Fan Girl Wannabe

• Woke up this morning from a pretty weird dream. My boss from 10 yrs ago was telling me to be prepared to be assigned to one of two projects happening next year in FL. One was in Pensacola, the other at Ft Bragg (which is actually in CA). But I was still doing my present job for my present company, and the region I work in does not support projects in FL. I am in the "North" region which supports all of Central US and Canada <shaking head>. So geography and personnel aside, the weird thing was that DH was really against the move, temporary or permanent, and also against me "commuting" for it. In RL, DH has stated he'll follow me anywhere at this point, as quid pro quo for the past 7 yrs. His dream attitude though was very similar to his attitude 10 yrs ago. Hmmm-maybe that's why it was the 10 yrs ago boss in the dream. In RL, the furthest away project I'm contemplating now is in Tomah (2 hr drive), so not so bad.
• Last weekend, after some shopping, we stopped at Vintage Brewing for a snack and a couple pints. I had the Schwarzfahren, a Schwartz or black lager. Very tasty, and much much better than the guest Black IPA from nearby One Barrel Brewing. That Black was an unfortunate example of what-not-to-do with a black beer.
• While at Vintage, we saw an hour or so of the FIFA Championship Cup. ( Technically safe for work, but JIC )
• Also at Vintage, I finally had what my brain has for years been telling me "White Chicken Chili" should be.  This was rich, creamy, delicious chicken meat stewed in a creamy chicken broth, with white beans, and apparently a ridiculous amount of pepper jack cheese melted in to make it creamy and thick.  I am going to figure out how to make this at home.  The bowl was $5 and well worth it (which is not really true of about 90% of the menu.  The food's mostly good, but it's always over-priced in my opinion).  Another "White Chicken Chili" recipe in this town, at a very popular retro-diner, is actually red chili with chicken breast instead of ground or shredded meat. So not what my mouth gets ready for when reading that title.
• Tuesday is the first day of my week off.  We are driving to Nashville, TN for a family reunion on DH's mother's side.  It's being held at Gaylord Opryland Resort, and I am way too cheap to stay there.  Everything, and I mean everything was ala carte.  Rooms, wi-fi, breakfast, parking, plus the usual taxes, and a $13/day "resort fee" (what's that for? the pool towels or something?").  Instead, we rented a cabin on a lake (in Lebanon, TN) that sleeps 7 for the price of 3 fully expensive nights at the resort, thinking the adult kids in SC would drive up and share.  Nope.  The girl and one of her girlfriends will drive down on Wed night arriving in the wee hours on Thurs, but that's it for the roomies.  We have tickets to hear Alison Kraus at the Grand Ole Opry one night, and two nights (Fri & Sat) are devoted to the reunion.  We plan to visit Antique Archeology, the distillery in the same building, and find super excellent BBQ while there.  Other than that, we'll be laying around the lake soaking up the sun (I hope).
• Let me ask you: if you were going on a 10-hr road trip, what time would you leave?  I was thinking, since it's vacation, and I'm supposed to be relaxing, that I would like to get on the road between 9 and 10 am, with arrival probably by 8 pm.  This would generally keep us away from any type of rush-hour traffic, morning and afternoon.  DH has announced that he wants to leave at 2 AM to arrive no later than 1 pm on Tues (Originally, I was only going to take off half of Tues).  We were getting irritated with each other this morning while discussing it, so I said, "fine, let's get the car packed up on Monday, and then whatever time you actually feel like getting on the road, we'll get on the road."  I figure it will be closer to 4 am when we leave, but we shall see.
• I am having technology issues.  Since the last iTunes update, I have been unable to get my music to update. I have new music loaded on my hard drive that I want to put on my phone, but every time it syncs, it only takes all the same music it already had.  This used to be easy.  What the hell am I doing wrong?

::cue studio announcer:: Previously, in Baltimore Bliss, goldy was on her way to a "low country boil" for Saturday's supper...

Sunday morning, we stopped by Panera for real food because the Ramada's continental breakfast just doesn't cut it.  I had the new caramel apple pastry, and it was good but messy, with caramel sauce dripping through my fingers.  We didn't want to eat too much, because officially, we were meeting up with the baseball gang for "brunch" at Shuckers on the Inner Harbor.  We had to drive in on Sunday because the light rail doesn't start running til 11:00 am and the meetup was at 10:30.

When it's all said and done, I managed to have a pint put out by each of the three local breweries:  Yeungling, Frederick and Capitol City.  I enjoyed all of them, but the Backfin Pale Ale was my favorite - I even brought home an empty for the souvenir shelf.  The most memorable moments for me were the oyster lunch and dinner in Annapolis, but it was all fun.  I'm glad we got to go.

Also, even though I thought many times over the weekend that I'd like to investigate living there - the traffic situation alone would keep me from wanting to make the move.  Way too many cars on the road.  The lanes seem narrower than here at home, and the curves are sharper - I'd hate to negotiate them during winter.  The parking is atrocious - both scarce and expensive.  The light rail was a relief, but I was disappointed about not being able to take advantage of it Sunday.  OTOH, if we'd taken the light rail, we probably wouldn't have been able to make it to Anapolis for dinner.  Everything works out the way it is supposed to in the end.  The prices at the Inner Harbor were mostly way too high, but we did find deals by being creative.  Outlying areas were either obviously old money or they were obviously very-low-income.  That made me uncomfortable.  And the crime rate! I normally feel safe wherever I go, but the really obvious police presence everywhere actually bothered me.  They wouldn't be there if they didn't need to be, right?

I'm supposed to be driving to Moline right now, but my hotel didn't have a room available, so I'm heading out at 0500 tomorrow instead.  I'll be back home again Thurs night.  It looks like I'll be T-W-T in Moline through October.  The bank account will like the schedule, even if I don't.
 

In June, DH and I went to St. Louis for a “long weekend” that was actually Tuesday through Thursday.  We left the kids at home with a car and a debit card, and a promise from our neighbors to keep an eye on them.  We made the kids promise that if they were going to burn the house down, they’d put the valuables out in the driveway first.  The house and the debit card survived the experience intact, but Ruby ended up with a scraped and dented rear passenger door, thanks to an overly high curb at the gas station.  Mavis was really upset about it, but hey, it’s pretty much the least that could happen, right? (And we’ve all done similar).