Category: travel

May 31, 2008

Additional notes.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:04 PM | Comments (0)

Category: travel

notes

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:26 AM | Comments (1)

Category: travel

July 01, 2007

aaahhhhhhhh high speed wireless

first real internet access i've had since leaving home over a week ago. everything i've done in the last week has been over the cell phone. most things work great but working in flickr is a nightmare so i plan to do some major housekeeping there tonight.

i am on my way home now from roswell, having dropped J at the albq. airport this morning. i'm in amarillo now enjoying a particularly luxurious holiday inn express which is worth every damn penny. we've been staying in motel 6's along the way (except for a verrrry nice place in downtown indy) and while they do provide good cheap basic accomodation, they get kinda old after a while.

on the way into amarillo i spotted the cadillac ranch from the road and pulled over for a close up look. photos will go up on flickr tonight. it was very cool, but i have to say nowhere near as powerful and surreal as carhenge in nebraska.

just spoke to J on the phone, he survived the flight (his first since before 9/11) and it appears that the cat and the dog did not eat each other while we were gone, which is good.

well, i think i will take advantage of being in a real city and order in some chinese food. that'll be nice.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:08 PM | Comments (1)

Category: travel

November 02, 2006

Somehow, I always manage to miss Iowa.

via Mondo Mundo


create your own visited states map

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:58 AM | Comments (1)

Category: travel

August 26, 2006

photos of NYC

for those of you who read me via LJ or RSS and who aren't aware of my flickr photo stream, here are NYC photos.

more tonight... we leave tomorrow.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:30 AM | Comments (0)

Category: travel

August 18, 2006

OMG! NYC!

all the stuff i've had to do this week has kinda been weighing on my mind, but yesterday i made One Big List, which has allowed me to stop obsessing over the details of what's on that list, and I also met with the other NBeast folks and we decided what all of our pricing is, which is the thing that we really needed to do.

so this morning i woke up early feeling rested and great, knocked a few things off that list, and now i'm at work and finally thinking, ohmigod! new york! i'm going to new york! my favorite city!

it's been ten years at least, maybe more since i've been... and i think the experience of going with my 30-something girlfriends will be both completely different from the hipster indie rock days of yore experiences i had in the 90's, and also completely fun, too.

we will be staying eight blocks away from the fluevog store.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:47 AM | Comments (4)

Category: travel

July 13, 2006

NYC in august

so, it appears that i'll be spending five days in NYC in august. the weather notwithstanding, i'm looking forward to my first visit to the city in probably ten years.

so, i'm not really up to date on fun things to do in the city (although i do have a few things in mind)... perhaps those of you who live there or have visited recently could make some suggestions!

i think we've already found a good, cheap place to stay.

Posted by spacegrrl at 08:09 PM | Comments (3)

Category: travel

June 22, 2006

I went to Vegas...

...to watch (and officially witness) these two crazy kids getting married:

Viva Las Vegas!

See all 90 bagillion picures here.

Actual Showgirls

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:57 AM | Comments (0)

Category: travel

October 14, 2005

i'm home. i leave tomorrow.

the last day of the conference was the highlight. HIGH PRESSURE PAPER PROTOTYPE MADNESS. it was fun. exhausting. many small bits of paper were mangled. my flight did not get cancelled or delayed. no one threw up on me in the plane, or anywhere else, or even in my vicinity. ok, so i had to call AAA to give me a boost in the airport parking lot, but i kinda expected that i would. they came quickly, but the real dirty jokes started when jason! called me with details about tomorrow and we had to devote a few minutes to the double entendre possibilities of giving me a jump, as well as possible misuses of jumper cables.

so anyway, off tomorrow to the microcar museum.

