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As I write this I’m sitting on the Capitol Limited, Amtrak Train 30. We’re pulling out of Cumberland Maryland at 1:24 PM local time. The train was supposed to get into Union Station in DC at 11:49 AM. I’m beginning to wonder why I even considered the train and how I was drawn in. When I originally had the idea of riding the train out to DC I was easily drawn in by the romantic images of train travel that Amtrak puts up on their website. A long train banks of lit windows coming around a bend in the tracks, lit by the moon and the lights inside. It’s a very enticing image.

But for all the imagery there is I don’t think that it can save american train travel. Cars are faster and –so long as gas doesn’t get that much higher– cheaper. If you buy your tickets long enough ahead of time planes and just as inexpensive. That isn’t to say that trains don’t have things going for them. Trains do live up to their romantic ideal in some ways. The Lounge cars allow you to look out onto the views (as I am doing now) with ease. Allowing you to take in the countryside, something you can’t do on a plane. On the same note you can’t be as stress free in a car; intestates are as busy as ever and it’s awfully nice to have someone else at the wheel.

All of these things considered trains I would say come out even, one other thing comes into play though, reliability. European trains arrive on time and leave on time. Amtrak is no TGV but I was at least under the impression that it would get me there in a reasonable time frame, not so I’m afraid.

My trip this started out in Oceola Iowa (the nearest stop to Ames and still about an hour and a half away). My Grandfather and I pulled up to the old depot, which was in a minor state of disrepair, about an hour early. Because of how much time we had I decided to call the 800 number to check on the train status. It was expected to be 5 hours behind. The major issue with this being that my connecting train (the Capitol Limited) was leaving only 2 hours after the scheduled arrival. I would be late, and would most likely be spending the night in Chicago. The agent told me that I could get a full refund on my tickets so I called my Dad and after talking to him decided to drive the first leg and catch the Limited in Chicago.

The car ride wasn’t too long and at least going into town traffic wasn’t horrendous (thanks again Mom and Dad). I got to the station on time, took a few pictures, waited in line, and boarded the train. There was no expected delays and everything was looking good. We departed only about 5 minutes late because of the number of people booked on the trip made finding seats for everyone difficult. We make our way out of the station, I introduce myself to the gentleman sitting next to me, and we talked for a while. Dennis was taking the train for the first time as well and seemed to be drawn in by the good customer service and the same romantic images that I was. He was heading for Florida to spend some time at a timeshare. I decided that I had talked long enough with Dennis (my ears were going to fall off) so I decided to go to the lounge car to watch the Pink Panther.

Eventually as the movie was playing we begin pulling through Gary Indiana. The train stops. The head conductor came on the intercom to tell us that 2 trains ahead a freight train was having some problems and he didn’t know how much longer we would be. Ended up being 2 hours and we were finally on our way. I watched the next movie (8 Below) and then decided to get some sleep. The next morning I was woken up around 7 AM (Eastern time) because Dennis was getting off the train in Pittsburgh. A number of people had connecting trains that they were going to miss so Amtrak had got a bus in Pittsburgh to take them to DC faster than the train could.

The rest of the day I’ve spent sleeping, reading, and watching a movie. We’re long past Cumberland now the conductor came by a while ago saying that we were about 4 hours out of DC. That puts us in at 5 PM, 5 hours late. The tranquility and romance of Amtrak unfortunately can’t make up for it’s unreliability. Next time I suppose I’ll just get tickets sooner and fly. It’s really too bad, I’m really enjoying looking out the windows as the countryside goes by.

The trip is nearly upon me! Woo HOO!!! Just incase anyone is curious here is the schedule for the trains:

Departing: Osceola, IA To Washington - Union Station, DC

The links in the table are links to Amtrak’s pages for the lines so you can see the route I’m taking. Check back here for more once I get to DC!

Now you might be wondering why I’m making train noises. The simple answer is, I’m weird. The more complex answer is that I’m attempting to get my trainspeak down so when I ride on one I’ll be able to thank it for the smooth sailing. Thursday I’ll be taking Amtrak to Washington DC for a five mission trip:

1) Take the train, 2) Visit Rachel, 3) See Washington DC, 4) Ride back via Car to Iowa with Rachel. 5) Take a break longer than a weekend

Very exited about the trip overall. The one issue I do have is I wont be able to use the “I’ve seen the big piles of rocks in Cairo enough times to not care but I’ve never been to Washington DC” guilt trip on my parents. Oh well… it’s never seemed to work on them or anyone else so maybe it’s for the better. In other news, the POTW is likewise dedicated to the trip.

