Per the Content Vortex standard metholdology, it's been nearly two fiscal months since the last post, and during that time, I haven't had much in the way of shareable thought. We rounded out the semester, my one employee figured out how to overpower unending nausea, the students aged out of 2019, and - hey look at that - it's the end of a decade.
Current mood: I drank four beers to smooth out the 520 mile trip from Columbia to Clyde. I like driving, but I think an 8.5 hour (10:20 to 7:40? we'll call it that) drive is about as long as I feel like going anymore. I made five stops total, though I'd call the initial gas-up the departure point, since it was less than 15 minutes into the trip. I did two legs with stop intervals over two hours, and that felt about right*. I think I covered one and a half episodes of Knowledge Fight, during which point Dan finally lost his mind about Alex's bad-faith arguments, and I also covered the two-part 'history of adoption' episode of Behind the Bastards, in which one of the most evil people in the last 200 years was described at me. It's an interesting contrast with some of the work I end up doing now, on trying to fund stable care for youths who actually need it, versus the outright theft of children that got the modern concept of adoption off the ground starting in the 1920s.
Anyway, I'm not really in as much pain as I'd think, considering. I'm glad I have a more comfortable car than I did two years ago; while I value all 170,000-plus miles I spent in my Sentra, not operating a clutch constantly, combined with more generous factory spring rates and suspension damping for a somewhat heavier chassis makes all the difference in the world for longer trips. The dope sound system in the car helps, too, which doesn't matter much for vocal reproduction as it does the necessary couple hours of music to avoid going insane from just nonstop human voice for an entire day.**
Once arrived, I got a little decompressed, slammed down my Blackstar Fly amp, played about 15 minutes of bass to help recenter, and then cracked open the brews. Western North Carolina has a robust brewing scene, although the beers I drank tonight came from New Belgium, which only has a brewery in Asheville, and from Southern Pines brewing, which is over by Fayetteville. Tomorrow starts the local stuff, but either way, I never really appreciated how a cold one or few helps to just completely lop the edge off a day of sitting still and paying attention.
A quick note on I-81: Sunday before Christmas isn't a bad day to drive. The trucks are off the road, so the clumps that form are moving at, say, 62-65 instead of 57-60. Cruise control at 72 is perfect for pretty much the whole of Virginia, and the brief portion in Tennessee is barely traveled, at least as far as I-26. I-26, however, was where the rain and fog kicked up. While I'm thankful I have the early formative experiences of driving Oregon 42 back and forth in nonstop rain in mid-40s temperatures in cars that handle poorly, it only gets me so far relative to the delights of other people not being comfortable in the conditions, and it does nothing at all to address the fact that western North Carolina must be some kind of big-L Libertarian paradise that doesn't value painting new lines on its state- and county-maintained roads.
*When last my dad and I drove from Phoenix to Sandy, we shot through over 210 miles without stopping, might have been the whole 270 of that fuel interval. My family is 'bad' at car trips.
**This is DECIDEDLY a 'me' problem.
