I went to central Illinois, and this is all I saw.

In a hallway at the U of I physics department, where I stopped in to use the restroom.

Toronto Streetcar 1 (DH09)

Lots more to come from this place. Travel safely today and tomorrow.

Landing Back in New York

There are leaves on the trees! And the Shuttle pilots are insane--a hybrid of Masshole and Manhattan cabbies of the sky.

Mega-Manic Fall

It's 3:33 p.m., and the sun has already clocked out here in Boston. In dark times, you have to make your own weather. This is what I'm working on:

11/16-19 NY for work
11/19-21 Boston for life and rehearsal.
11/22-23 Toronto for work (looking forward to this, as I've never been to the city before).
11/24-29 NY and Philly for Thanksgiving.
11/27: INFRASTRUCTURE AT TRITONE in Philly

And then:
12/11-12/14: ABBQII in Austin! With a crew of at least 5!
12/18 INFRASTRUCTURE at Church in Boston
12/26 INFRASTRUCTURE at National Underground in Manhattan.

Doing stuff is awesome.

Garbage Rides the Rails, Part II

During the return trip to Boston today, large portions of Penn Station were roped off so that the Yankees could board a chartered Amtrak train to Philadelphia.

Garbage rides the rails.

Is it emblematic of our culture that the formerly industrial Northeast appears to ship nothing by train except garbage to the rest of the country?

When the guys at the pizza shop ask me why I'm not working today,

I tell them I'm working at home. Just back from a business trip. On the phone and staring at a laptop for ten hours.

"How far can you throw the laptop," they ask.

Coming back from a trip can often be a letdown, at least until I find my friends. Even a stifling airplane cabin is full of life and movement. Sometimes home is not.

F*** Alaska Airlines.

Who loses a plane's maintenance logbook and forces 150 passengers to sit strapped in for 40+ minutes while they look for it? Only 5+ hours of flying to do when (if) they find it.

The plane's Muzak is now repeating itself.

ACELA FINALLY HAS WIFI!

It's a test run, and it's a little slow, but it's working. This may be the death knell for the LimoLiner. And it's one more reason for me not to get a toolish Blackberry or iPhone (yes, the iPhone is toolish, and I am a contrarian. With ubiquitous wireless access available, why do I need the internet in my pocket?).

Congratulations to Amtrak for making the Northeast Corridor an even better choice for travelers between Washington and Boston. Now, if only other lines in the system could make money, maybe they'd get free wifi, too.

Why does it cost $530 to fly from Philly to Boston ONE WAY?

Ghosts

I got to my hotel outside Miami pretty late. I'd been entrapped in "secure" areas for almost ten hours, so I decided to explore the quiet stretch of Route 1 outside my air-conditioned tomb. Large American cars whizzed by. There were no pedestrians in sight, just two separate hispanic guys biking down the sidewalk, apparently coming home from work. A few people waited for a downtown train at the elevated platform across the street.

Not fifty feet from the entrance of my hotel, I spotted this...


...an ancient-looking concrete street sign embedded in the dead grass at the corner, the letters eerily calling out to the ghosts of the city's past. Calling back, in my imagination, to the time when the city was largely caucasian and agricultural and the original carpetbaggers came south to meet their fortunes. Now Miami is a totally mixed hodgepodge of humans. The agriculture is gone. The Cubans that the city became famous for have been supplanted by waves of northern retirees, suits, asians, central americans, etc. And each wave has shaped and nudged the city into its present form.

If there is one thing that American cities do, they change. I enjoy trying to understand the changes, and I try half-assedly to honor the ghosts of the past. Some American ghosts are horrible, and some are inert. But every square mile of America is haunted by something. I suppose the same could be said about anywhere, but many Americans willfully ignore this country's past, in favor of nothing, or, worse, in favor of neverending bourgeois obsessions with overseas ghosts.

But ignorance is bliss. Still thinking about that concrete street sign, which could be one year old or one hundred years old, I stepped into the only nearby business open, a TGI Friday's. I had a beer and two delicious sliders. In that frat boy-laden atmosphere, the only ghosts conjured were those of girls I didn't like anymore. I went back to the hotel.

Gold Star Chili made my day.

I was supposed to fly on the same plane from Seattle to Boston, but Delta decided to swap in a replacement 737 during the stop at CVG. I got off the first plane hoping for a quick snack and soon spotted the words "A," "fil," and "Chick" revealing themselves to me in that order as I stepped around a row of flight status monitors. "Yes!" I thought. "Nothing can deter me from Chick-Fil-A!"

