On the Road to Indiana

Three weeks ago we went to Indiana for a week. Some friends of ours moved there and invited us to come visit them. I don't think they actually expected us to go, but we did!

The relationship with these friends is unique. Though we both seem to deviate from our paths, we always seem to get back in touch. When I was in high school I worked at a Burger King. My friend Kevin was a porter (cleaned up stuff at night). I was a closer. I made $4.00 an hour. If you weren't a closer you made $3.35 an hour. I was making the big buck!!! Anyway, from there at Burger King we became friends - chasing the same girls, going to concerts ( AC\DC, Van Halen!!!), going to parties (@ Keith's, Todd's, Scott's and Dave's). We didn't go to the same high school, but that didn't seem to matter. We had friends all over.

His wife went to my high school, but was a freshman when I was a senior. So of course she knew me, but I didn't know her, because I was too cool.

I went away to college and lost touch with Kevin. One summer while home my girlfriend (now wife) and I were in Wendy's. When we were leaving Kevin and his girlfriend (now wife) were entering. Not recognizing her, I thought she was rather young and said to him, "robbing the cradle again, are we?" We laughed.

I didn't see them through the remainder of college. After college we lived in Bel Air, but I was commuting to Owings Mills and my wife to murdertown, U.S.A (Baltimore). We decided to move to Carroll County where it would be a short commute for me and she could ride the mugger mover (Metro Subway).

We moved into a neighborhood in South Carroll in 1999. We didn't know anyone for a while, so one day when there was a knock at the door I was startled. I open the door and there's Kevin with a little girl. I asked how he found me. He said his lives in the neighborhood and his wife saw me drive by one day, so he looked me up and found out which house I live in. Too funny!

We reconnected, my wife started a daycare, their 2 girls became our clients, and we eventually became their godparents. Then a few years later they decided to move to Indiana to be closer to family, and once again we drifted apart.

Then last year they returned to the area for Christmas and we got together and had a great time. They invited us to come visit them this summer - and we did.

We decided that we should take 2 days to get there since it was 600 miles and about 10/11 hours. Sure, some people can do it in 9, but I'd like to do it legally. Therefore, we decided to go to Canton, Ohio for our first portion of the trip.

We left on a Sunday in the wee hours of the morning - about 4:45am. I think we were past Hagerstown before the sky started to light up. Let me tell you there's not much traffic on I-70 on Sunday mornings(notice I didn't incorrectly say Route 70 - that's in North Carolina).

We're not in Maryland anymore!


We drove through the Sideling Hill cut, then into West Virginia before the kids even woke up. We stopped in Morgantown for a potty break and a quick cultural lesson in hillbilly. The mountains (big hills) of Western Maryland, West Virginia, Southern Pennsyltucky, and Southeastern, Ohio are really spectacular. Every town has either a Bob Evans or a Cracker Barrel. And they are always crowded. And if it's a really big town, like Zainesville, Ohio - they they have BOTH!!!

Sideling Hill - what a magnificent site!!! Check out how the rock layers bend upwards on both ends. Notice the camper at the bottom. Big hill!


Our journey took us west on I-70, then onto I-68, then north up I-79 toward Pittsburgh, then west on I-70 again (to avoid the Pennsylvania Nightmare Turnpike), then north on I-77 up to Canton. My wife drove the first leg. I drove for a couple of hours until we needed gas outside of Cambridge, Ohio. However, when an 80 year old woman in a 1979 Buick Le Sabre passed us my wife made me stop so she could drive again. She drove the rest of the way to Canton. And the rest of the way to Indianapolis. And the rest of the way back to Maryland. Hmmm....

Western Maryland - very beautiful, though there were a lot of dead trees along long stretches of highway. Is there some kind of bug infestation going on???


I can't wait to get to Indiana! Oh, wait. Slots.


Differences between Ohio and Maryland? No political signs littering the roads. That was nice. And Jesus loves Ohio. They tell us all the time. I don't think Jesus loves Maryland. It could be because Montgomery County had him extradited.



