Have You Ever Seen "Night of the Comet"

It's a screamingly bad 80's movie about Haley's Comet turning almost everyone to dust and zombifying most of the others, unless they were in a lead-cased room. So you ask, "Jason, you are on vacation. Why bring this rust-colored movie back from the dead?" The reason why is because I'm on vacation in Myrtle Beach. In February.

Arriving in Myrtle Beach proper was a study in contrasts. Gone was the ubiquitous traffic. It is February in a beach town after all. New construction is apparent since my nine year absence. Other retailers suffered, including Waccamaw Pottery, which is a shame. Sort of.

We drive past the closed water park (the whole "water parks don't do well in winter" thing), brooding like an undiscovered painting in an attic, desperately needing restoration and a few screaming children to appreciate it. The NASCAR restaurant? Gone. All Star Cafe? Gone. Times change, these things happen.

We head to Broadway at the Beach, a large shopping district, to grab some din-din after our 11 hour drive. As we drive around the perimeter, we notice that the parking lot is empty. Dead empty. "Is this place open?" empty. We park near the 3 cars in the entire section of the parking lot near our restaurant of choice for the night. We walk past some stores, all closed, most have black plastic over the windows, hiding what lies behind. Speakers pump out classic rock. My classic rock. Not the U2, Matchbox 20 that people try to call classic rock these days. Hearing the ancient chords, I imagined they had been playing for 10 years straight with nary an ear to hear it at this benighted corner of this forgotten tourist world. I begin to seriously feel uncomfortable, imagining flesh-hungry zombies are right around the corner. I put a brave face on for my children. Don't worry kids, we might be in mortal danger, but I don't want you to be scared about it.

Indeed, our restaurant is open, and our party of 5 more than doubles the current patronage of the facility. We sit in a round corner, glimpsing alternately from the Super Bowl on the big screen 50 feet away and the clear streets of Broadway. On Broadway, not a creature was stirring, not even a mouse. My wife observes the emptiness of our surroundings and makes a joke about our annihilation as a result of Cylon treachery. I tell her to keep her voice down so the Cylons two tables down won't hear us. She corrects me to say, 'Three tables'. I duck a little.
Then I see movement down the street from our corner seat. Human? Cylon? Who can say? These are uncertain times. I resist the urge to duck further. I await my roast beef sandwich.

Dinner finishes uneventfully. We brace against the chill of the night and head to the Francis Family Battle Van. We pile in, fire up the heat, turn up the radio. The talk is about "meat technology" (I'm totally and completely serious) which sounds suspiciously like a Cylon plot. Or perhaps I'm paranoid after listening to 6 hours of Coast to Coast earlier today. The final purge of the human race is coming, and it is starting here in Myrtle Beach. It will make John Connor's Judgement Day look like a Tee Ball game. And I'm here, right at the heart of it.

Or maybe not. The grocer told me it is going to be 71 degrees tomorrow. And tomorrow is another day.

Color Blind

My wife told me a story yesterday. We are preparing to try and sell our house (again) and we have contracted a new realtor. Our eldest daughter, 7, asked about what was going on. We told her we planned to move and that we are having a guest at our house on Saturday, the realtor. My wife described her, including the fact that she is a Black woman. My daughter paused, looked at my wife and said, “Does that mean she has black hair?”

God bless little children. I remember where she is, too. I didn’t have many friends that were black when I was growing up. For a little while, when I was a wee lad, 10 perhaps, I was friends with a boy named Jabbar. He was black, but I didn’t know it. I don’t remember who asked me, or even the particular question, but I remember someone remarking to me that I was friends with a black kid. I remember being completely confounded. That person may as well have been speaking Japanese. “Black? What do you mean? “ , I said. Reply: “You know, the kid with the dark skin.” I thought for a minute, “Jabbar? He’s not black, he’s Jabbar.”

I wonder what my daughter is thinking. I think I need to ask her.

