The Vacationer

A week's vacation...it was great.

I have to say though, the worst thing about going on vacation is coming back. What ever happened to spring break?

It started off by me heading up to Knoxville to visit the old college buddies. Saturday night we hit up one of our favorite spots and ended up staying until they turned the lights on. It was great, but I spent the entire next day with a scratchy throat from all the bar smoke. Sunday I made the short drive back to my hometown and ate lunch with the family. There's nothing better than a big, fat, greasy, wholesome, country Sunday lunch! I'm still full from that one, a week ago. Sunday night I was forced to head back to Knoxville because Robinella was playing a live show at my favorite bar in the world.

Monday after lunch I took off again back to my hometown and stayed the night. Pretty non-eventful, but that's what the hometown is all about. It was nice. It was an extra treat to get to see my sister who is getting ready to make me an uncle in about 2 months - It's unbelieveable really. Tuesday I packed up the car and headed back here. Very long, poopy drive, only to come home and pack up the suitcase on Wednesday - (and do my taxes!).

Thursday A and I hopped on separate planes and wound up in Newark, NJ to visit a friend who goes to school nearby. It was AWESOME. There we all met up with another couple whom are the most wonderful friends, and Friday we hopped on a train and headed into NYC.

New York was phenomenal, as always. We did the whole scene, which was entirely different than the last time I was there. It's such a big city. Little Italy, several shops, The Met, Wall St, the NYSE, and Times Square, not to mention the subway experience. The Met had to be my favorite - I've become quite a fan of impressionism, and the Met has entire galleries dedicated to nothing but the aforementioned. Beautiful.

Easter Sunday was unfortunately a travel day. It was packed full of delayed flights, crowded airports, and planes full of crying babies. Typical travel day. The iPod was a lifesaver and helped block out all the screaming kids.

And so today I went back to the jobby job. It wasn't quite as bad as I had been dreading, but then I did drastically dread coming off vacation. Still though, it was a day filled with catch up emails, being behind, tons of paperwork, and still more blah blah blah. It got a bit stressful there for awhile, but I managed. A stopped by the store and got one of those frozen pizzas that takes 60 minutes to cook...MMMmmmmmm. We ate it and watched the previous two (recorded on DVR) episodes of Alias (great show).

I wish I could write more, but then I'd be boring you with all this chatter, and you'd probably never come back to visit me, and that would be bad. So until the next vacation I'll keep working, you keep reading, and we'll make it through.

"So I've Been Driving A Lot!"

I just got back from A's hometown yesterday evening. We've been there over the weekend to visit her parents...and if you've read the entry below you'll understand why I'll say I was forced to watch that movie again. Surprisingly though, it was much more tolerable.

It was absolutely beautiful weather. The temperature reached the high seventies and I just wanted to celebrate. Celebrate we did. Before we even made it to A's house we stopped at a Mellow Mushroom pizza resaurant. I made sure to guzzle down several drafts before completing the journey. (No I was not driving) Anyways, Mellow Mushroom is a cool place with good pizza and a slew of draft beers to choose from. My preference of the day was Sierra Nevada Pale Ale while A was drinking Abita Purple Haze.

After leaving the pizza joint we headed over to see some of A's family. We visited with them for a while and then again went to another restaurant. Now this one was a bit different. Called La Fiesta, one would think it was a Mexican restaurant. It was, but it wasn't very typical. At any rate, I kept drinking and the food tasted great-better and better actually as the night progressed. I spent most of the time speaking with a guy who had just taken the bar exam. I have learned one of the most interesting times to speak to a hotshot cocky straight out of law school lawyer is just after he/she has taken this big damn test. He really was quite funny. I wasn't much interested in the conversation until A was saying something that ended with the phrase "well we really could use..." and the guy just all of a sudden interrupted her. He says, "You know we really could use some more cowbell, I've just got to have more cowbell!" I immediately died laughing at the reference to the SNL skit-it was a welcome surprise out of the blue. But anyway, the guy was completely vulnerable and couldn't really brag about anything, only that he had just completed a three-day session of being completely demoralized. Now that is funny, really-"GOSH!"

Yesterday morning we woke up, then waited for A to get ready for oh, say, two hours. We finally made it out to a really neat Italian restaurant that boasts a "Jazz Brunch" on Sunday mornings. It was great food, (at that point it was well past brunch time) and the music was smoothly cool. It reminded me a lot of Robinella and the CC String Band (Robinella rocks!) for all of you fans out there. Ready to make the 3 hour trek back home, I was ready to go. Someone came up with the brilliant idea to walk all across downtown to see in the window of a closed store a friend owned. But hey, it was only "three red lights away." An hour later we returned back to where we were parked and headed back home.

The beautiful weekend turned into severe thunderstorm warnings as we headed west. Figures. We were able to avoid most of the bad stuff; it mostly sprinkled on us. It was great, there was a huge rainbow that stretched halfway across the sky. I'd never seen a complete one that goes from one spot on the horizon to the other. That means this one would actually have two pots of gold. Sweet.

Now we're home. And A is at work, and I'm about to be.

Back to the grind.