Year: 2002

Hollywood III

Went to a matinee of “Minority Report” today. I love Sci-Fi films and Donna usually humors me, of course having Tom Cruise in it helped. Unfortunately the graphic eyeball transplant sequence caused me to have to promise to take her one Julia Roberts movie *and* one Sandra Bullock movie before I will get to pick another movie for us to see. All in all it was a very good movie. Interesting concept that was well executed, up until the very end. At the point where the credits should have rolled, it gave us not one, but two answers to questions that we didn’t ask and really didn’t need to know. I guess the film makers or the studio felt we had to have a warm and fuzzy feeling as we left the theater instead of just the satisfaction of a mystery solved.

Tow Truck Museum

Almost didn’t drive the car at all today. Took the free electric shuttle bus to downtown early. We then walked across the pedestrian (and bike) only Walnut Street Bridge to the other side of the Tennessee River and visited some not yet open shops and Coolidge Park with its marvelous carousel (not open yet either.) Walked back across to go inside the Tennessee Aquarium. We visited it way back around the time it opened in 1992 and it was worth the re-visit. They had a special sea horse exhibit downstairs that was worth the price of admission alone. After the Aquarium we had an early lunch of Japanese food at Sekisui right across the street. We were going to catch the matinee showing of Minority Report, but were about an hour early so we ducked into the Tow Truck Museum. Officially called the International Towing and Recovery Hall of Fame and Museum and at 4 bucks a pop for admission, well worth it. The first ever wrecker was made just one block away at the Ernest Holmes Company. After watching the movie we walked the 12 blocks back to our hotel. In the evening we wanted to go see the minor league Chattanooga Lookouts play a game and planned on taking the shuttle back in town and walking home afterwards. But at the last minute decided to drive and maybe take a short nighttime drive afterwards. Stayed for the whole game, which the Lookouts won 4-3, but were so tired afterwards that we just went back to the hotel and crashed.

Erin Andrews

Who does she work for? Braves – Red Sox have been playing a weekend series and I’ve been lucky enough to catch some of the games on TV. TBS has televised Friday and Sunday while Fox did the Saturday game. I vastly prefer the TBS versions even thought they are more Braves-centric over Foz’s usually overdone graphics and announcers. On TBS they used to just read off the scores of other ongoing games, but now for some reason feel the need to break away periodically to a blonde, tan, pearly white toothed Erin Andrews for updates. Each time we break away there is a flashy EA Sports (a game console game maker) logo video animation, Erin introduces of clip of some ball player smacking a home run, she tells us the score, we get the EA Sports thing again and we are back to the Braves game. Does Erin work for TBS or EA Sports? Hard to tell.

Vague Road Signs

Decided to take a drive this morning following a loop devised by the Chattanooga Bicycle Club for a Century. It is billed as a 3-State, 3-Mountain Challenge so it should make for a nice little Miata drive. Once again we had an exciting time of it following someone else’s directions. A combination of my misinterpreting the instructions, Donna misreading the cue sheet, flaky odometer readings and vague road signs made for a “fun” trip. In spite of several u-turns and a couple of backtracks it really was a good trip, filled with windy roads that were little traveled and in spots quite scenic. Glad we are not still riding bikes as much as we used too though, as we might have been tempted to ride it and that definitely would have been a CHALLENGE.

Triskaidekaphobia

We spent last night in a brand new Holiday Inn Express in Anderson, SC. They put us in room 315. It wasn’t until we were leaving the next morning that I noticed that the room next door was 311. In this place all the odd numbered rooms were on one side of the hall and all the even numbers were on the other. That means we were really in room 313. Would they have gotten complaints about staying in that number room?

Tonight and for the next 3 nights were are staying at the Holiday Inn Choo-Choo Hotel in downtown Chattanooga. Our room number is 1015. In this building all the rooms are on one side of the hall and are numbered consecutively. The room to our left is 1014 and to the left of that is 1013. Go figure.

100 Best Road Trips In America

The people who write directions for books, obviously don’t have someone other than themselves drive it and try it out before publication. We were trying to follow the directions in a book from Reader’s Digest entitled 100 Best Road Trips In America through northern Georgia. We missed a few turns. No real problem as we are on vacation with no real deadlines, but frustrating nonetheless. Found a couple of the highlights, drove by a couple and skipped the rest when it got too hot to keep the top down any longer. On arrival in Chattanooga we circled the downtown area a couple of times looking for the Holiday Inn Choo-Choo Hotel. Finally we double parked in front of the Visitor’s Center and asked. Oops, no wonder we couldn’t find it, either they moved the hotel and train 8 blocks north or our memory of the location was faulty.

Before The Signal Faded

Used the cockpit cover at work and now for the first time, using it overnight outside. Drove to Anderson on a beautiful night and got to listen to the 5th inning of the Braves – Red Sox game on the radio, before the signal faded. Arrived at the hotel in time to see the last 2 innings and the Red Sox lose. 🙁

Only 7 transitions since last Thursday, I thought it would have been more….started down, went up, went down, went up, went down, went up, went down, went up and it is still up.
Top Transitions sine 02/02/02: 168 — posted by Brian the Red at 22:07