Nick

Nicholas has returned. Oh joy, oh rapture. Sort of. He called at 9:30PM, Saturday, April 29, and said "I want to go back." Okaaaayyyy....So he wants to rejoin the human race, as he said. I went to visit him, took him to dinner, invited him to spend the night. The bottom line was that the mother of the boy he was staying with told him that he couldn't stay there anymore and he had to be out on Monday. No one would give him a job because they didn't want a deserter. He didn't want to go back to the Army, per se, but wanted to be discharged out of the Army the right way. We bundled him off to Fort Knox, where they out-process guys like him, and he returned on May 7th. So now he's looking for a job.

I should be joyous and enthusiastic, but what I feel is drained and wary. Wary because we've gone through this finding a job thing before, exactly this time last year in fact. And it hasn't been fruitful. There doesn't seem to be any sense of urgency. I want him to be DESPARATE to find a job. I want him to be desparate to get his own place. What I see is sleeping in late, playing computer games, making a few phone calls, and nothing of any consequence happening.

He and his friend Jason have a deal where they'll get a place together at the end of June, when Jason's current lease expires. That's his deadline, but for Jason to accept him as a roommate Nick has to have a job. We're losing sleep over this because it's as if we've turned back the clock and we're pre-Army again. I'm not encouraged. So he's been home for two weeks and no job. He's submitted one application, to Dycarp. Jason works there and there is an open position.

Scotland Day 1 of 9, Part One

My numbering makes no sense. The REAL day one in Scotland is the morning we arrive, 8:00 AM local time. Our guide, George, met us at the airport and laughed over the amount of luggage we had, wanted to know if we were moving in. Accent? Oh ya. Heavy accent. They went to the what? the toolit? And who the hell is Mum?

I need to back up. The flight was wonderful. The last time I took a trip with my mother I was about 12 or 13 years old and we (Michael, Mom, me, Carolyn, 1976?) drove the old Mazda to Disneyland and listened to Beatles all the way. That's how I remember it, anyway. This, on the other hand, was Grown-up Travel. And I'd never traveled with my grandmother. I sat between Mom and Grandma on the plane, rubber-necking back and forth, soaking up the face to face time. I don't remember a single thing we talked about, but that isn't important. Important was the nearness and the touch and the smile.

All seven hours of it.

There were two movies, the names of which I don't remember but watched anyway. One was...Diane Keaton, Dermott Mulroney (what a hottie!), ding-dong from Sex and the City, Matthew Broderick's wife. I like her, don't get me wrong, I just don't remember her name. Oh, and that guy from Coach, I like him so much, he does those wonderful "Real Man with Grudging Vulnerability" roles. Mom knows his name. Craig? Ah. Craig T. Nelson. I would never have placed him in a movie with Diane Keaton. Never ever. I'd have called it a total mismatch but it seemed to work. But hell, I was on a plane, it was probably cut to shreds, and they were handing out dinner in the middle of it. Why couldn't they have done that during the other, less interesting movie?

I am my mother's daughter. We talk alike. We laugh alike. We think alike. We like the same style of eyewear, a la Elvis Costello. Or Buddy Holly, depending on your generation. We buy the same types of things even though we don't know the other is doing it. We love movies and British comedy...but then where do you think I got that, hm? We would continue to notice these little things and laugh over them through the entire trip, and I think it was a little disconcerting to Grandma sometimes. 12 years and 3000 miles apart and I grew into the adult I admired most. A lot like her.

Mushy mushy mushy. Mom and Grandma took cat naps; I may have dozed a little but I'm not an airplane sleeper.

Touch down. Pretty clean landing in the middle of a pasture. The Edinburgh airport is surrounded by pasture. Not a little bit of pasture. A lot of pasture. Green rolling hills and evergreens, and white fluffy dots that on closer inspection were sheep. We get off the place last, which makes sense because we'll be the slowest. You'd think we'd be the slowest, but Grandma was up and off! Didn't look back just marched down the aisle, off the place and into the wheelchair. She was three or four people ahead of us before we knew what happened. The took very very good care of us. Rolled us right up through immigration and customs, no waiting, thank you very much, have a nice visit, mum!

