RoadBoot

The urge to travel overtook me recently, so I found a pretense to drive down the coast again. I had to steal wireless internet at a Regency Inn in Fremont, but after some careful parking in just the right spot I managed to access google maps and then find my way to Joe Smith’s house.

Joe Smith was working on computers when the big machines were spitting out punch cards. He was collecting anime and posting to usenet before I was born. Joe Smith made the first ReBoot website, long before MFE even had their own. The site still stands as the definitive ReBoot reference site, despite not having been updated for several years. Then again, ReBoot itself hasn’t been updated in years.

Thursday.

When I arrived at Joe’s house he ushered me into his shag-carpeted garage, which he excused by claiming that the house used to be owned by jehova’s witnesses. Filling the room to the ceiling were piles of old computer equipment, ancient hardware, and what appeared to be Moses’ network router. In a dark corner I discerned a shape that strongly resembled the Ark of the Covenant, with a midi cable coming out the back.

Out of the garage he pulled box after box of Irwin action figures, ReBoot playsets, and merchandise I never knew existed. I didn’t count them all, but their numbers must have approached a hundred. Spread out on the ground they took up slightly more space than the footprint of a mid-size car.

Ten or so years ago Irwin contacted Joe. They didn’t have their own website yet, and were looking for a place to put up their glossy action figure advertising pics. Would Joe be willing to put them on his site? That is how this box ended up in Mr Inwap’s garage; in addition to being on Irwin’s payroll for a few months Joe “Lucky” Smith received quite a few original action figures, gratis.

After the interview we visited El Patio for lunch. Joe drove his Toyota Prius, waxing eloquent about it’s superior craftsmanship and economy. I pointed out that its mechanical complexity and high humber of moving parts would cause it to break down comparatively often, at which point he stabbed me in the chest with a ball-point-pen. However the waitress at El Patio used to work on a fishing trawler (so she said) and expertly sewed up my wound with a gut leader, after disinfecting it with tequila. We tipped well, parted ways, and the next day I drove to Santa Cruz.

Friday.

Zen Tao-Journey Jimalric Stevensson-Zenith ran what was probably the second-oldest fan site ever, the long defunct Kit’s sector, or Rock, or the Edge of Beyond (TEOB). Ten years ago he started Mystery ReBoot Theater 3000, now hosted at Slack’s Reboot Site, and he is part of that really old group that used to frequent the IRC #reboot chat.

We met in a coffee shop in Santa Cruz and drove out to the beach for the interview, where he reminisced about the old days. He said a lot of the things I wanted to hear about internet relationships and childhood phases, etc. We actually spent most of our time chatting about homeschooling, since we were both educated at home all the way to college. This was one of those surprising times when a couple of strangers discover that they are more similar than they had any reason to suspect.

I just put up a captioned gallery in place of the old photosets. There are 187 photos, in no categories. The gallery requires flash to view, so if you don’t have it you are out of luck.

Quite a few episodes and people are missing from the collection, and many of our adventures are not mentioned there. By way of excuse I can only say that there simply were things that we neglected to capture with stills. For instance we totally forgot to snap a picture of Slack, even though her interview was the longest of all.

Otherwise I hope you enjoy the slideshow.

Btw, L.Acid was quite liberal with the veracity of his comments. It would not be a stretch to say that at least half of the words in the gallery contain some element of falsehood. More than a few are bold-faced lies.

Jiggity jig.

So here I am back at the old haunt, clean shaven and bald as a grapefruit. Chris left from Portland late friday night, and all the tapes (minus one) are sitting in a yellow tupperware in my car.

*spills coffee on self*

Hard to believe that it’s all over. People ask me where I’ve been, and when I tell them they smile and say “cool”, but none of them really understand. I’ve seen America. I’ve driven in New York City, I’ve dodged antelope on the Texas highways, I’ve seen the sun set into the Pacific and rise from the Atlantic, I’ve been lulled to sleep by the waves of the Gulf and woken into the crisp air of the Canadian Rockies. I’ve driven through the Mojave hades, I’ve gone up the Olympic Mountains and held a microphone to the mouth of the god of chicks that kick ass.

All I have to show for the Great Adventure is a little yellow box full of MiniDV tapes. In that box are embarassing memories, bad image quality, worse audio, and poor shot direction. But at the bottom shines a single bright light: hope.

It is good to be home.

