Rants

Mountain Getaway

Hiwassee Reservoir

Made a trip into the NC/TN mountains this weekend. We were celebrating my birthday, our anniversary and on a recon mission for an MMC trip up here in November. Total distance traveled between 7:00 AM Friday morning and 1:00 PM Sunday afternoon was 760 miles. I drove every one of them and enjoyed the heck out of myself. We bought premium gas 4 times in that time (if you count the fill up before we left), 2 in the NC mountains with an average cost of $3.89 and 2 in SC midlands with an average cost $3.39. For the trip the Emperor got a little over 28 miles to the gallon, which ain’t half bad considering that about 2/3rds of the driving was spent in 2nd and 3rd gear at 3500 to 4500 RPM being flung around turns.

We stayed in a one bedroom cabin at a place called Fontana Village and had a mostly great time. The only real fault we found with the place is that you are a captive audience restaurant-wise because the nearest place to eat is Robbinsville, 22 twisty mountain miles away and what they have there really isn’t anything worth going for. As such, dining at one of the two open restaurants on the grounds can set you back a pretty penny. On Saturday morning the breakfast buffet at the Mountain View was our only option and at twelve bucks a person (total bill with tax & tip; $29) it was not as good as the $7.95 one at a Golden Corral in Aiken, just served from nicer containers. Dinner at the Wildwood Grill on Saturday night was $40 for 2 hamburgers a beer and a glass of wine. But now that we know there were serious about the fully equipped kitchen in the cabin, next time we are bringing our own (well as least as much as we can carry in the Miata.)

The photo above is of the Hiwassee Reservoir taken at the overlook of the Hiwassee Dam on at about the mid-point of the loop planned for the Saturday drive when we take the Miata Club to Deals Gap. This is the same loop as we did 2 years ago, but we are hoping the weather in November this year will be a lot more like our weather this weekend and not anything like the cold and wet of the 2011 trip.

This afternoon the Emperor got a well deserved bath while I ignored NFL football and its effect on my fantasy football team. I may not watch any games next week either, if that is what it takes, because the football Purple Whales are winning 118 to 106 and I still have one guy playing tonight and my opponent has nobody left to play at all.

Started down, went up, back down, up again, down again, up once more, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1261

We Own The East?

WOTEAll the clubhouse celebration photos of the FRS from last Friday showed the players all wearing this shirt. Do you think that they were contractually obligated to do so? Or did they just not care what the heck they were wearing after downing several Bud Lights (the official beer of MLB Playoff Clinching)?

First off they don’t own the East, at best they were leasing it for a year. Secondly, last night the Braves donned T-shirts with the same words on it. So just who does “own” the East?

The only thing worse than that shirt is this hat!

Big Turn Around To Nowhere

Last week the Purple Whales scored a league low 51 points, twenty one points lower than the next lowest scoring team. My fantasy team was outscored by 6 of the 12 league’s teams benches (including my own.) To compound matters the Whales were beaten by the team that scored the most points last week, 143, the North Augusta Meatheads, a team that was awarded a draft grade of F by ESPN.

This week my team has scored 112 points, which is more points than 10 of any of the other teams, unfortunately I’m playing the only team in the league to outscore me…so the Purple Whales start this season 0 and 2.

No big thing, every team makes our league’s playoffs.

Coupon & Self-Checkout Fun

After dining out this evening we stopped into Kroger to pick a couple of items we needed. Donna had a coupon to get a dollar off if we bought 3 bottles of Suave body wash, so those were among our 10 or so items. There was a speedy lane open, but I prefer the DIY approach of the self-checkout.

When I got most of the way done scanning, Donna headed over to get the attendant to scan the coupon. The attendant who wrangles the 6 self-checkouts was not inside the self-checkout area near her console. When she was interrupted from visiting with another Kroger employee, she leaned into the area and asked had we purchased the required 3 items to satisfy the coupon (had she been near her station it would have been self evident that we had.)

As she made her way around the counter to get to the screen, she paused to chat with a customer in the speedy 10 items or less line briefly. Then once she got towards her screen at the station she started helping another customer who asked for help after we did, because that customer was closer to her station. After she helped that other customer she finally started to scan our coupon.

