A DAY AT THE ART COLONY?

Yesterday, since I would be out of town the rest of the week, I had the brilliant idea to spend the day touring a place called Serenbe. I had read recently that it is a New Age-ish Art Colony being built near Palmetto, Georgia.

I really wanted to go because I read they have this incredible bakery with all kinds of fresh breads but figured I couldn’t get Cathy to go with me for that so I said we should go look at the art. I think she was dubious but agreed to tag along and off we went.

Problem #1 with this plan-I wrote down off of MapQuest to turn left when it said right.

Problem #2 with this plan-The bakery is closed on Mondays and Tuesdays.

Problem #3 with this plan-There is no businesses built yet except the bakery

Problem #4 with this plan-No one in Palmetto seemed to have heard of this place
.
Problem #5 with this plan-this is much more a planned, upscale community like Seaside, Florida than a New Age Art Colony. These are going to be very expensive homes.

Problem #6 with this plan-I was constantly lost and forgot to bring a map.

There were a number of wonderful small town Georgians that tried to help but had no idea what they were talking about. But they felt, I am sure, that it was better to give me some directions, even if made up, than disappoint me by saying they didn’t know.

Fortunately, in a jewelry store in the town of Tyrone I met two attractive and bright very southern ladies who at least got me started in the right direction. They also had not heard of Serenbe but knew how to get me to Palmetto.

Once on the outskirts of Palmetto we stopped at a gas station (next to Frank’s restaurant that the jewelry store women said served excellent food) and I called my assistant in Chicago and had her on Google trying to find this place. She was unsuccessful, no doubt in part because I told her it was spelled Sannabee rather than Serenbe. At least I had the first letter right.

So I went in the gas stations convenience store and there was this Amazon of a woman working there-I swear she was as big as a horse and her hair was as long as a mane and she had this huge ring pierced through her forehead right by her eyebrow the way horses have those round things in their mouth (I think it is for the reins). She scared me. I asked her where the main part of Palmetto was and she said that this was it. I knew there had to be more and she was certain it was just the service station and Franks. I guess we all live in our own little world.

Persisting, but doing it gently with her so as not to provoke her she finally screamed out “Tammy, ya know where the main part of Palmetto is? This it, right”?

Tammy, a more docile and dramatically smaller woman popped her head out from the soft drink cooler she was stocking and said that it was about two miles down and that I should go under the railroad trestle bridge and turn right and I would find the town square. So off we went. She had neglected to mention a couple of intersections where decisions as to which direction were required but soon we went under the trestle bridge, turned right and could not find the square. But I did see a State Farm agency and walked in and asked the woman (Jackie) who was quite nice and had a voice like Isaac Hayes (I have a suspicion she smokes) if she knew where Sannabee was. Of course she didn’t so she said that Jill would know. Jill came out and kind of smiled when I said I was looking for Sannabee and of course, in true Southern fashion, rather than correct me she just said “Oh, I know where Serenbe is” and she gave me excellent directions. Fifteen minutes later we found it and drove all through it but of course there was nothing there to see, do, or open to buy warm, just out of the oven, freshly baked bread-sourdough, a Jewish Rye, perhaps a Cranberry Walnut or maybe even a Vidalia Onion bread. All the little flours and yeasts were taking the day off so we headed back to Palmetto.

We first went on a road named the “Atlanta-Newnan” road and headed in the direction of Atlanta but it turned into a dirt road and Atlanta was a long ways on a dirt road. We decided to have lunch in Palmetto but didn’t see anyplace. There was a massive old train station from many decades ago, likely used to ship in slaves and ship out cotton and peanuts. There was a Historical Marker that said that Palmetto was where the Confederate Army evacuated (I think ran like hell is probably the right expression) as the Yankees burned Atlanta. Jefferson Davis gave a pep talk to the troops there, proof positive he must not have been a good motivational speaker.

We decided to try Franks since the jewelry folks had suggested it. On the way though we passed a combination machine shop and restaurant called Ms. Emily’s restaurant. The sign said they had good breakfasts, home made biscuits and hot lunches so I thought it would be an experience. My traveling companion was more sanguine but a good sport so we went in. Our Lexus looked a little out of place among the trucks I must say.

We went in and asked the waitress if we could sit anywhere. She was about 15 and she was as skinny as the Amazon woman down the road was gargantuan. She said we had to get our food first and we took a tray and went to this old fashioned school cafeteria type of line (with the warming trays in front of us separated by glass windows). We could get one meat (Fried Chicken, Hamburger Steak or Chicken Stir Fry) and two sides or the vegetarian plate of three sides (Mac and cheese, squash casserole, green beans, black eyed peas, etc). We also had our choice of two pieces of corn bread-you could have fried corn bread, baked corn bread or fried Mexican corn bread (with jalapeños).

We received our plates and went to the next counter where we were offered tea to drink-either sweetened (which everyone else was drinking) or unsweetened. The bill was $13.71 total. We noticed a young baby in a playpen and Cathy surmised it was the daughter of the stick waitress. We sat down in a booth that I think was shipped to them from the old City Café in Kingman because I know I sat in it 50 years or so ago.

The food was not very good. Ms. Emily has a monopoly I guess. Cathy had the stir fry and said it was real bad. I had the fried chicken and this was very interesting because I had a perfectly formed wing, a perfectly formed drumstick and a perfectly formed thigh. But none of them had any bones in them. How do you raise a chicken without bones? You’ve seen chickens strut around the yard with their heads going up and down picking up bugs and whatever else on the ground-how can they do that if they have no bones? Wouldn’t they be more like a big piece of gel (I was thinking like the implants but I have been warned about talking about those things so I won’t mention it).

The chicken with no bones was not bad and I had Macaroni and Cheese that was the Kraft version right out of the box-the little sticks of pseudo pasta smothered in a cheese sauce. I also had the Black Eyed peas which I am not crazy about but ordered because in Palmetto they are called Field Peas so I thought I was getting English peas. Cathy liked them and didn’t like her food so she ate my peas. She said the baked corn bread was one of the worst breads she had ever had.

We talked about the word anachronistic because I thought that was the right word to describe the place. Something from the 50’s that you bumped into in the 21st century. It was an experience but probably won’t make it to Zagat’s.

We then drove back to Atlanta and went to the airport and picked up Andrea who of course (check her Blog if you don’t believe me) was exhausted from no sleep and too much partying in DC over the weekend. And then we drove home and I planted my Strawberry Jar and now it is the next day and I am about to land in Chicago.

But before we land, I cannot figure out who is reading my Blog. Andrea put this Google Geo thing on it and it shows where people are located who have read it in the last 24 hours. There have been people from Santa Barbara, London, Ontario, Chelmsford, England, Indianapolis, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Phoenix, Williamsport, PA, Virginia, DC, Jacksonville and Tampa.

Now I know who some of those people likely are but I don’t even know anyone in Chelmsford (it is not near where Andrea and Lee live), Indianapolis, Nashville and some others. Very interesting.

THE HILTON AT THE BOSTON AIRPORT AND THE STRAWBERRY JAR

You may remember about five or six posts back the story of the Nose Picking guy I said looked like he was called something like "Jimmy the Horse Provoletto". Well, get this. I checked out of that horrible hotel less than 12 hours after I had checked into it, after sleeping in their room for four hours thanks to all their screw ups. They told me it was direct billed to MIB (the company whose Board meeting I was attending)which is the way it was supposed to be handled and that there was no charge to me.

Today I get my AMEX bill and they not only charged me, instead of MIB, as they told me they would dobut they charged me for two nights when I was there one night (for a few hours). How can anything get this screwed up? They are going to be in some pain over this.

On to more fun things. Grove, Cris, Landon and Wes got me a Strawberry Jar for my birthday which is next week. It is the coolest thing. I planted my herbs in the 9 different openings today-I have Bronze Fennel in top, then I have Heliotrope (which I love as it has the coolest flowers), Golden Marjoram, Fernleaf Lavender, Chervil, Green Santoline, Golden Oregano, White Flowering Thyme and Sweet Annie (yes, I know I am geeky).

So, here is a photo of it after I planted it. Thanks to the four of you and Happy Birthday to me.

IT IS A SAD DAY

Wes, Landon and their Mom, Cris, go home today-back to DC after two weeks with us. They wore us out at times but it was so much fun-I am really going to miss them. Landon and I went out yesterday and played for a couple of hours at the playground, stopped by to see Bill and his dog Riley and then went to eat Papusas, Landon's choice, at a Salvadorean restaurant. He must be the only 3 year old who when you ask him what he wants to eat, he decides between Papusas, Dim Sum, Haloum Cheese, Kibbeh, Thai, Hummus, Quesadilla, Tandoori Chicken and a bunch of other ethnic dishes.

The lady at the restaurant asked him if he can speak Spanish and he immediately looked at her and said "Conejo" (rabbit) which she thought was very funny.

Wes and I laid on the floor and he would smile and giggle when I made faces. I told him he and his brother were part of my legacy and I wished that I would live long enough to see him grow up to be an adult with a career and family but it likely is not meant to be. He just smiled and pulled my hair.

It will be a quiet house without them-too quiet. Such is life. But the memories of the last two weeks with them at our home in Destin and here in Atlanta were so wonderful. Tia is flying with them to DC today to help Cris. It will be the last time she will be in DC before moving to London so it will also be hard for her I know. She is so close to the boys, but if you read her Blog, you know that.

