The Meandering Ones » Rants & Diatribe

How we’ll remember Albert Haynesworth

SQ — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:28:36 +0000

Well, this and that $100 million contract to watch “this”, whatever the hell this is.

A Foodie Manifesto and Resolution

SQ — Fri, 01 Jan 2010 18:40:18 +0000

Food doesn’t have to be predictable to be wonderful. And food doesn’t have to be eaten in the Taj Mahal to be memorable. Don’t judge food as great because you waited in line to have you name added to a list, the customers are all dressed well, or several expensive SUVs or sports cars are parked close by.

Source every ounce of food you eat at home and in restaurants. If the proprietor can’t or won’t tell you where he gets his ingredients don’t trust him and move on to the places that will. Fresh food without chemicals or warehouse time and distance should be a prerequisite for anything you put in your mouth, regardless the end taste.

Surprise yourself and a small restaurant owner by stopping by that tiny place you keep meaning to check out. Remember, both the Olive Gardens and Cheesecake Factories of the world and Walmart are systmatically destroying small business owners in their categories, but only Walmart is actually putting money and value back into their customers’ hands. That’s not the giant food conglomerates’ faults: it’s ours.

Heading to Cabo on Alaska Airlines

SQ — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 23:56:24 +0000

When we landed – uneventfully – at LAX I turned to phone on the find that the one hour extra it took to get in would be easily offset by the 45 minute delay going out which appeared in my inbox via Orbitz alerts. At least there’s one thing I really like about having booked on Orbitz!

I wanted to get my barf bag autographed by the pilot as we deplaned – after all, it was empty despite our rapid deceleration from 250 to 0 MPH and he did a heck of a job scaring the crap out of the birds while keeping us from one or more fether-filled, dead engines. It wasn’t going to happen, however, because he and the co-pilot were busy filing reports.

We knew we had plenty of time after getting off, and we also learned we’d be moving from terminal 4 to terminal 3 to reach Alaska’s hub. The lack of signage detailing how to accomplish this task was what surprised us. Anyone changing terminals at LAX needs to know it isn’t necessarily going to be trivial. For us it meant finding a shuttle to the American Eagle departure building and walking to another bus from there that would reach terminal 3. If someone had an hour to transfer and found themselves a little behind schedule chances are good that a terminal transfer would do them in.

Once we made it to terminal 3 we did pick up on some LAX themes:

1. The terminals we were in desperately need an opportunity to make it out of the 1960s

2. Inter-terminal transportation that many folks take for granted at their home airport is in dogged supply

3. Anything you might get at a typical airport in the way of food and drink will likely cost you up to twice as much, and the choices probably won’t be very enticing either

How does LAX get by with what seems to be a second tier facility, despite the heavy movement of international traffic through the airport? Despite having the means to (reasonably) easily get from terminal to terminal at Dulles via mobile lounges which would make early Austin Powers jealous, DC travelers have been all over the WMATA for years about adding an underground train system – which, incidentally will be completed soon. And international transfers are very simple, with final destination passengers even being split from the continuing ones, assuring they won’t get shuffled out to the curb as we did at LAX before starting all over again.

Once we grabbed an icky $35 meal from California Pizza Kitchen’s “ASAP” (wait – does that stand for “as sucky as possible”?!?) we headed back to the bus, er plane, terminal to settle in until an agent appeared at our gate. I gave the ground personnel my now familiar story regarding all three of us being scattered to the four winds of the airplane seating chart, and despite a packed house received another round of changes which allowed Willy, Syd, and I to sit together.

Takeoff was a good hour behind schedule due to a late plane and a ground delay on the Cabos side, but the much-friendlier-than-American’s-norm staff made a fairly no frills, modern cabin fairly comfortable (honestly, how comfortable can you get in a sealed metal tube?).

These international flights are always kinda funny, in that you see waves of activity through the cabin which are always unique. It’s amusing to me watching hundreds of people navigating bags underseat and overhead, hunting for the passport and pen they knew doggone well they were going to need for the last six months or more. Add to that rolling beverage carts and the occasional duty free and snack box sale, then through in the reasonably frequent 2+ culture mesh already in the mix and you have one of the better prescriptions for ad hoc team dork dancing.

Not Your Average Joe’s

Willy — Thu, 23 Aug 2007 02:26:26 +0000

19307 Promenade Drive (Lansdowne Town Center), Leesburg, VA 20176
571.333.5637 www.notyouraveragejoes.com

I had attempted to eat here before, but the power went out all over Lansdowne, all the way to Leesburg. All I had at that point was some of their foccacia bread and dipping oil. I should have quit while I was ahead and taken the power outage as a bad omen.

