Best places during a marathon to die

The San Francisco Marathon was held yesterday. The SF Chronicle describes the route like this:

"The full marathon route followed the Embarcadero, looped across the Golden Gate Bridge and back, wound through Golden Gate Park and ended near the Ferry Building on the Embarcadero."

They neglect to mention the hills. Riding my bike around the city, the best thing I can say about the hills is that on a bike, I can look forward to going down them. On foot, yeah, it's easier running downhill, but it's not a moment to sit back and chill as on wheels.

This year, a runner died for the first time in the SF race's history. He was at mile 24. That got me thinking, what's the best place to die during a marathon (loosely ranked)?

3) The Finish Line: The only thing worse than dying during a marathon is dying so close to the end. At least he could've gotten to finish.

2) Mile 1: How'd you spend the last couple hours of your life? Suffering miserably while running around SF. Wouldn't it have been better to keel over before really getting going? I think so.

1) At home: How about from the comfort of home? Skipping the marathon altogether because there's good bacon to eat for breakfast that day.

After poetry

I finished my MFA in poetry in January. While I was still in MA, it was easy to keep writing, keep submitting, keep up correspondence - sharing poems and critiquing others' work. It's been difficult since moving to SF. I'm working on establishing some sort of rhythm, which I'm confident will happen.

In the meantime, I've been thinking about what life is like without poetry. I'm trying to conciously gauge where poetry shows up without my actively seeking it out. I figured it'd be much more common here, living in SF, in the city, as opposed to the burbs south of Boston.

So far, that hasn't proven true. SF is definitely an artistic city, and there's poetry to be found, but it doesn't come looking for me. I suppose I shouldn't expect it to, but it is sad to note. If you ignore poetry, poetry goes away.

This, I should note, is in contrast to many other things, like visual art forms, paintings, sculpture, tv and film, even tagging. I see those things without exerting any effort. Poetry hides somewhere else, maybe in neighborhoods I haven't found yet.

There are bookstores, certainly, and bars where I know readings happen. But on the streets, despite all the vibrant activity, the protests and craziness I pass by on my bike each day, poetry is hiding.

Dave Chappelle's Block Party and Axe Murderer

We watched two movies yesterday. The first was "Dave Chappelle's Block Party." This was great. I highly recommend it. First of all, every musician featured is terrific. They're all among my favorites: Erykah Badu, the Roots, Mos Def, Common, the Fugees, Kanye West, Talib Kweli, Dead Prez, Jill Scott. Chappelle wisely brought together all these performers who have worked together, then provided them a stage in Brooklyn where they could play, join each other, and just have a great time.

This is one of the first movies I remember seeing where there's no significant conflict. A positive vibe carries throughout the entire film. The fact that a hurricane was bearing down on New York, that it poured just as the opener, Kanye West, launched into "Jesus Walks," and that there were all kinds of logistical problems in ferrying people from Chappelle's home state of Ohio to NYC on short notice, all of these things are relegated to the bonus features. The movie itself is just a good time.

That was our afternoon movie. We ended the day by rewatching "So I Married an Axe Murderer." We'd both seen this before, but it has new relevance now that we live in SF. It's still a great movie, but now we recognize the neighborhoods and places mentioned.

I'll also watch this movie repeatedly just for some of the great one-scene performances by Phil Hartman, Steven Wright, Michael Richards, and a couple by Alan Arkin.

I don't think I can dance

We've been watching "So You Think You Can Dance" on Fox. I much prefer this over "American Idol." First, the dancing is very good. Second, it's diverse. They do all different types of dancing, things I'd never heard of, things that aren't popular. "Idol" seems to search out the new Whitney Houston (pre-coked out Whitney), but more bland.

Both shows have awful judges. At least on the dance show they mix it up, requiring the judges to choreograph dances some weeks, so the crazy drunk Paula-like dance judge gets to show that she's a crazy drunk Paula-like choreographer.

