Hotlanta? O RLY?

After the wet weekend in Aiken, SC... duty called in Atlanta, GA for the week. The software I work on was under evaluation by the U.S. Army at Fort Gillem just outside of Atlanta.

I left Aiken early Sunday morning with quit a hangover and a vow to myself not to drink for a few days. Two hours later, I found myself sitting at a Ruby Tuesdays reading the newspaper with a frosty mug of IPA in my hand. "My name is Tom and I'm an alcoholic." "Hello Tom."

The weather was horrible. From what I understand, stricken by months of drought and less than a 90-day supply of water, I was able to single handily liberate the city of its' drought conditions with my presence alone. Swirling gusts of winds, incessant rain, fog, drizzle, painted an ominous picture of what my week ahead would look like.

Anyways, after a couple contentious days of software testing, I managed to fit in an opportunity to drive to the city limits and hit a couple of bars. A work colleague of mine and I went out one night in the Highland area. It seemed to me like an overtly cosmopolitan/posh neighborhood. Maybe a touch of Clarendon with the mentality of Woodbridge?

The bars were enthusiastically decorated with pictures of Jimmy Carter everywhere. Ian and I hit an Oyster bar/restaurant called Fontaines Oyster House. Tuesday speical: $5.00 - Dozen Raw Gulf Oysters. I felt like my ship had come in (full of oysters of course). After guzzling a few local brews, talking business, and hounding oysters all night, we found our way back to the hotel.

Bare with me. Mind you, this is one long blog post to compensate for an entire weeks time...

Our hotel was bustling, located a stones throw from the airport it was full of new hires for Delta. The Marriott was full of chain-smoking flight attendants practicing landing procedures, memorizing airport codes, and sipping on whatever was on special at the time.

Here's a tip I learned that scares the begeeeeezuz out of me. During times of high turbulence in an airplane, I always look at the flight attendants face to try to gauge their reaction. Well, after talking to a "flight attendant in training", I learned that they are taught under those circumstances to always keep a smile on their face. I guess it's back to popping Xanax for me.

I'm going to stop here and publish now, under the realization that I've got some more recent and crazy things to blog about. I'll touch back on this post when I get the time. Keep reading it's going to get good!

Aching to get back to Aiken

So, I recently took a road trip to Aiken, South Carolina. Population: 28,829. I hopped on the road Friday, and drove from Woodbridge, VA down around Richmond, through Greensboro, Charlotte, and finally stalled out just shy of the Georgia-South Carolina border in a small hamlet called Aiken.

After 11 hours in my truck I was more than eager to swig some shine and listen to Blue Grass all weekend. I met up with Casey and Tim from Charlotte (festy friends). Together we threw up my tent in about five minutes and hustled over to the stage.

I had arrived just in time to see the Hackensaw Boys. It was a great set, but I was saving my energy for the following evenings activities.

I remember going to bed that night with a smile on my face, a mild buzz, and the sound of crickets. I awoke to a thunderous, pounding rain and a wind that threatened to blow the rain fly off my tent and possibly me with it.

The lightning and the thunder were so bad at times it literally sounded like the lighting was striking the trees just outside of our camp site. At one point when there couldn't have been more than a half a second between the lighting and the thunder, I ran out to my truck and tried to fall back asleep. Damn that was scary!

The second night was great... Larry Keel with Natrual Bridge, The Hackensaw Boys, Town Mountain and the Drew Emmitt Band. I was so tired from not getting any sleep the previous night I went to bed semi-early.

That night the storms started all over again. There wasn't quit as much thunder but there was biblical amounts of rain. Thank god Casey had brought her Easy-Up. It was a life saver.

This was my first festival of the season and we had a great time! The festival was small, featured notable bands, and was totally non-commercialized. The experience reminded me a lot of Mayhem in The Mountain.

All in all, aside from the savagery of thunderstorms at night and the lack of sleep, I'd rate the experience a 9 out of 10 for festivals. I will definitely keep this one in mind for next year. All aboard for All Good! ;)

Beantown Shenanigans

I know, it's been a while since I've blogged (not like people actually read my blog anyways). But to be fair, I've been extremely busy at work, which to me is a godsend. As a result, I've actually got some interesting things to blog about.

And so it goes... fairly recently, my company flew myself and a work colleague of mine up to Boston to catch a Red Sox game. I flew out of DC at 7:30 a.m. Sunday morning. The sun was coming up and it was apparent that a beautiful day loomed ahead for an unusually cold Spring in DC.

Fast forward 1.5 hours... touch down at Logan airport. Weather conditions = overcast, pounding rain, and 48 degree's... FUCK! If you haven't noticed yet, I've lost my cold weather skin and have molded myself into a "lil bitch" for lack of a better term when life concerns temperature and weather conditions.

Anyways, the Sox were playing the Tampa Bay Rays (who cares, I don't). I lasted three innings before I felt the urge to get out of my overpriced seat and roam around Boston for a bit.

I started at a local brew pub called Beer Works right outside of Fenway Park. There is something to be said about the irony involved of the situation where you are holding a ticket to Fenway Park in your left hand and simultaneously grasping a frosty local brew 500 feet outside the stadium in your right hand while also watching the game on a 20 inch HD television.

