dennis yang dot com

well… i started my new job today at Techdirt.. Whoopee! busy busy busy day — it’s exciting to start a new job..

Whoohoo. finally made it back to san francisco… i blew out a tire about 30 miles outside of bakersfield, which kind of sucked, but at least it didn’t happen in the middle of oklahoma..

I did actually end up driving all the way up to Guymon, OK — the little tiny panhandle bit of Oklahoma — to see what was up there. Turns out.. there’s nothing. But I did get to cross the Oklahoma-New Mexico border — which I believe is something that only a small handful of people accomplish. Wahoo. Not that it’s actually *that* exciting, but hey, I did it.

So yah… somewhere in Arizona, I looked at my rear tires and noticed they were completely bald — I did notice that the car felt a little squirrely lately, but I just dismissed it and hoped that I would be able to make it home on the bald tires. No rain in the forecast, so i figured it’d be ok to drive on slicks, right? Well… the right rear tired decided to give up, so it blew up. This is the third tire I’ve blown out (1st on this car though) — I think I’m either not good at rotating my tires regularly, or I drive too hard…

So… I also made a movie of the roadtrip with some of the video footage I took.. I have a higher resolution one, but I don’t have anywhere to host the 50mb file.. maybe I’ll torrent it or something… It captures over 5,000 miles of driving in a little over 3 minutes…

After a delicious breakfast of beignets and cafe au lait with Kim and Korby, I left New Orleans this morning…

I spent most of the day driving the Mississippi river trail through western Mississippi. The route cuts through rolling hills and several small towns with gorgeous antebellum homes.. I stopped into a house in Natchez, chatted with some very friendly Mississippi folk (southern hospitality and all) and bought a jar of Mayhaw (plum-like) jam. Port Gibson was proclaimed by General Grant as a town “too pretty to burn” — something that the town now prominently displays on their welcome sign.. And yes, Port Gibson was quite nice..

At Vicksburg, I toured the Vicksburg National Military Park — I really didn’t do any background research on the area, so I was happy to have stumbled on what (upon looking into it now) appears to be an important site for the area.. I remember visiting Gettysburg when I was a kid, and Vicksburg was similar — a plot of land marked with monuments, signs, and cannons.

After Vicksburg, I hightailed it up to Greenville, MS — the birthplace of Jim Henson, but I arrived too late to see the tourist trap thing. I then crossed the border to Arkansas from Mississippi and drove across the state to Hot Springs, AK — the childhood home of Bill Clinton…

Tomorrow.. tour Hot Springs, check out Clinton Memorabilia, and drive to Hooker, OK.

New Orleans.. The Big Easy… I haven’t been here since I was a kid, and honestly, I don’t remember that much from that trip, so it all feels very new. Kim is here on a business trip, so Korby and I get to stay with her here at the W in the french quarter, which is very nice..

New Orleans feels like a big playground for drunken adults — you can drink anywhere as long as your drink is in a plastic cup. There are tons of “to go” bars that sell hurricanes and test tube shots (tooters) for a few bucks. To accompany the omnipresence of alcohol, there are frequent puddles of vomit all over the sidewalk. Fun, fun, fun!

We drove down to the southernmost tip of Louisiana today — Venice, LA.. You would think with a name like Venice that there would be some sort of canal system or maybe even some touristy stuff.. Well, at least there was a sign. It wasn’t nearly as scenic as we thought it was going to be, but we DID get to add two ferry rides to the journey down there.

On one of the Belle Chase ferry, the ferry got to the other side of the river, and before any cars disembarked, an ambulance pulled onto the ferry, full lights ablazing.. The ferry then immediately turned around and went back to the other side to drop off the ambulance, then turned back around to finish our journey.. I guess I’ve never thought about what emergency services did in the event of a ferry crossing, and now I know.

so i had crawfish for dinner tonight… I was mulling over what to have for dinner at this cajun place when a semi-attractive girl in really short shorts walked over from the other table and told me that I should definitely try the crawfish. I believe her exact sell was… “c’mon.. they’re like eating little bugs.”

So, as not to argue with the semi-attractive girl in really short shorts (and the fat dude whose tie was tucked into his shirt who also chimed in that I get the crawfish), I ordered the crawfish.

So I asked semi-attractive girl in really short shorts how exactly one was supposed to eat these crawfish, and since she had just piled 87 crawfish on to her plate, she stopped by our table and gave us a little demo.