Anyway, we don't get NBC in SF. It seems the local affiliate, KRON, got too big for its britches a few years ago, and NBC split to San Jose, about an hour south. Now KRON shows Dr. Phil and Sex in the City all night, and we get a very fuzzy San Jose NBC. It's weird, b/c SF is a huge market. But it's been 4 years and they haven't come back.

So some of the shows we like (Law & Order, the Office, Earl, Scrubs) may be no more. That's ok. As long as there's snotty British men criticizing bright-eyed teenagers, we'll be ok.

3500 Miles: The End

I need to end this story.

We plummetted down the mountains for 40 miles into California. That was bad. It was beautiful, there were amazing views, deep blue lakes, and feet on brakes. M-N didn't look up the whole time, which was good, because out her side of the truck at certain points were major drop-offs. She, like the cat, might've dove under the seat.

We then pressed on through Sacramento, home of one of my college roommates and also where Governor Schwarzenegger works. After Sacramento we encountered a touch of wine country, also almond orchards. When we got within spitting distance (ok, for really good spitters) of SF, we stopped for the night at a hotel in Concord.

One thing I learned on my exploratory trip to SF: there are few hotels with parking in the city, none with parking for a truck and trailer. So we stayed at a massive Holiday Inn where a cotillion or something was going on with tons of well-dressed high schoolers and their parents. But it was big enough hotel to not hear that.

We walked to a local shopping center to eat dinner. They had a variety of nice restaurants, all with ridiculous waits to be seated, so we got ice cream at a Fuddrucker's and walked back to the hotel restaurant. We were the only customers, save for one lonely guy who we'd noticed driving up in a rental truck of his own.

That hotel was our introduction to vending machines with iPods, something we've since spotted elsewhere in the area. Considering how often I've known people to destroy vending machines to get a bag of chips or some M&M's, putting iPods in one seems misguided.

...

The next morning, yet another bright, clear day, we finally headed through Oakland, across the Bay Bridge, and arrived at our new apartment.

There, now I can begin writing about all the stuff that's been going on since.

Big Day for Little Dude

I haven't been able to finish my cross-country story because work has been busy. I've been interviewing and hiring but right now I'm in a training session with time to kill, so let me talk about yesterday.

Yesterday was the boy's 1st birthday. He celebrated by waking up at 3, fully ready to party. Actually, he wakes up most days a little pre-dawn ready to party, so this was nothing new.

The night before, M-N baked a cake in the shape of a dinosaur. We collectively frosted it (pics, hopefully, later) and it came out very well. She also went out and got some balloons (which the boy helped pick out).

On Saturday, I had to travel about 45 minutes away for an all-day training of my new hires. Fortunately, we finished early and I was home by about 4. The boy had been stood up by one of his girlfriends, a baby he met in the boy and mom's yoga class, but he didn't seem to mind.

We walked over to Golden Gate park where there's a nice baby playground. He went on the swings, met a new girl, showed off his moves (she was a little older, but he's much more mobile), and also met a bear-sized dog trailing a woman who looked to be about 24 months' pregnant.

Later in the park, the boy discovered that there were leaves on the ground. He then had to pick up just about every leaf on the sidewalk as we walked back through the Shakespeare Garden and towards the apt. Boys loves his foliage.

At home, we brought out the cake with one candle. He stared suspiciously at the little flame, then dove right in to a piece of cake, getting frosting and crumbs all over his hands, face, shirt, me, pants, etc.

This led swiftly to a bath.

Post-bath, he opened a present from M-N's parents. They got him a truck with giant lego-like things. He loved this. He spent about an hour playing with it on the floor of his room.

So that was his birthday. We documented it with a bunch of pictures and some short video clips. I'll post the pics when I get a chance.

hey

3500 Miles: Day Seven

Day Seven: Thoroughly tired of the truck. Eager to get out of Winnemucca. We stopped for breakfast at a McDonald's where there was an impossibly young couple with 6 kids, no twins. Then back on the highway.

Lots of desert. Mountains around us, but not climbing too many. After a few hours, we hit Reno. I didn't really know we were in Reno, just that we were in a city, then it was gone and we were in mountains. Big ones. Lots of climbing then falling. It seemed like a good time for lunch.

