Ben and I had been cooped up in the house for way too long this past July so we decided it was high time for an adventure. Occasionally, we go off for an afternoon and hunt for whatever random sights strike my fancy with the aid of a guidebook and trusty MapQuest directions.

A quick visit to Roadside America revealed that a farm in Lucama, about an hour away, exhibited the creations of folk artist, Vollis Simpson. What might these be, you ask? Whirligigs! For those of you who have never heard of such things, my completely un-researched definition is that a whirligig is a bunch of metal crafted into artwork and hung on the top of large poles to blow and chime in the wind. Two more curiosities were located within ten miles of the whirligigs and so our route was mapped.

We drove first to downtown Wilson to seek out the largest reproduction of the Cape Hatteras lighthouse that exists. Having seen the actual lighthouse on the Outer Banks, I can tell you that it’s definitely a pretty tower and worthy of reproduction with its barber pole stripes. The model is located in the parking lot of Worrell’s Seafood Restaurant on Goldsboro Street. You can’t miss it as you drive into the main strip of town.

Our information neglected to mention that Worrell’s also displays giant sea creatures on the top and sides of the building. The whale looked ready for a swim.

There were also seahorses and a marlin on the side of the building. While lighthouses have their charms, I was more delighted by these friendly sea creatures.

I’d planned that we would get lunch in Wilson but as often seems the case on a Sunday in Small Town, North Carolina, everything was closed. We happened upon a sandwich and shake joint on the way to our next stop and were thrilled to discover what just might be the smallest miniature golf course I’ve ever seen.

Putt Putt of Wilson is about twice the size of our basement, but I’ve yet to come across a course I haven’t enjoyed playing. Ben won by a stroke. Someday, I will reclaim the crown.

To find the whirligigs, we drove down the long country road, Wiggins Mill. You know you’ve reached them once you see giant metal structures loom over the side of the road. We turned onto the next street after sighting them and parked by the gate on the right. As long as the gate is open, visitors are welcome to come in and admire the whirligigs. This is the first view once in the park area.

This is my favorite shot of the creations. Makes me want to go find a fair!

And this is a closer-up view of one of the whirligigs. I’m impressed that Mr. Simpson has the patience to put these together. But then, I’m also impressed when someone has the patience to sew a hemline or iron a pair of pants.

Our last stop was Donnie’s Corvette Specialists in Kenly, where a very shady character has taken up residence.

According to Roadside America, he is a relic from a Tastee Freeze ad campaign in the 1950s. I don’t know how much ice cream the fellow sold, but I was glad to be speeding away from him as soon as the pictures were snapped. Day-Glo Orange is not a good color on anyone.

Many more photos are on our photo website, http://www.yellow5labs.com/photos, of course. If you’d like to browse, hit adventures, and then select whirligig adventure at the end of the list. Ben did a redesign on the site, so let us know any feedback you may have! To view the comments, you press the plus sign on the right side of the screen.

Coming up, wedding trips in New Jersey, Washington DC, and my ten-year high school reunion in California. Will I be sick of traveling by November? Never!

For this journey, we had three goals:

1. Meet up with Claire Shinkman in Maryland for lunch. Claire is the famed ‘Ben and Becca Matchmaker’ whose room I subletted when I moved to Boston.
2. Go to Lisa’s wedding. She is a close high school friend of Ben’s and was about to marry David Skoczylas, pronounced ‘scotch-less,’ to which Ben replied that he’d be happy to supply some.
3. Take a ghost tour in Gettysburg.

I decided to brush up on my civil war history and actually crammed in three books on Gettysburg in the preceding month. My reading, which I do plan to review on GoodReads soon, confirmed that, yes, maybe I should visit that battlefield and not just take a ghost tour. History is fun!

We made great time on the first leg of the trip, making it to Maryland and Claire in about three hours. After much cavorting, we learned that Claire’s been in Korea on and off for the past year, which is where she will be moving after her wedding in September. She’s impressively snagged a few acting gigs there already including the role of the villain, Cavity, in a musical called Teeth. I still want to see the promotional poster.

