Snowballs.

Virginia has come and gone, with just enough ballyhoo and poppycock for all who were involved. Back in the great state of Maine - the way life should be. And in December that means about 4 inches of snow with more predicted for Friday and Saturday. Awesome. Just finished beinga good son and shoveling the driveway so my mommy can pull safely into the garage when she gets home from school at 2:30. It's the least I can do for living rent free.

Anyways quite a bit went on this past weekend. I was reunited with LittleJohn's, arguably the best sub shop in the world. And I wouldn't lie about something like that. If you're a sub shop and you're open 24/7/365 you need to come correct, and that, my friends, is exactly what this fine establishment does. I only made it twice: once late night, once for lunch, but more than worth it both times. This was quite a bit under when I was last in the VA for 5 days and made it to LJ's 7 times. No big deal.

Upon my return I also feel like I gained quite a bit of culture while meandering around the Greater Charlottesville area with KathV. We made it to the UVA Museum of Fine Art, which really didn't have much on display other than some "futuristic" art made by some Russian. I wasn't all that impressed. They did have a nice surreal piece but I forgot the name of the guy who painted it and what it was a painting of. But trust me, it made an impact. Works by Picasso and Mattise will be on display in March but I don't believe I'll be able to make it back down to view that exhibit unless I do something crazy.

Also made it to Monticello, the home of Thomas Jefferson. From what the tour guides and pamphlets said, he was kind of a big deal. But, hey, if my old man was one of the richest men in the country at the time and gave me 5000 acres I could probably do some pretty rediculous things in my lifetime, too. But that's neither here nor there. I also never reailized Monticello was on the back of nickels. I don't really like nickels, so that could be why I'd never looked at one closely. I think I also just assumed it was some building in Washington DC. But overall it was a pretty neat place. The beds were really small. I don't think I would have enjoyed sleeping in them.

The outside was interesting, too. There were some old buildings, one of which was called the workman's house. KathV and I both thought that "workman's" was some new pc-term for "the enslaved," and we found that rather amusing. However, when we walked about 20 feet to our right and found "stone foundation of a 16'-20' slave house" we realized the folks who made the signs at Monticello weren't pulling any punches. Especially the one we read next that said something along the lines of "Thomas Jefferson felt slavery was the 'greatest abomination.' That being said, he only freed seven of the 115 enslaved workersat Monticello during his lifetime..." Nice work, JT.

The pr spin team was in full effect during our tour, however, when absolutely no mention was made of JT and the "extracurricular activites" he engaed at least one of his enslaved female workers in. As the tour concluded one of the women who was on our tour inquired about how she felt it odd no mention was made of Sally Hemings (It is widely believed that Jefferson egaged in coitis with Hemings and fathered at least one child with her. As I use the world wide web I find Jefferson actually freed four of her children...hmmm...). Our tour guide, a man in his late 50's with a gift of gab, smiled, giggled, and began to flub his words. We didn't stick around to hear the end of it...

All told it was a fun extended weekend. The Blue Angel made it back in one piece, and broke the 150,000mile club as we got just outside of NYC on our return north. It was a good day. That little bird is just getting broken in. A swell time was had by all.