Picture pages

Ok, as promised, here is the first batch of pictures... Remember that you can click on a picture to get a bigger version. I'll try and explain them as I go...

The hotel lobby...


My lovely Shenzhen hotel room..."5 star" everyone keeps telling me....





A picture of the building where I'm working...

The second floor is where I had "chop stick wars" at lunch...


An engineering workplace...I miss my cube walls...


Huh...a small child in a bamboo, er, cage?


I'll post more of these tomorrow...

"You like spicy?

These three words signalled my first lunch experience here in China. "The boys" here in Shenzhen took me out for Hunan cuisine at a little local place. They ordered a chicken dish, a beef dish, a tofu dish, and some vegetables. When the plates hit the table, there was a snapping of chop sticks like I've never seen. I wondered where my plate was before the food arrived, and I quickly discovered that I don't get my own plate. Everyone eats right out of the serving plates. All my OCD had to go right out the window, as I had to stab my own food right out of the dish with my chop sticks like everyone else. And the slurping...oh the slurping. The other interesting point was that the chicken dish, while tasty, seemed like a whole chicken had been pretty much ground up for the food. Much time was spent spitting out shards of bone. Oh yes, the spitting. That was the other great thing. You spit out bones, you spit out seeds from the watermelon. If you need to unload it, you just spit it.

This place is pretty intense. I took a couple of pictures on the way to the restaurant, so I'll post those tonight. In the mean time, I've got to fight this Hunan food off long enough to avoid having to use the "squatty potty" down the hall. That's an experience for another day.

Back on the ground

I left Indy at around 11:30am and arrived in Shenzhen at around 8:00am the next day (that's 8:00pm in China...at least you don't have to reset your watch!) The flight wasn't as bad as I expected. You sort of get lulled into a place where time stops meaning anything. Given the usual content of these pages, I maintained a list of what I have eaten thus far:

Courtesy of United Airlines:
spicy pretzel/nut mix
ginger ale
chicken and rice (more like salt and rice), roll, salad, banana bread, fruit cup
Diet Coke
2004 Canepa Cabernet Sauvignon (icky Chilean red wine drunk only to induce sleep)
bowl of Chinese (read...Ramen) Noodles. Again with the salt.
an almond cookie
2 Luna bars, packed by my wife. "Nutrition for women" it says on the wrapper. I'll let you know if I'm a C cup in the morning.

While flying, I took lots of notes and observations. It gave me something to do. Here's a pretty much unedited list of my thoughts while airborn between Chicago and Hong Kong:

Man there's lots of Chinese people on here.
I sure wish these guys would stop sitting on and playing with the exit door.
The guy at the end of my row squeezed his plastic wrapped dinner roll and treated it as though it smelled rotten, yet he ate McDonalds an hour into the flight from under his seat.
The line for the toilets is at Disney World levels after the chicken/rice lunch.
I changed seats before takeoff, because the guy next to me had, what I consider to be, a disturbing cough. I saw "Outbreak."
Oooh...I'll get to see "Nacho Libre" finally.
(At this point, I wrote "13 hrs to go!")
Glass of wine didn't help me sleep. 10.5 hrs to go.
The ice over the arctic circle looks unbelieveable out the window. Too bad my picture didn't really turn out.
Listening to My Brightest Diamond on the iPod. Makes me miss Erin.
8 hrs left. This isn't so bad. I'm getting hungry.
Slept through the beginning of "Inside Man." Looks like film watching is a bust on this trip.
SNACK!!!!!! Oh, for joy!
Why are they serving me Ramen soup with chop sticks. Soup with sticks?!

Well if you read this far, you're a trooper. If you're interested, check out a globe for my route. We flew north from Chicago to a city called Churchill on the Hudson Bay in Canada. The next indicator I saw had us approaching the Verkhoyanskiy Mountains of Siberia. Next stop was Hong Kong.

I'm beat. I'll try and get some pictures tomorrow of the area around the hotel and work. We had a quick dinner at the hotel restaurant tonight. I had fried rice with shrimp and pork in it. I couldn't bear to eat a cheeseburger as my first meal in Asia. Looks like the week will be an adventure...

An Evening With Sufjan

One last post before I get airborne... :)

Last night, Erin and I had dinner at the Bosphorus Cafe, which is a Turkish restaurant in downtown Indy. The food was great, and the guy that ran the place was friends with you the minute you came in the door. We both ate until we were miserable, but we'd highly recommend this place if you're looking for something different.

After dinner, we went to the Murat to see Sufjan Stevens. Sufjan (pronounced Soof-Yahn) has become a personal favorite of mine over the past couple of years. He's gone from being completely unknown to being played in Starbucks and as the theme music to the film "Little Miss Sunshine" recently. Click here to hear his song in the trailer for the movie (the song comes in about half way through the trailer). Anyway, he puts on a great show, and last night he had strings and horns to compliment the mix. It was a great evening of music that even Erin enjoyed. The only problem with the whole event was that apparently the Murat is staffed by arctic sea monkeys or polar bears, as the air conditioning blew on us all night, and by the end of the show, it was about 55 degrees in the venue. It was ridiculous. Erin and I actually gave up our seats at the end of the show to stand in the back huddled together for warmth. But we still had a great time.

I'm all packed and ready to go. I'll post again when I get to Hong Kong...

I'm leaving, on a jet plane...

...but I dang well know when I better be back again.

Sorry for the lack of updates this week, but it's been very hectic. Next week this blog will be turned into "Mr. Bret Goes To Hong Kong. Follow the adventures of a 31 year old software engineer, dropped off in Hong Kong for a week to work on a project with his Chinese counterparts...and eat everything he can find that doesn't include feet."

Every time I say, "They're sending me to Hong Kong" it sounds like a childhood threat. "If you don't stop that, we'll send you to Hong Kong." In any case, I'm looking forward to the trip, and I intend to take scads of pictures of Hong Kong and Shenzhen. I plan to wander through all city parks echoing "Grace, where are you?"

Be sure to check often next week, starting probably Tuesday for my travelogue.

Weekend Pics

So here are the promised pictures from our weekend at McCormick's Creek and the Apple Butter Festival.

First off, here are a couple of yours truly and his lovely wife...

Here are some of those "it's easier to climb 400 stairs than hike up a hill" stairs that the DNR has installed...

Here's another view of one of the stairways as you approach it on the trail...

Here are a couple of random shots of a decaying southern Indiana town with little sign of apple butter...Plus two final reasons to love Indiana...

Birthdays and Apple Butter

This weekend was a blur of birthday celebrations and, as always, over eating. It all started with my birthday on Friday. Erin and I had a wonderful lunch at the best Thai restaurant in Indy -- Sawasdee. This place is a jewel of a restaurant, with every dish being reasonably priced at lunch and offering the same portions as the dinners. The owner is a very nice gentleman named, humorously, Ty. During lunch Erin reminded me that I would be spending my birthday evening at a tailgate before her school's football game. Erin has a knack for becoming the moderator of most every club at her school at one point or another, so this year she is performing these duties for the Junior class. In addition to having to organize prom, she also got to organize this tailgate. The star attraction of the evening was one of those giant inflatable jumping rooms, only this was no ordinary jumping, er, room. Instead it was a giant cow turned on it's back so that 6 foot tall high school boys could engage their hormones in a disturbing way by jumping around on its udders, slamming into each other in the process. They dang near killed the poor thing. At one point, a kid fell into the udders and his body weight propelled him to the ground. Erin immediately assumed the kid was suffocating in the inflatable udder (some sentences you never expect to write) and leaped into the cow to save him. He was fine, without her assistance, but I've never seen Erin move so quickly unless trying to get her hands around my throat (usually following a blog entry...My wife is actually a very calm, mild person. I only occasionally drive her to madness.) Anyway, the kids seemed to love stomping on the udders, and they politely wished me a happy birthday before retreating to their friends to say "Did you see Mrs. Hawkins' husband? It must, like, totally suck to be like, so old." Responded to with an appropriate "Fo shizzle."

On Saturday we had a birthday celebration for all of the September birthdays in our family at my parent's house. My dad, grandfather, sister, several cousins, an aunt here or there, and myself all have September birthdays in my family, and it didn't occur to me until sometime during high school that this, coupled with the fact that most of the people in my family are teachers, probably means that everyone in my family for several generations now has looked forward with great delight to Christmas vacation. I'll say no more. I'd like to thank everyone for the gifts that I received. My dad and I were both given large quantities of candy by various unnamed mother-in-laws who are apparently somewhat interested in hastening the process of both tooth decay and heart disease in their son-in-laws. Thanks again for a wonderful birthday.

