DST: A Bullet Dodged

On the drive home from Phoenix, I passed one of those large marquee signs that display, among other things, the current time. When I saw it, it threw me off a bit because it was one hour slow. Then I thought that whoever set the marquee up set the time zone to Pacific instead of Mountain Standard (or “Arizona” as Windows calls it) and it had reverted back to standard time and, thus, was one hour behind. But this was not even at midnight, so I’m now thinking that, whoever was running this, genuinely thought that the time shifted tonight, like it did in most of the country, and their sign is now just there to confuse drivers.

And, I mean, as if they’re not already confused enough. Not only does Arizona suddenly diverge from the rest of our Mountain Time brethren over half the year by not observing the time changing policy, but there also weird, internal rules to the whole thing. The Navajo Nation, which makes up almost 1/6 of the state in land area, actually does observe Daylight Savings. Then there’s the Hopi Nation, which lies entirely inside of the Navajo Nation, and does not observe Daylight Savings, like the rest of the state. So, I think it’s understandable how many tourists get confused here. But I would think that a business owner in the state would know the deal.

I’ve always been so glad that Arizona doesn’t observe this ridiculous practice. There’s very little evidence out there that this achieves its intended goal in conserving energy use, and it seems like all of this effort going toward making people go to bed earlier would be better aimed at encouraging more productive energy-saving techniques like, say, using public transit, composting, recycling, alternative energy sources. I mean, where are the priorities at?

The whole trip was a quick half day in Phoenix. We went to the Arizona Natural History Museum, which, along with the Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum, is free the first Sunday of each month, then to a brewery I hadn’t been to before (Sun-Up, which is wonderful), then to Tempe, to see Local Natives.

Local Natives is a band that I’ve been waiting to see tour for a while. I found them on a random visit to Daytrotter earlier in the year, and found their collective vocal prowess (there is no lead singer, in the traditional sense) and songwriting to be really spectacular. I saw them in their original homebase or Orange County back in April at a horrible little club in Lake Forest called the Gypsy Room. Great show, but it made me want more. The only available material was a homemade CD-R with five songs, three of which were from their Daytrotter session. The full-length album has been alluded to pretty much since that time back in April, but, during tonight’s show, we got a few additional tracks, which really blew me away. Hopefully this album will drop soon, because I would love to hear those songs again. Really pretty.

I was disappointed by the Phoenix crowd for, strangely enough, not “booing” during the set. On the recorded version of Local Natives’ “Airplanes,” this is the tongue-and-cheek intro into the song, where a small group “boos” until the piano line changes slightly, where they all happily accept the tune. I “booed,” but no one else did, and someone behind me actually cheered in contrast. Oh well.
But there were a lot more people there than I had anticipated there would be. I guess White Rabbits are fairly big. All-ages shows (pretty much every show at The Clubhouse is one) always get a huge reception though. I mean, let’s face it, suburban teenagers have a lot of time to sit around and look for new music, and they all bring along their little friends so that they can all stand at the front together. Not that I’m bitter about that, or anything.

White Denim + Heligoats: Dropping from the Sky

Two intriguing albums have dropped in the past week. White Denim’s “Fits” came out in the US on 10-20, and is now available for streaming via Pitchfork. You can listen to it once. After that, you have to go into your cookies and delete the one(s) from lala.com (use Firefox, dudes), then reload the page.

This is an album that I had been waiting months and months for. So long, in fact, that I thought the thing had come out in the summer and I was feeling bad for being too cheap to go out and buy it. “Fits” is a follow-up (of sorts) to whichever album of the group’s of your choosing that came out in 2008. That is, to say, that White Denim releases are regionalised, and my favorite of theirs is “Workout Holiday,” which was available only in Europe. There was something fabulously raw about the music, and it was made only better by the sort of pure masculinity and fervor exerted by the lead singer. It’s almost as though they stuck a mic 10 ft. away from him and told him to sing like he meant it or he would otherwise not be heard.