From a hotel room, far, far away

Fourteen and a half hours after leaving my humble home (and, no, humble is not understating it), I have finally arrived in my destination town in Oregon. It's a beautiful state, really. Kinda reminds me of Virginia. Yeah, let's go with that. Oregon is the West Coast's liberal answer to Virginia. Like Pennsylvania, taking a page out of Obama's speechifying playbook, I'll bet Virginians also retreat to guns and religion when they are bitter. Probably Nascar, too. I imagine that if the same speech were said about Oregonians, they would retreat to lattes and pagan bumper stickers. And Nascar. (Ok, I've only seen one pagan bumper sticker)
I'm saying this having never met a single person here, except the nice young lady at the front desk of my hotel that was struggling to overturn a water jug.

You know what, this is MY Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy and if I want to paint broad and unfounded pictures, than by George (Bush) I will. Rule Americana!

Feeling a little unhinged, sorry about that. Seriously though, if I see another sign that says R.V. parking, I'm going to S.P.I.T. No, I'll probably just sneeze. I've got serious congestion issues, which is SO much fun on an airplane. One of the weirdest feelings in the world is how your congestion rolls around in your nasal cavity as you ascend/descend through the sky above this fruited plane. It's kinda like being pregnant, but in your nose. Most of the time, it just sits there, but then you get up and that baby starts kicking and rolling. Ugh.

I have nothing against R.V.'s. I really don't. I would love to get behind the wheel of one of those minibus' and cruise America

What is it with German Air Shows? I just saw where a plane was trying to land and rammed into a children's carousel. I don't think German's should be allowed to fly. Those poor wood and fiberglass horses deserve our protection.

Words you never want to here from your doctor: "You have impacted waste in your colon." I was listening to AM radio on my way down I-5 and the show mentioned that there was an ad that was recently pulled by the FDA, or FTC, or some other F agency because they were promising that their product could clean out up to 20 pounds of waste from your colon. 20 pounds, are you kidding? Think about that. That's about the size of a 3 month old child. In your colon. That's ridiculous.

And before you ask, no, I have not seen any bikini baristas. Maybe there is one at this area's biggest restaurant, Denny's. But I don't think so.

I never thought of Denny's as living large, but there is a dearth of restaurant's down this stretch of I-5 that are not named McD's, Arby's, Subway, or Elmer's. Don't get me wrong, I've had many a good time at Denny's. Kids eat free on Saturday nights at my local one, which I'm thankful for. And I really miss the skillets they use to serve. There is something authentic about breakfast being served on a cast iron pan. Cracker Barrel comes close to creating that same feeling, but I hate having to wait in line IN THE GIFT SHOP to get in when they are busy. And, yes, it has everything to do with me standing there with 3 little girls grabbing at all of the candy their little fists can grab.

Speaking from an East Coast point of view...think about this...people on the West Coast are almost the last to know. The International Date Line is in the Pacific Ocean. Every day starts in Russia, Australia, etc., and moves westward. There are about 6 billion people on our planet. About, oh, let's say 5.75 billion of those people have already been awake and been experiencing the world (and some back to bed) before the last 250 million or so people on the west coast catch up. Or another way to look at it: The Russians are the one's that go to Denny's at 4:30 AM for breakfast and Californians are the ones that close the local bar at 2 AM.

There really is no point to this (my M.O. is to be pointless as often as possible). If you got something out of this, leave a comment.

And if Jain Cobb is your hero, leave your comment in Chinese.

I'm a Closet Geek Poser, Inspired by Wil Wheaton

Wil Wheaton is NOT a geek poser. We'll get to that later...

I'm a closet geek poser. Yeah, you may want to read that again, just to be sure where I'm going with this. I grew up geek, back when geek was supremely uncool. Geek had a negative cache. My pants flooded, the hand-me-downs were less-than-impressing, and that was when they weren't made from old curtains. My hair made me 6 inches taller. I didn't date because, well, I was too geeky. My shoes were from Payless, and Nike was a distant, unaffordable dream. My first car was a '78 Pinto Station Wagon. And I was a clumsy ox. Now, out of High School and into the working world, geek can be quite cool. In fact, geeks control the world. We just let the *ahem* "cool" people think they have the world under their thumb. It's only because we LET them think that. To paraphrase Kristen Hersh, "We only talk to them because they are there".



