Back in the I-Life

I'm one of those people who remembers things by the calendar year in which they occurred.  I will tie a particular event to its numeric year and then mentally index it, so that when that year is mentioned at a later date, it will elicit some kind of response in me, sometimes good, sometimes bad.  My friends and family know this, so when it's family storytelling time, I'm often asked to recall the year that some event or the other happened.  It's never anything as earth-shattering as the first moon landing (1969) or the year JFK was assassinated (1963), but rather something like the year our dinner preparations almost set the Point Mugu State Park campground on fire -- that was 1969.  Along these lines, I'm finding that 2010 has earned its own place in my personal history -- to me, it has become the year of Interstate Surfing, the year of the I-Life, as it were, and this is not a bad thing at all.

We tend to take Interstates for granted these days, but they weren't always fixtures on the landscape.  I can recall driving across country from Memphis to Los Angeles in 1959 in a '57 Chevy Bel Air, without air conditioning, with my parents, grandmother and grandfather.  Our road of choice was Route 66, which was colorful and scenic, a treat in those days.  But several days of driving on two-lane stretches was tiring, especially with temperatures so high that we had to put newspapers on the windows to shield us from the heat.  To add to the fun, we blew a tire in both directions when passing through Holbrook, Arizona.  Nowadays, we crank up the air and check the navigation system to see how long it will take us to get to the next Cracker Barrel.

Our daughter Hannah is at college in North Carolina, so several times a year, we make the trip up and back to help her move, to bring provisions to her and to her friends, and to lend a general joie de vivre to the entire college scene (which actually looks like it has plenty of joie).  We've developed a circuit of sorts: we have good friends in both Charlotte, North Carolina, and Johnson City, Tennessee, so we will typically make a roundabout type of drive, attempting to hit both cities in the process.  I-85, I-77, I-40 and I-26 make those trips possible.

About every other year, although not quite as often as in the past, we make the drive from Atlanta to Boston and back to visit my wife Karen's family.  I-85 is always a given, but in North Carolina, one must choose between I-77 to I-81 (the rural route) or I-85 to I-95 (the urban route).  New York itself is just a sublime adventure, and actually quite fun to drive through, I think, given that the roads are actually well marked.  Along such straits as the Cross Bronx Expressway, one can try to guess the make and model of cars from the stripped remains in the breakdown lanes.  Once you're in New England, just about anything goes, and it's all close together.  Generally for us, it's a scenic patchwork quilt of I-84 to I-90, then mainlining the Massachusetts Turnpike (lovingly called the "Mass Pike" by locals) into metropolitan Boston.

It's down to a science with Interstates -- truly, we don't even think about the specifics of our navigation, because it's all in the numbers.  Florida?  I-75 to I-10 over to I-95 (east) or straight down I-75 (west).  Along the Panhandle, it's I-10, all the way to N'awlins.  Headed to Memphis? I-20 to I-22.  Nashville?  I-75 to I-24.  Los Angeles?  I-20 to I-22 to I-40 to I-15 to I-10.  Oh, and I forgot to mention...just getting out of Atlanta often requires traversing I-285, the "Atlanta Bypass", as it is lovingly called on the overhead signs, and 285 is undoubtedly the quintessential driving experience in the South.

The point of all this rambling, and the central question, is: how does this all relate to what will become my future recollection of 2010?  Precisely because of all these travels.  This year, I seem to have spent a lot of time on the I-roads, and there was quality with the quantity.  I went to college a few times, returned home to Memphis for a trip that defined what "home" was all about, spent a wonderful weekend on the Georgia coast, made a bajillion forays into the city, and got to spend priceless time with friends all over the place.  And the whole time, those big green signs pointed me in the right direction, while the little blue ones told me where to find gas.

So it's bon voyage, friends...it's been a fun year of travel.  By the way, I've been wondering...does every Cracker Barrel sell the same stuff?

Backout Plan

In the world of information technology, we have a term that we use quite often -- it's called the "backout plan".  The backout plan is what takes effect when a software installation has gone horribly wrong -- not that I've ever personally seen that happen, of course.  But lately, I believe the term could be extended outside the IT realm and into the world of motoring.

