Pancakes, Yoga and Used Car Sales

We made the journey back home to our place a few days back. This time we found the house in much better shape than our last homecoming. Big thanks to Christopher and Scott for cleaning up and having pancakes and a fire waiting for us on our arrival. We've enjoyed some time visiting with friends, over the past few days. Had dinner with Ful-O-Pep's Jeremy a few nights ago. Went out with Jeremy, Dickfer and visited his breasts spewing milk froth all over the barista cage at Barnes & Noble. We sat and read passages from HOT SANTA over half calf mochas and decaf espressos. We went to Hot Vinyasa yoga a few nights back and are still a bit sore but ready to go back for more tomorrow. And I sold my Jeep. So now we are back to being a 1 car couple. I sold the Jeep back to Carmax for a little more than I still owed on it which worked out just great for me.

We went out last night with Jeremy, Scott & Missy and went to the New Haven Lounge to see some jazz. We had missed being able to go here while away. Unfortunately the band last night I did not really care for. They sounded like the rhythm section and the melody were riding on separate levels of a double decker bus which was slowly being shorn in twain by Santa Clause coming down from a Claratin overdose. Actually it didn't sound anything like that, but it sure was a fun sentence huh? I like free jazz but this was just like they were not at all connected. We left there and went to XS which is a pretentious little club with crappie house music DJ's and lousy service but they have decent food. Finally we left the to go to Club Chuck for a bit which is also pretentious and crappie but instead of food the have lots of cigarette smoke.

Also I got Ful-O-Pep a ring for Christmas. Which is being custom made. So we just got back from the jewelers going over the final details for the design and picked up our bands which we had plated as the white gold was wearing off of them. The new ring will be pretty cool and is designed so that the existing band fits inside of it like a puzzle ring. So now it is New Years Eve and we are relaxing after a nice breakfast at Morning Edition which is not pretentious or crappie and has great food. And you get to be waited on by the best sax player in Baltimore.

Overall 2005 has treated us well personally, though been a pretty bad year on the big picture level of things as far as disasters and politics go. Here's hoping 2006 will bring us all some goodness. In a couple days we will be in the Bahamas so that's a good way to start. Yes I had to rub it in.

Headin' Home and to other far away places

We spent the last few days visiting with my Aunt Ronella, Momma Jo and cousin Ben. We donated lots of food and a razor scooter to their holiday rations. We also went and saw the Chronicles of Narnia which was a pretty good flick. Yesterday we had to pick up the new replacement manager who is taking our place on the next leg of the tour. The drive was a little scary but he only ran one person off the road and was only flipped off by one trucker, that I saw. So they should have fun with him especially as he is one of our manager's brother. Today we officially turned in our RV and all of our set gear for the tour. We are in St Louis and will be flying to Roanoke in the am. We will be spending Christmas at Anilia's folks then driving back to B-more for a week. Next week we are going to the Bahamas for a few days. Then we have a few weeks off before we start our next gig. Life is good if not tiring. And if it is tiring, which it is, it is still good. And sometimes life is a tire swing, but not yet. Soon though, life will be a hammock with a drink served in a coconut with a tiny umbrella ordainment, which also will be good. We are now going to hang out in the hot tub with our bosses, which will at least be interesting, if nothing else.

Things that make you go DOI-OI-OI-OI-OI-OINGGGGG!!

Well we are down to 1 day left working at WALLY WORLD then I never have to set foot on, in or around one again EVER. Today was interesting. We are in Montgomery, ALABAMY. We had 3 reps plus the marketing girl for this state show up today. Last time the RV came through this state they were jam packed with tons of people. So everyone arrived in full force in anticipation of the onslaught of eager consumers. Well it was raining and cold today and we set up outside anyway because we are glad to be in above freezing temperatures. So there we were, ready to deal with the onslaught of eager consumers. Um... OK eager consumers... any minute now... O..N..S...L...A...U...G...H...T...? NO? um OK thats cool we'll just be sitting here in the cold and rainy wind if anyone wants to talk to us. Yep.. Just sitting here...

Ok SO by 10 all but one of the reps have left us and the remaining rep has decided to go inside where all the warm people are. So that leaves me and Ful-O-Pep to our own devices. We had about a grand total of 4 people come to see us during the day which left us plenty of time to brood, scheme and people watch.

First the people watching:

GREETER LADY: She was there from the start and she insisted on every time she found a defective buggy in her line up she would wheel it out and place it in front of our tent. (For you yankees back home a buggy is what they call a shopping cart. No it is not drawn by horses). This started from the moment we were setting up and continued throughout the day despite our continued requests for her to wheel it over to the other side where there was no one to be bothered by it. On a side note I wonder how many times a day she wheels out the same busted up cart and sticks it just outside the entrance only to have it pushed in and abandoned in her vicinity so she can push it back outside again?

GL, Do us all a favor. Destroy the cart, wheel it out back and off a ravine or something. Break the cycle of stupidity.

ALABAMY THUG GANGSTAHS: So I did not know that thug life extended this far south. But it seems every po-dunk town has it's fair share of gangstahs. They come cruising around the lot with their bass cranked up so you can hear their piece of shit car rattle and buzz like a fifty ton vibrator. Also what is the deal with pimping out your POS Plymouth? We saw one car that was all beat to hell painted with primer and had all the windows tinted red. Weird.

ATGs, you do not live in the hood, or the ghetto. You live in the sticks, sorry that's just the way it is. ALABAMY will never be NYC or LA. Which is a good thing otherwise you would be shooting me right now.

CRACK HEAD LADY: She was our first eager consumer today. I found her trying to break into the RV and invited her into the tent. She inquired about the cost of our goody bags. They were free, she took one and was scrutinized by security and management as she left to find something else to try and break into.

CHL, might I suggest a lower profile vehicle to break into. Perhaps one with red tinted windows. Or this wobbly buggy here.

Now the scheming

We have come up with our million dollar money making company.

SMARKETING (click to be redirected our hilarious business plan but the link is dead which is not nearly as funny)

and the brooding

We got to reminiscing over all of the dumb things we have had to do on our adventure, or been told we should or will have to do. We even made a list. Lists are fun and an effective way to organize thinking. Even stupid people can make lists. Here is ours. I'm sure there are more than we remembered here, but lets call these "highlights" in no particular order.