She tried at least a half dozen times, pausing between scans to tilt her head in wonderment that her wand wouldn’t do its magic, because the coupon just wouldn’t register. By this time we felt we had waited a little too long to make it worth it for saving a dollar on our order, so we abandoned our bagged items and headed for the door. As we walked by the attendant’s station, on the other side of the counter, I heard her apologize about it taking so long as she looked in the direction we should have been. It was too late, we kept on going right out the door, but not before I snatched the coupon back out of her hand.

If we recall correctly, this isn’t the first time we have had trouble redeeming a coupon at the self-checkout, so when we go back tomorrow to get the things we need we’ll probably use the 10 items or less aisle.

Started down, still down.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1256

Really?

P1010152

Geocaching.com has been running a promotion something or other event all month, that if you find a cache or attend an event on any day in August you will be “awarded” a unique 31 Days of Geocaching souvenir. Just to be contrary, we have avoided going caching all month, but could put it off no longer, so we went out this morning and did a little searching for hidden ammo cans using satellite signals.

After caching we changed from our sweaty T-shirts and went out for lunch at a Ruby Tuesday in nearby North Augusta. They open at 11:00 AM and we were there about 11:30, so there were hardly any people in the place. Just three tables were occupied and all threes were right next to each other and right next the hostess station. Sure enough when she showed us to our table it was right next to everyone else. We asked her nicely if we could move a little further away from all the other diners, so she led us a couple more steps along, skipping just one table.

There were like 40 empty tables to choose from, but here we were all grouped together. It is not like we are totally anti-social, but we would have liked to dine and have a conversation without having to talk over, or listen to, other conversations.

As we sat looking over our menus, before our server even arrived, the hostess came in with another group and sat them right behind us, filling in the one spot that we had skipped over. Donna looked at me, I shook my head, we stood up, walked right around her and folks she was seating and exited the restaurant.

We drove back to Aiken and stopped at the Applebee’s near our house. There were maybe 6 groups of people eating there already and they were all spread out evenly through out the restaurant. When the hostess seated us we were led to an empty table 20′ from the next closest diners. There, was that so hard?

Started down, went up, went down, back up, still up.
Miata Top Transitions since 10/24/08: 1251

Jack Reacher

KillingFloorWe were in the book store on Saturday looking for some summer reading and I was so desperate to find something I would enjoy that I picked up a Jack Reacher novel, Killing Floor.

I have read all the Jack Reacher books and chew through them like I used to with Robert B Paker’s Spenser novels. Because I was sure I has already read this book I kept waiting for the moment when I would go go, “Oh yeah.” But I’m now more than half way through and that moment hasn’t come. Did I miss this book in the series or is it because it was written in 1997 that I’ve completely forgotten it? I’m thinking I just missed it, but the light of recognition may still go off in the next couple hundred pages.

This is a reprint of the very first Jack Reacher book and it has a new introduction by the author Lee Child that tells how he came to write and why he chose the genre, an anti-hero and how he came to name his protagonist. It also has a new round yellow circle on the front cover that reads “See Jack Reacher now in his first major motion picture.”

The introduction adds nothing new if you have visited the Lee Child’s web site, so what I really wanted was what he was thinking about with the much smaller Tom Cruise playing his 6’5″, 250 pound creation. I have heard that he publicly said he was happy with Cruise in the role. I recently had an opportunity to watch the movie and passed on it just because I knew I couldn’t be so charitable.

I’m Insulted

Early this week they put clear lucite sign holders on every single table in the cafeteria. Inside each one is a flyer calling for volunteers to sign up to be a First Responder. Every one in Maintenance is already trained to do this, but they are looking for a few more good (wo)men. They also put one on each of the six tables in what management refers to as the break area out front or what everyone else calls the smoking area.

For the last couple of days they have been putting up wall mount versions in every restroom. There is one on the wall just above every urinal and one on the inside of each stall door. I figured they were going to fill them with more of the please be a First Responder sheets, but they remained empty. Until this morning.

The ones in the Men’s Room out in the Turned Parts Department, near where my cubical is, had advertisements in them this AM. One of the urinals had a Viagra ad over it, while the other had one for Vesicare and each stall had an Ex-Lax ad, one vintage and very modern.

Once word got out about them, people were going in just to look, conversations ensued as to whether they were for real or was someone just having fun. Seriously, how could it have been anything but a joke. I know sales are slow right now, but would the Valve Store really try and make up some of that money by selling ads on restroom walls?

I’m insulted that no one asked me if I had anything to do with it…