Three Corners in my New Porsche

But first, I took the car to the track for a driver's education event at Seattle International Raceway. The nine-turn, 2.4-mile track provides a great proving ground to learn about your new car—and the course I took, provided by Don Kitch of the ProFormance Race School, was a nice sedate way to learn about my new toy.

I've finally started driving, so you can come back here to read about the drive as it happens. This will be a unique trip for me for several reasons. First, I'm taking a car instead of a bike. Second, I'll have a laptop with me. I'm not sure if having a computer around is going to be a good idea, but at least I'll be able to make some of the updates for the trip log a little easier to write. Finally, I won't be going alone: I've been seeing Liz for nearly a year. She was the girl who didn't call me back before my last vacation started, but left some messages for when I finally returned!

I'll be driving from Seattle to Boston alone. In Boston, I'll be speaking (again!) at Boston University's WinDev conference. Liz will fly out to meet me at the close of the conference and we'll drive south, towards Orlando (where my parents live).

After a few stressful nights with my folks, and doing a little tourist crap ourselves, Liz will fly back to Seattle. And I'll begin driving back to Seattle.

On Monday night, I presented at the conference. It was a bit of a surprise, as I thought the talk I was to do would be on Tuesday and not on Monday! Arriving in time to prepare some slides and take a little nap before going on stage was completely luck.

That first talk intimidated me greatly, as I'd never done anything like that before. The talk was billed as entertaining and fun, so I peppered the slides with funny, irreverent information. And I went off on serveral diatribes. Everyone said it was swell, but I wasn't so sure.

The next talk was on Wednesday, and it was material I'd done before many times. So that was just fine. I fooled around a bit that evening, and then was getting ready to meet Liz at 4am at Logan from her red-eye flight out. We were going to go back to the hotel and nap for a while and then get on our way.

Around midnight, Liz called to say that her flight had been cancelled and that she wouldn't be out until that evening! The bastards at United cancelled the flight and then never bothered to notify us.

Well, I was mad, but I went to sleep. The next morning, I hung around in my room until about noon. I guess I could've arranged for a late checkout, but I just bailed. I checked my luggage and left the car at the hotel valet. It wouldn't be too hard to kill time in Boston.

Or, so I thought. I went to the TGI Friday's on Exiter Street and sat around, but this guy kept talking to me. He was nice, but just kept coming at me. I wasn't in much of a mood to interact with people, so I bailed out instead of listening to him go on and on. He ran his own business, and had about a pound of gold chains in bracelets on his wrist.

I went to the Boston Public Library (which is only a few blocks away from that Friday's restraunt) and found it was locked. It's Bunker Hill Day in Boston, and a few of the government services close down. I stood at the door of the library and watched people try to get in, or read the sign and turn away. Crap.

And so I went back to the Copley Square Marriott and sat in the bar, which was far more entertaining than the bar at the Cambridge Marriott, where the conference was being held. I had a few beers there, and nobody talked to me. I watched The U.S. Open on TV and saw John Daly clean up before choking on the last hole.

Around six in the evening, I left the hotel by taxi to go get Liz. I dozed off in the waiting area at the gate, and was thrown for a loop when I went to check on Liz' flight again. The time on the arrivals monitor was frozen at 7:30pm, and my watch said it was about 8:15pm. Since I just woke up, I was disoriented and confused by this little mismatch.

Liz arrived a little early, and we got a taxi back to Cambridge. We picked up everything and loaded up the car. It was already around 10pm, so the hotel was quiet and it wasn't hard to get going. The navigation system pulled us out of the city, and we were on our way.

Here's where we stopped:

Liz and I stayed with my folks in Orlando for a couple of days. We really didn't do anything; I installed a new hard drive on my Dad's computer, and my Dad washed and waxed the Porsche. He used Zymol products; it turned out great! On the second day, we went to see the new Austin Powers movie. Then, we rented a couple of tapes: Blade, which my parents didn't understand, and Waking Ned Divine, which was really good. On the third day, Liz woke up early and flew back. After lunch (and watching a little bit of the CART race at Cleveland, in the rain!) I started driving back to Seattle that afternoon.

Here's how the trip went:

I'm glad I am finally home, but I had a great time on my trip. The timing of my arrival is just about perfect; I can fool around on Saturday, catch up with some errands, and then go to all the 4th of July picnics on Sunday. Monday, I can just rest and talk my self into working again.

Some days don't have links because I'm still working on transcribing the notes. These are transcriptions of my real journal entries. My journal entries often contain personal reflection and sensitive insights. When I've felt uncomfortable with their content, I've edited them before posting them here. What's here is still the work of my own two hands, so please treat it (and me) with respect.

Last modified on 30 August, 1999.