Pass the Port, Please

Back in the 1970's, the immensely popular comedy Monty Python's Flying Circus featured a skit titled "Spot the Loony". I fear that this phrase might be applied to me when it comes to obsessive reading behavior.  Hey, all you people in Atlanta...I know there may be other justifications for this title, but we're strictly talking about reading here.

Some years ago, I heard on the wind about a little book called "A Year in Provence".  In this whimsical tale, a British advertising executive by the name of Peter Mayle decides to move to the south of France to start a new life.  The book is divided into twelve chapters, each devoted to a month in the author's first year in Provence.  It has become such a favorite of mine that I re-read it about every two years, and I always find something which I had never noticed before...I suppose that's the definition of a truly good read.

Anyway, not being content to have read only one of Peter Mayle's books, I proceeded to "Toujours Provence", the followup to the first book.  "Toujours" focuses more on local customs, holidays, and traditions, and in its pages, I immediately found a delightful story about using just the right kind of pig to locate truffles.  I must admit that, prior to this, I had given absolutely no thought to truffles and little more to the porcine persuasion.  But I was enchanted by this book as well.

Shortly thereafter, I became intensely interested in the culture and customs of Italy.  I had become addicted to Rick Steves' "Travels in Europe" on PBS, and the more I watched, the more entranced I became, and consequently, the more travel books I acquired.  But because of the fact that we had recently moved from Atlanta to Charlotte and back to Atlanta, using most of our disposable income in the process, it was impossible to entertain any serious travel abroad.  Besides, I had no passport.

It seemed that the books all had a common thread: a person who appears otherwise stable uproots him or herself and the family (in some cases) and moves to a new home abroad, in the process purchasing a house which needs, shall we say, renovations.  The prospect of such a thing is daunting to me -- I can see a little paint here and there, maybe knocking out a wall or adding hardwood flooring, but the idea of casting one's net in a faraway place without reliable HVAC is a little scary.  But in a book, it's all okay, because someone else is doing it.

Hence, within a few years, I had amassed a stockpile of books dealing with relocation to other parts of the world.  And still, I had no passport.  Finally, on a spring day early this year, my (Atlanta) friend Tanya, having lost all patience with my lack of said passport, actually accompanied me to the post office where I applied for one.  Friends, I had reached the age of 54 without having a passport.  Yes, I might have known all about contruction financing in Portugal, the best exterior siding to use against the mistral wind of France, and how to waterproof a houseboat on the Seine, but acquisition of that little blue book had evaded me all those years.

Within a few weeks of application, despite my edgy reputation here in the United States, I was given a passport.  It came in the mail while I was at work, and my wife called me to tell me that "something" had arrived.  The next day, several of my friends from Macy's took me to Taco Mac for a "Passport Acquisition Lunch".  It was a divine moment.  Tanya had created a small golden "tree" decoration which featured the flags of many nations.  We put it in the center of the table and wished that we could drink beer at lunch.

Nowadays, no one picks on me for not having a passport.  My friend Tim, who has been all over the civilized and partially civilized world, loaned me a stack of travel books to get me started.  Now, it's just up to me to decide where to begin my explorations.  Hmmm, I think I just may pick Provence.

Ciao!

Feeding Your Caffeine Addiction

OK, to all you serious coffee drinkers out there in metro Atlanta, a good friend of mine has just launched a website, savvylikeme.com, which offers great deals around the Atlanta area.  Be sure to check out today's link, which gets you $20 worth of goods at Duluth's World of Coffee & Tea for only ten bucks!  Here's the link:

https://savvylikeme.com/deal/wc1111/

Enjoy!  :)

Back in the I-Life

I'm one of those people who remembers things by the calendar year in which they occurred.  I will tie a particular event to its numeric year and then mentally index it, so that when that year is mentioned at a later date, it will elicit some kind of response in me, sometimes good, sometimes bad.  My friends and family know this, so when it's family storytelling time, I'm often asked to recall the year that some event or the other happened.  It's never anything as earth-shattering as the first moon landing (1969) or the year JFK was assassinated (1963), but rather something like the year our dinner preparations almost set the Point Mugu State Park campground on fire -- that was 1969.  Along these lines, I'm finding that 2010 has earned its own place in my personal history -- to me, it has become the year of Interstate Surfing, the year of the I-Life, as it were, and this is not a bad thing at all.