Here are my two wonderful Nietos who are flying home today and who I am going to miss so, so much:

 

 

My Mom   
just called me-she is happy as a Clam. The current Mayor that she doesn't like was defeated by a long time Kingmanite, Les Byram.

I know you are happy Mom! I put your photo from Sunday here to show how happy you are.

Here is the article. I can't link to it because you have to register to read it.

Residents decide Les is best; Lyons retains Council seat

5/17/2006 6:54:00 PM
Residents decide Les is best; Lyons retains Council seat

By Jeff Pope
Miner Staff Writer


KINGMAN – Voters swept former mayor Les Byram back into the position he had held for eight years with an 18-percent margin over Monica Gates. The contender distanced himself from the incumbent mayor by 775 votes unofficially as of Tuesday night.

Following the announcement at 8 p.m., the audience in the Mohave County Administration Building – mostly Byram’s supporters – sat silent as they processed the numbers and more importantly, what they meant. After several quiet seconds, the celebration began.

“I’m extremely grateful to the citizens of Kingman and the trust they have placed in me,” Byram said. “I’m also just as pleased that we will have a wonderful Council to work with and we will work cooperatively to meet this head on – the problems of this community.”

“Cooperation and challenges” was the mantra of the night. Council Member Ray Lyons retained his seat winning by a 22-percent margin over his fellow incumbent statesman, Jim Baker. Lyons echoed the sentiment that the Council, with its three new members, would collectively overcome the challenges facing the growing city.

“I think they’re coming in with a pretty good idea what needs to be done. They’ve done their homework. I think they know what needs to be done for Kingman’s vision of the future,” he said. “I think it will all come together.”

In March, voters elected Kerry Deering and Janet Watson to Council seats but neither Lyons or Baker collected the required number of votes forcing Tuesday’s runoff election.

Lyons said he was overwhelmed by the quantity of votes he received. “I want to thank everyone that supported me all the way through both the primary and general election,” he said.

Baker said he was looking forward to a break from 16 years of public service between the Council and school board.

“I wish the new members well and that they have all of Kingman in mind when making decisions. There’s going to be some tough decisions in the next couple years,” he said.

A total of 4,313 voters turned out for the general election versus 3,945 for the March 14 primary. Tuesday’s voter turnout was 34 percent.

Gates needed to close a nearly 19-percent disparity following the primary election.

Even with the endorsement of her opponent in the primary, Terry Thomson, she could not close the gap.

Gates knocked her opponent out of office two years ago, but on Tuesday, round two went to Byram. The pair traded “punches” along the campaign trail over whose vision of Kingman’s future was brighter.

“I think the people are very disturbed about the direction the city was going,” Byram said. “That they feel the quality of life of this community was being endangered, that they had no desire for this to become a bedroom community for Las Vegas, and I strongly feel the same way.”

Gates did not return phone calls seeking comment on the election outcome.

Byram said he believes that more voters swung to his side following the primary election after Gates accepted about $2,000 in campaign donations from Las Vegas developers who have housing projects under way in Kingman.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt about it. The people saw the Las Vegas developers were contributing heavily to her campaign and that just further disturbed them as to what influence they would have with the leadership that they were providing,” Byram said.

As part of his campaign, Byram said he was unhappy with the turnover rate of city employees in the past two years. He said he would meet with the heads of the departments soon.

“I want to see what they have to say, what their role has been in some of the decisions I think were not in the best interest of Kingman,” he said. “I certainly will give them every opportunity to work with us, but that’s up to them.”

Councilman elect Kerry Deering congratulated Byram on his victory.

“I’m ecstatic that Mr. Byram is our new mayor. I think that anyone that serves in a public position including Monica Gates and Phil Moon and the other Council members that are going off – hats off to them. They served. They got involved and I look forward to working with Mayor Byram and the Council,” he said.

I just saw this article in the Times-there will be an update every Wednesday. For those of you like me that think going around the world is fun, not difficult, you may enjoy reading this.

(Click here for his first article)

90 YEARS YOUNG AND BLOGGING


So I write this long Happy Mothers Day Blog today and my Mom sends us an email saying she has decided to start her Blog. (Click here for her Blog)

She may not post a lot or often, but you have to admire her for setting it up.

MOTHERS DAY, 2006

HAPPY MOTHERS DAY MOM!

This (the Blog) seemed like a good medium for me to write a little about this important day. My Mom, who is one of the few 90 year olds I am sure who does email and reads our Blogs, has been such an important part of my life that I decided to memorialize it forever on the Internet through my Blog.

A couple of years ago she asked me to write a story of my childhood days growing up in a motel so it could be put in the archives of the Mohave County Museum where she was working as a volunteer. Yes, at 90, she still does volunteer work. That eight word sentence tells the reader volumes about her.

I was going to put that story on this page but decided to handle it as a link. There is a guy in the Netherlands that is a big fan of the motels of Highway 66 and I’m not joking. (Click here for this guys website)

If you read down through his site you will see the towns in order as you would have when you would drive along Old Highway US 66 from the east to the west. When you get to Kingman you will see a photo of the Roping Cowboy where we lived. It’s old name was the Akron Courts but I think he has it listed under both names. (You can also Click here) and you can see the story that I wrote about growing up in Kingman in a motel that is now in the museum (the story is in the museum, the motel is not in the museum.

Now, my Mom didn’t want to move from her family and her home in Kansas City to this little town of Kingman, in the desert. It meant taking all of their limited assets and combine them with a huge amount of debt in order to buy this little motel. But for many reasons having to do with the health of my Dad, they needed to do it and so she agreed. It was a very hard move. They sold nearly everything they owned-a nice home in Kansas City, the big oak bed she was born in, a gorgeous Oriental carpet they prized, their car and most everything else they owned to scrape enough money together for the down payment on the motel. I remember the motel cost $75,000 in total and that seems like such a small amount today, but back then it was like millions would be today.

They gave away their dog told her parents and brothers and sisters goodbye and we all got on a train-the Santa Fe Chief-and moved to Kingman. She describes those hard years as her “gypsy years”. They struggled for 15 years or so but finally they had to face the reality and they sold the motel for almost nothing and went to work managing another motel there.

In all of those years, and up until about five years ago, I never heard my Mom complain about that decision. She still hasn’t complained but she has told us a little about how she felt. What an example she has been for my brother and me. Andrea said she has been her inspiration and role model and I think she has been that for all of us.

It was my Mom, who was working as a Supervisor of Maid at the Travelodge in 1965 (while also trying to run their motel) who said to me “Do you know a girl named Cathy Lollie? She just graduated from high school and is working for me cleaning rooms in the daytime and at the ticket window at the local Drive-In theatre at night to try and earn enough money to go to college in the fall because she has to pay for all of it herself. If you don’t know her, I think you should meet her as she is really a good girl”.

Six months later Cathy and I were married and have been for 40 years. That is another story for another time but I wonder if Mom remembers telling me about her. I actually had been introduced to Cathy once very briefly ( I was selling used cars and hustling pool for a living and think I had a big cigar in my mouth when we were introduced) but I did not know her and that conversation with my Mom got me interested. Of course when I asked her out she said no at first because she was afraid of me but that also is also another story for another time.

My Mom grew up on a farm in Kansas and likely developed her work ethic there. She is one of the hardest workers I have ever met, although Cathy may be in tied with her. She was the youngest of about 32 children or so-there are so many I can’t remember (I think there were 9). I have cousins I have never heard of. Her parents had both emigrated from Germany. Her Mom was actually from Alsace Lorraine, part of France, but back then it was part of Germany as I understand it.

My grandmother scared the daylights out of me. She was about 4 feet 10 inches tall and in every photo I have ever seen of her she looks the same. She was one of those people who had her ideas on how things should be done and I didn’t ever want her to know when I did something I shouldn’t (which was all the time) as I was not sure how she would react. I remember her hen house at her home in Kansas City. It smelled horrible to a five year old boy.

My grandfather was a carpenter and had this huge workshop in the basement. He would take me down there and show me how to use all the tools (isn’t this hysterical to my family reading this) but I would inevitably hurt myself or lose a tool or break them so he stopped showing them to me. This is one trait that didn’t flow down the genetic path. I am barred from using a hammer at my house. Not a problem as I don’t know how to use one. I remember when we would be at their home and after a big dinner he would fall asleep in his rocking chair reading the paper. The paper would be on his face and move up and down as he would breathe. That part of the genetics did follow down to me.

I remember when I was little-Mom was a stay at home Mom (all Mom’s were back then I think) when we lived in Kansas City and I have fond memories of my time with her. I wrote a short story about one incident and have put it below:

OUR WINTER DAM


It was the winter of 1951. A mammoth snowstorm blew through Kansas City. The streets were clogged, schools were closed and I was happy to be home. My Mom helped me bundle up and taking my hand, we went outside to play. We built a snowman, but then we decided to build a little dam in the street, right below the curb.

I don’t know why, but this was so much fun. Mom and I were bent down in the cold wet snow, building this dam so that the melting snow that was running down the street would be blocked. We made some little canals on both sides of the dam to divert the water around the dam. We had a little flag made from some twigs on top of the dam. It was our project-our dam and I was so happy and proud of it.

Our wet gloves made our hands quite cold and we went in to warm up. There was a fire going in the fireplace and the living room felt warm and familiar. I took off my coat and walked to the window, pressing my nose to the cold glass and looked out the window to stand guard over our dam.

