Christmas to Memphis

Last weekend, I ventured up to Memphis. My cousin got a job and moved there this year. He's originally from Kentucky so this way, I actually get to see him a little more. Now, we usually go up to Kentucky every Christmas, but this year I am unable to go. My family is actually on there way right now as I type. Me, I had some duties at work to perform that just couldn't wait, and before anybody gets mad about that. Before anybody says that I need to get my priorities straight and all. Well, you're probably right, but there was some stuff that I needed to get done while everybody else was gone. I'm in the IT biz and sometimes you just gotta do things when nobody else is there to mess stuff up.

Anyway, where was I in my story. That's right, I went to Memphis instead this year. That way I could at least see my cousin and his wife. Friday, we went to an Indian restaurant to eat. Nothing says Christmas like Indian food let me tell you. We took the leftovers and made a scrambled egg su fle (spelling?) the next morning. It was delicious. Saturday, we went to a BBQ place right next to Christian Brothers University. It was highly recommended by my cousin's and Memphis is supposed to be the place to go for BBQ. The place was called Central Barbeque. I had the pulled pork sandwich (my favorite BBQ dish) and greens. The BBQ was pretty good. I also had a new beer. It was called Ghost River. I had their Glacial Pale Ale and the Black Magic. They were both delicious. I highly recommend them.

Next up, we went to BB King's BBQ and Blues. They've got some BB King beer there. It was alright, not quite as good as the Ghost River. We listened to some music for a while, but then we left to wonder Beale Street. Now, I've been to Beale St. twice now since turning 21. And maybe I'm not giving it a fair shake, but so far, unimpressed. Maybe it's because I'm trying to compare it to Bourbon, but still I expect a little more. There was nothing going on in any bar. There might have been 30 people walking around total down the whole stretch. The bars all had 10 or 12 people maybe in them. It was vacant. I guarantee you that there were more people out and about here in Little Rock at the River Market than there were on Beale Street. We ended up just giving up and going home to watch Batman Begins.

The next day we went to Jim and Nick's BBQ. I got some kind of smoked ham plate again with greens. It was tasty, but nothing special, except for the sweet cornbread was delicious.

All in all this is what I concluded in my venture:
Beale St 0 in 2
Memphis BBQ: Great, but I have had plenty of BBQ here in the Natural State that's' just as good.
Ghost River Beer, Delicious.

Oh, and I got to see snow. It dusted Friday night.

Oh yeah again. I saw Tron. It's awesome, amazing. I wish that I could enjoy 3D movies, because this would be the movie to see in 3D.

Hot Winter

Another food related story. Not a lot of exciting things going on lately. Friday, I ended up at Vino's. I ordered my favorite, a Pizza Margherita. It has Roma Tomatoes, garlic, mozzarella, and olive oil instead of sauce. Vino's is probably the best micro-brewery here in Little Rock. We had the Firehouse Pale Ale which is a delicious brew.

Sunday is where the real story is. I was challenged once again. This time the enemy was heat. My friend John who dominated the Midtown Burger challenged me in the Buffalo Wild Wings hot wing contest (I don't remember what it was called). Now, if you're going to do a challenge, this is not the one to do. Not only do you have to pay for the wings either way, but you also have to pay $15 for the T-shirt that says you did it. I mean come on, at least throw in the free shirt! Anyway, here's the deal: You must eat 12 spicy wings coated in Habanero Chili Sauce in 6 minutes. That's 1 wing every 30 seconds. Again, I failed. I was a little pissed at this loss though, because it had nothing to do with the spiciness. Don't get me wrong, these wings are very spicy. but I eat spicy food all of the time. My eyes were tearing, and my whole body was shaking but I can block out the pain. What I couldn't block was the temperature of the dang things! They pulled them out of the oven straight to our table. It was like somebody telling you to chug a full pot of coffee. Sure you could do it, but you would burn a hole in your throat doing it. Not only that, but you've gotta really put those things away quick to eat all 12 in under 6 minutes. I would have trouble with 12 honey BBQ wings in 6 minutes, especially when every bite scalds you mouth. Next time, I will ask to have them sit out for 10 minutes or so.

So, yeah. I only got 9 wings down in the 12 minutes. Of course John somehow stuffed them all down, but I didn't let running out of time stop me. I gave 1 wing away to somebody who wanted to try the Spicy Wings (they took one bite and couldn't handle any more) and I ate the other two no problem. I knew because I had already eaten these wings before that the real challenge had just started. The Habenaros don't just give up after you eat them. They burn in your stomach all night. You can actually feel the sauce move through your intestines as as it burns its way out, and eventually you must expel it where it is just as spicy as the first time. This part is not fun, but it is the price you have to pay.

I'm coming for the Shutup Juice.

The Midtown Challenge

Current Status: Critical

Just an hour ago, I attempted The Midtown Monster Burger Challenge. When I found out about it, I couldn't help but to take it on. Now, I wish I hadn't. The challenge is: 4 big burger patties, 2 eggs, a full can of spam (about 3/4 pound), cheese, mayo, lettuce, tomato, and 4 buns all piled on-top of each other to make one massive burger. It took the entire griddle to cook 2 burgers.