Baggage claim was strangely quiet. I looked for "no shouting" signs. Everyone was so...reasonable. Standing quietly waiting for their luggage to appear on the conveyor belt. The baggage was all right side up when it came out. No one crowded. Stepped up, took the bag, pardon me, thanks, and went off. The fellow who was handling the wheelchair for us set the break, got a baggage cart (free, hello) and did a fine job hauling our luggage off the belt and onto the cart. No no, you just stay right there...another fellow joins us and asks fellow number one if he needs a hand, which we do, and now we have two: one fellow for the wheelchair, one fellow for the baggage cart. Then we find George and it's beginning to feel like an entourage. George, Grandma, Mom, Me, Fellow #1, and Fellow #2. We take a quick bio-break, then to the car where the Fellows peel off too fast to leave them a tip. Bye, have a good stay! More about tipping later.

We're flushed and tired and excited and dazed. Right off I tried to get in on the driver's side of the car. I stood there thinking that something is wrong with this picture but I can't put it together. All the other countries in the EU drive on the right-hand side of the road, like the US. But not the UK. Stubborn asses, still on the left side. I suppose there's just too much infrastructure to change it at this late date. I wonder what the history is about driving on the left? Or driving on the right, for that matter.

Drive drive drive Do you want a take-away? We stopped at the BP off the motorway. It's not a highway. It's a motorway. Anything that isn't a motorway is a track. Coffee sounds pretty good. Three Americano's for the three Americanos...drive drive drive oh shit where's my wallet? Somewhere between getting the coffee and returning to the car I leave put my wallet somewhere and now I can't find it. It's not in my big green bag, it's not in the back seat, it's not anywhere nearby. While George finds a place to turn around and head back to the BP, I'm thinking. Ok, first the backup plan. I don't have a backup plan so I make one up: Call Kent and have him wire money into Mom's checking account so she can cover my expenses. This actually would work because I had set up bank transfer approvals so that I could wire money to her to pay for the trip. I'll have to call collect and it'll cost a fortune but it's my own damned fault anyway, and I'll have to walk Kent through the process because I don't think he ever logs in to that particular bank account! Back at the BP. There is one on each side of the motorway, with a pedestrian bridge. The pedestrian bridge is disgusting and stinky and dark but George and I cross it and look for the red wallet. It's more of a small-ish red purse, about 6x9 with a yellowish/orange interior. Bagallini. It has a detachable strap which was, at the time, detached.

George and I look everywhere in the BP minimart, around the gas (fuel) pumps, near where we parked. George talks to one of the officers who hang around for safety. We walk back across the stinky, disgusting, dark dank pedestrian bridge back to the car. I'm horribly upset. I have a backup plan, but I'm still devastated. George is beyond devastated, I think. He's a sensitive guy. I open the car door. Oh shit.

I imagine that there's this little applet running in the background, in my brain. When I set something down, this applet runs the "set down-pick up" routine. The routine has a natural break in the middle where it is waiting for the cue to "pick up." Sometimes the cue is conscious, I look over, reach out my hand, pick up the object, the routine finishes, and I consciously know exactly where my pocket book is. Sometimes, the cue is not conscious; something trips the applet so that "pick up" runs anyway, and correctly I might add, the hand reaches out, picks up the object, tucks it under the arm or wherever, although I'm not paying attention at all. Not for a millisecond.

Under the front passenger seat is the corner of my red wallet. To say that we were relieved is an understatement of significant proportion. It takes us a good fifteen or twenty minutes wring ourselves out from our first trauma. The "set down-pick up" applet ran exactly as designed.

I don't think I'm overplaying this too much, really. Back me up, Mom. There was only one other trauma during the trip. Stay tuned.

Next episode: Luss, Loch Lomond, Dunoon, and The Dhailing Lodge, Day 1 Continued.

Lesson #2: They don't have "to-go." Rather, they have "take away."
Lesson #3: If you don't understand, tell them to speak slower.
Lesson #4: Know where your purse/wallet/handbag is at all times. Keep it attached to your body. Not because someone might steal it, but because YOU might set it down and forget it in all the hubbub of getting Mum situated with her coffee and out the door with her walker.