As I approached the counter and prepared to order a standard combo, something behind me caught my eye--a Gold Star Chili! The major competitor to Skyline, Gold Star is the other pillar of the bizarre institution called Cincinnati chili.

Pictured above is a four-way: spaghetti, cheese, onions, and, yes, chili. As I dug in, I remembered my lovely outing in Cincinnati last month and longed for a night of chili and Bell's Two-Hearted Ale and local music. When I got on the plane in Seattle, the last thing I expected was to have a Cincinnati experience. After this four-way, I could barely bring myself to get on the plane to Boston. Cincinnati is a cool town, I say. That thin chili messes with my heart, and I let it and I love it.

Plus, I can have Chick-Fil-A during my three hour layover in Philly tomorrow.

Four Corners

Last 7 days: San Diego, Boston.
Next 7 days: Seattle, Miami.

From Teele Square to Logan Terminal C in Eight Minutes

Today's Green Cab driver did just that, averaging exactly 60.0 miles per hour over the entire trip. As he flew from the inside lane of the Zakim Bridge to the outside lane at 5:50 a.m., I said, "Man, you're gonna break a record."

In a heavy Hatian accent, he replied: "That's what I DO, baby. I know how to DO IT."

I am completely fascinated by Salt Lake City.

More on this to come.

HELLO FROM THE RUBBER CITY.

That's Akron. Akron, Ohio.

I will now drive across most of this state without a map and attempt to accomplish business objectives along the way.

Two Trips to the Carolinas

29 point-and-shoot photos from the last two weeks of work travel:


Full set here.

I need to start bringing the SLR on all trips, as I promised to do. Too many missed opportunities here, especially when in low light situations.

Next Week: Rural SC

I am not sure why Google Street View has images of so many rural southern towns available, but here is a BBQ candidate for one of the towns I'll be passing through:

Watford's Bar-B-Que, Bishopville, S.C.

View Larger Map

Disorganized Thoughts on North Carolina that You May or May Not Want to Read

I am sitting in Terminal 1 at RDU, which is a large and carpeted tomb of people whose flights keep getting delayed. No one has been speaking, except for a chubby guy at the bar who asked "did y'all come in from Atlanta?" and two insane, furious, screaming rube-women who had bought all new toiletries for their first flight in probably a decade. Since they had never heard of the 3-oz rule, they were sent back from security to check their bags. They then ran panicked and screaming from the check-in counters, where they had found out that bag checking cost $15 per item, and dragged said bags of contraband upstairs to security, where they were required to throw out the large bottles of Oil of Olay stuff they were given for Christmas. Aeroworld.

I like Greenville, capital of Eastern NC. It's a true "microcosm of America," where inequality is obvious, the industrial part of town is rotting away, the university and hospital are growing by leaps and bounds, and excellent barbecue ties it all together. I had the combo at B's and learned from a local that the Skylight Inn recently had a fire but was still serving.

Something is always happening in Greenville. Small things. The fire department was investigating a fire at a convenience store yesterday. The public works department was out repairing street signals with a bucket truck. A female medevac pilot had lunch at the table across from me at the Bear Rock Cafe.

Chapel Hill and Carrboro are really something. They look expensive, but are not. The Station in Carrboro is like the local Toad, but has no website.

The hipsters are moving from Carrboro to Durham.

You can live well for less, and get around on a motorcycle much of the year.

At the Orange County Social Club in Carrboro, an old Yuengling ad that showed four bulldogs smoking around a bar made me smile. The next day I saw a dog that looked exactly like one in the old ad splattered on the highway. This made me sad.

I a lso made it to Bullock's in Durham, an overcrowded diner-like barbecue joint that served up somewhat flavorless pork and almost jewish-style sliced brisket. They must gas everything. Weird.

Flight keeps getting delayed.

Trianglerock

I'm home for a whopping 17 hours this (3-day?) weekend, then going back out on another business trip. I'll be staying in Chapel Hill and visiting undisclosable portions of North Carolina for a few days.

The last time I was headed to N.C., I found a neat little website called Trianglerock.com, which lists all local rock shows going on in the Research Triangle area. It has a companion player at groovo.org that streams mp3s of bands performing any given week. These sites are awesome, and it would be great if other cities had people dedicated to offering such great distillations of their scenes.

