#the bus drivers round here who have told me the route got taken off years ago? that's all in my head

[somecunttookmyurl]

first bus glasgow have been trying to gaslight me for 6 months and it's honestly hilarious at this point and yes i AM using that term correctly

#they are trying to convince me a bus their own app says both does and does not exist #definitely does exist and also definitely did drive past me when i was waiting 35 min for it and it never showed #i simply did not see the extremely large vehicle i was looking specifically for #the bus drivers round here who have told me the route got taken off years ago? that's all in my head #the bus exists it went past you the bus exists it went past you the bus exists it went past you #there is nothing wrong with the app you're imagining it there is nothing wr-

[slapshot-to-the-heart]

Shotgun - m. tkachuk

And here is 8.7k of a road trip with Matthew Tkachuk, which honestly, is the real dream. Let me know what you think of it, reblog (I love looking at tags!!) and pop into my inbox if you’d like!

Wine pairing from someone with zero authority on the subject: a nice brut rosé - crisp, fruity, bubbly. Plus, I like the vibes. 

It all started with a text. What are the chances you can get the week after next off? Matthew had sent. Madison’s brow furrowed. Doubtful, but I can try. Are you going to tell me what this is about? There was a week left in the season before playoffs started, and with the points spread in the Pacific being what it was, the matchups were all but locked in. It took less than a minute to get a response. No :) I’ll let you know once you get an answer. She got approved for the time off two days later. Her phone rang as soon as she texted him the news. “How do you feel about road trips?”

---

Maddy had met Matthew about a little over a year prior, soon after she moved to Calgary from her hometown of Toronto. Having finished her first week of work as a computer programmer, there was nothing Madison wanted more than to let loose and enjoy a few drinks with her friends. She was sharing a two-bedroom with her best friend Emily, who Maddy would swear up and down was the sunniest, warmest, most kind person she’d ever met. Not like Maddy wasn’t a nice person — she was — but where her idea of relaxing meant going out bouldering, or camping, or a last-minute road trip, Emily was more of a homebody. 

But going out meant going out, and so Emily was happily dragged along to a bar downtown; which one, she couldn’t really say. Madison walked up to the bar as soon as they entered, catching the bartender’s eye and ordering a Tom Collins. She tapped her fingers on the counter as she waited, glancing around the room. It was ten o’clock on a Friday night, so it was plenty packed. “What are you getting?” Madison asked Emily curiously. 

She held up her Molson. “I’m a woman of simple tastes. Plus, I didn’t feel like waiting around for the bartender to actually make me a drink,” Emily added dryly. 

Maddy rolled her eyes. “What’s the point of going out to a bar when you’re just going to be drinking something you could get at the liquor store?” Emily stuck her tongue out. The bartender slid Maddy’s glass over, taking her card and swiping it through quickly. “Thank you!” she chirped, whipping around to head over and snag a free table she had seen a few minutes before. 

She never ended up getting to the table. Instead, she ran straight into 6 feet, 2 inches of pure Midwestern beef. “Woah!” Matthew said, steadying her as she watched her glass fall to the floor, thankfully not breaking but absolutely spilling its entire contents over the wood. “You good?” 

Madison nodded, grabbing a rag from the bartender. Matthew followed suit, joining her on the floor. “Got a little on my shoes, but it’ll be fine. They won’t stain.”

Matthew nodded, giving a final wipe before taking her rag and handing both back over the counter. “Did me spilling your drink all over you ruin my chances of getting your name?”

“Madison St. Pierre,” she said, laughing and sticking out a hand for him to shake. 

“Matthew Tkachuk, but—”

Maddy cut him off. “I probably already know that?” Matthew ducked his head sheepishly. “I may be a long-suffering Leafs fan, but I don’t live under a rock.”

He took a sip of his beer, leaning up against the bar. “Not from around here, eh?”

Maddy shook her head. “Just moved a couple weeks ago. I’m from Toronto, moved here for a job. I do computer programming,” she said by way of explanation. 

“A smart girl.”

She tilted her head. “You could say that.”

“Well,” he said, “I feel bad about spilling your drink on you, let me buy you another.” 

Maddy laughed. “If you insist. It’s really the least you could do.”

Matthew nodded at the bartender, ordering her another Tom Collins and putting it on his tab. “You and your friend are more than welcome to join us,” he gestured behind him to where the rest of his group was sitting, “we were playing a drinking game and could use a few more players anyway.”

And that was how Matthew met Maddy. 

---

Day 1 

Ten days later, Madison was hefting her duffel bag into the trunk of her Nissan. It was 7:00 on a Tuesday. Normally on a day off she’d be taking advantage of every possible minute of sleep she could get, but lines to cross the border could be long and they wanted to get to Montana by lunch. She waved goodbye to Emily, hopping in the driver’s seat and starting the engine. Matthew had initially suggested they just get a rental car, since it would save Maddy the 20-hour drive back. But a quick Google search let them know that the chances of finding a company willing to let them drop off a Canadian car in Nevada were slim to none. Plus, Maddy had always liked driving, so it wasn’t really an issue for her. They weren’t going to be alone on the trip; Matthew had invited Elias and Rasmus along. She felt a little bit like a school bus driver, stopping at Elias’s complex to pick him up, then Rasmus’ condo, finally pulling into the underground lot of Matthew’s apartment building. Holding one hand up in greeting, he wheeled his suitcases over to her car.

Maddy unblocked her seatbelt, hopping out to help him. “Why on earth did you need so many bags?” she huffed, turning one on its side and wedging it in between hers and Elias’s. 

He shrugged. “I’ve got a bag for the trip, a bag of actual clothes and workout stuff for the series, and the suit bag.” He hung the offending article on a hook. “Did you think I’d be able to set my vanity aside for a whole four days?”

“I should have known that would be too much to ask.”

Matty threw his head back, laughing. “Anyone ever told you how funny you are, Mads?”

“Once or twice, Ratthew,” she said, slamming the door shut. 

Maddy hopped back in the driver’s seat, jamming the key in the ignition and turning the engine on. “Next stop, boys, is America.”

---

Well technically, the next stop was a gas station off of Highway 2, about twenty minutes from the border. “Wait, wait,” Matthew said, a conspiratorial grin on his face as Madison took the pump out of the gas tank. 

She raised one eyebrow. “What?”

He made grabby hands at her keys. “Let me drive.”

“Why?” Madison asked. “I’ve been driving for like what, two hours? I’m not tired yet.”

“I’m the only American in the car.”

Maddy put the pump back. “And?”

Matthew looked sheepish. “Someone said that the border patrol officers will tell Americans ‘welcome home’ when they’re coming back. It’s never happened to me flying so I wanted to see if it would be different in a car.”

“If it means that much to you?” she said, tossing the keys over the hood of the car. Matthew caught them. Maddy rounded the back of the car before she could see him ducking his head, blushing. 

They arrived at the Piegan/Carway crossing shortly after. With exactly zero cars in front of them, Matthew pulled straight up to the booth. 

“Purpose of your visit?” the officer said, looking into the driver’s side. 

“Three of us play hockey, we’re road tripping down to Las Vegas before our playoff series starts in a few days,” Matty answered easily. 

He nodded. “And how long will you be in the States for?”

It was clear either this man had never watched a series of professional sports in his life, or he was just following a standard script. “Depends?” Matthew said, fully aware of how questionable that sounded. 

Maddy piped up from the passenger seat. “I’m driving the car back, so I’ll be back in eight days.”

“Right,” Matthew nodded, “But this trip to the US, we’ll be back in seven days. We’re flying back on the team plane, so it’s not a land crossing.” He decided to forego mentioning that, barring a sweep, they’d be back again in two weeks.

The poor officer looked bewildered. “Team plane?”

Matty shrugged his shoulders. “We play for the Calgary Flames, the team charters a plane to fly us from Calgary to wherever we’re playing and back. We decided to take the scenic route this time.” 

“Okay,” he said, but Madison still wasn’t convinced he actually understood what Matty was saying. If the border officer thought anything of the American, Canadian, and Swedish passports he was handed, he didn’t say anything. Giving a cursory glance, he handed them back. “Welcome back,” he nodded to Matthew, waving the car through the gate. Matthew pumped his fist.

---

An hour later, Matthew pulled into a dirt parking lot on the edge of Glacier National Park. “WE MADE IT!” he exclaimed, putting the car in park and throwing his hands up. 

“We drove three hours,” Elias said from the back seat. 

“And?” Matty challenged, opening the door. 

Maddy grabbed her backpack, stuffed with sandwiches and snacks that they had gotten on their way in. “If you guys brought hiking boots or good tennis shoes, now’s the time,” she said, lacing up her own boots. “There’s a loop around here that’s a little under four miles long, doesn’t sound like it’s too difficult but there is some elevation climb, so better safe than sorry.” People typically didn’t peg her for it, but Maddy was a very outdoorsy person at heart. She had taken up rock climbing in high school, and was a regular at the bouldering gyms back in Toronto until she moved. She’d found a climbing gym she liked well enough in Calgary, but with Banff just over an hour away from the city, the park had become her go-to for climbing and hiking. Matty had come with her on more than one occasion, and had surprised her with a long weekend camping for her birthday in March. The snow hadn’t all melted yet, and waking up to the powder-dusted fir trees outside of their tent had been one of the most beautiful sights of her life. 

“Everyone’s got a full water bottle?” she asked, tying up her hair. The last thing anyone wanted was to get heatstroke in one of the most remote parts of the park with only one phone that could even connect to an American cell tower. 

The group started off at a leisurely pace, wandering off-trail to check out anything and everything that caught their interest. The edge of the St. Mary Valley served as the perfect backdrop for lunch, Maddy pulling the sandwiches out from her bag and doling them out. “Oh thank God, I’m starving,” Elias said, grabbing his food from Maddy practically before she even had it in her hand. 

“Did you not have breakfast?” she asked incredulously. 

He nodded. “I did, but I’m still hungry. Should have brought snacks.” Off to his side, Matty snickered. 

 Day 2

Elias had volunteered to take over from Matthew to drive through the night, switching off sometime around sunrise with Rasmus. “I 100% have a crick in my neck,” Maddy grimaced, blinking the sleep out of her eyes and checking her phone. 

“Morning, sleepyhead,” Matthew smiled. Maddy groaned, leaning into his side. Almost instinctively, his arm wrapped around her shoulders. He unscrewed the cap of his water bottle, taking a few gulps before setting it back down on the floor of the car, where it promptly rolled away. 

“Who do I have to blow to get a decent cup of coffee around here?” Maddy groaned. Matthew almost choked on his water. He had to get his mind off of the idea of Maddy blowing anything or he was about to have an issue. He pulled out his phone, jumping on Google maps. 

“There’s a little coffee shop a few miles ahead, off of the Spruce Drive exit?” he asked tentatively. 

She yawned. “As long as they sell caffeine, I’m game.” They did indeed sell caffeine, and after inhaling two cappuchinos and a small mountain of pastries later, Maddy hopped back behind the wheel. “You sure bear claws and muffins are on the meal plan, boys?” she asked, a smile playing on the corner of her lips. 

Rasmus waved her off. “It’s not like you’re going to rat us out, are you?” 

She shrugged, wiggling her phone in her hand as she pulled up at a stoplight. “Bold of you to assume I don’t have Coach’s number in my phone.”

Matty plucked her phone from her hand, placing it back by the center console. “Be that as it may, sweet Madison, you neglect to remember that I’m the only one with coverage in the U.S.” He might not strike most people as a particularly sentimental person, but Matthew loved his family, and decided that the extra charge was well worth being able to call his parents and sister whenever he was missing them. 

She stuck her tongue out at Matthew. “You ruin all of my fun, you know that?” All he did was grin. The drive to Mesa Falls wasn’t long at all, they had just finished their food — Matty popping bites of muffin into Madison’s mouth as she drove — when she pulled over to the curb by the sign. Maddy threw the boys’ backpacks to them, pointing to the single bathroom stall in the tiny rest area. “Go change, I’ll use the car.”

“Why can’t we have the car?” Matthew complained.

She looked at him. “Three full-grown men, all over six feet, in one car. I know you see each other’s dicks all day in the locker room, but I’d really rather not have that in my car. Think.”

Matty made an “o” with his mouth. “Gotcha.”

Swim trunks were much easier to get on than a wrap bikini, Madison was finding, and the boys were finished changing well before she was done figuring out her top. She bit her lip, poking her head out of the door. “Matty?” 

He turned around, eyebrows raised. “Yeah?”

“Could you help me tie this?” she asked, gesturing to the halter top. “I think it’s stuck or something.”

Matthew swallowed hard, his eyes widening as he tried to stutter through a sentence. “Uh, yeah. I can do that. For sure,” he said, shuffling over to the car. He gently untwisted the straps, gathering them into a bow at the base of her neck and trying very, very hard to not think about how soft her skin felt underneath his fingers. This was one of his best friends. And best friends weren’t supposed to think about that kind of stuff. Right?

Behind them, Elias and Rasmus shared a glance. They had expected something was going on between them, really ever since the party in November, but this was something new. They had never seen Matthew gone this far for a girl before. And they liked this side of him. 

“Thanks,” she said, squeezing his shoulder before disappearing back into the car to throw on a coverup. “How long is the walk to the actual waterfalls?”

“Not long,” Elias responded. “Ten minutes or so?” It was an easy walk to the falls, which were mercifully empty when they got there. They kicked off their sandals, leaving the bags under a nearby bush. Matthew knew Madison was pretty. She wasn’t a nun and he wasn’t a saint; she had seen him shirtless more times than he could count and he had seen her come out of his guest room in nothing but an oversized t-shirt of his after she stayed the night. His thoughts hadn’t exactly been innocent. But as she pulled her t-shirt over her head, leaving her clad only in that damn red bikini, he was convinced he’d never seen a more gorgeous sight. 

She turned around just as Matthew tore his eyes away, looking mischievously at him. “Last one in?” They sprinted to the water. Matty let her win. 

---

About half of their stops had been planned in advance; the others were pulled from websites or Google suggestions or whatever their waitress’ recommendation was for a local must-see. The Idaho Potato Museum fell into the latter category. Rasmus had floated the idea shortly after they had left Mesa Falls, and seeing as how nobody had anything better to suggest, they ran with it. 

“Free taters for out of staters,” Matthew said, reading off of the pamphlet they had been handed at the welcome desk. 

“Will they give me extra since I’m Canadian?” Madison wondered aloud. “For all intents and purposes they think you live in Missouri, Matty.” The nickname rolled off her tongue so easily, she didn’t even think twice. 

He passed the paper to her, the tips of their fingers barely brushing together, but Matthew could have sworn his heart skipped a beat. “Don’t get greedy, Mads.” They walked down a dimly-lit hallway lined with black-and-white photos. 

“Did you know that the first potatoes grown in the United States were planted in Londonderry, New Hampshire, by Scotch-Irish immigrants?” Elias read off of a placard, his voice sounding like a disinterested radio announcer. 

Maddy shook her head. “I didn’t, thank you so much for imparting on me this most important knowledge, Elias.”

“My pleasure,” he replied. 

“Did you know that you could survive off of a diet of only potatoes and butter?” Rasmus chimed in, reading another sign. 

“Really?” Matthew asked, leaning in to read. He turned to Madison a moment later. “Really, apparently.”

Half an hour of wandering later, Matthew and Madison had stumbled into the “artifacts” portion of the museum. “What kind of artifacts does a potato museum have?” Maddy asked, looking supremely confused. 

Matthew wiggled his eyebrows at her. “Why don’t we see?” For some reason, he decided it would be a good idea to hold his hand out for her. And for some reason, Maddy took it. 

The “artifacts” turned out to consist of some old farm tools, dusty burlap sacks, and the world’s largest potato chip. Elias and Ramsus were on the other side of the museum, leaving Matthew and Madison to drift through alone. “Crisp, actually,” Matthew said, reading the card under the glass case. “Because I guess they’re worried about people stealing it?”

“There’s a difference?”

