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Commuter Hell

Welcome to Commuter Hell

We are not what you would call car people. The last time we owned a car was back in Slippery Rock, PA in the winter of 1991. It was a junker that we picked up for $500 to get us back and forth to school in the winter. By the early spring, we found out that the car's transmission was being held in by a block of wood. In the late spring, we sold the car to a used car dealer, made a couple of hundred dollars and decided that we got the better end of the deal.

I didn't even get my license until 1993.

Now, we live in a city where every family owns at least one car… and since most Hartford residents work in the surrounding towns, it's necessary. So, in preparation to moving to Hartford, Janet and I tasked my mother with the search for a car.

A few days after calling her, she had found us what seemed to be a perfect car, being sold by an upstanding car dealer with a good reputation in the community. $1500 later ($1000 for the car, $500 for needed body work&#41, we were the proud owners of a 1993 Honda Civic DX.

That was early May. Fast forward to May 27, the day we picked the car up from the body shop… and the first time we ever saw the car.

First off, the car is a bit dented… which we found out is because it was stolen and found abandoned on the street by the police. It's missing the passenger side mirror… which isn't the biggest problem, because the passenger side door isn't the same color as the rest of the car (the car is navy, yet the door is charcoal&#41. It's dirty, smelly, and the radio doesn't work. We were quite unhappy.

The 10 mile drive from the shop to the house was a nightmare. The car rattled, creaked and started to overheat. Janet (who was driving at the time&#41 said that it felt like the car was going to stall at any moment. We made it back to the apartment and just sort of shook our heads in disbelief: we owned yet another junker.

It's now three weeks later and our perception of this plucky little Honda has changed. A fill-up with premium and some dry gas took care of the stalling and rattling problem… and a good dose of water and coolant took care of the overheating. Heck, even the door color isn't a problem because it helps me find the car in the parking lot to my office. Sure, the wheels need to be aligned and the radio needs to be replaced, but all in all, it's mechanically sound… and that's all that matters to me. Every day I put almost 50 miles on my Civic, and isn't really giving me any significant trouble… I just need to give it high-test and a give the radiator its weekly refill (no, it doesn't leak… we're still trying to figure this one out&#41, and it rewards me by getting me to work on time.

I think I like owning a car.

But as essentially a first time driver, dealing with the other thousands of cars on the street is an interesting challenge. This chronicle will tell the story of the people, places and general annoyances involved with my time behind the wheel.

— Avery

Entries are in descending order

7/4/99

Friday didn't start out being a bad day. The morning traffic into the office was light and I was able to accomplish a ton of stuff at work. So, when the option of leaving the office a little early was brought to my attention, I really felt like I had earned an early reprieve. All I had to do is stop off in Farmington for a quick meeting at 1:30 and then I was off to start my three-day weekend.

The drive from my office in Southington to the office in Farmington is a straight shot on I-84. It's about nine miles there, and then another seven miles from the Farmington office to home. I left Southington at 1:00 and made it to Farmington at about 1:15. The meeting ran until 3:00pm and I figured that I could be home by 3:30, all goes well.

I came out of the office driveway and headed towards the I-84 on ramp. One traffic light, a quick left turn and boom, I would be on the highway.

Well, the boom was right.

As I turned onto the on-ramp, I started to accelerate to highway speed. The Finneman Road on ramp is deceptive, because you start building up speed on a straightaway, but then there is a tight-radius turn to the right to actually get on the highway. It had just started drizzling a few minutes before I got into the car.

When I started to approach the turn, I noticed how sharp it was… so I took my foot off of the gas pedal in order to slow down. By the time I had to start turning the wheel for the turn, I felt like I needed to slow down even more, so I gently eased onto the brake and started the turn.

It was at that exact moment that the car decided to misbehave for the first time. The back of the car started to spin out. Damn that centrifugal force! I was heading towards the embankment.

Boom.

That boom was the sound of my 10-day-old car hitting a yellow and black right hand turn warning signs as I headed into a small, grassy ditch at the side of the on ramp. I checked myself… I was fine. I checked the situation… I was out of the line of traffic. I grabbed the cellphone and took a look at the car.

All the wheels seemed inflated, and there was nothing pressing into the tire wells, so I figured that the car was probably still driveable. Then I assessed the damage. The sign had slammed into the passenger side door, about 5 inches from my head, broke off and smacked the hood. The door was totalled and there was a nasty dent in the hood. Someone came by and asked if I was OK. I said that I was fine and that I thought the car was driveable.

I immediately got back into the car and turned the engine on. It turned over and the CD that was in the player came on. At least the car seemed to be in order. Then I called *SP for the state police to see if there was anything I needed to do. The officer asked if anyone was hurt, to which I responded that I had knocked over a sign. He asked for the location of the accident and told me to call the non-emergency number once I got home.