Stupid answers for the stupid situations you've been put in. OR just stupid situations:

1) It is 105 degrees in the tent. The client is telling you to buy another AC unit. You call the office and they suggest buying a couple of fans.

2) It is 0 degrees with the wind chill and the locks are frozen shut. The office suggests lighting a match, heating the key, and sticking it in the lock to melt the ice.

3) It is going to be 11 degrees outside tonight and the RV needs to be winterized. You call to confirm that they are paying to have it done and they want to have a conference call about it. You ask if you should tell the people working on it to stop and let the pipes freeze. The office then decides to pay for it.

4) Your RV has the shakes and you go get the brakes checked. This is not the problem and you send a big long email expounding on the issue and how they have checked the brakes and that isn't what it is. The office calls the next day and suggests you get the brakes looked at.

5) The hitch is only four inches off the ground when we start out in August. We drag it on every entrance and exit of every parking lot from Mo to Tenn before anyone is willing to take responsibility for the problem and let us get it fixed. In Memphis we get stuck in the middle of the street.

6) Iowa in November.

7) Having to find an internet connection every day in the middle of nowhere. Driving a big RV and dragging the hitch on every hotel and Starbucks entrance.

8) Working an extra hour a day after they change our scheduled work hours. Which also results in us having to get up at 5am every day.

9) No days off- ever.

10) Having to deal with poorly designed Excell forms.

And these grand finales just in! Drum roll please

11) Setting up outside in the freezing and snow to 'check in' the tent.

12) Having to pay for our own hotel when we come back and check in.

So yes we are about ready to be done with this tour, if you could not notice. Not to be negative. As they say there is no "I" in "TEAM" but there is an "I" in "IDIOT"

So we will be stopping by my Aunt's on the way back to St Louis. Also we will be picking up our replacement manager in Nashville and making him drive the rest of the way. Hopefully between the snow and ice and the RV'S epileptic convulsions and the fact that he has never driven a vehicle like this, we will make it back in one piece. THEN we get to complete numbers 11 and 12 above.

Somehow all of this made us want to stick a fork in our eye and then flick it with our finger so it goes DOI-OI-OI-OI-OI-OINGGGGG. But enough of that. I have spent way too much time on the computer tonight.

*sways back and forth and falls face first into keyboard*

Memphis to Mississippi

I'd say by far, the best part of this job has been having the opportunity to see places and people we would otherwise have not. Along with this has been making some new friends along the way. Two of these new friends are James and Kim. We met them back when we were en route to Memphis in September. We actually met them in Hot Springs where we went on a day off to get scrubbed and rubbed at the bath houses there. Since we last saw them they have bought a house and invited us to stay with them during our stint in Memphis this time. So it was great to have friends to stay with and save the expense and stress of a hotel or RV park and be able to relax and socialize. They also have a couple dogs Lilo and Charlie and had just gotten a third one named Diego. So being dog friendly we had a nice supply of them to help keep us company.

One night after work Anilia and I were in the bedroom working on computer stuff and making phone calls when we heard sounds of panic and eyeballs from the other room. We ran into the other room and Kim was freaking out a bit that Diego had bitten Charlie and punctured his eyeball. She was all covered in blood which Charlie was squirting about the garage like a furry little super soaker. Anilia came to the rescue and got Kim to calm down and clean up while she got a closer examination of the dog. Now Anilia has had experience with pushing dog eyeballs back into their sockets when they pop out, which does in fact happen sometimes. Usually if you blow into their snout really hard like a birthday balloon.

It turned out that there was no actual eyeball damage, but a bitten ear tip which had gotten blood all around Charlie's eyeball area due to the innate floppiness of doggy ears. At first Kim stuck the dog in the tub to wash all the blood off. But when Charlie got out he just started shaking his head dry and spattering more blood. So Anilia scooped him up and just squeezed his ear and held it for about a half an hour. James was sent to get liquid stitches and after a couple attempts the bleeding was finally stopped. Soon he was chomping on rawhide like nothing had happened and Anilia had made a new furry friend.

The rest of our time in Memphis was pleasant but uneventful. We made dinner a few nights for them and had a good time. Then we headed on down to McComb Mississippi for our next stop. My old buddy Chris from high school lives in Jackson so we got to visit with him for a couple days as well. I haven't seen him in about six years since he got married. He now has a little girl in addition to his wife's daughter. It was fun to catch up and reminisce about old times and note how time has indeed marched along. We got to go to two great performances while there. First we went to my first ever ballet production. It was The Nutcracker. And I must say it was pretty impressive. The production was great as far as the sets and lighting, though the music was canned and too loud. But overall it was a good show.

That night Chris took us to the 930 Blues Club which is an old house that has been converted into a bar. It was really neat small and dirty and filled with a crazy mix of people. The band was really smoking and it was great to see some true nitty gritty down south blues in action.

We just drove back to McComb and a heron almost flew into our windshield on the way! We tried to park the RV for about 15 minutes in a joint effort of miscommunication and frustration before giving up and parking somewhere else. Now we are in our rooms and getting ready for bed. Looks like tomorrow will be the first day that it will be warm enough to set up outside that we have seen in over a month. I just realized that in about 5 more days I will never have to set foot in a WallyWorld again. This is a good thing.

Amoids in Retrograde

Ok this post is two fold.

Here is the first fold:

Yesterday we set up inside the Walmart because it was all cold and such outside. The manager gave us our own special place by the entrance catty corner to the Walmart. I noticed a significant amount of Amish folk shopping in the Walmart which I found to be a little odd. I do not claim to know much about the Amish culture, but I just kind of assumed that shopping at Walmart did not really jive with their way of life. But stranger still I saw several groups of Amish sitting and dining at the McDonalds within the Walmart. Now this made the wires in my head start to fizzle and snap. And then it came to me. The only logical explanation. Amoids. Rebel Robotic Amish Androids are the the only logical explanation. Either that or some sort of invasion of the body snatchers scenario. But I like the android theory better so I am sticking to it.

Ok here is fold numero deuce:

Mercury is in retrograde. Lisa informed us that whenever this astrological event occurs, everything gets all wacky. Well after our evening we had to call her and ask if Mercury was in retrograde. Alas, we we're unable to obtain a suitable cell phone connection to have this conversation because apparently one of the effects of Mercury being in retrograde is all of the electronic devices get their panties in a bunch. But here are a few of the reasons we thought the stars may be getting all jiggy.