He shrugged. “Apparently it’s only a chip if it’s a slice of potato. This was made from dehydrated potato flakes, or something like that.” Maddy wasn’t sure if it was the sepia-tinted lighting, or the lingering memory of how Matty’s fingertips burned like fire against her back as he tied her bikini, or if there was something particularly romantic about dehydrated potato flakes, but they were alone in the room and suddenly she was looking at him a little bit differently. Matthew looked at her, gaze soft as his eyes flickered almost imperceptibly down towards her lips. Her lips. His body leaned in, and just as she closed her eyes, waiting for his lips to meet hers, wondering if they were really going to do this in the middle of the Idaho fucking Potato Museum—

“We were wondering where you guys had gone off to!” Elias’s Swedish accent cut through the silence. Matthew threw his head back, silently cursing his teammate’s timing. If Elias and Rasmus realized anything was off, they didn’t say. “The lady at the front said it’s closing in ten minutes, so we thought we should head out and get something to eat.”

Maddy nodded in agreement, her cheeks burning. “Sounds good. I could go for some food.” They made their way back outside, Matthew settling behind the wheel as he steered the car back onto the highway. He tried to shake the almost-kiss from his mind, but the more he tried to forget it, the more the memory stuck. 

Elias looked down at his phone. “Yelp says there’s an Indian place coming up on the left if that sounds good to you guys,” he said, shaking Matthew from his thoughts. 

Maddy scrunched her nose. “All due respect, I don’t trust this town to make good Indian food. Potatoes, burgers, meat, sure. I buy it. But I haven’t seen a single person of color since we left Glacier.” 

“Fair.” 

The burgers were good; nothing to write home about, but Maddy was honestly thrilled to eat something that didn’t come out of a bag. The plan had originally been to drive through the night again to reach Salt Lake City by the early morning, but Maddy made it clear her back didn’t take too well to sleeping in the car, and the others agreed. “Rasmus, mind finding a hotel nearby? Doesn’t have to be anything fancy, just somewhere not too far off of the freeway,” Madison asked. He nodded, pulling out his phone. They had gotten tired of passing around Matthew’s phone anytime they were out of Wifi range, so after a little complaining and one of Maddy’s puppy-dog eye looks, he finally relented and turned his hotspot on. 

“There’s a Holiday Inn up off of the next exit if that sounds good to you guys,” Rasmus said. He tapped his fingers on the steering wheel to the beat of the Post Malone song that Matty had plugged in. They switched the aux every few hours. 

“Yeah, works for me.” Madison hummed her agreement; Matty nodded. Rasmus flicked on the blinkers, gently cruising down the offramp, pulling into the parking lot of the Holiday Inn about half a mile down the road. 

Madison bit the inside of her cheek. “They’re going to have rooms available, yeah?” 

“Mads, it’s May in the middle of nowhere, Idaho. I don’t exactly think they’ve got business lining up out the door.” Matty said, looking at her from the side as they walked into the hotel lobby. 

The whole trip was Matthew’s idea, so he insisted on footing the bill, handing his credit card and license over to the receptionist. Maddy snickered behind her hand. Matthew turned back to look at her, one eyebrow raised questioningly. “Something you’d like to share with the class, Madison?”

“Missouri licenses look weird,” she commented.

“And Alberta’s any better?”

She scrunched her nose. “We have a dinosaur on ours. Beat that.”

“I’ll let you have that one,” Matty said, the corner of his lip twitching as he thanked the receptionist, tucking the cards back into his wallet. She handed over the room keys, Matthew passing two to Rasmus and Elias and one to Maddy. “I had us together, if you don’t mind.” 

Madison shook her head. “Fine with me.” It wasn’t unusual for her to stay over at Matthew’s apartment, either after going out or when their movie nights ran a little long and she woke up to Matty tucking her into the bed in his guest room. She had a toothbrush in his bathroom, a change of clothes in the dresser. She had offered to take her stuff back a few months ago, not wanting any girl he might bring over to get the wrong idea. “It’s fine, don’t worry about it,” he had said when she asked, waving her off. Though, come to think of it, he hadn’t brought any girl home — that she knew about — since sometime around the beginning of the year. 

They waved goodbye to Rasmus and Elias, promising to wake up bright and early to get the first crack at the breakfast buffet when it opened at 7. Matty swiped his card, holding the door open when the light turned green and the knob twisted. “After you, m’lady.” 

“Why thank you, good sir,” Maddy giggled, ducking under his arm into the entryway. She stopped at the end of the hall, eyes flickering into the room. 

Matthew stopped behind her. “What’s up?”

“There’s only one bed.”

His head jerked around the corner, not like he doubted her word or anything, but he needed to see it for himself. There was only one bed. One big bed, one very comfortable-looking bed, but one bed. Matty dropped his bag on the floor. “Uh...D’you want me to call down? I can see if they’ve got another room if that would make you more comfortable.”

Madison pursed her lips for a second before shaking her head. “No, it’s fine. We’re adults, we can share a bed without burning the house down.” It wasn’t like Maddy was lying for Matthew’s sake; she really was fine with it. Maybe a little too fine. But they had slept together — in the innocent sense of the word — before, and everything had turned out okay. His arm draped over her shoulder as she cuddled into his shoulder on a late night, her legs tangled in his when some of his friends from St. Louis were visiting for the weekend and took the guest room. He had offered to take the couch that night, but Maddy didn’t want to relegate him to a night of back cramps and drafty breezes, especially when he had an early practice the next day. Nobody ever made it weird, so it wasn’t weird. 

She took her bundle of clothes into the shower, relishing in the feeling of hot water raining down on her aching muscles. Maddy was loving the trip, genuinely, but being in a car for twelve hours out of the day took something out of a person. Slipping into an old college t-shirt, Madison thought for a moment about putting on a pair of sweats. It wasn’t particularly cold — the opposite, in fact — but she didn’t know if it would make Matthew feel weird if she wasn’t wearing pants. Fuck it, she thought, pulling up her boyshorts. If he had an issue with it, it was his problem. Throwing her hair up in a towel to dry, she turned the doorknob, poking her head out the door. “Shower’s open if you wanted to hop in,” she said.

Matty nodded, swinging his legs over the edge of the bed. “I shouldn’t be too long, why don’t you find something for us to watch?” he asked, tossing her the remote. It wasn’t quite nine o’clock, and while she was tired, Maddy knew if she tried to go to sleep she’d wake up well before dawn, and that wasn’t something anyone wanted. Madison climbed up onto the bed, tucking her feet underneath her and grabbed the channel guide. True to his word, Matthew was in and out in under ten minutes, rubbing his hair with a towel as he walked out. Athletic shorts. Shirtless. Maddy couldn’t help but give him the once-over, having to jerk her eyes back up to his face the moment she realized what she was doing. Matthew met her eyes, the ghost of a smirk playing on his face. “I can put a shirt on if you’d like…”

“No! You’re good,” Maddy replied, maybe a little too quickly to avoid suspicion. 

He ducked back into the bathroom, throwing the towel over the shower curtain. “So, what did you settle on?”

She looked back at the TV. “Diners, Drive-ins, and Dives?”

Matty jumped onto the bed. “Guy Fieri. What a legend. Awesome. Where’s he going?”

Three and a half episodes later, it was almost eleven, and Madison’s eyes were starting to droop. Sometime midway through the second episode, when Guy was visiting an Asian fusion restaurant in Colorado, her head had drifted onto Matthew’s shoulder, where it had stayed ever since. His arm wrapped loosely around her, Matty brought his hand up to brush away a stray piece of hair that had drifted into her face. “Getting sleepy, Mads?”

She yawned, nodding and trying to push herself up. “‘M looking forward to a good night’s sleep in an actual bed.”

Matthew laughed softly. “Let’s get you in bed, then.” He threw back the comforter, Madison crawling under, and reached over to the nightstand, turning off the lamps and TV. “Give me your phone,” he said. 

“Why?” Maddy asked, her brow furrowing. 

“You always forget to charge it overnight, and I don’t want you to be grumpy when it dies at 10 AM.” She mumbled something that sounded suspiciously like a concession, handing over her iPhone. Matty plugged it in, clambering beneath the sheets. “Sweet dreams, Mads. Good night.”

“Night, Matty.”

 Day 3

 The first thing Madison noticed when she woke up was the warm, unfamiliar weight slung around her waist. It took her a moment to realize that it was Matty’s arm, who hadn’t woken up yet. For some reason that she couldn’t quite identify, or maybe didn’t want to confront quite yet, it wasn’t unwelcome at all, and she savored the last few minutes of physical closeness before he woke up. And he did, wake up, that is. His cheeks reddened as he opened his eyes, pulling his arm away to wipe the sleep out of his eyes. “Sorry about that,” he said sheepishly.

Maddy ducked her head. “Nothing to be sorry about. I didn’t mind.”

Matthew yawned. “What time is it?”

“Uh, just before seven,” she said, rolling over to look at the alarm clock. “I’d love to stay in bed a little longer, but we did promise the boys we’d meet them down at breakfast soon.”

He nodded, making a very concerted effort to not read into her statements any more than he absolutely had to. “Yeah, good idea,” he said, tossing the covers off and walking into the bathroom. “I’ll sit on you if you’re not up by the time I get back out there.” Maddy took the opportunity to change, threading a belt through her jeans and half-tucking a t-shirt. “I like the look,” he said when he walked out, as Maddy was twisting her hair up into a bun. It wasn’t entirely unusual for Matthew to compliment her; she had accompanied him to more than one charity event for the Flames as his date, but she had always been dressed up. Dress, heels, makeup that she probably stressed way too much over. Dressed to the nines, never in jeans and a t-shirt before. But she didn’t really notice, the compliment meaning just as much to her as if she’d been in a floor-length gown. 

“Thanks,” she said, stuffing her clothes from the night before back into her duffel. “I packed the rest of your bag while you were in there, figured I might as well.”

It was Matty’s turn to thank her, squeezing her hand appreciatively before giving the room a quick look. “We didn’t forget anything, then?”

Madison laughed. “We really didn’t stay long enough to unpack, but yeah, we’ve got everything, don’t worry.”

---

Elias had volunteered to do the drive down to Salt Lake City. Matthew’s inner six-year-old had returned, insisting that the group stop at a dinosaur park in a rural part of Utah. What “dinosaur park” meant, Madison wasn’t sure, but it made Matty happy, so she didn’t fight it. 

The museum was mostly outdoors, with life-sized dinosaur models dotting the massive field. “Were you much into dinosaurs as a kid?” Matthew asked Madison. 

“Kind of?” she replied noncommittally. “I always loved learning about them, but never had like a ‘dinosaur phase’ like David or Cody,” she said, referring to her older brothers. “My family used to go to the Canadian Museum of Nature a ton when I was a kid, since it was only a few hours away in Ottawa, and it has like a billion fossils in it.”

“Which was your favorite?”

“Pachycephalosaurus,” she said easily.

Matthew blinked. “Pachycephalo-what?” he asked in confusion. He thought he knew all of them?

Maddy laughed. “Pachycephalosaurus. They had these really spiny heads. But secretly, I think I was a little bit of a teacher’s pet who just liked saying the name. Pretty sure they were actually native to Alberta?” she added. “What about you?”

“Well, now I’m embarrassed to say.”

“Oh, come on,” Madison said, nudging him with her shoulder. “Promise I won’t make fun of you.”

“Fine, fine,” Matty gave in, “it was the brachiosaurus.”

“How come?” she asked curiously. 

“I liked the long necks.” 

They spent another hour or so at the park, Matty grabbing a keychain on the way out. “They didn’t have a brachiosaurus,” he muttered, half-angry, picking up a T-rex one instead. It wasn’t a long drive to the actual Great Salt Lake, and for some reason, they had trusted Elias with the aux. Much to Maddy’s chagrin, he didn’t end up playing ABBA, and they were instead led to cruise down I-15 to the dulcet tones of J.S. Bach. 

Madison looked down at her phone. “Anyone want to go see the Joseph Smith sphinx?” 

“Joseph Smith?” Rasmus questioned.

“Sphinx?” asked Elias.

Matthew laughed. “You know those Egyptian statues of like the cat ladies? Where they have cat bodies but the faces of people?” 

“Joseph Smith was the founder of the Mormon church,” Madison explained. “Well, technically it’s called the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, but—”

“Know-it-all,” Matty said in a sing-song voice. Madison shot a glare at him from the back seat. 

“But most people still call them Mormons. And apparently they made him into a sphinx.”

Elias looked at her, still dumbfounded. “But why?”

Maddy shrugged. “Honestly? Beats me.” The weather had dropped too much by the time they had reached the lake to make swimming very practical, so the four of them settled for taking off their shoes, rolling up pants, and wading into the shoreline. 

Matthew bent down, picking up a chipped white rock from the ground, the water just lapping at his fingers. He handed it to Madison. “For you.”

She took it gently, running her hands over the jagged surface. “Aren’t you not allowed to take anything from a national park?”

He winked. “I won’t tell if you don’t.” They stopped at a Chipotle just as the sun was beginning to set, Matthew taking over driving duties from Rasmus. The plan was to drive for another two hours or so, stopping somewhere in southern Utah for the night to spare themselves from another night spent in her Nissan. 

They drove in silence for a while, Elias and Rasmus drifting to sleep in the back row, before a road sign caught Matty’s eyes and he spoke. “I’ve never been to the Grand Canyon, you know,” he said as they continued down I-15. 

Maddy looked over at him. “Do you want to go?” She didn’t know where the suggestion came from, but it was out of her mouth before she could take it back, and after a moment, she realized that she didn’t even want to.

His eyebrows raised as he glanced over at her before turning back to the road, the car’s headlights the only thing in sight. “You mean it?” 

Madison shrugged. “Yeah, why not?” She quickly popped the directions into her phone. “It’s only a few hours out of the way, if we drive through the night instead of stopping somewhere we should have more than enough time.” 

“But didn’t you say sleeping in the car made your back hurt?” Matty asked curiously. 

She smiled softly. “I don’t mind, really. I’ll drive. You’re more important.” Honestly, Maddy surprised herself with her boldness. She wasn’t shy by any stretch of the imagination, but it hadn’t escaped her that the dynamic between her and Matthew had changed in the past few weeks and was about to come to a boil. Matty wasn’t exactly the type of guy Madison expected to have a lot of friends who were girls. And a part of her hated that, hated that because of his reputation she automatically assumed when they became friends that all he wanted to do was get in her pants. There had only been one time in their entire year of friendship when they’d even done so much as kissed, and it wasn’t exactly what you’d consider normal circumstances.

---

It was November of the previous year, about six months after Matthew and Madison had met. Matthew had been even more in his head than normal; he hadn’t scored a single point since midway through their East Coast road trip over two weeks ago, and the disappointment was really starting to rag on him. It might not have been something he outwardly showed all that much, but those who knew him knew that Matthew was actually a deeply sensitive person, who took pride in his wins and carried losses with him well after they had faded from the minds of the rest of the hockey world. 

When it had gotten to the point where his frustration was starting to affect his game, Maddy knew it was time to do something. “You’re so much more than your stats, Matty,” she had said, calling him right before she left for the Saddledome. “I know you take this personally, and you feel like you’re letting down the team, but that’s bullshit and somewhere deep down, I know you agree.” Matthew grumbled something that might have been an agreement. “Your team trusts you, they trust you with the puck and with the A, and you’re never going to disappoint them as long as you’re giving it your all. And if you’re the Matthew Tkachuk I know, there’s never a time when you don’t. And win or lose tonight, there’s nothing you could do to change the fact that your family loves you, and your friends love you, and I love you too. Okay?” Clearly, something in her little pep talk had flipped a switch in Matty, because he returned in spectacular form that night, scoring a hat trick in a roaring 5-1 win over the Coyotes. And he didn’t throw a single punch all game. 

A good game without a travel day following usually calls for going out, and a great game with your best friend scoring a hat trick definitely calls for going out, so she dragged Emily along to the bar that Matthew had told her to meet the team at. Matthew had pulled her into a hug the moment she arrived, kissing her cheek and trying his damndest not to spill the beer in his hand on her shoes. An hour and a half into the night, Madison was four drinks in, well and truly drunk, and Emily had wandered off and appeared to be flirting with an extremely oblivious Noah Hanifin. 

“How are you doing, Mads?” Matthew asked, coming up from behind her barstool and resting his hand gently on the small of her back. 

