Noah at the Zoo- March: I can't believe how much he's grown!

Ice cream...

Noah Singing

Greenville...GOOOOOD

I have a goal (or, at least, I think I have one), and I have a plan for reaching that goal. Sometimes, though, I worry that the plan is taking too long, that I'm not making enough progress, that I will never reach my goal. Now, for some reason, when that wave of worry and fear overtakes me, I start to blame my surroundings for my perceived failure to advance. And when I start to blame my surroundings, I start to shop for new surroundings.

Ask Chauntelle. She'll tell you that every weekday lunchtime brings a new barrage of facts and details about far-away (and not so far-away) places. I'll come home for my mid-day meal and begin peppering my good lady wife with moderately interesting factoids about destinations unfamiliar (Omaha, Louisville, Madison, Minneapolis), as well as destinations rather more familiar (Chattanooga, Clarksville, Kingsport, Asheville, Boone, and, er, Knoxville). 

We should move here, she'll hear me say. Look at the zoo they have there. That city has a large Greek community; think of the restaurants! And, hey, they have a roller coaster!

And then Chauntelle will respond as so: But, we really love Greenville. Why do you want to leave Greenville? What's wrong with Greenville?

And the answer is: I don't really want to leave Greenville. Greenville is great. My odds for personal success will not be improved by a move- in fact, an ill-considered relocation might have a negative effect on my career plan.

Plus, let's all say it again- Greenville is great. How is it great? Well, maybe it would help to delineate (de-LIN-e-ate- that's for you, Chauntelle) its many categories of greatness:

+Okay, well Main Street is beautiful, vibrant, and prosperous. The Falls park is amazing. The West End is growing and thriving. In short, Downtown Greenville is a wonderful asset to the area and almost reason enough to move to the Upstate.

+As far as dining is concerned, Greenville is well appointed with restaurants representing every possible cuisine, and certainly has a more varied selection of eateries than many other metro-areas of similar size (Knoxville, Chattanooga). Let's put it this way- we've been in Greenville for 3 years and yet have eaten at chain casual restaurants maybe 5 or 6 times in those 3 years. Greenville has so many great local places that it seems shameful to patronize a chain restaurant, even a good one.

+So many grocery stores. Local mom-&-pop joints. Asian markets. Mexican mercados. Solid mid-range chains like Bi-Lo and Ingles. Slightly more tony grocers like Publix (good meat). Gourmet/upscale stores like Earth Fare, Whole Foods, Fresh Market, and (a local chain) Garner's. Plus the big 3 warehouse chains. Oh, and Aldi. Aldi Aldi Aldi.

+Location. 2 hours from Atlanta. 1.5 hours from, Charlotte. 3.5 hours from Charleston, the beach, maybe a little more to Savannah (and the beach). 3.5 hours to Knox Vegas (the Couch). Roller coasters in 3 directions. Mountains nearby. 4.5 hours to Cheraw (just kidding).

+I sort of feel like my job opportunities are a bit limited currently, but it seems that, compared to other places, job opportunities are pretty abundant here.

+The city is relatively diverse, and seems to welcome and appreciate its diversity (for the most part). Lots of different kinds of folks live here, and the city is the better for it. I will say that on Main Street you have an excellent chance of hearing French, or German, or Arabic spoken; and of seeing folks from every conceivable cultural, religious, socio-economic background and/or sexual orientation. Again, I think that's good.

+Home prices are still pretty reasonable, despite the increased growth in the region.

+The local schools are among the best in the state. Of course, SC is supposed to have some of the worst public schools in the nation...

+Several good hospitals.

+Several colleges in the area, including a large private college, a large campus of the state college, and an excellent technical college.

+A great library (and library system), a science/nature center (with planetarium), and a soon-to-open children's museum are all in the area, along with a children's theater. Oh, and a symphony orchestra. And the state art school is downtown. All good stuff for our little guy.

I'm sure I can think of some other reasons to never leave, but for now, it's just good to remind myself that Greenville is where people want to move to, not from. And to remember that the problems that trouble me the most will always travel with me wherever I go. A new city won't change who I am- only I can do that.

Postie postie postie postie...

Just posting 'cause I promised myself I'd try to post every day...hey, here's Lego Boba Fett!

I was looking at thatarticle about Knoxville (or, as I like to call it, "The Big Couch") that was recently published in the New York Times, and I happened across this other article about Knoxville. Reading it, I realized that I would love to attend this "world's fair" and have an opportunity to see this Sun Sphere for myself...

April 25, 1982
KNOXVILLE UNVEILS ITS WORLD'S FAIR 

WENDELL RAWLS Jr. is a correspondent in the Atlanta bureau of The Times. By WENDELL RAWLS Jr. 

