Vroom vroom

I have been going to the International Motorcycle Show with my dad and Danny for a few years, now.  We went to the show today.  I went to Richardson, and from there, Dad and I went to the train station.  Danny took his car, in case he was called in to work.  We walked around the convention center for a while and Dad talked old bikes with a lot of old bike guys.

The two of them found a display with a Vincent Black Shadow, which is a very old, very cool bike.  That's when they went into full-on twin mode.

Seriously- Like father, like son.  

It was a pretty good day. 

Mellow drama

Yesterday, I went to the gas station. Pretty exciting, I know. I went there before I went to the buffery, and I used my Visa card.

After I left the gas station, I went to the gym for an hour, then headed to the bank. When I opened up my wallet, I saw that I had saved the receipt from the gas station, but had misplaced the credit card. Genius. I went back into the gym and looked where I had left my jacket just to be sure. No such luck. Knowing my chances were slim, I went back to the gas station.

I walked up to the counter and said, "I know it's a total longshot, but did someone turn in a blue credit card from either pump two or four earlier today?" The guy behind the counter asked me what my name was, and when I told him, he handed me my credit card. Amazing. Faith in humanity secured. 

Anyhow, last night was slated to be a date night for me and Cas. We got ourselves ready and headed out to an Outback Steakhouse, because I had managed to score $50 in gift cards through my credit card points. Our tab for dinner was $63, so we managed two steaks, a pair of salads and some potatoes with four cocktails for 13 bucks. Not too shabby.

That was actually a big part of my plan, because I wanted us to see a show that cost 50 bucks to get in. I figured, if we could save $50 on dinner, then I wouldn't feel so bad about spending $50 on a silly show. A movie would've been cheaper, obviously. No matter, we went to Pocket Sandwich Theater. They were doing a melodrama. It was a lot of fun.

We actually arrived to a sold out show, but there was a party of 27 people, and not all of those people were coming. The theater released the seats for sale, and Cas and I grabbed a pair of them. It looked to us like a dozen people from that party did not attend, and the theater's policy is to charge for the seats anyway. At 25 bucks a pop, if it was my party on my dime, that missing portion of the group had better be incapacitated. 

The show was a hoot. There were heroes and villains. We cheered and booed. We threw popcorn.

We kind of needed a fun night. On Thursday, we stayed a little late after school. We wanted to stick around the neighborhood so we'd be in the area at six. His mom's friend (and Cas' childhood neighbor) passed away. 

We stayed in the area to go to the viewing with his mom. It made more sense than driving north only to turn around and head south. That means we skipped the gym Thursday, so we went Friday. That means we skipped happy hour Friday. So we needed a date Saturday. Mission accomplished. But we always have a good time- it's what we do. 

Dónde está la biblioteca?

Cas and I left the state capital building and parked downtown. We had just a little time to kill before the Clinton library opened for the day, so we walked around the riverfront park for a while. We went up to a pedestrian bridge, where I saw a lot of padlocks on the metal. I had actually almost forgotten about this practice.

It's called a love lock. You're supposed to write your initials and the initials of your sweetheart on the lock, affix it to a bridge or something, then throw the key away. This symbolizes your unbreakable love. 

It's pretty cute, but I did have questions about the sincerity of those who affixed combination locks to the bridge. Alas, I'll never know if that was done in jest or not. 

After we left the bridge, we decided to have a pre-library lunch. We went to Gus's World Famous Fried Chicken. They had this sign outside: 

Oh my freaking gosh, that was the best fried chicken I have ever eaten. Gus doesn't mess around. Im guessing that sign says TODAY'S SPECIAL: CHICKEN every day. 

From there, we got on a trolley. It was a very cool looking old-school trolley.

That was our ride to the William J. Clinton Preaidential Center. 

Ta-dah:

It was great. We went through the exhibits on a guided tour before revisiting some of them ourselves. They had an eight year timeline running down the center of the main exhibit area with different alcoves lining the sides dedicated to different topics. It was incredibly cool and quite informative. Also, it was absolutely beautiful to look out the glass walls of the place. I kind of want to return at a time when it's raining. 

