Cannonball Run

Most of the following entry was written in the car. For reasons that will become obvious shortly, the final section was added later.

The Setup:
My girlfriend and I have made a number of trips between Atlanta and DC this year, most of them by car. The Penrocks, having lived in Atlanta longer, have even more experience with this trek. They have a favorite route which they insist is the fastest way to make the trip. We're not so sure. It certainly appears to be the most direct, but it involves Route 29 and, in so doing, many stoplights. Sarah got a tip from a friend at work about another route that just might beat it. It's more circuitous than the Penrock's route of choice, but possesses fewer stoplights and higher speed limits. In the past we have tried the 95 to 85 route and while it suffices, we believe there is room for improvement. The Penrocks use a 29 to 85 variant. Today, Sarah and I are testing something else - 81 to 75. Which truly is the fastest? There's only one way to find out: have a contest.

The Race:
We both started in Northern Virginia, although the Penrocks start a little south and west of our position. They are travelling west on 66, then south on 29. In North Carolina, they will get on 85 and take that all the way to Atlanta. Sarah and I are using Rt 7 to get to 81, and then following 81 all the way through Virginia to Tennessee where we pick up 75 to Atlanta.
We're both timing our trips from start to finish, including any and all breaks for food, fuel, or "other." The loser, the couple with the greatest total time, owes the winner a bottle of wine. So there's more than just bragging rights involved.


Handicapping:
Penrocks - Fewer miles, possibly less traffic
Drawbacks - Rummy is with them and he requires stops of greater duration and more frequent occurrence.
Added Bonuses - 29 can be very pretty. Also they get to pass the giant peach in Gaffney, South Carolina.

Sarah and I - Higher speed limits, no stop lights
Drawbacks - Lots of trucks.
Added Bonuses - The Shenandoah valley

The Results:
The Penrocks pulled in after approximately 10 hours, 10 minutes. Sarah and I arrived at 10 hours, 30 minutes. The Penrocks win by 20 minutes. Close, but not close enough to call it a tie. We owe them one bottle of wine. Well played, Penrocks, well played.

Now, I think we need to have a word with Sarah's informant...

Sadness

On Thursday morning, I received a phone call from Traci letting me know that our friend Matt Hodges had died the previous night.

I met him at the same time I met Holly and in the same way, at the trivia nights Diehl and I attended at Fado's my second year in DC. The trivia group was already fairly well established, but Matt welcomed us easily and made us feel part of the group quickly. It was a talent he had. When the trivia group lost its momentum, Matt became one of the core members of the dinner group that made up my social life during those years I lived with Diehl and for some time after. He hosted the last dinner event I was able to attend before I moved to Atlanta (an able griller, it was a good dinner). We teased him about his age (as did he), but it was with tongue in cheek, he was only a few years older than the rest of us.

When we weren't doing dinner together, we would go swing dancing. He had learned some steps in his Aggie days, Diehl and I had learned some at UVa. We combined forces, taught other members of our group, and then went out to find places to dance. We also took some dancing classes together to broaden our repertoire. All great fun.

Matt was also a regular attender of our parties, the New Years semi-formals and, of course, the Blades and Booze Party (his costumes were always entertaining and I believe he won more than one honorable mention). At one particular party, he used his welcoming talent for my personal benefit. I had known Sarah for maybe three weeks and invited her to the party. She had no idea what she was in for and, thanks to a series of forgotten props and missed messages, I was not at the party when she arrived. She knew no one at the party, although I had my brother looking out for her. My brother did a good job, but Matt did a better job. He made Sarah feel comfortable and got her involved in the party (initiating her into both the rumpling tradition and the newly formed ice luge tradition). His ability to make Sarah feel comfortable is even more impressive considering that Matt was wearing a large pair of fake breasts at the time as part of his "girls gone wild" costume (Matt's girlfriend Kourtnee was there as the photographer). By the time I got there, Sarah had gone from "what the heck have I gotten myself into" to "This is awesome." I owe Matt a huge thanks for that.

Matt and Kourtnee got married shortly afterwards (they came to the next B&B party as a shotgun wedding couple, complete with t-shirt tux and beer hats). Holly moved away and the dinner groups started to fade out. I did not see Matt as often but he continued to remember and give me birthday cards. He also gave me a number of tips on getting a girl's (favorable) attention, tips that proved remarkably effective. The man knew what he was doing. In the picture above, he is actually sprawled across three women. He managed to end up in quite a few of those poses at picture time.

I have not seen much of Matt lately, the last was at Bonnie's wedding where I spoke briefly to him. There were other people at that wedding I had known longer and seen less recently, so I spent more time with them.

He was in law school (he went back to school the same time I did), working hard, but still playing hard. Matt has always been an active guy. We went hiking together several times. Recently he trained for and ran in the AIDS marathon in 2005. More recently he joined a recreational flag football league. This is what he was doing when he collapsed Wednesday night. They called an ambulance but he died at the hospital, a result of a hereditary condition known as Hypertrophic Cardiomyopathy (HCM) or thickened heart. Kourtnee called Traci the next day and Traci spent a fair amount of time calling friends from the dinner crew to let us know initially, and then to keep us informed of the details of the funeral arrangements. It was a shock and then just weird and difficult to contemplate. I'm still not sure I've quite taken it in.

Matt was a good friend. He and his family (and most especially Kourtnee) are in my thoughts and prayers.

Adaptating

"Adaptating" is the sort of word you get when you have been awake too long. In my case the specific time involved was probably around 20 hours when I made the slide that contained the offending word. Spellcheck occurred, or rather did not occur at around Waking+28 hours. I finally made the discovery at Waking+30 hours, in the middle of my presentation. That's not a fun time to discover such an error. The misspelled word was highlighted in blue just to make it more prominent. Also, it repeated since I had copied that slide for use towards the end of the presentation.

Oops.

Next time I'm working harder to get things done ahead of time so I can actually sleep before my presentation. Thank goodness for my experience with midnight shift transitions. I'm pretty sure that's a large part of how I managed to actually stay coherent enough to give a presentation after 30 hours without sleep.