Visiting team

I'm in Middletown, CT today visiting Wesleyan University. We got up here too late to really see the town. I applied here back in the day, but got waitlisted and ultimately rejected. I probably would have been happier (or at least less miserable) here than where I actually went, but in retrospect I doubt it would have made any substantial difference in my life.

We're staying in a very nice little hotel which I like because it isn't a chain. Ever since I heard that Stevie Wonder liked to stay at Holiday Inns because, as a blind person, he liked knowing that every room was identical, I've become averse to chains. I use them only when it's either necessary or when a chain acquires an idiosyncratic hotel and puts their name on it.

Even when I was traveling a lot on business I tried to do this. My favorite places I stayed were the Victorian Inn in Colorado Springs, which was a very nice bed and breakfast, and the Executive Inn in Owensboro, KY. I could, and probably should, write more than a little about my experiences in Owensboro, the 3rd largest city in Kentucky. They had a regionally famous barbecue place, Moonlight Barbecue I think. Their featured item was barbecued mutton. I never saw any sheep around Owensboro, even on the farms, so I kept asking why mutton. Nobody knew. They had a good division II basketball team there where I saw a guy who had a good NBA career play in college.

I liked the Executive Inn because they had rooms with Murphy Beds. Murphy Beds, for those who have never experienced them, are beds that fold up into the wall when you are not using them. In cartoons, they are prone to trapping unsuspecting folk who don't operate them correctly between them and the wall. From my experience, they're pretty harmless. The rooms are funny though because they have to leave space in the middle for the room for the bed to fold down, so all the furniture is arrayed along the edges of the room and when it's folded up into the wall there's a ring of furniture around a big empty space.

You can actually open the window in this room. Almost makes you feel kind of human.