(no subject)

[phthalombrage]

I woke up at seven something on Saturday morning. Of course my roommate was already awake.
"You're up a lot earlier than you usually are on weekends," she quipped.
"I'm going to Boston for the next two days," I replied.
And then I took a shower.
At around 9 AM, I made a shirt, packed my crap, and headed to the Underground to buy random shit (muffins/pastries/lunch) because Entropy was closed. I ran into the OC that had "Tek" on his shirt during Orientation, and we chatted briefly about the iFS auditions, wishing reciprocal luck before I headed upstairs.

The light on Morewood was lagging. I felt like shit when I got to the UC turnaround at 10:01. I paced the turnaround, only to find... nobody I knew. Shit, they must have left without me. Why didn't they call? What a horrible sinking feeling it was.

I retreated to the shadows of the UC for awhile, worried. But along came Brewer, then Chrisamaphone, then jcreed, who hadn't even planned to come. Spur of the moment road trip? Sure.

Apparently there had been some trouble at the rental place, and the car was being rented as we spoke.

rstrickl appeared. Yes, gwillen and Ivan were at Enterprise... but rstrickl couldn't be the driver and Ivan's credit card was declined. We waited in the sun until the jeep came to pick up rstrickl and take advantage of his plastic.

Eventually, just after noon, a white van pulled up. We piled our crap into it, figured that our no-shows had overslept or something, and disembarked for a long journey. We never would have guessed how long it would be.

Pretty much AS SOON as we were all piled into the car, gwillen got us some internets through Ivan's bluetooth phone plugged into his inverter. He shared the connection under the name "chinchilla", and most everyone was soon happily tapping away at macs/linux laptops. Jcreed put on Radiohead, etc. so Chrisamaphone would feel like it was a road trip. I broke out my calc homework so it would get done right. I felt like I needed a better handle. People asked for my andrewid to put in their postings, and mine, my initials, is nice and short, but unpronounceable. Still, I realize I have left the world where my name is commonplace (bitchy dance studios) and entered a new realm where Nicoles are far outnumbered by CS majors named Matt. Maybe my handle will appear later? Maybe I'll get a spout as well?

Our first stop was a random field in New York. These were the typo coordinates. It was not in fact a cornfield, so we didn't have to make up crazy excuses. Still, it felt kind of odd... we could hear chirping crickets and barking dogs, their barn looked like a tornado had hit it, and we found a shotgun shell on the edge of the gravel road. Ivan, Brewer and gwillen went down the long driveway, followed by a van. The rest of us stayed up awkwardly on the road. Brewer simply told the people standing outside that we wanted to walk around in their field with GPS. Apparently Ivan wasn't the best GPS operator evar, but they eventually found the spot and we could leave.

I was very surprised that my ears popped when we drove over hills. Everyone else was more surprised by Ivan's lack of speed adjustment when driving over hills. Maybe he never had do do that while driving from his dad's lap? I still don't know what the effect of a hill is on PPP. The van appeared to have steering issues, kicking to the right and wobbling around like a giant fish. We probably should have refused it... they had evidently wanted to give us a different vehicle before the credit card issue; maybe that would have been a good idea. Another great feature of the van was the dig into your ass-plastic in the back seat, which, coupled with the dig into mbrewer's neck/gwillen's middle back enabled headrest, offered unrivaled comfort.
At a rest stop, people ordered greasy things. They had free WiFi and cheesy brochures therefor (don't worry, the Authority already knows). They also had a choking poster involving a badly-drawn girl with an overstretched neck wearing yellow pants. The only person I know who wears yellow pants is my roommate...

