Road Trip 2007 – Part 4

Saturday, T-Bone and I headed into Houston for the day.  We drove around and saw the sights:

The Houston skyline…

A statue for George the First…

Some topiary doing Kung-Fu… (River Oaks Plant House)

 
Then we stopped at the "Beer Can House".  Oh my lord.  This has to been seen to be believed.  Besides the flattened beer cans serving as aluminum siding, there are pull tab linked curtains, marbles and stones set in the concrete.  It was closed when we were there, but it is now open on weekends for tours.

Next time I'm in town, I am so checking this out.  And you have to love that some people, we'll call them "idiots" built brand new condo buildings on either side of this tourist destination.  Too bad there wasn't a "gift shop." We were thirsty.

Then we headed out to the San Jacinto Battleground State Historic Site to see the World War I/II battle ship USS Texas (BB-35), one of the few surviving ships to have served in both big wars, and the San Jacinto Monument, the world's tallest memorial column in the world.

But Sunday came and it was time for me head home.  I wasn't going to try to do it all in one day, I had taken Monday off, too, so there was no hurry to push all the way.

Up through Texarkana.  I then picked up the Interstate, a steady rain, and Sporting News Radio's 'Around the NFL' to help me pass the drive through Arkansas.  I finally stopped for the night in the "bootheel" of Missouri in the town of Hayti.  The thrill of driving the road trip was long over, and I just wanted to get home.  Monday, I met my parents in Tuscola, IL.  They were taking off to visit my brother in Virginia, and so we planned to meet somewhere along I-57 and did.  From then on, I was on familiar ground, having driven on this road a few time, and things kept getting more and more familiar.

Finally, around 5:00, I rolled back into my parking spot, and the adventure was over.  Except for the counting.  Yes, I'm a geek, and I had my PDA with me, and every gas stop, I plugged in the mileage, gallons of gas, price of gas, etc.   As you can see, the PT Cruiser is not the world's most fuel efficient vehicle.

Starting Odometer	30,796
Ending Odometer	33,578
Total Miles	2,782
Total Gallons	117
Total Cost	$319
Average MPG	23.73
Average Price	$ 2.72
Cost Per Mile	$ 0.11

Since Ellie Mae asked, I just inched over 43,000 miles this Labor Day weekend.  So in two years, I put about 9,500 miles on my car.  Like I've said, I don't really drive all that much every day.

Hope you all enjoyed this little road trip with me.  What was your big road trip?

Road Trip 2007 – Part 3

If it's Wednesday, it must be Texas.

While I hadn't ever been exposed to "swamp" growing up, I would be lying if I called the drive between New Orleans and Houston "exotic" just mile after mile of swamp.  Except when you looked up, and a 10 story mountain was in front of you.  Okay, not a real mountain, but on occasion the road shot at a startling angle up (and likewise down) to bridge a navigable waterway.

Later, I would learn that is also the way that you build interchanges in Texas, 10 stories tall.

I arrived in Houston, and scooted on over to the northwest edge of town where T-Bone works by early afternoon, and just chilled out (and helped the support desk answer a few questions via Blackberry, when I could get signal).  T-Bone led me back to his house (his wife, Mrs. Ivy, was actually back in Illinois, taking care of her terminally ill mother.)

The next day, he had to work, and I hopped back in the car and headed to the neighboring city of Galveston.  I'm a "Love the beach / Hate the water" guy.  I spent most of the day exploring driving around the city, and enjoying the post-Labor Day quiet.I wandered around the north end of the Seward Beach Park for a while, watching the ships off in the distance.Then I played with the timer setting on my camera, so I could run out and get in the shot.  Like this out on a little jetty,or this one out on the beach.  (Like I said, it was a Thursday after Labor Day.  There was no one around.)I watched as the wave crashed on the seawall, and then walked along the seawall until I ran across this:
This is a memorial (there are a few) to the victims of the 1900 Hurricane (Isaac's Storm).  If you don't know much about this storm, you should do some reading.  Even post Katrina, it is still the deadliest natural disaster in the United States.  And since I was there, Hurricane Ike plowed through.