I might try to check out a show at the Cave tomorrow night. I checked out the Double Door in Chicago this past weekend, and I'm on a quest to hit as many venues as I can as I travel the country nonstop for the next six weeks. Rock and roll is alive in America.

Related Photoset from NCBBQII, May-June 2008: Night Falls on the Tar Heel State.

DO YOU KNOW ANYONE IN CHICAGO OR ANYTHING ABOUT THE CHICAGO MUSIC SCENE?

I'm going next weekend for work, and I know it's going to be a good trip. In my non-work time, I'd like to learn more than what the inside of a Hyatt looks like.

Complete F*ckery

Recently it dawned on me that I could have a life* if I stayed in the same place for more than a week at a time. Then I pinned two business trips onto my ABBQ itinerary to create an 8-day trip next week.

*a different version of the life I have now.

Carolina Bar-B-Q, Statesville, N.C.

When I first passed through Statesville on the interstate, late on Tuesday night, I could tell that it had enough exits to be a decently sized town. That meant there would be good barbecue.

Sure enough, the NC Barbecue Society website had an entry for Carolina Bar-B-Q there. I stopped in on the 3-hour drive back to Charlotte the next night.

Here's what happened:





My waitress was great. She was from Buffalo and had moved to NC to escape a bad relationship. That's the nice thing about America, I said. You can just keep moving on until you use it all up.

After I'd eaten, I overheard one of a group of working men order a buffalo wing dinner. This was the first time I'd been in a NC joint that combined barbecue and buffalo. I'm still curious about that buffalo. I wonder if the waitress brought it with her.

I hadn't made the connection at the time, and so I didn't ask. Before bringing the check, she sold me on taking dessert to go. I brought a styrofoam cup of fresh cobbler--half cherry and half blackberry--to my hotel room in Charlotte.

And Now: The Holiday Inn Bar

Six middle-aged men making fun of CNN. Roughly 70 work emails to answer. You can smoke in here. One free Yuengling. This is pretty bad.

Charlotte

From the looks of this town, people must live in their cars and sleep in their homes. I got lost on a dead end street that ran behind some strip malls and found a crumbling, white, plantation-looking house at the end of the road. Weird. I don't think I will meet any nice girls here, unless they are downstairs at the Holiday Inn bar (closes at 10).

P.S. I hit up Carolina Bar-B-Q in Statesville and would post photos if I had a USB cable. I need a break from the Michigan stuff.

"I have never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul trailer,"

quoth the radio preacher from a transmitter somewhere near Galax, Virginia. As Tuesday became Wednesday and a sharp, 21° crosswind unforgivingly rocked my piece of shit rental car from side to side, his voice continued, "We leave this world as we enter it, with nothing. Some people sacrifice their health and distance themselves from their families in order to work too much, to accumulate wealth..."

The preacher told me to represent my products honestly and make an honest profit, and give the rest away. I hit the seek button and all of a sudden Anthony Kiedis was shouting, "GIVITAWAY! GIVITAWAY! GIVITAWAY NOW!" When the song ended I shut the radio off, took my exit, and almost impaled myself on a guardrail.

I am currently traveling from Boston to New York to North Carolina to Virginia to North Carolina to Boston. I have been working for the past 17 hours, driving for the last three. I don't do many of these trips anymore, but they still destroy my mind.

I have three jobs.

I only write lyrics when I am in airplanes and miserable.

I write music all the time.

I only take pictures when I am not at home.

I only post pictures when I'm bored.

I am going to sleep.

Philly, Continued: DiNic's Italian BBQ

I was in for quite a surprise today when I walked into Downtown Philly's Reading Market for lunch. When I saw a stall advertising brisket and pulled pork, I figured it was some type of northern, gas-cooked, imitation barbecue. That was going to be good enough for a quick lunch. What I found was something very different: a new-to-me style of barbecue true to both American and Italian American traditions.

Fifteen minutes on line were worth it. Though the meat at DiNic's is definitely gas cooked, it's tender as hell. Stacks of cooked shoulders and brisket line the counter, waiting for the knife. Here, it's not so much the flavor of hickory coals that give the meat its flavor, but the Italian accoutrements. Both beef and pork sandwiches get a splash of a thin "gravy," which had more than a hint of apple cider vinegar. I also had them throw on some of the options. Upon request, the sandwich maker lined my sub roll with slices of sharp provolone. I also got roasted green peppers and "greens" (choice of broccoli rabe or spinach--I always get the rabe). The buttery garlic flavor of the rabe soaked right into the chopped pork shoulder.

