My final project in my technology class was to prove that I knew how to use PowerPoint. So I put together a presentation about the glory of Seminole. Including the angry sky octopi and the beloved water tower.
Misguided Travel Guides: Roanoke and the Outer Banks
November 3rd, 2009 by
Tagged: lighthouse, lost colony, pictures, roanoke, Steven, travel guides, White Sands
Tagged: lighthouse, lost colony, pictures, roanoke, Steven, travel guides, White Sands
Over the past weekend I searched tirelessly for clues that might solve the mystery of the Lost Colony of Roanoke. I’m pleased to say that I am once again successful. Honestly, if people would just put me on the case they could saved themselves centuries of doubt.
The first place we looked was Jockey’s Ridge State Park, home to one hang gliding school and one giant sand dune. The signs all said it was easy to get lost there, so I figured the colonists could easily be wandering around in the sand.
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Misguided Travel Guides: Weiner Dog Day
October 19th, 2009 by
Tagged: dogs, pictures, puppies, travel guides, utilikilts, weaver street
Tagged: dogs, pictures, puppies, travel guides, utilikilts, weaver street
The day I knew that I would love living in Carrboro was the day I saw Weiner Dog Day listed on Weaver Street Market‘s events page. This was back in July, and I have been counting down the days till October 18th, envisioning a carpet of disproportionately long puppies frolicking in front of the co-op.
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H-Town: The Debriefing
I’m glad that Houston is just like I remember: nearly unbearable. But in a way I’ve grown to love. I love the ridiculous traffic, the sweltering heat, the overzealous mosquito population, the two stars. I also love the now-completed building that was outside my window all of last year. Its roof now looks like a ship’s prow that has accidentally careened into the med center. And, yeah, I walked by the new gym and it consumed my soul with jealousy. Other than that, though, I managed to pretty well avoid getting hit by the nostalgia truck. Because my shower doesn’t scream.
Probably the most surprising part of the weekend came on Saturday when I was expecting to collect my pieroyalties, the amount of which increases in increments of one pie yearly. I was promised three, but since both Anna (director) and Jacob (producer) assumed responsibility for this, I ended up with six. Jacob gave his long suffering Jacob sigh, said they would tip me one more, and keep two for the cast party. I assumed this was just his way of covering up a failed attempt at winning my affections. Because nothing says “Let’s make out after this play” like extra pie. It’s maybe a universal signal.
Anna also felt the need to tip me, specifically for this part of the play:
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Times I Have Almost Died: Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe
September 1st, 2009 by
Tagged: Chapel Hill, death, M&Ms, reviews, waffles
Tagged: Chapel Hill, death, M&Ms, reviews, waffles
Today, unlike the many more harrowing Times I Have Almost Died, I was nearly killed by sheer joy. The Culprit? Chapel Hill’s Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe. The Weapon? The M&M Waffle.
This isn’t the first encounter I’ve had with the joy that is M&M Waffles. The theory occurred to me in the Wiess Servery when morning when I realized some SCIENTIFIC FACTS upon which to base this experiment in the tasty sciences:
1) The Wiess Servery has a waffle iron.
2) The Wiess vending machines have M&M’s (sometimes)
Hypothesis: I could put M&M’s in the waffle batter and get M&M waffles!!!
Unfortunately this was in the early days of my scientific career so I had failed to take a few vital parts of the experiment into consideration.
1) I hate waiting in lines so the waffle iron was pretty much out of my reach.
2) M&Ms can burn and melt and things. Though they seem magical, they are essentially chocolate.
Thankfully, Ye Olde Waffle Shoppe has my back! A narrow diner with waffles, pancakes, eggs, and hashbrowns, this would TOTALLY have been a Breakfast Club Destination had it been in H-Town during my three-year tenure as Breakfast Rep. The M&M waffles were maybe the closest mortal man can be to heaven. At least if your version of heaven involves waffles and candy. MINE DOES.
Unfortunately by the time I realized this was a life-changing experience, all of the food was gone. I will probably have to make several more research trips to this location and eat several more M&M waffles. You know, FOR SCIENCE.
Misguided Travel Guides: Seminole, Florida
June 23rd, 2009 by
Tagged: florida, library, lists, Panama Canal, Rob, seminole, travel guides
Tagged: florida, library, lists, Panama Canal, Rob, seminole, travel guides
As previously stated, Seminole, Florida is a suburb which, oddly seems to have no real “urb” to be a “sub of, since the entirety of Pinellas County is really just a conglomerate of similar houses and strip malls, searching for a metropolis. You know, and the beach. But it’s still home and here are the four best things about it, should you ever be trapped here on some kind of low-budget Floridacation.
