Wednesday, November 26, 2014

Thanksgiving With George The Pug

We drove to St. Louis for Thanksgiving, then Springfield, then Chicago to get interviewed by Homeland Security for our Global Entry/TSA PreCheck passes, then back again for four separate Thanksgivings in all. The only pictures I have of any of that are of Lydia's dog George, so.. let's just go with it.


Dogs can't see pink so George has no idea he's dressed like a little girl. Awkward.


This being Thanksgiving I got a lot of beg-staring from under the table while I was eating. I took the opportunity to play a round of "will he eat it?" Turns out he will eat raw acorn squash and raw celery. What a champ.


He was super well behaved after I showed him this picture of what happens to bad pugs on Thanksgiving.


Laptop screen=dog chin holder.

Saturday, November 15, 2014

Party in Pineville

Our hip local friends Dustin and Mary invited us out to an interesting little bar called The Tavern in the dink town of Pineville, Missouri which is pretty darn close to the Arkansas border. After meeting all kinds of new people (including a British-born horse riding trainer) we drove home on some pretty spooky little dirt roads.


Lydia and Dustin behind the bar like they own the place.


Mary and Lydia doing some karaoke. Several randos were up their mumbling their anonymous country songs so it really wasn't fair when I stepped up on stage to lay down karaoke martial law. Long time readers know that I'm a Japan-trained karaoke samurai, so this was no big deal. Our table was literally chanting my name wanting me to do another song. I'm not really even exaggerating. Killed it.

Friday, November 07, 2014

Parents in Neosho

My parents made the drive to the year-round carnival that is Neosho so we showed them around town briefly and then promptly hit the road.


Undercliff Grill and Bar is a sort of magical. It's just on the outskirts of Neosho, and it's a bar built into the side of a freakin' cliff. The roof is just there to keep rocks from the cliff from falling on your head.




Well we were going on a family adventure so I bought the four of us matching, hideous, neon green Neosho t-shirts from walmart. It was funny because they were so bad that even if we were inside and it was warm no one wanted to take their jackets off because the shirts were so very very hideous.


I'd been wanting to stay in the Frank Lloyd Wright designed Price Tower in Bartlesville, Oklahoma and this seemed like a good opportunity. We booked this pretty baller two story suite.


The next day we toured the Frank Phillips Home of Phillips 66 oilman fame. On a previous adventure Lydia and I checked out his crazy ranch Woolaroc. Fun was had by all.

Tuesday, November 04, 2014

Baby Wipe Factory Tour

Today we had a field trip in class (I'm so glad those are still a thing!) We toured the local Rockline Industries factory in Springdale, Arkansas. They make all kinds of wipes and coffee filters. It was actually a lot cooler than I had expected, with robot saw blades chopping paper and other awesome stuff. There was also a cool metal detector that they ran all of the product through to make sure no robots were trying to escape the building. The purposes ran metal pieces through it periodically to make sure it was detecting correctly.


I had to wear a security badge, hair net, beard net, protective glasses, and head phones with mic.