Out for a Cruise

The ride from here to home is dull. There is nothing to look at excepting the first half hour where you pass by a stream with an interesting hill side. Actually, one day I would like to go hiking out there. I've seen fisherman out there before which also adds to the effect. Other than that it's boring fields, construction sites and police. The ride from home to pretty much anywhere else on the other hand is quite entertaining. It's 5 hours from here to home and just under 6 from home to Charlottesville. But while that 5 hours feels like everybit of 5 hours, the 6 hours to Charlottesville feels like 30 minutes. First off you're going through the mountains, so every view is a photograph. There are occasions where you are so surrounded by them that you cannot see the sky without hurting your neck from the effort. The mountains really are incredible. Everynow and then the trees will part and give you breathtaking views. Here's a sample I took from the road

If you zoom in real close on the farm you can see the grape vines. Also on the way you pass through Charleston, West Virgina, which treats you with a view of the golden capitol dome. This is my attempt at taking a photo of it just for you guys. It's tricky aiming the camera out the window and not dropping it, while driving with your knees on the curvy highway during lunch hour traffic so I hope you enjoy it.

During the trip you will find the speed limit hits 70 mph. However, you will encounter patches where the speed limit is 60. At these times, these signs are not speed suggestions. Rather they are telling you, this is how fast you will be able to go. It's really quite impressive. Even taking these turns at the speed limit can be harrowing. The best though is when no one else is around and you can just drift from lane to lane. It's completely illegal but incredibly fun.

I had forgotten that West Virginia has that turnpike with its tolls. There are two of them that I had to go through, $2 each. I typically carry around little if any change, but during this trip God smiled on me and I had exactly $4 in my storage compartment. I have had problems with tolls in the past, and when I got to the first one I asked the attendant (they are not always manned) if they accept credit or debit cards. She said they only accept change. I still don't know what happens if you don't have change. Well, I do know what happens, but I'm talking about if there is an attendant on duty that you can talk to.

The drive home was long. I did not see the exit sign I needed to take, and was too busy singing along to realize I had missed the exit until it was too late. So I added about 40 minutes to my 6 hour trip and took the scenic route. The scenic route took me through the largest patch of Earth I would not want to live in. This town was bad. It was the kind that makes me wonder how it manages to survive, and that was during the good times. The citizens all looked hardened and worn. Many had the look of someone who has made exceptionally poor decisions early in life and is now paying the price for it. Sure the ambitious can get things back together but this was a dying town. It used to be a steel town, and was quite prosperous (that's why it's so large), but that steel mill has closed down and now there's nothing really left for these people. With the housing market the way it is they won't be moving out anytime soon, and it's unlikely they've got the savings in liquid form to just up and leave. Just one reason why the house you own is not an asset.

While the drive home was 40 minutes longer, it still felt like I had only been on the road for a couple hours. So I decided to press on back here. The last bit of the trip was boring as usual, but I had some help in the form of M.C. Hammer, the Roxettes, and a couple of phone calls. Coming back put the drive at around 12 hours. It's not the longest I've gone, but I was happy. Plus I didn't have to lose half a day of work.

Practically Cirque Du Soleil

This Friday you have plans. Jake is going to be on campus for the move-in celebrations at the Student Union performing his balloon animal talents (see Send in the Clowns). Now you are rightly concerned about missing the new episode of Monk. However, you are in luck because it ends at 8, and Jake goes on at midnight. So you have 4 hours to get here. We should make some requests for him to practice before hand. Because it's the summer time, I'd like something tropical like a fish or a parrot or maybe a frog.

An Outing Amongst Friends

Whew, today was a long day. It started around 7:30 in Charlottesville, Virgina, and has about come to an end with me back here in Cornfield, Illinois. While hopping into bed sounds lovlay, my sugar crash for the day hasn't quite hit yet and I thought you all must be dying for some attention.

Charlottesville is quite fantastic. It is home to the University of Virgina which just so happens to be where WAM is working on her Ph.D. For the past two years, WAM has come to visit me but this year she was too busy and I wasn't busy enough so we switched roles and I went to visit her. For those of you who haven't had the pleasure, WAM is one of my childhood friends although we didn't really become friends until our 5 year high school reunion. It's kinda funny how things work like that. Anyway, she's sort of a big deal. She graduated with honors from Harvard and writes history books. I write books too but all my pages are filled with figures and equations which take up a lot of space. She actually fills up her pages with real words. Right now she's getting ready for a 4 month trip throughout the New England states to dig into some archives to basically write a history paper on historians prior to 1860. Answering things like how did the early Americans from England view the Indian mounds or maybe why they might choose to preserve an old building or document rather than others. Sort of like how we look at the Colosseum and think awesome, what did they find awesome, why, and what did they do out of reverence towards it.

