The Holtonian

Things I'm looking forward to about Atlanta

Top 5 minute things I'm most excited about moving to Atlanta:

5. Most likely we'll have a Dominos that will deliever to our house or even better be close by. I LOVE DOMINOS as far as the big pizza chains I think its by far the best. Sure I'd rather have Lupis (Something I will definately miss about chatty), but sometimes you want a quick pizza thats cheap. Here on the Mtn the only place that will deliver is Mr. T's. And the only other option for pizza in this area is Pizza Hut. Both of these options are awful as Mr. T's is just weak pizza and Pizza Hut is just grease with cheese.

4. Decent News Casters. Lets face it the Chattanooga news teams are subpar. I grew up in St. Louis which had decent news casters and watching the news here is just painful. I'm not trying to sound like a snob or anything but half the people on the news here are ugly and the other half can't read a teleprompter.

3. Pro Sports Teams. The Lookouts are actually really cool and I'm glad chatt has them here as its cheap fun with good hotdogs and cheaper beer than the pros. But I'm a pro baseball fan and going to the bravos games really excites me. Also catching a few hockey games will be kind of fun too, I mean that's like cheap entertainment in Atlanta, does anyone go to those games? Falcons games?? Well if I want to see Vick play awful then it should be fun, but I'm not a huge pro football fan, frankly I'd be more interested in seeing Georgia Tech play. I can possibly anticipate getting tickets to a Hawks/Spurs games if they ever play each other. That'd be a nice treat for the wifey who's a big spurs fan.

2. New Restaurants. I'm an eater, and frankly I feel like I've been to just about every decent restaurant this city has to offer. There's a few new ones that have sprung up recently, but I've been to most everything. Eating out at Lunch at work got really lame because everything downtown is the same. I recall some of our conversations at work were soley based on "Where do we want to eat...?" These conversations would go on for hours because there just wasn't all that much downtown that we hadn't done to death. It'll be cool finding new local places in Atlanta that are great. We'll definately have to find the Atlanta version of Lupis. Theres already a few restaurants I'm looking forward to, Dunkin Doughnuts is in the lobby of my office building... this could be very dangerous for my waist line. Willy's, its like Moes but slightly better.

1. Decent Radio Stations. The radio stations up here are pretty abysmal. Trying to find a station that actually plays music and not commercials is impossible. 96.5, 105.5, 98.1, 104.5, 95.3 these are all just eh. 96.5 is the worst as it never plays music anymore and if it does its stuff that I recall listening to in Jr. High. 96.5 there is music other than Nirvana and Pearl Jam! Up here on the mtn sometimes I can pick up a few Atlanta stations and I'll listen to them and hear Beck... and not Loser, but rather his new stuff or his off the wall stuff.

I say all this not to condescend Chattanooga, its one of the greatest cities I've lived in... so far I've lived in two, and I will say chattanooga is a 100 times better than St. Louis.... If Chattanooga had the Cardinals and the Cardinal Fanage here it would be the perfect city. Its really the perfect size, its on the upswing as far as revitalization, its real outdoorsy (which I like), great restaurants (Even though I've eaten at most of them), great old homes, great bars, great hamburgers, great people, most of all the people.

Elias Holton is born

I want to send out the Mazle Mazle to my brother Peter and sister-in-law Joy with the birth of their little boy Elias (I think his middle name is Peter) Holton. He was 6lbs 2 oz and was born via planned c section on tuesday. So far all the baby pics I've seen have him looking like a little Pedro, meaning he looks like his daddy. But AK looked just like me when she was born but as she's grown up some now she looks a good cross between wifey and myself. Its so exciting to be an uncle, but more exciting to see Pete and Joy be parents, I'm really happy for them.

I asked where they got the name from but I don't remember or they weren't sure. The only Elias I know of is Willam Dafoe's Character in Platoon, which is a pretty cool character. Nevertheless its a dang cool name.

Also they might be transferred to Atlanta. I think they're positive they're being transferred there but all the details and timing may change... heck with the military nothing ever seems for certain. Though it would be pretty awesome tawsome to have them in the same city even if it is for a short time. It would also be nice for Joy and Wifey as Pete's flying has him coming and going and my job might have me coming and going. Not sure if I was supposed to broadcast that move, but if I wasn't he'll give me a good yelling at.