1. The Water Tower
So this water tower was originally a really drab blue, but they decided to jazz it up when I was in middle school and hired an artist to paint gigantic native Florida birds on it with some clouds in the background. This made total sense, until someone decided that the water tower’s natural shape would lend itself really well to painting a big orange cage over them all. Obviously this image creates a few troubling philosophical questions: if those are clouds WITHIN the cage, did some even larger person put a cage over THE SKY? How could these birds, even at normal size, even fit in a bird cage? Is this a metaphor for human interference being akin to a harmful cage put over THE ENTIRE NATURAL WORLD? Or, we could go with my immediate reaction the first time I saw it: “OMGOD THAT OCTOPUS IS ATTACKING THOSE BIRDS!”
Apparently the city agrees with my complaints because they wanted to paint over it awhile ago, but people complained, saying it was “good for giving directions”.
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Misguided Travel Guides: Turkey Creek
June 4th, 2009 by
Tagged: allergies, bugs, james k polk, lewis and clark, redneck, tennessee, turkey creek, waterfall
Tagged: allergies, bugs, james k polk, lewis and clark, redneck, tennessee, turkey creek, waterfall
Unfortunately, our stay in Tennessee is not as well documented as other parts of our trip because of Steven’s constant fear for his camera. With good reason since I don’t think it’s water-proof, falling-on-rocks-proof, or bug-proof. It’s okay with me since I’ve been here more times than I can count, my memories almost always tinged with a Benadryl-induced haze since I am allergic to everything in nature. And that’s pretty much all that’s here. No cellphone reception unless you climb atop the nearest ridge, fifteen or twenty miles to the nearest store, such as it is, and at least two or three miles to the nearest neighbor’s house. Also, since it’s summer, walking across the yard will get you at least two or three ticks. Yeah, fun. My dad owns about 200 acres of overgrown, hilly land here and his entire family lives on various other tracts of land nearby.
Main Turkey Creek Things to Do In The Summer
(As remembered from my Childhood)
1. Hike through woods
2. Cut grapevines to make swings
3. Play in the creek
4. Catch lightning bugs and put them in a jar
5. Look at stars
6. Eat way too much fried food
And that’s pretty much what we’ve done, minus the grapevine swings. Surprisingly, there are also some sites of historical note relatively nearby (for which Steven did bring his camera):
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Misguided Travel Guides: Minneapolis
June 3rd, 2009 by
Tagged: birds, carousel, EPIC WIN, Minneapolis, pictures, raptors, roadtrip, Steven
Tagged: birds, carousel, EPIC WIN, Minneapolis, pictures, raptors, roadtrip, Steven
I’m guessing that North Dakota and Minnesota run together in your heads as one expanse of Godless frozen tundra. Again, this is mostly true, but not as much in the summer. I’ve been to Minneapolis plenty of times because the Bismarck airport is so freaking small (3-4 gates) that often the best way to get there is to fly to Minneapolis and rent a car. We stayed in my uncle’s basement, which includes the prime attraction of his dog, a sheltie collie that can leap up to slam doors and gets unaccountably angry every time anyone unloads the dishwasher.
Since I have so much Minneapolis experience, I was expecting it to be a mere stop over instead of what it turned out to be: THE GREATEST STOP ON OUR ROADTRIP EVER!!! Seriously, Anna Baron has been holding out on us. Minneapolis may be the REAL Land of Enchantment. Yeah, New Mexico, I said it. Or maybe my low expectations only made it seem that much more amazing. The first order of business was to see Natalie, my erstwhile illustrator of The Knight, the wizard, and the Lady Pig fame:
That's my Meeting a Famous Illustrator Face
Misguided Travel Guides: Cousins Who’ve Just Had Babies
May 17th, 2009 by
Tagged: babies, cousins, pictures, Road Trip, tiny tiny toes, travel guides
Tagged: babies, cousins, pictures, Road Trip, tiny tiny toes, travel guides
So on Tuesday Steven and I had just pulled into a La Quinta Inn in dreary West Texas when I got a text message from my cousin Michelle informing our family that she was inducing labor the following day and we’d soon have a new cousin. Since this is my Movie Cousin, who lives in LA and who I’d planned on staying with, I found this news somewhat disconcerting. Can you stay with someone who’s just given birth four days ago? Apparently yes!
And, okay, it’s not like Jeremy’s house, in that you aren’t having food pushed on you at every turn or discovering the secrets of Jeremy’s psyche, but there is a lot of sleeping baby holding involved, and that’s never bad:
OMG so tiny!
So I would say to definitely go for it, if you have the opportunity/really nice cousins who don’t mind you eating their food and sleeping on their couch while they’re still sleep deprived.
They also have two fairly large dogs whom Steven spent a fair amount of time wrestling with around the time this picture got taken (otherwise they became preoccupied with licking the baby’s toes). Unfortunately there are no pictures of Steven lying on the ground with two large dogs attempting to lick his face and bite each other at the same time. Rest assured; it really happened.