We’re down to the last two days. The first event for the wedding is at 9pm tomorrow night. We appear to be on schedule but I am never too confident about my abilities to calculate travel time using a map.
Last night’s camping was awesome. The ground was on a swamp. We got there in daylight, setup camp and went into Charleston and walked around. Charleston is beautiful. With small colorful houses and cobblestone side-streets it looks like a small European village. I didn’t get to take any pictures because it was late night by the time we got there.
I slept so hard that I didn’t even wake up once in the middle of the night. Which is a huge accomplishment for me. We got up around 6:45 and watched the ducks that were completely unfazed by our existense and approached the tent with confidence. Racing to avoid the mosquitoes we got ready and got right on the road at 8am, the earliest we’ve been on the road in the last four days.
It was my turn to drive so I drove us down to Savannah which I think is the most beautiful American city I’ve ever been in. We took an hour and a half break and walked around the city and its amazing parks. I’d been down here with Jake’s family two years ago but that was the week I’d had an MRI and found out about my herniated discs so Jake and I had had to fly back to New York. The three hours we’d spent in the city had been enough for me to know that I wanted to come back.
Today’s plan was to go to Jekyll Island and camp at Daytona Beach but we ended up zooming right past Jekyll island because I wasn’t paying attention and didn’t tell Jake to get off at the exit. Thanks to that we changed our plans and decided to drive to Naples where my friend Ashlie happens to be and staying in her hotel room. Finally a clean shower!
Gas: $6.10@1.39 & $12.41@1.49 & $6.86@1.52
Miles on the car: 1966
Breaks: 3
Bagel lunch: $1.35
Parking: $0.50
Camping: $15.00
States: SC, GA, FL
Sites: Charleston, Savannah, Naples
Last night’s camping was quite windy because we camped right in front of the beach. But we survived it and even got lucky enough to take a shower this morning, so we’re all clean and back in the car. Today’s plan is to make it down to Charleston.
It’s Jake’s turn to drive so I’m looking out the window and planning to read The Quiet American. Our brand new car is getting covered with dead bugs so intermittently we stop and clean the front of the car and the windshield. Fun fun!
We’re spending our entire day shooting down to Charleston through Route 17. Depending on when we get there we may camp at Buck Hall at Awendaw or at Lake Aire RV Park and Campground in Hollywood. I am hoping to dine in Charleston and maybe see a movie. It’s 77 degrees in the bottom of North Carolina at 5pm. Hot hot!
After driving straight down we made it to Charleston at 7:30 so we’re staying at the Lake Aire campground. I am trying to convince Jake to setup our tent and drive back to Charleston to take a stroll because Savannah is in tomorrow’s plan and I don’t want to waste time driving back in the morning.
Gas: $13.57 @1.39/gal.
Miles on the car: 1342
Breaks: 3
Walmart diet-coke: $11.35
IHOP lunch: $6.00
Toll spent: $0!
Parking: -$2.00 I wrote this for yesterday but we didn’t park anywhere yesterday.
Previous night’s camping: $15.00
States: NC, SC
Sites: The Outerbanks, passed through Roanoke Island and Mrytle Beach
After three hours of driving around we finally realized that we had driven past the campsite about 4 times. Around 10:30 we pulled into the campsite and found a little spot. Thanks to the headlights we setup the tent in no time and decided to skip dinner and snore. The night got colder but other than that we had no animals, no bugs, actually no noise at all. It was calm and peaceful. I woke up without any back pain at all. It appears I can get used to this life which is great news.
I picked our route for the day. We’re taking the scenic routes 13 and 17 all the way down to Miami. Today’s my day to drive and it will be my first full day of driving ever. Cross your fingers.
We plan to stop at the Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge and possibly visit Kitty Hawk and Wilmington. Drive through Myrtle Beach and end up in Charleston for the night. I might be underestimating the distance so we’ll see how the plan gets revised.
Btw, the emails are typed on my tiny blackberry which may explain the typos. Also I type most of the mail up during the day and update it until we go to bed which is around when I send the mail.
