Lazy Sunday CXCII: The Beach

I’m returning today from a weekend in Myrtle Beach, where my older brother and I have been celebrating his participation in the Myrtle Beach Marathon.  We’ve stuffed ourselves with seafood, but he actually earned the right to eat all of that.

As such, it seemed like a good time to look back at some beachy posts of yesteryear:

Here’s to more beach trips in the future!

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Break Travels, Part VI: Home for Christmas

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Trapped in the blizzard in Indianapolis, pipes bursting across the land (including in my older brother’s house), there was little to do besides sleep and let the responsible adults take care of things.

There are few things more reassuringly cozy than sleeping under heavy blankets in sub-zero temperatures.  It’s akin to the feeling of being inside with power during a torrential downpour or powerful thunderstorm—the sense of safety and warmth is experienced palpably in those moments.  In some ways, it’s even better to get soaked first, then to come into the dryness of the indoors.

But sleep can only forestall reality for so long.  Driving to South Carolina on Friday, 23 December 2022 as I’d originally planned was out of the question, given the frozen roads.  Tales of major wrecks and traffic snarls echoed across the land, so it seemed best to stay put.

That said, I desperately wanted to get home for Christmas.  The weather, it seemed, had other plans, but I soon hatched a plan that, if all went well, would get me South in time for at least some of Christmas.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Break Travels, Part V: Snowbound

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As my older brother and I enjoyed our visit to Arizona, a massive polar vortex was making its way ominously towards the United States.  We had some cool weather in Arizona, but reports were coming from back East that temperatures were dangerously low.  My brother and his wife live in Indianapolis, so they were facing subzero temperatures, but even back in South Carolina, family and friends were reporting busted pipes and bitterly cold conditions.

There was some discussion between us about whether or not we should extend our trip another day or two, but the lure of Christmas and family was strong.  We decided to head to the airport as planned to take our chances.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Star Wars Fans

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One of the highlights of my family’s recent trip to Disney World was the large Star Wars area in Disney’s Hollywood Studios.  Disney may have wrecked the franchise with the sequel trilogy, but the silver lining of The Mouse’s acquisition is that fans can now walk around an area that looks like the films’ dingy alleys and byways.

They also hosted two incredible rides, one which allows flight crews of up to six to operate the Millennium Falcon as pilots, gunners, and engineers; and another immersive experience that sees riders taken captive by The First Order (for old fans, this organization takes the place of the Empire in the sequel trilogy).

This area also attracts a lot of Star Wars fan.  Observing their behavior in this grown-up fantasy world was quite interesting—and humorous.

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Lazy Sunday CLXXXIX: Arizonan Sojourn, Part I

The week before Christmas 2022 my older brother and I flew out to Arizona for a few days of adventure.  My trip to Disney World derailed my Saturday posts for a couple of weekends, and I took a Saturday away from Arizonan reminiscences to do a (brief) rundown of that Disney excursion.

I should be back on the Christmas Break Travels train now, though, and I thought I’d look back at the first three SubscribeStar posts in the series.  Right now they’re subscriber-only posts, but I might collect these short, self-indulgent travelogues into a small eBook or the like with a catchy, misleading title:  My Erotic Desert Adventures or something (disclaimer:  there was nothing erotic about the trip. unless you count the lust I developed for massive burritos).

Regardless, here are the first three, detailing the trip to Indiana, then our first day in Arizona at the Grand Canyon, finishing off with finding my destiny in a Western wear store:

Happy Sunday!

—TPP

Other Lazy Sunday Installments:

SubscribeStar Saturday: Christmas Break Travels, Part IV: Scottsdale and The Whale (2022)

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After our trip to Grand Canyon National Park and Prescott, my brother and I indulged in a more leisurely start to our second day in Arizona.  His idea of leisure is a ten-mile run; while he did that, I walked further into downtown Phoenix to pick up some sundries at a local CVS.

Downtown Phoenix feels a great deal like most mid-major American cities:  some tall buildings, often with scaffolding; a few historic sites; and a general sense that public transportation is the preferred method of travel, even if everyone still drives.  There was also an ubiquitous homeless population, which makes sense:  why spend your winters in North Dakota if you don’t have shelter?

Like most mid-major American cities, Phoenix also had its commercialized outdoor shopping mall area, with the kinds of higher-end chain stores that one tends to see in more tourist-y areas.  This zone held the CVS, but it felt like a scaled-down version of City Walk at Universal Studios.  I picked up our vittles and stopped in at Bad Ass Coffee Company of Hawaii, which has apparently colonized the mainland, and picked up a beautiful souvenir tin for my mom (it did not featuring a braying jackass, but rather a woman in a sun hat tending to her coffee plants).

Resupplied and refreshed from our morning, we set out for Scottsdale, the tony, artistic suburb of Phoenix, for more Southwestern culture.

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SubscribeStar Saturday: Disney Adventures

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After two Saturdays of ripping off my subscribers with a lack of substantive content, I’m back!  Rather than continue the saga of my yuletide trip to Arizona, I’ll be diverting briefly to an overview of my family’s big trip to Disney World.

The last time I went to Disney World I was around fifteen- or sixteen-years old—it’s a bit murky—so it was over twenty years ago.  I remembered some things, naturally, but I’d forgotten quite a bit (the irony of spending four figures to visit a theme park—a video game provides more entertainment-per-hour at a far lower cost, but it’s a lonelier endeavor), so it was fun being back and experiencing Disney World anew.

It was especially fun experiencing it through the eyes of my niece and nephews, who are all old enough to appreciate the experience.

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Midweek Magic Update

It’s been three long, full days, and yours portly is dragging, but having fun.  I’m way behind on the old blog, but that’s to be expected.  Our days have been longer than I expected—a good thing!—but it’s left me worn out in the evenings.

I have a guest post that I’d hoped to post today, but I’ll be postponing that until Friday so I can do justice to the introduction; after all, I have a reputation to uphold.

Next week I’ll be posting lots of pictures, but here’s one for the road:

Tyler and Darth Vader

Happy Wednesday!

—TPP

Lines

I’m a patient man (sort of—impatience seems to be one of the fiery Scotch-Irish traits that runs through my otherwise English ancestry), but I’ve learned that waiting in lines is a major test of one’s patience.

I usually am threading a fifteen-minute-or-less needle throughout my day, so that everything hinges on the ability of myself (easy) and other people (questionable) to do their jobs efficiently, or at least in a timely manner.  I’m blessed in that God usually has an Eye out for me, and I’ve managed to pull off some spectacular feats of scheduling derring-do.

That said, I’m growing increasingly aware of the blasé attitude that is even more pervasive in the service industry, an industry that attracts either hyper-scrupulous worker bees or hyper-lazy minimum wage slaves.  There doesn’t seem to be much in-between.  Unfortunately, the wage slaves seems to be winning the day.

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