Road trip with Kinsey

So I took a little vacation... and went on a road trip with Kinsey to Sioux City! Now, I can road trip with very few people. Often times I get sick of the other people or can't stand their taste in music, conveniently, these are never problems with Kinsey. We rock out. And by rock out I mean get our late 90's gangsta on.

One of the highlights of the trip was when me, Kinsey, Amy and Seth went on a tour of the Sioux City tourist spots.


The bathroom at Amy's hospital


The 33 foot tall Jesus


The 30 foot tall Mary


Clearly there is no fun allowed at this park. "Do not let your children climb ON ANYTHING"


There were all these posts throughout the garden that you could pay to put a plaque on. For $800 Kinsey and I could immortalize the awesomeness of our trip for all of Sioux City to see.


A life sized wood carving of the Last Supper


Kinsey wishing she was at the Last Supper


A painting of the man who carved the Last Supper

Next we went to the Louis and Clark Interpretive Center. It's kind of like a mini museum right on the Missouri river and it seemed to be all about correcting the historical inaccuracies of the Louis and Clark Story.

I'm not entirely sure why we're "remembering" heroes rather than just plain old remembering them, but...



... it's best to remember that they probably did not wear that much fringe.



Next were the animatronic robots who taught us all about the death of Sergeant Floyd, the only member of the expedition to not make it. I'm pretty sure he died of Typhoid. I clearly was not paying enough attention to the historical facts the Interpretive Center was trying to teach me.



The rest of the Interpretive center varied from taking itself too seriously to underestimating how immature the average visitor is.



I'm going to be in a lot of trouble for blogging this one. Bonus points if you can guess why we really really needed to take this picture. (Yes there is a legitimate reason, not just our immaturity) Also, that's not the Washington monument, it's the Sergeant Floyd monument in Sioux City.


And did I mention there's no picture taking allowed in the interpretive center? Clearly Kinsey and I can't go anywhere without getting ourselves into a bit of trouble.



Kinsey is Louis and I'm Clark. The dog's named Seaman.


Over the rest of the weekend we were able to see Seth and Amy's new house, drove up to Sioux Center, visited the Van Gorps at their campsite in Nebraska, ate dinner with Deb and Gary at an Arby's in Des Moines... Who could have asked for a better road trip?

As Kinsey pointed out to me tonight, I've missed one very important topic in my list... NASCAR! The Nascar season officially kicked off down here with two back to back race weekends.

How could I have forgotten Nascar?

Wow. Sorry that it's been over two months. I totally promised Jess some blogging the third week of April? I think? Sorry about that Jess.

Ironically my last post was about having a great day and then 4 days later my whole knee fiasco began... and I haven't blogged since. I suppose these things aren't actually related. I've never needed an excuse not to blogger regularly.

And yet, sitting here with a stiff knee shot full of cortisone I'm not surprised I felt little need to share the exciting non-events of the last two months.

Highlights I promise to catch up on and blog about include:

a) Minor League Baseball games
b) Olympic Whitewater Kayaking Time Trials
c) My ever growing pile of things to read (including books, magazines, ebooks and downloaded articles)
d) My South Blvd afternoon adventure, and meeting Ben Taylor (son of James Taylor and Carly Simon)
e) Rediscovering a love of music and bands I've never heard of
f) Upcoming midwestern vacation plans
g) European Cup Soccer

and of course...

h) How's the knee?

Smile

Today has been one of those days. One of the good ones :D

I woke up and watched a couple movies (Empire Records and Shaun of the Dead).
Made myself some eggs, toast and mango chicken sausage for breakfast.
Went and golfed the front nine at Larkhaven Golf Course twice (the back nine are boring and horrible). Oh yeah, and I golfed for free :D
Then I had dinner at Anntony's Caribbean Cafe, which is quite possibly the best food I've found since moving to Charlotte.
Now I'm settling in for a night of DVR catch up and all new Battlestar Galactica.

I couldn't really ask for anything more. Except maybe to be less sunburned... but it was well worth it.

Rock Chalk Jayhawk KU

Kansas Wins! Kansas Wins!

And to think I was laughed at when I turned my Kansas bracket in. In the past few years I've always tried to show a little midwestern loyalty and have picked Kansas to win, at the very least, their first round games. Year after year, Kansas has let me down. When they were seeded #1 I thought it might be too good to be true. No way was this going to be Kansas's year.

Rock Chalk

So about 30 seconds ago I signed into blogger to post about how despite losing the final, Kansas has at least restored my faith in them enough that I won't second guess picking them to win their first round game in next year's bracket. And then they tied it. Mario Chalmers sinks a 3pt shot. Only the third 3pt shot Kansas had made all night. I was so excited I almost dumped my laptop on the floor. (Don't worry I caught it at the last second)

I'll post again at the end of OT.

Recover

Ugh. That was the longest week ever.

Ok, maybe it wasn't so bad. But I am exhausted to the point that all I want to do on my weekend is sit on my couch and read. Conveniently when I checked the weather for the next few days I saw this:



This might be the weekend I finally tackle the pile of books taunting me on my coffee table. It's not that I don't want to read them, I'm just having trouble getting started.

Make mixtapes online!

Woo! There's a new (new to me?) website out there called Muxtape that lets you upload songs and create your very own online mixtape. And the best part is... I can share my creation with all of you!

It doesn't require any downloading or logging in on your part, just some speakers or headphones. (Use the arrow keys to skip between tracks) I've also been having a lot of fun listening to the random mixes that are linked on the home page. I could probably spend all day discovering new music, so if I fall off the face of the interweb again, you know where to find me :D

Take a closer look

As much as I am now enjoying living in The South now, it's definitely got an ugly side that gets too little attention.

Yesterday afternoon I left on my lunch break and headed up to the Food Lion grocery store on the next corner. When I pulled in the parking lot there were seven or eight cop cars and the store was closed. At the time I was curious, but unconcerned. Then today I learned about this:

Teen killed by taser

When I went to my usual friday afternoon lunch spot, Johnny Burrito, I got the rest of the story.

Side Note: I've been eating at JB's every friday for a while now so I've become acquainted with the staff there and we always make casual conversation/small talk while I eat. I say this because, while I don't really know these people, I feel like I've come to know them well enough to believe them when the filled me in on this story.

The short version is that this kid would never have gone after a cop. He had taken the sandwiches home with out paying because he was forgetful, not because he maliciously wanted to steal $3 worth of product from his employer. And why was the cop so trigger happy with his taser?

When I got back from lunch, my coworkers could see that something was bothering me and I told them what I had heard. I'm ashamed to say that reactions varied from "oh goodness, that's horrible" to "was he white or black? he probably had a gun." It makes me sick to my stomach to know that people I have previously gotten on well with could react like that. I didn't even have it in me at that point to be mad at them. I just turned and walked away.

Like I said, I'm enjoying my new Southern home, but I know I won't be able to just sit by and watch things like this happen. Sorry to post such a downer. It just doesn't seem right to sit here quietly.

Crack up

So whenever I'm feeling bored and in need of a good laugh, I head here:

XKCD

I linked one of my favorite comics, but really I just can just sit here and click the random button and crack myself up. Admittedly, they aren't all funny. But then when you least expect it, you get something like this and I'm seriously rolling on the floor laughing.

Yes.

I know.

Giant nerd.

But you still like me anyway :D