Good news: now arrived in Chicago.

Bad news: the Empire Builder line is shut down again beyond Minneapolis/St Paul, due to a freight derailment this time. The (much understaffed and overwhelmed) customer service desk has hotel vouchers written up, and is trying to hunt up a supervisor to sign off. They're "real certain" there will be equipment to ( Read more... )

I have bottled water, and I'm unrepentent! I also have gel antiperspirant, bwahaha! I manfully resisted bringing a boxcutter along on principle, but I think it does slip in through the rules.

I am, it should be fairly obvious, not on a plane, but rather the first leg of my epic cross-country train trip. Today's topic, as I depart Philly's ( Read more... )

I checked with Amtrak for updates. The earliest "the system" currently says Train 8 will be running again is the 26th. Or maybe that was the earliest it would be expected to be running and have room for someone who'd been bumped. Except it doesn't have room, it's booked solid, so I'd be looking at some date later. Probably. It's sort of day-by ( Read more... )

Today was originally going to be the start of my epic cross-country round-trip by train for the holidays.

I say "originally," of course, because Amtrak just called to let me know that today's Empire Builder departure for Chicago has been canceled due to the snow. They'll honor the tickets on the next run, although they don't yet know if that will ( Read more... )

I'm back from Pennsic. Yes, I know I'd planned to start August with a post about Seafair's capstone weekend, even once my manager and I concluded I needed to use vacation before it expired - and yet, there I was, a day or two into two weeks of vacation, booking the cheapest fare Expedia could find for me and flying back out east for my first ( Read more... )

( A snapshot of me at Expo '98 in Lisbon )

I considered trying to save it, at least for partial credit. I had given serious thought to heading out to the San Juans for a long weekend at the end of March, which would give me "Back to the mainland!" on the return, but got snowed out. After a fairly long week mid-month, I turned left at the ferry on the walk home and spent a relaxed evening ( Read more... )

Follow-up to a conversation with multislackerkim about the Golden Gate: Sydney Harbour Bridgeclimb

Anyone can just collect introductions from the previous year's LJ posts. I refuse to live in the past. I therefore give you the year 2008 summed up with my first journal lines for each month.
Well, quite possibly, let's say.

• Anyone can just collect introductions from the previous year's LJ posts.
• The SF Short Film Festival was its ( Read more... )

With Sundance falling through for this winter, I started poking around at what the Windjammer Barefoot cruises were up to. My Aunt Jean took my cousins, sister and me on a week on the Polynesia shortly before I graduated from high school. The idea was refitted sail yachts with a very casual, informal atmosphere hopping from small island to small ( Read more... )