We just stopped at a Wendy's for lunch. The ladies room had Safeguard liquid soap. Safeguard is the brand of soap we used for showering when I was a child. The liquid version smells the same and brought back memories.

Back to my "Blast from the Past" discussion.

Friday night we went to Baylee's to see a band called Infectious Organism play. They are from Richmond and in fact Jay used to live next door to them on Grace St.

The band was pretty good, but the opening band was MUCH better. They were mesmerizing. The lead singer used to be in the group "Barefoot Sound", the hip hop band that Ryan Schutt used to play for. He (the lead singer) has a lot of charisma and star power.

I wasn't going to go. I was pretty much settled in for the night but after 9:30 PM, Vandervort called Ledman and instructed him to drag me there. I'm very glad we went-- it was a fun evening. Powerful to watch that band play.

Baylee's has an atmosphere. It's built in an old building, a mason building I believe. It has a beautiful glassed in patio with white lights intermingling with live house plants. Apparently they're adding an outdoor patio. During the day and early evenings it is a nice restaurant. Sean and I went there for a belated Valentine's Day dinner.

There is also an upstairs that overlooks the stage and lower level. The place isn't pristine, but it has character-- creativity, depth, thoughtfulness and intimacy.

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Anyway while we were there we ran into Rick Dean. He was an IRC acquaintance from #radford. I guess he was more of Sean's friend, but I did interact with him during the 1996-1997 school year.

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Sean and I both had rings to show Rick Dean. Visual aid.

First Sean mentioned we bought a house. Instantly rich craned his neck to look for a ring. What assumptions society has taught us!

Later Sean and Rick were swapping good news about graduation. Rick graduated in 2000.

"I graduated in 2001." Sean said and held out his hand so Rick could see his class ring.

Twice in 10 minutes a piece of jewelry served as collaborating evidence.

When we arrived at UVA we picked a free parking lot to tailgate in. Jodi tried (and succeeded) in keeping soda and peanuts down. We all socialize and envied the people right across from us. They were grilling something that smelled delicious.

Suddenly I saw a guy who looked exactly like Ley Richardson. Before I could get a closer look, he sneaked from view, cutting through a row of cars.

"That guy looked like Ley" I told Sean. The guy emerged from the cars back into plain site and we realized it was him.

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The encounter was nice but brief.

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The stadium was really nice. One end zone had a lawn behind it that they sold tickets for. People brought blankets and sat on the hill and watched the game. It was a lot like that concert Nenninger and I saw at Wolftrap in Reston.

During the game the people on that lawn stood up to watch. It was so packed that you really couldn't differentiate between the lawn and the stands.

Behind that lawn was a pillared breezeway. Classic columns held up a white roof. It was aesthetic.

I think on a whole the stadium was pretty classy. What was not classy was my seat. Behind it, it looked like aged vomit and right where I was supposed to sit were splooshes of the same substance. Sean wiped down the seat and then telling I wasn't fully satisfied, he swapped seats with me.

Most stadiums show a short film or cartoon to pump the audience up before their team runs on the field.

UVA has a great one. It had animated, 3-D rendered, mascots battling it out. In this case a cavalier and a Hokie. Portions of the film had real backgrounds and people cheering the cavalier on.

The animation was fairly long and detailed. The cavalier set up a trap for the Hokie Bird. He sprinkled bird seed and placed a lassoed rope on the ground. When the Hokie Bird came around and pecked at the seed, the cavalier whistled and his horse ran with the rope and caught the bird.

The next shot showed the bird roasting on an open fire.

Then the Cavalier got on his horse and rode out. What was cool was right when the cavalier rode on the screen, a real horse and a costumed student road onto the football field. It was a great introduction, better than I have seen.

Other pregame things I liked. They brought out the players' families and introduced them. Also they had all the veterans in the stadium stand up and be recognized.

Another simple enhancement- more people participated in the singing of the national anthem that I could recall seeing. So many people were singing in our section that I felt comfortable singing as well.

They had the words on the jumbotron. There are a lot of big words in the anthem. I sung them a lot as a child. I bet I had no clue what they meant.

I learned that I had the words wrong. this is a common occurrence with me-- especially with the latest popular songs. However, I'm a bit embarrassed that my misperception also applies to our national anthem.

At the very end of the song it goes:

"O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave."

All these years I thought it was:

"For the land of the free and the home of the brave."

It took me two decades to recognize my error.

Sean forgot his jacket. After the sun went down it got quite cold - so we took turns with my QualTrax jacket.

I took advantage of the chilly weather to purchase a hot chocolate. I frequently have hot chocolate at work-- but it is never as pleasurable as it is when you're out in extended cold.

I still remember savoring the warmth and sweetness of hot chocolate in the stands of the Thomas Jefferson High School for Science and Technology.

After the game (Virginia Tech won) we made a misdirected detour. We boarded a shuttle bus that went no where near where we needed to go. So we boarded a trolley to go back to campus. We ended up exactly where we started. Ultimately we walked back to our car.

Our detour took roughly forty minutes. But it was nice, really. We got a free tour of the campus.

The brick buildings with white trims were beautiful. Occasionally you'll come across a building with white columns out front. The consistency that made the Philadelphia night skyline so attractive is just as effective for the campus here. Even the Amtrak station had the same architecture.

Today during tours of Jefferson and Monroe's home we learned Jefferson, with all the many things he accomplished, was most proud of founding the University of Virginia. It is one of the three things he singled out for his tombstone. From what I saw last night, his pride is justified.

Almost back to the car. To be continued later.

11-18-2001

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We toured Monticello and Ashlawn today. Respectively those were the homes of Thomas Jefferson and James Monroe.

The two homes were quite different. Jefferson's had tall ceilings, unique architecture and filled with expansive book collections and interesting inventions. Monroe's was a modest farmhouse, more functional and less showy.

The tours were a little different too. There was a lot of certainty regarding Monticello and its happenings. With Monroe there was a lot of speculation. A lot of "We don't know"s and "We think"s.

These two men lived in the same time, only 2 1/2 miles apart. They were friends. They died exactly five years apart.

So why the discrepancy in knowledge?

Jefferson wrote things down.

They gave an overwhelming statistic of just the letters he wrote. Perhaps 20,000 letters?*

He documented daily life. He recorded his thoughts and opinions as well as the mundane.

We know so much because he wrote. We, 200 years later, still benefit.

The moral-- write things down even little things about dry cleaning and toilets, even about the placement of nails. Write it down so the future won't have doubt.

*One of the neat gadgets he used was a machine that enabled him to make a copy of the letter he was writing. He kept copies for himself of the letters he wrote.

11-20-2001
Occoquan, VA

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Oh-- back to lying on the couch. I was right near the old cat window-- where a missing pane allowed the cats to come and go as they pleased.

I believe it is blocked by cardboard now. There is still a breeze and it made my chilly. I covered myself with a crocheted afghan.

It reminded me of something interesting I heard at James Monroe's house. Those canopy beds with the curtains. Those are intended not for privacy but to keep heat in during winter months. I never knew that.

Here's another interesting blurb. There was a clock in Monroe's house that was made entirely of hickory. Even the gears and innards were made of that dark wood. The gears were kept lubricated with animal fat. Our tour guide told us "So hickory dickory doc, the mouse ran up the clock. That's why they ran up the clock, to eat the fat."

At Monticello our tour guide told us Jefferson wanted his visitors to learn, to be educated, just by entering his residence.

He hung portraits of important men on his walls. His foyer contained fossils and maps. On a related note, it was really weird to see maps of Virginia back then-- with the land of West Virginia. Our state shape is more aesthetic now.

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