One very cool thing about Galveston, is that even though it's only like 14 feet above sea level, that doesn't mean that people didn't take pride in their architecture.  It's almost like even though they knew they were in harms way, they weren't going to let that force them into ugly or bland houses.This is the Sacred Heart Catholic Church.And this is the Bishop's Palace.  It's as impressive as it looks.  Really.And here are just some random houses.   Next time, Houston, and some not so grand architecture.

Road Trip 2007 – Part 2

It's the Tuesday after Labor Day, and I am heading into terra incognita.  I had been to Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Alabama before, but Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas were all places I had not been.

It's about 350 miles between Birmingham and New Orleans.  I decided that while I had never been in Mississippi before, I certainly hadn't missed much based on the from my windshield.  Pine forest.  Pine forest.  More pine forest.  But as I got further south toward the gulf, I started to see more sections of the forest that damaged by Katrina.  This was effectively the 2 year anniversary of the storm.

Crossing into Louisiana, I stopped at the visitor's center and browsed the rack of fliers looking for a place to stay.  While I wanted a chain, I didn't want a big chain.  The Ambassador Hotel seemed to fit the bill nicely with a mid-week special and free valet parking.  Now I had a plan.

As mentioned earlier, I'm not the biggest fan of bridges, so I-10 over Lake Pontchartrain was not my favorite, but things got worse.

As I drove into town, the devastation of 2 years previous was everywhere.  You drove in past the empty amusement park that used to be a Six Flags, and now looked straight out of Scoobie Doo.  You looked left and right, and all you saw was abandoned buildings as far as the eye can see.

But every couple of miles, you would see a big banner on a apartment building or strip mall shouting that they were open.I turned down Canal St. and pass the entirely joyless Joy Theater.  But things did get better as you reached the river.  The Ambassador is converted old warehouses with beautiful hardwood floors and sections of exposed brick, just a couple blocks from the French Quarter. It was a Tuesday afternoon outside of the normal tourist season, and things were pretty dead.  I struck out on my own, to walk down Bourbon St., have some dinner, and see the sights.  As I was walking around, it felt like about 40% of the things were open, 20% were being worked on, and 40% were just sitting abandoned.  These two buildings were side-by-side:

And passing this joint didn't fill me with a whole lot of "good mojo", either.  But I don't want to focus so much on what was wrong.  This was my first trip to New Orleans, so I don't know what it was like before.  Walking down Bourbon Street at 5:00 on a Tuesday was a bit like seeing an aging southern belle under fluorescent lights: there was no hiding the flaws.

I stopped for a nice big plate of jambalaya at the Gumbo Shop.  For dessert, I thought I would try the brownie and the ice cream.  With a big ol' glass of milk (I didn't think the Captain and Cokes I had been drinking would work as well.)  Man, was that a HELL of a meal.

After dinner, the light was fading fast, so it was rush time to get out and get some pictures around the St. Louis Cathedral and Jackson Square, before heading back to my room.  No, I didn't hit the casinos or anything.  I was tired, and knew I had another 375 miles to drive in the morning.

  I actually want to get back there soon, and see how it's doing.

Road Trip 2007 – Part 1

With Labor Day rapidly disappearing in the review mirror, I think it's time to start off on a tale that involves both Labor Day and rear view mirrors.

Labor Day Weekend 2007, I set out on a little road trip.  Or not so little.  It turned out to be about 2,700 miles over the 10 days.  In the car, alone*.

The plan for the trip was to first drive from Chicago to Birmingham, AL to visit MFF and her daughter for the weekend, then on to New Orleans for a day, then on to visit my old roommate and his wife in Houston before cutting diagonally across the midsection of America back home.  All without GPS or Google maps on the Blackberry or anything.  Just me, Rand McNally, and some printed maps.

I took that Friday off, and was wheels turning on my way to Birmingham at 5:00 am to beat the traffic thru Chicago and thru northern Indiana.  It's actually a pretty straight shot down there on Interstate 65 thru Indy, Louisville, and Nashville.  But it is an 11 hour drive.  Good thing I loaded up on CDs before taking off.

