An Appalachian Adventure

On Monday morning, my job took me Southwest into the State of Virginia.  I will be the first to admit that there are parts of Virginia that are absolutely beautiful.  Virginia is such a diverse state in regards to the fact there is Ocean front, marsh lands, large rivers, fairly flat lands, and even majestic mountains.  We even host the world famous Luray Caverns and if you haven’t seen them, you should try to make it out one day.

One of the things Southwest Virginia is known for is Coal.  We have a number of large coal mines deep in the Appalachian mountains.  My eventual destination was one of these towns.

I’ve travelled all over the state, but I had not yet been to coal town.  As a coal virgin, I really wasn’t sure what to expect.  So when I pulled into town, I was quite bug eyed.

It seems that coal towns are planned rather differently than most towns.  At least the one I visited, and several others I passed through.  They make a road, by blasting through rock faces and everything is built along the road.  Stores, houses, you name it.  When they run out of room, they simply stack things up the mountain side.  Sort of like those step pyramids. 

When I got to town, the first thing I noticed was that I had no cell phone service.  This really didn’t surprise me, since you are surrounded by mountains.  I knew I would have internet access, because I asked the hotel and was quite proudly told “we even have WIRELESS access in our hotel”.  I’m not ashamed to admit that I fully expected to have to milk the Hotel owner’s cows to gain access though.

When I decided to get something to eat, I asked and it seemed my best choice without spending “the big bucks” by going to the Peking Chinese Restaurant was The Huddle House.  For those not in the know, The Huddle House is pretty much like Waffle House, but they don’t concentrate on waffles.  They concentrate on Huddles, whatever those are.  I suspect it has something to do with Mountain Oysters and if you don’t know what THOSE are, you don’t want to know.  Trust me.  The food?  Not to bad actually.  Although they were out of butter.  How can you be out of butter surrounded by cows?  I mean come on, just go like, churn some right?

One of the things I learned though, while visiting this town, was why people in mountain country drive so slow.  I really had never thought about before and just figured it was because people who live in the mountains typically live at a slower pace than us city folk.  Well, nothing could be further from the truth.  It occurred to me that first of all, to drive 30 miles in the mountains will typically take you an hour. At least.  So mountain folk are just as much in a hurry as the rest of us.  The problem it seems, is that mountain folk drive slowly because they really don’t know what to expect in the case of what is going to fall off the mountain onto the road in front of their cars.  Things like trees, rocks, drunk people, small animals, and bears.   Yes, bears.  Hitting a deer is one thing, but can you imagine hitting a bear?  Especially one that SHOULD be hibernating?  That’s a good way to get your car, and your face, eaten real quick.  Small animals you can count on, at least for no other reason everywhere else they run OUT INTO the road.  I guess it stands to reason they are going to tumble there way OFF a mountain.  If it happens to be a cat, I fully expect it would land on it’s feet and begin to wash furiously, trying to make you think it was just skiing or something, instead of rolling down a hill.  You know how cats are.

I think the fear of drunk people falling onto the road off the mountain originated from the days of when there were lots of illegal stills.  But maybe I’m wrong about that.  There isn’t much to do in these towns as far as I could see, so maybe people just end up drinking to much.

I am happy to report though, the town I visited had a brand new place to eat.  Brand new building and everything.  It was a Pizza Hut.  Maybe next time I go though there I will stop and eat.  As long as there are no Mountain Oysters on that pizza that is.

I do know that I worry about the way that have housing set up in these town though.  If a rock at top breaks free, and rolls down the mountain, it’s going to take out houses like a bowling ball and bowling pins.  That kinda makes me nervous.  And maybe THAT’S why people drink in these towns.

If Life Were Run By Apple and Steve Jobs

Tonight, I finally decided to stop being lazy and updated the SYNC system in my Ford Taurus.  I don’t mind telling you that I love my SYNC system.  I don’t have the fancy version with built in navigation and news, etc, but mine does allow for hands free phone use and just as important, streaming music from my iPhone through Bluetooth.

Which brings me to an interesting note.

