Don't Back Down

When I was a kid, my dad worked in the airline industry, which meant that we were able to fly for free with some frequency - in reality it meant that at least once a year we flew back to the East Coast (where I now live) to visit family. It also meant that I was one of the early birds when it came to having a frequent flyer number. I think the first was probably in the Delta Sky Miles program. This was so long ago that I actually have a place on my statement where I have miles from the original program that won't expire (not a lot of miles, but miles nonetheless).

These days, it seems like everyone has an affiliation program of some sort. Airlines have had them for years (probably decades), and car rental companies have them, though they usually just award airline miles. Hotels give you airline miles or points towards free stays (some even give you both). One of the more recent entrants into this arena is for frequent movie goers. Some of you might realize that I watch movies, so this holds some interest to me, even if I don't always go to the movies to see them. So which is better - AMC's MovieWatcher or Regal's Crown Club? Let's try to find out!

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According to the Simple English Wikipedia, Asperger Syndrome is a term that is used when a person has a hard time talking with other people in the usual way. Doctors see Asperger syndrome as a mild form of autism. It is sometimes called "high-functioning autism". This means somebody with autism who looks like they do not have autism, but their brains still works differently than that of other people. Doctors often make mistakes about whether someone has Asperger syndrome, and they often believe by mistake that the person has schizophrenia, ADHD, Tourette syndrome, or mental retardation instead.

What does this have to do with anything? We have frequently been told to have our youngest son should be treated for ADHD, and we don't really subscribe to the idea. So we went looking for some alternate explanations. One of the best descriptions we came upon was Asperger Syndrome.

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In something of an unlikely series of events, there were actually a couple of events happening on the same weekend that we wanted to try out. So after the Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest Regional Qualifier, we headed to the Charlotte Dragonboat Festival. Unfortunately, by the time we finally got through at the qualifier, it was getting on a bit in the afternoon.

There were multiple problems with this. First and foremost, it gets hotter towards that part of the day. Naturally, we were thinking that boats have to have water, so we were going to be okay. Not necessarily a good idea, because (of course) we weren't on the boats. Perhaps we should have been. Second, the capacity planning coordinator should have been shot.

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In 1916, two Polish immigrants started Nathan's Famous, and over 100 years later, the idea is still going strong. Legend has it that on July 4, 1916, four immigrants held a hot-dog eating contest outside the original stand on Coney Island to see who who was the most patriotic. There is no word on why eating the most dogs in the shortest amount of time makes you the most patriotic, but 90-odd years later, the contest is still going strong.

Among the competitive eaters, there is no shortage of events. As recently as one week ago, someone consumed almost 60 hot dogs and buns (HDBs for short) in just 12 minutes (update: this record itself fell in the official event on July 4, 2007 - the record now stands at a whopping 66 HDBs!). The record for spam is 6 pounds in 12 minutes. Butter? 7 quarter-pound sticks in 5 minutes. French fries? 4.46 pounds in 6 minutes. You get the idea. But Nathan's Hot Dog Eating Contest may well be the oldest event there is, so when a regional qualifying event came to Charlotte, we had to check it out.

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After the somewhat disastrous events of our visit to Ghost Town in the Sky, you would think that we would throw in the towel and head home. Certainly the last thing that we'd be likely to do is check out another theme park, but I never said that we were particularly bright. So the next day, we decided to head up the road a bit and visit Santa's Land.

Now I'll be the first to admit that, in addition to not being very bright, we had lowered our expectations considerably. So this helped. Add to that the fact that Santa's Land has, to my knowledge, been in continuous operation (perhaps not during the off-season) for some forty-odd years, so despite being a bit gray around the temples, the park doesn't have to deal with the issues of Ghost Town, which had been shuttered for the last five. Finally, throw in the fact that the cost of Santa's Land was a full 20% cheaper, and you've got yourself a winner in my book.

Now for the downside.

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Looking for a quick getaway, we decided on... camping. Yes, for some reason we thought that it would be nice to go camping. Actually, I've always had a bit of a soft spot for camping, since I did a decent amount of it as a kid. So my wonderful wife, who was in charge of this getaway, booked a reservation at a campground near Maggie Valley, and we packed up our cooler, loaded the tents and sleeping bags, and headed to Ghost Town in the Sky.