When we left the library, we took the trolley back. It served as a mini-tour. The trolley operator had some history to share and some fun facts, and when we returned to the place where we parked, we had come full circle on the trolley track. From there, we got into the car and headed southwest. I wonder how many people have that much fun on a road trip to Little Rock...

Here are a few more photos. Because why not? 

The library from far, far away:

A tiny door at the capital: 

They really do have a pretty capital building: 

Doesn't every state have an official historic cooking vessel? 

Cool photo opportunity:

And a walk in the park:

The library:

A rather interesting place to sit in the cabinet room:

The Clinton Oval Office:

That should just about cover it. I'm sure Cas has some fabulous photos, too, but this set ought to do...

Es una biblioteca. 

Capitol or capital?

Cas and I started today's adventure at the state capitol building. It's actually quite beautiful.

And that's what the dome looks like from the inside. 

I did have to Google the spelling.  Capitol is the building. Capital is the city (and also, money). Glad I cleared that up. 

Cas and I walked in through a door of the Capitol that we weren't entirely sure we should have walked through. I checked withy with the security man to make sure we were allowed to be in the building. There was no guided tour, but no matter, the building is pretty. 

It is also the only thing of note in town that would let us in at 10am. Everything else seems to want us after lunch. No problem, though. We lunch, then we library. 

I'm just glad we didn't try this tomorrow. They're closed for MLK day. Oh, and Robert E. Lee's birthday. How southern of them! 

Amazing. 

After that, we left Arkansas' Capitol building and walked out into its capital city. 

A Little Rock walk

Cas and I got to Little Rock in the afternoon and decided to walk around downtown. It was a little cold, so it was only appropriate to stop into a few bars.

Also, Cas and I had to figure out this bizarre Asian gate thing. 

Alas, everybody was king fu fighting. 

We stopped into a few bars, all of which seemed to want to specialize in whiskey drinks. Hey, when in Rome, right? 

We're eating a little breakfast now so we can get moving to the presidential library. Should be a good time. We haven't decided yet if we want to walk some more in Little Rock. 

A place called Hope

This morning, Cas and I got up, headed out the door for some breakfast and begin the journey to Little Rock, Arkansas. We stopped along the way at Bill Clinton's former home in Hope, Arkansas.

Unfortunately, the house had been damaged by fire around Christmas time, so we could not enter it. We did visit the welcome center and exhibit in an adjacent property. We also had a pretty darn good hamburger at a place up the street called Tailgaters. 

It was interesting to see the exhibits with all of the photos of a much much younger person. It looked like Bill Clinton had had a relatively happy childhood, in spite of the fact that his father died before he was born.

Anyhow, we spent a little time in Hope. I was particularly impressed with the incredible proximity of Clinton's childhood home to the railroad tracks. If a football field is a valid form of measurement, I would guess it was only one of those from his childhood front door to a railroad track. Must have been hard to get the little guy to sleep with the noise at such frequent intervals. We heard a pair of trains pass the restaurant where we stayed only long enough to eat lunch. 

But that was a bit of a roadside attraction for us. Tonight, we play in downtown Little Rock. Tomorrow, we see the presidential library. 

Yoke's on you

Mom's birthday was Saturday.  We had a three-part celebration that day.  Holly's birthday was at the end of December and Kris has one coming at the end of this month.  To simplify life for Holly, we did all three in the same day.  Cas and I bought presents for everyone, and specifically for Mom, we went in with Danny and Laurie on a very nice set of Calphalon pots and pans.  Cas also decided to have a little fun with the occasion.

Back on Cas' birthday, Mom orchestrated the great Green Polo event.  In a mocking tribute to Cas, Mom got green polo shirts for herself, Dad, Danny, Laurie and me.  Cas wears a lot of green polo shirts.  Good one, Mom.

Anyhow, a while back- maybe a Christmas or two ago, Kitty sent Mom a wine yoke.  It's essentially a lanyard meant to hold a wine glass.  Mom wanted to hand the thing off to someone else, so she decided that it would be funny to re-gift every time there was a family birthday.  Each wine yoke recipient was assigned to determine a new use for the item.  Somehow, the wine yoke was lost along the way.  I suppose that was her intention.  Nobody was too sad to see the wine yoke disappear.

