Ernie Misc. Pictures.....: May 2007

"Hey, ho, way to go Ohio......"

....went to visit family I hadn't seen in a while in Northeast Ohio. Nice cookout hosted by my Brazilian Cousins-in-law with grilled, marinated Brasil-style gaucho beef (probably one of my top five favourite foods of all-time) and this Margarita-like drink that is popular in Brasil made with flavoured vodka, several limes, water, and this stuff........I have no idea what it was.....

Was gonna stop in, and ask for the latest election results, but thought better of that idea.....

Diebold World Headquarters, North Canton, Ohio......"Delivering ALL of Ohio's Electoral votes to George W. Bush!"

Saw a White Castle.....had never seen one live before (I used to go to this amazing club called the QE2 in Albany, NY that was constructed inside an abandoned White Castle) and thought they all died out except for in New Jersey, but apparently not.....

Skybus Airlines counter......Port Columbus International Airport.....$10 a flight....no shit!!!! Check it out!

Got bumped from my ATL-PDX connecting flight, so, with a night at The Sheraton Gateway Atlanta Airport and a free flight all courtesy of Delta Airlines, I went in search of a pub.

Not finding anything where I could drink AND smoke an Export A Green in the pub anywhere near my hotel, I grabbed the shuttle back to the airport and asked the shuttle driver (a sixty-something Egyptian immigrant) where to go! Now, knowing two persons who currently live in Atlanta and two others who spent more than 10 years living there, you'd think I'd have too many options.

No dice.

One who resides there now is a girl who's rather racist, and I really didn't have much of a desire to hang out with her. Another is a girl who woulda been fun to hang out with, but to find her, I'd have to call up a person who.....uhhhh.....had relations with this girl (which turned into a very ugly situation) and that woulda been a bit too weird.

A third is a guy who used to reside there for many years, but I couldn't get ahold of my sister to grab his fone number (she too was traveling the time, and wouldn't have had the number on her anyways), and the forth is a guy I know from my Denver days, but the only person who I knew who had his number is this guy in Denver who I don't really talk to much anymore, and probably wouldn't even know where to find him............

......so.........

I rely on my hotel shuttle driver!

I tell him that I want to utilise Public Transit (I really was in zero mood to rent a car), so he suggests that I take the MARTA train to a place called "Buckhead" (or something like that). So I grab the train at the airport!

Niiiiiccce!!! Clean, modern, and uses magnetic paper tickets that utilise touch-sensors to get you past the turnstyles (kinda like The Oyster card in London, except these are paper cards)....probably thee nicest train I've ridden on....nicer than a lot of Amtrak routes! These trains have little TVs all over the railcar, and, by tuning in a certain FM frequency on your radio, you could get the audio for the TV. Played the most recent local newscast, and other stuff. Jesus.....THIS is a transit system! Plus, it's on it's OWN RIGHT-OF-WAY.....so, when it hit Downtown Atlanta, it didn't share a trackway with the street and proceed to move at three miles-an-hour.

Now, I could write a 100-page dissertation on how Atlanta's MARTA got rail RIGHT and how Portlandia's Tri-Met totally fucked it up, but we'll leave that for another day.......

.....anyways, this Buckhead place sucked!! Big, sterile glass-and-steel office buildings with beautiful people hanging out in overpriced yuppster bars. Talked with a bartender at one of these yuppie bars who was sporting a Mohawk and a ripped union jack T-shirt and he told me to go to an area called "Little Five Points".........

.............too much fun! If you get a chance......check that area out!!

Caught the last train to my hotel, talked to a LOT of friendly people on the street all over the city and on the trains, and promised myself that I'd make it back here! I was impressed.....now, if only they could do something about the Goddamm heat and humidity, they might have an amazing place!