So it is now 8:17pm and I drove from 9:30 till now. No accidents and pretty okay driving. Tons of backache though. We’re on the way to Rodanthe Camp ground which is about 25 minutes south of Kitty Hawk. It looks like it will be another night of setting up tent in the dark.
Gas: $12.34
Miles on the car: 879
Breaks: 1
Toll spent: $12.50
Ferry: $33
Parking: $2.00
Curly Fries: $4.50
Previous night’s camping: $10.00
States: NJ, DE, VA, SC
Sites: Cape May, Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge
After filling the car all the way up, eating Jake’s mom’s delicious crepes, and coming up with a vary vague plan we got on the road around 9:30am from Boston.
Since our car is brand new Jake won’t drive it over 60 until we reach 500 miles. As such we’re in New Jersey driving down to Atlantic City and planning to camp somewhere around there or Cape May.
My first night of camping ever is approaching fast. We’re planning to stay at Belleplain State Forest in Millville. My back is already hurting from sitting in the car for seven hours, so we’ll see how well it responds to sleeping on the ground.
We stopped to rearrange the car as soon as we got on to the Mass turnpike because my seat was so close to the windshield that I tought I might freak out. We then had to rearrange it again when it got so hot that Jake decided to dig for his shorts. The luggage in the trunk was locked just to make it more fun. I must say that due to my laziness and unwillingness to repack we ended up bringing enough clothes to last a month or more and about 25 pairs of shoes. You don’t have to tell me – I know that it’s insane. I figurw this is the mini-trip so I can afford to be insane. Yeah, right.
We walked into the hotel in AC where we parked the car. Neither one of us gambled before so we walked around and picked a machine which turned out to have 3 credits in it. We played and won 65cents. We then gambled away 50 cents at a few other machines and ended up leaving the place up 15 cents without putting in a cent of our own money. That’s the kind of gambling I can deal with.
Gas: $19.64
Miles on the car: 478
Breaks: (bathroom/food/stretch/etc.): 4
Toll spent: $7.95
Parking: $2.00
States: MA, NY, NJ
Sites: Atlantic City
We finally bought a car! Joined the AAA and took every book and map they have on every state. We bought camping gear and borrowed some from Jake’s parents. We charged all of our electronics. We bought coolers, ice, crackers, fruit and diet coke.
Tomorrow morning starts the first leg of our trip: DC, Virginia, Carolinas, Florida, New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Mississippi Delta, Atlanta and then back to Boston.
If you have ideas of neat places to visit in those states please leave me comments cause I want to see as much as possible!!
More info and pictures to come as we get on the way.
We have officially left our apartment of seven years and moved to our temporary living situation in Boston. Jake’s parents have been gracious enoug to let us leave our stuff here and stay here till we get on the road.
We used flatrate.com and they were amazing. Everything was handled professionally and executed perfectly. Now we’re looking for a car and we need to find one soon since our first car trip, down to Florida, is a little over a week away. Any ideas on how we can find a used car? We’re using the paper and craigslist for now. All ideas are welcome!
It appears to be working. I think this means I can finally go to bed.
I am going to be away from my dearly loved computer a lot in the next few months. So I am trying to see if my little perl script allows me to post from my blackberry.
Let’s see.
I have a good reason for not having updated in over a week.
We have spent the last week or so trying to find a way to get out of our current lease. We’ve been wanting to move out of New York for a while and now that there’s no specific obligations tying us down, we thought it would definitely be a waste of money to keep paying our exuberant rent.
It took a bit of creativity and a lot of money, but we broke our lease. We’re leaving in less than two weeks. The minute after we made the decision, we started packing. A week later, we’re still packing and we got a ways to go. We’ve been in our current apartment for seven years. One accumulates quite a bit of crap over that many years. Two accumulate even more.
We’re still trying to figure out between self-moving and a very affordable small moving company in Brooklyn. Finding a balance between insane amount of work and the risk of our life-belongings disappearing forever.
