(no subject)
May. 10th, 2005 10:42 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
murakoziIn order to keep from having to write one huge post, I'm going to break the weekend down into the various days. That'll also let me write the stuff while taking little breaks from work.
Friday
Even booking a month in advance, it wasn't possible to get any affordable flights out of Dulles. I ended up with flights on Southwest (my least favorite airline) out of BWI. That meant driving all the way up there and parking instead of parking in the garage here at work and catching the adjacent hotel's shuttle over to Dulles. The drive up was uneventful since the flight wasn't til nearly 1pm and I didn't have to worry about rush hour traffic. As is often the case, security checkpoint can't resist the urge to go the extra mile with me. I didn't bring my laptop on the trip, but did use the smaller laptop case to hold the camera, mp3 player, and other things. After doing the traditional security strip tease and walking through the detector, I waited for the laptop bag to come out of the xray machine. As it did, a TSA agent picked it up and put it through again. Then beckoned me off to the side so he could swab it and poke around a bit. I dunno what made the thing so interesting to them, but it was soon given back to me and I was sent on my merry way.
Arriving in Louisville, I called the person who was gonna pick me up. Due to some events scheduled that day, my stepfather and fiance were off touring some breeding farms, so I was getting picked up by a friend of a friend of theirs. Joy. I survived the small talk on the trip down to Frankfort so that I could begin the second bit of weirdness of the day. Since I was going to be crashing on the sofabed at the weekday apartment my stepdad's fiance has, I needed keys to get into the building and the apartment. Those were to be picked up at a restaurant on a nearby corner. It's kinda weird walking into a restaurant and asking if they have some keys for you. Keys in hand, I went up to the apartment and got the suit hung up. It had survived the trip unwrinkled. Yay! To kill some time I played with the PSP and walked around a bit outside. The streets around the apartment look like a larger version of Mayberry. The folks there are really friendly, which reminded me of the days I lived in Missouri. It's almost creepy in a Leave it to Beaver kind of way. Everyone says howdy and some just try to start up random conversations as they pass you by. One guy even introduced me to his dog which was some huge thing that seemed to be a cross between a dog, bear, and maybe bigfoot. Coulda put a saddle on that thing and given kids rides.
A couple things that my friends know about me: 1) I'm shy and 2) I hate eating/hanging around with people I don't know. More obligations for dad 'n his girlfriend meant they weren't going to be in until very late. They decided the best thing to do was to have me get picked up by some people I don't know and go meet even more strangers for dinner at a fancy restaurant. For me, this is like one of the rings of Hell. Even worse, it puts me into the situation of not knowing who is supposed to pay for what and such. I called one of the people I was supposed to meet up with and arranged a time to meet 'em in front of the apartment entrance.
We met up and drove off to Lexington for dinner. Fortunately the friend is a horse person so that gave some topics for conversation. Her significant other was a 'property developer' from Boston who fit very well into the Flirty Joking Harmless But Mildly Dirty Old Man category. We got to the restaurant and met up with the other two people and it was dinner time.
Now I like fancy food now and then. Who doesn't? Really, though, I'm a very basic guy when it comes to food. Couple that with entrees that start at around $30 and not knowing how the whole paying-the-check thing was gonna work out and I start getting uneasy. I really found myself wishing I could've backed out of it and just grabbed some dinner alone at one of the restaurants near the apartment. Much of the talk at dinner was stuff I and the two other males there couldn't participate in, since it turns out the women were both lawyers, both lived or had lived in Boston, and both had grown up in/around Coral Gables FL.
Somehow I survived dinner and got back to the apartment. Dad and his SO got in a bit after midnight and everyone promptly went to bed. We had to be downtown to meet the Governor's Train at 7:30 the next morning. I didn't get much sleep, owing to the kinda uncomfortable sleeper sofa and a freight train that came through around 2:30am. The tracks are only about a half block away and the train comes through slowly, blowing its horn all the way. The sound echoes off the buildings and ends up sounding like the train is about to come right through that room.