WAM also has great taste. Her condo was exceptionally well decorated however it did have some issues. I felt there was a lack of femininity and toys. Other than that she has successfully managed to school pretty much everyone in the decorating department (aside from yours truly, the master, of course). Her choice in the condo also reveals much to her personality, as it is located within a short walking distance to the university, hospital, and downtown Charlottesville.

Let's start with the university. Thomas Jefferson (TJ) is your main man there although another 3 or 4 presidents were there too. Everyone there is infatuated with TJ to the point of slightly creepy. For us UIUC'ers compared to Jefferson, Lincoln is loved about as much as an unwanted stepchild. These guys just cannot get enough of him. The university itself is very nice. A lot of the buildings are very old but kept up-to-date on the insides. The entrance to engineering library (sweetly named Charlie Brown) was particularly eye-catching (see the censored version here). Charlottesville is also basically in the Appalachian mountains which means every view is a photo. No stupid boring flatness.

Downtown Charlottesville is also fairly fantastic. It's several blocks long with no road. Instead the road is layed in brick and it's covered in tables for wining and dining and vendors hawking their wares. The stores are great, and to my liking there are plenty of ice-cream and gelato joints. WAM felt having a milk-shake and gelato was a bit much but I was in heaven.

Charlottesville also has a lot of vineyards. We went to one where they have polo matches. The idea was to have a picnic out on the sidelines of the polo field while watching the match, but unfortunately it was too hot out for the horses. So instead we went further up into the mountains to Veritas Victory vineyard where we had a winetasting. We chose the white wine lineup which consisted of about 6 wines. They pour about a swallow's worth into your glass and you get to drink it down. Apparently you are not supposed to just swallow it all in one down. I tried to explain to WAM that men do not sip we drink like we do everything else with intensity. We all know I hate wine, but it was worth it because after all the nasties the last one as described "smells like roses and tastes like honey." It was amazing. Not surprisingly this was the dessert wine. This made me very excited to try that dessert wine I had mentioned earlier. Remember, I brought that dessert wine as a gift to WAM, but more on that in a second. After the wine tasting we had our picnic out on the hillside which had a stunning view of the grape vines and further on out the blue ridge mountain range.

The food was divine. Being in the south of course we had barbeque. So good. Last night I had what were probably the best porkchops in the world. Today's breakfast came from a bakery that was so good it would probably bring my Mom to tears. I brought her home (I stopped home on the way back) a couple selections and she was giddy with excitement. I do not like cheese or humus. Our picnic changed my mind. And finally last night it was time to open the dessert wine with our special dessert. I was extremely excited because before this trip I was highly skeptical that I was going to like the dessert wine, but after that wine tasting I knew it was going to be great. But sadness of sadness the wine had gone bad. The cork was moldy. WAM says this happens all the time with dessert wines, and that I can get a refund. Lame.

However, WAM's taste in movies is wanting. This is where her femininity comes in as we just had to watch '500 Days of Summer' on Saturday and 'He's Just Not That Into You' on Sunday. After hearing the first sentence of what 500 Days was about I told her this is a bad idea, but we watched it anyway on the idea that if I watched it with her then she would watch 'The Hangover' which was outstanding. 500 Days was about as bad as I expected it would be, because it hits so close to home, but I loved the dance scene he does walking down town (trying to be vague here to limit spoilers). Another highlight was a trailer for the movie 'Adam'. Sarge go watch that trailer, you will laugh. We did not get to see 'The Hangover'. It started too late, which is why we decided to watch 'Not That Into You', somehow this was a good balance. Again I wasn't exactly thrilled with this movie but it had its moments. See girls here's the thing. These are not happy movies. They are terribly depressing but they give you a minute or two of a comedic happy end and because you have no attention span, you completely forget that the entire movie was really about nothing but heartache fighting and tears. Anyway back to the trip.

We also went to a Catholic Mass for my benefit on Sunday. It was supposed to be the traditional one, but I had never been to a more untraditional Mass. For example the alter servers were not wearing robes. They were just dressed slightly nice. And they didn't ring the bells. The songs were odd, I only knew one. Now actually I didn't mind any of this because all I'm pretty much there for is the Eucharist; so as long as that doesn't get screwed up everythings fine by me. But having an outsider come with me, I expect that "traditional" Mass to be amazing. I want all those signs and symbols and music that add to the experience of it all to sort of show off a bit.

