Finally: A Reason to go to Kernersville?

Today I went through my glorious Easter Sunday routine of hitting up all the grocery and drug stores in town looking for discounted Cadbury Mini-Eggs. Yes, Cadbury Mini-Eggs are the main thing that causes this agnostic, pretty much God-indifferent fellow to go through Easter Sunday with a sense of joy, gratitude, and reverence.

Not everyone seems to know about the good news of Cadbury Mini-Eggs, and so I was sharing some of these with the friendliest barista ever Martha at the Thru-way Borders today. However, she also informed me that in shores all over Kernersville during the Easter season, you can frequently find handmade Moravian Easter Egg chocolates made in a variety of delicious flavors, such as coconut. My interest piqued, I asked her if it was possible to pick some of these seasonal Moravian delicacies even though Easter had already passed. She said no, these would be long-gone by now.

I thus announced that I would have to make a mental note to find these Moravian Easter Egg candies about 350 days from now. Why 350, Marthas asked? Well, because if I wait 365 days from now, I'm going to be in this same sorry state, completely deprived of Kernersville's Moravian Easter Eggs this time again next year, no? You see, Momma didn't raise no fool.

Hopefully we'll see a follow-up on this post 350 days from now, with a picture of me enjoying delicious coconut-flavored Moravian delicacies... mmm...

Night Skiing Deserves a Quiet Night

Did you know that North Carolina has skiing? Did you know that North Carolina has skiing in late March? Well, I think I'd heard about the first one, but skiing has sort of skipped my mind my mind since I got here. I like to ski enough, but I also like to take a disparaging view of East Coast "mountains." In any case, Austin presented the fine idea of going night-skiing last Saturday, in what I have to only imagine was quite possibly the last ski weekend of the season, and so we headed off to Sugar Mountain.

True to its name, the snow felt like sugar -- you know the kind that you get when it's been sitting out in the humidity for too long? And to get it out of the container you have to start chipping at it with a butter knife or something? Yeah, that kind. Staying on top of my skis as I blithely flew down the mountain at top speeds anyway was thus a bit of a challenge. I also went out of my way to hit any little jumps I could find and get as much air as possible, and I'm proud to say that this resulted in at least four wipeouts, with skis and poles flying every which way. I told Austin that if you don't wipe out at least once, you're just not trying hard enough.

On the road to Jackson, MS

A couple pictures from a recent roadtrip to Jackson, MS:

Oh, if only it were that easy...


As advertised: the Peanut Depot store in Birmingham, AL sells ONLY roasted and boiled peanuts. I tried to get some other friends into these lovely boiled peanuts, and they weren't feeling it. What's wrong with people these days?

Got to Jackson just in time to see the last day of an exhibit on Jim Henson at the Mississippi Museum of Art. Pretty interesting contrast to the Tim Burton exhibit at MOMA in New York. Check this out if you have 9 minutes... it's sort of like Sesame-Street-animation-meets-art-school-final-project...

Solice from a Prawn

Well, in the end I didn't make it out to Mexico. This made me very sad, although a couple friends thought I had made the right choice after hearing on NPR that border towns around Mexico (Chihuahua was named in their little list) had witnessed 200 murders in the past... what was it? Oh yes, week.

I figured the only way to relieve my disappointment was to head to the Spanish restaurants on Waughtown street, this time joined by my friend Feisty. We happened to go to El Paisano on a Friday, which so happens to be one of the few days that they serve caldo de camarones (shrimp broth soup). Feisty and I ordered a couple bowls of this and loved diving through the broth to get to all the yummy jumbo shrimp and chunks of whitefish found within. Mmmmm....

Postscript: Another friend Pat who had joined me on a previous Waughtown excursion heard about my failed attempt to get down to Mexico, and this conversation ensued:

Pat: "I've heard your Spanish down on Waughtown street."

DW: "Yes?"

Pat: "Not impressed."

