J.P.

Before I get started with my latest witty dialog, I thought I’d share this with you…

create your own personalized map of the USA

or write about it on the open travel guide

The red states are the states we have been in. To qualify, we have to actually drive in the state, airport lay-overs don’t count.

Anyways, we got up this morning, skipped breakfast and hit the long, flat road. We followed one of the road trips in our “Great Plains” travel guide (no home should be without one) and enjoyed the sites of Central Kansas. Granted, it was raining but the countryside was still beautiful.

We stopped at an old, late 1800s type restaurant in Council Grove called “The Hays House” and had a wonderful lunch. Complete with dessert – Earl had a peach dumpling and I had strawberry pie on homemade crust. Out of this world. I asked Earl how to make a crust for a pie, since I’ve promised that I’m going to cook much more when I get home, and he said to pick up the crust at the grocery store. If I’m going to cook more, I’m doing it from scratch. He rolled his eyes. He won’t be rolling his eyes when I make a homemade pie complete with homemade crust!

But I digress.

After Council Grove we continued north to Junction City, toured around the downtown a bit before hitting the interstates (70 and then 135) and heading back to Wichita. The rain had slowed down to a drizzle, but not enough for us to walk around Wichita, so we opted for a movie instead. We went and saw the third Harry Potter movie (which was quite good) at a local theatre chain called Warren Theatres. This theatre was the best theatre I have been in my adult life. First of all, it wasn’t expensive ($7.00/person – vs $8.50 at home), refreshments were cheap ($14.00 for both us, usually its $22) and the theatres were beautiful. Art deco design, carpeted, NO COMMERCIALS and just a typically friendly midwest atmosphere. There’s even a sitting room complete with fireplace, theatres with a balcony that are for adults only, and theatres with “crying rooms” where moms can take their unhappy kids and still watch the movie while not disturbing the rest of the crowd. There’s even a diner in the theatre. Two thumbs up for Warren Theatres.

After the movie we went to a local diner for some meatloaf and mashed potatoes. We had a very chatty waitress who seemed like she wanted to be our best friend.

Tomorrow morning we are going to hit the road and start heading east. I think we’re going to take the round-about way on the way home. We haven’t decided if we’re going up to Iowa and over I-80 or to Kansas City and by way of St. Louis and Indianapolis on I-70. Maybe we’ll flip a coin when we leave to decide.

Earl and I left Oklahoma City this morning and headed for our next destination on our Americana Tour, Wichita, Kansas.

After another great buffet breakfast at Embassy Suites, we hit the road, opting for two-lane U.S. highways instead of the interstates. We headed northeast from Oklahoma City to U.S. 81, where we turned north and drove through the plains and lots of lots of fields of wheat. We stopped in Medford, Okla. for gas and a potty break – we thought about buying some subs for lunch, but the entire gas station/diner came to a grinding halt when we walked in, as everyone looked at us like we just parallel parked a flying saucer. I think the N.Y. tags scare people as they automatically assume that we are from the city of New York. Of course, we live nowhere near NYC, but people think “New York” means “New York City”, so there you are. I feel like telling them, no we are not going to mug you, and no we did not see the airplanes hit the World Trade Towers on September 11.

So then we continued onto Wellington, Kansas and opted for Sonic. We love Sonic. I dare say that Sonic has pulled ahead of Chick-Fil-A as my favorite fast food establishment.

Earl seemed to be getting bored with the prairie and the wheat, so I jumped on the Kansas Turnpike and finished the drive to Wichita, arriving at our hotel at 3 p.m. The area here is kind of weird. All the residential areas around the hotel seem to be behind these brick walls. Everything is a gated community. Honestly, it initially struck me as somewhat snobby. We’ll have to do a little more investigating.

For supper we headed to Old Town Wichita and ate at the Larkspur. Very tasty. Highly recommended. Old Town seemed a little downtrodden on a Tuesday night, so we walked around a bit and then headed back to the hotel.

Tomorrow were debating on going on a road tour of Central Kansas or changing plans completely and heading off to another destination. I love the adventure!

Earl and I spent a wonderful day in the beautiful city of Oklahoma City today.

To start of the morning, we had a light breakfast (waffles, french toast, double order of bacon) courtesy of Embassy Suites. If it’s within your budget and at your destination, I highly recommend Embassy Suites for your lodging of choice while on vacation. Earl and I stay at Embassy Suites whenever we get the chance, and we are never disappointed.

