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Entry tags:
- best of:2002,
- family,
- food,
- ifmud,
- los angeles,
- travel,
- tv
Dia Largo.
By semi-popular demand (to rip off ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
fauxpas), I begin my chronicle of my vacation in North Carolina. You may have heard, gentle reader, the phrase "getting there is half the fun." Well, getting there was definitely more than half of something for me, and Part One focuses entirely on the day that seemed to last for forty-eight hours during which I got very little sleep.
The day began at about nine o'clock Friday night. This is when I woke up and got ready for work. Then I worked. This process was very boring and kept me awake when I really out to have just been napping.
At about five in the morning, I wrote a journal entry laying out my plan for the day. Shortly after seven a.m., I leave work.
My first stop is LAX. I was flying to North Carolina using a free voucher I obtained last summer (it is a wonderful thing to voluntarily be denied boarding). When I made the reservation, the ticketing agent warned me that, because I did not yet have a paper ticket, my seat was only confirmed until two hours before the flight. Since I like to play things safe, I intended to trade my voucher for a ticket the day before my flight. What a forward-thinking boy am I.
Problems began when I experienced incredible gridlock leaving downtown. Normally, this wouldn't be all that unusual, but at 7:20 on Saturday morning? I tried surface streets and alternate roads, but every passage west out of downtown seemed blocked. Then, it all disappeared a trace. (It turned out to have been caused by USC's graduation ceremony, but it was still enough to put me significantly off my schedule.)
At LAX, I had to stand in the ticketing line along with everyone waiting to check their baggage. The line moved faster than I would have expected, but once I got to an agent, the problems started. It appeared that the ticketing program had been changed on Friday and nobody really knew how to use this new system. To make matters worse, my voucher was from the now non-existent TWA, being honored by American Airlines, so what should have taken one ticketing agent five minutes to do instead took five different agents half an hour. On the one hand, I was glad that this ticket mess had been taken care of beforehand, when I didn't have a plane to catch; on the other hand, I was even more off schedule.
I quickly drove to LMU (the school which, in mere hours, was to become my sister's alma mater), scanning for a fast-food joint. Sadly, there were none. In desperation, I veered into a supermarket to buy skeezy chocolate covered donuts and a pint of milk. I wasn't the only one, either; while I was there, I noticed at least five graduates picking up snacks as well. On my way out, I got very upset when I saw that a group of kids had begun selling Krispy Kreme donuts outside of the supermarket. Lazy Kids! You couldn't have gotten up five minutes earlier so that I didn't have to go inside and buy skeezy donuts!?!?!? What has happened to the Youth of America! Why in my day . . . etc. etc.
By this time, I was so off of my schedule that, instead of me saving seats for my family, my family was saving a seat for me. We're seated on a wide lawn facing a tiny stage flanked by two rock-concert-style video screens. There were still some clouds to provide shade and coolness, but they burned off rather quickly leaving us with a very warm morning.
As the graduates filed into their seats, parents (my mother among them) began calling their children's cell phones frantically asking for their locations. "Wave your hands!" my mother yelled into the phone. My relatives assured me that they could see my sister wave, but I was apparently too distracted by the other hundred or so college kids in black gowns and funny hats similarly waving.
My sister, you should know, graduated with honors. Booyah!
After prayers (it's a Jesuit school) and invocation, a school song and a national anthem, and one rather limp valedictory, the graduates are brought up to the stage to received their diplomas. My sister got hers; I screamed like a brotherly fool and quickly moved for my car. With the ceremony still going on, it was relatively easy to get off of the campus, onto the freeway and back home. I showered and went to bed. The time was one o'clock Saturday afternoon.
At five, my alarm went off, letting me know that there's a party going on. I threw on some clothes (nice clothes, for pictures) and walked out, trying not to let any family or friends realize that up until about five minutes ago I was having the most wonderful dream about never having to wake up for parties. I grabbed caffeine, quickly.
