There is a new and uppity place in the Huntsville, AL area called Providence.  Everyone who is anyone is moving there and a lot of businesses are trying to cater to them.   And to get to work every day, they have to drive past Phuket.  I can't even imagine how funny it'd be getting directions from someone saying "turn right at Phuket".  Either way, Phuket - Extraordinary Thai Experience is a real place.  Here's as much proof as I can offer over the internet.  This is the original picture Keith sent me that gave me a good chuckle:

I'm not normally one to complain, but I've gone through about 3 headlamps in the past 6 months.  I know I have a Jetta and it's electrical system is questionable at best, but the original headlamps lasted a couple years, I would hope to get at least a year out of a replacement.  When I needed to replace one, I decided to go with the nicer "Nighthawk" GE brand.  They supposedly lasted longer and gave 20-30% more light, which should help in cutting through the layer of grime my headlamps always seem to have on them.  Anyway, I was unhappy with their very minimal survival rate, so I figured I'd take a queue from Laura and let the company know their product wasn't up to par and that I was switching to Sylvania.  Here is a copy of my original complaint email:

When one of my original bulbs went out on my Jetta (3 years for some standard Sylvania's - not too bad, eh?) I purchased two GE nighthawk bulbs from wal-mart since having the headlights a little brighter might help me at night.  Three months later, I'm operating on my fourth nighthawk bulb and I put the extra original Sylvania back in the car since I refuse to purchase yet another set of nighthawk bulbs.  The first one I wrote off as "it happens" but now that I've lost three of them (and they're not cheap!) I think I'll be finding out which retailer carries Sylvania bulbs.

Here is the email I got back:

Hello Richard,

Thank you for contacting the GE lighting web-site.
I will be glad to help.

I am forwarding your concern to our product manager for consideration of
replacement. Someone will respond to you with further instructions via US
Postal Service in the next 15 days. Please hang onto the product since
they may ask for its return. If you have already disposed of the lamp,
please wait for the letter for further instructions.

I apologize for the inconvenience, and hope you will continue to choose
GE products.

Thank you again for contacting GE.

Sincerely,
Jacquelyn
GE Internet Response Team

And low and behold about 2 weeks later, I received four brand new Nighthawk bulbs in the mail.  I might not ever buy another Nighthawk bulb, but if I end up needing to, at least I'll know for sure they are a little sub-standard.  Honestly, I'm hoping the next set I need to put in the car will last until the wheels fall off.

Something I might not have told all of you yet...  Massachusettes has even more bizarre liquor laws than Alabama.  Only three (3) stores in any company (read as supermarket chain) in the state can sell beer/wine/liquor.  It was a law enacted back in the 1930s, but it's still in effect today.  And I'm sure the smaller mom-and-pop liquor stores don't want it changed.  Here is a link to the initiative to get it changed.

Isn't this just infuriating?  Bad programmer.  Bad.

And in case you can't read the scaled down version of the error message...  "Unexpected error encountered.  It is recommended that you restart the application as soon as possible."  Grrr.

On the way to work today I saw two large trucks loaded like this:

 

They honestly look like very large versions of commercial laundry bags.  I especially like how the back two are almost leaning off the truck entirely.  If anyone happens to know what these are, please let me know the next time you see me.

The past two days, I've had quite a view of some cool cloud formations on the way home.  These pictures were taken with the camera on my phone, so you can imagine how much better these were in person:

So last Thursday we went to On Tap with some folks.  Good times.  Until the waitress brought out our (probably 4th) round of beverages.  Two of us received glasses that were about 1/2 inch taller and a little bit fatter than the others.  Caused quite a stir at the table and we attempted to specify our glass choice going forward...  to no avail.

