This is the famous BlogTalk Radio duo of Mrs. and Mr. Pistachio.
And this, of course, is the Political Pistachio himself with yours truly.
Dinner was delicious, as usual, and our server, Andrea, was wonderful, as usual. We are so glad to have found My Mother’s.
Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!
If you know the area, and are there around fiveish, stop in and say hello, or have a slice of pie – we’ll be the noisy table in the corner.
Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!
Monday, January 14, 2008:
The Flight from Phoenix to Denver was my favorite kind – uneventful. There was turbulence on the climb, and again on the descent. I think I know why they call a paperless voucher and “e-ticket.”
Unfortunately, my cousin in Denver was unable to come out to visit with me at the airport. Prayers and well-wishes for Bev would be welcome and appreciated.
Denver International is a very nice airport – at least concourse A is. I didn’t wander about too much. Without needing to leave to meet my cousin, I wanted to avoid a second security check if possible.
Osama Bin Laden is probably chuckling up a storm over what he has managed to incur on the traveling public. Very clever.
I know that I jotted lots of notes for this trip. I just can’t remember where they are. Really, I had some insightful comments to make, and droll observations.
Huh. I wonder what happened to them.
Anyway – left Tampa Tuesday afternoon, about 1500 hours, and drove for a while. I’m not as young as I used to be, so I ended up roosting in Tallahassee in a Motel 6 at about 1830 hours. Next morning (Wednesday), I was on the road at 0730, in a rain that lasted until I was well into Texas on I-20. Yes, that was over 800 miles of driving in the rain. I honestly can’t think of anything more frustrating, nerve-wracking, and stressful than driving in the rain. With snow and ice, the idiots slide off the road and you don’t have to deal with them. With rain, everyone thinks they can drive in the rain. Never mind that they haven’t changed their wipers in ages, and can’t see more than twenty feet in front of them – they will tell you they are the safest drivers out there.
I arrived at GG’s house Wednesday evening about 1930 hours – a bit later than planned, but still early enough to have a nice dinner with her. After a restful night’s sleep, and a delicious home-cooked breakfast, I was again on the road by 0730. I took a break about the Midland-Odessa area, filled up and ate a quick bite while talking to TMBWitW on the phone. Then I was back and cracking – I hit Phoenix about 2200 hours, and put my head on my own pillow by 2230.
In Tampa, I had rented a mid-size car. They offered me a Toyota Prius for an additional $10.99 a day, and I jumped at the offer. The savings in fuel alone would more than offset the daily charge, I figured – and I was right. Over the 2,340 miles I drove from Monday evening to Thursday night, I averaged 42.8 miles per gallon. Oddly enough, I would get better mileage in the cities, where traffic was stop-and-go, than on the open road, but I figured that was because on the open road I was using the little gas engine more than the electric motor. Once I set the cruise control on the Prius, it would stick that speed up hill and down dale. I took advantage of drafting traffic – the bigger the draft, the further back I would be able to reap the benefit – and posted some odd numbers at times. One time, for about 15 minutes, drafting a big rig that I was v e r r r r y slowly catching up to, I was getting about 75-80 mpg at 80 miles per hour. This was in west Texas, on I-10, where the speed limit is 80.
During the drive back, I chatted here and there with some blogfriends, and promised Jenn that I would call in on Thursday evening and talk with her during her Jenn’s Jungle BlogTalkRadio show. Naturally, come time to call in, I was on the one stretch of Interstate Highway that has no cell service whatsoever – I-10, between El Paso and Tucson. Well, except for a blip near Savoy, that I used to call and leave a message for TMBWitW so she wouldn’t worry about me. I did, however, manage to call in to Political Pistachio Thursday evening, and participated in that chat for a while.
When I find my other notes, I will post more about this trip. I’ll also put up more pictures, although most of the pictures are shot through the windshield at speed and are of random points on the freeways, along with the obligatory stateline crossings.
Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!
So, I came in to the computer room/office, and started messing around here.
