The days between the Thanksgiving football blowout and Christmas seem more blase every year. It’s also the time when I have had enough … left over turkey that is. Obviously there is a correlation between lethargy and overindulgence … I digress …
You know what really bothers me? Some folks think leftover turkey sandwiches are the best part of the holiday. All I can say is that they must be doing something wrong.
Old turkey makes me crazy. Let me count the ways. So, I says to myself, “Self, why not make a turkey list.” Here tis … my list of the Top 10 turkey issues that keep me awake at night:
Despite Tupperware seals, ice in my refrigerator now tastes like a frozen bird.
There is no part of a turkey that will go down a sink without clogging the pipes.
Turkey overdose naps are addictive and good luck trying to kick the habit, cold turkey.
Even honey badger doesn’t give a …. about turkey after 2-3 days of consecutive servings.
What? You are the one person in the U.S. who has not seen Honey Badger? (language):
Should you eat anything that children sketch, by tracing around their grimy little hands?
My mom, as her eyesight began to fail, thought the Bluebell flavor was Carmel “Turkey” Fudge. (In her defense, it’s not like “turtle” sounds that much better …)
No matter how many times I see the rerun of the WKRP in Cincinnati “Turkeys from Helicopter” episode, still I am not compelled to send any money to PETA.
If it weren’t for turkey and our Thanksgiving traditions … well … would there even be a pop-out cooking thermometer industry?
To the chagrin of turkeys everywhere, my old friend calls the loose skin below her chin, her “gobble gobble.”
What is the origin of the name Turkey for an entire country? (Can a country lose a bet?)
The Dirty Gig is about to get a little less dirty.
You may or may not know that this travel blog is funded by a second job in disaster recovery, affectionately referred to as the Dirty Gig. Accordingly, in this blog there have been detailed exploits involving 3 a.m. toilet disasters … flooded hospital basements … people who sniff smoky boxes … German laborers … and perhaps my favorite, the case of the mistaken fetus.
It’s been great fun … but my employer is shifting gears a bit. Moving forward, I will be working to help track inventory, equipment, consumables, labor and such on job sites. Somehow, I never fancied myself a barcode scanner … but one should never sell themselves short. J/K! I think it is going to be great.
Meanwhile, the new gig required me to travel to Philadelphia for training. And better yet, there was a break in the training to shoot some video for the company’s internal use.
COOL! “After 2.5 years on the Dirty Gig, I am finally going to use some of the communications skills from a lifetime in the profession,” I said to myself … which I sometimes have a tendency to do.
But surprisingly (to me anyway), and because the company has quite exceptional communications professionals of its own in place, I was pretty much just another extra on the set for the first day and a half.
I mean, there was one scene where my role was to walk over behind the speaking characters and point to a notepad on another person’s desk, say something undetected by the microphone, thank the person profusely, and then fade back into the background. HA! Afterward the director joked with me — telling me it was some of the best background walking he had ever had the good fortune to shoot. (He pullin my chain, right?)
But on the second day, my big chance for corporate video stardom arrived. A chance to show the company my corporate communications skills … I thought. I was up to the challenge. I drank some hot tea to get the pipes working. I slipped into the men’s room to tie back the gnarly, non-corporate, Wavy Gravy-esque hair. I was ready. “I can do this!”
My role was to play the part of a seasoned resources/logistics person, working in a command center of a disaster recovery company, as the team quickly prepared to mobilize for a huge disaster. In the scene, a veteran disaster professional walked through the command center – a mobile unit totally decked out with all kinds of high-tech equipment, and several other professionals at task – checking the status of several key items.
She checked on mobilizing a labor force. She inquired about diesel deliveries for massive generators. She made sure that air travel and hotel arrangements were complete for hundreds of people. Important stuff!
Then, my BIG MOMENT …
She turned to me. “Kent, what is the status of the dumpsters and the porta-a-potties?” Ha … good thing I wasn’t drinking a soft drink. I might have spewed it out my nose as I tried not to laugh.
Pity, we were not making a funny outtakes video …
Ha … I got tickled and totally stunk up the scene. It got worse (as the puns will as well) …
“Well, we have deployed 200 dumpsters, and I am working on the port-a-loos. I think we will need 400.”
CUT!
