Hurlshort

Oby is really a negative nelly.

So the Supreme Court just sided with Hobby Lobby on this contraceptive issue. Maybe I'm having trouble understanding the case fully, but it basically looks like a corporation is getting to choose what kind of health care options are available for their employees, and they are claiming it is 'religious freedom'. What about the personal freedom to not have a corporation tell me what my health care options are? I have no problem with Hobby Lobby having informational campaigns that discourage certain forms of contraception, but when they get to make the decision about what is available to female workers, I get pretty worried.

Considering one guy developed it, I thought it was a rather genius little tech demo game. But yeah, it's not a full scale strategy game or anything.

Day 10 - This morning I jumped up at 7 AM, put on my running shoes, stepped outside, and almost choked on the humidity. It was already hot and humid out. I ran for a bit and then headed back for a nice cool shower. We jumped on a shuttle bus to the French Quarter and went directly to Cafe Du Monde for beignets. I gave my daughter a choice of a carriage ride, a riverboat tour, or a doubledecker bus to give us our first views of the city, and she chose the horse and carriage ride. We had a great driver who showed us all of the French Quarter and gave us a lot of great ideas for where we wanted to visit. Honestly I wasn't super jazzed about visiting New Orleans, it was more for the wife, but pictures and movies really don't do it justice. The architecture and ambiance of all the storefronts and balconies is unlike anything I've ever seen before. I fell in love pretty easily and I'm already thinking about how I can bring my wife here for a romantic getaway someday soon. Here are a few pics I took: Corn on the rod iron This is just how all the streets look, it's amazing: We went into a voodoo store at one point, and Logan accidentally disturbed an altar. We put an offering up for him, so I hope he isn't cursed. Oh and here is Andrew Jackson! We ended up at an Emeril Lagasse restaurant for lunch called NOLA. I had the shrimp n' grits with a great Abita beer. It was very rich and enjoyable. Skylar enjoyed a great bisque, but my son preferred to snack on his cheez-its. We walked around quite a bit today and explored a lot of the streets of the French Quarter. Early on we walked a bit down Bourbon Street, but around noon we started skirting around it as it got a bit wilder. We started to bake around 3, and by the time our bus came to get us at 5:30 we were well exhausted. It was an amazing day of sightseeing. Tomorrow we are heading to the WWII and Civil War museums for the day, and then Wednesday I think we might get a swamp tour in.

Day 9 - We had a great day of driving. I was only a couple hours away from New Orleans, so we took the time to sight see with the RV. We first went to Avery Island, the only Tabasco bottling plant in the world. They grow peppers all over, but they ship all the pepper mulch into Avery Island and make the sauce in one spot. There were a lot of different flavors, including a pretty decent Ice Cream. WE were hungry at this point, so we drove into Lafayette and stopped at a place called Prejean's for lunch. This place had phenomenal gumbo. In fact I meant to take a picture, but I devoured it as soon as it was placed in front of me. The balls in the middle of the table are called Boudin, which seem to be pretty popular in Louisiana. I had some trouble understanding what it was, I think it is meat seasoned in a sausage casing and then fried with rice in a ball? I don't know, but it was delicious. After that we drove across miles of swampy rivers. You are basically on a bridge the whole time elevated above the water, it made for some great scenery. Still waiting on a gator sighting, I keep joking about finding one on a morning jog. We are staying a bit west of New Orleans, right on the Mississippi. We take a shuttle into town tomorrow.

This morning I poured orange juice into my cereal bowl.

In California, I had the advantage of a bunch of gas reward points, so even though gas was around $4.20 a gallon, I got it closer to $3.50. Arizona and New Mexico were about the same, around $3.75 a gallon in most places. In Texas I started to see a far amount of $3.45 a gallon, but there was a surprising amount of inflation depending on where I was. So far the cheapest I've seen is $3.39. Louisiana has been about $3.45 a gallon, but I'm still close to the Texas border. Every time I fill up it is between $80 to $100, so it adds up. I fill up every 250-300 miles.

