Is it Good Eats?

For those fans of Alton Brown and Good Eats like myself, it's easy to appreciate the creativity of the show's writing, which extends all the way into 12 seasons (and counting) of creative episode titles. Today's quiz challenges you to separate fact from fiction. Enjoy!

Below are the titles of 30 episodes of Good Eats... or are they? Some of them are completely bogus. Can you find which 10 titles are definitely not Good Eats?


1) Wake Up Little Sushi
2) Alton Crown Affair
3) Okraphobia
4) It's Up, and It's Gouda!
5) Bird is the Word
6) Steak Your Claim
7) Withering Bites
8) Send in the Clams
9) Starfish Wars
10) Rice, Rice Baby
11) Chops Ahoy
12) Field of Greens
13) Fry Hard
14) Pretzel Logic
15) Ifs, Ands and Butts
16) Your Pad Thai or Mine
17) Let Them Eat Foam
18) Ginger and Rosemary Ann
19) Melondrama
20) House of the Rising Bun
21) Summer of Salmon
22) Churn Baby Churn
23) Grand Salami
24) Puff the Magic Pastry
25) Great Balls O' Meat
26) It's About Thyme
27) The Icing Man Cometh
28) Please Sir, Can I Have S'More?
29) Mission: Poachable
30) This Spud's For You

A mile isn't as far as it used to be... UPDATE

Updating my previous article on changes at Alaska Airlines, the airline announced today a slight amendment to their changes set to take effect on November 1st, based apparently on numerous complaints from customers:

Money and Miles Award changes The "AS50" Money and Miles award will continue to offer a 50% discount up to $250 for 15,000 miles round-trip; however, these awards will only earn 50% of the miles that they earn today. These miles and 100% of the segments flown will count toward MVP/MVP Gold qualification. The change will apply to all Money and Miles awards booked on or after November 1, 2008.

This amends the previous plan which was that using the AS50 discount would earn no miles at all on the flight. While I did say this was reasonable all things considered, this is a far better solution in my book, and added bonus points to Alaska for listening to customers and a willingness to compromise.

Sound Transit - Round 2

Despite the economic downturn (or perhaps partially because of it), Sound Transit has opted to come back to voters once again this November in an attempt to get a light rail system in Seattle off and running.

As most know, I'm a strong proponent of anything that will improve the public transportation infrastructure in the greater Seattle area, most notably light rail. While I did support last year's Roads & Transit measure, based solely on the light rail portion of it, I'm pleased to see that Sound Transit is coming back with a transit-only package that hopefully will appeal to a wider audience who believes as I do that the solution is not adding more lanes onto freeways, but rather adding more mass transit options.

The new 15-year plan includes a good compromise on time-to-build vs. reaching the most people. The features include:

• Increased ST regional express bus service.
• Increased Sounder commuter rail service.
• Light rail north to Northgate by 2020 and to Lynnwood by 2023.
• Light rail south to north Federal Way (272nd) by 2023.
• Light rail east to Bellevue by 2020 and to Overlake by 2021.
• More potential expansion planning and design and right-of-way purchase.

This adds on to the existing approved (and under construction) light rail service from downtown to the airport in 2009, and to the UW by 2016.

The cost? Not exactly cheap, but it's all relative. A half-percent increase in the sales tax in the Sound Transit RTA (most of King, Snohomish, and Pierce counties). This will bring the sales tax from the current 9.0% to 9.5%, a difference to the average consumer of about $69/year (depending on who you consider the average consumer, but remember folks, state sales tax is also now a deduction on your IRS income taxes).

I'm all for this, but I must admit the timeline is always a bit daunting. The first of any of this additional light rail won't be functional for 12 years, but if things are this bad now, can you imagine what traffic will be like 12 years from now? Yeah, exactly.

I know there are plenty of people who don't think light rail is the answer, for any number of reasons. Certainly there are plenty more who don't like the idea of more sales taxes. My perspective continues to be that if we don't start now, we'll never get anywhere. The time isn't going to get shorter, and the costs not cheaper. See what happens.

More details about the new plan are at future.soundtransit.org.

A mile isn't as far as it used to be...