But Cas had to take the green polo tribute and pay it forward.  Apparently, if you purchase a four-pack of wine yokes on Amazon.com, it's cheaper than buying just one.  So, Cas bought eight.  Before Mom opened the box with her very own wine yoke, most of the others were distributed.  When she pulled hers out of the box, everyone else put theirs on.  Awesomesauce.

I may need to pour a glass and strap on the yoke this evening, though.  It was parent teacher night.  Not exactly the worst thing in the world but it's a twelve hour day.  It was pretty good, though.  I had exactly seven parents or sets of parents come in this evening.  They were nice.  Some of them were good kids, but a few of them were kids whose parents I actually wanted at some point to meet.  

I met the parents of an autistic kid and the kid who I managed to bust for weed last month.  Interesting day, to say the least.  I have four days left in the week before the three day weekend and my road trip with Cas to the Clinton library in Little Rock.  It was a good idea for a gift, and I am pretty pumped about going.  No yoke.  

Elvis is everywhere

On Thursday afternoon, my friend Susan announced that she wanted to go to Friday happy hour at Chuy's off of Knox-Henderson.  See, yesterday was Elvis Presley's 81st birthday, and in honor of the occasion, they would be featuring an Elvis tribute artist during happy hour.  

I had always said impersonator, but apparently, it's tribute artist.  At that rate, I suppose drag queens are female tribute artists.  Anyhow, Let me cut to the chase.  Here: 

Awesome, right?  I had never seen an Elvis tribute artist before, nor had Cas.  We had already agreed to go and determined that we were down to clown before we realized that Susan and Elvis were both celebrating a birthday on the 8th.

Of course, there was Cake.  A Priscilla tribute artist (oh, screw it- I want to say impersonator...) walked around the restaurant, handing out Twinkies.  She kept calling them Elvis food.  So, there was cake.

There was also a real cake, but Cas and I left before that was cut.  In all honesty, the Elvis impersonator was a very good singer and quite a charismatic performer.  He also did something that was brilliant on several ways.  Other Elvis-looking men arrived, and he invited them to sing a song.  It did three things: 

1. It made the other Elvises happy
2. It gave him a break
3. It reminded the crowd who the talented one was

The other Elvises kind of sucked.  And this one was very talented.  

Today is Richard Nixon's birthday.  It's also my mom's birthday.  I imagine it would have been much cooler for her as a young person to share the date with Elvis rather than Tricky Dick, but either one is better than me sharing my date with Princess Diana's death.  Talk about a bummer.  I also share my birthday with Van Morrison, so he and I have to hear about a dead princess whenever we have cake.  I think Susan wins, though, because as Mojo Nixon said, Elvis is everywhere.  

Get thee to the buffery

Cliche though it may be, I decided that this was the time to get up off my butt and find some place to go exercise.  I thought I would be able to walk in my neighborhood, but I am very gifted at finding any excuse in the world to avoid a walk.  The couch is too comfy.  I just want to put away the dishes.  I have one little thing to do for school.  Whatever.  I am great with the procrastination on that.

That's why I thought it would be really good to have a place to go and actually exercise.  I tried out the Anytime Fitness by the house.  I guess I have been building to it for a while, but yesterday, I pulled the trigger and got myself a free one-week pass.  I did that on the Internet.  And then, miraculously, I went into the place.  Who knew I could do that?  They were very kind and accommodating.  I told them I kind of wanted to be left alone so I could climb imaginary stairs and ride a bike that goes nowhere.  That seemed to make sense to them.

I started out yesterday with just that- the elliptical and the stationary bike.  I spent ten minutes on the elliptical and 15 on the bike.  Today, I went for ten on the elliptical again, but I bumped up the bike time to 20 minutes and managed another ten on a treadmill.  I think I may actually be able to sustain this.  Who knows?

Either way, I must be super-buff by now.  I have gone exactly twice to the buffery.  It's not the worst thing...

Ding! Round two

I have to go to work tomorrow.  Blegh.  I have no urge to go, and I can't imagine I am alone in that.  I suppose that's why we have two days to go in and work before the kids come back.  Yesterday, Cas and I spent our last day in South Carolina.  We went to Sesquicentennial State Park with Jeff and the kids.  It was a pretty fun day.