Oh really? Well, I got some choice words for you in English then, my friend.

Prawn says: Don't be sad, DW, there will be other trips to Mexico.

Chihuahua debate

Well, I had planned to make a new trip to the Spanish world to learn Espanol starting next week, but these plans are on deathwatch. My original plan was to follow out my friend Michelle to Chihuahua, Mexico, where I would camp out with her and take three weeks of Spanish classes. Unfortunately, she announced a plan not to go back, less than a day after I had bought my non-refundable ticket, which seems to have to do with the fact that she has no money to get there, and no job once she does. And perhaps her drive to return has been dampened by the fact that she witnessed a double murder the last week she was living there previously, right across the street from her house. (I will leave out all the gory details.)

I had bought my ticket to visit telling her "I hope you understand that YOU'RE about the only reason I would feel at all tempted to visit this place. In fact, I would almost literally be anywhere else in the Spanish-speaking world." To which she replied "Aww, thanks!"

In any case, I am now faced with the fact that I have bought a non-refundable ticket to one of the most dangerous cities in Mexico to visit a place where I have no contacts. I am trying to figure out whether to go through with the trip or not. Currently I am sitting at Border's where the Fodor's guide has this to say about it all:

[Danger symbol:] Given the problems with drug-cartel related violence in Chihuahua City and Ciudad Juarez, we strongly advise that you avoid using either as a transit hub or base.

Hmm. Sounds like a great place to be for three weeks. Blood levels rising...

My Last Memory of Roger Ebert

I felt more compelled to write this entry after reading a recent article in Esquire on Roger Ebert. The article details aspects of Roger Ebert's life after losing his lower jaw to cancer and thus being rendered unable to speak, eat, or drink. The article was so graphic and depressing at times it almost made me cry, but it was also a strangely uplifting tale, detailing how Ebert has emerged from his cancer with good humor and into one of the most productive and inspired writing periods of his life.

Before moving to Winston, I lived in Champaign, IL for several years, and Roger Ebert would bring in about a dozen shows a year to his own annual film festival (The "Rober Ebert Overlooked Film Festival"). I probably caught three or so a year. I remember Roger Ebert would introduce and then debrief every movie there and tell us why he loved them -- that was actually the first place I saw Junebug, which is now my favorite movie of all time. (And takes place in Winston-Salem no less. Weird.)

The last year I was in Champaign was also the year that Ebert lost his jaw to cancer. After years of introducing every movie, Ebert hadn't introduced any of them that year... he instead quietly sat in the back of the theater in a special Laz-Z-Boy chair set up for him, and watched as many movies as he had energy for. I think that everyone there thought that would probably be Roger's last Ebertfest.

My last memory of Ebert was when they showed "Beyond the Valley of the Dolls" that year. The movie was chosen to close the festival, and bizarrely it was actually largely written by Roger Ebert. To everyone's amazement, he actually introduced that movie, and when he took the stage, his face looked something like a fish pulled out from deep sea, with buggy eyes, and puffy lips, and his neck was wrapped in a thick bandaged cast. But he also looked very happy to be there.

Since Ebert couldn't talk, he brought a laptop up with him, hooked it up to some electronic equipment, and pushed play. Out came an electronic voice that said "Hi, my name is Hal. You might remember me from Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey. And today, I will be serving as the voice of Roger Ebert..."

Watching that film that day was one of the most memorable movie experiences I've ever had. Ebert's movie was full of random acts of violence, transvestites, and yes, sex, drugs, and rock and roll. It was hilarious and unexpected. When the movie ended, everyone stood to their feet and gave Ebert a standing ovation that lasted at least five minutes.

That day it struck me that Roger Ebert was really more than the guy who doled out thumbs up and down on Saturday every week as I was growing up -- he was a creative man who loved life deeply and desired to share that love with others through his writing. I hope that he has many years yet to share his gifts.