She looked back at him, a goofy smile on her face, and took another sip of her drink. “I’m good, I’m realllly good,” she giggled. “Did I ever get a chance to tell you how good you were tonight?” Matthew shook his head, very poorly concealing a laugh. He had had more than one beer, sure, but he was nowhere near as gone as Madison. “Because you were really good. A-ma-zing,” she added, punctuating each syllable. Her eyes softened as she leaned in. “I know the points drought was starting to weigh on you, and I’m really glad you were able to do this for yourself. I’m always proud of you, Matty, but I was a little extra proud of you tonight. People sometimes write you off as just another good player without any real subsistence,” she paused, correcting herself, “substance, off the ice, but I know the real you, and the real you is even more incredible than the you that plays hockey. It’s my favorite thing to see.”

“It is?” Matthew asked softly, leaning into the hand that had begun to caress his cheek a little bit imprecisely, but that somehow communicated every kind of unsaid word between them. 

Madison nodded, touching his forehead to hers, and then she tilted in. And then she kissed him. Her lips met his, and she tasted like lime and spearmint chewing gum and his favorite kind of tequila. Her lips met his, and it seemed like the room stood still; he barely heard his teammates’ wolf-whistles or Emily’s elated gasp in the background. Her lips met his, and he drank in every second of the kiss until she pulled away. 

---

Maddy hadn’t been drunk enough to black out that night, and she came to the next morning with a roaring headache and the pang of regret in her heart. She thought it was shame at her behavior, embarrassment that she could act so impulsively, but the more she thought about it, the more she realized. The fact that she kissed Matthew wasn’t the issue, not to her, at least. It was the fact that she was drunk in a bar after a hockey game and that wasn’t how she wanted it to happen. She pushed her feelings to the side, trying desperately to focus on work and supporting Matty through the rest of the season, but they always tended to flare up when they were least welcome. Like at the Idaho Potato Museum.

Which of course meant that Matthew would choose this moment, driving down I-15 with two sleeping Swedish hockey players in the backseat, to bring it up. “I remember when you kissed me, you know,” Matty said softly, reaching up to brush his fingers over his lips, like if he tried hard enough he could remember what it felt like to have Maddy’s pressed against his. 

Madison froze, which isn’t exactly what you’re supposed to do when you’re driving. She thought he had forgotten. He had never brought it up, so she really had no reason to believe he would have remembered. “You do?” she asked, swallowing.

She saw him nod out of the corner of her eye. “Mhm. I hadn’t thought about it in a couple weeks, but back in Idaho, in front of the World’s Largest Potato Crisp…” He let out an airy chuckle. 

Maddy breathed in sharply. So she hadn’t imagined that. Her fingers tapped nervously against the faux leather of the steering wheel. “Yeah…” She trailed off nervously. “I was drunk.”

“Oh, you were hammered,” Matthew agreed. “But do you regret it?”

There it was, the million-dollar question that she somehow actually had the answer to. A long moment passed before she answered, figuring it would be best to just rip the band-aid off. Worst case, Matty would hate her and she’d only be stuck in a car with him for ten-odd more hours. No big deal. “No,” she whispered, voice so small he almost didn’t hear it. 

“I’m glad, because I don’t either,” Matty said. Madison hazarded a glance to her side; he looked almost nervous, and nervous wasn’t a look Matthew Tkachuk did all that often. “I had wanted to for a few months, but it always seemed like it was never the right time, or something interrupted us, or I didn’t know how you felt about me. But you made the first move, and I’m glad you did.”

“How come?”

He sighed. “I don’t know how long I would have waited to do something, or if I ever would have done anything. I feel like sometimes…,” he searched for the right words, “the confidence that I have on the ice can be misleading. Hockey is about reflexes and instincts and knowing the game, but it’s also thinking three steps ahead, anticipating every possible outcome and preparing for them. And that’s the part that I carry off the ice. I think I was worried if I ever brought it up with you, if I ever mentioned that I so much as remembered the kiss, you might clam up and tell me it was a stupid, drunken mistake, and I don’t know what I’d do if you said that. Because I don’t know how you feel about me, not like that”

Her breath caught in her throat, but she managed to force the words out, as scared as she was about admitting them. “I’m pretty sure I’m in love with you and I’m terrified.” Matthew had never seen Madison like this before, unsure and worried and downright vulnerable, and it meant so much to him that she was letting him see her like that. 

Matthew let out a watery laugh. “Only pretty sure? Hurts my ego a little bit.” Maddy opened her mouth, but he waved her off. “Because I’m definitely sure I’m in love with you.” This wasn’t ever how she imagined telling him, and it wasn’t how Matty thought he’d tell her, on a freeway in Southern Utah on their way to the Grand Canyon, but sometimes life throws unexpected things at you and you have to roll with the punches. 

“When did you know?” Madison asked curiously. 

Matthew bit his lip. “Few months ago? I knew I liked you as more than a friend probably since you kissed me, but it was after that game against Vancouver that I really understood I had fallen in love with you.” Maddy remembered the game. It had gone terribly for the Flames, a 4-0 shutout with more than one fight and the bench racking up penalty minutes. What she didn’t know was what made that one special. Matthew looked over at her, answering her unspoken question. “Why that one?” She nodded. “I think it’s because it was such a shitty game. I wouldn’t have blamed you at all if you had just skipped out after the end of the third, I know I can be hard to deal with after a loss. But you didn’t leave, you stayed. I remember seeing you outside the tunnel, swallowed by my jersey because it’s three sizes too big for you and you refuse to let me buy you another—”

“I don’t want another because it’s yours, and I love it,” Maddy said quietly.

Matthew smiled. “Your call. But when I turned the corner and saw you, I realized three things at the exact same time. You were there for me when you didn’t have to be, and I wanted to be able to do the same thing for you. Second, you’re who I wanted to come home to. And last,” he gathered his thoughts, “I realized if I never saw another girl in my jersey for the rest of my life, that would be fine with me.”

“I think I knew when you introduced me to your family, when you flew me down for the All-Star break?” He nodded in recognition. “Just seeing you with them, how much you love your parents and adore Taryn. You even managed to not chirp Brady for a whole dinner.”

“My mom threatened me.”

Madison laughed. “Even so. It just gave me a whole new side to you. I had seen you with your friends, and with the boys, and with me, but it wasn’t the same. How deeply you cared about making sure I fit in with them, and had fun, and felt included. It was the last piece of the puzzle, really.” Her hand rested on the center console after she downshifted.

“So, are we going to do this? Do you want to do this, Mads?” Matty asked, wrapping his fingertips gently around her free hand. 

Flipping her hand around, she interlaced her fingers with his. “I’m all in if you are.”

Matthew bent down, kissing their hands. “I’ve been all in since the moment I met you.” He glanced behind him to the backseat, where Elias and Rasmus were still fast asleep. “What do you think they’re going to say when they wake up?” 

“I’m not sure,” Madison said, laughing. “Probably tell us it’s about time. Pass me my phone, will you?” Matthew pulled out her phone from where it was charging on the passenger side. 

“What do you need to look up?” he asked curiously as she pulled off of the freeway and into a gas station; the directions were already programmed into the car’s navigation system.

Maddy gave a coy smile, gently putting the car into park. “I’ve got to text the girl’s chat, tell them they’ve got to make me a jacket. They’re going to go wild.”

 Day 4

 The chat did go wild, even more so after she sent a picture of her kissing Matty’s cheek. After about a half-dozen “we called its” and a promise for her jacket to be ready by the first home game of the series, she turned her phone off, leaning over to ruffle Matthew’s hair; he had taken over driving sometime around four o’clock. “I like that I can just do this now,” she mused, playing with his curls as they crossed the border into Arizona. 

“Please, no PDA in front of the children,” he said playfully, gesturing to the backseat. Elias flipped him off. 

The entrance to the Grand Canyon was only an hour past the state line, and there were more than a few cafés to grab a quick breakfast at. Most of the day was spent walking around the vast expanse of the park, marvelling at its natural grandeur, and taking more than a few incredibly aesthetically pleasing Instagram pictures. A few minutes before they had to pack up and leave for the last leg of the drive, they had hiked over to the South Rim. 

Matty leaned on the barriers overlooking the canyon. “It’s so big.” 

Rasmus snickered from behind them. “Duh, Tkachuk. That’s why they call it grand.” 

He ducked his head, blushing. “Yeah, I mean, obviously. But it’s just kind of surreal, you know?” Madison nodded, leaning her head on his shoulder. He wrapped one arm around her waist, and if either of them had turned around they would have seen Rasmus and Elias sharing a very “I-told-you-so” look. “Kind of reminds us how small we are in the grand scheme of things.” 

It seemed like only a few minutes later that they were pulling into Las Vegas, Rasmus steering the car into the underground lot of the team hotel. None of the boys were expected at practice until the next morning, and they had decided before leaving that the easiest thing to do would just be to book the rooms for the one night. 

“Anyone feeling up to going out?” Maddy asked as they walked down the hallway to their adjoining rooms. “I found a tiki bar a couple blocks away, great Yelp reviews.”

“Sounds good,” Rasmus said. Elias nodded. 

“I’m in,” Matthew added, unlocking the door. “Meet out here in ten?”

The break allowed Madison to get a much-needed change of clothes while Matthew hopped in for a quick shower, emerging in a T-shirt and very, very nice-looking pair of black jeans. Maddy bit her lip, looking him up and down. “You like what you see?” Matthew asked, expression cocky. 

She shrugged. “I don’t have to hide it now.” Madison slipped her phone into her back pocket, grabbing her jacket from where it was slung over the lounge chair. “You ready to go?”

“Yeah,” Matthew said, poking his head out the door. “Boys are already out.”

The walk to the bar couldn’t have been more than five minutes, but it felt like twenty in the best way possible. She was holding hands with Matty, his thumb absentmindedly rubbing over the top of her hand, the twinkling lights of dozens of Vegas casinos in their view. Two and a half mai tais and an hour later, the group sat at a table in the corner as Maddy giggled, retelling a particularly embarrassing moment on her high school volleyball team when she tried to make a dive that instead ended up with a ten minute pause in gameplay and the worst nosebleed of her life. She finished the story to raucous laughter, leaning into Matthew’s side. He bent down, pressing a kiss to the top of her head. “What is it, Matty?” she asked, pulling away to look at him. 

Eyes soft, he tucked a piece of her hair back behind her ear before speaking. “Just thanking God I invited you on the trip. And for the Idaho Potato Museum.”

Madison laughed, the sound like music as it reached his ears. “We should write them. Thank them for helping to get us together. Maybe they’d give us season tickets.”

“Who needs season tickets when I have you?” Matty chuckled, leaning in and pressing his lips to hers.  Sure, Madison was a few drinks in when she kissed him. And sure, it wasn’t like Matty was exactly sober either. But this kiss was different. This kiss was the start of everything. 

#hockey imagine #hockey smut #nhl imagine #nhl smut #matthew tkachuk #hockey #hockey imagines #hockey writing #nhl #nhl imagines #nhl writing #matthew tkachuk imagine #matthew tkachuk writing #rat king

[2paperairplanesswift]