Day 8 - We drove from San Antonio to a place just outside of Lafayette. It was a bit exhausting and I don't have any pictures for today. My Samsung Galaxy S3 was fantastic through Houston, saving me 30 minutes by taking some different roads of I-10. We grabbed groceries, cooked up some pasta, and now I'm going to bed. Pictures of the Tabasco Sauce factory will be on the way tomorrow.

Crazy, we are leaving San Antonio tomorrow and will stay in Rayne tomorrow. We are hitting the Tabasco sauce factory on Sunday.

Thanks for the heads up KP. That advice is literally a day late and a gallon short. Day 7 - Today we had a nice lazy morning relaxing in the RV, where I played a lot of Blackguards. Then we did some laundry, had lunch, and took a bus into the city for the afternoon. We walked around the mall a bit, but it is very much like every mall in America, and so we headed down to a steak restaurant. The place was called Saltgrass Steak House and it did not disappoint. At one point I did lecture our waiter about the differences between pale ales and IPA's, but I tipped him well so I don't feel bad. It was an expensive meal, but we've been pretty frugal until now, so I think it was deserved. After dinner we walked back to the bus stop, with a quick detour into The Westin for a bathroom break. Now I'm enjoying some ice creamand getting ready to play more Blackguard.

I have been playing Blackguard and loving it. I dont know how I missed this gem before. I fought one battle about 10 times before I finally mastered the challenge of saving the baroness.

Day 6 - Today was the first day I really felt like we were on vacation. We went out and explored San Antonio, and it was a great adventure. The day started with us trying to get to the Alamo. We took a break under a veranda for about 30 minutes while a passing storm dumped buckets of water, and then continued on. The heat was still in the 90's and the humidity was high, so it was always nice when we found a decent air conditioned building. Here are some pics of the Alamo: We also toured an impressive cathedral where the leaders of the Alamo are interred. After that we did a boat tour of the Riverwalk. It was very interesting, but it put us in the sun for awhile so we sought out some ice cream and a cool building after that. I decided to try and find a decent place for some local beers, but most of the Riverwalk was tourist trap stuff. There was one good location about a mile away called The Friendly Spot, so I convinced my wife that it would be a good place to check out. The walk was tough, and on the way there my son fell asleep, my daughter started to whine, and my wife started to look skeptical. We got to the place, and there was no air conditioning! It was actually a very neat outdoor bar and grill, and there was even a playground for the kids. This would have been ideal in better weather, but alas my whole family did not dig it. I won my wife over with a grapefruit beer. My daughter cheered up a bit with some iced tea and I got myself there beer of the day, a pale ale. But then Logan woke up, and he was not happy. I did a couple laps with him in the stroller while I drank my beer to keep him from total meltdown, and then I grabbed a last beer. We also ate a couple appetizers that were great, a IPA hummus dip and some mushroom tacos. Logan's fuse got shorter and shorter, so I finished up my local IPA and we hit the road. We stopped off at a used video game store to enjoy the AC, and suddenly Logan was happy again. So the two beers, coupled with the heat and not eating much, went straight to my head. I was close to buying an old SNES, but my wife convinced me otherwise. The kids got some hard to find Skylanders, and now my son wants to go home and play it. He doesn't get that we are 2,000 miles away. I happily stumbled my way back to the city center with my family, and we stopped off at a Guadalajara Grill for an enchilada and a margarita. I was feeling pretty good. We grabbed a bus home and were in bed shortly after. It was a great day.

I was surprised as well. We didn't bring passports on this trip, and I don't even have one for my youngest, so I'd be hard pressed to prove citizenship for my kids. But I assume they are just looking for things suspicious, we were travelling alone Interstate 10 and it really is a stone's throw away from the border for quite a few miles.

Hucksterism 101: The rubes don't pay to see worthless, un-notable items. I realized upon re-reading this it could be seen as me calling Hurl a rube, not really my intent. I think these roadside shows can be interesting if you know what you're getting into. But the ballyhoo is there, regardless. I'm happy to play the part of the rube for a buck most days. The cost was small enough to justify it, and it was a nice break from driving. Plus the kids loved it: Oh I forgot to mention we passed through a Border Patrol checkpoint. Thankfully the menacing dog was not interested in our cargo, and we passed through with just a quick question about our citizenship.

