I'm wiped. I got in late last night since I was out at DeLee's birthday crab feast, and I was wound up enough that I couldn't fall asleep quickly. I reach over to the phone and tell it to switch to my fallback plan: I sleep 'til 0500 and reconsider my morning run. Reaching for the phone makes Beauty think it's time to rise and shine, but she quickly figures out that it's a false alarm. Somewhat literally.
I doze off again, but the Schnork wakes me a skosh after 4. Dangit. May as well get up.
One benefit to gorging myself at DeLee's is the pile of carbohydrates makes my morning run go by almost a minute faster than Wednesday's-- overall, sadly. A minute faster per mile would've been nice, but we can't have everything.
I only have five hours left out of my forty at the office, and I've got just enough stuff going on that they go by pretty quickly. It's time to begin my weekend.
I head a bit out of my way over to Glen Burnie for some barbecue. As I order, the clerk paused me, and says "National Anthem." Sure enough, ESPN disappears from the television and a waving flag graphic replaces it. The classic rock on the PA drops out, and after a message noting they do this every day at noon, the national anthem plays.
Everybody in the place, including customers dining at their booths, stands and faces the flag hanging from the rafters in the center of the dining room. I'm not sure where I got so jaded about how people think about national pride that surprises me, but it's good to see. After a short round of applause, I turn back to the clerk. "Uh...", I ask, "Where were we?"
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| A three-meat platter at Mission BBQ |
The brisket (they even ask if I wanted the point or the flat. Well, she asks, "moist" or "lean", but I suss it out.) has an excellent bark, nicely rendered fat, but surprisingly little smoke flavor-- oak, if I'm guessing right, which usually stands up better to beef. The sausage is nicely spicy, and usually I go for cheese bits in my sausage. The turkey keeps my attention-- it's excellent. The light smoke everything got works perfectly on the turkey. The creamed corn isn't bad, but I won't bother next time.
I wind my way up through Baltimore after lunch to pick up the southern end of I-83. It's not often someone drives an entire interstate from one end to the other in one day, and that's my plan. It's a good plan, until I smack my forehead not far from the Pennsylvania line: I've forgotten my concert ticket.
I've got plenty of time-- I had figured I'd have a few hours to explore the Hershey area before the show, but instead, I get to make a two hour or so detour back to the house.
I also give up on the thru-driving of I-83. The plan now stands at: head to dinner (more barbecue), then head down to Hershey for the show.
At Shakedown BBQ in Grantville, PA, I notice that they're out of diet Pepsi, but figured I'm in Pennsylvania, I probably ought to have a birch beer. I also made a big mistake: I forgot to ask for sauce on the side.
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| The Sampler at Shakedown BBQ |
This place had fairly rave reviews, but leaves me pretty disappointed in everything but the ribs. The brisket has zero bark, and I suspect spent the afternoon in some au jus under a heat lamp. The sausage might've come from the grocery. The ribs are how I like them, though. This won't win any contests, since I like the ribs more tender than your average barbecue judge.
The barbecue shack is next to the local Hollywood Casino, so it turns out forgetting my ticket means I probably just missed out on a few hands of poker. I'm okay with that.
The Giant Center's not bad. After exploring the concourse to find which restroom doesn't have a line out the door (or anybody actually using it), I replace my disintegrating Vapor Trails era ball cap. I notice a moment too late that it's fitted-- it fits, but I usually don't wear fitted caps.
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| Not bad seats for Rush's Clockwork Angels |
My seat's pretty good, even though we're packed in like sardines. I'm glad I'm taller than most folks, but feel a little bad for whoever is behind me.
The show is good, though a couple of times it shows that the band's been off for a week getting back from Europe. I'm amused when Geddy Lee introduces "The Analog Kid" and notes that they're breaking out the time machine and heading back to the 1980s. I am already in the 1980s at that point, reliving my high-school years-- or I would be, if I'd really started collecting music by then-- since all six songs they'd played before that were also from the 1980s. I suppose it's more really reliving my college years (part II), as these are the albums that I'd bought after I moved out on my own and got something that was almost like a real job.