Then I called GEICO. After ten minutes of waiting on hold, they took my information and told me to go home and call from there. I put down the phone, took a deep breath, put the car in reverse to get out of the holes the wheels made in the dirt, turned the steering wheel to the left and threw it into 1st gear. I was back on the road and heading onto the highway.

By the time I got home, it was near 4pm. I called Janet to tell her that I was in an accident and that I was fine. Then I called the state police, where a sympathetic Officer Foley told me to come to the Hartford Barracks to file a report. Another call to GEICO to file the formal claim and get an appointment with the claims assessor and I was done with the critical worries. It was now time to take a look at the damage again.

The rear door was crushed. It still opened and shut, but it would have to be replaced. The bottom rocker panel was shot, and there would be some dents that would need to be pulled out. The car only had 400 miles on it and now it looked like it had gone through hell. I spent the next half-hour sitting on the porch trying to compose myself.

Janet made it home around 5pm and then we were off to meet with Officer Foley. We got in, waited in the waiting area for a few minutes, and an officer came out to talk to us. He presented me with two options:

  1. He could issue me a ticket, start a formal investigation and charge me for the damaged sign
  2. Since nobody was hurt, I could leave and the DOT would fix the sign

The officer explained that people take those signs out all of the time. I asked him if there would be anything wrong with taking option #2, and he told me that there is no problem. We left, figuring that we have just saved him an hour's worth of paperwork.

We meet with the adjustor on Saturday, and he estimated that we did about $2500 worth of damage to the car. When I explained what had happened, he told me that what probably happened is that the drizzling rain made the seeped-in oils on the highway leech out, making it like black ice. It was a freak convergence of a number of factors that caused the accident. I left feeling a little better, but still nervous to be in the car.

It's now Sunday afternoon. I'm still kicking myself in the ass for getting into the accident, but I'm happy that nobody was hurt and that the damage was relatively minimal. Still, my perfect little virginal car has been deflowered… and it will never be the same again.

At least I don't have to worry about the first scratch anymore.

6/23/99
If you haven't read yesterday's entry yet, let me summarize: the car is dead. On the way to work on Monday, it overheated. That afternoon, when I tried to turn on the car so I could drive it to the repair shop, it wouldn't even turn over. The alternator/generator light was on and the oil light was an angry red. It was done for. Kaput.

Ricky at Eddie's Evergreen had assured me that someone would look at the car Monday night, and would get back to me with a status of what was wrong with the car and how much it would cost to fix it. For some reason, I had a gnawing feeling that this was going to be yet another debacle… where the car would be in the shop for weeks and that even if the repairs went well, that the car was going to become a regular customer at Eddie's.

So, when I got home Monday afternoon, I started calling around to car dealerships to see what sort of financing I could get on a new car. The numbers looked good, so I knew that if the Civic was destined to be a problem child, we had options. Monday night came and I called Ricky. His response was that he was busy and wouldn't have a chance to look at it until Tuesday morning. I made a decision that if I didn't hear from Ricky by noon, that I would hit the car dealership on the way home.

Tuesday. Noon. No call from Ricky. A call to the service station gets me the following response from the maintainance desk: "We're swamped, but we'll get to it this afternoon" Ok. Does Avery smell the bullshit here? They sold me the car less than a month ago and now they're balking on fixing the car which is still under warranty? Something was seriously wrong with both the car and the people at Eddie's who sold it to me. No more negotiation… time to get a new car.

I had been researching cars on the internet, and decided to look at a Kia Sephia. The Sephia is a Korean interpretation of the Honda Civic, but with a larger engine, better warranty and a lower price tag… almost $4000 less than a similarly-equipped Civic (power steering, AC, automatic transmission, extended warranty, etc&#41. The local Kia dealer was less than 10 miles from my office, so I called Joe, the salesman at Crowley Auto and made a 4:30 appointment.

3:30pm: Called Ricky, he said that he was busy and that he would call me back in five minutes.

3:55pm: Called Ricky again, asked why he didn't call me back. He informs me that Mike is working on the car and will have some information for me soon.

4:00pm: I'm in the car and on my way to Crowley. Enough is enough.

I arrived at the dealership on time, and Joe (the salesman&#41 immediately had me in the driver seat of a Garnet Red 1999 Sephia. It felt just like the Civic, except for the fact that this car had its tires aligned and didn't smell like burning anti-freeze. A 5 mile test drive later, and I decided that I could see myself driving this car. For the heck of it, I also test drove the Kia Sportage, their entry level SUV, but the gas mileage and handling weren't what I was looking for.

5:30pm: While the paperwork was being processed, and I was on the way home to pick up Janet so she could test drive the car. But first, I needed to make one quick stop.

6:00pm: I arrive at Eddie's so I can get the registration and front plate off of the Civic. I pull in, expecting to see the car in one of the service bays. It isn't. It's still sitting where the tow truck had left it at 2pm on Monday. Fuming, I get the paperwork and spare plate out of the glove compartment (which is still sitting on the passenger side floor&#41 and ask for Mike. Mike tells me that he's been busy and will get to it Wednesday morning.