Before I get to that however, please note that Microsoft, Windows, Apple, the iPhone, and anything else mentioned is trademarked by and all that by the appropriate companies etc, etc.

My interesting note is this.  SYNC is a Microsoft and Ford creation.  The good thing about the SYNC system is that it is upgradeable.  You use a USB drive, download updates, then upload them to your car.  I would like to say this is an easy task.  For me?  It is.  But I will tell you that if my parents ever owned a Ford Car with Sync, it would NEVER EVER get updated, unless I did it.  Why?  Because like most things Microsoft does, it’s creepy complicated.

First, you have to plug in the USB drive and choose your update from the SYNC web site.  Then you have to try and convince the web site to actually install the update on your USB Drive.  Sometimes, or often, or almost always, it doesn’t want to corporate.  But, if you keep with it, you can get your update.

Once you do that, you take the USB Drive to your car, plug it into your USB port in the car, and then… then you have to go though about 48749292749403 steps in your menu system to get the update to INSTALL.  When it’s installed, the car is nice enough to inform you that the installation is complete.  BUT WAIT.  It hasn’t completed.  Honest.  The 573937493739 steps in the instructions make SURE YOU UNDERSTAND THIS.  You then have to wait.  And Wait.  You wait anywhere from 8 to 20 minutes for the car to ONCE AGAIN TELL YOU THE INSTALLATION IS COMPLETE.  Because obviously, this makes TOTAL SENSE.

Then, you once again plug the USB drive into the computer and try to “report successful installation”.  This means the web site must communicate with your USB Drive.  Of course, as I’m sure you guessed, almost never works.  This is so you can erase everything on the USB Drive, download the VERSION Checker, and run THAT in your car.  This design is obviously done on purpose, by some nerd who thinks this is funny.

Funny thing is, I find this no different than Windows on my computer.

Now don’t get me wrong.  I like Windows.  Mostly because when I entered the work force (a long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away), everything ran on DOS.  For you young whipper snappers, that is also a Microsoft operating system.  One that required that you TYPE in everything.  If you were smart, you could build a shell program that with the press of a button would launch programs for you.  Then, windows came around and made things easier.  Meaning you could use a mouse to double click on icons which would start a program.  This is, I’m sure, what you are all familiar with.  Of course, Windows crashed a lot.  Got lots of updates.  And was genuinely a pain in the rear.  This is because Bill Gates and his employees are all Nerds of highest sort, who think that everyone needs to be as smart as them to run a computer. 

At one time, there was some slight completion to Microsoft.  It was Apple.  But for some reason, Apple didn’t take off as quickly as the board thought it should so they kicked the man who invented Apple out of the company.  I’m talking about Steve Jobs.  However, because they couldn’t do a better job of taking over the world like Bill Gates and his Nerds did, they brought him back into the fold.  Steve Jobs them started quickly slamming the Nerds and brow beat them into FUNCTIONALITY over all, along with EASE OF USE.  That’s when the iPod came out, and pretty much changed the world as we know it.  Soon, there were millions of people walking around with those trade mark white ear phones in, listening to music.

Now Microsoft, not to be outdone, already had a media player that would allow you to rip music, and also transfer it to a music playing device.  Trouble was, it was so difficult to use, no one wanted to use it.

I leaned this when I got my daughter an iPod for Christmas.  I downloaded iTunes, plugged the iPod in and was simply… amazed.  It was so easy to use that even I could do it, and that is saying something.  With the release of the iPhone, and then the iPad, that simplicity hasn’t changed.  Sure, it has it’s problems now and then, but even where there is one, it’s really really easy to recover from.

So all this got me thinking.  What would it be like if Microsoft or Apple ran your life?

MICROSOFT:

Wake up.  Got to bathroom.  Push buttons on toilet until you get to the right menu option to flush.  When it crashes and hangs, call a plumber (technical support).

Get in your car.  Try to sort through various menu options to get car to start.  Car won’t start so you call your mechanic (technical support).  Or, the car starts, and you drive to work, trying frantically to keep up with pushing various buttons to sort through menus to use blinkers, etc.  Hope the car doesn’t experience a system crash.  If you happen to make it to work, hope that the car cuts off, instead of “hanging”, causing you once again to call your mechanic (technical support).