The restaurant itself has good atmosphere, and lots of outdoor seating for warm weather. It’s right on the main street in the new Town Center area of Lansdowne, where there is plenty of competition already. NYAJ is a small-ish chain that is primarily up in New England; this is their first, and only restaurant right now, outside that area. I took my daughter, Syd, and my mother-in-law here for dinner while SQ was out of town. The MIL and I split a pitcher of Sangria, after eyeballing another table of ladies sharing some. It was good, not great, but we were enjoying it. Syd and I also split a Mozzarella Tomato salad for a starter. The mozzarella was a bit tasteless, and the beefsteak tomatoes were not fully ripe yet. Also, the first batch of foccacia we were served was so hard I thought I was going to pull a tooth out trying to bite into it. Too bad…the dipping oil with grated cheese and red pepper flakes is really yummy. Syd and I then split the Chicken Carbonara for dinner. This too was rather bland and tasteless. MIL seemed to like her dinner, the Tuscan Shrimp. I didn’t have any of hers so I can’t comment on that dish. I do always like to give someplace new at least two chances, so I’ll come back another time to give it another try.

Details
Cuisine: American
Price range: $8 – $17
Locally-based? No
Reservations? Yes
Kids menu? Yes
Vegetarian dishes? Yes
WiFi? Yes
Smoking? No
Hours: Su – Noon to 9pm, M-Th – 11am to 10pm, F-Sa – 11am to 10:30pm

M-Ones Cut-to-the-chase Summary
Did we enjoy it? No
Would we go back? Probably not if it wasn’t nearby, but we’ll give it another shot
Worth the money? Perhaps at the price it competes
Rating: 1/2 an M out of 5 MMMMM

Why The Blog: The SQ Point of View

SQ — Wed, 02 May 2007 03:59:49 +0000

One of the cool things about doing this is being able to express our own opinions, particularly when we disagree. It’s like the movie critic that everyone loves to hate, yet they continue to listen. My guess is that Willy and I and Syd will generally agree on most of our experiences, but there’s enough divergence that comes from nothing more than the way ladies and gents (and daughters) view things. Hopefully we can point out some of these angles and throw some good reasoning behind it.For better or for worse, I think Willy’s right: we’re pretty opinionated with family, friends, and anyone who’ll listen. It seems like everyone’s always trying to express very little that results in potentially being controversial and all that’s left when you ask someone what they thought about any particular experience is “it was pretty cool” or something equivalently generic.As has been said, we’ll be tossing things in here that we hope will help make decisions or round out research in just about any area of leisure, and particularly of course in our local Virginia/DC/MD/WV/PA world but also in the places we go. There’ll be some everyday stuff that will be applicable in just about any hometown (like movie and gadget reviews) as well.We’re particularly excited about the Commentary categories: He Sez, She Sez, and Kid Sez. Though none of the three of us are your stereotypical anything – for example, I don’t just play golf and Willy doesn’t just shop but Syd’s a TKD black belt and enjoys both – we’ll work to bring out some of our differences in a much more mellow format than a reality TV show contestant badmouthing another and yet more openly than might be typically expected from a happy family.Join us and throw your two cents in as well.

The World According to Willy

Willy — Thu, 01 Jan 1970 03:59:59 +0000

Just a couple of thoughts here…First, why the blog? Aside from my family and the professional organizing business I am creating, my biggest passions in life are traveling, eating out and wine. Though I do really really love a properly poured ice-cold Guinness as well. I obsessively research things, for myself or anyone else who asks. So, this works better than e-mailing novels to my family and friends. Or sending the ‘What We Did This Year’ letter in Christmas cards. I tend to have an opinion on just about everything, so you may also see commentary on things like movies, wineries around VA, or anything else that strikes me as something about which to write.

Second, where did the name Willy come from?? This is a nickname hubby started calling me years ago and it just stuck.

I’ll leave you with my two favorite quotes – these pretty much sum up my philosophy on life:

‘The world is a book, and those who do not travel, read only one page’

-St Augustine of Hippo

‘Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things you didn’t do than by the ones you did’

-Mark Twain

Have fun…and let me know what you think!

There’s just so much to see and do and experience in the world. This is my attempt to keep track of how lucky I am.

Willy

What are we doing here?

SQ — Mon, 01 Jan 2007 04:00:53 +0000

Thanks for stopping by The Meandering Ones. We want this site to be a place to share our experiences with a dash of (hopefully unique) perspective. No attempt will be made to try to write artfully or even remotely consistent with any established standards or expectations. The hope is this results in the accumulation of experiences and opinions you can come to count on, but in an unconventional way. Our goals are to share…

- experiences with defined opinion
- information which will support (or refute) other travel and entertainment research you’ve done
- humorous anecdotes to which you quite hopefully will relate
- a perspective-driven approach to everything we write

Please freely contribute to each and every post we add. We look forward to hearing your perspectives and thoughts as we take this journey together. Happy travels!