Posted by spacegrrl at 12:01 AM | Comments (0)

Category: travel

September 08, 2005

sigh

ok, now i really, really, really, really, really, really want to go to NY.

before i only just really, really, really wanted to go.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:04 PM | Comments (0)

Category: travel

August 10, 2005

the very strange night; the best rest area ever; i guess i was up for another long trip...

the very strange night

oddly, i awoke at 4:20am today. thirsty, i think. fell back asleep after tiptoeing downstairs for some water. the next thing i knew was banging on the door. stephanie had set me up with a very loud fan-- the white noise was wonderful for sleeping. she tried to tell me something at the door, but i couldn't hear over the the sound of the fan and my own discombobulation. "I HAVE TO GO TO WORK IN FIFTEEN MINUTES," she said. oh. oops. she let me let myself out after she'd gone, and my trip started at 9:30am Spacepod Time.

the best rest area ever

somewhere in west virginia there's a rest area where all the structures are built to resemble log cabins; it's nestled into the mountains, and someone has taken the time to plant an elaborate, showy garden along the walkways. there's a hot snackbar, where i bought a big, soft pretzel, and each picnic table is sheltered by a roof and some charming lattice-work. i settled down with my book, my pretzel, and a diet squirt, and had a very nice break from the drive.

i guess i was up for another long trip...

i kept saying that i'd do the drive home in two days, and stay off the interstate, and that i wasn't up for another twelve-hour drive. but then when it came down to it, i took the interstate the whole way home, in one day. thirteen and a half hours. surprisingly painless.

i am happy to see mr. man* again.

*my cat, not my secret boyfriend. i don't have a secret boyfriend.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:37 PM | Comments (2)

Category: travel

August 09, 2005

chicagoland

on sunday we just hung out in indy, sniffin' BPAL, digging the steak n' shake, and we went to see 'charlie and the chocolate factory'.

yesterday, we went into chicago for the day. my plan, and maybe not such a good one. the drive in was high stress, and we somehow managed to only get to the art institute an hour and a half before closing; i'm still not exactly sure how that happened. still, that was enough time to see the things that i think we really wanted to see-- contemporary american art, which includes the famous hopper 'nighthawks' painting as well as 'american gothic'; i also recall georgia o'keefe, plenty of whistler (of course), mary cassat, and many others, plus some modern industrial design and an architecture gallery that included a frank lloyd wright stained glass window.

we visited the now-famous cloud gate scuplture, the big chrome blob that the city attempted to enforce a copyright on by not allowing anyone to photograph it. they've given up that particular tilt at that particular windmill, so we were able to photograph the small portion peeking out of a giant tarp-covered scaffold and not break any laws. why it was mostly covered, i'm not sure.

we then drove through rush-hour traffic (seriously, i have got to work on my big-city planning skills) and went to the fluevog store. i've been to fluevog stores in NYC, Boston, and Seattle; I've never seen one so large. the Chicago store is easily three times the size of each of those stores, and it was brimming with shoes, most of which were on sale. the saleswoman was incredibly friendly and we were the only customers, so we stayed for a long time and got lots of attention.

steph immediately found a pair of black, could-double-as-dress-shoes shoes for work and such, which she seemed very pleased with. i tried on half the store and came away with an utterly decadent three pairs (two of which were on sale), which i will photograph properly later. stephanie was frustrated; she tried on many shoes, but in the end, the one pair she liked was really too pricey and she decided not to buy them. damn, they were cute though. oh well. fluevogs are not cheap and you had better know you want them for that kind of money.

i got one pair of pink and white loafers that were designed for a woman in chicago called the pink nun. i haven't checked out her website, but she sounds like an interesting character. and damn, those shoes are cute!

anyway, we bolted out of town after the fluevog experience, tired and a little cranky. hit a denny's for dinner in indiana, then i drove us the rest of the way home because stephanie was falling asleep on the dinner table. it was nice driving her beetle, phoebe.

the internet here has been a little dicey with both of us trying to use it, so i probably won't be able to upload and caption all of my photos until i get back home. i'm not a very obsessive photo-taker, however; didn't even bring my big camera into chicago, so don't wait with baited breath or anything :)

today we're going to chill out again, and then tomorrow i'm headed home. i'm not up for another 12-hour drive, so i'm going to take two days to get home.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:00 AM | Comments (1)

Category: travel

August 07, 2005

Let me expand upon that...

I was pretty alert last night, considering that i should have been nearly catatonic after two and a half fairly brutal days, and a total of maybe eight hours of sleep between them. but not up to blogging. (which is saying something, but then i don't have to tell you that, dear reader. you know i blog at the mere mention of the drop of a hat.)

i'm now at my friend stephanie's house, having just slept a solid eight hours all at once without waking up, which is pretty amazing. i think the white noise of a fan in my room helped a lot. well, that, and being tired :)

it's only 6:30am local time, and steph is fast asleep, as she should be-- she hadn't slept at all the night before. i fed lucy the talktative cat so she wouldn't wake her up, and now i'm sitting here, basking in the wireless, and eating the sugar-free yogurt with which stephanie has so considerately stocked her fridge.

