Newport News, Hampton Roads, The Peninsula

Hey there loyal reader. This here's my nostalgic thread--alike in spirit to my initial post to this blog.

I received a forward that touched on the Hampton Roads experience. While I can't relate directly to everything (ahem, I never dated a sailor, ahem), it certainly touched on many facets of my hometown. It wasn't perfect, but I still have a place in my heart to call it home. Here's the contents of the forward in its entirety:


You know you're a Hampton Roads resident when.....

You have to adopt a surrogate professional sports team because you live in the largest metropolitan area without one.

You can name at least three of Mike Joynes' law partners.

You can finish the "Beach Ford" song.

You know Mount Trashmore is a real place, not a joke.

You can see another 7-11 from the 7-11 you're currently at.

You know that 64 West in Chesapeake is actually going east.

Any westbound trip you've ever made involves at least onetunnel.

You can name at least three underwater tunnels within a twenty mile radius of your home.

You've been friends with, dated or married a sailor.

You can say "Norfolk" while sounding neither obscene nor incorrect.

You don't stop and look skyward when aircraft fly over.

You know what a Food Lion is.

Newport News is not a catalog, it is a city.

It's not a peninsula, it's the Peninsula. With a capital P.

You can name all the I-64 spurs.

It's not Portsmouth, it's P-town.

The Strip isn't a nudie bar, it's a tourist trap.

To you, Scope isn't just mouthwash.

The Boathouse doesn't actually dock any boats.

You know Dam Neck and Birdneck aren't necks of any kind.

You don't mind the jet noise.

You don't slow down in the tunnel, because it's not a big deal.

It's normal for seven cities to be linked in almost every conceivable way.

You can leave town for years at a time and come back to find the same segments of roads still under construction.

It's Seven Five Seven, not Seven Fifty-Seven.

An inch of snow closes everything down. 3 inches is a blizzard.

MacArthur was not only a brilliant general, but a fine shopping establishment.

You don't laugh when you hear "Rip Rap Road."

You know that Norfolk International Airport isn't really an international airport.

No, you're not hallucinating. Those are mermaids.

You know the real reason we haven't been hit by a hurricane in the past several years is because of Pat Robertson.

You've ever not gone to an establishment to avoid a PETA demonstration.

You had a nickel for every OBX sticker you saw on the road (you'd be rich by now.)

And last but not least, the greatest wine (whine) you hear on the Peninsula, "ARE THEY EVER GOING TO FINISH WORK ON I-64?


Do you want to visit, yet?

In a Weird Way OR Birth of a Blog

Howdy loyal readership (i.e. hello Me). I'm back to wow you with utter mundane-ness. Yipee! Well, life is mostly about appreciating the understated, right? Well I say it should be, anyway!

So I was cleaning up my hard drive--deleting and moving around various files and I came across a Word file dubbed "Writing Project". I opened it up and read the few paragraphs and thought, "Well I'll be--this is like a blog or something". Well, actually, at first I thought, "What the heck was I thinking?". Surely I was in a weird mood to be writing such randomness. Anyway I thought I'd post it here for your amusement. It would've been better served as the first entry to my blog, but life is also about new beginings too, right? Anyway, onto the randomness...


I am starting this with no particular aim in mind—this could be a genius move or my Achilles’ heel. Whatever the case, I am officially on my way to writing….something. What it is, I cannot really say for sure. That’s one of my problems, by the way. I try to be pretty spontaneous in various ways, and this can come back to bite you in your posterior. I mean, without any focus and discipline, you’re just prattling on now, aren’t you?

Anyways, it feels good to just get something “on paper” (I quote “on paper” because it’s currently being fed into my top-notch, trusty hand-me-down laptop). Specifically, it feels good to just do something—to produce. What it is I’m exactly producing is questionable, but perhaps I’ll find out along the way. I hope this project will interest you, the reader, and I hope, furthermore, that “you, the reader” equals something more than just me, the author.

You know, it actually sounds like something more along the lines of a journal of sorts. Well that’s okay, it’s a start anyway. You gotta start somewhere, right? Just call it….”journal”ism, or something. Ha ha, yeah, that’s it. That gives this whole endeavor an air of importance. Whatever.

Well I’m not being completely forthright with you, for, you see, I do have an agenda of sorts in mind. I was kind of planning on maybe perhaps writing a bunch of essays on various topics I find intriguing in one way or another. Of course, this prescribed course of action may or may not be fully realized. In fact, I may take an entirely different path and create an alternate journey for myself and you, the reader.

I hope this will be entertaining, or at least stimulating and/or interesting in some way. Anyways, without much further ado, let’s do this thing…….

Uh….how to start—what should I write about? Anything that comes to mind, perhaps? That whole Freudian idea of free associating? While I’m at it I can just type this lying down and pay you to analyze it, okay?

Well, why don’t I start with some of the more weird, obtuse shit. That’s stuff’s always intrigued me. I don’t know why. Maybe it was my destiny to be intrigued by that stuff and write about it. Perhaps I’m just fundamentally weird in some way. What is weird, anyways? We’re all weird, to a point. Weird’s relative, that is. Some relatives are weird to boot. So anyways, where was I? Weird. Yeah, it’s like anti-normal. Non-comformist. Outside most people’s realm of existence. Or perhaps, more accurately (like I alluded to before) being weird is a part of everybody’s existence, it’s just embraced by some and shunned by others.


And that's all I wrote. I would say that I was a pioneer in that I predated blogs but that is just not the case. I wrote the above paragraphs when blogs were certainly in vogue--I just didn't happen to know of a blog site such as the one provided by the fine folks here at blogger.com .

Well it appears that, as the old saying goes, "Some things never change". As you can see from my words I was surely uninspired, but it seemed like I was starting to get somewhere, as if I was about to tap into a treasure trove of creativity. It was like I was just on the cusp of striking oil by touching on the sense of alienation and weirdness that afflicts us all from time to time. That's my fantasy anyway--I may have just kept meandering. But maybe the challenge for me (and you, if you're out there) is to find something of worth from what I've already written, instead of expecting something to happen. Perhaps I (and my readers) can gain a fuller perspective as soon as more of the puzzle pieces are in place. Part of the notion of creativity is to "create", maybe the rest will sort itself out. Will I stop writing on here because I've developed something more focused and tangible such as a novella, a screenplay, or a children's book? I would hope not, but either way I'll do my best to keep you informed.

Tune in next time Bat-fans--same Bat-address, same Bat-Blog...