After finishing a meal of gazpacho (I’ve made better) and BLT sliders that Claire declared wrong because sliders should involve a hamburger patty and I argued that the term just means a smaller sandwich (she’s probably right), we headed back on the road to Ben’s parent’s house.

And hit traffic. Lots and lots of traffic. The last segment of the drive should have taken eight hours—it took eleven. We rolled into Mark and Karen’s about 1am, very tired and very sick of the car. We also learned that the drivers of York, PA might be the most obnoxious ones I’ve come across yet. Really, citizens of York? You don’t leave space for cars to turn on side roads when a light is backed up? Really?

The wedding was held mid-morning in one of several churches on the town square of Brookfield, MA. I spent most of the ceremony playing with my zoom lens. As flashes were taboo and it’s quite difficult to keep a steady arm while shooting between guest’s heads, the results were mostly blurry but here’s one anyhow.

I did stop taking pictures long enough to hear a beautiful retelling of the miracle at Cana by the officiate, Reverend Eleanor Kraner. The ceremony appeared to go off without a hitch, though she did forget to ask the groom to kiss his bride, which David didn’t let fly for long. The guests then drove to Salem Croft Inn where gorgeous flowers were in full bloom. Here’s one of the fabulous poppies.

We had appetizers outside and were then ushered in the historic Inn for the reception. All went well though both Ben and I had a tough time coming to terms with the vast amounts of country music. Being as it wasn’t our wedding, we endured. Ben considered tossing M&Ms at the bride from our vantage point in the balcony but out of fear of her brother, a policeman, he did not. Coward.

After the ceremony, we visited Ben’s grandmother Gerry and crowded all of us (his parents, sister Erin, and her husband Travis) in her room at the nursing home. The rest of the day was spent in leisure couch time and a trip to the local bar, Admiral T.J. O’Brien’s. The guitarist definitely believed he inherited the crown of rock from Jerry Garcia. Rock on, man, rock on.

The next afternoon, we pulled into the bed & breakfast, Herr’s Inn and Public House, in Gettysburg. The place was fabulous, spacious room, lovely Jacuzzi tub, and a complimentary bottle of champagne awaiting us on the side table. We lazed around for awhile then headed to downtown Gettysburg to catch the requisite ghost tour. Lincoln Square and the surrounding streets looked lovely but alas, we didn’t have time to explore.

There’s a great many ghost tours to choose from on Baltimore Street and we went with Ghosts of Gettysburg, the first ghost tour that popped up in the area. Interested in taking a ghost tour yourself? Find a different tour company. The guide was fine but the stories didn’t have much pizzazz; I’ll take an outlandish story that can send shivers down my spine any day over the personal type such as “My mom thought she heard something when she worked” here. I was also a bit disappointed that their latest tour left at 8pm, an hour before dark. Here’s a picture from the tour, of an old public school where ghostly images reportedly appear in the windows in photographs. This building, as were most of the buildings standing at the time of the battle, was used as a hospital for the wounded.

We ended our evening at the B&B’s tavern, chatting up the bartender and watching Princess Bride while munching on greasy bar food. Beware that Gettysburg’s kitchens close down by 9pm on Sundays.

Monday morning found us at the Gettysburg National Battlefield. We bought the narrated CD produced by the History Channel as our guide, which I’d recommend if you don’t have enough questions that you’d want your own personal guide. We spent three hours driving, listening to the narration, and taking pictures of the area. My inner history geek loved the experience and Ben wasn’t quite as bored as he thought he’d be. Here’s look at the field of Pickett’s Charge.

And here’s the wheat field, where the greatest concentration of men were killed and wounded.

And here I am on top of the New York Memorial, just one of many, many, many memorials and markers throughout the 25-mile area of the battlefield.

Then we went home, happy to have no surprises from the kitties for the weekend. Thanks for watching them again, Amy! For more photos of the wedding or Gettysburg, head on over to our photo website at www.yellow5labs.com.

Written 5/12/2008

As I type, I am flying back towards the East Coast from spending the weekend at my mother’s home in Tieton, Washington. I was quite impressed with the beauty of the area this time round—likely because Mom and Tim have moved away from Yakima, the largest town in the vicinity, and higher into the valleys of their mountain range. It’s quite gorgeous as you can see:

I didn’t get any good photos of the orchards but they are full of cherry and apple trees, which were just starting to bloom.