I was not alone for this challenge, My friend, John, attempted as well . . . and well he succeeded where I failed. You have 30 minutes to complete the task, but he only needed 16. I finished about 80% of mine before throwing in the towel. The giant slab of Spam was too much for me to handle.

After my defeat, I hobbled out to my truck, barely able to even walk. It is even hard to type. My belly is swollen and I am miserable. I am soon going to retire to bed, but I really don't know if I will even be able to sleep.

I have been defeated.

Down With The Sickness

Wow. Sorry about that guys. I apologize. It seems like it has been forever since we last did this. So much has happened. Unfortunately catch-up posts are never fun, but I promise another post after this weekend.



1st thing's first. I went back down to Gurdon to do some more research. This photo was taken at 2:10 AM. It was a full moon night so it was bright enough to see where to walk without flashlights, but it wasn't quite as bright as the picture lets on. I was taking some very slow shutter shots, but I did find a possible explanation for the light. Notice how the trees overhang to form balls of light that become an optical illusion that look brighter than the actual sky. Now the lights we saw this night were different and nowhere near as bright as the time before so even if this was the cause, I still would like more evidence. Plus, what is that mysterious ghostly figure right below the balls of light. It shows up in all of my pictures . Hmm. . . .


Then, somewhere between the Gurdon trip and Halloween, I went to my cousin's wedding and got sick as a dog. Some sort of virus was going around and it knocked me down for the count. I lost 4 days of work to that thing. I actually ended up in the Hospital after fighting it for a whole day. I couldn't hold any fluids in. I was dehydrated and worsening as the day went on. The Hospital pumped a liter into me, gave me some nausea medicine and 3 days later I could drive without the whole world spinning. Speaking of Halloween, I carved pretty much the best pumpkin in the world this year. You know you're jealous. If you can't make it all out, here's what it is: It's an evil scare crow (think the People of the Corn) with a blackbird resting on his arm in a field of corn that is on fire. There is an eerie moon with a cloud rolling in front of it int the background with a rolling hill that has a mushroom cloud exploding a nearby town (the mushroomy part kind of fell out before I took the picture).

That brings us all the way up to last weekend where I went hiking along the Ouachita Trail near Lake Sylvia. Actually, we walked across Lake Sylvia, it has been that dry. The hike was great though. We hiked about 12 miles, saw a handful of deer in one spot, lots of squirrels and about 14 people along the way. I'll leave you with some pictures of the hike.

Gurdon Light is Real

We decided to go back to Gurdon last night. We parked on the dirt road this time, and 4 locals pulled up behind us and walked in with us. Some of the locals were under the influence of some type of mind altering drug so they were a little rowdy.

We walked past the second trestle and the locals said it was far enough to start banging on the tracks. They banged away, but nothing happened. We walked another 75 yards or so and something just felt right. I stopped the group and we turned off all of our lights. (It was around 2AM) All of a sudden one of the locals starts yelling "Oh man! Did you see that. There it is. Right there man. How can you not see it?" We all thought they were pulling are legs, but at the same time, I was seeing something too. First, I would just see flashes of light way down the tracks 200 yards or more. Then, I started to see sparks of momentarily concentrated light way down near the horizon. You couldn't really look straight at it to see it well. You had to look off to the side a bit, but then we started seeing it more clearly. We could see it flickering and getting brighter. Then, we saw it swinging back and forth along the tracks. It would go down in the ditch and come back up, most of the time it hung around waist high. Then, it started to get closer. Slowly it swung closer to us and before you know it, it looked as if it were less than 20 yards away. The woods seem to flash around us. Then, we heard it. We heard the lantern swinging back and forth. We heard it off in the woods. It was coming from less than 10 yards away in the woods. The locals were freaking out. They wouldn't shut up! They said that they had never experienced this much in 14 years of living in Gurdon and that was a bad sign. Luckily they were scared off after just 15 minutes so it left just us 4. We watched the light swing back and forth towards us and away for another 10 minutes before deciding to get closer. When we got to about the point where we had been seeing the light, nothing was there. The light was gone. We walked all the way to the 5th trestle, but never saw anything substantially more. We kept walking and stopping all the way back, but again didn't see anything until we made it back the that same spot. It was about 3:45 AM before we saw it again. This time very faint and very far off, but still the same light.

After we got back to the car, we called in our cheeseburger order to the truck stop near the Interstate and we told everyone who would listen our story. Some travelers looked on wide-eyed as they asked where this took place. We told them just 3 miles down the road, and they quickly paid for the goods and high-tailed it out of there.

We have video footage. I'm pretty sure you can't see anything. The light was too faint to pick up on film. I took a couple pictures just because not expecting anything, but when I blew them up on the computer, there are all of these red, white, and blue dots all over the place. It is not digital noise, and I have been assured that lenses are very forgiving with dust on the lens and that shouldn't be the cause. If you look at some of the white dots in the picture, they look very much like the light that we saw, but at the time we didn't see all of this. The picture actually really freaked me out. I just looked at them for the first time and water just started rolling down my eyes. Very strange.