I honestly expected little out of “Fits.” It’s a follow-up from a band which saw itself more or less explode in the underground circuit over the past year, and that sort of thing often causes problems for bands who are almost entirely based on rawness and low-fi integrity. A lot of what made the tracks on “Workout Holiday” so enjoyable was that they sounded like they were recorded in a garage (actually, they were recorded in a vintage travel trailer – no, seriously), and that just somehow worked for them. “Fits” sounds like it was obviously recorded in a studio, but that experience of recording inside of a trailer (I can only imagine) was brought into the studio along with all of the group’s energy and resolve. “Fits” is just really, really awesome. Seriously…

I’ll give some stand-out tracks, but you really should go on and listen to the whole thing, because it just deserves your full attention for its ~60 minute running time. I can’t pick a single favorite, but “All Consolation,” “Mirrored and Reverse,” “Sex Prayer” and “Syncn” are definitely all good candidates. But, again, this doesn’t mean that I’m trying to look down on any of the other tracks because, frankly, they’re all really, really good.

But I should mention the other band that just happened to drop their new album today, “Goodness Gracious.” One song, the title track, is available on their MySpace for streaming, but I couldn’t find much else online. I came across this band at the beginning of this year when they were opening for another band that I had wanted to see that night at Plush and, just out of curiosity, I went out online looking for them. There’s very little out there for the fairly unknown band from Illinois, but there is a video for “You Win” out on YouTube, which I immediately fell in love with. When the show came, I actually missed the band that I had originally intended to see, but was fine just seeing these guys and getting the chance to buy their EP, “The End of All Purpose.” Great CD, seriously.

And this new one, from what little I’ve heard, holds some real promise. The intelligent yet down-to-earth songwriting is still there, as are the poetic, heartbare, quirky and clever lyrics. While their earlier work was so easily compared to Built to Spill, the sound now is much more their own. I plan to buy this one soon.

Why GoDaddy’s Web Hosting Sucks

I hadn’t dealt with GoDaddy web hosting for at least four years until today, when I got into it working on a project that I’m getting paid (barely) for.
So, uneducated user, here a few reasons why you should do your research and not jump in bed with whomever has the most intriguing ads on TV.
- Setup Lag: I don’t get this one, but almost everything you do on the hosting account requires administrator approval. So, when you’re looking to move forward with your project, you’re often stuck waiting for someone to approve it while your hosting thing just says “Pending.” I experienced with not only adding an FTP account and MySQL database, but also editing that FTP account.
- MySQL: Wow, where do I start. There are a lot of privileges that you just don’t have. ALTER DATABASE doesn’t work, even though you own the database (maybe for disk space reasons?) and you’re not allowed to add user accounts. Plus, when you initially create a database, your username will be used to name the database. Nothing on the UI stated this, so I ended up with a database called “sqlins.” Awesome…
- Your root folder is the public_html folder. Why is that important? Well, in programs, it’s often advantageous, for security reasons, to store scripts in a directory that’s not accessible to the public. But, with GoDaddy, all of your directories are publicly accessible.
- No Configuration: GoDaddy does not support .htaccess (even though it runs Linux/Apache servers) or directory-level php.ini. In fact, I can’t find where they allow php.ini configuration at all, so you’re stuck with whatever they give you that’s not editable by ini_set().
But maybe that’s too complex for the people who generally utilize this particuar GoDaddy service.
I get this anger and frustration mostly from an ad that’s running on TV now, that advertises Intuit web hosting (which I didn’t even know that they did). Wag of the finger fucking shame on them for advertising web hosting as if this is the all-inclusive “market your business on the interweb” package that you need to grow your business. Fuck that lie. I’ve dealt with too many people who expect magic on the internet and don’t understand how things out there work. I would have thought that, in the 10+ years the internet has been ingrained in pop culture, that people would figured things out a bit more, but I guess I’m wrong.
Damn…