And then after seeing Jesus, we see a sign for Tom Raper. He sells houses, RV's, and boats. Would Jesus buy a boat from a guy named Raper? I probably wouldn't.

till Jan the fourth

hello loves!
am back after...3 days.
haha i know i said i'll try to blog everyday..but have been so busy can barely sit down and use the comp peacefully.

besides, blogging after 3 days is a huge improvement from blogging only once a month! ;) one step at a time..haha!

Jan 1st:

went for a mini family vacation to Eagle Ranch, PD.
it sounded like a really nice cowboy town. well, it was.

the only setback was that the soil was too muddy for any humans to gracefully walk on. and also the super strong old wood smell in the rooms. and also the spoilt heater button. and loveen's smelly bedsheets & blanket (see, i stand up for u sis. haha). and the number of flies-invasion. and the inability to find edible food (except ramli burger which i dont fancy). and the expensive activities (flying fox, paintball, horse-riding, convenience store!!!)

but besides all that, i did enjoy the fact that the place is quite creatively set-up.

everyone lived in wagons like the above. pretty cool :)

me and my adorable and loving gramma.
she's recovered so much :)

by the beach. and i didnt even touch the sand! haha.
my ahma's standard smile. hehe :)

since there was nothing much to do at night, the two (three plus loveen who took the pics) restless sisters decided to relive their childhood by playing Speed.

not nice at all! i lost in every round!

beautiful Evangeline all grown up.
she greets me "da jie!" each time i come home :)
she enjoyed all the running about :)

Jan 2nd:

Paul & Dinah's wedding!

without Paul, i wouldnt have met boon.
without Dinah, i wouldnt have had such a happy friend :)

congrats to you both! your wedding was beautiful :)

boon's beer glass. haha super cool!

love this one :)
taken by Jo..miss u! reply me more often! haha.

Jan 3rd:

church-manicure-sunway lagoon night park

i really enjoyed this day dear.
spent the ENTIRE day with you. i always love that :)

Jan 4th:


first time being in a TVC as a hand talent.
never knew my hands (which i have barely really cared for. yes, no hand cream/lotion or even manicures prior to the shoot) can earn me money. woohoo~

and the more special thing is that i was the hand talent for a TVC which Charmaine Cheh was casted in :)) will update on that soon.

and not forgetting, Melody my dear sis goes to primary school for the first time today!

my family was so excited asking her questions about
how many new friends she made,
how was the food in canteen,
and whether her bag is heavy.

answers:
1) she made more than 1o friends (she said that specifically. haha)
2) she had nasi lemak (non-spicy, and she never knew it's so ncie)
3) the bag is freaking heavy.


this is only the fourth day of the brand new year, and life has already been so exciting and eventful. surely greater things are in store for me! so excited! :)

gtg!
*group hugs*

love, careen.

NYR: Blog more!

Amongst the many (well, not too many this year, considering the fact that the more NYR you make, the more you're not likely not fulfill all of them well. at least for my case) New Year Resolutions for the sunshine 2010,

one of them is to blog more.

yes, i can sorta sense you guys nodding in agreement.

if you take a scroll down the page, on the right side where the previous posts are, you can see that my blog can get as pathetic as 5 posts per month, or worse still, 1 post in a month.

had been a busybee for the past year, therefore, one of my goals this year is to slow down, and really cherish everything and eveyone i have around me. and that includes the wonderful cyberspace.

this is melody's fav photo of me..though i feel that my hair looks kinda flat here.

gonna be spending one night by the beach with the family.
what a great way to start the year :)

better things are ahead i'm sure! excited for 2010!
woohoooo~
*group hugs

love, careen.

Williamsburg Vacation

Before I forget that I went on vacation to Williamsburg in October, I thought I ought to write a bit about it.

A happy face on an ice cream cone from Sonic.

Normally we join the family in Ocean City during the Maryland State Teachers' convention as the kids already have off from school on Friday, so we pull them out of class on Thursday, too, and make a 4-day weekend out of it.

