2 September, 2002, 3:25 PM, on NC 49 somewhere east of Charlotte, North Carolina

If you read my last entry, it was probably pretty obvious that I needed a vacation. Labor Day weekend came just at the right time.

On Saturday morning, Takaza and I drove down (through the driving rain, at times) down to my parents’ in Anderson, South Carolina. The drive was wearying since there was a lot of standing in the water in the road and we stopped at one point to help someone whose minivan had spun out of control across a four-lane highway. No one was hurt, fortunately, but the transmission was definitely screwed and it was stuck in the right travel lane and was not going to move. We stayed (getting completely soaked) and helped direct traffic until some local volunteer firefighters who happened to be passing by stopped and took over until AAA could show up and move the van. Naturally, once we got within a half-hour of my parents’, the rain stopped.

Rasslor and Brophey drove up from Atlanta (Rasslor escaping from Athens, Georgia from the Clemson-Georgia football game). After some swimming in the rather chilly (79 F) pool, we had a nice roast beef dinner and watched some of the game (It wasn’t so much that Georgia won but that Clemson lost – the loss was definitely self-inflicted), and then channel surfed, relaxed, and enjoyed our respective food-comas.

On Sunday, following a tasty brunch of French toast and fruit salad, we headed up to Clemson to see a little of the town and visit Agricultural Sales for ice cream and bleu cheese. As we were driving out to Central to check out my old apartment, the “Low Tire Pressure” light came on. I pulled over to top off the tires and saw that the rear driver’s-side tire was almost flat. It turns out that there were three separate bulges on the interior side of the tire and one of those was leaking. I’m going to take the tire (which only had 21,000 miles on it) to the dealer tomorrow and have a little chat with them. The rest of the afternoon became an exercise in trying to get the tire replaced before everything closed at 6 PM (gotta love small-town South Carolina on a Sunday). Brophey and Rasslor stuck around for dinner (bean soup and roast beef sandwiches) and took off back to Atlanta late that night, since Brophey had to work today.

This morning was quite nice – slowly waking up to the quiet house, all by myself, and doing my weekend websurfing. We whipped up a nice brunch of hash browns and eggs and then headed out for home a little after noon.

Looking ahead to this week, I’ve got quite a bit to accomplish at work. Once that’s done, though, we’re headed in for another fun, if busy weekend. Dan flies out to Chicago on Thursday night, and I follow on Friday night. While we’re up there, we’ll be hanging out with friends, attending a LAFF dinner, and a Midwest Furfest staff meeting. I’m really looking forward to it.