Just Call me Nostradamus

About a year ago, while on a trip to Oregon, TB and I took a little jaunt out to the coast.  While at the town welcome center, we snapped this photo:

Notice the little card in TB's hand.  It says "Tsunami!" and gives instructions on what to do in the event of a tsunami on the Oregon coast.  At the time, we had no idea that a tsunami really can occur in Oregon.  Or perhaps I didn't consciously know, but my Nostradamus skills were showing themselves........

Humor aside, the family in Oregon is safe and sound since they're many miles inland.

See the original post here:

Original Tsunami Post

Winery in Georgia?

Going on a wine tour in the state of Georgia is like sushi in a gas station.

I like sushi.  And the gas station is someplace I frequent, I do occasionally even find a gas station that I could say that I like.  But when thinking about going out for some sushi - a food that is quite delicate, that has to be handled properly and not kept in a walk in fridge next to Four Loko, chocolate milk and a hard boiled egg in a bag - I want the environment that sushi is served in to be a certain way.  I mean, the sushi could pick up the common smells of cigarettes and petroleum if not kept in the proper environment.

Back to the wine tour of Georgia.  Wine is good.  But mind you, I am not a wine connoisseur.  I pick out bottles based on price and pretty labels.  Occasionally I'll luck out and find a wine I like to go back to.  But even considering my lack of knowledge on wine, I have never purposely chosen a wine grown in Georgia - it reminds me of the sushi in a gas station.  I imagine wine from Georgia to be grown next to chicken coops, carpet factories and peanuts.  And who knows - it might pick up some familiar characteristics of that Georgia red clay that it's grown in.

As luck would have it, I went on a mini (perhaps only one) winery tour of Georgia recently.  In celebration of a friend's 30th birthday we decided to spend an afternoon doing something decidedly different - a Georgia wine tour.

Much to my surprise the scenery on the Georgia wine trail was quite nice.  I mean no fooling anyone into thinking you were in Napa - but not bad.  Our actual wine was hit and miss but in general not bad - no essence of peanuts or red clay - success in my book!  It even seemed that the wineries in those parts of the state have become equivalent to the local bar.  Several locals stopped in and the "bar tender"  knew exactly what to pour for each of the regulars.  All in all -not a bad way to spend a few hours in north Georgia.

Perhaps I'll even try that gas station sushi next time...... errrrrr, maybe not.

On the Road Again

These days I've been doing a good bit of traveling for work, which really means that I spend lots of my time trekking through airports and driving in circles trying to figure out where I'm going.  I do however, get some good people watching in and have made some observations and discovered quite a few new things recently:

 

The TSA needs a new marketing department.

• With the TSA installing the new body scanner machines in airports all across the country, they decided to post signs throughout security explaining the procedure to you.  That does seem nice enough, right?  It is good to know what you're getting yourself into when you step into one of those contraptions.  However, one would expect that the explanation would make you feel better about getting in something called a "full body scan".  The only problem is, the pictures posted all over the airport look a little something like this:

                 Now, I'm not so sure about you - but that picture certainly doesn't make me feel any better.       
                 Seriously?  There is nothing left to the imagination.  They really should just take the pictures 
                down, as that doesn't make me feel one bit better.  I think I'd just rather not know what they see.

 

 

A bit of fashion advice:

• By no means am I what you would call a fashionable person, but wow.  There are some crazy things walking through the airport.  I can occasionally pick up some good fashion tips on what NOT to wear while on the road, due to seeing so many people trek through the airport.  So speaking of what not to wear,  there seems to be a recent trend of wearing leggings or tights as pants.  These items can often be see through, not to mention skin tight - but maybe people mean to do this.........  you have to realize that what you are wearing is see-through.  Right? 

Pumping Gas

• It's highway robbery not to fill up a rental car before returning it, so I often find myself at a gas station near an airport driving up to a gas pump and hoping that I guessed correctly as to which side of the car the gas tank is on.  UNTIL, a co-worker pointed out a little something I had never noticed... An arrow near your gas level gauge, which indicates the side the tank is on.  Wow.  Did I feel stupid.

Comfortable Shoes are a Lie

• Due to all my trekking through long terminals in work clothes and shoes, my feet have begun to look a little something like this:



Definitely not my foot - but they do look strikingly similar.



      So imagine my excitement when I found some heels that were made in collaboration with Nike! Imagine - work shoes that are as comfortable as your running shoes.   Those have to cure my gimp feet - right? Wrong.  The shoes were a lie.  My feet still look scary and my shoes are still quite painful.  Comfortable work shoes just do not exist.

I'm beginning to think I spend too much time on the road....................................

A Green is Not a Green

When talking about that arbitrary difficulty rating of ski runs, that is. 

On my first true winter vacation experience last week in Copper Mountain and Vail CO, I decided (among many things) that there needs to be subcategories of green ski runs.  I'm sure there should also be subcategories of the blues and blacks, but surprisingly I haven't experienced too many of those.  Only one.  And that was one too many.

In order to make my inaugural ski trip the most positive experience possible, I signed up for a private lesson on the first morning.  Ski instructor and I had a great morning cruising down the bunny slopes!  My kind of skiing - just cruising.  No fear for my life.

"Falls without reason" - totally me.

At the conclusion of the lesson, ski instructor highly encouraged me to stay on that slope for the several days and not to let TB and his friends push me into anything that I was not ready for.  We could even leave our skis at right there with him and return for them after lunch!  I should have known the day would take a dark turn when TB politely declined and said we would just take our skis with us.  As we rounded the corner away from ski instructor, TB confidently said, "We don't need to come back here".  Riiiight.