This year we decided to do something different. We already knew that several family members were not going to the beach. We decided to go to Williamsburg instead. I liked this idea, because in addition to Williamsburg, there is also Jamestown and Yorktown, all within about 30 minutes of each other. And everyone knows that the Revolutionary War ended at Yorktown, right? Right???

My wife's cousin Kizzy heard of our plans and asked if she could go with us. Why not! We left early on Thursday morning. We knew that the D.C. beltway would be absolutely nuts (in fact, it is always nuts!), so we headed to U.S. Route 301 to go around D.C. and pick up I-95 south of D.C. and just north of Richmond.

Unfortunately for us, the weather was slightly rainy and this had an immediate impact on the traffic. It took us over an hour to get to I-97, normally a 30 minute drive. Along the way, my daughter commented that she saw a sign that said, "Keep Maryland safe and beautiful", but it had mud splashed all over it along with some bullet holes. Funny girl! She later was talking about school and said that her teacher was talking about the environment and how we need to conserve and save our resources, but then said that the teacher told the class to write a 10 page paper about saving the trees. I love her sense of humor!

We finally made it to Williamsburg about 5 hours later. So much for driving in the rain and going around D.C. to save time.

I have been to Williamsburg before, so there wasn't really much that was new to me other than I was more informed about the history since I read a lot of books about the American Revolution. Lord Dunmore fled the capital in the middle of the night and raided the munitions from the armory, remember?

Here some of the interesting things that I found in Williamsburg.

Here is Thy King's Royale Recycling Bin

And here is the King's Royale Energy Efficient Compact Fluorescent Light Bulbs. They made the switch because in 18t century Williamsburg in 2009, gas lamps hadn't been invented yet and it's totally unethical to burn whale oil.

Fortunately, Williamsburg offered daycare services. We found this to be a really nice service for families.

Down in Jamestown, we all know that the first English settlement was made. Here is the King's Royale Rascal. You didn't think the King or his Royale Governor would be required to walk in all that mud, did you?

Here is one of my favorites. This is the picture of the frontierswoman getting ready to fire her musket.

Here is the picture that I took 1/100 of a second later as she fired the musket and it scared the crap out of me and made me jump three feet straight up because it was so damn loud, hence the blurriness.

Vacation - Day 1

With all of this talk of billions of dollars in stimulus money being spent across the nation and throughout Maryland, I decided that I wanted to do a hand's-on week-long investigation of the economic recovery in the state of Maryland, if, in fact, there is one. Therefore, I dragged my family kicking and screaming to the Dundalk of the east coast - Ocean City, Maryland.

It helped that we had off on Friday July 3rd as the Federal observation of the 4th of July. Most Americans celebrate the 4th of July as a reason to get drunk and grill meat and light illegal fireworks that were purchased in Pennsylvania - not that most Americans need too many reasons to participate in these activities. Heck, some even know the real premise of the date - the celebration of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. This year we celebrated 223 years as a free nation.

To get a early start on my investigation we decided to get up at 4am on the 3rd, finish packing the gas-guzzling SUV and throw the kids (literally) into the car and take-off. We hit the road at 5:13, 13 minutes behind schedule.

We were not sure how traffic was going to be. The weekend of the 4th is always the busiest (one of the busiest) weekends of the year. Since we were off on Friday, were people leaving Thursday night? Or Friday morning? Or Friday afternoon? Were the week-long renters still going down on Saturday morning? To hedge our bets we figured the beach traffic would either be heavy or light. And we were right!

We passed Arundel Mills Mall around 5:45 and were surprised to see no police activity in the mall parking lot. By 6am we were nearing Annapolis and passed an odd looking accident. A pick-up truck was smashed up on the roof, windshield, and left-front quarter-panel, blocking the left left of I-97. In response were an ambulance, a fire truck, a police car, and 3 small orange cones safely placed six inches apart 3 feet from the rear of the firetruck.

We arrived at the Bay Bridge at 6:15am and crossed with ease, though I was surprised how many people were already on the road. We continued along U.S. Route 50 through Queenstown, Easton, Cambridge, and Vienna. Though never stuck in a traffic jam, traffic was fairly heavy.