After breakfast we headed to the Oklahoma City Memorial Site… where the bombing took place on April 19, 1995. The memorial is beautiful and to visit there is an emotional experience. It is a tasteful, respectful and insightful memorial, and if you’re in the area, I highly recommend that you visit the site.

After the Memorial, we headed to the Myriad Gardens. I have to admit that we were both disappointed with the Myriad Gardens. It’s basically a park with lots of flowers, walkways, fountains and waterfalls. While portions of it were quite nice, it had a general air of disrepair about it. We had the feeling that the gardens had seen better times.

We then went to Quizno’s for lunch. Wow! Quizno’s toasts their subs and spanks Subway any day.

We then headed south of OKC and drove through the prairie to see some of the more rural areas of Oklahoma. We drove through several small towns. Looking for a simpler life, I was quick to appreciate the lifestyle we observed… everyone was friendly and seemed to be looking out for each other. There was a definite sense of community.

After the drive, Earl needed to touch base with work (yay! for e-mail) and then we freshened up for supper. We decided on a local restaurant called Cattleman’s Café which is famous for it’s steak. One of the appetizers and entreés listed was “Lamb Fries”. Neither of us were familiar with Lamb Fries, so Earl asked what they were. The waitress replied “Rocky Mountain Oysters”. I instantly knew what they were, having ‘experienced’ Rocky Mountain Oysters a number of years ago. But Earl was not familiar with the dish, so he pressed her for more information. She replied, quite simply “Lamb Balls”. I wish I had the camera on when he found out what Lamb Fries were. Needless to say, he wasn’t about to give them a try.

The steak and sides, delivered by a handsome man with wonderful sideburns (I’m always a fanatic for great facial hair), was out of this world. I had a T-bone, Earl had the Blue Ribbon 14 oz. Ribeye. Absolutely delicious. Best steak I’ve ever had. Any thoughts of my previous vegetarianism are completely out the window. We highly recommend the Cattleman Cafe in the Stockyards on Agnew.

Earl and I both love Oklahoma City. We’ve always thought that we would move to the desert when we retired, but after this trip we’re rethinking that line of thought. We’re really liking this area… the fact that there is a definite change of seasons I(but not too extreme) and the friendly, sense of community.

Tomorrow we head to Wichita to continue our Americana Adventure. I’m really looking forward to the drive.

Earl and I have are at the first destination on our vacation. We arrived in Oklahoma City about an hour ago.

We left Friday afternoon around 1:00 — and after some serious navigation study, using the science of Earl’s knuckle as a measuring stick (hair and all), we decided to head south to Hagertown, Md. then west through West Virginia – spending our first night in Charleston, W. Va. It rained like crazy through the western Maryland mountains, but that just added to the fun.

Saturday morning we headed out bright and early and headed down through the Appalachain Mountains towards Kentucky. Plowed through Kentucky, stopping for lunch in Lexington, and then turned south and headed down to Nashville, where we picked up I-40. Between Lexington and Nashville we put the top down on the Jeep and enjoyed the bright sunshine and warm breeze. It was great. It started looking cloudy a little west of Nashville, so we got the top up and made it to Memphis with just clouds – no rain. Called it a night when we got to Memphis.

This morning we hit the road again and headed across Arkansas and Oklahoma. Like my previous experience with the heartland, everyone is so friendly. There doesn’t seem to be the frenetic pace of the Northeast. The front desk attendant at our hotel in Memphis thought we were crazy for driving half way across the country in a Jeep – especially from “beautiful New York”. She’s right, we’re crazy, and we’re lovin’ it.

Earl caught up on work when we arrived (thank goodness for the laptop!), I’m posting my blog entry and then we’re heading out for supper and excitement.

This vacation is just what the doctor ordered!

Earl and I began our packing and such for our trip to the Midwest this evening. The first order of business was to take Tom up to my dad’s so he could stay with “Grandpa” and his cousins. My sister saddled my dad with two cats a couple of years ago. He won’t admit it to your face, but I think he and his girlfriend like having the cats around.

Anyways, while I was up there, Karen, my dad’s girlfriend gave me a couple of things she found when clean up my old bedroom – including a couple of little journal notebooks and some other things.

First of all, I’m glad that I consider Karen to be family, or I would be mighty embarassed by the things she found. Thank God I had the sense to get rid of my meager collection of porn when I left for college — just kidding — I was never much of a porn collector back then.

