The Travail of Travel

Recently, a prospective employer e-mailed a test. The last part requested a 100-word essay about my ideal vacation. Herewith:

Ideally, I’d like to vacation someplace I’ve never been before, with accommodations luxurious yet cheap; courteous, efficient staff; friendly locals; delicious food; mild weather; and interesting attractions. Moreover, this vacation would be devoid of the usual dull, transitory aspects involved in any sort of travel, such as waiting in traffic; waiting for confirmation of your reservations or other arrangements when you arrive at your destination; the feeling of interminable travel from one place to another; or the down time when you’re just waiting for the next scheduled event to start. Finally, my regret about the vacation should be that it’s over, instead of the vacation itself.

I extemporized under a deadline, although I’ve thought about the topic for years. Unfortunately, my ideal can’t overcome several laws of physics.[1]  

However, staying home has its own drawbacks. Memorial Day, thunderstorms briefly knocked out the power to my apartment building while I was on the phone reassuring my parents that things were OK, contrary to the news.[2] Despite the weather contradicting me, that weekend my biggest problems were a) running out of French onion dip, and b) the flower bed dirt turning into a mud coating at the foot of the stairs.[3] The landlord finally fixed b) on July 1.

Political Follies

There are weeks and sometimes months where I suspect all of existence is a conspiracy to provide grist for Austin Dispatches.

Banjo-plucking Martin O’Malley, former Maryland governor, plans to clawhammer his way to the Democratic presidential nomination with a six-string platform calculated to boost voting precinct turnout in Kentucky, Alabama and the Sawtooth Mountains. Clearly, someone’s in the kitchen with Dinah.[4]

Meanwhile, the incumbent imposter-in-chief summoned his inner Jefferson – George Jefferson, that is – and finally uttered “nigger,” some seven years after I predicted his election would make the epithet acceptable. Of course, the word exited in his usual logorrheal contempt for real Americans while on comedian Marc Maron’s podcast, so it’s doubtful many of them had the ability to sit through Maron’s nasally angst beforehand.[5] Just for costing me $5,610.98 and counting in ObamaCare-compliant insurance payments, I can think of a few more words he needs to hear.[6]

Come to think of it, let’s make “obama” (lowercased) an all-purpose slur:

“You’re such an obama.”

“Don’t hand me that obama.”

“That son-of-obama dented my car.”

“What the obama?”

“The obama in shipping obama’d the order.”

“Obama him!”

Etc. For variety, use his other surname – “Soetoro.”[7]

A murderer killed by police in a luxury hotel downtown had filed to run for president, but couldn’t wait until in office to slay.[8]

And I thought living through the rise and peak of disco was nauseating.[9] Perhaps the most obnoxious aspect of the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in favor of homosexual “marriage” is the ceaseless triumphant gloating from pinkos, many of them presumably straight, in all manner of media. They’re so ecstatic, you’d think they were the ones getting married.[10] This too shall end, if only because homosexuals, having achieved the apex of acceptability, can only become uncool, either because of something one or several of them do (e.g., raping the wrong child), or because people just get bored with them. It happened before to blacks.[11] Also, there’s too much retroactive continuity that has to be done to alter past culture, foreign and domestic, where homosexuals are portrayed as either villains, undesireables, or the butt of jokes. The sheer volume of cultural product worldwide makes that retconning a daunting task.[12]

Meanwhile, anyone critical of this homopotheosis is subject to vituperation, such as the treatment Austin’s power elite is conducting against Councilor Don Zimmerman. The weekly outrage at Don expressing one of his well-known views on any given topic leads me to wonder if the pinkos are outraged because they don’t understand his views, or because they do. The real story would be if he supported the Court’s ruling.[13]

Neighborhood News

On May 29, the U.S. Weather Service reported early morning thunderstorm winds snapped a tree at Parmer Lane and MoPac Expressway. The Statesman’s Traffic Web page reported traffic incidents at Highway 183 and Burnet Road on June 9, and at southbound MoPac and Braker Lane on June 16. On June 25, I witnessed two women drivers get into a spat in the Stonehollow Place strip mall parking lot.

