Franklinsanity

A crank's musings on family, drink, travel, food & life

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  • Dirty work

    Dirty work

    6:09 pm, somewhere between Glastonbury and New Britain, CT:  the sunshine appears brighter and more golden after a good Friday meeting. 

    Or perhaps that is just the Sancerre. 

    Regardless, enjoying the fact of business in the suburbs. It’s a cognitive bias that urban environments constitute most of business discussions. Certainly in many statistical senses they do:  the density of people and business alone dictates that. That is, after all, much of what a city IS. 

    But a sprawl is a sprawl. And it’s fun to approach it from the outside in, for once. As in, meetings outside the city, without ever leaving the city. 

    Also fun to wind up chilling next to a lovely golf course. 

    Hmmm. Sounds privileged. And possible offensive. Despite a basically plebeian intent. 

    I believe I will think this through over a martini. Possibly that will make America great, again. 

  • Huis Clos, or wither Brexit?

    Huis Clos, or wither Brexit?

    8:07 am, New Britain CT:  woke up to Oonagh insisting on belly rubs and Britain voting to leave the EU. Both appear to be instinctive and emotional reactions displaying relatively little thought. 

    The hysteria in headlines and among politicians seems significant. And among some colleagues. Without remotely being an expert (much better at belly rubs), I admit to some confusion, as last I checked the referendum is not binding on the UK government. And the vote means nothing in practical terms to the EU, until something called Article 50 is invoked to start a formal exit process. 

    This basically seems like the sovereign equivalent of telling your family you really really hate them and you want to run away from home. Super unfriendly and upsetting. But if you haven’t actually done anything?

    Well, back to belly rubs. Plenty of work to do today. And of course need to attend the kids’ tennis lesson and see how they are gettin on a few days in. 

  • Here I go again on my own…

    Here I go again on my own…

    5:09 pm, Queens, NY somewhere in Jamaica Avenue:  I am sitting in inevitable, and inevitably aesthetically displeasing, outer-borough traffic. 

    At least bumper-to-bumper on 280, or 101 north of the GG, has scenery. Here?  Lotta barbed wire, graffiti and tire stores. 

    So I did the plane. I am heading to a train (new Rochelle, just to take the ambiguity out of the trip) and am currently in an auto. Check, check, check. 

    Now the only issue is will I arrive at the train station in time to catch the next and most convenient train?  

    The race is on. Also wondering if I will get rained on – skies look a little ominous. 

    Super hungry. Could literally eat the Kleenex box in the back of this uber. Kingsley seems to like the stuff. But out of respect for the driver, I’ll pass. 

    For now. 

  • Air traffic

    Air traffic

    7:31 am, SFO. So we taxied out to take off. And then ATC gave us an entirely new flight path. Presumably not for the scenery, but due to weather. 

    Either way we need more fuel. So we are back at the gate, cold chilling. 

    Remarkably, I have a whole side of Business Class to myself, thanks to a cheap upgrade, courtesy of too much travel in the past. 

    In theory had dinner out on East Coast tonight. Not too sure whether I will make that at this stage. 

    Have to settle for the big seat, I guess. Onward…

  • Cross country trip #3

    Cross country trip #3

    6:20 am, SFO – heading back to JFK and then CT. Skipped two days of posts!  Am sure I have lost a portion of our faithful 17 readers. 

    Well, never fear. Interstitial travel time has once again surfaced. So once again I am edifying the world with my trenchant observations. 

    For instance, nothing – and I mean nothing – wakes you up like a cup of really shitty ice coffee. 

    I do this to myself fairly frequently:  order ice coffee at SFO from the Plant, which makes otherwise half decent breakfast sandwiches. Like Charlie Brown, Lucy and the football, it could be defined as insanity: doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. 

    Their ice coffee is, literally, not potable. But a giant slug of it down the gullet?  Guarantee the taste, if not the caffeine, will turn over your engine. 

    The TSA was up to its old tricks again. They moved the pre-check line into a utility corridor next to the most public bathrooms in the Virgin terminal. And understaffed it. So our line was longer than the main one. Periodically they would send staffers over to take the tail end of the line somewhere else. Without ever materially shortening it – and resulting only in simmering outrage and line FOMO. Kafkaesque. And weird, given that the pre-check line here is normally quite fast and seamless. 

    Virgin, on the other hand, continues to rock. 

    And despite its big, corporate, and slightly frightening South Bay/airport clientele, the Hyatt on 101 once again proved more than serviceable. (See below)

    There is some kind of regional high school squash team on this plane. Wish Ted and Q could see it. They think the sport is something I made up, and that the racquet lying around the house is a joke item like a funny-looking tennis racquet. 

    Looking forward to take off. If not to editing various documents….

