Back in Peoria

I recently made it back to Peoria for a weekend. Air travel certainly was challenging that weekend, but Peoria itself was relaxing. I arrived late Friday in P-town. Charlie had given me a ride from Cincinnati to Bloomington where I picked up my flashy white PT Cruiser. At least the car came with XM radio, by far the best feature this car has to offer. No wonder American car makers have a bad reputation. The first stop of the Tour de Peoria was Panache, what else is there to do on a Friday night? On Saturday I was mostly busy running errands, but I managed to have a 'catholic' lunch with Fredi at Sushi Gawa which, I think, still has the best sushi in town. As an important part of my mission, I picked up my golf clubs that I had to leave behind in February. A nice dinner at the Hofbrau finished up the day. Good times.
With the Weather Channel predicting a major east coast storm, I was concerned about my flights back to Boston. I tried to get rebooked to an earlier flight, but the airline told me there were no seats available on earlier flights. SURE....RIGHT.... So, I spent Sunday rather anxious in Peoria and drove back to Bloomington to start my journey back to Salem. It is kinda weird, but driving through Peoria already felt strange. It's been only a couple weeks since I left and it already lost its 'home' feel. I am sure I will make it back to Peoria once in a while. It's always great to meet good friends again.

Air Travel Fun: Part 2
Sitting in an crammed airplane seat waiting for the time to pass, I couldn't help but smile at some of the funny situations that have been described by comedians for decades. Example, when we got served drinks during the flight, three people in the seats around me ordered tomato juice. What is it with flying and tomato juice? I don't think I remember anybody around me in a restaurant ever drinking that stuff. Maybe tomato juice tastes better at 30,000 feet or the higher air pressure triggers the tomato juice gen in the brain. It just seems odd.
Or the fact that the flight attendants still do their song and dance to show how to buckle up. Come on, it's the 21th century. If you don't know how to use a buckle, maybe you should choose a horse wagon as your mode of transportation. Also, I find the possibility of a water landing between Bloomington and Chicago rather unlikely, so I don't really care that my seat can be transformed into a 'floating' device. I am sure, if we crash into a little stream in Illinois, I'll be able to wade to safety. At least it's a little comics relief for flying is otherwise rather boring.

Air Travel Fun

"Welcome aboard AA flight 818 from Chicago to Boston. This is your captain speaking. For those of you, that haven't followed the weather situation in Boston..... It is bad. And that's a technical term. We expect a smooth flight for the first hour or so and as we come closer to Boston it is going to be bumpy. The landing condition in Boston are just on the threshold of being safe, so there is a change that we might have to fly to a different airport and wait until conditions improve. If that dosen't fit your level of comfort or travel plans, you have 7 minutes to deplane and make other arrangements" ... The cabin is eerily quit after that announcement.Another minute or so goes by and the lady next to me decided that she wasn't comfortable with this and left the airplane with a slight panic in her eyes.
I 'knew' everything would be ok. Why? Because this was the trip where every connection worked, despite snowstorms in Chicago and Noresterns in Boston. This trip was the one, that is going to use up all my luck in air travel for the next decade or so. To make a long story short, the pilot was right, but he did manage a great landing and we arrived in Boston almost on time. I realized how great the pilots skills were, when I tried to get to my car and I was almost blown from the parking deck and drenched within the first couple of yards of walking. Great flying.

When I started this Midwest trip last Wednesday I would have never guessed it would work that well. The idea was to fly to Cincinnaty for a two day business meeting, hitch a ride with Charlie back to Bloomington, stay the weekend in Peoria, and fly back on Sunday to Boston. Wednesday comes around and a snowstorm in the morning hits Chicago. I am checking delays and flight cancellations and out of the 7 flights from Boston to Chicago 5 are already cancelled, mine is still 'On time'. I get to the airport and WOW!, my flight is still on and we take of with only a 45minute delay. Arriving in Chicago the airport is a total zoo, people running around trying to catch up with gate changes, yelling in their cell phone for either a different flight or a hotel room or arguing with the airline employee. The flight information shows that half of the flight are either cancelled or hopelessly delayed, BUT my flight to Cincinnati is 'On time'. I arrive late and fetch a hotel shuttle bus. My fellow travelers exchanging horror stories of delays and cancelations. I am getting smaller in my seat and try not to gloat.
Everything else goes according to plan until today where every weather station in the country talks about this major storm on the East Coast. Heavy winds and rain, flooding, tornados, but again my flights are not affected. I suspect, the next time I attempt to travel by air, Murphy's law will bring balance to the force.
I will follow up with some details about my trip later. It's been a long day.