I have to wonder if there are other places that serve this kind of BBQ in Philly or if DiNic's is one-of-a-kind.

Speaking of Mid-Atlantic BBQ, the Amtrak magazine clued me in on the Baltimore Pit Beef. If you want to read about that, open Arrive Magazine here and use the TOC to open up to page 66.

Two cameraphone shots of DiNic's Italian pulled pork sub:



I may have to go back tomorrow with my real equipment.

I am now

in Philly. My train died no less three times on the long way down (circuit breaker problems), and we were treated to sitting in the Hudson River tunnel in a total blackout for several minutes. This is summer travel week 5 of 5, and I'm in a pretty good mood.

I hope this doesn't happen again tomorrow.

O'Hare at Rush Hour

"If you open your mouth, it will be filled by the hair, breath, or skin of another traveler. You can always find a warm toilet seat. You wonder how little self-respect people must have to wait 30 minutes in a corral for a seat at Chili's. Flights are only on time til it's time."

partnerless, exhausted

Entering Hour 54 of this work week in an Irving, Texas Holiday Inn Express.

When I arrived home from my last business trip of the season,

I slept for 11 or 12 hours. At the moment I awoke, I had just been in the middle of a dream sales call with an elderly, African-American female professor. She was asking how a young guy like me got into publishing when I opened my eyes to find it was 11:11 and that I had 67 new work emails waiting for me.

I am currently in...

Lubbock, Tex.

The Road

is where you work sixteen hours per day.

San Diego, at night without, a tripod

is like....uh....self-imposed artistic erectile dysfunction?? I don't know. I'm exhausted and going to In N Out for a burger and shake.

The Californian ethos of filthy grooved concrete and gaudy neon fails to beckon. It's as bad as they said it would be seventy years ago.

I AM IN NORMAL, ILLINOIS.

Will my frequent flyer miles ever amount to anything?

I'm racking them up left and right, as I book travel to increasingly remote destinations.

US Airways has stopped awarding minimum mileage on short segments, rendering the airline useless in many situations. If I fly to NY on Delta I get 500 miles, while for the same flight on US I get 200? Useless!

This is a cool coffee shop:

http://www.jpcoffeeco.com/

JP's. Lee's Summit, MO. A bizarre and brand new crossroads in the middle of nowhere, where the campus across the street is closed due to ice storm.

Cargill Salad and Vegetable Oils Refinery, Wichita, Kan., Take 1

Cargill Salad and Vegetable Oils Refinery, Wichita, Kan., Take 2

Thank You Bellinger

KCMO.

Starving in Wichita

Sitting in hotel room, working. Two presentations this afternoon. Surrounded by thousands of tons of beef, both raw and smoked. No reason to be hungry.

KC II

I get to my hotel out on the prairie after the traditional late night short distance cabbie ripoff circular jerk. On the outer frontier of the blacktop a pickup truck attached to a giant bbq smoker trailer shines under the sodium vapor yellow.

Second Stranding of the Season

Stuck in Hartford due to snow--I'm not going to drive to Boston going 31mph in 3-5" of snow, especially when CT doesn't bother plowing anything, every other asshole on the road is on a cell phone, Dan B. is 10 miles away, and it's 10pm and I've already been working/driving since 8am.

We are aware that this image may be disturbing.

Weltschmerz unltd.

Hartford--The hotel shower this morning reeked of feet, an obnoxious reminder of the parasitic fungi that will soon commence devouring the webbing between my toes as I travel feverishly from coast to coast in deeply concentrated efforts to Close the Business. The force-fed CNN at the breakfast bar, where I have been the only customer for the last half-hour, is excited about NEW DEVELOPMENTS IN THE WAR ON TERROR. These evils have remained constants for about four years.

Air Canada is fucking retarded.

Four different fares for the same seat? $15 to pick a seat? Subtract $3 for no checked baggage? Switch fare classes for differently valued frequent flyer miles? Subtract $5 to make the fare fully nonrefundable? Move up a fare class to make changes possible for a smaller change fee plus full fare difference? Three types of trip insurance? $6 for food?!