Black Pansy

Scotland Day 0 of 9

All was well until I got to the gate at the Norfolk airport. There was no place. It was late arriving FROM Newark to take we who were waiting TO Newark. Which wouldn't have been a problem except that the late departure ate up all the wiggle room I had between flights. I really thought I was going to miss my flight out. I set up a contingency plan with the folks at the gate so that I could take the next flight out if I missed this one. In fact, I had been removed from the original flight because, based solely on schedule, my Newark flight arrived after the Edinburgh flight departed.

But wait! The Edinburgh flight was also delayed by about thirty minutes. I got to the gate just in time to begin boarding. Mom was sweating bullets. She'd called Kent, who knew he couldn't call me because I did not take my phone with me, but he did tell her that the flight was very late leaving Norfolk. Not much a person can do except hope that it all works out. Which it really did. We all got on the plane together, Grandma and her walker, Mom hanging on to hers and Grandma's carry-ons, and me with my roller bag and shoulder bag. We had lots of STUFF. The flight over was pretty uneventful, but those first few hours before we left the ground in Newark were nuts.

Lesson #1: Avoid Newark/Liberty Airport at all costs.

That Scotland Trip!!!

It was soooooo fun! My pictures are here. In case the link doesn't work, copy/paste the following into your address bar: www.wildiris.org/galleryhome.html. I converted them all to jpg and just loaded them up. Like I've been telling everyone, I have a disclaimer: I haven't sharpened, color corrected, tweaked, replaced clouds or sky, removed people, added objects, or otherwise messed with these images at all yet. I'm still cataloging. I tried not to include duplicates but I'm sure I missed a few. I sent Mom three CD's full, and I'm processing photos for Grandma but it's taking longer than I'd hoped. This weekend maybe I can finish that.

Conspicuous Consumption: The Results

So: (see what I mean?)

I got the CF Card reader (very inexpensive) but the vPod doesn't recognize it. But I can upload the images to the vPod from the camera, which it does recognize. And I might get a battery grip instead of an image tank, undecided as of yet but it's half the cost of a tank and it takes AA batteries instead of the special Canon rechargable battery. Still undecided.

Later (much much later, as in 4/25 later)
What I finally did: March 30th, bought the Epson P2000 from Circuit City, used it for the entire trip, and reset it to the factory defaults after uploading allllll my gb's of picture to my computer, repacked it in it's little carton, and returned it to Circuit City on April 13. There's a fourteen-day return policy. Lest you think I'm a complete schmuck, let me say that the P2000, and rockin' as it is, does not do for raw files as it does for jpg. For instance, you can zoom and rotate and do slide shows with jpg files but you cannot raw files. Let me also say that this is likely only time I will ever do this, and it is the only time to date that I've done something like that. But in the meantime I did have a convenient way to save my photos and show them to Mom and Grandma!

Conspicuous Consumption: The CF Card Dilemma

Mom and I have many things in common, including starting many of our sentences with "So..." So much so in fact that SHE named her blog in that vein. I love it!

I have this terrific digital camera, and two 1GB compact flash cards for it, with the intention of buying two more of that size. Each holds about 90-or-so RAW+(small) JPEG images. Which is great unless you are traveling out of the country and don't want to take your laptop with you. Which will be me on April 1.

I researched the heck out of this and had originally intended to go buy a "photo storage device." There are several nice ones out there, including:

• Epson P-2000
  
• Image Tank G2
• SmartDisk Flash Trax
• Transcend Portable Photobank

Most of them don't have a color display, something I personally feel is a must. I read bad reviews about the Flash Trax, good reviews about the Epson, and no reviews about the other two. At this point I'd pretty much set my sights on the P-2000 when I spied a discussion board post about using the new video iPod to the same end. More research ensued. You could ask why I even bothered since we already have (ahem, KENT already has) an iPod. First, you have to understand that the P-2000 and the 60GB video iPod cost about the same and have many of the same features. You also have to understand that Kent's original 40GB iPod was behaving more like an iBrick. It weren't doin' nuthin' for nobody. Dead dead dead. We talked, Kent and I, and saw an opportunity. He gets a new iPod and I get an image tank. I like the sound of "image tank" even though it belongs to something else. This saves us the cost equivalent of two iPods and hundreds in compact flash cards. Really. Logic doesn't work here. This is all emotional. Do the emotional math.

