Adventures in the Colonial 'burg: June 2008

Monday, June 30, 2008

Seriously?

Alright, yet another signal that our society is on its way down:

So yesterday was Corbett's birthday (29 for those counting). We didn't do much but clean as his mother arrives tomorrow afternoon. We did a little shopping and went to dinner at Das Wald Cafe, a German restaurant in Newport News. This was a very very last minute decision (we had another place in mind but this came up and we figured we wanted to try it).

Now, this is the second German place we've tried in the area. The first was Eckhardt's, which I posted about a while ago (too lazy to link to the old post). That got two thumbs up from us but not Missy and Trey, who are fans of Das Wald Cafe. Sonya and Chris for the first time tried DWC (they were fans of Eckhardt's) a couple weeks ago and were not fans. So what about us, you might be wondering, "What do you like, Christopher?" (Or you might be wondering why in God's name am I blathering on about this, and to that I say shut up, because dammit I was an Army brat and I love German food so I will blather as much as I want.)

I have to say, Eckhardt's was by far a better establishment. The food here was fine, but they used canned mushrooms on the Jägerschnitzel, the Wiener Schnitznel was okay but a little tough (for veal, at least), and the spätzel was also not the greatest. That said, it is a lot closer than Eckhardt's, and definitely cheap, so I would go back there, but not with the folks.

Friday, June 27, 2008

At least the 'burg cares...

You know, I don't live in the best apartment in the world, by any means. But, it's inexpensive for what you get, I do like the location (although a lot of people call this the "bad part of town," but honestly, I've lived in Harlem and North St. Louis City -- but again, as in almost every city in the US, bad part means "not white"), and they have gas stoves and I don't pay the gas bill. And despite some problems here and there, they have been fine until now.

The A/C broke last week. (Note: it's 103 today.) They don't care. I'm "on the list," and apparently my threat to call the 'burg didn't make them budge (the new manager basically said to go ahead). So I did. The inspector came out immediately and found what was wrong, and told the office they have to fix it today. If not, they get fined, or something (hopefully that won't happen because I just want the thing fixed!).

I want to make fliers and give them to everyone in the complex to have them do the same. I feel bad that I jumped ahead in line, but whatever. I'll get over it. If I have everyone call the 'burg to complain, then the apartment complex will have to do something other than ignore people's pleas for not dying of heat.

Thursday, June 26, 2008

What's in a name?

Why can I not spell my own name correctly? I mean, seriously, I've been spelling it for more than 25 years. (I don't recall when I first learned how to, but it was of course early in my childhood, and I don't have the energy to go through the math.)

I think every email I've written in the last three days, I've had to erase and retype my name. Sometimes twice. Once three times.

Sigh.

Wednesday, June 25, 2008

Fires in the Dismal Swamp

So it's very smoky here in the 'burg today. The not-yet-ending fires in the Dismal Swamp (which borders North Carolina and Virginia, and thus is ~2 hours from here by car) are sending smoke up this way, and now it's rather unpleasant to be outside. It's not terrible, and at first it just smells like someone is having a barbeque. Then it smells like someone is burning leaves (remember when that seemed like the norm?). Then you start to gag a bit because it's everywhere. In fact, I can sort of smell it inside the building here at the College. Very nice.

Corbett still thinks it's a crazy name for a swamp, however, I figure it is rather dismal. Besides, "Death Valley" isn't the most inviting name for a location either. I'd welcome dismal over death any day.

Tuesday, June 24, 2008

Blitzkrieg!

This was a whirlwind of a weekend. I will let you read Melinda's post for a description of the wedding we attended in NY this weekend. I will just regale you with the before and after of it all.

We left bright and early (both of us extremely crabby) Saturday morning, to drop Dante off at the kennel at 7:30am. Yeah, you heard that right. Then we drove for over nine hours on what should have been around a sevenish hour drive (okay, so we took a nice relaxing lunch which took some time, but that was only an hour). You see, we couldn't stay at Corbett's place, as it is being sublet to some strangers. So we stayed in Woodside, in Queens, and stupidly followed Google's suggestion to go through Staten Island to Brooklyn to get there. Now, I'm sure the traffic in Manhattan would have been miserable, too, but I don't know 'cause we didn't go that way. So we were stuck for nearly an hour on the Staten Island Expressway (my ass).

But we made it with enough time to rest, shower, and get to the wedding on time, to start gorging on wine on an empty stomach.