The park has a GPS based activity that you can do on a cellphone.  It's called Geo Caching.  You use GPS to locate a box or a bag or something, and when you find it, you sign the log book.  There are little trinkets and artifacts people put in the box, and the rule is that you have to add something if you want to remove something.  I had never done this before, and none of us had anything much along, so to retrieve a rubber ducky from the box, Cas and I put in the one thing I was willing to part with- a half a bottle of hotel lotion.  

There was a very pretty lake we walked around, as well. 

The boys each took a turn drawing in the log books at the three different boxes we found before we all headed back downtown for a pizza lunch.  

Just outside the pizza place, there was a rather large statue of a gamecock.  Everything in the city is college mascot themed, and that mascot is, of course, the gamecock.  Apparently, it's the only place any of us can think, of  where it's totally appropriate to shout "Go Cocks!" aloud.  

Jeff, the boys and I all went to get pizza, and after that, we went over to the state house.  It is the very building that made the news last year when protest after protest demanded the removal of a confederate battle flag that flew there.  

The building is beautiful, and we arrived just in time for the last guided tour of the day.  It was very pretty, and the tour gave a pretty half-baked view of the state's history.  She talked about Strom Thurmond and John C. Calhoun, speaking about the great service they provided to the country and to the people of South Carolina.  She failed to mention what huge racist bigots they were.  I guess there are some things you should leave out when you give a tour, but I kind of wanted to make sure the boys got the whole story.  Jeff did, too.  We pulled them aside and mentioned the enormity of the racism.  Still, it was a pretty building.  

Cas and I had a rather uneventful flight home, and Jeanne picked us up from DFW.  When we got back to the house, we watched a very stupid movie and went to sleep very early.  It was a rather large and full day, and sleep was not eluding us at its close.  Today, I went to Mom and Dad's house and spent a little time with Danny taking a ride in his new car.  I also took a second look at the document I may need to use for tomorrow if I have to do any training.  About two weeks ago, I sat down with Brook and talked about teaching a segment for teachers on Google Docs.  I then failed to think about it at all for two weeks.  Blegh.  

Then the second semester comes on Wednesday and it's round two.  We're halfway through the year, which means we're one step closer to summer and the big trip.  

Jolly boy suckers

This afternoon, we pulled out the version of Trivial Pursuit that Jeff had handy and started up a game. It appears that version six has some particularly stupid questions. The whole game was aggravating and most of the questions walked the line between useless and impossible.

We did come across some great phrasing. Apparently, the guy who started the Good Humor ice cream company was inspired by a brand of suckers called Jolly Boy. As it turns out, the emphasis on the syllables matters just as much as the placement of pauses when you say that. Jolly boy-suckers sounds pretty horrifying. Jolly-boy suckers is less horrible. 

Jeff made dinner, and after that, the three of us went out for a beer, followed by some hot chocolate. Good times. I think it was about time to get Jeff out at a bar. Sure, he's a totally responsible adult and he only had one beer, but it was still good to get him out where he could talk about what was really on his mind without worrying how his kids would interpret his words. 

We have a little bit of a nature walk planned for tomorrow, and I am, of course, down to clown. That's our last big deal before Cas and I head back to the airport. After that, it's back to reality. Ugh. 

In my mind, I'm goin' to Carolina

Cas and I are waking up on the first day of 2016 in Columbia, South Carolina. Actually, I already woke up, grabbed a plate of food from the continental breakfast, ate an egg sandwich and got back into my pajamas. He appears to still be sleeping. No matter.

We arrived Wednesday and picked up our rental car. We drove into downtown trying to find a Starbucks, but instead, we found a parking headache and a funny gas station. 

We carried on to Jeff's house and hung out with him for a while. It turns out that kitty decided to leave town and visit a friend while we would be around. Fine by me. I was just coming because Jeff had to stay in South Carolina for Christmas, and I missed my brother. 

Cas and I have one more full day and a partial day in town before we head back to the reality of teaching school. I'm not overly excited about launching into the second semester, but I think I'll be happy when it starts. This certainly has been a great couple of work-free weeks.