7:00pm: Janet and I are back at Crowley, and Janet gets behind the wheel. No problems (though she has a little concern with the acceleration from a full stop when the A/C is on&#41, and we tell Joe to finalize the credit application.

7:40pm: We're at the desk of Barry Savage, the credit officer to sign our life away and get our temporary registration.

8:00pm: With the paperwork complete, Joe takes us to see our brand new car… a 1999 Sport Blue/Grey Kia Sephia.

17 miles later, I'm pulling into the driveway, smiling. It was the right choice for the right price, and I couldn't be happier.

6/22/99
Car fall down, go boom.

When we last left off, I was quite content with both the explanation of why the car had been overheating. The car was running fine, and everything was good. At least, everything seemed to be going well.

On Saturday (6/19&#41, we decided to make a trip up to the Great North Eastern Brewers Festival in Northampton, MA… which is about 48 miles North of Hartford. During the hour-long trip there, the car was running perfectly… the engine hummed and the thermostat needle never went above the mid-point. Everything seemed fine.

Fast forward three hours. Janet and I return to the car and start it up. The needle rises to the mid-point, but stays level. Since the needle tends to drop when it hits highway speeds, we weren't concerned and started off towards home. Somewhere near Springfield, a full 35 miles away from home, the needle rockets towards H. Oy. Either we pull off and let the bugger cool down, which will take a couple of hours… or we could keep on driving and risk damaging the car. We decided to take the third (and most uncomfortable&#41 option: we cranked the heat so we could siphon some of the heat off of the engine and cool it down to a driveable level. The combination of driving at 65 MPH and blasting the heat was enough to keep the needle from hitting the H… though it did little to cool our tempers. We pulled into the house, killed the engine and popped the hood. Steam and hissing: the signs of general unhappiness eminated from the radiator, Janet and me.

Sunday morning we woke up and I puttered around with the radiator: I flushed the radiator, bled the air bubbles from the line and refilled the tank with the proper mix of coolant and water… and everything seemed to work fine. Janet piled into the car and we were off to run our weekend errands. By the time we made it two miles to the intersection of New Britain Ave and South Quaker, the needle was reaching for the H and white wisps of smoke started appearing from under the hood. We pulled into the parking lot behind Omni Comics and popped the hood. This was not good at all.

I decided to run into Omni to see if we had anything in our subscription box and while I was there, the store manager told me that the service shop at Pep Boys might be open. He gave me directions and I went back to the car to see if it would even start. It did, even though the engine was hot. Luck was with us and the needle stayed barely out of the red for the half-mile trek to Pep Boys. Their service station wasn't staffed for repair work since it was a Sunday, but I was able to pick up a Honda Civic repair guide… and we left for home to start diagnosing the problem.

With the help of the garden hose, the car cooled down quickly, and I was able to start going through the trouble-shooting checklist. I checked the fuses, and watched the car idle to see if the cooling fan kicked in. I pushed where I was supposed to push and I prodded where I was supposed to prod. The end result was that for a half of an hour, I waited for the car to start to overheat so I could figure out if it was the water pump or the thermostat, but the needle never rose beyond the midpoint. I decided to call Eddie's Evergreen Mobil Monday morning to get the car looked at.

When I left for work on Monday morning, the car was fine for the first 15 miles of the 17 mile drive. The needle hovered in the safe range, and all seemed fine. However, when I slowed down for some traffic, the needle went right into the red. I pulled in to witness steam pouring horribly out of the hood. Five minutes later, I was on the phone with Ricky at the service station, discussing the situation. He recommended that I get the car in as soon as possible, and that he would put in a new thermostat. I agreed that this was a prudent course of action and scheduled a 1:30 appointment.

At 1pm, I left the office and went down to the car. Time for the post over-heat check… check the pressure cap, add more water, look for any obvious cracks or leaks in the radiator. Everything looked fine. I sat down, inserted the key and turned the ignition.

Nothing happened.

Ok, something happened: the oil light (I checked the oil Sunday and it was fine&#41, alternator light and the battery light all came on… which was interesting, as they had never come on before. The car wouldn't even turn over. It was dead. One quick call to GEICO insurance, and a tow truck was sent out to drag the car (and me&#41 to Eddie's. Ricky had no idea what was wrong, but promised that he would call with an update Tuesday morning. In the meantime, he suggested that I get a rental car. So, I dialed 800-RENTACAR (Enterprise&#41 and picked up a Dodge Neon for the duration of the repair time.