After leaving the gravesight of Webrider in Montana we skipped across the border into the Canadian Rockies. Tiny, beautiful little towns filled wth friendly canadians and small mom-and-pop eateries rolled past as we ooh’d and awe’d our way across 250 kilometers of brisk mountain scenery. It was a refreshing change after the never-ending plains of Wyoming.

We slept in the car for four hours, then returned to the narrow roads that wound between the wooded hills. Slowly the provincial villages became larger, the trees thinned out, and soon we were passing small cities. The road itself broadened into a four-lane highway with an official sounding name as cars appeared beside us, speeding toward our mutual destination.

As we crested a hill Vancouver appeared on the horizon, shining in the golden aftenoon. Our Mecca, and Mainframe, was before us.

Our day started at a Microtel Inn located in Kansas City, Kansas. Our destination was a little over an hour away. ReBootMaster.

The drive itself was interesting. As has been stated in previous posts, L.Acid’s car doesn’t have air conditioning. We’d been through Arizona, Texas, and Georgia. That humid, boiling heat seemed to be the height of our climatic plight.

In a way, we were right. Going through Kansas, it was extremely hot. Yet, this 104F heat didn’t seem to phase us as much as the low 90s of Texas, with it’s sticky humidity. It was interesting, to say the least. But not bad.

Having discovered the genius of maps, MapQuest, and common sense, finding RBM’s place wasn’t hard at all. We had to park on the side of the road, since L.Acid’s parking break is pretty much gone and the driveway was on an incline.

We were greeted by a tall, brown-haired figure in a white t-shirt and jeans. We shook hands, introduced ourselves, and grabbed our equipment. The promise of room temperature and ice water awaited us inside.

Inside, we headed straight for the treasure trove of all Booterness. RBM’s room was filled with all kinds of hand-made creations. Clay, ceramic, water-colour paintings. They filled the top of his fireplace. I paid special attention to the full ceramic tea set made of binomes.

Inside his room, we saw the Hex portrait he’d made with watercolours and framed. It was very professional. I gawked at the life-sized binome standing on the floor, made of ceramic and clay. That’s just cool.

We then got down to business. I setup both cameras at different angles around RBM’s position in front of his row of clay binomes. L.Acid took a seat across from him, putting on his Official RoadBoot Interview face.

They talked in length of RBM’s involvement in the fandom, from his humble beginnings at the Edge of Beyond, to starting and maintaining the massively successful ReBoot Club on DeviantArt. As well as a few other things. I checked on the video cameras periodically, and took production stills of the interview in progress.

Afterwards, we all chatted a bit, then headed downstairs for some much-needed water. We ran into several members of RBM’s family, none of whom seemed to be the least bit surprised or taken aback when they found out we were from ‘The Internet’. His mother did frown a bit in confusion, until we said we were from the ReBoot community. She then smiled, and said, “Of course.”

(more…)

Colorado, halfway between Denver and Ft. Collins. It’s been a flurry of travel and interviews for CC and I as we race the clock to make up for lost time.

From Montreal we drove straight to Toronto, stopping in to see Al’s Waiter in Ottawa. AW made us grilled cheese sandwihes with onion powder. Four hours of sleep and it’s back on the road. The MerBz makes a funny noise.

Illum (that cad) didn’t return our phone calls, so we breezed through London seeing neither hide nor hair of the illusive Bavarian. May the roses forever bloom upon his cross.

Chicago was a mess. CC and I split up to do two interviews, he spent the day with H2OAngel while Dancor and I hoofed around downtown looking for a friendly tattoo parlor. Our business finished, Dancor left for work and we three leftovers had a nice dinner in a dutch restaurant. Back on the road.

Indiana was a blur, Kentucky…..ah Kentucky.

The F.I.T. welcomed us with arms WIDE open. Those of you who know her online know what she made us for lunch, and what terrors of the road she braved in order to find the ingredients and the local dragon’s lair Wally World. I took a lot of footage of the room. All in all we spent a solid four hours at her charming country home, and her mother even gifted us with a floor rug cleverly disguised as a set of checkers. We intend to use it.

Then two nights and a pleasant rest at CC’s Aunt Tomi’s bustling estate. As I told one of his cousins: “When Chris turned to me in the car and said ‘I think I have an aunt in Missouri, let me call my mom’ I never expected to receive such an intimate portrait of the entire Hicks clan!” The rolling wooded Missouri hills are beautiful after a rainstorm.

