5 Things I Miss About the 'Burg

On Saturday, I went for my monthly haircut. I go to a place simply titled "BARBER"... and that suits me just fine. No self-respecting man should go to any "stylist" or "hairdresser". Let's put it into perspective.... if you have a barber named Rocky.... you're doing great... if you have a "hairstylist" named Rocky... well, seriously... you're just paying too much for that haircut.

Anyway, after plunking down my $20 for my Northern Virginia barber shop cut, it made me long for the place I used to go to in Harrisonburg.... the Hair Corral. And, then I got to thinking about some of the random things I missed most about Harrisonburg. Here they are (in no particular order):

• Hair Corral: The Hair Corral is this barber shop located in the middle of nowhere. This really is a destination. A haircut costs a mere $6!!!! You can be big-pimping and tip an extra $4 and still walk out the door for $10... not too shabby. Now, the dilemma is that Hair Corral has about 20 barbers... of differing skill-level and ability. Upon entering you are faced with a row of about 10 barbers on your left and a row of about 10 barbers on your right. So, the big anxiety-inducing decision would be "do I go left or right?".... because... one wrong decision and you could get screwed over. Anyway, I seemed to always choose correctly and never had any issues.... but I had a few friends that got mangled.... and they would simply say: "I should have gone to the left" and we all knew what that meant. Hair Corral... I miss you!
• Roadside Chicken: Want the best freaking chicken you've ever tasted? Also want a wicked case of diarrhea? Well, look no further than the 'roadside' chicken sold in the 'burg throughout the year. I'm not sure what the deal is here or why chicken selling is such a cottage industry in the Valley... but, seriously.... if you are ever driving down 42 or 11 and see some dude selling foil-wrapped half-chicken for $3 that he pulls out of one of those igloo coolers.... stop... and buy it... or, better yet.. buy 20. Just make sure a toilet is nearby (but trust me.... any side effects are well worth it).
• Sharp Shopper: I love this crazy place.... and, in fact, Kelly and I can attribute (in large part) the financial solvency of the first 5 years of our marriage to Sharp Shopper. This is a "grocery" store run by Mennonites that sells a bunch of random stuff. If you never thought it was possible to purchase a humongous box of Cheerios for .99, well, you've never shopped at Sharp Shopper (the only catch is that the "Cheerios" and the label is written in crazy foreign lettering... usually Arabic). You could also get just expired Pillsbury Cookie Dough for .50 or countless other grocery items for less than a dollar. Actually, I'm not sure their price tag machine was capable of exceeding .99 cents. About a year before we left, Sharp Shopper greatly expanded and spent a great deal of time painting a red stripe all the way around the store and we all knew what that meant. In fact, every time I would walk in there, I would smile widely at the "Red Stripe of Savings" and be smiling even more as I walked out of there with a grocery cart full of pop tarts, cookie dough, milk, bread, eggs, etc for less than $20.
• The Green Valley Book Fair: This place is RIDICULOUS. First off, it's out in the boondogs... but it's HUGE.... two warehouses full of books.... and all of them are just insanely cheap. It only opens for certain times of the year. It's a business model that someone should be shot for thinking would work. I can just see the farmer now saying to his wife: "Mable... farming ain't just what it used to be. I'm going to clear out my barn and start selling a crap load of books for next to nothing and people will flock to me... even though we live in the middle of a corn field...and we'll be Rich!" Well, for whatever reason... it works (for the record, when I first heard of "electronic" mail in 10th grade business class, I recall thinking "what a STUPID" idea... so... what do I know). When it is open... it's a community event. Everybody goes. Kelly and I have bought more than our fair share of books here over the years and it kills me to buy a book at "retail" value up here knowing the Green Valley Book Fair probably has it.... and for only a couple of bucks.
• Taste of Thai: This is the best Thai food in America... period. End of Story. Order #23 with chicken and chicken fried rice and share with each other. I don't even know what #23 is called... but it's probably called un-freaking- believable. It could be called cat puke and I'd still order it... ya... it's that good. Seriously. Kelly and I have long referred to the 'host' as the "Fragile Flower" (w/all due credit to Brooke Chao) -- you'll have to go to find out why.