We tend to take Interstates for granted these days, but they weren't always fixtures on the landscape.  I can recall driving across country from Memphis to Los Angeles in 1959 in a '57 Chevy Bel Air, without air conditioning, with my parents, grandmother and grandfather.  Our road of choice was Route 66, which was colorful and scenic, a treat in those days.  But several days of driving on two-lane stretches was tiring, especially with temperatures so high that we had to put newspapers on the windows to shield us from the heat.  To add to the fun, we blew a tire in both directions when passing through Holbrook, Arizona.  Nowadays, we crank up the air and check the navigation system to see how long it will take us to get to the next Cracker Barrel.

Our daughter Hannah is at college in North Carolina, so several times a year, we make the trip up and back to help her move, to bring provisions to her and to her friends, and to lend a general joie de vivre to the entire college scene (which actually looks like it has plenty of joie).  We've developed a circuit of sorts: we have good friends in both Charlotte, North Carolina, and Johnson City, Tennessee, so we will typically make a roundabout type of drive, attempting to hit both cities in the process.  I-85, I-77, I-40 and I-26 make those trips possible.

About every other year, although not quite as often as in the past, we make the drive from Atlanta to Boston and back to visit my wife Karen's family.  I-85 is always a given, but in North Carolina, one must choose between I-77 to I-81 (the rural route) or I-85 to I-95 (the urban route).  New York itself is just a sublime adventure, and actually quite fun to drive through, I think, given that the roads are actually well marked.  Along such straits as the Cross Bronx Expressway, one can try to guess the make and model of cars from the stripped remains in the breakdown lanes.  Once you're in New England, just about anything goes, and it's all close together.  Generally for us, it's a scenic patchwork quilt of I-84 to I-90, then mainlining the Massachusetts Turnpike (lovingly called the "Mass Pike" by locals) into metropolitan Boston.

It's down to a science with Interstates -- truly, we don't even think about the specifics of our navigation, because it's all in the numbers.  Florida?  I-75 to I-10 over to I-95 (east) or straight down I-75 (west).  Along the Panhandle, it's I-10, all the way to N'awlins.  Headed to Memphis? I-20 to I-22.  Nashville?  I-75 to I-24.  Los Angeles?  I-20 to I-22 to I-40 to I-15 to I-10.  Oh, and I forgot to mention...just getting out of Atlanta often requires traversing I-285, the "Atlanta Bypass", as it is lovingly called on the overhead signs, and 285 is undoubtedly the quintessential driving experience in the South.

The point of all this rambling, and the central question, is: how does this all relate to what will become my future recollection of 2010?  Precisely because of all these travels.  This year, I seem to have spent a lot of time on the I-roads, and there was quality with the quantity.  I went to college a few times, returned home to Memphis for a trip that defined what "home" was all about, spent a wonderful weekend on the Georgia coast, made a bajillion forays into the city, and got to spend priceless time with friends all over the place.  And the whole time, those big green signs pointed me in the right direction, while the little blue ones told me where to find gas.

So it's bon voyage, friends...it's been a fun year of travel.  By the way, I've been wondering...does every Cracker Barrel sell the same stuff?

Backout Plan

In the world of information technology, we have a term that we use quite often -- it's called the "backout plan".  The backout plan is what takes effect when a software installation has gone horribly wrong -- not that I've ever personally seen that happen, of course.  But lately, I believe the term could be extended outside the IT realm and into the world of motoring.

Consider the following: you've just completed buying $98.73 worth of miscellaneous home goods from Target (although you went into the store fully intending to pick up only pre-brush whitening rinse), and after placing the shopping bags into your trunk, you get into your car, put it in reverse, and begin to back out of the parking space.  Hopefully, you will be looking up and down the aisle of the parking lot as you back out.  But really, that will not matter, because here comes -- Z-O-O-O-O-M -- a vehicle whipping past the rear end of your car, intent on taking out your trunk and its newly acquired, precious cargo.  The thing is, believe it or not, this used to be a rare occurrence.