Now before you go start posting or get to thinking that WAM and I are the cutest couple you've ever known you're not the first (the first was a random butch middle-aged lady at a bar in Ohio) but are nevertheless completely wrong as the title indicates. So don't go getting any ideas. But just to show off our cute selves here's a couple good shots of us.

Potato Sticks

As I write this, I am eating the best fries in the world. Without question, fries do not get better than this. They are made at the club house. The reason I am eating these fries is because they are so fantastic and because I was trying to meet a girl.

Pulling into the community I saw that the girl's car was at the club house. I see it there from time to time and I resolved that the next time I saw it there I was going to go in and order a thing of fries to go. While the fries were being prepared my plan was to try and talk to the girl.

But of course things did not go according to plan. When I walked in she was no where in sight. I went and ordered my fries and then started walking around. First I checked out the racquet ball court and the pool. No luck. I went to the main party room but no luck there either. I guessed she must have been in the weight room working out. Of all the possibilities if what she could have been doing this was about the worst. It's one thing to go up to a person who is reading a book, watching TV, or just soaking in the sun at the pool. I could always say "Hi, I was going to get an order of fries would you like to join me." It's another to try and start talking to someone who is in the middle of a workout. But unperturbed I picked up my fries and went into the weight room with a new plan in mind.

My new idea was to act as though I was just checking out the equipment. And in fact I hadn't really given the place a good look around before (I don't need to exercise, I come fully loaded). I walked in and she gave me a happy hello. That's part of the reason why I was trying to talk to this girl. The only people who ever seem to want to talk to me are senior citizens. Anyway, I'm a little bashful in these types of situations so I said hello back but not quite as perky as I would have liked it to be. She was walking on a treadmill watching TV. I go and walk around with my fries in hand look around for awhile and then make to leave. I look back at her and see she is intently watching the screen. So I yell over to her "I'm going to eat some french fries now." She looks at me for a second, smiles and says "Kay", then puts her eyes right back on the screen. I felt like Kevin from 'The Office.' But it was supposed to be a joke. Here I am in a weight room, with her working out and I walk in take a look around and then say I'm going to go eat french fries. Okay, maybe it's not laugh out loud funny but I thought it was cute.

I've mentioned in the past how I tend to eat when I get emotionally distraught. Those fries didn't last too long.

Dessert Drink That Isn't a Shake

Today gets an extra post because I will not be posting on Friday - Monday and maybe Tuesday. The reason I will not be posting on those days is the reason why I had to get those shorts (see Hot Save from the Coals) and pick up a bottle of wine today.

Where I come from whenever you go to visit someone who is hosting an event like a party, or you are just going to be visiting for a day or two, you always bring a gift. This weekend I'm off to visit a friend and I needed a gift. Not having any really good ideas come to mind, I called up Mom asking her what she thought I should get as a gift. She knows my friend likes wine so she said to try an iced wine. Now my Mom hates alcohol more than me. It's not the drinking of it per se but the taste that she hates, so for her to recommend anything alcoholic must mean the drink is amazing. She said she couldn't taste the alcohol in it even though it is wine. Her description of it was "the berries are frozen and the bottle was thin". With that I went to the local wine store, Sunsinger.

Let me tell you about wine. It's made from grapes, tastes nothing like Juicy Juice, and it was used in Jesus' greatest miracle which was when he made it taste good at the wedding. That was the extent of my knowledge before going to Sunsinger today. I'm pretty good at looking clueless and right away a lady came up to help me. And she told me all about iced wine.

Iced wine is made from white grapes. You cannot call it iced wine if it's not made with white grapes. So sometimes you'll hear of frozen wine which is made from red grapes. Her seriousness about this point was amusing. Like blood was going to be spilt if we should not name it according to the rules. The white grapes in iced wine were picked from the vine when they were frozen. This makes the iced wine more expensive than most because there is a risk involved. The grape grower could potentially lose his crop because the grapes may spoil before it gets cold enough for them to freeze. So there are two other varieties (whose names I cannot pronounce) that use white grapes that are only partially frozen. I was thinking like how a grape would be after a frost. These other two varieties can be less expensive. At this point I asked if there was any difference in the taste. She said not really, but the texture is different. For the partially frozen grape wines, the texture is similar to whole milk. It sort of feels like a coating in your mouth. The texture for the iced wine is like skim milk and is "much more delicate" (wine lovers are great with fancy adjectives). Iced wines are categorized as dessert wines. This would explain why my Mom liked it so much.

