July 2, 2007

-- It was 44 degrees outside when I hefted my heft off the dormancy platform this morning. On July 2! Man, I love it; it puts me in a good mood. I even had a cup of good ol’ Eight O’clock bean coffee on the deck today, and gazed off into the distance pretending to think Deep Thoughts. Good stuff.

Yesterday was crazy-cool as well, and I mowed the entire yard. Sometimes I’m guilty of only doing the front, the part the neighbors can see. But since the gods were giving me a heat and humidity reprieve, I thought I’d better take advantage of it.

The Half-Shirts were having some kind of to-do over there, and it looked like about fifteen people were on their patio. Including what appeared to be a human embryo propped up in a lawn chair, with a full-sized Betty White head attached. Everybody was drinking margaritas and apparently having a great time. 

And what was Poppa Half-Shirt doing during all this? That’s right, mowing and weed-whacking, and raking – all at his usual hyper-speed, like Babe Ruth running the bases and tipping his cap in those old films. 

Yeah, Halfy’s the same kind of host I am. Except I sneak away and get on the computer.

Two doors down from us was a family who just last week moved to South Carolina . They have two kids in high school, and suddenly uprooted the whole gang and Went South. Apparently Dad got a job-transfer.

I am highly jealous. Not only are they moving to the part of the country I want to eventually get back to, but they’re having a big brick house built, and the whole nine yards. Dad was laid-off a while back, and remained unemployed for upwards of a year. Now he’s Mr. Southern Home Builder. The prick.

Reportedly a new family has already installed itself in their old place, but we haven’t seen them yet. Word on the street is that the wife is pregnant, and they have another little kid much younger than the Secrets. Whatever.

Oh, and that brings me to another point… The people who Went South put the big bottles of Tide on our porch. Remember I wrote about that mystery a few days ago? Well, Toney found out they weren’t allowed to move a lot of that kind of stuff, and just passed it out to the neighbors. 

Of course it would’ve been nice if they’d included a brief explanatory note or something, because we tossed everything in the garbage. I mean, who uses laundry products that just suddenly appear on their property?! I mean, seriously.

Hell, the whole thing made me paranoid, like somebody was trying to tell us something. It reminded me of the time a few of my co-workers in Atlanta put a stick of deodorant in the desk drawer of a bicycle-ridin', high-funkin' hippie. 

Ya know?

-- Before I get into the vacation stuff, I have a cuppa two tree additional items…

Over the next few days you might notice some small changes here at TheWVSR. I’m monkeying around with things, and trying to make it better. Eventually I’d like to move the whole deal over to WordPress, or something similar. 

But I’m not there yet. Right now I’m just tweaking things, and trying to accomplish various self-imposed goals. So do not become alarmed, everyone should remain calm. Nothing’s happening with the content itself; it’s just the broken-down old-school site that’s being adjusted.

One change you might enjoy: I’m going to try my damndest to have all updates completed by 10:30 am, eastern. This is going to require less beer and more sleep on my part, but I’m ready to take on the challenge.

And finally, I drove deep into rural Pennsylvania on Friday afternoon and picked up the Version 3.0 Surf Report t-shirts. In the past the T-Shirt Lady has met me in the parking lot of a McDonald’s, and we did our transaction there. Like druggies. 

But she wasn’t able to get away on Friday, and I didn’t want to wait until today. So I went for a long ride out into the heart of a barley field, or some shit. I’m not even sure I was still in America.

I think they look good though. There’s a pic here, and I’ll start mailing ‘em out this week. Thanks to everyone who’s already ordered. 

And if you haven’t… well, you’d better step to it, mister. I haven’t done any calculations yet, but my sizable gut is telling me I might be close to sold-out on some of the sizes already. So, if you want one, you might want to order it today.

Now let’s go back to Myrtle Beach…

-- Friday  For the first time in my life I woke up in Culpeper, Virginia. We’d gone to bed early the night before, because there wasn’t much else to do, and were up and moving well before 8 am.

We stopped at a Waffle House for breakfast, and were about the only people there. I think there was a couple in one of the boofs to the right, and an old man was sipping coffee at the counter. And those were the only customers - except for a gang of obnoxious college-aged hipsters sitting near the front door.

Needless to say, they had all manner of luggage with them (what do hipsters carry in all those satchels and shoulder-bags??). And I heard a girl pontificating at length about how she refuses to watch television shows with a laugh track. This was all being said in an earnest tone, of course, like a person discussing the ravages of AIDS in Africa .

Yes, I remember when I was the smartest, most sophisticated person in the world... And because I remember, I’d also be willing to bet five dollars the chick has at least three full seasons of Friends at home on her DVD shelf. Possibly the entire series, in a limited edition collector's box.

We started seeing South of the Border billboards almost immediately on Day Two. This is a very exciting development, and makes you feel like you’re getting close. Of course you’re not getting close, but it helps with the Hopeful Estimating(tm).

Because the billboards seem to be spaced only a few feet apart, and it seems like there are literally hundreds of them, I decided to start counting. We passed one that said South of the Border is only 17 miles away(!), and we began keeping track at that point. 

And to my surprise, there were only 18 signs during the final 17 miles. Not nearly as many as I would’ve guessed, but still a metric shitload.

Have any of you actually stopped at that sprawling tourist trap with the racially-insensitive cartoon Mexican as its mascot? I’m sure we did when I was a kid, but I don’t have a clear recollection of it. Is any of it worthwhile?

During the last leg of the trip we put on Tom Petty’s Greatest Hits , our traditional road music, and after that, a classic rock station from Myrtle Beach itself. I was singing along at the top of my lungs, and the Secrets wanted to know how I knew every word to every song. Even the ones by Aldo Nova.

We arrived at the campground a few minutes after official check-in time, and were told that our site was way up front, by the beach. This place is massive, more than 1000 sites, and getting one so close to the water is an accomplishment. Very cool.

I ordered-up a week’s worth of high-speed wireless internet (roughing it), for $19.25. Then I asked the woman how much golf cart rentals are. And when she said $48 per day, I almost swallowed my tongue. No freakin’ way, I proclaimed. And she couldn't have given a single dingle either way. 

We got our car pass and all that jazz, and finally passed through the front gates.

And that’s where I’ll pick it up tomorrow, my friends.

See ya then.

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01/17/12 12:13 PM

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