As I watched the stream build and be diverted into our canals, some “older kids”, three or four boys who were probably 7 or 8 years old suddenly appeared and seeing our dam, they kicked it apart and crushed it, laughing all the time. I stood there stunned, my tears tasting salty in my mouth, as I watched our dam wash down the street. I felt like they had crushed a part of me. It was the first time I remember someone took a little bit of my spirit away by doing something mean and it was my first lesson in Man’s Inhumanity to Man.


This was the story that I wrote about a year or so ago. But as I have reflected on it, I realized that this is the first instance that I recall when my Mom set an example for me with her positive attitude. While I do not remember the words, I do remember her telling me not to worry. There would be more days to have fun and the snow would be back again. That has been the story of her life. When adversity comes knocking, she opens the door, looks it in the eye and says “You must be at the wrong place. I’m not interested in dealing with you and your negative crap”.

The story Cathy teases me about (she claims I had to have been spoiled rotten) is the Grapes and the Tricycle. When we lived in Kansas City, Mom would be working in the kitchen and she would halve grapes and line them up along he counter by the sink. I would be on my tricycle and I would ride from the eating area through the hallway, make a left turn into the living room, another left into the dining room and another left into the kitchen where the grapes would be lined up on the right. I would pop a few in my mouth and ride the circuit again.

When I was in 3rd or 4th grade I knew a girl in my class at St. Elizabeths name Mary Jane Wozny. I thought she was the cutest thing I had seen, but of course I hadn’t met Cathy yet. So I decided one day to ride my bike up to her house off of Main Street. It was probably a half a mile away. I guess I forgot to tell my Mom.

I was up talking to her and her tough older brothers came out and threatened to beat me up if I didn’t leave. They were likely about 10 years old. Having never considered myself a fighter, then or now, I jumped on my bike and rode home. She wasn’t that cute.

As I was coming up the street I saw the strangest sight. There was a police car with my Mom in the back seat. I couldn’t imagine what she had done. It didn’t enter my mind that she wasn’t the one that had done something wrong.

They loaded my bike and me up and drove us home. I had been reported as a missing child. My Mom sent me to my room and told me to stay there until my Dad came home from work. Of course that was not much of a threat since he was conflict averse, although that word wasn’t in my vocabulary at the time. I knew Mom must not be too mad at me and of course I now know she was more scared than mad. When my Mom did get mad, I got the heck out of the way because she would go out to this weeping willow type of tree and cut off a “switch” and I would become the “switchee”. I could deal with my Dad being mad but not my Mom. If she said he had to deal with it, she really wasn’t that mad since when she was really pissed, she dealt with it herself.

When I was a teenager my Hualapai Indian friend, Dayton Havatone, and I had a little too much alcohol in our system. We were on the dirt road that went to the Hualapai Indian Camp, an anachroism of the 60’s that no one would allow today. We were both on the hood of my parents bright yellow 1955 Ford Station Wagon (I cannot believe I was driving) and Dayton was teaching me some kind of an Indian Rain Dance or War Dance or Fertility Dance-I likely didn’t remember the next day let alone 45 years later.

At any rate, who should show up but the local sheriff. Lovely. This was not what I needed. So he called in reinforcements and one of them drove the car home and I went home (back to the motel) in the police car. It wsa my second ride-I had stayed clean since the rth grade incident. They woke up my Dad and I am certain they had a discussion. I just went to bed.

The next morning my Dad came down and I was begging him not to tell Mom. Of course, now I know that he probably didn’t want to tell her anyway as she would have come uncorked at both of us. So he grounded me for something like 3 weeks but at that time in my life it seemed like 3 years. I am certain Mom wondered why I was hanging around the motel so much at night.

Did you know about this Mom?

I remember about ten or fifteen years ago, when she was much younger (like in her late 70’s) she dressed up like a hooker to raise money for something-I think it was for the Olympics. She and her buddies stood out on the highway dressed up like that and collected money and people wonder why I dress up like an olive or put on a 40 pound hat and pretended like I was a drum major as I led the Georgia Tech Marching Band into the Hilton Hotel some 15 years ago. I was just following in Mom’s footsteps.

In the first instance of ever admitting this I guess I would have to say that I probably was spoiled! I sure was a hellion as a teenager. I don’t know how she put up with it. I’m certain she just stuck with her philosophy of “This too, in time, will pass”.

From my Mom I inherited, either through her genes or her role modeling (and probably some of both), my strengths. My work ethic, my tendency to act crazy, my determination to do whatever I made my mind up to, my calmness in front of an audience, my calm in times of crisis, my sense of loyalty to my family and my responsibilities are all things I got from her. I even got my sarcasm when something “irks” (her word) me just like her.

And so, on this Mothers Day, 2006, I wanted to share with you Mom some stories and memories from the past. These are but small crumbs from a full lifetime loaf of fond memories, lessons taught by you and learned by me, the knowledge that no matter what I have done wrong, you never stopped loving me and supporting me.

And I just think it is the coolest thing in the world that I can write this to you at your age on a Blog on the Internet and I know that you will read it on Mothers Day because I will send you an email and tell you it is there. Cris, Andrea and Cathy were telling me that I shouldn’t talk about boobs on my Blog as others might think it is politically incorrect. I just smiled given that I get emails from you all the time talking about your Big Boobed Mayor that you want to see defeated in the election this Tuesday. Like Mother, Like Son.

I love you and cannot imagine having anyone else for a Mom. You are just the coolest and funniest 90 year old I have ever known.

Happy Mothers Day.

Love,
Grover

THE NOSE PICKING SHUTTLE DRIVER

I left you yesterday as I arrived in Cincy. I was having this raging struggle internally between more Smoked Cheese and Crackers or the Gold Star Chili. I ended up with neither. Instead I tried a sample of a new Coca Cola product they are market testing at the Crown Room in Cincy. It is called Blak with an umlaut over a (but I don’t know how to make it on this keyboard). It tasted like a mild glass of motor oil sludge.

I was tackling all those emails and before it dawned on me, it was time to get on the plane to Boston. So no Chili but then on the plane they only had the “cheese that crumbles” kind so I skipped them.

We landed in Boston at 11 pm. It was gloomy, foggy and drizzly. I went right to the bank of phones and called the Hilton to come get me. She said it would be five minutes (this was at 11:10) and to wait outside under the sign that said Hotels Shuttles (and it also said Hilton and Hyatt). After waiting out there in the drizzle and 45 degree temperature for 25 minutes, I saw the van coming. I started waving and then started jumping up and down frantically as I watched the driver picking his nose and looking in the other direction (so no one would see him I guess). I screamed and the woman next to me almost passed out.

I went inside and called the woman. I was not happy. She promised me he would be back in five minutes. 25 minutes later, a little colder and a little wetter, I saw the van coming again. I stood in the middle of the road waving so he had to either stop or run over me. He chose the former. I got in and glared at him and he didn’t say a word. As he drove off I was looking him over. He was about 55, was nearly completely gray and had his hair in a pony tail that looked like he greased it. He had a big hoop in one ear and a diamond in the other and he looked like his name was Jimmy “The Horse” Provoletto or something like that. We picked up some other folks at another terminal who said he had passed them too (must have been a big booger-the other terminal is a few minutes away).

He laughed when they said that and replied to all of us: “Some others have said that I passed them also but I didn’t pass up anyone”. Of course now smoke was coming out of my ears.

I then had an incident at the front desk and ended up in my room at 12:45. I walked in and there was a big basket of fruit and cheese and crackers and a note from a Beth Stipanov, the Senior Events Manager. She said she wanted to welcome me and if I had any problems to let her know. Attached was her business card with her email address so this morning, after they called me at 530 instead of the 630 I had asked for, I concluded I would take her up on her offer. So I sent this email below:

Beth,
You left a nice fruit tray and note in my room (617) last night. You wished me a pleasant stay and said if you could do anything to let you know.

How about starting with firing a couple of the idiots working here? I arrived last night and called for the shuttle at 11:10. She told me it would be five minutes and after waiting in the cold and drizzle for 25 minutes the guy came. I was standing under the sign that says Hotel Vans and has four hotels including the Hilton. I waved and jumped but he was picking his nose and looking the other way and never even slowed down.

I then went in and called and she said she would send him right back-a couple of minutes. 25 minutes later he showed up. I stood in the middle of the van lane waving my hand so he would have to stop or run over me. He said nothing. We went to another pickup and the guys said he went by them. His retort was to laugh and say everyone was saying that tonight but he knew better.

I checked in with Martene and asked her about it and why they didn’t tell me I could walk in 4 minutes since I came in on Delta. She said I should have walked. I asked why they didn’t tell me. She said they were prohibited from sharing that helpful information. I asked her to put in my Hilton Honors number.

This morning the bill was under the door without the HH number. I called and again asked. It still wasn’t there. I have no idea if it is now. I did the breakfast order on the door-they forgot the ham. I called them and asked if I was charged-first the said yes and would bring it up. I said I didn’t have time and to take if off-then she said it was never put on. I can’t tell as I don’t have a receipt or a copy of the thing you hang on door.

Some people should be held accountable starting with the smartass who drives the van.

J. Grover Thomas, Jr.

One can tell I was not happy. So, in the middle of our Board meeting today the Guest Services Manager, Mr. Chintan Dadhich, and my new friend Beth came to our conference room and wanted to do whatever they could to make up for the fiasco. I told them I didn’t want anything from them but that they needed to have a talk with Jimmy the Horse and his sidekick Martene and they promised me they would.

