Holeeee Moley

It’s been a while since I’ve updated this part of the blog….

So.. let me fill you in… last time, we had just gotten back from Gatlinburg…

October was a time to try to get out and enjoy the weather as much as possible before things turned horrible in that department…

So… we took a few trips hither and yon… but… let’s talk about the most memorable trip of the month of October.

Virginia and I took a trip to Abingdon VA… where there was a “festival” of some sort going on… at this point, I’ve forgotten what they called it… but it was something like “Downtown Madness” … in fact… that might have been the name… so… we were expecting outright awesomeness… you know… dancing in the streets… maybe a band… some traveling performers… people blowing fireballs… I mean… we’re talking Madness right? not lameness… however… lameness was what we got… We talked to a guy from the visitor’s center… got a map of where the local businesses were that would be participating… and we were off… first stop was the Barter Theater… which was supposed to have refreshments… not only did they not have refreshments… the people who were working there looked at us like we were trying to rob the joint… so.. we continued on our tour… we walked around town… guided by my Google GPS… so we could actually find the random businesses… some weren’t open… some didn’t exist ( a brewery that was on the tour.. that was supposed to be doing a tasting… but, the building was empty… it was still under construction… )  Overall… the festival was disappointing… we still had a great time walking around.. and ended up going to Bristol..for dinner and a trip to Best Buy… speaking of dinner… let me tell you a funny story….

Virginia and I ended up going to Cracker Barrel… because we’re apparently a senior citizen couple.. But anyhow… we went to Cracker Barrel in Bristol… Virginia was in a breakfast-y mood… so she ordered the Blueberry Pancakes… I… ordered the Chicken Livers with Collard Greens and Mac and Cheese… say what you will… but I actually like chicken livers, and I never get to have them / don’t know how to cook them,,,, so… our food comes out.. everything looks and smells wonderful… I get a top-off on my sweet tea… and we’re ready to chow down… This is where the story takes a turn… apparently… some people like to put vinegar on their collard greens… I wasn’t introduced to collard greens until I was stationed at Ft. Knox, so I was unaware of this fact… well.. apparently, so was Virginia… oh.. I should probably mention that the vinegar came in a small plastic pitcher looking thing… like syrup may come in… at this point… I’m sure that everyone is online as to where this story is heading… so… let me go ahead and say it… Virginia grabs the mini-pitcher of vinegar… and pours it all over her pancakes… after a few tentative bites… she gets an odd look on her face.. and starts asking questions about if / how syrup goes bad… I’m unsure as to exactly what is going on at this point… but at the same time.. it hits both of us… Virginia grabs the little pitcher again.. gives it a whiff.. and realizes exactly what happened… so… moral of this story.. the waitress took away the vinegar cakes and brought Virginia a freshly prepared blueberry pancakes…. so… Cracker Barrel… you get our seal of approval.. 1 for serving breakfast all day…  2 for bringing out a 2nd set of pancakes even though the employees of the restaurant had done nothing wrong to them…

Also.. we recently spent a weekend in Charlotte… Virginia had a housing / res-life conference to go to… and I was on fall break, so I decided I’d drive Virginia around… it was a good time… but I really just spent a much of time hanging out in the hotel.. I did a bit of walking around town… but since I didn’t know the area too well.. I didn’t stray far from the hotel.. However, that crazy mirrored parrot doohickey above was about 3 blocks from the hotel….

Moving on… we seem to have ended up with another cat…

Meet O.C. … OC came to us all on her own… we think perhaps when a neighbor down the hill moved out, he left poor OC behind… Virginia named her OC for “Outside Cat” because at first, OC would just show up at feeding times.. then, as it got cooler outside, OC started coming inside… so Outside Cat was no longer applicable… but, since she wore the name well… we just changed the meaning.. to “Other Cat” … yeah… we’re inventive and imaginative…. So… yeah… she comes and goes kind of as she pleases… I think mainly because she doesn’t like Grace…

Also.. I picked up a little job to take up some of my free time… I’m now a photographer for “The Appalachian” … which is the newspaper for the school… it’s a good time …. most of the time… even though it’s turning out to take up HUGE chunks of time… but.. I’ve shot my first college football game… which can be seen at http://www.svpics.com/football/ … not bad for my first attempt.. and it was a night game, so my then current 70-200 f/4 wasn’t really made for shooting night games… so… that lens has since been replaced by Canon’s new 70-200 f/2.8 IS II…. and it’s…. awesome….

We had a lovely Thanksgiving here in Boone… which can be seen over on our cooking blog at http://boone-cooking.blogspot.com  ….

Today, we went out to shoot something for the paper… a story about the ski season starting up…

You’ll notice that this snow cat… well.. isn’t sitting on any snow… It was cold last weekend… in fact.. it snowed last Friday… but, all week, it’s been in the 60’s… so.. there might be 3-4” of snow on the ground… people were skiing… and there was grass showing through the snow in many spots all over the slopes…

I’ll be bringing home a stack of newspapers I’ve been published in so far this semester when we come home for Thanksgiving in Lexington…in case anyone is interested…

Wow… I think I’ve covered all of the important parts of what’s been going on since our last update… I’ll try to be better with the updates in the future months… if it’s been too long… someone drop me a line and tell me to get with it.