Just out of "the region" of northwest Indiana, I passed one of those little Geo/Chevy Tracker deals that was top down with a bike in the back that had a plastic grocery bag wrapped around the seat.

I blasted around Indian-No-Place in no time, white knuckled a little on the high bridge over the Ohio River that was filled with construction, and made it to Nashville for a late lunch, and called MFF.  She was at work, and wouldn't get home until about 5:30, so she told me to stall a little.

When I entered Alabama, the first rest stop had rockets.  (NASA is just over in Huntsville)  I stopped, stretched my legs, and took a few shots.

After burning off some time there and in Nashville, I got to the north side of Birmingham at 4:30, just as all the traffic of people heading down to the gulf coast hit the road.  That's when I looked over and saw it.

There was that Geo/Chevy Tracker with the bike in the back, about 9 hours after I first saw it.

I had a great time visiting MFF and here daughter Sydney ("the Beans") that weekend.  We went to the local water park / amusement park, Alabama Adventure on Labor Day, and that evening, the Beans lost her first tooth, so I got to help play tooth fairy.

And here are some pictures, because the kids is so dang cute.

But time ticks on, and Tuesday, they headed off to school and I headed off to New Orleans.  (To be continued)

  Showing the gap.

MFF would kill me for posting this picture if she read my blog.  We had been at the water park all day, so she is covered with sunscreen and has been drenched all day.

The special tooth box.

* Probably 200 miles of it I had someone in the car with me. 

Feeling Artsy Fartsy – Art Attack II

Ya'll might remember the post I did a while back about my stint in the industrial arts class where I made the lamp?  Well, my junior year, I signed up for Industrial Arts II, hated the teacher, and along with Kyle Wallace, dropped the class and took regular Art I instead.

The class was fun.  We got to go outside a lot, and the teacher, Lee Henneberry, was a pretty lax grader.  So that was good, too.

Now, I've always been a doodler, and this class REALLY helped out my doodling.  But, senior year, I had too many college prep classes to take to burn a period on art, so Mr. Henneberry and I parted ways.  Too make up for it, I dated his daughter Maria, so he wouldn't feel like I was shunning him or anything.

While going through a box when I moved a year ago, I ran across some of the old artwork from that class.  For a kid who had never held a paint brush, I think some of them turned out pretty good.

Like back HERE, when I gave you the original "Art Attack" and challenged you to show me what was on your walls, now I'm challenging you to show me what you made in high school.  (And yes, Cowguy, shop class is art as much as sculpting is.)

(Confession – Some of these pictures have not done so well in storage, so there have been a few digital restorations done to get them looking right.)

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The purpose of this exercise was to practice blending.  We did sunsets.  That's supposed to be an old corn crib we had out at the farm where I grew up.  The building is long gone now, and I realize now, too, that the sky at the top should be blending in some darker hues with a little purple dropped in there, but what's a guy to do?

Originally, this was longer, but I cropped it a little and moved the signature up.  Ah, Photoshop.

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This one is Cora's favorite.  I brought them out when she was here.  I like it myself, too.  Again, the sunset study.  Don't know why I chose to silhouette the people instead of putting in a windmill or something, but I'm sure glad I did. 

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Artistically, this is my second favorite.  It's the parking lot behind the high school.  Like I said, we got to go outside in the nice weather, and the class was an after noon class, so I remember this a beautiful spring day under the blue Central Illinois sky.

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Here's one for Cowguy.  Did you have that deck of card growing up?  (For the city slickers, Furadan was a very popular pesticide in the 80's, but is effectively banned in the US, now, nematodes aren't toads, they are round worms, and 'yes' it appears that the corn stalk is growing fire dildos.)

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This is my favorite.  It is actually 4 bits that when assembled form three sides and a top.  Go figure I would like the technical one the most.

Here is what it looks like put all together.

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Now, I've shown you mine.

You show me yours.

