Took this in Little Italy. Can I get some free wifi here? Fuhgetaboutit.

Generally I pride myself for having a high threshold of tolerance for many things in life that other people would normally make their pet peeves. Politics, however, is not one of them. Indeed, the mere suggestion of anything even remotely passing a positive remark about Captain Anus (otherwise known as Mmm Mmm MMMMM, Barack HUSSEIN Obama) would cause me to explode in a fiery violent rage that would put even the Incredible Hulk to shame.

I’m beyond discussing this crap now. These days, I would simply resort to violence as I quickly look around for a blunt instrument to beat you to a bloody pulp with just for having the AUDACITY of not sharing my political worldview. Besides, this stuff gets old in a hurry. Everyday the news could be summed up with “Obama creates yet another clusterboink guaranteeing the premature destruction of the United States.” Eventually it gets stale.

Look, I get it. We need to be diligent and continue to pressure and basically harass the scum sucking America-hating politicians until they either flee office or get their love biscuits handed to them in the next election. That’s why I vote and donate, and even plan to attend rallies (although that third part has more to do with finding like minded hot babes than supporting grass roots political movements.) But hey, I’m there aren’t I, and that’s all that matters.

But honestly, listening about how Obama continues to bend over like a willing goat for terrorists and abortionists and Pelosi and peopled named Ahmadinejadaadgeasdgddfd just gets stale after a while. I don’t want my blog to be a sounding board for everything that has gone wrong with this country, but rather a respite from all that. So if it seems like I am blissfully ignorant of today’s current events as I continue to blog about my everyday travels around the world with my teddy bear, I do so willingly with my head buried 6 feet deep into the sand.

But not only that, I suspect also that my readers need a respite as well. A place to get away from it all and laugh a little at my expense as I try to grope my way through the darkness that is life, and maybe read something that would also remind them of some of the reasons why this country still continues to be the greatest in the world (minus my home town of course.)

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The next one was hidden in a what used to be a creek, long since dried up. The area was now a public plot of land that cut through an entire neighborhood and eventually ended at the grounds of a local high school. After checking the coordinates and looking around for a few minutes, I finally located the hidden cache at the guardrail that separated the park from one of the streets. It was a perfect day, the sun shining and warm enough that no jacket was needed. I felt myself relaxing and enjoying the good weather as I opened up the cache to sign the logbook.

Suddenly, a whale mountain of a hag beast Dede Scozzafava lookalike materializes out of nowhere.

“EXCUSE ME, DO YOU WORK FOR THE TOWN?

“Me? No, just taking a walk here, enjoying the weather.”

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE, ARE YOU SCOPING OUT MY HOUSE?? WHAT DID YOU PUT IN THAT GUARDRAIL???”

“Um, no, I’m not scoping anything. Don’t worry about this either, it’s just a geocache.”

“A WHAT? WHAT IS THAT?”

I cheerily explained the concept of geocaching to her. “It’s like a box that contains little trinkets and a logbook. People hide them all over the world, post the coordinates to them online, and then you use a GPS to find it. Sort of like a hi-tech treasure hunt. It’s really fun.”

She didn’t say anything much after that, and went back into a house nearby, so I thought that was pretty much the end of that. I signed the log and went to return the cache.

Then the land whale materializes again.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING HERE??”

I tried to explain geocaching again a few more times, including how you use a GPS device to find caches.

“I DON’T WANT THAT THING HERE. TAKE IT WITH YOU NOW.”

“I don’t think I’m allowed to take it, but I can let the owner know if you feel really uncomfortable about it…”

“THEY’RE SPYING ON US, ELLE!!!” She yelled out to someone apparently standing at the door of the house nearby.

“WHO DO YOU WORK FOR???” The lady apparently named Elle yelled out to me.

I explained who I worked for, which in hindsight I’m thinking was probably a mistake. Because when you combine GPS, satellites, and then the revelation that you work for a government agency, that’s not really a good combo to have when trying to explain a harmless pastime to someone, who for all attempts and purposes was acting like a paranoid schizophrenic.

“Look I have an ID here if you’re that concerned, but I really think you’re overre…”

“IDs CAN BE FALSIFIED. I CAN MAKE A FAKE ID TOO WITH MY PRINTER! I WANT THAT OUT OF HERE NOW!!”

“YOU PUT THAT THERE DIDN’T YOU!? ISN’T THAT A TRACKER??”

“Err no, it’s just a simple keyholder with a logbook inside.” I showed it to her.

Soon another neighbor walking her dog passed by and stopped to see what the commotion was about. It wasn’t 30 seconds before she started glaring at me as well like I was Ted Bundy reincarnated.

