The Core Dump
It updates the blog, or it gets the hose again.
10 years in the sun
Somehow I almost forgot: August 12, 1996 was the date when my wife and I arrived in the Valley of the Sun carrying two suitcases each and with only the name of a motel in Tempe allegedly close to the ASU campus for a guiding light.
Being painfully cheap and broke, we had booked flights from Stockholm with an eleven-hour layover in Chicago. Yes, eleven. We landed at Sky Harbor just after midnight, felt the reality of dry heat, and waited patiently in the brutal heat of night for the next Super Shuttle van. Next to the Super Shuttle stand and the thoroughly bored high school kid who had gotten the fantastic job of working the night shift was a middle-aged limo driver looking for rides. The Super Shuttle was going to cost $20 to take us to the motel in Tempe, so the limo driver told me he could take us for $30.
“No way,” I said. No way in hell I was wasting $10 just to get to the motel faster. I was so sleep deprived the whole world was swirling, and the plan was that we were going to take a Super Shuttle van to the motel so who gave a shit how long it took for the Super Shuttle van to show we were taking a Super Shuttle van to the motel and my vision had constricted to only the things that were right in front of me and we-were-waiting-for-the-Super-Shuttle-van.
It was sweaty after midnight.
After another few minutes the limo driver came up to me again and said, “Okay. I can take you for $25. That way you don’t have to wait for the Super Shuttle.”
No way. The plan is, we take the Super Shuttle. I’m not spending an extra $5. Super Shuttle.
We were the only people at the terminal. There was only me, my wife, the high school kid running the Super Shuttle stand, the limo driver, the infernal heat, and our four suitcases.
The limo driver obviously thought I was crazy. “Okay, I can’t take you for $20. I have to charge more than the Super Shuttle. But I can take you for $21. It’s only a buck more.”
Somehow that got through the haze. “Okay.”
So we arrived at the motel in Tempe around two thirty in the morning in a white limo.
Posted Saturday, 12 August, 2006 by Nic Lindh
For your enjoyment, the 10 latest posts
Book roundup, part eleven
Another book roundup, including some stellar athletes and soldiers, what might be the most jaded, soul-weary protagonist ever, and some grimdark fantasy.
Paywalls and tinfoil hats
The Internet is getting creepy, and Nic is breaking out his tinfoil hat after newspaper paywalls push him over the edge.
OK then, Mr. Gekko
Nic is tired of tech sites obsessing over Apple’s financials and business strategy. So very tired.
Read this book: Salt Sugar Fat
Nic reads a book about the processed food industry and is incensed.
The cargo cult of technology
Computers are complicated. This brings out the irrational in people.
Seen a Rechthaberei lately?
Nic proposes the loan word Rechthaberei be incorporated into American English.
Book roundup, part ten
The Core Dump is back! Books were read during the hiatus. Includes The Coldest Winter, Oh, Myyy!, Tough Sh*t, The Revolution Was Televised, The Rook, Mr. Penumbra’s 24 Hour Bookstore, Gun Machine, Fortress Frontier, Standing in Another Man’s Grave, and The Memory of Light.
The Core Dump is hibernating
This site will return in February.
Book roundup, part nine
From a true patriot to a world-weary detective, a dead god, and a civilization about to sublime from the galaxy, this book roundup spans the gamut. Includes Where Men Win Glory, Wild, Inside the Box, The Black Box, Three Parts Dead, Red Country, and The Hydrogen Sonata.
Ode to joy
Springsteen gives a concert in Phoenix. It’s fantastic.
Put me in your feed reader
Niclas Lindh.com
Amazon wishlist
Twitter
Google Plus