The Great Road Trip Day 4 - North Carolina/South Carolina

Nick had to get up early this morning because he was going back to school…Caitlin wanted to bring him to her job (she’s a high school teacher) and have him meet several of her co-workers. So Nick headed out early while Minh and I slept in. We eventually got up and got cleaned up. I got to talk to Danielle for a bit (another great way to start the morning) and then spent the rest of the morning packing up my stuff, talking with Chris and Corey and playing on the computer.


Nick got back just before noon and told us all about his school experience. We then packed up the car, took a couple pictures and headed out for some lunch. We hit up Buffalo Wild Wings and had a pretty decent meal. Minh, the glutton for punishment that he is, couldn’t resist getting a chicken tender salad doused with their spiciest sauce (I had thought about getting something with that level of spiciness, but my mind got the best of me). It was very amusing to see him sweat, cough and blow his nose as he munched on his salad.

After lunch, we hit the road for Columbia, South Carolina to see our old friend John Zyck. John used to live up in Montgomery County with us, but moved to Columbia several months ago to teach at the University of South Carolina. I hadn’t seen him since Rob and I helped him move down there, so I was looking forward to catching up with him. After a relatively short drive down there (only about an hour an a half), we made it to Columbia. We stopped off at a local thrift shop hoping to find some hidden treasures. This was definitely an old school thrift shop…they were selling 8-track tapes! At least Nick found something worth while…he came away with three board games!

Finally we met John at his place. He was very happy to see us, as I was to see him. We settled in and spent some time catching up. He was very happy to be back in the south; the slower pace and more friendly demeanor of the people here was definitely more of his style. I was glad he was happy here, both emotionally and spiritually.

After chatting for a bit, we formed a game plan of what we’d do for the rest of the day. We would head down to USC and John would give us a tour of the place. After that, we would go to a sports bar called Damon’s and watch the University of Maryland women’s basketball team play their NCAA tournament game against Louisville. John was a great tour guide, showing us all around the campus. USC was a very pretty campus, with lots of old-style architecture in its buildings. It felt good to be back on a college campus again, as the buzz of college life was all around us.


We finished up the tour and headed off to Damon’s. One of the girls who went with me on my trip to India in 2006 lived in Columbia, so I gave her a call and asked if she and her husband wanted to join us for dinner. She was delighted to hear from me and said that they would both be there. Tiffany and Brian met us there eventually and we all had a lot of fun catching up on our current lives, reminiscing about our time in India and having a bunch of laughs. Unfortunately, the UM women lost their game, but we still had a great time. Brian even demonstrated his juggling skills for us!

We capped off the night by grabbing some beer and renting “Taladega Nights,” in honor of our previous trip to the Lowe’s Motor Speedway. Minh had never seen it, so we had to introduce him. It was definitely funny…another great way to end another great day.

The Great Road Trip Day 3 - North Carolina

Ahh…Sunday morning in Charlotte; that meant only one thing: Church in Charlotte! We got up, got cleaned up, got dressed up and followed Edwin and Chris (one of Edwin’s roommates who played semi-pro football) to a community college theatre where church was being held. We were fortunate to be in Charlotte when we were, because this Sunday was a congregational service for the Charlotte church. The entire theatre was packed full of Christian pre-teens, teens, campus students, singles and marrieds, and the air was abuzz with pre-worship fellowship. We arrived just in time for the beginning of the first song. Caitlin had saved us some seats right in the middle of the theatre, so we shuffled on in and the worship began.

I was reminded, on all levels, why I love our particular family of churches. It seems like no matter where you go, whether it’s in another state or another country, our particular brand of services will always be somewhat similar to each other. Most of the songs we sang were songs I knew (some sung a little differently, but same words), but there were some new ones I didn’t know, there were plenty of church announcements (done at the beginning of service instead of the end, like in Montgomery County), and the communion and sermon were both very powerful. Ron Drabot preached the sermon, and not only was his message biblical, encouraging and convicting, but it was also quite entertaining…he warmed up the congregation with a joke related to him turning 50 recently, and throughout his sermon, little music clips played with messages that reinforced the points he was making. It was great!