The trip was uneventful and relaxing. Ben and I were more than happy to make use of their hot tub and we played a lot of board games. Impressively, my mother won most of them and I swear we weren’t letting her win just because it was Mother’s Day. I’m more cutthroat than that. By the way, anyone know where I can buy a game of 221 B Baker Street?

Mom and Tim have two long-haired kitties and play den parents to three other neighborhood cats so I definitely got my fix of animals. Below is Tom, a gorgeous mix of bobcat and domestic short hair.

I’d guess he’s about a quarter bobcat, which shows in his muscles, large head and paws, and quick swing. He was adorable, though.

We took Mom and Tim out to dinner on Saturday night at the Trout Lodge. It had a fabulous view and everyone ate to their heart’s content. I managed to not be grossed out by my head-on trout. Here’s Mom and Tim at the restaurant.

Not much else to report for the trip. More photos can be found at our photo website. Here’s hoping Loki’s still home when I get in tonight! We had a call from a subdivision over on Sunday. He had wandered to their house and was looking lost, much like the other time he got lonely and went exploring overnight when Verdandi was missing. They dropped him off back at our house this morning, which was very much appreciated, Randy of Woodwinds! I guess I’m going to have to keep them both inside when we leave now.

Coming up: Ben has three friends with weddings this summer and fall so we will be making weekend trips to Massachusetts twice and one to DC. We’re going to stop over at Gettysburg on the way back from the first wedding and are totally taking a ghost tour. I’m hoping to also make it out to California for my high school reunion on 10/25 and spend a week showing Ben the coast of California via Highway 1. If you live between Santa Maria and San Francisco and want to invite us over for a night that following week, we’ll take you up on it!

Tell me if you can, why do audiences give a standing ovation at almost every performance of a play or musical?

I don’t know when I was taught what a standing ovation meant. I have always taken it to be a way to express thanks for a truly great experience in the theater. There are few times when I have felt that a performance warranted such appreciation and most times were for the shows put on by my high school’s drama troupe. Were they perfect? No, but that pool of young thespians was pretty darn talented and the directors put their heart and souls into every piece. It showed. The stories were clear, the songs sung sincerely and the back of the house worked hard at their jobs. All parts of a performance came together to make you feel that the last two, okay four, hours of your life were well spent. I can’t remember the last time I experienced the same satisfaction after watching a show, which conveniently brings me back to my point.

I’m not a critic of theater but I can recognize when that electric charge of connection between the players and the audience sets the hairs of your arm to tingling like someone waved a magnet over them. I’ve watched passable performances of Urinetown, Chess, The Drowsy Chaperone, and many others in recent years. For the most part, the direction was fine but uninspired, singers sang sufficiently but the action had little momentum. When done I’d applaud, scratch that show of my mental list of ones to watch, and reach for my jacket. At the same time, the rest of the audience inevitably swells up into an ovation, grating into my nerves in the process. I’d like to think that my sensibilities rile due to yet another example of how our society wants to praise everyone for merely existing rather than for excelling. Perhaps I’m just cynical and every performance should be extolled for merely concluding without glaring mishaps. To me, as the curtain falls, the performers and crew are merely people who have finished a job and unless I’ve felt that connection, they don’t warrant more than a few claps. But as I look around and see that I’m eye level with hundreds of booties yet again, I realize I must be alone in that opinion.

Lately, I have been feeling nostalgic. What, Becca nostalgic? I know, I know, stop the presses. But what I’m missing isn’t anything and everything, but one small, specific ability that seems to have disappeared from my everyday life. It’s the ability to just drop by someone’s house, unannounced, and spend time just chilling. Whether that be playing card games on the floor of the Ruth’s with Jennie and Casey, or watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer with the Archer House crew, or even sitting on Paul’s bed, reading an assignment while he’s “studying” at the computer.