Once upon a time a 17 year old English girl fell in love with a talented but relatively unknown country singer by the name of Taylor Swift. PLOT TWIST: 11 years later she is one of the most successful artists in history and I just spent my Friday night hanging out with her at her house. Wanna know how this happened? I'm going to tell you my story. Get yourself comfy (maybe some cocoa or a nice sweater) and listen up.  I don't claim to be the biggest Taylor Swift fan in the world, but like every Swiftie I would always like to think I am. I have loved Taylor for longer than I can remember and one of my biggest dreams in life has always been to meet her.  On 3rd October 2017 I woke up around 5am as I do every morning, and I turned off my alarm and turned my internet on. I had a few notifications, Facebook messenger, twitter, tumblr....but then there was a DM? I never get twitter DM's, I'm not remotely interesting enough for anyone to want to speak to me, so who was this messaging me? Half asleep and with my eyes still adjusting to the light I opened the DM screen and saw the words 'Taylor Nation'. My whole body froze...that's not what is says is it? I rubbed my eyes and looked again...it was. I clicked on the message and read it quickly. I didn't really take it in, something about a Confidential Event. I dropped my phone onto my chest and looked at the ceiling trying to take in what I had just read. Was I having another Taylor dream ? Somehow I knew I wasn't - the last Taylor dream I had we were eating banana splits in an old railway carriage turned into a diner...i don't even like bananas. Somehow this seemed more plausible.  I closed twitter and decided to ignore it for a second and look at my other notifications. There was a facebook message from my Swiftie friend Bethy telling me to have a good day and reminding me to keep my DMs on....wait, she had one to? I replied back saying 'I have, you too?' and for a solid hour we were messaging eachother in code without either of us admitting what we had received in text...but we both knew.  I sent my details over to Taylor Nation and tried to get ready for work...putting my jeans on back to front, loading the laundry into the machine without adding the washing liquid, walking around my house doing things which usually came naturally but for some reason took extra effort and concentration...something I was lacking.  It was another 10 hours before my DM was replied to saying they would contact me soon. Soon? How soon is soon? Bethy and I continued talking to eachother imagining what it could be. Would we be in a live stream? A music video? Are we being invited to a show? An interview? In the back of our minds we wanted it to be a secret session but it wouldn't be would it? People like us with a handful of followers whose idea of a great Friday night is to play Yahtzee while listening to Taylor Swift on repeat wouldn't get invited, would we?  Luckily soon was only 3 hours and I got a call from a New York number. I was at my parents house so I ran up the stairs to take the call. Some other Swiftie friends in a group chat were messaging me about stuff and I was trying to pick up but notifications were sending my phone into meltdown. Eventually I managed to pick up...then hang up on Taylor Nation. Yes, I hung up on Taylor Swift's management group!!! (Sorry Ali).  I tried to call back but it went to voice mail, so I sent them a DM and went for a wee. Ali called me again while I was on the toilet so I was nervously trying to finish peeing and then ran out to the top of the stairs to take the call. The signal in my parents house was awful and I kept shouting 'huh' and 'hello?' down the phone but Ali was so lovely. She told me I had been picked to be invited to a special event because I was a super fan and I could bring a +1. I knew Bethy was already going and I made a pact with Megan if ever we had an opportunity to meet Taylor we would take eachother. I hastily gave her Megan's details and then passed Alex's on to Bethy for her call before screaming at Alex to keep 13th October clear (for the record he is so difficult). On top of this I was also on holiday that day and so going to this event also meant cutting my holiday short...but this was Taylor Swift!  I found out on Sunday 8th October that we had to meet at a hotel and would be shuttled to the location via bus. Unfortunately my bladder condition flared up on 10th October and I nervously contacted Taylor Nation for details of restroom facilities, scared I wouldn't be able to go. I cried as I waited for an email back but Taylor Nation were so lovely....you could tell they worked for Taylor. I went to the local Dr on holiday and got antibiotics and instructions for bedrest for the 2 days before the event.  My bladder was still bad by early morning day of the event but luckily started clearing up as I travelled from Devon to London.  The day of the event we all met up at Waterloo Station in London before travelling to the hotel where we needed to meet Taylor Nation. I was so nervous that everything was going wrong and had been in so much pain and in denial I was going to be well enough to go that I couldn't believe it was happening.  On the way from the tube to the hotel we saw a funeral directors with 4 gravestones in the window - were they for us when Taylor killed us with her music? A bus went past...the number 13? So typically Taylor!  We arrived at the hotel and checked in. Taylor Nation were in the lobby (we didn't know it was them). The receptionist asked if we were going to the knitting convention? I was confused...was this a cover story? All I kept thinking was 'I knit sweaters yo'....'no, we are going to meet some friends' we told them.  We went upstairs to our room to get ready and when came down we didn't know where to go. There seemed to be some type of line forming around the building and the sheer quantity of red lipstick and floaty dresses told me we were in the right place.  We checked in with Taylor Nation and as I gave Elise my ID she said she liked my passport cover. It's a picture of Taylor with 'grab your passport and my hand' written on it. She confirmed with me that she was the one I had been emailing and I thanked her for her help. I then signed a NDA and got my really cool wristband which has 'United Kingdom' in reputation font on it. And then we headed downstairs to wait for the bus.  I was on bus number 3/4 with Megan- Alex and Bethy had already gone on bus 2. I sat right behind the driver and he had his Satnav programmed with 3 different routes. He took the first route to somewhere random, loaded the second route and followed it, then loaded the third. It was clear he was trying to throw us off. As we entered part of the neighbourhood I felt very out of place. The cars had personalised plates, the houses were getting bigger, the hustle and bustle of London life seemed to getting further in the distance.  Suddenly the bus stopped in front of a beautiful house...this was it...this was Taylor's house? We were escorted off the bus and down to the side door which lead to a basement. The carpets were bouncy and the soundproof walls were so soft. We waited patiently for a few minutes and then suddenly the door opened and I caught a glimpse of a canvas of the New York skyline....this IS Taylor's house.  We were taken up the stairs to a central entrance hall with a staircase leading up to the top of the house and a corridor towards a large group of people with music playing - her Spotify playlist. The party was in the kitchen. Megan and I walked in to the kitchen, everything was so perfect. Ice buckets full of cans of soda and water, the best chicken bites I have ever tasted, cheese, vegetables and dip, reputation m&ms and cookies with REP on. There was so much I couldn't even see it all. We spotted our friend Bethy over in the corner by the French doors and headed over to speak to her. As we got there so did Scott Swift....the total legend and biggest fangirl ever. I told him I had briefly seen him in Nashville for 1989 and be told me the Mick Jagger story...the same one Taylor tells in interviews. Word for word and he beamed with pride as he told us stories about Taylor. There I was on a Friday night in Taylor Swift's house talking to her dad about 2 megastars as if we were all old friends. And he was really interested in us, not just polite conversation but so enthralled that we loved his daughter as much as he did. True to Scott Swift fashion he gave us some guitar picks as me made his way onto the next group.  I asked Alex where the toilet was and he took me out to the corridor...which hid a restroom behind huge grey panels. It was the nicest smelling toilet I have ever been in...and I have been in a lot! As I sat there peeing in Taylor's toilet and looking at the Jo Malone candle burning by the sink I wondered...how did I get here? Shortly after I left the toilet we were ushered across the entrance hall to a huge rectangular room. Opposite the door were large windows covered over by drapes and a single armchair - Taylor's seat. The floor was adorned with cushion after cushion and Megan and I ran to the closest cushion to Taylor. Megan sat right in front of her and I squeezed in behind. This was a SECRET SESSION!!!! A few minutes later I looked behind as the door opened and in walked a real angel to a round of screams and claps- red lips, natural 'I've just washed it' curly hair, snake boots and a huge smile. She sat down in front of us on the seat and said 'Hi I'm Taylor'. Just like at tour, only this time not to 70,000...to just 100.  And then the mystery was revealed. Taylor Nation hadn't just randomly picked us off of various social media sites - we had been hand selected by Taylor herself who had stalked us for over a year and sent TN our profiles to invite us. It hit me...Taylor picked me?!?! The woman I have been 'stalking' for 11 years had been stalking me too? Out of all the fans in Europe I was one she wanted to meet. I don't think that will ever fully sink in.  Taylor played us her album, telling us little stories about each song - the inspiration, the recording processes, the reactions from friends and family. It was so much to take in but watching Taylor mouth along to the words, act out different expressions and sitting-dance to all of the songs was hilarious - I wasn't in the presence of a celebrity, I was sitting with my best friend appreciating the biggest achievement she will ever have - true happiness. Taylor Swift is truly happy, about life, about her music, about her fans and it is nothing short of magical.  As each song played I really wondered how Taylor could top it, but she did...over and over again. Time went so quickly and it felt like the world's biggest and best slumber party, except we didn't get to sleep over.  At one point it was so hot that Scott Swift had to open all the doors to let the air in. As Taylor played his favourite song from the album she called for him to come and listen and he made a joke that he was actually handing out guitar picks to the neighbours.  After Taylor finished playing the album I looked around. Everyone was so Wonderstruck by what they had heard and I looked at Taylor and she looked so content. I don't know whether she was worried by what our reactions would be but all we had for this album was love...and I hope Taylor knows that.  After the listening session we were handed copies of the reputation magazines while we were waiting for photos. Megan and I were some of the first to go in. I was so focused on getting to the event that I hadn't even thought about what to say. Taylor ran over to Megan and hugged her and started talking about her bright pink hair. She loved it and it had been distracting her all evening. Then Taylor hugged me and I hugged her back like I had never hugged anyone before. She was so tall like a giraffe but with the grace of a swan...and I was me. I whispered 'thank you for inviting me' and she smiled. I didn't want to let go. As so many people were waiting they sort of rushed us with a picture. Taylor grabbed hold of us with her arms around our shoulders and smiled so sincerely at the camera. I wanted to talk to Taylor as I didn't get a chance but we were ushered off. As Megan walked out front if me I went to turn and talk to Taylor when Megan suddenly shouted 'we went to Nashville'. Taylor screamed back excitedly 'I know' with the biggest smile on her face. So...I didn't get to talk to Taylor but she knew we went to Nashville. She really did stalk me. When we left the room we were greeted by Mama Swift. I told her about my mum being terminally ill with Cancer and how she had gotten test results that day but she wanted me to be with Taylor instead. She gave me an extra hug and told me to hug my mum for her. I told my mum later and she started crying. Someone she has never met wished her well...it isn't just Taylor, it is her whole family.  We were taken back to the basement to collect Merch bags with a T-shirt, hat, sticker, pop socket and exclusive secret sessions keyring. It was so lovely of Taylor to give us something more to remember the day.  I got the bus back to the hotel and sat talking to Ali the whole way about the album and Nashville....I may have also invited her to CMA fest next year. By the time I got back to the hotel and collected my belongings (which had been taken from us earlier) I was shattered but I couldn't sleep. I posted on twitter and suddenly my phone couldn't stop vibrating...thousands of retweets and likes. I sat there trying to figure out what happened but I'm still not even sure I believe it myself. It took me 2 whole days to cry...not because I didn't care but because this wasn't the norm. I had stood outside countless radio stations and events before and not met Taylor...I had cried. I had come away from concerts and not been picked for Loft or Club Red etc and cried...but this was different. Not only had I met Taylor, she had picked me. I couldn't cry...I just felt a sense of fulfillment, of achievement, of love. By the time I did cry if wasn't because of what happened; it was because I missed her.  But this is not the end of my story with Taylor...I feel like this is the start of a new chapter. I came away with a whole mind of memories and countless new friends - affectionately known as FANtom Squad. Friday 13 October was the best night of my life; I will never be able to thank Taylor enough and I'll probably never have a chance to say what I wanted to say. But after years of hiding it & toning down this side of my life to please people I can honestly I am not ashamed of who I am because who I am is exactly how @taylorswift likes me. 

#taylor swift #taylorswift #reputation #reputation secret sessions #reputationsecretsessions #reputationsecretsessionlondon #reputation secret sessions london #November 10 #ts6 #taylor nation #FANtom #FANtom squad

[meonmarta]

MARTA: Downtown --> Grant Park

One of the things I want to do with this blog is feature various MARTA bus routes specifically by describing where they can take you. I’m always running into people who are surprised when I explain to them how easy it is for me to get to, say, East Atlanta or Lenox Square or my work at Emory, when in fact it’s quite easy. Sometimes even people who live next to a bus stop have no idea. So why not share bus routes I know?

Downtown –> Grant Park 

This first post is about a trip I’ve made many, many times the past three years or so: Taking the Route 32 Bouldercrest bus from Five Points Station south and then west over to Grant Park, where I enjoy the weekly Grant Park Farmers Market. (I’ve also taken the 32 to destinations past Grant Park, but this post is just about going to the market.) It’s an extremely convenient trip for me that allows me to get on down to the market in about 10 minutes and get back in the same amount of time. It’s also a trip that provides a real contrast in environments, as you start out in a really gritty, even kind of gross, city bus stop and wind up at a bucolic city park. And I’ve got pictures to show it. Look below the cut for that and more.

Today’s a Sunday. After checking out travel times using Googe Maps, I walked over to Five Points to catch the 32 that was supposed to leave at 10:41. The driver was I think 4 minutes later, which was annoying but soon we took off and were on our way.

There weren’t nearly as many passengers on this trip as there usually are on Sunday mornings, not sure why. But this woman at the front was there and super dressed up. As I was getting off, I told her how much I loved her skirt.

The 32 basically leave Downtown by going past the Capitol and down over to what was Ted Turner Stadium, then heading east down Georgia Avenue, which terminates at Cherokee Avenue and Grant Park. That’s where I hop off, while the bus keeps going and going. The picture above is taken front just inside the park along Cherokee. 

The Grant Park Farmers Market is a wonderful weekly market that runs every Sunday from 9 am to 1 pm. It used to be April-December but I learned today that it’s going to be year-round starting in January. This is welcome news because I always go into withdrawal the months it’s closed. As far as goods sold, there are tons of stands offering food (lots of produce, as well as meat, sausage, dairy, eggs, yogurt, coffee, bread, doughnuts), prepared food (soup, crepes, hot dogs, pizza), preserves, crafts, granola, and more. There’s often live music, chef demos, and more. It’s very family-friendly as well as dog-friendly. I’ve also seen pigs and goats there. 

The park is a lovely spot for a walk, so if there’s time between the end of my shopping and when I have to catch the bus, I wander around a little.

I catch the bus back at a stop on Georgia Ave. by the corner with Cherokee Ave. Here’s a picture from this morning showing my three bags. I went home with: fresh eggs, half a dozen apples, 2 bottles of fresh cider, fresh mushroom, 4 pastries, and 2 big bags of granola. Plus a big pretzel in my belly.

Today I caught a bus back at around 11:50. There were lots of people on this one, including this woman who stood out with her colorful outfit. I used selective color on her picture to make it “pop.” 

#marta #route 32 #downtown atlanta #grant park #marta bus #grant park farmers market #atlanta #itsmarta #public transport

[junker-town]

Why ‘Madden NFL 20’ is even better than last year’s version

After a period of stagnation, ‘Madden’ continues to improve in ways that make it worth your time.

Last year, I recommended the latest iteration of the Madden NFL franchise, calling it the first one in a long time that I could recommend as a complete $60 package. After spending time with Madden NFL 20, which releases for all major platforms on Aug. 2, I can again say that EA is getting pretty good at making tangible improvements that go beyond a simple roster update.

That said, Madden NFL 20 is not without its flaws. There’s a growing disconnect between fans of the more realistic, almost sanitized Madden of today, and fans who prefer the minigame-packed, looser-feeling Madden of yesteryear.

EA has tried to bridge that gap in recent games with the introduction of “arcade” style play vs. “simulation”, which aims to create a faster-paced game with more big plays. It’s a noticeable difference, and now EA has added development traits like Superstar X Factors and Zone Abilities, which elevate the highest-rated players beyond mere mortals.

From the new Face of the Franchise story mode to the graphic upgrades, I’ll run you through all you need to know about Madden NFL 20.

Gameplay

The biggest difference that will affect every mode is the sweeping changes made to Madden’s ratings. EA drew criticism in the past for big-name players being too easy to replace with lower-rated backups, and tackled that this year by creating a much bigger disparity in the ratings.

The result is that more players are rated in the 60s (out of 99), while many starters don’t even break 80. It can look alarming to longtime Madden players, especially fans of teams who aren’t particularly good, like me (hello, 49ers). Still, players in the mid-to-high 70s don’t feel worse than they did in previous games, though the AI does feel worse in that regard.

As far as the on-the-field action, I love it. With the ball in your hands, everything is smooth. Stick moves feel better than ever, and I’ve noticed many new unique animations in tackles and catches, along with more signature celebrations for star players like Patrick Mahomes (the cover athlete).

On the defensive side of the ball, the on-screen prompts for jumping the snap and rushing the passer have been tweaked. EA changed some of the terminology to make it clearer what types of pass-rush moves you’re using and are appropriate for the situation.

I play on “simulation,” which for some people is too slow, and I get that. Sometimes you just want to sling the ball around, and the “arcade” setting helps with that. More tackles get broken. More balls get intercepted. Stick moves play a huge factor. Throwing motions seem to be faster. Simulation is more methodical, and that leads to fewer bigger plays.

In either setting, I think this year’s game feels great to play. Breaking tackles has never felt better.

Superstar X Factor/Zone Abilities

Here is the big one. Players can now be defined as Superstar or Superstar X Factor. The latter is the highest level of development for a player that includes one game-changing X Factor trait, in addition to multiple lesser Zone Abilities. Players with Superstar development can still earn new Zone Abilities, but not X Factor abilities.

The X Factors require meeting specific criteria to activate, be it completing consecutive passes or defending two passes on one drive. There are many of them in the game, and they’re built into the other modes, including Face of the Franchise and the classic Franchise mode.

The lesser abilities are similar to traits that have been in the game previously, but there are quite a few new ones. Clutch is one example. Before, it was more of a nebulous trait that was harder to define. But now we know exactly what it does and how it’s activated: It kicks in halfway through the fourth quarter in close games and prevents players who are “in the zone” from being knocked out of the zone for the remainder of regulation.

Ben Roethlisberger has Pro Reads X Factor, which highlights the first open receiver. He also has five abilities that make sense if you’re familiar with his style of play. The same is true for several other well-known players. EA did a good breakdown of the many abilities and X Factors earlier.

So how does it affect the game?

I spent a good amount of time trying to determine exactly how the X Factors and abilities can impact a game.

In arcade mode, I noticed X Factor players doing better than the others, but how much of that was simply because they’re rated higher than the rest of the guys on the field?

To test this, I chose Adam Thielen, wide receiver for the Vikings, who comes with the X Factor and abilities listed in the image above. I am targeting Slot-O-Matic, which increases the receiver’s ability to make faster cuts and have better hands on short routes when lined up in the slot.

I then created a new player with the same ratings at Thielen, but without the Superstar X Factor development trait or any extra abilities. I dubbed my creation Tdam Ahielen.

I went into an arcade exhibition game, and ran the same three slot routes (slant, a shallow out with a double move, and a deep cross with a double move) multiple times with each player, and it did feel like Thielen’s cuts were sharper. I can’t say whether or not he caught the ball better, because both receivers caught the passes thrown their way. But his cuts were tighter, especially when reversing direction.

I did the same for Aaron Donald. It seemed — though it’s hard to know for sure — that Donald was beating his man with more regularity than my copycat player with matching stats on both modes.

The Run Pass Option

There are specific playbook additions, like the Philly Special, but there is also an emphasis on the run-pass option in Madden NFL 20. There are more ways than ever to trick a defense, with several new option plays and well-made tutorials explaining how they work and how to identify the defense’s read on the play.

A speedier gameday experience

When you get a game like Madden, the expectation is that you’ll play it off and on until next year’s version comes out. That means the little things that are interesting at first — the stadium presentation, new intros and setups for their “broadcasts,” celebrations, and the like — become repetitive and annoying.

I haven’t spent much time waiting around in Madden NFL 20, and games seem to be moving more quickly. It’s now easier to skip pregame, halftime, and postgame shenanigans.

The biggest difference is when you run the no-huddle offense. Instead of having to watch your players get back into formation, the screen quickly fades out then back in with your team lined up.

Game modes

QB1: Face of the Franchise

The big new mode is Face of the Franchise. It replaces the Longshot story mode from the previous two games. You begin by creating and naming your quarterback, who then joins one of 10 college football teams in the game that EA got the license to.

Then your coach tells you that the top quarterback recruit in the nation just joined the same school. Time jumps forward four years to the College Football Playoff semifinal. Your team is playing and that top recruit is injured. You’re the next man up.

You are joined by star wide receiver Isaiah Streets, whose brother passed away from cancer. He uses that as his motivation, and it’s a theme throughout the story mode.

Early in the story, you meet a little girl named Emily, with the same disease Streets’ brother had, and she asks you to throw four touchdowns in the national championship game. She also asks you what color mane you’d want on your unicorn — pink or purple. I went with pink, but apparently the right answer was neither.

You then play in the semifinal and, presuming you lead the team to a win, the national championship. Your coach gives you a limited playbook, which includes nothing under center (or perhaps that was a function of me picking LSU, I’m not sure).

You are given dialogue choices early on that are usually somewhere between confident and being grateful for the opportunity. My quarterback, named Butts Carlton (because I am a child), was fairly confident and for good reason: I led my team to a national championship and then proceeded to kick ass at the NFL Scouting Combine.

