Mitt liv som Tobin

Two weeks ago was drinking weather. I know, there is a camp here that says that all weather is drinking weather, but when it hits ninety degrees and almost saturation-level humidity, it's practically the only way to survive. The rest of the time you can drink for entertainment or pleasure.

Such was the case on Friday. I plied the hurricane-force rains, rocketing across the Empire State's principle highway, which is apparently sufficiently novel to be called not just any kind of Interstate but the "New York State Thruway," on my way to a much-maligned-but-really-very-pleasant city a hundred miles from here and a virtual clone of this city. It's called Syracuse.

Well, that table is very much a work-in-progress and I invite your contributions. But the point remains, ROC and SYR pretty much feel the same, except Syracuse is in the hilly country just 'under' the Adirondak park, and ROC is pretty much the flattest place you've ever seen (modulo the various waterfalls).

As I pulled into the city off I-690, those rains cleared up miraculously, and I found my way to reidmefirst's house, which is pretty much one of the awesomest houses you ever did see, huge and open with brilliant hardwood floors everywhere—in other words, like nearly every other house in these parts, except new and fresh and clean feeling without the Crimes Against Architecture that almost inevitably come with renovation. In front of the house is garden dense with tomato plants, and hops vines crawl up the side of the house. I met Reid at Critical Mass back in April; I'd sent out an announcement to SUOC about the event and three of them drove out for the occassion, celebrating the 'Mass in April of this year; I believe it was the endorphines that caused Reid to refer to ROC City as "a nifty area full of hippies and bright ideas." I'm nearly inclined to say the same about Syracuse.

1. Empire State Brewing and Music Festival
2. Hot tub at Polar, Reid, and Paul's house
3. Hike to waterfall and hang-gliding launch in the Labrador Wilderness (Finger Lakes Trail)

We had a good crew and the whole thing was really a blast. The brewfest had something like 100 breweries represented; on entry you got a 4 Oz sampling glass and a 24 hole punch-card to redeam for samples (approx 2 Oz). The funny thing is that when your sample card fills up, you're free to get another one. So either the card is For Your Own Benefit or there's some odd law on the books that says You Can't Just Give Away Unlimited Quantities of Good Beer. Afterwards we retreated to Reid's house where everyone got naked for a bit of hot tubbing.

In the morning I wandered the neighborhood and found a few neat places, including some awesome African dance/drumming going on at a community center down the street.. it was really a sight to see, and reminded me of my tentative plans to spend [boreal] summer 2006 in Africa. In the early afternoon, everyone reconviened at Reid's place and then we set out on a hiking trip in the woods at a place I believe is called Labrador Wilderness, on the Finger Lakes Trail. The countryside here is green green green and really very beautiful in a pastoral way, with the green fields of corn across rolling hills, dotted with farms and barns and silos. We had a good hike, to a waterfall with a huge crescent scooped-out area behind it—in fact, the trail goes behind the waterfall. The trail continued up to a hang-gliding launch point with a wicked view. No gliders there then except a raptor circling below, although it did still make me wistful for UCBHGC.

Altogether an excellent weekend. Met lots of neat people and I think I'll be trekking out to SYR again for more adventures.

1. Jun 27 — Ithaca, NY
2. Jul 8 — Syracuse, NY
3. Jul 14 — San Francisco, CA
4. Jul 16 — Berkeley, CA
5. Jul 17 — Santa Cruz, CA
6. Aug 14 — Hanford, WA
7. Aug 18 — Seattle, WA
8. Aug ?? — Adirondack Park, NY
9. Sep — New Orleans, LA
10. Sep — Buffalo, NY
11. Oct — Montréal, QC
12. Nov — Ann Arbor, MI
13. Spring Break 2006 — Cuba? Costa Rica?
14. Summer 2006: Africa? Chiapas? ROC + Burning Man?

[Saturday night: Attending a drag queen cabaret at Keys [ROC city piano bar] with Dana, Netta, and their new housemate; Sunday morning: bicycling through the early morning summertime city streets; chocolate chip pancakes at MHD. how many nights couch-surfing is this? the adventures never cease.]