When I got home, I started to think about it. The overheating probably did some serious damage to the head gasket… and the car needed some pre-winter body work, a new paint job, new tires and a paint job. The Civic would cost me about $1500 in work over the next six months. So I started calculating the cost of a new car. Janet arrived home while I was looking through the phone book for new car dealers. I called one dealer near my office and talked to a sales rep. Within a few minutes, I was pre-approved for either a lease or a low-interest rate financing for a new car. It's now lunchtime on Tuesday… the Civic is still DOA and I have an appointment with the salesman at 4:30pm. Maybe by this time tomorrow, I'll be in in my own brand new car.

6/14/99

I really don't think that it should smoke like that.

Though the Civic has been a real trooper for the last few weeks, it has developed a bad habit of overheating. So, every day I would add in a few liters of water/coolant into the radiator… and the car would be fine… unless I got stuck in rush hour traffic on the way home, in which case the car would invariably overheat and would be well over the H by the time I pulled into the driveway.

But yesterday as we drove back from furniture shopping in Manchester, CT, it pinned at the H almost immediately as we pulled out of the parking lot. That, and the car started stalling. We knew that there was a problem. That was confirmed as soon as we pulled into the driveway and saw steam pouring out of the hood. Now, I'll be the first to tell you that I am not a gearhead, but even I knew that something was wrong.

Needless to say, I was disturbed. I was pacing around what was about to become a half-ton paperweight wondering how I was going to get into work today. However, after a quick refill with coolant, the temperature dropped to a normal level and I was relieved. I also decided to take the car into the dealership for a check.

Now, I'm a cynic (like you don't know that by now&#41. I believe that everyone is out to screw you… and that if they're extending a hand in friendship, they probably have a knife in the other hand, just waiting to stab you. Add to that my normal fear of mechanics, and you have a potentially nervewracking experience.

Ok… let me clarify. I'm not scared of mechanics like some people are scared of clowns. It's just that I feel so helpless around them. I know nothing about the workings of my engine, and they can essentially tell me that it needs $1000 worth of work, when in reality it only needs a $10 piece of wire or something. So this time I decided to do some research on the internet to see what was causing these mysterious problems.

I came up with three possibilities:

  1. The thermostat is shot. Internet price for a thermostat: $40
  2. The fan motor is shot. Internet price for a cooling fan: $160
  3. The wiring is shot. Internet price for that: a whole heckuva lot

Plus, none of those solutions even came close to explain why the car is stalling. Oy.

4pm. I arrive at Eddie's Evergreen Mobil on Farmington Ave, ready for what was sure to be the reaming of a lifetime. I pull in and ask for Ricky, the mechanic who certified the car before purchase. I explain the problem.

To make a long story short, within a half of an hour, he finds the primary problem: an air bubble in the radiator kept the water from flowing between the radiator and the engine. He bled the air out, and the car immediately sounded better.

Then he broke the bad news.

When the car overheated, the head gasket tore, allowing water to leak into the cylinder. That's what caused all of the water to evaporate, which made the car overheat even more, and it also made the car stall at low speeds. He poured in a can of sealant, waited another 15 minutes and turned the motor on again. Better.

Ricky told me that the tear might have been small, and that the sealant would be enough to fix it… but unfortunately, only time will tell. However, if the head gasket needs to be replaced, his exact words were: Don't worry about it, I'll take care of you.

Suddenly, I'm not so afraid of mechanics anymore.

Posted in Chronicles.

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By Avery – July 18, 1999

Car Troubles

When I used to occasionally rent a car in San Francisco I would make a vain attempt to drive through the city, have a nervous breakdown, and the next day give kudos to everyone I knew in SF who owned — and drove — a car. I used to get a kick out of driving, even back in high school when my only choice of vehicles were the giant blue Ford station wagon (affectionately named "The Boat"&#41 or the brown and red 1973 AMC Matador station wagon (which was simply called "The Matador"&#41. The Matador was the one I was stuck with most frequently. It had windshield wipers that only worked once in a blue moon, a hole in the floor of the passenger's side (conveniently hidden by the floormat&#41, a driver's side door that stuck so bad that you had to kick it open to get out and then kick it closed again. It guzzled gas like nobody's business. It required a dose of dry gas every other day, especially in the winter. It embarrassed me by making my clothes smell like exhaust fumes.

But enough moseying down Nightmare Car From Hell Memory Lane…now I've got a new car and evidently all the stress that goes along with being a full-time driver. I have discovered that I definitely have the symptoms of Road Rage. Why all the anger, you ask? For one thing, people here drive fast. Though the speed limit on the highway is 65, there is rarely anyone going 65 or 70 (except for me, of course&#41 — 85 or 90 is more like it. Even when not on the highway, people like to tailgate if the person driving in front of them is going anywhere near the vicinity of the speed limit. Where do these people think we are, the straightaway stretches of a Wyoming highway? 65 MPH on a back road of West Hartford where there are traffic lights, not to mention the threat of a hyperactive squirrel scurrying out in front of the car at any moment, I might add, is just too damn fast for me. Source of Rage: the leadfoot drivers who get pissed at me for driving at or 5 miles above the posted speed limit.