Time being what it was, and what is is, we had to cut some people. Mulmuff couldn’t make it when we were in town because it was her birthday, TBIRallySport was too far east for us to do it in a day, and we just flat out skipped Permanently Confused. Back on the road.

Kansas City and time for Jameson, who’s bedroom walls are papered with bishounen collages of her favourite bishy-boys (Ray can be found in the strangest places). That was our most efficient interview yet; we went in, got what we needed, and left. Two hours.

ReBootMaster’s time was the next day, and yesterday. Again we didn’t stop to chat much about life or real things, we just filmed and left. But RBM is a nice guy, as are his parents. You all knew that already, but I wanted to say it anyway. RBM is pretty cool. Back on the road.

We drove and drove and drove and fell asleep in a little motel near Ft. Collins, CO. And when we woke up I wrote this post. Now there is only one more stop between here and Mainframe. That fan’s time has already come and gone, but we will visit him nonetheless.

Just a quick update on the trip as I write the other entries about visits.

We are in Jackson, Missouri, staying with my Aunt Tomi for the day. We’re going to be seeing Jameson in St. Louis, tomorrow, around noon. Next, will be ReBootMaster in central Kansas. After that, we head out on the long journey to Montana to see Webrider’s parents and pay our respects. The area is surrounded by really beautiful montains, I’ll get some good shots.

The last leg of the trip is to Vancouver, BC. The destination is Mainframe Entertainment. If we’re lucky, we’ll be granted an audience. I’m hopeful, but… Well, we’ll see.

The next few posts that I write will contain pictures, as well. If I can figure out how, they’ll be behind a cut. If not, they’ll be thumbnailed and linked.

We’ve got one week left to the trip. Thanks for sticking by RoadBoot, guys.

From Texas, we headed north-east to Georgia. Peter decided to drive as much of it as he could overnight. We left Houston, Texas and drove through Louisianna, Mississippi, and Alabama.

Once in Georgia, we started looking for the campsite Dot had thoughtfully scoped out for us beforehand. We ended up in an RV park, where we asked for directions. They gave us the directions. Once back on the highway, we realized it was really far, so we went back to the RV park and paid for a spot for our tents.

We relaxed for a few hours, and met up with her that night around 7pm. The meeting place was a local coffee shop called Hildegard’s. Coolest name ever.

The coffee shop itself was very nice. Pretty big and spatious, sofas and other comfy furniture all sitting around. Of course, what made the place even better was a girl sitting at a table reading, “Ishmael”.

It was Dot! We went over and said hi. I got a really nice hug, too! We sat down and talked for a bit, then went back over to the couches so that L.Acid could plug his laptop in. We talked a bit longer, but there was a very loud guitar singer in the shop doing his thing, so Dot and I went outside.

We sat down at a bench and talked at length about all sorts of things. Mostly revolving around the fandom. People we’d known, people we didn’t. After a while, we went in Dot’s car. Her wonderful, amazing car with the A/C. I hadn’t had cold air in weeks, it was really nice. We continued to talk in there.

We got so caught up that we lost track of time and realized we’d spent about two hours talking. We got out of the car and went to look for L.Acid. He wasn’t in the shop, but at his car, packing up. Apparently, he’d been looking for us at some point, but couldn’t find us. We felt bad.

We then hung around L.Acid’s car, talking about the fandom with his input. During this hour, we moved to the tables that were right there. From this spot, we witnessed two things. One, the giant cockroaches that seemed to out-number the human residents of the town. And two, a car chase! About 7-10 police cars were giving chase down the wrong side of a one-way street. After a mini-van. I kid you not, it was a red mini-van. And the cop cars kept coming, long after the van had passed.

L.Acid was exhausted after all the driving, so he took off for the campsite and some rest. Dot and I went to Denny’s, since I’d never been to one. It was alright. Pretty standard fast-food place. I got some breakfast stuff, Dot got some breadsticks, and we talked about our personal lives. It was a lot of fun.

We were tired, so we decided to head home. Dot was the one driving me back, as L.Acid had taken his car. Try as we might, we couldn’t find the campsite. Dot was using her directions, yet nothing seemed familiar. We even stopped to ask people about it, nothing.

This was at around 2 am. Three hours later, we realize something. Dot had driven us about thirty minutes away from her town, because she thought we were at the campsite she had suggested we go to. Being night and tired, I hadn’t made the connection the long transit time meant we were in a different area. From there, it was a simple matter of getting back into town. We found it in about twenty minutes once we got back. And you know what? It was literally five minutes from the Denny’s.