One observation I made was the number of people traveling in the east-bound direction that were of Hispanic decent. My wife suspected that they were going to work. I suspected that most Mexicans don't take folding beach chairs and coolers to work, so I think they were going to Ocean City. What became an initial observation evolved into a game. Every vehicle we passed we would check out the occupants to find out their nationality. Surprisingly, a high minority of them were Hispanic. And a minority of them were high.

Our original plan was to roll into Salisbury and stop at the Burger King. However, my sister-in-law called and asked if we were okay because she heard about an accident near the bridge and everyone within a 5 mile radius died. We assured her it was not us unless heaven had 4 lanes of traffic and miles of cornfields. She also informed us that traffic was very heavy all down Route 50, so I think we were just ahead of the masses. We abandoned our BK breakfast plan quicker than O'Malley abandoned his promise to replace members of the Public Service Commission with qualified individuals. Plan B - press on.

About 30 minutes left in the journey the kids all crashed. Figures. We finally rolled into Ocean City at 8:05am, just as most of the drunks were heading to bed. We made a quick stop at Layton's and got a dozen and a half donuts.

It was at this point that I started noticing tags on many of the buildings. For those that don't speak the street lingo like me, a tag is graffiti indicating your gang association. One message that I saw a lot was "El futuro es hoy." This is Spanish for: "The future is now." Sort of frightening, but considering that we passed most of former residents of Nuevo Leon, I should not be surprised. To top it off I saw an Ocean City DPW truck removing the vintage sign into the city and replacing it with, "Bienvenida a Océano Ciudad."

This is going to be a longer investigation than I anticipated.

Vacation Part IV - Mount Vernon

What's really funny is that my vacation was a week long, yet it's taking me about 2 weeks so far to write about it.



On Wednesday, Mittwoch (pronounced mit'vock) as they say in German, I convinced my wife and kids that we hadn't done enough site-seeing at Presidents' houses. Though I must admit that the chloroform and hypnosis helped my cause. This time we went to Mount Vernon in Virginia, the home of our first President George Washington. My wife feared driving through D.C. on a weekday. If you are not from Washington, rush hour lasts from 5 a.m. until midnight. Sometimes it lasts longer if there is construction.



Our trek takes us down I-95 to the Capital Beltway (I-495), and across the newly rebuilt Woodrow Wilson bridge. Like the former Democratic President during World War I, the bridge refuses to give women equal rights until the last moment before the election. It is a pretty bridge and if it had not been for the fact that my wife made me drive, I'd have 45 pictures of it to show you. She went ballistic when I reached for the camera bag and asked her to hold onto the wheel.

Mount Vernon is located about 8 miles south of the beltway off of the George Washington Parkway, or the GW parkway if you are in the D.C. in-crowd. Fortunately, the parking lot was under reconstruction, but they still allowed us to park in it. This gave ample opportunity for rocks to kick up and nick the paint and for vast amounts of cement dust to lay all over my windshield.



The visitor's center is very nice - mostly glass and brick. I got a sweet picture of the kids and me hanging with #1 and his family.




We viewed a 20 minute movie in the amphitheatre, which is now required of all restored Presidential houses (hint-hint, Mr. Jefferson!). The movie depicted Washington's early life as an officer in the French & Indian War in western Pennsylvania. It was somewhat violent and involved some nearly naked Indians (or Native Americans if you're one of those PC-pansies), which my son decided to reenact as a totally naked Indian when we got home. He also seems to think that the Indians had machine guns, rather than the single firing flint-lock rifles, but we'll work on that.



After the movie, we learn that I left the pacifier in the car, so I lightly jogged in the heavy humid Virginia heat to the car and back. As I returned back a guide asked if she could help me. Without breaking a stride I excitedly told her that 'the British are coming!' and continue the job back to the family.



We make it around the grounds and find the line to tour the house. It's nearly as long as the line of illegal Mexican day-labourers at the Alexandria Home Depot. My wife grabs a spot in the queue and I drag the kids to walk around the gardens to look at the exciting flowers and vegetables. I'm reaching for straws now to keep them entertained. I tell my son that there might be snakes and spiders and there's a maze, which gets his attention.




