Yikes, I haven’t posted in several days! On Tuesday I caught the hotel shuttle to the airport and took the R1 train downtown. I went to the National Museum of American Jewish History…or rather, I tried. The place won’t actually open till 2010, when they will move their collection into the new building. Meanwhile, all that’s there is an exhibit detailing how they’re designing the new museum. Interesting, but not what I had gone there for. So I wandered around Philadelphia for a while, went the long way to get where I was going, and then took the train back to the airport.

Tuesday night we had tickets for the Lights of Liberty show. We went to Kingdom of Vegetarians for dinner; I wasn’t really impressed by it…it was okay but not great. The Lights of Liberty show was okay too, I wish it had cost about half what it did, but it was cute. Our tour guide was none other than James Lewis, famous for his performance of “Go Down Moses” in the episode of American Idol that was the Philadelphia auditions.

Wednesday was the last day of A’s training so I had to check out of the hotel. After I did that there wasn’t really anything else to do, so I sat in the lobby for a while. Eventually I decided to drive downtown, where I found a couple of caches before coming back to wait for the training to be over. We then drove through terrible traffic to Trevose, where we had found a hotel for $70/nt. We ate and I dropped A off in the room before driving back to the city to meet two dear friends at an ice cream shop. (If I can find the entry, I’ll link to the story about the ice cream shop later.)

This morning we drove downtown again, this time over by the Amtrak station for a show at the Esther Klein Art Gallery. A is a perfume freak (her own words) and the show was called “Odor Limits.” I was not super impressed but she enjoyed it. Then we got on the road for Wildwood! We walked along the Boardwalk from Youngs Avenue north to the end of the boards, with stops along the way for SkeeBall, rides, and peering into shops. We had a lot of fun and we decided to stay tomorrow night as well! So we’re not leaving until Saturday morning, yay! We’ll get to see the Friday night fireworks and maybe go on the rides some more.

I ended up with a surprise vacation! Last Thursday A said “I might have to go to training next week in Philadelphia, do you want to come too?” So I said yes! And now here I am at the Residence Inn Philadelphia Airport while A is in training next door at the Hilton, which didn’t have any rooms available at the training rate. I’m thinking of going out to the pool in a bit. Unfortunately the promised wifi in rooms did not materialize; when I called tech support they said it was only wired internet. It’s okay though, the cables are long enough that I’m on the couch with my feet up on the easy chair and a blanket over me! I have some brochures for things to do in Philadelphia but I haven’t decided yet what I want to go out and do. Segway tours are $70 which is much too much. There’s the Eastern State Penitentiary, but it’s far away. I have the car, of course, but we’re at the airport which isn’t exactly downtown. There’s the subway but it’s expensive…$8 if I want to get to the Jewish museum. Anyway, I’m just lazing around here for right now…takin’ it easy.

It is now 1:15am. I am finally back in bed. I had some…adventures. Much getting-lost and going-crazy ensued. Read the rest of this entry »

I made it uneventfully to Philadelphia - or rather Cherry Hill, NJ which is where they put me up for the night. I am going to leave in about an hour to head into the city and find the bar where tonight’s contest is being held.

I got my scuba pictures developed! Unfortunately only 15 came out though I thought for sure I took more than that…there were 27 on the roll and I only had to use up the last six at home. I put them in their own album on my travel photo site, but I also posted them at Flickr because I wanted to be able to use their little on-picture notes. One photo of me actually came out, but like a lot of the pictures it’s horribly framed because you can’t see through your mask AND through the little viewfinder, so a lot of the shots were only sort-of on target.

I would say more but this wireless connection in the hotel is very slow. I think it was free for the first day, though, and that’s all I’m here for (overnight), so I can’t complain. I did at least get my pictures uploaded!

Highlights of the weekend included working with fairerhiannon (a delight as always!), meeting worldwalkerdc (all too briefly), and giving dawnmarie727 her present (her reaction was awesome).

Other happenings included buying an embroidered leathergirl t-shirt, trying on a couple of corsets and finding a 26″ fits quite well and a 24″ is not too far off if I keep losing weight, as seen here. It was great to see all the deaf people who turned out, especially some who aren’t local to DC/Baltimore (and Philadelphia/NJ) but who came out to support Michelle in her step-down as Ms. World Leather 2005. (It turns out the current International Mr. Leather is an interpreter too, from Canada - I had no idea!)

Downer moments included the five-hour drive to get there (DC to Philadelphia should be 2.5-3 hrs maximum), and my brain completely shutting off this afternoon when the final part of the contest began. I was up there for about 5-10 minutes and I begged fairerhiannon to switch with me because I was making no sense. I don’t know what was wrong but my brain just wasn’t working. It took me another 5-10 minutes before I was able to relieve fairerhiannon and after that I was a little shaky but I did okay.