Step One: twist off the crawfish tail
Step Two: pinch the tail on the top bit to loosen it up a bit
Step Three: yank out the tail meat
Step Four: remove the “poop” off the top of the tail
Step Five: eat. yum. throw out the rest of the crawfish.

It was quite a messy operation, and after happily devouring the tiny bit of meat that she had so delicately extracted, the semi-attractive girl in really short shorts gave me a quick smile and bounced back to her table, hands and arms dripping with cajun-spiced crawfish juice.

The amazing part about crawfish is how little edible meat you actually get from each one… Out of the three pound portion of crawfish that I devoured, I’d say I’d probably eaten about 1/4 pound of meat… That’s a lot of waste.. But.. it sure was tasty.

Now.. I only had my camera phone with me, so I only have a few pics… Korby took some with his camera, but he didn’t bring the uploady cable, so these pics will have to do for now..

Houston was a fairly uneventful city — it’s full of modern tall buildings and razed open lots — we didn’t really know where to go, although Korby was quite excited about seeing the new light rail system they have running down main street.. A man with a half-grown out mohawk noticed that we were tourists, armed with our cameras and the map book open wide… He chatted us up for a bit at the stop light and asked us why the hell we were in Houston. He didn’t seem too happy to be there.

So.. we left Houston, having not seen much, and headed for Galveston. There was a Carnival Fun Ship parked at the cruise ship harbor, so Galveston had a gaggle of old cruise ship tourists milling about. We went down to the main touristy section, “The Strand”, to try and find something to eat — but all that we found was shops selling t-shirts, knick knacks, and sundries to the cruise ship tourists. Aha.. since the cruise ship folk eat on the boat, I guess restaurants don’t do so well in that scenario.. So we had to walk down a bit further to find a place to eat. So yah, I got bored in Galveston, so I took a photo using the sepia setting on my camera to amuse myself.

Then.. wahoo! Free Ferry!! I mean.. honestly, is there anything better than driving your car on to a boat? The only thing cooler would be if they still had trains you could drive your car onto (I think the last one of those was in Seward, AK and it got converted into a tunnel.. BOO.)

Most of the houses built on the Gulf are built on stilts… I assume this is due to the flooding and hurricanes and stuff. Once in awhile, we did see a house that wasn’t built on stilts.. which made me wonder if the people living in the non-stilted house realized that when the place floods, they’re the only ones in the neighborhood whose crap is all wet. I mean… I hope they got a good deal on their non stilted house or maybe they just own all neoprene furniture or something.

I picked up korby at the austin airport, and we headed out to 6th street in Austin for a drink… We saw the r-bar.. and since the r-bar is a beloved institution back in SF, that’s where we headed…

We walk in, and the place is packed with a bunch of cute girls… and a TV crew… I took out my cameraphone and took a quick picture (it’s a really, really, really, really bad picture), after which some really muscular dude came up to me..

muscular man: “Sir, can you please not take pictures?”
me: “oh, um.. ok. what are you guys filming?”
muscular dude: “We’re making a documentary.”

A documentary?!?! Yah.. right! It’s the Real World 16.. in Austin. The hot girl is apparently Johanna, although I really thought the other chick in the white shirt with the long black hair was quite fetching as well… I doubt that korby or I actually got in the shot or anything, but that was quite exciting.. Wahoo.

Just so you know, in front of the camera was a bunch of cute people having quite a great time.. dancing, drinking, laughing.. behind the camera, there was just a room full of gawkers. That said, I always wondered how many people were behind the scenes of a real world shoot… It looked like there were about 6 or 7 real world cast members.. Supporting them, were 2 cameramen, 2 light people, 1 microphone dude, about 2 more dudes running around with earpieces, and the muscular dude. Oh, and 1 cop.

I’m still in Austin.. I spent most of the day here hanging out at jen and clayton’s house with their two very lively chocolate labs, charlie and oban..

It was cold and rainy all day.. like torrential downpours and stuff… So I really was quite unmotivated to leave the couch all day. I did manage to leave the house for lunch with my college roommate, brian.. We went to Ruby’s BBQ, where I had a delicious lunch of BBQ beef brisket served on a plastic tray covered with a big piece of wax paper. The potato salad they served with it was this mustardy and paprika-y… and i think the cole slaw was very curry-y. Kind of a strange combo, but it was tasty. Brian’s doing well.. he’s in his 3rd year at UT Austin studying to be a lawyer.