Back Baby

This is why I won't apologize for my leave of absence:

Above pilfered from XKCD.com

Of course, I took Spanish, not French in High School, so the above would hardly apply anyway.

On a completely unrelated note, I think Doodles is currently illustrating a dream of mine. More later...

Bird is the Word

Once again, Doodles has enlisted me to make a piece of art for one of the silent auctions being run through the Electric Moustache art gallery at Krankies. So I put together two versions of this idea. Below is the version that I'll probably keep:

In any case, the silent auction starts at 6pm on Saturday, Sept. 6th, where you can see (and yes, buy) Version 2 of this fine art piece (?), as well as many other works from much more reputable people. I hope to see you there!

Goodbye, Breakfast Club

Despite the timely title, the title is hardly a tribute to the late John Hughes (although plans for a Breakfast Club party are percolating). No, this post is actually intended as a way to pay my respects to the passing of my own Breakfast Club -- a group that I regularly did brunch with here in Winston for the past two years. With JaryMane leaving town on Saturday for the bright lights of Chicago, and DJ Dan heading to the West Coast only weeks before, I have suddenly found myself the only Breakfast Club member left to roam our old stomping grounds in Winston.

Below I detail -- In Memoriam -- the members of my Breakfast Club. RIP.

	DJ Dan. AKA, "the Athlete" Earned his nickname through keeping a ridiculous pace during hikes to South Mountain or the Profile Trail around Grandfather Mountain and never breaking a sweat. Jerk.
	J.P. AKA, "the Princess" Earned her nickname through the fact that she was obviously worshipped by DJ Dan. Molly Ringwald had nothing on J.P.
	"GED", AKA, "the Brain" The ironically-named GED was the first one to leave, moving on to the rarified lands of New York City law schools, where she has already started her inevitable march to the US Supreme Court.
	DW, AKA "the Criminal" Oh yes, recently I got all my hair cut off. Arrrgh! I'm a pirate.
	JaryMane, AKA "the Basketcase" Earned her nickname through the fact that she is a vegan who kills rats (true! trying figuring that one out...) and the fact that she left Winston-Salem for Chicago. What is she thinking? That's right, she's crazy. But she will be missed.

My closing tribute to the Breakfast Club:

We accepted the fact that we had to sacrifice whole Sunday mornings eating brunch with one another for whatever it was we did wrong, but we think its crazy to write an essay telling you who we think we are. You may see us as you want to see us... In the simplest terms and the most convenient definitions: We found that each one of us is a brain, an athlete, a basketcase, a princess, and a criminal.

Sincerely yours, the Breakfast Club.

Peru in Review

I still have a couple things to remember from Peru, including what I've been calling the Swine Cold -- a nasty little bugger that I've had since two days before I left town.

In any case, I put together a little photo album of the trip, which can be seen at this link. !Salud!

Haggling in Peru

One of the sad things about Peru is just how easy it is to haggle if you don´t care about people´s feelings. I try here to get the essence of two conversations (conveniently glossing over the fact that I speak Spanish worse than horribly, and the other people involved speak very little English).

---------

Story 1: Yesterday, while getting a shoeshine in Cuzco´s Plaza de Armas. Boy who appears to be about 14 approaches and since my shoes are being cleaned, I am sort of a captive audience:

Boy: Do you want to see my art?

Me: Sorry... I don´t want to buy any art.

Boy: Please, look. I painted these myself. My name is Mario. [Shows me his name in the corner of the paintings.]

Me: I´m not really interested in buying any art.

[Boy puts artwork in my hands... these are basically postcard-sized, but each one is handpainted. Eventually I find one that I kind of like.]

Me: How much does this one cost?

Boy: It is 20 soles for 1, or 2 for 35, or 3 for 45.

Me: I was thinking I would be paying closer to 3 soles.

Boy (stunned... insulted I think): 12 soles.

