Drive Home

OK, I wanted to do a wrap post on Monday, but because it took forever to get home, I'll wait till Tuesday. You see, when we left Tennessee it was around 5ish and we thought we'd get home around 10:30. Some how 10:30 ended up being midnight, I still can't figure it out. We made two longish stops, but nothing longer than a half hour. For some strange reason I felt like I was driving in place the entire trip. I never felt like I was getting any closer to Greensboro, once I got to Greensboro Durham could not get any closer. I'm probably the only person to get excited about getting to Durham.

I can't figure out what happened with the drive back. I have never had a drive that long take so much out of me. When I was in Toledo it was 5 hours from there to Ironton and I would do it after working overnights and it never felt like the drive on Sunday.

Way Above Par

On Thursday a bunch of us went golfing and to be honest the only thing that saved my game that day was the rain that forced us to stop during the 9th hole. The only word to describe my game was asstastic. I could not get the ball to go straight or more than 100 yards. I was so happy it rained.

Since we did not get to play all 18 we were given a rain check for Saturday, and I hoped things would be better. The only problem this time is the wound given to me by Gilbert in his death throws. My left ring finger is split open with a half inch gash. Any time I hit the ball wrong I felt it, and when I say felt it I mean near blinding pain. So at least I figured out what I was doing wrong and tried to correct it and not cause any more pain. By the 4th hole I started to get a little bit of a grove and could actually hit the ball. When playing with The Dad there is one rule... you don't out drive The Dad. I out drove him four times. He was not having a good day, he was playing with his younger brother and I think that sibling rivalry thing was getting to him and he was trying too hard. So you have his little brother sort of out playing him then you had me out driving him at times. Lets just say I think he was glad when we finished our 9 holes today.

Except for the pain, and the lose of about 18 balls over the two days (I did find 8 so I'm only down 10) it was a average day, but we were out and about and getting some exercise, that has to count for something.

Morning the Loss

I knew it might be a bad idea to take him tubing down a creek in the mountains, but I thought what could go wrong. Well, everything went wrong and he is lost in the river and will no longer see the light of day. Gilbert is no more!

Because of the rain yesterday the water was very rough and high and it was very hard for me to hold Gilbert, a camera and the tube, so when I flipped over, I could not get my balance with my hands full. I stumbled a few times before going head first into the water and Gilbert hit a rock and I felt his legs rip off then his head. I knew I only had a torso in my hand so I let go. It put a damper on any fun I could have, I lost a favorite item in my life. I know he's not a person, but he had meaning, and website. I'll probably buy a new one, but he will never be that Gilbert that drunken LSU fans loved to have pictures taken with or the one who almost fell into the riverwalk in San Antonio.

I will miss you, maybe someone will find your head and get freaked out. That would be a great end to a wonderful friend.

That's a lot of Pancakes

I love breakfast food, it's the one thing you can eat anytime of day. Can you eat pork chops at 8:00am? Well probably, but it does not sound right. Yet, pancakes at 8:00AM, noon or even 8:00pm sound awesome so I am all for pancakes. When we drove into Pigeon Forge I noticed a pancake place, then another, then another then another. I think within a mile of our hotel there are 12 pancake places! and according to google there are 590 in the area! Holy crap man, is there that much need for pancakes? after 500 did the next 90 go, you know I don't think the pancake market is fully tapped here and we need more house of pancakes!

I know there are a lot of tourist here, but to have 12 that close to our hotel is just insane, then you have to think about all the hotels that have breakfast, we get free breakfast at ours. I love the cakes of pan, but for goodness sakes, when you have more pancake restaurants than mountains, you have a problem.

Wow, pancakes sound really good right now.

Eating Out on Vacation

One of my biggest rules while traveling is that we do not eat somewhere we can eat back home. That means no chains, like Olive Garden, TGIFridays, or any other such place. I know those places are familiar, but you are in a different place and you have to get some local flavor and who knows, you might get a funny story out of it or find something new you like.

While The Wife and I were shopping we get a call that we are going to eat at 7:30 at Ryan's. For me this goes against everything I want for food while vacationing... It's a buffet and they are all over Ohio and North Carolina. There is so many places that we can go, I mean there are 21 pancake places within a mile of the hotel (Oh there WILL be a post about that). I start building up the snarky comments that will be flying during dinner. Then I start to wonder who was the culprit. We start heading that way and we call my sister Christi and ask if we are going to the right Ryan's and WHO PICKED IT! I get my answer and I immediately put away all my comments and remarks... it was The Mom. The one person I can not make comments too, any of the siblings sure, but not The Mom. I sucked one up for the team.

