Out of a lack of something profound to say, I want to welcome you to my journal. Most days it will probably be a boring read, but others I may get creative and think of something good to write. So if you're bored, check out The Oxville Gazette to see what's up in my world.
Last night The Chalmers, Katie's WFU Med School friend Jennifer, and I had a great time at the Tech vs. Wake game (other than the losing part). Jennifer took us to a great restaurant, Village Tavern, that was surprisingly busy for a Tuesday night. We quickly learned why it was so crowded as the food was great. We all split a calamari appetizer and I ended up making a "game time" decision on dinner and got the flank steak with seasonal vegetables and mashed potatos. I think everyone enjoyed their food.
After we headed to the coliseum and met Stan and picked up our tickets in the third row behind the bench. If you were watching the game we were the block of about five people wearing yellow behind the team. Unfortunately we only had two courtside seats and Jennifer with her student ticket and Katie with her scalped ticket were in the upper deck for a few minutes. Luckily there were a couple of extra seats and since the ushers weren't checking tickets they were able to move down and join us which was fun.
Regarding the game, it's amazing how different the court looks from that close, it looks much bigger on TV and the players take up a lot more space. I'm going to have to be rich or get really lucky to get seats down there because it's great to be able to see the players' and coaches' expressions. As for the team's play we looked improved but still seem to lack the fire to make a run or hold an all too rare lead.
Here are some camera phone shots and a video:
Warm ups
Honoring the Wake Football team at halftime. ARGHHHHHHH
Tomorrow night Joel and I will be sitting behind the bench at the Tech vs. Wake game in Winston-Salem thanks to a generous alum in the Triangle Tech Club. I've never been that close to the bench so I'm kind of nervous to be on my best behavior and not get frustrated with the way the team is playing or when CPH calls a time out half a second after we make a basket and look like we're starting a run. I asked the guy tonight at our officers' meeting and he said just yell a lot and be supportive. I think I can handle that.
Another bonus of tonight's meeting, Coach Chan Gailey will be speaking at the Triangle GT Club on Tuesday April 17. You should come!
In other semi-Tech news, I got some awesome shorts today at Belk at Crabtree. They cost a lot more than I'd normally pay for shorts since they are Polo and had just been stocked but they are awesome! Here are a couple of pics.
Notice the bee-type creatures. The cool thing is that they aren't all the same.
I love perfectly clear and cold days. I also love taking pictures on such days as the sky has turned a deep, clear blue. The kind of blue you see when you look at the oceans in a photograph of Earth from space.
Yesterday some coworkers, my boss, and I traveled to Durham for a couple of meetings with developers and between the meetings we walked around downtown to check out all of the redevelopment that is greatly turning the city around. Here are a few shots and the rest can be found here.
An old Pepsi ad on a building. I really wish it would have been Coke instead.
In other news, there was a running race in Raleigh this morning called the Krispy Kreme Challenge. It's a fund raiser for the NC Children's Hospital started by some NC State students a couple of years ago and involves running 2 miles from the NC State bell tower to the Peace Street Krispy Kreme, eating a dozen donuts, and then running the 2 miles back in under an hour. With the number of friends that are starting to run in races I've been thinking about it for awhile and have run regularly off and on for the last year or two but haven't had great discipline of staying in a routine which leads to quickly losing any fitness gains and starting all over. Donuts may provide some added motiviation other than getting in shape. While it's a year away and I may forget about it, it sounds like a lot of fun, though that is a lot of donuts.
On Friday I attended a meeting for work in Virginia Beach and made the most out of my trip and stayed over the weekend to visit Jac, Ben, Missy, and GJ. We had a great and cold time hanging and taking in some of the sites in the area. Friday night we participated in VA Beach Restaurant Week and had a three course prix fixe meal at the Baker's Crust which was outstanding for $20.07. I'd go back if I lived up there. I had the calamari, smoke tomato and chicken penne, and cannoli crepe. After dinner we played two rounds Scene It and some other game that I don't remember the name of with guys versus girls. The guys dominated all three games!