We stopped at one of the last exits in Nevada, at a big casino/resort were we left the cat in the truck and ate at a decent Mexican restaurant buried somewhere within the casino.

Casinos are definitely deliberately disorienting. I knew about the lack of windows and clocks -- to keep you from realizing how long you're there or what time of day it is. I didn't realize how they manipulate the layout so it's hard to find the exits but easy to find the slot machines. With all the bright lights, crowded machines and tables, and women in odd and minimal outfits offering cocktails, it's a wonder more people don't have seizures.

Me, I played more video poker. I did well, too. At one point, I was up big thanks to a four of a kind. Then I started betting higher and losing quickly. I ended up walking away even. M-N stuck to slots. I don't get those. To random for me.

Then, back to the truck, into the mountains, and, finally, at last, after 7 long days, we made it to California. Only, the eastern half of northern California is full of mountains. And it's also where Donner Pass is. Now, this is just me, but don't you think that if there was a spot in the mountains where a family, trying to make it through, hoping to beat the coming winter, got stranded, slowly began dying off, and resorted to cannibalism, don't you think you wouldn't build I-80 through that spot, so that every exhausted couple (with cat) who'd travelled over 3000 miles, through deserts and St. Louis and prairies and Ohio, aren't then faced with this symbol of ultimate road trip tragedy?

But no, they even named a lake after them. Here's a picture of us near a lake: That's not Donner Lake. Donner Lake was on the eastbound side, down a ravine, full of windsurfers and boaters who must live in the area because god knows I wouldn't willingly go up and down those mountains to get there. We're smiling in the picture to mask the fear of the sign we just saw that said dangerous downgrade, next 40 miles.

Downhill for 40 miles? At least we weren't going to overheat.

Oh, and by downhill, they mean downmountain. Let's be clear. More on that later.

3500 Miles: Day Six continued

Ok, so Day Six brought us to Winnemucca, Nevada. This wasn't someplace we particularly longed to stay, but it was another couple of hours to Reno, with nothing in between, and it was getting close to dinner time. We tried the same trick that worked so well in Rock Springs, getting off and looking for a decent hotel, but Winnemucca is apparently a big draw, and everywhere we went was booked. We started calling out of the AAA book and got nowhere. Finally, we found a motel off the main road that hadn't filled up yet.

Winnemucca: apparently popular.

One of the highlights of Day Five was the nice, indoor pool. The Day Six motel had an outdoor pool, so we thought we'd give it a try. Poolside, sitting in a beach chair, drinking a beer, just chilling, was a genuine bonafide cowboy, hat, boots and drawl and all. He seemed friendly enough. But we soon realized why he was sitting with a beer instead of swimming. Winnemucca had bugs. All kinds of bugs, in the pool, near the pool. Ok, it wasn't that bad, but it was bad enough to not want to go swimming. Not like the tent park in National Lampoon's Vacation -- there weren't any dead mammals floating in it, but we decided to go get dinner and a movie instead.

Here's something about trucks with trailers: backing up is difficult. We discovered this on Day One, then avoided backing up until Day Six. At our little motel, we needed to park on the street. We spent about 20 minutes trying to back the truck up so the car wasn't angled out into the road before finally deciding to just drive around the block and pull in again. So when we headed out for dinner, we were on foot.

We walked past some chains, considered walking a distance for Mexican, realized we had entered a not-so-friendly part of Winnemucca, and turned back. Then we found the Flyin' Pig Bar-B-Q. I think this is a small chain. Maybe not. It was definitely quirky. By quirky, I mean dirty and good. I had an awesome pulled pork sandwich. M-N had ribs. The baked beans were great, too. We knew we weren't in MA anymore when our waitress lit up a cigarette over by another table.

