Gimme a Spring Break - Days 1 & 2

Spring Break with the kids isn't really a vacation. In fact at the end, I will most likely need a vacation from the vacation. We did Disney last year, and this year we returned to Orlando (off-campus) to see what other sadistic and expensive adventures the Tragic Kingdom has to offer.

The new Honda Pilot was called on for its first road trip, and the drive down from Savannah was low maintenance as the kids watched DVDs with their wireless headsets, while Dad listened to Michigan whack Florida in the Regional Final on XM.

So three generations of the Backtime Editorial Department found a very nice and reasonably priced 3-bedroom villa in Kissimmee as home base. After unloading all the toys, board games, clothes, and food, we headed out to Dave & Busters for a decent dinner and some video gaming.

It's like Las Vegas, only with kids from all over the world. The staff was very accommodating and the dinner booth was huge. We easily could have fit a party of 8.

Then today was the all-day Sea World trip. I was told this was a "can't miss" stop in Orlando, which is a little bit of a stretch. The kids liked Hershey Park much better because they qualified hight-wise for so many more rides. Though the Sea Lion/Pirate show, and the Whale show were both fun and amazingly choreographed.

The show at Shamu Stadium was almost as well orchestrated as this trip, which still has three full days left. And as any good producer will tell you, it almost always looks better on paper.

Happy Accidents

I was driving East on Anderson Street. It's the road that connects my house with the Truman Parkway. It's the road I take multiple times every day, and it's the way I take the kids to school as I had just an hour earlier.

But on this day, February 12th, also known as Georgia Day/Lincoln's Birthday/Fat Tuesday, I got lit up like a skinny wideout in Ed Reed's airspace.

It was about 9:50 AM when I left the house in my karate gear.  It had rained quite a bit so I wanted to avoid the standing water on Abercorn and take the end-around to the highway. Chuck Todd had gone to commercial so I switched over to The Spectrum, where I caught Kate Earl's One Woman Army - the last song I would ever hear in the Nissan Murano.

I was cruising down the thoroughfare when I caught it out of the corner of my eye. At my 3 o'clock, an old tan minivan going at roughly the same speed as I was on a side street. It didn't dawn on me that someone could run the Stop.

The photo I took of Paulsen Street was on a clear day, but there are two Stops and a blinking red light. This is the view of Driver #1 (her official name in the police report) aka "not me," who plowed me into the brick front steps of the house pictured here.

I didn't have the presence of mind to take a picture of the steps with the passenger's side of my vehicle resting on them.

But back to the moment, when I saw the other car it was too late. I couldn't slam on the brakes, I'd spin out on the wet road. So I hoped that it would swerve around me and braced for impact. I became Driver #2, aka "the shlamazel."

The moment was cinematic, as I've played it out in slow motion in my head. It was a tooth-jarring collision that sounded like a gunshot. All the airbags activated as the car spun around until it was jerked to a stop by the brick steps.

The front of the car was smoky and sulphury from the force of the airbags, the windshield was cracked, and the horn from the other car was blaring. I wobbled out and there were witnesses on the scene within moments. After asking me a number of questions, "Are you OK? Is there anyone else in the car?" the resident of the house brought me a chair from the porch and told me to sit down.

I was told there was a "gash" on my head, which turned out to be just an aggravated rug burn from the airbag. I still looked more like Uncle Fester than Frankenstein ("FrankenFester"). Police and EMS were on the scene very quickly, and I was sitting in my chair generally being left alone.

Driver #1 and her passenger were taken off in gurneys and neck braces. The witnesses had told the cops what had happened. The EMS guy asked if I needed medical attention. I didn't know, I was a little jelly-legged going to the car to get my license and insurance, and now I had to decide in my frame of mind whether I needed to go to the hospital. I decided I'd better be safe.

I was only scraped up, but as soon as I complained about some neck stiffness I was strapped on a gurney, immobilized, and was sent off in the second ambulance.

The ER is not a place you want to hang out in. Outside of a couple of nice-looking nurses, there's nothing good about the place. There was definitely no urgency to see me though I'm sure I rang up quite a bill. But I was asked my name and birthdate several times to make sure I was still with us.

After checking my neck and spine, checking for a concussion, treating the scrapes on my head, assessing my various contusions, and having an x-ray done on my big toe, everything was negative. I was released around 1:30 PM with some very weak pain meds.

I was told to be prepared for everything to hurt more tomorrow. I think that's where the expression comes from: "Tomorrow you're gonna feel like you were in a car wreck."

Then I obviously had no car, so I had to deal with Geico and then Enterprise. It was time consuming, but got quality service from each. Enterprise really did pick me up, in the pouring rain. I got a GMC Terrain with XM for a month - good enough I guess. I got new car seats for the kids, and picked up some sushi on the way home.