On Sunday morning, we arose to beautiful weather, so after church Erin and I headed for the Oliver Winery in Bloomington. We did a brief tasting, and since my palette for wines is as finely tuned as a Ford Pinto, I had to at least once spit a large volume of wine out into the little, er, wine spittoon crying out, "You call this wine? I wouldn't wash down a White Castle with this swill!" just to look like I knew what I was talking about. Actually I politely swished each glass, as though I knew it needed to be properly swished before consumption in one large gulp, and asked for the next one on the list. It was fun.

After leaving Oliver, we headed over to McCormick's Creek State Park, just west of Bloomington. As we approached the entrance to the park, I spied a sign at the side of the road for the Apple Butter Festival in Spencer, just a few miles up the road. Given our love of a weekly elephant ear, I could tell that this sign had effectively derailed our day of hiking that we had planned. Forging ahead, we entered the park and took off on a trail. I'll post some pictures of some of this stuff this evening. What we discovered is that the DNR has chosen to build massive rickity stair cases, rather than clear good trails up and down the hills in McCormick's Creek. After hiking for a while, checking out an abandoned quarry (a common occurence in southern Indiana), and climbing approximately 400 stairs, we packed ourselves into the car for a cool, refreshing glass of Apple Butter.

The one thing you cannot get, ironically, at Owen County's Apple Butter Festival is apple butter. After walking through a handful of booths surrounding the court house offering various homemade baked goods and an occasionally obscene T-shirt, we headed for the lineup of food trailers that occupies space at every good festival. We found only one offering ANY kind of apple butter, and they were selling fried biscuits and apple butter for $1. After offering up a single, the woman behind the counter pulled out 4 greasy looking biscuits from a fryer, and then opened up a half empty jar of ValuRite Apple Butter from the nearest Aldi. I was incensed. Store bought apple butter didn't stop us from eating the fried biscuits, but it definitely put a damper on the festivities. After seeing my second or third "Heaven, Yeah! Hell NO" T-shirt, we retreated to the car for dinner at Gray's. As we left Owen County, I considered that perhaps there really are places where there is nothing for kids to do but sleep with each other and do drugs.

Pictures of the weekend festivities are forthcoming, but until then, it's back to life as a 31 year old engineer working for the Chinese man. In preparation for busines travel to China, I'm learning a few key phrases in Cantonese:

"Lei ho." -- "Hello."

"Ngoh ho hoi sum gin lei." -- "Nice to meet you."

"M goi." -- "Thank you."

"Doi m juu." -- "Excuse me..."

"Si soh hai bin do?" -- "Where is the toilet?"

"Joi gin." -- "Good bye."

This pretty well covers most of my conversations. Have a great day!

"The Obliterati" by Mission of Burma (2006)

The story of Mission of Burma is a unique one in that rarely does a band return after a 20 year absence and put out albums that best their earlier work. But such is the case with Mission of Burma, and the two albums released since their 2002 reunion are two of my favorites of the past ten years.

I picked up The Obliterati while in Athens, Georgia this past summer, and my wife quickly deemed it unacceptable road trip music given it's volume. Perhaps the theme for this little biweekly review should be "albums I love but Erin doesn't."

Every instrument on The Obliterati sounds like it was recorded at full volume, and every instrument sounds like it sits right at the top of the mix making for an album that simply sounds aggresive. Plus the album was recorded to sound very "live" which, as those of us who've spent years going to concerts know, is not an easy feat to reproduce in the studio. I like albums that demand your attention and provide enough interesting dynamics to make me want to go back and listen to them over and over, and The Obliterati does just that. The album also contains one of my favorite refrains in recent memory on a song called "Nancy Reagan's Head" -- "no way that thing came with that body." Classic.

I've never seen Burma live, but Roger Miller (no, not the "King of the Road" Roger Miller...) wears a giant set of headphones on stage to protect severely damaged ears from any further injury. Every time I see a picture of this, it reminds me of wearing a very similar pair of headphones when I was a little kid. Except his are to protect his ears, while mine were the beginning of a lifetime love affair with tinnitus.

Listen:
"2wice"
"Donna Sumeria"
"Main In Decline"

Mission of Burma website
Amazon.com link
Allmusic Guide link

Roughing Up Libby Lu

Friday night we ventured down to a new Jamaican restaurant called Da Blue Lagoon. When we were on our cruise last year, the stop in Jamaica was a highlight for a couple of reasons. First off, when we got off the boat, my mom asked a cabbie to take us to "someplace we can do some shopping." In my mom's mind, I'm sure this meant "someplace with an indoor food court and a Christopher and Banks." (Christopher and Banks looks and even SMELLS like my mom inside. I told Erin that going to Aeropostale makes me feel like an old man, but Christopher and Banks has the opposite effect.) In any case, we ended up in a sea of huts selling mostly junk, and I'm relatively sure I saw at least one hut that didn't have rodents. Mom was a little mortified by the whole experience. The other highlight was eating piles of jerk chicken at a resort down there. Anxious to eat piles of anything Friday night, Da Blue Lagoon didn't disappoint. We got a variety of jerked meats (these seem to be a theme in my life right now) and appetizers, all at reasonable prices. My favorite items were the fried plaintains and jerk chicken, but everything was great. Definitely makes the list of places to which we'll return...

Saturday morning, Erin and I ventured out to the mall to do a little Christmas shopping. As we hiked between the cell phone dealers (apparently this is all that sells in malls these days) we passed what appeared to be a den of 8-12 year old hookers. Erin informed me that this was merely Club Libby Lu. Apparently little girls like to have birthday parties at this place and get made over for duty on the Sunset Strip. It was mortifying. Their website offers makeovers which include "Rock Star," "Tween Idol," "Priceless Princess," and "Pop Star." The "Rock Star" makeover even includes one of those goofy little headsets that Britney has made famous. As Erin and I were discussing how this place promotes, in our opinion, all the wrong values, Erin commented that "boy, isn't it going to stink for her when we won't let poor Grace set foot in that place." I couldn't agree more. The last thing I need is a "Tween Idol" parading around the house. Later in the day while still shopping, we were nearly run over by a pack of "Rock Stars" from Club Libby Lu, and one of them had on that stupid headset. I realize it's not her fault, and I realize that people have differing opinions on the validity of Club Libby Lu, but every part of me wanted to punch the poor thing. Right in the mouth. Not give her a talking to or try to explain that there's nothing noble in looking like a prostitute. Punch her. And then break her little headset microphone. I refrained, instead choosing to channel my energy into dreaming about what I would eat next.

On that front, Erin had a work party at a co-worker's house which acted as a "pre-Greek Fest" event. Greek Fest is held each year at the Holy Trinity Greek Orthodox Church, and unlike the Germans from a week ago, the Greeks know how to feed you for your dollar. Or fifty. I still managed to spend a fortune on food, but at least I came away absolutely full AND with leftover baklava. At one point I had powdered sugar on the front of my shirt from some nameless, faceless cookie I ate, and the hair on my left arm was matted down with honey from an unfortunate incident with a honey puff. I looked homeless. In addition to eating everything in sight, we took in a brief cooking demonstration and an interesting discussion with the priest, primarily on the differences between Catholicism and the Greek Orthodox church. I'm highly uneducated in this regard. When asked if anyone knew what the differences were, I replied "different pointy hats" which apparently is not the correct answer. So in addition to being well fed, I was educated by the Greeks. And escorted out of their church.

Since I'm returning to my fat man status that I worked so hard to lose last year, this will need to be our last festival for a while. Unfortunately (not really) my birthday and the Middle Eastern Festival are right around the corner. I'm going to have to run on the treadmill until I'm bleeding from the eyes to keep up with this. Now where did I put that baklava??

My Chinese Television Debut!

So I'm sitting here quietly working (depending on your definition) when my grand-boss (the name given to my boss's boss) shows up and tells me that a film crew from a Chinese TV show will be around in a few minutes taking some shots of "the faces of engineering" within our company. In the two groups which sit next to each other, we have American, Chinese, Indian, Korean, Kentuckian, and Russian backgrounds represented, so they wanted shots of all of us working, happily, as a team. I thought it sounded interesting, so I sort of cleaned up my cubicle for the big event. About 30 seconds before they arrive, the grand-boss comes back to tell me he's going to stop specifically in my cube, so be prepared. No sweat. I took drama in high school, I'll be fine. I quickly moved a picture of Erin and me on our wedding day into a position where I knew it would be seen...(see honey, I'm trying to make you a star too.)

