Guest of the Day

Wilkesboro, NC is about 2 hours north of Charlotte and as far as I can tell there is only one real hotel in this town. I usually stay in Marriott properties but the 29 mile drive was too far away. When I checked in they asked for my last name and immediatly they told me I was " The Guest of the Day" and they gave me a bottle of water and told me I can park in the special parking slot reserved for the GOTD (my new acronynm). I wanted to ask why I was chosen but figured that might spoil the excitment of the moment and I will assure you I was not the only guest in the hotel. I went up to the room and on the bed was a little shrine to the guest of the day on one of those trays used to serve food in bed which included a letter, resturant discount coupons, chocolate bar and another bottle of water. By this time I was feeling pretty special but to feel the full sensation of being GOTD I needed to park my car in that special spot reserved for GOTD. Upon leaving the hotel I noted the GOTD spot which was located as close as one could get to the door without parking in one of the two handicap spots. I walked to my car, which really was not that far away, and carefully parked it in the GOTD spot shortly after a lady had moved her vehicle to the next spot over. She had realized that she was parked in the GOTD spot and she was certainly not the GOTD. She was still sitting in her vehicle when I parked and she gave me a long glare which made me think she either thought I did not respect the GOTD program or she wondered why I was chosen as the GOTD. I smiled back because I was the GOTD and of course I respected the GOTD program but I am still wondering why I was chosen.

old story - new pictures

We developed most of the basement over two years ago now and when we started I need to get power down there for the air conditioning unit. A quote of $2500 just to get power down there seemed ludicrous even though it included all parts and labor so I took on most of the project myself. I had to break up the drywall by the existing panel in the garage, drill a few holes through the wall, install a new breaker panel in the basement and then run the large wire between the two. I even installed a large breaker in the main panel and two breakers for the A/C in the sub-panel. My material costs were $178.70. Because I am not a certified electrician I then got a second quote to "connect the wires" on both ends so a certified professional would be making the actual connections. The new quote came in at $500 and so I agreed to have it done. As I watched over the shoulder of the older guy (yes older then me) doing the work I just had to ask " Are you a certifed professional electrician?". He replied "No I am a carpenter but my son is a certified electrician". So the old carpenter guy connected the three wires on each end which took about 17 minutes and I guess that was as professional as it was going to get. It is still working today so he did a good job and now I finally finished the job by patching the holes I made to fish the wire in the first place. I learned one interesting thing - that if you paint in a garage in Georgia, in the summer, the paint dries almost immediately.

not quite arachnophiba but some phobia

I was on a plane heading to Miami last week when I was visiting with the lady beside me. I asked her what she did to her leg as she had an interesting looking cast from the toe all the way up to her knee. She told me that she was bitten by brown recluse spider about 7 months ago. So then I needed to listen to her story about doctors not knowing what it was or how to deal with it. She was bitten at work in Miami while moving some cardboard boxes. Because it was not taken care of properly she now has no muscle control on her foot and will walk the rest of her life with a limp. Then the guy beside her shows us his scar from "his" brown recluse encounter some 10 years ago on his right forearm. It was a nasty scar that was 2 inches wide by about 4 in length and was quite obvious as it did not tan at the same intensity as the rest of his arm. He was just working in the garage and felt a piercing in his arm and saw the spider. Next it was my turn to tell a story but I did not have much of a spider story to share - how could I tell something more exciting then being bitten by a brown recluse but I did tell them about driving on the freeway and seeing a spider walking along the inside of the roof a few inches from my head. I eventually had to pull over as the suspense was killing me thinking the brown recluse would attack me at anytime - was it a brown recluse? well it was brown and he had secluded himself in my car and thus he was a bit of a recluse.
I have always been one to wear long pants [I figured it was a Canadian thing - some years ago we were in Las Vegas in July and I was watching the children in the pool. Loraine came up to me and told me that I looked weird in the blue jeans and long sleeve black sweatshirt] since I do not want to get bitten, scraped or burned when I work in the yard but on Saturday I had been working out in shorts and T-shirt and ended up getting the water hose from the bushes and I felt something crawling on my leg - of course I figured it was my turn for the brown recluse encounter and I frantically ran through the bushes rubbing both my legs all over and then looked to see if there was anything still hanging on. I left the hose in the bushes and went inside and put on the long pants, socks, shoes and the long sleeve shirt and went back out to complete what I started - maybe I have a phobia of some sort but it covers much more then spiders and its the fear of anything crawling on my arms or legs.

St. Augustine, Florida

In late June we drove to St. Augustine with Nathan, Sara and her friend Spencer. The first mistake I made was thinking it was a 5 hour drive and it was more then 6 1/2 hours from our home. We used Garmin to assist us in finding our condo and he failed us when he told us " You have arrived at your destination" about 5 miles from the actual location. When you depend on a GPS and it fails you it is frustrating and the only option is going back to the old fashioned method of asking people for directions - Loraine is the queen in that category. So we finally found the place very late at night and the young man at the guard station was not much help getting us to the actual unit. I knew we were close but for some reason I decided that it was behind us and started going backwards at a good pace when suddenly BANG followed by a sliding along the pavement noise which made me scared, Loraine to scream and me to stop immediately. Okay that was my second mistake driving backwards... The midget speed limit sign in the MIDDLE OF THE ROAD took a hit but we were able to put it back together and it ended up being right by the condo we were renting...which meant it was a sign - that is a joke - of course it was a sign and it was in the middle of the road.
We were all very hungry and started to do some quick research for something to eat in the St. Augustine area- the wireless internet was nice. At 1:30 AM the options were Denny's or eat at a 24-hour gas station. I have done the later in Paris once so we chose the former and I am not sure if it was any better then the gas station option. We were in sort of a giddy mood as everything around us made as laugh but really it helped us deal with the dirtiest Denny's I have ever seen - I actually looked for the cleanliness rating system that is commonly used in Georgia but I could not see anything posted and that is probably a good thing as it would have been in single digits (out of 100) and I have a personal goal not to eat at something less then 90.
We ended up seeing all the sights over the next few days...you know some of these tourist things are really reaching but I guess we are as dense as the next tourist as we would pay to see the oldest jail, the oldest school house, the oldest home (with a lot of caveats) and several other sites that would not have been missed if someone just burnt them down. We went to the fountain of youth that Ponce De Leon discovered which has water bubbling out of the ground that tasted terrible which is pretty much the same taste of water everywhere else in St. Augustine. My favorite things were the Castillo de San Marcos which was the fort that Spain used to protect its empire in the new world and the alligator farm which showed numerous gators in various sizes, shapes and colors from all over the world.
I usually enjoy drinking water when I eat but we all had a problem with the drinking water and had to either get bottled water (which some places do not carry) or drink soda so we were lucky that we had a cooler with us that held a lot of cold water bottles.
One night the kids were playing in the ocean and a couple came by walking with flashlights and as they shined it in my face they told me that it was the sharks feeding time. I causally told Loraine that it was the shark feeding time and she had them out of there in an instant - I did note however that there was nobody else in the water on the beach. I wonder what made those people shark experts? Loraine has a serious fear of flying over water, crashing and getting eaten by a shark. I have told her on several occasions that if the plane ever crashes there will be no survivors and sharks may be eating all the dead bodies which has never consoled her.
We spent the last night in the Casa Monica which is right in the heart of St. Augustine and is considered a pretty nice hotel. It was nice alright but not the type of accommodation that I feel most comfortable with - a little stuffy. I was impressed with the crown molding in our room as it had a round ceiling and looked like a real challenge to custom fit.
Being that we were by the ocean Loraine hoped to have some good seafood a few times while we were there but that did not happen. Everywhere we went claimed to have good seafood but only if you like deep fried shrimp or fish-sticks or something else from the sea deep fried...hey I can get Captain D's in Topeka, Kansas. That was a major disappointment but I still think such a place must exist in St. Augustine but we did not find them or it.
On the way home we had to stop so Spencer could try boiled peanuts and he was not impressed as shown on his face. They actually were not good boiled peanuts as they had probably been boiling since early spring and were water-logged. I would not say I like boiled peanuts but I have had them enough to know that there are tolerable boiled peanuts and we did not have any of those. Nathan did not even try them as he has experienced BP's in the past.