What exactly is a port-a-loo? (Oops, port-a-loo is what they called port-a-johns on my Dirty Gig in New Zealand …) I learned lots of new words on that job … “munted” (don’t say that in public, in NZ) … “schlomper” (don’t say that in public in Germany) … and port-a-loo … (don’t say that with the cameras rolling for an American company video.)
I digress …
“Crap!,” I exclaimed, realizing I had totally blown the scene. Ha … I got tickled again. The best way I can explain how uncomfortable this was … Have you seen the TV commercial for GasX, where the receptionist tells the flatulent guy that he has a phone call on “line toot”? It was like that … only worse. I think the theater term is farce …
TAKE TWO!
“Kent. what is the status on the dumpsters and the port-a-johns? Have you had any success?”
OMG! … an old friend in my younger days often had trouble with the daily bathroom necessities, so when she was able to do her bi’ness, she would say she had “success.” (See how this was a problem for me … the budding thespian?)
“Have you had any success?”
“Frankly, I think that is a bit personal,” I thought to myself. (If I did, that would add new meaning to the phrase “I totally bombed on the set,” now wouldn’t it?) … “Your lines seem a little forced,” I imagined the director coaching … haha … my mind went on so many rabbit trails.
I was biting my lip trying not to lose it — my composure … not the other. No one else in the command center knew the double meaning of success that was causing really unpleasant visuals in my mind, as I tried to push out my simple lines.
They thought I was just dramatically challenged. Perhaps they were right.
We had to go again. This time, at the director’s suggestion, we changed up the scene a little. Rather than leaving on a positive note, we were instructed to interject some conflict … a new detail that we needed to work on.
Ha! I totally misunderstood. I thought we would pick up the scene after I said we needed to find more facilities.
But, we were taking it from the top. (That’s show biz talk … as Jethro would explain … I digress)
The supervisor nailed her lines, “What is the status of the dumpsters and the port-a-johns? Have you had any success?”
Now there you go again, I thought. Ha! I did NOT see that coming. I froze. The camera was focused tight on me. I stared her in the eyes for several seconds, totally clueless and with no apparent wave activity in my brain and said absolutely nothing, with the old “deer-in-the-headlights” stare.
Please, someone yell “Cut!,” I prayed. The camera continued to roll …
I think the director and everyone in the room was so shocked that I blew such an easy line … not to mention no one knew the internal turmoil I was wrestling over the word “success” … that about a minute went by … camera still on me as I swallowed my Adam’s apple.
Finally … “Let’s try that again.”
I explained to everyone that the other actor asked me question #1 and I had been expecting question #2. Oh … poor choice of words.
Finally, we got through the scene to the relief of the group who had been waiting for me to …. or get off the pot, figuratively speaking.
In retrospect, everyone thought it was pretty funny … and the director, a good sport, joked that it was some of the best bathroom dialogue ever delivered. He referred to me as the “Drama King of the Crapper.”
When I was a kid in tiny dustville, most of us small-town kids played all the major sports. But baseball was special … baseball was our very first taste of competition, with uniforms and everything.
Our dads got together and created a league of four teams from three towns. Four teams. And to do that, we suited up kids ages eight through 12, playing side by side. Four years is quite a difference in size, talent and swagger at that age. There were kids just barely weened competing with kids who were showing signs of five o’clock fuzz and a taste for chewing tobacco. For the youngest kids, going to bat against a muscled up 12-year-old was pretty intimidating. But we loved it. For us farm kids it meant coming to town for a practice and a couple of games every week during the summer. That of course meant a reprieve from tractor driving for a few hours too. We played under the lights. We had rivalries, away games and dynasties if you can imagine that. Like I said. We loved it.
But even though baseball was our first hurrah in sports, it was short-lived. Little League was the big time in our baseball careers. After that, it was pretty much football and basketball and no high school baseball program. So, as much as I loved the diamond, I lost touch with my inner infielder over the years … until I had my own children. Some 15 years after I left the pitcher’s mound, the magic of baseball was rekindled in my life through the eyes of my two sons and my daughter. We loved it. My daughter could catch and hit as good as the boys on her team. Both of my sons went on to pitch no-hitters in high school. Yes … we loved it.
The Ryan Express
But just before my kids took to the field, I had one last baseball dream come true — the opportunity to meet a legend … the good fortune to meet a Baseball Hall of Famer … the unlikely scenario to be in the right place at the right time as history was being made … and the opportunity to document it all.