After informing some friends and family of my odyssey, I had a pity party for myself with Kentucky/Florida (dud), the State Of The Union (OK), and Justified (outstanding).

But it was a nice Fat Tuesday to be alive. Happy accidents are the ones you walk away from.

What State Am I In?

I landed in Ohio last night, and it was just after Gov. Romney left town so there was no air or ground traffic in the way. I got in a Hyundai Sonata rental (there were 25 Chevys in the National lot and none of them had XM - shame on the American auto industry!) and cruised out of Columbus.

Every news network was repeating the mantra "it all comes down to Ohio." Yet when I woke up this morning in Athens, Nate Silver had no longer listed the Buckeye State as "competitive." He had Ohio as a 91% probability of going to the President. Maybe I should have brought my lawn sign here and plopped it in front of my hotel room.

It was a crisp and beautiful 38-degree autumn morning in remote Athens, 80 minutes outside the state capital and 40 minutes from the West Virginia border. It warmed up during the day, and we're going to have some nice football weather for Frank Solich's 100th game with Bobcats, as they take on Bowling Green Wednesday night.

Athens is a nice progressive slice in one of the reddest portions of Ohio. But don't let the country quaintness fool you, the sorority girls are capable of some serious mayhem.

Headed out somewhere in the Court Street/Union Street area tonight, but sure to be back in the room to keep an eye on Election Day coverage.

The key plot point of the night is 11 PM eastern, which is 8 PM pacific, which is when the west coast polls close. It was the hour when the 2008 election was called for Obama. Every minute past then means that there is still some level of uncertainty, which increases Romney's chances.

But there's no way I'm staying up all night for results. I got a job to do tomorrow, and I want to keep it. I don't trust either candidate to create one for me.

Backtime Road Trip Day 4: Been Down This Road Before

Just played a 48-hour game of Running Bases on I-65.

I returned to Al Obama last night to pick up the kids for the journey north today. Stayed at my Father-In-Law's lake house, which is gorgeous and expansive, but has sketchy cell phone service and no internet (thus no road trip blog entry for yesterday).

Anyway we were off this morning, boomerang ready to launch. Two hours later, we were at the Nashville Zoo. One of the things that lured me there was the "Jungle Gym."

On the zoo's website, it describes the playground as 66,000 square feet with a 35-foot tall "Tree of Life." So we had barely waved to a couple of gibbons and squawked at a macaw, and my son was off to scour every inch of the structure.

Just over an hour later, in 96-degree heat, both kids were over-heated and under-nourished. The snack bar was the last stop in the zoo. The rest of the animals would have to wait until the next road trip.

So as I re-traced my steps back up to the greater-Louisville area, we passed the exact spot where I sat still on I-65 for over 3 hours Friday. I was listening to the Yankees-M's game on my never-leave-home-without-my XM radio. It was then I learned of the passing of legendary Yankees Public Address Announcer Bob Sheppard. Since I had been somewhat information-deprived, this was the first I heard of it - it was like the day the music died.

Sheppard was 99, and was the P.A. voice of the Yankees, Giants football, and St. John's basketball, where he taught speech for a quarter-century. Growing up in New Jersey literally minutes from The Stadium, everybody knew, and everybody mimicked Sheppard. Imitation is after all the greatest form of flattery.

My favorite Sheppard impersonation came from Sunday Night Baseball play-by-play man Jon Miller, who would have Sheppard ordering breakfast at Denny's.

"I'll have number one. Eggs...and toast. Number one."

We appropriately passed Shepherdsville, KY en route to Brooks, KY, where we crash for the night. And if the kids were dragging from the long trip (and there's plenty more of that to come), there was an outdoor pool and Papa John's on the menu. Hopefully things go swimmingly from here.

An Alabama Hit and Run

How was your weekend?

Mine was spent behind the wheel. Took my 5-year old to Grandma's in Cullman on Saturday, then made an about face on Sunday.

First stop, truck stop. Meet the family business.

You can spend an entire day and a lot of money at Jack's Western Wear. My son must think that Crocs grow on trees. I considered buying him one of these T-shirts:

A cursory check yielded no such Christmas requests to play for Gene Chizik at Auburn. Not yet anyway.

When I spent the night at my father-in-law's lakeside estate (more on this in a later post), I found a familiar looking statue waiting for me.

And much like the Savannah version, she guards headstones - in his front yard.

Swung by Talladega Super Speedway on the way back.







If fictional race car driver Ricky Bobby ever enjoyed any Talladega Nights, that would be a fictional account too. If there's any nightlife in this sleepy town, it would be a major upset.

Despite being almost constantly on the road, my XM radio kept me connected with my Yankees. Heard both weekend games in their entirety. Got to watch Federer make quick work and history on Sunday morning. Got home in time to see a vintage Tiger Woods Sunday finish.