:|:

i'm sitting in the living room, a room i helped paint a couple of years ago. i'm happy to see that our paint job is holding up really well. i convinced her to paint the brick fireplace white; we'd painted the walls a pale robins-egg blue, and uncovered the honey-colored wood floors. the heavy brick fireplace seemed out of place. it still looks perfectly crisp and white, like we painted it yesterday.

she's added some furniture and rearranged, and put the big bookcases back up. it's looking good.

i got to see steph's house last night. it's near downtown and over a hundred years old. steph told me exactly how old last night, but i don't remember the exact number. i know the year it was built starts with an 18 :)

it's a renovation project, and not a small one. the heart valve surgery she had to have earlier this year has prevented her from progressing much, which must be immensely frustrating. it's a beautiful old house, and it's good to see someone restoring it back to the way it was meant to be.

last night i also got to see the People Mover... yes, Indianapolis has a monorail!! i wasn't quick enough with the camera to get a photo, if we happen to go near it again, i will.

:|:

i may feel differently after more time passes, but right now my feeling about the art car weekend is that i didn't enjoy it as much as i'd hoped to. i've given some thought to why that might be. sleep, i guess, was a huge thing. not having had anywhere near enough sleep colors the entire experience, i think, and makes everything harder. i had other issues with energy level; the crash that i had friday night was truly one of the worst i've ever had. if sarah hadn't been there to take care of me, i think i really would have passed out at the table.

in retrospect, missing out on the dinner friday didn't help; it was a nice opportunity for conversation, and i hate that we had to leave so quickly.

i am sure the experience would be different were i there with my own art car. as it was, i was in a sort of limbo where i wasn't in the audience, yet also wasn't a performer either (a metaphor that may or may not be apt). and while the webcam shots that i got Friday night were astounding, having my nose buried in a computer screen during both of the parades meant that i didn't really experience the parades fully.

i think that one day, when the westy comes to fruition, while i'll want to take her to events, i'll pick and choose them very carefully. and might just call a moratorium on web camming for a while; it's cool, but it's not worth it if it detracts from the experience. i can use my phonecam to post pics instantly and still get a similar effect for the folks back home.

maybe i won't take the westy to an event without getting the fridge running on propane, so it can run continuously. having some creature comforts there with you all the time would probably make a big difference.

well, like i said, as more time passes i'll probably feel more positive about the whole experience. i think the big lesson is that for me, i've gotta find a way to make the whole thing more relaxed. sarah and i joked a lot about "art car time"... when you get a bunch of artists together, things don't always happen very quickly. "we're leaving right now" means "we'll actually leave in about twenty minutes". well, maybe i need to find a way to get on to art car time. i think in my latter years of going to roswell, i did learn to relax and take it all a lot easier than i did the first year.

sarah also observed that the extra stuff we do takes a toll that the other artists don't have to experience. most of them can just park their cars then hang out. we were having to stay on top of the webcams and bubble machine. although i do love the geeky, interactive stuff, and certainly have some interactive ideas for the westy, i'll approach them with caution.

well, enough about that. i'm not sorry i went. it was very nice of sarah to let me come with her. it's a cool scene, one i think i could fit into pretty well, i just have to learn how to appreciate it more and experience it better.

:|:

last night at dinner, steph asked me what i might like to do while in indy. "Absolutely nothing," was my answer, followed by, "maybe a movie." we're going to Chicago for the day tomorrow, so i think we all need a day to chill. it'll be nice. i think steak n' shake may be involved in some way.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:31 AM | Comments (2)

Category: travel

August 06, 2005

here in indy

is where i am.