I have alluded to the book on Nolan Ryan here several times … most recently to make fun of the day I cut off my long hair, years ago, before I drove to Nolan Ryan’s home in Alvin, Texas. That was right about the time Nolan (now of course the part owner of two-time American League Champion Texas Rangers) pitched his final no-hitter in Major League Baseball as a Texas Ranger … er … his seventh no hitter.
So … all this is to say, that when the Dirty Gig stationed me in Binghamton, New York and when my buddy Craig pointed out that I was only an hour and a half from Cooperstown, New York … well, I hopped in the car and headed for the National Baseball Hall of Fame … and you can bet that I intended to head straight to the Nolan Ryan artifacts. However … there were all these New York Yankee legends … and White Sox legends … and Oakland A’s with curly, waxed mustaches distracting me.
Honus Wagner Most Collectible
Sultan of Swat
If you know me, you know I don’t care for the New York Yankees … but I am savvy enough to realize and strong enough to admit their huge place in history. For decades, they were baseball! And there are plenty of reminders in the Hall … of course none bigger than The Bambino. I wish I could have just camped out near the Babe Ruth memorabilia. Ha … the favorite … a shot of Babe Ruth out on the town in his finest floor-length fur coat. (So that’s where NY Jets quarterback Joe Namath learned his moves …) And there is a treasure trove of Mickey Mantle mania … I took a shot of one team photo to capture a historical shot of a perhaps lesser-known Yankee — second baseman Bobby Brown (the father of one of my friends back in Fort Worth) … and of course the former American League Commissioner. Hey! I had to find some Texas presence in the HOF however I could.
Babe Pimp
Who could resist the section on the old White Sox and the photos of Shoeless Joe Jackson, recently canonized in the film “Field of Dreams?”
The Hall accents the Latin flavor of modern baseball here and south of the border, with photos and uniforms from all over Mexico, The Dominican, etc. There is a nice section on the women who played the game … yes, like in the film “League of Their Own.”
And there is a lot of space given to the darker side of baseball … the shady past when baseball, like society, was segregated … the aforementioned Shoeless Joe and “The Black Sox scandal” … a time when legendary baseball players were not allowed to enter the door of the restaurant with their teammates … or more drastically, a time when African American team names had the word “Colored” before the mascot to separate them from the mainstream. And then there are the racial barrier busters represented throughout the Hall … the pioneers who rose to the top regardless of the color of their skin. … Against all odds.
Surely baseball has had its challenges … with lock outs and steroids and game fixes and betting … but it is also America at its best. There are the Lou Gehrigs … the Cal Ripkens … the Johnny Benches … The Sal Bandos and on and on … The Dodgers. The Brooklyn Dodgers! So much to see! I even got a photo (of a photo) of one of my childhood heroes — Vida Blue, a fireballer for The Oakland A’s, who had their own little dynasty out on the West Coast for a few years in the 1970s when The Yankees weren’t dominating …
There are interactive audio visual kiosks, actual turnstiles from legendary parks … tons of golden glove plaques, autographed home run balls, lockers from all the teams … and so much more.
Is there Wi-Fi, sports fans?
“Steeeeeeee-RIKE!,” as my friend’s dad used to yell when he umpired our games.
Whoa! Wait a minute. It do too. I fired off tweets and twitpics and Facebook updates perched in the actual locker of Home Run king Hank Aaron! Now that, my friend, is a Wi-Fi hotspot. Cooperstown, The Baseball H of F gets one ping for every Nolan Ryan no hitter … a perfect score of 7.
OH … I got so excited about all the baseballs, bats, masks, jerseys, tv clips and photos … I forgot to look for my book. Just as I was leaving, I inquired. Boo! The HOF library was closed on Sunday. I drove to Philadelphia from Cooperstown that afternoon … not knowing. Then a couple of days later, I received a ping … an e-mail. Yes! NOLAN RYAN: The Authorized Pictorial History is in fact in the Hall of Fame library in Cooperstown. We love it.
So imagine you walk into a cafe to enjoy a fine meal and you look over and the guy beside you has a ponytail and he is playing with fire at his table.
What will you do? What will you do?
Ha. That is exactly what a young couple at Cosi saw when they grabbed the booth next to me at the sandwich chain in Philly. Cosi offers S’mores on the menu. How cool I thought.
