20th June 2009, Saturday

The Fray was in the fray at Chevrolet Hall, Wallingford, CT on the 20th June. My friend Venkat and I couldn't be more excited about listening to a live version of "How to save a life..!!". Very honestly, neither of us knew too many songs from The Fray. If anything, I knew one song and he knew two of them thoroughly. I had listened to them several times in the past on star99.9 - 99@9

As always, I went to Enterprise to help myself with transportation arrangements - I had to pick up Venkat from Worcester in MA, which was about 120 miles away from where I stay in Connecticut - the tiny, hilly, serene little town of Shelton. Got hold of a decently new Volkswagen Jetta which had around 24ooo miles on it. It had a powerful engine which would surely get one a speeding ticket if he is too hard on the gas pedal. Luckily, for such folks it also comes with a very nice cruise control feature too.

My journey starts at 10 AM in the morning on Saturday. I stop over at East Hartford,CT to pick up one of my friends and drop him to his office in the downtown area. Don't ask me why I go north east and then come south west only to head back again on the north east... I know I wouldn't have thought twice about it even if it was 50 miles distance from his place to his office. Apart from the predilection I have towards driving ever since I came over here, he is quite a down-to-earth kind of a friend of mine to whom I always love giving tough times and pulling his legs publicly with such captions in photographs on orkut and picasa etc.

We go and pull over near a traffic light adjacent to his office building... I wouldn't want him to go and he wouldn't get off immediately too. We keep talking for a while, turning on the hazard lights on the car, shutters down. After a while, we realize a need to get going with our respective work and he gets off wishing me a safe drive and a happy time at the concert. And yes, not before asking me to drop by once again, either the same day or the next day on my trips back and forth from Conn. to Mass.

From Hartford downtown, I was crawling at 65 mph towards Worcester. I must admit that if I hadn't got my speeding ticket a month earlier, I would have definitely been at least at 80 mph on I-84 East. What an adorable road, neatly paved along the hills, with lush greenery overlooking every foot of your travel from either side. Since it goes up to Boston, it is a three-lane all the way too.

I had the GPS with me. But my ego and half-baked sense of geography and topography wouldn't just allow me to use it. A nice green huge board announces an exit to RT 20 towards Worcester and I gleefully hop onto it. I don't know what would await me on that road. My plain trust was - Worcester is too big a place not to be having any kind of sign boards. And yeah, when I took on I-290 towards it from RT-20, I realized how big a place it was - I had to call Venkat to find out which exit I would need to take to come over to his place :-) There were a total of 9 exits spanning around 10 miles, each with speed limits ranging from 40 mph to 55 mph with a note that the speeds are tracked through the radar.

"Take the exit onto Burncoat and Lincoln Street", he said, over the phone. I take the exit, hit a traffic light, where I turn left - only to find pretty much later, after driving into the town for more than two miles, that I should have actually gone straight in the first place. But anyways, it was worth the diversion, with a scenic valley view embellished with grassy patches (which O presume, should be some kind of golf courts)

Once more, my egoistic geographic and topographic senses wouldn't allow me to pull the God darn GPS out and set his address on it. I meticulously take a K-turn and come back to the traffic light where I swerved off to the left. I take a left and I got going in the right direction. I hit another traffic light where I turn right. I drive a few hundred feet and pull over. I call Venkat to find out how do I reach his place from there. He struggled to answer my question. At last, with such a great hesitation, I take out the GPS. And what does it say? "Drive 100 feet. Take a U-Turn. Drive 0.6 miles. Arrive at destination on the left..!!" :) I curse myself that I was so close and so correct but wasn't able to make it properly..!! :(

We play a short game of tennis for sometime in the afternoon and later set out on our journey towards Wallingford. I got to the theater at 06:45 PM. The concert was to begin at 07:30 PM. The gates were slated to be open by 07:00 PM. What do we find? It starts pouring cats and dogs :) And what do we do - keep the umberalla safely locked in the car and head out getting wet in the rain.. lolz..

The concert begins. Another funny thing happens - we got our tickets by just looking at "The Fray". There was supposed to be one more performer whom we didn't know. And he was the first person to perform, starting around 08:00 PM or so. He goes on until around 09:00 PM. Not that his singing wasn't good. He gave a few decent numbers as well. However, we were more looking forward for "How to save a life".

After quite a wait, we have The Fray come on stage. There was an upbeat mood everywhere. The tone was set by some fabulous guitar. Then, he announces that he is going to get to his piano.

We knew what was coming and a pulse of excitement ran through our bloods. It had to be "How to save a life..!!" After a few seconds of listening to the "opening notes" for the song, I was already on my feet, clapping my hands and raising myself balancing on my toes and popping my head to see him play the piano. I don't think I would ever be able to do justice to the ecstasy I had through words. And I believe Venkat shared the same too as well as he was equally enjoying the whole thing.

The whole concert ended around 11 PM. We move out slowly - in the rain, towards the car. We get partly drenched. We need to drive south and get to Shelton as Venkat was supposed to stop over at my place for the night and get dropped off at Worcester the next afternoon. We had planned a boating trip on Sunday (which didn't kick off with both of us sleeping only by 03:00 AM on Sunday and never managing to get up until 09:00 AM in the morning).

"Dei.. CT-15 south should keep right. CT-15 north should keep left. You are on the left lane. Pull over the right as quickly as possible", Venkat said, as we were getting out of the theater. Though I did see cars which kicked down the traffic cones and shifted lanes, I am way too safe a driver to do all that stunt.. ;)

I managed to get onto the right lane. And what do we find? After driving nearly 3 odd miles, there are no directions to CT-15. With a good deal of cop lights flashing that I could see from a distance, a K-turn was surely ruled out :D Venkat pulls out the GPS and tries to fight with it to get the route. By the time he gets to see something, I already saw a sign towards I-91 south and I hop onto the ramp in that direction. I tell him I have been on I-91 many times over and I wouldn't need the GPS any longer. He would insist that he finds out why this GPS is useless.

It was already a very heavy rain by now and I was driving on the road more by the virtue of knowing it by the mile than seeing it and driving on it - there was hardly any visibility whatsoever..!! But I still offer to help him sort out the GPS thingie.. Due to the bad weather condition, the satellite wasn't quite getting picked up and the antenna had to be adjusted. And yep - it shouted "Drive 4.5 miles on I-91 South" lolz..

We reached home safe and sound at 1 AM in the morning. And got going to sleep by 3 AM after some pep talk, chatting, listening to more music etc.

All in all, it was quite a Saturday I must say!!