Gloucester

Saturday I realized that it is already April. I think, the Google joke about the their new free internet tipped me off. Funny. But it also meant that tax day is coming awfully close, so I decided to take the bull by the horn and do my taxes. I still managed a short trip to Gloucester, which is just up the coast a wee bit. I took the coastal route which weaves nicely along the ocean and through old forest area. Lots of older style huge villas that look like old money and private schools along the road. I walked through Gloucester's historic district which has small shops, restaurants and cafes. For a late lunch I settled on a nice tuna steak with pineapple gazpacho and a Copper Ale from a microbrewery in Vermont. Most of the shops in that area where either selling 'antic' Schnickschnack or other retail I wasn't particular interested in. However, they had a record store that sells old vinyl records. Pretty cool, just browsing through these old records and checking what was hip in the 60's, 70's, or 80's. On my way back I got reminded that I am back in 21st century traffic. First, a lady couldn't make up her mind on a 4-way stop and furiously gave me the famous hand signal when I moved in front of her. And just before I was home, somebody almost took the front of my car off, because apparently I wasn't aware that. when he bought his shiny truck, it came with an automatic right-of-way on all left turns. Silly me.

Pictures

Today was a nice sunny day and I took the opportunity to snap some pictures of Salem as promised earlier. I posted them on my Flickr page.

Noreastern

It looks like the winter has thrown us another curve ball. After a nice couple of days, we got hit on Friday by a winter storm with a couple inches of snow, blowing wind and snarling traffic. It generally referred as a 'Norestern'. So, since there was not much to do outside, I went to see a movie. There is a smaller theater nearby, that plays older movies and smaller independent ones. The theater looks like it has been stuck in the 80's, but that gives is a unique touch. Kinda reminded me of some great movie experiences I had in the past.... "Karniggels" in the Deli III, 'Pulp Fiction" in Luebeck, or 'Star Wars" in the Oriental in Milwaukee. Good times.
Today, I watched the oscar winning German movie "Das Leben der Anderen". Great film about the East German secret police and how it spied on their own people. The movie is interesting in a sense that in the beginning the main character still believes that his 'police' work and wire tapping is the right thing to do. Through the movie he finds out that the cause gets corrupted because others use the system of spying and black-mailing for personal gain. One can find similarities with the witch trials in Salem or the way the "war" on terror is being conducted. Deep thoughts.... Nevertheless, I thought it was an excellent movie.

Salem Stroll

Finally! This weekend it was warm enough to explore Salem for a bit. I started at the harbor at Derby Wharf, where the Friendship of Salem is moored to the docks. The ship is a replica of Salem East Indian from 1797 and it certainly makes for a great site. Salem is mostly famous for their witch trials and early trade around the world and it certainly shows. The town has a lot of brick buildings telling of older times. It has a very European feel to it. If you walk the tiny streets it almost feels like walking through Luebeck. They also have their share of architectural nightmares. The power plant that sits next to the historic harbor must have been build before Salem made a living out of tourism, just awful. Unfortunately, I didn't bring my camera, so I'll post some pictures later, once I take some. ;-)
Speaking of tourism. Salem certainly has adopted the witchcraft theme, every second store is about witches, haunted houses, and everything spooky. It's a bit much for my taste, but hey, if it brings the crowd, whatever works. All in all it was a nice stroll through the neighborhood.

Closer to home, I finally put up pictures,
so at least the living room is done. The set-up is pretty much the same as in my old place. I still need to add some lighting and I also need to buy some furniture for the bedrooms. It's process and it will take some time. The apartment is on the second floor, so it's nice to look out the window and see a tree, instead of a parking car, like in Peoria.

Global Warming

With friends around the globe enjoying balmy spring temperatures, Massachussets clearly didn't get the memo on global warming. I stepped out today to be greeted by temperatures that would make any penguin feel at home. You got to be kidding! With wind chills reaching -15 F, that's -25 C, any discussion on global warming takes on a rather amusing twist. This hot topic seemed to gain some steam in the media here in the US and in Europe with "An inconvenient truth" winning an oscar, Al Gore being outed as an energy hog, and German politician suggesting to spend vacation close to home instead of jetting around the world. Maybe somebody can enlighten me, because it seems like everybody and their brother seem to have a different opinion on the effects of global warming. All I know is that today, huddled up and shivering in the car, I wouldn't mind a little bit of local warming myself.