Weekend At Lake Carolina

I spent part of the weekend in Columbia, South Carolina with my sister. Her former neighbor from when she lived in Redwood City was visiting so I thought I would go up to see him.

I drove up on Saturday morning instead of Friday afternoon because trying to get from Beautiful Dunwoody to I-20 on a Friday afternoon (Trying to get anywhere in Atlanta on a Friday afternoon) is a pain in the ass. I would like to say Saturday was better, but since there was an accident on I-285 it still took me about the same amount of time to get to I-20 as it would have on a Friday.
Atlanta drivers are the worst drivers in the United States.

I read somewhere that someone named I-285, the highway that circles Atlanta, the Watermelon 500 because of how fast everyone drives on it. (Now that's just not a good name at all. Anyone who lives in Atlanta would think a better name would be the Peachtree 500. ) It is not uncommon to see people driving 85 to 90 mph. Anyone driving 70 mph is holding up traffic.

As fast as I-285 is, I-20 from Atlanta to Augusta is faster. Maybe we should call it the Peach State 500. On I-20 you can be driving 90 mph and still be holding up traffic. I was doing 90 Saturday morning and two cars came up on my tail and I pulled over and let them by. Just for curiosity, after they passed, I matched speeds to see how fast they were going. They were going 100. I would have followed them and let them pace me, but since I was eating a susage egg Mcmuffin with cheese and drinking a cup of coffee, I figgered I'd stay at 90 until I finished eating and drinking my coffee.

Once I got into South Carolina I slowed to between 75 and 80.

My sister still does not have all of her new furniture yet. They finally got their new bed but they are still waiting for their dining room set.

It was nice seeing my sister's former neighbor again. He's a real trip.

My sister made canneloni for him. All I had to do this time was roll out the pasta. Usually I get stuck with making most of it. Our canneloni is Northern Italian style. We use both a white and a red sauce.

For appetizers we had smoked salmon and champagne. It's a rough job, but someone has to do it.

We had an Italian syrah with the meal.

We had homemade apple pie for dessert. Yummy.

My brother-in-law had to get up early (5:30) to take my sis' former neighbor to the airport in Charlotte, North Carolina. I slept in.

I had trouble sleeping. I scraped my toes on my left foot last week, and even though I have no sensation in my feet (Which is why I was able to do such a good job of toe-scraping.) I have phantom pain, and this exacerbated that pain.

My sister wanted me to stay for dinner on Sunday, but I am on a strong antibiotic for my toe scrapes and even though I'm taking Lactaid (Here's a free medical tip. If a doctor ever puts you on a real strong antibiotic go to the drug store and get some Lactaid or any other lactose supplement and take it along with the antibiotic. The doctor always neglects to tell you that real strong antibiotics also kill off the good bacteria in your intestinal tract leading to disasters.), I still worry about accidents.

The drive back was OK except for the people who cannot read signs. The signs are Slower Traffic Keep Right and Keep Right Except To Pass. What is so difficult about that? I don't care if you are going the speed limit or not. If there are five cars on your ass it means they want to go faster. Pull over. Even the trucks drive 80 on I-20. One of the things that pisses me off is some dipstick sitting in the left lane when there is no traffic in the right lane. You would think that after the tenth car just passed him on the right that he would get the idea that he was in the wrong lane.

My friends Michael and Cindy had spent the weekend in Charleston, South Carolina, and around Covington, Georgia I wondered if maybe I had passed them along the way. About 45 minutes after I got home, Cindy called and said that they had seen me as we were passing Covington. Michael tried to catch me to see if that were me, but I was driving too fast. He figgered I was doing 80. Nope. More like 85. What's the use of having a BMW Z3 if you cannot drive it fast?

Cindy came over to look at my toes. They're not falling off yet. While she was there she put in the stakes for my tomato plants. They are looking good!

Did the laundry and now I'm blogging. Yawn! Booor - ing! Hey not everyday in my life is exciting. Some times my life is downright dull.

I'm looking forward to another exciting week at work. I expect some interesting stuff to happen. I got a user in China working on a system I just set up for him. We'll see how many problems he has.

More processor woes. But that is a topic for another post.

Posted by denny at May 9, 2004 09:38 PM