blankets, people. Blankets! (Ha. Ha. Ha. Get your minds out of the gutter.)

I woke up this morning around 7:40AM to sun pouring into my apartment. This is the second of three days of unusually warm, and unusually gorgeous, weather in Madison. So, with a clothes drying line less than 10 feet form my back door I took the two wool blankets off my cot and hung them up outside in the sun to air out. It’s pretty windy today so I am letting them stay out there a while. I don’t have an official/authentic fabric beater like you would find in an 18th- or 19th-century home but the side of my broom seems to work just fine. I might just leave the blankets outside all day. They are made of thick, tightly woven wool so the chance to air out them is nice to have before they go back on the cot for the rest of the Fall/Winter season.

Below are some pics in case you don’t believe me.

View From My Back Door

Blowing in the Wind

Blankets Getting Mooned

Man do I feel better today. When I got home yesterday after my drive back from Syracuse I felt like crap. I was super-cranky at the kitty—She would not stop mewling—ornery about having to un-load my car, and sore from sitting down for so long. (Even with stopping every 3-4 hours my hips just ached by the time I got home. I plan to go for a short run today to loosen up myself and then go for a long run tomorrow.)

I had some family and friends try to chat with me online and I finally had to log off just so I could finish checking e-mail and then take a nap. A four-hour nap helped but I still had to un-load my car. The kitty continued to meow at me every 2-3 minutes and followed me out to the car and back in again every time I brought in another load of stuff. (I know she has abandonment issues and is very insecure about my absence but you would think after having slept with me during my nap she would feel better.)

I got most of the back seat cleared out but have the rear storage area chock full o’ stuff. One thing I did last night was bring in and assemble the pieces of my shoe rack. I could finally get all my shoes up off the kitchen floor and do a decent job of sweeping. I’ve been trying to keep my apartment shoe-free—and for the most part have succeeded—but now I plan to make it official: When you come in my place, shoes come off. It’s a home not an office and as such you should walk around in socks. (Having a shoe-free apartment should also help keep things cleaner. But as I have wood floors I don’t have to worry as much about tracking dirt in the house as I would if I had carpeting.)

Finally, around 11:00PM the kitty would not stop meowing at me and, after shooing her off the table for the millionth time, I grabbed her, tossed her on the floor (with some force I am sad to say) and she left me alone. I felt terrible almost immediately and went to check on her. She was hiding among my belongings in the bedroom. When she saw me she hopped up on my cot and started meowing again. This time I decided to lay down with her in hopes it would stop the mewling. It did and I fell asleep.

I woke up in the night once, to pee and put an extra blanket on the cot, and kitty was right there with me still. As she never sleeps with me all night I guess she is still feeling tramautised about the move and my absence this past weekend. I woke up this morning to bright sunshine forcing its way through the seams of my closed blinds. I got a good 9 hours of sleep and woke up dreaming about the TV show Lost. This is strange because a) I don’t have a TV b) I have seen parts of Lost episodes only 2 or 3 times and c) I can’t remember doing or talking about anything related to the Lost series.

Whatever it was, I woke up feeling refreshed, rested, and with a much-less-meowy kitty. I had breakfast, looked at the headlines, checked out Facebook, and am looking forward to un-loading the rest of my car. There is nothing like a good night’s sleep to do wonders for you.

PS: Khrystin’s color guard performance in the state championships was really good. However, they came in 3rd place (out of six teams) in their school class. This year’s squad is young, with mostly freshmen and sophomores so they don’t have quite the skill of last year’s squad which actually came in first place (and that was comprised of almost all seniors).

Was out for my walk and saw this beautiful Weimaraner out for a run with her parent. This is the second time I have seen this dog while out on a walk. Pretty is probably too conservative a description, though. This dog was striking looking with erect head, solid, muscular body, and the most beautiful silver/gray coat. She just strode along-side her parent with grace and ceaseless effort. The woman was running with the dog or else I would have stopped and talked to her just to pet her dog. (Can you tell I want a dog?)