House of a Thousand Spreadsheets

It really doesn't matter what anyone, including me, is doing on his/her company laptop in this North Andover Panera. It all looks the same. It all looks exactly the same. At least I'm not wearing a tie.

I am home today, but I have woken up to this before.

Fun Fact

Number of business days in this month so far: 16.
Number of days spent entirely on the road for business: 14*.

*Includes two work-filled weekends!

Frequent Flyer Miles Summary

USAirways 41,012
Delta 17,127
Continental 10,973
American 9,739
United 5,499
JetBlue 30/100 points (free one-way remaining)

Does not include flights on Frontier or AirTran, the worst airline ever.

To all airlines still requiring many-digit numbers to log into your system, as opposed to email addresses: get with it!

Train Full of Men

Nothing beats sitting in the cafe on the Acela, snug at the center of the 8-car phallus, cruising at half of cruising speed through deathly suburban Connecticut, two beers in and staring at a dozen ugly fat men wearing almost the same blue shirt.

It's an Acela day.

Wish List, 1.08.08, 1:23a CST

• more fiction writing practice
• additional muscle mass
• peace
• pedal steel
• ability to play pedal steel
• functional girlfriend

now in austin.

hope to resume writing with more words, as opposed to light, here.

very tired.

only six more days left in this work week.

Sept-Nov Campus Travel (Completed)

If you zoom in, there are many, many more placemarkers.


View Larger Map

off to calgary

IND

Indiana is a state you have to make interesting.

No visit to Indianapolis is complete without seeing a flipped-over 18-wheeler

I'm 3 for 3. This expired film photo is from this spring. I saw yet another 18-wheeled wreck today.

And I'm now in Louisville.

Forgot my shoes

I'm in Southeast suburban Indianapolis ("suburban Indianapolis"=rural) with running shoes and hiking shoes but no dress shoes.

Thankfully, I'm within miles (probably less than 2) of a Wal-Mart, a Target, and a Payless.

Welcome to Indiana, where you can't eat without a car.

I'm staying across the street from a Wendy's and a McDonald's. I decided that since I'm hungry, and my meals are on the Company, that I would have one small cheeseburger and one small diet coke. I walked across six lanes of unlit blacktop to get to the other side of the road. I then walked between the road and the drainage ditch, since there are no sidewalks here.

At Wendy's, the dining room was locked. I walked around to the drive through and rapped on the window. An apologetic cashier, whose position I once occupied, came to the window, which he did not open, and informed me that "we're not allowed to take walk-ups." "I guess I'm going to McDonald's," I told him.

So I walked over to McDonald's and attempted to open the door, which was locked even though all the lights were on. A long-haired freak, mopping the floor, mouthed, "WE'RE CLOSED," even though the occupants of a large, white SUV were placing an order at the drive-through box

So: in order to purchase food that retails for $5, one must own a $20,000 vehicle.

The peanuts in the hotel vending machine cost 85¢.

Buff for Christ (with crucifix branding iron)

West Texas A&M University
Canyon, TX

Abandoned Richmond

You are cordially invited to view my Abandoned Richmond photo slideshow by clicking this link.

Highlights include:


N.B. I am fully aware that it is 3am. I just got home from Minneapolis/Mankato, Amarillo (via Houston, twice), D.C., and Richmond. I am happy to say that I nabbed 200+ shots on this trip, a handful of which are decent.

JR's Barbeque, Culver City, CA

JR's in Culver City, which is surrounded by LA, was so good that I went back a second night and got the exact same entree again. Thin-sliced, well-smoked brisket, delightfully greasy beef hot links laden with garlic, and above average sides (dug the beans, potato salad, mac 'n cheese). Their meats may be "tender as a mother's love," but their mud-black and mud-thick hot sauce will sting your ass numb like daddy's belt.

Food shot below.

Brisket, Hot Links, and Hot Sauce

JR's BBQ. Culver City, CA.

Black Watch

Transatlantic visitor docked in Old Montreal.

Yet another place I've been to this month:

This is me unwrapping the hand soap

in the Holiday Inn, Charlottesville, Va.

Ben's Chili Bowl

The half smokes are less smoky than I'd expected.


Washington, DC

STAMEY'S

That reddish-orange stuff is the best western-style bbq dip I've tasted: perhaps half ketchup and half vinegar. Only the chicken gets it; the pork is average ketchupy stuff. The curly things are what hush puppies are supposed to look like. Greensboro, NC.