As far as possible causes. 1)I call BS on reflections off the rails. The moon had already set so there were only stars, and the rails were so rusty it took something as bright as a headlamp to make a reflection. Also, the place where we kept seeing it, brush had grown up over the rails. 2) Swamp gas: Yeah right, this stuff floated towards us and away from us. It never just aimlessly floated around in a ball. It never floated off into the woods, and it could move very fast at times. Not swap gas. 3) Quartz crystals: Really? 4)Hoax: Definitely not. This was not like a normal light from a flashlight or lantern. It's as if you don't believe it exists even as you are looking at it. 5) Car lights: No, but not for the same reasons other people give. We couldn't have been over a mile from the highway when we saw the light, but were looking west away from the highway, but we did walk 1.5 miles from the highway over about 6 trestles which is farther than most people even go and could still see cars crossing the highway very clearly. The reason it's not cars is that the cars give off a much different light. A much realer, more of this world, like you could touch and feel it unlike the Gurdon light.

There is nothing that can explain this light. Is it supernatural? Maybe. I can offer no other valid explanation. All I know is that IT DOES EXIST. Whatever IT is, it exists. This is not a joke, this is not a hoax, this is real.

PS, I'm still getting chills just uploading the picture. Oh, and the light part of the picture is the sky. It's not some ghostly trail.

Unfortunately, blogger compresses my picture quite a bit so you can't get the full effect. Definitely click on the image to view it bigger, but here is a close up of part of the picture. There's probably more than 40 of these dots everywhere.

Gurdon Car Light

Wow. Super busy as always. I had completely different plans for the past week, but somehow they got changed. I've been called back to Conway twice to call the PeeWee football games and this Saturday my Boy Scout Troop needed an extra adult to go mountain biking with the kids. We went to Burns Park on their 5 mile loop. We all had a great time, but I was exhausted. I didn't get near enough sleep the night before, didn't eat breakfast, didn't rehydrate or bring a waterbottle with me. Yeah, it was one of those mornings.

I ended up on a houseboat Sunday, cooked sausage on a sand bar in the Arkansas River and my friend brought up the Gurdon Light again. I told him that I'd be up for going right then and there (not actually). That got him excited and around 9PM we left for Gurdon. 5 of us were brave (stupid) enough to travel 2 hours (from Conway, only 1.5 for me here in Little Rock) down to Gurdon. I feel like I am THE authority on giving directions to the Gurdon Light:

Take I30 West out of Little Rock. Get off and head South at exit 63 onto HWY 53. Stop in at the gas station and have a chat. The guy behind the counter is awesome and he wants to hear about your Gurdon story. Anyway, keep heading South on HWY 53 for 3.3 miles. Before you reach Gurdon, you will come up on some train tracks. They will be the first tracks that you come to after leaving the Interstate. You have two options to park. It seems that most people tell you to take a right just before the train tracks onto a dirt road. Follow it for a couple hundred yards and there is a turn around to park at. If you don't want to take that, there is a spot just on the other side of the tracks back on the HWY to park your car at. The proplem with that is the trussle count.

You will pass 1 trussle between the HWY and the preferred place to park. From all of my research this trussle does not count in your trussle count. From here you continue walking down the tracks. It takes a few minutes before you come to the first official trussle. The second trussle is close to the first, but the third is a few hundred yards past the second (It seems much farther in the dark). You must past the 4th trussle to see the light. Now I have heard stories that the light has been seen all the way back to the second, but most people claim that it can't pass the 4th. If you make it this far, it is recommended that you go past the 5th trussle. Also the light has been reported as being seen from both directions going out as well as coming back so always look behind you.

Now for our story. 5 of us packed into Austin's car. I drove and Austin filmed. We're making a sort of documentary out of it so Austin ran the camera. We left Little Rock at about 9:15 PM and got down to Gurdon at about 11. We stopped in at that gas station and had a talk with the guy behind the counter. He told us all kinds of stories about how people he knew swore they've seen it countless times. He was new in town so he hadn't seen it himself but he confirmed that it was real. We got down to the site and parked on the HWY because we didn't know any better. Suddenly the realness started creeping in on everybody. We were out in the middle of nowhere by ourselves looking for a ghost. Luckily I brought a headlamp, because nobody else had one so I led the way. Every now and then we would hear something in the woods. The girls would freak out, but it was just some armadillo looking for a snack. We kept on. Crossing the trussels are a little tough Most of them are rotting out pretty good so you really have to watch your step. It took about an hour to finally get past the 4th trussel. We stopped, turned off our lights an tapped on the rails (that's another thing that you're supposed to do after the 4th trussel). We looked back and we saw a light. We all got excited, but then it turned red and we realized it was just a car going over the tracks so we continued on. We made it past the 5th trussel and repeated the procedure. Again, light followed by red taillight. We continued on past the 5th trussel. We ended up walking 1.5 miles from the road before we said enough. There we saw another light, except this one in the sky. . . a nice shooting star near Orion's Belt. We turned around and walked back and repeated the clanking when we got back to the 5th and 4th trussel. Again, at the 4th trussel, we saw something. You could feel it before it came. You could feel everyone's hair rise. You could sense the excitement and adrenaline in the air, but alas, it too was followed by a taillight. We had been duped yet again. At about the 2nd trussel I gave everyone a good scare as I let out a load HOLY $#!+ A shooting star, definitely in my Top 10 of shooting stars, seared the night sky. It was truly amazing. That is when the disappointment started creeping in. We quickly walked the rest of the way out and went back to the gas station to tell our story.

