Here's Morgan's blow by blow report from his trip to the beach. Yes, he apparently twittered every couple of minutes. Please join me in making fun of him. Read from the bottom up.
morganbonner: This is your beach reporter Morgan signing off. I have survived another battle with the elements, though only by sheer luck.... about 1 hour ago from web
morganbonner: Yep, she's packing up to leave. Wouldn't you know it, an attractive woman just arrived in front of me. Figures. about 1 hour ago from web
morganbonner: It appears Allison is growing tired of inflicting the nerd-equivlient of waterboarding on me. She seems ready to leave.... about 1 hour ago from web
morganbonner: How many Sundays left without football? Eight? Goddamnit. about 1 hour ago from web
morganbonner: A couple of dudes are rubbing sunsreen on each other directly in front of me. Taking glasses off in 5...4...3....2....1.... about 1 hour ago from web
morganbonner: I don't want to take my iPod out for fear of getting sand in it. Christ this sucks. about 1 hour ago from web
morganbonner: Allison says that she will never drag me to the beach again if I buy her a pool. I am seriously considering her proposal. about 2 hours ago from web
morganbonner: Due to the liberal application of sunscreen on my face, my glasses keep falling down my nose. This is very upsetting to me. about 2 hours ago from web
morganbonner: Allison says I need to go in the water. Yes, because being lunch for some shark is going to make me so much more comfortable. about 2 hours ago from web
morganbonner: So, you're just supposed to lay here? about 2 hours ago from web
morganbonner: A large cloud has arrived overhead. Ha ha! Morgan 1, Day ball 0..... about 2 hours ago from web
morganbonner: There is a bird hovering near me. If only the crossbow I just purchased from www.budk.com had arrived yesterday, I could solve this problem. about 2 hours ago from web
morganbonner: Besides Allison, there is one attractive woman on this beach. One. And even she's kind of a Chubby Chubberson. What up with that? about 2 hours ago from web
morganbonner: In the immortal words of one Anakin Skywalker....."I hate sand. It gets everywhere...." about 3 hours ago from web
morganbonner: On our way to the beach. So giant day ball....we meet again at last, but this time the advantage is mine!! about 3 hours ago from web
If only our proud nation's Commander in Chief and his minions had picked up a copy of The Art of War, wisdom from a man that lived 500 years B.C. (or B.C.E. if you're so inclined), before setting off to war on foreign soil.
Just two pages in, Chapter 1, Line 2-3:
"When you engage in actual fighting, if victory is long in coming, the men's weapons will grow dull and their ardour will be damped. If you lay siege to a town, you will exhaust your strength.
Again, if the campaign is protracted, the resources of the State will not be equal to the strain."
Ch. 1 Ln 6:
"There is no instance of a country having benefited from prolonged warfare."
Ch. 1 Ln 10:
"...Contributing to maintain an army at a distance causes the people to be impoverished."
Happy Independence Day.
This is a scene from the four foot obelisk in our back yard, illuminated by the morning sun:
What the hell is going on here?
And before you ask, it came with the house.
Our friend Phil is visiting for the weekend as a stop on his tour of the American West. Next stop will be a tent in Utah, apparently.
We drove up to Scottsdale to visit Frank Lloyd Wright's compound, Taliesin West [Flickr].
Unlike Fallingwater, they allow photography there. How 'bout that?
So the wife had the 'big' ultrasound on Monday. You know, the one where they zoom in on your unborn child's junk in an effort to determine the gender. Assuming they're not "hiding" it, as one nurse said they do sometimes.
Well, it looks like we'll be having a son. Or a three legged daughter. The former, I'd imagine, would get picked on a lot less on the playground, so we're hoping that's how it's worked out.
I'm not going to post the picture from the sonogram, with the arrow and "IT"S A BOY!!!!!!!" that the tech wrote on the image pointing to the twig & berries, as I've sworn not to post any too many embarrassing pictures on the internets, especially involving nudity or genitalia, even computerized renderings of reflected sound.
Eventually, the kid (or worse, his friends) will find the Wayback Machine, and then I'd be in trouble. After all, he'll know where I sleep.
Anyway, the discovery that we're having a boy was a great relief. This means that when the time comes in 15 or so (yes, I'm probably being grossly optimistic) years to have "the talk", I can say: "Son, have fun, just be sure to bag it up" instead of "honey, if he touches you, I'll fucking kill him, and send you to a convent".
Today Betsy and I:
We managed all of this between 9:30 am and 4:30 pm, and everyone we dealt with was friendly, helpful and courteous.
Clearly we're not in the South anymore, Toto.
We made it. That's about all I got.
Day two concludes in Amarillo, in the great state of Texas. We travelled from Little Rock, making it the shortest of our three days on the road. The weather through Arkansas and the better part (is there such a thing?) of Oklahoma! was torrential downpours separated by periods of blinding rain blowing sideways. We decided the most scenic thing on the drive today was the windmill farms by the side of the interstate in OK, and the fancy rest stops near the TX border.
Amarillo is the last decent sized town before you hit Albuquerque, New Mexico, which had been our original goal for today's drive. Unfortunately, the wind and rain took its toll on my driving endurance, and we decided not to push on for the remaining 298 miles through the Texas wastelands.
So we sit tonight in the finest hotel in Amarillo. No, really. The Holiday Inn Express is literally spitting distance from the fractured tarmac of I-40, but it's brand new, and pretty swank for $118/night. The room is almost the size of our condo, with a fridge and microwave, and swanky granite all over the bathroom.
Mooooo: They come for the giant cow. They stay for the bosomy waitstaff.
When I inquired at the front desk for places to eat, there was only one response: The Big Texan. Why only one answer? Because unless you want fast food, that's about all Amarillo has to offer.
But hey, The Big Texan has free limo service to and from all the I-40 motels, and is near a hog farm and a classy strip joint (looking for the words Girls! Girls! Girls! on the marquee is the best way to separate the wheat from the chaff of titty bars). It can't be half bad, right?
I'm not happy: Betsy thinks smokers should stop polluting her air.
Betsy was appalled that the great state of Texas still allows people to smoke indoors, and that we were required to walk through the smoking "section" (i.e. 3/4 of the room) to get to the non-smoking "section".
The dining room was an attempt at an 1800's saloon, basically a big room with a balcony level surrounding it. The centerpiece is an elevated table under bright lights, with a clock at the head. This is the table you're served at when you order The Texan's famous (in these parts, anyway) 72 oz. steak. If you eat it in under an hour, it's free. When we arrived, there was a dude making a go of it, who progressively began to look sicker and sicker as the meal progressed. He ultimately failed, and packed a doggy bag in shame. But people, this is 4 1/2 pounds of meat we're talking about here! You can even watch the spectacle unfold live on their web cam.
The waitstaff dress in cowboys and indians attire. Our waitress "Brittany" was dressed as indian princess Poke-her-hot-ass Pocahontas.
Service was on the slow side, but the food was decent. As I told the wife, I've paid more for a worse steak.
So if you're in Amarillo, you might as well stop in and enjoy all that The Big Texan has to offer, because really, where else are you going to eat in this shit-hole town?
Unrelated side note: iTunes users- you know that "sharing" setting in the preferences panel? Before you turn it on, you should consider that you'll be sharing your library of music and videos with everyone on your local network. Including your fetish porn:
Filth! Absolute Filth!: UJWILES likes to share.
We just wrapped up our first day of our cross-country journey to begin the next phase of our lives in Tempe, AZ, unfortunately without our favorite traveling companion. It was a long slog, but we made good time.
The first leg was by far the worst, through the monotonous interstates of central Georgia, a desolate wasteland punctuated only by garish billboards hawking discount divorces, discount liquor and handjob joints (probably not in that order), from Statesboro to Atlanta.
Alabama was more scenic, especially the Nascar temple at Talladega and the national forest named after this hallowed ground consecrated with the sacrament of the south - Miller High Life.
I don't have much positive to say about Mississippi - the quality of their interstates rivals the quality of their public education system, I suspect, and the best part about leaving this stretch of the trip was being finished with it. I believe it was in MS that we ate at the world's creepiest McDonalds, which I described as such because of the massive Ronald McDonald torso sprouting from the facade, giving it's best Third-Reich salute.
Heil Ronald!: This creeped me out enormously.
Tennessee wasn't bad, though I prefer the trip up I-75 (or is it 26?) towards Knoxville to the flat stretch that terminates at Memphis. From the bridge crossing the Mississippi you can almost see the river itself. Imagine that.
I type this from a hotel in North Little Rock, Arkansas. I'm pushing myself a little to drive a bit longer on the first two days instead of diving the driving equally, in order to give us enough to spare on a side trip to the Grand Canyon when we reach Flagstaff, AZ.
I suspect that trip may consist of the two of us stepping from the car, gazing out over the majestic expanse, then getting back in the car and heading back to the road. We'll see.
We lost Sephie to congestive heart failure last night. Perhaps it was her way of staying an east-coast dog. She's going to miss a long road trip, which she always did enjoy.
She passed where she'd spent most of her quality time - in her Bargain Hound bed.
We're incredibly sad, and we'll miss her terribly.
So long critter/varmint/pot roast/Sephster. We love you.
