Whoaaaaa! Dude...the Odyssey is on the Odyssey. Freak out! It's like, if you got a microscope, or something, you could get up close and see the Odyssey within the Odyssey within the Odyssey within the Odyssey...for like freakin' ever! That is so twisted...duuude, I'm melting. Check it out, my head is like totally melting, man! This is heavy. Heavier than that old Santana record where if you stare at the cover long enough, you start to see different stuff, tigers and princesses and stuff. It's almost as heavy godhead as that Secret Deathmatch level in Mortal Kombat, man, where the Necromancer's head totally disintegrates into like molten lava and dissolves Shub Niggurath into nothing, man, absolute nada, even though that was gonzo wicked-ass, man, like I don't have to tell you, full-on righteous dude that you are.
Yes, I do speak Metal. I'm not embarrassed to admit it -- I can quote from an alarming number of Black Sabbath songs, do a passable air guitar to Iron Maiden's, "Run to the Hills," and have read no fewer than three biographies of Led Zeppelin ("Hammer of the Gods," is the classic, in case you were wondering). In short, though I no longer wear black concert t-shirts depicting cartoonish scenes of unimaginable violence, I still know what's heavy. I still know what rocks. And, goldangit, that picture at the top rocks!
It has to rock -- it's the only picture we have for the whole day. On the final leg of our blizzard of Oz, no sleep 'til Fresno, pell-mell sprint across the states, we took it relatively easy on ourselves -- only five hours of driving! Kristanne ably piloted Otto over Donner Pass on I-80 and on into Sacramento. Meanwhile, I tried to avoid carsickness in the back, finishing up some skeleton help files for work and getting the latest edition of the web page ready.
Many (ok, two) of you have written in saying, "How do you work in the car while it's moving? Doesn't that take nearly superhuman powers of concentration? An iron constitution? The fortitude of G.I. Jane, as played by Demi Moore in the upcoming summer blockbuster of the same name? Doesn't it?"
Oddly enough, it doesn't. It doesn't even take the good-natured panache of Bruce Willis in, say, "Hudson Hawk." What it does take is a strong stomach. If you get carsick easily, you will not do well typing in the back of a moving van...particularly a VW Eurovan, where side-to-side motions are amplified by the vehicle's somewhat topheavy nature. Also, bumps that are felt subtly in Otto's front seat tend to shoot the noggins of backseat passengers right on into the ceiling. This can be mildly disconcerting when attempting to turn a delicate phrase or think of just the right adjective for Lyle Lovett's hair (it's "otherworldly," by the way). Sudden stops are also a challenge, since you have to grasp madly for the laptop before it slides right off the table and on to the floor. We've learned to run questionably yellow lights just to save our laptop. Can't take the risk, you know? Outside of these minor challenges, however, working while the van is moving is actually pretty easy. Kristanne actually swears that it's easier than reading, since you can look at the road as you type.
We pulled into Fresno around 5:00, and headed straight for the Fashion Fair shopping mall. We've got an engagement party coming up and we've got to style...seriously. Rico suave, I'm talking. For me, this means that I can't wear the same shirt I'm wearing in every single shot in our engagement album -- an album, by the way, that features photos taken over an almost four-year time period. Telecommuting has done wonders for my wardrobe, let me tell you -- I've got boxer shorts for every day of the week, but only three collared shirts. Somebody send me a 'GQ' subscription...stat.
After agonizing over which shirt to buy for entirely too long, I met Kristanne (who had agonized similarly over a couture question of her own), and we headed up the hill to the Bohner's rustic cabin in the town of Shaver Lake. Shaver Lake is in the Sierra Nevada east of Fresno...a beautiful place where Kristanne spent many a family summer as a child. We met Calvin and Rosalie there about ten o'clock, unable to believe that it had only been two weeks since we'd left them back in Boston....it seemed like a dog's age. We spent a happy time catching up on where we'd been and what was coming up with the engagement party on Sunday, and before we knew it, it was after 1:00 in the morning and we were bushed. We hit the hay with a vengeance, trying to ignore the carpenter ants that showed up in our bedroom with a disquieting regularity.
See you tomorrow as we finish up some help files for work and get our preparations for the big engagement party underway!
Total Miles for 8/7 = 356