Pulled off at Pomona

Sunday was the Vagina Monologues. It was both factual and entertaining, I really enjoyed it. Afterward I ate broccoli at China Wok and headed to see Crystal Bright and the Silver Hands at The Blind Tiger. The show didn’t get over until 2 AM. By that time I was feeling pretty shitty and headed home for bed.

When I got home it was hard to walk. I was glad I didn’t try to go to the gym, and laid down for bed. The next 12 hours were spent awake, with a high fever, chills, diarrhea, nausea, and the worst cramping bloating writhing pain I’ve felt in a while, all until I puked myself dry (First time successfully inducing vomiting!) Monday was spent in bed resting, and around the 24 hour mark I started to feel better. Horrible horrible horrible, plus my sleep schedule, what little I had, is now all fucked up.

Tuesday I stayed up all night and headed to look at houses early. Afterward I shot over to the yard to catch a brand new Sicr/Fowl hopper. When I got to the tower, I saw two train hoppers standing UNDER the tower, INSIDE the “Stay the fuck back” fence. I rolled up to tell them to get out of there when the bull walked up and started talking to them. I waited for him to finish, then offered to get them out of there. There names were Dwight (28) and Harper (19). They were spotted while sleeping in a gondola on the 351, and pulled off just 20 minutes before I arrived. The bull had caught them in Linwood yard last year, and the encounter was described to me like they were old friends shooting the shit. They just talked about train videos on YouTube! The tornado video, the derailment-railfan video, the head on collision, among others. In the end, the bull said “You know I’ve got to give you a ticket” handed them a blank ticket from his book and said “You can fill it out”. Not bad.

Knowing they were looking for a southbound train towards New Orleans, I decided to drive them to Linwood. We were actually looking for a signal in Salisbury beyond the SBD/WBD split, where the SBD main to Atlanta’s double track goes to single track. Driving through Spencer, we took a gravel access road that followed the tracks and suddenly saw two old white dudes with overseer uniforms and shotguns looking after their group of slave laborers (Black State risoners) We got kind of spooked but they waved us past as if we belonged. Not finding the signal, we drove to the Old Spencer yards to ask our railnerd “HEY WHERE CAN WE PHOTOGRAPH SOUTHBOUND TRAINS?” questions, which they happily answered. We were about 5 miles from the SBD signal we needed. Also, today the Old Spencer yards (This was THE yard before they built the massive facility in Linwood) are used for industrial switching only. Cool! Very nice folks. We said our thanks and headed down the road.

We found the signal pretty quick, and I went to find a parking spot so I could help explore all the abandoned houses just short of the signal! The property was pretty awesome. A handful of abandon houses and sheds, with the NS mainline out the front door. There were a ton of daffodils blooming. No neighbors at all. Pretty undesirable land by most counts, and I love it! In a house I found a Metal Thermos showing Daniel Boone beating Native Americans with a baseball bat! In the shed I found a rusty old red lantern. There was lots of cool stuff I left behind, including a nice, old, heavy framed mirror and a bunch of 64 oz glass soda bottles in good condition. Judging by the huge amount of soda bottles and NO alcohol bottles, we concluded they were not drinkers, so no old liqueur bottles to paint. The latest mail in the houses was from the 70′s addressed to Angeline Chunn. Looking up the tax information on the property, it is still registered to her with a Maryland mailing address. She has to be at least in her 70′s by now. I am going to mail her with a $2000/acre offer for her overgrown 6 acres. Curious what she will say..

After we explored we just sat on buckets and shot the breeze for a few hours. We talked music (when he isn’t doing carpentry/demo work, he rides travels with his girlfriend and plays music to make money), trains (the means of travel), skating, art (we like a lot of the same people), and mutual friends (We had a few, namely: Jordan, Ted, and Clay). Dwight busted out the saw and played some Finnish folk music. Absolutely the best saw player i’ve heard yet. Good folks these. By now I was incredibly exhausted, only eating two bagels in the last two days, both which were promptly sprayed from my ass. We exchanged phone numbers and hugs, and I drove home to pass out.

Fun, very unexpected, day.

Bull Run, USA

Today was nice. I woke up pretty early (1 PM) and we headed to the NC Rail Museum, then onto a small yard a few “towns” over. It was a beautiful day: About 55 with a warm blue sky. I took a photo and wrote a story:

Bull Run, USA

Somewhere over the horizon lays the railroad tracks. It wasn’t 45 minutes earlier, you were on them, watching a little bottleneck situation play out as two junk trains and a stack train tried to get through the same subdivision block; clogged up by a lawed out junk train. You’d been pretty well out of sight, until another train rounded the bend and stopped at the signal. To be respectful, you decide to stay well off the tracks, risking a deadly steep hill of ballast to take your photos from.