Okay.... so that's the 5 things I miss (for the purposes of this blog). Other things that come to mind are: happy hour at Calhouns, pizza at Luigi's (though I'm not an obsessive devotee), anything about Covenant Presbyterian Church, ice cream at Kline's Dairy Bar (Kelly is going to kill me for not going into detail about Klines), the apple orchards and the corn stands in the fall and having a BW3 right around the corner.

I have developed similar cult-like allegiance to a few places in Northern Virginia.... but, this post is already getting long... so, I'll save that for another day.

Broadlands 5 miler

Last Saturday, Kelly ran in a 5 mile race in Broadlands. The kids -- well, Reagan and Luke and me with Will in a stroller -- ran in the 1 mile fun run... and the kids LOVED it. Nothing real exciting... but since Kelly ran it in 46 minutes (I would have quit after 3 miles -- there simply is no reason to run any farther than that... race or no race), I wanted to make sure everyone knew it.... seeing as she just had a baby less than 4 months ago.

Great Wolf Lodge

We just got back from a "mini"-vacation... spent a couple of days at Great Wolf Lodge in Williamsburg with my sister and her family and then 3 days visiting my parents in Virginia Beach. Kelly, of course, took tons of pictures, they are here.

This place was really cool for the kids.... we'll definitely go back. Pictures probably say more than words...so I'll just leave it at that.

One funny thing that happened was that Luke got his leg stuck in the coffee table in our room.... really stuck... It took a couple of minutes to extract him. Kelly and I were cracking up... but trying to control it because we sensed that Luke was really worried. We were doing a great job of this until Luke said: "Am I going to be like this forever?"... and then both of us lost it... we haven't laughed that hard in a long time. Here's a picture Kelly took while I was trying to extract him:

Other random things:

Arena Racing: I took Luke (along w/my Uncle Jeff, my nephew Caleb and cousin Bradley) to this on Saturday. It was HI-larious and Luke LOVED it. Basically, it's little go-carts made to look a lot like NASCAR's. Lots of crashes. I really enjoyed spending that time with Luke and seeing him so excited to watch the cars.

Girl Scout Cookies: It's Girl Scout Cookie time. My personal favorites are, in order: Tagalongs (I'll eat the whole box in about 10 minutes), Dosidos, and well... those are the only two I like. I know Thin Mints are quite popular.... but... they just aren't my thing. As for the others... never tried them... don't care to... after eating box after box of Tagalongs... don't really need the extra calories. My "supplier" for the last couple of years has been a co-worker's daughter.... but I'm currently out... so if you know anyone selling... I'm buying.

IRS Audit: Nothing will send your heart to the floor like getting a "thick" letter from the IRS. I got to experience that first hand yesterday after checking the mail for the first time back from vacation. What was in the letter, you ask? Oh, just a request that we kindly send them an additional $15,000!!!!!! YIKES! No worries, though. After picking my heart up off the floor, I read through everything and figured out the problem. Thankfully, I've got the necessary forms they need and all should be well... but, still... not a fun process.

Well.... that's it for now.... since this post wasn't very funny... let me leave you with some Flight of the Conchords... as you can tell from the picture of us to the right... we are very "serious" people... we're all about dealing with the "issues"... this song contains the classic line: "Could someone please remove the cutleries from my knees". Here it is:

If you give a mouse a cookie

My kids have this book... it's called: "If you give a mouse a cookie..." Basically, it's the story of a mouse who just wants a cookie... and then, when you give him the cookie... he needs a glass of milk... and then when you give him the milk... he needs something else... and so on and so on and so on. Though not its intention, it's a great little allegory of the materialism that consumes our society and should be required reading for all of my Northern Virginia brethren desperately trying to keep up with the Jones's (but.. that's too deep for now).

Anyway... Kelly recently decided that she wanted an alarm system installed. We live in a really safe area, but Kelly watched too many "America's Most Wanted" when she was a kid -- and anybody that knows me knows that I'm gonna keep Kelly happy (because, you know the saying... if Mama ain't happy, ain't nobody happy -- well that and because I love her and want to... but that doesn't sound as manly).