Well so far the week off has brought little to the table. Though the wife has gotten a ton of stuff done. Basically I've been a stay at home dad for a few good hours each day giving the wife time to get out and run errands. Plus its nice having the bonding time with AK because as of next week I'll only see her on weekends... which not seeing wifey and AK will be really C-R-A-P-P-Y-!

I'll probably go for a run this afternoon. I went monday and it was great to get out there, this warm weather makes it so easy and enjoyable. Other than that...I'm just sort of enjoying my last week in chattanooga... granted I haven't been out of the house very much.

Cardinals Stove Heats Up: The Adam Kennedy Experiment

Man, o man... I'm so pumped about Adam Kennedy signing with the birds. Frankly I was disappointed when we traded him... though i think we got big Jim for him so I guess its been worth it. Kennedy's three year deal finally creates some stability in the 2nd base position and is a big upgrade from Belliard. I think gruz should have been brought back for this past year but I would still take Kennedy over Gruz, mostly due to age and Kennedy's durability. It really gives the cardinals two great base hitters to get on for Pujols.

They still need a dominate clean up hitter, but those are hard to come by. Wouldn't it be awesome flawsome if they got Manny? I've been saying it for years and know it won't happen but man how awesome would it be to have Pujols and Manny on the same team? Plus how great would it be to see Manny come into the NL? I think some of the big AL hitters need to come to the NL to just shalack the NL pitchers... granted they need to come to the cardinals.

I hope they trade Juan Encarnacion, I think he realizes, the cardinals realize, and the fan's realize he doesn't fit. The guy didn't go to the championship celebration. Not to mention the fact that he was replaced with a guy who can't field for some of the games (Duncan).

Now I really doubt the cardinals could repeat. I think the cardinals are about the least likely team to get back to the World Series since maybe the Diamondbacks or the Marlins when they won... mostly b/c those teams were dismantled. But the cardinals have maybe a few more good years before the Cubs are sold to an owner who will spend the bank on them to make them good, just like what happened to the Red Sox. I mean they cubs already got Soriano, which stinks. Even if they sign Shmidt or somebody they'll still only have two pitchers. They really only have one right now and that's Zambrano, so pitching wise they got a long way to go.

Thanksgiving

Having the house on the market has been pretty nerve racking. Someone came by yesterday to look at it and we were up all night cleaning and getting things situated. I keep thinking, "Well if I don't pick up this or put this in the right spot, then it might turn them off and they won't buy it..." Total lack of faith and trust in God's sovereignty to be frank. I keep telling myself to just give it to God and he'll take care of it. I mean that's what I did with my job situation, though I still fretted time and time again over it.

One valid fret that I think we had was whether to decorate for Christmas. I mean every year we decorate the house after thanksgiving, usually whatever day we get home from wherever we were. We asked our realtor and she said 'go for it.' But then my fretting kicks in, "Well what if someone looks at our christmas decorations and thinks 'well, we need a house this week and these people seem to be staying till christmas....''' But we realized that if our house doesn't sell by christmas that we would have hated not having it decorated. I mean its so nice having the tree and garland all the decorations up. Gives you warm fuzzies.

As far as thanksgiving went, we had a good time. We usually do thanksgiving with my folks and christmas with wifey's. But basically my brothers had other plans this thanksgiving and instead of us driving 7 to 8 hours to St. Louis with a baby we asked if my parents didn't mind coming down to chatt, and then down to Macon to spend it with both sides of the family. My parents graciously accepted the invite and came down last tuesday and spent the day here with us and AK. Then wednesday we got in our seperate cars and my parents went to go see one of my uncles in Atlanta while we went and looked at a few houses in the Mableton/Smyrna area. Traffic was rediculous and it took a good long while to get to Macon... that drive will be easier to handle once we live in Atlanta.

Then we had some turkey on thursday, looked at all the ads in the paper to see if there was any thing worth buying, and then Friday came back up to Chatt. It seemed like a lot of driving but it was great getting both sides of the family together. Then saturday we just relaxed and decorated/cleaned the house.