We had a good Board meeting and we ended a half hour early as the forecast was for five inches of rain in Boston between tonight and tomorrow. They said the airport would likely be closed around 4pm and I had a 4:10 flight. Everyone on the Board was worried about this so we finished the meeting and said good-bye. I stopped in the bathroom to change into my jeans and realized that a blue ink pen I had been using was missing its top (I had left it somewhere) and the ink had oozed out all over my sport coat and all over the front of a bright yellow shirt from Thomas Pink. I can’t believe no one in the meeting mentioned it but maybe they couldn’t see it. So I had to take off my shirt, my coat, and my pants and shoes in the hotel bathroom and about that time two guys who work there in the maintenance area (based on their uniforms) walk in and I am standing in the bathroom in my underwear with my suitcase open and stuff all over the floor in a little waiting area they had.

I got dressed and caught the shuttle (different driver) to Delta and they suggested I try and waitlist on the 2:35 flight as they thought my 4:10 would be canceled. So they waitlist me and I hurry over to the gate. There were six empty seats and I was number 7 (of 41) standbys. But somehow I made it. They must choose you based on your flying level because most of those people had been on the list longer. Everyone was trying to get out of Boston due to the storm. I ended up in seat 13B, a middle seat between two big guys but I was just glad to get out of town.

While we are on flying, check out this article on what can be learned from your old boarding pass:

(Click here for the article)

We landed in Atlanta about 5:20 and I was too late to catch the 6pm flight to Destin but there was one at 7:25 so I waitlisted for it but didn’t make it. I went to the Crown Room and bumped into Kevin Haas (this is my week for bumping into people I guess) from Stop at Nothing and we talked a while until his plane was ready to leave. I now am on my original flight that leaves here at 830 or so but due to time change arrives in Destin about 9pm. So it will be good to be home as it has been an interesting three days.

Oh, they are dishing out free samples of Blak here also-it is a combination of Coca Cola and coffee, which sounds horrible but may be good.

IS IT BILL GATES OR IS IT ME? AND OTHER ARTIFICIAL CHEESE MATTERS


I’m on the plane (what a surprise) from Vegas to Cincinnati so thought I would type a little. I’ve always wanted to write a book so I am kind of enjoying writing in the Blog. That way I can pretend like there are thousands of people reading it.

I arrived in Vegas yesterday about 11am and was greeted by a driver who took me to the Bellagio. They had the room ready and I was on the 36th floor with a beautiful view of the city. I ordered a bowl of soup and a roast beef sandwich from room service (for $36) and worked on trying to figure out how to get photos on the Blog.

At 1:30 I went to the Board meeting which lasted until 5pm. I went back to room, determined to figure out this photo thing and finally learned how to do it. I was happy with my self and so I treated myself to a leftover breadstick from lunch. About then they brought me two bottles of wine and a fruit and cheese tray for 12 or so. I have no idea why they did it and it was such a waste as I had to leave the wine and never had any of the other stuff.

At 630 I was heading down to the Grand Patio for the cocktail reception and dinner and I heard my name. It was Jim and Patty Ward from South Carolina. Cathy and I first met them in Bali on a sales trip we sponsored and since have been with them in Costa Rica, Austria and Germany, Vancouver and a year ago, on a cruise (ick) in the Caribbean. When they saw me they started laughing as once we were telling them about someone who had bumped into his cousin (a friend of ours) in Cancún and this guy wasn’t with his wife. So Cathy always has told me “You never know who you may bump into” and we told Jim and Patty that story so they said that bumping into me at the Bellagio was proof of that.

At 830 I left the party and crashed-I had been up 19 hours and was beat. Of course that meant I woke up at 330 this morning but I was able to do some email and some reading. I also had not gotten around to preparing my speech yet so I spent some time on that and was having to email it back to the office so they could print it out and fax it to me. I really should be better about not waiting until the last minute on speeches or presentations but I seem to do my best job when I do it that way.

At 430 this morning I went to the Casino to find some coffee. A Casino has some weird creatures prowling around at 430. Lots of Asians were doing some high stakes gambling and there were a couple of hookers smiling at all of the men. I noted that the early morning shift is filled with the same amount of boob jobs as the rest of the shifts. There are cocktail waitresses whose weight would drop by 50% if they didn’t have their boobs. I frankly don’t know why they carry trays of drinks-they could just set the beer or wine on the breasts and have their hands free to make change. This could be a great market idea-they could eliminate the change girls completely by having the waitresses do both. I’m certain they could keep abreast of the drink and change needs using this system.

The only place you can buy coffee is at one of the 7 bars, all of which were open. I was looking for a cappuccino so I gave up and went back to room. I called and asked if they had room service that early and Rosemarie said Of Course-24 hours a day. So, for a bagel, a half grapefruit and a cappuccino, the bill with tip was only $27. How bizarre.

Mike Mescon, a professor I had in my MBA program and the guy who also had a locker at the Peachtree Athletic Club next to mine (and so I saw him every day) for years turned out to be a speaker also. It was so nice to be on the program with him and we had a chance to visit some. He and his wife Enid, who we got to know so many years ago when we were all in Tokyo together, were in a wreck a year ago and both had their necks broken. It is amazing that they both survived.

My speech went over well (if I do say so myself based on the laughter and applause). I showed them a photo in today’s USA Today of Bill Gates since last night a couple of them told me I looked like him. I pointed out to the audience that he looks like me , not the other way around. Although since I went to the He/She guy last week, my hair is not long enough for Gates to look like me.

As soon as the speech was over I went back to the room and changed from my coat and tie into my jeans and running shoes and checked out. They had a car take me back to the airport and the driver said to me “Has anyone ever told you that you look like Bill Gates”? I decided not to correct him.

I hated that I was in Vegas and couldn’t go see Mom. I called her this morning to see how she was feeling after her ordeal last week with Julie. It really wore her out. But, no surprise, she was completely rested and was going out to have some fun. She said she felt great. I had tried to think of a way I could get down to see her but with less than 24 hours in Las Vegas and both a Board meeting and a speech, there was really no way I could do it.

For some odd reason, I did not get upgraded. This is the first time in five or six years I have not been upgraded on a longer flight like this (3.5 hours). I think I must have forgotten to activate it since the First Class section had 24 seats so I would have made it. But I had booked an exit row aisle so that was fine and it allowed me to experience the newest Delta attempt at good service.

Early in the flight they came down the aisle and gave each of us this Delta Blue wrapped package. I had no idea what was in it. I opened it and in this very flimsy plastic container, there was artfully arrange the following:

1. Tiny box of raisins containing 19 raisins (I counted them).
2. One very small package of “Buttermilk and Herb Crostini”. There were 13 of those Crostini and each one was a little smaller than a dime (I measured it).
3. A small container like they serve jam or jelly in at a restaurant. It contained what was described as “A cheese-like spread with Havarti flavor”. Think about that.
4. A small plastic knife for spreading the cheese.
5. A Walkers Shortbread cookie from Scotland (1) whose ingredients were 100% pure butter (I’m not kidding)
6. A Wet-Nap, desperately needed if you really are going to try and spread the pseudo-cheese onto something smaller than a dime (the pseudo-cheese was pretty good).

Now, the best part of the story was that later when they came around to collect the trash I noticed they were separating the plastic containers all this stuff came in from everything else and stacking the containers. They evidently spiff them up and use them again.

Later in the flight they came around and offered us their “second beverage and snack service”. I always laugh at this. They serve this variety of snacks in First Class-there are Potato Chips (oops-Crisps-sorry Lee), Granola Bars, Doritos, those little sweet biscuits (I can’t think of the name) that are sort of like Graham Crackers and a package of 6 cheese sandwiches. People will take one or two of each-literally handfuls. But in Coach, they announce that each person gets ONE item.

Well, sometime in the last month they have switched from the cheese sandwiches they were serving to a new kind called Smoked Cheese on Rye. They are quite good-I had about six packages on the way out yesterday! And they don’t crumble. With the old kind they used some kind of crumbly bright orange cheese that would invariably end up on my black pants or lodged between the keys of my laptop. So I give Delta credit for one improvement while they are in bankruptcy. They have improved the Cheese.

I’m looking forward to the next leg of my journey between Cincinnati and Boston as I know I already made the upgrade there so I can really pig out on these crackers.

Whenever I start whining about how hard it is to be the Chairman of a Health Insurance Company because everyone thinks we are the reason the cost of insurance is going up so much (wrong-we just pay the bills-the docs and hospitals are the ones raising the prices), I look myself in the mirror and say “Grover, you idiot. Shut up. You could be the Chairman of an airline” and then I feel better.

Uh-oh, I just realized I have a dilemma. I try and boycott all airport food because it is so lousy. I would rather not eat than eat at a Burger King in an airport staffed by Americans that speak as if they have never gone to school for a day but who obviously have studied many years at the University of IDGAS. However, there are a couple of exceptions to my boycott (my principles weaken easily around food). One of them is at the Cincinnati airport where they serve Cincinnati Gold Star Chili like Cathy makes. It is almost as good as A&W root beer floats were when I was young.

So, I am in a quandary-what should I do? Should I eat the chili during my layover or wait and eat 5 or 6 packages of smoked cheese and crackers? I know-I will do both. I will have the chili and then do what the other passengers do and help myself to the Smoked Cheese but put them in my backpack for later. And Cathy thinks I don’t like leftovers. This is sort of like a leftover, wouldn’t you say?