First off we had an old guy put our rep in a headlock today. That was just cool and isn't necessarily related in anything else in this post.

We had to go to three hotels before finding a suitable one. Started at a Motel 6 had gone as far as checking in, but forgot to ask if they had wi-fi. They did not, but had been kind enough to hook us up with the Jeffery Dahmer suite which had odd splotches all over the floor that we first thought were roaches, then to our relief realized were only dead hooker stains. We checked back out and went to the next hotel. They had a big banner advertising that they offered free breakfast AND a car wash with your stay. I asked if they had free wi-fi in the rooms, but alas they did not. They did offer dial up for 50¢ a call as long as you had your own provider and laptop. Now I'm no network administrator, but I'm pretty sure that translates into "We have a phone line out and we charge you 50¢ to use it." I saw a Holiday Inn across the street and said OK we are staying there I don't care how much it costs.

So we go check in and it turns our they are having a republican party in the ballroom. Undeterred we go to our room and it looks nice, big bed, clean couch, urine stains on the toilet seat... Wait back up a sec. Yep thats urine all over the toilet seat. Now I am not one to generally complain much, nor am I above wiping some piss off the seat. But I just paid $80 for a room and I don't think I should have to deal with it. So we decide to go to the bar and have a drink and I stop by the front desk and apologize for being "one of those people", but there's piss on our seat and maybe while we are in the bar they could have someone come by and wipe it off. The girl at the desk says she will will change our room. I tell her that's not necessary as that is just more hassle, just have someone pop in and wipe it down, no biggie. So we go have our drinks and Anilia gets a glass of water. We are sipping and chatting and simultaneously look down and realize that her glass is leaking a puddle that is slowly creeping it's way across the table. It was at this point Anilia put the call into Lisa to check on the retrograde status, but being positive her cell phone chose to reach for new levels of suckiness and not function well at all. So we leave the bar and stop by the republican ballroom as we heard they have a carboard cutout of Dubbya in there. The party has wrapped up and we ask the ladies cleaning up if Dubbya is still around for us to play with and maybe take some incriminating photos with. But we are too late, he is gone. We head back to the room expecting to find a sparkly clean toilet seat and to our chagrin it is in the same piss poor state. So Anilia goes back up to the desk to complain some more and this time accepts the relocation to a new room. It is just as nice as the last one and even has a clean toilet seat.

But I think there are some Ahmoids running around with a cardboard cutout of Dubbya looking for a McDonald's to base their revolution out of until this whole Mercury in retrograde thing blows over.

Shibber me Timbers

We were driving the RV to Memphis and had picked up a band of pirates. They were getting all rowdy and swashbuckling around in a frenzy when our manger RSB called. Someone had called in that we were cruising around appalachia with an RV of rowdy pirates swerving around the road and firing canons at enemy tractor trailers. "Um, I got a call that you have a bunch of pirates in your RV. Do you know anything about that?" RSB inquires. "No." I lie. "We just picked up a couple guys who were broken down and needed a lift" *away from phone* "Hey can you guys keep it down back there, It's my boss on the phone..." Wait a minute, that wasn't the phone ringing. It's the alarm clock...

That's what I get for watching Star Wars III before going to bed. Ugh - 4:30 am, time to get up to go to the airport. Only got 4 hours of sleep... Joel drops us off at the airport. We check bags get to security and realize I accidentally typed in Anilia's maiden name when I bought the tickets so her ticket says MAIDEN NAME and her ID says MARRIED. You'd think I'd remember we were married by now and that she changed her name. Luckily the lady lets us through security without too much of a fuss mostly because her name is unusual and not BETH or JANE. Oh and it is her birthday today. (Anilia's not the security chick, well maybe hers too. How would I know...) Later I realize that I have her old passport with us too which does have her maiden name on it. But we don't have to go through security anymore so it is a non-issue.

We get to our layover in Chicago to find that the way finding signs there were all designed by dyslexic Chinese children, then poorly translated by middle eastern customer support phone operators and finally randomly hung up around the airport by retarded baboons who have escaped from substance abuse research labs. Eventually we find our terminal and that our flight has been delayed. Anilia plops down on the floor and I go and fetch us a salad. I bring it back and in my eagerness to please, I pop open the plastic container. The top half of the salad goes splattering onto the floor, leaving a plastic tub of lettuce and two chick peas in my hands. A flight personnel lady immediately appears to see which of the retarded baboons is running lose around the airport flinging salad around like it's Feces Friday. I apologize and she assures me it's ok with the same look I imagine she gives the little kids who just peed their pants in seat 16F.

We sleep most of the flight into St. Louis. Go collect our bags and hop in a taxi. As usual we get the taxi driver who happens to be celebrating his first day in the country and we have to tell him how to get to where we are going even though we are not from here. We get to the RV dealer to pick up our RV and they have not retrieved it from where it has been repaired yet. SO a couple hours later we finally get our RV back and drive a couple more hours to Columbia. Now we have just eaten at a brand new Ruby Tuesday and checked into our RV park. Thoroughly exhausted we are ready for bed. Tomorrows forecast is a high of 36 with a 30 percent chance of snow tonight. Looks like we will be setting up inside again. Luckily we have a vast supply of matches should our locks ice up.

Things to be Thankful for

I am thankful for VACATION Vacation is an interesting concept when applied to a job that involves driving around the country all the time. Typically you look forward to a break from your daily routine, perhaps a bit of traveling followed by some relaxation and communion with friends and family. So it's a little bit different when you are taking a break from constantly traveling to do some more traveling. Our plan was to drive the RV from IOWA to St Louis to drop it off at the dealers, fly from there to Baltimore, pack up our room so our friends could move in there for a bit, drive to VA to meet up with Anilia's parents and then drive down to Atlanta for Thanksgiving. When we are done here we will be flying back to St Louis to finish out this phase of the tour.
I am thankful for DICKFER'S BOX Dickfer and Box were kind enough to pick us up at the airport and take us home and out for dinner. It was nice to meet Cindy after having been leaving sarcastic comments on her blog for a couple months. She was lots of fun and Dickfer was his usual sassy self. We zipped around town and to our house where we anticipated finding piles of cat poop piled up to the ceiling. Luckily the cat poop was placed into bags first and THEN piled up to the ceiling. We dropped off our bags gave the cats some pats, watched video of lock melting mayhem then headed over to Los Amigos for dinner. Dickfer pulled a U-eee swerved up to the curb and popped off his mini bling rim onto the sidewalk. I tossed it back in his car so he could pimp out his ride at a later date. He already has a subwoofer installed in his brake pads so he's half way there.
 I am thankful for MEXICANS We roll up into Los Amigos for some Mexican fare and some sangria. Food was fab-tastic, drinks were divine and cell phone activity was high. Cindy topped off the night by attempting to eat the fruit from the sangria carafe, peel and all, much to our amusement.

