a dragon of fly-like proportions

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Lotta bug pics recently!

This one was actually somewhat of a humanitarian effort, as I found him buzzing around our garage when I got home one day last week. I think they get attracted in there because we’re experiencing some AC problems again right now, so I’ve got a big cooler collecting the runoff from the AC unit. Unfortunately, I don’t think these guys realize that although there is a big water source in our garage, it also gets ridiculously hot in there during the day and they’re likely to fry if they happen to get stuck inside.

I had a similar run-in last week with a small toad that I found hiding underneath Sara’s car as well, but then again, the tag here isn’t creepy toads, now is it?!


Granted, I suppose dragonflies aren’t exactly very “creepy,” either – this one was pretty cool, albeit it was somewhat injured by the time I found him. Whether he flew away to start a new life or instantly got eaten by his predators the moment I closed the garage door – I guess we’ll never know!

Amazing 2010 Summer Road Trip Review – To Canada, and Beyond!

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Departing Michigan
After four fun days in Michigan, it was time for us to move on and continue pressing north towards the icy tundras of Canada and all of her secrets within. Our plan was to drive through the UP and across the International Bridge before hanging a right and continuing on to Sudbury for the next leg of our journey. I had also wanted to throw a couple of scenic views in there along the way, particularly Tahquamenon Falls because I remembered them being pretty cool, however unfortunately I neglected to actually look at a map and realize just how far out of our way they really were! We ended up just stopping in Mackinaw City for a quick jaunt through one of the gift shops and a photo op down by the bridge before proceeding…


Not much to say about the next leg of our drive … the UP is famous for its nothing, you know … and before we knew it, we were getting ready to cross over into Canada!


Customs, Schmustoms!
Admittedly I was a little nervous because this was actually the first time that I’d ever crossed the boarder with me behind the wheel – I mean, we were running behind as it was and the last thing we needed was to have to repack everything on the side of the road because I looked at the customs agent the wrong way! Fortunately, they were pretty cool – almost all of the ones that we encountered were, in fact – and before we knew it, we were on our way, trying to both navigate through the streets of Soo Canada and also figure out how to convert miles to kilometers at the same time…

Conversion Factor
I think we made it something like 20 miles before I realized that there was a button on the dash that did all of the heavy lifting for us – of course, this was after Sara did a couple of Google searches on her phone to at least get us in the ballpark! I was just about to have her make me a cheat sheet when I found the button … maybe somethings weren’t as confusing back when everything wasn’t digital.

Canada vs. US Highways
The biggest thing that we noticed right off the bat was the distinct lack of freeways in Canada – we really didn’t see a single one until we were almost to Toronto, which was a little weird after driving through the entire UP at 75mph. I suppose it didn’t help that we really weren’t in a driving mood at that point – we had left late and it was going to be dark soon, and we really just wanted to get to our hotel, which was about 200 miles away. Of course, that would’ve been an easy, 2.5 hour drive on normal roads, but on rural Canadian, wonky roads, it was closer to 4.5 … thanks partially to a mis-turn because we couldn’t find the road that we actually wanted! Eventually it lead to the same place anyways, but needless to say, it was a long ride…


Yep, that would be a horse and buggy!


Seems fast, that is, until you realize that it’s still only about 62mph…

Amazing 2010 Summer Road Trip Review – A New Resting Place for Lisa…

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One of the other things that we did while we were in Michigan was something that my Mom and sister had been planning for a little over a year. It was a very difficult decision to make, moving my older sister’s grave of almost 28 years, but it’s always been very important to my Mom that she be able to rest next to her when the time comes and there were growing concerns about that not being possible, so they made all of the arrangements and that’s how we spent one of our days while we were there.

Obviously it was a very emotional day. I didn’t really know what to expect and it didn’t really even hit me until we were there in the moment … well, actually I suppose it started the night before because Mom had asked me to write something for the occasion and of course, it ended up getting put off until the last minute! 🙂 I don’t really have a lot of firm memories of Lisa – most of what I do “remember” is stuff that is perceived from photos and things that Mom and Dad have told me. Nonetheless, what started out being incredibly difficult to write – almost like I might imagine a eulogy would feel – ended up wrapping up quite nicely around 2:00am the night before, and even though it was probably one of the hardest things I’d ever had to read the next morning, I like to think that she would’ve appreciated the effort…


A month later now, Mom tells me that the grass has already grown in over the new grave, the stone is all cleaned up, and that everything is starting to look really nice. It makes me happy to know that now she can ride her bike over to the cemetary from her house to visit whenever she wants, whereas before she probably was only able once or twice a year when it was in a different town. They say that funerals are more for the living than they are for the dead, and I think I might suggest that cemetaries are the same way. Anything to help her grieve, and also remember, though, was well worth the effort.

