I haven't been driving the new car much mostly because the radio isn't as good as my other car and there's no AC and the windows crank, but I did get new plates for it. This was a heavy driving weekend. I must have gone 500 miles just getting to two dinners and a doctor's appointment. It involved some amazingly lovely parts of route 100, both under 89 and above, and some not-that-interesting parts of route 89 that I'm already sort of bored with.

I got two add two photos to Wikipedia [Buels Gore and Hancock] and decided to update my 251 club status. I have 38 towns left in VT that I've never been to.

We've had thunderstorms here. Enough so that I was driving down a pretty empty part of Route 100, just north of Stowe and I heard the Emergency Broadcast Signal and then the "this is NOT a test" message and a warning about "quarter-sized hail" I came around a bend and I could see the massive thunderhead full of lightning spraying all over the place, in the direction I was driving. I got to Stepahnie's house just as the winds were picking up and got to sit around watching the lights blink on and off for a while but the hail never materialized. I got home several hours later and all the appliances were telling me that my power had been off too.

Labels: 251club, cars, driving, me

Some people get all their good ideas in the shower. I get a fair amount of good ideas in the pool but have to wait until I'm out and dry to write them down or implement them. However, often I get my good thinking done in the car. This is a bit of a problem since I don't like to drive much. I like the act of driving, but I sort of don't enjoy car culture, traffic, wasting resources etc. Since my car got a little banged up this Winter I go back and forth on the "Huh, do I need a newer car since this one is shabby now?" question and it's usually a good litmus test of my mood at the time [good mood = car is fine, bad mood = changeup the car situation].

Anyhow, I spent enough time driving in the past two days that my driving muscles are sore. I didn't know that this was possible. I drove down to Suffern NY to talk at a local area library conference. I gave a variant of my 2.0 talk and stuck around for lunch where I got to hear Pete Hamill give a really great lunch talk.

But, back to the car. The drive down was about five hours and the drive back the same. On the way down I took the Thruway and on the way back the Taconic State Parkway to Route 7. Nice easy driving, a lot to look at out the window. I had the radio on and didn't have to think much about where I was going and I got to plan out what the heck I'm up to in the next six to twelve month time period (upshot: more of the same but hopefully with some more focus and more actual vacation not work-as-vacation) and actually write a few things down. Even though I have a bunch of digital distraction widgets that were packed in the back somewhere, there's something nice and relaxing about just looking out the window at trees and rivers and the occasional groundhog to help gain some perspective on my whole job/career/path doing wireless, tech, teaching, moderating, typing and clicking.

Labels: driving, jessamyn, me