I can't believe

I'm awake.

bartenders and waitresses

valid??

it was the best of times...

marooned in downtown chinatown montreal in a selective chain hotel. opportunities for drinking, filth, and white collar work abound.

i think i'll go to bed.

Green Tree, PA: As the midweek late night internet porn crunch commences,

it becomes impossible to check email or surf the web. Nothing is so certain as plummeting weeknight bandwidth except, perhaps, the "chorus of overpowered showers" and lack of hot water between 7 and 8 am.

Return to Aeroworld

I'd forgotten how much preparation is necessary to make these trips a success. Should be out the door and on the T, boarding pass in hand, within an hour. I'll have two more hotel pens by Wednesday night, and I've been instructed to consume white sauce BBQ in Nashville tonight. Then we'll see if Pittsburgh people really are as mean as they say.

PORTLAND, MAINE

The fall travel season begins. It rained all day today in Maine's largest city. The bus home smelled of processed meats and potato chip flavorings.

Aborted Thoughts

I found the following text in an Outlook post-it note from the third hour of a Tuesday morning flight across the country. It is a perfect example of what I shall call attempted thought.

AIRPLANE THOUGHTS

US Airways yesterday, Delta today, American tomorrow, JetBlue Thursday.

I was annoyed that there was no free paper today because I'm not in a hotel or on the shuttle. The paper fills me with ideas. Yesterday, the WSJ filled me with a great futuristic short story setting (a first) involving sports, stocks, audible watermarks on digital video, a College Point bar full of city workers, and, possibly, alien attack. It would be hilarious, but I won't write it.

As I was packing my massive corporate tool bag last night, I found a crumpled USA Today with an ad celebrating the paper's 25th anniversary. A grid of 25 captioned photographs covered the page; these corresponded to the 25 most significant changes in Our Society in as many years.

Somewhere in the middle of the list was "Sexualization," the header adorned with a photo of Timberlake preparing to bear Jackson's star-studded teat.

[a one-sided discourse on whether anything had actually been sexualized or layers of societal cloaking around evolution had been quicky and dramatically unwrapped was to follow]

Airplanes are peace and solitutde. An empty, bankruptcy-enducing 737-800 above cornfields is a great place to work and think and develop. Most disagree.

In two months, we will drive around those cornfields for a week and take thousands of photographs, some of them awesome. I need to order a tripod now.

Human Mail

USAirways account since January (does not include travel on Alaska, American, Delta, Continental, and JetBlue).

01/12/07 01/15/07 PHL BOS 1776 U BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
01/12/07 01/15/07 MSY PHL 1676 U BELLINGER/ROBERT 1,088
01/23/07 01/26/07 PIT DUJ 4683 Y BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
01/23/07 01/26/07 LGA PIT 3975 Y BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
01/23/07 01/26/07 BOS LGA 2125 Y BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
01/26/07 01/29/07 DUJ PIT 4737 Y BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
01/26/07 01/29/07 PIT BOS 3876 Y BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
02/12/07 02/15/07 CLT MSY 1409 U BELLINGER/ROBERT 651
02/12/07 02/15/07 BOS CLT 1891 U BELLINGER/ROBERT 727
02/19/07 02/22/07 LGA GSO 3135 K BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
02/20/07 02/23/07 GSO CLT 2669 K BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
02/20/07 02/23/07 CLT DFW 1105 K BELLINGER/ROBERT 937
02/22/07 02/26/07 DFW PHL 3436 Y BELLINGER/ROBERT 1,302
02/23/07 02/26/07 PHL BOS 1812 Y BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
03/24/07 03/27/07 PHL RIC 3653 Y BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
03/24/07 03/27/07 BOS PHL 0853 E BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
03/26/07 03/29/07 CHO CLT 2424 U BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
03/26/07 03/29/07 CLT BOS 0714 U BELLINGER/ROBERT 727
04/04/07 04/07/07 IND CLT 2288 Y BELLINGER/ROBERT 500
04/04/07 04/07/07 CLT BOS 1946 Y BELLINGER/ROBERT 727

Airport Whore

NOTE, 4.17.07. IT WAS RECENTLY SUGGESTED TO ME THAT THE FOLLOWING POST, IN WHICH I OFFER A THROWBACK TO THE WAY MY MIND WORKED IN HIGH SCHOOL, MIGHT BE "OFFENSIVE" (!) TO THE CASUAL READER. READ AT YOUR OWN RISK!