I mean, a few months ago at the Wi-Fi Wind Farm Blowing Man Festival, I was sending tweets out from the campfire. So now I have gone full circle and burned marshmallows to a crispy crunch at a free Wi-Fi hotspot in the City of Brotherly Love. Pretty perfect.
It’s gets better — at least in my eyes — because I just came from Philly’s version of Occupy Wall Street — an encampment of late sleeping, late partying longhairs over at city hall. All those tents and people needing baths subconsciously made me need a S’more. Instinctively — just as I can sniff out a Wi-Fi hotspot — I walked a few blocks and found Cosi.
So how was it? Well … let’s just say I hate it when a great idea is really a bad, bad idea. How could Cosi be so sure that I am a trained expert in pyrotechniques (sort of) before they handed over this flaming tray of Dutch chocolate goodness and marshmallowy American tradition?
It could have gone south, quickly. First off, no one likes to use an old coat hanger in a shiny new cafe. Cosi thought of that, so they equipped me, the Wi-Fi flambe maestro, with two wooden skewers. Guess what. On my first S’more, having not perfected my skills, I torched the mallow a bit too long. And when I tried the campfire method of blowing out the treat, the wooden skewer had already lit as well. The wooden, now flaming skewer would not go out.
Like eating a melted marshmallow without getting it all over your mutton chops in public isn’t enough stress … now I have to worry about the fact that I am about to burn down the sandwich shop. That’s pressure … and certainly not proper dining etiquette.
I wrestled the sweet burning spear to the table top and vanquished the flame and salvaged the sugary treat … disaster averted. By the second treat, I had worked out a process and there was no more danger. Just melted chocolate all over my iPhone, Droid, Nikon D7000 and my MacBook Pro. All in all … I would say it was worth it.
So how ’bout the Wi-Fi here at my old friend Cosi. Just as I discovered in Chicago so many years ago, Cosi is a great place for Wi-Fi. I got on in a flash … Interesting to note the network is not locked down. But then would you expect a place that lets me play with fire have firewalls and passcodes and such? I think not.
One minor problem with the Wi-Fi experience … I thought ordering on-line … ordering S’mores no less — would be really nerdy/cool from my chair in the restaurant using the Wi-Fi network. It introduced an element of surprise for the server and for my amusement … My thinking: If they took my order on-line, as they delivered the flaming tray, they would have no idea what kind of a nut was about to be given the means to give them a few days off … If you know what I am saying. Not that I am advocating … just saying … I digress …
Anyway … S’mores were not included in Cosi’s online fare. Imagine my disappointment. I had to get up and order my S’mores from the counter … It just seemed wrong.
Anyway the PingTeam is gettin all Cosi in Philly with S’mores and hippies and camping and a free Wi-Fi hotspot — 6 flamboyant pings.
Walking around lower Manhattan reminded me of my first few trips to NYC. Over the years, I have had big times in NYC. I met Spike Lee. One night my friend was stabbed on a subway. I met Dr. Ruth. One day my hotel was set afire by a pyromaniac. I met Dan Rather in an elevator. One day I got to touch The Heisman Trophy. (More about The Heisman later on …) It’s a long story, but my company put me up at The Downtown Athletic Club in lower Manhattan — home of The Heisman.
Years ago, at the DAC, I was the only guest in the place and after several days, I did some after-hours exploring — uncovered a basketball gym inside the place, which was kind of spooky in the dark. I also went up to the top floor and then climbed the ladder to the roof access. Yes, I sampled the skyline of lower Manhattan from the roof that once protected the most coveted prize in sports … LOL. And yes, the twin towers of The World Trade Center were still standing. Anyway, that trip started my fascination with rooftop access.
Weird … I swear that during the writing of this blog, some oldies radio station played “Up On The Roof” by The Drifters … a song you don’t hear every day. Hmm, humm the science fiction theme with me “DOO-doo DOO-doo” … I digress …
UOTR
A few months back, a similar bit of exploration took me to the unfinished, unlocked, quite magnificent penthouse suite of a high rise in Christchurch, New Zealand …
Most recently, I was at my hotel in Binghamton, New York when I was overcome with curiosity. I asked the concierge if the rooftop was accessible. She said no. I knew it was because I had seen the escape hatch open the night before. So I continued to press, “But have you ever been up there?” As I suspected she said yes.