Saturday morning Ben, Jac, and I ventured to downtown Norfolk to visit the USS Wisconsin which is berthed right in downtown which makes for an interesting juxtaposition. It was cold and very windy but thankfully sunny so we occassionally caught some warm spots while walking around the battleship. We couldn't go below deck as the ship is still commissioned in the reserves in case the Navy ever needs to place it in active duty. We spoke with a couple of the docents on board who served on the ship during WWII and they enjoyed talking to Jac about her role as communications engineer on the current ships. We also visited the adjacent naval mueseum next door which was interesting; we all learned some new stuff and even saw a 'ghost'.
After the ship we headed back to Jac's place to eat leftovers from the night before for lunch and pick up Missy. We then picked up GJ and headed to the Virginia Marine Science Museum. I think we all enjoyed the museum where we learned how to talk to birds and saw Jac and Missy get eaten by a giant shark. After the museum they asked if I wanted to see the beach so I said yes and we headed east a few blocks. It turns out that was a fortuitous choice as we saw a whale watching boat right off the beach with a giant flock of birds surrounding it. Thanks to some tourist on their hotel balcony they pointed out that we should watch for some whales. This was pretty cool because I had suggested going whale watching but we got to see them for free! It was also cool that they were so close to shore, maybe 1/4 mile out, not much farther than the pier. Given the size of the bird flock I'd say the baitfish school they were chasing must have been huge.
After becoming 'old people' from watching the whales we ate dinner at Max & Ermas and then went back to Jac and Missy's to watch the Tech vs. UNC game. Unfortunately Tech lost for the 11th time in a row at UNC and I think Ben and I both fell asleep at different times during the game.
As most of you know I like to sightsee and take the opportunity to take side trips to see new places if I'm not on a schedule so today I detoured to Elizabeth City, NC. The downtown was in fairly good shape and there is a nice river walk and public dockage as well. Since it was Sunday morning there wasn't much going on other than church services so the stores and restaurants were all closed too. If you're in search of a big old house that's a place to find them. Quite a few have been fixed up and are in good shape but there's still a good stock of houses that could be featured on This Old House. After Elizabeth City and I stopped in historic downtown Edenton since it was on the way. If this sounds familiar it's because I've been there before (I was going to put a link to the post about my visit in May 2005 but apparently I didn't write or it got deleted somehow, I think probably the latter) since several professors at UNC said to visit before leaving NC as it was the colonial capital. Edenton is a neat little town too, take the time to visit if you're on the way to the Outer Banks.
I returned to Raleigh a little after 1 avoiding most of the rain and freezing rain. I built a fire and am still hoping for snow but it's still cold and raining and doesn't look promissing...at least I got to see some on Thursday.
Here are some pics and a video clip from the weekend. You can view the rest of the pictures here.
Ben at the stern of the USS Wisconsin. The flag is still at half mast for President Ford.
The Bow
A Livestrong dolphin outside the Virginia Marine Science Museum
Finally, some snow!!! It's about 1/2"-3/4" right now and that's as probably as deep as it'll get but enough to close everything, except work. Supposedly pavement temps are 40 degrees so it'll melt off pretty quickly but I'll enjoy it while it's here.
A column in today's News & Observer hits close to home in its discussion of hot dogs mentioning both Zack's in Burlington and of course The Varsity in Atlanta. According to the author the Greasy V wins for the best hot dog joint but gives props to Zack's saying it's the best reason to head over to Burlington. I have to agree on that one other than seeing the Chalmers (note: Grandparents are in Elon...not Burlington).
I had a pretty good weekend. Saturday I went golfing for the first time this year with the Chalmers over in Hillsborough at Cedar Grove. Joel blew Katie and me away by shooting a personal best 100! I followed with an 118 which is pretty normal and I'm not sure what Katie shot. If I could knock a putt off each hole that would save 18 shots and should be an easy way to improve my score since it seems like I three putt almost every hole (argh).