The NFL Combine is where it gets funny (and real)

Where the mode got entertaining is the combine interview process, which was almost too realistic. The first to interview me was someone with the Giants, who basically big-timed me. Then I met with a rep from the Dolphins, who asked to see my cell phone. I gave it to him, and then he berated me for giving my cell phone to a stranger. Fair enough.

Washington’s interviewer was intense. He asked me a hypothetical: if I were on a bus in Alaska driving high speed downhill, would I be in the front or back of the bus? I answered “front,” and he went off on a tirade, asking me if I checked the tire pressure and inspected the engine myself before I got on board. My character was, understandably, confused. The interviewer then implied that such a question is unanswerable, and my character didn’t know how to handle that, either.

I also acquired an agent, who came up to me at the combine and pretty much told me that he’s my agent now. It was entertaining for a bit, but his shtick, as far as I can tell, is that he’s not a very good agent.

The mode is more familiar after the draft

I was eventually drafted by the Miami Dolphins near the end of the first round.

On my way to the team facility, my character encountered an Uber driver who wanted to talk to me about how he played JUCO ball and how the Dolphins really need to fix their offense. I laughed — he was funnier than my agent — and my character shut the door on him when he started to get too enthusiastic about the conversation.

Once you are drafted, you are taken to what is essentially franchise mode, with some added depth. There are engagements to manage and relations to build, including more dialogue choices, texts from reporters and your head coach, and the ultimate goal of building a legacy. After your first year, you get one of four endings depending on how you performed throughout the mode. You can continue after that through the modified franchise mode.

So is Face of the Franchise good?

I found it to be entertaining enough, and much better than Longshot, which was full of cliches and offensive stereotypes (though there are still plenty of cliches in this mode). It’s a mostly fun playthrough with good performances from the voice-actors and effective cutscenes. You shouldn’t buy the game just for this mode, but it’s worth playing.

Ultimate Team

Cards on the table (pun not intended but kept), I’ve never been a fan of Ultimate Team, even though it’s a hugely popular mode.

If you’re unfamiliar, in Ultimate Team, you open card packs and build your roster out of a deck. The cards have limited uses and can be sold/scrapped for currency to buy more packs or increase the abilities of another card. You play football with that lineup, earning more points and currencies. As with all games with microtransaction-based elements, there are several currencies, all of which are used to buy card packs. You get some of them from completing challenges, selling cards, or paying outright for them.

I received a ton of card packs as a result of having a press copy and Origin Access Premier, so I opened 25+ packs (about six of which were 49ers packs). I came out with a team that looks pretty good, but if I didn’t have all those extra packs, I imagine it would look fairly dire. You can see my offense and defense lineups above and below.

The mode seems similar to past games, and it feels like EA is trying to get you to earn currency rather than simply purchase card packs. But of course, the option to purchase is still there, and the fact will always remain that those with deeper pockets can have an advantage in building a more complete team.

There are new “Ultimate Challenges” that replace “Solos,” and they can be played with friends to complete. More rewards are given out for milestones within challenges, unlike previous games where you got nothing if you didn’t complete a (sometimes long) challenge.

EA has also brought over player archetypes from the Franchise mode, allowing you to lightly modify the type of player they are, within the same position group. By changing a linebacker’s archetype from speed rusher to run stopper, the rating adjusts accordingly. There’s enough here to keep the mode fresh.

Franchise

Not much has changed with Franchise.

As you progress through a season, you have all the usual options: building your roster, doing a fantasy draft, playing as an owner and setting concessions prices, importing draft classes, relocating your team, and drafting rookies. With the new development traits and X Factors that you can pick and customize as you acquire and level up players, you have a small added layer of management that helps keep it fresh.

The week-to-week progression is still very much that Franchise mode, and there isn’t a lot else to say about it. I have enjoyed recent Franchise modes, and I enjoy this one.

Online play and exhibition

When you first load up Madden NFL 20, you’re greeted with the 2019 Pro Bowl, which is to help showcase many of the Superstar X Factor traits. It’s a good introduction, and I recommend playing through it rather than quitting out, as some tend to do when they don’t feel like playing the guided tutorial.

There is also Skills Trainer, with effective tutorials of the game’s various systems for both sides of the ball and special teams. It comes with commentary from Jonathan Coachman, and it does a decent job of explaining the many, many mechanics of Madden.

Online play is a major part of Madden and the experience remains relatively unchanged. I played a few online matches against folks who had access to the game pre-release, and I had no connection issues — though as always, your mileage may vary. Last year’s game had some lag problems at launch, and only time will tell if the servers take a beating on launch day again.

Presentation

The presentation of the game is pretty familiar. It’s the same tile-based menus, a couple dozen well-made player likenesses, beautiful renderings of stadiums, a solid soundtrack, official touches from the NFL Network, and good commentary provided by Charles David and Brandon Gaudin.

I am not a lover of commentary, because I play so much that it wears thin, but EA has at least put in the effort. The people who splice audio together for video game commentary are wizards, and it’s never sounded more natural. That said, you’ll hear repeated anecdotes and more cliches than during actual football broadcast.

User interface and graphics

While I think football games lag behind other sports — probably due to larger roster sizes — when it comes to the sharpness of player models, Madden continues to improve its look every year. The animations are more fluid, and the menus are sharp with new font treatments that feel inspired by NFL Films. The PC version, which is the one I played, looks amazing in-game, running at 4K.

What a handsome pass.

There are the usual caveats. Sometimes the menus can be a bit slow to navigate. The newest presentation of the depth chart is particularly awful, though there is a button for automatically optimizing it. Thankfully, the classic way of organizing the depth chart is also available — it’s just not the default.

The menus in general are concise, helpful, and mostly unchanged from last year, save for the colors and fonts. The on-screen tips and prompts when you’re playing — whether it be an explanation of the run-pass option or notifying you of your timing when trying to jump the snap — are all effective.

Player likenesses

It would be cost-prohibitive for EA to model over 1,000 individual players for the game, but it’s jarring when a famous player doesn’t look like himself. It can also be a bummer when several players on the same team have the same player model. Many players choose not to get scanned, but it’s disappointing that EA hasn’t added enough customization options to at least approximate on a more consistent basis.

I’ve picked 3-4 players from each team, and you can see their likenesses in the gallery below. Some are accurate. Some are default models. Some look like somebody tried and gave up.

Performance

For this review, I used the PC version of Madden NFL 20, running on ultra settings, at 4K with HDR (screenshots from this article do not contain the HDR effect). In my experience, it ran great. I’m running a pretty beefy rig that handled the game at a constant 60fps with no noticeable drops, with the lone exception being when the game shifts to certain broadcast-oriented angles, such as the helicopter view of the stadium. For some reason, the frame rate dips bad at that part, same as it did with Madden NFL 19.

Overall, it runs well, load times are speedy off of my SSD, and I experienced no crashes in my time with the game.

I miss when Madden crammed in as much extra nonsense as possible (please come back to us, Rushing Attack). The lack of those fun minigames has made every Madden worse off since EA took them out.

But I do find that the arcade setting, along with the extra abilities and X Factors, combine for a looser experience that fans of the early-aughts releases will appreciate.

Every year we talk about what’s changed and what hasn’t, but lost is the fact that Madden is a complex game. EA put in work to make so many moving parts — everything you’d need to make a realistic football game — feel unique and useful to the player.

There are a lot of mechanics working underneath the surface to make each position feel different to play, and it’s my opinion that those continue to evolve in ways that move the franchise forward.

In true Madden spirit, I’ll once again assign the game an overall rating and give it a slight bump from Madden NFL 19.

Madden NFL 20 Rating: 96 OVR

[intangible-rice]

Red Right Hand

Just a small little offering for Caroline Appreciation Day, to make up for the fact that I didn’t participate last year. It’s a short little one-shot which is somewhat disjointed and where not much happens, but hopefully it’s at least mildly interesting. The title is a hastily chosen Nick Cave & the Bad Seeds lyric.

Caroline listens to the wind whistle through the trees in the distance, trying not to notice how similar its sound is to whispers. She tenses as she hears it approach, rushing in through the driver’s side window and whipping her graying hair all around. Her ears sting from the chill, but there isn’t much she can do to keep out the cold - she needs something to keep her awake, and the radio would be too conspicuous. 

She should have brought coffee, she thinks. If she’d had time to make some. If she had time to do anything besides worry nowadays. She stares up at the moon. Almost full, she thinks. Or was it full yesterday? Perhaps it’s waning. Waning. The word sticks in her head until she’s forced to look away, her face a mixture of anger and worry.

She stares at the dashboard instead, at the aging plastic coating, the worn stitching on the steering wheel. She aimlessly runs her finger along the rabbit’s foot keychain that hangs down from the ignition. It was just like Cave to buy a silly good-luck charm like this. Caroline tries to remember when exactly it was that he purchased it. Probably the time they’d detoured through Vegas, on the way back from some business trip or other, when they’d admired the glittering lights on the strip and marveled at the myriad forms of entertainment all around. They hadn’t spent very long there, but Caroline remembers her boss throwing a nickel or two into the slots. He’d probably swung by the gift shop afterwards, acquiring a kitschy trinket before getting back on the road and making offhanded comments as they passed the shotgun wedding chapels. Comments that Caroline now wishes she’d paid more attention to. 

A faint glow appears in the distance, soon distinguishing itself as two car headlights. The lights inch forward slowly, and Caroline sits up in the driver’s seat. A second later, they disappear completely. Caroline counts under her breath. “One... two... three... four...” Suddenly the headlights return, flickering on and off a few times before the horizon returns to darkness. “About time,” Caroline mutters as she twists the key at the end of the rabbit’s foot and does the same routine with her own headlights.

She shifts the car into gear and places her foot on the gas. “Easy does it,” she still inadvertently hears in her head, even though it’s been years since she’s needed Cave’s direction.

“You’re kidding, right?” she remembers her boss saying when she’d told him. “Whaddya mean you don’t know how to drive?”

The look of bewilderment on his face had been in stark contrast to Caroline’s own nonchalant reaction. She’d explained to him that it simply hadn’t seemed important for her to learn. Before working at Aperture, she could never have afforded a car, and luckily the town’s old bus routes hadn’t been changed from the days when miners used to take them to get out to work. Driving just hadn’t ever seemed necessary, especially since she left the facility so infrequently nowadays.

“But that’s ridiculous!” Cave had protested. “What if some emergency happens? Everybody evacuates and then you’re just gonna stand in the parking lot waiting on a timetable? You’ll be mantis meat in no time! Or what if you gotta get somewhere where there ain’t no bus?”

“Where am I going to go, sir?” Caroline asked, shrugging her shoulders. “I just don’t think it’s necessary.”

“Well dammit, I do!” Cave said, opening a drawer in his desk and grabbing ahold of the rabbit’s foot. “Clear off your calendar for the afternoon, because you’re gonna learn!”

Caroline was taken aback, but she knew there was no talking Cave Johnson out of an idea once he’d gotten it in his head. So before long, the two of them were in the parking lot, sitting in the same car Caroline was now inching down the remote woodland road into the darkness.

Caroline remembers not hearing a word of her boss’s instructions initially - she was too flustered by the whole scenario. Here she was, called on to do something she was completely unfamiliar with, and with absolutely no time to prepare. She’d always prided herself on how smoothly she handled everything in her job - even in a place where an experimental error could lead to any number of unbelievable mishaps, Caroline let nothing phase her. She was always prepared for anything; a feat that Cave marveled at as effortless, but that in reality took several rounds of careful study, organization and preparation. And that adept, collected exterior was about to come completely apart as soon as her boss realized she had no idea what to do with a simple little car.

Her first attempt to move forward just resulted in revving the engine uselessly, until Cave informed her that she had to put the car in drive first. Flustered, she followed his instructions, and gave a small yelp of surprise when the car moved forward as soon as her foot was off the brake. By then, her face was beet red. She waited for the inevitable signal from her boss to scrap the whole idea and head inside. But surprisingly, Cave didn’t give up on her. He didn’t laugh or yell at what she herself viewed as gross incompetence. As they circled the parking lot over and over, he continued to give patient instructions, peppered by some tales from the driving lessons of his own youth, and an occasional grab of the steering wheel to demonstrate something. 

By the end of the whole thing, Caroline was calm, calmer than she’d ever expected to be from something that had seemed so daunting. Her boss smiled at her, and she felt proud - somehow prouder even than when she’d gotten the same sort of praise for finding a loophole in the test subject contracts, or pulling off the increasingly-miraculous task of balancing the budget each month.

“Atta girl,” Cave had said, smiling warmly at her. “Now, whaddya say we try taking a spin into town?”

That was the first time Caroline had left the facility in years, she reminisces as she pulls up alongside the car with darkened headlights. But certainly not the last. She’d only been confidently driving for a short time before Cave asked her for the first favor.

“Look, Caroline, this is good for everyone,” she remembers him arguing. “They’re about to be investigated, and there’s things they don’t want to fall into the wrong hands. You remember how that was - we had to destroy some of our best work to keep those idiots in Washington from shutting us down. Do you really want that to happen to another company?”

“Mr. Johnson, I just don’t know that -”

“They’ve got science to get rid of, and we’ve got science to do,” Cave reminded, characteristically cutting her off before she could get her protests out. “They’re not even gonna charge us for it, since we’re doing them a favor.”

Caroline hadn’t answered, knowing that she would just get shot down again if she tried to open her mouth.

“Caroline, I’ve seen the ledgers,” Cave reminded. “We’re never gonna get a better deal than this.”

She sighed.

“You wanna keep this company alive, don’t you?”

“Of course I do, Mr. Johnson,” she replied. “But how...” She paused, knowing her boss’s attitude towards what she was about to say. “How do we know it’s safe?”

If anyone else had asked that question, they’d be fumbling their way to the parking lot with a hastily-packed box of belongings within ten minutes, their boss shouting insults at them the whole way out. Caroline, however, could at least get her boss to swallow a little bit of his bravado - not a lot, but enough to cut through the charades to get to the truth.

“We don’t,” he answered her simply. “No different than half the things we’ve done in the past around here,” he added as a way of revealing his annoyance at her question.

“But it is different, Mr. Johnson,” Caroline had argued. “It’s different when we just barely made it out of a high-profile investigation by the skin of our teeth. When we’d be working with outsiders that we don’t know if we can trust. And when we’ll be taking things from them that we’re just gambling on being useful rather than being one test away from killing us all. And not to mention when the government’s probably still watching our every move.”

“That’s why I want you to do it,” Cave had said matter-of-factly. “I can’t go out there - you’re right, they’re probably watching me like a hawk. And I don’t trust anyone else around here with something this important. With you, I know it’ll go off without a hitch. And if something goes wrong, I know you’re smart enough to see that and get out of there.”

Caroline remembers thinking that his response was both too simplistic and too optimistic, but also that she could already feel her shoulders loosening. It should have taken more than this to sway her - a few carefully chosen words, a plea for science, and a small showing of gratitude shouldn’t have gotten her boss anywhere towards her agreeing to such a ridiculous idea. 

“Come on, can you imagine what would happen if I sent Greg out there?” Cave added, and as Caroline felt the hint of a smile creep across her face, she knew her chances of arguing any further were gone.

And that’s how she’d ended up repeatedly doing one of the most dangerous jobs she could ever think of, driving out in the middle of the night to receive god-knows-what from god-knows-who under the cover of silence and darkness. For the last decade or so she’d served as a glorified mule for anyone who needed to unload something quick with no questions asked. It was a familiar routine by now, though not one that she ever grew more comfortable with.

But tonight is different. Tonight, Caroline isn’t just taking something off someone’s hands. She’s also giving something in return.

“You got it?” a voice asks as she steps out of the car. The figure asking is cloaked in the night’s shadows, but Caroline can see enough to know that it’s tall, broadly built, and not alone - two other shadows bookend it on either side, no less muscular. Caroline tells herself not to let it phase her - some contacts have brought backup before. The chances of them wanting to hurt her are far less than of them being equally uneasy about meeting a stranger in the dead of night to hand over something volatile and incriminating. Caroline finds herself wondering why backup was never discussed as an option on her end.