My geek cred is so lame. My daily email from ZDnet news barely gives me one point of geek cred. Having three browsers? So what. Working in a tech company? Well, that's a good front, but my business card has more geek cred than I do. And even "cool" people know some HTML. Jason = Geek Lame. And no, that isn't Lamė, like the fabric. Although, being a man that knows that Lamė is a fabric gives me some geek cred, just in the wrong industry. I am woefully geek doomed.



I want to be one of the cool geeks, but without the inherent contradiction. If it helps, I am listening to "Night Moves" by Bob Segar. On my iPod shuffle. I know it's cool to listen to Bob Segar because I'm doing it on an Apple product. ;) AND, I'm typing this out on Google Documents, not MSWord. But I'm using Blogger (obviously) which is SO Vanilla Geek. And I'm using IE7 and have absolutely NO problem whatsoever with Microsoft. Queue Geek outcry. Ok, Windows is a friggin disk hog and my C Drive looks like a Burmese fishing village after a population boom. I don't like that. I just need to re-partition my hard drive (which contains C and D on the SAME drive, with D getting the spoils of the most space. Yeah, that makes sense.). If I were a proper Geek, I could do that with my feet on the keyboard while I conquered World of Warcraft on my Alienware system, finishing off a bag of Andy Capp's Cheddar Fries using only my enormous tongue (ever see a giraffe at the zoo?), solving complex quantum equations (redundant?) about string theory (which I really am fascinated by and think helps scientifically explain how God knows everything) with only half of the left side of my brain, and also parenting my children to grow them into good Christian Geeks with a penchant for fantasy, sci-fi, thunderstorms, the Pixies, Coast to Coast AM (I like Art and George), right wing viewpoints (anti-geek perhaps?), any movie that begins with "Star", trusting Snopes.com implicitly, reading Kurt Vonnegut, using (WAY) too many parentheses, and watching the new Battlestar Galactica. And the Winx club. I have three girls. They like girl things. I can't help that. But at least they are fairies. The Winx Club, not my girls. And the new Silons scare my girls to death. ROBOTS, AHHHH! Which reminds me, if Silons are robots, how come their aim is so bad? But I digress...



(Can I use a word like "Digress" and still get some geek cred? Or will I lose a point for the smugness of using an oft-unused word?)



Yet, for all of my geek-striving, I've got no cred. My blog has more down-time than AT&T customer service. Not the blog's fault. It's mine. I have no blog dedication. I used to, but life is busy. I work at a tech company, but don't have a tech job. I'm customer service, if you break my job down. I need to know how to use SQL, but I'm not writing code for it. I can barely write code to change the colors on my blog anymore.



I recently came across Wil Wheaton's (yes, THAT Wil Wheaton) blog courtesy of a book report that ZDNet did for his latest book. I like his blog, despite the curse at the top of the page (despite the fact that I agree with his sentiment), the apparent (to me, I'm making presumptions) left wing-ness, and the porn link that is reported to exist. He writes like I think, which is really weird, almost invasive. I hope Wil can't read my mind. Maybe he'll discover how un-geek I am and out me as "cool". And then the cool people will laugh and shun me, leaving me standing alone, friendless, shouting to the sky "Wil Wheaton, why have you forsaken me?". (Pause for dramatic effect)



Seriously, my Christian friends (and yes, there can be a big difference between friends and Christian friends) accept me no matter how geek or cool I am, no matter what Wil says. Stay out of my head, Wil Wheaton! And no, Wil, I'm not angling for a free, signed copy of your newest book, The Happiest Days of Our Lives. Unless it would be geeky to do so, in which case I AM angling. I can see it now, "Hey guys, I just got my signed copy of Wil Wheaton's newest book!"



