On the Road Again

I've made more than a dozen major moves in my lifetime, plus a whole bunch of minor moves.  This is merely the latest.  Augusta, Georgia to Portland, Oregon.  It's nice to have company when you move.  This time I've got Dad driving with me part of the way.

Allow me to chronicle our trip so far:


Zero Hour was Saturday at 2:30 pm.  Having finished at the house, eaten lunch downtown, filled up on gas and weighed the car, we hit the road for Atlanta.  We got pretty close, too.  Then the traffic hit.

Now, you wouldn't think there'd be much traffic headed into Atlanta on a Saturday afternoon.  Unfortunately, they're doing something to the roads up there, and three lanes became one in a terribly inefficient manner.  We were in stop-and-go traffic (mostly stop) for a very, very long time.

Finally we reached an exit, and thankfully we could see ahead a bit and could tell that, even after the lane closures finally occurred, the interstate was still crawling for as far as the eye could see.  And that was pretty far.

We took the exit.

Now, recently in my Civil Air Patrol squadron, one of our Senior Members was explaining to the Cadets how the earth's gravitational pull and the moon's lesser gravitational pull affected the planning of space flights from the earth to the moon.  You've got to head a pretty good distance before the moon's gravitational pull becomes stronger than earth's.

The same is true with my GPS.  We knew roughly the direction to go on the back roads to get around the city to our hotel in Marietta, but not exactly which roads to take.  The GPS was constantly 'recalculating', but the gravitational pull of the interstate (if you will) is much stronger than that of the back roads.  We drove on guesswork for quite a while, until we finally got far enough northwest that the gravitational pull of I-75 took over, and the GPS became useful again.

That was fun.


Yesterday we made our way from Atlanta to Nashville, Tennessee, where we spent the night at the Gaylord Opryland Hotel.

Now, unless you're shelling out a whole lot more money than we were, a hotel room is, at the end of the day, a hotel room.  But a hotel is not necessarily a hotel.  This hotel is huge.  Endless corridors of rooms.  Tons of ballrooms.  Several restaurants and shops.  A radio station.  A FedEx office.  And most of all, the gardens.

Looking through a waterfall at part of the lobby.  Part of it.

This hotel has a couple of huge atriums filled with such things as tropical plants, waterfalls, koi-filled streams, trees, winding paths, a river, and an island.  Nothing any other hotel doesn't have, right?

This is *inside* the hotel, folks.

Yeah.

We got lost trying to find our room after check-in.

Once you've got your bearings, it's really not that hard, but there are about 10 different ways to get from point A to point B, and none of them are straight.

Oh, you know.  Just a little boat ride inside the hotel...

The ceiling is all glass in the atriums, and during the day that lets a lot of natural light in.  At night, they've got lights set up all throughout the gardens, but it's mood lighting - it's still obviously night time, and very pleasant.

I'm impressed, Opryland.  I'm impressed.

Cow Tongue and Growling Dogs

I had an eventful evening yesterday.

First, my friend Jen and I were invited to dinner.  We were promised a home-cooked meal of cow tongue tacos.

This may not sound very appetizing, but I knew the woman who was hosting us is a good cook and makes tongue all the time.  And honestly, once you've lived in China for a year, you're not too squeamish about trying new things.

Unfortunately, by the time we got there, my stomach and taste buds weren't feeling very adventurous.  I'd had another full day of errands and packing, and I was feeling pretty darn sleepy.  I was determined to try it, though, so I reasoned with my stomach and taste buds.

I pointed out to myself that the tongue was a muscle (as opposed to an organ), and was therefore exactly like any of the other cow meat that we eat.  Steak, for example.  Just another muscle.

You know, I had never thought of it that way.  As soon as I did, I realized the truth of it, and no longer felt that I was doing anything adventurous at all.  It worked!  And a good thing, too - the tacos were amazing!  Tongue, cooked right, is pretty much like pot roast.  Tender, nice texture, and delicious.  Thanks for dinner, Norma!

After dinner and some packing, Jen and I took a walk around the neighborhood.  It was a pleasant evening, warm but not hot, humid but with a breeze.  We took the same route we took two nights ago.  Should have been pretty relaxing, and it was.  Until the Muscular Growling Dog.

The Muscular Growling Dog looked like a large pit bull of some kind.  That is not, in and of itself, terribly concerning to me.  Nor is the fact that it approached us as we walked down the street in the night, although it was clearly unaccompanied by human handlers.

What was concerning was the way it approached us.  Most dogs who approach strangers walking by do so casually, and will stop when you speak sternly at them.  They'll hear the firmness in your voice and it will give them pause.  This dog did no such thing.  It approached us not so much confidently as aggressively.