As children, we did this all the time. I didn’t call ahead to make a play date; I’d walk up the nearby streets and see who was out playing. That’s all it took; you saw someone, you spent the afternoon with them. In high school, I had a few households that fulfilled that same purpose; the aforementioned Ruths, the Reeses, late night hanging out with Shawn at the gas station…and of course, church probably fit into this role. In college, I could go over to pretty much any dorm or friend’s house and find a way to while away the afternoon. In the brief two months I spent back at Santa Maria before the move to Boston, I think I wore out Casey’s doorbell.

Yet now, it seems like hanging out is only allowed with prearranged dinner dates and events. Is this simply the next stage in the life of homo sapien americanus? I feel like part of it may be that we start internalizing more as we grow up—by the time I’m retirement age, I fully intend to spend my days mulling politics over the morning paper and philosophizing with my brandy snifter by the fire at night. But in the meantime, I’m left wondering just why my neighbors are more likely to stare me down than invite me in for a cup of licorice tea if I’m chasing my cat in the cul-de-sac.

And because I am eternally grateful to Jon Trumbull for introducing a classroom full of unsuspecting teens to Cat’s Cradle, I end with this quote, a few days short of the anniversary of Kurt Vonnegut’s death-

“A purpose of human life, no matter who is controlling it, is to love whoever is around to be loved.”

I know I’m probably the only person who laughs at the spam mail she receives, but I do and feel the need to share.

Sitting at my computer, pressing “Refresh” and waiting for your
message at http://getnewgirlfriend.com/ site.

My login name are badgurl i am wating you

Why does this one make me laugh besides a strong desire to know what “wating” is? Because I also savor the feeling of pressing Refresh and hoping someone has responded to me. Is it wrong to feel a connection with a spammer?

Free Will and an All-Knowing God

In discussions, I’ve often heard people claim that free will cannot exist in the same world as an omniscient God. This argument generally poses the question, “How we can truly make our own choices if it’s already a given what choice we will make, as the presence of an omniscient God indicates?” If you have other thoughts about why an all-knowing God and free will cannot coexist, please comment below!

I don’t believe these two concepts are mutually exclusive. God may know what we will chose but he doesn’t do the choosing for us. It is love to give us the choice in spite of knowing what the end result will be. I believe God created us because he is the embodiment of love and true love must be shared with others. But he couldn’t just let us revel in that love; we wouldn’t understand what love is without something to measure it against. So God decided we should have free will and choose to follow him or choose to live apart from him. To follow God is to love God, love yourself, and love your neighbor. To live apart is to sin, to act in ways that disappoint God, hurt yourself, or hurt others. To follow God is to have an abundant, overflowing life with His companionship. To sin is to choose a life outside of the presence of God. However, I also believe that we cannot completely grasp what a life apart from God is until the afterlife because this whole sphere of existence is his creation, brought to life by his breath. Hell, to me, is the absence of God’s presence.

But how can God allow us to suffer if he loves us, as living apart from him for eternity will be? A choice would not really be a choice if the results of that choice were the same. No, free will gives us the option to decide our own futures, for good or for bad not for good or a little less good. The Christian belief, though, is that God, in His love, did devise a means for us to change our minds and choose Him after we’d already rejected Him. That’s the story of Jesus Christ.

So, that’s where I presently stand on the issue of how free will and an omniscient God can exist. What do you think? Am I offbase? What haven’t I taken into account? Believe you me, I welcome the opportunity to test my faith—if it cannot stand up, how can I truly believe it?

This definitely does NOT fall under the philosophical/religious/political discussion realm–well, possibly under political. I just had to share with everyone this gem I found in a spam email today:

Just like they know that the moon is made of Tofu, and that fat pink pigs used to fly out of Chairman Mao’s backside on pubic holidays.

You just don’t read that everyday!

I do plan to post soon on free will and the nature of God so get your comments ready—but are those your own thoughts or just the thoughts God wants you to think?

It’s seem that more and more communities are forbidding smoking through various means—UNC Chapel Hill has decided that smoking will be banned within 100 ft. of university property. That means no one, not students, not professors, not staff, not visitors can smoke for the duration of the time that they remain on campus. This, of course, has been decided for the benefit of everyone’s health, as medical studies have shown that nonsmokers do have a risk of developing lung cancer; Dana Reeves is the highest-profile example of this.