The trip home was not as terrible, but it did happen the next day, with very little sleep (getting to the hotel at 3am and awaking at 10am after a large alcoholic fest is not smart), after a fantastic brunch in the East Village with the Magster. That was great because I didn't get to talk to her as much as I'd want at the wedding itself. The drive home was made much much much nicer because Sonya and Chris picked up Dante from the kennel so we didn't have get back to the 'burg by 6pm (you can see a bit of D's adventures there on Sonya's blog). Of course, we got back and felt kind of rude since we were tired and starving and just wanted to rest, so we didn't stay too long to chat with S&C, but I made up for that by giving Sonya some Lattice Conference posters for the Business School. What? I'm sure B-school peeps would love to come to the Lattice Conference.

That, incidentally, is the only thing on my mind right now. Lots of prep to be done, and I will not bore you with the details. Yet.

That's for another post when I want to take a break.

Wednesday, June 18, 2008

Potty mouth

I have a weird fascination with rather mundane things, as any of you who know me already realize. That said, I am either the first person on the third floor of Small Hall to use the Men's Room in the mornings, or other people like to go to the restroom with the door open.

I don't know why this lingers on my mind every morning, but it does. See, the cleaning people leave the door propped open after cleaning it in the mornings, presumably to let the floor dry faster, or whatever. So when I go, I close it behind me. I assume others would do the same, but then again, not everyone feels the need to flush or have clean hands.

Monday, June 16, 2008

Sex and the 'burg

We saw the Sex and the City movie this weekend, and both were impressed. I have to say, for a movie follow-up to a TV series, this definitely ranks in the top five (along with Serenity, for example). I haven't much more to say about it, but it will definitely be a re-watcher.

Besides that, the weekend was rather normal. We saw the last episode of BSG before the hiatus (yikes!), and the movie Saturday, and Sunday was a relaxing day for the most part, including a bargain shopping spree (Big Lots, TJ Max, and Marshall's--oh yeah, we're livin' it up), and dinner with S&C and Amber & Jason.

The best part of the shopping was the TJ Max portion. Corbett, you see, needed a new belt. So while he was perusing said new belts, I wandered off to look at other shiny things. At some point I came back, to be asked my opinion about something, when from the C-man there came a gasp. Those who know him realize this is nothing more than an often standard reaction to life. Then came the reason for the gasp.

He said, "Where's my belt!?"

See, as he was looking through the new belts he had taken his off, and placed it with the other, new, belts. If you've ever been to TJ Max, you'll recall that often the accessories sections are like disasterous swap meets, things strewn about like crazy. It took about five minutes to find his belt, all the while thinking that he is really the only person I know who could lose his belt in public. Seriously.

Wednesday, June 11, 2008

Us 'burgers

Pyzam Family Sticker Toy
Create your own family sticker graphic at pYzam.com

I ran out and got them immediately...

I read this and just had to buy the following myself.

I must say, endangered chocolate-vanilla animals are rather flavorless.

Return

I am back from Mainz, as many people may already know. Laurie was here when I returned, and we had a great time (even though she and Corbett bonded a little too much in my absence). There were colonial ghost stories and colonial meals, movies and television watching (such as two BSG episodes!!), and probably not enough sleeping on Laurie's part. This is pretty much standard for whenever I visit her or vice versa, and it is definitely 100% my fault. I have no guilt or shame however, as I fear she sometimes plans to sleep her life away. I'm just doing a good deed.

One thing we all did while she was here that really was fantastic was to take a tour of the 'burg Winery. I know, I know, you're thinking, "Virginia wine?! That must taste like pure southern garbage!" In fact, the few wines from there we've tasted have been at best tolerable (and well, cheap). But the tour was eight bucks a person, and we got the equivalent of two glasses of wine (at least) to taste at the end. And I have got to tell you, there were some wines that were just fantastic! So we are going to probably bring Corbett's mom on the reserve wine tour ($30 per, but all the best wines they've got!), and see what else they have to offer. Also, we got to keep the wine glasses which is useful since we keep breaking ours.

The last day (yesterday) of Laurie's presence involved us driving her the three hours to her la-de-da university where she gets to teach "smart" high school students. Except for Corbett's addiction to a new game on my iPod (in other words, the trip down was great but after dropping Laurie off I got to spend three hours essentially alone in the car), this was a fun journey to visit a town much cheaper than the 'burg. After that however, I was wiped and barely got out of bed to get to work this morning.

And Sonya, I can't believe you were upset with the postcard you begged me to send.

Thursday, June 5, 2008

One more full day...

So the day is almost over here, and I'll have one more day in Mainz before I fly out on Saturday. It'll be good to get home.