“Should we call the police?” She casually suggested. “It looks like he’s littering so they could arrest him for that.”

“I am not littering. And I don’t think I’m on private property either. This area here is a public area right?

“IT DOESN’T MATTER, I CAN SEE YOU FROM MY HOUSE!”

“YOU TAKE THAT THING WITH YOU, AND I DON’T EVER WANT TO SEE YOUR FACE AGAIN, DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?? I SWEAR IF I SEE YOU HERE AGAIN I WILL GET MY SHOTGUN AND BLOW YOUR HEAD OFF! GET THE #%^$ OUT OF HERE NOW!”

“Ok, can I still take a walk in the pa– you know I think I’ll just leave now.”

I quickly walked back to my car, looking over my shoulder every now and then to see if she was in fact going to go back into the house to get her shotgun. Suddenly there were neighbors everywhere, all murmuring and staring at me like I had just landed here from Mars. They continued to glare at me with steely eyes of raging, foaming hatred. I had never seen anything quite like it.

I still had the cache with me, but no way was I putting it back now. I got out of there fast. Afterwards, I pulled into another section of the park area far away from Miss Nightmare on Elm Street, and hid the cache in a guardrail there.

Once upon a time I had gone to school here (not by choice), and I had always known something was just a little “off” with the locals, which is why I minimized any contact with them. They just weren’t… rational, ya know? But I never realized just how bad it really was until now. To be treated like a criminal and have my life threatened, this despite the fact that I was in a PUBLIC park and was parked legally, and so, what, I’m a threat because she saw me from her house from 50 yards away? Seriously? And then to talk about calling the police and working out how they can get me arrested WHILE I’M STANDING RIGHT THERE?

You know, even now I still have a naivete when it comes to befriending people in real life. I always think once I explain things and show I’m not a threat to them, they learn to relax around me. You would think logic and common sense would prevail in the end, right? Well…

The irony of it is that I when I had gone geocaching in Pennsylvania, people had warned of a similar scenario about a cache hidden at another local park there, and how if you parked on the street, one of the neighbors would have a fit and tell you off for parking in front of his house.

But see, that actually makes sense in a way. Here, I’m not merely parking in front of a house to the chagrin of the homeowner. No, I’m actually an agent for the government looking to place a tracking bug in a guardrail so the aliens can come later to murder you in your sleep. Because see, that just makes so much more sense.

Honestly, the more I travel, the more I realize just how badly growing up here had adversely affected the way I see people. I notice everyone around me is batty cracknuts out of their minds, and I assume that’s just how it is everywhere. People are paranoid, hostile, and will spit in your face just for daring to pollute their existence. They will be friendly one day and then come after you with knives the very next. In fact, I’m pretty certain that if I came back to that same place this weekend, they would all be quite friendly to me. Although, I think I’ll refrain from putting that theory to the test.

I should have paid attention when I took psychology at one of the local colleges here, and the professor mentioned that we had one of the highest ratio of mental hospitals than anywhere else in the country.

Now I know why.

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My first stop was at a local park that offered a magnificent view of the Tappan Zee Bridge. They had an awesome boardwalk literally next to the Hudson River, making for a lovely and quiet morning walk. That is, it would have been a lovely walk had I not run into this:

Yep, that pretty much sums up my life.

I could have hopped the fence, but this was me we’re talking about. Anybody else, they’d do it, have a smoke and a beer on the boardwalk and be none the wiser. I do it, and 15 minutes later I’ll be calling Mommy in a state of panic because I’m only allowed to make one phone call.

Still, I managed to get some purdy shots off where I could:

The awesomest thing was finding a… cherry tree? I think that’s what it was, but it was a tree unlike any tree I had seen before:

Mmm, now to find a tree that grows the Reddit Whip.

Next stop: The cemetery! I hadn’t realized it, but Washington Irving was buried here after all. I got to see the Irving family plot, and his original grave too:

Dude, seriously, could you stop throwing change at me? I'm not a wishing well.

We chatted for a while, and Irvie provided some helpful tips to improve my writing. Try as I might though, I couldn’t get him to understand the concept of blogging. Ah well. I paid my respects and moved on, eventually discovering Andrew Carnegie’s grave:

Ironically, Carnegie's grave here is just a stone's throw away from Samuel Gomper's, the founder of the American Federation of Labor.

Not sure he liked the idea of a unionized worker prancing around on his grave though, so conversation was minimal at best.

I have to admit this was an interesting and pretty cemetery. Lots of picturesque views to be found here, but then of course, my hated arch-nemesis that is poison ivy just HAD to go and announce its presence much to my chagrin:

*Shudder* Good grief, they were EVERYWHERE, vines jetting out wherever I walked, like willowy arms stretching forth from the very bowels of hell itself, reaching out to pull me into its itchy darkness from whence there is no return.

