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St. Petersburg, Florida.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Earl and I were on the road bright and early this morning, continuing our journey south. We are not due at Disney until Sunday afternoon, and since we made such good time yesterday we are way ahead of schedule. What to do, what to do.

Drive to the Greater Tampa Area, of course.

Before I continue, memo to self: bring phone number of cousin and high school friend whenever we think of heading to the sunshine state. We can still leave Anita Bryant’s pie at home though, she doesn’t live here.

Earl and I have set up for the night in St. Petersburg, Florida. Neither of us have been here before, though Earl has been to Tampa several times. The drive was beautiful and fast (traffic on I-75 was moving at nearly 85 MPH, which was great fun). We poked around the bayfront area, including The Pier. If you’re in the area, we both recommend the restaurant “Fresco”, the food is very good and it’s nice to sit on the waterfront while enjoying your meal. My lettuce wedge had “Maytag Blue Cheese” on it. I don’t know what that is but I really hope it didn’t involve a Maytag repairman or an old washing machine.

Tonight we’re going to relax a bit and then maybe go exploring the nightlife.

It’s Warm!

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

After our little stop in Pulaski, Va. Earl and I made our way through Virginia into Tennessee where I met a roadgeek goal: we drove to the other end of Interstate 81. I have now officially driven every inch of I-81. Most would say “big deal”, to me it was because I’d always wanted to do that.

We were going to spend the night in Knoxville, TN but we decided to continue our trek, so we stopped at a “Steak ‘n Shake” in Athens, TN. I haven’t done any research on the popular chain yet, but so far it is an acceptable substitute for Chick-Fil-A.

One thing I noticed is that when we were being seated we were asked if we wanted to sit in “smoking” or “non-smoking”. New York banned smoking in restaurants and bars years ago, so we had sort of forgotten that wasn’t the case throughout the entire country. (Virginia seems to have the same rule, at least where we were). Having been in a smoke-free environment for so long, I feel confident to say that having a smoking section in a restaurant is no different than having a pissing section reserved in a swimming pool.

The food was excellent though.

I did have to take a bathroom break, and while I was doing so an employee of the restaurant came busting in grumbling to himself about that “damn manager”, dropping a few “what the hell”s and other assorted blue phrases. Once I got myself together and went to the sink to wash up before returning to my seat, I noticed that he was standing at the sink shaving. I hadn’t run across that in a fast food restaurant before (though I have seen it at Planet Hollywood for some odd reason), he told me he was in trouble for not being clean shaven for his shift even though he had just shaved yesterday. Apparently the manager has run into the problem before with his or her employees, because this employee was well prepared with the necessary equipment to shave.

After supper we did some necessary shopping at the local Big K and then jumped back on I-75 where we headed south. We passed through Chattanooga where I waved a silent wave to my uncle that passed on years ago. He and my mom were picking me up at the train station back in ’88 and when the train was delayed, apparently he kept stopping people and singing to them “Pardon me boys, is that the Chattanooga Choo-choo?” It still makes me smile to remember that.

We decided to stop for the night a few miles short of Atlanta in the little ‘burg of Acworth. Earl and I are catching up e-mail and blogging (he’s going to blog this trip once we’re at Disney) and then we are hitting the road again in the morning. We haven’t finalized our plans yet as we’re not expected at Disney until Sunday but we don’t have nearly as much driving to do.

Domino Dancing.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

The sky is clear, the sun is bright. A quick glance at the thermometer shows that it’s 10 degrees. Unfortunately that’s not in celcius.

What to do, what to do.

Enjoy the sunshine by taking a study break, cranking up “Domino Dancing” by the Pet Shop Boys and dancing in front of a window filled with sunshine.

Maybe next time I should get dressed.

Pumping Gas.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

The weather has been absolutely miserable today. The wind is blowing like crazy. It has been snowing all day. The driveway was filled up with snow drifts within an hour of my cleaning it out. I’m sort of sick of it.

Since I had to go to school tonight I had to venture out in this nasty weather. Naturally, I had forgotten to get gas for the Jeep when it was warm so there I was, standing at the gas pump fearful that my balls were going to freeze to my leg or something.

It was fscking cold.

Now I don’t know if this is statewide or some weird sporadic thing upstate, but in Oneida County we, as the most taxed citizens of the Empire State, are forced to stand with our hands on the gas nozzle while we’re putting a tiger in our tank. In most other states, usually warmer locales I may add, you can put the nozzle in the gas tank and prop it open with the little flappy thing and then jump into the car to keep warm. Then the pump will pop off when your tank is full and you can jump back out of the car and finish up your business.

