We woke up extremely early again today at 4:30am. After catching a taxi to the airport, we checked-in and headed to the gate. The first flight out to Atlanta at 6am was oversold and they were looking for volunteers to give up their seats. This didn’t bode well. The same thing happened for the next four flights. It was turning out to be a pretty bad travel day.
I used my cell phone to check flight information and things didn’t look good. Basically it looked as if we would not be getting to Atlanta by plane today. So we bit the bullet and decided to drive. We rented a car from National (no Avis like we would normally do because they were all sold out). Most of the car rental companies were getting sold out. For some reason it was turning out to be a very bad weekend for travel.
So Jen and I began the lengthy 12-hour drive to Atlanta. This is the first time in my nine years of traveling that I’ve had to drive to get home. We didn’t wait until tomorrow because Jen really needed to get to work on Monday.
Shortly after we began our drive we stopped at a Cracker Barrel to rent an audiobook for the drive. We rented ‘The Thirteenth Tale‘ by Diane Setterfield. It was pretty good and made the time go by very quickly. We also stopped at a staples to buy a USB car charger to charge our cell phones. And we also stopped for dinner at a little Mexican place I think somewhere in Virginia. It was mediocre.
Jen actually drove the bulk of the time. She’s a real champ! We finally got home at about 2am and went to bed. Before going to bed I checked the rest of the flights from DCA to ATL and saw that we did the best thing by driving – we would not have made it out today.
Monthly Archive for April, 2007
After getting home from work today Jen and I opened a bottle of wine. It was the 2004 Nomade Malbec – it wasn’t that good.
There was no game night tonight. I processed photos from our recent trip to DC and made a photo album.
Jen met me at home at about 5:30pm. We drove up to my Mom & Jim’s house for dinner. On the way we stopped at the Crackerbarrel off of Delk road to drop off the audiobook from our 12-hour road trip on Sunday. It was raining very heavily outside and I got soaked just going from the car to the restaurant.
At Mom’s house we had dinner. It was really nice. We had some terrific appetizers, grilled steaks, salmon, veggies, salad, and desert.
After what seemed like a very long day I finally made it home from work. I was fretting about washing my new car which was covered in the awful yellow pollen. When I got home Jen was already home too. She wasn’t feeling that great. Come to think of it I wasn’t feeling that great too – I think it’s allergies.
We had some leftovers for dinner and then went out to the nearby gas station to get my car washed in the dinky little automatic car wash thing. In front of us in the car wash was a big H2 Hummer. It looked really funny inside the little car wash thing. Afterwards Jen and I went to Publix to do some shopping. When we got home I paied some bills and did some administrative stuff. Before bed I helped Jen flip the mattress and make the bed with the new sheets.
I pretty boring evening.
I was feeling pretty sick today and opted to work from home. As Jen was leaving for work this morning she discovered that her car battery had died. I gave her car a jump and then gave her the portable battery jumper thing that we have.
For most of the way I worked on the laptop upstairs in bed taking naps when I could – I really felt like crap. Jen worked a half-day and had battery died again so she went to an auto parts store to get it replaced. When Jen came home she got changes and headed back out for painting. I worked the rest of the day and did some housekeeping in the afternoon.
I woke up around 9am and didn’t go to the gym this morning. Instead I cleaned up the study and shredded some papers. Jen was in a bad mood.
A little while late I left for my 12:30pm haircut appointment at Studio 8 salon with Tami. She did a great job cutting my hair. We talked about engagement rings because she is expecting to get engaged soon with her boyfriend. I also had a splash of highlights done too – nothing big.
When I got home I noticed that the internet connection was down. I watched a discovery special on the Airbus A380 and worked on the laptop. I got the cell phone bluetooth data tethering set up.
After Jen got home we went out and headed to REI. I exchanged my sunglasses – again. They have a wonderful return policy. I love REI! We did some shopping for other stuff too. Jen looked at running hydration packs as well as water bottles. I looked at special hiking daypack hydration packs and found one that I’m really interested in. It’s the Camelbak Alpine Explorer.