So up I went.
I think I was a little bored and the surrounding architecture had caught my eye, so I figured the roof would have a great view.
Why so bored? Well … have you been to Binghamton? It has so much potential, but it is not exactly thriving. Attention: Hollywood. If you need a small city with a vacant downtown, teeming with cool buildings, for a movie set … Binghamton is your place.
The cool buildings and the empty streets could be a great setting for a “Twilight Zone” script (as I foreshadowed above).
Remember “The Twilight Zone” and its deadpan narrator/creator Rod Serling? Well guess where Rod Serling grew up? If you guessed Binghamton, you are spot on!
But … I am done with Binghamton. And as I thought about the next move, it occurred to me that one of the biggest media stories in the world was just a few hours away … Occupy Wall Street.
I wanted to see this spectacle fo my own sef, and I was curious if any entrepreneurs were making some Wi-Fi dollars off the new residents in Zucotti Park, on Broadway.
Editor’s note: It is important to mention that downtown Binghamton had its own Occupy campers hanging out, very near my hotel. On several mornings, as I drove to work at 6 a.m., I honked to show my support … as they slept in their tents … LOL.
So, on one of my few days off, I was up long before the sun and headed to the greatest city on earth, through the dark fog and snow of an early Poconos winter. My route through New England was no trouble, although parts of New York and New Jersey got several inches of snow. The radio informed me this was the first measurable snow in New York, before Halloween, since 1952, fyi.
Hey campers, welcome to Wall Street.
So how about this whole Occupy thing!?! The news has shown the movement has turned violent all over the globe. I saw footage of cars burning and such in Oakland the other day … But having worked in a high rise for a month overlooking Oakland’s downtown plaza at night … it didn’t seem out of the norm … sort of kidding.
Here are my thoughts. First of all, on this Ping Web site there is a section called “Blogs About Nothing.” I think Occupy Wall Street would qualify. What is it for? Who is it? What do they hope to accomplish, if anything? Is it, as I suspect, just one more reason to “fight for your right” to par-tay?
My advice? If you can’t find a good paying job, don’t attack the companies whose growth creates jobs. Seems pretty easy to grasp. And what gives you the right to be hating on business executives because they have climbed the ladder of success? You are certainly welcome to get a business degree and go give it your own best shot. Could it be that these successful business types are just smarter than us and therefore deserve their laurels or rewards or beach houses in The Hamptons or whatever? Does that give us cause to go live in a park, create a mountain of unsanitary stuff and cry about it?
I think not.
From my firsthand observation — having walked among the the tents and talked to the people … the ones who had crawled out of bed, by the time I drove for three hours to get there … Occupy Wall Street was such a disappointment.
Here is the most profound thing I heard all day … an actual quote of one of the kids protesting: “i’m sick. I’m hungover. And, I haven’t had my medication in days.” Immortal words from a movement …
The media coverage I had seen prior to my visit was so blown out of proportion. I expected at least several thousand people, like the “Million Man March.” It didn’t appear to be. It was more like a hundred tents … and they were not large tents.
I stopped one journalist — a cameraman for FOX in NYC — to get his take. I think he was pretty underwhelmed as well. Here’s my favorite part of the meeting … he too was a Texan, from Wichita Falls … a Mustang from Midwestern State University. Represent!
There seemed to be more activity generated by all the tourists who had come to see the spectacle … People of all languages, buzzing around like kids at Euro Disney.
Or, were the tourists looking for the site where the new Batman film was being shot? I found that, and had to walk a few blocks out of the way to get to the occupation. (Funny to use that term to describe a bunch of long-haired kids without jobs …) I chatted up one of the media folks on the Batman set and learned the shoot was a stock market scene in mythical Gotham City, with huge stock tickers on the streets for props, etc. Couldn’t tell from the barricade I was trying to sneak around …
So who are they and what do they want? is there some list of their objectives, or more likely their grievances, on line somewhere?
It appeared to me that this was basically a party, with some rumblings of political, socio-economic malcontent. Maybe even anarchists without the punk beat. I am willing to bet that if Phish or The Grateful Dead were on tour, half the tents would be strapped to hippie vans and on their way.