I tried to put those thoughts behind me though, and drove around again until I came across Rockefeller’s grave, a mausoleum bigger than even the biggest house I’ve ever lived in:

Look at meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

This was actually William Rockefeller, the younger brother of John D. Rockefeller. He was supposed to be the nice one from what I heard. Still, this mausoleum was arguably the biggest one in the entire cemetery, roughly in the middle and on top of the highest hill, so that Willie can continue to lord over all, even in death. And… the mausoleum was locked too. Dweeb.

I moved on and eventually discovered even William Chrysler was interred here:

Would this be a bad time to tell you I drive a Hyundai?

I was nice enough to spare him the gory details of what’s been happening with his company lately, but I couldn’t resist telling him I drive a foreign SUV.

All in all a fascinating cemetery, with some humor here and there to boot:

Now there's an appropriate name.

Whoa... bad omen, dude.

I then moved on to another nearby park, offering even more magnificent views of the Hudson and some rare trees as well. While I was walking I happened to notice this one atop a hill, which stuck out like a sore thumb because it was the only white birch tree around:

Ok, yeah, so I'm white. You got a problem with that?

And what’s Sleepy Hollow without its trees too? This was another one of the rare specimens I’ve found, again a tree unlike any tree I had seen before:

You were awesome in Lord of the Rings by the way.

It provided an umbrella covering and almost felt like you were walking around in a room instead of around a tree. Really beautiful, the kind of scenery that made me wished for a minute that there had been a special girl right there with me to share a romantic moment with, and some side order of playing suck face too. Ah well.

Eventually I turned back and went into town, getting pizza, a coke (and this came in the traditional hourglass bottle too!) before moving on for a “quick” half mile hike into the woods.

Sometimes I wish I were hiking on a yellow brick road instead.

That actually wasn’t too bad.. until it started going up a steep incline. After gasping for breath and sweating even from my eyeballs, the ground finally leveled off for a bit. Then I saw some movement in the bushes and just about had a heart attack. Coyotes! The Headless Horseman! OMG ImgonnadieImgonnadieImgonnadie!!!!

But no, it was a deer. Whoooooooooo…

It just kind of looked at me curiously, then started prancing around. I was too tired to prance along with it, so I just kept going. Then I saw more movement: a figure shaped much like a velociraptor from the movie Jurassic park. What the…

Then again… fast as lightning, circling around me. Ok dude, seriously, I’m not cool with this. Deer I can handle, but I, sir, am an urbanite, and my idea of the great outdoors involves nothing more than an outside table at Starbucks. I mean people do this for FUN? Really? Camping amongst poison ivy and deer ticks and coyotes and little baby raptors running around waiting to sink their teeth into me and eat my face off?

More movement, and then a strange gurgling sound. WHAT IS THAT!??!?

Then I finally recognized it: wild turkeys. Not baby raptors ready to gnaw my face off, just a few scared turkeys jutting around me.

Whooooooooooooooo… Breathe boy, breathe…

By this time it was starting to get dark, and even though I was dead tired from the half-mile hike, I suddenly found I had more than enough energy to run like a thief in the night back to the parking lot, convinced that after the deers and the turkeys, the coyotes would soon follow, and THAT was not something I wanted to see right now.

Day quickly became night as I arrived back at the parking lot, hugging my car like a long lost friend.

Well! That was fun! Let’s do that again, like say, never? Well maybe I will try it again, if I had certain… motivational incentive to do so…

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Hanging out here in White Plains to wait out the bad traffic.

But then of course, it rains. And rains, and rains, and rains, and rains, and rains… Man, I don’t think I’ve seen the sun since Monday. This dude is not pleased.

So instead, I opt to go to the movies, but this time I wanted to check out one that had closed captioning available. There was only one nearby that captioned a movie I wanted to see (2012), so I decided to check it out.

I knew I was in for another whirly day when my GPS wouldn’t accept the address I put in. Sigh. Instead I drove to the location and of COURSE on the way I run into a MASSIVE traffic jam. Cars upon cars upon cars upon cars, and always the guy in front of me drives too slow while the guy behind me drives too fast. By the time I had reached my destination I was gripping the wheel so hard my knuckles were white. I was about THISCLOSE to flipping my lid and playing real life bumper cars.

By the time I got there the movie was just about to start. Only problem is, I arrived in front of a gas station.

Where between heaven and hell WAS this movie theater? Google Maps says it’s supposed to be right here, and Google never lies, @&%^!

I drove some more, than drove back again. After about a few miles I see a small sign indicating a movie theater was nearby. Turns out Google Maps was about 5 miles off the mark. By the time I had finally gotten to the right spot the movie had already started 30 minutes ago.

