Outside... ....is America.

OK Chemo Sabe, now you are starting to freak me out, man!
Re:
***************************************
chemo sabe said...
Ok, now that post was on Wednesday...where ARE you guys!!! Not stuck in Spooksville, I hope. I hope you kept a tight hold on Beffrie. That thar is Stepford wives country!! Did you check out the "work" link on that website! If that gal on the far right wasn't an android, than I'm going thru the Stargate tonite!!!
September 24, 2007 9:40 AM
**************************************
chemo sabe said...
OK. It's Tuesday. If we don't hear from you tomorrow, we'll send out a search party!!!!
September 25, 2007 8:06 AM
***************************************
Anonymous said...
WHERE ARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!
September 26, 2007 9:26 AM
***************************************
****************************************
***************************************
These comments were added LONG after I have been back...
I think that your browser is stuck on this page.
Try clicking the refresh button several times, or clearing your browser's cache (delete 'temporary internet files').
In the address line at the top of your browser, try re-entering 'bethandwarren.com' and see where it takes you.
I think that you are stuck in a loop that keeps bringing you back to this OLD page.
Let me know when you have broken free.
(Warren)




We stumbled upon a strange little village near Wilmington N.C..

We were looking for a business on "Inspiration Drive" and we just couldn't find it. We called the business and they told us where it was. We drove from our spot on Independence Road straight to Military Cutoff Road until we came to Mayfaire. We thought that we had been looking for a strip mall but instead we found a supermarket, a restaurant, a large office building, and a large hotel. We figured that we had found the wrong Mayfaire but when I was trying to turn around I found a large rotary. I went around it and followed a road that brought me behind a number of buildings until I came to a smaller round-a-bout.
Going out the other side we encountered some more businesses and then I saw a street sign that made me come to a full stop. It was Main Street. We looked around and saw a Cinema-1-2-many behind us and a very large exercise place on one side and a restaurant on the other side, but in front of us, we saw a very strange scene.

We saw a lot of construction people building a village. They weren't working on one business or building, they were working on everything within that area. We felt like we had accidentally fallen behind a wall at DisneyWorld and were seeing the wires and infrastructure of the castle.

We slowly drove up Main Street and saw a spotlessly clean brandy spandy new town.
Shopping, shopping, and more shopping. Apartments above the stores with little two-chair balconies. Every balcony had exactly two chairs.
I felt that the title character from the movie Truman was going to come strolling by to purchase a newspaper on the way to work.

"But wait! There's More!"
After we ate lunch Beth found a little plaque next to the sidewalk that listed some of the rules for the town. These plaques were scattered all over the place.
And then there was the soundtrack. Everywhere you went there was muzak playing. Gentle jazz. EVERYWHERE you walked. Each store had it's own soundtrack but out on the streets it was everywhere. Very good quality with excellent stereo separation. One side of the street was the left channel and the other side was the right. Clear, no distortion, it sounded like a jazz group couldn't afford a large hall to practice in so they used many different apartments on different streets and used open windows to synchronize. Halloween must be a real trip in this town.
Ooooh, and they have music in the park "Mayfaire Music on the Town". "Join us every Friday evening on the Mayfaire event lawn behind Linens 'n Things and World Market from 6pm until dark for the free Friday concert series. Some concessions will be available on-site, or pick up something from one of our 19 eateries to bring with you!"
The posters for these events are put in many store windows, and now the odd part, they are using the guitar neck and bird logo from the Woodstock music and art fair that was held in a cowfield in Bethlehem New York many years ago. You just can't make this stuff up!

They have a website of course. I have uploaded some pictures of course. Maybe in a few days I will be able to explain why this place creeped me out so much. If you like shopping there just couldn't be a better place to live. I would like to rent an apartment there just so I could watch people's faces when they came to visit my perfect little world.

My pictures of creepyville: Mayfaire.
Their official site: Mayfaire Town.