We went to the Birmingham farmer's market the other day and I just thought the little pea sheller machine was cool:

The Crayolamobile hit 111,111 miles the other day:

So about three weeks ago, Laura and I headed up to Norfolk, VA to visit our friend Chris.  We decided to fly Delta, so we were stuck in Atlanta airport on a layover.  We were there early in the morning, so we were looking for a place to have some breakfast.  The last time we were there, we braved the frenzy that is McDonald's breakfast.  This time we decided to go for something else.  We were walking around and noticed that the Mandarin Express seemed quite busy:

You really can't tell what the little yellow sign says since Miss argyle is in the way, so I had to take another shot of it:

Is it just me, or is Mandarin Express the last place you expect to see a sign that says "Special: Country Breakfast - Ham, Bacon, or Sausage with Egg, Cheese, Toast, & Hashbrowns - $3.89".  Sadly, I couldn't help but try the Chinese country breakfast.  It was very tasty except for the very cafeteria-style eggs. 

So first, let me dispense with the official (slightly posed pictures).  First, there is Mama Kitty (mother of both George and Bella):

Then there is Adon with Chris and Adon with Chris's Mom:

Ok, so now that those are out of the way... the first night we were there (a friday) we went out on Chris's pontoon boat for a little bit.  Not a whole lot happened on the boat, but when we got back to Chris's place, Christian made his "famous" (famous being in quotes since I think his friends are the only ones that have ever heard of them) margaritas.  And of course we broke out the beer pong:

After playing beer pong for about 3 minutes, we decided to scrap that idea (Christian was the only one that even knew how to play).  I really don't remember what we did that night and the pictures stopped with this one, so really have nothing to go on:

The next day we got out on the boat farily early in the afternoon.  Sadly, I can't even tell you when we got started, but I can tell you it was one of the absolute best and most relaxing days of my life.  Laura, Kim, Christian, Chris, and I went out on the pontoon boat ALL day.  I think the general idea was to cruise around and explore the Chesapeake Bay / Elizabeth River area.  And explore we did, but first we had a problem with the engine.  Those of you that know Chris know that he is always tinkering with everything.  Well, on this day, his fuel filter started leaking as we put the boat in the water, so we had to bring it back out and search for a parts store.  So Laura and Kim sat on the boat while Chris took off the old filter to run into Pep Boys to get a new one and Christian kept his finger on the fuel line so it wouldn't be spilling into the parking lot while Chris was gone:

Once the fuel line was fixed, we proceeded to explore the area on the boat.  After cruising along for a considerable distance, we realized that our cooler was running low on ice cold refreshment, so we started looking along the shore for anyplace that might sell snacks and beverages.  We finally caught a glimpse of what we thought was a BP, so I was the designated person to get out and walk over to it while everyone else circled in the boat.  I came back a hero:

So then the journey continued, until we hit the end of the river (ot at least the part we thought we could navigate):

And then we saw a boat to our side speeding out from under the bridge.  We went over that way and found a channel through the random grass.  There were several forks in the channel from that point, so we took to exploring each one.  We saw some very redneck-ish looking places:

And some very nice looking places:

Also, we saw places for sale that we were curious about.  Christian was the designated go-getter this time:

And we can't forget the coolest fort ever:

We continued up the river for what seemed like hours and hours:

And then we came to the actual end of the river...  or at least we're sure it didn't continue this time. 

On our return trip, Laura was standing near one of the boat doors and apparently fell into the door, which promptly opened and she almost went in except Christian managed to catch her before she completely fell in.  The plastic lock that keeps the door closed on the boat now looks a little deformed:

On our way back, we saw something floating in the water that Chris and Christian insisted was a coconut.  The ladies somehow knew it was a ball.  So we picked this item up and what's the first thing you do when you pick up a moldy, slimy ball?  You throw it at your friend, of course.  Check out the marks on Chris's shoulder where Christian threw it at him:

I think Chris had a good day today:

So our journey continued towards home.  On our way back to the boat ramp, we got to see the sun set:

The following day, our flight back home left late in the evening, so we decided it'd be a good idea to go out on the boat again.  I got to intertube for a little bit:

Chris got to intertube for a bit as well, untill he wiped out:

Matt lost his sunglasses today...  thanks to Chris.  This is the last known picture of his shades:

So after the third day of fun on the water, we needed to head to the airport to catch our flight.  On the way, we saw a want ad for the perfect job for Christian:

When we got to the airport, we found our our flight back to Atlanta was delayed 2-3 hours due to weather "in Atlanta".  You would normally think this means that all flights would be affected and everything would be ok.... but that wasn't the case on that day.  After killing 3 hours in the gloriously entertaining Norfolk airport, we arrived in Atlanta to find out that our Atlanta-Birmingham flight was perfectly on time.  Weather "in Atlanta" my left foot.  So since our missed connection was caused by weather, it was up to us to find some place to stay overnight until we could catch our connection to Birmingham.  Fun stuff.  I ended up making it to work the following day at around noon. 