It was fun overall. And International Deaf Leather is coming to Philadelphia in 2008!

The morning started with me hitting snooze a time or two, and then when I got up I checked out of the hotel and brought my bags to my car. I got coffee at 7-11 and headed for the workshop. I was a block or two away when I noticed a few women standing around in yellow smocks. I thought “oh boy, they’re going to be handing out literature,” but as I approached I saw their smocks read “Planned Parenthood Escort.” As I approached the intersection, I was astonished to see several dozen protesters reciting the rosary, along with a great big picture of the Virgin Mary and so forth. I went up to two of the escorts and asked them about it; apparently every third Saturday this group comes down after their 7:00am mass to do this. It turns out that the building where my workshop was has the surgical center for all of Planned Parenthood Southeastern Pennsylvania, and abortions are done on Saturdays…hence the protest.

I chatted with the escorts for a couple of minutes and they offered to walk me in; I didn’t think I needed it but I let them come along. They ended up leaving me, though, to join a phalanx of escorts that was hustling a young woman into the building. Most of the protesters just kept saying the rosary, but a few walked alongside the woman and begged her not to go inside. They tried to shove literature at her, but she kept her head down and ignored them. The protesters aren’t allowed into the PPSP courtyard, so once we were past the gate the escorts broke away and the woman continued inside with her male friend. I was right on their heels and I could see that the woman was crying; her friend had to go up to the receptionist because she was too upset.

I went upstairs to the workshop room and dropped off my stuff, and I took a cell phone picture looking down onto the crowd. A couple of other students were already there, and one had ended up with literature in pretty pastels while the other had been presented with a tiny stuffed dog that had a note tied around its neck saying something about “don’t kill your baby.” I decided to go back downstairs to gawk a bit (from the safety of the courtyard), and I ended up taking a couple of pictures. As others arrived for the workshop, some were escorted and some were not; the protestors were telling every female walking in - including obvious staff members - that they didn’t have to do this, etc. Another woman from the workshop had a real camera with her, and she took pictures too; I gave her my email address so I will get to see them. One workshop student who was watching with me said she wasn’t sure she wanted to be in a building where abortions were being performed, but she ended up coming in anyway. When the deaf workshop participant arrived, she was guided by several escorts and I followed her into the building because it was almost 9:00 anyway. I explained on the way upstairs what the protestors were there for.

When the workshop began, we spent the first half-hour talking about the protest. The facilitator explained that there is rationale for doing the workshop on protest weekends, and rationale for not doing so; if they are at the same time, she has reasons for warning the participants on Friday, and reasons for not doing that. She hadn’t warned us because she wanted to see how we would respond, because as interpreters we could potentially encounter things like that and it’s good to have examined your feelings beforehand.

The workshop itself was about domestic violence in the morning and interpreting practice in the afternoon. For lunch I had a roasted tofu sandwich I’d bought the night before…at 7-11 of all places! The deli case there had multiple vegan sandwiches from a Pennsylvania company called Moshe’s; I was very impressed, and the sandwich I had was delicious. When the workshop ended I hightailed it back to my car and got on the road as quickly as possible, stopping only to pay $50 (!) for parking and only once along the way for gas.

Helpfully bolded to make it easier for you to skip stuff!
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Today started out bright and early with a woot-off! Normally Woot has one item per day, but during a woot-off they post a new item as soon as the previous one sells out. I had actually dreamed about a woot-off last night (seriously) and I woke up this morning to find they were having one! I actually did end up buying something: a USB 802.11g wifi adapter for $18 incl s/h, to replace the one I swear my brother-in-law broke because he is a big oaf. Anyway, I spent much of the day refreshing at woot.com, it was fun. I also got a couple of 1GB thumb drives for $16 each, one for me and one for A - that was a “side deal” though, not part of the woot-off.

I printed out all of my directions, notes, and cache pages for Philadelphia, and left at a little after 4:30. I hit some really bad traffic starting around Central Ave on the Beltway and continuing all the way to Route 1, which is pretty bad and it put me quite a bit behind schedule - maybe about an hour. I just happened to need to use the bathroom right when I was passing Chesapeake House, which is a rest area with a geocache, so I got out to look and pee. I didn’t find the cache - third time’s gotta be the charm, right? next time? - but I did get a yogurt and a little package of mini Triscuit crackers with mini cut-up cheese squares. Once I took the exit for 495 in Delaware I was in unfamiliar territory, and of course it was dark by the time I was hitting the outskirts of downtown Philadelphia. I managed to find the hotel, but I wasn’t about to pay $36.80/nt for valet parking so I drove around having no idea where I was and just looking for the nearest open parking I could find. I had a map with parking lots and garages marked, but I couldn’t figure out where I was, let alone where the garages were. I ended up parking in a garage at 12th and Filbert, and when I emerged laden with bags (computer bag, clothing/stuff bag, cooler with food, and purse) I was surprised to find my hotel was just across the street! So I had ended up going in almost a complete circle, apparently.

