August 2004 Archives

So you all may be wondering why it took me almost a week to continue my story about COVENTRY. Some of you may argue that I'm just plain lazy, others may be more on my side and say that I could have been busy; but the real reason? Effect. For those of you that have actually been checking back, waiting to find out what actually happened INSIDE the concert gates; just imagine how we felt waiting in line. Sitting in my car. Waiting to move.

Anyway, we were approaching our fifteenth hour in the car, and a little bit up ahead was our destination. The line here was split into six or seven lines and routed toward separate checkpoints. Concert security hovered all around in shirts labeled "Safety" and the area was peppered with Vermont State Police poking around being nosey. If I remember correctly there was even a State Game Warden standing there feeling somewhat important, possibly hoping that the power his position holds may actually be used.

Finally it was our turn for the shakedown. A wet tired staff member approached my car.

"Pop your trunk," he said. I complied and he began rummaging around through all our gear. As he was doing this another staff member approached from the other side and opened the rear passenger door. He stuck his head inside.

"You guys bring any firearms, fireworks, weapons, nitrous or illegal drugs?" He asks.

"Nah," I answer. He begins to rummage around in my backseat, which was full of camping gear. The trunk of my car slams shut as the other staff member joins his counterpart.

"You guys are all set," he says, but quickly recants, "except wait, this shovel might not be OK. Hold on while I go check."

The shovel that he was speaking of was a small two and half foot spade that Dan had added to our gear to possibly dig trenches around our tents if the rain got to a flooding level. Dan had grabbed it from his parent's garage before we left.

Off in the distance we see our inspector huddled around with about five other staff members, much like a group of umpires at a baseball game rapping about a call. There are some shakes and some nods and he approaches the car.

"Sorry guys, we have to take it." Dan face goes pale. "You can keep it, but you're not going in the gates with it," he continues.

I could have cared less. I was tired, my ass was asleep from sitting for so long and all I wanted to do was get inside. Dan was a little more taken aback.

"Can I have it back after?" He asks, only to get the answer he wasn't looking for. Finally he nods his head, our shovel was confiscated and we moved forward. As we continue Dan looks at me and says, "My dad isn't going to be very happy."

Soon it was forgotten though, as my car inched toward its four day resting spot. As nice as six lanes of traffic were for the few minutes we were there, quickly things got messy. All six shakedown lanes funneled back into a single lane. There was no one there directing traffic, everyone working was too busy taking people's garden tools, and a mass of tired, cramped up people prodded and nosed their way into the lane.

After some encouragement from my passenger seat driver to just be aggressive and pull my small car in front of the mass of SUVs I made my way into the line, where like cattle we were led to a big field. A quick look at the field and anyone with half a brain would have realized what kind of mess it was going to be to park the expected 35,000 cars. I drove slowly in the wet field, tapping the accelerator and trying not to spin my wheels. Mud from the tires of the car in front of us hits my windshield as we're directed to park next to a Nissan Xterra.

Yes. I said park.

Now, incase you don't remember, as of 8:30 the night before the rain had let up. Well, AS SOON as I get out of my car, don't I feel exactly what I don't want to. A raindrop on my bare neck. I look at Dan, "Let's get this done."

We do what we need to do, quickly and silently. We each grab our tents out of the back of the car and go to work. First the poles, then the flies, then the pegs. Five minutes later our tents were pitched in the places they'd stay for the duration of the weekend. Content knowing that our sleeping areas will be dry; our attention turns to a pop-up pavilion. It took our clouded minds a few minutes to finally get it up and strapped down, things are a bit more complicated at 5am in the rain after being awake going on twenty-plus hours.

Once it's up our camp chairs come out and are set underneath.

"I'm going to bed," Dan says as he climbs into his tent not expecting or getting a response from me. I plopped down in my chair. I'm going to stay right here for now...

Come back for COVENTRY - Part 3 (Only 36 Hours 'Till Set One)

(My full COVENTRY Photo Album is posted and can be accessed by clicking: Here)

A week ago this moment I was sitting in my car. I had been there since 7:30am. I was wondering if I was ever going to move, if I was ever going to get out, if I was ever going to get home. Of course I was going to, it was inevitable, but at points it looked grim.

I push my clutch to the floor and put my car in reverse; the car doesn't start or make a sound, but the reverse lights illuminate. Almost instantly the three closest cars behind me turn on their engines. Haha.. tricked you. Everyone's going crazy, although you'd think we'd be used to it. It was but only 4 days ago we were all in our cars for 15 or more hours.

Of course, the fiasco I'm speaking about was Phish's last concert aptly named COVENTRY, located in the Northeast Kingdom of the band's home state - Vermont. Looking back at it now, it amazes me what some people will do in order to show their devotion to their favorite band.

My experience was mild, for the most part, compared to what some people had to endure -- but still a tale nonetheless. Lets rewind four days to Thursday, the day the gates opened for the show.

Originally I had planned on going to the show alone, I would have met plenty of people when I arrived there and would have seen many friends that I already knew. It just seemed that no one else I knew was able to get a ticket. They were in high demand and were going for multiple times their face value on E-Bay.

Then, two days before the show, I hear from my friend Dan. Apparentally he was able to get a ticket for $200 -- only $50 more than the face value. A steal for such a hot item, really. So I had someone to travel with, but his ticket wasn't in town yet.

The gates were to open at noon on Thursday, Dan's ticket was to come in the USPS Express Saver mail the same day. "The mail comes here at around 10am," Dan tells me. It sounded to me like we were going to get a nice jump. At 10:05am, I roll into his driveway.