So.. it’s appropriate that I’m here in Texas today, since it’s Texas independence day.. Happy Texas independence day!! after the rains stopped, I toured around the state capitol for a bit…

Underneath the rotunda, there are seals for each of the nations that Texas has been under… there are five seals surrounding one large one in the middle.. The six are: Spain, France, Mexico, The Confederate States of America, The United States of America, and the Republic of Texas…

I found it interesting that the Republic of Texas is the central one… and not the United States of America.. Hmm.. Well, I guess it makes sense and is especially relevant since today, Texas Independent Day, celebrates the declaration of independence of the Republic of Texas from Mexico — not the day that Texas joined the USA or anything…

Anyway.. I just thought that was interesting…

Ok.. it’s almost time for me to pick up Korby from the airport… His flight gets in at 11:30pm, and then we’re gonna go hit some of the bars on 6th street and meet some nice UT Austin coeds.

I’ve made it all the way to Austin.. After staying the night in Van Horn, TX, I woke up and started the journey for Austin..

I had several choices, either book down the 10 to San Antonio to see the Alamo, head up to Odessa to visit the Odessa Meteor Crater, or go to Marfa to see the Chinati foundation — an art community founded by minimalist Donald Judd.. I drove down the highway, and after passing the exit for Marfa, something told me to turn around and head down to Marfa… I’m not sure why, but that’s what I did.

So the road to Marfa is a small two-lane road. I passed through small town after small town.. Valentine, TX: Population 201 was the only one I remembered.. Marfa was where the movie Giant was filmed, starring James Dean, I think. I’ve never seen it, so that particular detail wasn’t of much importance..

I stopped in Moonlight Gemstones, located right as you enter Marfa. I chatted with the nice guy who ran the store. He had a ton of gemstones but only one shelf of local agate — the rest was imported from all around the world. Even at the knick-knack store that accompanied “The Thing” yesterday, almost everything was imported (a lot from China)… you really had to scour the store to find something truly from the local area… The gemstone dude gave me directions to the Chinati foundation.. which was just up the road.

When I arrived at Chinati the parking lot was full of cars. Since the sign said that it was only open Wednesday through Sunday (and it was Tuesday), I thought that I was in luck.. But, I wasn’t. I walked in, and the friendly staff person told me that the grounds were only open by guided tour, and tours not being given today. Grr. But, I was allowed to go and look at Judd’s concrete blocks that were the first things at Chinati. I bought a t-shirt. It’s orange.

Wandering amongst huge blocks of concrete art somewhere in West Texas is something everyone should try once. I like it. Maybe since I’d just seen the gates in new york city, my brain has been primed for art appreciation. The concrete’s clean lines were a nice contrast to the thorny unkempt grounds of the abandoned military base. There were also several concrete troughs nearby — I’m not sure if Donald Judd put those there, but they didn’t seem out of place.

I passed a cute girl sitting on a concrete block near the Chinati office. She was reading something, but I imagine that she was more out there to bask in the midday sun than to actually read anything. I assumed that she worked or studyed here or something. We said hi to each other, and as I walked past her, I turned back and looked at her, she looked up and smiled back at me.. I got in my car and drove away.

The drive from Marfa to Austin took about 9 hours.. I spent much of those hours wondering why I didn’t talk to her.. hmm. oops.

Anyway… from Marfa, I drove to the McDonald Observatory… I love observatories, though I didn’t have time to stay for the tour and for the solar observation. I really wish that I was there at night — supposedly McDonald Observatory is the darkest observatory in the US. And, it’s one of the lowest in latitude (or is it latitude) so you can see many southern stars quite clearly.. it’s also the highest point of the texas highway system (at a whopping 6,791 feet!)

Continuing on with the journey through West Texas, I stopped in Ozona to check out the Davy Crockett Monument. It’s as exciting as you would imagine it to be.

So… on the drive to Austin, there are two ways you can go… you can either stay on 10 and head towards San Antonio, and then cut north on the 35… OR you can hop off the 10 and take route 290. It’s a classic roadtrip conundrum… which is faster, this longer, bigger highway, or the shorter, smaller road?

