…well, okay not really. But last Friday, I was doing a pickup run for work. The location was Jewett, TX, which was about two to three hours one way to get from my company to the destination. I also had to do a shipping run in the Fort Worth area beforehand…so little did I know this was going to occupy virtually all of my workday on Friday.
When they say getting there is half the fun, for me…it was most of the “fun.” Once again, I faced the relentless evil of the growing stupidity of drivers in this state. It’s not because Texans are getting dumber…but our major cities are growing, I know the metroplex is growing as well. I get slower and slower on the highway during my commute…I leave earlier for work, yet do not arrive any earlier. The past two weeks I’ve come to a complete and full stop at least once in the highway during both commutes. So, like Virginia Beach receiving an influx of people due to the military and having horrible drivers in general, so the same is happening here amongst other factors.
I have also started to notice that at least every other day I will encounter a vehicle that is behind me with their high-beam lights on. HEY! There’s street lights all over I-30 between Dallas and Mesquite, there’s lights from buildings on either side of the highway, we are jampacked with cars that have their lights on and we’re often barely going above 40 miles per hour. There is absolutely no reason why you should have your high-beams on in the first place. Believe me, I know when they’re on or if they’re just crummy headlights. Too bad for an unlucky set of you who have been blinded back by me…I happen to carry a fairly bright flashlight (and you’d better believe that you’re convincing me to get one even brighter…) because I’m tired of having to wear my sunglasses when the sun isn’t even over the horizon!
So…have you noticed how I almost always digress on every blog post, lol! So anyways, let’s just say that getting there was all the fun…trust me! So now I arrive there. I’ve never been there before and it’s a giant steel plant of some sort. Security tells me I’m supposed to meet the person who is going to load my flatbed up at a certain location and gives me directions, which I dutifully follow. As I’m coming up to where I’m supposed to go, I take in the sights…very industrial, which is to be expected. As I’m going up a shallow dirt hill, I see train tracks with several open top cars on the rails. They are piled with rusted pieces of steel pipe sections of varying geometry. Between myself and the cars stretch a pile of these rusted steel pipe pieces. Two small cranes are up near the cars and are pulling several pieces of steel out of the car, swiveling over the pile and dropping them. One crane grabs first and lifts as the second crane grabs, yet they somehow drop the pipes at the same time. So you have two quick crunching noises followed by a long crash. It seemed like a slow version of an ambient Silent Hill soundtrack. As I drove by, they seemed oblivious of my presence as they dumped more steel on the pile when I came alongside them. I watched as several pieces rolled my way before coming to a stop less than five feet away. I started wondering about liability but by then I passed them by as they continued the Silent Hill track.
While this is going on, I look to my right and see a square man-made pond with water. Suspended above it was several angles of piping in various angles, at certain points they had a sprinkler nozzle that misted water over the pond. I have no clue what that’s for, but just helped bring more bizarreness to my current situational awareness.
I drove around and finally found who I was supposed to meet. He and everyone else I saw looked weary, tired and hunched over. Almost completely coated in something that looked like dust. He told me he would get the parts and went into the dark warehouse. As I waited, I caught sight of various particles floating by. I could not tell if it was dust, ash or light mists of water. I looked back over to the pond and saw that between it and myself was a large houselike building with what appeared to be an exhaust on its roof. It looked like one of the exhaust nozzles for the Space Shuttle. I cannot tell if I was getting soot from the exhaust or if misty water was blowing from the pond. But the cranes were continuing with their Silent Hill beat.
We loaded up some blades and went around to see if I could load one more crate of blades. As the dusty creepy guy stumbled off, I thought of how weird a place I was in.
Then I heard the siren…the same (well, slightly higher pitched) siren in all the Silent Hills that slightly gave me a chill. What was going on?!? My friend came out and said the crate was too big so I was good with what I already loaded in the truck. I asked about the siren and he said it was for their overhead crane that was moving in the warehouse. When I told him it was like an air-raid siren he just teased that I had been in Dallas too long. Well, in my years of industrial environments both during and after the Navy, cranes either beeped or rang a bell, not an air-raid siren. And air-raid sirens sounded exactly like they do. With that done…I headed back.
Monday, I had to go back to retrieve the second crate…the experience was still the same, though!
Saturday was another easy day, though while I was at where Tony worked I ran into him (though I was trying real hard not to shadow him in a Red Cell type mode)…so I small talked with him here and there, though he had to go through different floors and I used an elevator to meet him. Though going to the elevator every time meant I met and chatted with various women on the elevator. Must be super shopping spree day last Saturday…Tony just shook his head when I came out while still in conversation.
Sunday, Christine and I hit up the Fort Worth Botanical Gardens, well specifically just the Japanese Gardens. I found out that there was a Japanese Fall Festival during the weekend, though Christine had to work on Saturday. We weren’t so sure of the schedule and actually arrived their early. That was good though, as we were able to take our time and explore most of the Japanese Garden. It was fairly nice, though it was still very green from the summer…but some plants were starting to get into Fall Mode.