For many of us air travellers in Seattle, Alaska Airlines is our local airline of choice and where we choose to bank all of our frequent flyer miles. Not surprisingly, in the current economic downturn and sky-high (pun intended) gas prices, all airlines seem to be making changes. Alaska has bucked the trend of charging passengers for their first piece of checked luggage, but has instead decided to take a more reasonable approach and changed their frequent flyer plan.

Yesterday they announced Upcoming Mileage Plan Changes on their website, effective November 1st. I've always thought Alaska had some of the few really outstanding deals for frequent fliers, and that doesn't seem to be changing, but it does appear they will be somewhat less outstanding. I'll review some of the more notable changes below.

• 25,000 miles for a free round-trip flight in the continental U.S. Previously for a mere 20,000 miles, and suitable planning, you could fly anywhere in the U.S. (except Hawaii) for free. Virtually no other airline had such low mileage redemption levels, most in the 25,000-30,000 mile range, but not Alaska will join the pack. Still a good deal if you're flexible and have good planning.
• 3 award levels instead of 2. It used to be there was "Peak" and "Saver" awards, now we add a third class in the middle called "Choice" and rename the others "Full Flex" and "Super Saver". What does that mean? Nobody really knows, other than there'll be three buckets of availability to work with, and you can hope the flight you want has some "Super Saver" awards still available, or your 25k round-trip becomes 40k miles in Choice or up to 55k miles in "Full Flex" with no restrictions.
• New Intra-State Awards. Fly round-trip to any airport in the same state for just 15,000 miles in "Super Saver". This is probably a great deal for states like California, where you could fly from the Bay Area to San Diego cheap, but for those of us in Seattle, we're limited to Spokane and/or any podunk towns in eastern WA. I guess those who frequently fly to Yakima or Tri-Cities on Horizon could cash in on this, but it might be nice if they decided to include Portland in our WA Intra-state awards.
• No miles on the 50% award. A unique award in the Alaska lineup, any fare Alaska offers can be slashed in half (up to a $250 discount) for just 15,000 miles. The one difference from conventional awards was that in this case, you still received the actual miles flown for the trip. As a frequent user of this award, I've always been somewhat surprised by how I can save $250, but then get miles anyway, effectively making the mileage cost of the 5,354-mile Seattle-Honolulu round-trip just 9,646 miles for $250/off, a value of about 2.5-cents per mile. The new changes eliminate this loophole of sorts, which caps the value at 1.6-cents per mile, which still seems reasonable to me if you can take advantage of it, especially given the new award levels.
• $25 fee for redeeming partner awards. Using your miles for flights on non-Alaska flights? Expect to pay a $25 surcharge. Seems a small price to pay for the flexibility and advantage of cashing in your miles for some big-ticket flights on other airlines. Again, a reasonable change.

An important note that none of these changes take effect for flights booked before November 1st, so if you have your travel plans for the next year already lined up, book those tickets before then and save over the higher rates. Of course it's disappointing Alaska has had to raise rates, nobody likes that, but thanks to them for resisting the urge to take the nickle-and-dime approach like other airlines are doing.

Good News... Bad News...

Good News: I found the tube of chap stick I had lost...

Bad News: ... when I was taking the clothes out of the dryer.

Avenue Q

I know you've been waiting for it... and had I read my season tickets correctly I would have had this review published LAST Wednesday, but alas, I'm an idiot and looked at my calendar, not realizing my tickets actually said the week before. Alas, all worked out and I still did see the show. Did I mention I'm an idiot? That said...

What a show! Avenue Q is Sesame Street for those entering the real world. In fact, the writers of the show claim to have meant it to be a homage to Jim Henson and Sesame Street, though they specifically disclaim any connection to either. The parallels, however, are abundant and hilarious. The integration of puppets and real-life characters is seamless, though in this case no effort whatsoever is made to hide the puppeteers. In fact, the puppeteers are simply extensions of the puppet characters.

There are certainly some risque scenes, and certainly the majority of which you'd never find broadcast on PBS. But what really takes this show over the top is the music.

It's rather disappointing that by far the most popular song in this musical is the cultural-crossover blockbuster "The Internet Is For Porn," as this sorely discounts some of the more poignant themes and outstanding lyrics in several other songs. Certainly "Everyone's A Little Bit Racist" really encapsulates the current generation's frustration with the epidemic of political correctness of society today.