Work all day at the office, hoping your computer doesn’t give you any trouble, making you call IT (technical support).  If it does have trouble, you don’t get any work done.  However, the computer will helpfully display a message advising you to check the Microsoft Knowledge base for help, but you can’t connect to the internet, because your computer is not working.

Drive home.  Hope the car, once again, gets you there without having to call your mechanic (technical support).

Try to fix dinner.  Scroll through various menus to make the stove work, hoping like mad nothing goes wrong and causes the house to fill with gas, causing an explodion when the stove lighter works at random times.  But this time, there is an update for your stove, which you have to install before cooking dinner.  Unfortunately, the update won’t download, so you have to call a repair man (technical support) and you go to bed hungry.

Just so you know, all technical support is handled by someone in another country, who has an accent so think you can’t understand what they are trying to tell you, and apparently has trouble understanding you as well.  They will seem more interested in updating your “information”, such as address, e-mail, and phone number, than anything else.

APPLE:

You wake up, go to the bathroom.  Push a button to flush.  If it doesn’t work, it recovers automatically with one push of a button and off you go to eat breakfast.

You get in your car, push a button and your car starts.  If it doesn’t another push of the same button recovers everything and the car starts.  As you drive, there is only one button to push to use everything like blinkers, etc.  As you drive, you notice an update is available.  You push the button and the update installs while you are driving. Oh and the car plays your favorite tunes, or allows you to talk on the phone while you drive.

You get to work and use your computer, slightly irritated by the fact the mouse only has one button, but at least you meet your deadline.  The plus side is, you can listen your favorite tunes while you work.

You get in your car and drive home, while listening to your favorite tunes.

You get home and cook dinner on the stove, which also has one button that somehow knows exactly WHAT you are cooking and works like a charm.  Oh, and the stove helpfully plays your favorite tunes while you eat.

Boy I could go on, but I think you get the idea.  Though I still use Windows, this is how it seems the world would be.  Now, I think I will go download some music from the iTunes store, and push a button and watch it install on my iPhone… with ease.

Escaping the Femine Prison

It’s been a busy 8 days.  I know I haven’t done a regular post, unless it was a guest post, but as you should know, we had a friend of my wife’s in for a visit.  She has gone home, just in time to get pounded with snow.

But now that she is gone, I find myself somewhat relieved.  Yes, I like my wife’s friend and yes I enjoyed having her here.  However, there is something you must understand.  Having another woman in the house, who is your wife’s friend, seriously curtails your manhood.

I know that for all you women reading this, you will soon curl your lip, especially if you are married.  But being a man, is being a man, and there are things we do, as men, that we do.  I was unable to engage in my normal manly things since we had a quest.  In other words, I had to be on my BEST BEHAVIOUR.

Do you understand how difficult this is, as a man, to pull off?

I was unable to sneak downstairs in the middle of the night in my underwear to get something to drink.

I was unable to walk around the house, farting as I am used to doing, especially when I’m looking to disgust my wife and daughter and get a quick laugh out of it.

I was unable to burp out in the open, no matter where I was in the house.

I was unable to scratch my butt, or other parts of my anatomy, when I felt like it.

I was unable to take the remote, with my hand halfway down my pants like Al Bundy, and channel surf.

I could not do any of these things, in order not to embarrass my wife.  Hey, don’t judge me, she knows where I sleep and is a little overly fond of sharp objects.  It was like a PRISON.

But now?  Now I’m free.  Free to burp, fart, walk around in my underwear, channel surf, and generally do what I do best.  Be a man.

Freedom never felt so good.  Or maybe that was the loud obnoxious fart I just let out.

I have a number of comments and other things I will be taking care of over the next few days to get back into the swing of things.  I hope everyone is having a good week, and is not totally frozen.

Until next time, take care.

