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So, on the off chance anyone noticed my decrease in online presence over the last several days, I was in Columbia and Charleston (South Carolina) all week[1], helping with prep work for our two newest retail locations.
The cats apparently missed me enough that I was only shunned for about 45 minutes after getting home, and all four were on the bed five minutes after I got there myself.
Tiny was described as "hateful" in the text message K sent in response to my midweek query about how her caretaking visit went; I laughed. Dent has submitted to snuggles, but Wald* has discovered a love of being underneath furniture and difficult to lay a hand on. They are, of course, ready to be adopted out to anyone who might like two very cute black kittens, as they'll be 12 weeks old come Monday.
Columbia seems like a nice town, the small parts of it that I saw around UofSC. Kind of a smaller-town Little Five Points vibe with slightly less alt flagging in the neighborhood where the hotel and our "downtownish" location are. Charleston's locations seemed like pretty much every 90's exurb south of the Mason-Dixon line I've ever seen east of the Mississippi - retail plazas and subdivisions screened from primary surface roads by tree-topped berms, an easy-to-see line of inspiration for Stephenson's Snow Crash-flavor of contempt-doused burbclave world, with less tech and gunfire.
The food was almost uniformly good, if the service was occasionally about twice as Southern-speed as I'd have liked. The best thing to go into my mouth was a raw oyster and jalapeno shooter, which contained just about what you'd expect - those, some cocktail sauce, and probably vodka & spicy bloody mary mix. The hotel's breakfast bar was an unlimited buffet of blandness, but the coffee was good, and I got my Raisin Bran fix.
What this trip also meant is I've probably reacquired a hint of a drawl, rekindled my facepalming dismissal of birthers, and soaked up a shitton of overtime (haven't filled in my time sheet yet, but travel days were just fucking ridiculous - Tuesday was 5a-8p and Friday was 630a to 10p, albeit with lunch breaks). It was nice to see the locations in person to try and differentiate them when people call on the phone, and to put handshakes and faces to people... of course, walking in and announcing my arrival as predicated on changing everyone's passwords may have spooked some folks. ;-)
I voted last Friday, but the less said about the results of that, the better - as far as I can tell, I only got my pony on two of three state constitutional amendments (one of them a "Fuck you, no") and the unopposed Representative for my district.
[1] I don't advertize my travel schedule until after the fact, for reasons. *shrug*
The cats apparently missed me enough that I was only shunned for about 45 minutes after getting home, and all four were on the bed five minutes after I got there myself.
Tiny was described as "hateful" in the text message K sent in response to my midweek query about how her caretaking visit went; I laughed. Dent has submitted to snuggles, but Wald* has discovered a love of being underneath furniture and difficult to lay a hand on. They are, of course, ready to be adopted out to anyone who might like two very cute black kittens, as they'll be 12 weeks old come Monday.
Columbia seems like a nice town, the small parts of it that I saw around UofSC. Kind of a smaller-town Little Five Points vibe with slightly less alt flagging in the neighborhood where the hotel and our "downtownish" location are. Charleston's locations seemed like pretty much every 90's exurb south of the Mason-Dixon line I've ever seen east of the Mississippi - retail plazas and subdivisions screened from primary surface roads by tree-topped berms, an easy-to-see line of inspiration for Stephenson's Snow Crash-flavor of contempt-doused burbclave world, with less tech and gunfire.
The food was almost uniformly good, if the service was occasionally about twice as Southern-speed as I'd have liked. The best thing to go into my mouth was a raw oyster and jalapeno shooter, which contained just about what you'd expect - those, some cocktail sauce, and probably vodka & spicy bloody mary mix. The hotel's breakfast bar was an unlimited buffet of blandness, but the coffee was good, and I got my Raisin Bran fix.
What this trip also meant is I've probably reacquired a hint of a drawl, rekindled my facepalming dismissal of birthers, and soaked up a shitton of overtime (haven't filled in my time sheet yet, but travel days were just fucking ridiculous - Tuesday was 5a-8p and Friday was 630a to 10p, albeit with lunch breaks). It was nice to see the locations in person to try and differentiate them when people call on the phone, and to put handshakes and faces to people... of course, walking in and announcing my arrival as predicated on changing everyone's passwords may have spooked some folks. ;-)
I voted last Friday, but the less said about the results of that, the better - as far as I can tell, I only got my pony on two of three state constitutional amendments (one of them a "Fuck you, no") and the unopposed Representative for my district.
[1] I don't advertize my travel schedule until after the fact, for reasons. *shrug*