About 30 seconds later, he comes waltzing into my cube and starts asking questions, Chinese film crew in tow. I didn't know I'd be doing an interview. Oy.

"So, what are you doing?"

"Uh, I'm merging some code from (insert other manufacturers name here)."

(First gaffe...I don't suppose we were speaking loud enough for the audio to be used, but saying another manufacturers name during a special on OUR company was probably not high on the grand-boss's list of things to do.)

"So are you enjoying that?"

"Sure...It keeps me busy."

"How quickly can you finish?"

"Pretty quickly. I've done it a bunch of times."

After they finished with me, they did another segment with one of my coworkers. I thought I was off the hook until they returned and shot about 2 minutes of me busily doing nothing on my PC. They said afterwards that this is for a "very famous program in China" which is doing a special on our company. I expect my royalties to be arriving in the mail shortly.

Are we that boring?

Here's a quote (and a link!) to a current story in Wired:

"Creating your own blog is about as easy as creating your own urine, and you're about as likely to find someone else interested in it."

Sniffle.

Anyway, speaking of bodily fluids, Erin and I have resurrected going to the gym every night to make ourselves miserable (and hopefully eventually thinner) by running on the elliptical machines. We usually end up going at about the same time each night, and there's another gentlemen, who I'd guess to be in his early 60's, who also frequently is present at this same hour. Now I sweat when I workout, but it's a modest volume of perspiration, and the situation is easily remedied with a few gentle pats of a paper towel to my delicate features. This poor dude sweats like his skin is on fire and his glands are trying to put it out. It's ridiculous. He runs on the treadmills which are positioned directly in front of the elliptical machines, and I purposely avoid using the machine directly behind this guy because as he runs, there is sweat actually slinging off of his body, into the air, and eventually onto the machines behind him. He runs for a few minutes, then he hops off, heads for the paper towels, wipes himself down, and repeats. The machine is soaking wet, the carpet behind him is soaking wet, and most importantly, the poor dude on the elliptical machine behind him is, to some degree, soaking wet...IN HIS SWEAT. I can't take it. I'm absolutely sure that he's got SOMETHING in that sweat which is communicable. In any case, when he's done running, he spends about 20 minutes drying off the treadmill he uses, which I guess is a polite gesture. I wonder if this guy pees in bucketfulls as well? Or spits continuously? If I sweat as much as he does during a workout, I'd be shriveled up tighter than Maria Shriver's face by the end of the workout...

The Grace Wait

I'm going to show you how all questions regarding our adoption of our dear daughter Grace can be answered in three simple phrases.

Phrase 1: Nope, not yet.
Phrase 2: Not soon enough
Phrase 3: Make it a double

Here's how it plays out:
Friend/Co-Worker/Family: "Have you heard anything from China?"
Us: with a sigh, "Nope, not yet."
Friend/Co-Worker/Family: now with empathy, "When will you know something?"
Us: with another sigh, "Not soon enough."
Friend/Co-Worker/Family: trying to be supportive, "Well, do you at least have her picture?"
Us: with yet another sigh, "Nope, not yet."
Friend/Co-Worker/Family: with a new found defeatism, "When will you have some information?"
Us: with the final sigh, "Not soon enough."
Friend/Co-Worker/Family: sensing the meltdown, "Can I buy you a drink?"
Us: with a smile, "Make it a double."

Who knew that all questions regarding our adoption could be condensed down into three simple responses. Truth be told, though, the process is long and hard and, sometimes, painful and lonely, but we trust, beyond all hope, that God has a beautiful plan where we will someday be united with the heart of our heart--Grace Hawkins.

So, here's the best and the worst of it:
Best case scenario: Travel to get Grace in late May/early June 2007. I know many of you had hoped for earlier, but this really is the best, best case scenario (not even the realistic one).
Realistic scenario: Travel to get Grace in fall of 2007.
Worst case scenario: Travel to get Grace in May of 2008.

Where do I get these projections? History. We have been researching the referral rates for babies for quite a while, and the CCAA (the Chinese Center for Adoption Affairs) is slowing down... way down. When we started, the referral timeline was 6 months. Now, the referral timeline is inching towards 18 months. There are lots of factors for the slow down, and if you really want an earful, buy me a drink and ask... two or three hours later... you'll have the history of the CCAA referral timeline to date.

So, there it is... the hard truth in print. For now, we're simply in line. And it's a long, long line. And there's never any news in the long, long line. And unfortunately, they don't even serve lo mein in the line... or dim sum... or chicken feet... or anything... in fact, we have to pay to be in the line. Do you know what we call this in the English world? Irony.

Oktoberfest and Erin's Nuts

Shew. What a busy holiday weekend. Lots of stuff going on this weekend, so I'll try not to make this too too long. Saturday night found Erin's parents, my parents, and Erin and I all headed to the southside for Oktoberfest at the German American Klub (I guess all it takes to convert a word from English to German is to replace all the C's with K's...and spit a lot while speaking them.) We were really excited about this festival, but we found ourselves a little bit dismayed pretty early in the festivities. First of all, it was $6 each just to get into the park, which is basically a few picnic tables and a shelterhouse. Based on the price of food and booze once inside the park, apparently the German American Klub is saving up to build themselves a new, more spektakular park komplete with the finest amenities. I hiked immediately upon arrival up to an 18 wheeler with about 10 taps on the side of the trailer. The price listing showed 12 ounces of German bier for $5, or a 24 ounce mug for around $7. I ordered the mug and was told that they didn't have those. I politely pointed to the sign, and the old German guy manning the keg politely ignored me and started pouring me a 12 oz plastic cup. I kould tell he wasn't to be pushed. Oh well. After this, we headed for the food tents and ordered a variety of knockwurst's and brat's, along with German potato salad and some fried apples. I know I had at least $60 in my wallet before we got there, and I left with about $10, so between the admission price, a couple of beers, a couple of sausages, and a cream puff for dessert, I ended up down about $50. My dad got hustled into buying a raffle ticket from a very polite little old German lady. I'm sure he could have told her to scram, but she had a look in her eye which suggested that she knew which car you had driven into the Klub, so he caved and bought a ticket. In the end, we all agreed that had the food been a little bit cheaper and the beer steins a little bit larger, people could have a much more enjoyable time at the Oktoberfest. Perhaps next year Erin and I will try to host our own little Oktoberfest in our backyard. If we can combine it with a NASCAR event, the whole neighborhood will show up.

Yesterday we went to Bedford to see my grandparents, which was nice. Erin took my grandmother a box containing 10 puzzles based on the work's of Thomas Kinkade (a German, perhaps?) which has sort of become a tradition. On one visit, we took a 5000 piece puzzle to her which took her several months and coworkers to complete. Upon our next visit, she threatened Erin with thumbscrews if we brought anything that complex again, so we take great care in making our puzzle selections.

Today we did a little shopping at the Edinburgh outlets in preparation for the holiday season. While perusing the various shops, I discovered that my only goal when we shop at this place is to chain together visits to each of the cooking and/or food stores that offer free samples. Erin went to the OshKosh store, where she not only bought little Grace some more clothes, but she also scared a poor Japanese couple into giving their lovely 2 year old daughter a lecture on not talking to crazy American ladies who scream "Asian baby!" at the drop of a hat. Grace, at this point, has a larger wardrobe than I do. The child will not want for clothes (or attention, or food, or anything else, I suspect, for that matter.) While Erin scared toddlers, I started making my way toward the various sampling stations at the cookware stores. I tried about 10 different types of pretzel dip at one store and got an orange truffle and some kind of cream cheese and salsa concoction at Harry and David. After exhausting the food possibilities in the outlet mall, we headed for Nashville, Indiana.

Now Nashville, for those not in the know, is sort of a Gatlinburg in miniature. The only differences are that it sits in southern Indiana and has more Harley riders than teeth within the city limits. Luckily for us, it wasn't terribly crowded, so we were able to get in and out of the stores without having to whisper "Man do I have to pee" while gridlocked behind people. Since we'd only eaten 2000 calories worth of samples at the outlet mall, we immediately headed for lunch at the Hob Knob Restaurant. Our dining experiences in Nashville during past visits have been less than overwhelming, but this place turned out to be very good. Erin had a lovely turkey melt, while I had an equally wonderful tuna melt, all served by a delightful stoned Nashville artisan. We ate these well portioned meals in under 10 minutes and headed back out to do more shopping.