Additionally, I thought the song "I Wish I Could Go Back To College" is probably one of the most brilliant songs in the show, and solidly demonstrates the writers' connection to basically anyone who went to college in the past 10 years. With references such as "Sitting in the computer lab / 4 A.M. before the final paper is due / Cursing the world that I didn't start sooner / And seeing the rest of the class there, too!" and "I wanna go back to my room and find a message in dry-erase pen on the door!" it's a certainty that any recent undergrads need to see this show, if only to wax nostalgic. Sadly, I can only assume that this show will eventually date itself and become a cultural relic of Generation X.

What's probably most amazing is that the entire cast consists of just 7 actors, 3 of which are purely human characters, and 4 puppeteers who seamlessly perform, voice, and constantly hand-off about a dozen puppet characters. To discount the skill and coordination to required to do this as they do would be impossible.

It's refreshing to see a musical that avoids the cliche of a cast of under-educated youth struggling to survive in a horrible, drug-filled world, and instead focuses on the difficulties and struggles undertaken by college-educated folks entering the real world of today.

As for the ratings:

Script: 4-stars. A brilliant overall concept, though bowed a bit too the cheap laughs at points. Cast: 5-stars, simply brilliant puppeteer/actors.
Music: 5-stars, every song worth listening to. A must-have soundtrack.
Technical: 4-stars, no gimmicks necessary with the rest of the supporting pieces.
Overall: 5-stars. See this everytime it comes to town. In my case, next time it's in town I'll be putting a group together to go see it.

Evolution of an Address

The "internets" have taken over the world! It's interesting to notice how advertising has adapted to and embraced the internet as their best marketing tool. No longer do they have a 30-second spot to tell you everything they do, all they need is to convince you they do something big and important, and throw their web address at you to find out more.

One of the interesting things is that I've been around to see the entire progression of this over time.

1) The .com address. First it was just the really techie companies that had these, then everyone realized how easy it was. You got your name, stuck a www. before it and a .com after it, and you're set.

2) The world got smarter. People started to realize, "Hey, if I don't know the address of a company, I can just put its name with a www. before and a .com after, and that's probably it!" Well, that worked once in a while, until the .com namespace became so polluted that new companies had no choice but to call themselves www.mycompanynamewasalreadytakensowepickedsomethingelse.com.

3) The .notcom addresses. People found that if their .com address was taken, they could just get the .org, .net, .us address, or whatever. Easy! Or not... they publicize their address as mycompany.org and everyone punches in mycompany.com instead going to their evil competitor (or more likely some completely unrelated company with a similar name).

4) The world got smarter. They realized the world isn't all .com, and they adapted. But what do companies do then? They make sure to register .com, .org, .net, .everything so that whatever ending we put on the name will take us to their website. Genius. Now all the common root domain namespaces are polluted.

5) Google. Forget about addresses, what we need is a phone book. Aha! Hello, Google. Now we can punch in the company's name, and it'll TELL US what the address is. Brilliant. Except that I really don't want all of these other web sites that come up. Or do I?

6) The AOL Keyword. Or the keyword. This was a short-lived bogosity. Force someone to go to some easy to remember website (ala aol.com) and then once that page comes up (and you stare at all their appropriate advertising), type in some keyword you could have just typed on Google in the first place, and get where you need to go. A vain attempt at a "user-friendly web" which failed miserably.

7) The world got smarter. Now not only can they advertise their .com address. They can advertise complex addresses that include all kinds of dots and slashes. helpfulname.mycompany.com/somethingelse. The techies love this. We can get to exactly what we want to get to without having to wade through pages of navigation.

Which brings me to a side rant. The slash (or is it a backslash?). You no doubt hear this on the radio all the time. Some announcer is reading off a web address, and says "Visit mywebsite dot com, backslash idiot, for more details." Certainly backslash sounds really big and important... I heard some IT guy at work using it last week... all the cool kids say it. Well folks, I hate to tell you, but THERE ARE NO BACKSLASHES IN A WEB ADDRESS! They are ALL, ALWAYS, WITHOUT-FAIL, simple old slashes. Something slash something. End rant.