Amazing 2010 Summer Road Trip Review – I Grew Up in Gaylord, MI

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Living 1,500 miles away at the other end of the country obviously means that I don’t get to visit home very often – I think I can actually count the number of trips that I’ve been home since moving away in 2003 on one hand:

  • May 2005 (Lori’s High School Graduation)
  • May 2006 (Lori’s Wedding)
  • August 2006 (Sevener Family Luau)
  • December 2008 (Grandma’s Funeral)
  • August 2010 (Scott & Sara’s Amazing 2010 Summer Road Trip!!!)

Needless to say, it was a little exciting after four days of driving to finally see this sign on the horizon once again…


Nostalgia Overload
Since I’m not there very often, I tend to want to immerse myself in the nostalgia of my childhood from pretty much the moment I get there to the moment I leave – everything from the snacks that I used to eat that I can’t get down here (Made Rite BBQ Potato Chips) to the places that I loved to eat (BC Pizza, Mancinos Grinders) to even just gawking at all of the buildings and remarking at how some seem to change constantly while others really never change. At one point I took a drive and went past my old high school and elementary school – not much as changed at the former, but the later I noticed had to build a fence around its playground, which is kind of sad because without the fence the place is HUGE and I fondly remember spending a lot of time down there as a kid … mainly because it was literally at the end of our block. Sadly, they also replaced the famed curly slide that was all the rage when I went to school there, so I guess it’s like they say, you can never go back…


my Alma Mater for grades 1-5 – North Ohio Elementary School

Family Time
We pretty much spent most of the time just hanging out – one night we had pizza and played Wii over at Lori’s house (which has a singing fish!), one night we did a cookout at Mom’s house and even made s’mores afterwards (which you can see Voltron proudly guarding below), and we even got an evening to go up and spend a few hours with my Grandpa, which was nice because we haven’t seen him in a long time. Part of coming to visit always makes me sad because we can’t do it more often – I’d love to actually be able to attend the family Christmases that they do each year, even though it sounds like more and more of us out of towners aren’t able to make it, whereas when I was growing up it was a big deal because pretty much everyone was there and I got to see all of my cousins and stuff. Still, I really enjoy spending Christmas at my own house and there’s no snow to shovel for the three months on either side of the big day, so I suppose you have to take what you’ve got!


Defender of the Universe and so much more!

My Birthday, Part 1!
Ok, so my birthday technically wasn’t for another week, but it was fairly obvious that Mom was going to take full advantage of our visit to actually celebrate in the moment! We had cake and ice cream, Mom sang the song, and I even got to open a few presents! Although I’m still a bit skeptical about turning the big 3-0, let’s just say that Mom’s fudge frosting and some new LEGOs from Sara definitely helped to ease the transition…


Next Up: a day for Lisa…

Speaking of my book…

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Something else kind of cool that I did while I was on vacation was pimp the hell out of my new book by means of this little makeshift book tour that I came up with.

The idea was simple – I wanted to do something to promote my recently completed creative efforts, but at the same time not take away time from my actual vacation with my wife, so instead of getting in touch with book stores along our route and trying to setup “appearances,” I thought it might be fun to just bring the book itself along for the ride and in the process share photos with my readers of all the places that we went. I tend to take tons of pictures when we’re out and about anyways, so it was nothing to snap a couple that included the book as well, and then every couple of evenings I would jump online and schedule a few of them to post to the blog at comedic-genius.com in the mornings.


my book comes across a formidible opponent at Harry Potter: The Exhibition at the Ontario Science Centre in Toronto

You can find a summary post that contains a slideshow of all 27 photos along the way here, or even check out each of the individual posts from throughout the trip in the archives here. In addition to the photo blog, I also ran a little promotion where I picked up a small souvenir (usually a post card) and wrote a fun fact about me and my writing on it to include as a free gift for anyone who ordered a copy of the book during the tour. I didn’t get a ton of orders, but there were still a few and it was a lot of fun hunting down neat things to include with each of the orders!