I looked at the map, and my gut was to take the shorter, smaller road, while my car’s GPS said to go via San Antonio (then again, my car also thought that downtown LA was near Long Beach). I called steph and had her consult the internet:

• Google said to take the shorter, more direct route with the small roads (195 miles – about 4 hours 8 mins)
• Yahoo! Maps says to go through San Antonio (238.3 miles – 4 hours 28 minutes)
• Mapquest says to take the 290 (196.65 miles – 3 hours, 53 minutes)

Hmmm… that’s odd.. when stephanie looked it up, mapquest supposedly said to take the San Antonio route… oh well, that’s not the point. The point is that Yahoo! Maps told me to take the longer bad route — and upon a non-scientific survey of the Austin folks, the 290 seems to be the preferred route. Yahoo! must be eating too much ice cream to give me good directions, I guess..

Anyway.. I took route 290 — I had inconclusive information (steph had told me that both Y! and MapQuest chose the San Antonio route) so I went with my gut at the last minute (I’m “thin-slicing” as Malcom Gladwell calls it).. It was ultimately the right decision. I got to catch an awesome sunset behind my car, saw a bunch of fields on fire (I hope that was intentional) and saw more small towns which I love. Good good.

Arriving in Austin, I met up with Jen and Clayton for dinner at the Texas Roadhouse.. Everything was BIG and the waitstaff kept hootin’ and hollerin’ for what seemed like everyone’s birthday.

The weirdest thing about Austin so far is the highway exits… Instead of on-ramps and off-ramps, they have these “access roads”. It’s a road that runs parallel to the highway — surface streets connect to the access road, and businesses even have storefronts right on the access road. It’s the strangest thing I’ve seen in traffic engineering since the New Jersey jughandle.. Except the jughandle seemed to make sense. The access roads seem to make things more confusing and dangerous…

And…. that’s it for day four.

greetings from van horn, texas.

I stayed at Lisa and Adam’s house in Tucson, and in the morning, Lisa and I went to check out Biosphere 2… Remember Biosphere 2?? It was that huge sealed greenhouse building built back in the 90′s that housed a bunch of scientists for 2 years.. All I remember was that there was one dude who was bald. Anyway, I don’t think anyone knows that it’s still around, so I figured I’d pay it a visit.

The biosphere 2 was rated as the #3 top engineering marvel as listed by some TLC special that they showed prior to us “going under the glass”.. It’s pretty cool, actually.. When we first walked in, we were in the rainforest section — it was SUPER humid and hot.. the camera lenses kept fogging up… we wandered around the place with the tour guides for a bit.. to the desert, the ocean, and then through these long tunnels into a huge rubber bladder filled room (freudian?).. the rubber bladder serves as the “lungs” for the biosphere so that in the summer, when it gets to be 110 degrees in Tucson, the biosphere 2 doesn’t explode. The tour guide, Claudio, was quite surly… He mentioned several times that the biosphere 2 is for sale in some sort of undistiguishably pompous european accent.. My favorite exchange was:

Pasty White Tourist: “So.. when you guys created this place…”
Claudio: Interrupting “Ahem… not created.. BUILT.”
Pasty White Tourist: “Oh.. um.. ok.. built…”

Afterwards, we had lunch at El Charro (in the RoadFood book) and I accompanied Lisa to go and sign some papers for the house that she and Adam just bought today (congrats!!!)..

One of my headlights burnt out, so we went to the auto parts store and I bought a pair of “superwhite” lights… Well.. I was originally going to just buy one replacement bulb, but then the sign in the store said:

“Remember to replace your headlights BEFORE they burn out and in PAIRS”.

Hmm.. I think I’ve been tricked by some clever marketing wonk.. who the hell replaces a light BEFORE it burns out?!?! Oh.. I guess that would be me. Marketing Guy: 1, Dennis: 0. I promise I’m not the one responding to the spam emails. Honest.

Anyway.. I hit the road again… I decided to skip Roswell cuz it’s too far, and since White Sands is closed for missile testing (though… on second thought.. maybe THAT would be fun to see)..

Once you get out of Tucson, there are a ton of billboards advertising “The Thing”… I had to stop. As korby texted me, “The Thing” is known as the Taj Mahal of Tackiness… And.. there was a nice amish family there to see “The Thing” too. So, I couldn’t justify not spending the dollar to see “The Thing”.. What is “The Thing”? Well.. that’s between me and the nice amish family… but yah.. it was only a dollar.

So, I’m somewhere in west Texas. I was going to stop in El Paso, but nothing looked really appealing, so I just kept on driving… and here I am.

AND.. I just crossed over the Central Timezone line so I lost another hour.. crap. I should get some sleep.. Tomorrow.. Austin.