The nice thing about the whole evolution of it is that it's entirely backwards compatible. You can always go the hard way and keep clicking until you find something you want, or just take shortcuts along the way.

The evolution will continue. Next comes direct advertising of IP addresses... no, not IPv4, but IPv6 addresses. Just like a 32-digit telephone number, with 16-digits on your phone dial. Piece of cake, right? Well, maybe we'll just continue to use Google instead.

Fun, Fun, Fun

Is it just me, or is "fun" one of the most overloaded words in the English language? Most people would sit there and think, "what are you talking about? Fun means only one thing, it's one of the basic building blocks by which other more complicated words are defined." But not only is it used as a noun, adjective, and verb, it's also used to convey positive and negative, good fun and bad fun, craziness and absurdity.

How many times have you been told, "You're no fun," just because your idea of fun is counter to someone else's? How many times have people used the excuse "I was just having fun," in response to being caught doing something they shouldn't.

Contrarily, spending times with your best friends is "fun", as is doing good things you like to do. Pretty soon we'll be saying things like:

"I had a fun time playing games outside, but had way too much drinking fun, and
now I'm having fun being sick."

People, hear me now... using the word "fun" is a short way to waste a lot of words.

More interesting to me is the usage note in the American Heritage Dictionary regarding the adjective form of "fun":

The use of fun as an attributive adjective, as in a fun time, a fun place,
probably originated in a playful reanalysis of the use of the word in sentences
such as "It is fun to ski," where fun has the syntactic function of adjectives
such as amusing or enjoyable. The usage became popular in the 1950s and
1960s, though there is some evidence to suggest that it has 19th-century
antecedents, but it can still raise eyebrows among traditionalists. The day may
come when this usage is entirely unremarkable, but writers may want to avoid
it in more formal contexts.

Don't get me wrong, there are legitimate uses of the word "fun", but let's try to keep it the way it was intended to be. The next time I hear someone use it in an absurd way, I will be compelled to beat them over the head with a rubber chicken...

... yeah, that'll be fun!

Name That Show - Answers

The answers to the Name That Show quiz:

1) Hawaii 5-0
2) Mission: Impossible
3) Sesame Street
4) SportsCenter
5) Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous
6) Matlock
7) Magnum, P.I.
8) Let's Make a Deal
9) Knight Rider
10) The A-Team

Summer Staycations

With a term sure to make 2009's annual Banished Words List, the mass media has glommed onto the only way to describe the country's response to the current state of the economy for summer travel: the "Staycation."

With airfares going through the roof, and the nickle-and-diming by the airlines becoming dollar-and-quartering, the prediction of a major downturn in summer travel is not unlikely. As expected, United announced today that it will be matching American's $15 charge each-way for the FIRST checked bag on flights. While I understand that the airlines have taken a huge hit on fuel prices and are hemorrhaging money, it's understandable that luxuries once commonplace on flights should be eliminated or require an extra charge. However, CHECKING A BAG IS NOT A LUXURY! These charges amount to nothing more than extortion of the customer. Most customers will have no choice but to pay the extra $30 roundtrip fee, or if they have the option choosing to fly on a different airline.

Of course, I'm one who usually takes my chances and checks a bag, even though my suitcase is technically suitable to carry on the plane. For $30, I would certainly change that viewpoint (as would many others, I expect) and attempt shove my bag in the already non-existent space in the overhead bins. I predict congestion at the gate, necessitating many bags to be checked gateside, thereby holding up flights and costing the airlines more than they're taking in from the increased baggage charges. But what do I know? If anything, this may help increase flyers on those lower-cost airlines who don't need to charge the extra fees. Seems to me the MBAs at American and United who determined this is a money-making plan may have the foresight of a mosquito just moments before it encounters my cars windshield at 60 MPH.

On the other hand, I think this increase in cost for air travel may actually come out in the wash for consumers. Resort destinations are predicting the trickle-down from a downturn in air travel hurting their bottom lines, with their only resolution being to reduce rates accordingly. A bit of creative planning and flexibility on the airfare side (or cashing in some of those frequent flyer miles) could easily equal an overall cheaper time to vacation travel than we've seen in the past few years. Las Vegas casinos are becoming desperate for visitors, and other resort destinations such as Disney parks in California and Florida are expected to be increasing their discounts and promotions to fill their lacking capacity. Empty hotel rooms don't make anyone money.