The drive back home was a long one. It was 4:10 AM when I crawled into bed. . . and I had to work the next day. That was not fun, but it was all worth it. I wouldn't take it back, and I will probably be back. I must see this light. Too many people say it is real for it not to be, and we will get it on film.

Post Race Recap

Ok, so I didn't get to bed early the other night. I think it was about 1:30 AM or so before we finally made it to bed, but it was worth it. I whipped up a batch of spaghetti with mushrooms and sausage so we could get our carbo-load on. Then, I had to change my inner-tube on my front tire and time just kind of slipped by on us.
(Not to confuse, the pic is from the Sprint Triathlon)

No worries though, Jacob and I made it down to La Harpe in plenty of time to get a warm up lap in and push our way to the front of the extremely large crowd. It seemed like it took forever for the race to start, but it finally did and off we went (sort of). The start was on a slight hill and we were packed in like cattle so it took a few minutes before we were moving well enough to clip our shoes into the pedals. Before I knew it we were over the bridge. There was a little mix up after we got to the North Shore and we were sent right when we were supposed to take a left, but we figured it out before long. Next thing I knew, in no time at all we were passing through Mayflower. I felt amazing for the first 50 miles. My muscles were fresh and were operating in autopilot cruising at around 18-22 mph. I kept having trouble keeping a group together though. We kept splitting apart. People would break off and do their own thing. It was hard to keep more than about 4 or 5 people in a nice tight group to help break the wind.

We made it 50 miles before I had to stop and refill my gatorade and water bottles. I wasn't originally trying to go the whole way without stopping, but after the great start I was. We only stopped because the others that we were with stopped. Later, I was thankful I stopped when my liquids lasted me until 8 miles from the finish line. This is when the picture was taken. I apologize for the strange face, but I am stuffing down oranges and drinking pickle juice. Oh, and I just rode 50 miles.

The next 10 miles in my opinion are the hardest 10 miles of the race. They are just east of Conway heading towards 107 and back to 89. I honestly almost had to get off and walk on the hill after crossing 107. That hill is straight up and long. Then after that, you have the longest stretch, Highway 89. It seems like it stretches forever, but once I hit Mayflower again my second wind caught on. At this point, my buddy Jacob had been riding stronger than me all day, but right at the county line he faded. I thought that he had just moved back the end of the line, but the next time that I looked back I couldn't even see him. I thought about holding back and waiting for him, but I was too close to the finish line. I could taste it and I wanted to beat my last time as bad as I could so I pushed forward. I found 2 other guys that had some gas in the tank and we roared past everyone else, each taking turn pulling the other two. We picked up about 4 people and formed a good little group. My muscles were gone, but somehow I was able to convince them to keep peddling. When we hit downtown North Little Rock, our group dispersed. It was every man for himself. I attacked early and often. I quickly passed everyone in our group. There were only 2 people between me and the finish line. As I turned the last corner I used the last of my energy to pass them just before crossing the line. It was amazing. There's no way anybody has ever finished as fast as my time. . . well except for all of the people who finished an hour or so ahead of me. . . but we're not talking about them and they're not telling the story are they? I am and in my story I didn't SEE anybody finish ahead of me, therefore I did finish 1st! haha, Take that!

Anyway, long story short my cycling time was 5 hours 15 minutes plus approximately 5-10 minutes for that 1 stop. The quickest times were somewhere around 4 hours, and my time 2 years ago was 7 hours plus 1 hour of aid station breaks so I crushed my old time by 2 hours and 45 minutes. Hey, at least I'm improving.

Guess what, I did it. I signed up for the Little Rock Marathon. This will be my first marathon ever. Maybe I'll get a few other people to do it with me. I encourage everyone to give it a try with me. Sign up now before November or else it goes up by $10. It's like 6 months away so we have plenty of time to train. Even if you are totally 100% out of shape, you have plenty of time to change that.

Bow season starts tomorrow. I'll see you out in the woods!

Big Dam Weekend

Reporting live from the RiverMarket...

So tonight I must get to bed early. There's a lot to do tomorrow, but I decided to venture out to the river to see what festivities might be taking place tonight. Under the rivermarket pavilions, they are having some kind of Power 92 Jams Skate Party. Everybody is out there with their old school skates showing off some skills. Very unexpected.

Yesterday, I officially turned my apartment into a microbrewery. I've had a Belgian Ale fermented and bottled for a few weeks now. It should be ready any day now, and I plan on cracking one open tomorrow after the race. A few weeks ago, I picked up some muscadine from my friend's dad. He has a small vineyard bigger than 4 or 5 people's gardens. Well, I finally got around to crushing them up. I had to hurry up and do it or else my roommate was going to eat all 30 pounds of them (They taste like candy). My roommate and I actually ended up crushing them by hand. We found that just getting down in there was easier than using a potato smasher or any other method we could think of. Then, for the next step. I had no idea what to do next. I added too much water, forgot about the sugar, had to take some water and a few muscadine out, then put the sugar in. The end result looks like something that would turn into wine, but we can only hope.

I decided that while I was at it, I might as well put another batch of beer in the fermenter, so I went through that whole process. I started all of this at 7 PM and it was 1 AM before I had everything cleaned up. So now I have 5 gallons of beer and wine fermenting and 4 gallons of beer bottled and ready to go When I woke up this morning, our entire apartment complex smelled like a brewery. It was delicious.