There was a little 2-screen movie theater nearby. We decided to see "The Break-Up" with Jennifer Aniston and Vince Vaughn. We had maybe half an hour to kill before it started, post-Flyin' Pig, so we hit a casino. One important lesson we learned about Nevada: it's never hard to find a casino. In the 2 blocks between the Pig and the theater, we had options.

The one we picked was large, with actual tables to play at, not just machines. That's another lesson: machine-based gambling is huge. You no longer need social interaction to have a bad gambling habit. M-N wanted to play the slots, and play she did. I only had $20 to spend, so I stuck to video poker. I learned it's very easy to lose all your money very quickly. I thought that I might fare better at a machine than at a table seeing as I had so little money and might be better able get up and walk away without fearing the social conventions of an actual dealer and other players. But no, I just blew threw my $20 in a few minutes and was done.

Then the movie. The movie was ok. Jason Bateman was very funny (reminding me how great "Arrested Development" was). Jon Favreau was good, too. Vince Vaughn and Jennifer Aniston spent an awful lot of the movie having actual, angry arguments, which was strange. They weren't like "When Harry Met Sally" silly arguments. They were actual shouting matches. I think the writers were trying to convey authenticity and drama, aiming for a comedy with substance. That didn't work. Particularly not with Vince Vaughn, who pretty much does wacky comedy or all-intensity.

It was an unexpected end to a long day.

Next up: To California! But wait, there are more casinos! How long can we leave the cat in the truck while we gamble? More mountains! See the spot where the Donner Party ate each other!

Pictures from Day Six

Here are some pictures, as promised, from Day Six. The first one is the truck. I spent probably too much of the trip waiting for the truck to break down. My friend Ray took a similar trip by rental truck from MA to Oregon last fall, and his truck broke down somewhere in the Rockies. Then they had to unload everything from that truck and load it onto a new one. That would've taken us a day. But ours held up. The other expectation I had was that we'd blow a tire. The interstate is littered with blown tires. Particularly in the west. We must've passed hundreds upon hundreds of them. But no, we were ok. I even checked the tire pressure in Rock Springs at the Kum & Go.

Next up is the Great Salt Lake. It was ok. We stopped here mostly to regroup after descending a mountain into Salt Lake City and then getting through that city, which was unpleasant. We didn't end up having any encounters with Mormons. Or Bill Paxton. It would've been cool to meet Bill Paxton. He was good in "A Simple Plan."

Last up is a desert. Those mountains in the distance stayed in the distance for a long time. But that's ok. The desert was easy driving. Flat and straight. I followed that semi for about 60 or 70 miles, maybe more.

Yeah, these aren't all scintillating stories. Did I tell my Duel story yet? I don't think so. There was a truck on Day Five that kept passing us then slowing down, then we'd pass it, then he'd speed up and pass us again. This kept happening for a few hours. He didn't try to kill us like the truck in Duel, but maybe if I'd been Dennis Weaver, he would have. Ok, yeah, they aren't all great stories.

3500 Miles: Day Six

Day Six was Friday, June 16th. Based on the schedule I had when we left MA, this was to be the day we arrived in SF. That schedule was idiotic, though, in hindsight. If we'd driven a regular car, it would have been easy. Driving a big truck while towing a car slowed us down immensely. Our top speed usually peaked at around 65, whereas the speed limit in much of the west is 75, and we went hundreds of miles in the open desert or plains where we could've easily gone as fast as our car could carry us with no worries.

Our truck peaked around 65. Many days, I just wanted to keep it at 60 for most of the day, which was a challenge when there was any type of uphill to deal with.

So Day Six. We started in Rock Springs, Wyoming, near the Continental Divide. We quickly made it to Utah, our 14th state. Passing near Provo, we saw where some of the Olympics were held. The mountains were high enough for there still to be snow, which was a bit unnerving. Former Olympic towns are a bit sad, I think. They were famous for a couple of weeks, they build hotels, restaurants and sports structures, then everybody leaves and they're a former Olympic city.