After the grogginess wore off, it was a very nice party, with much nice food. I gave my sister the gift that took me all week to find, a sterling silver business card holder engraved with a motif by Frank Lloyd Wright. That and a copy of Dangerous Minds, or My Posse Don't Do Homework.
By eleven, most everyone had left, so I took another nap. Sixty minutes, to the dot. The next three hours can be summarized in three words: Packing, Packing, Packing. But when the shuttle came, I was ready. And when I got to the airport, I had a ticket. And when I got to security, I breezed through.
I didn't sleep as much as I ought have on the plane, maybe two or three hours total. I left Los Angeles at 6:30 a.m. PDT, I arrived in Norfolk Virginia at about 4:30 p.m. EDT.
In Norfolk, I have to make contact with a member of![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-community.gif)
ifmud, lpsmith. I searched through my papers and discovered that I have left the flight information at home. Also at home was the phone number of the house we were going to be staying in. I realized that I must rely on my wits alone. I hastily made up a sign a la limo drivers reading "MONKEY." Surely this would attract the attention of the lpsmith! And it did! Yay!
(NB: I think the Monkey Sign has been used before for a similar ifmudmeet purpose, but I can no longer remember where.)
And thusly did I meet Lucian P. Smith, his wife Sara and their utterly adorable son Ellric. It's a very good thing that Ellric is utterly adorable, because it's very difficult to stay in a car with a young child unless said child is utterly adorable. It also helps if the child has a father who is very willing to make faces and keep the utterly adorable child occupied.
So at a little after seven o'clock, we four finally pulled up in the driveway to the beach house, just in time for some macaroni and cheese prepared by zarf. Careful readers will note that I didn't say too much about food during my Saturday flight. I was very glad we were in time for dinner.
Most of the rest of the evening was dedicated to reunions and introductions, which I shall save for my next entry. But I will close of this long day by noting that after watching the incredibly kickass finale of Alias and winding down from a day filled with caffeine and other assorted awakeness, I finally fell asleep just before midnight EDT, forty-eight hours after I woke up.
Boy, was I glad to be on vacation.
fauxpas), I begin my chronicle of my vacation in North Carolina. You may have heard, gentle reader, the phrase "getting there is half the fun." Well, getting there was definitely more than half of something for me, and Part One focuses entirely on the day that seemed to last for forty-eight hours during which I got very little sleep.The day began at about nine o'clock Friday night. This is when I woke up and got ready for work. Then I worked. This process was very boring and kept me awake when I really out to have just been napping.
At about five in the morning, I wrote a journal entry laying out my plan for the day. Shortly after seven a.m., I leave work.
My first stop is LAX. I was flying to North Carolina using a free voucher I obtained last summer (it is a wonderful thing to voluntarily be denied boarding). When I made the reservation, the ticketing agent warned me that, because I did not yet have a paper ticket, my seat was only confirmed until two hours before the flight. Since I like to play things safe, I intended to trade my voucher for a ticket the day before my flight. What a forward-thinking boy am I.
Problems began when I experienced incredible gridlock leaving downtown. Normally, this wouldn't be all that unusual, but at 7:20 on Saturday morning? I tried surface streets and alternate roads, but every passage west out of downtown seemed blocked. Then, it all disappeared a trace. (It turned out to have been caused by USC's graduation ceremony, but it was still enough to put me significantly off my schedule.)
At LAX, I had to stand in the ticketing line along with everyone waiting to check their baggage. The line moved faster than I would have expected, but once I got to an agent, the problems started. It appeared that the ticketing program had been changed on Friday and nobody really knew how to use this new system. To make matters worse, my voucher was from the now non-existent TWA, being honored by American Airlines, so what should have taken one ticketing agent five minutes to do instead took five different agents half an hour. On the one hand, I was glad that this ticket mess had been taken care of beforehand, when I didn't have a plane to catch; on the other hand, I was even more off schedule.