Wednesday. Off we go to Best Buy, get the iPod. Then to CompUSA, get the iPod photo upload adapter. And, apparently, an iHome. It stuck to Kent's hand all the way to the register, where it finally fell off and scanned itself before jumping into a bag with the camera adapter. Sneaky iProducts. Anyway, the iHome is way cool.

Thursday. Loving the hell out of that iHome, man. We woke up to Brazilian Girls Thursday morning, and Billy Joel Friday morning. I can't wait to see what random song from our entire music collection (which, by the way, consumes 19.81 GB, leaving 40GB or so for me, although I may ditch some tunes before I take it with me but it'll be entertaining on the plane) shows up randomly on Saturday morning. But wait, we won't be awaking to an alarm Saturday morning (even though we actually did by mistake; it was Depeche Mode).

Friday. Proof of concept. I shot a few photos and uploaded them to the iPod no problem! Well, minor problem. iPod can't view RAW images so I have to shoot RAW+JPEG (small jpeg, so I get the most megapixels in the RAW image - it's just so I can preview it anyway). (Also, if you plan on trying this at home, dear readers, make sure you set your iPod in iTunes to Use As Disk if you want to be able to synch those photos back to your computer.) So, this isn't such a problem. I'm stingy with my megapixels, though, and would prefer not to have to shoot both RAW and JPEG but what the hell. I'd rather spend that money that I would have spent on the P-2000 on a new lens with image stabilization (more on that topic another time). I was also thinking I might be able to use a CF card reader to upload the images because that won't be such a drain on my camera batteries. I've read that uploading a 1GB card from 20D to iPod is a major battery drain and I'd just as soon not have that situation out in the field. Or on the Isle of Skye.

Saturday. Pilot the whole solution before the snow starts. Go buy CF card reader (SanDisk). Go shoot two cards full of pictures. Load one card from camera to iPod, then load one card from card reader to camera. See just what kind of battery drain there is, how much time it takes, blah blah blah.

Sinus Rinse - nice name!

At the pharmacy today...

Can you really call what we have these days a pharmacy? Walgreens, Eckerd, and RiteAid all look like mini-marts. Or a scaled-down K-Mart. I've switched from Eckerd to Walgreens recently. In our little neighborhood of Ghent (like a small Capitol Hill in Seattle, without the hill because we don't have hills in southeastern Virginia) we have four pharmacies. The three I mentioned above, and a REAL one, on Colley Ave, struggling to stay alive but which I don't visit because there's only this teeny-tiny parking lot they share with a church and Starbucks. We were fine with Eckerd. Then in came RiteAid two blocks away. Hate RiteAid. Their aisles are diagonal and confusing and they are always moving products around so you can't find anything. Then in came Walgreens, which all of Ghent and surrounding neighborhoods fought like hell, me too. Then I discovered that their photo processing was better than Eckerd. Then I discovered that they are less likely than Eckerd to run out of certain medications which, during one refill when Eckerd wasn't able to get a certain medicine for two weeks, Eckerd offered to send my prescription over to Walgreens. Besides, who needs a 24-hr pharmacy anyway?

Ya, well, it's nice. At 10PM their drive-thru pharmacy drop-off/pick-up is still open. That's nice. The pharmacist talks to you. That's nice, too. And remembers you. That's extra nice. It almost feels like a REAL pharmacy.

So...picking up where I left off. At the pharmacy today, picking up medicine refills, I spotted this thing called SINUS RINSE. Which is a hell of a lot nicer moniker than NASAL IRRIGATION or, as the pharmacist called it, NASAL DOUCHE. She really did. She also told me that you should use un-iodized salt because the iodine can exacerbate (nifty word) acne, even mild acne (as in, adults who have to really work to fight off the zits). This stuff uses the same ingredients: saline and bicarbonate, a.k.a., salt and baking soda. 100 packets. So ya, I could have gone to the supermarket and gotten a container of uniodized salt and more baking soda, but I didn't feel like it and ten bucks didn't seem like too much a price to pay for a little convenience. Besides I was thinking of making little packets anyway. They did it for me.