depending of course on route preferences of the other people involved, I would probably get to visit Aaron Aviv in New Orleans, pavel_lishin in Texas, my relatives in New York whom I haven't seen in many years, and Yellowstone National Park!
Other things on my to-do list include breakfast at Crepeville and dinner at Fuzios, if anyone wants to join me for either that would be excellent.