It used to be that the only time the camper-trailing, boat-hauling, roof-racked, kid-squalling vacationers from the Northeast or Midwest considered Knoxville at all was when they got trapped in a bottleneck traffic jam on the way to the Smoky Mountains or the white sand beaches of Florida. But this year millions of people will be visiting this powdered and painted-up old industrial, mining and college town of 180,000 on purpose. They probably will stay awhile and Knoxvillians hope they will like it enough to come back again and again. 

For Knoxville, this is World's Fair summer, which, the calendar notwithstanding, will begin next Saturday and continue until Oct. 31. In between will be 184 days of parades and performances; fun-FAIR cuisine, pageantry and propaganda, and international government and corporate exhibits with energy as a theme and virtually every kind of electronic computer, gadget, widget and whatzit. 

Officials of both Knoxville and the fair hope that those millions of tourists who used to drive past will pause in the city for a couple or three days and take a look. They've spent about $110 million trying to make it worth the stop, and they say they believe about six million people from around the country and the world will make the turnstiles click some 11 million times during the six months. 

The fair will open with a visit by President Reagan and about 100,000 others and the attendant grinding traffic jam similar to those occurring every other weekend during the fall, when the University of Tennessee entertains almost that many football fans at Neyland Stadium, which adjoins the fair site. 

The first thing the President and the ensuing crowds will see is the 266-foot-tall Sunsphere tower that looks like a giant gold golf ball atop a blue steel tee. Then there are the bright yellow, orange and blue tension-fabric tent tops, the array of international flags fluttering beside a seven-acre manmade lake that winds through the fairgrounds, and yards of wide bunting streamers in shades of purple, blue, orange and red flowing from the balcony of a renovated candy factory. 

Seventeen nations will present individual exhibitions under the theme ''Energy Turns the World,'' and six others will share space in the European Community Pavilion. 

China, participating in a world's fair for the first time since 1904, will display four terra-cotta warriors and horses from the tomb of Emperor Ying Zheng, a 20-foot solar-powered dragon boat, scores of jade and soapstone carvings, tapestries of pearls and clams, and ancient porcelain. Much has been made of the exhibit of ''an actual portion of the Great Wall of China,'' the first piece of the centuries-old 1,500-mile structure allowed out of the country. But the exhibit measures only 15 by 20 inches and, though cited as one of the fair's highlights, it probably provides insufficient reason alone to attend the exposition. 

Saudi Arabia will present a solar energy model and an animated diorama of the Grand Mosque. Australia will have working windmills, solar-energy displays, moving sidewalks, eucalyptus and fern trees, and, of course, kangaroos. Hungary will display the world's largest Rubik's Cube - invented by the Hungarian architect Dr. Erno Rubik - which will solve itself mechanically every several seconds. South Korea, celebrating the centennial of its association with the United States, is showing a hot-floor heating system that can be adapted for cooking and a master plan and model of a maritime city planned for the 21st century. 

The French exhibit will be a hexagonal-shaped solar collector. Mexico will emphasize its growth as a major oil exporter by using visual images to simulate an oil pool and oil production. West Germany's exhibit will include a working model of an 18th-century waterwheel, solar models and displays stressing nuclear power. Japan will have robots that walk and talk, a robotized arm like those used to build cars, and countless other computerized and electronic operations, including a theater on a moving floor with an oval-shaped dome and a spherical screen for films. Egypt is presenting artifacts from the tombs of King Tut and Ramses II. 

Among the corporate exhibitors, Federal Express, the Tennesseebased air freight carrier, will give laser-beam demonstrations and exhibit advances in communications and transportation. United States Steel will show working models of oil and gas drilling equipment, and Union Carbide Corporation will provide more than 150 battery-powered toys and games that children and adults will be allowed to operate. Ford Motor Company will feature futuristic cars and alternative fuels. Control Data will offer hands-on educational computer systems in such languages, among others, as Japanese, Arabic, Chippewa Indian and Inupik, which is spoken by Eskimos. 

Virtually all of the exhibits will employ film demonstrations and multimedia presentations and displays. The United States' six-story cantilevered, solar-powered pavilion, for example, will house video terminals and talk-back computers and a movie screen that is seven stories high. 

The foreign exhibitors are expected to devote considerable time and space to history, culture, art, handcrafts, folklore, dress, customs and souvenirs that will enable the visitor to travel the globe without leaving the banks of the Tennessee River. Korea, China, Mexico and Hungary, for example, will provide native cooking and restaurants in their pavilions. 

