Caught up on most of my TV watching, I decided to give Castle a shot. I'd seen the first episode of this show a few weeks ago, back in Raleigh, and thought it was OK. I may have given it a brief review here— I forget. The show boils down to Nathan Fillion's character and the repartee between him and the woman cop. From the three episodes I've seen now, the crime stories each week are fairly uninspired. Anyway, I found the episodes on Hulu, but instead of playing through the Hulu website itself, the shows are linked back to ABC.
ABC is bad news when it comes to online viewing. Their viewer software runs in a separate window and has to be loaded every time you go to the site. In addition, the commercial breaks are more frequent— roughly twice as frequent as Hulu— run longer, and require the viewer at home to click after each commercial has finished in order to resume the program. The ABC viewer also does not 'remember' where you were in the video stream if you interrupt and return to it later. If you return to watch the second half of something, not only do you have to wait for the viewing software to load again, but you have to endure the initial commercial again as well as another commercial when you skip (approximately) back to where you were before. Given the fact that Castle is somewhat lackluster and formulaic, I believe I'll forgo having to endure the ABC software just to catch it.
If you've visited my front door any time in the last nine months, you're doubtlessly one of the many people to tell me that my front door knob was falling off. About a year ago, the insides began breaking apart, and after a few months the door knob was almost completely useless. Holding it at an angle, I could apply just enough lateral pressure to pull the door shut. The lock was completely unusable. So, since then, I've been using the deadbolt to lock the door when necessary. (In my neighborhood, it's always necessary!) I had sworn off the deadbolt many years earlier after discovering that it had a slight catch and frequently didn't want to withdraw the last 1/8th of an inch. This made it nearly impossible at times to open the front door, and I have frequently had to use the back door to get inside, whereupon I then had to spend some time coercing the deadbolt to finally slide completely free. A few months ago I happened to be in a hardware store and walk past the doorknobs when it occurred to me to by one and replace the two faulty pieces of hardware. Yesterday I finally got around to it— after a wrestling session with the deadbolt— and it turned out to be surprisingly easy. I didn't even have to use the directions. In about 20 minutes I had both replaced, and what a joy it has been since then to pull the door shut without having to worry about pulling the knob off. I briefly felt like a mechanical genius!
Back outside of Asheville, North Carolina, I awoke fairly early on Monday, the 9th of March. I could hear one or more people moving about upstairs (Kath and/or Bob), and I could hear Russell sawing logs in the next room. Quite refreshed, I showered and repacked everything for our exit later in the morning. Then I crept up the stairs, not wishing to startle anyone. Kath was nowhere to be seen and Bob had taken off to work for the day so I stepped out onto that wonderful porch. The air had a hint of morning coolth, and everything was quiet. I stood there for a few minutes before hearing a woodpecker in the distance. Then, with no notice, I saw another woodpecker fly up to and land in a tree about 40 feet ahead of me. In a few minutes, it began its singularly noisy hunt for food. It made me so happy to stand there and listen to the woodpeckers.
In short order, Kath found me, and Russell awoke. She was soon off to work, and we packed the car and made our own departure. We were not on the road very long before Russell realized he'd forgotten to pass on something to his sister from their mother. So, our second stop of the morning was at Kath's place of employment, a bereavement center. (Our first stop was at The Waffle House, a wonderful restaurant I would eat at all the time if we had any here in SoCal.) Back on the road again, we wound our way down out of the NC mountains, bound for South Carolina. I, of course, began dozing on and off immediately.
Around lunch time we hit Russell's Alma mater, Clemson, in South Carolina. We circled the campus once in the car, with Russell pointing out all manner of highlights, then Russell made a brief attempt to contact two old friends, neither of whom was available that day. So, we got lunch at one of Russell's old hangouts before hitting the road again.
The remainder of our trip through South Carolina and Georgia, to Atlanta, went quickly. Try as I might, I couldn't stay awake. Despite wanting to get to Atlanta before three o'clock and bad traffic, we didn't get there until sometime after 4 PM.
For the first ten entries of this travelogue, I have been able to weave together my memories with the events of the day. In Atlanta, however, I don't have that luxury. With the exception of several layovers in the airport, I've never spent any time in Atlanta prior to this visit. (Unless we stopped in the city during a family vacation thirty or more years ago, and I've completely forgotten.) My anecdotal history with Atlanta consists of making a layover there in the summer of 1981 and running into a guy I knew vaguely from my college dorm the year before. So, I apologize in advance if it seems like I have nothing to say about Atlanta despite spending more time there than almost any other place on this vacation.
Russell and I approached the city through one of its suburbs, Buckhead. Buckhead is a big city in its own right, and were it not placed right next to Atlanta, one would doubtlessly hear about it more. It has its own downtown full of skyscrapers that I initially mistook for Atlanta itself. Buckhead is much newer than Atlanta though, and as you drive around its different neighborhoods, you can't not notice how clean and new it all looks.
Leaving Buckhead we then spent the better part of an hour slowly circling Atlanta. We avoided the downtown initially in favor of the historical neighborhoods. What beautiful big houses are everywhere! After we finally reached Russell's neighborhood, we veered off and headed into downtown, it now being late enough to avoid most traffic. I found Atlanta to be a great looking city, and I'm sure I would enjoy spending more time there. It has a bold skyline and many vantage points around the city to admire the view, several of which are quite near Russell's home.
There's not much else to say about this day. We threw our bags into Russell's place and relaxed for a bit. Then we went to an 'old Atlanta' establishment for dinner, a restaurant named The Colonnade. The Colonnade is delightfully placed in the heart of a burgeoning pornography neighborhood— there were titty bars all over the place!
Part 14 tomorrow.
Until next time!
"I've always liked Atlanta. And not just for the strip clubs, but the shopping and the food."— Jon Stewart
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