After service was done, Caitlin introduced Nick to many of her friends, and Minh and I talked to various people. Everyone was really cool to talk to; I’d definitely love to visit this church again. Eventually we made our way out of the theatre, took some pictures in front of it, and headed off for lunch. Caitlin had a special lunch locale in mind for us…


Minh is a big fan of the Food Network, and one of the shows on there features diners that offer good and unique foods. Well, one of those diners was right there in Charlotte, a few blocks from where we had church: the Penguin Diner. This place was well known for its burgers and fried pickles, so of course we had to try both. The fried pickles actually were really good…I didn’t know you could fry pickles, but hey…we WERE in the south. The burger was actually really good too…I was tempted to get the 1 pound burger that they offered, but feared I might regret it later in the day, since Minh and I were supposed to go hiking. But that didn’t stop Minh from getting it. He wolfed that thing down with no problem. He’s definitely my hero.


After lunch, Nick and Caitlin headed off for some alone time. Minh knew one of his old co-workers named George lived in the Durham area, and apparently George had agreed to meet us half-way at a state park to do some hiking. So Minh and I drove about an hour to Morrow Mountain State Park and met up with George. George was a nice guy and he lead us around a couple trails, showing us some beautiful views of the park and some of the area’s “mountains (none were more than 1,000 tall, so they were more like little hills).” But we enjoyed the views and had some good conversations. We finished our evening up with dinner at a local place and continued having good conversation. Eventually, we parted ways and Minh and I took some of the local back roads back to Edwin’s and Chris’ place. Their other roommate Corey was home, so we got to meet him. All three of those guys were really cool and funny; I was glad we got to stay at their place. Nick got home a couple hours later, and we finished the evening with watching a couple episodes of The Office on Nick’s computer. What better way to say goodnight than watching the antics of Michael Scott and Dwight Schrute?

The Great Road Trip Day 2 - North Carolina

After a fairly good night sleep, I woke up around 8:15am-ish and felt the need to take a walk. I was thinking about working out, but I was still feeling some of the effects of being around Caitlin's cat, so my breathing was still slightly labored. So I took a walk around Edwin's apartment complex, praying as I went along. It was a great walk and a great prayer...not even the little Chihuahua that ran out to attack me could get my spirits down!


As I came back in, the guys were starting to stir. They eventually got up, got cleaned up and we headed out around 10 to pick up some breakfast and meet Caitlin and some of her friends from yesterday at her house. We scooped up some food from Panera (ask Nick how good his sandwich was) and drove to Caitlin's. When we got there, Caitlin wasn't ready, so we chilled for a bit. When she was finally ready, she came downstairs wearing the t-shirt you see in the picture. Craziness! These two were definitely cut from the same mold.

We were scheduled to take a tour of the Lowe's motor speedway around 11, but since it was raining, it got pushed back to 1:30p. In the meantime, we went out to eat at a local but popular diner. I wasn't that hungry since we had just eaten a couple hours ago, but I had a little bit of something. You don't think I'd let something like being full stop me from eating, did you? Wow...that sounds really bad...

After eating, we came back to Caitlin's house and watched some Jeopardy episodes they had on DVR. It's amazing how love for Jeopardy is universal!

The Lowe's motor speedway is one of the most popular NASCAR speedways in the country. With stadium seating combined with the people that camp out on the in-field, the stadium holds over 160,000 people! The race scenes from Taladega Nights and Days of Thunder were both filmed there, as well as numerous NASCAR commercials and television spots. I never realized just how huge NASCAR was, not only as a sport but also the tracks where they race; I was definitely impressed. When we arrived at the speedway, we went inside to meet our tour guide. As we milled around the building lobby, a man called out to Nick, "Hey Nick! You're Nick, right?" None of us knew this guy, so we were all a bit confused. But it was all pretty simple: The guy knew Nick's name because of Caitlin's t-shirt! We all laughed about that.