The most delightful store we found on this visit to Nashville was called, simply, The House of Jerky. The House of Jerky featured a bevy of different foods which had been dried out and turned into jerky. They had everything from beef to buffalo to venison to salmon...all jerkied. Apparently they're in cahoots with the German American Klub, as a package with 4 pieces of salmon jerky ran around $12. I'll tell you what's jerky about that. In any case, I found it fascinating that such a store existed and even more fascinating that anyone would pay $3 for a single piece of jerky.

After sniffing the jerky, I got a Pumpkin Sundae from Fearrin's Ice Cream. It was a great combination of pumpkin ice cream and caramel. Erin held out and got a package of almonds covered with cinammon and sugar at a different store, the name of which escapes me. After I finished my ice cream, we strolled up the street to one of what I refer to as "the crap shops" in Nashville. There are some very nice stores in Nashville which cater to very specific tastes, the House of Jerky being a prime example. There are stores featuring thousands of varieties of salsa, or perhaps a variety of leather goods. Virtually all of the other stores feature piles of stuff which falls into the "home decor" category. There are piles of candles, bird feeders, coasters, plates, new stuff made to look old, shirts with funny religious sayings, music played on the pan flute, etc in each of these stores. All of them look alike to me (and smell like a mixture of vanilla, cinammon, apples, cookies, and whatever other scent you can stuff in a candle), and every part of me wants to run through each of them with my arms extended, knocking every "bless this house" knick knack onto the ground as I go. Well upon entering one of these stores, Erin was eyeing several items and commenting aloud on how interested she was to spend our hard earned cash on some of their wares. About this time a friendly, 50-something employee approached her and said, "We'd appreciate it if you'd put your nuts away while you're in the store." At this point, after puzzling for a moment and trying to recall if I'd been to the restroom recently, I realized that Erin was still working through the bag of almonds she'd purchased earlier. Erin quickly complied with the warden's request, but for whatever reason, quickly lost interest in purchasing anything from the store. I can understand wanting to shew out kids with ice cream cones, but an adult with a bag of almonds? It seemed a little strange to me, but rather than make a scene, we complied and immediately left the store...nuts in tow.

All in all we had a wonderful Labor Day weekend, and the best part is that I don't have to fly out to China in the morning. Rather than packing, I can spend this evening adding a room onto the Chateau du Siding for Grace's wardrobe.

"Zen Arcade" by Hüsker Dü (1984)

I'll kickoff what I hope to be a weekly music review of some sort with an album that is not only one of my favorites, but is also one of Erin's least favorites -- Zen Arcade by Hüsker Dü. I bought Zen Arcade at some point during high school, and I can remember listening to it a few times, but not really getting it. After not really listening to it much, I pulled it out again during college and immediately fell in love. This album is the bridge between hardcore and punk in the early 80's and what became "alternative rock" in the early 90's. It's played ridiculously fast and loud, ala hardcore, but there are actual meaningful lyrics and melodies underneath the noise. I've read that it was recorded by basically standing up and playing each song, as a band, in one take, and it shows. The drum sound has been described as "hitting muffin tins with chicken bones" which is also pretty accurate. But underneath the bleak sound quality is one of those albums built entirely on real, raw emotion. Bob Mould, now in his mid 40's, means every vocal chord shredding word, and it's the striking honesty of the whole thing that makes Zen Arcade work. For anyone who has written off "heavier" sounding music because it just sounds like inane screaming, Zen Arcade is one of those rare albums where a band showed that you could actually bend the rules and create something powerful, melodic, and loud.

Listen:
"Something I Learned Today"
"Broken Home, Broken Heart"
"Pride"

Hüsker Dü website
Amazon.com link
Allmusic Guide link

Upcoming Events

I've spent the whole week preparing for a business trip to China. It was supposed to be two weeks starting the Tuesday after Labor Day, including a free weekend of leisure time in Hong Kong and a stay in a nice, modern hotel within walking distance of a bunch of Chinese and Western restaurants. And then, bam. No go. Another meeting next week derailed my voyage. Oh well. I'd much prefer to have Erin along on my first trip to China, and I'd be even happier if we came back with an extra passenger. I've been told I'll have to go in three weeks, but this is the third or fourth trip that has been scheduled and canceled underneath me, so I guess I'll believe it when I see it. And to think that I had already packed my "Chicken Feet in my Tummy are Yummy" bib.

The next couple of weeks will provide a host of eating opportunities for me to post about. This weekend provides a bit of a challenge to hit all of the events. There's the Rib America Festival downtown, which in addition to filling my ribs and barbeque sauce quota for the month, features current musical greats Hootie & The Blowfish, the Charlie Daniels Band, Ted Nugent, and REO Speedwagon. I guess Lee Hazlewood was booked for the weekend. There's also the 97.1 HANK FM (can you guess the format?) Sky Concert downtown -- your best chance all year to sit on the contaminated banks of the White River to watch fireworks. And finally, there's the 32nd Annual Oktoberfest in German Park. (Keep looking...ahem. There is a link to the Oktoberfest on that page somewhere...) This festival takes place right around the corner from where I grew up, yet I've never been. "All that does is block up Meridian Street for two weekends" was my mother's reaction to the idea of the inlaws, parents, and Erin and I all attending this year's festival, so that probably says something about why I've never been. And since I'll be in town next weekend, we'll be hitting the 33rd Annual Indianapolis Greek Festival. The website proudly states "Donate blood on August 29th, get a free gyro!" Sorry I missed that. Nothing says, "mmmm....gyro..." like bleeding.

So who says there's nothing to do in Indy (as long as you're willing to eat continuously or listen to Ted Nugent?) Additionally, as part of our commitment to providing only the finest useless content available on the web, I'm going to start occasionally throwing up a music review. With the purchase of the iPod, I've begun rediscovering a lot of music that I loved and forgot about, plus there's lots of good new stuff floating around as well, if you're willing to look. Erin will chime in with her thoughts on this as well, and she may even start putting some book ideas up. She reads as much as I listen (can you guess who's getting smarter versus who's getting dummer here?) so she always is giving book recommendations to somebody. In any case, I may put up a CD review here later day, if I get some time. Enjoy! (or Ignore!)

RRRRRReeeeeeeeeeeeeeee...

This is the sound we hear at night during the summer in our house. Just make that sound and amplify it to the approximate volume of a very loud lawn mower, and that's what you hear as you sit on our deck. It goes by approximately every 15 minutes from about 6pm until 9pm. Now I understand that people have hobbies, but I've seen some pretty narrow misses between Captain Minibike and full size vehicles in our neighborhood. It's not always easy to see someone 3 inches off the ground from the controls of an SUV at dusk. Plus, I'm not fully convinced that such a vehicle on a city street is really legal.

But, who am I to judge? I needn't worry. Eventually one of the other crazy hillbillies in our vicinity will end up running this guy down. In the past six months, the brick wall at the front entrance to our neighborhood has been driven through...twice. I'm at a loss to understand how someone drives through a brickwall, unless alcohol is involved. I don't know the particulars of the cases in our neighborhood, but the individual who hit the bricks this last time left a nice trail of oil right to their driveway afterwards. So much for fleeing the scene...

Another Bret impostor

Mr. Bean or Mr. Bret? You decide...

State Fair

This weekend, Erin and I attended the 150th Indiana State Fair with her parents. This has become an annual event for us, and it always provides a few noteworthy moments. Here are some of the highlights for 2006.

1. My father-in-law gnawing on a turkey leg. And honey ice cream. And apple cider. And maple syrup.

2. Seeing the world's largest pig (which my mind promptly divides into strips of bacon.)

3. Discovering the existance of the International Federation of Competitive Eating. My membership forms are on their way. Horseback riding, basketball, swimming, walking...none of these play to my strengths. But this... "Brothers, I'm coming to join you."

4. Staring at swollen pig parts and having my mother-in-law ask me "Is that a boy or a girl?" I need to have a conversation with my grandfather, whose days on the farm could answer a lot of questions.

5. My wife's irritation with the fact that my hands never leave my pockets when walking through the animal barns. I don't need some sort of llama bacteria jumping onto my hands and then onto whatever food-on-a-stick I might purchase in the next few moments.

6. Walking through the little-girl-beauty-pagent area and having Erin declare that our daughter will make a fine lacrosse player or perhaps a rodeo clown -- never a pageant contestant...at least not at the age of six.