The one thing still working for the travel industry is international visitors, who are certainly capitalizing on the lousy US Dollar. But if that alone is enough to overcome the increased difficulty navigating airports and increased border security remains to be seen.

Roadtrips don't do much better, with gas over $4/gallon. Perhaps it's time to enjoy what there is to see and do around home. Enjoy your Staycation.

Name that Show!

If you've never flipped through the TV listings on the digital cable, you've probably never noticed some of the funny descriptions for classic (and not-so-classic) television shows. Rather than just highlight some of my favorite, try yourself with one of my random quizzes. Try your hand at figuring them out and I'll post the answers in a future blog.

1) Book 'em, Danno. This is one of the longest running crime dramas in TV history.

2) Elite special agents undertook top-secret assignments in crackerjack episodes.

3) A landmark series set in an ethnically diverse urban neighborhood where every day is a sunny one.

4) A hip, Emmy-winning daily scrapbook of homers, touchdowns and slam dunks.

5) Exotic locations and unapologetically shameless adoration of celebrities.

6) Grandpa Simpson's favorite series: a courtroom drama about a cagey Atlanta defense attorney.

7) CBS reworked its successful "Hawaii Five-O" formula into a hit spun around a charismatic private investigator.

8) Ludicrously costumed contestants from the studio audience "dealt" with host Monty Hall for prizes.

9) A former cop gets a new identity and teams with a talking supercar to fight crime.

10) An adventure series about soldiers of fortune with bad attitudes and firepower to burn.

Google Earth, meet Disney

What happens when the marketing gurus as Disney start talking to the techies? They come up with this:

Walt Disney World in 3D

Disney has designed a complete 3D rendering of Disney World, every attraction, every building, every hotel, everything. The detail they put into these renderings are amazing.

Perhaps I'm just too easily entertained. Despite the fact that it takes quite a while to load (and my computer suddenly gets rather warm trying to draw the whole thing), it's well worth a look. Almost makes you feel like you're visiting.

Mythbusters LIVE!

Well, I should say *THE* Mythbusters live. I got an e-mail this morning about a special show at The Moore that will feature Adam and Jamie talking about behind the scenes stuff that happens at Mythbusters HQ. Even though they won't do any actual mythbusting experiments, hey, it's Adam and Jamie live on stage.

If not for the fact that the show is on October 4th, which is when I'll be on vacation in Hawaii for Christie and Nick's wedding.

Oh well. For anyone in town who might be interested:

http://www.themoore.com/artists/?artist=811

And if you're interested in pre-sale tickets (starting today at 10am) at 10% off, here's the link. Use promotional code "stg".

Crazy Weekend

There will be a short and long part of this report. The short is my weekend report. I was down in San Jose, California for a summer curling bonspiel. Despite the fact that we won 1 and lost 3 games, we had a great time. One of the advantages to losing out early was that we had the whole day Sunday free to do what we wanted. We decided to drive down to Monterey, visited the aquarium (which for my avid blog readers, is on par with the excellence of the Tennessee Aquarium from my last trip), did some shopping down Cannery Row, and then drove down to Pebble Beach and checked out the golf courses and scenic drive.

Flash back to earlier in the day... I get a call from a family friend who has been looking after my parents' house while they were on vacation... their house was broken into. My parents were in Turkey, without any way to contact them until they got home today, and with me down in the Bay Area, I was fortunately able to get a hold of my sister eventually and she went down to help take care of things at the house.

After further assessment, these were decidedly amateur crooks. They broke a bedroom window to get in, after not being able to find an easy way in. They didn't really ransack the place like you'd typically expect... however, they stole some jewelry, silverware, two TVs and a laptop computer. Oh, and to top things off, they took my mom's minivan too (they probably needed something to haul away the stuff in). So after the police to wrote up the report, and CSI:FW processed the crime scene and got some nice fingerprints from the window, they cleaned up a bit of the mess around and the police put out a stolen vehicle alert on the car.