So, I researched all the alarm options: ADT, Brinks, APX, Honeywell, etc. All required a 3 year contract at around $40 a month and would have cost around $500 for the extra options to secure the whole house. But then I found this great system online (I love the Internet). Basically, complete system for about $400 including all the options I needed and it included 18 months of monitoring for free (and only $12 a month after that). A really good deal. All I had to do was set it up, run it through my broadband and... presto... Alarm hooked up, home fully secured and wife completely happy. And the setting up was really easy... it was the stuff that happened before setting up that's blog worthy.

I set aside an entire day to get the thing set up. Kelly left and took the babies to the grandparents for the day. So, she walks out the door and the first thing I need to do is move the desk out from the wall.

Now, a bit about this desk. It was one of the first "big" purchases when we first got married ($300 when we first got married might as well have been 5 grand we were that poor) and we wanted to make sure we bought something real sturdy. And sturdy this battleship of desk was. It weighed about 10,000 pounds.... and was made of particle board (apparently particle board laced with lead) so, it was not the "best" construction.... just really, really obscenely heavy.

The first time I had to move it from our apartment to our first house, I hated it... I thought I was going to die. Then, when we moved from that house to our next house, I tried to convince Kelly that we should get rid of it. But she loved that desk and would have nothing of it (of course, she was not the one who had to carry it up to the 2nd level... but I digress). Then, when we moved into our first house up here, I tried again to convince Kelly to let us get rid of it. "Nonsense" she would say... "It's a perfectly fine desk..." So, then we took it to that house and I tried to get away with leaving it in the basement. Unfortunately, that didn't fly. So, yet again, I had to lug that thousand pound beast up a flight of stairs. And, lastly, when we moved to this house, I begged for us to get rid of it. No go. So, in our house it sat until Sunday when I started this process.

No sooner had Kelly pulled out of the driveway when I tried to move the desk... just ever so slightly and then I heard a loud "CCCCcccccccccrrrraaaaccccccckkkkk!!!!"

"Uh OH!" I knew what I had done and after surveying the damage knew it was finished. And, really, I didn't do it on purpose (though, the scene in "The Christmas Story" where the Mom "accidentally" destroys her husband's "leg lamp" certainly came to mind). Here's a picture I took shortly after doing the damage:



So, I make a quick decision and run to Target and find a cool Pottery Barn/Restoration Hardware-ish type desk. Purchase made for the bargain price of $135. Oh, and I pick up a filing cabinet at Walmart for $30 because the old desk had one integrated into it.

So, then, I take the desk home, assemble it, get the alarm all hooked up (I'm the "man", by the way... I hooked up a freaking alarm over a broadband connection and can do all kinds of cool stuff with it -- like turn out lights over the internet. If you see Kelly, be sure to remind her that her husband is the "man").

Then, I quickly realize that the new desk doesn't look as good without the $70 hutch attachment and the walls look glaringly bare. So Kelly goes and picks up the hutch and a picture.... $50. So, the running tally (not including the alarm) is $285.

Then, it becomes apparent that with the super trendy desk and the too cool $50 picture that we can't possibly put our old behemoth 1995 monitor on that desk. So, being the frugal shopper I am, I scan craigslist and find some guy selling a 19" widescreen LCD, a brand new computer (practically) and a printer/scanner/copier (still in box, never opened) for $350. So, I know a deal when I see one... and go pick it up.... in Germantown, MD.

Then, I realize one way to get to Germantown is to take White's Ferry and that it would be really cool to take the kids (telling them it would be like riding "Bulstrode" from Thomas the Tank Engine)... so I ask them to join me (well, Reagan and Luke... Will stayed at home with Kelly). The fare, roundtrip is only $6. Well, the guy was a little late... so I had time to burn and took the kids to McDonalds ($10).

So, the final tally... (this is starting to sound like one of those "priceless" Mastercard commercials)... $651.... so... the moral of this story is... drumroll..... "if you give a mouse a cookie... he's going to want a glass of milk...."

Here's the new desk.... the new monitor... and new picture...