I am thankful for MESS MOUNTAIN After dinner the dynamic duo dropped up off at the house and we began to clean up the wondrous mountain of magical mess our roomy was kind enough to leave for us. I should have took pictures, they would have been a great addition to this blog.

I am thankful for MR. CLEAN We had to spend an entire day scrubbing and sanitizing the kitchen to bring it up to prison standards so we could even consider making a sandwich in there. I later tried to talk to roomy at a moment when he wasn't hiding in his room smoking. I thanked him for taking care of the cats and then the opposite of thanked him for letting the house turn into a disaster area. He seemed incapable or unwilling to acknowledge that there was anything wrong with the current state of affairs so I left the room rather than bang my head on desk and flail about like an injured fish being riddled by machine gun fire. Because no civilized person would bang their head on a desk and flail about like a fish being riddled by machine gun fire and I could think of no other logical alternative. Ahhh what a wonderful homecoming. Needless to say we decided we will not be continuing on the next phase of the tour after all. Clearly we need to be at the house and not out making money on the road.

I am thankful for WAGGLY DOGS

So after a couple days of house cleaning I got some new tires, replaced the corroded battery in the Jeep and we headed on down to Ron and Ann's. Upon our arrival we were greeted by waggly dogs and a smattering of cats. Luckily their house was pretty clean so we were able to relax and enjoy some conversation.
I am thankful for VEGITARIAN TURKEY & KOSHER WINE We got up bright and early and made our way down to Atlanta for Thanksgiving festivities. We've had a great time hanging out with everyone eating and drinking various fine wines and being merry. Having lots of laughs, Bush Bashing and Looney Tunes in German echoing through the house. Now we get to be lazy for a couple days until we fly back to St Louis and continue the tour.
I am thankful for HATING ANILIA'S PHONE In cell phone news it looks like Anilia is leaning towards switching to either T-mobile or Cingular. Anyone have any experience good or bad with either of these?
I am thankful for GOOGLE IMAGE SEARCH

In Case of Snow Emergency, Bang Head Here

Yesterday we had a fabulous display of winter wonderment which started off with some nice rain which evolved into snow and was then further enhanced by 50 mph winds gusting about like air on crack. Ah yes, beautiful glorious IOWA. So this morning we got up in our hotel room... Oh wait I guess I should back up a bit here and explain why we are in a hotel room instead of our RV. Recently our carbon monoxide detector started going off in the middle of the night alerting is to the fact that we need to open up some windows or go back to sleep and die. Well as I have noted before we are currently in IOWA and it is NOVEMBER so it is FREAKING COLD outside especially at 3AM. So you can imagine what fun it is to wake up to: BEEP BEEP *flashing orange light* BEEP BEEP *flashing orange light* uuhhhmmm... wha? is it time for toast? OH SHIT. Then having to jump up and open the windows and go open and close the door in succession to fan air in and out as icicles form on my nipples and my fingers turn blue.
See all of the RV parks in this state closed 2 days before we arrived here for winter, because all God fearing sensible people who live in RVs have headed south like nature intended. SO we can't go anywhere to plug in for electric so we must run our generator to keep a charge to the batteries that run the blowers for the furnace. The brilliant design team at COACHMAN who built our RV thought it would be a good idea to place the exhaust for the generator directly below the fresh air intake for the furnace. I can just see how that design meeting must have went:
designer: hey boss here's the new design I came up with for the Mirada.
head engineer: Steve, these cup holders have bolts sticking in the middle of them everything will just fall right out of them and spill on the floor.
designer: Yeah Bob isn't that a hoot. But check out the front end suspension. I've got it set up so whenever they break going downhill at 45 mph the whole thing will start to shake like a giant vibrator of death on wheels.
head engineer: That's all well and good but we need something else that really says "You cheap bastard you should bought something a little above bottom of the line, loser"
designer: Hey I know. Let's put the exhaust for the generator right below the fresh air intake for the furnace that should show them.
head engineer: BRILLIANT!
both: mwah ha ha ha ha!!!
*Lightning and thunder flash and crack as view pans back to reveal conference room is located atop a dirty tower in a spooky castle*
Cut back to my blog...
So we took the RV in to have them take a look at the CO problem and after conducting a battery of tests they determined that the problem may in fact be that the afore mentioned exhaust/intake placement. They re-routed the exhaust pipe closer to the front of the RV away from the furnace and the sleeping quarters. We figured our problem was solved and we could return to our normal routine of sleeping through the night with heat and electricity. Well they say that there is a sucker born every minute and it's 5 o'clock somewhere. SO a couple nights ago after having this fixed we went to bed and lo and behold just as I'm falling asleep... BEEP BEEP *flashing orange light* BEEP BEEP *flashing orange light* uuhhhmmm... wha? I don't want any popcorn... OH SHIT... AGAIN More windows, frozen nipples, blue fingers, you know the drill.
I go up front and I can smell exhaust coming up from under the drivers seat. I look down and... *slaps forehead with open palm, then looks for something harder and heavier to slap forehead with* I can see right through to the ground in one spot and I realize that they have actually relocated the exhaust pipe to someplace worse than where it was. I shut everything off, open up the windows and drive to the nearest hotel... can't fit an RV in that lot.. To the 2nd nearest hotel and get a room. And so we have been in a hotel ever since. But I digress.
I really wanted to tell you about our fun morning. We braved the icy aftermath and arrived at our WALMART to do our daily event. It was 19 degrees this morning with a wind chill factor making it 1 degree. We have been told that though the client really doesn't like it when we don't set up the tent, that it is acceptable not to if it is 45 or less out. OK let's see 19 degrees, wind chill of 1 degree, 30 mph winds, snow covered ground... Yes I believe we will be setting up inside today. So I go to open up our trailer to try and extract a sign and possibly a fake plant and the locks are covered with a bubble of ice. I chip away at it a bit with a key, then go inside to purchase some de-icer. After about 15 minutes of standing out in the 1 degree weather squirting de-icer into the lock then jabbing at it with the key over and over I decide to go inside and thaw my face out and see if they sell propane torches. I go in and find the cheapest model propane torch which is about $12.95 and having the upmost respect for bureaucratic procedure and, more importantly, feeling sure this will make for a pretty hilarious conversation, I ask Anilia to call our manager and request authorization to purchase the torch to melt the ice out of the locks. So she puts the call in to RSB (previous readers may remember this character) to explain our situation and get the OK to proceed in a logical direction.
Now keep in mind our headquarters are in Tampa Bay and it is like 80 degrees there right now. It is quite possible they have never witnessed ice in any environment other than floating in the pina colada they are sipping after spending their morning at the gym staring at the tight shorts on the asian guy in the corner. RSB informs us to proceed at our own risk and if we damage the locks we will have to replace them at our own cost. Being the masochist she is, Anilia drives the ice pick further into her head by following with: Well, what do you suggest we do? Clearly baffled by the prospect of making an intelligent (or otherwise) decision he confers with an unknown associate in the background. And comes back with an ingenious approach straight out of the arctic survival handbook. Hold a match to the key and then stick it in the lock. Anilia politely and confusedly ends the conversation and relays our new orders. We look at each other and both know what this means. We have to buy a video camera now. We should have done it long ago but now there is no excuse. This situation calls for motion picture rights. Now it just so happens that we are standing in a WALMART after all, so within 2 minutes we are the proud owners of a new video camera. We realize that it has to charge before we can do anything so we put it away for now and I just use the video capabilities of my digital camera. Now in the interest of our client I am not posting the video of us attempting to heat up the key with a match outside in the wind, finally giving up and the getting the blow torch and heaving the locks open in no time. Sorry that video will remain in storage until after we have finished this job. You will have to physically see it on my computer if we are hanging out and not otherwise for now. (Edit from future self - Sadly this film was lost later, when my laptop was stolen, and may never be seen.)
So after all this silliness we finally melt our way into the locks do a happy dance and go to open the door. Our high spirits are quickly deflated as we realize that the whole door is also frozen shut. We contemplate how long it might take to work our way around the perimeter of the door with a match. Luckily after banging and tugging on it a bit we manage to get it open and can now face our day with signs and goodies. Later that day we get a call from RSB. He has called to perform our employee evaluations. I get a perfect score, superior in every category. Anilia gets an almost perfect score. The only less than perfect area: WORK HABITS. TO WHAT EXTENT DOES THE EMPLOYEE DISPLAY A POSITIVE, COOPERATIVE ATTITUDE TOWARDS WORK ASSIGNMENTS AND REQUIREMENTS? COMMENTS: Can be a bit sarcastic at times, but overall great attitude. Hmmm... obviously RSB does not read my blog, or realize that I help write a lot of what goes into the reports that reflect Anilia's less than perfect attitude.

