Crazy Lawsuit Game

It's been a rough year grandparent-wise.

My paternal grandfather passed a week before I was born.

Dr. Leven Savage Hazlegrove, my maternal grandfather, passed last August. He was a great man and clearly where I got my chemistry genes. He taught chemistry at Samford University for 33 years and luckily my grandmother kept copies of his masters thesis and PhD dissertation for me. He is survived by his wife, 3 daughters, 3 son-in-laws and 3 grandkids (myself, brother and cousin). I couldn't find a good online pic of him, but I'll scan a couple and get those up. More info here and here.

Mrs. Marjorie Stepleton, my paternal grandmother, passed this morning. A wonderful woman who was a proud ambassador of Albertville, Alabama wherever she went. Born, raised and lived her whole life there where raised 3 boys, survived her husband's untimely passing and prepared countless meals for her whole extended family. She was a staple at Wal-Mart where she worked the boys' section and then as a greeter. "Granny Wal-Mart" as she was lovingly known, she would introduce everyone to us like the whole town of Alberville was part of our extended family, which is really is. She was diagnosed with thyroid cancer and never fully recovered after the chemo treatments and has now joined the rest of our family in heaven. Her sister had just passed in April and now can worship and have a big family reunion in heaven (a core Christian belief, I don't think that is just Southern Baptist, it really helps with the feelings of sorrow and despair at a time like this).

Unfortunately Joan and I will not be able to make it to the service as it is the end of the semester and I have to give exams this week and early next week, but our tickets are already purchased for next Friday. We'll be going to Albertville to see her final resting place and introduce Joan to Grandpa Stepleton whose resting place is next to Grandma's.

Thanks for letting me post this. It has helped a bit. It's tough feeling like I abandoned my family by moving out here. I know that isn't true, but the thought still creeps up. We are really looking forward to spending time with my one remaining grandmother.

Labels: Birmingham, obituary

This post will eventually detail our trip to Birmingham where we hung out with friends and family and spotted Julie from the first ever Real World and chatted with Ben Bostrom for a couple minutes. I could have talked with him for hours, how he got started racing, how often he bicycles, how crazy a 24 hour mountain bike race is, does he do any 4 wheel racing, does he follow rally, etc... but we were in Whole Foods and both had places to be, so it was just a chance encounter. Really nice guy and of course, wicked mutton chops.

Labels: Birmingham, family vacation, Red Bull

I have spent the day galavanting around Greenville, taking J to the doctor's, dropping her off at work again, picking up prescriptions and generally killing time and working. Whole Foods in Greenville opens at 8 am and has free Wi-fi if anyone was wondering.

After lunch, I went to the mall which was pretty crowded considering some people are still at work this week. Brookstone willingly exchanged $30 for a LED magnifying glass for the grandparents. Hmmm, I wonder if that needs batteries. Better check, I hate receiving gifts only to have to scrounge the house for batteries; I don't want to be that gift giver. J has really turned me into a better gift giver. The little hints and tips that people drop, I've started picking up on those. It makes getting them gifts much easier.

This year we're highlighting local products. Split Creek Farms had some lovely goat milk soap that will be great in our "Local Products" gift bags. They also had some massive Great Pyrenees to protect the goats and they were the first of the breed that J or I had ever met before. Nice but their size made them a bit intimidating, so we channeled Cesar Milan for some calm assertive energy.

Happy Cow Creamery had some great preserves and cheeses to complete the bags. J wanted to put the gifts in baskets but if we can't find those, then reuseable grocery bags will be great substitutes, and eco-friendly of course, which is the whole point of highlighting local products: to spur our family to investigate their own local products. I'm sure there are some wonderful farms not too far from Birmingham. It's freakin' Alabama for farm's sake!

If I don't see you all before Thursday, have a Merry Christmas, Happy Chanukah, Festive Kwanzaa, Blissful Festivus, or a Transcendent HumanLight!

Labels: Birmingham, Eat Locally, Eco-living, family vacation

Yesterday I was a tad harsh on organized religion. It really does more good than I let on. I'm a bit more removed from it than I have been in the past and I let the Media influence me with all the negative press that religion gets. It's much better news to cover a pedophilia scandal than feeding and clothing the homeless and needy. Disturbing news brings in more money than feel good news.

There's bad people everywhere, just not in religion, but I also feel that religion is used as the ultimate unquestionable scapegoat more than anything else.

I'll be passing through ATL (and stopping at REI on the occasion of a huge sale they're having sale code ANNV20 for those in the know) on my way to the 'Ham to spend the weekend with friends and family. With most of the REI brand merchandise on sale, and the 20% off coupon, I might just be picking up a new tent, or sleeping bag, or water filter. Not really sure, it depends on what they have and how expensive everything is. Luckily the sale just started today so they should still have a great selection. I'll most likely stop by the one just off 85, exit 94ish I think, the Clairmont Rd one, not the Mall of Georgia one in Buford because I know traffic is going to be nuts around there when I'll be passing by at 6:30-7:30.

Gah! I'm hungry! Lunchtime! Enjoy the weekend if I don't see you before then!

