Hit the Highway

Mornin', folks!

Your way? No way
You'll do it my way
Or hit the highway
- The Proclaimers

It's quite possible that I shouldn't post this, as it's quite likely that one person (Father Time) will see it prematurely, but I fear not such danger. Within two hours, I will hit the highway on my way back to Hometown for roughly one week. I'll be seeing such great folks as Mormon Buddha, delivering Father Time's 68th birthday present, delivering Gus and St. Jen's wedding gift (according to wedding etiquette, I still have five months before it's considered late!), and I think there's some more.

Meanwhile, in the news, a group of Muslim foreign ministers claim that Islamophobia is the worst form of terrorism, while the Taliban is telling Pakistani Christians to convert or die.

I'm hoping that my week off will give me an opportunity to do some work and get a TDG up there; perhaps I can leave that up while I'm gone and give an inordinately long amount of time for completion and submission of answers. In the mean time, I'm running quite far behind on my preparatory work, and must submit this. Expect light and intermittent blogging during the coming week, but keep checking back for a couple of surprises along the way.

Si vis pacem, para bellum,

The Fly
Bloggerus Excellentus Maximus

UPDATE: I have made it to Gus and St. Jen's place unscathed, after a drive that ended up being far longer than is truly reasonable. There were some dark, wet, fast instances on the Interstate that I could have done without, but it's currently 01:48 and I remain alert more than half an hour after my arrival.

I think that in one way or another, my occasional road trips ought to be chronicled in a way similar to the Western Diary entries by Dr. Bill Long, a professor at Willamette University in Salem, Oregon. I stumbled upon his site a couple of weeks ago, during my first experiences with Wikimapia; I was searching (unsuccessfully) for Pine Mountain Observatory, a place I visited once as a very young teenager and once as a very young man. At any rate, when Dr. Long takes a road trip, he tends to take obscure and austere routes, and then writes about them. While I have no intention of being as prolific as he appears to be, I think there are a few bits and pieces I could write about.

For example, south of Bishop and north of Lone Pine on U.S. Highway 395 I saw (for the second time, but forgot to look it up in October) the Owens Valley Radio Observatory from a distance. Not surprisingly, it reminded me of Goldstone Deep Space Communications Complex for obvious reasons. That was but one of several noteworthy items; one of the others is the consistently horrible driving conditions in Washoe County, Nevada (which contains Reno and Carson City).

Speaking of Reno (and then I need to get some sleep), when I was in Carson City I text-messaged Gus and informed him that I was south of Reno; I told him that I'd just witnessed Dangle and Junior beating a street performer while Jones and Garcia thumb-wrestled for dibs on his guitar. This, of course, was a reference to Reno 911!; the further irony is that Gus is, in fact, a cop.

At any rate, I need some rest; if you get bored in the mean time, Father Time is at it again, poking fun at your friendly neighborhood Super Fly. Once you're done having a laugh at my expense, be sure to scroll down to the next post; Father Time has posted a tribute to his recently deceased mother-in-law, Cleo, who I had the privilege of meeting a number of times. She was a wonderful lady, and the post is deserving of attention.

Bellum, wankers.