Next we went over to the Honey Baked Ham company to buy a ham for tomorrow but unfortunately they were already closed for the day. So we went next-door to CompUSA where they are having their going out of business sale. Everything in the store was 20-40% off. Jen bought two iPod armbands and I got some rechargeable AA batteries as well as a couple of cheap movies on DVD, and some CD sleeves. I also looked long and hard at the UPSs but didn’t get any. One can never have enough UPSs in their house.
Once we were done there we drove all over the area and explored the new restaurants near the perimeter mall area off of Ashford Dunwoody road. We went into the new Eclipse Di Lune but they had a 45-60 minute wait. So we decided to have some takeout from Curry Curry instead. We headed towards home, stopped at Publix, and bought a bunch of stuff for Easter brunch tomorrow.
After that I called at Curry Curry to place an order for takeout. We got an order of basil rolls and two orders of spicy basil fried rice with tofu. Once home, we put the groceries away and ate dinner while we watched the new episode of ‘The Office’.
Jen got things prepped for brunch tomorrow and I kept her company doing research on hydration daypacks.
We are hosting an Easter Sunday brunch at our house today. So we cleaned up around the house and got things ready for brunch. I also added the new Deth Cab for Cutie album to our music library and updated the XBMC music library. I noticed a problem with duplicated songs and think it may be related to the build of XBMC I’m using. I’ll have to upgrade.
People began to come over. Katie, Chris, Sydney, Scott, Adi, and Jen’s parents. We had brunch which consisted of ham, two different types of quiche, French toast, and fruit kabobs. It was all fantastic!
Mom & Jim came over. We hung out and listened to music. Larry called and I chatted with him for a while.
At around 1pm everyone left and we cleaned up. After waiting about thirty minutes we went to the gym to work out. Jen ran on the treadmill and I split my time between the treadmill and lifting weights.
We got home at about 2:30pm and relaxed some. Then we showered and got ready to head back out again. We drove up to the Woodstock area to Jen’s parent’s house for dinner. Everyone was there except for Scott. I brought my camera along and took some photos.
(Katie doing her grandmother’s nails)
(Jennifer)
(Bob cutting the pork roast)
For Easter dinner we had a pork roast with horseradish sauce, wine, salad, mashed potatoes, asparagus, and cake for desert. It was all excellent! Jen and I left around 8pm and stopped by her house to look at the paint job. When we got home Jen went to bed early I stayed up for a while working on the XBMC upgrade.
Jen went off to the gym for a class while I slept in. The instructor never showed up so Jen just did her own workout instead. After that she stopped by Home Depot to get some plants and came home.
We worked all day long on spring cleaning stuff. I washed all of the windows while Jen worked on the hardwood floors. Next I moved onto cleaning the study. We got rid of a ton of stuff which was really nice. We also removed the extra table from the study giving us much more room in there.
Later Jen and I went out to Thai Diner for dinner. It was excellent!
Unfortunatelyit was a cold and dreary day outside today. Jen and I went to go visit Scott and to also check out the new sofa that he is very proud of. We also got to see his refurbished kitchen (still under construction) – it looks fantastic! Scott was trying to figure out where to have the microwave installed.
Jen saw that Scott had ‘Bejeweled’ for his Xbox 360 and wanted to play that. Scott also demoed ‘Gears of War’ for us. It looks like a really cool game. We went home and had lunch. I had leftover fried rice from last night and Jen had split pea soup. We also opened up a bottle of the 2003 Pelissero Nubiola. It was great! Jen went to the home show thing with her mom.
I went over to Clint’s house today for a special ‘Distraction’ game day adventure. It was a lot of fun!
When I got home, Jen was still away at her parents house. When she did get home, we changed and headed back over to Clint & Erin’s house to watch Casino Royale with them. They had drinks and popcorn and we had a really great time. I liked the new bond movie – the new actor that plays James Bond does an excellent job.
We woke up a little late at 9am and were running a little late. We originally planned on leaving for the Renaissance Festival at 9:30am but didn’t make that. Katie and Chris came over and brought some bagels for us.
We headed out to the Georgia Renaissance Festival south of Atlanta. Tom & Terri met Jen, Katie, Chris, and I there. We had a great time. I’ve never been to one before so it was a fun new experience.