***************************************

chemo sabe said...
Ok, now that post was on Wednesday...where ARE you guys!!! Not stuck in Spooksville, I hope. I hope you kept a tight hold on Beffrie. That thar is Stepford wives country!! Did you check out the "work" link on that website! If that gal on the far right wasn't an android, than I'm going thru the Stargate tonite!!!
September 24, 2007 9:40 AM
**************************************

chemo sabe said...
OK. It's Tuesday. If we don't hear from you tomorrow, we'll send out a search party!!!!
September 25, 2007 8:06 AM
***************************************

Anonymous said...
WHERE ARE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!
September 26, 2007 9:26 AM

***************************************
It turns out that Chemo Sabe was having an issue with her browser.
I tracked down her email address from a friend and suggested multiple refreshes.
It worked, but she was embarrassed, and she didn't leave any more comments for quite a while.
***************************************

The First Negative Comment

*********************************
** Anonymous said...
** watch who you talk about.
** your not that cool
**
** September 12, 2007 12:12 AM
*********************************

There, it's official.
"The Adventure" blog has gotten it's first official negative comment. I know there was going to be some eventually, but I still have to take it seriously and address the issue.
It also raised a flag for me that I still have some rejection/confidence issues that I should resolve soon.
I am going to add some disclaimers to the "Welcome Page" (if indeed I ever wrote a "Welcome Page") so that new readers can have a little bit of a backgound and introduction to my wierdness.

***********************************
My first official negative comment was attached to the "Wandering with Warren" post which is just a column I write for a car club.
The funky way that this site is organized it is easy to be confused and the complaint was probably supposed to be attached to the disjointed blather that I wrote the day before.
So I went back to read it for the first time. These "Blather" posts are just meant as a quick "catch-you-up" if I hadn't written anything in a while. We have been told that some people just need an update on the radar screen to make sure that we are O.K.

***********************************

I know that some of you folks that know me have been saying, "there he goes again" whenever I wrote something that would have been better left unsaid, but you didn't want to insult me.

From where I sit (on a scrawny little chair in the woods) there are a few options that I have:
1) Raise the banner, dig in my heels, and say "if they don't like it, the hellwithem", and zoom in on the subject that was irritating and emphasize it. And keep emphasizing it. O.J.ParisHillaryMichaelJacksonAnyone?

2) Retreat: Don't say anything that upsets people. I could be accused of not having "journalistic integrity" but then I wouldn't accidentally upset any of the great people that have helped us through this whole process.

3) Keep going but use the occassional bad review to steer me in the right direction.

******************************************************
They each have their good points and some problems.

The problem with #2 is that I will always say something that I shouldn't. I always will, even when I concentrate.
I try, but it is part of my nature. (See disclaimer)
Politics are an obvious taboo, but sooooo much that I talk about and see has connections to political decisions and then my mouth opens and...
For instance: In Cambria California I used this spectacular ATM machine that I wanted to rave about. It was so cool. I had to refrain because this particular machine was made by DieBold and it had the same features that another department in the same company insist are impossible to do on voting machines. Crippled voting machines that are impossible to audit and are already installed in Florida and were going to destroy legitimate voting in the rest of this country. There is a law close to passing that would take the wind right out of their criminal sails.
See? Must not talk ATM! Zippp!

#1 is a good way to boost traffic to your blog. Traffic means that you can put up advertising, which would pay some of our expenses, in reality, it would probably only buy us a coffee, but it would open everything up for one big tax deduction. Let's see my trip expenses are $100 a day to do research, my income from advertising is $0.25 a day, so I seem to be running a little in the red, so I could deduct my entire income for the year, lessee that's $0.25 times 365 equals...
The disadvantage of #1 is that my ONLY readers are people that have recently met us on our trip or that have known us a very long time. I don't want either group to be upset.

#3 I think this is the one that I HAVE to use. I always open my big mouth (see disclaimer).
I can't throttle everything back to just "we saw a horse today", it wouldn't be how I write.
I write how I talk, disjointed, stream of conciousness, whatever comes out of the fingertips. Sometimes I will read what I wrote and I will be amazed. Sometimes good, sometimes bad, but it is always interesting to see where the story goes. When I start writing, I have absolutely no idea what I am going to have as a finished product. Many times when a story takes a sharp turn I just chop off the top paragraphs and then the story will begin where the turn was.

So #3 it is:
Please send me your comments whenever I need steering. Some of this stuff ends up on here without even I reading it, and there may be landmines strewn about and you are the very first person reading it.
This isn't the New York Times, something can be published for hours before anyone notices.
I would like a volunteer or two to be editors. There are days when I can't get online and the complaints could be piling up and a post that should be deleted would just stay there accumulating flies. An editor could quickly delete the offending post until I came back online and could edit the offending dialog.
**********************************
To Anonymous: I am sorry. I am taking steps to avoid future problems.
warren

******************************

Vicky said...
Warren, I just wanted to share and let you know that you are not the only one in the World that goes on and on about subjects (which by the way, I love your commentaries, I always have)

I tend to do the same thing. I have noticed this a lot more since I went back to school recently. I get babbling about a subject and then suddenly I switch to another topic because that's how my mind works and that's how I talk, but sometimes people just don't get it.