Soon after, that train pulls.. The crew doesn’t return your wave.. only glare. You start to wonder if they called you in, knowing you are just a few miles from the railcop headquarters. “Naw, fuck that” You decide to finish taking your flicks, before crossing back across the mainline to get to your car..

You photograph the last boxcar on the tied down junk train, a Dego blockbuster (NICE!), but soon wish you hadn’t lallygagged… You’re literally stepping between main 1 and 2 when you see a white SUV come flying onto the access road. You know exactly who it is, and exactly what his intentions are. DIP! Slide down the hill, and through the brier patch, literally tearing your legs to shreds.. God damned briers! He isn’t but 20 yards away, but he’ll have to come down the hill and through the briers, too. Just don’t stop! You know what happens when people run and then stop. “DON’T STOP.”

Over the mountain and through the woods, you don’t find grandma’s house.. rather a clear cut with a series of access roads. You aren’t sure where you are, or where your car is parked. Your legs are swollen and bloody and you really wish you had brought some water, but its 55 degrees and the sun in shining across the great blue skyway. It’s all good.

(this is all fictional of course.. a completely made up story to go along with the photo! I have never trespassed on railroad property and would never run from a law enforcement officer)

Going to look at another house tomorrow. It really is a shame I HAVE (HAVE) [HAVE!] to lie about what kind of dogs I have. Every. Single. Landlord. immediately makes sure the dogs I am speaking of are not pit bulls or rottweilers. Every single one. That doesn’t work well for me, you see, considering I have two American Pit Bull Terriers and a German Shepherd/Rottweiler mix. All of my dogs are considered “vicious”… I guess someone just forgot to tell them that:

This kind of bigotry should be illegal. Dear landlords: future, past and present: Sorry for lying to your face, but what do you want me to do? What are my other options? Rot in the streets?

Tim Barry, Chapel Hill

Life has been slow, cold, and miserable this winter. I haven’t worked since Christmas, and that is starting to show on my land-saving’s account. I haven’t been doing much of anything. We’ve had considerable snowfall some four times so far, along with really cold temperatures. I’ve made two skydives in the past 4 months. The things I normally love doing, I can’t even get out of bed for. I try to get up early so I can enjoy the day, to no avail. Sleeping until 4 PM has been the norm, while it gets dark at 5 PM. Twice I have pulled an all nighter, gone to bed the next day around 8 PM, and STILL slept til 5 PM. This little trick used to work every time.. Yet now when I try it, I still sleep all day, its just 23 hours instead of 12. Maybe I’m depressed. Maybe I need some sunshine, some work, some skydiving. Maybe I need to get my feet on the road.

Today was pretty much an all night trick.. though not by choice. I needed to be in Wytheville VA to fight a traffic ticket bright and early, and at 4 AM still laying in bed, realized I probably shouldn’t even bother with sleeping anymore. I very nearly decided it wasn’t worth a snowy, 6 AM drive just to sit in a court room to have them tell me I’m guilty anyways. Buttttttt, if I win, I will have the points removed from my license, my insurance won’t go up, and I’ll get the fine I paid reimbursed.. I decided to give it a shot. Put the finishing touches on Bruce’s bottle and headed to Allison’s to make biscuits and gravy. Four undercooked biscuits later and I was Wythe County bound.

I pulled up in front of the courthouse at 9:10 for my 9AM case. The jolly ol’ Deputy guard and made me leave my cell phone on the radiator heater, next to a bunch of other phones, pocket knives, and undesirables. This is the judge’s order, he said. The small court room had 15 people inside, a stark contrast from the concert hall Metro courthouses I’m used to. The man on the stand got his continuance, and I was next in line.. Wow, a two-minute wait, another huge contrast from the big city courthouses.

The judge heard the policeman’s story, and then mine. It all happened pretty quick, and I didn’t sound as much like a lawyer as I did when I imagined it in my head. After closing statements, his tone and choice of words made it sound like he was about to say “from the evidence presented to me today, I find you guilty” but he didn’t, he said not guilty. “Ahem, sir. Where do I go to get my fine reimbursed?”

After about 15 minutes of explaining to the clerk why she should give me my money back, they finally cut me a check. On the way out, I held that heavy ($241) check up high and slap fived the Deputy on the way out the door (whose side are you on, anyways??) 10:45 I was back street-side, just 35 minutes! With the two-hour drive each way, it made the whole thing about 4.5 hours, still faster than any court date in Greensboro. Way to go Wythe County.

I stopped in Winston on the way home and hit up the NS yard. It was deadly calm, with some nice boxcars sitting right in the middle. The side I could see was pretty wack, but I decided to walk around to the other side, and I’m glad I did. Axel Suite Asic end to end, and a freshly painted Leder Bars. Down on the loading dock they were just unloading the paper rolls from the CSX waffles. This is the first time I’ve encountered workers here, who simply shot me a friendly wave. Of 3 boxcars on the eastern dock, two of them also had Bars Leder panels.. One was really fresh, and one was crusty and old. Very nice, wish I had brought my camera.

