danajohnhill.org | Hard Times Come Again No More

I am not succeeding lately. I don’t mean personally as a human being, but as a consumer of material goods. Since the beginning of the year I have made an array of purchases for the express purpose of improving my life in some small measure, yet I have been almost systematically thwarted at every turn, and have failed to truly enjoy a benefit from all my wild spending.

How does life hate me? Let me count the ways.

In January, after months of riding Miriam’s vintage bicycle to and from work each day, I was eager to get back on my own bike. Miriam’s bike is a delight – a 1968 English-made three-speed. But my American-made Cannondale is better suited for me and my seven-mile daily commute: it’s light as a feather, has many useful gears, and I can get to work on it in about two-thirds the time it would take on the Dunnelt. I only stopped riding the Cannondale because the tires were in desperate need of replacing, and so were the pedals. I kept putting it off because I knew I’d have to spend over a hundred dollars to take care of it. Then, one morning on campus a spoke suddenly snapped, instantly flattening my tire, and I could put it off no more. Well, I could. I could ride Miriam’s bike, which she had only just purchased from her friend Kat who moved away to Providence. So I put off fixing up my Cannondale for six months.

Then, last month, I decided it was finally time, and I went on down to Bikes and More on Sixth Street and purchased two new tires, two tubes, and a spoke. I even bought a snazzy new U-lock to dissuade would-be brigands. I cleaned the bike up nice, installed the tubes and tires, replaced the broken spoke, and put everything back together. I was very excited to get going again. Nope. The wheel was severely untrue. So I had to wait until I could take it to Bikes and More to get straightened. I had spent over a hundred dollars and was not able to ride my bicycle. I am riding it now, but it took a while.

Elsewhere, Miriam and I had a dream. A dream in which we had two televisions. Like royalty. This extra TV would go in the bedroom, and we could watch it from the comfort of our bed instead of falling asleep on the couch. Like royalty. While we were browsing stores for televisions, we came upon one that could connect wirelessly to the internet. It even has a Netflix button right on the remote. We brought it home, so excited to watch TV in the bedroom (like royalty). But I discovered that our wireless router didn’t emit a signal strong enough to reach the back bedroom. So I went and bought a new wireless router—which does give a strong, consistent signal to our computers—but the wireless receiver that plugs into a USB jack on the side of the TV is evidently not good, and we still cannot watch Netflix in the bedroom.

Elsewhere, after seven years of living with folded paper shades, we decided it was time to upgrade to deluxe, faux-wood blinds. Some of our windows required custom-cut sizes, and we bought those at Home Depot. Other windows, however, had standard sizes, and we purchased those blinds much cheaper at Walmart. They look almost identical, so it’s not a big deal that there are two different designs. It took me a couple weeks to install the blinds in all the windows because I did one at a time before work. And installing blinds inside window frames that are not wood is a frustrating experience. The old plaster in this house is crumbly, and behind that in some windows is not wood, but brick. So getting screws to hold brackets in was a tedious and time-comsuming task. The last window I worked on was in the dining room, and all proceeded according to plan until I put the blinds up and went to adjust them. Then I found that they were broken. So, all that work and I don’t have functional blinds.

And last but not least, I have had frustrating experiences ordering CDs. (I know, first-world problems.) Early last month I ordered a newly-reissued deluxe edition of Janowski’s 1980s recording of Wagner’s Der Ring des Nibelungen (more on this soon). A week or so after placing my order, Amazon sent me an alert telling me that my order would be delayed for an undetermined amount of time; they had no stock. After about three weeks I got an email telling me my item would ship soon, then I waited some more until a shipping date was posted. The evening the package arrived I was very excited. I opened the box to show Miriam, but to my dismay, the set they sent me had been damaged – clearly dropped or crushed at some point. It is easy to return items to Amazon, and I wasn’t worried about getting cheated, but I Amazon informed me that this recording would not be released for another week. What? It turns out that the set they sent me was part of a very limited supply they received from the label before the February 12th issue date.

