Harry Potterski's Wild Ride

This morning I woke up around 6am. You see, I had to be at the train station to pick up some baggage. You see, I asked some friends to ship me my bags overnight on the train. You see, I stored two rolling bags in a city south of here since about late July. You see, I packed three bags basically for the year and used the first one this summer. Long story, I know.

Anyway, shipping two bags overnight for about $40 was not too shabby. Considering UPS would not even touch it in the states for less than $100 each! But I had to go to the train station to pick them up. When the train arrives, I join the wave of people who are headed to meet loved ones, arriving from the south. Fortuantely, the Baggage wagon is just behind the engine so I don't have that far to walk. The workers who apparently slept in the Baggage car cranked open the door and I poked my head in. There are my bags...and nothing else but a few other things. I was expecting a huge shipment of stuff. Nada, just my bags. So I pick up my bags with a photo copy of my passport (a "spravka" - I'm saving this story for another blog). Wheeling them out of the train station I headed towards the main road.

I flag down a taxi guy and ask him how much to take me and my newly reaquainted bags to my "flat" (British English for "crib"). He says something like, "Well, I dunno, how much do you think it would be?" (I have never understood the system of negotiating with a taxi driver how much you should be paying. Isn't that why meters were created?). I said something like, "Well, I have no idea." I don't bluff in his game of chicken. We both know that the first one to mention a price is the loser. It's all about the price negotiation after that. He throws out a "value" for his "service"; for me, there was not much negotiation since I was tired and ready to get home with my long-lost babies.

Little did I realize that my taxi was going to be magically transformed into a ride on Harry Potter's chitty chitty bang bang. This guy must have been doing about 60 easy on some hairpin turns. And that's not easy to do. You have to know your vehicle and all its delicate sensibilities. How finely tuned is your car? Only flooring it through town at 7:30am approaching blind curves will tell you. Also, you have to be kinda asleep. And you also have to be kinda hungover. That's how he operates and that's how he roams. Once, he slammed on the brakes to avoid hitting a crowd of people who were getting onto a trolley which travels down the middle of the road. Not one or two people but a CROWD. How do you miss seeing a crowd!? Oh, did I mention that he did this TWICE? Now you see what I am dealing with. I think that sufficiently rattled him enough to slow him down a bit. That's when we heard a car honking madly behind us. The trunk had popped open. Fortunately, my stuff did not fall out. And more fortunately, I don't know enough Russian cuss words to understand what he just said.

After that, it was all downhill. I made it home safe and sound. And began to unpack what was once packed on June 11. ...Developing...

Lord of the Rings Symphony

Yesterday, I saw the most amazing billboard yet. Coming to Moscow November 17-18 is the symphony version of the Lord of the Rings! I can't believe it. I am so there. Hopefully, I can get a group of folks together and we can go.

This will definitely be a highlight of the fall. It is such good music and, Sissel, some German singing chick, will be performing there. She's linked above. I have really enjoyed Howard Shore's music. I would buy the CD and hear it first before ever having watched the film. I always thought, "there's no way that this will fit the film." And yet every time, he came through. Just amazing stuff. I'm pretty pumped about going....

Welcome to GraceBase!

This was the name of an old computer dialup BBS started sometime in the late eighties, early nineties. It was originally called "Grace+Base" with the plus sign substituting for a cross. I removed the plus sign to make it one word and Google-friendly.

Grace+Base was created by my Dad who really knew a good trend when he saw it. People sending messages back and forth and exchanging ideas and dialog. Wouldn't he love to see how things have progressed today? Maybe someday, I'll try and resurrect all that old BBS software and make some screenshots or something. Those were some fun times back then. Too bad it all happened at 2400 bps dialup speed... Geh.