On to today... my parents got back and we told them about what happened. They made it home and took inventory of what was missing and worked on getting things back in order. The insurance folks will call tomorrow to take care of everything.

But wait, there's more! About 9:00pm, less than 30 hours after the incident was reported, they get a call from the FWPD: they've found the stolen van parked at the Denny's on 320th (all of about 3 minutes from my parents house) and asked them to come over to take a look. Apparently these crooks ARE as stupid as they seemed to be. After arriving, they found 3 or 4 police cars surrounding the parking lot and apparently they had two suspects in custody. Unfortunately, most of the loot was no longer in the van, but they suspect it's all close by. After some waiting around for CSI:FW to process the car and get any fingerprint evidence they could, they actually drove the car back home. The car seems to be in good shape, though apparently the police found a crack pipe among other things in the car, and recommended they get it professionally cleaned, which insurance should take care of. In the meantime, the police apparently have already recovered a few things (mainly jewelry-type stuff) off the suspects.

As of the last update, one suspect is in jail being interrogated, one suspect is at the hospital, probably handcuffed to the bedrail, after an untimely run in with one of Federal Way's four-legged finest in the FWPD K9 unit. It sounds as if justice may be served afterall.

Another reason to go to Disney World

As if anyone *needs* a reason to go to Disney World, here's one anyway... the opening of yet another new and thrilling adventure: Toy Story Midway Mania.

Designed as a carnival in Toy Story's world of toys, Disney has taken rides into the 21st century once again and made things interactive. Looks like loads of fun.

There's a great MiceAge Review of the ride at Disney's Hollywood Studios in Disney World. An identical ride is being built in California at Disney's California Adventure, but I'll take my original assessment and use this as an excuse to go to Orlando instead of Anaheim sometime.

My last WDW trip was all the way back in September 2005... it's hard to believe it's been 2.5 years. I still haven't made it back there since their last big attraction Expedition Everest opened. I suspect within the next year or so it will once again be time to plan another sojourn to Florida.

Birmingham and Heading Home - Day 5 & 6

My last full day in Birmingham was pretty laid back. After just being lazy around the house all morning, hunger finally necessitated us actually getting up and heading out for the day.

We went to a small local restaurant "Paw Paw Patch"... self-described as "Country Cooking". Anything sterotypically southern is here for your culinary enjoyment. I had some mighty tasty fried chicken, along with expanding my horizons with some fried green tomatoes and creamed corn. The corn looked like it was being eaten for a second time, but was surprisingly tasty. The fried green tomatoes looked fried and tasty, but I could live without them. Andrew got some fried okra, which I tried and found to be decidedly meh. But Southern it definitely was.

We then went over to the Birmingham Zoo, and I took advantage of my nearly-expired membership to the Woodland Park Zoo, which basically gives me reciprocal free admission at nearly every zoo in the country. I saved about $13.50, which made it almost worth it to buy a membership. Nice zoo, nothing too amazing, but definitely had some nice areas and the different climate actually yields some animals you wouldn't see at Woodland Park.

After heading home for a quick break, we went to see a movie at the dollar theatre. Andrew still hadn't seen National Treasure 2, so I saw that again for the second time in 4 days. However, seeing it on something a bit larger than a 12" screen made a huge difference. It was still worth $1.

It is now Tuesday and time to head home after a much relaxing and eventful vacation. After a nice quick flight from Birmingham, I'm now sitting here eating lunch in Charlotte on about a two-hour layover. Sitting here eating my lunch of a bacon burger at the faux airport Chili's, it was a bit surprising to glance up at the televion and see the right honourable senator from the state of Washington, Maria Cantwell, on CNN. Of course, there is no audio, nor captions, other than the byline stating something to do with oil, and furthermore I'm no lip reader, which is good too because I just now realized that Cantwell doesn't really have any lips (other than the ones she seems to draw on her face).

Another hour or so until my flight leaves, in addition to all of my pictures from this trip I've posted online, I realized that I've got several groups of pictures spanning as far back as Emily and Nathan's wedding nearly a year ago that I still haven't posted and labeled. Perhaps most of these will make their way up shortly as well.

