Saturday, September 01, 2001

Charlotte NC 1

Bright and early in a very quiet house... Not used there being no traffic noise, feel like everything I do makes a huge echo

Discovery Zone - pictures, play area for Alexa, go early because it was a zoo after 10am (we got there right at 9am)

Charlotte Speed Way - Fast Track driving school pictures

Alexa's dancing (pictures, movie of Alexa, movie of Bryan's dancing)

posted by Wuphon's at 8:05 PM

Odometer 001250 - Charlotte NC

Woke up Friday morning and spent a while sitting out on the balcony, watching the fog in the valley, waiting for the sun to come up while I drank my morning cup of coffee. (It was very nice and relaxing.) Since I woke up at 5:30am, I was able to get out the door and on the road by 7am. Made it down just a little before noon yesterday. Harris Blvd was a busy road with rude drivers (I've seen politer driving on Long Island NY) when I got into town shortly before lunch yesterday. Bryan & Vicki say that it's because Charlotte has been built-out so fast these past few years and the planners keep allowing more and more residential areas to be put up.

The weather here has been very dry lately. The two thunderstorms that came through last evening is the first rain that they've gotten in a few weeks. So of course it's going to rain while I'm on vacation in the area, neh?

First impressions of the area is that it's "pretty" like Columbia MD (I don't think this area is as "planned"), but I really don't care for Columbia MD (it's too cookie-cutter with few landmarks). Guess I like my towns and cities to have a more distinctive flavor (I haven't been downtown yet, only running around suburbia). So we'll see what it's like tomorrow, maybe I can get them to take me for a drive around the city this evening for an hour or so.

Not sure what we're going to do today, but we have lots of options. I'd like to see the gold mine, and I'd like to see Bryan doing his blacksmithing thing (which would make for some good pictures). I'll try to put up pictures later (I can come back and edit these entries once I put everything up).

Alexa is a precocious little two year old. She's walking pretty good now, but has to wear little inserts in her shoes for a few hours each day. Her pre-school starts next week (only 2 days a week for a few hours); so Vicki is looking forward to having a little bit of time to do some shopping/errands during those times.

posted by Wuphon's at 5:36 AM

Thursday, August 30, 2001

Odometer 000950 - Harrisonburg VA

The trip down wasn't too bad so far, I left around 1:30pm (right after lunch), but it took 90 minutes to get to Chambersburg with all of the stop-n-go traffic on US 30. The weather was mostly cloudy until I got to VA when it decided to change to thunderstorms with heavy downpours. Pity, because I'm on the 4th floor of the hotel on top of a small hill, with a nice balcony that overlooks Harrisonburg VA in the valley below. Maybe it will be nice weather in the morning and I can get a nice picture before I leave.

Tomorrow's drive is a lot longer, about 300 miles to Charlotte (should only take 5 hrs since it's all highway driving) vs the 200 miles that I drove today. Fortunately, I-81 in VA has rest areas about every 50 or 60 miles so it's easy to find a place to pull off and stretch for a few minutes. Looking at the map, I see that NC also has rest areas on I-77. I'm hoping to be on the road by 7am so that I can get to Charlotte around lunchtime.

posted by Wuphon's at 8:21 PM

Looks like rain

Looks like I may be in for a few days of rain at the start of my vacation. (Hopefully that doesn't mean that I'm going to get hit with a hurricane, but that it does mean that the weather will clear up for the 2nd half of vacation.)

posted by Wuphon's at 10:31 AM

Wednesday, August 29, 2001

Only 30 hrs to go until vacation

The frenzy has begun... time to make my lists and check them twice (but I'm not trying to find out who's been naughty or nice). The car is broken in, I have a good feel for how it handles, and it's stocked with all the odds-n-ends that you need on a trip (like the little things such as kleenex, pens, lip balm). I've got my music ready for the trip, my japanese language CDs have been converted to MP3s so I can listen to them on the long drives. The misc debris in the back of the car (maps, jumper cables, emergency stuff, first aid kit) is all stored away nicely in a duffel bag. The apartment is clean and I have someone scheduled to come water my plants every day and bring my mail in. There's just so much to do and I have to work off of a list because I'll be gone for so long that it would be a real hassle if I forget something important.