The journal notebooks were from a trip our family made to Dearborn, Michigan in 1982. My mother, being the excellent mother that she is and was, encouraged us to write our trip experience in a journal so we could stretch our creative chops. A 1980s blog, if you will.

Being the huge geek that I am, I wrote all about the roads and road signs. You may have seen that this obsession lives with me to this day, with my UpstateNYroads web site. Among other things, I remarked that the motel we stayed at in Parry Sound, Ontario was “the best motel I had ever seen in my life!” (I think it was the third motel I had ever been in – the previous two were the two nights prior), and I also made a comment about how much I loved supper at A&W (that part is still true). But my entries also got me to thinking about how much of a geek I’ve always been. My geekness hasn’t always been limited to roads…

– My first geek obsession that I can remember was with powerlines. The high tension wires fascinated me for some reason, and to this day, I can instantly tell anyone around me when we’ve crossed from Niagara Mohawk’s territory in to NYSEG’s territory here in Upstate N.Y. Why one would need this knowledge, I don’t have the slightest idea, but I can tell you just in case. Call me the life of any party.

– Powerlines were quickly followed by the beginnings of my road geek obsession. As a kid I laid out a map of the woods behind our house and made all sorts of paths, with bridges made out of pallets (complete with re-rod arches) and road signs printed out neatly (mounted on overhead posts made out of scrap wood). I probably should have followed my gut and became a traffic engineer, as to this day, when I get bored when Earl is out of town, I still design road signs (to federal specs), but now I use a freebie AutoCAD program.

– I was always fascinated with clocks, especially those found in school, as evidenced by my other web site. Last night I just finished a project installing synchronized clocks at the radio station I work for. I pity the people that buy my father’s house some day and wonder why “Simplex” and “Standard Electric” is written on the inside of the sheetrock and under the floorboards throughout the house, leading the way to wiring for a clock system that doesn’t exist.

– Then came my computer, more specifically, database obsession. This was spurred by the cash registers at our local Ames store, because they kept track of inventory using three-digit department numbers, with all the information stored on IBM punch tape and I just thought that was just way too cool for words. Did you know that those old mechanical registers made an IBM punch tape? Didn’t think so! I still lean towards databases for just about everything I need to keep track of these days and if I ever settled down to just one aspect of information management, it would be in relational database technology.

As I look at the list above, the one thing that sticks out is that my geek obsessions all have one thing in common… I’m interested in all things _connected_. I could get all existential and say that’s why I have a moderate obsession with metaphysical stuff and new age spirituality, because I believe that everyone is connected and my geek hobbies are just a material manifestation of these beliefs.

But it’s probably better to write it off to something else… I’m just one big geek.

As Earl and I prepare for our trip to the Midwest on Friday, I can’t help but notice that I am continuting to try to make life simpler. No, we’re not looking for a Paris and Nicole experience while we’re in the nation’s heartland, but rather, we’re just looking for something a little less frantic than the hyper Northeast pace that we’ve become used to.

Back in April, I had the opportunity to travel to northwest Iowa for software training for work. The company is situated in the village of Emmetsburg, a “two stop light town” that is devoid of Wal*Mart, Target and even McDonalds. They did have fast food – a Pizza Hut and the always welcome classic A&W. Natives of Emmetsburg claim that they had four tourist attractions… soybeans on the left and corn on the right, corn on the left and beans on the right, beans on the left and beans on the right and corn on the left and corn on the right. I only spent three days in Emmetsburg, but every single person I crossed paths with was so friendly. People smiled. There was a “howdy neighbor” atmosphere going on, and they even made this boy from Upstate N.Y. feel welcome.

As I’ve been going on in my blog for the past couple of weeks, I need a little bit simpler approach to life. As of late I’ve accepted Wal*Mart back into my shopping experiences. I’m using MSN 9 for my e-mail and my internet browser. (It’s just easier to use software that is packaged neatly together. I’m sick of fighting with my operating system to browse the internet. I want something that just works. I know, I should get an iMac, but that’s not in the budget right now, so I’m doing the best I can with what I have.) Earl and I shun the “sit-down fast food” (TGIFridays/Applebees/et al) and go for the Mom and Pop diner with the opportunity presents itself.

I’ve given up my fancy gel pens at work and have switched to the tried and true Bic ball-point pens. I don’t take the time for “pretty penmanship”. I write functionally, but not pretty.