7. Having to make a decision between a cart advertising "Fried Vegetables" and another cart offering "Batter Dipped Ho-Hos." This is what truly makes the fair special. That and the smell.

And finally...

8. Stopping at Dairy Queen for Blizzards on the way home...because we just hadn't had enough to eat yet.

All in all, we had a great time, although I ate far below my usual quota of fried goods. Erin and I say we're going to start working out again, but it might have to wait until after my birthday and the Covered Bridge Festival. Until then, I need to stay at capacity.

Eww

I went to the supermarket this evening to pickup some 'tussin for the still-ill-wife and some deli meat for lunch for the next couple of days. I approached the deli where a nice, young lady was busily helping another customer. The other customer was ordering enough thinly sliced meat to blanket a small city, therefore the girl behind the counter called for backup. When the backup meat slicing lady arrived, she was older, and she was suffering from some sort of skin disruption that had left her with open, bleeding sores on her arms. This alone was enough to send me into a spasm, but then the unthinkable happened. She got one plastic hand cover on with little trouble, but as she was putting the other hand into a glove, the palm on her first hand brushed over a sore, smearing the blood onto the outside palm of the glove. After she got the second glove on, she promptly dove her hand into the ham and pulled out a wad to fill my order. I shuddered. Then I froze. I couldn't eat it. No way. I said, "That's plenty." I then ran away from the deli, squealing like a small child. I quickly deposited the blood ham into a refrigerator in another part of the store and made my exit.

When I got home, I began to feel guilty about the whole thing. After consulting with my wife, who laughed hysterically through her flu symptoms at my tale, I called the store and explained that a deli employee was putting a little too much of herself into the sliced meat. The obviously grossed out store manager said she knew who I was referring to and that the situation would be taken care of.

Eww.

More pics

My earlier post about my co-workers insulting me started a flood of emails with more comparisons. Here's the original Sam the Eagle picture, for comparisons:


Additionally, this past year or so I had my hair pretty much buzzed all year. That garnered the following comparisons:


What a bunch of losers...

Time cards?

The cutting edge technology company I work for just changed to a new payroll system -- time cards. An actual time card...complete with the name of our company...from about 15 years ago.

A building full of engineers, and we can't come up with something better than this? Sheesh... Maybe we'll start work on this great new mobile audio device soon, too.

Faces of Bret

I've been working with the majority of my co-workers for approximately ten years now. In those ten years, we've gotten to know each other pretty well, and along with that, we've learned how to push each other's buttons pretty effectively. I remember about six years ago, we sat on a floor with another department of guys who had known each other for ages, probably twenty years or more, and we used to say, "We'll never be like those guys." You could frequently hear them belch, hollar at each other, and occasionally electrocute one another, all in good fun. (Engineers have a weird sense of humor that frequently involves watching their fellow man get injured.) That team has since dissolved and moved on to the Happy Electrical Engineering Lab in the Sky, while the predictions about our own group have proven false. It's a rare day now that someone doesn't pass gas in my cubical or try to hand me a live wire, so I guess I understand that other team a little better now.

Recently my coworkers have decided that I look like any number of celebrities. I have been telling them this for years now, but it took them this long to decide. Unfortunately they're not telling me I look like Brad Pitt or George Clooney (both of which, I'm told, are pleasing to the eye of the ladies.) Instead they've decided I look like any number of B-list actors (and occasionally actresses) to which I bare little resemblance. First, it was Sam the Eagle from "The Muppet Show."

Next it was Anthony Clark, the host of this season's "Last Comic Standing", and lead actor on "Yes, Dear" (has anyone ever really been a fan of this show? How does a show stay on the air for so many years with two people watching?)

And occasionally it's been Topher Grace from "That 70's Show" (although my wife recently informed me that she had an acquaintence who looks like Topher Grace who's "easily an 8 or 9." When I asked what I was, she replied "maybe a 6 or 7." Since then, she's been "maybe a 2.")

Somehow an image from one of my security badges made it onto the hard drives of my co-workers a few years back, and my likeness was placed in any number of situations including --

Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer (never get a zit on your nose around these losers)

Some poor hillbilly talking to the president

The Six Million Dollar Man (my dollar amount was reduced, as you can see)

And most disturbingly, on some set of nameless twins.

It'll be hard when this team gets broken up like those poor guys from a few years ago, but at least I'll have all of this documented evidence of the abuse I took. I can't even buy shoes. I bought the following pair of shoes and wore them to work this week.

I heard "When are you going bowling, Hawkins?" from about ten different people. Erin tells me not to be bothered when taking fashion insults from other engineers, and she's right. I have witnessed black socks with plaid shorts on more than one occasion in here, so my new shoes have nothing to fear.

Feel free to leave a comment on this topic, including your vote for who I look most like. I think my coworkers have taken bets on the results...

Geetar

I bought Erin a guitar while she was away camping. She's been learning to play on a friend's loaner, but it appears her acoustic rock chick dreams aren't fleeting, so it seemed like time to buy her her own axe. I got her this nice, classic looking Fender acoustic. But now I'm thinking I should have bought her one of these. She'd sure look cute playing that daisy model.

Post-Raccoon Update

Since there have been a few questions regarding Erin's post-camping condition, I thought I would let everyone know what's up. As you may recall, I spent the end of last week sick with a cold. Erin seemed healthy enough when she got back from her trip, but she was starting to get a sore throat. Since then, she's had a fever on and off, an increasingly bad sore throat, and a set of swollen glands in her neck the size of golf balls. Needless to say, she's headed for the doc today. What a way to start a new school year, right?

...and in the nick of time

Just as I was getting ready to head off to the mud and heat of Camp Tipsaw, Erin called and informed me that my services would not be needed. In an effort to escape the misery of camp, the kids had all piled into the bus and headed to Tell City for the Pizza Hut buffet, Dairy Queen, and free rides at Schweizer Fest (don't ask me what it is, just check out the link...the music alone says "Fun!") In any case, Erin's spirits seemed to be up this evening when she called. She decided that she could handle the kids on her own for one last evening, so I was saved, yet again, from camping. I suspect she thought that if I went down there and had a miserable night in the mud that I might poo poo any future camping trips, so this way she could prevent that from happening. But I'm not so easily tricked. I will poo poo future camping trips, DESPITE not having to be miserable this evening.

As a sort of karmic gift for my glee (I nearly killed 8 people as I raced into the Wal-Mart parking lot this evening to return the tent, air bed, etc) I have acquired a rather miserable head cold. Hopefully Erin won't mind nursing me back to health before she unpacks, gets ready for school on Friday, writes a massive blog entry giving her side of the camping trip, etc. We all must have our priorities.

Bret

My Camping Fun Begins NOW!

Wish me luck. My new tent, new sleeping bag, new air mattress, change of clothes, towel, fuzzy slippers, and an MRE are packed and ready to head to Erin's Camp-o-Fun at Tipsaw Lake. I haven't heard from her since yesterday morning, but at that point, it had been raining heavily for several hours. It sure sounds like a good time. If you don't hear from me in 48 hours, send in the troops.

And oh yeah, I also packed my raccoon sword.

Bret

The Raccoons Have Arrived

I received another call from the wife this morning. There's really almost too many funny things to put all in one post, but I'll do my best to consolidate.

-- The first thing she said when I picked up the phone was, "I want to die." This was followed by, "What the hell was I thinking" and "I'm working on 3 hours of sleep and sh***y coffee."

-- "I've never heard anyone sing '100 Bottles of Beer on the Wall' and get past about 75, until the bus ride down. They perservered and finished it."

-- Apparently around 2am this morning, the raccoons arrived to join the camp. She quickly moved most of the food to the bus and put some of it on a pole in the middle of the campground. This didn't deter the raccoons -- they climbed the pole. Knowing Erin's imagination, they probably then began hurling the food at her from the pole.

-- Since one of the raccoons was "obviously rabid," Erin relocated to the floor of the bus to try to sleep, but apparently this was unsuccessful. She also commented that she sat there thinking that wolves were approaching all night, following the raccoon attack, but it turned out to be owls. (Somebody's mom didn't buy her one of those little spinning deals that makes the animal noises as a kid.)

Apparently they're reconfiguring the campground tonight, so she'll have a tent to sleep in. I was ordered to purchase a tent before heading down on Wednesday. She said that despite all of this, she's still glad she took the trip, and the kids are having a great time. I think she's just bluffing in an effort to convince me that she still likes camping, in hopes of us going someday. I'll not be tricked. Hopefully conditions will improve today, hinging primarily on whether Erin gets a nap soon.