The funny thing is if this woman had stopped to talk to me she would have thought I was interested in her—She is very attractive—but right now I would rather have a new dog in my life than a new girlfriend. Maybe when I start working again I’ll try to find me a girlfriend, maybe one with a dog. But for the time being, I’d rather have just a dog.

The thing is when I was checking out my apartment my landlord said I could have one cat (i.e.: no dog) with the emphasis on one. As it turns out, the couple who had the apartment before me had three cats and two of my neighbors in my building have a dog. Maybe after I have been here a few months I will ask my landlord about getting a dog. It would have to be something small—I have a one-bedroom apartment—and older but I am sure I could find something at the pound. We’ll see.

I’m not talking about dating. (It’s been so long since I was actively dating I can’t remember what that kind of rejection feels like.) No, I’m talking about rejection in the job market. Today, I called the local upscale grocery store where I had submitted an application last week and was told the usual spiel “Reviewing applications; Will call when there is an opening and if you fit our needs”. Blah, blah-blah, blah . . . blah-blah-blah.
I mean, my resume doesn’t scream manual labor but I’ve got a strong back and a good work ethic. Besides, if anyone knows anything about the computer support field, they would know you spend most of your time picking up and moving around computers and printers. Granted computers, and especially monitors, have gotten lighter over the years—I can remember back in the day when a high-end 24″ graphics CRT monitor would require two people to lift and move it—but laser printers and networkable fax machines are still heavy. I’ve got the strength and stamina to do manual labor (and the willingness). All I need is someone to offer me a job. Sigh!

I have to check again but I think I am up to 80 83 applications submitted so far this year (actually since mid December 2008 when I finished my masters thesis). Once I get my internet access squared away (tomorrow, I hope) I will have an easier time of searching online for jobs.

I have been in contact with a reference through a friend-of-a-friend situation about doing IT work in the education field but I am awaiting a callback from this woman. I am not looking to her for a job but rather to gain some insight on how best to enter the educational IT support field here in Madison.

I am at the laundromat now—Someone in this strip mall has an open WiFi network—but I will be going to the library this afternoon to a) get legitimate internet access and b) do some searching through the library’s employment-finding materials. (The latter might require a trip to the central library downtown.)

I think the only thing in my favor right now is the fact that the holiday season is approaching and there will be some—not a lot, but some—extra hiring during this time. If I am lucky, I should be able to put together several part-time positions during the holidays to get at least some money coming in. We’ll see how that goes.

As a follow-up to my post about getting around Madison by bicycle and on foot, I thought I should provide a brief overview of the city of Madison.

The city of Madison is divided into about 70 neighborhoods spread across seven regions. The regions are based around the Wisconsin sate capitol building in the center of the Downtown region which is dominated by cultural, governmental, and commercial entities. The other regions are listed below with their defining features.

Downtown: Seat of government for the state of Wisconsin, county of Dane, and city of Madison. Lots of cultural offerings in this area combined with the main commercial corridor for students, namely the State street pedestrian mall.

Near East: placeholder text.

Far East: Suburb-like residential area with some dodgy neighborhoods but mostly nicer, upscale neighborhoods. Home to the Olbrich Botanical Gardens.

Near West: Suburb-like residential area with some dodgy neighborhoods but mostly middle-class neighborhoods with a few upscale neighborhoods near the Arboretum and around the western edge of the university. Home to most of the University of Wisconsin-Madison campus, the UW-M Arboretum, several big golf courses, and several big cemeteries.

Far West: placeholder text.

South: placeholder text.

North: I know nothing about this area.

To find out everything you could possibly want to know about Madison from a geographic-based, socio-political perspective, check out the Madison Neighborhood Indicators Project here. For reference purposes I live in the Nakoma planning district but the Summit Woods neighborhood association.

To be continued.

So far I have not had too much difficulty getting around Madison.