Fortunately, the line moves fairly swiftly until we get to the house. Again, no photos are allowed in the house because Martha Washington hated flash photography. The house is not as interesting as Madison and Jefferson's house. It appears more like a large farm house. The color choices are gaudy. Different shades of green in the dining room, which we are told were really expensive in the 1700's. I told the guide that if an AMC Gremlin cost a million bucks it wouldn't make it more attractive.



The tour snakes through the house, through the upstairs and is generally interesting. The tour guides are stationed throughout the house and you just follow everyone else. If you are in a room too long you hear the record skip and start repeating. Some bee-ach foreigner insisted on getting in front of me to look in one of the rooms, because you know, no one in front of her wanted to look in that room, so it's okay to walk in front of them.

Lunch was pretty sweat. Who knew that George Washington had the foresight to build a deli and a Pizza Hut at Mount Vernon? Genius!



After lunch we head down to the Potomac River and hop on a tour boat. It takes us up to Fort Washington and back. The view of Mount Vernon from the river was nice. I can't understand why Washington would want a big house on the top of a hill overlooking a big river? Former Maryland Governor Paris Glendening would have condemned this as egregious urban sprawl.

On a side note, my 8 year old daughter was leaning on the railing at the aft watching the wake when a young boy came up to her and started talking to her. I got a few photos of it, but we won't tell her. Very cute!

After the boat docked, we checked out the Washington's grave and that of his slaves. Another note - Washington was the only President to free his slaves after he died. And that action nearly bankrupted the estate.



We then trotted (shuffled is probably a better word since it was uphill) back to the house and toured all of the gardens and work houses. Highlights included the giant moth, acorns, and really cool sticks leaves. This is from my son's perspective, of course.

When we had arrived I asked the lady that was handing out maps how long it would take to tour everything. She said to expect to stay there about 2 hours. This was at 10:30 in the morning. We left at 6pm. She was only off by 4 1/2 hours (I took out the hour for lunch).

Again, my wife refused to allow me to take pictures of high schools for Wikipedia, of which Mount Vernon High School was right there on the outskirts. The drive home was not that bad. Perhaps people knew who I was and stayed off the road. To that I say, "Thank you."

Vacation Part II - Camping

I'll begin with the end of Day 1, but I didn't want to drag out Day 1 in the first posting.

We left Montpelier and in my awesome map abilities I predicted that it was about 8 miles from Montpelier to Charlottesville, Virginia. We leave and I jump into my book and shut off everything around me. After about 28 miles my wife asks me how many miles it was again and are we going in the right direction.

I sort of freak and whip out the map (Excuse me while I whip this out - ghasp!). Okay, we're still on the right road and we're going south. Oh, 8 miles was on the road near it to another town. It's actually about 30 miles to Charlottesville, which isn't too bad because we're almost there!

Now, I usually love Google for directions. Even Mapquest is okay. However, it dumped us through bum-f-in' Charlottesville. And if you've been there, the good parts don't look all that great, so image the bad parts. It had us winding through back streets and up hills. "Lock the doors" I hear. Finally, we dump right back onto the road we were on about 10 minutes ago. Stupid directions.

We pass through Charlottesville and head down to the KAO campground about 8 miles south (8 miles, right?). This time I was correct and we stroll into the campground. So did everyone else. I used to go camping, but I was a lot younger and a lot more naive. But camping people now scare me. Clem and Cooter with the camper on the back of their Dodge 1500 and Mildred and Vance, the 60 year old semi-hippy-nudists. Yeah, they're in front of us waiting to check in. Cool. We're going to see some naked old people!

After about 20 minutes I finally sign in. The place is run by 2 Europeans (and if you're not a-poopin', then you're a-peein'). Her name is Ursula. She may have been a hippy. I didn't see any dandelions in her hair. I'm sure there are other tell-tale signs. But I never learned what they were when I was in the Young Republicans club in Kindergarten.

