Not Quite Heaven, West Virginia
Nov. 19th, 2018 03:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
fauxkloreCelebrity Death Watch: John Rogers was the president of San Diego Comic-Con. Douglas Rain was an actor, best known as the voice of Hal in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Katherine MacGregor was an actress, best known for Little House on the Prairie. Caroline Rose Hunt was the daughter of oil tycoon H. L. Hunt and, at one time, the richest women in the United States. Roy Clark hosted Hee Haw. Alec Finn was a bouzouki player who cofounded the Celtic band, De Dannan.
Stan Lee founded Marvel Comics. He created a number of popular characters, e.g. Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, but may be more significant for having challenged the Comics Code Authority in the 1970’s. While I recognize his importance to the industry, I’ve always been more of a DC gal myself.
William Goldman was a novelist and screenwriter, whose best known work was probably The Princess Bride. He won Oscars for the movies Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men.
Barre Toelken was a folklorist. He directed the folklore program at Utah State University and authored important works both on folklore theory and on Navajo stories.
Word of the Day: Aibohphobia = fear of palindromes.
Weather Whine: It snowed on Thursday. Just about an inch and a half, but this was the first accumulating snowfall in November in northern Virginia since 1995, i.e. before I lived here. I was definitely not psychologically ready for it. Fortunately, everything was pretty much gone by Friday.
Charleston, West Virginia: I checked off a state capital volksmarch this weekend with a trip to Charleston, West Virginia. The flight from IAD to CRW was quick and arrived about a half hour early, though we then had to wait 20 minutes to get someone to the gate. My hotel allegedly had an airport shuttle, but it had stopped running by the time I arrived. And, in fact, it doesn’t run at all on the weekend, which is something you’d think would be worth mentioning on their web page. To add to the annoyances, there is exactly one taxi company in Charleston and, when I called them, they said it could be up to an hour to get someone. So I used Lyft, instead, despite my ethical qualms about ridesharing companies.
As for the volksmarch, it was a reasonably pleasant walk. The capitol building is quite grand architecturally, with an elaborate dome. I can’t comment on the interior, as it was closed on weekends. I did, however, check out the West Virginia State Museum, which had a reasonable set of exhibits on the history of the state. There’s also a walk along the Kanawha River and a nice enough historic area downtown.
While I enjoyed the walk, I’ve been having sporadic foot pain and it was much worse after doing it. (I suspect plantar fasciitis.) So I am giving myself a rest from walking for a while. And taking Tylenol for a few days.
By the way, CRW was just as annoying on the way back as it had been on the flight there. I had an early morning flight and was not successful in pre-scheduling Lyft, i.e. the schedule option was greyed out on the app. So I called the one taxi company and scheduled a pick-up. They showed up 27 minutes late – and after I called twice to check on it. The first time (when he was 12 minutes late), the person who answered claimed he would be there in 5 minutes), while the second time, she claimed she had no way of knowing where exactly he was. I got to the airport in plenty of time because I am me and plan to get there early, but there was no way he was getting a tip. Then my flight was delayed over 45 minutes due to a lack of ground crew at the airport. Sigh.
There were a few things I had intended to do yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, but I was too tired after getting up as early as I’d had to. Another victory for my bed in its battle against productivity.
Stan Lee founded Marvel Comics. He created a number of popular characters, e.g. Spider-Man and the Fantastic Four, but may be more significant for having challenged the Comics Code Authority in the 1970’s. While I recognize his importance to the industry, I’ve always been more of a DC gal myself.
William Goldman was a novelist and screenwriter, whose best known work was probably The Princess Bride. He won Oscars for the movies Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and All the President’s Men.
Barre Toelken was a folklorist. He directed the folklore program at Utah State University and authored important works both on folklore theory and on Navajo stories.
Word of the Day: Aibohphobia = fear of palindromes.
Weather Whine: It snowed on Thursday. Just about an inch and a half, but this was the first accumulating snowfall in November in northern Virginia since 1995, i.e. before I lived here. I was definitely not psychologically ready for it. Fortunately, everything was pretty much gone by Friday.
Charleston, West Virginia: I checked off a state capital volksmarch this weekend with a trip to Charleston, West Virginia. The flight from IAD to CRW was quick and arrived about a half hour early, though we then had to wait 20 minutes to get someone to the gate. My hotel allegedly had an airport shuttle, but it had stopped running by the time I arrived. And, in fact, it doesn’t run at all on the weekend, which is something you’d think would be worth mentioning on their web page. To add to the annoyances, there is exactly one taxi company in Charleston and, when I called them, they said it could be up to an hour to get someone. So I used Lyft, instead, despite my ethical qualms about ridesharing companies.
As for the volksmarch, it was a reasonably pleasant walk. The capitol building is quite grand architecturally, with an elaborate dome. I can’t comment on the interior, as it was closed on weekends. I did, however, check out the West Virginia State Museum, which had a reasonable set of exhibits on the history of the state. There’s also a walk along the Kanawha River and a nice enough historic area downtown.
While I enjoyed the walk, I’ve been having sporadic foot pain and it was much worse after doing it. (I suspect plantar fasciitis.) So I am giving myself a rest from walking for a while. And taking Tylenol for a few days.
By the way, CRW was just as annoying on the way back as it had been on the flight there. I had an early morning flight and was not successful in pre-scheduling Lyft, i.e. the schedule option was greyed out on the app. So I called the one taxi company and scheduled a pick-up. They showed up 27 minutes late – and after I called twice to check on it. The first time (when he was 12 minutes late), the person who answered claimed he would be there in 5 minutes), while the second time, she claimed she had no way of knowing where exactly he was. I got to the airport in plenty of time because I am me and plan to get there early, but there was no way he was getting a tip. Then my flight was delayed over 45 minutes due to a lack of ground crew at the airport. Sigh.
There were a few things I had intended to do yesterday (Sunday) afternoon, but I was too tired after getting up as early as I’d had to. Another victory for my bed in its battle against productivity.