Well, I better go. My friend just arrived back at my apartment. We've got to get up early tomorrow for the Big Dam Bridge 100 miler. I'm mostly prepared for it. If you live anywhere around Little Rock, North Little Rock, Maumelle, Mayflower, Conway, or Hwy 89 lookout tomorrow because a lot of cyclist are coming your way.

Alright, I've gotta go fix a flat. I just found it as I was heading out the door to the River. I hit a bad pothole Wednesday on the River Trail. I'm pretty sure it's the one on the North Little Rock trail down close to Dickey Stevens Ballpark. When I hit it, I figured it was going to cause a flat. At least I found it tonight and not tomorrow on my ride.

BeaverFork Tri

It was a perfect weekend, well except Saturday which was a little crazy, but Sunday was gorgeous and that's all that mattered. It was the day of the Conway Sprint Tri.

Every time I do this event, it's a completely new experience. I focus hard on what I lacked the time before. It all starts with the swim. Arms and legs everywhere all tangled up. You can feel the current in the water from all of the bodies swimming in the same direction and you begin to understand why fish swim this way. My swim was the strongest swim I have put together of all of my 3 sprint Tri's, however it wasn't flawless. On the first leg I caught 2 big mouthfulls of water. We were churning the water enough to make white caps which makes it harder to breathe when you come up for air only to get splashed by a wave. This must have kicked up my adrenaline a notch because I ended up swimming faster than my breathing rhythm, but the reason I liked my swim was when I finally reached shore I wasn't wore out at all. I had plenty of gas left in the tank.

The bike was a piece of cake. I was feeling really good at this point, actually too good, almost let down. I was cruising at about 19 mph. My heart rate was staying low and my breathing was normal. I know what you're thinking then, why not go faster if it was so easy? Well, I couldn't. My muscles were set to go at 19 mph. Any faster would have exponentially increased the amount of work that I would be doing and I wouldn't finish.

As I coasted back in to the transition area, I felt good about the energy that I had left, until I hopped off of my bike. Immediately, all my thoughts went from ease to panic. I was seriously doubting whether I would even finish. I had been racing right alongside a friend of mine. We had been going back and forth the whole race, and I just knew that I was going to blow up end finish 10 minutes behind him. My left shin felt like I had kicked a post at full swing. I couldn't build up any momentum at all. That feeling of being let down by the course. . . gone. So was my breath and I could not find it. This is the moment where it stops being about the physical activity and becomes 100% mental. You have to will your legs to keep kicking. Halfway through the run (1.6 miles), my friend, Jacob, had put about 50 yards between him and me, but I started to build some steam. It's something about running back that is so much easier than running away. My shin loosened up. I closed my eyes and found my Happy Place then opened them real quick when I realized I was running off of the road. I slowly picked up my pace the whole way back, but I never caught Jacob. He must have done the same. I finished in 1 hr 25.5 minutes. Jacob beat me by 1 minute. I can't complain though. My goal was to just beat 1.5 hours, but I was really aiming for 1hr 25 minutes so at least I hit my mark.

One thing that I promise, I will be more prepared for the next one. I know I always say that, but this time I am publicly declaring it so it will happen. Hopefully I will be able to do more events as well next year. As for what's left for this year, the Big Dam Bridge 100 mile Bike Tour is coming up in 2 weeks. I hope you'll be there. It's a lot of fun.

Tomorrow: Rest is over, resume training

Movin' to the Rock

Long time no see. Things have been busy as always. First off, I should explain that I have been without the internet for a few weeks. I just made the big move from Conway to Little Rock. Guess that makes me city folk now. Obviously, I'm still having trouble blending in and looking civilized. I probably should start out by putting on a shirt and some shoes. We'll see.

Shortly after my last post was the St. Joe Bazaar. For those who are unfamiliar, it is a school carnival. We put up all kinds of booths to win ham, bacon, cheese, goldfish, hats, and my personal specialty: dishes, glassware, and rabbits. Our booth, the dimetoss, always dresses up with some sort of theme. This year was "Cowboys and Indians." Dressing up as a cowboy would have been too easy, so I scoured Hobby Lobby for anything I could call Indian. I found some cheap leather and beads and whipped together an outfit. My elm tree had to sacrifice a low limb for the bow, but it didn't seem to mind.

In the meantime, I've been training hardcore for the CATS Sprint Triathlon. It's coming up this weekend. 500 meter swim, 15 mile bike, 5k run. Winning time is usually under 1 hour. I'm hoping to just break 1.5 hours. Wish me luck.

P.S.

I've been told that the ghost was actually urinating on me. I was in the bathroom when I took that picture. I thought I was standing in front of the sink, but actually I was standing in front of the urinal. Also, there is a strange bit of lightness where his ghostly extract would be coming from. . .

The Haunted Hotel

If you are from Arkansas, you probably are somewhat familiar with the Haunted Hotel in Eureka Springs. It is the Crescent Hotel. It was my fate to end up there two weeks ago for my cousin's wedding.