Interview
As for crime … I didn’t see any if you ignore lack of hygiene. I was probably the big perpetrator of the day … You see, although New York’s Finest have been instructed to let campers pretty much shut down the Financial District … they were not about to ignore my parking near a fire hydrant … yes … on Wall Street. That little oversight took a hundred bucks from my shallow pockets and deposited them in the city’s budget to protect and enable Occupy. Never saw “said hydrant” nor a painted curb. I will take their word for it. I probably missed it as I attempted to decipher the signs explaining the parking fees for the spot where I wasn’t supposed to park.
As stated, my main mission … my ongoing mission … was to seek out Wi-Fi at this new ground zero … Occupy Wall Street. I was shocked. I whipped out my communicator (iPhone) and searched for hotspots in the center of the encampment. There were any number of surrounding business and residential hotspots, but no network specifically for the “movement.” I did see some people uploading and streaming opinions on a computer by the media tent … but I expected far better equipped communications.
Singing Oh Canada
The best communications technique I saw was a throwback use of a town crier. For one announcement to the participants, several guys stood on one corner of the park, and repeated and passed along an announcement at the top of their lungs, sharing whatever was announced.
What’s next, native drumming?
Well … as a matter of fact … drumming may have been my favorite part of my tour of Occupy Wall Street. I knew I should have saved some of the plastic jugs from the Dirty Gig … And although I didn’t pick up on any common theme among the protestors, at least the drummers seemed to be on the same page. Not bad. The causes of the day seem to range from freeing Tibet to stopping “thought crime” as I walked around reading signs.
It was some kind of cold when I go there … but eventually the sun came out and warmed me and my protesting friends. By this time, I was bored with it and so I went to re-explore lower Manhattan.
I had a great light lunch at Pecan Cafe in Soho, I suppose … Broadway and Franklin … yes … Free Wi-Fi to offset a slightly pricey soup and sandwich. Great people watching … 4 pings.
At the first of this rant, I mentioned The Heisman. Well, I so was impressed by seeing the trophy on my first trip to NYC, I decided to make another pilgrimage to the trophy. Wow! It wasn’t there. The GPS function on my iPhone still “located” The Downtown Athletic Club — formerly the home of The Heisman — near Battery Park … where I had left it so many years before.
But to my chagrin, it is no longer there. And furthermore, everyone I asked — including a NYC police officer on that beat could not tell me where they had put it.
…. Doo doo Doo doo!
Forget who is going to win The Heisman …. where is it?
“I’m not the owner, I just act like it,” said the ponytailed guy in the tie-dyed shirt behind the counter of Binghamton, New York’s Cyber Cafe West.
So what if he wasn’t? He introduced himself and shook my hand, as if he owned the place. Nice guy. I hope he doesn’t mind if I refer to him as The Grateful Chuck … it just seems like a natural with the ambiance of this place that he may or may not own.
He let me take a photo too, after some comment about no longer being in a witness protection plan.
I like this place and Chuck is my kind of ambassador.
Then the host really got my attention. As I walked away, I heard Chuck explaining to his camera-shy baristas that a “ping” is an electronic pulse, used to test a circuit, or relay, or network or whatever. (In my case, it is a test of the cool, cool Wi-Fi joints across the land …) If only the U.S. Trademark office had conferred with this grateful barkeep before they ruled against my trademark application. Oh well …
I digress …
On my current Dirty Gig in Binghamton, my commute has taken me by the Cyber every day for two weeks. Frankly, from the outside, it looks funky enough but looks misleadingly small. It not. It is multifaceted and multi-roomed, with a decent-sized stage at the back. They tell me the house band, Monkeys Typing, is also key to the success of the place … music ranging from Dylan to yes … The Grateful Dead. Why didn’t they just call themselves bloggers?
On this rainy, soon-to-be-snowy evening, when I finally pulled over, the Cyber greeted me at the door with interesting music. It was the discerning work of Pandora … playing a mixture of folky rock and bluegrass … the first selection was a bluegrass version of a Tom Petty hit. Later … Captain Beefheart … pretty darned eclectic. I believe I detected The Black Keys as well.
How’s the Wi-Fi? Well, it’s got to be good if the place has cyber in the name. Correct-a-mundo! Very nice. The network is password protected, and although it has enough digits for ample security, the password was something even I could remember as I walked 20 paces from the bar. They have food … pastries … and like I was saying a variety of seating areas. Most are a combination of coffee shop cool and vintage furniture menagerie.