“You first,” she replies to the figure, trying to keep herself from rolling her eyes at how ridiculously cliched this entire interaction is.

The two backup shadows move to one end of their car, opening the trunk and grunting as they extract a large metal container. They remove the lid, and signal Caroline to approach. She moves slowly in the dark, careful not to trip on an unseen branch or rock. She hopes the effect looks more dramatic to an outsider, and less like what it actually is, the deliberate and guarded movements of a woman with aging eyes.

She leans over slightly to peer into the container, and there they are - dozens of gray, lumpy, pitted, and wholly unremarkable rocks. Caroline nods. “Good,” she says, as if it actually is. As if this ridiculous box of contraband is actually the goldmine her boss thinks it is. As if staking the future of the company on foreign sediment is a positive thing.

“And you?” one of the keepers of the rocks asks impatiently.

Caroline straightens and turns around. The walk back to her car is even slower, but this time it’s not because of the dark. It’s because she can’t help but think that she’s signing Aperture’s death warrant.

She opens the driver’s side door, reaches across, and pulls out a briefcase.

She had fought harder on this one. Harder than most things she’d fought for over the years at Aperture, in fact. Unlike Cave’s many other crazy ideas, this one lacked any arguable redeeming qualities. Taking in unknown and potentially dangerous waste and experimental leftovers was bad, but at least they weren’t paying for any of it, and could argue that it might end up producing some good data for the company. But this - this was spending $70 million - money that they simply did not have and never would have again - to purchase a substance with no technical market value, and no known scientific worth. Selling and buying it constituted a litany of federal crimes. It was enough to earn them another government investigation. All because Cave Johnson thought that moon rocks might be fun to play around with. All in the name of throwing science at the wall and seeing what sticks.

Caroline wasn’t sure what it was exactly that had finally caused her to give up. Maybe it was seeing her boss so desperate, so broken, so out of ideas and so willing to latch on to the most outlandish one that came his way. Maybe it was knowing that there was nothing left for Aperture regardless - if nothing else, this would just kick the liquidation process into higher gear. Or maybe it was just that - she’d given up. Thirty years as the voice of reason was exhausting - especially when no one listened anyway, and when a silver tongue and a little admiration could erase any protest. Thirty years of picking up the pieces when all of the things he’d persuaded her to agree to had gone wrong. Thirty years of watching scientific achievement and progress slip through their fingers.

Caroline had fought so hard for the company for so long. Most of what had happened within it over the years was a direct result of her doing, her fighting, her fixing. Why reduce that level of involvement now, she thought as she handed the briefcase over. Now, when it was all so close to ending? Why not have the honor of putting the final nail into the coffin?

“This thing’s pretty heavy,” one of the shadow-cloaked figures says as he and another carry the container over to Caroline’s car. “You gonna be able to handle this?”

“I’ll manage,” Caroline replies stoically as she opens the trunk for them. 

And she will. As long as there are some shreds of the company remaining. As long as they still have experiments to run with their new $70 million purchase. 

She turns on the engine and drives away, leaving her contacts from god knows what corner of the black market to fade into the distance.

Only the moonlight surrounds her now. She runs her fingers over the rabbit’s foot as she drives, trying not to notice the ethereal orb above. “I hope you know what you’re doing, Mr. Johnson,” she mutters under her breath as she continues on into the night. 

#cad17 #cad2017 #caroline appreciation day #portal #portal 2 #my writing #my fanfiction #portal fanfiction #caroline #caroline tag #cave johnson

[ecotone99]

[SF] Disgraced Soldier or Manchurian Candidate?

I’m gonna be Frank, this sounds crazy, even to me, and I have been diagnosed bipolar one. I met this guy in Three west. Three west is a fancy military psych ward. This isn’t from my disorder but it’s in his memory and He don’t know why, so I am gonna share it here for him. I will share it, as a sci fi short story none of you would ever believe to be true.

The morning of February 14, 2004, Valentine’s Day, Valerian’s Birthday, the day T never expected to destroy his life. T was so excited, it was the day he finally got to respond for his worst day ever. The morning of September 11, 2001, T was on his way to school with his then crush Xan. Xan was so cute, she was wearing blue jeans and a cute tight white shirt and T was just so happy she had agreed to ride to school with him, finally. He was making a turn in his 1981 Carolla hatch, ugly white with even uglier wheels, no sound system or stereo, and power steering that didn’t always like to work.

The car decided that at this moment, that last problem would make an appearance, and the CD player between him and Xan also decided to skip. T, being a stupid 16 year old, reaches for the CD player with one hand while attempting to turn with the other and stare at Xan. The steering wheel stops turning smoothly and the car careens into a mailbox, sending glass and debris all over Xan. The car then slides across the road into the ditch on the other side slamming onto its side. T, being a super tough strong Jock, opens his driver door, slams the car back onto its tires, peels out of the ditch and drops Xan off at her dumb blonde friends driveway to catch the bus. By the time he gets to school the first tower had already fallen. He had gone home to get cleaned up and tell his mom what had occurred, they had no Tv in their house so T didn’t get the news until he walked into that hushed class.

The class was glued to the Tv. The smoke billowing from the towers rubble. Seconds later the news came, the pentagon had been hit. T’s father was currently working in DC. He ran out of the class room. He had to get home, he ran past teachers, security, and the principal, hopped in his beat up car with its crushed windshield and sped home.

That memory was what fueled T’s rage, his hate, his menace, for years while he lashed out at the system that wasn’t doing enough. He wrote report after report, got F after F for topic and subject not quality of research or production of point but he didn’t care anymore. He knew what he had to do. His Grand Father was in the Air Force in WW2 and he was gonna do the same. He just didn’t realize how closely that would occur till today.

As he cleared his head of the past, and looked at the next few steps too his future, T hugged his mom and his friend Valerian goodbye. No one else has found the time to come see him off. That Valentine’s Day would forever burn in his mind as his last day of civility. He spent basic training at the top of his class in all fields and even tested for SOCOM but decided the academy was his route. After technical training he was sent to his first duty station. This is where the story really begins.

T arrived in Alaska, the final duty station of his Grandfather as an Airman, his first. His grandfather had served as a bomber pilot in the 3rd Operations Group, Bombardment Group during WW2. He was so excited, he was going to make his father, and grandfather proud. The night his mother left is when the things started to get, weird. Today, T maintains that he has two memories of the events that occurred following July 17, 2004 and November 18, 2004.

To make matters worse T has been unable to find his official personnel file, DD-214, or Medical records since his discharge and transfer from Alaska back to VA. He has made several requests for the information. His pay stubs are missing, his GI bill payments come back as unfunded, his copy of his medical records mysteriously disappeared from his home along with his copy of his DD-214. He has odd dental work and a strange circular embellishment on his right cranium. No doctor will give him an x-Ray or cat scan even after being offered cash upfront as payment. He has been hospitalized forcibly twice as a civilian without reason and once as an airman. This poor man has been through it all.

In October of 2004 T is charged with heinous crimes as well as undergoes a testicular amputation preparation course, by November he is opened up and the testicle is removed. The first real memory he can describe is waking from that event. Everything between the night of July 18, 2004 and November 18, 2004 are described as “one memory is a picture with sound, and the other, a full on movie.” This will try to put together, in the best way possible, the duality of T’s memory from those times.

————

July 17, 2004

I am at a gas station with K. Two girls are broken down. I help them get their truck started by banging on the starter while K turns the key. I haven’t found out yet K is part of my soon to be Unit on Elmendorf. K and I drink all night with Athena and Shannon. K takes me back to the hotel my mom and I are staying at before I have to report for duty tomorrow. I call my brother at 0100 to freak out about the sun going down and coming up in the same freaking place. I pass out in the bed next to my mom.

July 18 2004

I report to Munitions Storage as ordered and meet up with White and K. K and I spend the morning meeting the airmen and getting accustomed to life at storage. Around 1300 we are sent to the FTAC.I remember falling asleep in a briefing from OsI at the FTAC center and waking up to be told I have been picked to leave in support of operation enduring freedom as part of TF Olympia. I get up and head to the deployment center and get my gear and am on a plane headed for Kuwait by 1800.

I also remember a picture of Athena and my watch saying 1800, a bottle of Soco 100, and a military ID that says she is 17 as we are driving onto base.

July 19 -27 2004

No picture memories of these dates but vivid video of loading and unloading Mk 82 pallets on a C-7 in Okinawa and Hawaii. Then heading to SK.

July 28 2004

Some where near the DMZ, I encounter my first live fire experience as NK forces attempt to over run a small OP we are restocking. My 7.5 ton truck is clearly stuck in a mud pit as I attempt to turn around. We were delivering T rounds for their MGs and mortar rounds. The SK forces cleared us out the mud quickly and we were back on our way. Picture memory of a strip club and a Quarters Order breech claim by an unknown Airman. Picture of me standing in front of a commander in FTAC being yelled at about what I did wrong. Audio memory of being lectured and me arguing I left after midnight so I didn’t breech the quarters orders of 24 hours from three days earlier.

July 31 - Aug 23 2004

Classified orders, Task Force Olympia, Baghdad. Classified orders, Task Force Olympia, Fallujah Classified orders, Task Force Olympia, Mosul

Aug 29, 2004

Picture memory: Truck, tires, burning flesh.TF Olympia patch on the ground. Location: Mosul. Time 1800 local according wrist watch.

Picture memory: Athena and I having sex, Athena’s dependent ID saying she is 19 on my bed side. Location: Chennault Ave, Elmendorf AK. 2200 local according to bedside clock.

September - October 2004

Picture memories of hospitals and briefing rooms Locations: Ramstein, Virginia, Alabama, California, Alaska

Picture memories: drunk strip clubs all the time Location: Anchorage Alaska

November 2004

Picture memories: OSI briefing rooms and hospital beds.

November 18, 2004

I remember waking up and the major telling me I may not be able to ever have children but the surgery was a success. Everything before this memory is so fuzzy. I don’t know what is real or fake. I am unable to find Athena for several months. I finally track her down, she claims we never dated and she doesn’t know who I am. Her military ID says she is 25 years old. Athena is the first and last person I remember being with and the only person I remember dating during that time. My new girlfriend Angie confirmed that Athena was indeed 25, and went to high school in Alaska with her. Athena was the child of a SF commander. ————- So as you can see by reading his own accounts, it’s a little crazy. Out of respect to the source, I am omitting some events names and ranks. He is under the impression he did something or saw something that he shouldn’t have, T is also worried he might be a sleeper. His mind is really messed up. He can recite names and dates and places that can be fact checked. That is the weirdest part to me. His facts, check out.

So, take it as a grain of salt, but this poor man’s story deserves to be told. After his testicular removal he was systemically railroaded out of the military. He ended up going before a court martial and being exonerated of all charges with prejudice against his command for unlawful command influence, but not after spending 3 months in the brig for his own safety and others. He has many memories since of words setting him off for no reason. Weird flashbacks, and strange people randomly following him places. His paranoia even heightened my own at one point while I absorbed his tale of espionage and intrigue in the early 2000s.

He has, since discharge, struggled. Most recently he has been unemployed and collecting SSdI. Another one of the little things that makes him feel weird. He got his disability without an attorney, without the need for a hearing, and without even talking to anyone. He has been committed by judges who have apologized to him and said they had no choice. He has had doctors tell him he is not medically unstable and ask him which drugs he wants to take. He has also been forcibly taken by police with no charge and no outbursts. The poor man has been beaten senseless by the system he was so anxious to serve in 2004. If you are looking for light at the end of this story, there isn’t any, he has done everything he can to find the truth, the truth has eluded him the harder he tries.

He hasn’t given up, he now runs a small recording studio. He raises a small boy. He takes care of his niece and his fathers land. He is a good man still today, just confused, lost and broken. He is incapable of trusting even the schools with his son. He is scared of the internet and terrified of public appearances or employers. The man has been totally undone by the system he once swore to protect. No help, no real answers, just tranquilizers and indifference are his reward for his scars.

His story really got to me. T was an idealistic American boy. A Boy Scout, fire fighter, EMT, and Airman. He deserves more from the society he served his whole childhood. I hope this story entertained you. I hope his misery brings you some joy, you heinous monsters. Sorry, like I said, his paranoia got to me a little too.

submitted by /u/Kuv3dr [link] [comments] via Blogger http://bit.ly/31sX4Rt

#Blogger #Story

[stone-man-warrior]

September 25, 2018: 6:46 pm:

September 25. 2018: 4:30 pm:<br><br>Yesterday&#39;s attack was followed by mo... StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-09-25T21:16:13-0400 - Updated: 2018-09-25T21:46:21-0400

