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Vacation Post
Dec. 31st, 2008 12:01 pmTravel
Travel in general sucks. Not just flying. Allow me to rant for a bit.
It snowed, starting here in Redmond on the day that I was to leave to go to the airport. I made it to the Redmond Transit Center via walking with no problem though everything was completely covered, including the roads and sidewalks. The first bus got me to the Bellevue Transit Center well enough, since the bus had chains on it. I got there at around 9:00pm, and the bus to go to the airport was to have been there at 9:30pm. It never showed up. So I waited for the next (and last) one that was supposed to have been there at 10:30pm. It never showed up either. When another different bus showed up, I asked the driver about the bus I (and a couple of other guys) was waiting for. "I think that one has been canceled due to the weather," said the driver of this other bus. Great. The website had merely said that it was running under adverse weather conditions and not that it was canceled, but whatever. Well, this driver offered to take us as far as Renton, and from there we could get a cab or something. So we went to Renton Transit Center. Then we tried several cab agencies to get a cab. Nothing was available, or else nobody was willing to send anything out into the crud. Finally, one of the other guys who also needed to get to the airport called one of his friends who came to take us to the airport, which was really nice. Not sure what I would have done if not for that.
Arrived at the airport at some point between, say, 11:45pm and 12:15pm or so, I can't recall exactly, but it was still in time for my flight which left at around 1:00am. Well, actually, it didn't leave until around 2:00am or so, due to delays and such. At least it wasn't canceled altogether like some of the others were. Beyond that, though, the rest of the travel was mostly okay, aside from the inherent suckiness involved with flying on commercial passenger jets.
Other stuff
I didn't do as much as far as gaming and books as I usually do, so they don't really need separate categories or bulleted lists or whatever.
As for books, I read Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. It's very good and I would highly recommend it. After that, I started reading another of Obama's books, Dreams from My Father. Through I haven't gotten very far into it, what I've read so far is also very good.
As for games, I played through Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Pretty cool game. If you've played any of the other Castleroid/Metroidvania games for the GBA/DS, then you know what to expect from this. After that, I went shopping around looking for Sonic Chronicles, but couldn't find it anywhere, though of course I only tried the Madison/Mayodan K-Mart and Wal-mart stores so that's not really surprising. What was surprising was that Wal-mart actually had a (single) copy of Hotel Dusk, which I picked up instead of Sonic. It's more awesome than I expected it would be. Also, I played some on my sister's Wii Fit, which has convinced me to get one of my own at some point. Assuming I can find a place that is actually selling them online, that is. I checked Amazon, and they're currently only selling them through the Marketplace it seems, which is kind of annoying, and EBgames.com didn't seem to have any available either. Those are the only places I've checked so far though.
As for movies, I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight. It was pretty much as awesome as everyone had said it was. My sister and I also watched Stargate: The Ark of Truth on the first day I was back. I was never a regular viewer of Stargate before that, but I'd seen enough to be able to follow what was going on, and my sister filled in the gaps. It was pretty good as well.
Travel in general sucks. Not just flying. Allow me to rant for a bit.
It snowed, starting here in Redmond on the day that I was to leave to go to the airport. I made it to the Redmond Transit Center via walking with no problem though everything was completely covered, including the roads and sidewalks. The first bus got me to the Bellevue Transit Center well enough, since the bus had chains on it. I got there at around 9:00pm, and the bus to go to the airport was to have been there at 9:30pm. It never showed up. So I waited for the next (and last) one that was supposed to have been there at 10:30pm. It never showed up either. When another different bus showed up, I asked the driver about the bus I (and a couple of other guys) was waiting for. "I think that one has been canceled due to the weather," said the driver of this other bus. Great. The website had merely said that it was running under adverse weather conditions and not that it was canceled, but whatever. Well, this driver offered to take us as far as Renton, and from there we could get a cab or something. So we went to Renton Transit Center. Then we tried several cab agencies to get a cab. Nothing was available, or else nobody was willing to send anything out into the crud. Finally, one of the other guys who also needed to get to the airport called one of his friends who came to take us to the airport, which was really nice. Not sure what I would have done if not for that.
Arrived at the airport at some point between, say, 11:45pm and 12:15pm or so, I can't recall exactly, but it was still in time for my flight which left at around 1:00am. Well, actually, it didn't leave until around 2:00am or so, due to delays and such. At least it wasn't canceled altogether like some of the others were. Beyond that, though, the rest of the travel was mostly okay, aside from the inherent suckiness involved with flying on commercial passenger jets.
Other stuff
I didn't do as much as far as gaming and books as I usually do, so they don't really need separate categories or bulleted lists or whatever.
As for books, I read Barack Obama's The Audacity of Hope. It's very good and I would highly recommend it. After that, I started reading another of Obama's books, Dreams from My Father. Through I haven't gotten very far into it, what I've read so far is also very good.
As for games, I played through Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. Pretty cool game. If you've played any of the other Castleroid/Metroidvania games for the GBA/DS, then you know what to expect from this. After that, I went shopping around looking for Sonic Chronicles, but couldn't find it anywhere, though of course I only tried the Madison/Mayodan K-Mart and Wal-mart stores so that's not really surprising. What was surprising was that Wal-mart actually had a (single) copy of Hotel Dusk, which I picked up instead of Sonic. It's more awesome than I expected it would be. Also, I played some on my sister's Wii Fit, which has convinced me to get one of my own at some point. Assuming I can find a place that is actually selling them online, that is. I checked Amazon, and they're currently only selling them through the Marketplace it seems, which is kind of annoying, and EBgames.com didn't seem to have any available either. Those are the only places I've checked so far though.
As for movies, I finally got around to seeing The Dark Knight. It was pretty much as awesome as everyone had said it was. My sister and I also watched Stargate: The Ark of Truth on the first day I was back. I was never a regular viewer of Stargate before that, but I'd seen enough to be able to follow what was going on, and my sister filled in the gaps. It was pretty good as well.