I’ve stopped trying to fit everyone and anything into categories of my own design. I let the pieces fall where they may fall. I allow myself to see people as they want to be seen, not as I want to see them.

I’ve disabled my webcams for a while. I’ll still videochat with others on MSN Messenger, but I’ve received one too many ‘requests’ of what I should do under my desk while I’m doing my work, so for now, I’ve decided to shut down the cam streams.

And I’m trying to stop living life as “what it could have been” and start living “as it is.” A stop and smell the roses sort of attitude. It’s not so bad after all.

I’m really looking forward to the Jeep ride to Oklahoma, Texas, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska (and back). I want to see flat lands, big farms, small towns, large cities and blue sky. I don’t want a soda, I want a POP.

I’ve been on an internal emotional roller coaster the past couple of weeks. But the turbulent ride has come to an end. And I really like the looks of this stop.

For some reason I decided this weekend that stereotypes are bad. It’s kind of like I woke up and said to myself, “I shouldn’t be such a shithead.” Usually epiphanies are a glorious feeling, not laced with profanities, but sometimes you can’t have everything work out the right way.

For example, I’ve always presumed that shoppers at Wal*Mart have two-digit IQs. I looked down upon those who shopped at Wal*Mart. They’re the dumb ones. “I’m better than you, I shop at Kaufmann’s and spend way too much money needlessly”. “You’re spending good money with a jerk of a company who kills small-town America.” “You’re buying cheaply made goods that were manufactured in sweat shops in Asia.” “You can’t earn a decent living so you have to shop at Wal*Mart”. How rude!

Earl and I shopped in Wal*Mart yesterday. Honestly, I hadn’t been in our local Wal*Mart in a number of years. The first in the area, it’s in the process of becoming a Wal*Mart Supercenter.

As we were opening the pool yesterday, we found we needed pool supplies. Being Sunday, none of the local pool supply shops were open, but Wal*Mart was there, with all the supplies that we needed. The sales staff was friendly. Our cashier had two lockets around her neck, both with pictures of her very young son. She seemed like the single, struggling mother type. Before my epiphany, I would have considered her a stupid fool who got knocked up and was living off welfare. Truth be known, she was a hard working Mom trying to earn a decent living so that her son could have a decent life. There’s nothing wrong with that. I looked her in the eyes and wished her a good day. She probably thought I was weird, but she smiled.

I’m seriously considering venturing into the Wal*Mart Supercenter across town for groceries next time we go shopping.

When I was a vegetarian, I probably was a little more preachy than I needed to do be. Did I consider myself better than those that ate meat? Admittedly, I did. How arrogant! Then I ask myself, was I a vegetarian to maintain a ‘holier-than-thou’ stance, or was I a vegetarian for health reasons? Honestly, I don’t know. I have met a few vegetarians that were just plain mean with their preachiness. I don’t want to be like them. I guess it doesn’t matter now, since I’m not vegetarian anymore, but I think I’ve learned a lesson somewhere in there.

I am a very fortunate person. I’m blissfully in love, have a beautiful home, enjoy a caring and understanding family and work with a great bunch of people. My life is ideal. It’s time to put aside my artifically earned superiority and appreciate people for who and what they are.

I swore I wasn’t going to get wrapped up in it, but I did. I’m such a goon. Of course I’m talking about American Idol.

Last year I spewed out all sorts of negativity in my blog about Ruben Studdard winning over Clay Aiken. I stand by that. I thought the poor thing was going to pass out during his performance tonight and he sucked as usual. I don’t know if he’s a nice guy or not, but I really hate his voice. On the flip side, Clay Aiken is a breath of fresh air, and his single “Invisible” is a true pop classic. Earl hates it when it comes on the radio or CD, because I have to crank up “the bridge” and he has to listen to my praise about “classic pop music structure.” See? That year in SUNY Fredonia’s music program taught me something.

Which brings us to this year’s finale. Of course, the whole thing could be condensed to the last two minutes and you wouldn’t miss a thing. The single that was written for the winner, “I Believe” is cheesier than a big block of good old 1979 Welfare Cheese. It makes Diane Warren’s lyrics sound like Shakespeare.