Yesterday I took the day off and finally wandered around the city. I went to the Dom (Cathedral) and the Gutenberg museum (where they have one old and two new testaments from the original Gutenberg Bibles). That was okay, but not the most spectacular museum. Besides that (and dodging the random rainstorms that occurred), I just sort of walked around enjoying the city until Karl met up with me from Heidelberg.

Although his train was about 50 minutes late, he made it safely here, and we walked briskly (it was drizzling) to a restaurant to have a beer and catch up. We again wandered around the city until we were hungry enough to eat and then had beers again later, where we were met by Vlad and Marc, who had recently returned from Bochum.

It was fun seeing him, and good catching up. Apparently he's making the move from Heidelberg to Paris in December, so this was probably the last time to see him while he still lived in Germany. Of course, by the time he left and we left, it was well after midnight so getting up this morning was a little difficult. Now I'm sort of ready for sleep, but that'll have to wait until after dinner. Alas.

Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Virginia TV

OK, so I know I never blog. I've hardly even read this one. But I felt I needed to share this priceless Virginia moment.

Because I am now alone here, I have nothing to do with my evenings other than 1) work, or 2) rip classical CDs I've checked out of the library. Since I was sick of writing and have milked the poor libraries dry, I found myself tonight, mouth agape, watching the two-hour long "So You Think You Can Dance" marathon extravaganza, otherwise known as "The Gayest Thing On Television." In the midst of this fascinating experience, the following commercial aired:

http://www.vahealth.org/wic/bfwic/BreastfeedingPromotion/vbs-0006B.mpg

Now, I don't watch much television, but... breastfeeding? I can understand dairy farmers promoting milk, or even a breast pump manufacturer encouraging mothers to feed their children breast milk, but why advertise something that has no commercial gain or political significance? Who cares if you breastfeed? Maybe we should start a new ad campaign: "Circumcise!" Should mothers even be getting medical advice about their children from a television commercial? I, for one, know that my older sister was jaundiced as a baby and my mother was told to stop breastfeeding because it was making the jaundice worse. I was thus spared the fate of having to suck that teat, and look at me! I'm fine...

Then, shortly afterwards, I see this:

http://www.forbetterlife.org/be-inspired/tv.asp?id=3204

Optimism! Are they serious?! People must be really miserable here to need this kind of encouragement (unless it was just a vocabulary lesson, in which case I completely understand). Here are a few more ideas for the better life gurus: "Punctuality!" "Cleanliness!" "Table Manners!" (never mind the more ethically relevant "Kindness," "Tolerance," and "Compassion" ) This is a red state, right? I thought Republicans wanted the government to stay out of people's business. . .

Corbett

P.S. Laurie gets here tomorrow! Woo-hoo!

Monday, June 2, 2008

Von Mainz nach Brugge nach Koeln nach Mainz

So I am back in Mainz after a brief trip to Bruges, Belgium. Marc is from there and was planning to visit his mother this weekend, so I (along with Vlad) tagged along. I had never been there before, so it was nice to see something new.

We started Bruges at a brewery, and took a tour. The beer they brew there is called Bruges Zot (the Bruges' Fool), and since the tour ended with a free beer, all the better. We walked all around the city, which is very medieval, since it was a major shipping port during the pre-14th/15th century era, before Ghent became a (presumably safer as it's more inland?) more substantial city. Thus, most everything is sort of preserved from those early days in Flanders.

One of the churches there has a "Madonna and Child" sculpture by Michaelangelo, and it's a gorgeous church in and of itself. The roof was made entirely of red brick, and it's the only church I've seen done that way (I'll show pictures later). After that, lunch, and a trip around the canals on a little mini tour, we had waffles (when in Belgium...), and headed back for dinner at Marc's mom's. Well, before dinner we had to go to the Food Lion (there it's called Delhaize and not nearly as trashy) to get beer and chocolate, but details details.

Sunday was a day on the beach, although I must say that Belgians have a different idea of beach weather...I had my jacket on the entire time...But it was still a nice relaxing day.

One of the highlights of the journey was when we arrived at 1:30am Friday night (Sat morning), after Marc's mom had fed us, we were all chatting about who-knows-what, and his mom came in and yelled at us (it was 2:30 by this point) for not going to bed yet, because we needed to "schlafen" before we got up to head to town the next morning. I felt like I was in high school again.

Since Vlad and Marc had to head up to Bochem, I was dropped off at the train station in Cologne, and just headed back here to my exciting life in Mainz. I will just chat with the C-man for a while and head home to a nice "home cooked" dinner. Good times.