Brewer was feeling sick, but came on the road trip anyway, and thus fasted at the rest stop. I had just eaten stuff I bought on my last meal block, so I ordered nothing. Much to the chagrin of the fast-food drones, Chrisamaphone ordered a grilled cheese sandwich. They looked at her like wtfomfg and said they had to get a manager. The manager stared long and hard at the menu, eventually decreeing that Chris would be charged for "onion rings." She received a grilled cheese sandwich and fries, direct from the hands of a most excellent fast-foodsman who had invoked some long-dormant creativity: he had turned a hamburger bun inside-out to facilitate grilling, offering his sandwich creation a distinct look.
As we drove, I began to get a feel for who exactly was traveling with me. Four current CMU students, four CMU alums (and there were seven of us). Six CS majors, and me. Most of us had long or longish hair and some kind of visual impairment. Many wore sandal-like footwear. I was the only freshman, and Chris and I were the only girls. I was the only person incapable of working Linux, but I actually got the joke about Unix/eunuchs. Frequently the conversations turned to arcane things: features of Python, nested detours, particle physics, Jonathan Livingston Seagull, how to correct for various mechanical issues with the vehicle, some mathematical concept that nobody really understands and for which mbrewer now has better intuition, and MUCH more. And they have excellent taste on the internets, if that's even a valid statement. (The internet is for porn.) Witty people. Jcreed's people? In other words, it was a pretty fucking awesome group of nerds. I realized why I generally dislike people: people are generally stupid. I told them I was the dumbest person in the car and it was great, but I got shut down. Obviously that's something that cannot be determined. My depth and breadth of knowledge are certainly not equivalent to theirs, but smartness itself is difficult to quantify. Also, I'm younger than they are and brand-new to the college thins. So sometimes I sat oblivious, but in awe. I need to take programming next semester, I said. They suggested classes. I need to learn how to use Linux, I said. Come to the Cluster, they responded. If I don't totally fuck up and ruin everything forever, I may end up minoring in CS or something so I can feel cool like they are. I was left with an urge to wikipedia various things, explore some new blogs and webcomics, and reread the section on damped oscillations in my old physics/calc notes. They know each other pretty well (possible exception: rstrickl), and Brewer would occasionally fill me in on some background when they mentioned ex-KGB-ers or CMU alums I'd never met.

I'm not going to say we bonded, but there's a certain kind of familiarity you get when you sit and sleep in a van with six other people for two days that makes it less awkward to talk to them later.

It was kind of funny when my parents called (for HOURS!), because things I said to them would occasionally spur off conversations within the van. I have an irrational fear of bikes.

At one of the tollbooths we passed, somebody said something about a fine-print bumper sticker of a friend who worked for a chemical company that read: "If you can read this, you are now sterile." Also, the problem of killer robots can be solved by putting in blue LEDs as eyes.

The thrill of our evening was yet to come.
In New York, near Albany, we got pulled over in a speed trap by the least compassionate police officer I have ever seen. He was as friendly as a wax museum replica of a police officer and about as vocal. He took his time exiting his vehicle, which made us wonder about whether or not we should have pulled off elsewhere.
-Do you know how fast were you going?
-About as fast as the other cars I was going with. I'm not exactly certain. (Your response is: "I don't know." Amen.)
-I clocked it at 76.
ARGH. Citation not needed!
We thought it was a 65 zone and breathed a sigh of relief, but the next sign we saw said the speed limit was 55. Ehh? Could we blame unruly foliage? Perhaps our Pennsylvania license plate was responsible for this delay? The ticket was printed on thermal paper, not a laser printer, and no miles were knocked off the citation when the officer returned. The ticket had no dollar amount visible, was designed to look threatening, and would require another trip to New York to fight. They want to make money. Gwillen's dredging of the tubes revealed that 21 miles over just barely put us into a third category of speeders and that this was, in fact, pretty crazy. He would continue to make similar searches for the remainder of the trip. Sucks, but whatever. Ivan had pulled over in an acceptable location, and nobody died while returning to the freeway. (Whether or not anyone figured out what the mechanism for lane-clearing was is beyond my knowledge.) The ticket would be invisible in the seat-pocket for the rest of our travels, but it haunted our thoughts for quite some time.

At another tollbooth (not the Phantom one about which we had reminisced), a lonely stoner asked us if we had a spare guitar pick. While I was struck by the bizarreness of this request, jcreed whips out this little white thing from inside his wallet (not the same variety of little white thing most guys carry in their wallets) and we go on our way. This gesture should have brought us good karma, but I can't really say if it did.