Sickening Fun

So I started feeling better by the middle of the day and after dinner the family decided to go for a little thrill ride excitement. We wanted to try the Skyscrapper. If you can't tell from the picture, you are strapped into your seat that is only attached to a bar and some protective screening, it then swings you into the air and you go round and round. About halfway through it stops at the very top, you sit there for a second or five and then start going backwards.

To be honest it was a lot of fun. The first ride I went with my niece and we laughed the entire time. She thought it was funny when I let out; Shit! Sorry Morgan! A couple of other family members rode the ride and all thought the same thing, that is was a lot of fun. I though, got a little too brave, and wanted to go for a second time. This time I went with my sister Amy (her second as well), it all started out fun till we hit the backwards part. I guess that large ice cream wanted out. I did not throw up, but my stomach was not sitting well. I kept count the revolutions and praying the end was soon.

It took another hour and a half before my stomach started to settle down. Would I go on the skyscrapper again? Yes, two times within an hour? Not if I had recently left a buffet restaurant.

This is Not How I Wanted to Start My Vacation

With the last few weeks being, well, pretty crappy I was looking forward to a vacation. Luckily, one was right around the corner. The Parents are celebrating their 50th anniversary in the Smokey Mountains. I love the mountains and this is a great way to caste off the sucktitude that I have been dealing with.

All things started well. until oh, the drive out here, I am suffering from a cold. This sucks, but I hope it will go away soon. I've started taking every kind of remedy out there, I'm one step away from looking for leeches... I am in Tennessee, there has to be a place that sells them. I just hope it doesn't ruin this trip. After the golf outing I may try and sleep it off. Must get well, must get well.

Random Thoughts

I've not really posted this month and it's not from lack of substance, it's has been a case of bad timing. We went on vacation, had house guests, crazy at work. So to get caught up here are some random thoughts:

VACATION

We had a good six day vacation. It started with The In-laws visiting. To be honest with The In-laws it's a role of the dice. Either it can be a nice visit or we feel worse after they leave. Fortunately for us the dice fell our way and it was a good visit. They were surprised about how nice Fried Chicken Dr was, it almost got the the point I started to wonder if they had thought we had bought a trailer and the the Honda would be on blocks in the front yard and trash and cats would be all over the place. I take The Father-in-law golfing and we had a decent time. I started off with my usual crappy play and he started off well, but somewhere around hole 7 I started to get relaxed and as usual my game improved to a near respectable level. I started to slide back down around hole 15. I had not played 18 holes this year so I was getting a little tired. We talked about life, sports, OSU, family, and our future... the normal stuff. He finished up with an 83 and I whacked a 124... the best this year. We all met up went out to eat and had a good time.

On Thursday we head to Ironton for more golf and shopping. We stayed with my parents till Saturday afternoon and it was much needed. We got some good eats with my dad's spaghetti and it was a good relaxing time. I went to the Ironton Country Club with my dad and he helped fix my golf game. Seems I was about a foot and a half to far from the ball. Of course this one little adjustment lead to me being nearly kicked out of the family. The one family rule about golf is you don't out drive dad (It's not a real rule, but a fun joke rule). Well on the 3rd hole his goal is to get past a mound in the fairway and the past a pine tree if it's a good day... I went beyond that pine and I hit the ball at least 220. I get a nasty look and an X over that hole. By the time we finished I had 8 Xs and two of those had circles meaning my fairway shot was good. I think on the 5th hole it took Dad 3 shots to get past my towering tee shot. Dad finished with an 98 (with two pars and a birdie) and I hit a 113 (two bogeys)! All was forgiven and I was allowed back into the family.

A trip to Ironton would not be complete without a trip to the Government housing of one Wilson. We met up for some wings at the new Buffalo Wild Wings and then head out to the ranger station for a beer and a camp fire in his back yard. If notice he's holding a poster of Smokey the Bear, we used that to start the fire. Irony at it's best!

We spent most of Saturday in the car. We went to Dayton via Columbus. We met up with King Tom, DCZ and Micah at the Cop O' Joe at the Lennox. We had a good time talking about the new Transformer movie and then that lead into Gobots, G.I. Joe, Thunder Cats, He-Man,Star Wars action figures, Which toys we had and the ones we could not have. The worst was the Star Wars rip offs of Battlestar Galactica. I liked the show, but I wanted Luke and Darth Vader not a Starbuck and a Cylon. During the middle of the geek fest The Wife left to go to Target... it was too much for her, but she knew I was having a good time.