Kids 2 Erin 0

I received my first call from Erin, and she arrived safely at her campsite. I was able to glean two bits of information from this call, despite the swearing:

1. If you have an odd number on a 7 mile canoe trip, make one of the high school kids take a kayak. If you're a 30 year old teacher who's never kayaked, now is not the time to learn.

"I can't feel my arms. I'm so damn tired. I can't even move."

2. If one, or even two, high school girls tell you they're bringing an extra tent you can sleep in, trust them like you would a CFO at Enron.

"Neither of them brought their extra tent, so I'll be sleeping either on the ground or in my camp chair."

It's going to be an interesting week.

A-Camping We Will Go...

After months of driving around looking for the perfect site and fending off questions about her sanity, my wife departed this morning with a bus load of high school students to go camping. In her absence, I immediately did the following:

-- Stopped and ate one of those Quadruple Stackers from Burger King. You know, the ones advertised as having "No Veggies" as though the vegetables might give you heart disease.

-- Rented a bunch of horror movies.

-- Got drunk.

-- Belched the alphabet in the car on the way home.

-- Smoked three cigarettes at once.

-- Listened to all the Pixies and Pavement CDs at high volume.

-- Drove really fast on the interstate.

-- Told a kid in the supermarket that "books are stupid."

-- Farted, and then laughed about it.

-- Watched South Park.

-- Scratched myself in public.

And finally…

-- Posted a blog entry entirely designed to embarrass the wife.

In reality, I went to church and now I’m sitting here trying to figure out what to do with myself all day. And in reality, I’m eating a frozen pizza for lunch, since it was all I could find that could be consumed with minimal effort. It’s going to be a long week.

Mommy?

(UPDATE: I burned the pizza while typing up this stupid blog entry. Looks like it's pumpkin pie for lunch...)

What can brown do for you?

Last night as Erin and I were driving home from the grocery store, we passed a FedEx truck which prompted the following bit of introspection from the misses:

"You know, the FedEx guy is like our OBGYN. He'll DELIVER our package containing the pictures of our adoptive match from China."

Now I will say that it is very, very hot here these days. We've had a week over 90 degrees, frequently closer to 100. The local utility companies have asked everyone to cut back on power usage with all the air conditioners running full tilt, and my employer has even taken the step of only turning on half of the lights in the building for the past few days (furthering the notion that this place is full of dim bulbs.)

I say all of this to suggest that maybe the wife was just a little crazy with the heat. I have a strong suspicion that if she chooses to present the package delivery guy with his new title when he delivers our next package (which will likely be either CDs or something from an informercial, given our track record), he'll probably not bother ringing the doorbell next time, choosing instead to quietly slip our package onto the doorstep and run stealthily back to his truck.

Now if she tells the owner of our local Chinese buffet that "it's like you're breastfeeding our child," we'll most assuredly have a problem.

Cruise Envy

Since we didn't choose to drive 300 miles searching for "the perfect campsite" this weekend, we took some time to sit down and really think about where we would like to take our next vacation. In the past couple of years, every trip has been "the last big, blowout trip before Grace." I think we're on our fifth "big, blowout trip" at this point, but who's counting. The brainstorming for this latest trip led us initially to exotic destinations like Prague, Amsterdam and Paris. (Paris isn't really so exotic, I suppose, but the one time I was there, I remember thinking that seeing boobs on billboards seemed exotic enough, so I guess it still counts.) After a few hundred hours of consultation on the web, we discovered that post-Christmas Europe is, apparently, cold and damp. Our dreams of sidewalk cafes and whatever they have in Prague were instantly dashed, and we decided to look elsewhere.

Our parents recently returned from a cruise which they quite enjoyed. My mother rode a jet ski. For those of you who may know my mom, this should conjure images of Mother Theresa riding a mechanical bull -- except that Mother Theresa probably outweighed my mom (and may still.) In any case, we also heard tales of members of Erin's family leading line dances on the ship. I can't really imagine anyone in my family doing that without the aid of an overdose of some sort. While we realize the video is dark, here are some of Erin's relatives gettin' jiggy wit it.



All in all, it sounded like everyone had a good time, so Erin and I started thinking about a cruise. We initially thought about a river cruise in Europe, that is until we read that these cruises are enjoyed "primarily by those over 55." I suggested to Erin's parents that I "didn't want to take a cruise chock full of old people" and spent the next half hour getting the fork out of my forehead. Apparently my mother-in-law doesn't think 55 is old any more. Anyway, the image of me in a smoking jacket sitting next to a German version of Don Knotts at dinner doesn't seem all that appealing, so we tossed this idea. Erin spent roughly 3 solid days exhausting the options, and in the end, we decided on a cruise out of Miami into the Eastern Carribbean. It'll give us a few days to see south Florida (Erin wants to see alligators in the Everglades; I want to see if the Shoney's breakfast buffet looks the same as it does most everyplace else); in addition, Miami costs a whole lot less than our previous potential iteneraries. The only problem is that now I have to start losing weight again to give myself a little room to grow on the cruise. I've requested a room with its own soft-serve machine.

More Indiana Trek

Another weekend, another long drive for the Hawkins family. Yet again this weekend, we set out exploring various campsites for Erin's big camping trip in a couple of weeks. By the time it's all said and done, we'll have checked out more campgrounds than Lewis & Clark. On Saturday, me and Sacaja-wifey headed down to the Indian-Celina Lake Recreation Area in the Hoosier National Forest. We had hiked around Indian Lake on the Two Lakes Loop back when Erin received a grant to hike all over the state. Our sole memory of this experience was that it was really hot and extremely bug ridden. I just remember hiking along continually swatting insects away from my face. Given this exquisite memory, I was oh so excited to return to the lakes.

Prior to our arrival at the recreation area, we decided to do some canoeing on the Blue River courtesy of Cave Country Canoes. Erin plans to begin her big camping trip with a float down the Blue, so since we were in the neighborhood, we decided to give it a whirl. It's kind of hard to see on this map, but we took the half day trip on the upper portion of the river, just north of the outfitter's Milltown base. We had a great time, and the weather, which had rained on us all the way from home down to the southern end of the state, ended up being perfect while we were on the river. We were successful in keeping the canoe upright during the whole trip, but we did hit one set of rapids that left me soaked. All in all, we had a very nice trip, and I'd highly recommend the experience to anyone looking for a canoe trip in southern Indiana. Not only is the scenery on the river itself beautiful, but watching our fellow canoers chasing wild turkeys along the shore, smashing beer cans on their foreheads, and wearing bathing suits that MIGHT have fit back when Dukes of Hazzard was on the air made it all that much more fun.

After our canoeing experience, we drove on down to the recreation area to look for camp sites. This has turned into a very stressful endeavor for Erin. Originally she had planned on having the trip at Land Between the Lakes, and its combination of scenery, the lakes, hiking, and relative remoteness made it ideal for her trip. The only problem was getting chaperones to commit to being six hours away from home for the week. So the solution was to move the trip to Indiana, and recruit yours truly for at least one night of chaperoning. It didn't seem like it would be hard to find a patch of Deliverance country in Indiana on which to camp, hike, and swim in a lake. But it has turned out to be difficult to find all those things along with a somewhat secluded camp site. In any case, she found the perfect campsite near Celina Lake on Saturday, only to find that it was already reserved for the dates she needed. Just as the weeping and gnashing of teeth set in, I suggested we head south a few miles to Tipsaw Lake. As we approached the turn for Tipsaw, we noticed that the road sign for the lake pointed to the right. To the left, it pointed to the Branchvillle Correctional Facility. Maybe Erin can offer a craft session on making a shiv. While not quite as ideal as the sites she found on Celina, the sites we saw at Tipsaw could do the job. In the end, I think Tipsaw will be the winner, but there's at least one more weekend of driving available between now and then, so we'll see what happens.

After leaving Tipsaw Lake, we headed up the middle of the state to have a look at Patoka Lake. Neither of us had ever been to Patoka, and while Erin had already checked out the potential camping availabilities and decided they probably wouldn't work, we figured since we were in the general vicinity... Patoka is big, remote, and from what we saw on Saturday, covered with boats and jet skiiers. Erin has a fixation on eventually owning a lake house, and Patoka would be a candidate, but it's a long drive from Indy. We'll see... I have enough trouble maintaining our main house.

