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Getting Down & Pulled Over
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Last night I got to jam with a future Virginia Tech colleague. Eddie Watson, a distant relative of both Loretta Lynn and Doc Watson, is one of the technologists in the University's Faculty Development Initiative (FDI) with whom I'll be working in order to coordinate and provide training for VT faculty. The institute's system's a good one: Before teachers, instructors, and faculty can get their departmentally-supplied laptops, these folks have to attend a number of training sessions. This coming Fall, alongside Eddie, I'll be teaching a variety of courses, classes which may include instruction in Photoshop Elements, Dreamweaver, Flash, Internet Resources & Research, Digital Audio Basics, Digital Imaging: From Camera to Computer, Cascading Style Sheets, Powerpoint (ugh), Blogging, Macromedia Breeze, etc., etc. FDI should be a good fit for me, and I'm looking forward to working closely with some of the top specialists in Educational Technology.
But I digress. I arrived at Eddie's place at 5:30 yesterday evening after a somewhat grueling drive through bustling (and ugly) Christiansburg and over some fairly treacherous (and beautiful) mountain passes into Pilot, Virginia. Despite the 15 miles from my door to his, the trip took a good 40 minutes due to traffic and the low speeds along those winding roads.
As soon as I stepped foot in the door to the Watsons' secluded country home, Eddie ushered me down the stairs to a fnished basement dedicated -- entirely -- to all of his gear. A couple of Macintosh computers, about 7 to 10 guitars it looked to me, a full drumkit, a beer fridge, and tons of audio/recording equipment. We started off tooling around on our acoustic guitars, but since Eddie's two sons were still up and wouldn't be heading to bed until about 8, we decided to utilize that time to turn up the volume and be LOUD.
Eddie hooked up one of his myriad electrics and got me set up on the drums. After a brief lesson with the high-hat, snare, and bass drum I was able to do fairly well holding a beat and accompanying Eddie's guitar solo-ing. I'm now debating whether I should look into obtaining a basic, inexpensive percussion kit and trying to master the rather challenging task of actually kicking the bass on the downbeat rather than on the fourth. I have no hope of getting four limbs to do different things at the right time until there's an opportunity to practice on a regular basis.
We swapped roles after about a half hour of jamming, and I can't begin to express just how thrilling it was to play electric guitar with a talented drummer. Eddie simply let me strum whatever came to me and we got up and rocking pretty quickly -- even though I'm really not all that great. We must have played a foot-stompin' version of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" for about 10 minutes among a colleciton of other random riffs that I just repeated until we got tired of them.
Although I got back into Blacksburg around 11:30 that night, there was no way I could sleep for the next 3 hours. It was just too electrifying of an evening.
***
There was another reason why I couldn't sleep, however, and what happened to me last night around 11:30 in the utter darkness and outskirts of Christiansburg finally gives me the impetus to talk about the utter ubiquity of Virginia police.
So, here's a blogged public service announcement: Upon entering the state of Virginia, reduce the speed of your vehicle to 15 miles per hour below the speed limit. I'm serious. I've been driving in this state for about the last four months and the police have already stopped me twice. In my whole pre-Virginia career as a motorist -- approximately 16 years in Georgia, North Carolilna, and Germany -- I was stopped ONCE and only given a warning.
Virginia is crawling with cops, and my very first trip to Blackburg was punctuated (or punctured?) by my first speeding ticket outside of Wythesville. It was an obvious speed trap and the State earned an extra $116 dollars that day after a State Trooper caught me going down an incline going 77 in a 65 mph area. I'll readily admit to the infraction, but I'm still a little miffed that the officer's visit to my car after he presented me with the ticket included his dumb-ass and snide complaint that (when looking at my license) "so you have 4 lines for your address, but there are only 3 on this form. How'm I supposed to get all this information on your receipt, sir?" Considering the situation and the nature of the interaction, it wasn't terribly difficult to refrain from saying, "Well, hey, if it doesn't fit then you can't give me a ticket, right?" or "Hey, I didn't design the form, you ass!"
Nearing midnight last night I got stopped again -- this time for driving 44 miles per hour in a 35-mph residential area. I had to honestly tell the young cop that I had NO IDEA why he was pulling me over. Luckily, this run-in with the law went a lot better (I had gotten a Virginia license, registration, plates, and Blacksburg decal only a week or two earlier) and was able to stammer -- heart pounding faster than 44 mph -- that I was new to the area and hadn't even seen speed limit signs. Thankfully, he was polite and understanding and when he went back to his car with my information, I had - in spite of the speeding pulse - a pretty good feeling that I was going to get a warning. After a minute or so, I saw the bobbing flashlight getting bigger in my rearview mirror, and he returned my license and registration, letting me go with a word of caution.