All in all, it was an excellent trip with a little bit of a bummer of an ending, all thanks to good old Delta.

So Day 7 was our last day in the Boston area.  There wasn't any ice skating (at least not for the people from Alabama) so we pretty much got to waste time until our flight.  We decided to go to Salem since a lot of people had been and told us what to see and what not to see.  They also mentioned to Laura that there were lots of little shops with obscure items in them and Laura was kinda pumped about it.  I think it might have been a letdown once we got there and saw what they had to offer.

As it turns out, Saturday was the day of the Salem CultureFest 2006.  There wasn't anything too impressive there...  a large gazebo-like structure where a "band" was playing and some little tents for vendors:

Either way, we successfully killed a couple hours in Salem and drove back to Manchester, NH where we originally flew in at the beginning of the trip.

So today was almost entirely skating.  The day started off with Caitlin as Mr. Potato Head and kept going from there:

I think the highlight of the day for our group was Caitlin and Michelle as Luke and Darth Vader:

I can't believe I took the picture, but the one thing that went terribly, terribly wrong with their program was that Caitlin's (Luke's) lightsaber broke (half of it promptly fell to the ground and remained there for the rest of the program):

Everyone did very well this competition.  There were a lot of medals, but unfortunately, no purple.  (Caitlin wanted a purple because it's pretty - not because it's 6th place).  Better luck next time I guess.

This morning Michelle had freestyle.  I think she got a 2nd place for her performance.  I was playing around with my camera and managed to get a picture of her in the air:

We headed into Boston for a tour of the Samuel Adams brewery.  The tour was your normal beer tour.  The only negative thing I can say about it is that the tour is in a warehouse and it is not air conditioned at all.  The best thing I can say about it is that they give you a free glass and a bunch of beer at the end.  They let us try their normal Boston Lager, Summer Ale, and a new beer based on a German "rauch". 

On the way back from the brewery, I saw something that would not have been out of the ordinary in Alabama, but in the middle of Boston seemed a bit too redneck:

So if I had an old school bus sitting around, the first thing I would do is park it next to the other run-down cars in my yard.  The second thing I would do is load it full of junk and use it as a storage shed.  And the third thing I would do (once all the stuff in the bus got melted by the sun) is install two turbin roof vents on top like it's a house.

So from Sam Adams we went over to the Prudential Center to pick up the Duck Tours.  We had Major Groovy the self-proclaimed hippie as our guide.  I would highly recommend this tour to anyone going to the Boston area.  Ours took about an hour and a half, counting quite a few minutes sitting in traffic (ours started at 4:30pm):

While on the tour, Major Groovy let all the children "drive" the duck (it was on water, so they couldn't hit anything).  Once that was over, he opened it up to adults and Michelle and Caitlin took him up on it. 

So is it just me, or does it seem like both of them were heading straight for land? Doesn't sound too good when you're in boat mode.  On the land part of the tour, we drove past a place Major Groovy finds amusing...  it's a combination Dunkin Donuts and sushi place:

You'll see the "Osaka Sushi Express" sign in the window of the Dunkin Donuts shop.  Wow.

When we got back to the Prudential Center, we decided to go up to the observation deck which I believe was on floor 50.  From there we could see quite a few sights of downtown Boston (and take some pictures if you have a decent lens on your camera)...  Here is one of the Charles River at (near) sunset:

This is all of Old Ironsides that we saw:

See it back there behind the building?

Here is a picture of the Old North Church from the Prudential Tower:

And last, but not least, a picture of Fenway Park from the Prudential Tower:

Today my father-in-law and I headed down to Connecticut to see the Connecticut Defenders play a baseball game.  As you might expect from a minor league team, they had interesting mascots.  Their current one was Cutter the Eagle:

And the one they just recently changed from (the team changed names for this season) was Tater the Gator:

A little strange that the old mascot was still around, but if you have the suit, wear it.  As it turns out, the game was early (10:30a) so it was a benefit for school children and several hundred Navy guys from sub school.  Check out all the white behind Cutter in the picture above.

