Day 4, Tuesday, May 5th

Dad and I spent the morning playing with his computer and trying to hook it up to their big screen TV in both the house and the RV. We player around with it for a couple of hours, trying it in RGB, Composite and S-Video modes. It was fun.

We went to lunch with Aunt Judy and her grand daughter Hailey (this is the correct spelling of her name). Lunch was at The Beef House and was a buffet of beef. The food was alright but not as good as everyone made it out to be.

Hailey decided that she had to play a trick on her Mom who was at work and spent the next three hours coming up with plans about how we would all hide when her Mom came to get her. Dad and I played around with the RV and tried to get the satellite internet to work. We did that until after Kelly came to get Hailey (and spoiled the trick by calling as soon as we weren’t where she expected us to be and was too busy to play along) with no luck. Either the receiver is broken or the trees across the street were blocking our signal, even though we moved to try and avoid them.

I caught up on some internetting and had a nice long talk with the people back at home. Mom made delicious split-pea soup and and we watched The Mentallist which was quite good. I did laundry in there as well and after the show I packed and went to bed.

I almost forgot: We also did Mother’s Day that evening and Mom loved her dancing Tigger phone.

Day 5, Wednesday, May 6th -- Morning

We all got up early and drove into Champaign, IL to catch the train. We stopped by Cracker Barrel for breakfast because it’s my parents’ favorite breakfast place. Once again, it was okay but nothing special. The had one of those block-of-wood and golf tee puzzles that I spent much of the time trying to beat, and finally I did with some help from my Mom.

We got to the train station early only to find out that it was running 45 minutes late. I only have a two hour layover in Chicago before going to Kalamazoo, so I’ll still make it. Mom and Dad stayed with me to see me off and we had a bit of trouble coming up with things to talk about around CNN playing on the TV and food comas kicking in.

I’m on the train right now as I type this, going through perfectly flat countryside. The skies are a threatening-to-rain-grey and the temperature is that perfectly-annoying too warm for long-sleeves, but too cool for short-sleeves.

Out the window of my train I get great views of junkyards, grain silos, abandoned factory complexes and brown fields. An interstate parallels us in the distance and our speed seems comparable to that of the semis, so we must be going about 55.

This train is a small 5-car commuter train mostly filled with young urbanites traveling alone with laptops and small suitcases. That’s a big difference from the train to Champaign, which was the New Orleans express. That one had been young and middle-age people, about 50/50 traveling alone or in family groups, many with young children. They were pretty obviously choosing the overnight train to New Orleans or other points south for economic reasons.

Vacation Day 5, Kalamazoo Day 1 - Wednesday, May 6th -- Afternoon

I got into Chicago about 50 minutes late. I popped up out of the station so I could get cell service and called home, talking to Chris for about a half an hour. By that time, the train to Michigan should have been boarding, so I cut my conversation short and went back downstairs to get on the train.

Except just as I came down, they announced that there were technical difficulties and the train would be late departing. A fifteen minute delay stretched into an hour.

I sat down to wait and picked out a new book to read, Hesiod’s Works and Days. I expected just to read a few pages of introduction before boarding, but as the delay got longer, I read more and I have to say that this edition has one of the most interesting introductions to a book that I have ever read. It talked quite a bit about peasant agriculture (and had references to other books on the topics), albeit 8th Century BC peasant agriculture, and I will post about those things in my Living History blog.

So when they finally announced that the train was on its way to the station from the repair yard to the station, I stayed in my seat and kept reading, while the rest of the waiting room formed a line in front of the gate. By the time I noticed what was happening the line snaked back-and-forth across the room three times. I was dismayed, but figured there was no point in getting up now, I would just join the end of the line as it started moving.

They announced that the train was here and that they would start boarding Business Class first. I jumped up, excited. I had Business Class tickets. They had been $15 more for the round trip tickets and had promised seat with 120 volt plugs, and I figured it would be worth it to have power for the laptop. But score!

I stuffed my book in my bag and hurried over to the gate. It was pretty funny. I was way more excited than I should have been. I stumbled trying to get there. I tried to duck under the rope they had strung across the gate while the ticket person was opening it for me. Then I fumbled around for quite a while trying to find my ticket, all the while the coach ticket holders were glaring at me. I must have looked quite the fool.

Business Class was very comfortable with wide leather chairs and extra leg space. The other people there were quiet and professional. The man sitting across the aisle seemed important and at one point was telling someone over the phone he wasn’t going to hire a guy just because he used to be a Senator, that he had to be able to fund raise. I finished reading the intro to Hesiod and some of the actual poem, and then worked on an outline for my next big project. It went well.

We arrived in Kalamazoo at about 7:30 pm (back in Eastern Time). I was hoping to share a taxi with someone (because I’m cheap) and found two younger guys (20-somethings) getting directions from a local. I hooked up with them and we found a minivan taxi. The driver filed up the van with three more people and we headed off to the university.

Only one of the six of us had been here before. She was an American living in Dublin and had with her another man from Ireland. One guy was from LA, another from Austin, the other woman was from Boston and me from Seattle made for a pretty diverse group. The taxi cost up each $2. That was a good deal.

Registration was smooth and organized and operated like any other convention I’ve been to. I found my room which is pretty minimal and took some pictures, but those will have to wait. As it turned out, I should have eaten on the train but I didn’t because I figured that there would be plenty to eat here. What there was close by had already closed, so I headed off to the student union to find a Subway, which was the closest thing to eat. But it was closed.

So I found a pizzeria a few blocks further down and had my third pizza of the trip. Not the best, not the worst, but the highlight was that the guy behind the counter actually hand kneaded the dough and threw it in the air. I haven’t seen that in a long time.

After dinner I came back and tried to get hooked up to the campus wireless network. I teamed up with three or four people as we tried to get it to work and we all eventually gave up. It was giving us and error that we couldn’t get around and we all decided that it was their problem, not ours, so we have to wait for them to fix it.

I got ready for bed around 10:00 pm and had to make the bed. The blanket they provided was much to small to fit the bed, but it was warm enough I didn’t need it, even with the window open.

I had trouble getting to sleep. There were a lot of noises, but I’m pretty sure I was out by 11:00 pm. My neighbor across the bathroom arrived in the night, but I didn’t hear him.

I woke up at 5:00 am, and hour before my alarm went off. There is still no internet so I decided to catch up here. I don’t know when I’ll post this, hopefully this afternoon. There are sounds of a few other people awake on this floor, so I think I’ll get a shower and go off in search of coffee.

Addendum:

So the dorm room I’m in is a double room -- there are two beds -- but when I got here there was only enough bed linen for one bed. So I assume I have the room to myself. My room shares a bathroom -- 2 sinks, a toilet and a tiny shower -- with another room just like mine. It was open last night when I got here and I poked my head in. It also, had only one bed’s worth of linen.

So when I went to get my shower, I could hear snoring through the door. By the time the shower was over, I couldn’t hear the snoring. As I was leaving the bathroom, I dropped my coffee mug which I had with me to clean. It bounced once on the hard tile floor, made a huge racket and then landed right on my big toe. Ow ow ow! Sorry, neighbor.