It should be obvious I am bored sitting on this plane. I just looked and I have 117 emails and instead of trying to answer them I am rambling on about Smoked Cheese and Crackers. I think I will stop and if I have time (after the Chili) I will post this to the Blog from Cincinnati.

TAXI HOMICIDE


I am now on Delta flight 749 from Atlanta to Las Vegas on the start of this twice-cross country three day trip. I almost killed someone this morning.

I had the alarm set for 4am. Cathy was kind enough to wake me up at 355. I had ordered a taxi to pick me up at 445 since it takes 25 minutes to get to the airport at that time of day (or should I say night).

The guy arrived and as we pulled out he said to me: “By the way, I have to drive over here to Kelly Plantation to pick up another woman who is going to the airport since we had more calls than drivers”. He was a typical LA redneck (Lower Alabama).

I told him this would never work as I had a 6am flight, had a brace on my foot and a leg full of metal so it took me longer to get through security and he should have told me that last night when I talked to him as I would have called another company or just drove.

He asked what time the flight was and I told him and he said “no problem”. He then called the woman who he was picking up to tell her I was in the car and got into her voice mail, not a good sign.

I swear, at 5 in the morning, with no other cars in sight, he was driving 15 miles per hour. I asked him to speed up and he said he was going to lose his license if he got another ticket. I was thinking he might lose his life.

We get to Kelly’s Plantation and he asked the guard at the gate how to get to 213 Maria Terrace. This was not a good sign. We ambled down the road and he turned and went into the driveway at 213. The home was dark. There was a golden retriever in the window staring at us (don’t these dogs ever bark?). After five minutes of him ringing the doorbell I got out of the van and said “I’m taking your car and leaving. You can pick it up at the airport. I can’t miss my plane because this woman isn’t answering the door”. And I started to walk to the driver’s side (because I was going to take it) and he said okay and he came back. As we pulled out I noticed we were at 213 Maria Lane, not Maria Terrace but at 515 in the morning I was not about to mention his error. I am certain the other passenger is still waiting. I felt bad, but not bad enough to miss the plane and the board meeting.

He then started going at a snails pace across the Mid Bay Bridge. I picked up my phone and pretended to leave a message for my assistant in Chicago, Andrea Currie. I told her the taxi guy had screwed up and I was going to miss my plane. I told her that she should call the people I am giving the speech to and tell them that I would give them the $5,000 fee they were paying me back and I would also reimburse them for whatever they had to pay to hire a replacement and that I would recover it from the taxi driver and his company in court. Of course, I am doing the speech for free and I wasn’t really leaving her a message but it worked.
Suddenly he was on the phone to Delta and told them we were late and that I had a brace and how late could we arrive and still make the plane. It was now 5:23 and the man at Delta said 5:30 and this idiot says “No problem-we are almost there”. We were actually 20 minutes away on the bridge. But suddenly he decided he did not have to be so law abiding and we were driving through Niceville and Valparaiso at about 80 miles an hour in a 35 mph zone. I got out of the cab at 5:40, had to go get a boarding pass because our stupid computer at home is still not working and go through security. I was the last one on the plane but I made it. What a way to start off the day.

WATER SPORTS


On Monday Landon and I went to the beach. I asked him if he wanted to go in the ocean and he told me no because the “Olas” were too big. Olas is the word in Spanish for waves. I was so surprised he said it. I then asked him where you find Olas and he said “At the Playa”. We are going to teach him Spanish yet.

We laid on the beach and built tunnels and sand castles and buried each other. I had more sand in my horrendous hair than a sandbox. We were having a lot of fun and so I decided to try something. I told him that I was going to go rinse off my feet. He watched me as I stood in the water with the surf rushing in and then I came back and continued to build castles. Sure enough, about five minutes later he said “Papi, come with me. I want to wash my feet”. And so soon we were playing in the surf, although it was quite cold.

Once a wave came up fast and got the bottom of his shorts wet so he just took off his shorts. I suggested he leave them on but he said no and continued to play in his underwear.

We walked back toward the car and stopped at the showers to try and rinse off some of the sand. It was to no avail and I now have an entire backseat full of sand. I asked him if he had to pee and he said yes so we went in to the mens room and he did that but for some reason he then decided he didn’t want to wear his underwear and no amount of talking would change his mind. So off he went outside with no bottoms on-fortunately he had on a fairly long yellow shirt.

We got in the car and perhaps this is easy for parents of young children, but I had a very hard time buckling him in his car seat when his private parts kept sticking up near the buckle and getting in the way. I was so afraid I was going to pinch his you know what with the buckle.

Later that day we enticed him into the pool at our house and he used some noodles for support. Note that he is not picking his nose while swimming although it looks that way in this photo. Once he became comfortable with this he didn’t want to get out and the pool heater was not fixed yet so the water was only 79 degrees.

Don't you love the sunglasses?

That night I cooked some Tuscan Florentine steaks on the Big Green Egg and it was Wes’ first night sitting in a high chair. He is a little young but Cris decided to see how he would do and he did great for a while. I noticed in the photo we were drinking a bottle of 1990 Newton Cabernet Sauvignon-I guess it was in honor of Dani and Chris.

I'm hungry looking at this!

Monday night when Tia (Andrea) was putting Landon to bed he just kept talking about how proud he was of himself for swimming. He really loved it.

Tuesday I took Landon to the Gulfarium on Okaloosa Island. Before we left Cris gave me a packet with clean underwear, an extra pair of shorts and some wipes “in case he poops” since he has decided not to poop in a toilet until he is five (or that is what he told me). So on the way over there I told him that I was sorry but I had never changed a diaper with poop in it and I was too old to start now. I told him if he had to poop he had to tell me and I would take him to the toilet since I couldn’t change his underwear. He kept asking me why and I kept telling him I was too old to do it and didn’t know how.

We got to the Gulfarium and were looking through some peepholes in the Dolphin tank and suddenly two Dolphins swam by and we both jumped about ten feet. I almost pooped instead of him.

We went and were watching a neat show with two Dolphins and a Sea Lion and in the middle Landon had to pee so we had to leave and go do that. As he was going to the bathroom he let out a little toot and I freaked and said “Landon, does that mean you have to poop”? He looked at me like I was an idiot and said “No, Papi, I tooted”.

His two favorite things were things he described using the Spanish words-he shouted out “Pinguinos” when he saw the penguins and later we walked by and saw a huge sea turtle and he said “Look Papi, a Tortuga”. We also saw the shark tank and I said “Oh look, Landon-sharks”. He walked over and said “Papi, those are Hammerhead sharks”. Oh well, it was okay if he corrected me as long as he didn’t poop.

We went to one of those little booths where you get your photo taken. The last time I had mine taken was about 50 years ago and it was a quarter so I figured it was up to 75 cents by now. But it was five bucks at a time but now you get to pick your background so we had fun doing that.

We looked at about a thousand different colored fish and more dolphins and seals and then he saw a Soft Pretzel sign so we got one of those and headed back home. On the way I had a recording on that was a story in Spanish and he wanted to know what it meant and so we spent the next 25 minutes with him asking me how to say in Spanish every singe thing he could see as we drove along.

After naptime he was back in the pool with Tia and Mama and he went under for the first time holding his breath. He look quite startled when he came up but he was laughing and he learned how to kick with his feet and I think there is a good chance he will be challenging Mark Spitz’ record in a few years.

Cathy had decided to work in the yard which surprised us all since she has boycotted that for the last four years since we had the big rattlesnake in the pine island. She was nervous as a cat and Andrea snapped this photo of her-notice she is standing on the wall of our pond so that her feet are not on the ground. I don’t blame her. I wouldn’t have even been out there and then Andrea told me that Cris saw some birds trying to pick up a snake on the side of our house. We may have to sell it soon.

It's amazing she can balance with all her artifical parts.

We also noticed that someone has stolen our statue. The one in our pond is still there but in this photo of the front of the house, to the left of the columns by the entrance you can see the cement platform that used to have a statue standing on it. Wonderful. We have wild-eyed statuary thieves roaming about in gangs in our neighborhood.

The statue must be with Elvis

We cooked hamburgers and turkey burgers on the Big Green Egg and I wasn’t sure we were going to get Mama and Landon out of the pool to eat they were having so much fun. After dinner I put Landon to bed and of course he put into practice every single stall tactic he had ever learned. Then I packed for the fun trip I’m on this week. Wednesday morning I have to get up at 4am (remember, I am retired in theory) to catch a 6am flight to Atlanta; connect on a flight to Las Vegas for a board meeting at the Bellagio that afternoon. Then that evening I have to attend the reception of this company (whose board I am on). Thursday morning I have to make a presentation about AHIP (the health insurance organization I am Chairman of) and then at 1pm catch a flight to Cincinnati and connect to Boston, arriving at the hotel after midnight on Thursday. Friday morning I have a 730 Executive Committee meeting followed by a Board meeting of MIB (which I also am Chairman of at the moment) which goes until 2pm. I get back to Destin at 10 Friday night. It is clear I do not have retirement down.

THE WEDDING WEEKEND

I wish I could write like Andrea can. Her Blog is so interesting and she gets such good feedback from it on how well she writes and how funny she is. Mine is boring as I find myself writing too many details. If you want to see the way a Blog should be written, Click here for her Blog.

Friday morning we were off to Jacksonville for the wedding. MapQuest said it would take 5 hours and 37 minutes door to door. We stopped for 45 minutes to eat and drove between 75 and 80 MPH the rest of the way and it took 7 hours. So much for MapQuest.

