Hurts so good?

The wife and I went to see John Cougar Mellencamp last night. Donovan was also performing. The show was at the Savannah Civic Center, which was easily the worst layout for a concert I've ever been to in my life. I felt like a grown up in a kindergarden desk. I'm not that big of a person. Yeah, I have wide shoulders and am 3 inches taller than the average american man but I'm not gargantuan to have felt that way in the fold up plastic seat.




We were in Mezzazine 14 Row P. Mezzazines 21-26 were closed off due to be behind the stage. From our vantage point we could make out that there were people on the stage but we certainly weren't picking out eye color or even sock color. Many people had binoculars. I find it rediculous that binoculars are required for a $45 seat. The most uncomfortable seat I've been in at that.

The sound was ok, and the songs were... well, it was John Cougar Mellencamp. I guess there are people that live and breathe that kind of music but we aren't those people. He started out with his song Small Town, seguewayed into Human Wheels, I saw you first, Minutes to Memories, Lonely ol' night, rain on the scarecrow, Walk tall, Paper in fire, some song I couldn't place from my spot in line for more beer, and then capped off his first set with the Authority song. Donovan joined him on stage at this point. My wife summed up the Donovan show best:

Donovan, if you didn't bring enough for the whole class...

We decided to cut the night short when Mellencamp came out for his encore. We didn't need to hear Jack & Diane that badly.

Something that sticks in my craw... Mellencamp's web site stated the show would start promptly at 8. Well, as with all musicians I know, Mellencamp lives in his own time zone or something because it was much closer to 8:30 before anything actually started. The civic center's web site implored eveyone to be in the doors by 6 PM and they didn't even open the doors to the concert hall until just shy of 7:30. People were just sitting around on stairs and of course going to the T-Shirt vendor ($30 a shirt, $22 for the greatest hits cd.)

Overall I give this concert 3.5/10. Mainly it was because of the venue and partially because I've never been head over heels of either of the performers but when you get a ticket it is a package deal.

Spring Fling

Spring arrived yesterday and it seems as though when winter left it took our colds with it. We felt great and the weather was more beautiful than we could have imagined. I did some skateboarding, rode 15 miles on my recumbent, and then did some more skateboarding. We topped the day off with a top notch dinner at The Dolphin Reef.

While I was riding my bike I saw another recumbent that looked exactly like mine. It was yellow, swb, uss... I can only imagine it was another actionbent because I don't know of any other makes that are very similar to the ab's. It was a true high point of my day. I ended up averaging 15mph for 15 miles. This was quite a feat for me since it's been several weeks since I've even been on the bike. I was quite proud and I'm sure the beautiful sunshine helped me through it. I stopped down at Jamie's bike shop and picked up some bearings for my skinny skateboard. She was quite shocked when I said I wanted bearings. Well... not really. She asked what size bearings and I replied "Skateboard." THAT was when she was shocked. :)

Even the weather is under the weather

We're still fighting our little cold like thing. Thor hasn't gotten it yet, much to my surprise. The weather has been quite rainy and they are calling for 100% chance of rain all day today. About the time I get home tonight should be high tide and with the all day rain I'm quite curious how well the ol' Metro floats. I guess I should have bought those paddles at Bass Pro Shop last weekend. A couple weeks ago they did put up new signs that said something along the lines of "High tide may cause water to go over road" or some such. Maybe I should throw an inflatible raft in the back of the car for just such an occasion.

Family gone but some things stay

The family cleared out this weekend and we're back to our nuclear trio. It seems as though someone brought something they could leave. I haven't decided yet but I think it is a virus. Both Keisha and I have had fever and very active mucous creation. It is possible it is just a sinus infection but either way there's not much we can do but wait until it goes through its course.

Desi's flight was delayed leaving Savannah so she missed her connecting flight and had to wait about 3 hours to get another flight into Harrisburg. For her trouble they bumped her up to first class and gave her $30 in food vouchers for lunch. I thought that seemed pretty darned fair.

