The Wasteland

I never thought I’d say this, but Rochester, New York is a pretty cheery place, or at least it seems that way after spending two days in the bustling metropolis of Potsdam*. No offense to the denizens of the village or the students and faculty of Clarkson University, but seriously, your town ranks pretty high on the “lame places of america” list. Between the weather, the architecture, and the total lack of anything other than a gas station and two pizza places in the surrounding environs, Potsdam’s dreary tops Rochester’s ten times over. We spent a day and a half in Potsdam completing paperwork, learning incidental Chinese, and “team building.” Especially satisfying was being given the rare opportunity to apply one’s Beakman’s World skills to balance 13 screws on the head of one screw. According to precedent, this activity is supposed to take an hour or so. What they failed to consider though, is that when you get a group of eight serious nerds together, the chances are pretty good that at least one of them woke up at 6:30 AM on Saturday mornings to watch a green-frocked professor and a guy in a rat suit talk about science. The challenge took us about thirty seconds.
Even though we were driving to the alleged stronghold of crappiness, at least according the writers of South Park and most of the members of my a cappella group (the Twilight Wanderers, find us on MySpace!) Canada is a breath of fresh air. The fresh air may smell weakly of pine trees and ham-like bacon, but after Potsdam, who cares? Unfortunately, we’re only here for another 5 hours or so, so I won’t get the chance to go find a source of poutine, the uniquely Canadian combination of French fries, cheese curds, and beef gravy that I desperately want to try. Instead it’s looking like we’re going to stay here at the Monterey Inn and watch the Nuggets lose. Hopefully I’ll find a place to post in China soon after we arrive. Once I confirm that the government doesn’t block Blogger**, then I can actually send this URL to some people. Not that I mind my only reader being my girlfriend Marie, but it’ll be nice to spread the word a bit. That’s all for the western hemisphere, now onward and eastward.
-Jimmy

*This is not the Potsdam of WWII conference fame. That Potsdam is in Germany, though it leads one to wonder how history might be different had Stalin, Truman, and Churchill met in upstate New York. They’d probably have beaten those former Nazis up even more, if only because they’d be in a foul mood.

**They do.