Not here. They’ve (meaning “the man”) have taken the little flappy thingees off the gas pump nozzles. So there’s only two ways to prop the nozzle open so you can get in the car and get warm: 1. Bring a screwdriver and jam it in the nozzle which might not let it turn off automatically when its suppose to or 2. jam your gas cap in the same spot. Unfortunately most modern cars have their gas cap tethered to the vehicle now because people were leaving them behind or putting them in their purse. So we are left to hold the nozzle in rain, sleet, snow, wind and other weather related calamities.

I’m suspecting this is because someone, somewhere at a gas station went crazy and dowsed their spouse with gas and then lit them on fire or something and then sued the gas station owner. So naturally, because we do not let natural selection do it’s thing anymore and weed out the stupid people, we are all forced to act to the lowest common denominator.

I hate that.

It’s like these morons in New Jersey that won’t allow you to pump your own gas for fear of going crazy with the nozzle (like we’re going to drink out of it or something) and demand that an attendant scratch up your car with said nozzle instead. Usually while the attendant is smoking.

To make a long story short, my fingers are numb from pumping $37.50 worth of gas into the jeep and my patience is long gone. And don’t even get me started on the fact that gas has gone up 30 cents per gallon in a week for some secret reason that nobody knows about.

More Kool-Aid.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

O.k. The last ’bout with Windows was quaint, but it’s over. I’ve made a new batch of kool-aid and my PowerBook has never felt better.

One of my college courses, “English Composition”, is an online course. Back in December when I was setting up my schedule, this was the last course that I needed to schedule and I had successfully kept my Fridays empty and I didn’t want to mar that record, so I signed up to take the course online.

Now there’s a sentence that would make the grammar police cringe.

As with most online courses, you post your coursework to a discussion board, where your classmates and instructors read and review it and make comments. Since this is my first stab at college in a long time, I’ve held back a bit in my comments. I say things like “I found your essay had a casual feel to it. I didn’t feel like I had wasted my time by reading it” in an effort to try to be nice to some of the rougher drafts posted for discussion.

However, as of late I’ve started becoming the spelling police. I’ve begun posting little catch phrases in an effort to help my fellow students with their spelling mistakes.

“You want two desserts in the desert, not two deserts in your dessert!”

“Why don’t you lose some weight so your pants will be loose?”

“Where shall you wear your clothes tonight?”

“They’re excited that their friends will be there.”

I believe that correct spelling is important regardless of the medium or the circumstance. We all make mistakes, but that’s what the red little squiggle line in Word is for, to help you find your mistakes. When I was working in technical support I would get messages that held intelligent phrases such as “My ‘puter went broke. Can U fixit?” Requests such as these went to the bottom of the pile and rarely saw the light of day. When I was at the radio station, resumés were instantly discarded if I saw a spelling mistake or if said document was based on an Office template. I figured a lack of attention to detail and a lack of creativity were not qualities I was looking for in a candidate for air personality.

I can’t even send a text message on my cell phone without writing out the whole word. It’s just not in my nature.

At least I know the proper spelling of OCD.

Popcorn Pants.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

With tonight being the busiest school night for me, it’s only natural that Earl is home from his various business trips one night only this week, and tonight would be that night. Luckily, I finished up my project at school early and was able to get out of class ahead of schedule.

As you can see from this photo, I dressed up for the occasion. Now don’t go thinking I wore these popcorn pants to school because I don’t think I’d have the nerve to do that. But as soon as I got home I was delighted to slip into my lounging clothes.

Tomorrow my jet set partner heads to Tennessee and then from there to New Jersey before arriving home late Friday night.

Such a whirlwind life.

High Banks.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Earl and I drove to Syracuse to visit with my Mom and sister today. We decided to go the long way, passing through the Village of Parish and City of Oswego, both of which were featured on the national news because of the recent snowstorm.

The snow has settled considerably since falling two weeks ago, but the snowbanks are still quite impressive.

Snowblowing.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Earl and I celebrated a good share of our Valentine’s Day by cleaning out the driveway together. We took turns snowblowing and then he made lunch while I did the shoveling.

I guess every couple has their own way of celebrating romance.

Part One.

Originally uploaded by macwarriorny.

Earl measured last night’s snowfall when we started snowblowing at 11:00 a.m. This is 13-inches in the middle of the driveway. It usually takes about 30 minutes for me to clean out the driveway with the snowblower and little shoveling I usually do. Today it took over three hours. The snow kept falling the entire time, I’m going to have to make another run in the morning if Earl hopes to get to work.