Food

Tow Truck Museum

Almost didn’t drive the car at all today. Took the free electric shuttle bus to downtown early. We then walked across the pedestrian (and bike) only Walnut Street Bridge to the other side of the Tennessee River and visited some not yet open shops and Coolidge Park with its marvelous carousel (not open yet either.) Walked back across to go inside the Tennessee Aquarium. We visited it way back around the time it opened in 1992 and it was worth the re-visit. They had a special sea horse exhibit downstairs that was worth the price of admission alone. After the Aquarium we had an early lunch of Japanese food at Sekisui right across the street. We were going to catch the matinee showing of Minority Report, but were about an hour early so we ducked into the Tow Truck Museum. Officially called the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum and at 4 bucks a pop for admission, well worth it. The first ever wrecker was made just one block away at the Ernest Holmes Company. After watching the movie we walked the 12 blocks back to our hotel. In the evening we wanted to go see the minor league Chattanooga Lookouts play a game and planned on taking the shuttle back in town and walking home afterwards. But at the last minute decided to drive and maybe take a short nighttime drive afterwards. Stayed for the whole game, which the Lookouts won 4-3, but were so tired afterwards that we just went back to the hotel and crashed.

Lobster Tail

This morning was trash pick-up with the bike club. We have a whopping 4 block section of town to police. We always get a big turn out for the event too, because the Club buys everyone who comes out a breakfast at Best Bagels. Besides the usual cans, both intact and shredded by lawn mower, bottles and fast food wrappers, today’s haul included 2 IBM Selectric typewriters, a rusty hand saw, a couple sets of car keys and a lobster tail with the meat intact.

After that it was another drive to Augusta to deliver the Bike Club Newsletter to the big 3 bikes stores. By then it was lunch and the temps were in the 90s so the afternoon was spent indoors in the AC and channel surfing.

Started down, still down.
Top Transitions sine 02/02/02: 125

A Longer Drive

Donna and I used to go out to eat once a week. It was a change of pace from sitting in my cube, but there are like only 4 “fast” food places close enough to get a lunch in and leave time for a little drive afterwards. Well after last Wednesday’s disappointment at Popeye’s we decided to just skip the lunch part altogether and just go for a drive. Now it can be a longer drive too. Today we ate lunch at our desks a little early and then went driving for about 45 minutes. Much nicer, drive and no more biggie sizing the combos and then wanting to do nothing but nap for the afternoon.

The CD Mix of the Month care package came in the mail today. wOOt. Josh had a little CD burner setback so they were late this month, but definately worth it. Really enjoyed Josh’s disc this month. The second disc comes from va spider which also rocks (I’m on the second listening already.) After listening to these two I am definitely getting an inferiority complex, my April mix seems lame.

Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 113

AWOL T-shirts

Tonight was the monthly Miata Club meeting. We met at Davenports in North Augusta. The food was OK, the service was so-so, we ain’t goin’ back. Next month we are going to try the new Grand Buffet. It just opened up in the same spot as our old meeting place was, the Old Country Buffet, except this is Chinese plus other stuff. I can hardly wait 😉. The Club T-shirts are still AWOL, Rudy sez he’ll check on them tomorrow. The fact that it might cost more money to find a new web host and pay for a domain name didn’t sit too well with the populous, so we will be staying at Geocities for a while. I can’t get worked up about designing a spiffy site that is going to have a java pop up on top and pop under ads. I think I’ll change the site to be text based and just update the calendar…

I wonder if the M2 owners would object to having a www.barndoorfanclub.org/masters_miata URL?

Started down, still down.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 109

KFC & Dr. Pepper

Kentucky Fried Chicken, oops, excuse me KFC, has hired George Costanza as a pitch man. This person is sooo memorable that I can’t even come up with his real name. George was lazy, sneaky and not really the brightest star in the constellation that was Seinfeld and this is the guy we want to try and convince Joe Public to eat our food? I can’t even remember the last time I ate at a KFC, but it has been so long that they were still calling themselves Kentucky Fried Chicken and trust me, George ain’t bringing me back.

OK, everyone out there who drinks Dr. Pepper raise their hand. That’s what I thought, 6% of you. About the same as it has been since the 80’s. Could it be the lame singing & dancing commercials they run? Different tune depending on era, but about the same – lame. Coke is number one because of their marketing or maybe it is because they learned a trick from the cigarette guys and Coke is engineered to be addictive.

It must be Wednesday, because he is off on TV commercials again. Wednesday is only one of 3 days I actually leave the front of my PC and watch TV. Ed is sort of cute, must see West Wing and always tape Law & Order. The other 2 days are Monday, Everybody Loves Raymond and Sunday for the X-Files. Although I won’t be watching on Sunday’s much longer as there are only like three episodes of the X-Files left. The only reason I’m even still watching it is because the same reason I still read Beatle Bailey in the comics, habit.

Watching Gulls

Raining on and off, but mostly on, all day. Went out to lunch at the Atlanta Bread Company because we like the food and it is right next to that second-hand book store where we bought some old library books to read yesterday. Ate and went back into get some more used hardcover books for less than the price of a new paperback. Yesterday’s Robert Parker Spenser book lasted all of three hours, kinda like a big ol’ piece of cheesecake; not really good for you, but delicious and sadly, over too soon. After lunch and book buying we headed back over the half-dozen speed bumps of the codo complex back to our parking spot. Still raining, so we spend a lazy afternoon watching the gulls, the waves and the TV out of one eye and ours books out of the other.

Back out for dinner, Donna wanted seafood, so we were headed to Crabby Nick’s where we had eaten before, but somehow ended up at a place called Captain’s Seafood. We had eaten there once before as well and remembered it fondly. Tonight it was packed because a church bus had pulled in about 15 minutes before we did. Still it didn’t take long to get seated and served. Something about fried seafood, a tossed salad and iced tea…mmmm good, but somehow it didn’t seem to be worth the $29 total it cost.

Started up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/01/02: 37

Red Lobster

Wednesday is one of only 2 nights I actually watch some TV. So tonight’s rant came from a commercial, again. But the is time the rant is for just the product. I love the Red Lobster commercials. The older ones for the crab leg promotion where it showed people’s legs frolicking in the surf, cool. And the recent one with this guy looking at a lobster in an aquarium and makes his hands mimic the lobster’s claws is just great. But I still don’t want to eat there. The value just isn’t there for me. My idea of a seafood meal is flaky whitefish batter dipped and deep fried with malt vinegar on the fries….mmmmm. That’s right, Captain D’s – Long John Silvers – Arthur Treachers, $5 and I’m smiling.