Elsewhere, on eBay I ordered a copy of Busoni’s opera Doktor Faust, featuring Dietrich Fischer-Dieskau in the title role. It was a recording I’d had on my to-buy list for years. When I opened the package and inspected the contents, I was again dismayed – this time to discover that the booklet was missing. I wrote to the seller to ask if he had simply forgotten to include it in the package. “No”, he wrote, “no booklet came with the set”. Impossible. Every opera recording ever issued by a major record label has included a booklet of some sort to, at the least, show the track list. This particular recording came with a full libretto and translation. The seller was just wrong, and I was particularly annoyed that he had listed the item as “like new”. Fortunately, though I did have to go through the trouble to return the package, the seller has refunded my money. Sadly, I do not have the Doktor Faust recording.

Now, do not misunderstand me. I totally get that these are trivial problems. Especially compared to the problems faced by Spartacus*. But my point is that I have spent a lot of money lately and not enjoyed the things I have paid for. I count myself very lucky that these are the sorts of problems that I have.

*I apparently have a history of sleepily dismissing people’s problems if said problems do not strike me as severe as those faced by Spartacus.

Filed under: Music, Rantings, Technology, Transportation on February 12th, 2013 | 3 Comments »

Everyone in Gainesville, and many of you elsewhere, will have heard about the terrible disaster out on Interstate 75 in Paynes Prairie. The news reports are awful enough, and the photographs of the aftermath are more than one can bear. I’ve driven that stretch of highway more times than I can count. On a clear day it’s frightening enough—since the volume of traffic is so heavy, and many drivers travel at speeds upwards of ninety miles-per-hour—but on a day with heavy fog or smoke the road is a death race. Let us all be full of care and drive safely, and God help the loved ones of the poor victims of this catastrophe.

Filed under: Current Events, Transportation on January 31st, 2012 | No Comments »

The drive from Richmond to Gainesville is pretty dull. The uniformity of scenery accounts for much of the boredom. That is, the landscape and flora one sees along Interstate 95 hardly changes over hundreds of miles. Until you reach the Virginia state line, everything looks like Florida. So, I was not looking forward to the long drive home following our trip to Kat and Harris’s wedding.

We had stopped for food in North Carolina somewhere, and filled up with gas at least once. We were about halfway through South Carolina when I heard a rhythmic beating. At first I thought I was riding over a damaged portion of road. Then I felt the steering fail, and I knew at once it was the right front tire. Fortunately, I was in the right lane, and could get off the road without too much trouble. I pulled as far off as I could while still keeping the flat tire on the asphalt.

Now, I am, of course, perfectly capable of changing a tire. But it was pitch black outside—the Milky Way Galaxy was easily visible—and we were on the side of one of the nation’s busiest highways, and since Kaitlyn is a member of whatever the Canadian version of AAA is and offered to call them, we decided to just wait for assistance. South Carolina is so boring that we hadn’t been paying attention to where we were exactly. Fortunately, our phones have GPS, so I could see that we were about halfway between Highway 78 and Highway 61. Kaitlyn gave the information to the operator, and we were told we’d have help within the hour. So, we just stepped off into the brush by the side of the road and waited it out. It wasn’t cold, it wasn’t raining, and we weren’t anywhere otherwise dangerous.

An hour passed and no assistance appeared. Then my phone rang. The service guy was totally wrong about where we were. He didn’t even know we were on the Interstate. I knew the dispatcher told him correctly, because she repeated what we told her verbatim. Then the service called us back: “You’re on 95 south between 61 and 62, right?” No! So I told him again, and he once again told me it would be twenty minutes.

After much longer than twenty minutes he arrived. He started digging around his truck for his jack, and when he found it he put it under the Volkswagen. But he couldn’t get it to go up. I told him that I had a jack, but he kept fooling around with his. He clearly wasn’t going to get it to work, so he starting screwing around with two bottle jacks, but couldn’t get those to work, either. Finally, I reminded him that I had a jack. He used it, and of course it worked. But he jacked up the car before loosening the lug nuts.

When he put the spare tire on, I asked him if he could inflate it, because it had been in the trunk so long and I was sure it had lost some pressure. “Sure”, he said. He had a compressor in the truck. But his compressor didn’t work, so, no, he couldn’t inflate the tire. Once the tire was on, and I walked around to the driver’s side door to get in, he was peeling out. I knew that was a bad sign, because the hazard lights had been on for hours. Of course the car wouldn’t start.

I immediately called the guy, and he said he would come back.

When he got back to us, he tried to pull his truck around, but he got stuck in the mud. I was not at all surprised. Canada, who has a great deal of experience getting out of tough situations in trucks offered to help him out. Once he had us jumped I pleaded with him to wait for us to get underway, and follow us to the next exit.