House on the Rock

The House on the Rock is a rather unique road side attraction that was featured in the novel American Gods by Neil Gaiman. Anilia and I both really enjoyed this book and most of Neil's work in general. It just so happened that we were about an hour away from this while we were staying in Dubuque. We realized this on Saturday and further realized that since we had Sunday off we simply must go check it out. So we did. Now this is what I would have to say is the mac daddy of road side attractions so far as I have seen. This started out as just a cool house that this guy started building up on a chimney rock that has sort of a lodge feel to it. People being the curious lot that they are kept nosing around trying to see what he was up to. To try and deter them he started charging money which just made it more popular and became his source of income for the rest of his life which he spent working on the house every day. He also collected things, lots of things, lots of big weird things. Eventually he sold the house to another guy who continued adding to it and also collected and displayed his big weird collections. It now is over two and a half miles to walk through the "house" and full of many bizarre collections and displays. It is really more than I can hope to describe through words or pictures. I do have a few of each though which I present here in my feeble attempt to share this enormous, bizarre and truly unique oddity. So when you first enter the house it is just a really cool lodge style house with plushy couches and lots of exposed rock and wood. Parts of the house are built with the existing rock as a wall and in many places the house is built around existing trees so that here and there a tree trunk is running up through the room. The house is furnished with lots of great glass work, statues and antiques from around the world like you see here.


Also not to far into the house you start seeing and hearing what will be one of the largest and what I would call insane collections. Auto-matron musical orchestras. These are collections of instruments which are hooked up to a complex array of devices which play the instruments. Here we see one of the smaller ones. I believe this one played a russian sounding piece. The musical menagerie is visible through a picture frame window and at this point which is still pretty early this is the third or fourth of these we have encountered.

So next to this device is what they call the infinity room. It is a single unsupported hallway that extends out over the forest floor a couple hundred feet up and it built in such a way as to create the illusion that it extends into (in reverb voice) INFINITY AND BEYOND. Well it attempts, pretty obvious it doesn't but hey it's still pretty cool.

After more cool house bits we cross over into the part that is no longer really the house but mile after mile of weird and wacky collections. For example there is his gun collection, now these are not your daddy's guns. No these are strange creations like these bad boys.

We go through more areas of strange displays of old odd antiques and more auto-matron machines and get to a section that is called something like the SPIRIT OF THE SEA or perhaps LOTS OF BOAT CRAP. Anyway part of it is a giant sculpture of a battle between a giant octopus and a sea whale creature. Now this thging is several stories tall and the whole room wraps around it. Here it is atttempting to EAT ME!

There is also another one of those auto-matron orchestras in this room by which an octopus plays "OCTOPUS' GARDEN" about 100 times by the time we have made our way out of this room.
SO now we get into a new area called the HALL OF MUSIC I think. and we are about to see many more of the auto-matron orchestras but many of these are entire rooms that are huge a gloriously decorated to levels of utter whatthehelledness. Here are sections of two of them that each were larger than a typical house room.