Back in the day (1950's, 1960's, 1970's, 1980's, 1990's), most people, when they saw a car backing out of a parking space, would actually stop the forward motion of their vehicle.  (Although many people do not know this, "stopping" can be accomplished by pushing down on the "brake" pedal, the rubberized platform located immediately to the left of the accelerator in most cars and trucks.)  In theory, this so-called "braking" would allow the departing driver the chance to safely exit his/her parking space.  But this now appears to be the exception to the rule.  Nowadays, there is a new backout plan -- if people see a car backing out of a space, they will try to get past that car as quickly as possible, regardless of whether the driver exiting the space even sees them.  This is, of course, a dangerous practice, but that fact alone has never stopped any Atlanta driver that I've ever seen.

I'm not sure what is the reason for this aberrant behavior.  Conceivably, drivers are all in such a hurry that they do not feel they have time to stop for another vehicle, or alternatively, passing a car pulling out becomes an irresistible game of chance.  Of course, it could also be that the whizzing driver is simply oblivious to his/her surroundings or is engaged in a critical mobile phone activity (i.e. ordering lunch using Chipotle Online Mobile) that limits use of the parietal lobe.  Whatever the reason, this is becoming an accepted practice, and I now see it in every city I visit.  It is so common that a recent automobile advertisement features a device specifically designed to detect when another vehicle is about to pass behind your car.

So, I've decided to take a new approach to the science of parking -- I'm only going to park in spaces where I can pull forward to both enter and exit.  If that means running into the Starbucks building in front of me, well then, so be it.  I'll just claim that I was trying to use the Starbucks Mobile iPhone application and was distracted.  I think they'll believe that in traffic court: "Honest, your honor...I was just trying to figure out how to add an extra shot to the Americano in the My Favorite Drinks list."

Boo-yah...mocha frappuccinos all around!

Clicking Pause in The ATL

I wrote this post back in the spring but only last night got around to publishing it.  Even though it's a little too hot for Merlot on the deck, I think you could substitute Cosmos and the effect would be the same.

Down here in the South, we have a monthly magazine which is aptly titled Southern Living. It's an institution...people all across the South rely on SL to give them the best recipes, gardening ideas, and potential travel destinations.  It's the Southern equivalent of Sunset or Yankee, I suppose.  And here in "The ATL", as we locals affectionately call our fair city, Southern Living is gospel.  As the Brits say, it's "spot-on".

Every year about this time, we become very grateful for living in a place like this.  Most evenings in the spring, summer or fall, we can dine al fresco -- in fact, as I write this, I'm downing the last few sips of my Two-Buck Chuck Trader Joe's 2008 Merlot while sitting out on the deck with my laptop.  As I look around, I see that I'm surrounded by a veritable forest up here.  If you don't tend to a piece of ground, something will start growing, and before you know it, you'll have to pull out the Roundup just to see through it all.  But the pervasive green is so calming, and I think we often take it for granted.  Take note the next time you fly into Atlanta, and you'll notice that there's green absolutely everywhere.

Even though Atlanta is a Southern city, there are times when we tend to forget it.  For example, our traffic is legendary, and our drivers are possessed of a certain, shall we say fortitude, that would allow them to compete in modern Roman motorsports.  According to a national study released several years ago, we have some of the longest commute times in the nation.  Yet, when we get home, we must revert to a state of happiness, because people keep moving here.  It's something of a paradox, but it's been like this as long as I can remember.

Yet even with the tremendous influx of people from other regions and other parts of the world, we retain something of the Southern charm.  You can still go into a store, and a perfect stranger will stop you and ask if you've tried a certain black bean salsa or some wild dark roast coffee, and before you realize it, you're fully engaged and making recommendations like a culinary Roger Ebert.  It's not that people don't have a sense of personal space, but rather that they're willing to make the effort to be outgoing, and that's very nice.

According to the last figures, we're now a city of about 5.5 million people.  Some days, I swear they're all driving I-285, which we call "The Perimeter" (ironically, since it runs through some of the busiest parts of the city), or navigating "The Connector", a downtown stretch where I-75 and I-85 wrap their arms around each other's waists for a 16-lane dance.  But there's something about this diverse mix of cultures and attitudes, combined with a very real sense of the here and now, that makes this place what it is.  I moved here in 1982, thinking that I'd give it two or three years, and except for two years away in Charlotte, I've been here ever since.  I don't know if and when I'll call another place home, but this one is good. 

I don't often take the time to thank my city, but that's exactly what this is.  Thanks, Atlanta, for opening my mind and still allowing me to find some good catfish.