There, we filled the tire, got some snacks, and were back on our way to Gainesville. Alas, instead of arriving before midnight, we got home closer to 3:30AM.

It was a crummy experience, but Miriam and I were both happy to have Kaitlyn with us. Her personality calms everyone down. Her signature phrase is “no worries”.

Filed under: Friends, Transportation, Travel on December 28th, 2011 | No Comments »

ORLANDO – Orlando is the worst place to drive. And the day after Thanksgiving is the worst day to go shopping. So what did I do this year? Went shopping in Orlando the day after Thanksgiving. Actually, it was for a very good cause. Our close friends Kat and Harris were married in a lovely ceremony only a week before (more on that later), and we wanted to give them a worthy gift.

Now, as you may recall, earlier this year I built Mrs. Hill a whole new kitchen, and when it was finished I wished she might have some quality cookware to enjoy. So, on a trip to Charlotte over the summer we paid a visit to the Le Creuset store in, of all places, Yemassee, South Carolina. Le Creuset is a French company that makes enameled cast iron cookware. I saw an episode of How It’s Made once where they showed the production of a Le Creuset Dutch oven, and it was amazing. And somehow, in spite of my relative lack of enthusiasm for cuisine, I had actually heard of the brand. I somehow knew that Le Creuset was known for lasting a long time. A lifetime, really. So it didn’t take much to convince me that this was something I wanted Miriam to have. I just didn’t expect to personally get as much use out of it. I now cook almost exclusively with one of the pieces we brought home that day, and it is marvelous. I say all this to make the next part of the story more clear.

Whether it was from our testimonials or not, our close friend Kat expressed a wish for a nice new Dutch oven, especially since one she owned previously, but made by another company, had been recalled by the manufacturer for a potentially dangerous defect. Miriam took a mental note of this, and on the day after Thanksgiving, six days after Kat’s wedding, Mrs. Hill and I found ourselves on our way to the Le Creuset store in Orlando. The problem for us was that everyone else in the country apparently had the same idea. I cannot possibly convey the enormity of the traffic. We moved inches at a time. Pedestrians on the sidewalk appeared to move away from us so quickly that I think I noticed a red shift. When we at last reached the entrance of the shopping mall, we found the police had barricaded the street; no one was getting through. Imagine the busiest football game day in the history of Gainesville, where cars park anywhere they can make room, where pedestrians cross the street where ever they feel like it, and where police tape restricts access to the very places you wish to go. Imagine that, and then imagine much worse. Miriam had to jump out of the car at an intersection and proceed on foot to the store while I tried my best not to get smashed by the insane drivers determined to reach their goal if it killed them. Cars covered the median and shoulder of the road, and people openly defied no parking signs to secure a small bit of real estate. Miriam emerged from the nightmare unscathed, and with a beautiful turquoise blue Dutch oven she was sure Kat would love. I was shaken. “I am never coming here again”, I vowed. I think I even shook my fist.

We proceeded on to Miriam’s parents’ house, and the next day, as we were enjoying an afternoon at Walt Disney World, Miriam received a textual message from Kat, who was on her way home from Richmond, where her wedding had taken place. “I just got a turquoise Le Creuset Dutch oven at a store in North Carolina”, it read. I died a little, but it was actually kind of funny. Miriam is such a good gift giver that she knew exactly what the bride would have purchased herself given the chance. And she did.

So, it’s back to the nightmare for us to exchange a Dutch oven for a skillet. It’s a good thing Kat and Harris are such wonderful people.

Filed under: Food, Friends, House, Transportation on November 27th, 2011 | No Comments »

CANADYS, SOUTH CAROLINA – This gas station, with its armed security guard, is surely the busiest thing in this tiny town. I am here to put some air in the spare tire I just drove in on, which itself was installed beneath a billion stars on the side of a dark and terrifyingly hectic Interstate 95. No one was injured, thank God, but the blow-out was substantial. We—Miriam, me, and our good friend Kaitlyn (who we call “Canada”)—are handling it remarkably well, and remain in good spirits. No flat tire can dull our joy after this weekend in Richmond, where we saw our close friends Kat and Harris get married.

That story is still to come.

Filed under: Friends, Transportation, Travel on November 20th, 2011 | No Comments »