Transiting Out

I’ve been doing a lot of development work recently, much of it stuff that I likely won’t be paid for, but I really do enjoy this sort of work, and would like to stay in the field.
I am currently in the lengthy process of developing a picture uploading and tagging program, somewhat similar to Flickr, but less robust and for a very specific purpose. This would be implemented, at the least, on a non-profit’s site. They had asked me to do this originally, when I launched the site, but it was so complex that I would have had to charge them a lot more, and so I just never spoke of it. Hopefully it will be done within a week, but there’s really no telling.
But travel is certainly on the brain. Idleness always leads me to that, and that’s what’s happening now in my current idleness. The idea is to head east: Cruces, Carlsbad, Austin, Houston, and spend a week or so in Texas. Why Texas? Because that’s where the free accomodation is by way of family. I could go to California, but California gets expensive quickly.
I also had the idea of doing a “Tucson Top 10″ web site instead of my general Tucson review/map site. Lots more content that I just don’t want to write though. But I guess I could make it user-editable.
Content’s always the issue in these things. People need to realize that “web developer” does not mean “read your mind and write all of your god damn dribble content.” The fact is, most developers who work on a project/freelance basis couldn’t give half a shit about your company’s vision or what it does. Of course, we’ll all say that we do and that we want to see you succeed but, in reality, we just want our damn money. I’ve been passed a bunch of stupid ideas before that I knew would fail, but the check cleared, so I still did the work. I think that people sometimes get an idea that a web site itself is a business model, and that’s really short-sighted. It can be an important part of your business model or plan, but you need to develop that model or plan and use the web site simply to integrate other ideas to enhance and grow your business. Everybody wants to get rich with little or no effort, but it just doesn’t happen like that.
Hopefully I’ve get some money in soon. Three people owe me varying amounts, and I’ll hopefully get their checks, as well as some additional work, very soon. I’m not in dire need, as such, but it sure is nice to see that bank account balance go the other direction every once in a while.
How are you?

I Fought the Law and I Fucking Won

So goodbye to a speeding ticket and a big middle finger to that asshole with Gilbert PD who forced me into hauling up to Chandler this morning. Although, on the plus side, there’s a fabulous brewery about a block from the court (San Tan) and I got the chance to enjoy them for a celebratory lunch.

For the greater good of the public, I want to relay the following often misunderstood issues with Arizona traffic law. The first is what got my ticket dismissed, and the second is something the judge actually offered to the court while I was there.

If you peak at Arizona Revised Statute 22-201, at clause “E,” you’ll notice something that could potentially get you out of traffic tickets based on jurisdictional conflict (called “improper venue” in the courts). This section is specifically aimed at Maricopa County (Phoenix area) and limits justice of the peace precincts to enforcing only the laws broken in their particular district. Now, a JP puts you in superior court so, if you’re assigned to a city’s municipal court, then this doesn’t apply, unless the violation occurred outside of the city limits. But, if you are in superior court, like I was, then you need to make sure that it’s the right district. I was tagged for speeding by a cop a municipality in one district in a different district so, when I was assigned the court in the district of the cop, instead of the district where the violation occurred, that actually violated this statute and, as a result, the judge was forced (well, in a way) to dismiss the charge. Yay, fucking yay!!

The next involves enforcement cameras, as in at red lights and for speeding, including the mobile ones. While I was waiting, a red light camera ticket came up where the lady had already paid and, for whatever reason, was in front of the superior court judge. This is what the judge said to the court audience: In Arizona, you must be served the red light violation, and mailing you the ticket does not constitute service, unless you respond. If you don’t respond, then you have to be physically served by a process server who, if he does serve you, will require that you respond to the charges with a court appearance and, unfortunately, will add an additional fee to the violation to cover the costs of hiring the process server. So, if you’re in another state, it’s very likely that you can get out of this charge.

Keep in mind that the above was stated by a judge, not someone like me just trying to be a prick and just beat a ticket.

Re-Activation

Nothing about the internet is more amazing than the amount of material that has been effectively abandoned by its author or editor. Stray pages, still accessible via Google, grace almost every large site out there, as developers and web content writers sit refuse to erase any of it for fear of breaking something in some unknown place. And it does happen. When the content is removed, it’s often not replaced or redirected and the user ends up losing. It’s happened to everyone: find a link some place and – BAM – 404 error.