Now, I don’t know how the university plans to enforce this, nor do I think it lawfully can be enforced, but regardless, I believe policies like these are intended to make smokers feel like criminals. They must lurk in the dark corners to nurse their habit—even smoking areas are forbidden on campus. I’m not a smoker but I think that it’s ridiculous to try and legislate such laws against a legal vice. Until the day that cigarettes are contraband, doesn’t it seem that such actions infringe on the bill of rights?

As the medical literature does prove that proximity to smoke can cause lung cancer, I would be in favor of forbidding it from entrances, buildings, etc. But UNC has a plethora of wide open spaces; I don’t understand why smoking areas couldn’t be allowed in the middle of them. Are people incapable of granting smokers a wide berth? There are plenty of paths to take to any building.

I also think it’s insulting that the University’s answer to concerns about the policy is to refer people to resources that help fight nicotine addiction. As in, the only possible reaction people could have is to try and quit, not try and fight for their rights.

What do you think? Am I overacting and such policies aren’t really a big deal and are better for everyone? Or do such actions want to make you step to the window and scream that you’re mad as hell as well?

I’m against the death penalty, largely due to my Christian beliefs. I think that the act of taking another person’s life is something that only God should be able to do. Who are we to decide that someone’s life has fulfilled its divine purpose and can now be snuffed out? God can always turn around for good what the Devil intended for evil. This doesn’t mean that I think murderers don’t deserve to die. I do.

I went to a panel discussion on the death penalty a couple nights ago at UNC. It was mainly a discussion on if, regardless of whether the majority wants the death penalty as an option or not, we as humans can create a system that effectively levies and carries out that sentence. In the last decade, 124 death row inmates have been exonerated due to DNA evidence. That’s 124 innocent people who would have been killed if we didn’t have that field of science. And only a small portion of cases ever actually use DNA testing. I’m not comfortable with one single erroneous death because we insist on carrying out executions. It was argued at the panel, though, that the exonerations are in fact proof that our present system of appeals does work and afford the necessary checks and balances to make sure that only the guilty are being executed.

Often, people argue that it’s better to execute than to spend taxpayers’ money on keeping a murderer in prison for life. Thus far, studies are inconclusive on which costs more, death row and the system of necessary appeals and associated court costs or life in prison.

Jury decisions on when to sentence death vs. life in prison have been incredibly inconsistent. Racism is rampant in the sentencing of 1^st degree murderers. If the victim is white, the murderer is three times as likely to be sentenced to death than for African American or Hispanic victims. Also, few people would argue that mass murderers and serial killers don’t deserve to die, but at the same time, the vast majority of inmates on death row are there for the murder of one person. Of course, their victim’s lives were invaluable but how can we call the system just when people who go on shooting sprees can get life while someone who murdered a girlfriend in a jealous rage might be killed? We could just decide that all 1^st degree murderers should be executed, with life in prison never an option. Are you comfortable with that?

I was shocked to learn at the panel that most mainline protestant denominations and Catholicism have released official statements condemning the use of the death penalty, largely because their leaders don’t believe we should take the risk of killing innocents for the sake of preserving the death penalty system. Growing up in a Pentecostal environment, I was taught that the death penalty was necessary as we are God’s servants, meant to carry out His will on Earth. I later rejected this myself after being unable to reconcile “an eye for an eye” with “turn the other cheek.” It was heartening to learn that so many Christian groups had made official statements in line with my own decision. It’s nice not to feel alone!

Perhaps one of the most important considerations for me is that I doubt I would, if asked, be willing to carry out an execution. One of my favorite fantasy books, A Game of Thrones, starts out with one of the lords personally beheading a man he had sentenced to death. He tells his sons that any man who’s willing to punish behavior with death must be willing to strike the blow himself. By accepting our system as is and allowing the death penalty, we as a society are saying yes, this or that person must die, but would we actually go through with it if we had to inject the poisons ourselves? I think the distance we’ve created between the sentence and the act of execution has made it easier to support the death penalty for most of us.

What do you think? Why do you support the death penalty? Why should we abolish it? Would you support it if we could be assured, somehow, that all those convicted were, in fact, guilty? Is the possible deterrence enough value that it’s worth the life of an innocent every so often in order to save other innocent lives?