Anyways, luv to you both.
September 20, 2007 2:18 PM

*********************************

chemo sabe said...
Warren

I've seen the glazed look in people's eyes when the original point of my story has long since been lost down some shaggy dog byroad, and the ones who call me on it are usually not my friends! (so why the bleep was I talking to them!!!) Occasionally, where I end up is much more interesting than the original destination, and anyway, isn't getting there half the fun!?? Unlike this lame comment that I am writing.

What I REALLY want to say is that JUST BE YOU!!!!

If you were to change just because some anonymous old poop is intimidated by your overwhelming coolness, I'd have to come out of chemo-haze and dope slap you!!!

KEEP DOIN WHAT YOU'RE DOIN!!!

Ps: are vicky and I the only ones this comment twitched?!!!

LOVE YOU
September 24, 2007 10:32 AM

************************************************

Vicky said...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.

September 20, 2007 2:18 PM

************************************************
chemo sabe said...
This post has been removed by a blog administrator.

September 24, 2007 10:32 AM

************************************************
Anonymous said...
why were the comments deleted?
September 27, 2007 10:21 AM

************************************************

THEY said...
I move the comments into the body of the post so that everybody can see them without clicking on the "comments" link. After I move them, I delete them. I usually delete them permanently, so there is no "comment deleted" notice, but I only "hid" these two because I wanted to keep the originals just in case the authors objected to the minor editing that I chose to do to avoid a "flame war" with the original comment person.

Warren

September 27, 2007 4:44 PM
************************************************

chemo sabe said...
I feel much better now. I just checked to make sure y'all had escaped Stepford city and was curious about your answer to anonymous re deleted comments! Phew!! Had me worried there!!!

September 28, 2007 2:22 PM
************************************************

Warren said...
Chemo Sabe, could you please email me? I don't seem to have your address, and I have a question.

ww

September 28, 2007 7:56 PM

************************************************

A ping from NorthCarolina

Hi Yall,
Just a ping to let you know that we are camping on the coast of North Carolina. It's very nice here but there are a few limitations for bloggers. I have no place to plug in for AC power so I have to run on batteries. I can't work at night at the campsite because the bugs like the computer screen as much as I do. We are busy during the day doing what we do and I can't sit at a cafe with AC power and wireless during the evening because of a REALLY wierd policy at this state park of locking the gates from 8pm until 8am.

I have been writing a couple of loooong dialogs about disclaimers, philosophies, and 'splainin.
They still need serious editing in the proper light so that I can read my screen, right now I can only see the reflection of my face and trees as I type this. The trees are nice, but I seem to be scowling at something... I wonder what I'm thinking about?

We have been taking some pictures, but not as many as usual.
I still have many thousands to weed through. I also have at least five notebooks in front of me full of notes and nuggets.
We are doing the wedding thing this coming weekend and then we will be positioning ourselves for Hershey. It will be so great to see Jenny Iggy and Steve in a couple of days.

We were told to see some of the North Carolina aquariums, which were great.
Today we are going to follow up on another suggestion: The battleship North Carolina.

So as soon as the lighting is correct I will continue editing.

Hey, is anybody having a costume party for Halloween?

*****************************************

chemo sabe said...
Gee I don't know about any costume parties, but if I were invited to one (since I'll still be bald), I thought I'd go as the Hunch-Chest of Notre DAme

chemo sabe
September 18, 2007 10:54 AM

Two quick restaurant reviews from Asheville.

I have to tell you about TWO fine restaurants in Asheville.
One of them was a request for photos by Brittney. It seems that she is a big fan of this style of cooking and she saw a show on television about this particular place.
Since we knew how to find it, we took some pictures for her.

BUT...

I already had plans to eat somewhere else, and we were leaving town right after eating, soooo, I just zoomed in, took some pictures for Brittney, and zoomed out.
I didn't eat. This is a restaurant review without eating the food. Sort of a McReview if you wish. Since she only wanted photos anyhow, it worked out OK.

Now I already had my camera warmed up, so I took pictures of the restaurant that I was very excited about going to. The meal was great!

Now after creating a "photo review" of Brittney's place I decided that my restaurant shouldn't get an actual written review because that would be playing favorites. Even though MY restaurant WAS my favorite. We have to appear impartial though.

So first take a look at the restaurant that Brittney likes.


And then take a look at the restaurant the Warren likes.

Be sure to turn captions ON if you do it as a slideshow.

2007-09-04 The Elegant Mr. M

Brittney's Place

2007-09-04_wm_Asheville Eaties

Warren's place.