So we're finally in our cabin. It's a nice little 2 room cabin, probably about 400 square feet. it has 5 beds - one sort of twin bed and 4 bunk beds. The bunk beds are about 8 inches wide, so if I lay on my side and harness myself to the wall I shouldn't fall out. Luckily the beds are padded with vinyl mattresses stuffed with clam shells. We eat some dinner that we brought and my son begs us to take him fishing. If he can't have a light-sabre battle with some shadow phantoms or go fishing he'll go crazy.

We look at the map and find that there's a nature trail around the camp that leads to a pond. Says there's blue gill, catfish, and some other turd fish in there. So we head down the trail and because no one in the family can carry fishing rods without getting them tangled in branches or whacking them against the evil trees that are attacking us, I'm now lugging 3 rods and tackle box. It's okay. I'm the dad.

We finally make it to the pond, but not before creating a few of our own trails because they got quite narrow and we could see the pond and it appeared that the other trail went away from the pond. I sure hope we can find our way out of there - especially if we're in a hurry.

So we get to the pond and I drop the gear and take a deep breath. "Hurry, Papa! I need a fishing rod!" I'm quickly trying to untangle the fishing lines, because the idiot that carried the rods to the pond allowed them to wrap around each other.

"Holy SHIT! There's a bear! Oh, my God! Oh, my God! Run! How do we get out of here?"

"What?" My wife if frantic. She's panicking. "A bear" she yells again. Dumbfounded I begin looking around the pond. "Where?" "Run, you retard from Tropic Thunder!" I see nothing, but grab the gear and coerce the family up the hill of no trail and scamper back to the camp ground. I'm checking behind us to see if he's trailing us, but no bear in site. Everyone's heart is racing. I'm all sweaty.

"Mommy, did you say you saw a ship in the pond? I didn't see a ship." Yes, my son is clueless. Thank goodness.

"Mommy, I knew something was wrong because you were using a lot of bad words." My daughter is not so clueless. And she saw the bear. Apparently he was about 20 yards away from us. He and my wife made eye contact and he did a 180 and took off. She feared he was coming around the pond to us, but fortunately, he's just as scared of us as we are of Martin O'Malley. And this time we didn't suffer a 20% increase in the sales tax.

The panic of my wife lingers. She can't sit still. Okay, get in the car. Let's go for a drive. We drive back to Charlottesville and I decide to find the University of Virginia. I know they suck at sports, but I heard that a pretty cool guy founded the place.

We find the college and tour for a while. It's getting dark, but the campus is really nice. I take some pictures and use a setting for allowing the camera to absorb as much light as possible. So most of the pictures are slightly blurry.

We walk down the main street, grab some frozen Italian ice at Rita's and finally head back to the campground. We get back and I start to build the fire. It's perfect. Logs are lined up properly. There's leaves and small sticks to use as kindling to get it started. I grab the suburban lighter (the long thing non-smokers use to light charcoal grills and candles at birthday parties). Click. Click. Click. Clickclickclickclickclickclickyoustupidclickmotherclickfuclickingpiececlickofclickshit! Yeah. My brother-in-law sat at my daughter's party and clicked it so much that it now no longer works. Great.

"How are you going to light it?" I'm asked. "I'm not" I reply. "We'll just aim the flashlights at the wood and wiggle them and pretend we have fire." No one finds any humor in that. So my wife decides to walk out to where the RV campers and find the one that doesn't have any pedophiles and ask for some matches. She finds an RV with kids and the mother happily gives us matches. I finally make my fire and it's a glorious fire. The skies shine brightly and the gods bless my fire with long laps of flames and snaps. My kids are amazed that I can actually do something that's not on the computer!

As we sit there I see my wife looking over her shoulder. There's no one around us. The RV's are on the other end of the campground and the tenters are in the other direction. There's no one in the cabins but us. And that imaginary bear that she keeps hearing. It goes without saying that she will not sleep tonight. It also helps that my son is now afraid and wants his mommy and wants to go home and my baby daughter is feeling needy and wants mommy to hold her. Good night!