Me: I´ll pay 8. This is the most I will pay... [Eventually he agrees, and the 8 soles change hands]

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Story 2: Today, on a guided tour through Chincheros (a very high mountain town). The tour guide has us pass through a market on our way to look at a church.

Girl: You want to buy a hat.

Me: I don´t need a hat.

Girl (whining): You want a hat... 15 soles! [note: a dollar is worth about 3 soles. So... she is offering me a hat that I would probably buy in the states for 15 dollars for 5 dollars]

Me: Maybe later.*

[About half an hour later I return to the bus... the girl spots me.]

Girl: You want to buy a hat.

Me: I don´t need a hat.

Girl: But you said maybe later! 10 soles.

Me: I really don´t need a hat.

Girl: But you said maybe later! 5 soles.

Me (trying to walk away, fruitlessly): No, I really don´t need a hat... I already have a hat.

Girl: But you said maybe later! 2 soles! [Yes, she is trying to sell me a hat that I would get in the states for $15 for about 60 cents]

Me: I´m sorry! I don´t need a hat.

[I walk into the bus and sit by a window. The girl continues to knock on my window for awhile, until the tour guide shooes her away...]

--------

In my own defense, I would like to say that I was only able to get these poor kids to commit to these insulting prices because I really didn´t particularly want what they were selling... so they were basically agreeing that getting something was better than getting nothing. When I have been interested in the goods, I have usually paid fairly close to their initial asking price. But yes... you could easily take advantage of the extreme poverty out here. The Footprint guide that I´ve been walking around with suggests that you pay ¨fair prices¨ noting that people are so poor here and there are sooooo many people trying to sell things to tourists that you can often get people to agree to almost any price, however insulting. I've certainly seen this to be true, and it makes me sad...


* I don´t actually remember saying ¨maybe later¨... however, given the end result I would generally just advise against using these particular words)

The Search for Warmth

I got back to Cuzco after a trip down the Rio Apurímac today, no worse for wear except for a couple bug bites and being quite sore from three days of rafting. More on that later...

One thing I had forgotten in getting back into town after being in down almost in a jungle climate for a couple days is how hard it is to stay warm in this town. Cuzco is about two miles high, and it is the middle of Cuzco´s winter, so when the sun goes down the temperature drops quickly. I decided to walk around the Cuzco´s central square, the Plaza de Armas, waiting for one of the seemingly endless masseuses to stop me on the street so that I could get a nice massage. The massage would be nice, but to be honest I was more interested in potential supplementary services, like a jacuzzi or a sauna so I could restore some body heat...

Finding this combination ended up being a little harder than I expected. I passed up several potential masseuses (?) because they didn´t offer these secondary heat-providing services. Ultimately, I ended up agreeing to go to a place where they offered ¨Inca Massage,¨which apparently means that they do regular massage and then put hot stones on you for awhile. The hot stones sounded like just what I wanted.

The location of the massage ended up being, as far as I could tell, a massage spa + travel agency + private home. (Not unusual... other stores can sell you groceries, change money, book trips, and allow you to make international phone calls all in about a 12x12 room...) The woman who enlisted me in the massage got me to the building and asked her son through the door to turn off the television before letting me in. Afterwards, she led me upstairs -- above the travel agency -- to a sort of rickety second floor with three massage tables set up pretty close to one another. And this is where I realized that the place was disappointingly drafty.

The massage ended up being pretty good, but the hot stones were not hot enough, and as soon as it was over, I laid on the table for a couple minutes, trying to avoid the cold that awaited just outside of the towel, and then finally dressed as quickly as possible. I suppose I will have to try harder next time. The going rate for massages here is about $8 an hour, so why not? Maybe I won´t even wait until tomorrow...

-----
Current location: Inside an Internet cafe in the San Blas district of Cuzco. They are playing a version of John Lennon´s 'Imagine' on Peruvian pan-pipes and I am wearing a scarf and hat.