(Me and Jen)
(Terri, Tom, Jen, Chris, Katie)
(Chris and Katie)
(me and Jen)
It was a clear, but hot, day outside and we did a lot of walking around. It was interesting to see the glass blower and the other acts that they had going on. My favorite part was the jousting competition. It was pretty crowded.
Afterwards we went back to our place and went out to the pool. Next we went to Costco to get some groceries and then grilled out at home. The gas grill ran out of gas so I had to go get it filled up. For dinner we grilled-up mushrooms and veggies. It was really good.
We sat outside and enjoyed one of the French wines that Scott gave us, the 1999 Chateau Lalande-Borie. It was wonderful weather outside this afternoon.
(1999 Chateau Lalande-Borie)
Because we had plans to go to Athens tonight, I only worked half a day today (from home). Jen also worked only a half-day. She came home and then we headed out to Athens.
When we arrived in the Athens area we stopped at the Georgia Botanical Gardens. It must still be too early in the year because there weren’t a lot of flowers. We need to come back in the summer. Jennifer got a run in along some of the running trails while I photographed – so it worked out well.
Next we went over to the hotel, the Hilton Garden Inn, to check-in and change. I was starving so we went over to the taco stand to get some tacos. It was great. I love the food in Athens.
Later we met Katie and Scott for dinner over at the Grit. Chris didn’t come because he had to work late so Katie picked up Scott from work on her way up here. The Grit had good food and we had a nice time at dinner.
After dinner we stopped by the hotel to get some things and then walked over to the bar where Dave was having his party. The whole reason we came to Athens was to celebrate Dave’s birthday. He had rented out the top of a bar and invited a lot of people. I had a red bull & vodka and also did a shot of a ‘mind eraser’ with Katie. When Katie went to school here in Athens she knew all of the bars and even has a plaque in one bar for doing so many shots. The strange thing is that she wasn’t even 21 when she was going to school here!
People started to show up and we hung out in the upstairs part. There was lots of drinking – I drank the red bull & vodka’s all night long. Jennifer and Katie also had their share. Katie took a liking to doing shots of Patron tequila.
Later we went back to the hotel and went to sleep around 2am.
After sleeping-in from the late night last night, we checked out of the hotel and drove over to the Grit for some breakfast. It was really good. I had a breakfast burrito with tofu in it.
Finally we drove back to Atlanta. Because of us sleeping in late I knew I would not be able to make lunch with Clint & the others so I called Chris to give him a heads-up. We got home and I showered and took a short nap. I was feeling a bit queasy from all of the drinking last night.
I drove over to Russel’s house (near Clint’s place) and found all of the guys playing video games. They had two televisions set up with game consoles. Clint, Chris, Russel, Clint’s friend Seth, Drew, Joon, Tom, and Tremayne were all there. I didn’t partake in any alcoholic beverages because I wasn’t feeling good.
Later we went over to Mt. Fuji for dinner. We met Harold there and had a hibachi dinner. Afterwards we went back to Russel’s place to play some more games. Eventually the taxis showed up and took us to the Cheetah in midtown. All of us went except for Drew, Seth, and Joon.
I had a great time at the Cheetah. We made sure that Clint got tons of lap dances and had a great time. As the night progressed Clint had too much to drink and wasn’t doing well. So we took the taxi back to Russel’s house and put Clint to bed. The rest of us stayed up and played video games. I played Gears of War for the first time ever and it was really fun! I even did pretty well playing on the ‘hard’ difficulty level.
Because I didn’t have anything to drink all day I was good to go and went home. I got home around 2am and Jennifer was waiting up for me. She had done to Erin’s bachelorette party tonight as well.
Today Delta unveiled their new plane livery. They made a big deal about it and had an event scheduled for people to come look at the plane. It was, for us at least, a big disaster. We wasted two hours standing in line for a shuttle bus only to find that we still had to wait in another long line. Frustrated, we took another bus back to our office in order to get some work done.
I had game night tonight. Chris started running his ‘Expedition to Castle Ravenloft’ game. It doesn’t sound as if Nokie will do very well in this setting since he is a rogue and there will be a lot of undead (who are immune to the rogue’s big ‘sneak attack’ ability).
