A Stranger in a Strange Land

I’m gonna tell a two thousand word story.

Note to self #745:

When beginning peeing process, check to make sure that seat is up, and that it is not slowly on its way down. Also remember to buy toilet bowl cleaner tomorrow.

Just had a couple of pics from the hiatus to put up …

This was from my trip to Chicago a couple months ago.

This was taken just when ‘Ol Betsy ticked over 120K miles … don’t know why guys feel the need to record moments like this down. Please ignore the fact that I was taking the picture while driving at 80 mph.

Took a drive out to Dauphin Island today, wanted to catch the ferry across to make the loop round Mobile Bay, but just missed the 12.30 ferry and the next one wouldn’t leave till 2 pm so I just turned around and headed back. Mobile has these loong bridges that just go on forever.
Tried to shoot a pic of it … you can see the bridge if you squint hard enough …

Water on the left and right as you drive across to the island.

Was nice scenery on the way off the bridge … think I’m starting to like this place, except for the damn heat. At least I’ll be used to it by the time I head home in a few weeks.

I know I said new posts after I settled in, but just felt like writing.

Drive down took slightly less than 12 hours, not too bad except I don’t know how I managed to get to San Francisco twice on my own … there and back no less.

Weather in Mobile is just like it is back home, except it’s a leeetle less humid. Temperature wise it’s hotter though, ‘Ol Betsy’s air conditioner can’t keep up. Hot air blowing in your face and not being able to see out your rear window due to all the crap that’s lodged inside makes for one testy driving experience.

So, when Hurricane Katrina hit Mobile was the closest city that had its infrastructure up and running apparently. The people that moved here have made an apartment impossible to find on short notice.

Lucky thing I lined up a service apt before I got here, so I have a month buffer to wait. Managed to find a nice place that had a relatively short waiting list so fingers crossed I’ll get in ‘fore too long.

The people are friendly here. I heard my first true blue southern “y’all” today. It’s like how only a Singaporean can say “lah” correctly.

Random thought of the day:
If I ever work as a waiter again, I’m gonna introduce myself as Excuse Me, as in “Good evening, my name is Excuse Me .. if you need me … you know what to do.”

Wayyyy overdue post.

I will be back when I’m settled into my new job and apartment.

Who am I kidding, no one reads this anyway.

I now know the difference between skeet and trap shooting.

Thanks to YT and Ben who kindly hosted a bunch of sharpshooter wannabes, for being super-patient and always obliging. The weather decided to cooperate for once, well kinda … it was sunny but bloody cold.

That’s what the range looked like before we started peppering everything in sight. I keed, I keed.

Drew with his trusty shotgun and new grungy look. Well, not really that trusty. He ditched it for the one the girls used half an hour later. And he was just too lazy to shower.

What we shot. Or rather tried to shoot and failed most of the time.

It’s harder than it seems, trust me. I even got a look at the machine that spit these out at 70+ mph.

Was a whole bunch of fun, except I now have a bruised right shoulder and tender right cheek (the one on my face). Dinner was awesome too. No pictures because people tend to get hungry after standing in the cold shooting fake birds for 4 hours.

A pictorial representation of what we have been doing over the past few days:

Washing cars on the warmest day of the year so far. That was on Sunday and it’s gonna be snowing tonight. Bleah.

I was laughing so much at this and just had to take a picture. You can’t see the offset wheels but trust me, they were there.

A typical WalMart shopping trip … drinks, soap, cream cheese … and ammunition.

Yup, we bought us some shotgun ammunition and all we had to show was our ID. We could have gotten a shotgun too but didn’t have enough money. As you can see we even got the value pack. 100 shells for US$15.22. What a bargain.

Looking forward to our skeet shooting outing in a couple days!

Today was a first.

The daily high temperature had been averaging 15-18 C over the past couple days, and today the mercury hit ~20 C in the middle of the day. From about 3 pm onwards the temperature kept dropping and by dinnertime we were in single digits.

As I write this it’s 1 C outside and the forecast low is -2 C

A 20 degree swing in one day. Ri-cock-ulous.

On the plus side it has been a extremely eventful spring break so far. Thanks to all for the good times and great spirits.

Chances are it’ll be fun the rest of the way to. *nods to Colin*

I don’t really have time to read it carefully most days, but once in awhile one snippet comes by that makes me fall down laughing.

Suit: Goddamn piece of fucking shit.
Old lady: Geez.
Suit: What’s your fucking problem?
Old lady: The dumbing down of our language; everyone is so crude.
Suit: Where are you from, the Little House on the Prairie?
Old lady: I’m from New York, you fucking asshole.

–47th & 5th

I read The Sports Guy over at ESPN.com pretty often and he has this column about how he trades sports talk with other noteworthy people.

The latest column has him talking to Malcolm Gladwell, he of ‘The Tipping Point’ and ‘Blink‘ fame, and it was a pretty good read.

The talk’s not all about sports, as you can see from the excerpt below:

Simmons: Second question: Can you explain in one paragraph why you’re against Vegas?

Gladwell: Where to start? You get there. You can’t get a cab. Last time I waited 30 minutes in line at the airport. You get to your hotel, you wait another 45 minutes to check in. It’s 120 degrees outside, and inside it’s 45 degrees and all you can think about is there’s about to be a epidemic of Legionnaires Disease. The food is terrible. Everyone loses money — everyone. The amount of plastic surgery is terrifying. There are large packs of enormous, glassy-eyed people in stretch pants, pulling the levers on slot machines. (By the way, greatest and most under-appreciated gambling story ever: William Bennett, he of one best seller after another lecturing Americans on moral values and virtue and the bankruptcy of our culture, turns out not only to be a degenerate gambler, but a gambler who only played the slots. The slots! Had he been a great poker player — even a decent poker player — I’m in his corner. But the slots?) I digress. Back to Vegas: Why would I want to see Celine Dion, ever (and I’m Canadian)? Or white mutant tigers? Or the Village People? Or Tony Orlando and Dawn? I have more fun walking to the laundromat from my apartment in New York than I do in Vegas.

I can’t say I disagree with Gladwell totally, but I kinda like Vegas (in small doses) myself.