The road brought us into Massachusetts, to the cozy Worcester home of Brewer's brother (also Brewer, prénom Dan). We thought he was still at a folk concert, but he was sleeping. Still, he welcomed us in, giving us blankets, pillows, a sleeping bag, sleep pads, a couch, and use of a thick green rug to sleep on. With some tangramming, we managed to successfully fit in the room and get some sleep each, distracted sporadically by Ivan's snoring, jcreed's nocturnal wanderings, etc. Chrisamaphone slept very well.

In the morning, people showered and broke out the electronics. Chris and I were the only ones without machines to hook ourselves up to (and with Jeb Bush no longer my governor, I wasn't getting one). Chris said she was concerned about bringing hers with her, jcreed said he was concerned about NOT bringing his with him due to a bad past experience, and I simply explained that mine was a heavy beast. Gwillen again was connection wizard, and Chrisamaphone later used his laptop because everyone needs the internet. Ivan's was by far most amusing: full-size bluetooth keyboard... and his phone.

While some people were perusing dbrewer's book collection, I noticed the following: dbrewer hung his own matted and framed art in his apartment with very few pieces by other artists. dbrewer has semiprecious stones at various locations. dbrewer has a stockpile of yarn in a rainbow of colors and a crochet hook on the round table near his trunk. dbrewer makes his own window dressings. mbrewer confirmed that this is all true, stating that he does not notice such details because he is straight, sharing with us that dbrewer crocheted a skirt for his mom and lined it with hand-dyed silk. It was pretty.

While making us catastrophe (delicious egg/cheese/vegetable mélange), the Brewers discussed a crazy ex-boyfriend of dbrewer's that jcreed mistook for an ex-girlfriend. Dbrewer also told mbrewer that his medical issue was likely an intestinal infection and that he should continue to not eat much.

People showered and ate and we got ready to leave. Dbrewer saved the day by running Ivan's phone charge up to the car for us. Only one forgotten electronic despite all of our gadgets! Huzzah! Mbrewer's important stuff sack may or may not still be there.

Gwillen immediately became a bit antsy, asking Ivan for his phone so we could again have internets.
It'll only be an hour.
An hour is long enough for withdrawal to set in, so gwillen went ahead and got his fix.

After much anticipation, we were there! Parking garage, Alewife T stop, Massachusetts. The gas light was on, and we met some other xkcd-goers right next to us in the garage. Luckily I had just been in Boston this summer, and we managed to find the T employee, collect CharlieCard, pass Go, and get $23.80 (Chrisamaphone's TI calculated this figure) worth of T fares. We rode the Red Line to Kendall, where we met dstrickl's friend Nicole for lunch after some wandering in a pointy building slightly reminiscent of our dearly beloved Wean. We lunched at the Institvte and returned to Davis on the T to walk to the Park. Some guy photographed us randomly, specifically Ivan, on our way to the station.

Ivan looked for down escalators to run up, and some guy in a polo shirt looked utterly bewildered ad Ivan rushed past. Gwillen can accept that Ivan would do such a thing, as it is in his nature, but jcreed's following him was less acceptable.

Nerds sprung from the woodwork, flocking down the streets of Cambridge with a unified goal: (42.39561 -71.13057 2007 09 23 14 38 00)

So we got there, were delighted with fan modifications to the park and the quantity and splendor of nerds there, I saw Hannah Kirsch, other people saw other people they knew, I ran into Drew right before the Countdown, and then I wondered what to do. I never climbed up on the Structure and I never laid eyes on Randall Munroe, although I heard his voice and know he exists. I felt awkward, photographing people without their consent, and my results are posted on my facebook. Here are some others from other photographers on flickr (As always, look at alttext):
































Nah, you're cool. Bombs require three LEDs. That's why my laptop is a bomb. We're also pretty sure a "prank" bomb would spell out "BOMB" in the LEDs. And possibly flash something in Morse code. On a related note, Chrisamaphone won't wear her "Bomb the Blogosphere" shirt through airport security.





























Ok, so moar later. I have a calc exam at 7:30 tomorrow.