Then, MEG woke up about an hour ago, and she couldn’t go back to sleep. So we sat here together, my little girl and I, and poked around the ‘net a little bit. Read the comics over at Comics.com, stuck our nose into a few of the new entries on the blogroll (Hey, Loon, you OK? I missed you for the time you were gone. Good to see you back, and I hope every thing’s OK!) and then we went outside and got the Sunday paper.
Then, I found out why MEG wasn’t sleeping. Her dinner landed on my socks. Turns out that if she doesn’t thoroughly chew her green beans, they don’t agree with her. At this stage, they don’t agree with me either.
Just to let you know – I will be out of touch while I am on the road. I don’t own a laptop, and the stops are going to be few and far between. Turns out not a lot of you (OK, none of you to the east of me) want to have a visitor. That’s fine by me. I’ll just make better time overall.
Yesterday (Saturday) was spent finishing the entertainment center. Somebody forgot to take pictures as he went along, and right now the project is sitting in the trailer, ready to be delivered and installed. Of course, that’s not going to happen until I get back from my trip, but when it does happen, I will post the final result here.
Update – got a photo of it, inside the trailer:
This doesn’t really do it justice – so don’t look at it. Wait for the install pics.
Two more jobs are lined up for when I get back, too. I’ll be hanging some doors at the ongoing project and a referral customer is looking for a corner china cabinet. That should be a good one. I’m looking forward to that.
It’s getting time to start stirring around, so I’m going to sign off now. I will be lurking some of the blogtalk shows while driving (nothing more American than talking on the phone while driving, right? don’t worry, I’ll be using a hands-free device) so you might here me in the background on Political Pistachio, My Point, and/or Jenn’s Jungle.
Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, and support Warriors for Innocence!
Some time ago (okay, it was a month ago) I let you all know that an interview on Political Pistachio Radio had been rescheduled for Saturday. If you check the comments of the previous post, at least one of my loyal readers remembered.
I did not.
Doug Gibbs tried to e-mail me on Friday. I didn’t check my e-mail on Friday. Saturday morning I started attending a series at church called “The Truth Project” – a fascinating tour of what the world wants everyone to think. It was a three hour session, and when I finished I was scheduled to go to a remodel project that I had started Friday evening. Well, I checked my voice mail when I got out of church, and there was a message from Doug. He had called, with a twinge of panic in his voice, to remind me about the show.
I called him back, and we chatted a bit. I thanked him for reminding me (actual words: Doug:”You do remember you are scheduled for the show today, right?” me: “Now that you’ve mentioned it, I remember the conversation where we rescheduled…”) and headed for the job site; when the time came I sat down and took a break from the first phase (painting – and a face shield was employed after the first drop of ceiling paint landed square on the contact in my left eye – everything had a satin finish to it after that) and had a great interview with Doug. Wild Phil called in and asked a terrific question. Check out the archive, provided BlogTalk Radio has the sessions listed…
Wild Phil, it was great talking to you. Doug, I promise I will never forget again. I’ll start blogging about my appearances from the time I make the commitment until the day of the interview.
(Note to lefties, libbies, and the msm: this is called character growth, where someone makes a vow to improve themselves. it is not flip-flopping on the issue of scheduling.)
And the rest of you who listened in – thanks for listening! If you have any questions for me that we did not address on the show, drop me a comment here or an e-mail. I may not get right to the response, but it will be answered!
If you are the host of a radio show, BlogTalk or otherwise, I would not object to appearing on your show. I’m not afraid of the questions, as Saturday’s show demonstrated, just understand that I don’t have a bank of advisers filling me in on all the details of every issue in the world. I do, however, have two things most politicians appear to be lacking: common sense and the willingness to work for a living.
As for the rest of the weekend: church Sunday morning, and more painting Sunday afternoon. I’m watching MEG today, and I’ll be starting phase two – flooring – tonight. First order of business – remove the twenty year old shag carpeting that is currently being used as drop cloths…
Thank you for stopping by, God bless you all, Wear Red on Fridays, support Warriors for Innocence, and write in Cary Cartter for President in 2008!