Month: July 2004

I got pulled over by a cop this morning in bumper-to-bumper traffic. The reason? My plates (which are personalized) register as belonging on an Isuzu Rodeo—my old car. Not a problem, I did not get a ticket or anything. See I have new plates in my car, and a plate transfer form from the dealership because the whole buying a car in C’ville and having them register it in DC was a fiasco and I still have not had a chance to get down to DMV to finish the transfer. So no ticket just a ‘you need to take care of this.’

Best thing was the realization that this cop was just sitting in traffic running the plates of the cars around her. Good to know my tax dollars are at work, actually working even while sitting in traffic.

So I flew to Atlanta today for work. And lets just say the security while ever present was severely lacking in effectiveness.

I checked in at the desk and got a seating assignment first. No problem. Then I went through the security check point to go to the gate. I stepped through the metal detector and ‘BEEP!’ The agent there said; “step back through… oh, no. Doesn’t matter, your airline selected you for a random screening. OK. So they went through my laptop bag pocket by pocket and scanned my shoes and hand scanned me and checked my pockets. Annoying but OK.

So now I’m waiting at the gate when I hear my name called to come to the desk. I get up there and they are handing out seating assignments. So I tell the woman I already have mine – that I got it from the check in desk. She looks at it and says ‘OK.’ Then five minutes later she calls my name again. So I go over there and she says; “did I call you again?”

“Yea,” I say. Then looking down I said “that’s probably because my name is on that boarding pass right there.”

“That’s your name?”

“Yes.”

“Well this boarding pass has a different name on it.” She says pointing to the boarding pass I was given at the check in desk.

At this point my mind is saying; “you’re fucked. Somehow you made it all the way through security – having like 6 people look at your ID and boarding pass and none of them noticed the names where totally different. You must be a terrorist. You’re fucked.”

But no. The attendant just handed me the boarding pass with my name on it, trashed the other one and said, “I wonder how that happened?”

I feel so secure. Do you?

Saturday afternoon I caught up with G████ for a few hours. About time as I didn’t see the boy between like March of `03 and when I got him a job a few weeks ago. Slacker. Anyway, we met up a Buffalo Billiards in Dupont and played a few games and drank a few pints. But low-and-behold G████ needed to head back to the little woman.

As we were standing on by the metro and he was getting ready to go a couple stopped us and asked if we were from around the area. Seems they were visiting and looking for something to do. Someone had told them that the 9:30 club is a happening place and they wanted to know how to get to it. Well the 9:30 club is a great place but lets be real the day before the forth of July you better have tickets. So I talked with them for a moment and then settled on the Brickskeller as the best place to direct them to. And they asked if I wanted to join them. Well, any couple looking to get trashed and asking strangers to come along can’t be all bad. Right? Yea? no crazy sex thing thoughts for you. Bad reader! I would never be so lucky.

So off to the Brickskeller while G████ scurries back to the little woman. And at the Brickskeller? Drink after drink after drink. The bill was close to $200, we were there from 8:00 pm till closing. Talk about drunk! We argued about all kinds of stuff; music, politics, life in general. We got drunk enough that we were arguing just to argue after a while. It’s kind of refreshing to drink and argue with strangers but still be having a good time. It was a good night. And I was worried when G████ said he had to go that I would have nothing to do for the rest of the night.