O'Hare is the next stop on my journey home, and I highly doubt they provide free internet like the fine hospitality of the south provides. On a side note, this being my first venture to the Charlotte airport, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend being stuck on a layover here. Bright and airy, with plenty of space to relax and not feel like you're stuck in an airport. Admittedly, that might change if you were here for 4 or 5 hours, but for a 2-hour layover it's quite nice.

Back on United for the final two legs of my trip. I'm expecting less than luxurious coach accomodations. I'm also slightly disconcerted that my flight out of Charlotte still has no gate number assigned with just over an hour until departure. Seems a bit odd, but probably nothing to worry about. Along with that, it's already estimated to arrive in Chicago 7 minutes ahead of schedule. Somehow I doubt that.

The voyage home continues...

Chattanooooga - Day 3 & 4

Day three had us heading off to Chattanooga, Tennessee for the night. It's only a little over 2 hours to drive up there, but we made a short detour along the way.

In the small town of Scottsboro, Alabama lives the place where you find all of the things you never knew you lost. The Unclaimed Baggage Center, home of everything you've ever left behind on an airplane, or in your lost luggage, or probably in the airport too. That's right, it all ends up in Alabama. What does that mean? Not a whole lot. In addition to the racks and racks of clothes, you'll find tons of iPods and every other iPod-like-device ever created. Sounds too good to be true? It is. Everything is priced pretty ridiculously, if you ask me. Sure you save a bit of money over what you'd pay for something brand new, but not that great of a deal, especially for an iPod that looks like it's been to Siberia and back (and probably has). On the gimmick scale, this place rates at 9 out of 10... don't waste your time.

After that brief stop, we continued on to Chattanooga. Getting there requires crossing briefly into Georgia, then up into Tennessee. For probably a hundred miles around, you see signs, billboards, and what seem to be trademark birdhouses all advertising...

"SEE ROCK CITY!"

Rock City is basically what it sounds like, a tourist trap at the top of Lookout Mountain, apparently named because you can look out from the top and see seven different states. I think that's a bit of a stretch, but whatever. You'll see plenty of Rock City in the photo album. It's actually pretty cool, but if it wasn't enough of a gimmick, its biggest draw... the brand new Starbucks across the street. Spare me.

We dropped down the mountain and into Chattanooga, found our hotel and checked in then went downtown to see what there was to do. It was pretty late in the evening so the main plan was to find dinner, but we figured out what was there. We found dinner and then eventually made our way back to the hotel.

On Sunday, we headed back downtown and went to the Tennessee Aquarium. Definitely one of the best aquariums I've ever been to, and the fact that it was raining off and on all day long made it good to be inside for a few hours. We had lunch and wandered around Chattanooga for a few hours before heading back down to Birmingham.

Had barbeque for dinner and then were lazy the rest of the day. Still feels like a vacation.

Monday is the last day before I leave Tuesday morning for another marathon of flights back to Seattle. Good times.

Birmingham - Day 2

Friday in Birmingham was a pretty eventful, yet relaxing day. I seem to still be living on Pacific time though, as I got up around 10am Central, which is about when I'd normally get up to go to work on a Friday.

Once we got up and ready to leave, it was uh, lunchtime. :) So we made way for my most fitting start to the trip, Chick-Fil-A. I love me my Chick-Fil-A. Delicious, if not more delicious than normal. After lunch we drove a bit around the more scenic parts of Birmingham (and let me tell you, the scenic parts are few and far between.) We made it to the Southern Museum of Flight, aptly located over by the airport. For anyone who's been to Boeing's Museum of Flight in Seattle, this obviously pales in comparison, but is remarkably impressive. They had lots of older planes, especially military planes. Very nice museum.

After that we did more wandering around Birmingham, before ending up at the Birmingham Botanical Gardens. Big gardens with lots of trails up through trees and such. It was pretty fun (lots of pictures to be seen in the photo album). After a rousing game of "name that herb!" we headed back home and made pizza for dinner.

After dinner we went over to the Birmingham Race Track. Now I've been to plenty of horse race tracks, but this was my first greyhound racing track. It was... decidedly different. Dispense with the pageantry of horse racing, it looks like someone came up with this in their backyard one day. Furthermore, far more luck is involved in choosing the winning dogs. If there was any element of skill involved, it completely escaped me. It was interesting though.