All too soon, it was time to get up, get all gussied up and head out to board the Governor's Train for the Derby.
The big day and other Saturday events to come soon.
Friday
Even booking a month in advance, it wasn't possible to get any affordable flights out of Dulles. I ended up with flights on Southwest (my least favorite airline) out of BWI. That meant driving all the way up there and parking instead of parking in the garage here at work and catching the adjacent hotel's shuttle over to Dulles. The drive up was uneventful since the flight wasn't til nearly 1pm and I didn't have to worry about rush hour traffic. As is often the case, security checkpoint can't resist the urge to go the extra mile with me. I didn't bring my laptop on the trip, but did use the smaller laptop case to hold the camera, mp3 player, and other things. After doing the traditional security strip tease and walking through the detector, I waited for the laptop bag to come out of the xray machine. As it did, a TSA agent picked it up and put it through again. Then beckoned me off to the side so he could swab it and poke around a bit. I dunno what made the thing so interesting to them, but it was soon given back to me and I was sent on my merry way.
Arriving in Louisville, I called the person who was gonna pick me up. Due to some events scheduled that day, my stepfather and fiance were off touring some breeding farms, so I was getting picked up by a friend of a friend of theirs. Joy. I survived the small talk on the trip down to Frankfort so that I could begin the second bit of weirdness of the day. Since I was going to be crashing on the sofabed at the weekday apartment my stepdad's fiance has, I needed keys to get into the building and the apartment. Those were to be picked up at a restaurant on a nearby corner. It's kinda weird walking into a restaurant and asking if they have some keys for you. Keys in hand, I went up to the apartment and got the suit hung up. It had survived the trip unwrinkled. Yay! To kill some time I played with the PSP and walked around a bit outside. The streets around the apartment look like a larger version of Mayberry. The folks there are really friendly, which reminded me of the days I lived in Missouri. It's almost creepy in a Leave it to Beaver kind of way. Everyone says howdy and some just try to start up random conversations as they pass you by. One guy even introduced me to his dog which was some huge thing that seemed to be a cross between a dog, bear, and maybe bigfoot. Coulda put a saddle on that thing and given kids rides.
A couple things that my friends know about me: 1) I'm shy and 2) I hate eating/hanging around with people I don't know. More obligations for dad 'n his girlfriend meant they weren't going to be in until very late. They decided the best thing to do was to have me get picked up by some people I don't know and go meet even more strangers for dinner at a fancy restaurant. For me, this is like one of the rings of Hell. Even worse, it puts me into the situation of not knowing who is supposed to pay for what and such. I called one of the people I was supposed to meet up with and arranged a time to meet 'em in front of the apartment entrance.
We met up and drove off to Lexington for dinner. Fortunately the friend is a horse person so that gave some topics for conversation. Her significant other was a 'property developer' from Boston who fit very well into the Flirty Joking Harmless But Mildly Dirty Old Man category. We got to the restaurant and met up with the other two people and it was dinner time.
Now I like fancy food now and then. Who doesn't? Really, though, I'm a very basic guy when it comes to food. Couple that with entrees that start at around $30 and not knowing how the whole paying-the-check thing was gonna work out and I start getting uneasy. I really found myself wishing I could've backed out of it and just grabbed some dinner alone at one of the restaurants near the apartment. Much of the talk at dinner was stuff I and the two other males there couldn't participate in, since it turns out the women were both lawyers, both lived or had lived in Boston, and both had grown up in/around Coral Gables FL.
Somehow I survived dinner and got back to the apartment. Dad and his SO got in a bit after midnight and everyone promptly went to bed. We had to be downtown to meet the Governor's Train at 7:30 the next morning. I didn't get much sleep, owing to the kinda uncomfortable sleeper sofa and a freight train that came through around 2:30am. The tracks are only about a half block away and the train comes through slowly, blowing its horn all the way. The sound echoes off the buildings and ends up sounding like the train is about to come right through that room.
All too soon, it was time to get up, get all gussied up and head out to board the Governor's Train for the Derby.
The big day and other Saturday events to come soon.