Sigh. It was just as well, the theater looked packed, and if there was one thing I could not abide by, it was the obnoxious, ugly weekend crowd of skanky kids, tired looking parents and stupid teenage couples getting all up in my space as I try to enjoy what more than likely turns out to be a sucky movie.

Not really what I had in mind to cap off my last week off from work. Grrrr.

Ah well, I might be able to redeem myself yet if it stops raining tomorrow. I’ll be heading off to Sleepy Hollow then for some geocaching and cemetery exploring. Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig’s graves will be nearby too, so I might go see that as well. My coworker of course will wrinkle his nose at the thought of me going off to see a few Yankee ballplayers, but then again what else can you expect from a disgruntled Mets fan.

Pray I don’t get ticks or run into snakes or anything. I really, really hate bugs, and I really, REALLY hate snakes. Why can’t these people hide geocaches in like a Starbucks or something? Sheesh.

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• Been chased by the police
• Been chased by dogs
• Gotten poison ivy rashes all over me
• Stepped on doggie doo (this in an area where dogs aren’t allowed)
• Picked up fossilized horsey poo thinking they were rocks
• May have possibly gotten swine flu (I’m getting a sore throat now)

…and probably a few other things I can’t remember because I’ve repressed the memory.

But on the upside, during the times I’ve traveled far and away from home, I’ve beheld some truly magnificent scenery, which would include the women who somehow wind up in my hotel room for one reason or another.

Indeed, the more I travel and get away from it all, the more I realize just how strikingly different people are in other towns and states, and the more I suspect that the locals here really are out to get me.

Not that people weren’t rude or obnoxious elsewhere too. There were a few times in Pennsylvania where drivers would be UP MY TRAILER HITCH because I had the audacity to be in their way (though in retrospect I think it was because of my New York plates and the fact that the Phillies were turning into world class losers, tee hee.)

But generally, the atmosphere was remarkably different from what I’m used to. Everyone was always so… nice.

When I was at a buffet I remember walking up to get a plate, then turned around and happened to notice a girl, who just out of the blue gives me this heartwarming smile as she passed by. I was so taken aback that all I could manage to do was smile back, right before I ran back to my table and kept my head down low, wondering what crazy Twilight Zone episode I had just been teleported to. Women? Smiling at me? When things like that happen I can’t help but look out the window to see if I can spot the Four Horsemen.

Then there was the time when I was still in Lake Placid, I went to a BBQ restaurant and the waitress who took my order was just too nice for words. She actually wanted to keep talking to me but got called away, and to be honest, even if we hadn’t been interrupted, I wouldn’t have known what to do with it. WHY ARE YOU BEING SO NICE TO ME OMG IT’s FREAKING ME OUT!!!111

And then with Hotel Girl, who not only smiled, but also seemed content to be within kissable distance of me. I’m the type who gets exceptionally nervous when anyone breaches my personal perimeter of 6 feet, because I’ve gotten used to the idea that I am a rather repulsive human being that nobody would want to be within 2 yards of anyway. But then things like this happen, and I can’t help but wonder if maybe I was simply born in the wrong place.

Because what happens is, eventually when I’m done with my travels, I come… home.

And that’s when day quickly becomes night, and I have an opportunity to compare and contrast what I see here from what I see “out there.”

I noticed it right away when I went down to Panera Bread for a lunch or two a day after I got back from Pennsylvania. Women in particular do not look at me at all. I absolutely do not register on their radar, and for those rare times I do, good grief, the looks I would get. Steely, stony looks of pure, unadulterated hatred. Looks that say “How DARE you pollute the air I breathe with your existence!” Whereas the girl at that buffet gave me a smile as if I had made her day just by being there, these locals instead give me the kind of dirty looks typically reserved for mass murderers or people who like to kick puppies for fun.

I always thought it was because something was seriously wrong with me. I’m undesirable, I’m ugly, I can’t even get a girl to crack a polite smile because I am just that putrid and repugnant and disgusting. But then I travel just a little bit out of my safety zone and wow, what a difference even a mere 2 hour drive can make.

It’s a new experience to come in contact with a population that doesn’t seem to want you violently torn apart and shredded in a woodchipper. I wonder then if the reason it’s been so hard for me to find a nice girl is because she isn’t in fact, here, but “out there.”

Ah well, just something I’ve been pondering over as I try to fight back this growing soreness in my throat. Gees, as if the poison ivy wasn’t enough.

Well, if I do get sick, blogging will be obviously be light until I get better, so if you don’t hear from me for a bit, I’m probably on my deathbed and like, dying and stuff.

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