While these people are pretending to be the stars of the Indy 500, they often like to throw trash out their car windows. Perhaps they are trying to make their vehicle a little lighter, hence faster; I'm not quite sure. I recently followed a woman on the highway who was going about 75 MPH. White things kept flying out of her open window towards my car. As I got closer to her, I could see her dabbing at her eyes with tissues while looking in the rearview mirror, then throwing the tissues out her window. She must have — and I kid you not — gone through half of a box of Kleenex, one by one. Source of Rage: a.&#41 I'm no Save The Earth fanatic, but Jesus! Just because your car is no longer littered with 3-month-old soda cups and assorted candy bar wrappers doesn't mean the trash itself has disappeared. No one's following you around picking it up either. No, there are no "people for that." and b.&#41 When you throw things out your window, they then come flying towards my window, placing me directly in the 4-Car Pileup Just Waiting To Happen camp. Well, ya better bring some marshmallows, honey, 'cuz the tissues that don't make it out your window and instead fly into your backseat and start swirling around and blocking your view out the back window will help put you right next to me at the 4-Car Pileup Just Waiting To Happen campfire.

 I've saved the best for last: the highway systems of the Greater Hartford area. There are no straight parts of the highway roads here. Every ramp onto or off of the highway proper is a hairpin turn; consequently, you either have to enter the highway at 30 MPH, or risk loss of life and/or limb by taking the on/off-ramp on two wheels at a speed closer to the speed that those leadfoot drivers are going to be going once you get onto I-84. Additionally, every lane on the highway serves a different purpose: one is for people going to 91 South, one is for the people going to 91 North, one is for the people staying on I-84 East or West, and the other is, of course, an Exit Only Lane. You literally need to be in the correct lane within 30 seconds of getting onto the highway or, to put it bluntly, you're fucked. If you want to get to I-84, which is the farthest left lane, and you, of course having just entered onto the highway are in the farthest right lane, you sure as hell better get over there right quick. Of course, not only are you in the wrong lane, the majority of everyone else is also in the wrong lane, and everyone's going 80, and some people are panicking and swerving because they're in the Exit Only lane, and so on.

I have found this strict one-lane-for-one-purpose theory of building roads to be true throughout the area. There is a relatively new big-ass mall in Manchester which has been turned into the Center of the Universe for Shopping — Connecticut Chapter by having every single mega-store in existence (WalMart, Home Depot, Borders, PetCo, Big KMart, Bernie's, Christmas Tree Shop, Marshalls, Circuit City, etc.&#41 each build an outpost around the mall itself. All of these stores are connected by an intricate spiderweb of service roads which, if you drive around long enough, are supposed to connect you, the gentle shopper, with all of the stores. Each and every time we go there we end up in the wrong lane, or turn down the wrong road, or get on the highway by accident, or fail to get on the highway at all, causing us to drive several extra miles trying to find a place to turn around, or all of the above in one single trip. This doesn't include the time and energy spent cursing the Buckland Hills Mall Development People for not putting up better signs or maybe even a map, for god's sake, or the Buckland Hills-induced arguments-turned-shouting matches between Avery and me over which lane is the correct lane to get to the Bernie's part of the complex, or where the hell PetCo even is ("It's near the KMart part." "No, dumbass, it's nowhere near the KMart part." "Don't call me a dumbass, you're the shitty driver!" and so on and so forth.&#41 I think that the last time we visited the Buckland Hills Mall area I burst a blood vessel in the front of my head, I really do. Source of Rage: the retards who built these highways in the first place. Why did you need to erect a six-lane highway that heads into a city which for the most part no one even wants to be in?

My mother-in-law says that she would never walk up to someone and call them an fucking asshole, but when she's in the car it just comes blurting forth. I think this is true for a lot of us…Road Ragers Anonymous, anyone?

Posted in Scowls.

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By Janet – July 18, 1999

Missing San Francisco

One of the things that I thought I was going to miss since I left San Francisco was the comraderie that I had with my co-workers. Every Friday, sure as clockwork, we'd all leave and head over to Harrington's, our local bar, for a few pints of beer so we could decompress from the week.

But now that I work in an area where there are no bars within walking distance, I figured that it just wouldn't happen now that I'm working in a more suburban environment.

But luckily, I was mistaken.

There is a core group of people at my office who understand that it's important to get out of the office on a regular basis to blow off steam, and the bar of choice is a local tavern called J. Timothy's. J. Timothy's is about 8 miles from the office (in the direction of my house&#41, and every Wednesday for the last few weeks, we have made a point to get out there for Rocks and Wings night. The basic concept is for $16.95, you get 50 wings and five 7oz bottles of Rolling Rock in an ice-filled bucket.

Rolling Rock. Ick.