Consider the following: you've just completed buying $98.73 worth of miscellaneous home goods from Target (although you went into the store fully intending to pick up only pre-brush whitening rinse), and after placing the shopping bags into your trunk, you get into your car, put it in reverse, and begin to back out of the parking space.  Hopefully, you will be looking up and down the aisle of the parking lot as you back out.  But really, that will not matter, because here comes -- Z-O-O-O-O-M -- a vehicle whipping past the rear end of your car, intent on taking out your trunk and its newly acquired, precious cargo.  The thing is, believe it or not, this used to be a rare occurrence.

Back in the day (1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, 1990's), most people, when they saw a car backing out of a parking space, would actually stop the forward motion of their vehicle.  (Although many people do not know this, "stopping" can be accomplished by pushing down on the "brake" pedal, the rubberized platform located immediately to the left of the accelerator in most cars and trucks.)  In theory, this so-called "braking" would allow the departing driver the chance to safely exit his/her parking space.  But this now appears to be the exception to the rule.  Nowadays, there is a new backout plan -- if people see a car backing out of a space, they will try to get past that car as quickly as possible, regardless of whether the driver exiting the space even sees them.  This is, of course, a dangerous practice, but that fact alone has never stopped any Atlanta driver that I've ever seen.

I'm not sure what is the reason for this aberrant behavior.  Conceivably, drivers are all in such a hurry that they do not feel they have time to stop for another vehicle, or alternatively, passing a car pulling out becomes an irresistible game of chance.  Of course, it could also be that the whizzing driver is simply oblivious to his/her surroundings or is engaged in a critical mobile phone activity (i.e. ordering lunch using Chipotle Online Mobile) that limits use of the parietal lobe.  Whatever the reason, this is becoming an accepted practice, and I now see it in every city I visit.  It is so common that a recent automobile advertisement features a device specifically designed to detect when another vehicle is about to pass behind your car.

So, I've decided to take a new approach to the science of parking -- I'm only going to park in spaces where I can pull forward to both enter and exit.  If that means running into the Starbucks building in front of me, well then, so be it.  I'll just claim that I was trying to use the Starbucks Mobile iPhone application and was distracted.  I think they'll believe that in traffic court: "Honest, your honor...I was just trying to figure out how to add an extra shot to the Americano in the My Favorite Drinks list."

Boo-yah...mocha frappuccinos all around!

Clicking Pause in The ATL

I wrote this post back in the spring but only last night got around to publishing it.  Even though it's a little too hot for Merlot on the deck, I think you could substitute Cosmos and the effect would be the same.

Down here in the South, we have a monthly magazine which is aptly titled Southern Living. It's an institution...people all across the South rely on SL to give them the best recipes, gardening ideas, and potential travel destinations.  It's the Southern equivalent of Sunset or Yankee, I suppose.  And here in "The ATL", as we locals affectionately call our fair city, Southern Living is gospel.  As the Brits say, it's "spot-on".

Every year about this time, we become very grateful for living in a place like this.  Most evenings in the spring, summer or fall, we can dine al fresco -- in fact, as I write this, I'm downing the last few sips of my Two-Buck Chuck Trader Joe's 2008 Merlot while sitting out on the deck with my laptop.  As I look around, I see that I'm surrounded by a veritable forest up here.  If you don't tend to a piece of ground, something will start growing, and before you know it, you'll have to pull out the Roundup just to see through it all.  But the pervasive green is so calming, and I think we often take it for granted.  Take note the next time you fly into Atlanta, and you'll notice that there's green absolutely everywhere.

Even though Atlanta is a Southern city, there are times when we tend to forget it.  For example, our traffic is legendary, and our drivers are possessed of a certain, shall we say fortitude, that would allow them to compete in modern Roman motorsports.  According to a national study released several years ago, we have some of the longest commute times in the nation.  Yet, when we get home, we must revert to a state of happiness, because people keep moving here.  It's something of a paradox, but it's been like this as long as I can remember.

Yet even with the tremendous influx of people from other regions and other parts of the world, we retain something of the Southern charm.  You can still go into a store, and a perfect stranger will stop you and ask if you've tried a certain black bean salsa or some wild dark roast coffee, and before you realize it, you're fully engaged and making recommendations like a culinary Roger Ebert.  It's not that people don't have a sense of personal space, but rather that they're willing to make the effort to be outgoing, and that's very nice.