Something's fishy around here and it's snowing minnows

Funny thing.   All week long leading up to Christmas, there has been speculation that we were going to get a big snow storm here.  Now mostly, meteorologists like to agree on things.  But for whatever the reason, this year they can’t seem to agree on anything.  I suspect it was due to something like a summer meteorologists picnic gone wrong.  Too much wine and beer, leading to pushing, shoving, and name calling.  And it probably rained on them, which in my book, seems appropriate, maybe even poetic.  But that’s all beside the point.

We have one local weatherman who has been uncannily correct over the last year on calling bad weather.  Maybe he is practicing  voodoo or something.   Wouldn’t surprise me one bit.  But he was the source of calling for a big snow, and so many people listen to him locally, everyone was getting riled up.  Then, on Thursday, he said: “Opps, I have to eat crow.  All the weather models changed”.  That was big of him, despite all the crying and moaning going on about not getting a white Christmas.  In fact, one of the local TV stations poked fun at him.  Rude, but there ya go.

Then on Friday, our handy dandy weather man, who seems to never be wrong, came back out and said: “OH MY GOSH! Looks like the weather patterns are changing AGAIN, and we will get a big snow on Christmas day and the day after.  Most of the weather stations stayed quite about this all day, until Friday night, when they began to agree that we might get a couple of inches.  No doubt they had all gathered together at a bar to drink, swap stories, lie, hit on each other, and make a stand on what they would all say.

So Christmas morning came, and by the afternoon, it was snowing here.  Snowing and snowing good.  We went to my parents last night and by the time we came home (about 8:00 PM) it was starting to stick to the roads and looked like there was no sign of it stopping.  So this morning?  Woke up to this, and it’s still snowing.

You will note how messed up the snow on the deck is.  And that I can’t take a picture that is level.  But ignore that part.  The snow is messed up because the cat-lady I happen to be married to let her brood of cats out and they starting trying to tunnel under the snow.  Weird and creepy.

Now if I was this uncannily voodoo involved weatherman, I think I would be crowing, instead of eating crow.  He was right after all.  It looks like we have about 6” of the white stuff and it’s still coming down.  He says we will end up with up to 12” and right now, it looks possible.

Now the fun part begins.  You see, on Christmas Eve, while my daughter was working, my wife and I spent a very little amount of money on a used desk from Goodwill.  I kinda need a decent desk, and the one I am using, she hates.  She would have chopped it up already while I slept, if she knew where the axe was.  Luckily, I’m a smart man, and keep it well hidden.  But the problem is now we have to go get that desk.  Today.  While it’s snowing.  And as I’ve already explained in previous posts, snow in Richmond does not make for safe roads.  We have a big, gas guzzling, Dodge Durango which could drive up Mount Everest, but I have to watch out for all the stupid drivers out there, which are legion.

Once that is done, I have to take my kid to work.  She works at a gaming store (yeah she is a nerd, even if she doesn’t look like one.  Unless you can call looking like a Barbie Doll a nerd).  I swear I think their store does as much business as it does because all the nerd boys come to gawk at her and get sweaty palms.  Which, as a father, creeps me out.

Side note: I just came in from cleaning off the Durango.  Seems we have had temps get just low enough to freeze so I had to scrape all the windows.  Of course NOW it’s well below freezing, 28 Degrees in fact.  Obviously I didn’t’ have on gloves and a coat, because with this face, and this body, adding a coat makes me look like a scary Frosty the Snow Man and I send kids screaming for cover.

I’m about to leave to brave the cold and snowy roads to go get gas, the desk, and stuff to make soup.  I’ll finish this post when I’m back, and the desk is in place.

*************(HOURS AND HOURS LATER) *************

Not only did I get the stuff for soup, got it made, got the desk, got the desk in place, but I also took the geekgirl to work.  It was… Adventure Time, as my daughter likes to say.

If you’ve read my previous post on what happens here in Richmond when it snows, then you know what I’m saying here.  IT WAS RIDICULOUS OUT THERE.  The main roads were clear, just wet from melting snow.  The neighborhood roads are still covered with about an inch at least.  Which would make you think smart people would stay home and off the roads.  Obviously there are no smart people in Richmond.  Before you point that pointy finger at ME, let me remind you I’m not speaking of the people who KNOW HOW TO DRIVE IN THE SNOW.  Like me.

