Notes from the First Day

BURLINGTON--Random stuff from the beginning of the trip (edited to add a few things I forgot when originally doing the post):

• We had a three-legged flight to get here: Dallas-Cleveland-Newark-Burlington. Cleveland was cool because I was born in the suburb of Lakewood, which is very close to the airport, and we flew right over it on the way in (but not close enough to actually see my grandparents' old house in the process).


• Newark is, of course, very close to New York City, and at lunch, we heard our first true New York-ism when the cashier at Miami Subs Grill said "Can I help the next person on line?" That has nothing to do with the Internet; it's how New Yorkers say "in line" for some reason. (It was cool to eat at a Miami Subs again, since they pulled out of Dallas a while back.)


• In the Newark airport, one of those little golf-cart-type things that shuttle passengers around went past us. Evidently, the cart's horn wasn't working, because the driver actually said "beep, beep" when he drove by.


• The vehicle I'm driving for a few days is a Dodge Durango; I'll get in touch with my inner soccer mom on Monday when we get the minivans that we'll have for the rest of the week. The only drawback of the Durango is that the CD player has an Eminem CD stuck in it, and we can't get the Eject button to work at all.


• A few of us stocked up on provisions at a local grocery store, and Zirkle and I decided to try this thing called "birch beer." It's a cousin of root beer and is quite good; imagine a cross between root beer and cream soda and you'll get the general idea.


• The grocery store in question had a checkout line that was marked "no candy at this register." I asked my cashier if that was intended for harried parents with kids who would grab and beg for it while they were there, and she said I was correct. She also noted that one of their other cashiers is named Candy, and she used that sign to try and get out of being assigned to that register.


• One semi-disappointing concert note: Michael Brecker is having some vertebrae problems again, so he's out of the lineup for Friday night's Saxophone Summit concert. However, he's being replaced by Chris Potter, who we didn't get to see here two years ago with the Dave Holland Big Band. I'm glad that Brecker was well enough to play with Directions in Music back in March, and we'll get to see his brother Randy tomorrow night.

Servin' in rhythm: The flight attendants on the Cleveland-to-Newark flight kept repeating this same line over and over again as they moved the beverage cart up to the front:

Watch your knees and elbows, excuse the cart.
They said this with such rhythmic precision that it almost sounded like rap; if you're a musician, put the above line to this pattern: 1-e-and-a 2-e, -a 3-and-a.(Wow, I'm such a music geek). That little chant stayed with me for quite some time.