Rants

Corn Maze

After our complimentary breakfast at the hotel, mmm…cinnamon rolls, it was off for the drive to Robbinsville for our reconnaissance mission.

First stop was in Andrews, NC for a peek at our first possible fun thing to do, a corn maze. After spending about 15 minutes talking with the manager that runs the thing, Donna remains excited, while I am now convinced that it will be not be and might possibly be too much like work to find our way through. As an option for the folks in our group who may not be able to do the walking, the field covers 7 acres and the maze has a total of 3 miles of paths, there is an indoor flea market a mile or so down the street.

Next we drove the final 25 miles to Robbinsville to check for possible restaurants. We had heard from another Club member that there have been the addition of Mexican and Chinese places to dine. One in which we were interested in is apparently not open for lunch and the persons inside would not even come to the door to give a menu after a couple of knocks on the glass. We may still try them out when we are there.

After a quick tour of town we headed north for a dragon run. I decided to turn around about 5 miles from reaching the goal as I was number 6 in line of minivans, pickups and SUVs that I just knew would make the trip through the dragon agony. Besides there were plenty of e-ticket roads that we had already driven and would drive this weekend. Definitely need to hit the gap in the early AM before the normal folks get there.

Next up was a trip into the Joyce Kilmer Forrest for a look at possible non-car diversion #2. There was a short, rated easy hike in the woods with two distance options. After Donna and I walked 25 yards into the trail we knew that it would not be doable for more than 50% of our group. Way too steep, slippery, etc. Oh well, maybe it’ll rain and we will all stay inside and watch HBO on the telly that weekend.

Now hot and disappointed, with the cheap BBQ sandwich bought at the “Outback Trading Post” broiling in our bellies we headed the 90 miles back to Dahlonega. One good thing about the return trip was we detoured over to GA60 for 44 miles of new twisty pavement. The last 12 miles are almost as good as the gap. This road, nicknamed the Snake, is a favorite of Atlantians who own sport bikes or cars as it is only about an hour and a half away for them.

Purchased Today: $26.50 in gas
Money spent since 03/03/03: $1125.91
Started up, went down, went up, back down, back up, still up.
Top Transitions since 02/02/03: 204

You Can Call Me Dave

When I read the article about the fire at our plant in the Augusta paper this morning I noticed that the reporter got our Human Resource Manager’s name wrong. He was quoted as Dave Gustafson, not Mark. Upon arrival at work I made a bee-line for his office to introduce myself to the new HR Manager, Dave. Mark took my kidding in good graces and said let me tell you a story.

That reporter was being a real pain, I spent most of my time riding herd on him. Even after a polite request to him that I was the point of contact and if he wanted any information to come to me, I still had to break up him talking to employees several times. We had one female employee of the department the fire was in that was overcome by smoke and was being treated by paramedics on the scene. He husband had shown up and she was sitting in the passenger seat of their pick up while she received oxygen. The reporter had taken a couple of pictures and the husband told me about it and asked if he would tell the reporter not to print the photos. When I asked the reporter to not run the pictures, our fourth estate friend said something to the effect of freedom of the press and that he was allowed to be there and take and use whatever pictures he wanted. I agreed that what he said was true, but only if he did so from across the street, but he was on our private property and as such subject to our whims. That reporter was not there to cover the news, he was there to find a story.

Not knowing whose legal ground was firmer, I guess the reporter decided that he wouldn’t run any of those pictures. Seeing as most people love to see their name in paper, maybe he thought that that he could punish Mark by printing his name as Dave. But Mark is only to happy to be Dave as long as those unflattering pictures of one of his employees didn’t get published.

Fire!