So let’s see.  My neighbor?  Somehow some person, no doubt in a sports car with tires made for sticking to DRY PAVEMENT, ended up in his yard.  How do I know?  Because there are tire tracks through it.  How they got there is a mystery, since we live on a corner and the road is actually exiting our neighborhood and wasn’t covered in snow.

On the way home?  Yeah.  Someone in a Toyota tried to stop at the stop sign, almost sliding out into the road so I could hit him.  Deliberate?  Not sure.  Good driver?  Probably not.  Should he be allowed on the road?  ABSOLUTELY NOT.  Oh well, it’s his insurance that will take the ding, not my personal checking account.

Oh yeah, and when we got geekgirl to work?  People streaming into the game store.  Because, you know, if you’re a geek, you gotta visit the game store EVERY DAY WITHOUT FAIL.  Or you will die.  Or the city will explode.  Or C.E.R.N. (look it up people) will create a black hole and destroy us all.  It’s still odd to see my daughter, who could pass for a real life Barbie, going into a game store.  But alas, she got her geekness from me, and loves her job.

Now the only thing left to do is go and get her when her shift ends.  Since it’s still snowing, and the roads starting getting covered again, I’m really not looking forward to it.

Black Friday, Possessed Women, and Nightmares

Someone had the nerve, the actual nerve, to ask me if I was going shopping today. I mean, hello? It’s B.L.A.C.K.F.R.I.D.A.Y. Not to mention, I’m a guy. I don’t shop, I buy. My first reaction was forced. I simply said no. What I wanted to do was punch them in the face. With an anvil.

Black Friday. The one day of the year that companies try and convince you to get out of your house at 4 AM and come visit them, hand over your money, because you will have to give them less now than any other day. Are there some great buys out there on Black Friday? Of course. But stock is limited, so you have to fight for it.

Why on earth would I want to put myself in the middle of that? I may be male, but stupid I’m not.

There is one, and only one reason, that I refuse to put myself out there in malls and stores on this day: WOMEN.

When it comes to sales and shopping, no other creature on the planet can compare to a woman trying to get the most out of a dollar. Oh yes, the fairer sex becomes absolute animals on this day. Woe to anyone who gets in their way.

Really. It’s a scary thing. The night before, while trying to digest eating way to much for Thanksgiving, they make their battle plans. They gird themselves for war. With a wicked gleam in their eyes, they paint their nails (the better to make them harder), they pick out the perfect shoes (not just for comfort, but for maximum butt kicking action), they load their purses (with bricks no doubt), and go to bed so they can rest up for the fight.

This is, without doubt, a woman’s day. The day she gets to spend money, and work out all her frustrations on other shoppers. In short, this is the day that sweet, caring, pretty woman in your life turns into a possessed demon.

I’ve been out in the malls on Black Friday before. I’ve experienced it, I’ve seen it. I still have nightmares.

If you go with that sweet, caring, pretty little woman in your life, don’t ask any questions. You will get snarled out, with fangs. Don’t move fast enough? Don’t worry, she will throw you across the mall to where she wants you to be. Complain about getting tried, from all the walking, dodging, running, and scads of items you are carrying? Well, you just might end up with one of those specially picked out shoes up your butt, or your guts ripped out with those nails.

When a woman shops on Black Friday, the name of the game is buy all you can, as fast as you can and nothing is going to hinder that. Even you, the special man in her life.

They will even kick, scratch, and bite other women who tries to grab that last thing on the list that is a must have. Bodies will go flying, hair gets ripped out, and someone will end up laying on the floor groaning.

This, my friends, is not my idea of fun.

So despite the scenery, and by scenery I mean the Christmas decorations, not hot looking women, I stay at home on this day. I think that makes me smart.

But if you are one of those men who braved the world today, I’ll be thinking about you, and positively ignoring your whining on Facebook tonight. Maybe for Christmas, Santa will bring you a first aid kit.