Fail-Safe Operation

I stayed in Joplin last night and the notable event of the day was that a man walked into a church and killed three people in nearby Neosho. Earlier yesterday, while driving in a spaghetti bowl of highway ramps near the arch in St. Louis, my car momentarily lost power. It felt like it went into "park" for a second or two. I was jerked aginst the seat belt. By the time I worked my way to an exit on the southside of town I had power back. It was 103 degrees outside. I went to a bunch of parts stores and a Jiffy Lube and the consensus was this: the fluid level got too low in the radiator, so the sensor in the coolant tank tripped the car into "fail-safe operation" mode to protect the engine from overheating and blowing the head gasket. I had the radiator serviced and was back on the road. Cutting out power to the engine without warning seems like a drastic measure. But I guess they have a reason for it. It was 104 today as I crossed the entire state of Oklahoma. I'm not a big fan of the Oklahoma turnpike. Their toll and ticketing system is inane. The best dinner I could find tonight in Amarillo was Sonic Drive-In (salad). The hotel doesn't have the Animal Planet channel so I don't get to watch Meerkat Manor on my last night with TV for a long time. I'm ready to go home now.

Terre Haute, IN

Exhibit 1: There are at least three things wrong with this picture. It captures the weirdness of Terre Haute perfectly:

1. The name of the business is "Crapo Insurance Agency"
2. The initals are CiA - like they're so unique with the lower-case "i"
3. It's a branch of the Erie Insurance group

Exhibit 2: Square donuts is sooo Homer Simspon. If it weren't for the almost-perfect coffee shop with a library reading room setup I would discount Terre Haute entirely.

Goodbye Erie

After four days of rain we had a stunning sunset tonight at the beach. I'll miss Sara's onion rings the most. I'll also miss water. Luckily El Paso is getting flooded again so I won't miss it too much.

We had a nice goodbye lunch out at a Dominican restaurant today (Rosa's Legacy) - about 25 interns showed up in all and they were slammed.

This is my favorite place in Erie: the public library reading room looking out over the Brig Niagara.

There's a few things I'm saving for next summer in Erie:

1. Getting in a boat - any boat
2. Swimming in Lake Erie
3. Checking out Perry's Monument and the lighthouses
4. Going to the Erie Book Store in the mill apartments downtown
5. Driving through the grape fields in North East
6. Seeing Lucille Ball's hometown of Jamestown, NY
7. Renting a bike, kayak, boogie board, and roller blades at Presque Isle
8. Trying the coffee at Romolo chocolates
9. Going to a drive-in movie in Corry
10. Trying the Gelato at the Italian place on Cherry south of 12th street
11. Eating at Pie in the Sky
12. Going to a show at Forward Hall
13. Movies at the Aboretum in Frontier Park

These are a few thing I enjoyed this summer in Erie:

1. Reading to kids on lunch break at the Neighborhood Art Center (the Phantom Tollbooth)
2. Going to an Erie Seawolves game
3. Hiking at Erie Bluffs and enjoying jazz at the Colony Pub afterwards with Gregg
4. Working at the Edinboro bike race finish line
5. Eating the baked brie appetizer at Pufferbelly
6. Drinking gimme! coffee at the 10th Street Cafe with a 4-inch veggie sandwich
7. Grilling veggies at Mercyhurst
8. Walking barefoot at the beach
9. Driving through Amish country with Josh and a gazeteer
10. Liberty Park free concerts
11. Services at the chapel at Mercyhurst (especially the music)
12. All the nice people I met!

Done That!

Check me out in the Erie Times News today!
Done That! For Summer Students its a Job and a Class

Erie Art Museum Blues and Jazz Festival

I failed to catch it in this image, but the Erie Blues and Jazz festival-goers are tent professionals. The giant tents with BBQ grills, carpets, and lounge chairs set up all around the perimeter of this free concert were impressive. Apparently the Museum might starting to charge rent for the best tent spots at next year's fest, which drew cries of "Foul!" and "Yuppies!" in the Erie blogosphere. The rain parted and the music came out. Real jazz is not very easy to listen to, and with the Rashied Ali Sextet (they added one to the Quintet recently) as the headliner, we got a heavy dose of real jazz. Ali was Coltrane's drummer for a spell. How 'bout them apples?

The festival took place in Frontier Park, which also hosts and arboretum and a labyrinth. This glowing dome is a small ampitheatre with stone seating against a hillside. I would love to live within walking distance of this park, in a house like this:

The houses of Erie are lovely and very undervalued. The county has the house above valued at $166K for 2006, according to my friend, the internet. Not too shabby.

Tri-This

Rumor has it that at least one member of this jazz trio is a recent high school graduate. The only thing about Tri-This that betrays their youth is their fresh attittude. Their skill, chops, and raw talent are beyond their years. They played an enthusiastic set at Molly Brannigans tonight. Most songs included an upright bass solo, a drum solo, and a keyboard solo, order optional. The gaggle of parents watching in the crowd may have dampened the ebullience a bit, and the underage friends in the back room restaurant trying to communicate via hand signals was a little distracting. If I had to pick a favorite musician, it would be the drummer. He had a Charlie Watts slack to him that I enjoyed; behind the beat a little, with rallies back up to a faster pace. They played jazz standards, and threw in a Beatles song.

Smuggler's Wharf

My department at work went out to say goodbye to the interns tonight (even though 3 out of 4 of us are still here!). We sat out on the docks at Dobbin's Landing and the weather was heaven. I want to ride on a boat before I leave here. Maybe just the water taxi.

Moving Out

This is what moving out is like: its 11:45 pm. The bathroom is scrubbed clean, the closet shelves are wiped down, and the living room is full of bags and piles. The trash needs to go to the dumpster. I discovered a crisper full of fresh veggies that I can't let go to waste. Out to the great gas grills of the Mercyhurst pit I went for a midnight BBQ. I took the New York Times with me and it was the first time I sat still in a couple of days.This is the heaven that I moved into at the George Carroll House in downtown Erie afterwards. After dorm life, this place is shangri-la.

Going Out

My disappointment at missing Wednesday's Poison the Well show at the Perry Hi-Way Hose Co. by arriving too late was dashed away by the romantic Gaelic tenor voice of Brendan Begley of the Boys of the Lough, who played a great concert at Mercyhurst.

After the high culture of the Boys, I went downtown, where I was delighted by an outdoor concert consisting of something other than classic rock covers. The New Wave Nation had me rocking for at least an hour. I kept saying I would leave at the first bad song but one never came. What did get me going was these two drunk interns needing a designated drive back to the dorm:
Drunk interns just love the Count. Answer me this: why are the French called frogs when green is the color of the Irish?

Picnic Grove

There's this amazing thing that happens on a humid day before sunset when the air and the water over the lake get the same silver shimmer.

This week has been organizational: putting new spark plugs in the car, Texas roadtrip route planning, bill paying, cleaning, and corresponding.

I was interviewed by an intern at the Erie newspaper for an article about interns. Is that semiotics? Please comment. The reporter's name was Andy Boyle. He was a pleasure to talk to. Anyway, they will try and fail to send a photographer to GE to shoot me at work - its very hard to get a photo permit there. The article should run next Thursday.

I played horseshoes for the first time yesterday. I got no points. The horseshoes were at an intern gathering at Picnic Grove, which is within a golf course built by GE in the 1920's. The trees there were gorgeous.