It was a rough sleeping down in Macon though. My inlaws have a three bed 2.5 bath and so we had to share a room with AK. Normally this isn't a problem but she had her flu shot and a few other shots on Tuesday and it sort of messed her schedule up a bit. So she didn't sleep much, and thus we didn't sleep much. The worst was Thanksgiving night because the wife sort of accidentally had two glasses of sweet tea... and thus the baby had some sweet tea via the process of feeding the baby via the boob. So our desire to get home and have her in a seperate room was very strong. But she's already back to normal and sleeping great.

One thing that was kind of cool, my parents brought me some authentic Cardinals 2006 Champions gear and a traditional cardinals hat. My hat that I currently have is a beat up hat that they usually wear on Sunday home games with the bird on the bat. They got me the traditional one with the STL logo which is cool. The Champions gear was a T-shirt that I'll proudly wear around, especially in front of Josiah, and a hat that is kind of tacky (sorry Mom and Dad) but I'll gladly wear it around Josiah as well. I figure I'll eventually maybe get an office in some future house and want to kind of have the champions hat as sort of a display item. I love all the gear though, its great to have it as mementos. I was kind of bummed I never got any Rams stuff when the won the Super Bowl (even though I'm not a huge Rams fan). A friend of mine got me a sweat shirt of the super bowl in 2001 when they lost to the Patriots... but that's not as impressive.

Now what?

So this week, and last week, I've been using up my last vacation from CIGNA. Basically I put my two weeks in but had two weeks of vacation. I told them a few days ahead of time so I didn't leave on terrible terms. But now that leaves me with this week off and not much to do really.

One thing I do want to do is run. I ran on thanksgiving day, tuesday, and sunday. So three days not bad, that's my desired bare minimum though with this job stuff its been hard to maintain the schedule. But since I have zero to do getting out for a run shouldn't be too hard. I'm on baby duty now as wifey went out to run some errands. So maybe this afternoon.

Only had two people look at the house so far. It was shown yesterday but not sure how it went. Its frusterating because you want to know ASAP if the people liked the house and really the only way you'll know is if they put an offer on the house. It looks like our neighbor's house across the street sold his house. It was a 3bed 1 bath... though the third bed I wouldn't really consider a bedroom. Not sure what the buyer is going to do with it but I think its a great house to rent out to covenant students. Some catacombs guys rented it out for a year and then the owner just wanted to get the money out of the house so he sold it. Our house is a little more established and thus more expensive and wouldn't make as good of a rental. Its actually I think a great house for a college professor if there are any looking to move down the street from the school.

One other thing that I'd like to do is go out for a movie. We have some free tickets to a Carmike theater here in Chatt so before we're outta here I want to use them. Not sure what we'll see. Maybe that Will Ferrell movie with ema thompson or maybe Bond. The wife's a big bond fan... she likes spy movies a lot. The MI series (Minus the 2nd), Alias, and Anne of Green Gables... she was actually a spy for the U.S. in Canada, it was never explicitly communicated but you can read between the lines and its there.

I'll probably get together with the guys from work to have a few beers at Tbones. Its a crappy bar but its near where you park for CIGNA and has dirt cheap beer.

Other than that this would be a great time to video game but I still don't have my DS. I left it at Crabbs and haven't had a chance to get it back. I thought about going to Toys R US and picking up a gameboy micro.. they were 40 bucks on Black Friday or whatever its called. There's something really cool about a video game machine that is the size of a cell phone. But I'd only be able to play a few games on it.. and the DS plays those same games so in a sense it would be just for the novelty.

I start on Monday, its crazy. I hope my car can make the commute in rush hour. The first few days, maybe weeks, I'll have to do the strict 8 to 5 schedule until I get established but by next 2007 I should have some flexibility and can go in early or something to avoid traffic... well as much as one can in Atlanta. I'm real excited/anxious/nervous about the job. It will be real interesting to see how it goes.

Though the big question facing me right now is, Do I have to move to ATLblogs?

This and That

So, here's part three in the trilogy... though as I write this I think it might be an ongoing saga so who knows... maybe an epic or something.

So far no good on the house, not too many people are interested in moving during thanksgiving... they're too busy being thankful for what they got I guess.

This weekend I pretty much just raked and did some work around the house. Its amazing to see my yard, both front and back, leafless this time of year. Last year as I recall I said I'd never rake the backyard and the leaves could just stay back there for all I cared. Amazing what the desire for curb appeal does to you.

