Farewell au B-town.

In the hustle and bustle of leaving B-town last week, I managed to leave bits and pieces of my life in a number of locations - necessitating a return trip to scavenge for the flotsam left behind. ... in order for it to become flotsam, it most likely had to be jetsam in the first place ... but I don't recall throwing anything overboard to test buoyancy.

And - I told a few souls that I would be swinging back through. mistake. because by few, I mean everyone. and by swinging, I really meant drive-through. so, invariably I missed seeing many, many people that deserved a fervent final farewell for formalities. If you send me your address, I will make it up to you in postcards! I can't really do justice to everyone, because I will miss someone who actually reads this - and remember everyone else somehow - but here goes:

a goodbye to those that I never really did the goodbye thing with, and were close enough that I could possibly have swung by - Laura, Cord, Ali, Kris, Kristin, John, Chelsea, Tito, George, Chris, Pete, Ryan, Davis, Jen, Colin, Nick, Lee, Dave, Tamara, Sean, Hannah, Andrew, Emily, Cortney, Kevin, Dara, Rahul, Sarah, Rob, Erin, Matt, Leigh, Tim, Liza, Clinton, David, Jeff, Todd, Rajani, Stephen. If you are a duplicate - i.e. there are four different 'Nick's that could qualify here - then just assume that I meant you. because I did. And really people ... I will be back in two months - I'm not leaving forever - at least I don't think so. hence - I will see you when I get back. calm down. jeez.

it keeps getting closer and closer to the final leaving date !! super exciting !! I am going to start getting everything in my personal duffel packed and ready for the checklist tomorrow ! woot woot !

on the drive today, besides almost falling asleep and forgetting to apply the breaks, and coming impolitely close to the rear bumper of a cement mixer ... who had been judiciously applying his own breaks to come to a complete stop at a red light ... the only thing of note otherwise is that I confused a few cars of college kids. They would pull up next to me (this was while I was proximal to Burlington), look at the two queen mattresses, bike, boxes, toaster, microwave, air conditioner, books, etc ... then look at me, then at the direction that I was driving, then back at the stuff in the truck ... then at me ... and you could tell that they were thinking, "should we tell him that he's driving AWAY from UVM?" or, "geez ... I wonder what classes he was taking?"

... an interesting sign on rt 7 says "Anti ques". which inspired the question ... just what are ques in the first place? cues are used for pool, or actors. queues let you know how long till you get to use the restroom. but ques? perhaps by analyzing everything in the store of this 'Anti' ques we can fine out what 'Pro' ques is ... let's see ... broken chairs ... old plates ... rusty tow plow head ... hmmm. a que must be something new, shiny, and relevant to today's society!

speaking of road signs ... one of the best ones that I have seen - in front of a mid-sized jewelry store: ''Come on in! We've got the rings! You just give us the finger!''