Posting From the Road

Basically, another 15-minute post before bed.
The trip along Interstate 10 is just as I remembered it: long, relatively flat, and kind of spectacular from a landscape point of view. I'm glad I got up early to get on the road sooner this morning--the drive is far more interesting during the day than at night. The mountains and mesas of Arizona, southern New Mexico, and west Texas are always beautiful, especially as the sun starts to go down.

This time some of them were snow-capped, and a few mountains were snowy just on their north-facing sides. It made for interesting scenery. I also got snowed on myself for about five minutes, which was just enough to remind me it's cold out there.

So far my prediction about gas prices continuing to fall is ringing true. The prices dropped nearly 50 cents for gallon between now and then, and that was before I left Tucson. The prices around here are around $1.95 per gallon, which I haven't seen in over a decade.

I had a big breakfast with Laura before leaving Tucson, and it lasted me most of this trip. The only other food I've had today was a bowl of beef stew from a truck stop and a bag a Funyuns. I would have preferred Hot Fries but alas.

When I got into This American Life a few years ago I downloaded a torrent of all of the episodes up to that point--443 episodes total. I was determined to listen to them all in order. So I did. Three years later, I'm finally caught up to three years ago, and I found myself in a bind: apparently nobody has updated that torrent in the past three years, so my only option was to actually pay for the next crop of episodes to bring myself up to the present day. I love the show, but was I really ready to drop $1 per episode?

I was kind of disgusted at myself for even thinking that. I've been enjoying free entertainment, pretty much, for the past year--I definitely owe them something for all of that.

However, when I went to iTunes to download and pay for ten episodes to cover me for this trip I couldn't find the backlog. Instead there was only the latest episode, which is free, but I'm not going to start listening to them out of order after all of this.

However, I did find an official This American Life app, which cost just $3 and gives me access to the entire backlog for free. What a deal! The app itself is a bit buggy, but for $3 I now have legitimate access to those 443 episodes I pirated plus the 80 or so more I haven't heard yet. My guilt is assuaged, at least until the next donation drive.