I think we've narrowed our housing search down to a few subdivisions around the Crabbs. With my traveling so much for this job living close to good friends and in a safe community was a key point for us. There's two subdivisions that we like and we're going to research them some more in person.

It was weird not having to go to work today... I'm done with that place... hard to imagine.

Today we went to JC Penny and got our AK with santa pics. Sad that some people won't let their kids have the joy of Santa in their lives... sad that they won't ever get to see their kids face of wonder and surprise when Santa drops off gifts under their trees... but I guess there's always a scrooge. Frankly I find it Fantastically Dull not to instill the belief in Santa and have that bit of holiday fun with the kids. I mean think of how many movies won't be fun for your kids to watch... Miracle on 34st Street has no meaning, Ernest can't Save Christmas, the Nightmare before Christmas will be nothing more than a happy dream, the Polar Express will be just a train to nowhere, and what... oh what, will the Grinch steal?

I realize Christ is the reason for the season, that is something that no Christian family should forget... even though historically speaking we have no verifiable proof Christ was born on or around December 25th. Its a day that we celebrate Christ's birth, a birth that allows us to rejoice and praise God... and its also a day that we can tell our kids that fat bearded guy came down our chimney and left some presents under a tree becuase you were a good kid this year. And in so many ways Santa is part of that amazing childhood wonder and awe. Its also a part of who we are as americans in a lot of ways. Growin up in America is believing in Santa as a kid... and when that false reality is dashed a child goes through a right of passage. (I had two older brothers who gladly killed off the dream of Santa for me).

So that's my diatribe about Santa... mostly squarely aimed at Crabb.

Anyway, the pictures were pretty funny though she wasn't that great of a sport. She was not a fan of old st. Nick but we got a few pics in before the bottom dropped out. She missed her morning nap so she was a bit out of sorts today.

Thanksgiving's coming up... I'm getting the sweat pants ready and leaving the belt on the shelf. I better run tomorrow in preparation. Ran Sunday and it was really good, though stinkin cold. ANyway, I got so much to be thankful for, Santa, new job, loving wife, amazing little child.... but most importantly God's providence and grace which sort of allows and blesses me with all the former...

HOLTON'S LEAVING CHATTANOOGA PART 2

Part 2 of my epic about us moving...

So today I put in my two weeks notice and you always invision you going in and telling them to take this job and shove it. But it never happens. One guy that I know of has done that but he was getting fired anyway and he just beat them to the punch.

So I kind of had a plan to give them a piece of my mind, tastefully and leaving all bridges intact, but they really didn't give me a window... they told me 'good luck' and 'it sounds like a good opportunity...' talk about a downer.

So I just gave my notice and am now a lame duck at work.

But anyway, we put our house on the market last night and its listed with Emily Eiselstein, a friend of wifey's from her days at Crye-Leike. The house is on www.chattanoogamls.net under lookout mtn. We feel in comparison to what other houses are going for in the area its a fair price, if not some what priced to move, and if you're interested call Emily up. Frankly there aren't many other 4 bed 2 bath houses on the mtn and none are priced where our's is. I apologize though for the pictures, I'll have you know I raked the leaves hours after they took the pictures...

I think the great thing about our house is its got 4 beds... that's nice, a basement that is good for storage, a fenced in front yard with a white picket fence--good for a dog, and frankly a dang great back yard that is huge. I mean I could probably try to rezone my backyard and sell it off seperately if I wanted to... but I don't. That or what I wanted to do when we bought it was build a huge garage with a huge apartment in it and rent it to covenant students. That's another selling point: covenant is down the street and right there you have a free gym with everything you need. Covenant allows mtn folk to workout at their gym for free. I did last week twice, ran on the tread mill, it was great. Also there is a soccer field down the street that you can play pick up soccer at, come on BUY IT!

We listed it last night and we actually already had one realtor show it and they gave tons of great praise over it and said it shows really really well. Which was really encouraging after all the work we've done to it over the years. I'm going to do a ton of work this weekend to make it even nicer, some stuff in the bathroom, around the yard especially, so I'm not done getting this place in shape, not until someone makes an offer at least.

Well that concludes part 2... part three will come shortly...