DW Does Machu Picchu... Solo

My friend Tracey organized our trip to Machu Picchu, and then the morning afterward fell violently ill and only got into the park for about an hour before deciding that she had to return to our hostel and sleep/vomit/do whatever other horrible things it is sick people do. Que lastima...

In any case, as Tracey was leaving Machu Picchu she gave me the all important task of documenting the trip. I only had about two hours to do this and so I ended up walking through there at a pretty brisk pace, but I think I was successful enough. Here are a couple pictures:

	Guide with a tour group during the sunrise at Machu Picchu.
	My version of the shot that you've already seen 1000 times. BTW -- you can hike that mountain thing in the back. It's called Huayna Picchu (or Wayna Picchu), and they only let the first 400 people that come hike it each day... something good to know for next time...
	People pay a whole bunch of money to do the four-day Inca Trail hike, in large part because they think that this is the only way to see the Sun Gate. Well, you can save yourself a lot of time by just hiking backwards from Machu Picchu... it'll take about half an hour and this is about what you'll see.
	A picture of me walking back into Machu Picchu from the Inca Trail taken by... me... When hiking alone, desperate times call for desperate measures...
	As I walked through Machu Picchu, I stumbled onto this little vizcacha and a Peruvian couple. The woman kept saying "¡Que linda, que linda!" (how beautiful! How beautiful!) while the husband tortured the poor animal by getting as close to it as possible until it scurried away.
	More or less what Tracey was up to all day as I was having my fun.

Tracey has since had to head back to work, and so I am now in Cuzco for the next week sans travelling companions. Next up: the Río Apurímac, where I'll be floating Class 4 rapids with a bunch of Israelis (I think). Catch you on the flip-side!

The Really South: Goodbye Lima

I´ve noticed that I have a nasty habit of going AWOL for a long time just after leaving somewhat disconcerting posts. Well, the rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated. I am currently in Cusco (Cuzco? ...Both work) after spending a wonderful last couple days in Lima. I ate some wonderful ceviche, had my first anticuchos (marinated beef hearts... delicious!), drank free whiskeys all night at a party hosted by Lima´s DedoMedio (Middle Finger) magazine, and crossed Barranco's beautiful Puente De Los Suspiros (Bridge of Sighs).

We'll see if this video loads, but this was one of my highlights of my trip -- the relatively new "Circuito Mágico Del Agua", which is a park that consists almost entirely of water fountains:

The Ladrons and the Gringo-Swindling

* The word "ladrons" translates approximately to "thieves" but it also somehow reminds me of "toilets" for some reason which is appropriate enough.

** Also note that all the facts of my accounting of the events of yesterday are highly suspect... this includes the names of the people I interacted with, to my accounting of anything I think I might have said since I don't speak spanish...  I just got tired of writing "supposedly" to qualify every sentence and so you can mentally add those in if you like.

OK... a full accounting of the events of yesterday would take a long time, but suffice it to say that yesterday while wandering the streets of Lima I ended up bumping into a man named Jose, who was playing in a band in Barranco later that evening.  We talked as well as people can when one person doesn't speak better than pre-K English and the other doesn't speak better than pre-K Spanish, but we were having a good enough time and soon I agreed to buy him a drink at a bar.

We get to a dark bar -- I think that we were the only people there at the time, and soon another friend of his shows up.  I agree to get pisco sours (the drink I'm holding here) for the three of us, and we order a plate of alpaca meat with other goodies.  Both were tasty enough.  And we had most of the conversation in Spanish... so I was having a pleasant time with good food and drink practicing my Espanol.

There is much more to this story really (including their attempts to get me to buy an expensive bottle of "ayawaska" from a shaman -- this is a sort of hallucinogenic elixir which appeared to me to look like blended toilet water), but in any case, I ended up walking out of there $150 poorer from the three drinks and alpaca meat I had bought... which might not sound like the most money in the world to Americans, but things are cheaper here and my friend Fabi assures me this is about the price you would pay for a good meal at the most expensive restaurants in town.