Sunday I went to church and then was lazy.
Monday I had the day off and went running for the first time in quite awhile and jacked up my foot somehow, hopefully it's just a bruise and nothing serious. I was hoping to start running again but I guess I'll be stuck on the cycle trainer some more. I also headed down to the NC Farmers Market and stocked up on some firewood for the impending cold snap...winter is finally coming! It was a lot less crowded and did not have nearly as many merchants as during the weekend but I guess that's to be expected.
My three day trip to SC was cut to two when we motored through the entire state and every small town quicker than we anticipated. Along the way we visited Gaffney, Laurens, Clinton (home of the Blue Hose), Newberry, McCormick, Johnston, Columbia, Winnsboro, Lancaster and many smaller towns on the way. We visited the "Peach Capital of the World" and "South Carolina's First Tree City" and Dizzy Gillespie's hometown. Surprisingly most of the downtowns were rehabbed and in really good shape with most of the store fronts filled which was great to see in the middle of nowhere.
As part of my travels I like to eat some local food so I posted on The Hive asking for suggestions and got a few but the thread turned into a keep us posted thread on what I did which was kind of neat that people were interested in my progress. Early on I received the suggestion to look for a sign along the way and it's below (I liked Clinton but I still think it's classic). Another sign is below that and my coworker spotted it and snapped the photo. Both are in Newberry, SC.
The Historic Newberry Opera House that has quite the lineup of national and regional acts that pass through.
This afternoon as I was driving to Elon to eat dinner with the G units and celebrate my gmother's 81st birthday I was listening to NPR which is my usual Saturday driving entertainment due to the wide variety of entertaining programming (I'll save you all the trouble, yes I'm an old man). I've started to really "This American Life" a show that in three acts tells three different stories related to one subject. This week's edition is entitled "The Super" and by super they mean superintendent of apartment buildings. The show featured three very unique, two funny and one serious insight into tenant-super relations. I definitely recommend listening to this show on the radio this weekend of online next week when it's posted. The link is below:
On my way back tonight I was listening to XM and flipping around and landed on Channel 6 which is the 60s station which was playing "Limbo Rock" by Chubby Checker. Before that song did people limbo or did Chubby Checker invent the favorite game of skating rink birthday parties?
Observation 2:
I really like when the moon is low on the horizon and appears really large and orange. It's mesmerizing. I like to watch how it changes during it's rise in the night sky. One day maybe I'll be a space tourist and take a trip to the moon and get to watch the Earth rise.
It's taken more than three days for me to post my first entry of 2007 but my deliquency comes with good reason, I was in Jacksonville for the Gator Bowl! I drove down on Saturday along with every New Yorker and citizen of Ontario and endured too much traffic arriving around 8:00. On the positive side I made excellent use of my new XM SkyFi2 satelite radio I got for Christmas. I've come to the conclusion that XM is definitely worth it and is wonderful invention. Here are a couple of pictures of the installation my dad and I did in my Explorer.
After arrival I hung out until the Schlieper caravan arrived and then hit up the local IHOP for some late night eats. Sunday was a beautiful, but hot (81 degrees) day, and we headed downtown before lunch to take in the bowl game events. Upon my arrival I quickly realized I was in the minority as a Tech fan. It's not often I'm in the minority and it's an interesting feeling and there's not much you can do about other than represent your group as best as possible.
Sunday afternoon featured the longest parade ever which lasted a whopping two hours. The coolest floats were big pirate ships with cannons which fired very loudly. After the parade we all headed back to The Landing for the Tech pep rally and we finally saw a bunch of Tech fans. Post pep rally we headed back to the motel for a few hours and had dinner and then headed back downtown for the New Year's fireworks which were great.
Monday was game day and the actuall game was a huge improvement over the last few games we've played. Even though we lost I was not depressed like after the ACC Championship game and am really looking forward to next season. The future is bright!