Outlined Against A Blue-Gray September Sky…

Okay, maybe the game wasn't THAT legendary.

Okay, maybe it was just Nevada.

Okay, maybe next week's trip to Ann Arbor will really tell the tale.

But on one nearly perfect day in September, the Fighting Irish of Notre Dame were nearly perfect, and recorded their first shutout under head coach Charlie Weis.  As seen from my vantage point (Section 105, Row 26, Seat 8), with my back pressed firmly against the wall, this was a team that was tired of having it's own back to the wall, and wanted to make a statement.

And the first half, wow did it make that statement.  The offense moved up the field with ease.  And the defense, while giving up a troubling long first drive to Nevada that resulted in a missed field goal, really tightened up.

After Notre Dame score their second touchdown right after the start of the second quarter, I headed down to get of some pop (I went to the game with T-Bone, Mrs. Ivy, his sister, and 2 nephews).  While standing in a line that seemed to move in retrograde motion, I heard a load roar from the crowd as Michael Floyd caught a pass on the sidelines and raced 72 yards for a score.  "Tell me you saw that?!?!" was T-Bone's only question when I returned a few minutes later with the buckets of pop.

The second half of the game was mostly turned over to making sure that no one got hurt and running out the clock.  I will tell you, I like that.  Some college's won't settle for an opening victory with under 50 points.  That's like a school house on Thanksgiving… No Class.

The "D" provided the excitement (mostly) for the second half with an excellent goal line stand (fumble recovery) and an interception to ice the remaining Nevada hopes.

And since only mjenks is still reading this, here's some sights and sounds of the day in Notre Dame, Indiana.

The band marches to the stadium before the game…

  The Dome really is GOLDEN

Scope in front of "Touchdown Jesus".  No, back there on the library, not Lech Wałęsa over there.

  Let the games begin!

And as a wrap up, here's the band again.

Now, on to Michigan.

Scope on "Dropping the Soap" (or "Bar Soap")

I went down to southern Indiana to for a wedding (see the famous photo HERE).  Saturday morning, I was in the downstairs shower, and while there were 8 or 10 bottles of stuff in the shower, there was one thing missing:  A bar of soap.

Ladies, when did you all get together and decide to banish bar soap from the bathroom? Was there some kind of symposium that was held?  Was it an internet vote?  Or was it just some viral fad that spread across the country?

And, "No, the fancy sea shell ones" aren't to ever be used, so they don't count.

I have "body wash", it's a bar of anti-bacterial DIAL ('cuz the gold looks nice in my bathrooms.  Green Zest would totally clash.).  And that's it.  There's liquid hand soap dispensers by all the sinks, but I don't know if they even still work, because there is also a God fearing bar of soap sitting there too.

If I were to need something with a little GRIT for the tougher jobs, I guess I would use Lava, not not some bottle of pustules and slime that looks like the physical manifestation of Vogon poetry.

I normally have a bar of soap in my travel kit, but left it at home this trip, so I just used extra shampoo to get clean.  On the plus side, all on my different hairy bits were conditioned and dandruff free.  After the shower, I picked a towel up from the basket that was pointed out to me.

You guessed it, it was a hand towel.

So You Say You Want A Revolution? #9 #9 #9

A little number Revolution 9 on 09/09/09.

I really hate this "song" and always skip it when this CD is in.

Totally Blowing Shit Up Tuesday – W/Cora

Everyone's favorite mad scientist mjenks does a wonderful little thing for us on Tuesdays, where he explains to us why things explode and then provides us a video of an explosion.

When Cora was last here, one morning we were lounging around, and I flipped on some MythBusters.  Cora had heard of it, but had never really watched it.  Earlier, we had wondered if my water heater (not "hot water heater", you don't need to heat hot water) would hold up to the three of us showering in the morning.

MythBusters and water heaters made me think of my favorite episodes of all time.

Note, while they did tamper with the safeties on the water heater, those safeties are only there because somewhere, sometime, they weren't.

So, sleep easy, thinking that something like this is in your house.