We stopped.  I told it in no uncertain terms that it should go away.  It did not.  It just stood there.  Except it didn't just stand there.  It stood there, a belligerent two feet away, barring our path.

Now, this is a fairly large dog.  And did I mention muscular?  Also growling.  It growled menacingly at us.  I've heard dogs growl in various ways before.  This dog meant business.

I snapped my fingers and pointed away with my hand/arm while telling it to sternly to 'go home'.  Another growl, and I repeated myself.  It walked away into the night.

I thought about turning around, but Jen recommenced walking, and I thought better of it - the dog had gone, after all.  We kept an eye out and passed the area it had gone to.

And then there it was again, coming toward us from behind.  We stopped, it stopped, probably about 5-10 feet away this time, perhaps escorting us out of its claimed territory.  I repeated the previous 'go home' routine that had worked before.  This time the dog did not respond.

Incidentally, I kept thinking about those episodes of the Dog Whisperer that I watched over the summer.  But here's the thing.  I'm not Cesar Millan.  I haven't been hired to correct bad dog behavior.  I'm a dog civilian trying to walk through the neighborhood without being attacked.

So rather than stay and try to dominate the dog into a submissive state, we resumed walking carefully away, keeping an eye over our shoulders.  The dog disappeared back into the night, and I walked backwards for a bit just to make sure.

Man.

I don't mind telling you that I had a mild adrenaline crash after that second encounter.

Now, I didn't see a collar on this animal, but it looked way too well fed and groomed to be a stray.  So to the owners of that dog:  Keep your dog in your yard.  That was not fun.  I have never felt threatened by an animal before, even when I was followed by a jackal in Afghanistan that one time.  This was much more disconcerting than being stalked by a wild animal in a foreign country!

Be responsible dog owners!!

And that was my evening.

Ramblings and Mini-Review

So, I'm kind of cheating a little bit.  I'm writing this very late Thursday night.  Because I have a lot to do tomorrow, the last full day before I move.  And my antique Toshiba Netbook zips to new pages and folders like a sloth in slow motion.

But I am smarter than my Netbook.  I know that if I type this now, and merely post it tomorrow, I will be much less frustrated.  Because you can always stay up just a little bit later, but there are only so many business hours in a day.

Anyway, I'm busy and sleep deprived.  You'd better prepare yourself: This may be a scattered post.

Now, a friend suggested I review Into the Dalek, the most recent episode of Doctor Who.  I want my Wednesday Reviews to have variety, so I hadn't planned on it, but sure.  Why not?

So here's a spoiler-free mini-review of Into the Dalek, even though it's not a Wednesday.


Introduction: Doctor Who, blah blah, Time Lord, blah, Clara, blah, TARDIS.  Read a proper intro to the series here.  (See?  Sleep deprived.)


My Review: First, I know a lot of people out there have Dalek fatigue.  I get it.  I really do.  We've seen them a lot.  Fine.  I understand.  I'll roll my eyes at a Dalek-centric episode with the best of them if it's stale.

That said, I'm quite fond of the Daleks in principle.  It brings me a childlike glee to watch a good Dalek episode.  And when it comes to Daleks, Steven Moffat is a genius.*

Here's why: He somehow manages to take an (arguably) over-used monster and come up with an astonishingly creative story to make it fresh.  He did it with Asylum of the Daleks last season, and now he co-wrote this wonderful new episode (the premise was his idea).**

But enough about The Great Dalek Controversy!

This episode was awesome. I thoroughly enjoyed watching it.

I was very nervous about the stuff w/Clara at the school, but it was so well-written and acted, I just can't dislike it.  It's actually quite charming.

The Dalek plot concept was nicely creative; it felt fresh in a way that a certain other Dalek episode (which I can't actually mention in the post for fear of suggesting too much about the plot concept, but here's a link) most definitely did not.

Some of the visual effects could have been better.

The 12-Clara dynamic continues to delight.  Loved the little dialogue through-line they had.  Enjoyed the way she got after him - harsh Doctor gets harsh treatment.  But even harsh Doctors have sensitive souls and Clara takes care of that, too.


And there you go.  Not so 'mini' because of addressing The Great Dalek Controversy, but it had to be done.


And what else?  I have so much to do tomorrow.  I'd like it all done so that when I pick Dad up at the airport on Saturday, we can just run by the house, load up the car, put out the trash, walk around to make sure I didn't forget anything, go fill up on gas and weigh the car, have lunch at Farmhaus, and hit the road.  We'll see.