We had to head back after the 7th inning to be sure we'd make it for Caitlin's performance this afternoon.  She got yet another 1st place medal in the Freestyle event:

Tonight we had a very excellent dinner at Legal Sea Foods.  I tried clam chowder for the first time ever (to my recollection) and it was quite good.

So this morning Caitlin and Michelle skated a routine together.  They actually got first place (yay):

In the afternoon, we ventured over to downtown Boston to check out Fenway Park:

I must admit it was quite a good tour of the stadium.  The guy talking to us had a lot of funny stories and could field pretty much any question he was asked.  We got some good advice there:

We got lunch/dinner at the Boston Beer Works.  Then we headed over to Quincy Market where we saw this cow painted to be a short bus:

The ladies did some shopping.  As you can imagine, we were quite tired after all of that, so we headed back out to our hotel.

So today Laura and I went separate ways...  Laura went to go see the girls ice skate at "worlds".  Here is a picture of the crew from Alabama:

There were several events for all of them, but the one that sounded the strangest to me (and Caitlin was in so we have pictures) was called "surprise".  Apparently they tell you as you go onto the ice what it is they need you to do.  I'm sure it's to test some sort of skill or concentration since Caitlin had to push a kickball around the ice with a hockey stick.  This isn't quite as odd as seeing a hockey player do spins, but it's close:

So while Laura was watching ice skating, I took a trip down into Boston on the "T" to see a thesis defense at MIT.  It is impressive to me that it took him 6 years just to get his PhD (this was time spent completely after his undergrad work) and this is about average for the MIT programs.  While I was in Boston, I had to kill some time between events, so I walked around a bit.  I did see the Old South Church which makes me wonder where the Old North Church is relative to it:

We had dinner at this amazing Italian place across the street from our hotel called Linguini's.  It's a dad-and-daughter type show, but it has some of the absolute best Italian food I've ever tasted.  I'm sure we'll visit again this week if we get a chance.

One thing I forgot to mention...  on the way down I-95 to Boston, we noticed a very amusing car:

I think it was originally a Mercury Topaz.  In addition to the "Rap is to Music like Graffiti is to Art" bumper sticker, he has the perfect example to back it up.  Oh, and he named his masterpiece:

I am not sure what kind of shaggin has gone on in the "Shaggin Wagon", but I'm pretty sure it wasn't a good experience since it was in a Mercury Topaz.

So this had to be one of the longest days of my life.  Laura and I were up fairly late (11:30p-ish) getting our ducks in a row.  Once we finally went to sleep, a storm was rolling through the area and as luck would have it, our power started blinking (almost every minute).  Get out of bed, walk across the house, and re-start the clothes dryer.  One minute later, repeat.  As you can imagine, it didn't start off as a very restful night.  The alarm went off at 3am which is always pleasant.  The things you have to do to make a 6am flight with two suitcases and two boxes full of stuff.  The check-in process was surprisingly efficient at the Delta counter.  Security wasn't too bad either, but I remembered to substitute my normal hiking boots for tennis shoes.  I have to remember to do that every time I fly from now on.

Everything was just ducky (since we got them in a row the night before) until we boarded the plane.  We were walking down the aisle looking for seat 12D and 12E.  I'm sure this has happened to everyone at some point, but we got to our seats and one of them was taken.  And not taken by some big, burley biker dude that you can either reason with or be afraid of.  It was taken by a 6-ish Asian girl that spoke about as much of my language as I did hers.  And of course, there was an avalanche of humanity behind us trying to get to their seats.  Great.  So we ducked into the row in front of her.  Bad choice.  After two people passed, we were now blocking the proper owners of that row.  So we ducked into the row behind her.  We noticed that there was another Asian child and a lady sitting across the aisle from her.  We asked the lady if the little girl was with her and she responded very plainly "no".  We finally managed to hit the call button as going back against the flow is not only a bad idea, but is downright impossible.  Fortunately there was a flight attendant in the back of the plane that came up to assist us.  I guess it must have been the uniform that scared the Asian lady into honesty since when the flight attendant asked her if the little girl was with them she nodded yes and signaled for the little girl to move.  WTF.