HOLTON'S LEAVING CHATTANOOGA PART 1

Well, after three and a half years in the Chattanooga area Wifey, AK, Copper, and I are moving to Atlanta. I figured I should blog about this before Roe blows my cover, though Roe more people read your blog so if you want to blog about it that's cool.

I had unofficially been looking for a job for about 3 years now. Even after I got hired at CIGNA long ago I kept looking in Atlanta for something, basically so we could be closer to Wifey's parents who live in Macon and her grandparents who live in Atlanta. But the search ramped up when I found a head hunter that specializes in placing Underwriters (what I am) into consulting firms and brokerage houses.

After a few months of hard work on his part, basically I just sat by and waited for interviews, I had a few jobs that came close but God had plans for me to work for Deloitte Consulting in Atlanta.

Its a great job with a great company. I must be frank, I didn't know much about Deloitte as in healthcare they tend to work with the bigger companies and I tend to work on what we call middle market 200 to 2000 employees. I'll basically use my underwriting knowledge to help Deloitte's customers assess their health care and basically consult with them on how to improve efficiency, cost, and care. Just sort of a guy who helps companies out.

The job pays well, which is a huge blessing, benefits seem great, another huge blessing, and its in the heart of downtown Atlanta... ok two out of three ain't bad. I'm fully aware of the commute I have planned, not crazy about it, but frankly you do what you gotta do.

The other rather significant hurdle to the job is the amount of travel I'll be doing. My future boss basically told me that from February to April I could be gone Monday through Thursday every week. That's pretty rough, but the wifey and I had talked about this months ago and basically this is what I want to do with my career, and its what I have to do with my career if I want to make any money. So with travel comes some nice pay and nice benefits, which is good because Atlanta can be pretty dang expensive.

So yeah, I start December 4th so pretty soon. I put in my two weeks officially today but as I have vacation saved up my last day will be on Friday. So that's that, more to come in part two of my trilogy of the Holton's Leaving Chattanooga.

Best burgers in Chattanooga?

We're down here in Atlanta hanging with the Crabbs or as we call it, Holcrabb Weekend. WE try to get together one weekend a month or so as frankly, crabby and I are a lot a like (in good ways) and our wives are a lot alike (in mostly good ways---the desire to shop could be seen at times as a bad way).

So we came down Friday, work was deader than a door so I just got out of dodge. Last weekend we were in ATL to see the inlaws and our trip to ATL went so bad... took forever to get down here so we tried to leave even earlier this weekend.

Tonight we went to Ted's Montana Grill or some jazz like that and it was really good bison burgers. But our service was so bad that we felled compelled to complain, really not looking for anything other than an apology and a free malt (Leigh Ann ordered one and never got it), but the manager comped us and so we had an amazing burger for free.

This all brought up the discussion of the best burger ever... Chattanooga has some great ones.

My favorite to date is the grease ball at Armandos in Stelmo. Its just dang good with some tots and oooh that whole onion on the burger, its hard to eat the entire onion but its good.

Second place I'd say goes to North Chatt Cat, that has a great burger as well, greasy but still good.

Randy's is great as well even if you don't get the 24ozer.

Durty Nelly's has the Durty Burger which is kind of good, but with chili, jalopenos, and all that grease you'll be feeling it later on.

Tubby's... not as good as I think some say it is. Its a bigger burger, greasy, but almost too messy.

Wifey LOVES Cheeburger, but frankly I've been burned there too many times. One rare burger (no burger should be rare) and the next time I went the burger was cooked but just not that great. Good shakes though.

Pickle Barrel used to be good but frankly they're too bad even for a dive bar. I mean even dive bars should have standards. Last two times the burgers weren't cooked, they ran out of marinara for our cheese sticks and tried to pass salsa off as marinara (not burger related but still), and they don't have yellow mustard at all. Now I'm not a huge yellow mustard guy, but the wife is, and though I'm not huge on it I still think its such a basic condiment that every place should have it.

Taco Mac... eh, past few times at Taco mac have been bad. I like their queso dip and their Hollywood chicken sandwich but not a fan of their burgers.

Chilis... please. Why go there when Chatt has so much more to offer. The happy hour? Ok, I'll let that slide, buy one get one free drinks can be a nice happy hour that lasts all night.

