Three Easy Steps to Lose 50lbs in One Week

Ask me how! Even better, I'll just tell you:

1. Weigh yourself at a crappy hotel scale in Atlanta. I did it. I weighed 185lbs.
   
2. Drive to Orlando.
3. Weigh yourself on a crappy hotel scale in Orlando. I did it. I weighed 132lbs. Voila! A weight loss of 53lbs!

The best part? No special diet or exercise required. AND you don't need to buy new clothes or anything!

Overheard at Lunch

INT. HARD ROCK CAFE - DAYTIME

The waiter, WES, walks up to the table where CKL and D are seated. If Wes isn't a roadie or in a garage band, he's sure got the look down: tattoos, do-rag, sideburns.

WES
How're you guys doing today?

D
(cheerfully)
Good! How are you?

WES
I'm excellent. Living the dream.

D
You've always dreamed of being a waiter?

Wes stares at her for a moment, then looks over to CKL.

WES
We got a smart-aleck here?

He wasn't actually offended; that exchange turned out to be a great conversation starter. We found out that waiting tables is just his day job, he does "music stuff," he cooks at home for his girlfriend, and he just got the air conditioning in his car fixed. He even drew us a little cartoon at the end of our meal:



(Screenplay format done as practice for my submission to the FOX-NYTVF Comedy Script Contest. For more on that, see CKL's HotSheet in a few days.)

~CKL

In Defense of Crappy Video

Here's what D and I saw this afternoon at 5:02 PM EDT:



You no like shaky-cam? Hey, Zoic gets paid to create stuff like this. On purpose.

Seriously, though--you can view professional footage on NASA TV, but it's not what we saw from the causeway. It's not our experience of this absolutely amazing event. And that is important.

No recording could ever capture how shockingly bright the rocket flame was, or the feeling of the engines' rumble and the sonic boom, or the enormous shadows cast across the hazy sky by the 22-mile-high smoke trail. This video is not a reproduction of, or a substitute for, what we witnessed today--it's only a memento, to remind us that we were there, that we were both overcome with emotion at the sight of a human triumph.

~CKL

STS-124 Launch

In July 2006, CKL and I went to see a free taping of The Daily Show. We waited in line for about three hours to get in. The return on our investment was about 20 minutes of live show. Except for the fact that Jon Stewart and team were actually in front of us, it really wasn't much different from seeing the show on TV. In fact, we needed to watch the monitors if we wanted to see the on-screen graphics. I'm glad we went to see a taping of the The Daily Show, but I never want to do it again.

Today, CKL and I went to see the Discovery shuttle launch. Like The Daily Show experience, it was a three-hour, hot, humid and nasty wait. Unlike The Daily Show, we paid a good bit of money to get seats on a bus that took us to the causeway six miles from the launch pad. The time return on our investment was also much shorter. The launch lasted about three minutes.

As before, I'm glad we went to see the Discovery shuttle launch. But this time, I want to do it again. I wish I could do it again tomorrow. If it weren't for the fact that we moved all our stuff to Portland, I'd be giving some serious thought to moving to this nasty, hot, humid and foul-smelling place just so we can be close enough to see shuttle launches on a semi-regular basis.

The return on this investment is vastly different than seeing a launch on TV. Not because I was surrounded by the sheer sticky presence of Cape Canaveral, or because I could see the brightness and color of the fire, or because I could see the steam paint the sky, or even because I could feel the sonic boom resonate through my body--something you can barely even hear on TV. It's different because I got to be there while a miracle happened.

We sent people into space. Again. It's always a miracle. But this time, I got to be there.

Sunshine State

Not just the setting for a John Sayles movie or yet another election controversy, Florida is also our current road trip destination:


View Larger Map

The main reason we're here is the Space Shuttle launch on Saturday, but we're also taking the opportunity to visit Universal Studios and Disney World. D and I debated whether we should just skip Disney World, since we're only going to have one day there, but she felt it would be wrong to be in Orlando and not to go at all.

By the way, D's family reunion is not happening. It turns out that the sibling who has the timeshare in Asheville was waiting for his tax relief cheque, which he got, but then decided to spend it on a car and some furniture instead of a family trip out to North Carolina. At least he's doing something to help the economy, I guess.

It's also worth noting that D's Mom has been the one pushing for all these family visits, even though she has the fewest resources to actually make them happen. I suppose I should just be grateful that she's not more Machiavellian in her machinations.

~CKL

Okay, New Plan

Over lunch today (in Laclede's Landing, after riding to the top of the Gateway Arch), D and I hammered out contingency plans for the next few weeks of our trip. This was our original itinerary:

• May 20-24: St. Louis, MO
• May 24-29: Atlanta, GA
• May 29-June 6: Orlando, FL (Shuttle launch on May 31)
• June 6-13: Asheville, NC (D's family reunion, all week)
• June 13-17: Kitty Hawk, NC

...and continuing on up the east coast to Washington, DC, and Niagara Falls. Orlando and Asheville were the fixed points in time, since NASA isn't going to reschedule the launch for our convenience, and D's family have already taken time off from work for their get-together. It actually worked out pretty well, since Asheville is a plausible one-day drive away from Orlando.