I’ll tell you what, though. Exhausted trips to Walmart and spending ridiculous amounts of time in a car with Dot were honestly, quite awesome. I mean, there was the whole, “OHNOES NO CAMPSITE”, thing. But still. We really did have a fun time. One of those times you laugh at after the fact.

The next day (or later that day, depending on how you look at it), we met up again. Dot had a birthday present for me. She gave me driving lessons in her car! We went down to her old HS’s parking lot, and I got behind the wheel. It was kind of scary, but a lot easier than I thought it would be. And I have to admit, seeing Dot half-freak out was kind of funny, too. Even if I was freaking out at the same time. Her gas peddle is really sensitive, it’s not my fault! Also, I hit L.Acid with the car. Sort of. I don’t know how I did it, since the car wasn’t moving at that point.

After that, we headed over to Dot’s college. L.Acid found a wireless connection in the library and voted to stay there, so Dot and I went on a grand tour of her campus. It’s a really pretty college, no matter what Dot says. The science building is all New Age and weird, but her English building was very nice! All elegant and reminiscent of cathedral architecture. It was cool to see where Dot spends most of her time during the school year. Hear some interesting stories.

We had to take off, then, as we had a meet up to attend. Slack was on the list and we weren’t going to miss her. We said our goodbyes, and I got another hug from Dot. I really do hope I can get down to Georgia again, at some point. She is one of the nicest people I have ever met. And what a sense of humour! Ebil, oh yes.

Also, we went to Walmart before we got lost. I can’t remember if it was before or after Denny’s, but I think it was before. We went there intending to go Mullet Hunting. Apparently, all the mulletees were in bed, preparing for fishing or some such. We had a good time, anyway. We played UFO frisbee and contemplated the deeper meanings of the chair that looked like a toilet. We agreed to never speak of the shelf we broke in Bedding, ever again.

It’d be hard to explain all we did there, so I will simply leave you with some memorable quotes.

Dot: “This blanket is so soft, it must be… Camel.”

Dot: “Fish like body glitter!”

CC: *puts back a lunch box. The entire shelf of lunch boxes falls down.*

About 20 miles west of Montreal is a beautiful little town called Hudson, located smack dab on the west bank of the Ottawa river. In a leafy green forest of deciduous trees lies the sweetest campground we have yet seen on this extended roadboot. We stayed three awesome nights and drank a lot of beer contemplated the universe with our thumbs all tied up in knots. On Saturday last we drove into town and picked up some girls.

Bluemuse and Julia Cat are friends in the same fashion as Frog and Toad. That much I gathered from seeing them deal with each other in that familiarly intimate way that comes naturally to girls when they are among their own. And although Kyriesque EEEing was absent from their conversation I had the feeling that it was either just below the surface or that the two had other ways of expressing delight at their own mutual coincidences of thought.

The girls were kind enough to make sandwiches, so we all piled into the MerBz (CC and I had cleaned out the car that morning, girls being all clean and everything) and drove out along the river road toward Camping D’Aoust. We got out the laptops, read BadFic to each other, and generally laughed it up. Later we drove to the river again to eat sandwiches and do the interview. Then it was back to Camping D’Aoust (I wanted to type it at least one more time) for the old marshmellow-and-campfire routine, which was enlivened by a spontaneous Mary Sue story-telling round-robin instigated by Blue.

If my memory does not fail me, we had just reached the point where Mary Sue aka “Ravenstar Starfire Fire” had descended in a flock of golden pigeons to get from Gary Stu aka “Brandon Vander Stud Vandermuffin” the five rings of powerfu something or other, and his “bronze and earthy hands were manfully massaging the gas pump handle” when we decided to go stargazing in the adjoining open field.

Yup, stars are pretty. And numerous, although I will lay you five to eight that there were more mosquitos than stars out that night. Presently we got hungry. This looks like a good place in the paragraph to say “Camping D’Aoust” again.

Tim Hortons is the place to hang out at one in the morning, I guess. All the cool people were there. By cool I mean cold. It was chilly, so the girls wore the two ReBoot crew jackets that I own. Did I mention that I own two ReBoot crew jackets? I own two ReBoot crew jackets.

Then, having exhausted all possible topics of conversation, we took the pleasant booters back to their house and we went on our way.

O Canada
Whither goest thou
In thy pea-green MerBz
At night?

Back to Camping D’Aoust.