That time machine makes for an interesting crowd demographic. Many of the people there are my age or older, and there's plenty of energy when Rush is playing songs from that era. There is also a strong contingent of teenage sons and daughters of all the folks my age, and they don't appear to be spinning Mom and Dad's old records, they're downloading the new stuff. Much of the crowd settles down when we finally step out of the '80s and early '90s for "Far Cry" from 2007 but the younger set perks up. The ratio of old to young, though, means the energy in the crowd has ebbed at this point, which explains why the pyrotechnics start up here even though intermission is right around the corner.
Intermission gives me a chance to fire off the unedited version of this blog entry. The big guy next to me, about my age, had ducked out during Far Cry, and I get to spread out a little bit and relax for intermission. The folks around me chat about the show, and I find myself being surprisingly chatty-- I have very little of my mother's ability to strike up a conversation with a random person.
As the intermission winds down, a group of string musicians files onto a platform at the back of the stage. It seems the orchestral-sounding parts of the new album will not be played using sequencers, which is a new one on me. Most of the Clockwork Angels album precedes some more delving into history. While the strings are live, a chunk of the drum solo is using the drums themselves as sequencers for a very different electronic kind of sound. I'm guessing they turned off the microphones over the drumstand, because the drum sound isn't as loud as usual. It's obvious they intend to play an encore, since even though Rush is not a "Greatest Hits" band, they pretty much can't do a show without playing Tom Sawyer. We finish up the show finally reaching into in the 1970s with chunks of 2112-- the other song I'm sure they're pretty much required by law to play.
I'd realized about a week previously that if I get up at 0400 on a Friday, leaving a concert and driving two and a half hours home starting at 11:30 or so was probably a bad idea, so I head over to a hotel just outside Harrisburg. My satnav is convinced that the hotel has a driveway off of Interstate 81, so it takes me three tries to actually figure out how to get to the hotel. I'm pretty wiped, but yet, wound up enough that it takes an hour to get to sleep.
Not a bad day, all told, even if it hadn't all gone as planned.
The show is good, though a couple of times it shows that the band's been off for a week getting back from Europe. I'm amused when Geddy Lee introduces "The Analog Kid" and notes that they're breaking out the time machine and heading back to the 1980s. I am already in the 1980s at that point, reliving my high-school years-- or I would be, if I'd really started collecting music by then-- since all six songs they'd played before that were also from the 1980s. I suppose it's more really reliving my college years (part II), as these are the albums that I'd bought after I moved out on my own and got something that was almost like a real job.
Intermission gives me a chance to fire off the unedited version of this blog entry. The big guy next to me, about my age, had ducked out during Far Cry, and I get to spread out a little bit and relax for intermission. The folks around me chat about the show, and I find myself being surprisingly chatty-- I have very little of my mother's ability to strike up a conversation with a random person.
As the intermission winds down, a group of string musicians files onto a platform at the back of the stage. It seems the orchestral-sounding parts of the new album will not be played using sequencers, which is a new one on me. Most of the Clockwork Angels album precedes some more delving into history. While the strings are live, a chunk of the drum solo is using the drums themselves as sequencers for a very different electronic kind of sound. I'm guessing they turned off the microphones over the drumstand, because the drum sound isn't as loud as usual. It's obvious they intend to play an encore, since even though Rush is not a "Greatest Hits" band, they pretty much can't do a show without playing Tom Sawyer. We finish up the show finally reaching into in the 1970s with chunks of 2112-- the other song I'm sure they're pretty much required by law to play.
I'd realized about a week previously that if I get up at 0400 on a Friday, leaving a concert and driving two and a half hours home starting at 11:30 or so was probably a bad idea, so I head over to a hotel just outside Harrisburg. My satnav is convinced that the hotel has a driveway off of Interstate 81, so it takes me three tries to actually figure out how to get to the hotel. I'm pretty wiped, but yet, wound up enough that it takes an hour to get to sleep.
Not a bad day, all told, even if it hadn't all gone as planned.
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