September 25. 2018: 4:30 pm: Yesterday's attack was followed by more bullshit today. First, it is Monday, no US Mail came yesterday as it was Sunday and I check my Mail daily, so on Saturday, I received Mail in my Mailbox. Today, I checked at about 1:30 pm and there was Mail. Then, I went to run errands and saw that the US Mail carrier was at the end of "MyStreet" and beginning her route on "MyStreet". I almost turned around to ask her why I had Mail in my Mailbox today when she had not delivered Mail on "MyStreet" yet. So, as I thought would happen, I checked my Mailbox a few minutes ago and found more US Mail in my Mailbox. I received US Mail twice today, once from the US Mail Carrier, and once from a "Mystery Mail" delivery person. Someone had taken my US Mail out of my Mailbox and held it, then put it back for me to find today. This is all part of the terrorism and is a bigger problem than it seems from this explanation. I know that there are people trying to stop the terrorism somewhere, and the local fake law enforcement is doing everything they can do to portray me as a thief, while one or more of the terrorists is taking credit for some of the things I report here on this page. Unfortunately, the things that are being exposed that the terrorist impostor is taking credit for are manufactured things, or manufactured crimes. Crimes that did not happen but rather are crimes that most likely are putting some innocent people at great risk of punishment for something that never occurred. So the US Mail I received twice today is part of someones ides to make it appear as though I am employed in the trucking business and am gone for days at a time and then return home for a few days, like truckers do. Clyde Baum of 333 "MyStreet" is a likely source for this part of the terrorism. He has been known to take my mail, and the Mail of others, and then put it back later on for a variety of uses. I am not a trucker, I am retired. I do not go to work in any kind of employment whatsoever. I know this is confusing and seems menial, however, these terrorists are religious Christian of the Seventh Day Adventist Church, and as such, they take some of their guidance from religious notions such as the phrase "God is in the details". With sayings and ideas that are Christian oriented, they hone their craft of killing for the Crusades such that anyone who is not a Seventh Day Adventist will either be forced to convert or be killed... just like in the old days. So, the small details such as my mail stacking up in my US Mailbox is just the kind of small detail that helps keep these well connected and highly trained soldiers from being stopped. This is also the kind of small detail that helps the terrorists kill American Victims with the help of real, USA laws and traditions. My US Mail did not stack up in the Mailbox like they planned. I was supposed to be dead today and the Mail was supposed to reflect and help support a notion that I was away on a trucking delivery. This part of the terrorism is set forth by Fran Taylor, Clyde Baum, Sandy Monroe, and Sean Sparacino in close association with the US Mail Carrier that delivers on this route in the black, nissan van with the words "Black Jellie Bean" in vinyl graphics on each side. I went to the Wal-Mart at about 2:45 this afternoon, as I drove and approached  to the end of "MyStreet", I could see the the school bus was there. Some terrorist children were being picked up by their terrorist parents. I chose to turn around and go back to my house to wait for the terrorist children and terrorist parents to be done with being at the bus stop. I came home, left my vehicle parked at the gate and walked to my door at my house. Along the way I could hear gunfire from a moving vehicle going South on Russel Road from the Bus stop to about 3701 Russel Road. Their were about six shots fired within about one minute and the source of the shots I could hear were moving progressively towards the South and away from the Bus Stop on Russel and Jess Way. As I walked from my vehicle to my door, I remember thinking out-loud that gunfire at the bus stop at the time that the children are being dropped off is normal and customary, and makes perfect sense in Socio-Terrific Dystopian Oregon. I decided I could leave and drove back out towards Russel Road again and was closely followed by a white pick-up truck with yellow Oregon State License Plates that had the letter "e" on it, and had a flashing yellow light on top. The truck was a Oregon State Forestry truck and the driver was right on my bumper as I drove down "MyStreet" to get on my way. The Forestry truck had gone to 601 heroin dealers house behind me when I turned around and went home briefly. After getting back on my way again, the forestry truck was right on my tail as I left home the second time, and after hearing the gunshots from the Bus Stop.  Once on my way, I encountered the US Mail Carrier having an excited discussion with an elderly man who was on foot. His truck was across the street and there was at least one other concerned terrorist fake citizen there at the scene on the corner of Russel Road and Jess Way... the Bus Stop. Later, at the Wal-mart, I saw that same elderly man, the one that was talking with the Mail Carrier, at the Wal-Mart. He entered the store about the same time I entered the store. He must have been driving very fast to get into the store at the same time I did. However, I spent some time talking with a homeless woman at the Wal-Mart in the parking lot, so he had some extra time to get into the Wal-Mart. Bot he and the US Mail Carrier were surprised to see me drive past them at the Bust Stop. Presumably, they were talking about gunfire from the moving vehicle that I heard a few moments before that. I am certain that I was to be blamed for the gunfire because the homeless woman at the Wal-Mart Parking lot had said to me "You must be the one who was doing all of the shooting then". The Homeless woman at the Wal-Mart was working in league with another terrorist. The homeless woman is a highly trained terrorist operative and is involved with vehicle theft and murders in the parking lot. She stays in teh parking lot and monitors vehicles as they drive by her and park. She is always parked near the entrance but at the side of the parking lot. Her and her accomplice terrorist leave a wide open parking space available right there in between them so that a victim, some one like me, will choose to park there. The terrorists are so connected with one another that they can arrange that it is not possible to park anywhere else except for the space they leave available between the two operatives. The homeless terrorist lady strikes up a conversation with the victim while the accomplice fogs the victim with Nitrous Oxide/Versed poison airborne gas. That is what happened today, and, there was enough information in the conversation that the woman wanted to talk about that it was clear she was part of the attack on me yesterday, or had been informed and commissioned to participate in anticipation of my needed trip to the grocery store. The woman asked about my old truck. She asked what year it was. She wanted to know everything she could know about the tires I have on my old truck. This is a homeless woman about 65 years of age who is interested in the year, make, and model of my truck, and, she wanted to know everything about the tires I have, including what kind they are, how much they cost and from where did I purchase them. After she described my truck into her secret communication with others nearby, she said to me "You must be Ben then". I told her "No. I am not Ben, Ben's truck does not have the X-tra Cab  like mine does, and his is a Four-Speed I think, besides, Ben had a real bad day yesterday, I don't think he made it out alive". Just then, the woman's accomplice shouted "I'm Lit! c'est chaud!" and then exploded. The accomplice burst as a result of my use of my Bic Lighter to fight terrorism. The whole time I was talking to the homeless woman terrorist operative at the Wal-Mart parking lot near the entrance, who wanted to know all about my old pick-up truck, including the cost of the tires and where I bought them, I was lighting my Bic Lighter briefly every five seconds or so. Just a spark is all it takes and that is all it took to light the terrorist operative accomplice up. It was a woman, about 35 years old and heavy-set. She burst into bits in the parking space next to me as she got out of her car and started to run into the neighboring shopping center through the bushes. The Homeless woman terrorist operative had a small caliber .25 custom fire-arm and she took one shot at me with it. The bullet hit me but bounced off. The gun that these terrorists use are all the same. The woman carry a vaginally holstered .25 caliber gun that holds two rounds. They are custom made by Crowder Machine on Monument Drive next to the Fire Department. I saw her "un-holster" her gun and shoot at me, I was struck in the chest but the round did not penetrate. I have a small hole in my shirt now. Once inside the Wal-Mart, I encountered the elderly man that was talking with the Mail Carrier. I shopped for  the items I wanted and proceeded to the checkout. At the check-stand, usually, I have to encounter a swordsman. Seriously, at the moment I put my debit card into the machine, a swordsman comes and tries to run me through with the sword. I have developed a defense for the sword, however, I am not going to say what or how I defend against the sword. They have changed things now. At the Wal-Mart this Summer, they put in a pet veterinary service. The service is called "Pet-IQ". So now, at the Wal_Mart in Grants Pass Oregon, at the check-out, rather than a swordsman, they use a terrorist with a syringe from the veterinary that has in it the drug use to euthanize, or "put-to-sleep" animals. The terrorist with the euthanization needle is there and can conceal the syringe much better than the sword. The woman at the check-out saw that I was not a Seventh Day Adventist because I had purchased non-perishable items such as cookies and ice cream. That is one of the ways they know who is an American Victim. However, I am the last American in Josephine County so it is a bit different now. Other than me in the Wal-Mart, the only other American Citizens that will be in the store are those who are traveling through and are on Vacation. Those who are traveling and stop into the Wal-Mart are exterminated with a terrorist wielding a syringe filled with euthanization drug. The woman at the check-stand called for "a needle" as she said into her secret  communication. I did not actually see that someone with a needle had come, but she did call for one. I heard that she called for "a needle" and began to fight terrorism with a Bic Lighter a little more often than usual. I may have ignited the terrorist with teh needle today. This is one of the few times I have been to the Wal-Mart and did not actually see someone die inside the store. I did see someone die outside of the store, but not on the inside. As I returned home today and checked mu Mailbox, Sandy Monroe was waiting in her yard and was under the impression that I was someone other than myself. She and her husband were waiting for my prescription medicine to be given to them. They kill for a handful of pills. So, that is part of how yesterday's attack that included Oregon State Forestry representatives was followed up today. This explanation was difficult to write. It took me a long time to explain it in written words. Maybe my efforts will be recognized by persons who are willing to defend Freedom. The United States of America is being consumed from within by terrorists who use Nitrous Oxide Poison airborne gas as an offensive weapon and kill Americans at the grocery store and everywhere that American Citizens shop for the things the need. Donald Trump is not willing to stop the killing and in fact is advancing the armies right before our eyes and ears. If you listen to his words and apply this knowledge on this page, you will hear him command an advancement, such as when Mr.. Trump talks about "Cross-State Medical Insurance... he is actually telling armies to move to the next State and begin the killing there. Think about it. Is your freedom worth saving? Is your child's life worth saving? If so, find a way to have someone in the US Military read this page. There are four years of actual experience with these kinds of terrorists and there is no one else who is reporting the use of Nitrous Oxide/Versed airborne gas as an offensive weapon used to sudue American Victims to slaughter. Please send help to Josephine County Oregon.

Shared with: Public

+1'd by: Luxury Hotel Pix, Sue Hanen, US Trailer

StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-09-26T00:10:58-0400

September 25, 2018: 7:48 pm: I want to say some things about the Three Rivers School District, especially the Manzanita Eleimentary School, The Flemming Middle School, and North Valley High School. These are the schools that my children attended and I have the most familiarity with among the seventeen schools in the District. If my children are alive, I am not aware of it. My phone is not aboe to connect with them directly, and I get the feeling that those who control the Stingray Listening State Police Surveillance equipment in Josephine County are able to manipulate phone calls such that on the rare occasion when someone calls me who is calling from a number that I recognize as that of one of my children, the call actually is intercepted by a third party who pretends to be my child, and speaks to me as if that third party impostor is actually one of my children, in such a way as to give me the impression that my children are indeed alive, however the notion I get is that that impostor takes the words that are spoken by my child on the telephone, and then twists those words into something frightening to hear. If this is actually occurring like I think it is, then my children are likely hearing the same kind of thing on the telephone on their end when I speak. The phone calls are always unrewarding and provide more fear and confusion than if no  phone call was made or received. There seems to be enough personal information being shared on the phone calls that indicate that my children are alive. The stories and conversation between myself and my children are very strange and ultimately very frightening. The people who are speaking on the telephone sound remarkably similar to the voice of my children, however, in the many years that the phones have been hijacked by the terrorists with the StingRay's, I have learned that voices are somewhat easily duplicated, especially by terrorists associated with the Screen Actors Guild. The Screen Actors Guild is composed of people who's job it is, and who are highly trained experts in the field of audio manipulation, recording, broadcasting, synthesizing, editing, and various other ways to describe that the sound of someone's voice can be, and is, altered, or articulated to the desires of those who seek a particular result. The voices of our children are easily mastered by actors who are trained to act, and by audio engineers who are trained to manipulate sound in every way imaginable. For most people, every way imaginable does not encompass the recreation of the voice of our children on the telephone by actors who portray them and by audio engineers who master the tonality of the vocal subject, and the background noises or lack of them that we hear on the phone. So, for my children's sake, I want to try to recall some of the horrible ways they were victimized at the schools they went to for education. These are public schools that were taken over by terrorists, and when the parents reported the problems to the proper authorities, the entire family was killed and replaced with terrorist replacements. I remember that at Fleming Middle School, there were, in 1996 through possibly to the present time, at least three incinerators at the school nearby the music room. Those incinerators were used to burn children. One more time, at Fleming Middle School, the incinerators were used to burn and dispose of student children. I also remember that those incinerators were protected at that side of the school by a armed guard who had with him a Thompson Machine gun. The guard walked back and forth all day long where the incinerators are at. I also remember that I was able to fool the guard a number of times. I would go there and say some BS about something and make a scene of some kind, I put more than one of those guards into the incinerator this way and was able to leave safely, and then come back and do the same thing again on another day. In this way, I killed a number of the guards. I stopped when they began punishing the children for what I had done. They never found out who was putting the guards into the incinerator until now that I have written this. I remember in the music room, actors from the Screen Actors Guild would come, sit in the class room, they would look around the room and then choose one or more of the students in the room to go into a small, private practice room that was built into the music room. There was a time when I sat in on the class and the teacher their was wondering if I was going to choose a student for "practice" in the private room. I remember telling all of the students that they should never have to worry about that teacher making them go into the private room anymore, because when that teacher asked me which student I wanted to practice with, I said that I wanted to practice with him, and I took him into the private room. There was Nitrous Oxide being blown into those private rooms, I don't remember what I taught the teacher that day in the private room, however, I was told that the teacher had "retired" shortly after the encounter. At all of the three schools mentioned, and before we had cellular telephone communication available in the Rogue Valley, there was, and perhaps still is a Emergency Radio System that works on a radio frequency between the schools and is a direct connection to toe busing company and to the Fire station and to the Law Enforcement, That Emergency Radio system was actually used to provide communication between the terrorists who were pretending to be Principles, and the Law Enforcement in such a way as to act as a ,means of prostituting the children. The communication devices were used to inform the terrorist principle that a particular movie star or musician was going to be at the school and the requirements were discussed over the Emergency Radio system such that the Screen Actor Guild members could request that a student of a particular set of physical attributes would be summoned to serve the desires of the Screen Actor Guild member. Many of the visiting SAG members were British and had thick British accents. I recall at the North Valley High School at the Football Field, there would be events that took place by special invitation. Those invited could watch as a mass killing snuff movie was made on the school grounds, on the football field. Typically, the snuff movie special invitation was enacted around the false presentation of a Decathlon. The students had another name for it, I think they called it a "De-cap-ithon". At the time, I did not understand what was going on. There was a lot of Nitrous Oxide being blown around. When I attended one of these events, I encountered a situation where the track around the football field had installed around it a camera on a track that moved at the speed that the runners who ran on the track could run. They would install the camera and the rails that it traveled and then take it down after the killing event. The victims, as I recall, were students who had done something that angered the terrorist Principle. Something like insubordination or being accused of being disloyal to the ways of the terrorists. My children told me that the students were being executed, I saw that the students were being executed myself, live, on the football field, and on film, and I still did not believe what I was seeing. The students were drugged and forced to run the race track, leap over obstacles, participate in the "Long Jump", Pole Vault, Javalin throw and a variety of other "sports" while being filmed. The apparatus was all designed to kill the student who was forced to participate. There were camera  operators on foot with gimbles at every one of the Decapithon events. The obstacles for the obstacle race were made such that they would remove the leg of someone who knocked one over, this was filmed by a mechanical device that would follow the runners along the track. There long jump into the sand pit had spikes in it. The pole vault had spikes on the landing surface. The Javalin throw was done by members of the Screen Actors Guild who would throw the javelin into the direction of students who were down range and forced, and drugged so that they would just stand there and be impaled by the incoming javelin. There was an event at the end of the decapathon  that rendered students heads be removed in such a way that the heads went flying and then rolling all over the place all at once. I remember being in total and complete emotional shut down and completely on autopilot as I walked around the field and picked up from the ground what I thought were soccer balls only to find that I had in my hands the head of a young high school student, and i fact I had collected from the running track, the heads of a number of the students, some of which I could recognize and knew who they were. Snuff movies and prostitution of students at the public schools of the Three Rivers School District in Josephine County Oregon under the direction of the Law Enforcement officers in charge at the time. There was and is still no way to get any help to stop the madness. I called the White House and explained things to the people there under George W. Bush, but all they did was contact the Law Enforcement and ask them to look into the matter. Innocent children were killed as a result of any one who tried to get help from outside of the area. I remember an announcement was made that until the person or persons stepped up and exposed who was calling the White House, they would kill students every day. I don;t remember if I stood up, but I do remember that students were killed. Young American Boys and Girls murdered at the school that they attended. Only the students really know how bad things were, I only know what I could see from the outside, as a parent. There is a lot more to say about this. These are true stories that bring me nothing but grief and horrible memories. This is Oregon. This is the USA. No one will help no matter how many times I ask for help. many dozens of calls for help that were followed up by the murder of innocent people resultant of the cry for help being made and as a means of punishing the ones who asked for help from the outside of the County of Josephine. I killed many terrorists at the Three Rivers School District Schools over a number of years because no one else would protect the students, or protect the United States of America. I don't often say in writing that I killed people/ This is one time that I will say it again, and there may be some still alive who will also say the I killed some of the terrorists at the Three Rivers School District over a number of years of terrorists oppression. Two decades have past, and there is still no response to any of the cries for help of any of the American Citizens who were begging for help. These are true accounts of real experiences. Please send help.

StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-09-26T02:13:36-0400

September 25, 2018: 10:46 pm: There is a pond next door at the Monroe;s Screen Actor Guild Seventh Day Adventist Vatican Cannibal terrorist family cell. The pond is a water feature that was installed by terrorists, for terrorists to use as a means of killing American Victims. The pond is a conversation piece and as such, whenever the terrorist family there is able to attract American Victims to their home, they can take their guests to show them the pond and waterfall they have. The pond makes noise cover for the release of Nitrous Oxide and the calming effect of the pond and waterfall, along with the frogs and fish inside of it create a peaceful place where victims can be, and are lulled into a trance and ripe for killing. The pond there also has electricity there for the thing to operate, and the electricity is used there to operate a receiver and recording device for secret terrorist communications. I have a microphone implant in my jaw that was put in place during a root canal I needed for a dental problem. Along with the root canal I got a microphone that broadcasts everything I say, every day, all day and all night. I cannot adjust the volume, nor can I turn the device on or off... it is always on, all of the time and the Monroe's are able to record everything I say day and night. When I mumble to myself, when I talk to my cat, when I read things out-loud, if I speak my passwords to my online banking or when I say private things on a phone call to my doctors office, pharmacy or family member, they record everything at that pond. They use the recordings in ways that I do not know. I am certain that they are able to take many different recording of my voice over a long period of time and edit those recordings in such a way as to produce a recorded sampling of my voice saying something that I never said. Besides that, the water feature at the Monroe's has been decorated with things that are strangely familiar. The items around the pond there give me the impression that my children are being held captive someplace where the Monroe's have control and access to them. The items around the pond individually are not important, but like the words in a book are unimportant individually on their own become important and compose the book when they are written in the order that tells a story, these items around the pond at the Monroe's are like a book. I can read the pond. What the pond says seems as though one or both of my children wrote a book out of items at that pond. The pond says, if I read it through the eyes of my children, fight terrorism with a can of Aquanet Hairspray, when you answer the door and there is a terrorist with Nitrous Oxide standing there, spray the Aquanet, and light the hairspray with a lighter as it is sprayed. The Aquanet hairspray will ignite like a flamethrower and will ignite the nitrous oxide poison gas that is being released at the from door when a terrorist with Nitrous Oxide shows up. That is the long reading, the short reading is that The person who wrote the idea into the objects around the pond that can be used to say "Aquanet with a flame can ignite the terrorists" is being held in captivity. The pond there indicates that my children are being held in captivity and I have no way to know where or how to find them. There is personal information for my family built into the objects around the pond water feature at the Monroe's, and the pond there has a recording device that is used to record everything that I say. The Monroe's are the only terrorists that I know of who do not use the rectally holstered nitrous oxide tanks, otherwise, they would have been killed a long time ago.