According to the last figures, we're now a city of about 5.5 million people.  Some days, I swear they're all driving I-285, which we call "The Perimeter" (ironically, since it runs through some of the busiest parts of the city), or navigating "The Connector", a downtown stretch where I-75 and I-85 wrap their arms around each other's waists for a 16-lane dance.  But there's something about this diverse mix of cultures and attitudes, combined with a very real sense of the here and now, that makes this place what it is.  I moved here in 1982, thinking that I'd give it two or three years, and except for two years away in Charlotte, I've been here ever since.  I don't know if and when I'll call another place home, but this one is good. 

I don't often take the time to thank my city, but that's exactly what this is.  Thanks, Atlanta, for opening my mind and still allowing me to find some good catfish.

Bug-Eyed

It's summer in Atlanta, and from all indications, this is going to be a banner year for the local insect population.  I thought it might be interesting to take an insect's point of view.

Hello, and thanks for reading my post.  My name is Chuck, and I'm a green grocer cicada, one of those insects that lives up in the trees and sings to you in the evenings.  You might call me a "bug", and that's fine, except you need to know that strictly speaking, "bug" is a general term used to describe more than just insects.  As a full-blown cicada (I knew my parents), I'm a member of the order Hemiptera, which is by definition a "true" bug.  For the purposes of this post, I'll relax the rules and use the term "bug" loosely, to describe all members of the insect world.

Now that we have that straight, let's get down to some facts that you may not know:

• It has been calculated that there are probably about 148,574,965 bugs for every human on the planet.  That number will most likely have increased by the time you have finished reading this post...I'm just saying.
• Although some of us live in colonies, most of us lead a solitary existence.  When we get stepped on, it's like no one notices.
• We have brains and digestive systems.  They aren't as well-developed as yours, but please...most of us aren't even an inch long.
• Some of us, notably wasps, actually have a sense of numbers and provide exact counts of food servings for our offspring.  I am not making this up.
• Insects were the earliest organisms to produce and sense sounds.  Incidentally, we cicadas are the noisiest insects in the world.

I'm saying all this because, given the facts listed above, you would think we would be treated better by the human population.  Quite the reverse is true, as I shall endeavor to explain.

Being assigned to night tree duty, I have most of my mornings free, so earlier today, I sneaked into one of your home improvement stores.  I won't mention which one, because heaven knows that if I do, they'll come in and fumigate the place, and that will not accomplish much, given the fact that we outnumber you by 148,575,988 to 1.  Nevertheless, while I was flying above the "pest control" (a matter of opinion) aisle today, minding my own business, I noticed that there appears to be a concerted effort on the part of your species to take out mine.  Using a tiny digital camera specially designed for my compound eyes (yes, we've come farther than you think), I was able to take the following pictures:

Do you see a problem?  Where are the insect "treats"?  These are lethal substances, which if ingested by our kind will most certainly result in our imminent demise.  The first product, "Home Insect Control", appears to be some kind of generic potion designed to wipe us all out at one fell swoop.  This "Black Flag" company, with its cutesy retro name, is well-known among our bug tribes for enabling the deployment of veritable nuclear weapons.  The "Fogger" in the center picture represents an insidious approach that sneaks up on us; we don't see it, but the problem is, neither do you, so it doesn't help either of us.  Try eating a turkey sandwich in a room that's been fogged, and you'll see what I mean.

The last product pictured above, "Termite Killer", well...I can go with that.  Termites have their own highly developed social hierarchy, but other than that, they have few friends in the bug world.  Along with fire ants, termites consider themselves "badass" bugs who will stop at nothing to get the next meal, regardless of whether that means eating hardwood flooring, wall studs, grass, or even smaller insects.  Their collective conceit is beyond belief, even though in my humble opinion, they are among the ugliest bugs ever to roam the planet.  Entire human companies have sprung up just to rid the world of the termite population, and personally, I say have at it, Terminix.

Cockroaches get a bum rap.  Most of them are just hard working stiffs, but they have a common tragic flaw -- they prefer the dark.  They are practical jokers to a fault, and this is why they delight in hiding in your kitchen late at night, waiting until you flip on the lights, when they can begin the furious waving of their antennae.  Roaches, somewhat vain by nature, don't do this unless they have an audience, and they take great delight in the resultant screams that emanate from humans upon seeing their pretentious, over the top displays.  This risky behavior gets many a roach killed in the prime of his or her life, generally with a shoe.

