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April 10, 2001

Random Thoughts from Vacation

Random thoughts from a vacation still in progress:

  • It seems like less of one if you’re doing a significant chunk of work in the middle if it.
  • I will never again attempt to add memory to an iMac. Not pleasant. Enough said.
  • Mmmmm. Liver pudding.
  • Nice diversion: boy with purple mohawk stuffing the majority of his tongue down my throat.
  • Why does it cost less to rent a larger car rather than a smaller one?

More later: critical analysis, disturbing discoveries, unpleasant vagueries, and just plain fun. Thanks to everyone for holding off on all that email. Your cooperation is divine…

The Regal

My rental car turned out to be an enormous 2001 Buick Regal. I chose it over the Intrepid just because my dad has a Regal, so I knew where all the buttons were.

Or so I thought.

Annoying things about Buick Regals:

  • The headlights don’t turn off until a good while after the ignition is off and the doors are shut.
  • The radio doesn’t turn off until you open the door, which was a very disturbing realization for me as I parked at the Burger King in Winston-Salem.
  • The ashtray was obviously designed by either a sadist or an anti-smoking activist.
  • The “low tire” light needs to go away.

Anyhow, once I had the car, I toured Winston-Salem for a while, looking for old supermarkets and urban grit, while completely forgetting to seek out the seashell-shaped gas station.

 

Later this afternoon, my dad and I, armed with new information, went looking for that tombstone again. This time we found it. It didn’t photograph as well as the rest of Eden. We also drove by the house my dad grew up in.

Actually, I drove. It was a little odd; I’m not used to driving my dad around. He rarely lets anyone drive him anywhere. But we wanted to take the spiffy new Regal, so…

Cool thing I learned today: my grandafther (who died long before I was born) was fired from a textile mill in the 1930s for being a union organizer…