In any case, I probably would have been out a lot more except for the convenient fact that I didn't have any credit cards on me and hadn't brought enough money to pay the bill I had already racked up anyway, and so the party had to end sooner than my compadres had originally intended... I imagine I could have been blindsided by a much larger bill later if they hadn't learned sooner how little I was carrying on me.  

The owners of the bar wanted me to leave some sort of collateral behind while I picked up the rest of the money. I was only carrying my passport and camera, and I didn't want these people to know where I was staying, so this seemed to me to be a horrible option, but I luckily had a cell phone on me from Fabi's mom, which was supposed to help me get out of any emergencies.  I thought this qualified, and so I called and luckily Fabi came to the rescue.

It took Fabi about a half hour to arrive at which point Jose and his friend (the one in the picture... I don't remember his name) were gone.  As I sat and waited I actually had a very pleasant time trying to talk with some of the staff of this bar in Spanish, who for the most part spoke no English whatsoever.  But I started our conversation by noting to one that "that was an expensive Spanish lesson..."

The Really South (Prelude): A Lesson from Avshalom Caspi

A couple years ago as I was in graduate school, working my ass off on my dissertation and generally feeling stressed out of my mind, we had a guest speaker come to town by the name of Avshalom Caspi, who I had the privilege of joining for a free lunch at a classy restaurant as a part of his festivities. Dr. Caspi is a widely regarded authority on the study of genetics and personality development, and conducts ridiculously massive studies including one which consists of surveying an entire birth cohort of New Zealanders every two or three years (others are more ridiculous). He also has long flowing hair and was wearing bright purple socks with yellow spots with his suit at the time.

I was supposed to have gleaned many lessons about how to conduct research from him at this lunch, but given my generally stressed out state at the time I don´t remember anything from that day at all. Except for one thing: he told me that when he and his wife got married, they made a vow to one another that they would have a trip once a year where they would go someplace exotic for a full month. And after some 15 or so years of marriage, they have stuck by this vow, travelling to places like Madagascar and Ecuador and Thailand.

At the time this was a sort of revelation to me: you could conduct research that was good enough to get you papers published in Science and get you a job at Cambridge, while at the same time taking vacation that lasted an entire month out of the year. My last several years of almost incessant working started to seem... unnecessary and perhaps counterproductive. That year, I resolved to do one of these trips myself (I ended up in Turkey) and currently I am sipping pisco sours in Lima, Peru, just a couple days away from Cuzco and Machu Picchu. Thanks, Dr. Caspi! I´m now trying to spread the good word to other hopeless workaholics.

More later...

Big 3-0

A Facebook comment from DJ Dan on the event of my 30th birthday:

Happy Birthday! Your personality is now set like plaster.

This was an allusion to the belief among some psychologists that your personality is "set like plaster" and basically impossible to change after age 30.

My reply:

Fuck! I had so much self-improvement planned for last night that I just didn't get around to.

An interesting reply, I think... perhaps not proving that personality is fixed at 30, but maybe in several ways illustrating that I have much self-improvement left to do. Let's hope the psychologists are wrong.

Summer Nights at RayLen, w/ Rosetta Stone Star

A little over a week ago I went to the second concert by my multi-talented friend Leah at RayLen vineyards. The first concert was a classical concert (which meant that I can't name any of the songs), which was held around April -- here's a picture that was snapped by alert concert-goer Brad:

The first concert was great and widely attended. But the second to me was even better. By June you could look around the RayLen grounds and see fields of ripe vines in every direction. We were just a day or two shy of the solstice, and so the days were long enough that the final songs of the concert were played against the setting sun. There were probably close to two hundred people listening to the concert over glasses of wine on the lawn in front of the winery.