This was one of those days I wished it was cloudy. The Garden was cool and sunny, though the trees cast strong shadows. It was going to be tough for me and my picture taking. I think I managed to pull off some decent shots.
Talk about a world of compromise. We wanted to check out some activities, the one we were conflicting for was the Japanese tea ceremony. However, the ceremony was three hours long and in viewing it, we would miss several other things happening throughout the garden. Ugh…oh well. Something to look forward to next time.
Mainly, we checked out the Japanese swordsmanship exhibit, where Christine could witness a newspaper photographer switching her camera mode into Machine Gun mode when taking action photos. Thanks to firearms training, I did not have to do that…nor was my camera capable of firing off that many frames per second. After looking around, we went to check out a Karate demonstration which was fairly typical, though as far as a motivational show and quality of students it looked fairly good. I’ve seen various demonstrations in different festivals, some good and some bad. Their presentation was good.
Following that was some American Ninjitsu demonstration which was…interesting. No real show going on, straight and basic demonstration, though I think they were able to redeem themselves as one of their students was a Hispanic girl who was aged somewhere between 6-10, my guess. She also had her younger brother there demonstrating, as well as to be used as her punching bag, lol. Though in the end, I liked their show of technique vs. the flashy throw baby powder at the crowd show in a previous festival that had Christine and I tearing up in laughter. It just wasn’t much of a show.
Afterwards was some Japanese dancing of some sort. I have no clue what it is, but for all matters Japanese and Korean, Christine will know…so once I remember to ask her I’ll figure out what it is. To me, it seems like your stereotypical Japanese female dance, umbrellas, fans and all. This consisted of a group of girls that were part of an exchange program, either high school or college…though their dance wasn’t what I mentioned above. It looked like para para dancing, but for moving in a parade, and not to Eurobeat. The other group that was the highlight of the show were three almost elderly Japanese women and a fourth lady, American, and probably in her mid to upper 20s and she actually did a surprisingly good job.
Afterwards, it was the Dondoku taiko group based in Fort Worth. It was here that I realized something new with my camera. My latest lens mounted on my camera has VR (Virbration Reduction) which, obviously, uses more battery power. I just didn’t know how much until I realized that my battery was low enough my camera’s shutter no longer worked. Thankfully we brought my standby Sony camera and the taiko drummers weren’t so dynamic enough, and the sun was bright anyway, that the Sony had no problem taking the final set of pictures of the day.
Afterwards, we found and tried a Chinese buffet in Arlington that Wayne told me about that he really liked. While not the best I’ve tried around here, it is in the top five and will be a place I consider returning to the next time I’m in the area. Wayne asked if I saw…but I forgot…
…though earlier this week I finally got to see. The first arch completed that will be one of two arches that will support the new Dallas Cowboys Stadium. It’s big…I’ll get some pictures hopefully soon.
Some have asked me my thoughts about Maximum Tune 3…guess you saw the picture in my previous blog. If you’re completely new to the Maximum Tune experience you’ll probably like it. If you have experience (at least completed the game), eh… Not saying it’s bad, but for me it’s not compelling. I’m not an arcade zealot and with the precious hours I have for my weekend, it’s not that compelling for me to play it. Will I play it more? Yes. It’s currently the only racing game in my life that I do halfway decent in (besides, in a race between Dylan and myself, Dylan won…see? Told you I sucked!).
But the most impressive thing for me is just the soundtrack. Yuzo Koshiro had a challenge to up the ante after doing a good job with the previous two arcade soundtracks. He did good here as well. Graphics? They’re cleaner (read, more cartoony…though not in a bad way)…you’ll be disappointed if you’re expecting realism. There are revisions on the map as far as where you can race, different obstacles and a slightly different way of navigation. The thing I don’t like is night doesn’t look like night anymore…it’s not dark. Not in the city, not on the mountainside of Hakone. I don’t like that…that is my current and genuine gripe with this installment.
If you’re a bling zealot (must have your name on every row of the high score, must have an aura that sends flames shooting out of the machines, and need stars bigger than the giant Nazi medal Major Koenig was awarded) then this is your game. It has some Ghost Mode and all. The story is more or less unchanged, just the order of things is a little different. For someone who has played the second game and has successfully finished it a few times and have come upon the limit of my racer gaming skills, this third version…while very good…doesn’t really do anything for me. I will play and get a few things here and there…but I’m looking for a new game.
Besides, who needs games like Initial D or Maximum Tune…they don’t hold a candle to this…
Or even this…
Now that’s cool, and there’s no virtual satisfaction there! All real!
Anyways, this got long again! Oh, you wanna see the Japanese Festival pics, they’re on my Picasa page now and will be on my site when it gets updated in a week or two!
