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Home after a road trip
Dec. 3rd, 2013 09:49We just got home from a five day road trip to Grand Rapids, Michigan, for the annual regional Irish dance competition Oireachtas (pronounced Oh - rock - tuhz). It's pretty much like any feis, only bigger, and the level of competition is much higher than usual. If you medal at Oireachtas, the next step is Nationals (held in Canada), then Worlds (held in London.) That's much simplified, and to be honest I'm not really sure how the process works.
The field of competition was quite large - the under 12 team competition had thirty-seven teams, and there were about four thousand dancers overall. The Driscoll school placed at twenty-ninth, which for a first Oireachtas is respectable. I would have been shocked if they'd been in the top third, had they qualified for Nationals I'm not sure I would have survived the trauma. Jami competed with an individual dance; he didn't place, but we're not worried about it. With more than a hundred other people around his age, we wanted him to dance and be comfortable with it. He's a natural on the stage, completely at ease. Katie competed against eighty-seven other people. I'm proud of them both.
I'll admit to being relieved at where they landed. Just getting to Oireachtas was expensive enough - even with help, we'll be a while recovering from that - Nationals or Worlds would bankrupt us.
We stayed at the Amway Grand, which is connected to several other buildings by Skywalk. It's a huge facility, about a half mile from the hotel to the venue, so we did lots of walking. My legs and feet still sore.
Because it's Amway, the founders' pictures and names are everywhere in Grand Rapids, and particularly in the hotel and arena. Because I got burned by Amway in the early 90's (more info here, here, and here, if you're interested), it felt a little like settling down in enemy territory. I concentrated on getting through the event, which was work enough.
I like to travel with my family. I get tired of driving, to be sure, but we try hard to find "joy in the journey." I'll pull off onto some side road if something catches my eye and we'll explore if we have time. We found Sterling Price in Keytesville, and a pair of the smallest "I" houses I've ever seen - only one room wide - in some town whose name I can't remember. We try to avoid interstate highways. One of our side-trips kept us within just a few hundred feet of Lake Michigan for nearly ten miles. Joy in the journey.
I've found the more expensive a hotel is, the more uncomfortable I become. I don't like having people do things for me, and I very quickly grow tired of tipping. We avoided letting any member of the staff do anything we could do for ourselves. When we left, I took a half dozen, 1/4 mile trips to the parking garage to load the van without a cart: getting a cart would have meant having it delivered by a bellman, and I didn't want to lay out one more tip just to pay the guy for showing up.
We made the trip out in three days of light driving, the trip home in one. As far as my office knew I was on the road yesterday (Monday), so I took the day off. Later this week the weather is supposed to turn unpleasant, so I took advantage of the fine weather to give some long-overdue attention around the property: the yard has been cleaned of leaves and debris; gutters blown out (leaf blower ftw!); chicken coop mucked out; the oil in the van is changed; and both vehicles have winter wiper blades on.
On the trip, I also grew desperately tired of restaurant food. I measure the success of a restaurant meal by one simple criteria: is it better than what I can make for myself at home? Ninety percent of the time, I'd say, the answer is "no." (Major exception: Indian food. Haven't yet mastered the curry.) The most expensive restaurant we went to - Michelle and I decided to treat ourselves - was a major disappointment. Not only not better than what I could do, but much worse. I didn't say so at the time, but I wanted to go back in the kitchen, slap him in the head, and show him how to make his dish. (Pro-tip: calling it a "garlic aeoli" implies something more than mixing pre-minced garlic into Hellman's.)
Last night, with me cooking: Kansas City strip, seasoned simply, for me and Michelle; chicken marinated in a balsamic/orange vinaigrette for the kids; over roasted new potatoes with herbs, kosher salt, and olive oil. Take that, expensive-restaurant asshole-chef.
With a strong desire to Do Things after five days of (mostly) sitting, I also did four dye jobs so that I can fill a tights order this week.
Next weekend, I'll spend the time I'm not working on videos for the schools on expanding the chicken run. We can't let them out all day anymore: they wander and one of our neighbors is just asshole enough to call the city about it. If we give them a few hours in the afternoon until sunset they stay in the yard, but that means they're in the run the rest of the time. Small as it is, that's not terrifically healthy for them. They get irritable and bored and take it out on each other: once a chicken draws blood, the victim is further bullied, sometimes to death. A little more room would help alleviate some of that tension.