Labels: Big Media, Birmingham, sex and religion

J and I made it to the 'Ham with relative ease. We were accosted by a sheriff's deputy once we got close to Birmingham on I-20. I wondered why I was doing 70 in a 60 and I was flying by people. I moved over from the left lane once traffic was clear and saw a car come flying up on my left. He turned on his spotlight and shone it into our poor little Focus. I squinted my eyes and looked over at him once I realized that he wasn't just flashing it. I'm not really sure what he was expecting but I guess I wasn't the high school kid with an open beer and a blunt hanging out my mouth that he was expecting so he flipped the spotlight off and went about his business. Weirdo.

Our friends were at the Sidewalk Film Festival, which has become a fairly prominent independent film festival. Watch out Sundance, Sidewalk's comin'!

After that we met up at Marty's, which is always on the list for Best Burger in Birmingham. We opted for the bacon cheeseburger and it was pretty damn good. I wish J had put some condiments on it, but I wasn't in charge of burger preparation in this instance.

Before then I took J to one of my signature date spots while I was big pimpin' in undergrad. It's a private road that is closed to traffic from 6 pm to 7 am but they still allow foot traffic, so we parked and walked up to the spot. It's a row of houses that arguably has the best view in Birmingham. I wish I knew how to link to Google Earth better because you really need to be able to see the elevation change. Yep, there it is, Crest Rd 35223, one hell of a view.

View Larger Map
If you have Google Earth, please check out the view. It really sparkles at night.

We're planning on cathcing "Mexican Sunrise" at Sidewalk tonight, so I'll have to give a recap of it when we meet again. Now we're off to a family luncheon and I get to see my parents who are on vacation from Central America for 3 weeks!

Labels: Birmingham, film festival, restaurant reviews, weekend

From one of the Tales of Interest Futurama episode, Bender says it after he becomes human and has some nachos.

Does anyone ever watch The Girls Next Door on E!? It's a reality show that is wholly unique as it follows around Hugh Hefner (Hef) and his 3 girlfriends, Holly, Bridget and Kendra. It's one of J's favorite shows and is one of mine as well because who is cooler than Hef? Damn right. Nobody. I think the reason it works so well as a show is because people are so fascinated with Hef and all things Playboy. It's a global empire and keeps getting stronger. It briefly lost some ground in the 80's but it's been coming back into popular culture (at least in America) for the past decade. His girlfriends are very funny too. They all have unique personalities and all get along so well with each other. Their interactions with each other and Hef are really the meat of the show. Sure it's cool seeing them get to travel to Europe and Vegas and get the super red carpet treatment everywhere but even if it was them sitting in the Playboy Mansion, it would still be solid gold.

Here's a picture for you visual learners (like me):

Moving from left to right it's Kendra, Hef, Holly and Bridget.

I would really recommend watching it on DVD however because with the DVD you get all the good stuff that E! won't show on TV, most specifically boobs and curse words and naughty jokes. Needless to say they have to blur and beep a decent amount before airing the episodes. But on the DVD you get to see the show in its full glory how it is meant to be seen. Kendra dropping f-bombs, lots of boobs, and a handful of off-color jokes that weren't appropriate for the E! audience. I would highly recommend all seasons of The Girls Next Door on DVD. Much love to Hef, Holly, Bridget and Kendra and their myriad animals (each of the girls has pets of their own and the Mansion has a zoo that would rival any small town zoo). I would say my favorite is Coco the Monkey (I think she's a spider monkey but feel free to correct me) but that is because she's cute and overweight and gets the most airtime. I'm sure if J and I ever received an invite to the Mansion, we might find another favorite.

Yes I do have a subscription to Playboy and J even knows about it.

I need to get this blog a RSS feed.

I was going back through some recent posts and checking the comments and found these where we were discussing why icedtrip got rid of his WRX. New cars are expensive with the insurance payments, the premium gas and the car payments. So Iced bailed on the Suby and picked up a '85 SL500 (that's a Mercedes Benz, pimpadelic) and a Yamaha Royalstar, which is a big metric cruiser, like a Harley for people who either don't want a Harley or can't afford one. He didn't tell me a year so here's a '96 just for comparison.

And here's a smaller pic of a similar Benz:


Big pimpin' indeed. Excellent garage selection Icedtrip. I don't want to know what kind of repair bills you have for the Benz. Okay I sort of do cuz they're cool cars and they keep their resale value and coolness factor very well. A used M5 or AMG would make great roadtrip cars.

Also I know you talked about driving to B'ham to visit me while I'm there. We probably would only be able to hang out Sat. night after the grandparents go to sleep. Here's my whirlwind schedule. Drive to Grandma's house, 1.5 hrs. north of the Ham, eat dinner, hang out and catch up with Brother and G'ma, sleep, eat brunch, drive to B'ham, maybe work out, hang out with grandparents and Brother, probably sleep at grandparents house even though I told Tom I would stay with him, I'll call him later today unless he reads this and calls me first, I do still want to go see your (his) new house though, wake up, breakfast, go to early church and then drive home. Maybe stop in ATL to have lunch with a friend who I'll call today too. So I'll be in Alabama for roughly 36 hours.

We'll plan a trip to come visit you Iced or plan a trip where we can meet in the middle or you can come with J and I for our honeymoon/ski trip vacation to somewhere with snow. But we'll get together soon enough.

Labels: Birmingham, cars, Hugh Hefner, The Girls Next Door