Similarly, there are millions of accounts on various sites which have sat inactive for potentially years. Email, forums, newspaper web sites, even such giants as YouTube have these sort of accounts. Some perform regular maintenance and remove inactive accounts, but, more often than not, they just sit. WordPress is one of the latter.

But I hope that this will not be one of those things that goes unused. I do intend to continue to give the world insight on public transit, music and beer drinking (all such important topics), so I need to keep up with this. Here’s to keeping up with it.

5am and I should have slept more…

Day 14: Ottawa

The last day in Toronto started with a late train, thus cutting further into my tight schedule. I was to arrive at Union Station, check in to get my train ticket, lunch with a friend, then lazily board. I arrived 20 minutes late and had to run to meet my friend, who was jovial but probably understandably annoyed, as was I. I then had to settle for train station food, which amounted to McDonald’s, Dairy Queen or Harvey’s (Canadian burger chain). I chose McDonald’s, which just seemed to be my best route.

The train ride turned wasn’t particularly fun. As per my luck with this sort of transport, I got stuck next to a woman with a baby in her lap. This was a big baby though (big for his age), so the kid would have been better off with his own seat, although that would have cost quite a bit more. Not even 20 minutes out, the first diaper change occurred, resulting in a urine-soaked diaper being placed in the seat’s pouch and the smell of pungent urine punctuating the already dismal air. Later on, I swear that the kid crapped himself, because it smelled particularly awful for a bit.

About halfway in though, the woman moved, as some seats had opened up, and I had the seat to myself, but not before I spilled coffee on my shirt. I just left it on, not really worried about what I looked like, and tried to enjoy the rest of the ride. ViaRail (Canada’s version of Amtrak) has wi-fi on their trains, as per advertised on their web site, but it’s apparently not normally free, which is the norm in Canada, it seems. However, there was some sort of “satellite communication issue” and it was free today, although it was excruciatingly slow and often just stopped working outright. It was a 4-hour journey though, so I was content to wait a bit.

Upon arrival in Ottawa, I found the public transit setup fairly straight-forward. There were actually signs that directed you to the stop you used for the Downtown buses. What was not intuitive though was how much this bus, when it arrived, cost. Also, to know which bus exactly went Downtown, you had to look at the map and determine it.
But I, of course, had looked all of this up. The fare was a whopping $3 and the bus was the 94 or 95.

A few minutes later, a jammed-packed 95X (indicating “express”) bendy-bus arrived and most at the stop boarded. I spent the first part standing, but then was offered a seat by a girl disembarking later on. Ottawa has these things called “Transitways” which is a roadway solely dedicated to buses and meanders through the city, making bus travel much more expedient than it otherwise would be. This bus operated solely on the Transitway so, within about five minutes I could see Downtown Ottawa’s skyline. The stops were not that clear though as the driver announced some but ignored others, and was sometimes difficult to understand with the cackle of the Hatian high school students who filled the rear of the bus. As a result, I missed my stop (it wasn’t announced) and just sort of guessed that I was where I should be, but also confirmed it with the cute girl sitting at my opposite, who seemed to be just waiting for me to ask.

The first thing I noticed about Ottawa was that there appeared to be many more bums around than in Toronto, although I passed a shelter and attributed it to that. I found the hostel easily and checked in, getting my bed at the corner of the third floor where there was a creepy, older Indian man and a 30-something white guy who sat at a computer.
The guy at the computer struck up a conversation and immediately started off on how Americans need to learn that there are other parts of the world. Maybe I had come off as a bit brash initially, and brought it upon myself, but I was tempted to mention my overseas living experiences and travels to get across the “Shut up” that couldn’t be spoken so directly.

Time for a bit of shopping to buy snack food, toothpaste and flip-flops. The supermarket down the street was impressively 24-hour and featured a small deli with quite a few prepared meals (tempting, as I was hungry), a bakery and a good-sized freezer section. I found my toothpaste and strawberries were on sale for just $2 (they were a little old, but still good). I also noted that the deli attendant, a white kid of not even 21, was speaking French to a Hatian woman when I walked by. So bilingual!
Down the street, I found a fairly fancy Walgreens type place where I picked up Pringles knock-off chips for $1 and flip-flops for $4. The flip-flops are butt-ugly and, even though they’re the large size, they scarcely fit my feet, but they’re cheap and functional. I should mention that my previous flip-flops had died a slow death and, after the strap finally ripped out of the left flop (I seem to favor my left, based on the fact that holes always develop in that side first), I put them out of their misery and into my aunt’s garbage.