(By the way, the little cross-posting blurb says to comment over on Dreamwidth, but I check both accounts, so comment anywhere you want.)
The field of competition was quite large - the under 12 team competition had thirty-seven teams, and there were about four thousand dancers overall. The Driscoll school placed at twenty-ninth, which for a first Oireachtas is respectable. I would have been shocked if they'd been in the top third, had they qualified for Nationals I'm not sure I would have survived the trauma. Jami competed with an individual dance; he didn't place, but we're not worried about it. With more than a hundred other people around his age, we wanted him to dance and be comfortable with it. He's a natural on the stage, completely at ease. Katie competed against eighty-seven other people. I'm proud of them both.
I'll admit to being relieved at where they landed. Just getting to Oireachtas was expensive enough - even with help, we'll be a while recovering from that - Nationals or Worlds would bankrupt us.
We stayed at the Amway Grand, which is connected to several other buildings by Skywalk. It's a huge facility, about a half mile from the hotel to the venue, so we did lots of walking. My legs and feet still sore.
Because it's Amway, the founders' pictures and names are everywhere in Grand Rapids, and particularly in the hotel and arena. Because I got burned by Amway in the early 90's (more info here, here, and here, if you're interested), it felt a little like settling down in enemy territory. I concentrated on getting through the event, which was work enough.
I like to travel with my family. I get tired of driving, to be sure, but we try hard to find "joy in the journey." I'll pull off onto some side road if something catches my eye and we'll explore if we have time. We found Sterling Price in Keytesville, and a pair of the smallest "I" houses I've ever seen - only one room wide - in some town whose name I can't remember. We try to avoid interstate highways. One of our side-trips kept us within just a few hundred feet of Lake Michigan for nearly ten miles. Joy in the journey.
I've found the more expensive a hotel is, the more uncomfortable I become. I don't like having people do things for me, and I very quickly grow tired of tipping. We avoided letting any member of the staff do anything we could do for ourselves. When we left, I took a half dozen, 1/4 mile trips to the parking garage to load the van without a cart: getting a cart would have meant having it delivered by a bellman, and I didn't want to lay out one more tip just to pay the guy for showing up.
We made the trip out in three days of light driving, the trip home in one. As far as my office knew I was on the road yesterday (Monday), so I took the day off. Later this week the weather is supposed to turn unpleasant, so I took advantage of the fine weather to give some long-overdue attention around the property: the yard has been cleaned of leaves and debris; gutters blown out (leaf blower ftw!); chicken coop mucked out; the oil in the van is changed; and both vehicles have winter wiper blades on.
On the trip, I also grew desperately tired of restaurant food. I measure the success of a restaurant meal by one simple criteria: is it better than what I can make for myself at home? Ninety percent of the time, I'd say, the answer is "no." (Major exception: Indian food. Haven't yet mastered the curry.) The most expensive restaurant we went to - Michelle and I decided to treat ourselves - was a major disappointment. Not only not better than what I could do, but much worse. I didn't say so at the time, but I wanted to go back in the kitchen, slap him in the head, and show him how to make his dish. (Pro-tip: calling it a "garlic aeoli" implies something more than mixing pre-minced garlic into Hellman's.)
Last night, with me cooking: Kansas City strip, seasoned simply, for me and Michelle; chicken marinated in a balsamic/orange vinaigrette for the kids; over roasted new potatoes with herbs, kosher salt, and olive oil. Take that, expensive-restaurant asshole-chef.
With a strong desire to Do Things after five days of (mostly) sitting, I also did four dye jobs so that I can fill a tights order this week.
Next weekend, I'll spend the time I'm not working on videos for the schools on expanding the chicken run. We can't let them out all day anymore: they wander and one of our neighbors is just asshole enough to call the city about it. If we give them a few hours in the afternoon until sunset they stay in the yard, but that means they're in the run the rest of the time. Small as it is, that's not terrifically healthy for them. They get irritable and bored and take it out on each other: once a chicken draws blood, the victim is further bullied, sometimes to death. A little more room would help alleviate some of that tension.
(By the way, the little cross-posting blurb says to comment over on Dreamwidth, but I check both accounts, so comment anywhere you want.)