The best iced wine comes from Germany, but they also carried bottles from Austria, Canada, France and Italy. I found the prices ranged from about $20 to about $130 for what I considered to be a very small bottle. And Mom was right, most of the bottles were very thin. They had two from Germany, a $23 and a $99. So I picked up the $23 bottle. At the checkout line I asked the lady what am I supposed to eat with this wine to bring out the taste. Specifically I asked what flavor of ice-cream would be best. She said oh no, you shouldn't eat ice-cream with this. Ice-cream will make your mouth too cold and then you won't be able to taste the wine properly. Instead you should eat pastries, or cake. After my frown I think for my benefit she said I could even eat chocolate cake if I wanted. That made me happier.

I'm curious to find how it's going to taste. But in any event I'm still quite happy with my Mott's.

We All Need to Vent

As I was driving home from work today I approached one of those large big family vans that have two or three rows of seats. From the left rearview mirror I could see the driver and I saw that he was shouting. Intrigued I drove a little faster to catch up to him, but by then he had stopped. But then out of the blue he started back up again. I drove a bit in front of him to see if there were any passengers, but if there were they had to be in the back seats because I could see none through his windshield. Then I slowed down a bit to let him catch back up. By now he had stopped again. But when he caught back up for a couple of seconds he started the shouting again. My windows were down but I couldn't make out anything he was saying. It all sounded like incoherent yelling. I also couldn't figure out what would be causing him to shout like that. He wasn't driving fast and wasn't stuck at a light so I don't think he was in any particular rush. I couldn't see anyone in the van with him. And the van, while it was a clunker, was getting him from A to B so it wasn't like he was shouting at the van as though he were trying to will it to drive on. I wonder if he has tourette's syndrome. I've never known someone to have it before, I've only seen that guy on youtube and it was sort of like that. This guy would just be sitting there driving along and then all of a sudden start shouting something unintelligible as hard as he could, all the while keeping his face looking straight ahead as though he were yelling at the window. Then he would stop again. It was a pretty amazing sight, but I felt really bad for him. Here it's a beautiful sunshine day and he's screaming bloody murder at seemingly random intervals. Something must have been really bugging him.

A Hot Saving from the Coals

This coming weekend I am going to be out of town. And then I will be out town again in mid-September. In preparation for these trips I need some new clothes. Need is a funny word. I need the clothes as in the powers that be tell me I need the clothes. And since I don't mind shopping I'm not going to make a huge stink about it. What is frustrating is that whenever I go out dressed up, everyone complains that I always wear the same thing. Let's look at my main summer situation, I own 2 nice slacks, 2 nice jeans, 4 nice shirts, 3 nice belts, and 2 pairs of shoes. As far as I'm concerned that's 512 potential outfits, so I get very confused when people say I always wear the same thing. For this upcoming weekend I was told I need a nice pair of shorts.

That one I can't really argue about. I haven't been wearing shorts this summer. I decided to go European and instead wear my slacks whenever I go out. This even includes when I'm outside for long periods of time such as walking around the pond or sitting out on the patio at the club house for lunch. But it's not that bad. The slacks are made for the summer so the material is thin and they're about as cool as shorts. Anyway, my point is that I have no shorts. All of mine are years old, and are meant for getting dirty. So I started looking. First I went to Lacoste online. Their shorts are $120. That's a touch ridiculous. But they were on sale for $75 off putting them around $45. Hey, that's not so bad. But I decided to see what all was at the mall here in town.

Very quickly I found there was next to nothing. Every place is trying to bring out their autumn lines, and what shorts are available are cargo shorts for highschoolers. Getting desperate, I even broke all my rules and tried looking in American Eagle and Abercrombie. It had been a few years and I thought maybe they had improved their image a bit. Nope, I got disgusted and walked out with a larger than usual scowl. I finally found a good pair at Banana Republic but they were not on sale at $45. For that price I figured I could get the Lacoste pair but I bought the pair anyway as a 'just in case I can't find another pair' backup.

Leaving the mall I went to Kohl's. Kohl's is in a perpetual state of going out of business. Whenever I go in it seems the whole store is 70% off. Kohl's did have a nice pair of shorts that I wanted. But they were $36 and not on sale. This was offputting, that the one item I find is the only item in the store not on sale. I put them back and figured I'll just come back in two days because by then they'll be on sale. And sure enough the next day (yesterday) in the mail I got a $10 off any purchase card. So I went in today picked up a pair and went to the register. The lady said I owed $18. And I said she must be mistaken they are $36 (I hadn't given her the card yet). She said they were on sale for 50% off, they just weren't marked. Wow! In the end I paid $8 for those shorts, and they're pretty nice looking.

Okay, all of that was pretty useless information. But I needed a prelude to the blogs I will be posting the rest of this week and next, and this was the best place I could find to start.