The last thing that I wanted to to was be a beer geek, but Rolling Rock and I don't get along very well… actually, the corn in the wort (that's the grains they make the beer out of&#41 gives me a nasty hangover, so I would have to find something else. I was sure that they'd at least have Sam Adams or a local beer available at the bar, so I wasn't too concerned. However, when I walked in for the first time, I was in for a surprise.

Heaven. I was in beer heaven. J. Timothy's had three or four craft beers on tap (including Magic Hat #9&#41 and a bottled beer selection that sent me into shock: Aventinus Doppelbock, one of my all time favorite beers; Anderson Valley Hop Ottin IPA and Poleeko Gold, my regular beers from San Francisco; Lindemans Peche, a fantastic peach beer from Belgium; Franziskaner Hefeweisen and Dunkel Hefeweisen, the best wheat beers ever made; the venerable Hoegaarden White, one of the two best Belgian White beers being made, as well as a number of other great domestic craft beers and hard to find imports. Great wings, fantastic company and a beer selection that rivals the best beer bars in San Francisco. The only drawback is that since I still have to drive another 12 miles to get home, I have to practice extreme temperance in my drinking… so I can only go through a couple of beers every time I go there.

Damn. I guess this means that I'll just have to become a regular there as well.

Posted in Barflies At Large.

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By Avery – July 18, 1999

In Memoriam

This first appeared as the Front Page for 7/15/99

A letter from our Alma Mater came in the mail yesterday.

It was the first letter that we had received from the school in a couple of months, so when Janet saw the envelope, she figured that it was the alumni association asking for donations again. You would think that by now they would have gotten a hint that we aren't planning on donating to the college because, plainly, the school just sucked. Still, we read every letter they sent, hoping to get some information on the few teachers that we felt were something special… but usually the only thing that accompanied the donation request form was a notice about the Student Center that was almost completed (they've been saying that line for the last five years&#41 or to announce that the school's soccer team won some kind of award. However, this time there wasn't any little trite bit of news enclosed in the envelope… just one piece of bad news.

Ronald Lettieri, our Political Science instructor and mentor had passed away last fall at the age of 48. No details or date, just a sheet of paper with his picture and a note that he had passed. Mr. Lettieri made an impact with every student in his class and when he wasn't instructing political science seminars, he was developing reading programs for the underprivileged children in Boston and writing grant proposals for the college. He saw something in Mount Ida College that nobody else seemed to see: potential.

Ronald Lettieri also recognized that the practice of politics was not limited to the people in local, state or federal legislatures. In his classes, he reminded us of the activists and the great people who sacrificed everything for what they believed in. Nothing sent that message home more clearly than when he convinced the the college to award Muhammad Ali a Doctor of Humanities degree. The Honorary Doctorate wasn't for his history in sports or to reward Ali for all of the school programs that he supported all throughout the country, but because he sacrificed everything when he decided to oppose a war that he found to be unjust.

Ron Lettieri saw what the college could be to the community, and it seems that he was the school's greatest advocate until the day he died.

Following the notice, there was a slip of paper that listed the scholarship programs that the college is putting together in his name, as well as a notice that they are commissioning a portrait for a new building that the grant proposals he had written over the past few years had funded.

For the first time, it's time to make a donation.

Posted in Scowls.

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By Avery – July 18, 1999

Civic Cafe – Hartford

I have wanted to start my own restaurant for years, and in late 1997, I started to develop my cooking skills and modify my recipes for a larger audience. When I finally broke through the mental barrier and said "you know… I could really pull this off…" I started examining every detail of the restaurants that I would frequent. I would comment on the service and the settings, make notes on the decor and staffing requirements, and would always give my opinion on the layout and physical design of the restaurant. So, when Janet and I were sitting in The Slanted Door Vietnamese Restaurant in San Francisco's Mission/Valencia District and she commented, "Let's guess, nice space… Right?", I knew that I had crossed the line between idle thought about starting my own restaurant and had moved into full-fledged obsession.

So when I go out to eat, I am extremely critical of all aspects of the meal… which can make for exasperating dinner conversation whenever we try a new restaurant for the first time… and Friday night at the The Civic Cafe on Trumbull was no exception.

The Civic Cafe is one of those chi-chi fusion restaurants that have a habit of popping up in the financial areas of every major city. I'll be the first to tell you that I am not enamored with fusion cuisine, but the Civic had a great reputation, and since I had decided to meet Janet by her office (which is a block away from the Civic&#41, I figured that we might as well give it a shot.

Walking into the Civic, I felt like I had just walked through a teleporter device and been transported back to the West Coast. The Civic Cafe had the typical high-class funky San Francisco feel to it… exposed metal, industrial styling and wait-staff clad entirely in black. As we were brought to our table, I noticed that the multi-level wraparound bar was one of the most interesting restaurant bar-areas that I have seen in a long time. The people who put this place together obviously wanted to create something cutting edge.