After the next two weeks, the insanity is just beginning. Between now and August, we will: move to Jake’s garage in Boston, buy a car and do all the car work for it, buy a tent and other car-trip stuff, drive to Miami for a wedding, drive to New Orleans/Baton Rouge/Mississippi Delta for sight-seeing, drive to Atlanta for a graduation, do some more sightseeing on the way back to Boston, drive to Pittsburgh for another wedding, come back to New York for Jake to take an exam, fly to the Caymans for eight days, back to New York, go to Turkey for two weeks, back to Boston for a third wedding, and finally, take a month to drive cross country.
We will ideally end up in San Diego where we will rent for a month or so to checkout neighborhoods and find an apartment. Once we settle in, we will move all of our shit from Boston. This is assuming we like San Diego since neither one of us has ever been there.
Hectic? Yep! Fun? We sure plan for it to be! Insane? So what?
I plan to write a script so I can post updates from my Blackberry since we plan to tent it at least two nights out of three. I will definitely post from Boston and most likely from Turkey, too. I don’t know about the Caymans.
In the meantime, we need to finish packing.
Told you I had a good reason.
“Let’s just listen.” – CNN reporter, yesterday as they were replaying the attack
I’ve tried to not mention the war. Not because I don’t have strong feelings about it. Actually, it appears I have strong feelings about everything. This war is complicated for me. I assume it’s complicated for most people unless you are at one extreme end of the issue. Don’t get me wrong; I think all war is bad. War means people will die and, no matter what the cause, people dying is a terrible tragedy. There’s no doubt it my mind about that.
Having all my family in Turkey and living in New York City and being Jewish makes me just about as involved in this war as I can possibly be. To add to the joy, I am unemployed and thus available to watch TV 24/7. I have officially become a CNN-addict. Thanks to the Tivo, not only do I get to watch it when I’m at home, but I get to cache it when I’m not. To be honest, I think I’m suffering from too much thought about the war to be able to sit and put it all into words. I’m not ready, so I shall not.
I will, however, talk about some other, but related, matters:
I am frustrated by the “Real World”, the TV show, attitude CNN is taking towards this war. This isn’t some fucking TV show, it’s real, it’s serious and it’s horrifying. Those are not firecrackers; they are bombs. I don’t appreciate having them suggest that we be quiet and listen as bombs drop all over Iraq. No matter how one feels about whether this war is justified or the right thing or unjustified or the wrong thing, watching it all “unfold” is not a nail-biting suspense thing. It’s making me angry that they are sensationalizing it so much.
I saw my first anti-war rally today. It was an unbelievable experience for me. I don’t know how many people were part of the march but the number was definitely in the thousands. There were men, women, and children. Pretty much all races were represented. Multiple nationalities were present. Several issues were being voiced. Some posters were funny, some clever, some thought-provoking, and some downright scary. Here’s a bunch and I have a ton more here. I couldn’t stop taking pictures.
   
  
  
I remember being in Istanbul during the Gulf War and watching it all unfold on TV. I remember very little about how I felt and I know my daily life wasn’t really interrupted. I am confident that, at least so far, the same is now true for my family back home. But knowing that doesn’t stop me from worrying. When I’m not at home and watching TV, I jump each time the phone rings, worried that it might be my mom with some horrifying news.
I’m sorry I can’t be more eloquent or pithy. All I know right now is that watching a lot of TV is bad for me but watching this many hours of CNN is exponentially more detrimental to my well-being.
Or lack thereof.
“I wasn’t feigning confidence; I really was confident. I was sure that my plan would work and that it would work exactly in this way. Looking back, it seems somewhat astounding that anyone would take me seriously. But at the time I didn’t see any reason for these funders to doubt me.” – Wendy Kopp from one day, all children…
I was thinking more about why the article I mentioned yesterday moved me as much as it did. Besides the rush of reading about someone who just learned all he could about every aspect of a business he was interested in starting, I found another characteristic that I decided is a common aspect among some successful people.
So you want to start your own company? You want to write the Great American Novel? You want to win the Nobel Prize? You want to. You really want to. You can feel it. You can taste it. But you’re also worried. Is it going to work? What if it doesn’t work? What if it’s all just a pipe dream? What if you’re giving up the comfort of daily life and delving into uncharted territory just to find yourself miserable, lonely, and penniless in a few years?