The crowd? I spy some local wavy gravies like myself, guys who wear grey sweats for a night out on the town, artistic types, college profs and the younger generation they mentor … a man of girth in a beret …
Why haven’t I stopped here sooner!?! More adamantly … Why haven’t any of the locals raved about this place!?! Maybe I need to find me some new locals!
You know before I say it that a place like this is going to have lots and lots of funky paintings all over the walls. Bingo.
Ha … behind the bar is a small gong, which gets hammered whenever a greenback finds its way into the tip jar.
Ping gots gong!
Later in the evening, Chuck tells me, a cellist who has been nominated for a Grammy will be on stage. Rats … The cellist will be playing second fiddle in my world, as I head back to the hotel for the final game of The World Series and hopefully the first world championship for The Texas Rangers.
I digress …
The libations? They seem to have it all … coffee, teas, hot chocolate and a host of brews on tap. Myself, I deviated from my recent chai latte addiction and tried the banana hot chocolate … because … well … I had never heard of such a thing although it seems like a natural. Yum.
Let’s add up the points …
Cyber Cafe West = so very funky, hip, eclectic. The drink is delicious and my main focus — the Wi-Fi network — is perfect from my green and purple pixeled Lazy Boy recliner, not unlike your great aunt might call “the good chair” — 7 grateful pings … a perfect score and right here under my nose all this time!
Although the Dirty Gig has me STILL working on the bi-products of the recently flooded Susquehanna River, first in Harrisburg, Penn., and now Binghamton, New York, I continue to navigate my own tributary … The Office stream of consciousness.
At this writing, I am in Ithaca, as The Office trek, or TOK, continues (an hour north of Binghamton). Having just toured Scranton, the home of fictitious Dunder Mifflin paper co., it seemed a natural to go on to Ithaca. Why Ithaca? Well … if you watch The Office, you know Dwight covets the fact that Andy graduated from Cornell … the Ivy League, land-grant college, founded in 1865 in Ithaca, New York.
As I walked around downtown Ithaca, it was hard to tell that the Cornell squad had lost by 10 points to Harvard in a home game, the day before. Everyone seemed pretty upbeat. My first inkling of defeat was my view of the football practice field. The Big Red squad was running wind sprints on Sunday morning … a telltale sign of a recent defeat in any football program.
Hey, did you know that Glenn “POP” Warner himself — the guy for which “little league” football is named played at Cornell? Furthermore, did you know the first American football game occurred on campus — an intramural game — at Cornell in 1869? Hmmm …
Big Red Football
Ah … college football season! But man does not live by pigskin alone, so I am sitting at Collegetown Bagels … apparently THE place to be on a Sunday morning as college kids, professor types, foliage-seekers, etc., pack the house and the patio.
(Editor’s note: After writing this, my Texas Tech Red Raiders whipped OU … who WERE ranked #1 in at least one college poll … Go Tech!)
Collegetown Bagels
Back to Collegetown and the business at hand. I had a delish Linzer cookie like none I have had before … nothing like a generic Pepperidge Farm version or whatever … Is it a New England thing? (NO! Austrian in origin … )
Washed the Austrian goodness down with a steaming chai latte …
At Collegetown, the Wi-Fi was free and password protected, but a piece of cake to get on. Interesting, the splash page warned me that I would be quarantined if I did not turn off the download settings on my music software. iTunes and I decided to live dangerously and continued to blog unfettered … perhaps tenaciously. I had not seen that music download stipulation before at any of the 1000s of hotspots visited in this blogging saga. I suppose it is to protect the bandwidth for all. I did my part and kept my downloading in check … except for AbsoluteReggaetrade, 1.FM, of course.)
The place is a colorful pallete of chalk-art menu items, funky t-shirt designs, wobbly tables, and vintage tile floors with a cool, hard wood bar and barstool seating all along the windows, running the length of the place. Seating is ample inside and out, although there tended to be a butt in every seat.
Cool place … busy …
The Collegetown Wi-Fi? Pretty sweet. As for the quarantine, I tweeted and blogged unscathed, without changing any settings on my MacBook. As a test, I briefly streamed OneDotFM — a reggae channel on Internet radio. No problems, moon. (Note: we define briefly as a couple of hours.) 6 pings.