Applebees? Get out of my house.

Big River? Get out again. BR has gone down hill in my mind the past 10 years. It used to be a great Chattanooga institution, now its just a micro brew chain that is sub par in my mind. Beer's ok though the stout gives me the trots... in case you needed to know how my system works.

Can't think of any other burger places, can you?

Sonny Perdue, I voted for you now stop telling me about your "Sonnydo List"

Don't worry, I voted. Though in Georgia we didn't have much to vote for. I mean I voted for Perdue and that was about all there was. Perdue's a decent govenor, Scott made a decent point that he's a bit too, "Let govt solve your problems," but I've lived under far worse govenors in Missouri so I figure he's a nice change, though his whole "Sonnydo" list thing was so dumb and I wanted to throw my TV out the window.

We had a lot of immenent domain issues which I tried to strike down. I'm generally against a government coming in and demanding your house or business be given up for the 'greater good." I mean what is the greater good? A new starbucks? I mean if a building is falling over and boarded up, sure just sell it and be done with it. One recalls the building in stelmo that was falling over and eventually the city stepped in and basically made the owner sell it if she wasn't going to do anything with it.

We also had some tax breaks for the advalorum for non profits and what not. I say don't give them any breaks. If I have to be taxed 150 bucks a year for a 1995 sentra, so should Red Cross. I mean for one there are some shady non-profits out there, and just because they say they're non profit doesn't mean they are. I mean Blue Cross is non profit and their employees make as much as i do if not more, their CEO makes millions of dollars even. So that's pretty much how I voted.

Scott and I kind of were frusterated that its hard to know how to vote on judges. In Missouri I recall you either voted 'yeah' or 'neh' on the judges... so I not knowing any of those judges voted 'no' on all of them. I figured get some new judges in there and give them a shot. But my electronic ballot didn't have that option today and I didn't feel like writing in my name for everything... so everyone got my vote.

I did write in myself for education secretary or some pithy thing that only had one person running for.

As far as the national picture, I feel republicans had control for a good few years and got little to nothing accomplished. Fix Social Security, fair taxes, smaller government... all the promises of the 90s republicans disappeared once they got control of the whole government. They got busy having fun with Jack Abramoff and what not. If the repubs lose big tonight I don't think its necessarily a referendum on the war, because we all know the dems are just as responsible, they voted for it with the repubs. I think its more of a referendum on the republican congress and senate's lack of accomplishments.

Its sad though, because there are still some good repubs out there. Talent in MO is a good man and I wish him the best and hope he wins.

I think a third party should have been started once it was evident that the republican party was not going to live up to the promises of the 90s. I also think Christians shouldn't limit themselves to a party as well. If a christian runs and doesn't agree with everything the democratic party or republican party holds then be independent or some other party... ***sigh***Give me the days of the old Weimar Republic with its dozens of parties. Granted make sure that an evil party can't gain too much power... don't need that happening again.

STAY AWAY FROM THE AUTOMOTIVE DEPARTMENT AND PHOTO DEPARTMENT AT THE TIFTONIA WALMART

So, I went down to Walmart yesterday to get some pictures made of halloween Anna-Kate and put them on a CD. We need an oil change as well so I figure I'll drop the Honda off, they did my tires fine so I figure "eh, whats an oil change, its easy peasy." So I drop the car off and drop the film off and walk around for a bit. The lady said the film wouldn't take but 30 minutes and same is true for the oil change. So I go up to the film counter at 30 minutes, "its not done yet."

OK, so I walk around some more, look at the toys, some cool transformer toys are out now. Then at about 45 minutes, "No not ready yet."

OK i'm irritated now, so I give em 10 more minutes, maybe 15 I lost track, and go up to the counter, "OK its been an hour its 1 hour photography is it ready yet?"

"Oh our machine's been down all night and we can't seem to get it up."

I think to myself "WHY DIDN"T YOU TELL ME THAT WHEN I GOT HERE!!!!!" But I calmly just say, "What about the CD can I have that?"

"Sure but our label maker is broken so we don't know which CD is yours, its one of these three but we have no way of knowing..."

I respond dumbfounded by their dumbness, "Do you have a computer? You can put it in there and just look at the pictures."

"Oh yeah...." Light bulbs went off, it was amazing.