Lately there has been some issues with tedger.com (including but not exclusively those non-materializing PoTWs that I promised). The server (Symphony) that I run it on isn’t fast as you can tell (just in case you’re wondering it’s a Pentium I 233 Mhz) and it seems to have some problems staying up. I’ve restarted the server several times lately and it seems to finally be staying up, but unfortunately I don’t trust Symphony for this important (at least to me) task. Over the next few days the website will be migrated to a newer/faster machine (it’s a 550Mhz Pentium III!!!). The move should be transparent to anyone other than myself, the only thing you should notice will be the snappier response of the website.

Bolero is already up and running so most of the grunt work is done, if all goes well tedger.com should be on a new server by the end of the day, if not then, the end of the weekend.

For those of you who haven’t already heard (I’m sure almost every one that bothers to still read here knows but so what) I have a new car! It’s a 2003 Gold Chevy Malibu and I’m loving it. Ol’ Bumpy (the ‘90 Taurus I had) had character but the Malibu has air conditioning. My Mom was concerned about the reliability of Bumpy and my parents decided that it would probably be best to get me something newer and safer that eventually could be passed down to my brother. Thus I now have the Malibu. Thanks again Mom ad Dad. Hopefully I have already partially repaid them in the form of lots of visits up to Dubuque this summer to see them without AC.

The car is included in one of the upcomming PoTW so stay tuned. My Car doesn’t come with a nerdy guy standing outside of it but despite that does look like this one.

First off, congratulations Matt and Grace! Matt Clancy (a friend from Harwood) and Grace Thommandru .… doesn’t matter her name is Clancy now, got hitched this last weekend at the First United Methodist Church in Iowa City. I and a few other ex-Harwoodians made the trek down to the land of Herkey the Turkey to attend. There was enough family there that we weren’t a huge part of the crowd but few enough that we did actually get to see Matt and Grace at the reception.

The reception was held out at a place called “The Barn.” The name is a little misleading as “the Barn” is actually 4 circular non-traditional “Barns.” The oldest one I’m sure was once used for it’s intended purposes the newer three were built within the last 10 years and seem to mainly be there for events like this. The night was a tad warm but I think that everyone managed. They had Italian and Indian food for dinner and it was all fantastic, I was just disappointed that there wasn’t enough non for everyone.

As the title of this post suggests I didn’t just witness a wedding in Iowa City. Turns out that the Iowa City Jazz Fest was this weekend. I met up with a few friends downtown for lunch before the wedding and we were able to take advantage of some of the great street vendors that were around thanks to the Jazz fest, not to mention the musical setting to the meal.

I topped the weekend in Iowa City off with a stop at my cousin Vanessa’s new house. It’s one side of a duplex but it’s really spacious, especially for just the two of them + Max their dog. Max is (in theory) a Lab/Chow mix so he isn’t a tiny dog (~60 lbs.) and he’s enjoying the yard that they now have. The downstairs still has a large Herkey on one wall, but Vanessa says that it will be leaving as soon as she gets the energy together to paint over it. I was encouraged to tell Mom about it though so her Cyclone pride would drive her into a frenzy, hopefully resulting in the wall being painted without Vanessa having to lift a finger.

My last stop before leaving home ended up being West Des Moines. I met up with some of my Dad’s family and had dinner. My Aunt Tara got me a car tool kit which I was informed includes a “Life Hammer” that I needed to make sure that I would keep in the glove compartment. If I were to drive into a lake anytime soon and it was in the trunk than I would be up a river without a paddle….. or in a lake without a lifehammer…. For those who don’t know, I didn’t, a life hammer is a small plastic/metal hammer that you can use to break a window in a situation where you are trapped inside the car, they’re often on busses as well. I promised to put it in the glove compartment, and I have, so not to worry, if you are with me in the car and I drive into a body of water you will be able to smash a window and swim to safety.

Since I’m not typing about a traumatic experience of loosing my new car (more on that shortly) I obviously didn’t need it the rest of the way back to Ames.

Update: Fixed Grace’s last name, apparently she wasn’t changing, the minister got it wrong. Not my fault.  Although I do seem to be having problems with last names and weddings.

Yeah…. I’m failing all of you.  Tonight I bring you a few updates so please forgive me.  I try my best but for some reason I just end up writing down post ideas on a post-it note and never writing about them.  As far as the Picture of the not quite week goes I now have 3 pictures lined up and set to automatically post at midnight on Monday for the next few weeks.  Depending on if I get some decent photos in the next few weeks these pictures might just end up in a photo album.  In that case I’ll post here and link to them (in theory).  So enjoy tonight’s posts, with me you can never tell when the next ones might be.