Later that afternoon I found myself falling off the ski lift at the top of the mountain, only to come face to face with.................... a BLUE.  Yep.  A blue that really should have been classified a double black due to the death defying drop that I was staring at.  After realizing I had no alternative, I started down the cliff.  Started and didn't get very far.  Ten feet down the blue that should have been a black, I lost both skis, a pole and every bit of confidence I had gained with ski instructor.  TB and I then proceeded to get an amazing upper body workout thanks to miles of cross country skiing on catwalks, as every trail going down was a black, blue or a green that looked suspiciously like the blues and blacks.  It was a one lift afternoon that included some yelling, tears, curse words and swearing that this was the worst sport in the world and I was done.  D. O. N. E.  Well, I couldn't actually be done until I made it off the mountain, but I would be done once I figured out how to get down. 

After eventually making it off the mountain, I was then left with a delima.  This was day one of four full days of skiing and we had pre-purchased lift tickets.  Groan.  I'm not one to waste money, but I wasn't so sure I was into the whole skiing thing.  In the end, my stubborn side won over and I refused to waste 3 days of lift tickets.  I did eventually master those easy green slopes, appropriately tittled Kokomo (you know, the song about taking it slow). I even got to know the ski lift workers as they wondered why I would only ski one run on the entire resort.  The first winter vacation ended on a high note and I may even be willing to go on another ski vacation provided I get spa breaks and have an easy green friend along for the trip.  I'd at least consider it.

Getting fitted for ski boots.  I was happy and naive.

Amazingly, no emergency phone was needed.  Although I did seriously think about it.

Special thanks to Amanda C. for the loaner ski clothes which kept me toasty!

Worst Homeowners. Ever.

Seriously. 

A few weeks ago we decided it was time to break out the ladder and change lightbulbs.  Unlike the apartments we were used to, we have several different sizes of bulbs and lots of heavy light fixtures.  But at the end we successfully changed all the bulbs and again had light in our house.  Success!

We thought.

Several days ago we were sitting on the couch and heard a loud crash from upstairs (there have been lots of loud crashes around these parts - see previous post).  Once we ran upstairs, we noticed that the light fixture in the hall had fallen and crashed to the floor.  One of the exact light fixtures where we had just changed the bulb.  As I start to turn and give TB an accusatory look for not correctly re-attaching the fixture, he immediately reminds me that we had trouble with that fixture.  Ahhhh, I did remember somthing about it's screws were odd and we had decided that they were stripped, but then somehow got it to stay.   As I'm feeling guilty for starting to blame TB, I'm thinking darn, maybe we should have replaced those screws.  What a stroke of bad luck.

Until............it happened again!  Monday I was dilligently working downstairs and I heard the same suspicious crash from upstairs.  Our upstairs hallway has two identical light fixtures and the second had fallen.

How's the old saying go?  Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me.  We can blame the first fixture on the screws, but I'm not sure we can do it twice.  How sad is it that we can't change lightbulbs without physically breaking the entire fixture.  We really need to get a handle on this whole home ownership thing.  Stat.

The Snow Days That Never Were

Ice Skating on Peachtree Street

We've had an unseasonably cold winter here in Atlanta, including some snow.  Considering the rare occurrence of snow in this area, even just a small amount can have quite a profound affect on the city.  As evidenced by the headlines below:

-  The Atlanta Police Department reported a total of 368 accidents on January 11th

-  Closure of all southbound lanes of I-75
-  Most metro Atlanta Walmart stores are closing early Monday January 11th

Seriously, closing a major interstate AND Walmart closing early.  It's almost like the end of the world.

Luckily for me, the snow came in on a Sunday night and I happen to be flying out of town for work on that Sunday afternoon - just a few mere hours before all the flights out of town were cancelled.  I still haven't decided if that was extremely lucky or terribly unlucky.  Regardless, while everyone in Atlanta was enjoying a week of snow days, I was stuck working.  By the time I can back to Atlanta on the Friday after the snow, it was all gone and the city was basically back to normal.  Luckily, TB was part of the group that did get to cash in on a week of snow days and was able to capture the "Snowcapolypse" on film.



 

The morning after, before the driveway shovelling began

 



Back porch









View down the street



Attempting to go down the front stairs



Front porch



Calling Shenanigans on 2011

Normally this is the time of year when you resolve to be a better person or accomplish some goals for the coming year.  Before we had a chance to do that, 2011 started to unravel at the seams.  It started with a crash.  A literal crash in the middle of the night.  Only to discover that one of my favorite Christmas presents (a glass terrarium) had broken:

 Notice the culprit in the shadows

Then, we had a slight incident with cat puke and our new white couches.  Yes, we decided to buy lighter couches - so this one may be our fault.  Puke ended up all over the couches, resulting in our first of many (I'm sure) professional and expensive couch cleanings.

Then, we had our first major home repair.  A broken garage door.  Which meant that TB tried to fix it himself, by performing extensive internet research.  This only resulted in a spring flying all around the garage and nearly took his eye out.  And did not fix the door.  Those home repair skills do not come over night.  Perhaps I should think about buying him a Bob Villa book.  Do they still make those?

Although I'll acknowledge that none of these events are catastrophes, it did all happen in the first few days of the year.  We had a few days off work and were trying to be productive, but kept having to deal with our "incidents" instead.   We stopped where we were and decided to call shenanigans on 2011 and just started the year over, a few days later than January 1st.

Since then, we've replaced the terrarium, almost have the garage fixed and have scotch guarded the couches.  We just needed a little do-over on that one...