The rest of the trip was uneventful except Laura insists I managed to get us on the smallest plane ever built from Atlanta to Manchester, NH.  While waiting for our luggage to be launched out the hole, we decided to go into the gift shop for the baggage claim.  Yes, that's right, there is a gift shop IN the baggage claim.  While I went back outside to catch our luggage as it came out, Laura apparently had a very interesting conversation with a Manchester native that worked in the gift shop.  Their conversation went something like this:

GS: "Are you from here?"

L: "No, actually I'm from Birmingham, AL."

GS: <strange look on face>

L: <laughter>

GS: "So what are you doing up here?"

L: "Actually, I'm up here for a figure skating competition."

GS: "Oh, are you a figure skater?"

L: "No, but my sister is."

GS: "Oh, have you ever been up here before?"

L: "Well, my family was stationed outside of Boston when I was younger and I have family in New York..."

GS: "So this is your first time to New Hampshire?"

L: "Yes."

GS: "Oh.  Well, you're probably just going to want to go ahead and leave."

I'm not entirely sure how their conversation ended, but Laura did join me a few moments later at the baggage claim and let me know that a Manchester resident was more or less telling us that even with all the negatives that are associated with the state of Alabama, we should get back on a plane and leave Manchester as soon as possible.  Wow.

So after we retrieved our massive amounts of luggage, we started walking to pick up our rental car.  Little did we know we had our bags on one end of the airport and we had to walk to the complete other end of the airport.  Literally (we had to go from baggage claim A all the way back around to the opposite end - dodging mass amounts of people as we went past ALL of the ticketing/check-in counters and the other baggage claim). 

The one thing that went smoothly...  I am a Hertz #1 Gold member, so our car was sitting in the parking lot unlocked and waiting for us.  I got the cheapest thing they offered on their web site that wasn't a Focus or Metro.  I believe their web site promised a Grand Prix.  Well, they certainly deliverd something a lot better:

I couldn't believe we got a 2007 Camry.  It's just a 4 cyllinder, but it's night and day better than most of the alternatives.  And it was just big enough to fit all of our luggage in the trunk.  Yay.

So on the way from Manchester, NH down to Marlborough, MA, we decided to stop at the Nashoba Valley Winery.  We took a wrong turn and ended up at Colonial Candies instead.  After visiting for a bit we decided to try for the wine again.  So after having troubles figuring out where on their property the visitors section is, we went inside and realized a tour was about to start.  The tour didn't really hold our interest as we've been to California a few times and taken real tours.  The tour guide was funny though and that helped.  They did have a still on premesis.  Apparently they make their own booze (grappa, vodka, gin, etc) in addition to wine.  After sampling a few of them, we decided to head on to our hotel as we were tired.

As it turns out, our hotel is right next to PC Connection corporate headquarters:

So we checked into the hotel and carried all our junk up to our room.  Except it wasn't our room.  We walked in to two unmaid beds and a suitcase obstructing the door.  Turn it around.  Go downstairs.  Complain.  They gave us a new room.  Carrying all our crap back up again.  Yay.  This room wasn't already occupied.  Good.  Except there aren't any drawers and hardly and hanging space.  Very unusual for a decent quality hotel.  Who in their right mind makes a wardrobe where the hanging bar runs from the door to the back of the piece?  Why not just make it run side to side like the rest of the intelligent world?  Seriously...

Laura and I were in the Dollar Tree store in Hoover on Saturday and noticed this little gem:

Is this a coloring book about coloring with God?  Or is this in fact a coloring book about death?  I don't know, but I was a bit afraid to touch it.

Another Barons home game on a thursday...  more $1 beer.  This time I think we realized that we weren't the only people drinking the Yuengling....  they ran out of their keg in the bottom of the 1st inning.  I'm not sure how many other kegs they went through that night, but they did have it again in an inning or so...