AND

After many more of these bizarre feats of engineering we come into the worlds largest carousel. Now this is the part that I mainly remember from the book AMERICAN GODS this is where they all get together for their meeting and I must say it seems as good a place as I can think of for a bunch of outdated gods to have a meeting of the minds. The carousel is too big to get a decent picture of the whole thing. But here is a close-up that is actually a décolletage of two pics of it one blurry one still.

Now at this point there is only one logical way to go after so much sensory overload and that is down into the belly of a giant gorilla head and into the strangest room yet....
OH NO DON'T EAT ME!!!"

Now this next room is really hard to try and describe as it is by far the weirdest and is way to massive to try and capture in a picture. Just imagine a giant interactive still life made from mostly whiskey stills, giant steins, massive wooden clock parts, elaborate organs (I'm talking like electric Beethoven wet dreams here), Huge wrenches, chandeliers, winding staircases and various figurine sculptures all integrated together in what must make perfect sense to a complete looney. Anyway I couldn't hope to capture the enormity of it in a pic, so I focused on a small little section of clockwork orange.

But before it's all over there is also the largest of the automated orchestras yet. This one including mannequins and a steamboat full of musicians. Here you see just the seated orchestra half. Even one of their feet was rigged up to tap his foot to the music.

There was much more I've left out after this but at that point I was bored and over-stimulated and ready to be done with it as I'm sure you must be with this blog. All I can say is if you ever get to Wisconsin it is worth checking out for sure. Oh and Anilia hates her phone.

HOLY CRAPOLY

Last night was the first Friday night that we have had in a few months that we were able to go out and enjoy like a normal weekend. Usually we have to work on SAT so we have not had a real weekend so far on this tour. Instead we have had a pseudo weekend consisting of MON and TUES when most people are not going out and many places are actually closed or hoping that you don't come patronize them so they can close. So we got all dressed up last night and went out for a night on the town. A barista at Panera had recommended we check out the Busted Lift (hitherto be know as BL) downtown for fun and adventure. So we went there and the bartender Matty gave us the rundown on the local bars and restaraunts. We went to another bar called LOT 1 to get some grub and got to talking with a couple of fellows there named CODY and DOUG. They grew up together it seems and are of course locals because lets face it there is not really any reason to go to IOWA unless fate has befallen you to be born there. Fate can be a cold hearted bastard sometimes.
Having befriended DOUG and CODY we all headed down to the BL for more drinks and LIVE MUSIC. The BL is an irish style pub which is pretty authentic european in flavor. It's an old rathskeller with old wooden tables and stone walls and felt very much like a lot of the pubs we saw in Ireland. The bartender was pretty cool and our new friends were fun to hang out with too. I also ended up sitting next to the only black man in DUBUQUE, IA. His name is MISSION. Some backstory on Mission: He has come up from New Orleans for a job that fell through leaving him homeless and was offered a job at the BL when the owner found him digging through their trash. He has nine children. He also spent 11 years in prison. He was recently asked to be in a porn flick by the producer who made DAWN of the DEAD after he slept with said producers girlfriend and she reported back that he would be good for the part, which he declined.
Now I was having a good time chewing the chaw with MISSION and Anilia was engaged in conversation with our new friends CODY and DOUG. Somehow they got on the topic of EAST DUBUQUE which is on the other side of the tracks (literally) and the other side of the river where there are many dirty, seedy bars that have nude dancers as their primary form of entertainment. MISSION overhears them and asks if I am going to let my wife go to these strip clubs with these other guys and I tell him SURE WHY NOT. Well MISSION makes the jump in his head that I am of the persuasion that I want to have these guys come home with us and play patty cake with my wife. Of course he does not come right out and say this because that would violate some sort of behavioral protocol. But he starts vaguely alluding to this in terms that I am not quite grasping. Eventually I start to realize what he is getting at and that further if we are not prejudice that he would be willing to perform "services" for us and I think perhaps he thought some money should exchange hands in the process as well. Now all this is being revealed in vague confusing terms clouded by some alchohol and the afore mentioned social boundaries. So it takes some time for me to realize that this is in fact what he is getting at. SO I finally had to explain in plain english what I thought he was getting at and that he was a bit confused about the reality of the situation and that we were not prejudice but we were not going to be bringing anyone else home black or white, but thanks anyway.
So once we got that straightened out we were able to return to normal conversation about prison time and the bartender's girlfriend's fake breasts. The band started into a Bob Dylan cover and it seemed like a good time to move on. We rolled out of there and stopped by one last bar where they were playing dance music but IOWANS don't dance so we did for a bit before strolling back to our RV to crash for the night. I woke up this morning and walked to the gas station across the street from where we were parked to get some coffee. I walk in and the girl behind the counter is all like "I SAW YOU AT BEANIES LAST NIGHT!" I am fairly sure that we were not in any place called BEANIES but I am not from around here and don't want to be rude. I simply respond "YEP". To which she follows up, in true IOWAIAN FASHION with "HOLY CRAPOLY" and proceeds to tell me how she hasn't slept since 9am yesterday cause her kid woke her up and how she went out drinking last night for her friends bachelorette party then ate some food at BEANIES where she saw me, though I have never been there, and then came straight to the OKEY DOKEY (This is actually the name of the gas station) to work all night. I make some comment about things not always going according to plan when alchohol is involved and pay for my goods and get out of there. Holy crapoly folks, holy crapoly.

BYE BYE ATLANTA!

We have finally and sadly departed from Atlanta and made the trek up tp IOWA to begin phase two of our tour. Big thanks to Joel and Lisa for their great hospitality and taking us out for fine dining. Our last night with them we went to a new little restaraunt called POP. It was scrumptious and we killed off a bottle of tasty austalian wine. Also the waitress took a group shot of us. After dinner we gave them a tour of the RV and played "Lets see how many people we can fit on the dashboard while John balances a TV on his head. And as a final farewell present LISA did the SAFTEY DANCE! So now we are in IOWA until Thanksgiving at which point we will be driving to St Louis to drop off the RV, fly to Baltimore for a minute, Drive down to VA to meet up with Anilia's rents and ride down to Atlanta for Dinner. Then we fly back to St Louis from there and continue our adventure. YEAAAAH!