The first half of the drive Andrea and I drove in my car as I had an hour and a 15 minute conference call so I needed her to drive. In Perry, Georgia she got in Cathy’s car and I drove by myself, listening to the Book on Tape “Lewis and Clark” and occasionally looking in the mirror to see if my hair had started to grow back after my scalping the day before. Now I ask you-based on the photo below, do you really think it looks “horrendous” as Andrea said? (She and I were doing a dueling camera thing).


Too Short? Please!

When we approached Jacksonville, they went south to the hotel and I went to the airport. I parked the car and was just walking in when Grover called to say they had landed. Soon I was hugging the boys and we were on our way to the hotel.

That night Cathy, Andrea and I went to the Rehearsal dinner. Grover, Cris and the boys decided to stay at hotel so they could rest up. It was a nice dinner at Maggiano’s. We got back to the hotel about 11 pm but Andrea went out on the town with Rachel and Eric until the early morning.

Saturday morning we had breakfast and then Landon opened up his birthday presents and we had some ice cream cake. See photos below.


Why is he eating his toes while reading the birthday card?

His Thomas the Tank swimming pool from Tia and Lee

Icing everywhere!


Saturday night was the wedding of Chris Newton and Danielle Carney (Dani). We got all prettied up and headed for the church. It was a lovely ceremony and Dani was gorgeous. There is a snap below of Chris as he waits for her to come down the aisle and he looks just a little tense. There is also a nice shot of the happy couple right before Dani almost caught the altar on fire when she blew out the thing they used to light the candles.

Yes, he was stressed!

No wonder she almost burned down the church-she was looking dreamily at him

After the church ceremony we went back to the hotel where we were staying as it was also where the reception was. The buffet dinner and dancing went until midnight when Cathy and I went to bed but Andrea and a bunch of the other younger people continued to party until 4am when the police arrived and suggested they break it up. Landon was fascinated by Dani. He seems to really like brides since this is the way he was with Dorte in Copenhagen last September when Dorte and Gustavo got married. He insisted that Grover take him over to meet her.


It was nice to see all of Mike and Jan’s family at the wedding and rehearsal dinner. Saturday night, sitting at the table next to us was a large group of their neighbors who we have gotten to know somewhat from being down there. One of the guys, Jan, snapped a photo of all of us which is below along with a photo of the group at their table. In the photo of the group of friends, notice that Mike (third from left in back row), the father of the groom, appears calm and contented. We will come back to him in a minute. This is the partyingest (I know there is no such word) group of people I have ever seen. Mike and Jan are so fun loving that they live in the perfect neighborhood to be surrounded with people like these who also love to have a good time. I really like the people in this group although I know some of them better than others.

When I spell checked this document it told me there was no such word as “partyingest” which I already knew. But what I loved was the suggestion the computer gave me for an alternative. It offered the choice of “party ingest” and I would have to say that is an apt description also since they know how to ingest a lot of alcohol!

What is that red stuff oozing out of Grovers ear?

The Party Neighbors

Cris and Grove left real early to put the kids to bed and when they opened the buffet I took a plate of food up to Cris. Later Grove came down after Landon was asleep and joined us which I really appreciated since he is not a joiner on things like this usually. He sat and was telling me all about the work he is doing to try and pass his third and final CFA exam. He passed the first two on his first try which is very unusual and so now he wants to do the same with the last one. I am so proud of him for how well he is doing career wise and really enjoyed having him tell me all about the work he is doing on derivatives, hedge funds, option pricing and asset allocation. I really enjoyed him taking the time to share all of that with me.

He went to the bar outside to see if he could get a certain kind of drink not available in the reception party and bumped into the daughter and son-in-law of Tommy and Rosalie Denmark from New Orleans (but now living in Birmingham thanks to Hurricane Katrina). They bought Grove a bottle of white wine to bring to me and said it was from Tommy who unfortunately couldn’t attend as his Mom, Aunt Edna, is quite ill. Tommy is Janice Newton’s cousin and I have said that I would love to write a book about his life as he has been involved in so many things.

People were dancing up a storm and Mr. Mike, as usual, was showing the crowd how to enjoy life. The guests from Dani’s side were likely a little shocked during one of the slow dances (photo below) but of course no one from the Newton side was at all surprised!

Yes, it's really Mike and me


So, obviously Mike had gone through somewhat of a transition over a few hours from his calm and contented look. Not only was he slow dancing with me (and thankfully not breathing in my ear), he had decided he was a sailor or a short order cook. I can’t tell which one the hat is supposed to represent but it is clear he was dancing as if no one was watching. The music had clearly taken over his body. See below.


My dearest friend for 33 years. Did Grover give him that red crud?

Sunday we had breakfast and told everyone goodbye. Two of the bridesmaids, perhaps still drunk, decided to get in a horrible fight about 11am. They also happen to be roommates. Standing outside of the room on the third floor, using the most profane language one can imagine, one of them was threatening to kill the other one by throwing her off of the balcony. It was an interesting way to start the day.

At 12 noon we were off. Cathy and I dropped Grove at airport and Andrea and Cris had left with boys. We were going to go to Tallahassee and stay, but since we had such a much earlier start than we had planned, we just drove all the way to Destin, arriving at 530 Destin time (an hour earlier). We went through some of the worst rain squalls I have ever experienced. It was impossible to see ten yards in front of you and it was a reminder that hurricane season is only a few weeks away unfortunately.

We stopped at a town called Live Oak to eat and so Cris could feed Landon and it was easy to see why it was called Live Oak. Look at this photo below of this huge Live Oak tree. In the background you can see the rest of the family as Cris is sitting on a picnic bench nursing Wes (who needs a photo here also). I think Wes is following in my tradition in this photo with Tia since it appears he just saw a snake outside in the grass.

The Live Oak in Live Oak, Florida

Wes looks so startled


When we got to our house in Destin the cable TV was not working (they are coming out today), the Cable Modem was not working (so I don’t know when I can post this on the Blog) so we have no Internet access, the Pool Heater was not working so we can’t go in pool so I guess I will spend time today calling repair people and the audio equipment that powers the speaker system throughout the house was on the fritz. This is one of the many not so pleasant side effects of having a second home in Hurricane Alley.

We ordered pizza from Mellow Mushroom and after that the kids went to bed. We were all pretty tired and I was exhausted so at 1015 I was in bed and asleep. Grove could not get an earlier flight out of Jacksonville, which was the entire reason we left earlier than planned, so he took the original 530 flight but it was delayed due to weather and he missed his connection. So he didn’t get out of Atlanta until 930 which meant he wouldn’t get home until after 11 but on the other hand he had lots of time to do his studying for his final CFA exam coming up in early June. I know what happened to his flight as I had to drive down to Starbucks to get my emails since the internet is not available at the house and I checked on his flights.

At 6am today (Monday) Landon was up and about so I know we are going to have an interesting day.

WAS THIS A HE, A SHE, OR A HE/SHE?


I invited to lunch yesterday a friend named Greg from LMS3 (a Stop at Nothing group) and I met him down at the Earthlink building where he works. We drove over to Fat Matt’s Rib Shack and when we went in I realized I had no money and they only took cash. So here I had invited him and he had to pay. It was a lunch we had been trying to arrange since the first of November and I felt really bad. I had forgotten to take my US currency out of my backpack when we returned from Europe on Monday and so had no US currency with me. Fortunately he is a good guy and so he paid.

After that I needed a haircut so I went over to Buford Highway where everyone is Latino. Usually a woman from El Salvador cuts my hair around the corner from Grove and Cris' home in Arlington, VA and I have taken Landon there twice for her to cut his hair. I like to talk with her as it helps my Spanish. But since we are not going to be there for a while (since we are meeting them today in Florida) I decided to go to Plaza Fiesta and find a haircut place.

Plaza Fiesta is a Latino Mall. Landon and I went and bought him some cowboy boots there a while back and Grove and I got take out Mexican food from their food court. I also go there when I need to buy greeting cards in Spanish for our family in Spain.

So, I see this place called Lila's (a word in Spanish for a color)but I had to make sure they took credit cards sine I had no money. They showed on the door they did and so I went in. This enormously tall woman with a bright red pony tail and a deep voice asks me if I can speak Spanish and I said yes so she asked me how she could help me and I told her I needed a haircut. She said she didn't speak English but she could help. As she turned around and swayed back to her chair I thought that she looked like a man.

As I sat down I realized she had the face of a man but had breasts-not ones big enough for the size of her body, but tiny ones protected by a bright red bra beneath a white top. They looked like little asparagus tips in the spring as they begin to poke through the soil.

As she started cutting my hair she told me she was in the middle of a sex change. I am not sure from what to what but would guess from a man to a woman. She is from Honduras and she never stopped talking. I told her just to take a little off and she (or is it he?) took off about 80% of my hair and then moussed it up real slick.

I went to pay the whopping 13 bucks and the credit card machine didn't work and as I said above, I had no money, so they said to just come back whenever I had a chance and give them the $18 then (I had tipped him/her $5 on the credit card slip). They had no idea who I was but I did come back later and pay them. It was a strange experience.

When I got home, Andrea, who gets her tact from me and not from her Mom, looked at me and said, and I quote "Dad, what happened to your hair? You look absolutely horrendous". It was a real confidence builder. She said "Wait until Mom sees it" but Cathy of course is much more tactful. She said "Hmm, you really got it cut short, didn't you?”