From Patoka, we headed for home via French Lick. I was interested to drive through French Lick to see the renovations being done to both the French Lick Springs Resort and West Baden Springs Hotel. If you've never been to these two hotels, you really should stop in if you're ever in southern Indiana. The West Baden Springs looks like something that belongs on a mountain top in Europe, and it originally was referred to as the Eighth Wonder of the World. Currently both resorts are being restored, and an adjacent casino is being built. I was surprised by the amount of work being done, especially on the French Lick Springs. All the streets around the hotel are torn up, and it looked like every window in the place was out. The new casino sits right out in front and to the side of the original hotel, and it looks relatively huge as well. Here's a link to pictures of the restoration, and here's another link to a webcam of the restoration site. It'll be exciting to check this place out in a couple of years, since my whole life, the area surrounding these two rather amazing structures has looked like a study in decay. I was sad to note that my favorite liquor store in Indiana -- French Liquors -- had apparently closed. Au revoir, French Liquors.

Following French Lick and dinner in Bedford (yes, we were THAT hungry), we headed for home. Here's a map of our route.


We broke the 300 mile mark for yet another weekend. I've gotta get me a hybrid if we're going to keep this up. I love my Hyundai, but it chugs gas like a '76 Grenada. Hopefully we're done with the cross state treks for a while, although I do have to say that I've enjoyed seeing some parts of the state that I haven't seen previously.

The trip was the big part of our weekend, but on Friday night we made another trip to Rustic Gardens with some friends from church. Yours truly won this round, beating his charming wife by many a stroke. Our friends found the place as bizarre as we did, but I think everyone had a good time. Mini golf was preceded by dinner at the Fountain Diner, one of our favorite little hangouts in Indy. We had our wedding rehearsal dinner at the Action Duckpin Bowling alley upstairs, so it's always sentimental to go back down there.

On Sunday, our parents all returned from their cruise in the western Carribbean. We were glad to have everyone back, and Erin's parents didn't seem to mind that we slept at their place and ate the majority of their food. It sounds like they had a great trip, and Erin's aunt and uncle got me a T-shirt which begs, "Where the hell is Belize?" You gotta love that.

AC Update

For anyone who reads this that actually cares about the well being of myself and my lovely wife, the repairman was able to fix our air conditioner on the spot yesterday. It's back to finding excuses for why I smell so bad. Here's the rundown:

(All prices approximate.)

He unplugged a part and plugged a new one in -- $200.
(He did have to remove two screws first.)

He used my garden hose to clean off the coils -- $70.
("I realize this here unit sits in the grass up against your dryer vent, but you need to keep it free of grass and dryer lint." Thanks.)

He added a pound of refrigerant -- $100.

While almost $400 for a half hour of work does hurt, it does include a furnace cleaning this winter, and I really expected that it would end up costing more. And while I wasn't happy about spending ANY money on a four year old heating/cooling system (which has already chewed up one blower motor), the guy was on time, very nice, generally very helpful, and he didn't expose us to any unseemly body parts or odors. Broad Ripple Heating and Air Conditioning gets my vote.

Oh, and we washed all the sheets, towels, carpets, toilets, counter tops, and floors over at the inlaws house where we were camping. We also replaced their supply of Special K. I did eat a Klondike bar which had, at some point in its past, melted and refrozen and developed a nice culture of freezer burn, but since my inlaws probably "don't eat that crap" anyway, I'm not replacing it.

It sure is nice to be home.

Sweating

It's hot here. I'm not talking, "Oh, it's summer and it's a little toasty." I'm talking wet the minute you leave the house, sheets sticking to you like saran wrap, shorts stuck to thighs where they shant be, Africa hot. You don't believe me? Well here's the weather for this week in lovely Brownsburg, Indiana according to my good friends at Yahoo and the Weather Channel.


Now here's the weather for another part of the world.


Notice the location? Ndjamena, Chad, AFRICA. Now I have no freaking clue where Ndjamena is, but I do know one thing -- THE WEATHER IS JUST LIKE CENTRAL INDIANA. But more on the heat later.

This weekend we trekked down to Bedford to see the vast majority of my family. It was my grandfather's birthday and all my aunts, uncles, cousins, and kin had come in from exotic locales like Alabama. As always, it was great to see everyone. I marveled at how fast my cousin's son is growing and how good everyone looked, and in return, they marveled at the fact that I can write an entire blog about overeating and vommiting at various points in my life. I contend that these pages haven't merely covered those events, but upon inspection of the archives, it does appear that I've managed to cover what I eat and where I later deposit it pretty thouroughly here. I've scolded my content editor appropriately.

We enjoyed a quick hike through the village and Donaldson Cave in Spring Mill State Park with my family from Alabama. The pioneer village in Spring Mill is really fascinating. Apparently in the mid to late 1800's, old ladies with granny glasses sat in long dresses made of burlap making quilts -- even when it's 95 degrees out. Methinks the original settlers of that village might have found it amusing that their reenacting brethren don't have the good sense to not wear so much clothing when it gets hot out, but perhaps they did as well. Erin found it amusing that on the way into the village there are signs with friendly reminders like, "Absolutely no pets" and "No playing of games." (I'm not kidding. And they aren't there for historical import -- they've been placed there by the state. Somehow I'm thinking they must have placed that second one outside of Mackey Arena up in West Lafayette at some point in the past couple of years as well, based on the Boilers last few seasons of basketball.) The other curiousity was that despite all the seeming attention to historical detail, the first pioneer building you pass as you enter the village is a pioneer refreshment stand selling such 19th century staples as fried pork tenderloins, french fries, Klondike bars, and Pepsi. Those settlers sure did love their Pepsi.

Following our visit to Bedford, we returned home to Brownsburg on Saturday evening at midnight to a mild shock. As we entered our lovely Chateau de Vinyl Siding, we discovered that it was very hot. In fact, it was sort of like walking into a blast furnace. Erin quickly scolded me for turning off the air conditioning when we were just going to be gone for the day, but I quickly retorted that I had done no such thing. A quick check of the thermostat showed that it was 96 in our living room, and the air was blowing full tilt -- hot air. Upon resetting every switch and fuse I could find associated with our cooling system, I came to the conclusion that our air conditioning is officially out. We tried opening windows, but cooling a 96 degree house when it's still 85 degrees outside with no breeze doesn't work too well. Luckily Erin's parents live close by AND are on a cruise with my parents (I bet THEY didn't get to see a pioneer village Saturday) so we shuttered our house and headed for theirs. These past couple of days we've had a lovely time eating their food, sleeping in their bed, and fouling their toilets. Don't worry Deb, we'll leave the place looking like the cleanest truck stop in America before you return.

To escape the boredom of my inlaws empty house and the still sweltering heat of my own home Sunday, we decided to take a trip out to the eastern portion of the state to scout camping sites for a camping trip Erin is taking with some students in a couple of weeks. Here's the route of our journey.


It was a whole lot of driving to determine that there are no camping sites in the east-central part of the state which meet all the necessary criteria. And to make matters worse, Erin made me stop at Subway to eat lunch rather than finding a nice local establishment someplace that served dishes that were the results of "playin' with the frier." Damn that Jared for losing all that weight via Subway. If he hadn't, we'd all still be eating at McDonalds, wiping grease and "special sauce" off our chins, and forgetting about how many grams of fat we were ingesting. Oh well...

Shakamak Scenery

This past Sunday, Erin and I took a hike out to Shakamak State Park, just outside of Jasonville, Indiana. There's not much in Jasonville besides the park, although they do have the market cornered on the "privately owned restaurant which used to be a franchise restaurant (usually Dairy Queen or Hardees) until the fire." I love these places. People buy them, tape their own product names over the Dairy Queen names on the drive-up menu screen, and off they go. I had a lovely Blizzard, er, Shiver at one of these fine establishments. Anway....

I wanted to take Erin to Shakamak to see the site of my infamous "pukey boy at camp" episode. When we arrived at the park, we immediately headed to the group campground. It looked exactly as I remembered it, and I was able to show Erin the cabin where my hot dogs escaped to the solace of my bedside. She noted that the campground was pretty ratty, which made me feel better. Apparently my experience there wasn't colored solely by the experiences of that fateful first night.