I think that if we had stayed at the bar, I would have been much happier with the Civic, but hindsight is always 20-20, and we were seated at a cozy table-for-two on the side of the restaurant.

Food Review Dictionary – Term #1 Cozy – Definition: Small.

You know that a table is small when you have to shift the salt and pepper shakers to the side of the table just to set down a couple of glasses of beer. After our appetizers arrived and we had to shift around the topography of the table, the waitress even mentioned that she thought the table was too small. Here's a tip to the owners: If the tables are cramped, people won't come back. But I digress, I'm talking about the appetizers before we ever go through the ordering experience.

Ok, the ordering experience was actually very smooth. Less than a minute after being seated by the maitre-d', our waitress came around to ask if we wanted anything to drink. Since we had gone to the Hartford Brewery earlier that evening, we decided to ask for a list of the beers available. The waitress was able to rattle off the beers and even give some basic information about each selection without even looking at a cheat-sheet, which is a nice change from the typical "um… let me check…" response that I usually get when asking that question. However, when we did end up ordering beers, you would have thought that she would have removed the wine glasses from the table…

Before our beers arrived, another server quickly filled our water glasses and another brought a piece of bread and something that looked like butter. I mean, it was beige-yellow spread served in a white porcelain ramekin, so I assumed it was something butter-like.

Nope.

I still don't know what it was, but it was some fusion idea gone horribly wrong. I call it the franken-butter and highly suggest avoiding it if you go there. A few minutes later, she arrived with our beer and took our order. We made our selections (tuna tartare appetizer and a half-chicken entree for Janet, while I decided to have the rock shrimp tempura appetizer and the glazed pork tenderloin for dinner&#41, and I asked for a large bottle of San Pelligrino. She left, and we went back to trying to identify the ingredients in the franken-butter.

Our waitress came back a few seconds later and meekly informed us that they didn't have any Pelligrino, or any other large bottle of sparkling water. All they had was non-bubbly Evian and small bottles of bubbly Blue Water. When I asked the server what the heck Blue Water was, she pointed to a bottle of water being served at the table across the floor from us. "Oh," I responded, "you mean Ty Nant water" and then declined both selections, deciding to stick with the filtered tap water.

The waitress left and I started to fume. We're at one of the most expensive restaurants in Hartford and they don't have any large bottles of fucking sparkling water? However, the appetizers arrived and the delicious food calmed my rapidly heating temper. The dishes were removed as soon as we finished, and dinner was brought quickly afterwards. The rest of the evening tended to go smoothly, except for the fact that not once throughout the meal did they ever bother to refill our water. Tsk.

Since it was still early, we decided to split a chocolate mousse napoleon for dessert. My god, this was fantastic. Dark, rich chocolate mousse with crisp chocolate phyllo dough, bananas and strawberries layered in between. This was a work of art. Unfortunately, the cappuccino that I ordered (as well as Janet's latte&#41 were sub-par. Plus, they dusted cinnamon on top of the coffees without asking first… and I hate cinnamon on coffee! So I lost half of my foam as I scraped off the offending garnish. Then I looked to the sugar-packets-in-a-square-ramekin to see if they had any turbinado sugar (i.e.: Sugar in the Raw&#41, or if I would be stuck with white sugar. 8 packets of Equal, 5 or 6 packets of Sweet 'n' Low and maybe a dozen packets of white sugar later, I found one packet of Sugar in the Raw. Someone had not cared to refill the ramekin after the last person rifled through the packets. I was about to complain, but since the espresso in the cappuccino was so weak, I didn't need the second packet as I had originally expected.

The end of the story is that the Civic Cafe's chefs should be applauded. The recipes were exciting and orginal, and the food was perfectly prepared. I wouldn't have changed a single thing from the food perspective. However, at $20 or more for an entree, I found the staff preparation and the service deplorable. If I'm going to pay over a hundred dollars for a meal, I want my water refilled, my table spacious and the bread served with real butter or olive oil, damnit!

Guess I'll file this experience up to the learn from other people's mistakes pile.

Posted in Observations.

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By Avery – July 17, 1999

Some truths about Hartford

Like I said in a previous smirk, when we told our friends in San Francisco that we were moving to Hartford, they warned us about everything that we wouldn't be able to get out in Connecticut. Well, we've been here for 44 days now, and here's my tally of the things they said that we couldn't get out here.

The sushi there is going to suck.
Well, anyone who has read the 6/27/99 smirk knows that Janet and I found a great sushi bar less than two miles from our apartment (Fuji on New Britain Ave&#41. Last weekend, we decided to take a drive and ended up at another sushi hot-spot called Murasaki.

Murasaki was the quintessential San Francisco sushi experience. The fish was excellent, the company was boorish, the chefs were aloof and the sake was overpriced. We left feeling simultaneously sated and slighted. It reminds me of every time I walked out of Sanraku on Sutter Street in San Francisco… except that at Sanraku they had Sapporo beer in the 21oz bottle, not the 12oz only.