"Did the mail come?" I ask, dreading his answer. The look on his face wasn't that of elation.

"Yeah, it wasn't there," my heart dropped. I had already planned on going up alone if his ticket didn't arrive. "But I called the Post Office," he continued. "The Express Saver mail goes to a different Post Office. It will be here by three. Guarenteed." That was good enough for me. We started to pack all of his gear into my car and then it started.

The rain, of course.

With all of the gear in the car and the windows tightly rolled up we were not sure what exactly to do. I was anxious to get there, pacing back and forth in the car port at Dan's house waiting for the mail to arrive. We call the tracking on the package a few more times -- it's still out for delivery. But sometimes it seemed it'd never come. What if the mail carrier got in an accident? What if it was a substitute carrier that didn't know the route and got lost? What if in fact there was no ticket in the package Dan paid so dearly for. The thoughts crossed both our minds.

Then at 1pm it came. Up the driveway in the pouring rain drove an SUV with US Government plates. Dan intercepted it before it could even get all the way up. Soaking himself in the rain he signed for his package. A quick thank you was exchanged and Dan ran back under cover. Ripping open the package he pulled out exactly what we were waiting for -- One COVENTRY Ticket.

It was finally here, it was finally time to go. A wave of relief came over me. The three hours it took for the ticket to get there seemed like eternity. Little did I know that it'd be the quickest part of my day and night to come.

The show itself was only about 75 miles away from where we lived, so once we got in the car it was pretty smooth sailing, to begin with. We stopped a few times -- to pick up a tent at one place, some beer at another, some ice and some gas. Each time forging more North toward our final destination.

We really had little conversation. We were both excited, concentrating on getting there. Keller Williams played on my car stereo keeping us zoned. Dan was sitting in the passenger seat reading an atlas.

"This is great," Dan speaks. "We're only about 6 miles out from where the concert is and we havn't hit any heavy traffic."

Of course he had to say something. No sooner did he finish his sentence than I came up over a little hill. Quickly I decelerated, as a long line of traffic was in front of us. Not moving a bit. We'd expected this, of course. We knew it was going to take a long time to get 70,000 people in through one gate. So we began to wait. Twenty minutes after stopping, the line began to move. We moved up a few hundred feet, and stopped again. From here we could see the rest of this road -- a mile and a half or so down, cars bumper to bumper.

This was our final resting place for a good portion of the night. I could go on and tell you everything that happened while we were sitting there, but I'm absolutely sure you'd be as bored as we were. There were of course some up points of the night.

Unfortunately it rained, and rained hard for a good majority of the time we were in the car. This made it almost impossible for us to get out of the vehicle and mill about the hundreds of other people waiting patiently for some sign of movement. So we sat in the car, engine on, car idling to keep the AC pumping. It was the only way we could keep the windows from fogging up.

Then at about 6pm the best news of the night was announced on "The Bunny", WMOO FM, the radio station that was taken over by Phish especially for this concert. They told us that they were going to broadcast the Phish show that was happening that night at 8pm in Camden, NJ, on The Bunny for us to hear.

Listening to a Phish show as it's happening hundreds of miles away. This was something new to all of us... and very cool too.

I guess at this point I can make the rest of this long story short.

At around 8:30pm or so, the rain tapered off. There was a light mist going on, but the outsides of everyone's cars became somewhat habitable. People began to get out of their cars, windows open and stereos blaring the Phish concert. It was a time to stretch our legs, have a drink or two and mill about.

Shortly after that, the line started to slowly move. Little by little we inched our way the six miles to the concert venue. Time seemed to move quicker when the car actually moved. Soon it was 4am on Friday, and woah, what's that up ahead...?

Come back for COVENTRY - Part 2 (Holy Shit! Are those the Gates?)

(My full COVENTRY Photo Album is posted and can be accessed by clicking: Here)

By following the simple advice I read in an article, I have finally found inner peace........ the article read: "The way to achieve inner peace is to finish all the things you've started."

So I looked around the house to see all the things I started and hadn't finished....and before leaving the house this morning I finished off a bottle of red wine, a bottle of white, the Bailey's, Kahlua and Wild Turkey, my 1/4 keg of LaBatt's Blue, the Prozac, some valium, some cheesecake and a box of chocolates.

You have no idea how freakin' good I feel.

"I'm now an Expos fan. No expectations."

Wow. Today I opened my site up and alas, the homepage was blank. It's been a while since I've wrote or put anything up here. I must admit, I've been really busy and I've had a lot going on.

For starters, at the beginning of last month I started taking my first computer course of my life. One of the benefits of working for the University of Vermont is the fact that I can take classes, up to 18 credits a year I believe, for absolutely free. I'm going on to my fourth year working here, and I've really never taken advantage of that benefit, so I decided what the hell.

So I signed up for Programming in Visual Basic .NET. I've programmed in many different languages throughout the years, starting with MSBASIC back in the day, through Pascal, C and C++ in my highschool years, onto Perl and one of my new favorites, PHP in this day and age. But I'd never programmed anything for a Windows environment. Everything up to this point has been text only.

The class was fun, for the most part. The programming came easy to me. It was just time consuming. Silly me for taking a summer course for the first course I've taken. I didn't realize how a whole semester's worth of work was crammed into five weeks of my precious summer. Oh well... I'm doing my final project now, and that will be turned in by the end of the week. I'll let you know how I do.

Other than my class, there's been one other thing pretty much that's been occupying my time, and I must say, she is wonderful. Her name is Sarah and I've been spending all the time I can with her. It's been a long time since I can remember being as happy as she makes me, and I just love being in her presence. I'll write more about her later, at this time I need to get back to work.