Since we were there, we went ahead and hiked around Lake Shakamak. One of the things I remembered about the lake was the presence of this massive diving tower. As a camper, we weren't allowed anywhere near the thing, but I can remember watching other kids jump off it from our campground. I wasn't completely surprised to find that the tower has since been dismantled. I suspect the local personal injury attorneys had permanently reserved spaces in the campground at Shakamak during the tower's tenure. I found a website where a guy is lobbying to have the tower put back. Good luck with that.

The hike was pretty non-eventful, but there were tons of bugs and snake holes. A few weeks ago at Turkey Run we encountered a small snake, and I don't think Erin has ever fully recovered. She spent a fair amount of time jumping around the holes, as though her four inch vertical leap would save her from the impending jaws of a Shakamak boa. We didn't see any actual snakes this time around though, so perhaps her yelling at them to "stay away" actually worked.

The other landmark we went through on the way to and from the park was Clay City, Indiana. Erin and my inlaws have been dying to go to Clay City ever since they moved to Indiana, primarly due to it's self-proclaimed billing as "Mayberry of the Midwest." We have relatives that live in Clay City and are lovely people, so I will tread lightly. But calling Clay City the "Mayberry of the Midwest" might be a little bit like calling a rusted out 1973 AMC Gremlin the "Mercedes of the Sub-Compact World." I think we pretty safely covered all there was to see at 45 miles per hour.

This weekend we'll be visiting some relatives and enjoying the splendor of Spring Mill State Park and Bedford, Indiana -- "Not Quite Mayberry, But Still Featuring A Drunk Called 'Otis.'" I've called and requested that all the snakes be cleared from the premises of the state park.

Taste

Saturday we took in this year's Taste of Chicago. We decided to take a lightening fast trip to Chicago with my inlaws to see what all the fuss about Taste is about. I will say, in brief, that Taste of Chicago could more appropriately be renamed Smell of the Denizens of Chicago, given that you're smashed into Grant Park with approximately 2 million citizens of Cook County. The food was tasty, although I think we all found it a little hard to enjoy whatever "food on a stick" you might be eating at any given time when you really don't have anywhere to sit, and you really don't have anything to drink most of the time either. I realize that you could probably hunt these necessities down, but that would require you to exit the giant "people coccoon" you're encassed in as you walk from booth to booth.

All in all, I would say that we were all glad we gave this experience a go, but none of us need to do it every year. Plus, with all of the holiday eating this weekend, my wife informed me that I had slipped back to a previously abandoned hole in my belt. That's so defeating.

Rustic Gardens

This weekend proved to be yet another busy weekend in the Hawkins household, and Saturday evening provided Erin with one of her more memorable experiences as a Hoosier. The evening started off nicely with dinner with my grandparents at our local Uno Chicago Grill. We've been to this place a few times over the past couple of months, and every time we've had surprisingly good food. The time with my grandparents was great, as always, and we enjoyed getting to catch up with them. After dinner, we decided that rather than head home to bed or go to the gym or eat something healthy, we would extend our evening with a little competition at Rustic Gardens.

Now Rustic Gardens really has to be seen to be believed, but I'll do what I can here. (I searched high and low for a website for this place, but I'm somehow guessing that the owners aren't too interested in the Internet. There was a sign by the cash register announcing that any website having anything to do with Rustic Gardens was not run by Rustic Gardens... It was a friendly sign with a "We don't take no out of state checks" kind of demeanor...) First off, let it be known that I was not Erin's only source of information on Rustic Gardens. Some of her students had gone there with the mini golf club at her school and agreed that it was an interesting outing. Plus Erin and I are always up for a little friendly marital competition, even if we do run the risk of Erin getting us kicked out with her potty mouth.

Back to my description. First off, the course has been a staple in Indianapolis since the 1930's, and you're greeted at the end of the gravel driveway by a boarded up log cabin. There's really no information about it, it's just a graffiti-covered log cabin with a sign saying something like "Est. 1824" on the front. Down the gravel drive are two more log structures, one housing the pro shop (I use this term very loosely...all it houses is a cash register and a stock of 50 year old putting devices), the other serves as an outhouse. Now Rustic Gardens isn't just your average miniature golf place. Each hole ranges probably 10 to 30 yards long on normal lawn grass, and the area around the cup, normally referred to in golf circles as "the green" is a sort of cement and sand combination. Nothing green about it. You might be thinking, "Oh, this sounds like a chip and putt kind of place." Au contraire. That would be accurate if they gave you anything but a putter, but they don't. Therefore you tee the ball up (no joke) and hit it full steam with a putter. Amidst the grass and concrete are various concrete structures, most of which are in such disrepair that they have been garnered unrecognizable, but they serve as obstacles none the less. One of Erin's favorite holes (pictured here on someone else's blog who I do not know, but I found it on Yahoo so I can link to it, right? Thank you to whoever the goofy looking guy in the photo is... At least they were smart enough to carry a camera along...) Anyway, one of Erin's favorite holes featured merely a dirt ramp that dropped over the edge onto the concrete surface. All of this wackiness makes for an interesting evening of competition.

Another facet of the experience which I can't neglect to mention is my fellow citizens of Indianapolis who flock to this place in packs. The people watching is supreme. The entire time you're playing, you have to be on the lookout for people teeing up and sending the ball sailing over (or into) your head. I'm relatively sure you could invent a new game where you try to catch the ball in your mullett, as it seemed to be a required hairstyle for the evening. (Here are some mullett pics for the uninitiated.) In any case, the experience also reminded us of some of the horrors of having a daughter in the future. For example, young ladies, if the pockets on your cutoffs extend below where you cut them off, they might be too short. Same rule if you have to tuck your underwear under the leg of your cutoffs. Too short. It humored me that we saw one couple with a young lady in just the type of shorts I'm describing, while her charming beau had "shorts" that he held onto the whole round with one hand to keep them from falling off, while his boxers continued covering the rest of his backside. Gentlemen, if you can do a sit-down job in the bathroom without unbuckling your belt, we have a problem.

Anyway, the evening was an interesting one, and it was only capped off when on the last couple of holes I spied chickens running lose around the course (keep in mind that this is all within Indianapolis city limits.) The guy managing the cash register was handing out bags of chicken feed to kids, so apparently this is normal at Rustic Gardens. In the end, Erin and I ended up tied, which was a good thing. Otherwise Erin might have said a swear and hit a chicken with her putter.

Following the mini golf, we went downtown for a dessert of chocolate fondue. For me, fondue is still too much effort. If I want a banana covered in chocolate, why do I need to put it on the end of a spear and subject it to flaming hot chocolate before poking myself in the face with the spear and depositing the searing hot chocolate on my chin? It all seems like too much work...but Erin likes it, so it's all good with me.

Prairie Tunes

What an idyllic weekend here in sunny Central Indiana. This was one of the most pleasant weekends in recent memory for Erin and me. Saturday night we took in the Indianapolis Symphony Orchestra at Symphony on the Prairie out at Conner Prairie. This is a great annual experience. You load up a cooler with enough food for roughly 4 times the number of actual people in your party, you carry said cooler for approximately 6 miles from the parking lot, you place cooler on a hillside at a 15% grade, and then you spend the next 4 hours listening to the symphony while gorging yourself and trying to maintain your position on the hillside. It really is a great time, and it was nice to spend the evening with both sets of our parents. The music for the evening was favorites from television and movies. Therefore each piece was a movie theme or intro to a TV show. On the way out of the park, I heard someone say "Each song was just too long." Methinks this particular Hoosier might be better suited for "Short Attention Span Theater."

On Sunday, Erin and I got up bright and early at 9:30am and headed for a hike at Turkey Run State Park. For my money (which in this case is about $35 for a yearly pass) Indiana has a very nice state park system. Turkey Run is one of my favorites though. The park has some beautiful natural features, and Sugar Creek runs through it providing some excellent canoeing. Maybe on our next trip out there I'll try and get some pictures. Erin and I hiked up three different creekbeds, all of which had an abundance of water and great scenery present. Luckily the day was overcast and cool, which kept the crowds at a tolerable level. We packed up around 1:30pm and headed for the car, which was fortunate since it almost immediately started raining heavily.

On the way home, our first goal was to get some food. This turned out to be easier said than done, as there ain't much surrounding Turkey Run. We ended up at this great little drive-in called The Big Berry in Bellmore, Indiana. Cheeseburgers and ice cream consumed, back to the car. All in all, a great weekend. We're excited to head back out to Turkey Run in the coming weekends. It's only about an hour from our house, and it really does make you feel like you're on vacation. Plus we got to see a snake eat a frog in its natural habitat. What more can you ask for?