I drove home, intending to deposit my check, ship the bottle, bench Pomona yard, head to Winston to catch flicks of the aforementioned, and also check out the Southbound yard. Well, by the time I got to Pomona yard, I was about to pass out. I decided to park in the old Amtrak lot, and take a nap between trains. All I know is I slept for 3 hours, only struggling to hold my head up when a train would pass. I took 3 pictures from out the back window, to damn exhausted to even get out of the car. I forced myself up around 6 PM, told Allison to get her tail to Greensboro, and texted Tim Barry to let him know I was heading to his show with one in tow. “Cool, ur on the list. fat adam plus one”. Thanks homie.

[NOTE: I never did get back to Winston to flick these cars, I caught them the next day at the Pomona Yards.]

Outside the Local 506 in Chapel Hill, a guy with a CSX sat beside us on the bench as we ate our Weaver St Co-op goodies. I asked if he was into trains, he said “Oh yeah”. I asked how so, he said “Mostly filming graffiti and..” and something, I quit listening right there, I knew exactly who he was, it was Tane, the producer of the Bench Warmers DVD’s. I picked up Volume 9, we talked trains, photography, wildlife, and video cameras. Cool dude, it was nice to finally meet him. He might not know it, but he inspired me to push a video camera a little higher on my list of “To Buys”. Check him out at NODCRAFT BENCHWARMERS DVD’s

The show was fun. Allison filmed Tim playing a song he’d never played at a show before. At the end, he hooked me up with a couple hand drawn, limited edition Fulton Yard prints by Aest DOS and the new album, 28th and Stonewall on vinyl, which is pretty ding dang good if I do say so myself! [note to self, GET A MULTI COLOR PRESS//START DOING PRINTS!!] I came home, asleep by two AM, early by all means, and still slept until 4 PM.

Now its 4 AM. I’ve been laying in bed for hours. More house hunting tomorrow. There is one that sounds promising near the BOG GARDEN; 3 Bedroom, 2 bath (one to try a composting toilet conversion, don’t tell the landlord.. or the EPA), living room, kitchen, den, fireplace, fully fenced private backyard, utility room with washer hookups, long driveway to facilitate a school bus (lets keep this bright idea from the landlord, too), open front yard for a little garden, and a shed in the back yard. Two miles to the organic grocery store; Two miles to the yard; Three miles to the gym. $900 a month. More than I want to pay, but god damnit all to hell, I need something. Something. Maybe this is it? 4:44 AM, 28 degrees, clear and this old house isn’t much warmer; goodnight America.

A coward dies a thousand deaths

We got the winter’s first few inches of snow and ice this afternoon, prompting the Dead Icons/Advent show to be canceled. This is the first time I’ve driven in snow with four wheel drive. I shouldn’t have been driving really, and definitely wouldn’t have been driving any car without 4×4. The Buick would have been all over the place. I noticed a trend on the road.. If you saw a Ford Mustang, it was because it was stuck. Bitchin’ Camaros, too.

I recently built a straw bale dog house for the mongrels. Since then, they’ve been outside almost 24/7.. I only let them in if I’m leaving the house, even then I usually leave one or two outside.. Protection on both ends. Lola is jumping the fence any chance she gets, so she has to be on the tie out if she is outside, period. I hate it for her.. but I can’t have her running around the neighborhood, so chained up she will stay.

Life has been crazy lately. Not much work since the last post due to constant crappy weather. I’m also not-current skydiving, part piss poor weather this fall/winter, part laziness, part focus on other things. Things are looking good on this 7.5 acre property and house. I am going to turn in my loan application on Monday, and potentially make an offer on the house if I get a prequal letter. It seems like everything is actually coming together, and I couldn’t be more EXCITED!

I hung out with Crystal for hours tonight.. Learned some drum beats, drank hot chocolate with chiles, and had a nice talk about friendship, human needs, middle class angst, and living a fulfilling life. I really look up to her.. Feel like there is a lot she can teach me.

Other then the progress on the house hunt, I’m not getting a whole lot done. I need to get on that, plenty of projects that need a’finishin.

04:10 – 31 degrees with freezing drizzle.
2pac – Me Against the World 1995

A new journal?

So I wrecked my Sentra off the side of a mountain last Friday. Talk about putting a damper on things. I have already replaced it with a 1998 Buick LeSabre and will be back in the grind next week.

Revival Tour 2009 was tonight at Cats Cradle, Carrboro NC. The Buick averaged 25 MPG on the trip to and fro. Not bad.

Lots of god damned cold rain lately. The whole house feels wet.. Nothing gets a chance to dry. Don’t really have anything to say.. Not sure why I decided to start a journal with nothing in mind to write about.

47 degrees and light rain.
Blood for Blood: White trash anthem.