Our tour guide loaded us up in a van and took us inside the speedway. We could tell she loved her job, as she was very excited to tell us all the facts about the speedway. The coolest part of the whole tour in my opinion was when she drove us around the speedway track. At it's highest point, the track is banked at 24 degrees! She actually stopped the van on the bank, and I was just waiting for our van to roll over! Thankfully, it didn't. She said that the race cars fly around the track at over 170 mph, and when they're going that fast, they don't even feel the elevation in the bank. I wish we could have done that in the vans, but she only got up to 70 mph.

After the tour was done, Caitlin revealed the next part of our agenda, which she had kept secret from us: We were going to go Geo-cacheing. If you've never heard of it, basically you are given the GPS coordinates of a "treasure box" hidden somewhere in the woods, and you're to use a GPS to find the treasure cache, which will have clues to another cache. Inside the cache are things that other people who have found it before you have left, and you're supposed to leave something in it as well. We spent a few minutes figuring out how the GPSs worked, and then we hit the road! We were able to find the first one without many problems, but the other two that we tried to find wern't there! We looked and searched and dug but found nothing. It was a bit frustrating, especially since it was raining the entire time, but we made the best of it. We figured other people must have moved them or taken them away completely. Ah well...

We came back to Caitlin's and dried off, watching more Jeopardy and old episodes of The Office. Our dinner plans changed a bit, so myself, Minh, Ben, Paula and Corie went to Panera to catch some dinner, while Nick and Caitlin went to see a friend of hers. They joined us a bit later and we all went out to Coyote Joe's, which is a country/western club. This was absolutely a new experience for me, and I was looking forward to doing a little line dancing.


Coyote Joe's was a trip! Imagine a huge warehouse of a place with a two levels, pool tables, a couple bars, tables, a mechanical bull, a huge dance floor and a live band! People were line dancing and square dancing all over the place, and there were plenty of guys and girls in cowboy hats and boots. Our group got on the dance floor and tried to keep up with the line dancers, but those dances were hard! I thought most line dances would be fairly simple, and a few of the dances I managed to pick up, but all in all, I was lost trying to keep up with those guys. Now, I know you're asking yourself, "Did you ride the mechanical bull, Russ?" Do you really need to ask that question? What you should be asking yourself is, "How long did you stay on the bull, Russ?" I'm not sure...I saw the video of me on the bull (yes, there is a video floating around somewhere of me on the bull) and I don't think it was that long...maybe about 20 seconds, if that. It was fun though! Both Nick and Minh rode the bull as well...great times!

The rest of the night was spent on the dance floor. I gave up trying to line dance and just did my own thing for the rest of the night. It was great fun and Minh and I made it back home sometime around 1a. Nick got in about an hour later. Another good day in the books.

The Great Road Trip Day 1 - North Carolina

Today was the day...the day where we packed up Minh's Scion to the gills and hit the road for nine days of fun, adventure and general craziness! As you can see from the pic, we utilized every spare inch of space in that car. Apparently we went a little overboard in deciding what to bring ("Well, we might need my dingle-hopper...and what if we need a spare flux capacitor?"). But despite the cramped-ness, we still managed to have space enough to get all three of us in there and hit the road. After a leisurely breakfast at the local IHOP, we started off on our adventure! Minh was a little fried from staying up late to pack, so Nick took the wheel first.


The drive down included lots of music, a nap taken by yours truly, and viewings of "Battlestar Galactica" and "The Office." Nick busted out "The Office" on his laptop, and I discovered why putting DVD players in view of the driver is a bad idea (I was driving then, and the car may have swerved a bit into another lane as I was trying to get a peek. Needless to say, we stopped watching after that). As we approached Charlotte, we stopped at a florist so Nick could pick up flowers for Caitlin, and the three of us worked together on a poem for her. I won't share the details of our masterpiece, but let's just say if I were to use the word "masterpiece" to describe it, it would be very modest of me. ;)