I had two pints of some local brew who's name escapes me right now, but 25 minutes later I felt myself swirling and asking some random street urchin where I could find the "Metro". "You mean the T-Train?" came the obvious reply.

My impressions of Boston, (I've been there before mind you):

-Dark and dreary New England town. - I understand why the English felt so at home.
-Overwhelming sense of history.
-Seafaring community (they call me Captain Obvious).
-"I'm from Boston, I don't give a fuck (pronounced 'fack')."
-Only 1 hour from Cape Cod by ferry (Province Town), the second most liberal, artsy, rainbow city outside of San Fran.

Anyhow, all things considered, it seemed like a great town to grow up in and consequently get the fuck out of STAT! All things considered, I did get to see a great friend of mine from my community college days at MCC.

The bottom line, it was a great experience that I'll never forget. However, come July Boston, you'll notice a Nissan Frontier speeding by on route 3 with a destination of Province Town to hang with my family and enjoy a different pace of life. Beach Life!!!

Cost vs. Benefit

Well, I really wanted to go to Merle Fest this weekend. For fucks sake, it's Doc Watson's own festival!!! This man is 85 years old and can still pick a banjo better than the best of em. I can't say enough about him, he's a fucking savant on the banjo. In addition to that, It seems like such an eclectic mix of bands.

There are only two forces holding me back from jumping on the open road and driving down Route 95.

In order of importance...

1. Gas prices... There's something more to be said about this. There has been plenty of prophecies, speculation and predictions in the media as to what the tipping point will be to where gas prices will start to hinder people (read: Americans) from their recreational activities.

I've found mine. Here's a predisposition you should know. I've always been frugal, my friends and anyone that knows me beyond the casual relationship can attest to this but, I'm a cheap Charley.

However, give me a vacation and/or life altering experiences and I'm handing over money like a born again Christian at a church auction. I've found that music festivals have definitely changed my life, and as a consequence, I've recently made it a point in my life to try to attend as many as possible this summer.

But, after doing the math, it would cost me over $250 to see Doc Watson pick that banjo boy. Which seriously leaves me feeling disenchanted with the way things are.

So instead, I'll spend the weekend moping around and trying to feel useful.

2. Secondly, as insignificant as it might sound, it's a festival with no place to camp! As you may know from reading my previous blogs, I've spent $400 in camping gear. I crave the endless rows of tents, the impromptu noisey neighbors, the community fire pit, the instant communal society, the raw passion of "camping".

I'm going to Aiken Bluegrass fest. Aiken or bust. See you under the stars.

Wiley Coyote and the Fire Trucks.

My mother, brother, his wife, and my two nieces came down from Rochester last Friday. I decided to entertain them by having a fire down by the river (no van involved). My brother and I get the fire stoked and burning just in time because it's getting really dark.

It's a beautiful night at 75 degrees and the river is as flat as a sheet of glass. Later, Kevin and I are lounging around the fire and drinking a few pops when what looks to be a medium sized dog comes barreling down the trail toward us. After a few "here boy...here boy"'s this wild Dingo looking creature jumps into the river, yelps and then goes quiet. We were absolutely baffled by what it could have been so we named it "The Swamp Monster".

Later that night after several more pops, a bag of Dorito's, and a few pulls of wine, I invited a few friends over. We're all having a great time when all of the sudden two fire trucks show up outside my house. About four firemen come rushing through the woods and immediately extinguish our fire. Major BUZZ KILL! I looked up and saw all of my neighbors faces pressed against their back windows. I could only imagine that they were wondering why the Woodbridge fire department was putting out a fire in the common area. It was at this time that I realized I needed to GTFO of my neighborhood for a bit.

Follow Up... two evenings later, I stepped out onto my back porch about 10:00 pm and heard some sort of bird shreaking in terror and the growling of some sort of Coyote. After listening to it for about 10 minutes, what I can only assume was a Coyote definitely got the best of the bird. I locked my doors and went to bed. It was a good weekend, and I'm now scared to camp by myself!

Me...

Mildly eccentric
Responsible
Paranoid android (why I don't smoke weed)
Lover of people watching
Negative Nelly
Sucker for Reality TV
Culture junkie
Commitment phobe
Last minute extraordinaire
Diet Coke phene
Semi-Hypochondriac
Self reflective
Laidback
Nervous Nancy (after my mother)
A Merry Prankster
Accountable
Passionate about certain beliefs
Do the right thing Mookie

Alaska on my mind.

I'm heading to Alaska in June with a couple of amigos. One of which happens to be an Alaskan native. It seems that the closer the calendar gets to June, the more my thoughts are consumed by Alaska and what it looks like.

I've been watching too much Survivor Man marathons this Winter. I want to eat a raw salmon pulled from the Kenai River like Les Stroud.

Seriously though, on a related note about vacation and adventure, I want to point out the irony of life. When I was in college I had no money but I had an abundance of time that was more than likely wasted foolishly. Fast forward to the present tense. I have plenty of money but I lack the time to do anything with it.

As it stands now I receive three weeks of vacation per year. Ideally, I would like to have some sort of career where I could take a month to two months off and do some adventure travel or take a sabbatical to promote humanitarian causes in third world countries.

Closing thought... I guess it is safe to say that for the majority of working Americans it is hard to strike the right balance between time and money. In the mean time I'm going to keep plugging away at work and dreaming of adventure.