A major attraction of the fair is expected to be the Folklife Festival, which will present the history, heritage, customs, arts, crafts, foods, entertainment and people of the southern Appalachian region. Among the festival's activities: bluegrass music, fiddling contests, gospel singing, clog-dancing, square dancing, tinsmithing, barrel-making, basket weaving, quilting, wood carving and a working moonshine whisky still. 

As plans are so far, almost all of these exhibits, as well as the strolling magicians and musicians, mimes, jugglers, and a variety of folk, country, contemporary, nostalgic and symphonic music - but not food, drink and souvenirs - are included in the one-day general admission ticket price of $9.95 ($9.25 for those over 55). For children between 4 and 11 years, the price is $8.25. A two-day ticket is available to everyone for $15.95, and at least two days would be required to enjoy all the exhibits and have a beer or two at, say, the German Festhaus, a pre-Civil War foundry that has been converted into a German-style beer hall offering oompah bands, German dances and dishes and costumed waitresses. 

But the admission price does not include rides on one of the 24 four-passenger aerial gondola cars or on one of the 114 two-passenger chairlifts that traverse the one-mile fair site. Round-trip tickets for these rides cost up to $2.50 for adults and to $1.75 for children under 12. A trip to the top of the five-tier Sunsphere, which houses two dining areas and two observation decks, is $2 for adults and $1.50 for children. If you eat in the Sunsphere, the cost of the elevator ride is credited to your food check. 

For children under 12, and for many over 55, the Family Funfair amusement area with its 13 rides and electronic video games arcade may be the most appealing attraction. Tickets for its rides, including a 17-story Ferris wheel that is said to be the largest in the country, the giant pirate ship, the log flume and double-deck Venetian carousel, cost between 50 cents and $2, although a book of ride tickets offers a slight discount. 

According to fair officials, reasonably-priced international dishes will be served in 54 restaurants, snack bars and cafes scattered about the fairgrounds. The offerings will include barbecue specialties, European sausage, Belgian waffles, country ham and biscuits, bagels, egg creams, submarine sandwiches, fresh fruit cobbler, Filipino treats, New Orleans cuisine and a New York-style deli, as well as Chinese, Japanese and Greek dishes. In addition, the restored candy factory will house an Italian terrace restaurant with a make-your-own pasta bar, and an international buffet featuring Polynesian and French-Canadian dishes. A renovated turn-of-the-century railway station has a restaurant offering American food. 

While most entertainers will be performing on the grounds at no extra cost to visitors, major shows and special events will take place at other sites and separate tickets must be purchased. For Bob Hope's performances on May 29 and 30, tickets will cost $13 apiece; for Johnny Cash's appearances July 1 to July 3, tickets are $11; and for the Rudolf Nureyev and Boston Ballet performances of ''Don Quixote,'' May 4-8, they range from $15 to $30. 

The traveler to this first World's Fair in the Southeast should anticipate that the extravaganza could well cost a family of four more than $100 a day in addition to food and lodging. Another consideration is the likelihood that the fair will carry far more appeal for adults and older teen-agers than for children under 10, who may regard some exhibits as somewhat tedious and find most interesting those activities that cost extra. 

Lodging, while supposedly ample in the region, already is becoming scarce near the fair site and should be secured before arrival. Many rooms are already reserved as far away as Chattanooga, about 110 miles southwest on Interstate 75. However, fair officials insist that about 40 percent of the available lodging in surrounding communities remains vacant, although such space may involve a trailer, mobile home, camper, houseboat or a room in someone's residence. 

Prices will be generally high as hotel and motel owners try to take advantage of what is perceived as a lifetime opportunity. Expect to pay from $60 to $125 a night for an average motel room with two double beds. Many motels will require two-night minimum stays. The World's Fair office offers a housing service for hotels and motels (615-971-1000) and for such supplemental housing as apartments, condominiums, unoccupied single-family homes, campsites or dormitory rooms at the University of Tennessee (615-971-4000). The dormitory rate is $14.50 a night. 

The World's Fair is not the only dish on a smorgasbord of vacation opportunities within about three hours of Knoxville. The Great Smoky Mountains National Park is the most visited national park in the country, and some nine million visitors are expected there this summer. The Smokies have more than 600 miles of horse and hiking trails. 

Across the mountains from Knoxville and Gatlinburg is Cherokee, N.C., which is a Cherokee Indian reservation and the site of a working Indian village restored to its early 19th-century condition. Farther east in Asheville, N.C., is Biltmore, the former estate of the Vanderbilt family with original furnishings and 34 acres of formal gardens. 