Maybe you can find sushi, but what about dim sum?
Janet and I used to go to Yank Sing in San Francisco for a dim sum lunch every couple of weeks. Dim Sum there was the real deal: steam carts would come by and you would point to the dishes you wanted. Our average dim sum session would last for an hour or so, where we would end up sharing anywhere from 10 to 15 dishes (there are only 3-4 dumplings in each steam dish&#41 drinking a pot or two of pu-erh tea (a relatively esoteric semi-fermented loose leaf tea&#41 and spending between $50 and $65 for the meal. The loss of this weekend ritual concerned me, and I thought that my San Franciscan compatriots had me on this one.

Bzzt! Wrong! Green Tea Restaurant in Farmington (14 miles from home&#41 serves 20 to 30 different types of dim sum every Sunday morning. When we went there last Sunday, we were treated to excellent siu mai (a pork dumpling&#41, kuo teh (pan-fried potsticker dumplings&#41 and the best char-siu bao (steamed pork buns&#41 that I have ever tasted. Not only that, but when I asked for pu-erh tea, they brought out a pot for us on the house. I guess that not too many caucasians ever eat dim sum there, let alone order in Cantonese and request an obscure tea. We left feeling a few pounds heavier, and spent less than a Jackson ($18 before the tip&#41 to boot!

Ok. What about Mexican food?
Well, they've got me so far on the Mexican food front, but I have been told by reliable sources that the Parkville neighborhood sports a few great authentic Mexican joints. Unfortunately, there is no sign of a taqueria.

On the other side, Hartford has some great Jamaican, Portuguese and Brazilian restaurants… and since I can get everything I need to make burritos at our local Stop and Shop (they have a whole aisle dedicated to Goya products&#41, I don't miss the those L. Ricos burritos all that much.

By the way, if you've never had a fresh Portugese Roll (which I couldn't find for the life of me in San Francisco&#41 from a store-front bakery, you're missing out on one of the greatest culinary experiences.

How about Italian food?
Hartford's Italian section wins. Hands down. Not only do we have better Northern and Southern Italian food, but the pizza here is the best in the country (in my not so humble opinion&#41. You can go the premium route (like Luna's, Lena's or Harry's&#41, or just go out to Whitney Pizza for a good, greasy Greek pizza where they cut it in squares unless you ask them to cut it like a pie.

So, you say that the food is better there. How about the beer? San Francisco wins hands down, right?
First off, let me say that nothing beats the Toronado in San Francisco when it comes to beer. So, let's just factor that out and look at a level playing field.

Hartford supports three good microbreweries, and the surrounding area has another four or five breweries or brewpubs that are putting out good beers. Once you add in the whole Northeast, you have over 100 brewpubs and breweries shipping local craft beers to Greater Hartford Area.

Not only do you find local brews at all of the bars, fresh Anchor, Anderson Valley and Sierra Nevada are all shipped in from California, and Guinness Importing is based out of Connecticut, ensuring fresh European beer at almost every corner bar. Plus, if you get thirsty and want to buy beer for home, Crazy Bruce's runs head to head against San Francisco's Beverages and More. Just make sure that you purchase the beer before 8pm, Monday through Saturday, because the blue laws shut down the sales of closed bottles of alcohol after that (bars serve until 2am, 7 days a week&#41.

Well then, how about the arts?
San Francisco has a beautiful new library that nobody uses. Hartford, on the other hand, has the busiest library system in the country.

Hartford is also home to the Bushnell Theater, which houses a symphony, ballet, opera and takes in touring broadway shows. There's also Theaterworks (the equivalent of off-broadway&#41 and the Hartford Stage (the local stage company that hosts major talent like Andrew McCarthy&#41, as well as a number of major theater houses within an hour or so drive (Oakdale, Goodspeed, Shubert/New Haven&#41.

We have Real Art Ways in Hartford, a multi-functional theater and gallery for modern art as well as the Wadsworth Athenaeum, one of the most prestigious classical art museums in the nation.

Here's a long shot… bet you can't get Odwalla Juices out there!
You're right. We don't get Odwalla juice out here. We get Fresh Samantha's juices in Connecticut, and it's better tasting than Odwalla more cases than not.

Plus, we can get my favorite coffee, Torrefazione Italia, out here as well.

So, is there anything that you can't get in Hartford?
If you need cologne, you can go to Sephora (like in San Francisco&#41 or Nordstrom (again, like in San Francisco&#41. We have Borders Books and Starbucks Coffee and the Disney Store, just like in San Francisco's Union Square. But if you want the real funky stuff, you have to head to New York City… but since that's only a few hours away by train, that's really not so bad, is it?

Posted in Smirks.

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By Avery – July 12, 1999