At first, I wanted name this Title "The Not So Haunted Hotel" because, at first, I was extremely unimpressed with the "Hauntedness" of the hotel. The hotel was amazing by itself, but seemed to lack something very important to be "haunted" namely ghosts. I paced the halls all night long. Every floor I searched high and low. Every mirror, every window, every room was inspected for anything extraordinary. It seemed to be too well lit. No dark eerie hallways to make your hair stand straighter than a New Mexican Interstate. There were no creeky floors or banging pipes to make you hear things that aren't really there. The only thing that seemed to be possessed was the shower. The hot and cold water interchanged at will never meddling in the middle creating one of the worst experiences in my life.

The only sort of ghost that I caught was an orb, but orbs are just camera flash return so it doesn't really count. I did not sleep all night, afraid that I would miss a ghost. It didn't help that we were going to wake up at 3:45 to go fishing on Beaver Lake either so I figured it would be just as easy to stay awake all night. Like I said, I looked everywhere and took probably 200 pictures. I found a few strange things, but upon further inspection found that most were light "glowing" spots on the wall that were actual impurities left from where a painting use to hang, or light streeks caused from the reflection from other paintings or piano tops.

Upon further review, I did find one series of pictures that stood out. I actually noticed it when I took the picture, but I thought it was just my shadow. When I showed my aunt the picture, she freaked. She couldn't even look at it. I admit it is not rock solid evidence of a ghost. You may call it a "stretch," but isn't that what a picture of a ghost be anyway. I mean, if we could always touch and feel and see ghosts, then they would not be so mysterious would they? We would have all kinds of proof that they existed. So believe if you will or. . . don't. It's your choice.

PIC 1

PIC 2

PIC3 close up

Altered (what I see)

The higher the resolution of your monitor and the smaller the picture size, the clearer you can see it. You can clearly see what appears to be a well dressed man (or maybe a straight jacket) looking right at me. He has long enough hair that it hangs over his ears and he has a nice full beard and sideburns. You can see his arms folded in front of him touching me and even the worn out spot on his elbow.

I have included the three unaltered pictures along with one that is obviously altered that I sketched what I see. I hope you see it too!

Go Cubs Go

Time to catch up. It appears that I actually do have 1 reader out there, but that's still unconfirmed. They might have come in from Tim From Little Rock's Blog. If you don't know who that is you should check it out.

Last weekend we went to Chicago. I've been to Chicago probably 3 times now so this was not my first time. It was also my 4th Cubs game. I think this makes 3 in Wrigley and one at Cynergy Stadium however you spell it in Cincinnati, but I had never seen the Cubs win. It was 9 guys who made the pilgrimage for my buddy's bachelor party. We met a local at the Green Door who was a Cubs fan. He asked if we all had tickets so we said that 4 of us still hadn't. He went out to his car and came back with 4 tickets that he gave us for free. (face value $100 apiece) Then he tried to pay for our $100 tab at the bar! Q.E.D.: Cubs fans are the greatest fans there are.



I thought I would have pictures by now that I could post, but they have yet to surface. We had a crazy time in Chicago. The Cubs spanked the Phillies. We saw 5 home runs (3 by the Cubs) and they guy behind us made Cubs hats out of animal balloon balloons for us so we were in heaven.

One thing that was odd was the Cubby Bear was out of Leinenkugels. They didn't even have PBR or Old Style! How does a Cubs bar not have Old Style? It just doesn't seem right.

I wish I had more time, but I'm tired and have to go. I'll try and post some more pictures tomorrow.

Goat Roast

This weekend I roasted a goat. Apparently people look at you funny when you tell them that. I don't fully understand what the difference goat meat is from any other meat, but apparently not a lot of people eat goat. It was surprisingly good as we had no real idea what we were doing. I wanted to roast it with a spit all day. This is not something that I have ever done with any type of animal so it was a totally new experience.

Materials: 1 Goat, lemons, rosemary, onions, garlic, potatoes, and mushrooms.

After we cleaned the goat, we rubbed him down with lemon juice and rosemary and garlic and fixed him to the spit. Then we stuffed him with the vegetables and sewed him back up with wire and placed him over the coals. Drink beer and rotate every 20 minutes (or 40 on accident) and take off when the inside temperature of the meat reaches 150 degrees which worked out to be about 5 hours. We started cleaning the goat at 10 AM, put him over the coals at noon and pulled him off around 5:15 PM.

The potatoes didn't seem to cook though, so we pulled all of the vegetables out when we were cutting the meat off the bone and we threw them into a pot with some chunks of meat and made goat stew. In my opinion that was the best part.

The Cubs actually won the day of the roast. This is obviously proof that we reversed the Curse of the Billy Goat so everybody get ready the Cubs will win the World Series this year. Speaking of baseball, Jose Conseco boxed Gary Hogan this weekend at the Arkansas Travelers game. It was awesome. Hogan fought like a champ. It was great to see Jose Conseco. He is still huge. I did my part and boo-birded him. I'm pretty sure that if he wanted to he could snap somebody's back in half. That guy is solid.

Well next weekend I'm headed to Chicago. We're going to a Cub's game as a bachelor party for my friend. It's gonna be great hopefully, I'll fill you in with the details. This will be bachelor party #2 for this summer, and like the 4th wedding and I still have more to go...

Where Did May Go?

Wow! May flew by. Things got a little busy around here. Way too many tornadoes for my liking. A couple of weekends ago I heard tornado sirens going off for 24 hours straight. I heard them all night in Little Rock and then all the next day in Memphis while helping my cousin move there from Kentucky.

