We left Atlanta this morning and safely made it to Gatlinburg TN this afternoon (it’s a 5 hour drive).

Spent the afternoon walking around a bit. A lot has changed here, but not too much. It’s still very much a tourist place, though the mountains are beautiful. We did find a really cool store that sells nothing but hot sauce and the like. It was very cool–we walked out with 6 bottles of sauce, a bunch of salsa, and some beef jerky called “Tasty Cow”. My kind of place!

After that, we took a motor tour (Roaring Fork) though the forest. We didn’t stop much, since it was getting dark, but Evelyn got so see some of the beauty of the Smokies up close. After that, we headed to the craft area to check out a well-known pottery place. They had some very cool stuff. We ended up picking up some coffee mugs and a vase. Doesn’t sound too exciting, but the workmanship is amazing–they aren’t your normal coffee cups, that’s for sure.

Once that was done we drove over to Pigeon Forge, since Evelyn had never seen that kooky town before. (Since we came in through Cherokee, NC we didn’t go through PF earlier.) She was amazed by how weird PF is. It’s like a Southern Vegas mashed up with Six Flags and a bunch of country music halls. Lots of neon and flashing lights. All very surreal. The town is much much bigger than I remember it–though I did notice that the roads were widened quite a bit (used to be 1 or 2 lanes, now 3 each way).

Tomorrow (Sat) we’ll probably visit the park and do some hiking, though it’s probably going to be pretty busy. (It was moderately quiet when we got here at 2 PM, but the place is really hopping now–lots of people checking into the hotel for the weekend.) Hopefully the weather will be okay. If not, then we’ll do the local tourist stuff–so Ev can see the original Batmobile, etc.

I got an e-mail this morning asking for a second interview for Monday afternoon. So, here’s the current plan:

* Drive to Gatlinburg, TN today. Stay there Fri/Sat/Sun nights.
* First thing Monday we’ll drive back down to Atlanta for my 1 PM interview.
* Probably stay in Atlanta Monday night.
* Tuesday morning, either head back to Chicago, or over to Virginia.

 

Went to my interview today and it seemed to go fine. It’s with a small company in Atlanta that needs someone to handle their Data Center operations. Pretty similar to what I’ve done in the past, except with quite a bit more hardware (100+ servers). I should know tomorrow if they want me back for a second interview.

Now we’re packing our bags again and heading up to Gatlinburg, TN for the weekend. Evelyn hasn’t seen the Smoky Mountains, so we figured we’d stop there since we’re in the general area (it’s about 4-5 hours northeast of Atlanta). We’ll be taking the easterly route in (via 441 from NC) so we’ll be driving right though the National Park.

Then, on Monday will either head back down to Atlanta for a second interview, or head back north again. One of our friends is going to be in Chincoteague Virginia next week, so we may stop there on the way up. If so, we’d probably hit DC during the return trip, since it’s so close.

That’s the agenda as we know it right now. Lots and lots of driving.

Remember from Ron’s Ramblings:

In Little Rock, AR when Ron spotted a political sign:

Or when we had lunch at Royse City in Texas were the numbers of Trucks
out numbered cars.  Oh, by the way, Soulman’s Bar-B-Que food is AWESOME.

Also, we saw another truck the sign on read ” Dallas Sheriff Commerical Vechile Enforcement Unit”:

People sure do love their trucks. 

We also saw a sign which we hadn’t seen in Chicago:

Talk about road houses we saw quite a few of them throughtout our roadtrip.

Another type of structure that we saw was an unusual funeral home.

Finally, we saw a life size truck bill board.

We got to Atlanta safe and sound. I’m worn out from the drive, so gonna relax for a bit and then go out later.

Ev and I are heading out to Atlanta first thing tomorrow morning. I’ve got an interview on Thursday morning. After that we’ll stay in Georgia for another day, then probably head up to the Smokies (eastern TN) for a day or two (since we’ll be “in the area”). So, another 700 mile (one-way) road trip is ahead.

I learned about the interview today, so spent the evening buying a complete new  wardrobe. Just what I needed, another suit. I had everything I needed in the PR > Chicago boxes, but they STILL have not arrived (bad weather was an excuse to slow everything down)…it’s been nearly 7 weeks since our stuff shipped! Very frustrating, since we want to move to Austin (or Atlanta?), but can’t until that stuff arrives.

So, we’ll be on the road tomorrow (Wed), arriving in Atlanta late in the evening. Then Thr/Fri there. Then, probably, eastern Tennessee for a couple of days, and then back to Chicago probably next Tuesday or Wednesday. (Unless, of course, I get a call from someone in Austin.) All told, we’ll have driven through 10 states in the last 30 days.

Tired of trolling through all the news sites to see how the world is falling apart? Want one place to go to that gives you a worldwide overview? Well, your dream has come true. Go to the Emergency and Disaster Information Service and check on what’s happening in the world. Everything from home break-ins to toxic spills to earthquakes. That should keep you awake at night.

(A mosquito pool in Manchester has tested positive for Eastern equine encephalitis in New Hampshire …  Everybody Panic!!!)

I predict a huge jump in Walgreens & CVS stock prices. After all, the Terrorists have forced everyone flying to toss their toiletries at the gate. Nothing like knee-jerk reactions to hose everything up (again).

I feel especially bad for the business travelers who try to make their trips a bit easier by not checking in luggage. (And what protects us from something going boom in a checked in bag, hm?) And now they are saying no electronics at all, so are you gonna check your laptop and have it stolen/broken? I’ve already had one laptop screen cracked in half after they inspected the bag (thus moving the padding I had around the laptop). I’m thinking that people are just going to start sending their baggage UPS–it will get there sooner!
Was also reading that things like car alarm fobs were banned–because they could set off a bomb–but cell phones are still okay. WTF? I’d be more worried about the cell phone. Just goes to show how silly and dumb people can be.

In the end, it’s almost pointless to travel by air in the US. When you add up the time to (a) drive to the airport, (b) find parking, (c) check in baggage, (d) go through security, (e) sit through endless departure delays, (f) finally get off the ground and fly, (g) arrival delays, (h) wait for baggage, (i) get ground transport, (j) drive to final destination. I went through the numbers before our Austin trip and it was faster for me to drive the route than to fly. That’s pretty frickin’ sad.

The ever-doomed AOL released over 500,000 user search records the other day–for research purposes they say. Now anyone with a bit of IT skills can put together a complete history of AOL users’ search terms. Read more about it here and be sure to check out the Fark comments here–they’ve dug up some really disturbing stuff.

They quickly pulled the file down (it’s huge–over 450MB), but the cat is out of the bag. The file is mirrored in a million different places and all the geeks out there are loading ‘em up in databases. On the bright side, the AOL account name is replaced with a unique ID. On the dark side, everyone has a unique ID, so you can easily scan for trends by user. There is some really, really, really disturbing stuff in there. Read the articles for more.

The Prelinger Archive, part of the Internet Archive, has a good movie on Puerto Rico, circa 1955. I find this one more interesting that the other one they have, because it focuses on the rapid changes the island underwent during the 1950′s. It’s a bit sad to watch, since so much of the money making farming has gone. The link to the movie is here (you need Quicktime and broadband). If you want to see the details go here (there is a dial-up version).