Now I just need to learn how to hand wash my car (can't take it to a car wash because of the cargo box and Thule rack system)... I tried to wash it yesterday and the only thing I did wrong was not having something to wipe the water off when I was done (so it's all spotted again). My old car was a 1985 Ford Crown Victoria LTD with a really bad complexion that never respondent to washing or waxing so I just ran it through the auto-washes and tried to keep the dirt from getting too thick. Now, of course, with the new car I'm much more inclined to keep it clean (it looks so sweet when it's dark and shiny).

posted by Wuphon's at 7:56 AM

Monday, August 27, 2001

Health Update

Well, the doctor gave me a clean bill of health and told me to continue doing what I'm doing (she says my recommended weight is around 180 lbs, so I only have another 20 lbs to go, and that 180 lbs may be on the lean side for my frame).

I was happy to see my blood pressure drop from 134/82 to 124/66, I didn't think I had been able to affect that number at all. (See What do the numbers in a blood pressure reading mean? for info on what those numbers mean.) That's good news because trouble starts when you have readings above 140 systolic or 90 diastolic (which indicates possible hypertension). I've been trying to watch my sodium intake as well, but losing the weight also played a role.

Now that I've lost the weight, I'm starting to enjoy being outside and being active again (I had a great time just screwing around on the trails out at Rocky Ridge on Saturday evening; even if it was a little bit beyond my capabilities). So that's a big bonus and something that will make me want to keep the weight off.

posted by Wuphon's at 4:38 PM (0 comments)

Welcome

Welcome to my new location! Glad you made it, hope you didn't get lost along the way.

[deep contented sigh] Pardon while I stretch out, GeoCities was starting to feel a litttle bit cramped (my new provider is very generous with the disk space).

Well, curl yourself up, get a cup of hot chocolate and take a leisurely tour through the archives while you're here...

Can you tell that I'm in a mellow mood? It's because I understand the situation now that I've been wondering about this weekend. What a difference just a small bit of information can make to my emotional state. Actually instead of being mad or upset about this weekend, I'm appreciative of what happened (even though it may have seemed upsetting) because it was a reality check that things will never go as planned and life always takes more work than you expect. We all have our weak points, we all have quirks that make us who we are. Relationship/friendship building is all about trying to build links between those various quirks. So I'm mellow yellow and things will be what we make of them. (I can't control events, but I do have control over my reaction to events.) Hopefully we do better in the future...

Was I hurt? Well... yes, but I'm a big boy now. Actually, unless the damage was inflicted maliciously, I don't hold grudges and I bounce back pretty well when things don't go as planned or I feel let down. This was definitely not malicious, just nerves, so now that I have the 411 I'm ready to move on.

posted by Wuphon's at 6:59 AM

Sunday, August 26, 2001

Odometer 650 - Home Sweet Home

Gee, I only put 630 miles on the car since 2pm Friday... (it already had 20 miles on it). I think I've got all the controls figured out now, and I have most everything where I want it, and I have a good idea of how well the car handles. I'm ready for my trip!

posted by Wuphon's at 7:43 PM

Odometer 450

Guess where I went today? That's right, I drove all the way out to the Falling Water house in western Pennsylvania. I was planning on going riding on a rail trail out by exit 9, but when I got close I realized that Falling Water was very close (okay, within an hour) and decided to go there instead.

I left York around 8am and got out to Falling Water right around noontime (I stopped for lunch at the Summit Diner in Somerset, bought a t-shirt too, right off of I-76 exit 10). Since I came by myself, I was able to get in on the very next tour group (they needed to fill a single slot), even without having a reservation. The tour started around 12:30p and took about 90 minutes to tour the entire house and the guest house. After the tour, you're free to wander the grounds for as long as you like. (Admission fee was $15 for an adult.)


Falling Water is currently undergoing renovations (and has been from 1997), but they expect to complete the renovations by spring of 2002.

Most of the furniture in the house was designed by FLW and built-in as part of the house. But in the passageway connecting the main house to the stairs up to the guest house were a pair of beautiful Japanese style furniture. One was about 3 feet wide and about 6 1/2 feet tall, the other piece was about 18 inches tall and about 5 or 6 feet long. Both had the Japanese style circular metal work for the latch plates and the Japanese style metal work on the corners and cross pieces. (I'll have to check this for sure when I get home.)

Right now, it's threatening to rain and it's hot and humid so I'm dripping wet as I sit in the shade writing this. (Now to find a cell signal so that I can post it. This was posted at a resturant outside of exit 9 on the PA Turnpike, I posted it at 4pm, don't know why it says 5pm on the timestamp.)

posted by Wuphon's at 5:04 PM