2 weekends ago, I went to the Buffalo River. The Buffalo River is one of those places that is mandatory for any good Arkansan to experience in their lifetime. It seems like every summer there is always a good excuse to head up that way at least a couple of times. This time, it was with my Boy Scout Troop. We took the boys up to Buffalo Point, which is down river a few miles from Gilbert. We put in at I believe the Highway 14 bridge and floated down to Rush. The water was a little slow and shallow, but perfect for the new scouts to learn on. . . and perfect for me to test out my new kayak. I learned that I'm going to have to start doing some yoga or something because my legs were falling asleep the entire time.

As promised (to make up for driving so much lately), I did Mother Earth a favor last week and I plan on doing it more often. Last week was Bike to Work Week so I rode my bike part of the way in to work 3 days last week. I can't really ride the whole way as I live 40 miles away, but I was able to cut off 10 miles both ways by parking at the Big Dam Bridge. Now this took a lot of thought whether or not I was going to do this or not. It wasn't because I didn't want to inconvenience myself, it is because of the location of my work. My work happens to be located at the corner of Roosevelt and Asher in Little Rock. It's in part of town where your parents tell you not to even stop at stop lights, just keep rolling. I've been working there for 6 or 7 months now and I have found that it really isn't that bad. I mean, every month it seems somebody gets shot, but for the most part the people seem to be well... people. Really, the problem wasn't even that. I had already decided that it was worth risking life and limb to save the environment. It was my coworkers and superiors that had a problem with it. I had ridden in to work a couple weeks before and they strongly suggested that I never did it again. My boss was really uneasy about the thought of me riding in. Then, 2 days later, I had some bad chicken and called in sick kind of late one morning. Apparently, they had freaked out because they thought I was laying in the ditch somewhere. I didn't want them freaking out on me every time I showed up a little late (We are kind of on flex time. Most people show up at 8 and leave at 4:30, but it's no problem to come in at 9 or 10 even and just stay late). I didn't really want to have to put up with them being so worried, but after all this BP stuff, I decided that this was more important than anything I was dealing with so I did it. I don't know how bad this spill is going to end up. I don't know what impact it will have on the environment or the economy of the Gulf, but I do know that I, along with all of you, share the blood that will be payed for it. Every animal and plant killed. Every dollar in revenue and wages lost from the people that live in the Gulf, we are all held accountable for it all. Sure BP slipped up, but they are just reacting to the market, and the market can only be changed by one person, you. It all starts with yourself. That is why I knew that I had to get out there and bike no matter, and I plan to bike to work more and more days this summer, and I challenge you to do the same. Don't do it because you will be healthier and have more energy. Do it for our future.

It's Only Money

It's always busy being a captain, an awesome one no less, but somebody has to do it so it might as well be me.

I burned a lot of gas this week. I hate it. The Earth probably lost a couple seconds off of it's life due to me this week. It all started on Wednesday. Me and my buddy Jacob (Yes that's right, "Me and my buddy" not "My buddy and I." I know what it's supposed to be that's not what I want), we (much better) went to Tunica, Mississippi after work. (Here comes my first "outside" as in "outside the state of Arkansas" story) I had one of those free weekly hotel nights that they always send after you sign up for their membership card. If you go to any casinos you have to sign up for these cards. You would be stupid not to. Then, go around to all of the table games and just change $100 into chips to create activity on your card. They will send you all kinds of free stays and freeplay coupons. Anyway, we left Little Rock at about 6 and got there around 9. We didn't even have time to eat. We were on a mission to gamble the night away. I headed for the Craps table. I love Craps. Craps is a game that you can be best friends with someone who you know nothing about all for the sake of taking down the house. All you have to do is roll a couple hard 6's, make a few points and don't roll a 7 unless you're coming out. Follow those simple rules and you will have a table full of best friends. They might even buy you dinner. My luck was about like it always is. I was doing pretty good, hit a real bad rough patch and lost all my chips at one table. The table turned bad cold so I moved to another table and cashed in for some more chips. I lost all the way down to 20% of my chips again and I was about to cut all my losses when I got hot. In 30 minutes I went from having 10% of the money I walked into the casino with to 40% profit above what I walked in with. I quickly forced myself to walk away. Next up was the roulette and blackjack table. I made a couple of bucks off of those, but quickly retired to bed (It was about 12:30 AM)

Things calmed down until Saturday. I have been looking into buying a canoe or kayak. I found a canoe for $295 and a kayak for $250 both up near Rogers, AR. I had decided on actually splurging and buying one of them, but I had to wait on the result of my Tunica trip. If I lost $200 I wasn't going to buy anything. Luckily I won a little bit. It still took a little coaxing to make the long trip up there though. I called about the canoe and sadly it had already sold, but the kayak was still up for grabs so I hopped in my truck and headed out towards Beaver Lake near Rogers. I stopped by St. Joseph Catholic Church in Fayetteville on they way and went to mass. Long story short, I bought the kayak. Now I need a paddle. . . Since I was up near Fayetteville, I called my buddy Andrew to crash on his couch. Saturday night, I did something that was long overdue. I went to Dixon St. We painted the town. Clint Eastwood couldn't paint a town like we did. I realize that Dixon St. is overrated and all that yadayadayada, but coming from Little Rock, it was an improvement. I remember going to the Smoke and Barrell Tavern, but before that we went to some pool hall. All of the beer on tap was $1.50 to $2.00 and we were drinking Shiner Bock ($1.50). In Conway and Little Rock I probably would have paid $3 to $4 for the same glass, and that wasn't a special price. No happy hour or nothing. Also, the pool tables were free. It was like a much much cleaner Midtown Billiards which isn't saying much. You could actually breathe the air inside. We ended up crashing at around 2AM.

