Car conversations

I'm not much for talking on phones. As such, being in Ecuador was a pleasant break from phone conversations. When you pay per-minute, you have lots of had-a-baby-it's-a-boy exchanges.

So I save my phone conversations for the road, and generally very much enjoy catching up with folks while I drive. Some of yesterday's New Orleans-to-Shreveport conversation topics:

• The parable of The Grand Inquisitor in Dostoevsky's The Brother's Karamazov, which wrestles with the theological problem of evil
  
• U2's new concert tour, which apparently has a fancy rotating stage
• How to Command a Room Like a Man
  
• Graduate programs at the London School of Economics
• The Hound of Rowan, a teen book about a boy whose mirror allows him to access alternate dimensions
• David Vitter's chances of winning the 2010 "Most Miserable Human Being on the Planet" contest. See this morning's Shreveport Times article for a recent example, completely unrelated to the very serious sin of this man "fighting for families in Louisiana"
• The Texas border wall, and the efforts of UT's Rapoport Center to combat it

Dallas, here I come!

Learning to Roadtrip

I've never roadtripped before. No, really.

I get pegged for a real tramp sometimes, but I'm convinced it's due to the same sort of relative judgments that has caused my Louisiana-born but mild-mannered brother to become the class clown in his otherwise tranquil Michigan office.

So I'm learning how to roadtrip on the fly, or at least learning how I like to do it. A handful of useful suggestions:

1. Bring an atlas
Smart phones are nice, I imagine, but sometimes Google's just wrong. Atlases, peace be upon whoever their authors may be, are not. An atlas does not run out of battery, get stolen, go on the fritz or cost $100 a month.

2. Snacks!
I'm still figuring this out, but got a couple of pointers recently. First, in Ecuadorian Spanish foods are called either de sal (savory) or de dulce (sweet). When you're hungry you generally want one or the other. Second, my high school buddy Ryan informed me that chewing on something keeps you awake. Connecting the dots, I went to Sam's and picked up a giant box of sunflower seeds (de sal), chewing gum (de dulce) and two dozen Cliff Bars or protein It didn't hurt that the first two make me think of Little League baseball. The case of green tea has proven more diuretic than useful, but I haven't had to eat fast food yet.

3. Visit people, not places
They're what matter anyway, right? Carry small gifts and big stories for the folks kind enough to open their homes.

4. Use technology when you feel like it
I've used facebook to remind myself who's where, and been happily surprised along the way. There's also CouchSurfing, eRideShare.com, Google maps and podcasts - oh man, podcasts. I say "when you feel like it" only because I get irritated by (other) techno-evangelists.

5. Get lost
Lock yourself out of your friend's apartment, run your car battery down, get stuck for 45 minutes in the black hole that is Granville, Michigan. Think: "This might make a pretty good story once it's over."

How to find facebook friends by geography

On the eve my Great(ish) American Road Trip, I suddenly discovered that facebook had removed the ability to search for my friends according to location. I spent some time with Mark's girlfriend - what my friend John has decided to call the internet from now on - and discovered how.

From your own profile, scroll down to your 'Friends' box in the left-hand column.


In the window that pops up, click on 'Browse,' and then pick 'By City.


Voila!

Things I haven't seen in two years

Some everyday stuff that - when you haven't experienced them for two years - don't seem so everyday:

• Squirrels - gross.
• Baby strollers
• Front lawns with crabgrass instead of walls
• Enormous, not-for-professional use four-door trucks
• Casual conversations in English
• People over 6'6" tall
• Microbrews and good beer on tap. Heck, good beer generally
  
• Restaurants serving tap water
  
• People waiting in line for tables at restaurants
• LSU football, Rangers baseball, and the Saints!
  

You can flush toilet paper here! (and other notes from the field)

I'm in DC for a conference this weekend. More on that later - for now, some cultural observations:

1. You're not only allowed but expected to flush TP here. That's just weird.
2. Cars are actually predisposed to stop for pedestrians.
3. They actually check IDs at bars in the US.
4. I can walk around in my friend Justin's house barefoot without having to wash my feet afterward.
5. Nobody here uses cash. Where did all the money go?
6. I'm awkwardly unpracticed at exchanging pleasantries with strangers in English, but that doesn't matter much because Americans don't really exchange pleasantries.
7. Lots and lots of people speak Spanish in Washington DC.
8. There are a lot of very pretty people in the US, and a lot of very large ones, too.
   
9. The Olympics are awesome.
   
10. The internet is fast here! I can download the entire Economist audio edition and update the software on my computer before I'm finished with my cereal. And the Google loads immediately.
    
11. Mark v. Wendy's Baconator: first round, Baconator.