Now it was time for dinner. I had noticed that shwarmas seemed to be the thing to eat in this area. I counted no less than four stores selling them within a square three blocks, so I opted for that, finding a “trio” special for about $5.50, which included a shwarma, fries and a drink. The shwarma included was served with a pickle and radish on it, which was a bit weird, and I ended up removing it. The fries were actually potato cubes and were served with a garlic, whipped mayonnaise sort of sauce, which was actually very good. What really impressed me though was that the attendants spoke very good English, then turned around and spoke French to the next customer, and then chatted in Arabic to one another. Wow.

I started walking around a bit and immediately noticed that Ottawa is actually a really beautiful city. Stuck in between the run-of-the-mill city stuff is some astounding architecture, most notably the Parliament building, perched on a hill above the river, as well as some fabulous vistas. Ottawa’s famous for its canal, running between Kingston, to the south on Lake Ontario, to here, emptying into the Ottawa River. The canal is flanked by walking paths and park areas, and there are an impressive series of locks just before its meeting with the river.
As part of some sort of live performance festival, I stumbled upon a sketch being performed by two costumed actors in a back alley. An overzealous man said that I could watch but could not take pictures (not sure if he was joking or not, but I didn’t take pictures). The performance was in French, but it was still interesting to watch them mull about, over-dramatically.

I think that this is often the key to enjoyable travel: I had no expectations, per se, of Ottawa and, therefore, enjoyed it all the more when I discovered a gorgeous and enjoyable city. I could easily see Ottawa as an undiscovered urban honeymoon destination. The water and the beauty in the city are very romantic.

Day 8: Universities

For whatever reason, maybe because of a sizable population, Ohio seems to have a lot of universities. On my short drive between Cleveland and Columbus, I passed three, without even counting the universities in those start and end points. Between that is, surprisingly, a string of unending development. It wasn’t just farms, but Route 42 between the two cities had lots and lots and lots of little houses, for miles and miles and miles. I finally hit farms just north of Delaware.

Delaware is a cute, older town along a river north of Columbus. There’s some fantastic architecture here, and they have an active Downtown area, centered around William and Sandusky streets. Being a college town, they, of course, have a coffee shop, and it’s surprisingly nice with very good wi-fi service.

Of all things to stumble upon, I accidentally found Ohio’s Amish community around the town of Ashland, almost directly between Cleveland and Columbus. Ashland itself is a sizable town, maybe 20,000, but there are Amish everywhere, riding down the streets in their buggies while the more progressive ones were in town today loading up their trucks with supplies. I’ve never encountered Amish. The closest I’ve encountered before were the fundamentalist Mormons in far northern Arizona, and they’re not quite the same. The Amish are much less crazy and don’t seem to have the same sort of problems that that sect does (rape, incest, underage marriage, defection, rampant oppression, etc.)

In Columbus, I’m staying at yet another Crowne Plaza on the city’s far northern side. It was cheap. I plan to find a few places that were suggested to me, then maybe grab a couple of beers this evening before enjoying a comfy bed and a good rest.

Day 7: I <3 Cleveland

When I first came to Cleveland and spent a night here in the summer of 2007, I had no idea what to expect and was thrilled with what I found. I spent the next few months gushing to everyone about how great Cleveland was and why it was so great. Despite having what I thought was sound reasons, people thought I was crazy. So, as I sit slightly bored in one of the city’s wonderful, independently-owned coffee shops, I feel like reflecting on my reasoning. So, here’s my list:

• Cool neighborhoods: Wow, they’re everywhere here: Tremont, Detroit-Shoreway, Lakewood, Ohio City, Coventry Village, University Circle. You can easily just drive around the city and stumble upon them.
• Beauty: There are so many truly beautiful things about Cleveland. Its climate gives it an excessively green look to it during the summer. My favorite area is University Circle, just north of Euclid, and the Cleveland Cultural Gardens along MLK Drive, north of University Circle. Both areas show off that greenscape. Then there are the views: the area around Cleveland’s Downtown is surprisingly hilly.
• Water: Lake Erie is not the most fabulous shore, but it has beaches and is still very pretty in its own right. There are a ton of public accesses in the area as well. Then there’s the Cuyahoga River, which splits
• Parks: Just a few miles to the south of Cleveland, splitting its suburbs in half, is Cuyahoga Valley National Park. This is no James E. Garfield Birthplace sort of park. Rather, it’s a full-on national park with a ton of history, beauty and facilities to go with it. You can easily spend a day exploring it, and then go back on other days to wander into its isolated regions to be alone,  get on a bike and enjoy a nice day, or wade in the river.
  Then there’s the Rocky River. Just west of the city, the river forms a gorge where development failed to go. As a result, there’s now Valley Parkway, which runs the length of the gorge from Lakewood (at Detroit Avenue) to just south of Cleveland’s airport in Berea. It’s a wonderful drive with a ton of little parks to pull off to and enjoy. Unspoiled Northeast Ohio at its best.
• Beer: Cleveland, for whatever reason, has the best beer in the Midwest, thanks in no small part to its biggest local brewery, Great Lakes. Other breweries dot the suburbs and also offer excellent house brews. Great Lakes is also available all over the city in bars and stores.
• Cool Daytrips: Being in a relatively populated area, it’s easy to find cool daytrips out of Cleveland. Rural Pennsylvania is one, Pelee Island (part of Ontario) is another, while the nearby Chagrin Falls (technically a Cleveland suburb) is also great.
• A Cool Radio Station: While here in ‘07, I randomly stumbled upon WCSB, 89.3. Part of Cleveland State University, this is a college station through and through, in that they play an extremely eclectic mix (going from a thrash metal show to a Mexican-oriented show playing Norteno in a single night), but they tend to play some wonderful music much of the time.
• Public Transit: Cleveland has a great public transit system. There are three rail lines and an extensive bus network, reaching far out into the suburbs.
• The People: The most important reason why I like Cleveland are its residents. The endearing Northern Ohio accent warms you up, but their generosity and kindness are what really make them a pleasure to interact with.

So what’s not to like about Cleveland? Well, the weather. That’s obvious. I haven’t been here in the winter, but I can only assume that I may see things a bit differently if I lived here and had to deal with all of that snow and cold weather.

Day 6: Public Transit Adventures

It’s likely no secret that I’m a public transit fan of sorts. I like that it exists, I like cities that have good systems, and I think that more people, in general, should use it more.

Cleveland’s public transit system is known locally as RTA, officially as the Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority. They run buses, two light rail tracks, a heavy rail track and a new, single bus rapid transit line. The light rail and heavy rail are known as “the Rapid,” while the BRT line, running down Euclid Avenue on Cleveland’s east side, is known as the Health Line, named such because it connects Downtown with a large medical complex.

I started my day on the bus, walking just down the street to catch it. Detroit Avenue in Lakewood has two bus possibilities: a local service to Downtown and a neighborhood circulator. I didn’t have to wait long for the local service bus. Rides are relatively expensive in Cleveland: $2 per trip, $4.50 for a day pass. I got a day pass, not knowing exactly where or how far I was going.

The bus was nice: few people, clean, in good condition. The thing that irked me was that there was no overhead announcement, so, in order to figure out where you were, you had to just look outside. Most systems have this, and this is one of the few I’ve seen that didn’t.

I made it to the West Boulevard “Rapid” station fairly quickly. This is on the “Red Line,” which is the heavy rail track. The nice thing is that, if you don’t want to take the bus, you can actually drive in and park for free in the small lot, or, very likely, out on the street in the surrounding neighborhood. The train was late. They’re supposed to run every 15 minutes, but I waited about 20.