As we approached Caitlin's house, Nick told me she owned a cat. I'm seriously allergic to cats, so we needed to stop somewhere and pick up some medicine. I grabbed some Benadryl, took a couple pills and we made our way to the house. Caitlin greeted us at the door and we made our way in. Her roommate Laura was there, as well as Caitlin's friend Edwin, (whose house we'd be staying in) and we all spent some time talking and catching up. Cailtin's friends Corie and Paula came over, and we all eventually sat down to enjoy a lovely dinner of chicken-friend rice, spring roles and cookies. Laura's friend Jim came over, as well as a few more of Caitlin's friends, and we spent the rest of the night playing the games "Pow-wow," "Say Anything" and No Limit Texas Hold'em. We had a lot of fun and didn't leave Caitlin's house until 2am! Once we headed out, we couldn't find Edwin's place on our GPS because the development was too new, so Caitlin led the way there in her car. All in all, a very good first day.

Firehouse Life - Cutting up cars

There are many great things about my job...the excitement of fighting fires, knowing what I do makes a difference, the guys I work with...but there's one part that appeals to a child-like, distinctly man side of me, and that's using big tools to break stuff. There's something really awesome about smashing an object to pieces without either getting into a fight with someone over that object or getting arrested. But not only is using big tools to break stuff part of my job, people actually rely on myself and other firefighters to do so! Did I mention I love my job?

We've had this old white car sitting in the back parking lot of the firehouse for months. We were waiting for the right opportunity to use the rescue tools off the ladder truck to practice some vehicle extrication techniques. Well, we have two guys at the station who are in the process of getting checked off to drive the truck, so they needed to demonstrate that they could set up and operate the rescue equipment. And of course, the rest of us got to play with the tools too! We spent the whole morning cutting, spreading, pushing, pulling, whacking, smacking and generally destroying this car. And it was FUN.

So (God-forbid) if any of you reading this are ever in a car accident and you're stuck inside your car, the fire department might do more damage to your car in getting you out than the accident did. How else are we supposed to get you unstuck?

Firehouse Life - Looking GOOD

After getting a bit of inspiration last shift from waxing the chief's buggy, MH brought in some of his super-duper car wax so we could clean off the medic unit. Now our medic unit is one of the busier medic units in the county...it has over 140,000 miles on it and has been running for several years. It has all kinds of knicks, dings, cuts, cracks and scrapes on it, as well as lots of ingrained dirt stains and streaks. But after applying MH's cleaner, it was starting to look light-years better than before. Finally, we put on a coat of liquid wax, and it started to SHINE. I know it's hard to tell from this shot, but take a look at the picture below and notice the shine...beautiful!

The Big Premiere!

After weeks of post-production, hours spent over editing, scouring the Internet for the right music and sound effects, and making sure everything was just right, the big day finally arrived! The world premiere of the cookie monster movie! One of the actresses, "Agent Sulky" in the movie, was kind enough to host the premiere at her house. It was the hottest ticket in town! Fans came from miles around, even from as far away as Baltimore, to view the movie that critics had been raving about for the longest time. Words such as "Epic," "Magnificent," and "Ground-breaking" have been used to describe this film, and the house was abuzz with the excitement of men, women and children on the verge of viewing this masterpiece.

At a little after 8:15p, with everyone on the edge of their seats, the curtain went up. After everyone was warmed up with a preview of the upcoming summer blockbuster, "Burritos Bite Back," the cookie monster movie began! This movie had everything...drama, suspense, humor...literally the stuff of legends. There was laughter, tears, gasps of horror and cheers all coming from the audience at various times. When it was finally over, the standing ovation must have lasted a solid ten minutes.

The rest of the evening, the audience mingled with the stars. The actors and actresses signed pictures of themselves and took pictures with the delighted patrons. Many of the actors and actresses spoke candidly of how they spent months researching their roles and digging deep inside of themselves to realistically convey the powerful emotions they gave off in the film. Many of them shared how it often would taken them hours to come out of character, as their various roles would utterly consume them. As audience members slowly trickled out, several of them were heard to have said, "my life will never be the same," and "my life is now divided into two periods: before I saw the cookie monster movie and after I saw the cookie monster movie."

Truly, it was a night for the ages.