About 30 miles from Knoxville is Oak Ridge, Tenn., which was the top-secret World War II base of the Manhattan Project for the development of the atomic bomb, and now the site of the American Museum of Science and Energy, the world's largest energy exhibition (admission is free). 

To the west lies Nashville, known as ''Music City U.S.A.,'' the home of country music, the Country Music Hall of Fame and Opryland U.S.A., a theme park with rides, a petting zoo and live musical productions in jazz, blues, pop, rock, country and gospel. Opryland also is home to the Grand Ole Opry, the longest running radio program in the nation. Other attractions include the Hermitage, the antebellum home of President Andrew Jackson, Vanderbilt University and the Parthenon, a replica of the Greek structure. 

Chattanooga, the scene of three Civil War battles, offers an incline railway up Lookout Mountain, the Rock City Gardens on top of the mountain and the Choo-Choo Hilton Inn, where patrons may sleep overnight in converted railroad cars. 

Atlanta, farther south on I-75, has the largest airport terminal in the world; another successful theme park, Six Flags over Georgia; and the tallest hotel in the United States, Peachtree Plaza. How to get to the fair For travelers driving to the World's Fair, traffic and parking offer the potential for migraine headaches. Parking will cost between $6 and $10 a day, but those who try to drive as close as possible to the site before parking are likely to find themselves in long traffic jams and without parking space. Good parking areas are available away from the grounds, with regular shuttle bus service for the hours of the fair. A similar service is offered from the Gatlinburg-Pigeon Forge resort area, about 20 miles southeast of Knoxville, which has accommodations for 25,000 people. The main routes to Knoxville for drivers are Interstate 81, from Virginia and Washington, and I-75, from Ohio and Indiana to the north. Eastern Airlines is starting a direct service from New York to Knoxville on May 1, the fair's opening day. A flight will leave La Guardia every day at 7:15 A.M., arriving at 10:09. The round-trip ''super saver'' fare is $314. Delta and other airlines serve Knoxville, but connections are required in Atlanta, Pittsburgh and other cities. Knoxville is served by Greyhound and Trailways buses but it does not have Amtrak rail service.

Aldi Aldi Aldi Aldi

It's no secret that I love Aldi. I'm not even really sure why I love the place so much. The fact that we save a lot of money by marketing there certainly explains some of the affection I feel for the place. Also, though, I think I just really like shopping where most people don't shop. I feel the same way about my choices of computer operating system and web browser. I like knowing that my Aldi and Linux and Opera are as good, or better, than the Wal-Mart and Windows and Internet Explorer that everyone else is using. It makes me feeli like I am a memeber of some kind of super-cool secret club. And, by the way, I am fully aware of how stupid and shallow these feelings are. Aldi is not a super-cool exclusive club. Aldi is a place where you have to deposit a quarter to check out a cart (you get your 2 bits back when you return the cart to the pen), where you have to pay for bags, and where you will only find brand-name items if they happen to be on special that week.

But what's strange is that I love all of those strange little kooky aspects of shopping at Aldi. The cart thing is done so that employees don't have to spend all day wrangling carts; if you want your quarter back, you have to return your cart (or hand it off to the next shopper for a quarter, which is considered good etiquette). The bag thing is great- we should all be reusing our shopping bags anyway, so just bring some old bags with you when you shop at Aldi. And the no-brand-names thing, well, we've been buying store brand items for years, so for a whole store to be just store brand items does not phase us.

Plus, Aldi's stuff is almost always as good or better than name brand (and some of their items likely are produced in the same plants as name brand goods).

In fact, her's a long list of items that we have bought at Aldi, along with our impressions of them:

Milk- well, it's milk. No different from any other milk, except $1 cheaper per gallon.

Chocolate- Choceur is their in-house brand. Dee-licious. Tastes like Lindt.

Potato Chips- Their premium, kettle-style chips are called Cowboy Ted or some such. Excellent. Aldi has fantastic junk food.

Pretzels- Just your regular pretzels, but cheap, cheap, cheap.

Snack mix- their usual choice for a Chex Mix-type snack is a bit too salty (really, it's true) for me, but they recently featured a BOLD variety of snack mix that I quite liked. Also featyred at the same time was their version of the SWEET 'N' SALTY mix that Chex introduced a few years ago. Also good.

Cereal- All of their cereal options are as good as, or better than, the name-brand versions. Really, though, all that matters is that their koko krispies are acceptable (and, of course, they are).

Peanut butter- I really like the Aldi peanut butter, and I especially like that it contains no high fructose corn syrup. So, to review: it's cheap, has no corn syrup, and tastes good on bread with grape jam (which does have corn syrup).