Long ago, before I even had the ability to sometimes censor myself, I ran a joke website called the American Anti-Whore Society. On this late nineties website, I funneled the issues I had with Our Culture into a series of Cosmo-esque quizzes designed to help people diagnose whether they were College Admissions Whores, Car Whores, Pet Whores, etc. I came up with roughly 40 types of whore by the time I abandoned the project freshman year of college.

Now and again, I see things that automatically inspire me to create new whore subclassifications and quizzes. I usually shrug off these ideas and blog about barbecue food instead. But one type of whore has become so pervasive to me, that even I can't help myself. Something about air travel makes people behave and dress differently...

Airport Whore

1. Do your underwear stand out in a crowd?
   
2. Did you wear your cheerleading uniform on today's flight?
   
3. Can I see more than 45% of the surface area of your breasts by walking to my gate with both eyes open?
   
4. Did you purchase matching neon pink luggage with the goal of making EVERYONE IN THE AIRPORT LOOK AT YOU?
   
5. Were you sitting next to me in the Charlotte Airport California Pizza Kitchen in short shorts screaming into your cellphone about the "like TOTALLY hot guy" "in like Barcelona" that you "like totally hooked up with that first night" after you "like rode on his motorcycle"?

Just so you don't suspect that I harbor a pathological hatred of women, let me say that the male version of this societal ailment has not yet made itself known to me.

Old Men

Other people travel for work, too. Lawyers, salespeople, marketers, technicians. I am not alone on the road. However, the median age for these travelers seems to be about 43.8. Only once--on the very day in October 2006 when I first wrote about this phenomenon--did I witness a young businesswoman in the Salt Lake City Hampton Inn who appeared to be in her mid-twenties.

Major realization achieved through business travel no. 1: some cities aren't real.

Many Americans and Canadians who think that they live in cities actually live in large, suburban agglomerations ringed by highways, with little or no public transportation and nonfunctioning downtowns. This is bad for all involved.

If I had spent all my time in New York and Boston, I would have continued thinking that everyone thinks that a city is a city. Not so: geography usually doesn't lie. I currently rank Indianapolis, Houston, Dallas, and Calgary as pretend cities.

Why does it matter? It seems that people raised in suburbs and fake cities have an unrealistic perception of how the other half (actually, way more than half) lives. Bostonians frequently complain that the city's 200,000+ college students, many of them suburb-raised, lack street smarts, common sense, and understanding of how a/the city works. (They sound like farm-raised salmon.) I'm noticing that many members of our federal governments and their corporate overlords lack the same necessary education.


Cities visited since January 1: Chicago, Seattle, New Orleans (twice), Miami, Greensboro/Winston-Salem, Dallas, Houston.

8:38-8:41

I can feel myself getting dumber as I sit here. Whatever creative energy I have left after the traditional workday has been replaced with a slight headache. A numbing pain has spread across my ass, which has spent three of the last four hours in the same airport seat, and which can look forward to at least four more hours of sitting before being put to rest in a Holiday Inn Express in suburban Houston. See headline immediately below.

No intelligent person should have to do this.

Last week, while traveling from Dallas to Boston, I ended up in a prostitute-laden motel in suburban Philly. Thanks, US Airways.

Now, it's Air Canada's turn. It is 8:02 pm. I'm waiting to take a 3.5 hour flight from Toronto to Houston and then do more work in the morning, followed by more work, and then followed by additional work. The plane was supposed to leave at 7:20. We got on the plane at 7, but the pilots never did. So we got kicked off the plane. Our hand luggage was also kicked off the plane, and we got to carry it off. The plane is supposed to leave at 8:40. It is now 8:04. So, using standard rules, boarding should start again in 6 minutes, 12 minutes after we got off the plane.

Complete List of Pornographic Videos Available at the Holiday Inn Hotel & Conference Center, Kitchener, Ontario

Ahem, ahem. This is way more than I planned to type before passing out. There is some Actual Content at the other end of this list.