We ended Columbus with a trip to see the newest Nephew Carson. I've seen him twice and this was the first time I was allowed to hold him. He's a cute kid and I will have to corrupt him somehow. My goal is to be that cool uncle that lives far away and lets Carson do things mom and dad refuse to let him do.

We end they day and trip with a visit to The Wife's sister's (Kim) house. On Sunday there is a cook out and more family comes and it was a good time. Then we had to head back to the Forest.

WHAT DID I GET MYSELF INTO

A side reason for Dayton was to pick up Kim's kids for a week long trip to Fried Chicken Drive. Two of the kids are 16 and the other is 10. From the picture you can see that we took the Mazda and that my have been a bad move. It was a tight trip that took 4 hours longer than it was suppose to be. We took a side trip to the New River Gorge Bridge and it was not as fun as I hoped. I'll be honest... I am not ready for pre-teens and teenagers. For the majority of the time it was fine, but once they started to annoy one another it was more than I could handle. I never had a time in my life where I looked forward to going to work till this past week. Then Kim came down and the decibel levels jumped off the charts. She is a loud person and gets louder when the kids are around, and if there is a hint of attitude from the kids it gets even louder.

The Wife and I enjoyed the visit, but we are glad to have the house to ourselves again. I actually just sat around one day and did nothing but listen to the silence.

MODERN DAY OF TV NEWS

While I looked forward to work there have been some changes I will not go into the problems, but schedules were changed and the original problem is still sitting there unchanged why three people had their lives rearranged. I've wanted to talk about this multiple times but I always delete the post before I finish.

When did people in news become so soft?

I've only been in news eight years, but it has drastically changed in that time frame. I remember times when I would have a knock down drag out yelling match with producers, reporters or anchors yet at the end of the day it was water under the bridge and you did it all over again the next day. One great example was Reigna, we would fight and argue over stories, but I loved working with her, she even tried to get me to work on The Daily Buzz once she became a producer over there. Now you can't do this and I blame the fact that news has used a business model.

What do I mean? Well instead of worrying about the produce we worry about the bottom line. In the old days before large corporations bought out most of the station in the country it was thought if your product is good then people will watch and you will make money. Now it's make money and worry about the product later. So people are being hired because they are cheap, not talented. Sure they may have enough skill, but they are not ready for that market yet. In the middle markets they are hiring kids right out of college, the problem with that is they are still too raw and don't understand the business, but they are cheap and want to make a name for themselves now instead of earning it. Then you go to the top 40 markets, they higher these kids because they will give them a decent pay raise, but truthfully it's not what a seasoned person is asking for.

Now they think they are on the move and feel like they are entitled to being treated as a big time news person. They have not had to battle there way to get the job and part of me wants to say good for you, but when you get that feeling of entitlement you loose something. The ability to take criticism, most of my complaints are about stories that are being pitched or lack of decision making. Instead of looking at it as the idea is bad it's now, "he doesn't like the idea I pitched so he is not giving me the respect I deserve. I will get him for attacking me." This line of thinking is heavily present in my current and former job. People need to toughen up and realize this.

This is why I think ratings for news is in a downward spiral and no one wants to acknowledge this and once we do, maybe we can get back to worrying about the produce not the money. If you create something people want to see then they will watch it.

GENTLEMAN'S GUIDE

HyCLoR bought a book about dressing like a gentleman and the first thing I thought of was "When do you wear and ascot?" I've always thought ascots were funny and why would you wear one. Well according to the book the only time you can were one is when you are wearing a velvet smoking jacket and embroidered slippers. Also noted in the book was the only time you can wear a velvet smoking jacket is when you entertain a black tie even. Then a side note of if you do wear a velvet smoking jacket your friends may consider you eccentric. Then I got to thinking who would I know that would wear a smoking jacket? If I did know someone I could call them out on it. Unless you are Bruce Campbell and you are in an Old Spice commercial PUT THE VELVET SMOKING JACKET AWAY!

SWEAT
It's still freaking hot out and only getting warmer. This past Thursday I was sent to Durham for a follow up to a shooting. I know Durham... shooting? NEVER! Well there were two and the police called a community walk through to see if they could get a lead. Well it followed a few officers and the next thing you know I am soaked. We wrap up and I get in a cool live truck. We run to our live location and then I have to get out and do it all over again. I do not think I have sweet so much for a story. I'm not looking forward to August.

Vacation All I Ever Wanted

Since Wednesday I have been on vacation. It's been pretty good so far. I'll try and get a more detailed post once I get back to Fried Chicken Dr. A few notes so far I've golf twiced and traveled almost a 1000 miles and we still have the return trip.