Ants can be a pain to humans, but they are essentially harmless, except for the aforementioned fire ants and their mammoth cousins, the carpenter ants.  One thing most humans don't know about the average ant colony is that the overwhelming majority of its residents are female.  The few males that do inhabit the farm are so-called "drones", and they are not worth much of anything other than the use of their reproductive organs.  When the female ants have spare time, which is rare given the inherent laziness of the male ants, they catch up on the colony news, shop, and meet their sister ants for lunch at local park picnics, where they delight in amusing small children by performing Busby Berkeley dance routines while stealing the potato chips.  Seriously, they could have so much more fun without the guy ants.

So there you have it, the world from the eyes of a bug.  I know it's not much to offer, but hey, I don't get paid for doing this, and actually, since we don't live very long, I'll be lucky if I'm still here in August, assuming I don't get squashed, poisoned or eaten by some foolish predatory bird.

Enjoy your summer, my human friends, and give what I've said some thought the next time you're hanging out on the deck. That voice you hear from above, lulling you peacefully to sleep, just might be mine.

Oh, by the way, the ratio is now 148,796,293 to 1.

Would You Like Fries With That?

Time has forced me to come clean.  I am hopelessly addicted to french fries.  Yes, the same person who loves martinis and city dining has a weakness.  You're going to find out sooner or later.

I had my regular annual physical the other day, and all the cholesterol and fat numbers look okay, but deep down, I know that I eat too many french fries.  It's not anything intentional, but rather a habit.  My wife says that she saves up her fries allotment for places that really prepare them well, but I cannot claim such purity; rather, I am trashy when it comes to pommes frites.  I don't exhibit good behavior around them.  And apparently, neither do many other people -- according to a recent study, the average American eats about sixteen pounds of french fries per year.

As an example of how bad I can be about this, my friend Tanya and I sat down yesterday to have lunch at Taco Mac, one of our favorite local establishments.  Since neither of us figured that we needed "all the calories", we decided to split a burger.  Let me just say that up until this point, our intentions had been very good.  However, I ordered a small basket of fries, because as I said, I'm bad like that.  When the order arrived, not only did we each have half a burger and this shared basket of fries, but fries had also been added to each plate.  If each fry had represented a person, we would have had the population of Shanghai between us.  But did we complain?  I think not.

Here in the United States, we are generally offered fries as an accompaniment to (sometimes) otherwise healthy meals.  A chicken caesar salad wrap, say, will come with fries on the side.  Yes, you have the right idea with the salad thing, but the fries take you over the top.  I have a tiny bit of willpower when it comes to fries, but I will admit to none when it comes to fries from any of the following establishments:

• McDonald's
• Chick-fil-A
• Bojangles

Let us examine each of these in turn.

McDonald's is arguably the king of french fry production and consumption worldwide.  I believe that the pairing of a Quarter Pounder or a Big Mac with Mickey D's golden russet fries is probably a divine inspiration.  People have been known to lose their minds over a craving for McD's french fries.  I once knew a girl who would quite literally go into spasms unless they could be produced for her on demand.  Otherwise sensible people wax prosaic about the fries and become violent unless their craving can be satisfied.  I have seen this happen, although I will not divulge any names.  Some of them are probably reading this blog entry.

Chick-fil-A produces an exquisite form of waffle fries, which are typically models of crispy perfection.  Yes, you may opt for the grilled chicken over the fried chicken, but nine times out of ten, I'll bet you choose the waffle fries as your "side".  Come on, let's face it, they're not a "side", they're the core of the meal.  And Chick-fil-A is closed on Sundays, which gives the entire chain a validation of sorts.

The seasoned french fries of Bojangles, a regional chain quite popular in the Carolinas, are remarkable in that they contain trace amounts of addictive narcotic substances, or so it seems.  Bojangles' fries are sliced into beautiful, svelte hunks of potato, then sprinkled with a seasoning that is so good it can be bought online.  Bojangles is the perfect accompaniment to a day at Myrtle Beach, an ideal companion to beer drinking while watching people dance to beach music.

A few years ago, I went on a serious diet, and I was forced to forego fries for many fortnights.  After a time, I found that I could substitute other foods without too much anxiety, so I know that going fryless is possible.  I did learn from my diet that compensation is in order when fries are consumed -- if I've had a heavy meal with fries at lunch, I'll typically have a light dinner, sometimes even a salad.  But I find that within a few days, I'm craving fries. 

I need to get better about this.  The first step is admitting you have a problem.  I have a problem.  :)