(And technically, mjenks isn't a "mad scientist".  He can't be after Notre Dame's thrashing of Nevada on Saturday.)

Eric's First Comment

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Eric said...

Gwen;

Forgive me if my STL geography is a tad off, but as I understand it, isn't your neighborhood the only place to really LIVE in STL? Everyplace else, folks is just EXISTING. But your 'hood is for LIVING.
And you'll totally recognize her from that one time at Schnucks...

September 4, 2008 8:21 PM

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Exactly 1 year ago, I stuck my big toe into blog world be leaving my first comment EVER on a blog post.  The comment above was posted HERE, on the Gwen's wonderful blog, Everything I Like Causes Cancer.

It would be a little while before I dusted off the 'Scope' moniker and about 2 months before I started up 'Scope-Tech'.  But with both Cora and Candy hitting blogiversaries recently, I thought I would honor the moment that I started down a path that would change me life forever.

I want to thank every single person who has read even a single post of mine, let alone commented or followed.  Thank you from the bottom of my heart.

- Eric

Japanese McDonald's Commercials

I cannot help but think that Mr. Matthew Jenks had something to do with this commercial:

And that God (aka 'Poobomber') had his fingers in this one (commercial, not model):

A little Fifth Element going on there?

And today is a big day in blogging history for me.  Check back later. Around 8:21 pm Central time.

My Friend Sass

[Editor's Note:  This post will make a lot more sense if you read Sass's (wow, that's a lot of S's together) POST first.  Thanks.]

We met over "The Shocker" and she inspired me to create the emoticon for it that is sweeping the internet:  ||_|

We bonded over the now former governor of the state and the media's excessive use of the word 'TAINT'.

We bonded over beers and horseshoe sandwiches when I stopped by her house one day.

Along the way, among the blogging, FaceBooking, and email, something wonderful happened.  My "blog friend" became my "friend."

So I will miss her blog, "http://thelifeofsass.blogspot.com/" I will NOT miss out on "the LIFE of Sass" as it continues to unfold.

And that is why I am happy for my friend, as she strides out on new adventures: because I'm tagging along for the ride.

The Ring's The Thing

As you all know, I can be a bit of an idiot when it comes to certain things. I am such a "process and procedure" engineering type, and I want the to know how others have tackled a specific problem, so I can gather the info, analyze it, and make my plans and contingency plans.

So, that's why I'm going to ask you for your advice on a purely HYPOTHETICAL situation:

How do you buy an engagement ring?

Ladies:

1. Did he have a ring when he proposed?
2. Did you have any input on the rings (engagement / wedding)?
3. If not, do you wish you had?
4. If so, did you go with him when he actually made the purchase?
5. Did you just give him guidelines on styles?  Cut? Gold vs. sliver vs. platinum?  I really like "Carol's ring", etc.?
6. Off the shelf? Custom designed? Vintage (but not pawn shop)?
7. Set or separates?

Guys:

1. Did you have a ring when you proposed?
2. Did you involve your lady in picking out the ring?
3. If no, did you take a trusted female (sister, cousin, etc.)?
4. Did you ask her friends?
5. Did you take her browsing, but then you made the final purchase?
6. Did you just roll the dice?
7. Does your wedding ring match hers?
8. Did you follow the "2 month rule"?

See?  HYPOTHETICALLY, I'll be buying Cora something that she will be wearing on her hand for the rest of her life.  It seems a bit presumptuous of me to make that kind of decision without her input.

I know what you may be thinking, "Dude, she reads your blog!"  Yes, she does.  And while I may be an idiot, I'm not THAT big of an idiot.

I used the word "HYPOTHETICALLY" to TOTALLY throw her off the scent.  Gee-whiz.

One more question:  When you reach that stage where you are openly talking about shopping for engagement rings while absentmindedly rubbing the spot on her hand where said ring would go, but you haven't TECHNICALLY proposed yet, is there a name for that stage?  Would that be "pre-engaged"?

Just some random thoughts I've been having.

So, what's been on your mind recently?