You get scared. You want some sort of guarantee. You want someone to tell you whether your sacrifice will be worthwhile. Is it going to work or is it just a pipedream? You’re willing to shake up the status quo but only if the hard work promises to eventually pay off.
Here’s the answer to whether your idea will work: it will, if you think it will.
Sounds trite?
Well, it appears the common trend amongst people, who’ve succeeded when others hadn’t expected them to, is that they didn’t know their goal was unreachable. The guy who started his hedge fund at 18 didn’t realize it was a big deal. He wanted to make money. He found a way and it made a lot of sense. Whoever said that it was hard to start a hedge fund and nearly impossible to sustain success for many years, had obviously not mentioned all this difficulty to this boy.
Same goes for above-quoted Wendy Kopp, who started Teach For America. She said the only reason it succeeded was because she didn’t know it was impossible. She believed in it wholeheartedly. It made perfect sense to her. Why wouldn’t it succeed? She was too naive.
That’s what’s missing in most of us: childlike naivete. We are too practical. We have a long list of reasons why we can’t quit our stable job. Why we can’t pursue a dream. It’s not real after all; it’s just a dream. We toy with the idea of chasing after it each time we drink a lot or have an exceptionally bad day at work. But no more than that. Each year, it becomes even harder to imagine going for it. We’re grown ups now; there’s no room for daydreaming in the real world. We bury the dream and push it lower with every passing year.
I don’t want to speak on behalf of you; I can only speak for myself. Maybe you do chase after your dreams. Maybe you have no dreams. Maybe you’re already living your dream. All I know is that it’s been too long since I’ve even heard that little voice inside of me, let alone considered listening to it. I buried mine so deep that I’m not even sure it’s around anymore.
Maybe it’s time to start drinking.
The weirdest things get me excited lately.
Jake handed me an article about a Harvard student who started a hedge fund out of his dorm room in 1987. I put off reading the article because the subject matter is something I hear about often and care about rarely.
Today at lunch I finally picked up the article and it took all of five lines to hook me in. The article talked about how the student took it upon himself to learn what he needed to and without any education in the field, he created what’s today one of the more profitable hedge funds out there. I have never been a big money person and I even had many moral conflicts with working at an investment bank but this article made me want to start my own hedge fund.
Once I stepped back from the shock of being excited about the preposterous idea of my starting a money-related business, I realized that what got me so animated was reading about someone learning. Learning about math, the finance business and statistics.
It appears I am addicted to learning.
Recently, I told a family friend that I love to learn and the subject matter doesn’t truly matter. Pottery excites me and so does physics. She told me that learning for the sake of learning wasn’t the best choice and that I had to learn with a goal. She said, it doesn’t matter what you choose but you should take pottery classes because you want to learn to make pots not because anything will do.
I thought about her comment for a long time. In all honesty, I don’t think I sign up for a class just because it’s a class. And I don’t like to learn just anything. While there are maybe tons of languages I’d still like to study, I have no intention of learning Hindi, for example. In the right setting, I’m sure I might get to like the idea of learning Hindi and even choose it, but in my current environment, there are enough other languages which peek my interest that I won’t choose Hindi any time soon.
Same goes for musical instruments. When I decided to learn one last year, just any instrument wouldn’t do; it had to be the saxophone. I had two alternatives but I chose the sax because it was my first love.
I don’t just take classes for the sake of learning. I just like learning about a very wide variety of subjects. It excites me to know about art history. It also excites me to know about physics. Statistics. Literature. Psychology. Politics. Math. Just because my interests are wide-ranged doesn’t mean I learn because I want to learn just anything.
I guess it comes down to depth versus breadth. For me, that’s been the age-old problem. Do I pick one love and learn all I can about it or do I explore all but only to a basic level?
I don’t know the answer. Do you?
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projects for twenty twenty-four
projects for twenty twenty-three
projects for twenty twenty-two
projects for twenty twenty-one
projects for twenty nineteen
projects for twenty eighteen
projects from twenty seventeen
monthly projects from previous years
some of my previous projects
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