Iowa scary, BOO!

It is halloween night and Anilia and I have decided to dress up as a couple of dorks in bed typing on our computers resting at the front end of our drive from Atlanta to Davenport Iowa. We are staying in a hotel tonight which is the first time in a while we have not spent the night in an RV park or a parking lot. What can I say, we are high class trailer trash. Being it is the devils night we figured we would not stay in the RV in case the devil decided to come knocking on our door trying to borrow a cup of sugar or a power tool. We are currently in Georgia somewhere close to Tennessee. I just spent the last 20 minutes or so on craigslist reading the "best of" which is HILLARIOUS. Today we worked with a rep who was a dead ringer for Sidney Pointier circa Look Who's Coming For Dinner. Also we went running today. We have decided to try and start running reguarily to keep in shape and focus our centers or something like that. Now my legs are a little sore but I got to wear my stylish new running pants which are not linen. Also on the way out of Atlanta we got to drive past the giant mechanical chicken again, like starring in the mirror. Well I am sleepy time now.... BOO!

balls busted

I gave Anilia the Humanoid ample time to post this, but since she has not I am performing this public service amusement. Last week our manager Rich had to take his laptop in to get the power supply fixed. It seems Rich may have been a little rude with the folks over at Comp USA. He got his laptop back and went on about his business of sending out important corporate emails to people. One of those people was Anilia the Humanoid. Someone decided to play a little trick and change Rich's screen name on his work email. His new name... "RICH SUCKS BALLS" Ooops! Hope you didn't send any emails to the client... Better be nicer to the geeks over at Comp USA next time dude.

SEE ROCK CITY

In our continuing saga of tourist-like behavior which divides up our day to day workflow we have experienced great new adventure and exploration. This is the least that can be expected when you are in the whirlwind of a city that is Chattanooga. But before we went to Chattanooga we drove back up north a bit to go to THE LOST SEA. This is the 2nd biggest under ground lake in the world. It is down below through some caverns in the belly of a mountain, as most caverns are. This is because mountains eat caverns for breakfast and sometimes tourists too. Though usually tourists are more of an afternoon snack. It was pretty dark down there so I wasn't able to get many good pics as my camera just doesn't do well in low lighting without a tripod. I did however manage to snap this one which is actually of the LOST PUDDLE ON THE WAY TO THE LOST SEA. So, having driven up to see that we continue on to Chattanooga. But first, a couple of educational fun facts about Chattanooga. DIDYOUKNOW Chattanooga derives its name from the ancient Cherokee translation for "mini-baltimore". DIDYOUKNOW Chattanooga's baseball team is the Lookouts because they live in the shadow of Lookout Mountain so sometimes boulders fall on them at the bottom of the ninth. We spent a couple nights in a luxurious waterfront parking lot located downtown just a few blocks from the state aquarium. By "luxurious" I of course mean "free" and "no one tried to kill us". Their aquarium was the first tip off that we were in mini-baltimore. The second was our Native American tour guide, and by "Native American tour guide" I mean "drunk Irish pan handler". You will note the architecture of their aquarium is very reminiscent of ours back in Baltimore. Compare and contrast yourself. BALTIMORE:
CHATTANOOGA:
Then as if it was not enough to steal the roof off our aquarium they took an even bigger rip off and put inside of it... you guesses it... FISH. I mean COME ON real original guys. I took about a bazillion pics in here. This is one of them. It is of a sturgeon which is probably about 50 years old AT LEAST. They can live to be over 100. They are left overs from the dinosaur age and are delicious with a side of mashed potatoes or caverns. I must give props where props are due and say that the Chattanooga aquarium's landscaping on the grounds is way cooler than any thing in Bal'mer. Lots of wavy sidewalk broken up by winding river bits. They also have a really cool installation piece next to it done by surviving CHEROKEES about the trail of tears. Double whammy pics, you knew it was coming.

After killing most of the day at the aquarium we wend down the road a bit to the bar district which is a couple bars on this one street. We went to a biker bar and hung out for a while next to a guy we will call HAAY!. HAAY! wanted to play the TV game where you get a controller and can log on and play other drunks at texas hold em or trivia. After about 20 minutes of trying to figure out how to log into the thing and get it going and yelling at the bartender for help. Not an angry yell it is just in the nature of HAAY! to be LOUD! and ANNOYING! which increases throughout the evening as he gets DRUNKER. I decide to play the game with HAAY! mostly out of pity for the bartender and to try and occupy him so he stops HAAY!ing every five ...HAAY!! After beating him at texas hold em for a while we decide we have had enough of HAAY! and call it a night.... Sleep ensues.... The next day we decide to go do all of the touristy things in Chattanooga of which there are five. One being the Aquarium which we took care of yesterday. Next on the agenda is to go to the Chattanooga Choo Choo which is the old historic rail station / hotel. I was hoping to get a good picture of the RV at it, but it is not set up in such a way that you can get a good pic with anything that shows where we are. So that didn't happen but we did mill around a bit and got to take a peek inside one of the rail cars. You can stay the night in one of the old cars instead of a traditional room for $169.00. They also had a cool garden that I took some nice pictures of the wifey in. We then gave the RV a bath and headed to lookout mountain where the other 3 attractions are: Incline Railway, Rock City and Ruby Falls. I had been to all these before when I was a wee lad, but it was cool to see them all again. The incline railway is a mile track straight up the side of the mountain. Here is the view from the top. We wandered around a bit at the top then headed back down to the RV. We had to drive up the mountain to the other attraction and for some reason Anilia was a little nervous as I zipped around the twists and turns. Rock City was the coolest bit. It is a trail that goes along in and around huge boulder formations and is very impressive and has a view that you can supposedly see seven states from. Also they have a bunch of rocks. Well that's enough for now. We went back to work today and for the first time since we started were late. Somehow we overslept which I am surprised hasn't happened before but we did stay late to make up for it.

