drunkencomputing

This morning I crossed the Blatnik bridge in the early morning haze and saw orange-vested construction workers picking up orange barrel and white lane tape.  My first thought was, “this is just another cock-tease,” and that the bridge wouldn’t truly be opening back up to two lanes.

I pressed, not really believing that after 1+ months of single-lane/uni-directional traffic, that the bridge I’ve relied on for the past 8 years for every-day transportation would once again be open.

Well, on my way home today, I was suprised to see…the Blatnik is 100% again.  I peed in my pants a little bit with excitement.  No more sneaking under 535 up Garfield to cut ahead of the rush.  No more 15 additional minute drive time over to the Bong to get back home, followed by a sheer clusterfuck on the Belknap viaduct.  Just me and the old John A.

So enjoy, fair Twin Ports travelers, and revel in the amazement of the Blatnik bridge.  While I’m eating my celebratory DQ ice cream cake with a frosted Blatnik bridge on it, think of what life would of been like before the Bong bridge…when only the Arrowhead bridge could get you across the bay.  My, how we’ve evolved.  Here’s to the fully operational Blatnik!  *stuff ice cream cake in his mouth*

It’s just for your safety. Just hand it over. If your 70 or older, I need it please. It’s a precaution to ensure you don’t cause any more road rage. I’m not discriminating, I’m being fair. OK, maybe it’s a little bit of discrimination. But seriously, it’s for your safety.

You served in Vietnam and maybe even WWII, and I seriously am very, very grateful. I know what you’ve done and been through for this country and we as a society owe you more than we will ever show. However, that time is over, and now it’s time for you to be safe. You survived D-day and Hamburger Hill, but you can’t survive 21st century traffic...even in the piddly thoroughfares of the Twin Ports. Let me just have your driver’s license and call you a cab or a sub-70 driver.

You see, wise elders, you can’t keep up with the way the 21st century drives. We are the plus-five is A-OK age. 40 is seriously the new 35. 70 is the new 65, not the new 45. You also need to understand that those white signs posted every 10 miles on the motorway that says “Slower traffic move right” is for everyone, including you. You need to speed up or move over before you cause our over-caffeinated, over-drugged, and over-worked generation to kill more people than we already. Cause, c’mon, at this rate, we’ll all be in trouble.

You can protect everyone else on the road by letting me hold onto your license until you’re, y’know, dead. You can protect yourselves AND others while on the, road. And you can protect others at the destinations from an enraged driver.

Now, it’s not me that really wants you off the road, it’s that guy in the Kia swerving between lanes behind us that really, REALLY wants you to get off the road. I think I can feel his swear words they are so loud and angry. I hope he’s not on his way to a college campus. I like you alive, and I like other people alive…so let’s protect everyone and just hang up the ol’ driving gloves for the rest of forever.

It’s a precaution, really. I’ll put them in this manila folder I have here sitting next to my shredder. They’ll be safe, and I have a great cataloging system going. Together, we can make the world a safer place to drive.

For the most part, Superior sucks. It’s kind of cool to live in a place that people fear, respect, and hate, but for the most part, it sucks. The taxes are high, there’s no economy, and no industry. However, when I was driving on Wednesday, I drove by Barker’s Island, and for the rest of the day, I thought Superior was OK.

On Wednesday, the city of Superior tries to do it’s small part to give back to the community by hosting “Music in the Park,” which is a free concert series that runs all summer. Local acts perform as well as some out-of-town acts. It’s all completely family-friendly, as well. On this Wednesday, I could hear the music from my back yard…I had thought the neighbor lady was blasting some music…but when I drove by Barker’s Island to run some errands, I saw the entire island’s parking lot was full…next to the amphitheater, along the beaches in the bay, up the road leading to the island, all the way up to highway 2 and 53. There were people everywhere, running, walking dogs, sitting in the grass, swimming, kayaking, canoing, and fishing. The weather was gorgeous, a nice, sunny 73 degrees. It was perfect out. People were having a good time in Superior, without the aid of alcohol or fire arms.

For the rest of the day, it made me forget about all the problems Superior has. It made me forget that people fear going to downtown Superior, and that people hate Superior because it’s a dump. The Music in the Park made me forget all that. It made me forget that for the most part, the people in Superior are rather depressed. Today everyone was happy and enjoying themselves…taking part in activities that are commonly associated with defining our area. It was good.

So to the city of Superior, I think you’ve finally done something right. Try not to fuck anything else up though, OK?

After long last…at least two years of dreaming..I can finally buy movie tickets for Twin Ports-area movie theaters online.

This means that I can also buy tickets from my phone, finally. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve been at a restaurant before a film, hurrying along my meal so I can get to the box office in time to get a ticket. Not any more. Click, click, click, drink beer, enjoy dinner. Tickets are there, ready and waiting for me. No need to rush dinner any more. Of course, most of the time I’m going to dinner before a movie, I’m right across the hallway from the theater in Superior at Guadalajara’s, drinking Negro Modellos or giant maragritas. But either way, the piece of mind is there.

I think online ticketing may just in fact increase the likelihood of me going to movies again. Yaay technology!

Besides the obvious Depression-era funk that hangs over the city of Superior, Wisconsin, there’s another element that makes it depressing to live here: the fucking weather. I notice it every day that I drive down from the top of the hill in Duluth, Minnesota. I’ve been making the same drive home for years now, and still it amazes me to see the drastic climate change. But nowadays, all I want is nice weather. But no, not in Superior. Where you pay through the ass to live like the lower middle class. Where jobs are scarce (well, JOBS exist, but not CAREERS, how about that). And the weather is always shittier by the Lake.

For example, yesterday I left work on the top of the hill in Duluth. I went for a bike ride–it was a beautiful 79 degrees out. The sun was shining, and it wasn’t too bad for humidity. I was expecting the temperature to be somewhere in the same vicinity so I could enjoy the outside, wash my car, and take care of some lawn work. But as I crested the hill in Duluth and started descending into the Bay area basin, I watched the temperature drop…75…72…68…63…59. I also saw a huge cloud of fog hanging over the Superior area, like an inversion. What a bowl of shit I was driving into. Of course when I got home in Superior, it was 58 degrees. I still washed my fucking car and did yard work, but it was cold as fuck out when I did it. I missed Duluth and it’s warm temperatures.

The weather system in this area constantly fucks me. In the winter, if I leave work and it’s snowing, I can be guaranteed that it’s probably raining in Superior. Likewise, if it’s dumping snow at work, Spirit Mountain will be getting trace amounts or–also common–fog. When I leave Superior in the morning and it’s raining, I can get to the top of the hill and there were will inches of accumulation. The line that you cross from one temperate zone to another is nearly drawn on the ground it’s so obvious.

Some people–who don’t know what the fuck they are talking about–say that we’re lucky to live in Superior. We don’t have to “pay for air conditioning” because we can just open up the windows on the house and let the wind blow through because it’s “cooler by the lake.” Get fucked. We rarely ever need air conditioning because I’m constantly freezing my nuts off in Superior. For just one summer, for a few days, I’d like to come home to a warm day in Superior. Sit on the deck, grill, and drink beer in just shorts and a T-shirt. I doubt this will happen (global warming for some, for others, “it’s just a weather pattern”), so now I have to carry two sets of clothes with me to work: shorts & a T-shirt for when I get off work, and pants and a long-sleeve shirt for when I get home to Superior.

Someone fix the weather for me.