Actually this is only a half-hearted rant. I had a brainstorm on Wednesday while at work for what I wanted to shoot for Theme Thursday, of course my camera was at home. I brought it today, but didn’t get a chance to use it. I was going to take the picture at lunch as to not disturb the actual work process, unfortunately about 11:45 the fire alarm went off. I had just got my lunch plate, so I picked it up and headed for the door knowing I’d get an impromptu picnic on the front lawn during the drill. Bad news is it wasn’t a drill. One of the machines in the back of the plant ( a wheelabrator thing that deburrs our parts) had actually caught fire. We had four fire trucks, including the ladder truck drive around the back of the plant, along with 20, count ’em 20, police cars. I think that is the entire contingent of city cops (to be fair all our cops are trained as fireman and vice versa.)

I my haste to grab my lunch, I neglected to grab my new camera. The fire was quickly contained but not before smoke filled most of the plant. No one would be allowed back in until the smoke was cleared. The rest of first shift was canceled and if you had your keys, purses, etc. you could go home, if not have a seat in the shade of the pines and wait. I’m not sure when they let people back in, but by the time I went back at 4:30 to get my stuff, 2nd shift was at work (all except the one department where the machine was) and the place looked clear, but still stunk of smoke.

Tomorrow is a half day at work and Donna and I are off to the Gap for a little fun in the Miata. I will try and get my photo in the morning, but may not post it until Sunday when we get back. Don’t worry, you won’t miss a moment of my exciting life as I plan on analog blogging for transcription on Sunday night.

It’s Here

I got a visit from the UPS man this afternoon. Perfect timing too, as we had just pulled into the garage minutes before.

New Digi-Cam.

It’ll take a while before I can digest the instruction manual, as it is about a half an inch thick (to be fair that is four different languages.) One nice thing is that Win2K recognized it as soon as I plugged it in, so I didn’t have to install several hundred megs of Olympus software. Smaller than expected, but this is a good thing for when we go backpacking or I decide to take it along on a bicycle ride.

Praise The Lord, But Get The Hell Out Of My Way

For the last couple of months my wife and I have been meeting a few of our fellow Aiken Bicycle Club members for an early morning ride on Sundays. We have been riding more or less 25 miles by picking a loop from the Club’s inventory of past and present Spring Century rides. It is a small group of 4 to 6 riders of around the same abilities and inclinations so no one is dropped and forgotten about, nor is anyone riding at half speed so as not to get too far ahead. The ride is always fun and a nice work out, plus we are home early enough, around 9:30, so as to still have the whole day left for other things.

Start time is at 7:30 for a couple of reasons. One, it is summer in South Carolina and the heat and humidity make later in the day rides unpleasant at best. And two, traffic is very light at the time of day on weekends. The routes take us on a variety of roads in the lighter populated areas of the county, but in the last 1/2 hour of the ride no matter where we are, car traffic picks up. And these are usually the most rude and impatient drivers. They pass us on two lane roads when there is oncoming traffic and/or as close as possible to us.

The strange thing about these folks is they are all dressed very nicely, obviously on their way to church. I’m a non-attendee of church, so I don’t know why they would endanger our lives, their lives and those of the poor unsuspecting occupants in the other car just to ensure they get a good pew. My recollection of Christian beliefs is not so hazy that I wouldn’t have remembered that being late for church was a sin.

Equal Time?

TBS the Superstation is showing “Terminator” this afternoon. Does this mean that they have to grant equal access time to the other 150 odd (and I do mean odd) candidates? Or did they black out California? Nick at Night will have to stop showing “Different Strokes” re-runs, Comedy Central will have to snip out the Father Guido Sarducci bits in the SNL shows and we probably won’t see the Woody Harrelson flick “The People vs. Larry Flint” for a couple of months either.

Deep Throat is scheduled tonight on X-Files at the Bogarduses.

I Hope I’m Not Too Late!

Dang. I’m really jonesin on the Olympus D-40 Zoom camera. Dell had it early this week for $369, now today when I get the go ahead to buy the camera Dell doesn’t even show in inventory any more.

Now the only place left on the net with a semi-recognizable name is TheNerds.net (well maybe not recognizable to you, but I’ve bought stuff from them in the past and have been satisfied) and their price is $398 plus $18 for shipping. They have ten left. I hope they don’t sell them all until after I get home from shopping the local chain stores tomorrow.