After this, I was supposed to pack up a Jura Capresso coffee machine we have so we could take it to Florida with us for the next two weeks. It makes espresso, latte and cappuccino and we can't live without it so I emptied all the water and beans out and secured it according to instructions. I got it all finished and then saw I had missed a step (why I should not do mechanical things) and had to put some water back in it, and run it through the system to prepare it properly for transport. Then I dismantled it again but this time I forgot to empty out the water again.

I asked Cathy to help me get it wedged into the Styrofoam frame we have and help me put it in the special box we have for transporting it. She said to me "Are you sure you have everything out of it-the water and beans"? And of course I said yes and of course we promptly dumped a bin of water all over the inside of the box, all over the kitchen counter and all over the floor. I ended up spending who knows how much time with a hair dryer trying to dry the soaking wet cardboard box. This was 14 hours ago-it is still not packed and the box is still not dry and we are leaving in 3 hours. Why I cannot do anything like this without screwing it up is beyond me.

Andrea saw my Blog yesterday with the photo of me in the Chinese outfit and she said I should have put the photo on of my cowboy years because I was more Landon’s age in that photo. So I have put it below.

I also have decided to share the result of my Mom and Dad dressing me up in Cowboy and Coolie outfits when I was little. For all of you parents out there you can see what happens based on what you do when your kids are little (sorry Mom-I know you are reading this). The second photo is a couple of years old and is a photo with me and one of my employees when I decided to dress up as The Olive Man and spend the day wandering around our building surprising all of our employees. See what happens when your child grows up and you had dressed him in costumes when he was little?

Off to the Newton wedding in Jacksonville today (wedding is tomorrow-rehearsal dinner is tonight). Ciao my friends and family.

HAPPY 3RD BIRTHDAY LANDON!

Here is a photo from your birthday a year ago when you turned two years old. What a change. I wonder if this year you will have so much icing on your face from your cake?



You are growing up so fast. I told your Dad a while ago that I have spent much of my life in leadership roles where I was trying to make a difference in the lives of others and now that I am supposedly (joke, joke) retiring, I want to make sure I spend the rest of my life making a difference in the lives of my family and you are an important part of that.

I look at this recent photo of you in your engineer outfit



and I wonder what you will be like when you grow up? I wonder what you will love to do. Will it have something to do with trains? As you know, Papi loves to travel and so when you look at the photo below of me when I was about your age, you will see that I was preparing for my future love of travel



I am not sure why I was dressed up in that outfit-perhaps Great Gram can tell us since she reads this Blog. But I was dressed up as if I was from China and I love to go to Asia now so maybe you will love to ride the trains or even go to the moon on a space ship. The fun part will be watching you as you figure all of those things out.

I love you so much-I want you to have a very Happy Birthday. I can't wait to see you at the airport in Jacksonville tomorrow.

Love,
Papi

Today and tomorrow are good days. Today Andrea will fly home from London and will be with us until June 2nd. Tomorrow is Landon's 3rd birthday. I cannot believe he has gone from this little baby when he was three weeks old
to this little boy just a month ago when I last saw him and it happened in three short years. We are all going to be together this weekend in Jacksonville for Chris Newton's wedding and on Sunday we will celebrate Landon's birthday together.

Then we are going to drive to Destin and spend a bunch of time there which will be fun having the time with Cris and the boys. It is especially important for Andrea I know. I'm hoping I can get Landon to come in the pool while we are there and play. It should be great weather for it.

I got up early and started reading the news and realized that there is never any cheery news-Iran is going to get uglier and there is a whackjob leading them. He fits in the category of Ghengis Khan (or however it is spelled), Atilla the Hun, Stalin, Hitler, Lennin, the screwball in North Korea and some of our other famous madmen in history. This is going to get real ugly I am afraid. I really wanted to go there with an Iranian friend that has a home there as well as here and was planning on it (over Cathy's protestations) but I think she is right. It just seems too crazy there right now.

Global warming continues at a rapid pace and now the northern China mountains are melting too fast. Iraq is killing people by the hundreds and if I was an Iraqi I might be tempted to say that I have decided to pass on Democracy if this it what it is. I paid $3.39 a gallon to fill my car up yesterday and South America has taken a huge turn electorally to the left and that does not bode well for gas prices when added to the Mideast mess.

What a cheery world! I think I will go do emails instead of reading the news!

But to share one of the crazier things I have read, I saw this on a Lonely Planet website today about traveling to Zimbabwe:

Travellers are warned against trying to leave the country with Zimbabwean currency as this is a felony and may lead to arrest. Change your money before you leave.

Now, what is interesting about that, is that in the NY Times today there was this comment:

HARARE, Zimbabwe, April 25 — How bad is inflation in Zimbabwe? Well, consider this: at a supermarket near the center of this tatterdemalion capital, toilet paper costs $417.

No, not per roll. Four hundred seventeen Zimbabwean dollars is the value of a single two-ply sheet. A roll costs $145,750 — in American currency, about 69 cents.

The price of toilet paper, like everything else here, soars almost daily, spawning jokes about an impending better use for Zimbabwe's $500 bill, now the smallest in circulation.

Click here to see entire article. You may have to register (it is free) to access it.

So, the question of the day is this. Does anyone really think that people are going to be taking tons of the currency out of the country when it is not worth anything at all? Let's add their President, Robert Mugabe to the list of whackos above.

Have a super day.

We are now on the plane headed home after two weeks. We’ve been on it about six hours so about three hours remain. About an hour ago we completed the peak of our arc north as we grazed the southern shore of Greenland and as it is a perfectly clear day we could see the snow covered ground. We are now headed southwest and are near Fredericton which I think is in New Brunswick. It is 141 miles from here according to the Compass Video showing on my screen. I have had in my follow up file a note to go some weekend in the summer to Fredericton because Delta flies there and with 3 million frequent flyer miles we might as well blow a few on that. All I need to do is to find the time. It will be amazing if I can stay awake to type this since Linda and Leslie gave us the biggest box of artisanal chocolates I have ever seen. They gave it to us Saturday night for our anniversary and it must have had 100 or more individual chocolates of every shape, color and flavor imaginable. My Mom would go nuts with it. And we did also. So, today on the plane, not once, not twice, but three times I have gotten the box out of the overhead and we have had two (and in my case sometimes three) of the most delicious and sinfully rich chocolates around. We just had one that was banana filling (it tasted just like a banana popsicle) in a candy coated with white chocolate with little red hearts painted all over it. I am so full-I won't be able to eat chocolate again for a very long time-probably at least 20 minutes.

After I typed on the Blog yesterday morning in the pink littered bar at the Hotel Malmaison Cathy and I packed up and walked down to a flea market on Quayside. We didn’t find anything to buy but did have “brunch”; a couple of roast pork sandwiches from a bloke cooking in a cart/wagon named New York Grill with two photos of the Statue of Liberty on it. This was a “blow me away” sandwich. It was shredded like pulled pork, served on a fresh bun with stuffing and gravy and cooked onions. Two of them and a cornet of French Fries and a drink cost less than 7 quid. I meant to get a bag of potato chips but I asked for chips and in the UK that means fries so we had fries. I should have said “crisps” to get potato chips. It was a lovely meal and in this paragraph alone one can see that I am picking up Lee’s lingo with the use of “crisps, lovely, quay, quid, queue and bloke”.

We then walked down to watch the winking eye bridge I talked about earlier in my Blog (its real name is The Millennium bridge) go up at 12:05. They do it once on Saturday and once on Sunday for the tourists and there were a hundred or so folks on each side watching it. It takes 4.5 minutes to open and then stays open for a minute or two and a couple of tourist boats go under it (they could go under it even if it wasn’t open) and then it takes the same time to go down. It is really amazing and I am hoping the photos below give you some idea of it. The first photo shows the bridge up from a position on the quay that is upriver. The second photo is a closer up shot and you can see on the left what is normally the sidewalk you walk across is now way up in the air. There is a cantilever mechanism (I only know this as Leslie told me-all of you that know me realize I would never know to use the word cantilever) on each side of the river that connects the two parts of the bridge together (the sidewalk that crosses over the river and the arc above it) and a hydraulic pump (I bet you are really impressed now with my new found knowledge) causes the mechanism to cantilever the entire thing up into a V shaped. The arc moves from the 12 o’clock position to about 3 o’clock and the sidewalk moves from 6 o’clock to about 9 o’clock. It is so cool. I thought earlier the cables pulled it up somehow but that is not what is happening.





There are two other shots (I really loved this thing) and the first is from the other side of shot number one (same side of river but downriver from bridge) and you can see the Sage (the Armadillo) concert hall behind it across the river. The next shot below is from afar and gives you the perspective of the bridge when it is totally raised. Cool, huh?





We then checked out of our hotel (Click here for the hotels website) which was a lot like a W hotel here in the states and why they would name it Malmaison (French for bad house) is not clear to me. It is a small chain in the UK. Click on the website and you will see great photos of the bridge I have been carryin on about. We took a taxi to the airport and since Lee may read the Blog (should that word be capitalized?) I thought I’d also toss in a photo of the airport from his home town.



We checked in to British Airways and just sat and talked for about an hour until Lee and Andrea arrived with Leslie who gave them a ride. We told him goodbye and went upstairs to the departure lounge. Leslie again gave me a hug and I know Lee thinks that when his Dad did it then as well as the night before that we had set it up since I always tease him about “Blokes don’t hug” but we hadn’t. His Dad just did it naturally and of course since I am a hugger it was fine with me.

