Shocking, but true
Pancakes, sausage and chocolate? On a stick?
Quite a few were still in stock.
9:10 AM
Cumulonimbus
9:07 AM
Pathetic
What's more sad than commercials for stock brokers that feature old rock
music, designed to appeal to retiring baby boomers?
6:22 AM
Waldorf salad
It's got lots of apples, raisins, waldorfs, coconut shreds and celery. Instead of whole mayonnaise, I used fat-free mayonnaise, fat-free plain yogurt and a little honey.
My goodness, it was good.
6:37 AM
August 6
Gone before you know it.
12:52 PM
Lean Cuisine
Today's selection was herb-glazed chicken. I followed the directions: Cut the film, put it in the microwave for about 10 minutes at 50 percent power.
The gravy boiled away, leaving a cauterized crust along the edges. The vegetables turned rubbery. The chicken was dry.
This is what it did to my plastic fork.
12:48 PM
The Travelers: Birmingham
Editor's note: In the second installment of "The Travelers," I write about our July 7-9 trip to Birmingham, Alabama.
Maybe we just caught it at a bad time.
It rained all day Saturday, so no outdoor activiites. We planned to go to Ruffner Mountain, Birmingham Botanical Gardens -- outdoor places I read wonderful things about. Instead, we ambled through an empty husk of downtown Birmingham and its rain-soaked builidngs.
The Birmingham Museum of Art is very nice. Admission is free, as well as parking. It's located downtown. I'm no art expert (I'm trying to learn more), but it was a very satisfying collection.
For dinner, we ate at Dreamland BBQ, but went to the original location in Tuscaloosa instead of Birmingham. It was wonderful. Dreamland's Tuscaloosa location is a little out of the way -- off exit 73 and Jug Factory Road. The magical GPS lead us to the door. It's a dumpy place in a weird residential-industrial part of town. It feels like a roadhouse. The warm smell coaxes you inside. It must be wonderful in the winter.
It's dark inside. Dim lights. Lots of license plates and autographs on the walls. The menu is simple -- ribs, rib sandwich, banana pudding. No vegetables. When you order a slab of ribs, you get a stack of white bread and two containers of BBQ sauce. The ribs are perfect. The staff is wonderful. Surely, the place is full of squiinty-eyed tourists trying to figure out how to eat ribs with a fork. But the Dreamland people treat you like a local.
The forecast called for more rain Sunday for Birmingham. We'd felt that we'd seen as much of the "Magic City" (I left my wand at home, apparently) as we could. So, we chucked it all and drove to Nashville for a wonderful Sunday afternoon. It's an easy 2 hours and 45 minutes from Birmingham to Nashville.
Nashville truly is one of my favorite cities, and I go there at least once or twice a year. This was our second trip to Nashville this year. It's cosmopolitan-country, if I can cobble together a phrase. At any time of the day or night, any day of the week, any time of the year, you can go to Broadway and check out the honky-tonks. Even if you hate country music, you'd love it.
Fortunately, the bands in places like The Stage, Tootsies and the Bluegrass Inn usually play the old country music that I like. But even when they're playing that twangy pop the record companies now try to pass off as country music, it's fun to watch the people in the honky-tonks.
As I said, Nashville has its old country side and a booming cosmopolitan side. It's an energetic place. New construction is popping up all over town. Big high-rise condo buildings rise along the west side of downtown. I spent some time around West End Avenue, Vanderbilt and Hillsboro Village -- fun areas with all kinds of great shops and restaurants.
Nashville also has the world's only full-sized replica of the Parthenon. It's in beautiful Centennial Park, and you should walk around inside. The Parthenon serves as an art museum and includes a 42-foot-high statue of Athena Parthenos. If you've ever seen the great 1975 film "Nashville," the final scene -- the rally for Hal Phillip Walker -- takes place at the Parthenon.
The drive from Birmingham to Nashville was not bad at all, and I'm thinking of taking advantage of the cheaper Birmingham airfare for my Nashville visits. We had a fine first experience on Express Jet, which takes you to BHM for $98.
Maybe if I go back to Nashville via BHM, I'll take a day to do those outdoor things around Birmingham. But beyond that...