Which brings us to Salt Lake City. To get to Salt Lake, which, I knew, was located in a fairly barren wasteland, we had to descend a mountain which, I didn't know, was not designed with big, tired rental trucks in mind. When we finally made it, Salt Lake City appeared big and dirty from the highway (though I've heard otherwise from people who live there). We kept going, stopping at the Salt Lake itself, which appeared big and less dirty from the highway. (I have pictures of this. I'll post them later.)

The rest of Utah was pretty much flat desert. We stopped for gas at a place called Skull Valley. It seemed Mormon-free. At the gas station, there was a group of bikers we'd pass and be passed by a couple of times. This was a strange occurence. Throughout each day, we'd see people pass us, then we'd pass them later on, maybe 4 or 5 hours later, as though they'd stopped for lunch and taken just a few minutes longer than us. I'm sure they recognized us. "Hey, there are those crazy people in the big yellow truck trailing the Taurus." "Is that a cat pressed up against the window?" "Do you think they have any beef jerky?"

We found out that you have to plan your stops in the desert. We missed an early lunch in Salt Lake, then had to keep going to Nevada before another opportunity (not involving a place with "Skull" in its name) arose. This, however, was a good thing.

Nevada brought with it casinos left and right, at every rest stop, seemingly, and we ate at an Arby's with a casino (yeah, no joke), which fulfilled two needs: I got to gamble a bit and I got to satisfy an infrequent desire for Arby's.

Day Six ended with more adventures in Nevada. Better adventures. Including a run-in with a cowboy, a movie with Jennifer Aniston, and a great local bbq spot. Oh, and better, non-Arby's-affiliated casinos. More later.

3500 Miles: Day Five

Day Five was probably the best day of the trip. By "best," I mean shortest. We started the day at my uncle's ranch in Colorado. After four early starts, we decided to have a relaxing morning. We didn't get in the truck until around 11 or 12. That was nice.

On the way out of town, we picked up some peppercorn beef jerky. We'd had a variety of snacks in the truck before, but the jerky was a clear winner. This was my cousin's suggestion; she was right.

We headed up towards Wyoming, henceforth abandoning I-70. I-70 would've taken us through some beautiful stretches of the Rockies, but M-N would've gotten out and stayed in Colorado. The truck, too, might've decided to mutiny. Plus, technically, I-80 goes straight into San Francisco.

We kind of missed Cheyenne, then headed towards Laramie for lunch. Over the past day, we'd apparently climbed to a significant elevation, because the road into Laramie was a terrifying blitzkrieg down a mountain. I was trying to save the brakes while not careening out of control while M-N worked on our will and the cat cowered under the seat.

Then we went to Applebee's. I don't know much about Laramie, or Wyoming (I'd only been there once before, visiting Devil's Tower), but I know it's Dick Cheney's state, also Matthew Shepard's state, and I think it's where Boys Don't Cry was set. For all those reasons, we stuck to an Applebee's near the interstate. Apparently, I ordered five cheeseburgers made as one, while M-N ordered the appetizer sampler (which consists of enough greasy, cheesy food to satiate Chicago).

Back on the road, we decided we'd call it an early day, committing ourself to stopping at a reasonable dinner hour. The first day we stopped around 10. The second day near 7. The third day at maybe 8. And the fourth day around 8, too. We were drained.

Then came a little town called Rock Springs, Wyoming. We couldn't find our Wyoming AAA book, so we just got off the highway and went to a Hampton Inn. This was nice. After our last hotel experience, we just wanted a place free of bloodstains. At the Hampton Inn, we also got a nice indoor pool, warm cookies, and a nice view of some big rock things (smaller than mountains, bigger than just rocks).

We even found a decent Asian restaurant with ok sushi. Plus, the mythical Kum & Go, the rest-stop chain I'd tried to convince M-N existed, though she didn't believe me. But yes, there really is a chain called the Kum & Go. They even have a website.

That night we had HBO, too, so we watched "The Girl Next Door." I was glad Boys Don't Cry wasn't playing, b/c we were still in Wyoming. Girl Next Door is pretty lousy. It seems like it should be funnier than it is. But then it's not.

Still, it was a good day.