When I had visited previously I stayed at the hostel downtown and explored a lot of the city on foot, particularly the Downtown and Near East regions of Madison. I had spent a little time in the Far East and Near West parts of the city as well but only enough time to get a sense of what were the major roads.

To my surprise, that knowledge of just the few major roads in the Near West section of the city proved quite useful in finding my way around. I live in the south-central part of the Near West region or southwest of the state capitol building downtown. I am on the main north-south road (Midvale Blvd.) through this part of the city and close to a main secondary route to downtown (the Nakoma Rd. / Monroe Rd. corridor).

Of course, all of this road info would be important if I was driving everywhere, but I am not. I am walking or biking everywhere. The Southwest Bike Trail passes my place less than one-quarter mile away. On it, I have a direct, car-free route to downtown and a connecting bike path—again, care free—that takes me across the Downtown region to the Near East and Far East regions of the city.

To be continued.

At least, my experience with them so far has led me to believe that. And the sad thing is, I don’t actually have them as my ISP yet. All my frustrations stem from me trying to get them to hook up my service. I know, it’s not like the world needs another blog post about how ISPs provide terrible customer service, but I am going to post one anyway. So be prepared for some vulgarities.

AT&T, as an ISP, sucks giant sweaty donkey balls.

I sign up for “naked DSL” service from AT&T on Sunday evening, 18 Oct 09. I get one of their mid-rate plans (1.5Mb downstream/384Kb upstream) and schedule the technician to come out Wednesday, just three days later. I think that’s not bad even though the scheduled window for when the technician can arrive is 8:00AM – 9:00PM. (No, that is not a typo.)

I then proceed to order a Wi-Fi-enabled DSL modem—the offerings from AT&T were skimpy on features and heavy on price—that will arrive by the end of the week. So far, all is good.

Wednesday rolls around and I am waiting patiently for the AT&T technician to show up. (Did I mention they tell you the technician will show up during a 13-hour window?) It gets to be about 12:30PM and I’ve got errands to run. So, I call the AT&T service number to get a better sense of the technician’s ETA and get a generic brush-off with “We do not have that information”.

So, I decide to give the technician the benefit of the doubt that he will be logical and call me **before** he shows up. BIG mistake. I go to the library after running my errands so I can use the internet to check e-mail and browse the web—I applied for two jobs online while I was there. As my phone is off, I don’t get the message from the AT&T technician telling me he is outside my door until I get home. (As it was, he didn’t get to my place until after 4:30PM. If I hadn’t gone out to run my errands I would have been home all day twiddling my thumbs waiting for the guy.)

At this point I am furious as all the guy—and it was a guy, Brian—had to do was call me as he was on his way over. Shit, the library is only 10 minutes away by bicycle. I could have met him back at my apartment IF HE HAD ONLY CALLED ME AHEAD OF TIME. Oh yeah, the best part: Chuckle-head Brian tells me to call to reschedule the installation but he doesn’t leave me the number to call.
(For those of you wondering: To speak to someone about the status of an AT&T DSL installation, the magic number to call is 800-288-2020 and choose “DSL Status” as your option.)

Thursday morning FedEx tries to deliver my modem and I was in the bathroom. So, I have to wait one more day to get it, plug in it, and see if the DSL is working.

Later Thursday morning I call the AT&T service line to try and re-schedule the installation. The woman on the line sounds confused and says the service should be active but to wait until I get my modem plugged in to be sure. My second BIG mistake. As it turns out, there is a wholly separate 800 number to call for DSL installation support. A number which I don’t obtain until today.

Today is Friday. I get the modem from FedEx, get it all set up and configured and no DSL service. So, I call the 800 number again and after being transferred once talk to a nice gentleman—His accent sounded Indian but his pronunciation/vocabulary sounded Canadian; It was kind of an odd, yet soothing sounding, voice—who tells me that my DSL service is “Pending” and I need to speak to the Installation Dispatch Team team to re-schedule my appointment. (This means the woman I spoke to yesterday gave me completely false information AND did not refer me to the correct people to get the installation re-scheduled.)

