jen | blog
scott | blog
Friday, July 27, 2001
1:13 PM | Scott
Singular Sensation
Tuesday, July 17, 2001
11:01 AM | Scott
One
Saturday, November 18, 2000
12:24 AM | Scott
OK, it's my turn now to update everyone as to what's going on. Don't you feel special?
We're in Essex, VT, tonight and expect to be heading east into New Hampshire tomorrow. To follow up on where Herself left off on Tuesday, after we left New Preston, CT -- that's where Reid & Wright were -- we meandered our way up to Northampton, MA. For the record, those winding, twisty New England roads can be a little difficult during dusk and dark hours, particularly when it's raining. In fact, it rained Monday night and all day Tuesday while we were in Northampton.
We spent Monday night in the Inn at Northampton, a nice little hotel, with the emphasis on the little ... no king size bed and small rooms. They were adequate for a single night's stay, though it does get kind of lonely not sleeping next to your sweetie, even when she does hog the covers. We spent Tuesday shopping Northampton. We hung out in a couple of book stores and haunted a renovated department store turned mini-mall called Thorne's. Tuesday's meals consisted of some wonderful breakfast food at Sylvester's (named after the inventor of the graham cracker, Sylvester Graham) and a lovely dinner at the Eastside Grille (I highly recommend the sweet potato chips with spinach dip as an appetizer -- extra yummy!).
Since we checked out of our hotel earlier that day and had thought we'd be heading for Vermont, we hadn't made hotel reservations. Since the weather had been so awful, though, we took our time, and by the time dinner was over it was past 10. So we headed for the local Best Western, where we inquired as to the availability of rooms with king size beds. The only one they had available was the one in the room with the jacuzzi in it.
We snapped it up in a heartbeat.
Granted, when you walked into the room, it was like walking into your typical Poconos hotel room, but without the majority of the chintz and the cheese. Don't get me wrong, though. The mini-disco ball with its own spotlight was plenty enough cheese for the room, thank you very much. The important thing, though, was getting to soak a while. That was nice. Sometimes it's good to be the king.
Well rested, we spent Wednesday morning at Jake's in Northampton soaking up the combined contents of a chili & cheese omelette and banana walnut waffles before heading off for more shopping. The first couple of hours was spent at the Space Crime Continuum, a wonderful combo mystery and SF book shop (both new and used) and gaming store. Though we didn't buy any books, we hit their games section pretty hard. I caught up on a lot of the Cheapass games I was missing, and we picked up another new game or two in addition.
Our next stop was at the place that my mother would call Mecca if she bowed down and prayed every day in a certain direction. Deerfield, MA, is the home of Yankee Candle. Now she likes candles, that's true, but this place goes many steps beyond. If you took your typical candle shop, hooked it on crack, and threw in a hallucination, DT, or three, you might begin to scratch the surface of the sensory overload that is the Yankee Candle flagship store. The place has got 5 entrances -- 4 to the store and 1 to the car museum along side. It's Christmas there 24/7/365. Christmas music, decorations, ornaments, gifts, smells ... for lack of better words, once you see all this stuff and then hit the candles it's like a sense-gasm.
We picked up a few things there and headed off to our overnight stop in White River Junction, VT. We stayed at another nice Best Western, but in separate beds this time. We also lucked out in being able to catch both parts of the Buffy/Angel 2-parter and The West Wing. We also got some wonderful food from Everything But Anchovies across the river in New Hampshire. I paid the delivery guy in Where's George bills, and he hit every one that night for me, for which I am truly grateful. New Hampshire has quickly vaulted into 4th place in my states with hits list.
Yesterday we headed for Woodstock, VT. Herself managed to pick up a nice hat at Fat Hat, and we had our very nice lunch at the Farmer's Market in Woodstock, which I highly recommend. That was one of the repeat stops from our trip to Vermont last May, and it's still worth every bit of it. If you're in central Vermont, you must stop there for food. Must, must, must. This was after the stop to Quechee, VT, to see Quechee Gorge, so we were ready for food after that. We hung around Woodstock for the remainder of the afternoon, shopped a couple more shops, then headed off for our next stop.
We'd hoped to stay last night in Montpelier, but the fates were conspiring against us. The bed and breakfast we'd hoped to stay at was closed this week for renovations, presumably for ski season. The other places didn't have rooms or put us on infinite hold. A call of "Screw This!" was made, and we bagged Montpelier and headed for Burlington. After another spate of no rooms, we hit upon the Inn at Essex, run by the folks at the New England Culinary Institute. Their rates were relatively reasonable, so we grabbed a room.
Well, enough out of me for tonight. I'm going to pass this thing over to Jen later, so she can continue the story.
Tuesday, November 14, 2000
6:41 PM | Jen
Hello from Northampton, MA! Himself and I are currently at the Java Net cafe where we sat and enjoyed two Oregon Chais while waiting for a computer to open up. After some finagling ("What do you mean 'It crashed.'?! It's a MAC!") we're up and running. My use of procmail is coming back to haunt me - I can check my email online, but apparently not in any folder but my inbox. Sigh. Anyway, we got a late start Sunday night after taking our sweet time getting ready. No problem, though, as we got plenty of extra rest. Sunday night was spent in Danbury, CT, at the Quality Inn there. My detailed research proved useful, as did our new toy - I opened up the Palm Pilot, called each of the motels on our new cell phone (Woohoo!) and we stayed at the place with the second lowest rate. The Super 8 was cheaper, but instead of a restaurant nearby, it had an, ahem, "adult entertainment emporium". Yesterday was spent meandering from Danbury to Northampton with stops along the way for books at Reid & Wright Books, who I recommend highly if you have any interest in architecture. Since Blogger hates Jen right now, Scott's posting this.
Monday, October 02, 2000
2:18 PM | Scott
It's a new month, maybe we'd better start posting again...?
Monday, September 11, 2000
2:13 PM | Scott
Hey, you Democrats know all about that, don't you?
1:15 PM | Jen
I'm not saying they're equivalent. Let's leave everyone but Bush out of it for the moment. Bush said he was going to do X, and then proceeded to do something that was not-X. He said one thing and did another. Period.
Friday, September 08, 2000
3:23 PM | Scott
Let's leave Bush's privates, er, private Bush out of it. If you'd like to bring up private Clinton -- oo, that doesn't sound right either -- if you want to mention the private Clinton (which I believe you just have), then compare the two. Since when does committing adultery with a work subordinate in your workplace become equivalent to uttering a curse word?
3:15 PM | Scott
OK, I'll admit that I have to rethink my position on the camera thing, but considering how much I knew about digital cameras at the time (i.e. I'd seen one kind of camera in action, and it worked well), you kind of have to understand why I thought I was right. OK?
3:01 PM | Jen
Speaking of being wrong, you still haven't made sense about Dubya and his open mike. Whether or not Gore has ever been similarly profane, and I will grant that he probably has, is not the point. Bush promised to "set a new tone for the campaign" (as you phrased it) and the fact that he said what he said belies that statement. It doesn't matter that he didn't know the mike was on. I figured you would be one of the first to be against a candidate who had one face in public and another in private. We got to see the private Bush and it wasn't pretty.
2:51 PM | Jen
Not in the least, especially since you got proven wrong.