We came home and it was time to go to bed, though we promptly didn't go to bed for another 2 hours. But that's typical. Hey, I'm still on Pacific time. Today we're heading up to Chattanooga for a couple of days, with plans to make a few bizarre stops along the way. As usual, it should be fun!

It took me only one day to feel like I was actually on vacation. Perhaps I really did need a vacation more than I thought I did.

TV Commercial Roundup

For the benefit of those of you with a Tivo, here's another roundup of great commercials that you may have skipped over. One advantage of being forced to watch live TV occasionally is that you get to see some of these really great commercials that themselves are worth watching. Today we have two more you need to see:



Who doesn't miss the days when Lou Piniella was the Mariners' manager? Even when the M's couldn't win a game, there was still a reason to watch!



Great commercial, especially with all of your favorite Discovery Channel stars. I could watch this over and over... which I do, because Discovery replays it constantly. I guess that's what you do when you get a winner.

Planes, Planes, and more Planes - Day 1

Who would have thought taking 3 flights zigzagging across the country in the same day would be tiring? Oh, yeah, everyone. That's OK, it wasn't so bad actually, but there were some adventures.

It began with a relatively uneventful flight down to San Francisco. After being loaded into the cattle-car known as United, we made our way down in a relatively quick hour and a half (well, in the air at least). In fact, we got there so early, there was still a plane waiting at our gate to leave, so we proceeded to sit on the taxiway for about 15 minutes, negating any resemblance of being early.

Of course, I was switching to US Airways for the remaining two legs of my trip, which flies out of the complete opposite end of the airport. So out from my gate I go, walk all the way to the center of the terminal, leave security, wait for their train, and take the train to the terminal at the opposite end of the airport.

After waiting in line again to go through security. Of course, once I make it to the almighty x-ray machines, I get pulled aside. "Can we look in your bag, sir?" Of course they can, what do I have to hide? Oh yeah, that completely unopened bottle of water I bought past security at Sea-Tac figuring I wouldn't have to go through security again. "Yes, TSA goons, you can take it." I still don't see the point of liquids causing any sort of security hazard, but I suppose it's all for the safety or our country, blah blah blah. I'll take my chances.

So I make it through security, and continue to walk all the way to basically the end of the terminal, where just as I arrive at the gate it's time to board. So much for grabbing lunch, I guess I'll just get on the plane.

Five hours on the flight to Charlotte. Fortunately the US Air planes are a bit more spacious than United, so it was pretty comfortable. The time passed by pretty fast. There were what I considered an abnormally large number of kids on the flight, running up and down the aisles at times, but they were pretty well behaved, even though the flight attendants had to get them to stay out of the way a few times. The in-flight movie was actually good, and one I hadn't seen, National Treasure 2: Book of Secrets. I have to admit, even though I was watching the movie on a 8-inch screen from 10 feet away, I think it was better than the first National Treasure, which I also enjoyed. The rest of the flight was relatively uneventful until during the second round of beverage service an entire bloody mary was spilled by the flight attendant on the rows right in front of me. First of all, the smell was just, uh, great. I felt bad for the one guy who had it spilled basically down his back. At some point, if it were me who got spilled on, I would have just completely started laughing. But that flight ended fine and all was well.

Spent a few hours in the Charlotte airport. Down-home Southern Hospitality at its finest. The restrooms all have attendants, and the terminals all have rocking chairs. Fortunately I had some extra time to relax and get some dinner (which was the only thing substantial I had eaten all day), then walked all the way out to the end of the airport to catch my plane to Birmingham.

The Birmingham flight was quick and smooth. The only funny part was the uncanny resemblance of the flight attendant to Mythbuster Kari Byron, but back in her shorter-hair years. She was equally as quirky and funny too. Made for a very entertaining flight.

After 12 hours in transit I finally made it to Birmingham. Andrew picked me up and after checking out his new(er) place, it was time to go to bed. I think today will require a trip to Chick-Fil-A for lunch... because that will make me happy.

Vacation is nice. No pictures yet, but I'll be sure to take the camera out today and get some shots of the scenic world that is Alabama. More to come...