Flags, Falls and Inflatable Frankenstein

Hey Peoples, It's been a little bit since my last post so here is the skinny on the latest haps. First let me jump back in time a little to when we were in Memphis. I neglected to mention before about the healing field we came across. We stayed in an RV park one night and next to it was a huge field which was filled with American flags. Naturally I was curious about this little setup so I wandered over to see what was going on. It was a project called the healing field which had about 3000 some odd flags to represent each of the 911 victims and then also 2000 some odd more flags each with a yellow ribbon with the name of a serviceperson who has died in the Iraq conflict. It was a pretty impressive sight to see. I took a lot of pictures of it and this one here is one of my favs. Ok now skip back ahead to the not quite present. We spent the last week in Knoxville and stayed in the Gatlinburg / Pigeon Forge area a few of the nights we were there. We went to Gatlinburg one day which is the "Gateway to the Smoky Mountaing" super touristy and commercialized. We did have a good time though and rode a ski lift type contraption to the top of a mountain which looked like this: We also went to the Ripley's (as in believe it or not) Aquarium. It was a pretty nice one and had a cool underground section where you could walk around underneath the tanks full of sharks and other creatures. They also had some smaller tanks of various fish that you could climb under and and stick your head up inside of including this tank of puffer fish. We also had a few days off at the beginning of the week so we drove over to Cashiers where my Dad and Debbie and Bro Justin and Sis Carolyn reside. We had a pretty nice time there visiting with family and going to see waterfalls. This one is called Bridal Falls and you used to be able to drive under it until a big rock fell down and closed the way. Here I am demonstrating how big the rock is and displaying my super-human strength. It was also my Carolyn's 15th birthday so we had a nice family dinner and finished off with ice cream birthday cake. She did a good job of blowing out the candles. She also proceed to do a fine job of mutilating the cake into an artistic interpretation of a waterfall. You may make donations to the artist and the remaining cake crumbs will be auctioned off on ebay unless the dogs eat them first. We are currently sitting in a coffee shop in Athens, TN and we will be here tomorrow as well. Then we are off to Hixon and Chattanooga, where we will be for about a week before heading off to Atlanta. As usual here is a silly picture to end off with. It is now Halloween season which means fun picture time with wacky inflatables!

Traveling Update

So we have traveled many miles and done much since my last posting. We have traveled through north west Arkansas including Walmart head quarters. While we were in AR we worked with a rep named Nancy who also had a schipperke and let us come over her house to play with it. It is amazing how much alike he was in temperament and behavior to ZO. We made a stop on our day off at Hot Springs. We had made reservations at a bath house to get scrubbed and rubbed. It was pretty nice if not a little awkward having some big DUDE give you a bath and then some old guy rub you down. Sorry no pics of that you little rascals. But here is a picture of the bath house we went to. We also made some new friends during our stay at Young's RV Park. James and Kimberly who were from Memphis which was where we were heading next. They had two little dogs with them so Anilia immediately ran up to them and petted their doggies and made friends. They were a young couple like ourselves who had also been married in Vegas. They invited us over to hang out that evening and we ended up hanging out with them and their neighbors who lived in their RV and pulled around a trailer to carry their Harleys and were also federal agents who had worked on the Oklahoma City bombing. After Hot Springs we went to Pine Bluff, AR which was a pretty poor town. We had planned on just staying in the Walmart parking lot that night but it looked like a pretty rough and tumble lot so we opted for a hotel instead. We worked there for a day and then headed off to Memphis. We drove into Graceland and stayed in the Graceland RV park which was right across the street from Graceland and directly behind the Heartbreak Hotel. We called up our new friends James and Kim and they took us under their wing during our stay in Memphis and took us out one night for really good Tai food and drinks and pool down in the midtown area. Oh and Anilia did the ROBOT! While we were in Memphis we also had some time to do as some touristy things so we went to SUN STUDIOS which is the birthplace of Rock-n-roll. Where Elvis, Johnny Cash and many others got their start. So that was pretty neat to take the tour and see the recording studio where so many great records were made. Anilia also got the RV stuck in the middle of the street as the hitch got caught on the parking lot which was exciting. We were supposed to be in Memphis 7 days or so, but then we got re-routed to Clarksville to work at the Riverfest. This worked out well for us as my cousin Lucy and her husband Greg live in Clarksville, my cousin Ben lives in Nashville and my Aunt Ronella lives in Murfreesboro along with my grandmother Momma Jo. My other cousin Carolyn was in town with her two children Jeremy and Josie. So we were all able to meet up together and went to see a performance of MY FAIR LADY which cousin Ben was in, playing the role of the love smitten Freddy. Here he is with Josie. We had a couple more days back in Memphis and one of the Reps we worked with David, invited us over to his house for a boat ride out on the lake. By the time we got there though it was getting dark so we just hung out on his porch with him and his fiancee and had a good ol' time. After we finished up in Memphis we headed across the state of Tennessee to Rodgersville, which is where I am sitting currently. Anilia's folks drove down to meet us at the RV park we are staying at and brought the doggies with them so we have been able to spend some time with all of them which is so nice. So that brings us up to now. We are just relaxing and doing laundry and I will take the RV to give it a bath in a little while. The it is back to work tomorrow here for a couple days then on to Knoxville and Chatanooga!

This Old RV

Some people have been asking about the inside of the RV, so here is a quick tour of our current home on wheels. First we have the cockpit where we sit while we are driving. It has a TV which we don't watch while we are driving. We do listen to our ipod and to Rich who lives inside our GPS system and tells us when to turn right. Also you can take a nap on the dashboard, see. Behind the cockpit is the kitchen area. We have a stove, oven and microwave, the usual kitchen bits. Here are two pictures because I am HUNGRY. Also we have a tiny refrigerator luckily we have tiny mouths so our food fits in there nice and snug. It is not very cold though so we pretty much have to drink milk the same day or it gets CHUNKY. Across from the kitchen is the kitchen table which we usually utilize as the office. Here we are multi-tasking like busy little beavers. Actually we are just playing a high-tec version of battleship. YOU SUNK MY EMAIL! And here it is from another angle without our bodies clogging up the shot. Back a little further is the HEAD. You can guess what we do in there, OOPS I forgot to take my PANTS off, How embarrassing! Here we demonstrate why you should make sure to put on the emergency brake before getting in the shower. WHOA NELIE! I don't have a good pictue of the bedroom, but imagine a bed in a room a couple inches bigger than the bed. Now stand up on the bed... BUMPH, OW. Oh, watch your head. Also we had a pet daddy long legs for a few days but tragically, he drowned in the sink so now we are all alone again how sad :(