What a day. What a freaking day. A mixture of the best and the worst rolled into
one. It began last night when friend
Scott (a.k.a.
Diefenbaker)
came up from Asheboro to spend the night so we could head northward today to do
some serious geocaching. My daughter, Allison, also paid us a visit, and we had
an excellent sushi dinner at
Yamato. Afterward, we sat up fairly late with various drinks to keep us occupied
until bedtime.
Up and at 'em early this morning. Allison and I made breakfast—she made her
special scrambled eggs and I cooked up my Damned Rodan's Crematorium-Style
Bacon. Then Scott and I hit the road for Rocky Mount and Boones Mill,
thirty-some miles up the road toward Roanoke. We found several enjoyable
caches, a couple of which took us out on the highest, narrowest, windiest,
scariest fooken mountain road I have ever driven. You know those videos of
single-lane roads along cliffs, with sheer drop-offs on one side and a high
vertical wall on the other? This was kind of like that. Thanks be to Yog
Sothoth no vehicles came from the other direction because I fear that might
have been all she wrote for us.
At the end of the scary mountain road, we had the pleasure of meeting fellow
geocacher,
Varunner7, since she and her husband had placed a cache on
their property. A very pleasant caching conversation followed, and after a
while, off we went again, back toward Rocky Mount. We found lunch at a lovely
BBQ joint called the
Rocky Mount Smokehouse, where Scott and I both ordered brisket. We found it delightful.
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Fun sign in the bathroom at the smokehouse
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Several years ago, Brugger and I had gone after a cache on a huge, steep ridge
on the outskirts of Rocky Mount. That cache has been long since archived, and
a newer one took its place relatively recently. Since it was very close to the
restaurant, Scott and I trekked up that remarkably steep incline and finally
hit the summit. It's rocky as hell and covered with cactus, which isn't
something you typically see around these parts. I indulged in all kinds of
acrobatics in precarious settings as I set about hunting the cache—something I
haven't been able to do much recently—but after a serious amount of time, we
came up empty. Based on some intel we received from Ms. Varunner7, we
concluded that the damned thing has already gone missing. Drat and alas.
Also in the "good shit" column, I received hopeful news about one of my recent
short stories from a publisher (which I'll remark upon later, when the word is
given), and, thanks to the big
Bookbub promotion, which I detailed yesterday,
Deathrealm: Spirits reached number 1 in sales on
Amazon.com
in three categories: horror anthologies (Kindle), horror anthologies (books),
and fiction anthologies. It held onto that position for a full 24 hours, which
is a fair achievement. It slipped a few notches for a couple of hours this
evening, but then it climbed back into the lead positions.
It's the little things that make one smile, wouldn't you say?
In the "bad shit" column, which does not make me smile, Ms. B. got laid off
from her job of 21 years, ignominiously and with a piss-poor severance deal.
Out of respect for Kim—certainly not for the company, which gets absolutely
none from me—I'll elaborate only a little. I hope this will prove a blessing
in disguise, as leaving one position behind for another sometimes does. I
feel horrible for her, though, because she loved that job and gave everything
to it that she had to give. That she was shown no more appreciation and
consideration than she was is disgraceful (note that this applies only to the
parent company, not the wonderful local bunch that we both worked with for
many, many years). Needless to say, this puts us in a bigger financial and
logistical bind than we'd been prepared to deal with. Still, we're in a better
place than many in similar circumstances, so I suppose there's that.
Anyway, tomorrow will bring what it's gonna bring, and we'll give it what for.
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Looking down at Rocky Mount from "Rocky Top"
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You might have to look carefully, but many of the rocks are
covered in little cactus plants
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One of the crevices I explored along the cliff face
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Old Dude at "Rocky Top" on Christmas Day, 2011, photo by Ms. B.
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