At the beginning of this two hour cheese fest we began with Tamyra Gray, a lovely woman with a beautiful voice, who butchered our National Anthem. Our National Anthem, while patriotic, is not the most beautiful song in the world, and she just made it worse. Cluephone to anyone that sings the National Anthem in the future. It’s written to be sung at a fairly lively tempo and the melody is straight forward. It has been sung roughly a million times. Sliding up and down the scale, all over the medley with startling trills in not going to make the National Anthem “Your Own”. It’s still the National Anthem. And drug-induced Whitney Houston be damned, sing it like it’s written. And I speak with authority, as I have sang the National Anthem locally, in front of a crowd of roughly 3,000 people and I sang it straight forward. Granted, every team I’ve sung for has left town at the end of the season, but that’s just a coincidence.

Then we have the Top 12 doing a really bad “can-can” type number which was a medley of all the hits of the guest judges throughout the season. Imagine a drunk D.J. at a club trying to mix “Heaven Knows” into “Mandy” and you’ll get the jist of that train wreck. I have a hard time believe Matt Rogers is 24, he looks 34 (and kind of hunky admittedly). And he’s suffering from “comb-over”. Dude, stop the charade.

Ruben Studdard made his obligatory performance. Cluephone to Ruben, go see a doctor as I really am afraid for your health. It seemed you could barely squeak out your song without suffering from severe dehydration with all your sweating, and the second line is ringing, your songs still suck.

Then to top it off, we have Diana DeGarmo and Fantasia Burrino. Diana is 16, shows a lot of promise vocally and will have a great career someday. She’s a little wet behind the ears, but she shows promise and I wish her well as runner up.

Fantasia, of course, took the American Idol title, because that’s who the judges wanted to win and that’s who America voted for. Personally I can’t watch her because she bounces around so much I suffer from airsickness, and I can’t listen to her because she makes my throat sore with her screeching. She sounds like a 33 RPM Macy Gray record sped up to 45 RPM. Not my thing, but then again, not much on Top 40 radio is not my thing today. But I wish her luck. The two choices were nowhere near the calibur of Kelly Clarkson or Clay Aiken, but they will do for this year.

Now, I’m not watching next year. I know, I know, yeah right.

I’ve been like a little kid in a candy store. I’ve always been fascinated with severe spring and summer weather. The bigger the downpour, the stronger the wind, the louder the thunder, the more fascinated and excited I become.

On Saturday night, Mother Nature gave us quite a spectacular light show with some thunderstorms that passed through the area. Some rain, a little wind, and a lot of thunder and lightning.

That was just a teaser apparently, because Sunday night we had even stronger thunderstorms, with impressive wind and a brilliant lightning display. Four storms barged through between 9:30 and 5:00 a.m. this morning, and I was awake for all of them. I busied myself watching my weather station do it’s thing, tracking the storms on the computer just enjoying the adrenaline rush of the excitement. The neighbors must wonder why the new guy on the block puts on his rain gear and stands out on the front porch in his underwear and rain gear when the radio is telling everyone to stay inside.

Another storm passed through this afternoon, and I got to observe it from the top floor of our office building. Very impressive. I didn’t have the digital camera though, which was a little disappointing, since we watched what appeared to be a tornado on the horizon (still waiting on confirmation on that). Working for a radio station can be very exciting, especially when you’re coordinating EAS (Emergency Alert System) Alerts with the on-air staff trying to get as much information out to the public as quickly as possible.

In other news, Earl and I made it a Jeep Weekend and traveled in the Finger Lakes on Saturday with the sides off the Jeep. The threat of rain kept us from taking the top completely off, though. We did do a couple of “Jeep Top Drills” on Friday so that we would be well prepared for our trip to Oklahoma and Kansas a week from Friday. I’m really getting excited about our upcoming vacation.

As I’m going through my daily tasks here at work, I let my mind wander for just a moment. For some reason, I recalled my high school years.

There was a teacher in my school that taught special education. Outside of her regular duties, she also assisted with the drama club and a social studies course, “Ethics Class”. So I got to know her fairly well. Her name was (and probably still is) Karen O’Brien. She was present when I came out to myself, at the age of 16 (though I had known since I was six or seven) during one particularly emotional Ethics Class, but that’s another story for another time.

I always admired Karen for one reason – she had an unstoppable zest for life. In the one yearbook, the teachers were polled for various reasons – interests, dislikes, etc. These were printed under their picture.

Karen wrote this for her interest:

Interests: People – I find them fascinating. I haven’t found one yet that didn’t impress me.

What a wonderful thought. I’m going to make it a point to remember that more often.