I'll be going through Santa Fe on the way back, so I'll keep an eye out for the micro-brewery and church. Day 5 - 600 miles through Texas! Today was the longest drive of the trip, and it was crazy. I got on the road by 6:45 AM, and managed to get 200 miles under us before the kids start to stir and ask to get dressed. They slept through quite a bit of it, so that was great. We passed through El Paso, which was huge. But then for the next 400 miles there was hardly anything. At one point, I went a pretty long stretch without gas. I pulled over to a station in the middle of nowhere, but they were charging $4.00 a gallon! I still had a quarter of a tank, so I figured I'd stop at another. 50 miles went by and there was nothing. The next town was about 40 miles out, but I estimated I only had enough gas for about 30 miles. I stressed and stressed. I checked google for possible side roads that might take me to gas. The light went on with about 20 miles left to go. I checked to make sure I knew where the hazard lights were, I checked to make sure we had decent cell phone service for roadside assistance, and I kept a sharp eye on the shoulder to look for a decent place to pull over. Somehow we managed to make the town. I filled up, and it turns out that my 30 gallon tank really has about 30.5 gallons in it. Then we hit a tremendous thunderstorm a couple hours out of San Antonio. I white knuckled my way through the torrential downpour as bolts of lightning crackled around me. The kids actually slept through it, which was for the best. We pulled into San Antonio and found our park just down the street from where the Spurs play. It's a great park, it has a bunch of stuff for the kids and is more alive than all the other parks we have been in. Tomorrow we will take a bus to the city center and explore. Here's a pic of us at a roadside rest stop:

I am now trying to attract a cricket that has snuck into my ceiling vent with some peanut butter. He is right above my bed. I opened up the vent but he's hiding in a crevasse.

It's kind of crazy how long baseball teams control the rights to players. But at least the arbitration process is there to keep young stars from getting totally robbed.

Not this trip! We are getting pretty close when we go through Missouri and Kansas, but then we drop back down. I do plan on taking a northern route through the states is a couple years, depending on finances. I have a ton of stuff to see on the Eastern seaboard.

Day 4 - So today was hot. Too hot to do much of anything. We spent the day moving between the RV and the little clubhouse they have at the RV park. I did go running at 6 AM, and it was already very warm. I also spent the day trying to convince my son to poop, and fed him apples and bran muffins. We go through this on every trip. I'm going to post a few pictures from yesterday. Here we are entering New Mexico: And here we are set up at the site: Once the sun went down a bit, we headed over to a pizza and winery place for dinner. It was fantastic, and they had some great gelato to finish us off. Tomorrow we get up early and start a very long drive to San Antonio. It is actually only supposed to be 90 degrees out there, so thankfully it will be a little less scorching. All they way across Texas, whoa boy. Thankfully I have a ton of pizza to eat for lunch tomorrow, so that's a plus.

I accept your apology Volourn, thank you. I totally agree with you that players should have the flexibility to opt out of contracts just like the owners. Thankfully players in the NBA do have a fair amount of control over their careers, much more than Football and Baseball.

I don't appreciate you accusing me of supporting slavery. That is a very ugly thing to say about a person. You don't need to be blatantly disrespectful when discussing sports.

Nobody other than people in Cleveland bashed him for leaving Cleveland. He was bashed for handling it in a terribly tacky way, but that is entirely different. Also we didnt even have an NBA thread back then, so stop transferring your misguided aggression toward the media on us Obsidianites.

I've never bashed Lebron, and no one here has seriously done that either. Why u lie?

My son was born during the summer of 2010. In 2011 my wife tore her ACL right before our vacation, so we had to scratch that one.

Well, looks like the league is going to change a bit, Lebron is looking to leave Miami. I wonder where he will end up? I'm rooting for the Warriors to get him.