Ohhhhhh, I can feeeeeeeeel the geek cred. I say that with total respect, Wil. Yes, Wil, send it! And I'm totally kidding, Wil. You're self-publishing, which is brave and rocks pretty hard. Thrive, survive, and don't give them away.



Shoot, how did Jewel get on my ultra-cool iPod? I SWEAR that it isn't mine. It's like being caught by the police with a bag of weed in your glove compartment. Officer, my friend put that in there, I had no idea! (Note: Never touched the stuff, never will). Throwing Muses is next, so I feel better now. Kristen Hersh is amazing.



((I just paused to read what I wrote, and now that I'm back to write some more, I'm listening to "Last Dance with Mary Jane". What's up with the weed references all of a sudden?))



It feels good to write. The geek meter will rise with my next sentence. Wil Wheaton's writing has inspired me to write more. Seriously. I use to write for myself. I can't say it was very good. I tried and tried. But, honestly, you either have it or you don't, or you have a ghost writer, in which case you don't have it, but you can still be a wealthy "writer". One of the best bit's of advice I've ever heard about being a better writer is, "Writer's write". You have to write if you want to be a good writer. You don't get to be a good writer by doing it here and there. You have to keep writing. Unless you're Stephen King and, even though I loved, and then only liked, the "Dark Tower" series, no amount of writing will make me think he is a literary genius. Prolific, yes. Entertaining, mostly yes, though I'm not into horror. A high water mark of 20th century literature, not really. Stephen, you can take heart, though. I did buy some of your books. Thanks for reading my blog Mr. King!



Where was I? Oh yeah, striving for geek cred. You know, I'm feeling good about it right now. I feel like this post is getting me closer to the geekdom I'm pursuing. Agreed?

What is there to say?

I'm not witty on demand, people. Some would argue that I'm witty at all. I feel like I've been running down a very narrow hallway. I know the direction I'm going but I often bump on the walls. Sometimes I trade some paint. Life has been confining lately. That isn't an inherently bad thing. We need constraints. Some people need straightjackets. Me? I like a nice, light sweatshirt, half sleeve, on a cool Fall day. I'm not much for skin-tight duds. Same for my life. I like it loose, flowy. Like Seinfeld's puffy shirt, but without that piratical flair. You'll never see me modeling for Wet Seal. It isn't me. But the tunnel keeps going.

Our quest to sell our home and move ended with a thud. No one wanted our house. No one. We were priced great, fresh paint, yada yada, thud. The market disappeared into thin air here. So the house is off of the market and I'm moving everything from storage back IN to the house. Just grab the knife and twist, please. I pack all of those boxes, pay for storage, and I have to take all of this stuff back into my house? Not cool.

It is nice to be home, though. I've been living on the road for much of the summer staying in Vernal Utah, Andover MA, Pflugerville TX, Wenatchee, Issaquah and Colville WA, Longmeadow MA, Woodbridge NJ, Greenburg PA, and Port Charlotte FL. Some trips were definitely better than others. I saw many Twin Peaks sites while in Washington, as well as the largest mountains I've ever seen so far, and Snoqualmie Falls. In Colville, I saw the Milky Way for the first time. I saw the Flaming Gorge (hold your jokes please) in Utah, and climbed down a stepped cliff to the Green River at the foot of a huge dam. I swam in the bathwater called the Gulf of Mexico and was treated to nightly thunderstorms.

There are advantages to being on the road, and enjoying them helps make being away not such a pain. But it doesn't override being at home. Sleeping in your own bed, eating a nice simple meal instead of eating out for every meal. That probably sounds good to most of you, but let me tell you, it gets oooooold. Spend 5 days eating at least 10 meals at a restaurant and it stops feeling like a treat. Worse yet if you have to eat at the airport. Except for the fries I had at Midway Airport, Harry Carey's I think it was. Great french fries, man! Get me an order to go!

I've been home for a few weeks now, getting back into the weekly grind, helping out with the Alpha Course at church, Autism Society happenings, the kids various activities...life was ready to go on the second my last plane landed and the last rental car was handed back to the rightful company. My favorite so far? The Pontiac G6, suprisingly. I liked it better than the Charger! Anyway...