The second concert also featured a much more eclectic set of music... only a smattering of classical songs that I couldn't remember the name of. This concert featured a set list ranging from Leah crooning Elton John's "Your Song" on the piano, followed by a cover of Vince Guiardi's "Christmas Time is Here" from the Charlie Brown Christmas Special (a Top 10 Christmas song ever, btw). Over the course of the concert Leah played not just the piano, but also the bassoon and guitar, all while singing most of the songs. There were also some other unusual song selections which escape my mind at the moment. But I remember the last song sung at the finale was a sort of sensual version of Marvin Gaye's "Let's Get it On," which Leah said she hadn't originally been planning to do but maybe the ambient wine got the best of her. I dunno.

In any case, it has been about a week since the concert, and I had sort of forgotten to do this post, until I was working through my Spanish using the Rosetta Stone software and stumbled onto none other than Leah again, who was providing important clues into the proper use of the past tense:


I am trying to get at the heart of the mystery on this one and have contacted Leah for clues. No answers yet, but she did perhaps unwittingly confirm that this is in fact her. So guitar, piano... bassoon... Rosetta Stone superstar... what doesn't she do?

Hip to be Square

About a month ago while sitting at Krankies one day, innocently drinking a Boddington's Pub Ale, I suddenly found a little square piece of wood shoved in my face... Doodles had enlisted me to create a piece of artwork for the Electric Moustache's "Square" exhibit.

After making a trip to Michael's to get art supplies, I went about making my first piece of artwork in several years, and to the best of my knowledge my first painting ever. Here it is, and my sister's are below:

I titled this one "European Rooftops" after taking photos of various
buildings I liked from Google images and smooshing them together.

Doodle's first picture, which she titled "Ganesh"

Doodle's second picture, "Simon Bolivar," modeled after a famous portrait.

The exhibit happened last week, and was accompanied by a silent auction. I was around for most of the auction, watching my picture from afar. I was amazed when someone actually placed a bid down (the first piece of art I've ever sold!). I resisted the temptation to walk up and talk to the bidder, as I imagined he would ask "what can you tell me about this painting?" and then I would say something stupid like "This is the first painting I've ever made... I was figuring out how to use acrylic paints as I was going along," and then the man would be filled with regret and try to scratch his name off the bid list.

Talkin' Cajun Yard Dog

I've been to Charlotte many times now, and had this conversation many times with my friend Jess -- a distressed Charlotte native:

Jess: "You know that there are other places to eat in Charlotte than Cajun Yard Dog, right?"

DW (channeling Homer Simpson): "Whatever Jess. Cajun Yard Dog is like steak. And why would you eat hamburger when you can have steak all the time?"

Mmm.... Cajun Yard Dog. Step through the door in an unassuming strip mall, and suddenly you are back in New Orleans. Some personal favorites: The seafood platters, the Po Boy sandwiches, the crawfish etouffe, the "okrachokie" appetizer (fried okra, artichoke, and calamari), and some of the best shrimp and grits I've had in the south, all washed down with a pint of New Orleans' Abita beers. Then there is the "smothered cabbage" side dish which absolutely cannot be missed: cabbage cooked in heavy cream, white wine, three cheeses, hot sauce, and a bunch of other probably heart-destroying things until it basically tastes like decadent mashed potatoes...

Well, last weekend, Jess and I got a group of seven folks together to go to head to Charlotte for the day. After watching a movie, the seven of us tried to figure out where to go for dinner. The two choices? A Mediterranean restaurant, and Cajun Yard Dog. Where should we go? I abstained, saying "I'm impartial; either is fine with me". One by one, everyone else abstained, until getting to DJ Dan, who said "I'm partial... let's go to Cajun Yard Dog." And of course, I was perfectly happy with the outcome. This of course led to a familiar conversation:

Jess: "You know that there are other places to eat in Charlotte than Cajun Yard Dog."

DW: "Whatever, Jess."

After being at Cajun Yard Dog so often that I know
the waitress's name, I figured I should buy a shirt.