Southern Comfort

Southern comfort, southern hospitality, call it what you want but know that it is alive and well. The trip back home was certainly one of my better ones, due in no small part to it's relative length. It seems that many of my recent trips back to Atlanta were two or three day affairs but this time around I gave myself a full five nights to catch up with friends and family. Unfortunately I forgot to charge the camera up after the trip to Tokyo, so you'll have to imagine all the friendly faces and group hugs.

The week started off on Christmas Day at Anne's parents place where we dined on the traditional Christmas lasagna, snacked on dried vegetables from the Tokyo airport, and did our best to annoy the only type of cat I can safely get within three feet of. Unfortunately Anne needed to be back at work on Thursday and Friday, so our ongoing streak of not being in the same city continued the next day when she caught her flight back to New York.

I spent the day after Christmas at my brother's place. With my sleep schedule still somehow off, I managed to wake up before both kids and went upstairs as they were waking up. I have to rank this as perhaps the highlight of the trip, getting to see these little guys as they got up. I heard Kevin whispering to Josh that someone had arrived in the middle of the night as he walked from his room. When he saw me at the other end of the hall he ran towards me and gave me a big hug. It always makes me feel good when he remembers me, as I see him every six months or so, and constantly think that he'll have forgotten my name. I guess he's old enough at this point not to forget.

Wednesday night saw me in Avondale Estates at Ginger and Andy's new place where I was treated to a few pints of fine homebrew. I've never seen a place look more lived in then theirs does after six months. It's amazing - I thought I was staying at the Avondale B&B. The place is simply tremendous. Also on the plus side here is their proximity to the rental houses I share with Doug. We got to spend a couple hours working on one of them on Thursday, just doing some routine maintenance. I was pleasantly surprised by its condition and finally got to meet the tenants after a year of occupancy. Definitely happy about the way things are going there. Of course there was the mandatory stop at the James Joyce, the crown jewel of Avondale Estates in my uninformed opinion.

Doug, Jess, Kevin, and I made our way to Athens on Friday where Brant and Melissa were nice enough (again with the southern hospitality) to host us for the evening. We started off at Harry Bissets for dinner, had a couple drinks at the 283 bar, and then finished up at a new place that I'd never been to called Little Kings. Even though the campus was on vacation, Little Kings still attracted quite a crowd, including Opel and Christina and Opel's beard. An Opel sighting is an every other year event at this point and thus must be treated with great respect. The big question that was answered is this - when a friend who is constantly refered to by his last name gets married, do you still address him that way in front of his wife, who shares his name? The answer is an unequivocal yes, they can figure out who you're talking to.

We finished the evening off the same way we started the following morning...Nintendo Wii! I'd been dying to give it a shot and figured that 3 AM was as good a time as any. Faced with a dozen plus options, we chose to go with tennis, ping pong, and bowling. I've seen a few videos of people playing and I know that it's all in the wrist, but it's so difficult to refrain from taking a full swing. I know that I was doing it wrong (and that I'm out of shape/getting old) because, embarassingly enough, I could feel it in my shoulder the next morning. Ridiculous.

Anyway, it was back to Atlanta the next day for my final night. Many of my friends were out of town for the holidays but by Saturday, they'd made their way back to Atlanta so we got together at 97 estoria, which I think is just a great spot. It was so cool to see everyone and I really appreciate all of you coming out on such short notice. Every one of you are welcome to the air mattress if you'd like to plan a trip to New York. Beatty and Jonathan, I'll be expecting you in the spring!

Finally, New Years Eve and New Years Day will be spent listening to KEXP's top 90.3 albums of the year. You have two weeks to listen to their archived data stream, and I highly recommend it, as always.