Saturday, January 03, 2004
I believe it is time for the much awaited Christmas Treavls blog entry...
Firslty, I would like to announce that I have named my new dwelling, "Bag End," as it is sort of a hole in the side of a hill. For those of you who are confused, read this description: The parsonage my parents live in is a single story house built on a hillside. There is, at one end of it, a basement which is finnished. This basement is made of four rooms. One is the depth of the house and about 15 feet wide (the house being probably... 30 feet deep) and the other three are the same dimension divided by three. One is a room, we used it as a bedroom and now a storage room, one is a stairwell with spiral stairs leading up to the house, and one is the bathroom (with footed tub). The back side of this dwelling is underground witht he hillside falling away as you go towards the other end, to where you can have a door to the outside. If only the door were round then I would be justified in calling it Bag End. :)
Now on with the christmas!!!
Well, I have posted aobut the visit of the Roderickmike and all, but I havn't posted anything about the stuff after Christmas.
So, Mike and I went to the coffeeshop and had lunch friday afternoon and then headed up to Blairsville (this was after a whole scary episode of Jen and Mike quoting half of Waiting for Guffman). The drive was not bad at all and we managed to only get lost for half a minuite. We got up to Mike's mountain abode and he showed me around all four rooms of it (five if you count the kitchen and living room as two rooms, though they are open to one another) and I got to work on dinner. That night we had burgers. Then we watched The Pianist which I highly recomend to anyone to see, do it or I will come hunt you down and force you to.
The next day I awoke at 10 and had tea while I stood on mike's porch in the chill of the mountain morning, enjoing the crisp air and the sound of the stream bubbling not 30 feet from me. I then investigated said stream closer. Mountain streams are nice, haivn them by your abode is even nicer.
Well, I fixed sandwiches for lunch, grilled them in a little butter, makes them nice and tasty, with some oregano. Mmm. Almost as good as a nice MLT.
Anyway, I began, then, the plans for dinner and Mike and I played some Worms. I missed playing that game with Mike! Anyway, I got whipped, if I remember correctly. I think we both did by the computer... Well, after hearing from the becca that she had left we made a grocery trip to get food for dinner and came back and I fixed it up. A nice dish I invented, chicken breasts with diced red potatos, covered in various cream of soups. I used two cans of cream of chicken and one can of clam chowder. I sprinkled some spices on it and baked it for a goodly long time, about an hour at 450, with some corn on the cob wrapped in foil baking. After it was done I covered it in cheese and let that melt and the becca arrived. We ate. mmm good.
Aaaaanyway, the mike and the becca went off for a drive in the mountains and I played games on his computer and on his NES. Then we watched edward siscorhands, great movie, I ahdn't seen it in ages. And then we all talked about how we should go to bed but didn't for like an hour... it was almost 4 when I got to sleep. Next day we slept late and then went to lunch at the mexican place in blairsville, then we made for the place my parents rented in the mountains; not a bad drive, not hard to find. Didn't get lost.
The house they rented had a WONDERFUL view of a vally and mountains, the living room and master bedroom was basically a wall of sliding glass doors leading to a porch, giving an excellent view. Mike stayed till later that evening and he made for Blairsville. The next day we (my family and I) went on a trek down the mountain and on a senic drive. Basically it was a dirt road beside a small river. We drove up a ways and stopped, got out and ate on rocks in the river and climbed around there, taking pictures (I will put them up if I ever get my webspace back and if I find a place in meridian that I trust with my film). Then we drove on up the road, past a little village tucked away in the mountains at least 30 minutes along a small tiny road to any city. Shortly thereafter we crossed the state line into NC and found the end of the road. Made our way back and spent the rest of the evening in the house.
The next day mom and becca and I went to town, visited a antiques store where I picked up a hymnal that is over 100 years old and in great condition and then examined some more shops. nothing else was too interesting though so we left, drove by a camp becca used to go to which she was quite unsatisfied with how they have made it look like a conference center, and tried to visit the mountain instrument store, which was closed till March. Blargh.
Left the cabin and went past some gorge or somesuch, can't remember the name, got some pictures there, and went to Taccoa Falls. No pictures there as it was nearing 5 and darkness. But it was a nice falls, except for the fact that the dam on the lake above it burst in the 70s and killed like 30 people at the college.
Then we returned to the Augusta. Wednesday was spent sleeping and then going to see Lord of the Rings with the Becca. After we saw that (I was much disapointed with the ending but liked the rest) she took me to The Pizza Joint which has wonderful pizza. Came back to my grandmothers and spent New Years eve with the family. Though most of them were going to bed by midnight and I played guitar, read, and watched tv. The next day we traversed back to here. Yay for trips.
I'm sure this would have been more fun had I posted it right after it all, but too bad. :) Oh, and the hymnal is called "The New Laudes Domini: For use in Baptist Churches" copyright 1892 with a name written in the cover with the date, April 12th, 1907. It was published by the Century Company in New York. Because I know exactily one of you wants to know! :)
Friday, January 02, 2004
Ah, I have my computer working on the internet again. What did I have to do to accomplish this? I had to format and re-install! What fun. And this is where Nick realizes just how evil the lovely folks at MS are... Why? Because ever since Windows XP has been released there have been critical updates coming out to patch things and such... And now I must download and install all 46 of these updates, some 49 megs of download ON FREAKING DIALUP...... Someone needs to sell a CD of this crap....
Klasinc&Loncar Duo (Just trying to help it get picked up by Google spiders, I maintain it for them)