So after looking at all these CDS and watching the person struggle to figure out how to work the FUJI kiosk which they operate, I think to myself, "You're responsible for this machine and you don't know how to work it..."

So after much frustration I get my CD and get out of there, wife thought I should have made them give it to me for free but I just wanted out of there and in a lot of ways it wasn't there fault the machine was down, though they were pretty awful on the customer service, but then again its Walmart not Macy's.

So I go to pick up my car....

"Mr. Holton we couldn't get the drainage plug for your oil out. It was so tight I was afraid I might break it if I pulled too hard...."

Great so I didn't get my oil changed and now i have to go yell at the quick lube place on broad for jacking up my engine.

SO i'm driving home and the car is not sounding right, not sure what it is, but I figure I'm just being paranoid.

This morning I'm going to work and decide to take the Honda... I think, "I should check the engine real quick..."

The oil cap on the top, where you put oil in, is gone, no where to be seen. The dip stick is just resting ontop of the engine, some how it hadn't fallen off, and there is oil all over the engine. The dumbass at Walmart couldn't even put the cap back on and dip stick back.

So needless to say I'm never going back to Walmart for a simple oil change because the simplest of tasks seem to be too tough for them. And I still haven't gotten my oil change and now I have to go to NAPA and buy a oil cap for the car. ANd frankly his assesment of my drainage plug being too tight was probably bogus because the guy obviously doesn't know a thing.

This was the Walmart at Tiftonia and I have heard of many other people having problems with their automotive department and I highly recommend you not going there.

The Cutest Piece of Chocolate

Halloween, no pics yet sorry

OK I know I promised, some pics of the cutest baby dressed up for Halloween last night, but unfortunately our digital camera is possibly dead. I've blogged before of my dislike of our sony camera and last night's attempt at photography brought a new level of dislike for our sorny. (its like this one but bigger, older and twice as much when I bought it)

I put new batteries in all the time and it will take one picture and then 'blip' dead. Not to mention the picture's a lot of times aren't that great anyway. Sooooo... Luckily we have an old fashion SLR and we took some with that and our friend Catherine used her digital and we took a ton with that, though unfortunately I don't have the right USB cable to upload the pics (thought I did) so the pics will have to wait another day or two.

We had a good time, walking around fairyland, though everytime I walk on the Mtn I'm reminded of our need of side walks. This area could be such a great pedestrian area if they had some side walks. The streets can be pretty busy, especially ours, so its scary to walk on the streets, especially since there are also no street lights. If we still live up here in 50 years I'm running for mayor and making that my goal to make side walks and street lights for all.

AK didn't mind trick-o-treatin, she pretty much just sat in her stroller and didn't make a peep. The stroller is a new thing for her, first time in fact. Prior to last night we would just take her car seat and put that on a skeleton stroller, and her car seat faces backwards so she could only see us really. So facing outwards was a new experience.

Finding the right stroller was an ordeal in of itself. We passed on the matching stroller to our car seat(much to wifey's dismay) because of cost and overall size of the whole thing. Wifey regrets the decision but I don't because the thing weighed too much and took up the entire trunk. So we went with Babytrend umbrella stroller and we used it once and didn't like it at all. It was kind of big like the graco matching stroller and for some other reasons wifey just didn't like it. So we then went with the Jeep stroller a true umbrella stroller, but wifey didn't like the lack of a basket for her diaper bag, so we returned that and settled on a third stroller (Chicco lightweight) that has a basket and is small like the Jeep. We also bought a clip on cup holder, which the wife utilizes often. Finding the right stroller was a pain, but we're happy with this one.

Anyway, we had dinner with the Townsends and it was good, didn't really eat too much candy though, thats a good thing I guess. We then came home put the baby to bed and watched the Breakup. Overall the movie was not very good, lots of blasphemy and generally just not funny. The outtakes were funnier than the actual movie. Seeing two people argue and fight for two hours to me is not entertainment. There's enough dysfunctional relationships in this world I don't need to watch one for entertainment.

Taking Friday off to go down to see the wifey's grandparents in ATL. Should be a lot of fun. Also stop by Thursday night and see the crabb's new house, haven't seen it yet. Yeah he got a new house, but you might not every know since he never blogs. What a weaky weakerton.