Jenny and I left last Friday for a long weekend in Keysville, Virginia at the Roselawn Bed & Breakfast, a beautiful house and property owned and operated by my Uncle Paul, Aunt Sherry, and cousin Kiara Robleto. The place is gorgeous and we had a great time outside in the country on our eventful but relaxing mini-vacation. Here are some highlights.

Prior to our arrival, the Robletos rescued three kittens which they found abandoned in the enclosure with their goats and chickens. We spent our first night hanging out on the porch playing with them. The female was already spoken for when we arrived, so she spent the whole weekend with us waiting to be picked up, but the other two needed homes so we set out for a nearby festival with a little "free kittens" sign. Within 10 minutes of getting there, we were already getting in trouble for the sign and for having pets on the premises, but we also had already found homes for both of the little boys so it didn't matter.

Tocci Ponders: During our trip, we went antique shopping and visited a gift shop or two. But what exactly is a gift shop? Any shop that sells things can be a gift shop if you think about it. By identifying the items as solely gifts they're really saying, "Here's a bunch of stuff that you don't want, but maybe you think someone else might want to throw out in a few years."

In an unexpected turn of events, my truck started making a thumping sound like all the wheels were out of balance on the way down about an hour from the B&B. It turned out that a bushing in the drive shaft went bad and the whole drive shaft had to be replaced. Luckily the only car dealer within 20 miles or so was a Ford dealer and it was a warranty repair. Unfortunately I was left without a vehicle for a couple days until I rented a ford focus (which I dubbed our "dream boat"). Paul and Sherry were having some car trouble too, so consequently we each got the chance to ride in the back of their pickup truck! I don't think a true southern experience is complete without drinking beer in the back of a moving pickup truck.

Tocci Ponders: Why do so many sentences in the South end with the word "now"? "Y'all had enough to eat now?" "You take care now." "Are these kittens free now?"

The weather was great for our entire trip. We spent a lot of time outside on the porch and playing with the local kids in the grass. On Sunday we visited Sherry's mother Marion, who lives in an even more rural area with her own private pond and four wheelers on her 40 acres of property. What a great day! I caught more bass than I could count. Jenny landed the biggest fish of the day, weighing in at about three pounds.

More photos on flickr.

The invisible link list:

We went to see WWE Monday Night Raw tonight! It was a really cool experience and Jenny and I had a lot of fun. The photo here is a shot from USA's broadcast at around the 2 hour mark, just before Triple H superplexes Randy Orton from the ropes in the WWE Championship match at the end of the episode. In the storyline, the general manager and newly crowned King of the Ring William Regal felt disrespected by the fans, so he went to the show's control room and took the broadcast off the air before the conclusion of the match, leaving the people at home hanging. Watching the show back at home on my DVR, it seemed like the match continued in the arena, but it didn't. Regal came out to the stage and announced to all of us that he was ending the match without a winner. Triple H didn't like that too much, so he went after Randy Orton anyway and gave him his finisher, the Pedigree. Then there was much rejoicing.

So many blogworthy things have happened in the past month. If I had stayed on top of my blog, they might have each received their own entries. But alas, I am not a consistent blogger, or maybe just busy... or lazy... or easily distracted. Let's just call it a combination of the aforementioned excuses.

Tocci Ponders: What does the expression "dirt cheap" really mean? Virtually anything is cheaper than dirt if you're talking about enough dirt.

A month in a nutshell:

• I installed a cargo net in my Edge. I'm not sure how the Ford engineers expected people to deal with their groceries rolling around the cargo area, but my solution involved a drill, some heavy duty picture hangers, nuts, bolts, and a Ford cargo net from the Escape. The end result looks nice, as if it came with the Edge.
• For Christmas my father got me a fish finder for my boat, so we recently did a little boat maintenance and installed it. I ordered a removable mount for the transducer, wired the unit it up with a fuse to the marine battery with some clips, and made a mount for the display. My dad helped me with some of the drilling, sealing the wood, installing a new mounting board, etc.
• We got FIOS! I got sick and tired of my unreliable Internet and cable connection from Time Warner. After some research, I determined we could get FIOS Internet, TV, and phone and save us some money each month. The phone sounds great, the TV has a more channels, and our Internet download speed is twice as fast (ten times as fast for uploads). Installation was a bit of a nightmare, and of course there are always minor annoyances (mostly with the channel guide) but overall I'm much happier with our connectivity now. The animated gif here was made from screenshots of the speed test at speakeasy.net.
• Dave's daughter Myla had her first birthday (or technically her second if you count the day she was born). She's adorable, and her parents threw her a really nice party. I challenged her little cousin to a hula hoop competition and lost. It wasn't fair though, because the hoop wasn't much bigger than my waist. (It's a little known fact that I'm a multi-time Field Day hula hooping champion from my elementary school days.) Afterwards, we visited Dave's mother Adele's new house, which was probably the nicest house I've ever seen. She lives nextdoor to some Met named Carlos who is apparently a big deal if you're a baseball fan.
• My mother came up for a visit. We did the flea market thing and for $35 I bought a nice new fishing rod and reel... or so I thought. I snapped the rod in half the first time I used it. The reel still seems really nice though.
  
• I had my boys over for a little UFC party and we watched the unstoppable George St. Pierre win his title back from Matt Serra at UFC 83. Jenny made some bangin' ribs and we had a great time watching the fights.
• I went fishing twice so far. I wish I could go every day but if I can make it out there once a week I'll be thrilled. So far the trips have been pretty successful. The first time out my father and I both had a few bites and caught a couple fish. The second time I caught six pickerel on five different lures, which was pretty amazing.
• We visited Mark and Lauren at their brand new apartment in New York City, so congratulations to them. Since it was a nice day, we walked around central park for a while and saw Stanley Tucci leaving the Central Park Zoo.

Tocci Ponders: I often hear the colorful expression "I have to pee like a racehorse", but do racehorses really have to pee any worse than other animals? Maybe that's why they run so fast. They're trying to find a bathroom.

Tocci Ponders: "Stranger" is a terrible word to describe someone you don't know. How anti-social. Way to make a judgment before meeting someone... How do you know they're stranger than you? Maybe they're just like you. But I guess calling them "maybe-just-like-me's" would take too much time.

And the month is not over quite yet. In other exciting news...

• Mario Kart for the Wii is out! I preordered mine so I'm expecting it in the mail any day now. I can't wait! It has online multi-player battle!
  
• Last but certainly not least, we're going to see WWE Raw! Anyone who knows me knows I'm a huge WWE fan. Well my favorite wrestling show, Raw, is coming to our neck of the woods and my wonderful wife surprised me with tickets. I'm stoked!

Wow, I'm using a lot of exclamation points. Life must be good. :-)

Tocci Ponders: Today in the mall we saw a watch stand named "Timeless". Isn't that a bad name for a stand that sells watches? It would seem to mean they're out of inventory.

Just one link per week covered this time:

• TypeRacer - A typing game. Type as fast as you can to make your car move. Race against random people online. I just won my first race with 78 WPM. I think I can do better though if I can just avoid all the typos.
  
• Loco Citato has some really cool Internet toys. If you have a myspace page or have friends with one, check out the myspace visualizer. Thanks, Jenny.
  
• Korean baby in diapers singing Beatles songs. Thanks, 2.0.
• Cool Barcodes - Why not jazz 'em up a bit?