  • Solstice:  or, the longest day of the year

    Solstice:  or, the longest day of the year

    7:43 am – somewhere between New Britain and JFK:  well, after a 36 hour break and 3600 miles of driving, it’s time to get up in the air again. It’s appropriate that it’s the Summer Solstice, because this will indeed be a long day. 

    I think I’ve got to start taking short hops out of Hartford airport of something – the trip to NYC or Boston airports at rush hour is a tad annoying. Actually had an Uber driver panic and take me back to the house this am when he finally processed what his GPS was telling him. 

    He said he had to pick his daughter up later and couldn’t make the round trip to JFK. Sentimentalist that I am, I couldn’t not let the guy off the hook for that.

    Speaking of kids, the ding-dang Warriors LOST last night. I am happy for LeBron and all, but Teddy is, literally, going to weep all day. He was in panic/funk just during the first quarter last night. Hell of a way for him to start the day. (This is a boy who hates losing so much he cried for two hours after a semi-final loss in a little league game.)

    Well, I suppose you are never too young to learn to despise Mondays!

    Conference calls out the wazoo today. The best thing about this next bout of travel?  I can just focus on the work; multitasking/shifting focus is not my jam. I want to do one thing at a time, 100 pct. 

    Traffic!  Sweet. 

    I think I need more coffee:  this is a grim-sounding post. Or maybe it’s just the aftermath of a two-episode binge of GoT last night. I hadn’t watched that shit in full HD before. Good lord. All caught up now, and thank you for the PTSD. 

    Hmmmm. I think the Virgin terminal at JFK has a Dunkin Donuts…

  • Unpacking Father’s Day

    Unpacking Father’s Day

    Noon, New Britain, CT:  As I unpacked the car, occasionally assisted by HHW and the kids, it was funny to reflect that it was women who started Father’s Day and, I think, the necktie industry that scaled it. 

    (There’s enough stuff on the web about both things that I won’t even bother to link to it here.  It is Father’s Day after all.)

    I actually brought 5 ties to Connecticut. Here, I might use them. I used to have probably 100. Since moving to SF, I’ve pared it down to maybe a third that. No one wears ties in SF, really. 
    It was strangely relaxing getting all the stuff out of the car:  kid golf bags, tennis racquets, lacrosse sticks, about 5-6 different suitcases or duffle bags, Hostess cupcake boxes, a lot of stuffed animals and dog toys…just steady, slow, thoughtless and light labor. Then carrying everything in and up three flights of stairs (this is a huge house).  

    All done now – most of stuff in closets too. 

    Next up:  boozy lunch. Why not?  Then I have to buy tennis sneakers for the kids. 

    On that note, I’m just about old enough to recall that there were basically two kinds of kids’ athletic shoes when I was growing up:  sneakers, and cleats. Now? Soccer cleats, baseball cleats, basketball shoes, tennis shoes, running shoes, casual sneakers..go, Nike. An obvious observation. But funny to me, still. 

    I’d love to find Ted a pair of Tretorns. Is that brand even around anymore?  Web says it is. We’ll see. 

    Onward. 

  • Stasis

    Stasis

    8:15 am – New Britain, CT:  no movement today, unless to the country club, or in my case, Dunkin Donuts (which doesn’t really exist on the west coast and has caused me to have an irrational fondness for it). 

    My one project today? Unpacking the car. Dogs can more or less roam free – except when gardners are here. Kids too (minus the gardners issue). 

    Now I have to figure out where all our stuff is. Like, you know, the top to the Vitamix. My dress shoes. Sleep sheep (a critical stuffed animal for Quinn). My interest in further travel….

    The pool beckons. As does French toast and bacon. 

  • Dr. Livingstone, I presume

    Dr. Livingstone, I presume

    9:51 pm – Hard Hittin’ New Britain, CT. I cite the famous Stanley/Livingstone interchange because I felt as though I imagine Stanley must have felt having braved quite insane conditions to locate the lost doctor:  satisfied, relieved, triumphant – and aware that it was as much accomplishment as publicity stunt. 

    The lengths we go to for our 18-20 daily readers!

    Any rate, we are here. I won’t unpack the car until tomorrow. Tonight is about unpacking a bunch of rose. 

    Quinn’s already been in the pool. The dogs are ecstatic. Teddy immediately started watching golf. HHW told me to kick back. So here I am. 

    But the blog will continue. Because after all I have thousands more miles to travel before I sleep … Or at least before I sleep here for more than 24 hours. Back to SF on Monday!

    Regardless, on the Ninth Day, I rest. 

    Oh, and we finished GoF with 30 mins to spare. Woot!

  • Ain’t Nothing Gonna Break My Stride…

    Ain’t Nothing Gonna Break My Stride…

    11:20 am – somewhere North of Lexington, Va. : solid progress, breakfast at Starbucks and McDonalds. Harry Potter beating our remaining time on the road so far. 

    Lots of FedEx trucks. 

    Gorgeous farms and farmland all around. 

    503 miles to go!