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)

Category: travel

August 05, 2005

too long of a day

wow, i really didn't mean to do this. long, hard day yesterday.. and i only managed about 3 hours of sleep last night. another long day today and i tanked, hugely. sarah saved my ass. i was crashing so badly she had to get me orange juice in the restaurant (dinner wasn't til 10) to help me get my legs back under me. then move heaven, earth, and a yellow submarine to get me back to the hotel. sarah rocks.

feeling a lot better now.. maybe i can actually sleep tonight. i'll try for an easier day tomorrow.

i don't remember a lot from today right now but i do remember that the webcam photos i took at the parade were fucking awesome. large format, and i used the iSight, which has autofocus. i handheld it the whole way to get the shots framed just so. totally amazing.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:44 PM | Comments (0)

Category: travel

now we are in louisville

i bought into this whole idea that the drive was going to take 8 and a half hours because that's what mapquest said.

it was more like twelve, but i'll be quick to add that it wasn't really that horrible of a drive. i've done twelve-hour drives completely solo and having someone to talk to on the radio and at lunch really makes a huge difference. as sarah put it, it's the best of driving alone with the best of driving with someone.

when we arrived at the cinderblock drive-in-- an art gallery in louisville set up as a drive-in for the evening-- we were both pretty fried. i was startled to be mobbed by people wanting to discuss biodiesel (oh, the irony), but these were all fairly clueful people so the conversations were actually kind of enjoyable.

i was kind of amazed at how friendly people were. i'm accoustomed to going unnoticed at social events, especially when i'm completely fried and exhausted, but i found myself talking to a lot of people last night. one of whom, as it turns out, recently read this blog.

lots of questions about the webcams (which i ran during the drive-in event), and even a few about spacepod's aesthetics. in a lot full of art cars, i was surprised to find that spacepod garnered any attention.

in fact, there was one guy who came up and asked me what was up with the luggage rack. "What's up with that??" this resulted in a fairly interesting (if longwinded and one-sided) conversation about how he thinks the new beetle looks like a bloated, sick baby, but that the modifications i've done give it a "tactility" that it needs. he then launched into a discussion of how he wants new cars to feel like old cars when you touch them, though i couldn't get a very clear idea of what an old car is supposed to feel like. sarah got several pictures of him-- she thinks he was probably drunk. at the time i figured he was pretty much just a crazy southern pretentious art guy, but i think sarah's probably right. he was a drunk crazy southern pretentious art guy.

there was another guy who didn't have an art car; he was there with his cousin, who does. he said something like, "if i had a second vehicle, i'd make it an art car," and sarah was quick to point out that one doesn't need a second vehicle; an art car can be a daily driver. "What do you drive?" I asked him. He pointed out a... oh, get this, a plain white minivan. i had to laugh. "Don't come to an art car event with a plain white van!!" heh.

i got to see "wild wheels", a documentary about art cars by harrod blank. they also ran several old car commercials from the sixties-- mostly vw beetle commercials, actually, which i really enjoyed a chance to see. and a mini-docu on the making of various tv cars, like the batmobile and the munsters car. that was the point at which sarah and i decided we couldn't stay a minute longer. they were starting up "repo man", which we both love, so it was sad to leave but we were both beyond exhausted.

the hotel room, i have to say, is pretty priceless. the decor has clearly not changed since the early 70's. i'll definitely be getting some photos before we leave it (today we're moving to a different room so we can get internet access in the room, and it'll be in a different part of the hotel where the decor is less, uh, retro).

i didn't sleep much last night but i have a lot of freedom and i can easily go take a nap if i want to. i'm not going to let it bother me.

i slept on my new hair while it was wet and it looks great this morning! now that is the hallmark of a great haircut!!

i think we're going to bag on webcasting today, at least in the early part of the day. i may suggest it for the illuminated cruise, if i think the cams can pick up anything worth seeing. we're trying to conserve our chargers for the parade tomorrow, which will be the most interesting thing to webcast.

Posted by spacegrrl at 07:57 AM | Comments (3)

Category: travel

August 03, 2005

here's the score

i'll be gone for about a week i think, on my little roadtrip. thursday to thursday, unless i get distracted by something on my way home from indy. then i'll be bustin' and chillin' at home for a few days before going back to work.

sarah and i head out tomorrow at o-dark-thirty. or 8am, more realistically, though i'm aiming to be at her house by 7:30.

to get to the webcams, click the packs of gum to the right.

we'll run web cams tomorrow on the drive to louisville, but since we're both driving solo, don't expect continuous coverage. i know these systems well enough to know that the software will crash or the connection will drop, and it'll just have to stay that way til our next rest stop-- never try to reboot while driving. i know this from experience.

we'll run them some on friday and saturday too, but we've yet to figure out when the best times will be. the parade on saturday is a sure thing, i think, and that's from 1-2pm. Stephanie and Steph will be with us for the parade too so I am sure there will be wacky webcam hijinx. Four girls in an art car!

then after that i don't think there will be more webcams, but i'm sure i'll be blogging and posting lots of photos. i upgraded to a flickr pro account so i could go bonkers with the photos on this trip and not have to worry about it.