New Releases

• Rocco Ravishes Russia
  
• Please Cum Inside Me 10
  
• Super Natural 4
  
• Chicks With Big Tits
  
• Vivid's Nurses Gone Wild
  
• Tongue N Cheek
  
• Colt's Big N Plenty (Gay)
  
• Falcon's THE HUNTED (Gay)
  

SUPERSTARS

• Boob Bangers
  
• Buttman's Bend Over Brazilian Babes 4
  
• Rogue Adventures 25 (Transvestites)
  
• FISHNETS Four
  
• Gang Up
  
• SHANE Diesel's In My Ass
  
• Girls Love Girls
  
• Bet Your Ass 2
  
• Inside the Pink Door
  
• Vivid's Best Girls: Ginger 2 Jenna
  
• Ass Cleavage
  
• Just Over 18 No. 14
  
• FRESH ASSES
  
• DIRTY LITTLE VIXENS
  
• PERFECT SPECIMENS
  
• Janine and the EMPEROR
  
• TERADISE ISLAND ANAL FEVER
  
• MILF NEXT DOOR
  
• Just Fuckin
  
• Liquid
  
• Hi-Teen Club 8
  
• Wonderland
  
• Teanna Takes Cock
  
• Six in Me
  
• Ass Intake
  
• My Ass is Haunted
  
• 13 Cum Hungry Cocksuckers 3
  
• I Like Them Young 2
  
• Naughty Schoolgirls
  
• Who's the New Girl?
  
• Three for ALL
  
• White Wife Black Cock
  
• Angels of Debauchery 2
  
• Pamela Principle
  
• Teamplayer
  
• Supercocks Do Anal
  
• My Ass N Make Me
  
• Pleasures of the Flesh 03
  
• The Fashionistas
  
• Vivid's Best Scenes
  
• Janine's BLACKMAILED
  
• Vivid's Hottest Lesbians
  
• Sexxx the Hard Way
  
• Slam it in Deeper
  
• Syrens of Sex
  
• Nailed with CUM
  
• Swank Pure ANAL
  
• Craving Big Cocks
  
• Here Cum the Brides
  
• Blow Me
  
• Big Cock's in Her Little Box
  
• Two Dicks in One Chick 2006
  
• Award Winning Sex 2006
  

Gay

• Colt's Minute Man
  
• Falcon's Drenched Part One
  
• Falcon's Super Soaked
  
• Falcon's Born To Be Bad
  
• BUCKAROOS Part Two
  
• Colt's The Leather Files
  
• Falcon's Man Made
  
• Falcon's Bounce
  
• Colt's RELOAD
  
• BUCKAROOS Part One
  
• Falcon's BOOTSTRAP
  
• Falcon's Crosscountry Part One
  

Exotic

• Chest Full of Asians Part 2
  
• Pretty Little Asians Part Four
  

Sheesh. Apparently Canadians demand variety.

Complete List of Pornographic Movies Available at the Holiday Inn Express in Plantation, FL (including genre, when specified)

• Aphrodisiac
• Another Man's Wife
• Super Compilation
• Farmers' Daughters
• Teacher Teach Me
• Older is Better (Older Women)
• Bi Guys
• Cheating Neighbors (Voyeur)
• Bi-Sex Swingers
• Outrageous Orgies
• The Visitors
• Taken
• Lovers' Guide: Sexual Positions (Instructional)
• Barely Legal Corrupted #7
• I Laid Your Hot Mom (Older Women)
• Just Filthy Sex (Gonzo)
• Driver (Gay)
• Naughty Moms (MILTF/POV)
• Black Orgies (All Orgies)
• Forbidden Coeds/Young Butts (Double Feature)
• 3 Way Divas (All Threesomes 8 Sex Scenes)
• Innocence
• Drenched (All Gay/Conoisseur)
• The New Devil in Miss Jones
• To Die For (Full Plot)
• Cheating Wives (Adultery)
• Test Drive
• Satisfaction Guaranteed
• Do My Slutty Wife
• Rod Riders (Gonzo)
• More Sex With My Sister's Hot Friends
• Tokyo Teens (All Japanese)
• Sexmates of My Wife (Swinger Wives)
• Young and Tight (Non-Stop Sex)
• Housewives Unleashed (Reality Sex)
• Velvet Thrust (Just For Women)
• Good as Gold (Gay Alternative)
• Open House (All Gay)
• Bi-Sexual Escapades
• Explicit Sex
• Xtra Filthy Sex (Wall-to-Wall)

tenth consecutive hotel morning

chorus of overpowered showers turning on at 6:36 am
=the opposite of cuddly