I used some JB Weld on my bicycle where the nipple broke that holds the chain tubes. I let it sit for a couple days before removing the zip tie that was securing it but one little wreck by Desi and it all came undone. My next plan is to remove the JB Weld and take it to the auto body shop on the island and see if they can weld it on. I've said it before and I'll say it again right now. That bike chaps my ass. It would be one thing if it were a Wal~Mart cheapie but I paid a lot of money for that bike to be as much hassle as it has been. If I didn't enjoy riding it so much I'd really be put out by it. I think I've learned some valuable lessons from it so that's good. I know from now on I'm going to be buying my bikes at bike shops and not online. Even if I have to drive some distance to get to the bike shop at least they'll back it up with a warranty and somewhat regular checkups. My new issue of Bicycling magazine has the rundown of the new crop of bikes for the year (of which I think they cover all of 5 recumbents, mostly burleys) but anyway I was on their site this morning and found a pretty cool bike. Cost is a factor of course. http://www.challengebikes.com/html/index.php?taal=en I liked the fact that it is available with under seat steering, I just can't imaging getting used to over seat steering. It looks so "chopper" to me like that. I am thinking about changing out my largest front chainring to something that will allow a bit more gearing. I find that I run out of gears pretty quickly. I'm sure that will wait until later in the summer but it's something to consider anyway.

Cafe Loco

We went to Cafe Loco again last night. Wednesday night is wing night. Wings are one of the very few meat items I will eat that has bones in it and I do like their wings quite a lot. They have 10 different flavors and the deal is you buy a pitcher of beer ($7.50) and you get all you can eat wings for $6. It turns out to be a pretty good deal since last night I ate 30 wings and drank a pitcher of Pabst Blue Ribbon (it was a blue ribbon night!) for about $13.50, about $1.50 more than their 24 wing party pack.

There is one very big drawback to Cafe Loco. Their service would have to improve by leaps and bounds just to become mediocre. Waiting more than 30 minutes for a drink order or an entree is not only normal, it is expected. Last night I literally had to go find the waitress every time I wanted to order some wings. There is only 1 waitress but the place only seats about 75.

If the wings and wing deal were not so good I'm sure I'd not go back just because of the service.

Weekends

We had a great weekend. It was nice to have the family together. We spent some time on the beach, cooked out, ate supper at Cafe Loco last night, and just generally had a good time. I am quite worn out from it all and am due for some time to myself. Desi & Amaya will be here until Sunday and Rene, Nicholas, and Wendy are due here on Friday. After that it will be smooth sailing for a while until our next bout with visitors.

Teresa, our landlady, brought our electric bill yesterday. It was $150. I was astounded. We don't typically use the air conditioner and almost never use the heat. The only thing I can think is that the decrepid refrigerator that runs all the time is eating up the juice. I mentioned to Keisha that if we go out of town for a weekend we need to shut off our power at the breaker box to see if the pizza oven still works. I'm sure we're not paying for that because it must eat megawatts of power rather than kilowatts but still, it seemed terribly high. Even Jeff & Mike's electricity was over $100 and they've not even been there all month. The rate is high here, 8.2¢ per kilowatt hour, which is much higher than in Tennessee. I guess it is comparable to that in Pennsylvania but ah well, we'll just have to deal with it.

Let the visitors commence

Scott rolled in last night around 11 and will stay for a couple days. Desi and Amaya will arrive tomorrow at 11am and stay for a week and a half, Rene, Wendy, and Nick will come in next Friday and stay the weekend. Needless to say it's going to be a busy couple of weeks.

We ate at Cafe Loco last night for shits and giggles. They had a special on all you can eat wings and I'm still burping up their original recipe wings. The first batch of wings was mildly seasoned but every reorder grew in intensity. Typically by the time you get your 2nd or 3rd order your taste buds are accustomed (or should I say cooked off) but they obviously work their spices on a logarithmic scale. Excllent food though.

Urinal Science

When we arrived at this place of employment on the 14th of February there was a piece of gum in the urinal. It is still there. I am wondering exactly how long it will take to become one with the sewage system. Thus far it isn't showing any signs of wear even though I feel certain everyone uses it for target practice. Give a man something that shoots and he will invariably aim it for something, for better or worse. It's huMAN nature as it were.

I'll try to keep updating on the status of the gum. It appears to be juicy fruit color currently and is, of course, abc gum. We are supposed to have a cleaning person start at some time pretty soon but I know I wouldn't go digging in a urinal. Perhaps they will, perhaps they won't. We shall see.