Trip to Beaufort, SC

It has been yet another week with no blog. Surprising since when I first started this, I was doing almost two a day. I recently took a trip with my girlfriend, Diana, to see my Dad in Beaufort, SC. I didn't even know how much I needed a vacation until I was on it. I shuffled some hours around last week so that I could leave at about noon Wed. 3/8/06. I went home, ate lunch, and packed. Nick picked us up at a little before 3PM so we could catch our Delta flight. Diana apparently hates flying. Luckily we made it fine to Savannah, GA (about one hour away from Beaufort) at about 9PM. My stepmom, Kay, and my Dad picked us up at the airport and we talked for the hour it took us to get to their house.

My dad had a guest house built and barely finished before we got there. The guest house sits back and to the right on the property and includes a single car garage, a small workshop for my Dad's woodworking tools, and a guest suite with a kitchenette. The colors are French, blue and yellow, which make the guest suite look bright, happy, and open. There are many windows in the guest room as well which also adds to the openness.

Wed. night we pretty much got there and unpacked, then went to bed. Thursday morning I had to wake up at 6:30AM to do some work for about 4 hours. This was extremely frustrating considering that my Dad's internet connection kept cutting out since their ISP Hargray is horrible in their area and can't keep a connection. By the way Hargray, it's not CLIENT SIDE you IDIOTS. INCOMPETENT PEOPLE THAT TAKE ADVANTAGE OF THOSE WHO KNOW LESS BY TELLING THEM IT'S THEIR FAULT MAKE ME SICK. That being said, I had to 'borrow' the neighbor's wireless. Their wireless wasn't very strong in my Dad's house so thanks to the new and "better" asset management software hogging all the bandwidth, I got cutt offline probably 10 times until it was finally done making my life a living hell. After that things went smoothly. Once I was done with the work, I helped my Dad clean up his office for a new desk so I could set up his computer. While I was doing all this work, I felt bad for Diana who had to entertain herself for countless hours, but I knew I had to work and I'm pretty sure she knew when I asked her to come, though I dunno if either of us knew how much I had to work. Luckily that day we got to take a couple of walks, one to the big dock and one to the smaller one. Later that night we took a car down to Beaufort's downtown area. We ate at a restaurant called Panini's. It was alright, but my lasagna was a little over cooked. There were plenty of shops to take a look in after we ate.

Friday I worked again in the morning setting up my Dad's new office fruniture and computer... then I finally got to a near completion stopping point and Diana and I went to the beach. On the way we stopped at a small seafood restaurant and got fried pickle spears and chicken fingers. The chicken fingers weren't exactly cooked all the way through and I ate a whole one. This made us both lose our appetite. After they took those off the bill and we paid, we continued to the beach. We walked up and down the beach without shoes collecting shells along the way. It was extremely windy that day and a little overcast. We both had on light jackets to shield us from the wind and the sand that it carried. After we collected enough shells, we headed back to the homestead. A little later that night we grilled out steak and greens. That was a great dinner. It was hard to believe that we would be leaving the next day.

Saturday morning we woke up and ate corn pancakes which were quite good. We also got to take a boat ride and check a crab trap to see how many were in it. This day it was very sunny and much less windy than the day before, though the boat ride was still bumpy. We got to see an old plantation house which was very cool. I took my Yashica camera with me so I could get some good black and white pictures. This was one of them. This reminds me... I hope that putting the camera through the Xray machine didn't destroy the film. Oh well, a little late to worry too much about that now. After we got back, we packed and headed out about 1PM to Savannah, GA where we ate lunch and drove around to see all the pretty squares in the downtown area. We also walked along the touristy area on the riverbank so Diana could do a bit of shopping. After a couple of hours, my Dad dropped us off at the airport so that we could come home. We each checked a bag and waited for our flight.

The two flights home were much better than the two going to Savannah, GA. Delta seemed to sense our bad flights and tried to make up for it this time. The flights were fine, but Delta promptly lost our baggage and didn't bother to tell us. We had to go to the window and wait in line to give them our information. This consequently bumped Chris over the free 30 minute time frame for short term parking. Delta says they don't have anything to do with parking and parking said the same thing about Delta when we asked if we could get the ticket validated. Funny thing they're both at the airport. It being completely Delta's fault that we went over the 30 minute time limit, I don't see why they couldn't pay for the parking. Fortunately we got our bags yesterday and they, and everything in them, smell of jet fuel. Thanks Delta.

I don't know what it is about me and companies/corporations, but it seems they always try to screw me (Delta, Airtran, Cingular, Sprint, Buy.com, Time Warner, MLGW to list a few). I guess it's fitting that I am currently employed by one. I really enjoyed the trip and I'm very glad that Diana got to go with me. It leads to a less stressful work week.