StoneMan .Warrior - 2018-09-26T03:11:47-0400

September 25, 2018: 11:38 pm: The notion of dental implants that broadcast the voice of the victim who has one should be of great concern to those who are in the business of national security. If I have one, than anyone can have one. I strongly advise anyone who can read this information to be mindful of people who have the ability to listen with a receiver. I know I gave one because I was mindful of the sound of my own voice when I could hear my own voice coming from the ear peace of a terrorists who had secret communication and was standing right there in front of me while I was having a conversation with the terrorist who could hear me that way. I strongly advise that everyone in government be checked for broadcasting devices that could have been placed there by terrorists doctors and dentists. Anyone who has dental work, or has had a root canal, or has had invasive surgery, even arthroscopic surgery could be used to place a broadcasting device with the human body. Be advised that the technology required for very small broadcasting devices and the batteries that power them has been in use this way since the early 1980's. Sometimes, technology is throttled such that the public is not aware that a particular technology is available. Consider that the terrorists are in very great number and have specialized uses for a variety of ideas that get invented simply for the purpose of doing terrorists activities. Normal ways that inventions come about are as a result of finding a useful application for technologies that are available. Terrorists have a way of thinking differently than normal people who advance technology for a given use. Normally, any technology that is found to have an application that can be manufactured and sold to those who can use the technology is done with the idea that there needs to be a sizable market for a product that will be willing to pay an amount of money that is greater then the cost of producing the items of usefulness. Things that are too expensive to bring to market because of the high cost of production is more than the people would be willing to pay to have such products, is not a concern for the terrorists. The Seventh Day Adventist Screen Actor Guild variety of terrorists are very wealthy at the command level. They are not concerned with production costs. The usefulness of an item of a given technology, such as very small broadcasting implantable microphones with batteries that last more than ten years, is not measured with a profit in mind. Instead, these kinds of terrorist specific products are manufactured with the goal of world domination in mind, not a profit in the form of money. The only profit of concern to the terrorists is it's usefulness towards the advancement of the terrorist agenda. Even if it cost one thousand dollars to fit every American with a dental broadcasting implant, they will do it since the profit is measured in secrecy, and the advancement towards the goal. There are a number of terrorist specific technologies that would defy the normal ways that products come to market. Cost of production is not a factor, usefulness is the only factor. I advise that US congress members, and those in the Military, be checked for bodily implants that can either broadcast voice, or even broadcast the GPS location of an individual. If the terrorists can know exactly where a particular individual is at any given time on planet Earth with a GPS broadcasting implant, than more importantly to the terrorists, they know where that particular individual is not. Knowing where an important person is not, is the same as knowing where it is safe for them to strike without fear of being caught. I have been wondering what the term "Fusion GPS" could mean in terrorist terms. The people I know to be terrorists on You Tube love to talk about "Fusion GPS" from time to time. Could they actually be speaking in a coded sort of way regarding the real world advancement of GPS implants into important people? Yes. They could be speaking in a code about such an advancement. Perhaps the surface story about the company called "Fusion GPS" is a bullshit manufactured cover for a bigger, more devastating world problem than normal, non terrorists could ever imagine.

[olwog]

Monday

Let the adventure begin. Six o´clock usually happens only once in the day, towards evening and getting up whilst it´s still dark is not one of my more enjoyable treats but I am a happy riser, at my age I´m just happy to wake up!

We´re meant to be on the 0718 Manchester Airport train from York and looking forward to starting the journey.

The plan is to fly to Bilbao in Northern Spain, take the bus to Santander and overnight in the Central Albergue then set off walking the Camino Norte where we left off last year. We’ll follow that with a cheap flight down to Lisbon for no other reason than I’ve never been there before then either road, rail or air down to Albufiera on the Southern Coast of Portugal for Costa del Folk, our bi-annual fix of music. The name of the festival is a little misleading as the content is a broad mix of all genres and usually experienced whilst lying in the sun or with feet lightly dipping into an open air pool or drifting in and out of a rhapsody on a sun-bed. In short, it usually has the edge on wellies and brollies in a field of mud.

The Camino element is another leg for me and a joining up of different tracks for the Pilgrim as she has already done the Primitivo which is an offshoot of the Norte that hugs the coast.

    The sun is making an appearance as Bridie drops us at York Station and I, once again, look on in amazement at the machine that is our rail system. The bike racks on the station are full and I think of the emotional farewell to Otto yesterday and Kathy the day before. I’m not good with farewells, especially if you’ve no idea if you’ll see the person again.  Both Otto and Kathy were only meant to be acquaintances for a couple of legs of their Coast to Coast walks; however, the warmth and nature of both of them coupled with the adversity of two astonishing storms has created a far closer relationship with both of them and I feel a fleeting sense of loss. The train from York to Manchester Airport is quite full but we manage to get our seats although we’re told later that the reservation system has failed and as the carriage fills as we pass through Leeds and beyond we feel lucky.

Manchester airport is quite busy and they seem to be having issues with security as we’re redirected to another basement room where there are long, zig-zagging lines of people. The staff are upbeat and manage the situation well but it doesn’t detract from the fact that it’s a pain. 

The EasyJet flight was good and made up the time that was lost pre-take off so we arrive just about on time. On exit we make our way to the travel desk to acquire the bus ticket in to town, we need it as soon as possible as our coach to Santander will leave at 1700 whether we’re on it or not. There’s no need to worry in this instance as the journey takes less than half an hour and drops us at the same depot as the ALSA bus that will take us onwards, we even have time to visit a restaurant/bar!

The buses run like clockwork, usually bang on time and easily identifiable and even when you cock it up by trying to board the wrong one the driver couldn’t be more helpful in redirecting us.

  We’re in the Santander Central Hostel and at 25€ per person per night including breakfast it’s at the top end of albergue range but it’s clean and there are sheets and blankets. It’s full of other peregrines all with a single objective, to reach Santiago de Compostela at some point. 

My objective is to see the countryside and enjoy the weather, no more, no less and I’m looking forward to tomorrow. 

We reach the terminus and everything comes flooding back, the terminus is definitely in the middle of Santander and the Hostel is definitely not far away. It’s also not good value for money when you consider there are two of us and we’re housed in nothing more than an albergue facility; don’t get me wrong, I’ve payed £100 or £150 per night (or rather, the company has) but I draw the line at what is an over priced bunkhouse although Angel, the owner/manager seems friendly enough and everything is clean.

    We take advice for the bright lights of Santander and after a short wander we find what we’re looking for, a bar selling pinxos which is the Basque equivalent of tapas. A brief conversation in pigeon Spanish later and I establish that the tortilla is indeed ‘sin lactosa’ or without milk and, as a consequence, safe for me to eat. The Pilgrim goes for the heavy duty ‘con lactosa’ that includes blue cheese and a strange mix of caramelised onion that’s moe like a jam layer that sits between the cheese, the potatoes and the egg. After a few mouthfuls of both we establish that my traditional, reduced threat variety has the edge but both are devoured with relish along with more than one wine and cerveza (not in the same glass).

A couple of hours sets us up with the nightcap that is required and we settle in the dorm ready for me to give the other occupants the benefit of my nocturnal moose impersonations. 

The Pilgrim has taken the top bunk and hung a walking stick from a hook that’s been carefully screwed to the wall for the purpose of creating a handy resting place making it easily accessible for the prodding of the moose-man if/when the volume becomes worthy of a risk assessment and aurally damaging. She’s under strict instructions to avoid my face and genital areas, other than that, a prod could land anywhere – and does! She’s quite skilled at this and It doesn’t wake me up but does silence the moose impression for a while and by 2 am everyone is happy and asleep.

Tuesday

We get up late in the morning, it’s gone 0830 and we’re normally up and ready to walk by now but the weather is kind and unlikely to go over 24 degrees which means that walking at midday is entirely acceptable.

Breakfast is included in our fee and a couple of slices of toast later and we’re ready to roll.

The first part of the walk is through the suburbs of Santander and whilst it’s uninteresting in terms of scenery it is interesting how the city works. We’re also greeted many times by local people who recognise the rucksack and pained expression and greet us with the words ‘Buen Camino’. Literally, it means ‘good way’ but the extended meaning is ‘Have a good pilgrimage and may it go well’ it also makes us feel good and we reply with ‘Gracias’ or ‘Buenos Dias’ and it leaves us with a smile.

As we leave the city with the Parque del Dr. Morales on our right we note the traffic activity is reducing and within another 50 metres we’re on to a track that follows the railway giving us views of the mountain ranges in the distance.

It’s late morning now and the sun quite strong, we are passing through numerous tiny villages some of which are undefined save for the sign with the village name and a line through it to say we’re now leaving. Some of them consist of half a dozen houses spread out over a mile so it can be quite a surprise that we were ever in it let alone leaving it!

    There is quite a lot of road slog although there is little or no traffic then we arrive at the rather charmingly named Estacion de Boo and decide on taking the train to the next station. It takes about 4 minutes, covers about 3 miles and takes us across the river and this is the real bonus as it saves us the best part of 10 kilometres (6 miles) of following the river inland to get to a footbridge that is safe. There is another option and it is one that we were going to attempt. It’s against the law but the locals do it, they cross the river via a one-and-a-half metre wide foot-way next to the train track. The trains are purported to run every 30 minutes and it takes only 5 minutes on foot; however, on an arse-covering principle, I recommend that you DON’t use this as you could end up hurt, dead or locked-up – or an unpleasant mix of all three.

  We arrive at Estación de Mogro and the Pilgrim spots the yellow arrows pointing in the opposite direction what we expected but we take that route anyway as it runs parallel to the Camino which is on the other side of a significant hill but merges at a point 3 kilometres along the road. At the station we had covered 18km (11 miles)  and the map is telling us there are another 7km (just under 5 miles) to Cudon and it’s across some hills. The upside is the scenery and beautiful weather, the downside is another 7km!

    The Camino follows several roads that wend their way across the hills and some of the views are very special especially where the countryside allows us to see the Atlantic; it’s currently placid but it is the Bay of Biscay and getting angry is its only pleasure.

We’re at a junction when a Spanish man in one of those utility vehicles about the size of a bus opens his window to help. We’re OK with the directions but he confirms that we’re using the right route and also describes where the accommodation is that we need to be looking for, “Behind the Church”, he repeats and we nod our thanks. When people see the rucksack and the shell they respond with kindness and help that makes you feel good but the best is yet to come.

The next few kilometres is covered relatively quickly although we do take twenty minutes out to stop at a roadside bar to slick the dust.

It’s been a bit of a slog and we’re about ready to stop when we enter the hostal and ask about a room. 

“Los Siento, Completo”, (Sorry, we’re full), was the response and after 25 kilometres over a numerous hills under a full sun it wasn’t what we wanted to hear. 

Then something that happens only occasionally happened, “Espera aquí, por favor” (Wait here please). Then she rang a number of other hotels and found one that she then negotiated a “Pilgrim’s” price 45 euros for a double room (down from 65). She then got her husband up from his siesta and asked us if we’d like a lift!

The journey is across town and ends up being 7 or 8 kms which would be a 16 kilometre round trip. As we alighted The Pilgrim whispers I think that was a ‘brown’ journey referring to the colour of the ten euro note and I couldn’t agree more so I offered him the note as soon as he opened the rear door to retrieve our rucksacks…and he refused! I offered again and repeated “Quisiera” (I would like) but he was having none of it and refused again then he shakes our hands and wishes us “Buen Camino”) and is off. 

Such kindness and generosity are a feature when you travel and it saddens me when others are ripped off or robbed as we tend to find more positives than negatives. 

The hotel is more than adequate and the meal that we have is good value especially for a hotel so we’re smiling.

    Tomorrow is another day on the Camino Norte on the north coast of northern Spain.

Enjoy the snaps…G..x  

Camino – Santander to Viveda Monday Let the adventure begin. Six o´clock usually happens only once in the day, towards evening and getting up whilst it´s still dark is not one of my more enjoyable treats but I am a happy riser, at my age I´m just happy to wake up!

#Camino #Camino del Norte #Spain #Walk #Walking

[thevultureprincess]

Stranger Danger!

So this was something I didn’t want to share as it made me feel dirty even being there but I also wanted to share. I was on the bus going home the other night and I was having a bad time. I don’t like loud people in public normally. I wear headphones so I don’t have to listen to people. 30 minutes into my 1 hour bus ride I had already had to put up with 3 people I could hear over my music. 1st a guy who was talking about politics so loud that everyone on the crowded bus could here him. Guy 2 was in front of me, turning round to talk to his friend behind me. Then there was the lady who apparently was going for the “annoying stereotype award” who was loudly talking with her ‘gal pal’ on her phone. You have either seen this type of person in a comedy or in real life (my sympathies), you know the one, loudly shouting into her phone like she’s a banshee why laughing like a hyena and loudly shouting “OH MY GOD!!! Then Stacey did...”. Suffice to say, I was already just wanting this to just be quiet so I could listen to my music till I got to my stop  However! Then, THEN, dick head 4 arrived. Clutching a bottle of cheap whiskey in his hand (for some reason the driver let him on even though they are not supposed to) he staggered to the back of the bus. He proceeded to not shut up for 30 minutes. Due to how fast he was talking, I assumed he was talking to himself (my route goes to a shitty area after mine) Then I heard a lady respond telling him to “leave the girl alone” during a gap in my songs I turned and found out that there was about 15 kids and he’d sat slap bang in the middle of them. He told the lady to fuck off and then told her that she wasn’t the police (like the whole police not an officer). He then settled and I (naively) believed that that was going to be it. Cut to ten minutes later and guess who I can hear again. I then saw the lady get off and she yelled at him to leave the kids alone and not to talk to ‘her’. (Her being a school girl at the back), as she got off I heard her tell the driver to throw the guy off as he was being inappropriate. I didn’t hear the bus driver’s response but she seemed to accept the answer.  After she got off though, he would not leave the kids alone, shouting at them and demanding their age, to know if they wanted to be a police man for the boys or a vet for the girls (sexist much). He asked these at the speed of an auction house dealer as well. Next stop, the school girl got off the bus and another one got on. She sat across from me. At the same time the bus driver got out of his seat (thank god he’s gonna pull his foot out his ass and deal with this guy) but he was opening the wheelchair ramp so a guy in a wheel chair could get off. I didn’t hear what he said but he looked concerned and pointed to the drunkard then pointed his thumb over his shoulder towards the open door. Fairly clear what he was saying from that, but the driver just sat back in his seat and carried on. We set off and the guy started relentlessly trying to talk to the girl. I had been facing forward for a while now as more then once turning round has cost me a black eye in scenarios like this, and the driver had shown that he was interested in helping his passengers, but now out of the corner of my eye I could see him. The guy had stood up and was leaning over the seat in front as flat as he could flailing his arms at the girl trying to get her attention. This had gone too far. I turned in my seat and shouted at him to “leave her alone, before he was creepy but now he was firmly into inappropriate territory” (he had been for a while but I hadn’t stepped in yet as he wasn’t verbally or physically assaulting anyone up til now). He scowled at me, and said “Fuck off! You a cop!? Fuck off and arrest all the cops! How about that!”, I raised myself to my full sitting high (which isn’t much, I’m 5,6 standing) he then sat back in his seat in a huff. Next stop he got off and the kids (and me) relaxed a little bit. I wanted to ask the girl if she was ok, but as I also looked an adult dude, I felt like it’d be best to leave her alone. When we got to my stop I asked the driver why he didn’t throw the guy off. He looked me in the eye and said that “no one complained so I didn’t need to do anything”. The fact that 3 people vocally complained and he was being suuuuper creepy to 13 year olds apparently didn’t count. I was so taken back that I didn’t know what to say, so I just got off the bus.

Ugh, remembering that guy makes my skin feel oily..

#strangerdanger #creepers #creep