I didn't say that we were particularly good at camping. I just said that were were going to give it a try. So we thought that we'd stop at Ghost Town on our way, since doing a theme park on the way was going to be easier than spending night out, then trying to do it on the second night, after fitful sleep and lack of showers and such. Since Ghost Town had just recently reopened, and we were off on a Friday, we decided that it would be a good day to avoid the crowds. On that front, at least, we were right. But it doesn't mean that it's a good value. Read on for the details.

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On our trip to Pigeon Forge, we weren't doing so well. The stop at the Old Mill Restaurant was a bust, and Duff's Smorgasboard, while better, wasn't all that great either. So perhaps the problem was that we simply weren't doing a good job at picking places to eat. I'm not sure that choosing somewhere to waste a few hours is likely to yield a better result, but we decided to give it a go.

The choice for the day was Wonderworks. This is mostly because it's a really interesting building. Built in the shape of a large building that landed upside-down in a parking lot, if nothing else, it was fun to look at, and that will keep the kids busy for a bit. There is also another location in Orlando (we hadn't been to that one, but I imagine that they are about the same). Yes, we could have gone to Dollywood, and we planned to do so, but impending rain made us decide not to do that.

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Early Saturday morning, the phone rang and one of our neighbors said that they had two extra tickets to the Monster Jam for later that night, and asked if we wanted to go. Normally this would be an issue, as with two kids, two tickets doesn't normally lend itself to making things easy. But since one of them was grounded (for some reason or another), it actually made things a bit easier than normal.

In fact, if anything, it worked out better than normal. I mean who could have asked for better circumstances than that? One kid grounded, and then he finds out that he misses out on the Monster Jam? That's just awesome. And yes, I'm a horrible parent. But there are just times that I subscribe to the old-school theory of parenting, whereby there should be a bit of suffering involved. So with everything settled, we headed out to an evening of entertainment. Free entertainment, even. The best kind.

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Tomorrow night there will be a whole bunch of people gathered in Times Square to watch a fancy lighted ball drop from a tall tower. It will be cramped. It will be cold. It will be late. I can attest to these things because I've been there. It's been a few years, but I'm sure if anything, it's just going to be more cramped and perhaps even more cold. It probably will happen at pretty close to the same time, but since I'm even older, it might seem to be later.

Because of these reasons, and because I have made no plans to go to New York - and it's unlikely that I'll do so in the next 24 hours or so - it's not likely that I'll be there. It is very likely, however, that I will be elsewhere, watching another tradition unfold. This one is a bit closer to home, but that doesn't mean that it is any less interesting.

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I have to say that Thanksgiving is, hands down, becoming my favorite holiday. Yes, this is at least partially because I like to eat. But it's also because there is very little work involved. And no, this does not mean that I don't do any work for Thanksgiving. But every other holiday requires a reasonable amount of effort - at least for the amount of enjoyment that I receive. Not Thanksgiving.

I will also admit that when I was younger, I received a decent amount of enjoyment from Halloween. But as I grow older, Halloween has lost some of its luster. I suppose you could chalk this up to maturity, but let's face it. Would you put me and maturity in the same sentence? I didn't think so. It simply must be something else.

As the years go by, I simply find myself enjoying the other holidays less and less. They involve so much more work and there is less to get back out of them. Perhaps I'm getting selfish in my old age. But not Thanksgiving. Sure, there is some cooking involved. But once that is done, it's all about sitting back and enjoying the feast with family. Unfortunately this year, even Thanksgiving was a bit of a disaster.

Read "The Great Thanksgiving Food Poisoning Virus From Hell" »

I've got this problem with fogless shower mirrors. They aren't. That is, you get one and they might be fogless for a while, but they don't last too long. I'd suspect this is because there is some sort of film on the mirror that keeps them from fogging up. Unfortunately they always get fogged up again just when I want to start shaving.

The whole part of having the thing in the shower is for shaving, and there's no sense shaving right when I step in - it's got to have time to warm up and get things nice and steamy first, which results in, you guessed it, fog. So today I resulted to a old-school remedy: spit.

That's right. Spit. I know, it isn't pretty. It works. When I was learning how to scuba dive, the instructor told us not to buy the de-fogging stuff for our masks because a: it didn't work very well and b: it cost money. Instead, we should just spit in the mask, then spread it around and rinse. What do you know? It worked. I tried it in the shower and it works there too. Probably better than the original coating.

This is my first day without Dilantin. I'm sure there may be traces of the drug in my system, but I now haven't taken any for about 36 hours, and when I did, it was only 100mg (down from as much as 500mg as recently as two months ago). But still, this is the first time in about 20 years that I'm purposely not taking any. So we'll see how it goes.