Unfortunately, we just found out this week that D's family may not be reuniting in Asheville after all. It's a long story, but the upshot is that one sibling--the one who has the timeshare in Asheville where everyone was going to stay (except us; we'll be in a pet-friendly, child-free hotel)--may not be able to travel out from Wyoming, and they won't make the go/no-go call until June 3rd. Another sibling has offered to host the gathering at his home in Pennsylvania, but that's a bit farther than one day's drive from Orlando. And after a couple of bad stopovers*, we've struck the one-night exception from our road rules. So every stop has to be at least four days.

Here's the new plan. We have these possible conditions:

1. D's family reunion happens as planned in Asheville.
2. D's family reunion happens in Pennsylvania instead, on the same dates.
3. D's family reunion happens in Pennsylvania on different dates.
4. D's family reunion doesn't happen at all.

And this is what we'll do in each case:

1. Stick to the plan. Nothing changes; everyone's happy.

2. Leave Orlando early. We want to spend at least one day each at the Universal and Disney World theme parks, but we can leave as early as June 4th. We'd then spend four or five days at a halfway point (possible Charlotte, NC), then spend six or five days, respectively, with D's family in Pennsylvania.

3 or 4. Skip it. We are only willing to bend so far to accommodate people who can't plan ahead, even if they're family. If this happens, though, we will stop and visit individual family members later, since our plans are pretty flexible otherwise.

All we need to do at this point is check with the hotel in Orlando about their change policies (in case we check out early), and get our one-day Disney park tickets. We already have 7-day tickets for the Universal parks, so we can go hang out there (or see other sights in the area) if we do stay all the way through June 6th.

I'm sure this is terribly exciting to all our blog readers. Since it'll be a couple of weeks before we can plan the rest of our trip, I'll start by posting a map of where we've been. Later tonight, maybe.

* The cats are usually restless during their first night in a new place, and if the cats don't sleep well, D doesn't sleep well, and everyone's unhappy. Also, it's tough on us humans to do more than one day of continuous driving. If I wanted to be a long-haul trucker...

~CKL

Road Rules

After a few weeks on the road, we've established some ground rules for planning the rest of our trip. More than likely we'll bend a few of them along the way, but it's always good to start with some guidelines:

No drives longer than 500 miles.

We don't want to make any extended stops with the cats in the car, so we need to drive straight from one destination to the next. 500 miles translates to roughly 8 hours of driving, which is a long time, even with two drivers trading shifts and a good audio book to listen to.

No stays shorter than 4 days.

We've found that it takes a day or two for the cats to adjust to a new hotel room and get comfortable enough to stop hiding under the bed all the time. Note: the first day we count is the day we drive from the previous location, and we don't count the day we leave, so this actually means 4 nights and 3 full days in a location.

Exception: single 1-night stopover allowed to break up a longer drive.

There are a few places we need to visit on specific dates: Illinois on May 17, Florida on May 31, North Carolina on June 6, Colorado on August 6, Washington state on August 28. We started with a prioritized list of must-see and want-to-see places, and we don't want to add intermediate locations with multi-night stays just to break up the drives. See "Okay, New Plan" for reasons not to do this.

No more Motel 6.

We planned short stops (2 days) in Carlsbad and Houston, since there was only one thing we really wanted to see in each place (Carlsbad Caverns and Johnson Space Center, respectively), and we booked Motel 6 because it was cheaper and closer than any Marriott properties. I wouldn't say it was a mistake, but we have learned our lesson. In Carlsbad, the toilet backed up the first night and we had to call the front desk for a plunger; in Houston, they didn't have Wi-Fi (despite a huge banner advertising it) and our room keys kept de-magnetizing themselves. And in both places, the cats were able to crawl inside the box springs under the bed, making themselves sticky and making it very difficult for us to extract them when it came time to leave.

The first full day in any location includes some chores.

We call this "putter day," and it's when we go shopping and do laundry. We're not out for the whole day, so it also helps the cats adjust to the new place. Basically we recharge and resupply. And usually go see a movie.

We just made the decision to go down to Orlando at the end of the month to watch a Space Shuttle launch (STS-124, currently scheduled to lift off May 31st), so tonight we're rejiggering our route and changing some hotel reservations. Everything's in Google Maps and Spreadsheets, so we'll publish the updated info soon.


Dinner tonight: We ate out at Smilie's.

D had the Stuffed Eggplant "Courtenay" (Fresh Eggplant stuffed with Crabmeat & Shrimp, topped with a Creamy White Lump Crabmeat Sauce, served with Potatoes and Vegetable Medley).

I had the Catfish Pecan (Fried Farm Raised Catfish topped with Roasted Pecans and a Light Brown Sauce, served with Potatoes & Vegetable Medley).

It's going to be a good week.

~CKL