Community Impact Newspaper reports that a new location of Kung Fu Saloon, serving chop sake, will open at The Domain later this year.[14] Incidentally, the saloon settled a discrimination case with the feds over dress codes bias against Asian customers.[15] But that was necessary. If some guys show up wearing black suits, dusters and sunglasses, and chewing toothpicks, don’t stick around.[16]

The Domain will also experience construction of 1 million more square feet of office, multifamily and retail space.[17] Also at The Domain, a pizzeria and a car rental agency opened.[18] A sushi franchise closed at the Shops at Arbor Walk.[19] The Business Journal predicts the Top Golf location will become office buildings in the future, now that the property’s ownership has changed hands.[20] Ownership changed at a hair salon off Research Boulevard.[21] On July 7, city workers restriped the crosswalk at the Braker-Metric Boulevard intersection. On July 22, the landlord shut off the water for repairs – again.[22]

Sometime after Obama leaves office, his administration-funded North Walnut Creek Trail project, languishing in its last mention here, may finally be finished.[23] If only ObamaCare’s implementation had proceeded as quickly.

On the Town

Deer frolicked in the front yards of the Northwest Austin neighborhood where I took my evening constitutionals in the late spring.

Jun. 5: I tried to participate in National Doughnut Day but was unwilling to wait in line at the stores along Highway 183 for fried dough.[24]

Jun. 17: I patronized Windsor Park, the one remaining Austin Public Library branch I hadn’t visited. Later, I noted with astonishment that a mediocre Chinese restaurant had actually shut down. Maybe we are heading for a depression.[25]

Media Indigest

The June Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience reports the brain’s at rest during socialization. So that explains the lack of results from networking all these years.[26] The Statesman acknowledges that shifting its printing out of town will affect its nightly press deadlines and inclusion of late-breaking stories.[27]

Austin Death Watch

A new municipal study of the Austin music scene confirms that City policies are helping to wreck said scene – something Austin Dispatches has pointed out for 15 years.[28] Moreover, the spread of anti-intellectual property sentiment has extended to Austinites’ aversion to paying cover charges at venues.[29] However, the study didn’t dare suggest that the music scene is waning because the musicianship isn’t that impressive, compared to years past. I first visited Austin in 1994 and found the audiences in the bars on Sixth and Seventh streets easily impressed with bands flailing on three-chord ditties and grimacing expressions out of music videos. Apparently, even those audiences finally wised up.

New case in point: The owner of Austin Music Hall downtown plans to raze it for an office building. I seem to recall visiting it once for a free Christmas fair, but otherwise the parking, cost and choice of artists kept me away. Now the Statesman reports the venue was also plagued with bad sound and sightlines.[30]

The Austin Police Department suspended a cop and his boss after the former committed a hit-and-run on a civilian’s car.[31] The department suspended another cop for being rude to a crippled bum, and fired yet another for being a scumbag.[32] The department also fired a cop for the second time in two years.[33] Meanwhile, relatives of a man killed by another car while crossing the street are suing the City because a streetlight was out.[34] Police found a cross-dressing freak floating dead in Lady Bird Lake and issued it a citation for not wearing seasonally appropriate attire.[35]

The May 17 massacre of bikers in Waco and local inclement weather didn’t stop every middle-aged executive who’d seen “Easy Rider” too many times from clogging Austin’s roads May 11-14. Of course, Austin’s power elite and its busybody myrmidons, who normally seek to fearfully ban even inanimate objects like refined sugar that might cause self-harm – permitted the Republic of Texas Biker Rally once again.[36]

Even the Chronicle had to admit that bureaucratic mishandling of funds has jeopardized affordable housing projects.[37] In a later issue, the weekly reports the Depression-built county civil courthouse at 10^th and Guadalupe streets is plagued by vermin. There’s also a problem with rodents and bugs.[38] MetroRail operating costs are rising.[39]

Cultural Canapés

The July 22 Daily Telegraph reports Frank Sinatra is the subject of a multimedia stage show playing into October in London’s theater district.[40]

Business Roundup

I bought a pen for the first time in 20 years. Or rather, pens, because the neighborhood retailers bundled the single retractable red pen that I really wanted with other in black and blue.

Bevo and Butt-Heads

The Daily Texan reports the UT’s Facilities Services is sticking with one-ply toilet paper to save about $300,000 a year.[41] The school’s diplomas would be even cheaper – for the university.

NOTES