Amazing 2010 Summer Road Trip Review – Very Small, Then Very Big

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White Castle – a New First
Sara couldn’t believe me when I told her that I had never eaten at a White Castle before, so when we actually came across this one somewhere in southern Ohio, it seemed like a dinner of destiny…


…with a guest appearance by my book, which we’ll talk about in a minute!

As for the food itself, it wasn’t bad and I’d definitely probably eat there again. I mean, it wasn’t fantastic and it’s very clear why it’s stoner food, but aside from that, it was decent and provided us with the required sustinence to push on to our hotel room awaiting us at the other end of the state. Admittedly I did have a bit of a curve ball to contend with because instead of just going with one of their simple here’s a bunch of tiny burgers packages, I wanted to try one of each of their “specialty sliders,” which was a pain to order, but yummy nonetheless.

Christmas on a Whim
So it was our final descent into Northern Michigan, which was still about a 5 hour drive from Ohio, and I was racking my brain trying to think of someplace cool to stop along the way. We didn’t have a ton of time to kill like we had spent in Atlanta, but still, someplace a little nicer than a gas station to get out and stretch would be nice to help break up the drive. Sara was sleeping, I was driving, and then I began starting to see the signs…


Now I can’t even remember the last time I’ve been to Bronner’s, but we’ve both spent a lot of money at the Christmas store at Downtown Disney, so I thought it might be fun to “stop and poke around for a few minutes.” Roughly an hour and a half later, Sara managed to drag me out of there powered solely by her impending appetite, and even then I don’t think we actually saw the entire store! Food ornaments, candy ornaments, animal ornaments, ornaments shaped like cruise ships, deer blinds (dead serious), flip-flops, King Tut, an alligator in a tutu … I didn’t take nearly enough pictures, mainly because I got stuck carrying our basket and I was afraid of breaking stuff, but the place was incredible. They even sent us a catalog in the mail here at home recently, so unless we’re looking for ornaments with Mickey on ’em, there’s really no reason to search any further!


Next Up: home is where all of my old toys are…

my bathroom window != grass

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I couldn’t help but notice this little bugger on the outside of my bathroom window earlier this evening. The window itself is frosted (not the sugary kind, sadly enough), and so you can only imagine the ominous, shadowy figure that this little 3″ monster projected into my most intimate of thinking spaces!


P.S. The extreme close-up perspective kind of distorts its size, but I figured 3″ was just about the size of this thing – probably one of the biggest grasshoppers I’ve ever seen!

Amazing 2010 Summer Road Trip Review – Driving, Driving, Driving…

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Next Stop – Michigan!
Well, eventually, anyways…

The truth is, Michigan is really far from Florida – about 1500 miles, to be exact. Since I first moved to Florida back in 2003, I’ve only made this trip one other time aside from the initial haul, and let me tell you, it’s a bear! I typically did the drive in only two days, putting in something like 12 hours a day behind the wheel, and of course, since I was broke, staying at the shadiest motels $35 could get you at the halfway point … usually somewhere in Tennessee.

Different is Good!
This time around Sara and I opted for a much different strategy and broke the drive up into four separate days – Tampa to Atlanta (7 hrs), Atlanta to Knoxville (3.5 hours), Knoxville to Toledo (7.5 hours), and then finally Toledo to Gaylord (5 hours). A couple of them were still longer than the others, primarily because we had planned some stops in between to break things up, but overall it was just really, really nice not to be spending nearly as much time in the car as on previous ventures up north. We also stayed at some considerably nicer hotels (note: ho vs mo) along the way, so “relaxing” at the end of each day’s drive didn’t simply mean hoping to fall asleep before the cockroaches began their nightly prowl!

How to Pass Time While Driving #1: Funny Road Signs
Sometimes it’s the simple things in life that amuse us…


Really now??? This one was too easy…


How to Pass Time While Driving #2: Meeting The Colonel
Needless to say, this one wasn’t exactly on the itinerary, but when you’ve already gotten off on that exit for gas anyways and you see signs pointing towards The Birthplace of Kentucky Fried Chicken, well, I’m only human…


Granted, the “museum” was essentially a room off of a regular KFC restaurant, and also granted, I might have accidentally broken the doorknob to said “museum” by trying to enter through a door that was no longer actually a door, the birthplace of KFC was a nice place to stop, use the restroom, and look at a bunch of old cooking utensils before getting back on the road.

Come to think of it, I suppose we could’ve actually gotten lunch there, but I suppose then we wouldn’t have had the appetite for extremely tiny hamburgers…

Next Up: my very first visit to White Castle … ever!