11:13 PM
The Travelers: Phoenix
Editor's note: The spring of 2007 was the beginning of a massive project to see the country. Our first big trip was in April, when Trevor and I went to Phoenix, Arizona. What follows is an account I wrote a few days after we returned.
We left RDU Thursday, April 26, and headed west through the clouds to Phoenix, Arizona. It's the sixth-largest city in the nation -- 1.4 million people in the city and about 4 million in the entire region. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport... is the 8th busiest airport in the country.We arrived around 5:30 in the evening. Our dear friend Lynn French served as our extremely accomodating hostess for the entire weekend. She's a TV news photographer in Phoenix, so she knows everything.
Lynn took us first to South Mountain. It's a big city park just south of Phoenix -- the biggest municipal park in the world. We rode these tightly wound roads up the mountain... to a lookout point about 1,000 feet above the desert floor. We looked out over the Valley of the Sun and central Phoenix.The air pollution perfectly diffused the setting sun and gave everything a mature, orange glow. Lynn told stories and we laughed and watched the sun go down -- and it goes down fast. Just like the movies. Within a couple of minutes, you watch it disappear behind the mountains.
I thought that was a movie trick, but it's real.
I thought that was a movie trick, but it's real.
We went into the city and ate dinner at Los Dos Molinos on South Central Avenue. It's not in the greatest neighborhood, but said to have some of the best southwestern food. The menu says the restaurant doesn't have mild sauce, because the chef and owner doesn't know how to make mild sauce.
It was the hottest food I've ever had.
Trevor and I struggled to eat half of our enchilada. It was so very hot. You certainly could tell that the food was absolutely delicious, but the fiery thing was too much for us to overcome.
Lynn scarfed hers down. It was nothing. She's a pro.
We were still living on Raleigh time -- three hours later than Phoenix, so we were plenty tired after the meal. We stayed at the well-appointed Extended Stay Deluxe on West Osborn Road in central Phoenix. Very nice.
We got up bright and early the next day, and waited for our ride. The three of us enjoyed a nice breakfast at The Good Egg in Phoenix. We had outstanding coconut pancakes. We drove north on I-17 through the Coconino National Forest and looked at all that cactus. The cactus you think of when I say "Arizona" are Giant Saguaros. The biggest ones can be a hundred or more years old.
We stopped at Sunset Point Rest Area off I-17. A splendid view, looking to the west. We stopped at Montezuma's Castle near Camp Verde. It's a 12th century apartment complex, and a national park. A fine thing to see, with lots of trees. I was surpisedat how much vegetation there is out there. Cactus dots the land, of course, but also trees lots of wonderful wildflowers and weeds. It's very fragrant in a fresh, peppery way.
Then, we headed up Highway 179 to Sedona -- breathtaking Red Rock country. Sedona is a big tourist town. Lots of high-end stuff there, and lots of New Age types. Crystals and vortexes and psychic readers are everywhere.
You'll find lots of little touristy shops in town -- restaurants, wine shops, clothes shops.
The three of us made our way back down into Sedona and to a big resort. I don't know how to pronounce it. Tlapaque, or something. I forget how to spell it. It's like a fake, generic Southwestern village. The place was very dead for a Friday evening, but had lots of interesting art galleries.
I saw a $600 belt and a big silver pin that looked like a dung beetle. I sat in a $3,000 stone chair in one of the gallery yards. Cottonwood seeds floated through the spring air like snow flurries. It was wonderful and surreal.
In one of the art galleries, we overheard a woman saying that she'd set some beads on a computer, but they turned amber because of everyone's "passive negativity." Yep.
We saw real beauty as the sun set over Sedona. We headed back to Phoenix for a late dinner at My Florist restaurant. Sleep came quickly.
Saturday was hot. 101 degrees in the afternoon. As we awaited Lynn around 9 a.m., it felt nice and warm. It was like a summer morning in Raleigh without the humidity. The dry-heat thing is real. It doesn't feel that bad.
Lynn showed us around downtown Phoenix. It's big and kind of empty on a Saturday morning.
The skyline is not iconic. It stretches for miles. It seems to have a few skylines. Phoenix is full of palm-lined streets. I'd never seen palm trees before.
Lynn showed us around downtown Phoenix. It's big and kind of empty on a Saturday morning.