I had been on the Rapid before, once, taking it to the airport to pick up a rental car. Back then, fares were a bit lower, but it was a nice ride. A fun fact is that Cleveland was the first city on the continent to connect its airport with a train line of some kind. The Rapid was also not very crowded. The trains are a bit dated, although not quite as bad as some other systems (Chicago’s El is worse), but the seats are actually wide and comfy, giving two people plenty of space.
The doors are operated manually by the conductor who sits up front and has to watch to make sure no one gets jammed up, so to speak. The conductor also announces the stops (similar to Boston), so they’re often hard to understand (although not nearly as bad as Boston).

I made a last-minute decision to stay on until University Circle and hit a museum or something, maybe just walk around. It took a while, because the train actually dips south a bit (into a really terrible neighborhood) and winds up on the far south end of the University Circle area. Walking north, I detoured through Case Western’s campus, and just checked it out. Very pretty, but I wouldn’t expect anything else.
Just as I was emerging from the medical complex to University Circle, a big cloud came over the city, and the wind started to blow. A minute or so later, it started drizzling. By the time I reached the art museum, it was pouring rain. I caught a shuttle bus which runs around University Circle back to Euclid to get on the Health Line, abandoning my idea of hitting a coffee shop.

The Health Line is “bendy bus” that rarely bends, since Euclid is very straight. Each stop on its route consists of a tiny plexi-glass house with a bench and a ticket vending machine. You’re expected to buy your ticket there before boarding the bus, unless you want a reduced fare. The little house is open on its sides, and has slits on the bottom for drainage. That caused problems for myself and the older gentlemen stuck in the house with me, as we were splashed every time a car went by in the right lane.
The Health Line is nice because it announces its stops. What’s funny though is that the stops are “sponsored” by places, although the sponsors are always places that the bus passing at the time. For instance, Cleveland State University “sponsored” the stops near its campus.

I got to Tower City and thought about sticking around, but ended up just leaving. The Indians game had been rained out, so the train was near full for the ride back. It’s good that those seats are wide though. A few minutes later I was back at West Boulevard and waiting for the #26, which came fairly quickly.

And that was it for public transit. I didn’t technically need the day pass, but I only wasted about $0.50 on it.

After a nap, it was time to head out again. This time, I had the idea of going for a half-price sushi night at Cleveland’s own Sushi Rock. Their Downtown location does it on Wednesday, but they also have a location in Beechwood in Cleveland’s far eastern suburbs which does it on Thursday.
I looked up the address first and found the map online, which indicated that it was in the Legend Center. I found the shopping center, which was an upscale outdoor mall, but couldn’t find the restaurant. I then determined that, yet again, Google Maps was wrong regarding the side of the street that the place was on. And, that’s exactly what it was. Back out, I found the place in a small strip mall of restaurants at the corner. Parking was tough, but I found a spot easily.
Just as I had expected, the place was packed. It was about 6:30 and the dinner crowd was blending in with the after-work drinking crowd. I found the sushi bar at the back and took a seat at the end, just as the last two seats next to me were taken.
As I started filling in my selections, a waiter approached and filled my water glass, saying that I could order whenever I was ready. I quickly figured out that this was not really a sushi bar in that I was expected to give my card to the waiter instead of the chefs at the bar in front of me. I got a Philly and a “Manhattan,” which was tuna and avocado.

As I waited, I watched the staff and chefs go. It was almost mechanical. They had tubs of the ingredients and would pick up whole rolls from somewhere below before cutting them up. The rolls were small, but were only a bit over $3 each with the half-off special. I didn’t expect much out of this experience, honestly. This was Cleveland after all, which is about as far from Japan as you can get. Also, many don’t realize it, but all sushi fish comes from the West Coast so, the further you get from the West Coast, the harder it is to get that fish. So, just because you’re in a larger city, does not mean that the fish will be good.

First bite was into the Philly. No… The rice was warm, which was weird, but the salmon was fish. Noticeably fishy, and it just got more noticeable as I went on. The Manhattan was worse because not only was the tuna actually chewy, but the avocado was clearly past its prime, by both its look and its taste.

Oh well. $8 or so with tip for two rolls. I guess you can’t expect a lot for sushi in Cleveland.