I speak to the folks at the Installation Dispatch Team team who again confirm my DSL service is “Pending”. They can re-schedule me for next Tuesday, four days from now. Never mind I was already in their system; Never mind the technician doesn’t call before showing up; Never mind he fails to give me a number to call to re-schedule; Never mind any of that. I have to go back in their regular installation queue.

[Dennis take a few deep breaths.]

So, here I am, back at the library, using their internet until I can get service installed at my apartment. At least this branch of the library* has a cozy reading corner with a running gas-fired fireplace. I can enjoy my time here knowing that at least some things work well in Madison.

*There are several major branches to the consolidated library system in Madison/Dane County. The branch nearest me is the newest one and it is beautiful, all stone and glass with lots of open space and a variety of spaces to sit and read, sit and work, or to sit and talk. I got my library card already and set up my online account—to search for books, magazine, videos, etc. from home.
There is a debate right now as to a) whether or not to renovate or to rebuild the main library downtown and b) whether or not to put the new main library’s funding plan to a municipal referendum or leave it to a simple vote of the Madison City Council. I am in favor of a) building a brand-new library and b) leaving the vote on this particular matter to the Madison City Council. The designs for the new structure look gorgeous and promise lots of useful, functional space within the library for various users. Not to mention the new library would renovate a depressing block in downtown Madison and serve as an anchor to attract other construction in the area.

The trip by the numbers ($).
U-Haul Trailer:  $263.56
Gas in Car:  $160.53
Highway Tolls:  $63.15
Total Cost:  $487.24

The trip by the numbers (clock).
Depart:  Sunday, 11 October 2009 @ 10:26AM EDT
Arrive:  Monday, 12 October 2009 @ 2:13PM CDT
Total Time:  28: 47 [hh:mm]
(I lost about 25 minutes at the beginning of the trip when I had to stop at the local Lowe’s
in Syracuse and buy a bunch more bungie cords to tie down my tarps on the trailer.)

The trip by the numbers (GPS).
Moving Avg:  46.3 mph
Max Speed:  58.9 mph
(I can’t imagine I ever went that fast. But there were parts of I-90 in Chicago where I wasn’t
paying attention to speed and just focusing on the road to keep from getting killed. So . . .
I guess it’s is possible I hit 58 mph at some point.)
Moving Time: 18:05  [hh:mm]
Stopped Time: 10:24  [hh:mm]
Total Time:  28: 29 [hh:mm]
(See the note above that explains where I lost some time at the start of the trip in Syracuse,
thus accounting for the discrepancy in total time traveled.)

The trip by the numbers (tanks of gas).
NY:  1.25 task of gas
PA:   .25 tanks of gas (for only 45 miles)
OH:   1.00 tanks of gas
IN:   .75 tanks of gas
IL:   .5 tanks of gas
WI:   .25 tanks of gas
Total Tanks: 4.00 tanks of gas
(At 16+ gallons/tank that equals ~65 gallons of gas used.)

The trip by the numbers (moving supplies).
Tarps:  3 @ 8.5′ W x 11.5′ L
(All three were partially shredded when I arrived in Madison.)
Bungie Cords:  37 (20 @ 24″ length ; 17 @ 12″ length)
Rope/Twine:  3 (1 @ 50′ length / 2 @ 3′ length)

Sadly, I didn’t think to check my camera’s memory card before packing away all my computer stuff. It was almost full so I was able to take just a few pictures of the un-packing process and only a few pictures of the living room in my empty apartment. They are below. Un-packing the trailer took just about three hours and I spent another hour un-packing some of the stuff from my car (mostly stuff for the kitty). Then I was off to U-haul to return the trailer and get some food. I got me a burger and fries from the local branch of the Five Guys chain, went home, ate them, and collapsed into bed. Below are some of the few pics I do have of the moving in process.

Still In One Piece

Almost All My Worldly Possessions

Keeping My Stuff Protected

17, 20, 2, and 1

The Living Room's Windows

Look At That Shiny Floor

There isn’t much to say about spending ~29 consecutive hours in a car with an unhappy cat other than to say that I am glad it is over with. Really glad it is over with.

When I left Sunday morning (11 Oct 09) I wasn’t sure I would be able to make it to Madison with Roswell mewling in this horrendous, guttural fashion. After a few hours and some caffeine (for me) we both settled down and I focused on staying mentally alert. That meant little or no food and rest stops every 2 or 3 hours. I was lucky in that all the way to Cleveland I was able to find places to stop every couple of hours. And by that time it was dark.

So, outside of Cleveland I found a Chipotle and went inside. I had my usual Burrito Bol (no rice, both kinds of beans, fajita veggies, chicken and assorted toppings) and a large coke. After fortifying myself with food and beverage I got back on the road and stayed awake into Indiana. Expecting a welcome center on the interstate as I crossed into Indiana was a mistake on my part. I was dismayed to find no welcome center and signs indicating the next rest stop would be another 45 minutes away. Not good. I pushed through with the aide of some nicotine and cold air and got to the rest area around 1:15AM and was asleep by 2:00AM.

I awoke to dull cloudy sky and an overwhelming desire to pee. Off to the restroom I went. On my way to the Men’s rest room I pass a chocolate shop that is just being opened for the day. The smells were truly intoxicating and as I passed by the women doing the setup gave me a cheery “Good Morning”. I don’t know if it was a genuine pleasantry or a setup for the hard-sell when I exited the Men’s rest room but it startled me something fierce in my incoherent, half-asleep, urination-focused state. After relieving my bladder I wandered out and smiled and said “Hello” in kind to the woman at the chocolate shop. I wish for all the world there was a chocolate formulation that would  keep one energized throughout the day without any sort of “crash”. Because I could have used something then.

Back on the road and I am surprised, REALLY surprised, at how hilly the terrain is in northern Indiana. I spent the rest of the time on the Indiana Toll Road going up and down over long, rolling hills. Although, I got the sensation overall that I was climbing in elevation as I approached the Illinois border. (A quick peak at the terrain feature of the Google map for northern Indiana shows minor but uniform elevation changes across almost the whole length of the Toll Road. Methinks these hills are terminal moraines caused by glaciers during the last ice age. Their gradual nature and occurrence all along the southern edge of the Great Lakes leads me to this conclusion.)

Before I knew it I was in Illinois. Or at least it seemed like Illinois. As it turns out, the cities of Gary and Hammond in Indiana might as well be the far outer suburbs of Chicago. It is when you get to those two cities that the landscape acquires a decidedly industrial/commercial feel to it. The highways are bigger* and are bordered by massive industrial works, steel in particular, and electricity generating and distribution plants.
*Although the particular stretch of I-90 through Gary and Hammond was being completely re-built; As a result it was only one lane wide for quite a few miles.

When I finally did get to Illinois I was hit by a number of toll booths right away. Instead of having a set of toll booths with tickets (and ticket-takers at every exit) Illinois has toll barriers every so often where users pay a fee before being allowed to progress. It seems an odd way to manage traffic flow on their major roads but I assume it is cheaper and more cost effective to have fewer collective toll barriers through which every driver passes than to have many more individual toll points at each exit.

My original plan for the drive out was to stay on I-80 in Indiana into north-central Illinois and take I-39 up to Madison from the south, bypassing Chicago altogether. But, somewhere after I left the rest area in Indiana I realized that “today was a holiday”. Holidays mean less traffic so maybe I could chance it driving into/through Chicago with my car and trailer. After some not-quick mental calculations I realised that if I drove through Chicago I would get into the downtown are around 10:30AM, after their rush hour (I presumed) and after any holiday traffic had gotten out on the road. My assumptions were sorta correct (I think) in that there was traffic on the roads but none of it was stop-and-go and there wasn’t too much traffic overall. However, what traffic there was on the roads was all moving FAST. This stretch of driving is where I assume I hit my maximum speed of 58.9 mph (according to the GPS). On this stretch of road I wasn’t really paying attention to speed. Instead I was focused on not getting killed by staying out of the way of other vehicles. So, I guess it’s is possible I hit 58 mph at some point.

I got in and through Chicago and was heading out towards the northwestern suburbs when I came upon my first major rest area. In Illinois they call them oases and after the uphill drive through Indiana and the race-track drive through Chicago, I felt like I needed an escape to an oasis. And here I was, at an oasis right across from O’Hare International Airport. I was craving something—I can’t remember what it was—and they didn’t have it at the oasis. But they had nice clean bathrooms and cold water fountains. So, onward I went.

The outer suburbs of Chicago are kinda boring until you get to Hoffman Estates and its Prairie Stone Business Park. This is a massive mixed-use complex with the global headquarters for the SEARS Corporation sitting prominently on the side of the Interstate. It provides a nice visual distraction from suburban tract housing and strip malls before the scenery turns into open fields and farm land. And then before you know it you are in Rockford, IL. It’s a nice-enough looking place, from what you can see of it from the highway. I’ve been to the bus station there in Rockford once but it was on the outskirts of town near a series of strip malls so I can’t really judge the place based on that minor experience. But Rockford is home to Rock Cut State Park, the “largest state park in Illinois” according to all the signs along the highway.

You know when you take a long car trip and you get to a certain place and you get that feeling of “I am close; I am almost there”? I think the Rockford/Rock Cut State Park area will be that place for me. About a dozen miles north of the state park is the Wisconsin border and then I am home. (Yes, Wisconsin feels like home to me even though I have been here only a little while. It’s hard to explain but that immediate sense of feeling “at home” was one of the biggest factors in my decision to move there from the East coast.)

As usual, I stop at the state Welcome Center and find a wealth of information about things to do i the state, a number of different historical sign-posts posted around the grounds of the welcome center, and some very friendly people. As I was leaving the rest area building I tried to open the door for two older men coming in. But they beat me to the door by a half second and they both pulled open a door for me to come out. I was a bit mystified but gave them a hearty “Thank You” and was on my way.
(It should be noted that everyone, and I do mean everyone, is super polite here. They really seem to embrace the idea of hospitality and social niceties. I am going to have to be super cognizant of my behavior so as to modulate some of my typical East Coast/New York brusqueness. I don’t want to come off as an ungracious newcomer so I’ll have to be on guard to try and be more open and less brusque with people I meet here.)

The drive up to Madison from the border took about 90 minutes and it was rolling hills and farmland or open fields most of the way. I knew what exit I had to get off at to head west to the other side of Madison but it is weird to see signs on the highway announcing you are entering the city limits of Madison and you are still in the countryside. You need to be within about four miles of the downtown area before you start to see signs of an urban/suburban environment. But then my exit comes up and I am on the Madison equivalent of a perimeter road—They call it the Beltline in contrast to the numerous municipal Beltways I know of back East. The Beltline has three lanes of traffic in each direction and lots of well-signed exits with easily accessible off-ramps.

Before you know it I am at my exit and then confusedly trying to get to my apartment building which is about 100 feet away across a two-lane divided roadway. I have to turn right down a side-street and go a few blocks north of my place before I come to a cross-street that can cross the two-lane divided roadway. A couple more turns, up one steep hill and I am pulling into my parking lot. (Oh yeah, I’ve got easy-access off-street parking with my apartment. Yee-Hah!) I pull in, go up to the door to my place and see a note there from my landlords telling me it is unlocked and to go right in. Which I do. I am now home!!!

NOTE: I wrote this post on Saturday, 24 Oct 2009 but back-dated it’s posting to the date and time I arrived in Madison, WI. Below is a pic of my car en route to Wisconsin.

Stopped at the new PA Welcome Center on I-90 westbound