The South-east

I'm in North Carolina now. Hmmm, too bad I can't type a southern accent--it sounds suweet. It's a bit odd to be on vacation by myself in a new place. I'm by myself at the moment as both H and A are at work right now. Helen didn't take any time off during the week while I'm here, but I had half-way expected this and brought a good book, a knitting project, plus I knew Helen had all 6 seasons of Sex & the City. And really, I can't complain as she took Sunday off--her 1st in 5 weeks! The life a pharmacy resident is insane! My bad though, the one weekend Hells says not to visit (important board exam on Saturday) is the one I end up choosing. Anyhow, what did we do on H's only day off in 5 weeks? We went shopping of course. She says that's all there is to do, but of course we know Helen loves her shopping. There were lots of couples and I don't know what this says about a southern boy, but they seemed into the shopping as much as the ladies. I saw familes with their kids in stollers and their parents in wheelchairs (grandma sitting by herself while the family tries on clothes in J random store, but at least she's with the family instead of sitting in a home). Some store called Charlotte Russe had styles of tops/bottoms which seemed way too young for me (I still purchased a couple) and yet there were women twice my age shopping in there. Reminds me I need to get out of the house more often. :)

Okay, so yesterday, my 1st day on my own, I slept in, had breakfast out on the screened in porch, watched some cable, followed along to a yoga program, putzed around on the computer a bit, then biked it to UNC/Chapel Hill which is 'just down the street'. Luckily the sun had come out after a couple days of Seattle weather. I checked on-line, the campus was only 3 miles away, definitely doable by bike, but was I told about the big ass hill? No. :) I wandered around campus, found Franklin Street (the 'Ave' of Chapel Hill) grabbed some lunch and ate by the Old Well. Once H & A got home, we went out for bbq and then went back to Franklin Street for a beer at the Top of the Hill which has a great open air balcony. Came home to watch Syriana (Helen proceeded to fall asleep quick-like, can't be blamed when her wake up call is 5 AM--gee, doesn't becoming specialized in pharmacy sound better and better?).

My plan today: eat some leftover bbq for brunch and bus it to campus to window shop and check out campus some more. Biking would be great exercise, but my excuse is the bike is too small for me AND a key for the U-lock couldn't be found so I can't really leave the bike anywhere. Have a couple more movies I could watch. Tonight it's more beer drinking. Hmmm, I've drank more beer the last few days than in the last few weeks on my own back home. Gotta love vacation!

Multi-tasking sighting

You know when you're riding along on your bike and wish there was something else you could be doing? How about getting some reading done? As I was arriving back at work after class, a bike rider got off her bike to get it up onto the curb. She had this contraption set up between the handlebars. 2 small straps attached the handlbars on one end with the other ends attached to binder clips. Clipped in those binder clips was an article/paper of some sort, with portions highlighted. Maybe they were directions on how to ride said bicylce (don't forget to brake when you want to stop or slow down) or directions to her next location, but my guess it was neither of those. Are we so busy that we can't just ride our bikes?