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Peeve Farm
Breeding peeves for show, not just to keep as pets
  Blog \Blôg\, n. [Jrg, fr. Jrg. "Web-log".
     See {Blogger, BlogSpot, LiveJournal}.]
     A stream-of-consciousness Web journal, containing
     links, commentary, and pointless drivel.


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Sunday, January 5, 2003
00:30 - I'm back

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Well, that weekend went pretty well. A few random notes...

Because of the recent weird weather patterns we've been having around here, planes taking off from San Jose International have been taking a southerly flight path rather than the usual northerly one. This means that when we took off on Thursday, on the steep power-climb out of the airport, we banked almost directly over my South San Jose neighborhood. From what must have been about 4,000 feet, I could clearly see my little circular street-- and not only could I make out my house, I could make out my car. Quite an unexpected treat.

On both legs of the journey eastward, there were what I believe to have been federal air marshals. I don't know what I was expecting-- presumably some guys in white shirts, pressed slacks, and dark glasses with those little curly wires coming out from behind their ears. But these guys on the flights I was on looked distinctly... military. Shaved heads. Green uniforms with large gold "US" lapel pins. No more than about 19 years of age, from the look of them. And considering that the guy on the second leg (MPLS to Atlanta), who sat next to me, spent the flight time writing love notes to his girlfriend and sleeping, I'd say that they're still working out the kinks in the system. (In addition to the guy next to me, there were two others who sat further up the plane, on opposite sides of the aisle, and looked decidedly more alert.)

So then there was Atlanta, which was a lot of fun. Friday morning I dropped off my brother Mike at his job at 7:30 (a part of the clock I haven't seen in years, in any time zone), and took his car off east of the city, parked it, and went bounding up Stone Mountain to catch the tail-end of a protracted overcast-baffled sunrise. Quite a place, that-- it's the "Mount Rushmore of the South", with images of all the Confederate heroes carved into the granite rock face. There's a gondola to the top, where ATLA is painted in huge yellow letters along with a giant yellow arrow pointing in the direction of the Atlanta skyline. (It must have been put there like in the 30s; it's not exactly a mystery to pilots today where Atlanta might be.)

Saturday we (Mike, his wife Julie, and I) went up to Tallulah Gorge, where they filmed the sniper scene from Deliverance. It had what has to have been the most studly trail I've ever been on: the top part is edged with boards, and the actual trail surface is made of a rubber mat recycled from old tires and molded to look sort of like pine needles. The result is a surface that's springy to walk on, and very clean-looking. Then, below one of the upper overlooks, there's a huge long staircase section-- some 1500 steps or so-- down to the bottom of the gorge. (There's a massively overengineered suspension footbridge in the middle, which I'll post some pictures of as soon as Mike gets them developed; more fool me for forgetting my digital camera!) The stairs are all very new and sturdy; the only problem is getting back up them after you've descended the thousand feet into the gorge...

Then we went to the Mall of Georgia (not really competition for the Mall of America, don't worry-- pretty cool nonetheless) to see The Lion King in IMAX. Not much to say here, except that... well, you know. Maybe I'll expand further on that subject at some other date.

And today we spent some time driving around downtown Atlanta, Piedmont Park, and related environs (where for the price of a run-down Sunnyvale bungalow, one can buy the biggest mansion in Mansionland); the flight home was air-marshal-less, but it did get me stuck in Detroit where it was freezing-rain conditions and we had to trudge thr plane through the de-icing pad, where they doused us with detergent, making us an hour late getting back into San Jose. But hey, I'm not complaining, right? I'm back home now, and all's well again.

...OR IS IT?


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© Brian Tiemann