The skyline is not iconic. It stretches for miles. It seems to have a few skylines. Phoenix is full of palm-lined streets. I'd never seen palm trees before.
The city has grown too quickly for the infrastructure, and we waited through some thick traffic problems at off-hours. Phoenix is building a light-rail network, opening in 2009, I think.
We had breakfast at Matt's Big Breakfast, which was very good. There are only a handful of tables. You write your name on a pad and wait outside.
We went over to Lynn's employer, KPNX-TV, for a tour of the studios. I'm in TV news, so I like that stuff.
Lynn took us down to Guadalupe, between Phoenix and Tempe. It's known as the Little Mexico of the Valley. It felt very different from the rest of the area, almost like a closed society. Lots of Mexican music bounced down the street on a hot Saturday afternoon. Everything in the town seemingly is based around the church, which looks like it fell right out of a western. It was beautiful and interesting.
Then, we headed north out of Phoenix to Cave Creek. It was another little community with lots of tourist-attracting shops. We had lunch at Harold's and headed out to the Spur Cross Ranch for a little mini-hike through the desert.
Time: 3 p.m. Temperature: 100 degrees.
Trevor was sure to bring his cup of hot coffee.
We could hear the animals. We picked out the high, lonesome howl of a coyote ("the baleful moan of a coy-ott," Trevor said, briefly channeling my fractional Native American ancestors). We saw a couple of coyotes, a lizard, a roadrunner, a cardinal, some other desert birds.
The desert flowers say, "PICK ME!" Then, they attack. Trevor got a jab from a near-microscopic cactus spine.
Out in the desert, so far away from the city, we took in stunning sights and fresh air. Then, a gusty haboob. Outflow from a distant thunderstorm kicked up a little dust storm that blew through us. The Phoenix area had 50 mph winds in the storm and some damage. We only saw dusty haze in the valleys and blinked our eyes around the grit on our faces.
We went back to the Cave Creek Coffee Company to wash off. Trevor and Lynn tried the wine.
Then, we headed back to Lynn's house and a walk through her pleasant neighborhood near downtown. It's the F.Q. Story Historic Neighborhood. He started Sunkist, and he built the homes in the 1920s for his executives, Lynn says. The homes are different here. The architecture throughout the state is striking. Everything looks so different from just about anything in Raleigh.
Then, we headed back to Lynn's house and a walk through her pleasant neighborhood near downtown. It's the F.Q. Story Historic Neighborhood. He started Sunkist, and he built the homes in the 1920s for his executives, Lynn says. The homes are different here. The architecture throughout the state is striking. Everything looks so different from just about anything in Raleigh.
Trevor and I had a very pleasant Saturday evening at Lynn's house, build on a foundation of steaks. How can that go wrong? We had big laughs and lovely times before collapsing in the hotel.
Arizona is beautiful. I might as well have been on Mars. It's completely alien. It's like living in a movie. The desert is starkly empty, but still full. It looks dead, but it's very much alive. I can't imagine how to top the beauty we saw.
We got up Sunday morning and Lynn took us to Phoenix Sky Harbor International.
Then, we left.
10:26 PM
Christmas in July
10:24 PM
On the Radio
10:23 PM
The Artist at 28
After a long period of neglect, here I am with my little blog again.
Here's what happened: Around the end of January 2006, my phone broke. I got another phone, circa 1999, with no camera. So I haven't been taking any cell phone pictures for more than a year.
Well, I just got a new one that takes pictures, and I'm intending to return to my old blogging ways. There for awhile, I did it very often, chronicling my nights at Channel 11.
It's fun to look at all those old posts and pictures. A lot of things have changed in the past two years and all for the better. How fortunate I am to be able to say that.
This blog is an effortless way to chronicle life. I hope it will be a treasured tunnel to the past in the years ahead.
For now, I'm just mournful over the passing of summer. It's already August 2. Summer undoubtedly is here, but the empire is falling. It's slowing down. The second half of summer is bitter. There's a doom as the fun leaks out of the year. By mid-September, summer has those teary old-man eyes. The life drops out of them.
I'm already savoring those humid, warm, bright early mornings. Fewer than 10 weeks -- 10 weeks -- until jackets. A few months until coats. Scarves and gloves will follow.
9:37 PM