I'm not sure how many times I promised him that I would defintely pay closer attention to traffic signs, but I remember driving the rest of the way to Blacksburg going about 33 mph -- my heart already in Northern Ohio (probably camped out in Alex Wilson's basement), juiced on musical adrenaline and a renewed fear of authority.
I don't think I'll be going any more than 5 mph over ANY speed limit from now on. There's just no way that my nerves would hold up to another "pulling over."
But I digress. I arrived at Eddie's place at 5:30 yesterday evening after a somewhat grueling drive through bustling (and ugly) Christiansburg and over some fairly treacherous (and beautiful) mountain passes into Pilot, Virginia. Despite the 15 miles from my door to his, the trip took a good 40 minutes due to traffic and the low speeds along those winding roads.
As soon as I stepped foot in the door to the Watsons' secluded country home, Eddie ushered me down the stairs to a fnished basement dedicated -- entirely -- to all of his gear. A couple of Macintosh computers, about 7 to 10 guitars it looked to me, a full drumkit, a beer fridge, and tons of audio/recording equipment. We started off tooling around on our acoustic guitars, but since Eddie's two sons were still up and wouldn't be heading to bed until about 8, we decided to utilize that time to turn up the volume and be LOUD.
Eddie hooked up one of his myriad electrics and got me set up on the drums. After a brief lesson with the high-hat, snare, and bass drum I was able to do fairly well holding a beat and accompanying Eddie's guitar solo-ing. I'm now debating whether I should look into obtaining a basic, inexpensive percussion kit and trying to master the rather challenging task of actually kicking the bass on the downbeat rather than on the fourth. I have no hope of getting four limbs to do different things at the right time until there's an opportunity to practice on a regular basis.
We swapped roles after about a half hour of jamming, and I can't begin to express just how thrilling it was to play electric guitar with a talented drummer. Eddie simply let me strum whatever came to me and we got up and rocking pretty quickly -- even though I'm really not all that great. We must have played a foot-stompin' version of Dylan's "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" for about 10 minutes among a colleciton of other random riffs that I just repeated until we got tired of them.
Although I got back into Blacksburg around 11:30 that night, there was no way I could sleep for the next 3 hours. It was just too electrifying of an evening.
***
There was another reason why I couldn't sleep, however, and what happened to me last night around 11:30 in the utter darkness and outskirts of Christiansburg finally gives me the impetus to talk about the utter ubiquity of Virginia police.
So, here's a blogged public service announcement: Upon entering the state of Virginia, reduce the speed of your vehicle to 15 miles per hour below the speed limit. I'm serious. I've been driving in this state for about the last four months and the police have already stopped me twice. In my whole pre-Virginia career as a motorist -- approximately 16 years in Georgia, North Carolilna, and Germany -- I was stopped ONCE and only given a warning.
Virginia is crawling with cops, and my very first trip to Blackburg was punctuated (or punctured?) by my first speeding ticket outside of Wythesville. It was an obvious speed trap and the State earned an extra $116 dollars that day after a State Trooper caught me going down an incline going 77 in a 65 mph area. I'll readily admit to the infraction, but I'm still a little miffed that the officer's visit to my car after he presented me with the ticket included his dumb-ass and snide complaint that (when looking at my license) "so you have 4 lines for your address, but there are only 3 on this form. How'm I supposed to get all this information on your receipt, sir?" Considering the situation and the nature of the interaction, it wasn't terribly difficult to refrain from saying, "Well, hey, if it doesn't fit then you can't give me a ticket, right?" or "Hey, I didn't design the form, you ass!"
Nearing midnight last night I got stopped again -- this time for driving 44 miles per hour in a 35-mph residential area. I had to honestly tell the young cop that I had NO IDEA why he was pulling me over. Luckily, this run-in with the law went a lot better (I had gotten a Virginia license, registration, plates, and Blacksburg decal only a week or two earlier) and was able to stammer -- heart pounding faster than 44 mph -- that I was new to the area and hadn't even seen speed limit signs. Thankfully, he was polite and understanding and when he went back to his car with my information, I had - in spite of the speeding pulse - a pretty good feeling that I was going to get a warning. After a minute or so, I saw the bobbing flashlight getting bigger in my rearview mirror, and he returned my license and registration, letting me go with a word of caution.
I'm not sure how many times I promised him that I would defintely pay closer attention to traffic signs, but I remember driving the rest of the way to Blacksburg going about 33 mph -- my heart already in Northern Ohio (probably camped out in Alex Wilson's basement), juiced on musical adrenaline and a renewed fear of authority.
I don't think I'll be going any more than 5 mph over ANY speed limit from now on. There's just no way that my nerves would hold up to another "pulling over."
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