Today, actually yesterday by now, I went to an Arkansas Naturals minor league baseball game. They were playing the Arkansas Travelers my home team from North Little Rock. It was a great game. The Travs won 8-7 I believe. They hit 4 home runs, 2 by the same guy. Anyone interested the ticket price for general admission was $7 and parking is $3. I went ahead and splurged for the $10 ticket which got me right behind home plate. And if you're thinking about skipping out on the $3 parking, forget about it. It's not like North Little Rock where you can park on a side street. The stadium is in the middle of a field so there is nowhere else to park. You are forced to pay the $3 parking fee unless you want to walk 2-3 miles. All in all the game was great and the stadium put on a good show. They actually do a little better job with the music and all than the Travelers do. The moral is if you haven't been to a Travs game or a Naturals if you live up in NW Arkansas you need to go. It's good cheap fun.

I think I might have to start posting twice a week. These weekly posts are too long and I summarize way too much. I did get my first visitor while I was gone this weekend. Somebody from Alaska! I'm excited I really am you have no idea. Thanks for stopping by. Please come back and comment. You are why I am here.

P.S. The pictures will get better as well as the writing. I promise.

Open Season

Quick post. I should have been in bed an hour ago, but I have been so busy since the last post that I haven't gotten a chance to sit down and write another.

Spring officially started a week or two ago. I don't care what the weatherman or the groundhog says. Spring starts with one thing: Opening Day. And no I don't mean Opening Day Boston vs. Yankees. That doesn't count, although it was a very entertaining game. Opening Day was the next day when all of the other teams got a chance to play. It's also when my beloved team, the Chicago Cubs could start disappointing me all over again for another year. Don't get me wrong, I am not a self-hating fan. I will be the first to say that we are going to the World Series this year and WE ARE going to win it. I already have my plans lined up for where I am going to be in Chicago that weekend, but on the off chance that it doesn't happen, I have plenty of practice waiting for next year.

Another opening day was last Thursday. It was the first home game for our local team, the Arkansas Travelers. I didn't make it to the first game, but I made it to the game Friday. It was great. I had a great time, and so did everyone else who was there. Unfortunately, we had to pay the full price ($6) for admission. Can't wait for all of those $3 off promotions from Exxon, Ready Ice, and the Ark DemGaz. That extra $3 really helps on the old pocketbook. Luckily the Travs won that day so all was well in the world.

I didn't make the first home game, because of another Opening Day. The Opening Day of Bullfrog Season here in Arkansas. This is probably the most anticipated day of the year. At least it is for me. There's nothing better than scuddling across the water with your grandpa and cousin gigging some frogs. We only got 7 frogs last Thursday. I would have taken a picture if we had gotten more, but we didn't so you'll just have to wait for next time. At least we didn't get skunked. I think it was just a little too cold for them still. The nights need to get a little warmer before they come out and get real active. Friday night there was supposed to be a meteor shower, but we stared up at the heavens for a long time, and I only saw 1 meteor.

Saturday, you guessed it, was another Opening Day, at least it was for me. It was opening for Wedding Season. I went to my first wedding of the year. My cousin got married. Get this she got married at Hot Springs, and her reception was at Petit Jean (over 2 hours away). It was amazing. Definitely the most unique wedding receptions that I have ever been to. We spent the night camped outside their cabin up on top of Petit Jean. One word: awesome. It was a simple and pure wedding and reception, just how they should be. Just how they were intended to be. It wasn't ruined by commercialism and high society. It was just all about the two people getting married like it should be.

Ok gotta go. See you in Tunica tomorrow night!

HelloWorld

This is my official blog Hello World. A little easier than most Hello Worlds.



For the last 3 months, I have been debating whether or not to commit to a blog. I thought long and hard, but it kept bugging me until I could no longer live without giving this thing a whirl so here we go on this crazy ride with no regard to life or limb, or whatever.

My name is Captain Awesome, well, not really. But for now that is all that is important to know so accept it. My intent is to take my completely ordinary life and revel in its ordinary simplicit Awesomeness (without using the word Awesome too many times.)

I will bring you up to speed with what has happened in the few months since Jan 1, well lets make it Dec 24, 2009. Ok, I have quit a part time job, got hired into my first full time semi-"permanent" job (I graduated from the University of Central Arkansas Go Bears last Spring). I managed to sail really badly for a J26 sailboat crew at the Grand Maumelle Sailing Club. I dated a really cool gal without knowing it (That never ends well). I also had my jaw and my tent pole cracked in the same weekend. Things turned around quickly for the better though and I took a nice Spring Break from work in Winter Park, Colorado. All in all, it's been a great year so far and the summer I'm sure will bring more adventure.

So here we go, inside, outside - Arkansas