*See?  Not a Moffat-hater.
**To those who think Asylum of the Daleks and/or Into the Dalek were rubbish episodes: You are wrong.

Wednesday Not Really A Review: Toshiba Netbook

Well.

Yesterday the movers came and packed everything, and today they came and carted it all out to their truck.  Hence the lateness of the hour for this post.

I only kept the bare minimum items that I will need for the next month or so - everything else went into the moving truck.  It occurred to me too late that I should have kept my folding chair.  Now I'm sitting on my fireplace hearth while I type; there's nowhere else to go.

Another thing that was packed away was my primary computer.  This means I am relying on my lovely external hard drive and my hardworking little Netbook for all of my computing needs.

You know, this little Netbook and I have been through a lot together.*  It was my first major electronics purchase as an adult.  Certainly my first frivolous (at the time) major electronics purchase.  It's TARDIS blue, which is a pleasant coincidence (it was the only color they had in stock, and I had yet to see a single episode of that superlative show).  Most importantly, I took it with me to Afghanistan.

Yes, sir.  This little computer weathered more than seven months of cold, heat, dust, trans-continental travel and lots of experimentation to try and get the most out of the wretched internet service I had out there for a few months.  What a good computer.

Fond though I am of it, I am forced to acknowledge that, at 4 years of age, it's 'getting on'.  Its processing abilities were already limited simply by virtue of the fact that it's a Netbook.  Add to that outdated software, and pure old age, and it's running pretty slowly.

Someday soon, I shall have to get a new portable computing device of some kind.  We'll call my move from Georgia to Oregon its last hurrah.  I will miss seeing my USAF unit sticker and the Doctor Who Worlds in Time new paradigm Dalek sticker that I put on it while I was overseas.  :)

One last trip together, Netbook.  One last golden day in the sun.**



*Accidental Star Wars reference.
**Apologies for all the overly sentimental language and personification of an inanimate object.  It seemed like the thing to do...

Wild Weekend

So, in case you don't know, I'm moving.  Out of state.  Out of region, actually.  From Georgia back to my home state of Oregon.  That's a pretty big move.

Because my church family here is awesome and southerners are ... southerners, I was thrown a big going-away / early birthday party extravaganza extraordinaire.  I have to say, it was pretty awesome.  My friend Jen knows how to throw a shin-dig!

So.  The party decorations were dual-themed.  The going away aspect included cross-country travel decor: a big plastic US map with my starting point and destination circled in dry erase marker and the mileage between the two dramatically written across the top; a map of Georgia; a map of Oregon; etc.  The birthday aspect was all-out Doctor Who themed.  :)

TARDIS birthday cake - it was bigger on the inside!  Seriously.

Aside from being tasty and turning everyone's teeth, lips and tongue blue, this cake was pretty awesome to look at.  :)  No, no the candles are not an actual representation of my age.  They are abstract.  Because from a non-linear, non-subjective perspective, time is actually a big ball of wibbly-wobbly, timey-wimey...stuff.

The letters.  Look at the letters on the mirror, not the skulking people.

 What's this?!  Graffiti?  At a private party?  I wonder what it means...

Ah, Blink.  First episode I ever saw.

The creativity continues with a reference to the first episode of Doctor Who that I ever saw, the one that started it all, the one that got me hooked, the one after which I said, "I'm in.  Let's go back to season 1 (2005) and watch them in order."  Good times.

Allons-y!

Yes, well, it's not my favorite Doctor Who reference, and it acquired an extra letter in the party-planning chaos, but it's still awesome.  Ok?  Because it's a Doctor Who reference.  Got it?  Stop being so critical. I say Geromnimo now.  Geromnimos are cool.

Sunflowers, dahlias.  Potato, potahto.

So, I love this.  I, like Vincent, am not fond of sunflowers anyway, so I wasn't heartbroken that Jen was unable to find any and had to go with Dahlias (which I rather like) instead.  They're a good substitute, I think, because they're kind of like miniature, different colored, prettier sunflowers.  Anyway, if you weren't sure about the relevance, you can see the TARDIS blue tinted water they're drinking and the blue curlicue ribbons they're accompanying.  I thought they looked great.

There were other decorations, as well.  Star-shaped balloons (red and TARDIS blue); curly ribbon hanging from the kitchen lights with stars on the ends, representing the time vortex; plastic ware wrapped in blue napkins and tied with blue string and called Sonic Screwdrivers; and so on.

Plus, there was tons of food.  And there were games!  Those were hilarious.  Improve, acting, a pop-quiz, reminiscing.  Fantastic!

Thanks, everyone!  Not a party I'm going to forget.  :)