About a block away — still in the heart of Cornell-dom — just past the Starbucks, I ran into my second-ever Wi-Fi quarantine warning. This time the hotspot was Cafe Pacific’s Wi-Fi. But, aha, the common denominator was the service provider … one Lightlink. Hmm … maybe the only game in town for retail Wi-FI? Regardless, so far they are batting a thousand. Cafe Pacific has excellent Wi-Fi, which I enjoyed from their street-side tables … In addition to the Wi-Fi, it was the sign on the door that drew me in.
“Ithaca’s place for indulgent behavior.”
Indulge me!
And they have boba tea. “I gots to gets me some boba tea!,” I rapped to myself, sort of.
Boba Buddies
I went way authentico on my boba tea this time and did the Asian favorite red bean boba. Hmmm … I don’t think I am Asian even though I am a Ping after all, but I conquered a new taste anyway … can’t say that I “acquired” it. (Self: better stick with the chai or mango flavors moving forward.) The people were nice too — the prime example being Ms. Kai who said shoot em up for a little blog photo.
Kai
Hey … the red bean sweet drink grew on me a little. I told myself it tastes similar to a peanutbutter smoothie and it became more enjoyable.
Important to note, in addition to a quarantine, I have been given a 15 minute limit on the Wi-Fi … that certainly deducts something from the scientific scoring.
Cafe Pacific had a nice variety of boba teas, but the Wi-Fi looked like all the other Wi-Fi hotspots of Lightlink ethnicity. I don’t like your quarantine, for the record … and time limits also cause you to lose face - just 4 pings.
Speaking of scoring … I was going to tell you more about the storied Cornell football program, but the Lightlink hotspot at Cafe Pacific shut me down like a fake punt on 4th and 29 …
Student Video
Across town, at the other school — Ithaca U., there was also a Collegetown Bagels, but this time I was drawn in by the downtown Commons. Superb peoplewatching and restaurants lining the walkways for blocks. In the Commons there were more hotspots then at which one might shake a stick. I actually stayed off line and just enjoyed the weather for a few minutes.
Several of the hotspots I detected had the Lightlink brand, and I had already sampled their wares for all practical purposes.
Falls Photo
Next, I loaded up the rental car and left college town for waterfallsville. Highway 89 on the west bank of Cayuga Lake is pretty scenic and filled with recreation opps. — sailing, boating, wine tasting, cycling, blogging …
Briefly, i stopped at Taughannock Falls, then headed further north to Trumansberg. To my surprise, a little bar caught my eye with its sign “Rongovian Embassy:
Rongo was really not my cup of tea, but noticed a favorite item in the decor - what appeared to be an authentic poster from an Allman Brothers Band concert at Watkins Glenn, NY.
Gimmee!
Then I spied a coffee shop across the street. Out of all the coffee shops I have ever visited, this may be the first one that has a river running underneath it … The cafe and the downtown has a little stream running through, just a few feet away. The name?
Gimmee! Coffee.
Of course i muttered to myself, “Gimmee Wi-Fi” as I entered the stark little shop. Then to my delight, as I fired up the Mac, the Wi-Fi networked popped up on my finder — identifying itself as Gimmee FREE Wi-Fi. I had a good feeling about this place … seeing that we were of the same mindset and I was right. It is not fancy. But the locals seemed pretty interesting, and the old storefront was equipped with a nice Wi-Fi set up … free … 5 pings.
The Dunder-Mifflin tour of 2011 continues … It has been a little over a week since I made the drive to Scranton, Penn., … so I will recount the events as best I can.
I am not going to say that the trip to Scranton was a disappointment, but I expected more. (”That’s what she said.”) There are more hardcore fans of The Office than me, but when I realized the regional office of the most popular mythical paper company on earth was within striking distance … well … I got my Scrant-on!
Wilkes-Barre, Penn., … pronounced like Wilksbury … I just learned is the boyhood home of swing musician Tommy Dorsey. Good to know. It is also the jumping off point on the road to Scranton … you know Scranton, the fictitious home of the branch office of Dunder Miflin paper company … you know … The Office.
Well when I learned I was within two hours of Dwight, Michael and the DM gang, I said two words.
Despite Tupperware seals, ice in my refrigerator now tastes like a frozen bird.