Frozen pizza- Okay, this is no lie, Aldi has some of the best frozen pizza we've ever eaten. Their Margherita Pizza is fantastic, and some of their specialty, once-every-three-months pizzas are better than pizzaria pizza.

Pasta- Pasta is pasta, but theirs is good and cheap, so we buy and eat a lot of it, often in combo with Aldi's Grandessa pasta sauce and F'n'A turkey meatballs. F'n'A!!!

Salsa, chips- Staples. Again, good chips, decent salsa, and cheap. It's not like going to the Tex-Mex restaurant, but their salsa and chips is as good as any Frito-Lay products.

Cola, root beer- I guess I've reduced my consumption of soda pop to such a level that I can no longer detect significant differences between Coca-Cola and Koka-Kola. I just can't tell much of a difference between name-brand and generico, so I like the Aldi versions fine.

Canned fruit and veggies- Not a huge selection, but everything we ever need, and then some. Like their green beans, carrots, potatoes, and their fruit cocktail. I really like their citrus cocktail, which is somewhat extravagant at over $1 per can, but, you know, sometimes you have to live large.

Fresh fruit and veggies- Ok, I won't lie- the selection is limited. The sad fact is, however, that we really don't eat a huge amount of fresh fruits and veggies. We should, and we will try to do so, but for what we typically need (apples, bananas, bagged spinach) Aldi serves us well.

Jelly beans- Alright, back to the important stuff. Around Easter every year, Aldi sells their own variety of gourmet jelly beans. I bought a few bags of these earlier in the year, and they were great. Not exactly like Jelly Belly, but pretty darn close. In fact, some of the flavors were better than the Jelly Belly versions (buttered popcorn, I'm looking at you). Unfortunately, this is a seasonal offering only.

Fruit juices- All good. Apple, grape, mixed berry- no discernable difference in quality from name brand options.

Drink mixes- Kewl Aide. Some of the flavors are a little wacky, but, c'mon, this is sugar water-flavoring that we're talking about. I'm not particular. It's impossible for Kool-Aid to taste more authentically like fake fruit than the competition. Fake grape is fake grape.

Coffee- For some reason, Aldi offers more options for coffee than for any other type of product. You have your mega-cheap, Maxwell House-type coffee in the giant can. You have the Grandessa German coffee, which I purchased for a while. And you have 2 different kinds of Beaumont premium coffee. Recently, I have been buying the Dark Roast Breakfast Blend and have been extremely pleased. I am certain it's the best $3.99/lb coffee I could find around here.

Tea- The tea selection is poor. They carry green tea and black tea. Haven't tried the green, but the black tea is typical and unremarkable.

Mac & cheese- Okay, if you're really down and out, broker than broke, but you have some mac & cheese, some ground meat, and some ketchup, you can cook yerself up a hearty meal known as the redneck casserole. I can tell you honestly that I have rarely felt as thoroughly satisfied in my life as I feel after consuming a man-sized portion of the fantastically rustic dish. Oh, and, ALDI MAC & CHEESE RULEZ ($.29!!!).

Beer, wine, et al- Our Aldi carries a limited selection of beer (limited in the sense that they carry only three kinds- German pilsner, knock-off Heineken, and knock-off Corona) and wine. I have tried 2 of the 3 kinds of beer, and have been satisfied with its quality to price ratio. We have also enjoyed some of their wines, although Chauntelle once broke out into a red rash after trying one of their Chardonnays, which was odd.

What else-

Aldi has weekly specials of all sorts- food, mostly (Germany week, Mexico week, Italy week, China week), but also: computers, GPS systems, DVD players, exercise equipment, plants, toys, and clothing. At first, I thought it was weird that a discount food store sells digital cameras, but now I think it's cool. Hey, we have a swimming pool in our back yard that we bought from Aldi. I look forward to the weekly sepcials. Aldi sends me emails to tell me about them.

Also, since Aldi is a European company (European? No, I'm a peein'!!!), their stores offer a surprising variety of certain items that you wouldn't expect to find in a small discount store. Like meusli. Or gourmet cheeses. Or schnitzel, tiramisu, and black forest cake. Or chocolate/hazelnut spread. The fact that Aldi carries 2 kinds of olive oil is also a testament to its European heritage.

Umm, can I think of anything else...Oh, yeah, they have been know to sell Tagalong and Samoa cookies under their own brand. I don't mean to imply that these cookies were interpretations of the Girl Scout cookies in question- I mean that the cookies sold by Aldi were identical in every way to Tagalongs and Samoas, to the extent that I'm sure they were produced by the same folks who produce the Girl Scout cookies. But no Thin Mints- arrrrghhhh!