Not able to sleep right away, though, I nearly got up and posted another blog entry. I felt bad about the short one I left yesterday. Laziness won out.
This afternoon, with lunch in front of me, I pulled up Hulu and decided to give Dollhouse a shot. Because Hulu only has the five most recent episodes, I had decided to wait on this series, as the first episode had already disappeared. In fact, when I got there today, episode no. 4 was the earliest. I decided to go ahead with it anyway. I'll just be a Johnny-come-lately.
This will be the final episode of my travelogue. There's not much more to say.
I arrived in Raleigh, NC, again on Thursday afternoon. For anyone who might need catching up, Raleigh is where my brother and his family live. It's a beautiful area of the country, full of hills and tall trees.
When I got there I discovered that Katie, best friend of my niece, would be staying the entire weekend as well, as her parents were out of town. Christina and Katie are so much fun to watch when they're together— they make one forget how awful some teenagers can be!
If you'll recall, Russell and I briefly stopped here on our way south, and I git my first chance at that time to meet Tesla and Darwin, the new family dogs. Their reactions on seeing me again were no different than they were the first time— Tesla shied away from me, and Darwin very actively did not like me, preferring to stay in the kitchen and bark at me from a distance whenever possible. In fact, their reactions stayed largely the same throughout my visit. Eventually, Tesla let me pick her up— with visible reticence!— but Darwin never let go of her dislike for me. She must have had an early negative experience with someone who looks like me. That distresses me a bit as I love dogs so much.
'My room' upstairs is everything one could hope for when traveling. The bed is big and comfortable and there's wireless in the house. Even though I didn't immediately resume blogging, it was so nice to be able to re-connect to the world on a regular basis. Up until this point, my access was non-existent or tenuous. At Russell's parents the wireless wasn't configured correctly and would allow no Internet access. At his sister's house, there was no wireless at all. In Atlanta, at Russell's, he had no wireless set up, but I could see the many networks of his neighbors. For several minutes each night I could piggy-back on one of their unsecured networks to get some basic communication. The connection was never strong and rarely lasted long though.
Sad to say, everyone knew exactly how to keep Uncle John entertained while he was visiting— the Wii and the PS3 came on immediately. There were, however, no new games for the PS3 so it rarely made a re-appearance during the weekend. The Wii, however, had some fun new additions to its library. I was introduced to Boom Blox and could hardly put it down the rest of the visit. Among its many modes of play, Boom Blox offers a Jenga-styled experience of removing pieces from 3D tower. Other games have one throwing balls at stacked blocks to knock them all down or to knock certain ones down. And these games are but a small part of the experience. Had I a Wii, I would probably by this game immediately. We also played Tiger Woods Golf, which was quite fun as well. I was never much of a golfer, but I almost always have some sort of computer golfing game available to me. If I had a Wii, that might be my new one.
So Friday morning I stayed at home and slept in while everyone else went to work or school. I got up late-ish, and got to enjoy a few hours of the Wii and listening to Darwin bark at me before Jeff came home (early). The rest of the day was pretty much spent with errands, which was fine by me. As I have often said, when I'm in a new place (or relatively new) I can spend hours just looking out the windows of the car Jeff and I stopped by Tiger Direct and said 'Hi' to my nephew, Austin, at work. Then we went to pick up the girls at school and had a late lunch at Steak-n-Shake. As it was Friday, pizza was on the menu for the night, but as the afternoon and early evening progressed, we learned that the younger generation had other plans. Austin went out with friends and the girls got picked up for a night at the movies. So pizza was enjoyed by only Denise, Jeff, and myself. It was good pizza, and I was touched by the very sincere offer I got from both Jeff and Denise to use 'my room' for a longer period of time, if the job situation never gets better here in California.
Denise had pre-enlisted Jeff and myself to assist on Saturday morning at the Raleigh St Patrick's Day Parade. Denise and Christina would be representing the Girl Scouts by selling cookies and water, and Jeff and I were to help carrying the cookies and water back and forth. It sounded like fun, but the rain was so steady that the parade was cancelled on Friday. So Saturday ended up being relatively play-by-ear. When I got, somewhat late again, and only minutes after Jeff, Denise was already gone, though, and she didn't return for a few hours. Naturally, this meant more Wii time for those of us still at home. (Austin was at work.) The day passed this way. Eventually Denise returned home, and a plan for the evening was decided upon. Denise wanted to try a new Irish pub that had opened up. However, when the six of us got there, the place was wall to wall with seasonally Irish celebrants. We changed our venue to a Dave & Buster's knock-off aimed at a younger crowd, and enjoyed a somewhat non-descript meal accompanied by rounds of Hangman on the napkins, and followed by some time in the arcade.
On Sunday, Austin was back at work, and the girls spent the afternoon bowling with friends. That left Denise and Jeff and myself alone again so we went downtown to the Raleigh History Museum and checked out a pirate exhibit that was currently in town. I have never been one much to enjoy pirates. Even early on, I recognized that what we were being served as 'pirates' was surely far from the truth. I enjoy a good pirate movie for the adventure and fun of it without ceding that it is anything like a real pirate story. This exhibit, however, really opened my eyes to the pirate experience. There was enough information and enough recreations and artifacts gathered together to give one a slight taste of what it must really have been like. Plus, the Carolinas were a hotbed of real pirate activity, which proximity made them even more interesting. I left the exhibit having quite enjoyed it and having had my eyes opened for the first time to what others might see of interest in pirate history.
I left Raleigh bright and early Monday morning— well, dark and early, technically! I was crammed into a window seat, by choice, and couldn't believe the level of rudeness I saw amongst my fellow passengers. Something needs to be done about carry-on baggage. With the airlines now charging for 'excess baggage'— that is, for even one checked bag!— they have turned the already bad carry-on situation into a nightmare. No one wants to check bags any more. As we're supposed to do, I stow one bag under the seat in front of me. Since I now carry a laptop with me, I put my laptop overhead. Other people come on with two full-size bags and don't even pretend to stow one under the seat in front of them any longer. On this particular flight it got so bad that the passengers started bitching at each other about who was right and who was wrong. Then the guy two seats over from me bitched at one of the flight attendants for allowing the situation to get out of control. I wish she had slugged him right then and there. I wanted to ask the guy if he really thought that she was the one making the policies that were now so out of control. It turned out that both he and the guys sitting directly next to me were both business fliers and had not a moment for conversation or pleasantries during the entire flight. I'm not one to spend a lot of flying time yakking with my neighbors, but I do try to establish some sort of common ground to make for a friendly flight.
So, that's it for my grand travelogue. I wish the end had been as interesting as the beginning. I hope anyone that made it all the way through had a enjoyable read... at least most of the time.
I started writing my story for the Blizzard contest the other night. I only have another week to get it submitted so I won't have any extras in my blog for awhile. Big things are coming though. I hope you'll stick around for them!
Until next time!
"Heroes know that things must happen when it is time for them to happen. A quest may not simply be abandoned; unicorns may go unrescued for a long time, but not forever; a happy ending cannot come in the middle of the story."— Peter S. Beagle
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