Blue Ridge Parkway

This weekend I went to visit my brother living near Charlotte. It's a 7 hour drive one-way but I decided to make it an even longer drive by taking the Blue Ridge Parkway part of the way. Of the 465 miles, I drove roughly a 100 of it on the way down, and another 100 on the way up. I covered just about all of the Parkway in Virginia from mile 0 to 200. It was an absolutely beautiful drive, with nice views from overlooks, as well as hikes and points of interest off the parkway. The best part was, there was absolutely no traffic on there even though it was a holiday weekend. Park rangers say it takes roughly 3 hours to drive 100 miles of the Parkway (at 45 mph speed limit), but I reckon I fared a bit better on the speed. I don't think the detour added too much time to the drive.


Once at my brother's place, we ended up taking a day trip out to the Blue Ridge Parkway in NC. We started off in a place called Blowing Rock around mile marker 300. There's a nice view there, but it's a bit of a rip off since you had to pay $6 to get in. There's a lot of nice places off the Parkway to see for free. For example, the Linn Cove Viaduct was pretty neat to see. It also had some nice trails around there. Finally, we ended the day at Grandfather Mountain, another over-priced tourist attraction on the Blue Ridge. This one was $12, but did have a lot more to offer. In addition to the views and trails you can get elsewhere for free, there's a scary swinging bridge you can cross to go see another view. There's also a nature center and animal habitat where you can see a bear (in case you don't get to run into one on your hikes), otter, deer, and Eagle. Despite the touristiness of it all though, it was a great way to spend time with my family. I'm sure we will be back on the Blue Ridge again next time I visit. I'm certainly looking forward to the fall foliage there.


Photos here.

Patience

For those of you who know me, would you describe me as someone who is impulsive? Or spontaneous? In either case, I've always known I've had very little patience. While a good friend used to tell me patience was his last virtue, I knew mine was long gone. When I want something, I want it now. In most cases it's not a huge problem. I went on couple of week long vacations to Mexico and Canada on a week's notice. Both turned out to be great trips. The offer on the house I recently bought was made immediately after the viewing and after only 2 days of looking in general. So far I'm happy and no regrets.

Once in a blue moon though, being impatient has put me in an undesireable situation. Although the risks are always calculated, it's hard to take into account the unknown and the irrationality of emotions. I've never been much into self-improvement, but I thought maybe it's time I learned to be patient. After all, good things come to those who wait... right? As I wrote this though, I thought in the back of my mind that those who wait will get hit by a bus tomorrow and miss out. I think I'm doomed to a life of impatience.

What do you think? Patience - is it good to have? Or overrated?

Hanging with Everclear in Hershey Park

On Thursday a friend called me up to beg me to drive her up to PA on Saturday. She is good friends with one of the band members of Everclear and they were performing at Hershey Park. She reassured me that we'd get in for free and have a place to crash. I haven't actually heard of Everclear until she told me about them some time ago. Apparently they were more popular in the 90's. Still, when am I ever going to get a chance to party with rockstars again? Plus, the drummer's kind of cute (pic on right).

We began our little road trip on Saturday morning. Around 1:30 we arrived in Hershey, PA. The roads were actually chocolate color and the street lamps all were shaped like Hershey Kisses! My kind of town :) Once there, we went to the Hershey Lodge where the boys had just checked in. I first met Josh, my friend's friend. He is the keyboard player of the band. He is a really nice guy. Actually they all are. They were all laid back and very nice to me.

They played two short sets at the park and we watched both. When they started playing, my first thought was - OMG, THE DRUMMER IS SO HOT!!! Maybe all drummers were hot, but I couldn't keep my eyes off of this guy. He played so energetically and looked like he was having so much fun up there. Also, I guess I am more of a physical person and just really enjoyed watching him move. Later on though, I got a chance to meet and talk to him, and turns out he's also a really nice guy. He's so cute in person too and has this awesome smile. Wow. Yeah, the concert's good too, but my mind couldn't get out the gutter.

After they finished signing autographs at end of their performance, the boys wanted to go on a roller coaster. I was lame tho and didn't want to go on one so I told them I'd hold their stuff for them. Luckily Art, the vocalist and the guy who pretty much is Everclear, also was not in the mood for coasters that night and kept me company. We went to go buy a pretzel while we waited and chatted a bit. When the boys were done they all checked out the photos and decided to turn back to their hotels (it was already late and close to closing). We joined some of them for drinks at the hotel bar a little while later and I had an awesome time rest of the evening.

Pictures here.

Btw, these guys just release a cover album called The Vegas Years.

As far as their hits goes, they include 'Father of Mine' and 'Wonderful'. Here is a video of Wonderful on YouTube (but Brett wasn't the drummer at the time):

My First Funeral

Couple weekends ago, I had a death in my extended family. The funeral was last Friday so I drove down to VB on Thursday to attend. It was my very first funeral. I've had a grandma and a good friend die on me in the past, but I was overseas in both cases and could not make the funeral.

While I personally was not very close to the deceased, it was so sad to see others who were. I felt particularly sad for the spouse, who I knew was very close to his wife. I found it difficult to hold back tears at the funeral. I can't even imagine what it would be like if it were someone in my immediate family. I wish all the time I lived closer to my family, but now I wish it more so. It is just too bad tho that my family is scattered. So while the circumstances were bad, the funeral helped bring my family together. It is not often both my brothers and I get together, so I was actually very happy I could make it.

Naturally, during my stay down there, lot of the conversation surrounded death. It's not something I think much about so I was horrified when I heard about how funeral homes try to take advantage of the grieving families. They're like, "Oh, you don't have money to pay for funeral? Does the deceased have insurance? Well then, you can just sign some papers and we'll take it out of the insurance payment." Next thing you know, they've spent all of your insurance money on the most expensive funeral ever. So don't go signing away your insurance to them if it happens to you!