Crazed Cross Country

I have lots to say but not much time right now.  I need to get to bed shortly, but wanted to spend a couple of minutes catching up on recent events.

The short version:  I packed the car and took care of last minute details before leaving the Valley at noonish on Thursday.  I drove about 700 miles - arrived at Ft. Stockton TX at midnight.  One of the most memorable moments was getting pulled over by a Texas State Trooper for a blown-out light.  He was actually very nice and I didn't get a ticket....

I only got 4 hours of sleep before I needed to be on the road again.  Friday included driving 350 miles to Austin, spending the afternoon with my son, driving another 200 miles, and finally getting to my mom's near Dallas to spend the night.  I was wiped.

I enjoyed breakfast on Saturday with mom before leaving - driving 800+ miles to just outside of Memphis, TN.  And then I finished the drive yesterday with 600+ miles - arriving at my hotel shortly after 8pm.

As anyone who has followed my travels for very long will know I'm no stranger to road trips.  Typically if I'm driving by myself my limit is somewhere around 1,000 miles or so in any given day.  That's fine if you get a break afterwards but stringing long days like that together takes a toll.  Even though the car behaved wonderfully, I didn't see a single cloud along the way, and the roads were fine it will still take a few days to get back to my usual self.

One oddity - I was driving through TN on Saturday evening and I had a sudden attack of either allergy or red-eye in my right eye.  It started itching and within minutes it had swollen up and there was an icky film on it.  By the time I got to the hotel it looked as though someone had punched me in the eye.  And yesterday when I was moving stuff into my hotel room somebody stopped to ask me a question and asked me if I was crying.  I have no idea what I might have touched or what might have caused just one eye to get all funky but it finally seems to be on the mend....

Today was my first day on the new job.  In a word - it was wonderful.  I had a number of very nice emails and notes welcoming me to the area and spent the day getting up to speed on a number of things.  My next most important job is to find somewhere to live.  I'd like to get that settled by the end of the weekend, if possible.  Anyway - things are already falling into place.

I went to check one of the local fitness centers after work today.  All this time in the car and road-trip food has made me feel pretty "blah" so making arrangements to get back to my usual routine is a priority.  I think I've made my decision but I've got a free 1-week pass so we'll see how it's feeling after another couple of visits.

In other news, reports of an FTM NCAA Div. 1 basketball player (read details here).  Mark my words - there's going to be a big wave of visibility of trans athletes in the coming months.

I encourage people to contact the Equality Forum to nominate people as LGBT icons for 2011 (see details here).  The only way that many of the people we know will get the visibility they deserve for all the hard work they do is for people who appreciate it to put their names forward.  Please take a minute to think about it, to follow the link, and to send an email.

And lastly, tomorrow is Election Day.  Democrats across the country are in for a pounding.  It's amazing how quickly things can go from the Euphoria of 2 years ago to today, when a candidate can charge that his/her opponent is a "liberal", supports Obamacare, and is aligned with Nancy Pelosi - completely disregarding any of his/her own achievements - and get elected.  Welcome to politics 2010 Style.

Time for bed.  More later.  Zzzzzz......