I'm actually happy to be home driving my minivan the most. I love the van and no car I have driven yet makes me want to give it up. Of course, it has over 150k on it now so it is going to have to go. And soon I think. Darn.

And my oldest daughter has started being Homeschooled by my wife, and to surprising results. She isn't just doing better, she is doing MUCH better. I was dubious about it, and about simply fitting school in to my wife's life as it is, but they have both taken to it very well!

That's all I've got for now, sorry. Life beckons and I must answer.

Ok, Angie...

...soon, I promise!

Landed in chicago

"This must be where pies go to die"

I made my way to Twede's Diner, otherwise know as the Double R Diner from the strangest television show in the last 20 years, "Twin Peaks". Of course, I had to see if Agent Cooper was telling the truth. Do they, indeed, have a damn fine cup of joe? And is this really where "pies go when they die?" I went in expecting to be disappointed. Hype rarely delivers. I am happy to say that the coffee was damn fine, thank you very much, and I have never had such a tasty slice of cherry pie!

Snoqualmie falls

Washington!

Me ta? No, UTAH!

Some places are just too darn far away. Traveling is a different animal for those that live on the coasts as opposed to those that live in the interior of the US. If you live in, say, Topeka, KA., you are already halfway to every place you could want to go in the US. But flying from the coast means that, while some places are convenient to fly to, some places may as well be on Mars. Take Vernal, UT for example. (No go ahead, take it. No one is using it anyway)

That's a little harsh. It is a bustling little town in the middle of nowhere. I flew from Philly to Salt Lake City (via Phoenix) and then drove 3 hours east across Utah.

I got to see some beautiful country out there. And yes, sometimes it looked like Mars. After leaving the city, and driving through the toney suburbs like Park City, the mountains just start rolling and, before long, you are in arid country. I wouldn't quite call it desert. Too much greenery. But I am no expert on deserts. Desserts maybe, but not deserts. And I am also no expert on Deseret, either. (For those who get the dry joke, score one point)

The town of Vernal, or the county of Uintah I should say, is easily the largest speed bump on US route 40 heading east; about 20000 strong. You wouldn't know it though. It spreads out.

I felt claustrophobic while I was in town. The wilderness felt like it was only 3 blocks away from Main Street. That didn't keep me from driving out there, though. I don't know what this is a picture of, but it's neat!

On my big local travel day, I made my way out to Flaming Gorge. There is some great scenery out there, including the Flaming Gorge Dam.

I decided that, while I was there, and since there was a "footpath" built for the purpose, I climbed down the cliffside to see the Green River. Yes, I could have driven down, but where's the fun in that? This is the view looking away from the dam.

I took way too many nature pictures out in Vernal, Utah. But there wasn't much else to take a picture of! This pic to the right is heading out of the Flaming Gorge area.

The town itself wasn't all that photogenic. There are a lot of dinosaurs in town, but only in the touristy sense. There are dino attractions there that I didn't have time to visit, and nearby to Vernal is Dinosaur National Monument which was closed by the time I got there. I had to make a choice between Flaming Gorge and dinos for the bulk of my day and chose the Gorge. So if I ever make my way out there again, I'll still have something new to do!

One last almost totally unrelated point. To all of you lesser statured people out there. PLEASE let tall people sit in the exit rows on the plane! I am 6' 5" and I am driven mad by the 5' 5" people that sit where the most legroom exists while me and people like me sit squashed in the other coach seats. I mean really. You aren't even USING the legroom you have! Let the tall people have what they need!

Just Getting Rid of Some Pork

I don't really have anything to say. Too busy with work, travelling for work, painting and packing and getting ready for our move. But more than one person has said, "Get rid of the Pig!" so down it goes. As it turns out, talk of it being a hoax did rear it's head a little while after I posted it but I don't know what came of it. No biggie.

Oh yeah, we did get to go on vacation to Massanutten VA again which was great!

Here's a couple pics: