Traffic Reports that Suck

People on the radio in Memphis have no idea how to give a traffic report. I was leaving school today and heard the traffic from two different sources. One source was 'Snap 94.1' and the other was NPR. Both traffic reports mentioned only the intersections where there were accidents. I heard multiple accidents along my route home (I-240), but I had no idea how slow or fast the traffic was actually moving.

The Memphis traffic report is fascinated with these accident locations. From Union and Avalon to I-240 W and 385W, I hear about every intersection, regardless of size, where there is an accident. And for some really annoying reason, they report which accidents had injuries. I guess you can infer that traffic would be moving slower around these, but who knows.

As a regular commuter on the highways and byways of Memphis, I want to hear how the traffic is moving. I don't give a hoot about the locations of accidents unless it is making the highway slower than it usually is. Maybe I'm spoiled. In Philadelphia, you could count on 1060 AM every 10 minutes to give you a detailed traffic report (among other things). You would know which major highways were slow, in which direction they were slow, from what exit to what exit they were slow, and why they were slow. You would know this information regardless of whether there was an accident on the road you wished to travel. In Memphis, there is no report, ever, about the speed of traffic on any of the roads/highways around the city. It's a total fucking joke.

A note about my Holiday schedule: TFA Holiday part (partial open bar!) 12/8, last day of class 12/20, return home 12/22. Then on the 27th I have a flight reserved to fly to see Brittany in Pittsburgh. I did this last year and it turned out to be a time where we had nothing to do but hang out and enjoy each other's company. I also got to see Pittsburgh a bit, which brought back a bunch of memories from when I went out there more frequently as a kid to visit relatives. Im excited for this year, hoping it will just as good to be at Brittany's house (despite the awkward conversations with her often overeager father) as it has been before. It'll be great to finally spend some time with the ladyfriend that is not hurried or pressured because I've got to teach or she's got to become a doctor. Then we are going to drive back to Philly for the New Year's celebration somewhere in Goat City. I will spend some more carefree, Brittany filled days in Hershey, PA, before coming back to Memphis on Friday 1/4. I'm certainly counting down the days.

In the Meantime

I am a terrible person, I know. One of my big beefs with blogs is someone not updating. But, here I am, doing the same terrible thing.

Currently I am at home in Horsham, PA. Yesterday was Thanksgiving - I went to the HH - UM football game, had dinner with the fam, and then saw a movie (No Country for Old Men) with James, Danny, mom, and dad. Wednesday morning I drove out to Hershey, PA to spend the day with Brittany. It was nice to be doing things that seemed so normal to me. Teaching is still so foreign and I haven't quite gotten used to it as being part of my life.

In the last week I've flown to Atlanta three times, to Minneapolis once, to Memphis once, and to Philadelphia once. This almost equals the total number of flights I've taken in my entire flying life (which started in March of 2005). As I become more experienced, I've gotten better at getting some rest on planes. It's still a struggle - what with the small spaces and large legs - but I managed to get intermittent sleep from Memphis to Minneapolis, Memphis to Atlanta, and Atlanta to Philadelphia.

Last weekend I journeyed to St. Olaf College and watched the the Goats get second at XC nationals. After starting out slow (15th at mile 1), the team rolled on people throughout the race and had the top 5 in the first 60 overall. The atmosphere was incredible (as always). I adopted Karl's 'bouncing' method as an outlet to my nervous energy before the race started. During the race, I had adrenaline carrying me across the course as I sprinted like I hadn't sprinted since XC nats 2006. There's nothing like all out 1/4 mile sprints when you've run 30 miles in the previous 3 months. After the race, we waited anxiously to hear the team scores. I chatted with the guys who ran and took some pictures. Boyce came running up to the group with two fingers raised high and everyone started hugging and high fiving people. The team got second, and everyone was ecstatic.

Before awards, I had the brilliant idea of going for a run with a group of frosh, DJ Trouble, Boyce, Hildner, and MJablin. It was painful to say the least. Olaf is on a big hill that we ran up a couple of times and I hung off the back of the group complaining about Boyce pounding up front. The normalcy of being at an XC meet was short lived and I hopped on a plane back to Memphis via Atlanta. Luckily, I was on the same flight to ATL as the guys that ran (+ Nathan Patton and MJablin) and got to hang out a bit more.

A couple of weeks prior to that, Brittany flew down from Philadelphia to Nashville. I drove out to pick her up and then we drove back to Memphis late late Friday night. After getting 6 or so hours of sleep, and getting up before Brian and Karl, Brittany and I ventured over to the Memphis Zoo. The weather was fantastic and the Zoo was not too crowded. My favorite part of the Zoo trip was watching the monkeys and orangutans be ridiculous. Brittany flew out of Nashville Sunday afternoon, so it was a quick turnaround with lots of driving. It was well worth it, though, and helped me realize (along with talking to Boyce at nationals) that I need to work less - especially on Saturdays.

I'll post some pictures when I clear up space on my Picasa web page (see link from my Facebook account).

Skeletons

For Halloween this year I am looking towards my younger bro, Andy, for some inspiration. Andy came to our Conference/Halloween party at Haverford last year rocking his Skeleton suit, a gray zip up hoodie, and some Vans sneaks. I thought it was hilarious, and after having no viable ideas (really no ideas, period) I think I've settled on this for tomorrow night's TFA Halloween Party. Threads on Letsrun and Runnerunner both seemed to turn up no good ideas, which is surprising.

Grizzles

Last Saturday (10/20), Brad Baumgartner and I received free ($147) 'Courtside' tickets to the Grizzlies-Heat preseason game. Brad got them from Brad,Brad Leon, Teach for America (that's always how he announces himself when he calls corps members) practically after the game had started, so we hurried down to the FedEx Forum, parked in a sweet, free garage, and headed down to our 'Courtside' seats. As you'll see from my pictures (most of them are zoomed in), 'Courtside' doesn't actually mean right on the court. We were in the 6th row, but we did get to walk right behind the team benches when walking to our seats. First picture is an old Penny Hardaway of the Heat, and a young Rudy Gay - who played amazingly - of the Grizzlies. We also got to see NBA greats Darko Milicic, Chris Quinn, and Hakim Warrick play. Darko has the worst hands ever and just looks like a headcase, Quinn - a former Matt Carroll teammate at Notre Dame - played a solid game and looked to be very team oriented, and Warrick, a Philadelphia area product, must not have heard my calls for him to throw down a spectacular dunk.


One of the highlights of the night was watching Antoine Walker (former All Star) during timeouts. He didn't play one minute of the game and could not have cared less that he was on a team. Every timeout, Walker got up, stood well away from the huddle, clasped his hands behind his back, and looked blankly into the crowd. It seemed like he looked at me a couple times, but I couldn't work up the courage to wave and possibly interrupt his pouting. He's the guy on the very far right of the screen who looks like a security guard except for his Heat shooting shirt.


And of course, the always disgusting looking Heat coach, Pat Reilly. His hair was Greenish and almost pulled into a small bun at the back of his head. One of the highlights of my night was yelling 'get a haircut Reilly', from my 6th row seat, as he paced the sidelines with about 2 minutes left in the game. I got some laughs from people right down behind the bench, so I assume he heard me.


This being my first trip to the Forum, I couldn't help but notice how extremely dark it was. The seats were all blue, and the lights seemed to only illuminate the floor. Very Madison Square Garden-esque.


I had a good time, but never in my life would I pay $147 for those PRESEASON tickets. I'll probably try to go to a Sixers game if they every come to Memphis - that'd be fun.

Rodeo of the Mid South

Back in September five of us went to a rodeo down in Southaven, Mississippi. It was my first trip to Tennessee's neighbor to the south. What struck me most was how spread out everything was. Houses had big yards, there was open space and it was just completely different than Memphis. I guess you get used to lots of stuff jammed together when you live in a city.


Here's the cowboys waiting around for the first event. To our surprise, the first event had cowboys rope a calf, jump off their horse, and yank the cow to the ground by twisting its neck. This looked pretty violent to all of us, but the calves got up quickly, ran off, and appeared to have their necks intact.



Here's the 'Hall of Fame' rodeo clown who kept everybody entertained. His humor was really the lowest of the low. Brad, my friend who is notorious for making terrible puns, didn't seem to think the clown was very funny. Looking around though, people seemed to enjoy him, especially the kids, and it was an entertaining way to keep you interested during the down time between events and as they switched between cowboys performing in each event.



Some of the action events - they had a team calf roping where one cowboy roped the head and the other roped the back legs. Of course they had two rounds of bull riding, the feature event, which was cool. We saw one really bad wipe out, but other than that, the bulls seemed tamer than I expected.



The intersection of Sam Cooper Blvd, I-40, and I-240. I get on to 240 S here every day going to work.


I flew to Philly on Thursday, October 4th, stayed at home for a night, visited Haverford for an afternoon and had lunch at the track table with the guys. It was great being back (other than the Friday food) and I got to talk to Tom for a while too. That afternoon I drove out to Brittany's apartment in Hershey. I had a great time there - we went out to a bar the night after her test with her med school friends, went to Chocolate world on Saturday, had a fantastic Mexican dinner, then watched/listened to the Phillies loss to the Rocks in the NLDS. It was really tough leaving Hershey and leaving Philly to come back to Memphis. The picture of the Philly skyline was right before I departed.




Coming into Memphis that Sunday night I got a good view of the sun setting over the Mississippi. The difference between the Philly and Memphis airports is striking - one place has southern accents, the other doesn't.

(DJ)Troubleshooting

I really hate this blogger website layout. Either I'm an idiot and can't figure it out, or it just sucks big time. All I want is to write something in the title and post a picture. And then I want to post a small profile pictures. Basically, I want Boyce's layout, but cannot do it.

Shootings and such

I leave work today and am cruising with my windows down, enjoying the weather. I get about a half mile away from school and as I drive through an intersection I hear a loud pop - at first I was concerned it was one of my tires, then I think maybe it was a tire of someone next to me. A couple of seconds later I see two guys on my left running away, and to the right I see a couple of kids lying on the sidewalk (they had hit the ground after the shots) and I see more people a little ways into this apartment complex (again, some on the ground some not). I immediately am scared shitless because the guys who did the shooting had shot across the road I was driving on. I change lanes, almost running into a car behind me, then pull out my phone and call 911.

I get home, go for a run (3 miles or so, magic 800) to blow off some steam, then check the news later and see that a kid was shot in the arm right where I had thought there was a shooting. I think I'll be taking a different road in and out of school for a while.