Like all airports in Europe, even in this smaller city, the shopping and food selections were larger than we have in the world’s busiest airport in Atlanta. The girls went shopping and Lee and I did our geeky stuff-I did emails and he read a book.

It was a nice 55 minute flight to London but then all our bags showed up but Cathy’s. We filed a claim and the guy was sure it was somewhere in the Gatwick airport but had no idea where. It seems almost incredible, but we have only flown on BA about ten or 12 times and at least five times they have lost our bags.

The car picking us up was also late and Lee was not happy about that. After waiting about 15 minutes my cell phone rang. I could hear it but not find it as I had stuck it in one of my bags and didn’t know which one. I knew it had to be BA’s luggage area since we had given them the number and the only other person who calls me on it when I’m in Europe is Andrea and she was with us. Right then the car guy called and said he was arriving. So I dash (with my foot in a brace) over to the BA luggage place and sure enough, they had found her bag. I grabbed it and we got to the curb right as the driver showed up.

It took about 45 minutes to get to Wimbledon and the kids apartment. We toured their apartment which we liked. It is certainly going to be a huge adjustment for Andrea after living in her own 4000 square foot home, but it is real cute and as we told them, it is a lot bigger than the first apartment we lived in.

We had reservations for us for dinner in London so Lee called a cab and we told them goodbye. As we pulled out I was feeling very sad and I looked at Cathy who I saw was crying. We are so, so happy for Andrea. Lee is such a good guy and treats her so well. And that sustains us as this is really hard for us. We also are so glad we got to meet his family-they are down to earth people like us who have good values and a good sense of humor. We talked about them a lot between the two of us and realized we spent all our time with them talking and laughing about life in general rather than about Andrea and Lee. I think that is a good sign. These are people that would be good friends if we lived in same city (or at least the same country).

But walking in that apartment just made visible the change Andrea is going to have to go through. She is leaving her home, her good income, her family and life as she knows it to live in an apartment with no car, no job, and no family nearby. It is going to be very hard for her. But we both know she can do it. She has the strength of my Mom who has been such a role model for Andrea. And Andrea also is like her Mom-she makes up her mind to do something and will do whatever it takes, no matter how hard, until things get better. I have encouraged her to not stop her dancing and gym no matter how impractical or expensive it is. She has to have some grounding to life as she knows it and that is very important to her. With a new gym, with the excitement of starting on her Masters program, with her cats when they arrive and most of all, with the support of Lee who I think realizes what she is giving up, she will be. And we are so fortunate that we have the means to fly her back home or us over to London whenever it is needed-the three million FF miles will come in handy.

We were pretty silent riding to our hotel. We were staying at the Hyatt, which is a new property for them that they recently acquired. It was known as The Churchill previously (it is now the Hyatt Churchill), a venerable old high end hotel right off Oxford Street in the best English tradition. The taxi driver corrected us when we called it the Hyatt. He said he was tired of foreigners buying up all their nice hotels. (Click here for the Churchill's website).

We checked in and of course, since it was the Hyatt, they rolled out the carpet. The guy that met us and escorted us to our room had the first name of Kleanthis, which I thought was pretty funny for a guy working in a hotel. They gave us a wonderful large suite and I noticed on the door the normal rate is 775 pounds a night (about $1250 or so) but we were staying for free as I also have a ton of Hyatt points and I used some of them.

The hotel had given us a bottle of champagne so we had a glass to toast our 40 years and talked some more about Andrea’s new life. I was bummed out about it and didn’t think I wanted to go to dinner but it was our anniversary. So I walked down to check out the place we had a reservation at and was encouraged. It was less than a five minute walk and it was an Indian restaurant. What I didn’t know then, but learned when we went there, is it is owned by the same people that own the Blue Elephant Royal Thai restaurant that I have eaten at in both Bangkok and Dubai and loved. Cathy and I laughed that what could be more typical for the two of us than eating at an Indian restaurant in London on our anniversary. It is so typical of our strange life together. We reminisced that the first time we ever went to an Indian restaurant was in Schenectady, NY in 1977. We had no idea what Indian food was and we drove by this Indian restaurant one Saturday morning, got a baby sitter and went there for dinner and had our first Tandoori Chicken. And we have loved it ever since. We both remember that restaurant so well. Since then we have the memory of the hottest Indian food ever with Bill Robinson at a place in Tokyo as well as the memorable dinner at Gaylord’s in Hong Kong when we were also with Bill and our kids and we were going up some dark freight elevator (I have no idea why we were lost and in the back room) and we thought we were going to get mugged.

(Click here for website of La Porte des Indes restaurant where we ate).

It was jammed since it was a bank holiday weekend and so the service was slow and it was real hot in the restaurant. But the sight, sounds and smells were identical to the nice restaurants in India that I have been to and the food was fabulous. We had a bottle of Argentinean Malbec from a vineyard we have visited in Mendoza, Argentina so that even added to the special occasion feel.

We walked back to hotel in the typical mist of London and went to bed around 1130.

I got up this morning at 430 and started doing emails as I was behind from when we were in Prague and didn’t want to get back home with 200 emails in my inbox. At 7 I woke up Cathy and we went to the Regency Lounge and had breakfast. Our flight out of Gatwick was at 11am so we thought we should leave about 830 but decided to leave a little earlier even though there would be no traffic on a morning in the middle of a bank holiday. In the UK a bank holiday means a three day weekend with the banks (and everything else) being closed on that Monday. The holiday they are actually celebrating is MayDay, not from the Communist perspective but going back many hundreds of years when they made May wine and danced around a Maypole. I think it may have something to do with the Druids but I may also be full of crap. It was the Druids or Santa’s Elves-I forget which.

A typical London cab (the kind with the huge back seat and you face both ways) pulled up and the bellhop loaded our bags in the front and the driver looked like he was 82 years old. He couldn’t hear and the bellhop had a hard time getting him to understand the word “Gatwick”, a rather basic word in the taxi vocabulary of London.

It turned out to be a nightmare. He took only the back roads and then got totally lost. Instead of taking 45 minutes, it took an hour and 25 minutes. Finally, somewhere in Surrey, he stopped and asked for help and we headed off in a new direction. Then he didn’t know which terminal was the International one and they are a few miles apart. I was text messaging Andrea to get that answer while he went to the wrong one. We arrived at nearly 10am and the bill was 100 pounds ($182 dollars). I was not happy. We argued over the price and I finally gave him 95 pounds and no tip as we didn’t have time to argue more. We rushed in, checked in and after going through customs we got to the gate as they were boarding. We ended up leaving 20 minutes earlier than the scheduled time because all the passengers were on board (but we almost were not). I had taken everything out of my carryon bag and stuffed it into my one suitcase (they put one of those bright red “Heavy” tags on it) so I could buy about 20 bottles of Fanta Limón at the airport and then I didn’t have time to do it.

Of course five years ago today we were in Hanoi, not having the foresight to realize we were going to be there for the Communist Mayday celebration. It was pretty weird to be the only two Americans in a line with about 9,000 North Vietnamese (you know-the ones who kicked our butts and chased us out of the country) queued up on this very important day in their history so that we could pass through the tomb of Ho Chi Minh who is still lying in state. They re-preserve his body in Moscow twice a year so that he is perpetually lying in state. So I guess May 1st is sort of a weird date for us.

When Lee called and asked me permission to ask Andrea to marry him (one of many things he has done right) we were talking about some things and he said that he thought we were an example of people that had lived The American Dream. I had never thought of it from that perspective but he is right. We are just two kids from a small town who had no college until we were in our mid-30’s and who had no money. But, because we live in the United States, we were able to do well. I mention that because his parents probably know that and my sense is that like us they have always worked hard trying to make a go of a family business that has been difficult in light of changing conditions. Maybe that is why we hit it off so well. All four of us are products of the middle class and we are who we are. What you see with Cathy is what you get and I think they are very much the same. The four of us had such a great time and we all agreed that going out on Friday without the kids was the best thing we could have done. I can’t wait until we see them again. I would like to learn more about them. Leslie and I were talking about the kinds of things guys our age talk about (like-if you had to do it over what would you do differently) and we didn’t have enough time. I really like him and Lee’s Mom is very outgoing and fun. She is quite short and said she hoped she didn’t have to wear a long dress at the wedding because she wants to wear a hat and Leslie said if she wore the dress and a hat she would look like a mushroom. That kind of joking between them told me they have a good relationship and made me feel good.

We had been on the plane about two or three hours and I looked over and Cathy, who was listening to her Ipod, was crying. I asked her why and she said she was listening to the song from Mamma Mia where the daughter is getting married and moving to another island. I didn’t tell her that earlier I was listening to a song that is very important to me by Enya and I was also crying. I bet the passengers across from us think we are coming or going to a funeral when actually, we are really happy about seeing the kids apartment and meeting Lee’s family. It’s pretty funny as I think about it.

Okay-it is now Tuesday. We got back to Atlanta and were home by 5pm. We called and talked to Cris and Landon and then we went out and ate some horrible Mexican food at a place called El Torero and at 9pm we were in bed. A little before that Cathy was walking up from the lower level to the main level of our house and she thought there was still one more step to go and she stepped up for the step that wasn’t there and of course fell splat across the floor. She was splayed out like a recently shot deer and it all happened in front of me. Thank goodness she was okay other than having cut her fingers on her ring and just generally bruising herself up. Fortunately (odd way to say it) she banged the crap out of her right knee which was better than doing to her left artificial knee. After that stunt we called my Mom to let her know we were back and we went to bed.