Posted by spacegrrl at 04:09 PM | Comments (0)

Category: travel

June 03, 2005

pixels are the new camo

so first let me just make up for my crappy attitude earlier by saying how totally awesome this house is. it's just me, mom, and wayne, which is nice. the three of us get along well and we have a nice time hanging out. they have also really gone out of their way to make this place a nice place for people to visit. mom steals toiletries from hotels when they travel, and puts them out in little baskets in the bathrooms, along with bottled water. she kept saying, "i'll help you make your bed", and i'm like, mom, i can make a bed! i think their other guests are more high-maintenance :)

also note that the powerbook is even well cared for. and wayne has added wireless high speed internet this summer, so it's just like home! except way cushier and beachier!

tomorrow i hope it'll be a little rainy and i can go for a nice long walk on the beach. i think we're going to an old diner for lunch (apparently, mom told me about it while we were in Virginia and it's one of the many things i've inadvertently blocked about that weekend), and then some local family are coming for a dinner of frogmore stew. (it's all about the eating.)

anyway, i stopped in a wendy's in warsaw and there were a bunch of marines in line in front of me. (camp lejune is right here.) they were all dressed in a type of camo that i've never seen before. the pattern is made up entirely of little blocks, like large pixels. some were in the traditional vietnam jungle green, most were in the more common-these-days iraqi desert tan.

i realized then that men in modern military uniforms, especially groups of them, kind of scare me and freak me out. i wonder if i'd feel the same way about groups of men in not-so-modern military uniforms? probably not.

i very nearly drove right into the base on my way here. there were so many cars driving in that i was just daydreaming along, going with the flow of traffic right up until the big sign that flashes "HAVE ID READY". "weekend warriors," wayne says. in jacksonville, there was also a big exercise taking place at an abandoned and partially wrecked hotel. not military, but every kind of emergency personnel you can think of. fire, rescue, emt, etc, all swarming the place, plus emergency vehicles of every description. and in a field next to the hotel, dozens of tents.

ok, well, i suppose it's time i got some sleep. if you need me, i'm in the sunflower room.

seriously.

ps, i miss my kitty.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:00 PM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: travel

May 13, 2005

off we go!

soon mom will be here and we'll head up to virginia in the spacepod. i was kind of dreading the trip earlier this week, but now i'm getting into the road trip preparations and feeling excited. a road trip is a road trip, after all!

i even made a fresh bud vase arrangement this morning. poor spacepod has not had fresh flowers in his bud vase in years. but i've got roses blooming in the back yard, and since we're going up to see the rosberry family it seemed only appropriate. sprigs of lavendar too.

i will miss my kitty.

Posted by spacegrrl at 09:19 AM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: travel

February 20, 2005

if i had a motel...

it would be just like this place

Posted by spacegrrl at 10:32 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack (0)

Category: travel

August 15, 2004

finally - artscape photos

the photos i took at artscape (art car parade) back in july...

Posted by spacegrrl at 05:06 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack (0)

Category: travel

January 29, 2004

states i've visited

via rick!

this is so fucking cool. i think i must have driven through Utah (christa, do you remember? on that trip with bob boster?), but I have no specific memory of it so i'm not sure and didn't mark it as visited. (red states are visited.)



create your own visited states map
or write about it on the open travel guide

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:05 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)

Category: travel

December 01, 2003

nyc

dave got to go into manhattan over the holiday weekend, and when he told me about stumbling across this store , i realized i was more jealous of his day in new york than i am of mary's week-and-a-half in london.

christa and i are avidly watching airfares. if you hear of a good nyc fare, let us know. same with hotels.

Posted by spacegrrl at 06:26 PM | Comments (1) | TrackBack (0)

Category: travel

November 24, 2003

i am evil

tonight i slyly planted the idea in christa's head that she should go to nyc with me around birthday-time to go SHOPPING.

maybe other people who like to SHOP should go with us. like, other people who are facing a significant birthday like we are.

heh. heh. heh.

Posted by spacegrrl at 11:35 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack (0)