Goodbye Kentucky!

This will be my last post from the Commonwealth.

Time for a new blog title. Hmm…

The blog has been silent because I have been packing. And cleaning. And in the midst of the stress of moving, my 60 lb pitbull has decided he’s a lap dog.

Saturday night, I took a break to go to a BBQ hosted by one of the first year grad students. We got to talking about the crazy way people pronounce words around here.

Kentucky Pronunciation Guide

Athens = eh-thens

Versailles = ver-sails

Chinoe (my personal favorite) = shin-oh-way

The BBQ was good time, but afterwards they persuaded me to head out to the Fish Tank. There was some sort of hippie-reggae-rock band playing, and they were loud. And awful. The people in the bar were a strange crowd – a mix of 40-something hippies and preppy college kids. All were drunk, and we guestimated (by the dancing) that approximately 80% of the crowd was high, 25% hadn’t showered that day. Oh man.

In honor of my last day, my super-fantastic boss invited the students in the lab and my friends, Josh and Bill out for pizza dinner at Mellow Mushroom. It was delicious, and a nice way to wrap up my year in Kentucky.

The Green River Lake Bug

Josh and Kim and their friends Jeff and Liz took me with them to Green River Lake (about an hour south of Lexington) on Sunday. Jeff’s mom’s fiance let us borrow his new speed boat for the day, and we had a great time sitting out on the boat. I even tried wake boarding (although, I wasn’t able to get up). It’s harder than it looks. Here are some pics:

Green River Lake 9-16-07

I think the excessive amounts of water up my nose from my wakeboarding attempts may have given me a sinus infection (or maybe the moving-induced stress has weakened my immune system).  I am in a whole world of sinus/ear pain.  Oh man.  And the phenylephrine that they now put in cold medicine doesn’t do much.  I ran to Walgreens today to beg the pharmacist for pseudoephedrine, and I was not only looked over to determine whether I was a methamphetamine user, I was also informed that the phenylephrine is an “isomer” of psedoephedrine (which it is NOT) and I was interviewed for a complete list of my symptoms so that they could determine what to give me (apparently asking for something with pseudoephedrine in it is not specific enough).  Then, I handed over my license and signed my life away.  Bye bye privacy, hello cold medication.  Thank you, meth makers, for completely taking the fun out of buying NyQuil.

buy me! buy me! buy me!

(at least that’s what I hope my house is screaming)

I listed it today. Let me know if you’ve got any critiques on the listing. Or if you want to buy a house in Lexington. I’m ready to make a deal.

In Barley news, he not only licked the realtor’s foot while we were trying to fill out paperwork, he subsequently fell asleep on her foot and also jumped into her very nice and very clean Acura SUV with wet, somewhat muddy paws. I was a little mortified.

Jason’s coming tomorrow, so you can look forward to posts describing our packing progress (I’ve threatened that whatever he doesn’t pack will stay in Lexington, so I suspect he will be packing like crazy all weekend).

Breaking News

Quote from this evening’s news:

“There are just as many hillbillies in New York as there are in Lexington.”

Given my limited knowledge of New York (I went once with the fam several years ago), I am unqualified to analyze the hillbilly:non-hillbilly ratio up there.  I will say that given the high hillbilly:non-hillbilly ratio in these parts, I am skeptical that this statement is actually true.

Click here for the full news story that spurred this conversation. 

Here is the part of the story (by Joe Glazer) that I love:

Yes, it’s not a typo, I’m in Kentucky: They said I’d never, ever step foot in Georgetown. I’ve often joked around that I would never go, being that I’m an ethnic New Yawka and I’d stick out worse than Joe Pesci would, or actually did, in “My Cousin Vinny.” I mean, I’m a complete dead giveaway for someone who, well, isn’t from Kentucky.

Just as the folks from small towns like this have certain preconceived notions about the Big Apple and loud, arrogant, obnoxious, aggressive folks like myself, I’ve seen things on TV about how city boys and country folk don’t exactly mix.

Sorry, Georgetown but there was nothing to change my view in the least.

First of all, it’s in a dry county. Why is there anywhere in America that is dry? Let’s get real people. Not selling alcohol in one area is the dumbest thing in the world. You know what it does? It forces you to travel long distances to the next county to get drunk and then drive aaaaalllll the way back to Georgetown. How stupid is this rule? It also leads to the freaking hillbilly who was selling moonshine out of the back of his truck. Did I just say moonshine? Did I just say hillbilly? Folks, I’m not making this stuff up.

There are actually people who still sell moonshine in Kentucky and there was a guy giving it out from the back of his pickup the weekend I was there.

How do I say this gracefully and without half of Kentucky wanting to hang me by my you know whats? Let’s be honest, parts of Kentucky don’t exactly have a reputation for hording the members of MENSA or the contestants for the National Spelling Bee. With that in mind, I’m begging the folks in the Georgetown area to hire a full-time scout to walk around the town and correct grammar and spelling in order to dispel the myths.

The two best signs in America are both in Georgetown. First one hung in a WalMart that read, “All movies needs to be pay in electronics.” Huh? You is a honor student? Didn’t, oh, I don’t know, ONE PERSON realize that sentence simply isn’t English?

Then, I didn’t see this sign but I heard about it, the local Wendy’s originally had their big sign out front say, “Now hiring closers.” However, the “c” in closers fell off so for a while Wendy’s was “Now hiring losers.”

Nice.

Also, it’s hot here.  Really hot.  And the only benefits to the hot weather are:

1. I had to eat ice cream for dinner in order to cool down.
2. I work in an air-conditioned building.  (Thanks, mom and dad for gently encouraging me not to go into manual labor, such as construction work.  And by “gently encouraging” I mean, “telling me how much I sucked at painting the back of the house the summer after my freshman year at college.”)

More on college, my movie’s soundtrack, and the heat tomorrow.  I’m getting good at blogging.  Which should help me document events for publication in my book. (and I’m only semi-serious about that statement).

Another Busy Weekend

Our busy weekend started with a Lexington Legends baseball game. The Legends are the local minor league team, and we went for “thirsty Thursdays” (aka cheap beer night).

I have to be honest: I people-watch more than I watch the game. Fortunately for me, there was some good people-watching, with it being cheap beer night and all. We sat in the cheap seats, which was a strange assortment of families with young children and college kids, and even some 5th grade hoodlums (complete with baggy sweatshirts and gangsta struts). Fantastic.

We devoted most of the day Saturday to removing dead, overgrown weeds from the fence next to the driveway. On Sunday, we created a raised flower bed where the weeds had been (okay, by “we” I mean Jason did it and I supervised). I then planted some perennials and some sunflower seeds, so eventually the fence should be pretty.