I quickly drove to LMU (the school which, in mere hours, was to become my sister's alma mater), scanning for a fast-food joint. Sadly, there were none. In desperation, I veered into a supermarket to buy skeezy chocolate covered donuts and a pint of milk. I wasn't the only one, either; while I was there, I noticed at least five graduates picking up snacks as well. On my way out, I got very upset when I saw that a group of kids had begun selling Krispy Kreme donuts outside of the supermarket. Lazy Kids! You couldn't have gotten up five minutes earlier so that I didn't have to go inside and buy skeezy donuts!?!?!? What has happened to the Youth of America! Why in my day . . . etc. etc.
By this time, I was so off of my schedule that, instead of me saving seats for my family, my family was saving a seat for me. We're seated on a wide lawn facing a tiny stage flanked by two rock-concert-style video screens. There were still some clouds to provide shade and coolness, but they burned off rather quickly leaving us with a very warm morning.
As the graduates filed into their seats, parents (my mother among them) began calling their children's cell phones frantically asking for their locations. "Wave your hands!" my mother yelled into the phone. My relatives assured me that they could see my sister wave, but I was apparently too distracted by the other hundred or so college kids in black gowns and funny hats similarly waving.
My sister, you should know, graduated with honors. Booyah!
After prayers (it's a Jesuit school) and invocation, a school song and a national anthem, and one rather limp valedictory, the graduates are brought up to the stage to received their diplomas. My sister got hers; I screamed like a brotherly fool and quickly moved for my car. With the ceremony still going on, it was relatively easy to get off of the campus, onto the freeway and back home. I showered and went to bed. The time was one o'clock Saturday afternoon.
At five, my alarm went off, letting me know that there's a party going on. I threw on some clothes (nice clothes, for pictures) and walked out, trying not to let any family or friends realize that up until about five minutes ago I was having the most wonderful dream about never having to wake up for parties. I grabbed caffeine, quickly.
After the grogginess wore off, it was a very nice party, with much nice food. I gave my sister the gift that took me all week to find, a sterling silver business card holder engraved with a motif by Frank Lloyd Wright. That and a copy of Dangerous Minds, or My Posse Don't Do Homework.
By eleven, most everyone had left, so I took another nap. Sixty minutes, to the dot. The next three hours can be summarized in three words: Packing, Packing, Packing. But when the shuttle came, I was ready. And when I got to the airport, I had a ticket. And when I got to security, I breezed through.
I didn't sleep as much as I ought have on the plane, maybe two or three hours total. I left Los Angeles at 6:30 a.m. PDT, I arrived in Norfolk Virginia at about 4:30 p.m. EDT.
In Norfolk, I have to make contact with a member of
ifmud, lpsmith. I searched through my papers and discovered that I have left the flight information at home. Also at home was the phone number of the house we were going to be staying in. I realized that I must rely on my wits alone. I hastily made up a sign a la limo drivers reading "MONKEY." Surely this would attract the attention of the lpsmith! And it did! Yay!(NB: I think the Monkey Sign has been used before for a similar ifmudmeet purpose, but I can no longer remember where.)
And thusly did I meet Lucian P. Smith, his wife Sara and their utterly adorable son Ellric. It's a very good thing that Ellric is utterly adorable, because it's very difficult to stay in a car with a young child unless said child is utterly adorable. It also helps if the child has a father who is very willing to make faces and keep the utterly adorable child occupied.
So at a little after seven o'clock, we four finally pulled up in the driveway to the beach house, just in time for some macaroni and cheese prepared by zarf. Careful readers will note that I didn't say too much about food during my Saturday flight. I was very glad we were in time for dinner.
Most of the rest of the evening was dedicated to reunions and introductions, which I shall save for my next entry. But I will close of this long day by noting that after watching the incredibly kickass finale of Alias and winding down from a day filled with caffeine and other assorted awakeness, I finally fell asleep just before midnight EDT, forty-eight hours after I woke up.
Boy, was I glad to be on vacation.