mychai's Diaryland Diary ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- From St. Louis to Chicago: Day 1 of my trip Ok. I said there is one thing you can bank on with Amtrak: That they are hardly ever on time. Can I expand that to two things? Yes? Ok, I will. The first thing, as we have covered, is that they never arrive to their destinations on time. I read somewhere once that the train tardiness in Japan can be measured in seconds... for the entire year. But, like my friend Mike points out, if we funneled as much money in Amtrak as the Japanese do their train system, we would maybe have more accurate train schedules. Granted, my train was only about fifteen minutes late arriving in Chicago today. No big whoop. I can stand being fifteen minutes tardy in exchange for not paying a few hundred dollars more in taxes per year. The second thing you can count on consistantly when you ride Amtrak are the extremely rude conductors that constantly pace back and forth along the train as if it was their own personal Alcatraz. They are in no way committed to being cheerful, sunshiny, and in a good, positive mindset. In fact, I got the distinct impression today that my presence about ruined their day. Case in point: I brought along a few of those mini boxes of cereal so I wouldn't have to pay $6 for the same amount of cereal on the train. Mine cost about $2 for the whole package of small boxes of cereal. Call me cheap. Call me frugal. Call me for dinner. But you can't call me a fool for giving Amtrack $5.75 for a 25� box of cereal. It was about 7:45 when I decided I wanted breakfast -- about three hours into my journey. I didn't know if the cafe car had opened. No announcements had been made. So, I waited until the Amtrak dude came along and I asked him when the cafe car was to open. "It already is open. In fact, it's been open since we left ST. LOUIS." Dude. Step off. Then I had the pleasure of dealing with Puff Cafe-Car Diddy. Or Snoop Cafe-Car Dawg. I think you get the drift of what this guy looked like. And I think I ruined his day too by asking him for a milk. He dizzidn't wizzant to hizzelp mizzee. In fact, the first time I walked back for milk -- and I am not jizzoking here -- he was sound asleep in the cafe car! No lie! Amtrak may take you from Point A to Point B. And that's just about it. I received a LOT of messages on my phone today via this link, which was totally great. If I could mail you back via my cell phone, I would. But that 1) would be too costly, and 2) would take too long to write everyone back a quick email. But please... I am on the train tomorrow from 9:45am to 11:30pm. It is going to be a long, long day. Please just take a second and send me a quick note to say hi, that you love me, that you will be sending me boobie pics to my email address, and that you wish you could be on the train as well. How about everyone send me a condensed version of the weirdest news story you can find. I will judge the top two or three stories and will give mention to those that cracks me up or weirds me out the most. Yay! A contest to keep me entertained on my trip! I am meeting Nicole for the first time tomorrow night. This is a little weird, but exciting at the same time. This is the girl with whom I will be sharing pretty much every second of my life with for the next two weeks at least! For my sake, I hope we instantly hit it off and get along great. She's an Ivy League girl with lots of brains and smarts. I generally get along great with someone who can think themselves through a half decent conversation. So, it shouldn't be a problem. But for all of your sakes, we could maybe instantly hate each other and spend the entire two weeks thinking of the absolute worst things to write about one another. That would be fun reading, now wouldn't it?! I am actually using a typewriter I can work with tonight. In fact, I am at my friend JR's house. We grew up together, living just a few streets away from one another. I remember going to his dinosaur-themed birthday parties, and he came to my "sit outside and eat watermelon" themed birthday parties. One memory that always cracks us up is when we were playing baseball in his back yard. One of us was pitching and the other hitting the ball. It was just the two of us, so you can imagine how many "ghost players" we had at each base. Anyway, one of us -- I can't remember -- pitched the ball and instead of getting knocked out of the playing field (his back yard), it flew through one of the windows of his house. Now, I was a little wimpy Anyway, that's a good story between us. JP's a wimp. JP the Wuss-Hearted. Le Jon-Paul. My bud just came in and this is what he said: You got me upset for some reason, and I threw the baseball at you. You ducked, and therefore were no longer in the way. The window was, and it knocked out the window. You turned around, took one look at the broken window, and ran home. You were good at being here for fun, but you didn't want to stay for the consequences. I was so mad at you because I had to do extra chores to pay for the window. I was more mad at you for ducking than for running away! Isn't he funny. But he is now a software writer for a company that produces games for Microsoft. Have you ever heard of the games "NBA Inside Drive 2002" and "NBA Inside Drive 2003". If you have these games, look in the credits for JR Scally. He's there. And the absolute neatest thing is that, since he programmed it, he is actually in it. Type in a secret code, and his character is released. It looks a lot like him, too. Wanna see? Good. Isn't that just the neatest thing! He just pointed out that we've known each other for 20 years. Some of you reading this that I converse with quite regularly haven't even been alive as long as we've known each other. Well, I am signing off now. JR has to take me back to the hostel, where I am rooming with three mates from London who are quite talented and proficient with their usage of the 'F' word. The neat thing is, when a Londoner says that word, it just sounds polite and proper. When an American says it, you just want to slap them. Yeah, yeah. Guilty as charged, but I'll be the first to admit that I need a slapping every now and then. For all kinds of reasons. I may or may not update tomorrow night. Depends how well I get along with Nicole. This is when the trip takes a very interesting twist. Just like the war coming up... nobody knows just how smoothly and casualty free this meeting of minds will go. 9:31 p.m. - Tues., Mar. 18, 2003 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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