I set up in the room, turned on the TV, and opened up my laptop. I tried using their ethernet cable to hook up to the iBahn free system…and it didn’t work. There was a wifi network called “topofthetower” that I could access, but I couldn’t get any websites from it. I was able to determine from my Sidekick that the entire Wireless Philadelphia website is down, so I guess that’s affecting the connectivity for users, too. It would have been nice to have wifi so I could sit in bed, but I got out my ethernet cable and tried that one. How the heck did I end up in a room with a broken modem? Argh! I spent about 15 minutes on the phone with the iBahn tech support, and he was able to reset my modem - I saw the lights blinking - but I still couldn’t access anything. So I’m typing this in Notepad at 10:30 at night, waiting for the technician to come by. I wonder if they’ll come at a reasonable hour? Meanwhile I have the TV on, my Sidekick in my lap, and Dopewars open. (I’m tempted to just switch to another room, but I won’t go that far - yet.)

Added: It’s 12:20am. After waiting two hours for a tech to show up, I got them to switch me to another room. Guess what? Same problem. Which is weird, because it should be working, I see the lights blinking on the back of my computer where the network cable plugs in, but it still says a network cable is unplugged. I just want to go to sleep, but I need to get directions for going to the workshop tomorrow - the one thing I forgot to do before leaving. So I’m sitting in the lobby of the hotel with my wifi working beautifully as it always does. But fuck if I know what’s wrong with the damn ethernet port. I’m going to get my directions and go to bed; I’ll just have to use my Sidekick otherwise. Maybe tomorrow after the workshop I’ll come back down here…or go geocaching…or to Passional. Something. But damn.

• My cholesterol, which had never been tested, was 169. So that’s good.
• I am considering attempting to make peace with this guy. I am not the grudge-holding type, and I could have used his help this coming weekend when I will be voice interpreting a leather contest alone. He has turned up on the BLeGIT mailing list (that’s the RID-sponsored organization for queer interpreters) so I know how to reach him. I’m not sure if I will get in touch with him or not, but I hate thinking I have an “enemy” out there.
• I have had practically nothing to do at work for the past couple of days. This is not a bad thing, given that I’m participating in NonFicWriMo, but it feels kind of weird. I’m not doing much of anything.
• I figured my supervisor would have to hear about the sex workshop anyway when I submitted my CEU’s, so I went ahead and mentioned it to her. Not only does she think I’ll get approval to use my annual educational stipend for the workshop cost…but she wants to go! And so does another co-worker who happened to be in on the conversation - somebody who is actually cool. So it’s shaping up to be a fun trip. I haven’t heard back from the one person I contacted through CouchSurfing, but if there are going to be three of us we can probably afford a hotel room anyway.
• Tonight I tried the first workout from the exercise DVD set MK&R got me for my birthday. I feel like a total klutz, heh. I have got to figure out a better arrangement of furniture for exercising - I can’t keep an eye on the TV and touch my toes at the same time.

Tonight is my company’s quarterly staff meeting in Silver Spring; every three months we have to go sit and listen to droning administrative people for three hours. I have never really been close to the office environment because I am offsite in Alexandria all the time, so these meetings are kind of awkward for me because I don’t have any buddies. Besides that, I’m also always late, because I don’t get off work until 4:30 and there is zero chance of making it to the complete other side of the Beltway in just an hour. So I always miss the introductions of new employees, which means I never know who anybody is.

Tonight’s meeting is going to include the fact that we are switching health care providers. This is especially annoying to me, because our previous provider just switched pharmacy providers, and it took more than a month for me to get everything taken care of. Now our current coverage will run out on 2/28/06, so I have less than a month to get it straightened out again with a completely different company. On the bright side, they are finally offering domestic partner benefits.

I’m not going to mention this at the meeting, but I am going to be attending a professional workshop in April. It’s given by Planned Parenthood of Southeastern Pennsylvania, and it’s called Signing for Sexuality. It’s specifically targeted to interpreters (they also have a workshop called “HIV and Interpreting”) and it awards 1.2 CEU’s - we have to earn 8 CEU’s in a four-year cycle, so this will be a nice way to pick up a big chunk in only two days. The workshop is over a Friday and Saturday, so I will be taking that Friday off as personal time. The workshop is $175, and the discounted rate they got at the Alexander Inn is $100/nt (the same as if you use AAA) so I am thinking I will probably end up couch surfing instead. It should be a very interesting workshop, not necessarily relevant to my current position, but educational nonetheless!