I am Back

Though that's pretty obvious, I would think.  

This past week I have spent my nerdy time in the mountains of North Carolina with both sets of my grandparents, and let me say, I had an excellent time. There was a lot of fun to be had, lots of odd experiences, and, most relevantly, a lot of new ideas.

A week ago this fine Tuesday of a today, I drove myself and my 13 year old brother up to the mountains, about a 2 1/2 hour drive from Charlotte where I live. It wasn't terribly eventful, my brother and I mostly just talked about up and coming movies, truth be told, something about Megan Fox and Transformers 3 if I recall.  

Arrival was interesting, I got to see my two young adopted cousins when we got there. (My uncle adopted two girls from China years ago, named them Kylie and Lacie. They both talk with staunch mountain accents, (which is taking your typical southern accent and slurring your 'er's' and drawling out in different places. Watch Andy Griffith, Don Knotts' voice should tell you plenty.    ) which makes for some rather odd image-sound contrast. They are more than 10 years younger than I _{(the oldest, Kylie, is 7 at my last count)} and thus, I intimidate them a bit. I have to force smiles and I have big, ringed eyes, so I can see why, but my brother is quite simply the object of their affection. Saves me the trouble of enduring their jeering and teasing, at least.  

We humored them by going out and playing mini-golf, I came in second place because my brother got a hole in one when I got a hole in. . . three. Yeeeeaaaaahhh, let's just say three and not, say, nine. . .

I always enjoyed mini-golf as a kid, so it was pretty nostalgic. The course had a jungle theme going, complete with large plastic megafauna, fish ponds, and a volcano hole, one of the many mini-golf novelties. That was day one, in a nutshell, unless you count me watching some of the extended bonus features of Peter Jackson's Kong until my brother got a little sick/bored and we switched to Pirates of the Caribean. Day 1, done.


I decided the next day to get some drawing/typing done. My grandparents, or Mamaw and Papaw as we say in the mountains   decided we would go to the rather interesting Grandfather mountain, a sort of nature preserve/national landmark. I figured I'd just take my sketchbook along and do what I could, but I figured out quickly that I wouldn't have the time. I got to see some very neat stuff, Golden Eagles, River Otters, three black bears with a knack for entertainment. In the past, up until a couple of months ago, that is, the bears would be fed by the guests as a novelty, and so the bears would all line up at the enclosure's edge and 'perform' little cute tricks for treats. The tricks, they still happened, a little, but otherwise it was nice to see bears acting more like bears and not circus bears like the other guests seemed to think they were. There were three of them, and they were very different inside and out. One was the entertainer, who still had it in his head the people would feed him if he did something. He even, at one point, grabbed a stick in his paw and put it under his bulk, giving the illusion that the stick was holding him up. The people loved that. Another was lazy, napping off to the side in a small corner, being rather surprised at how loud the people who discovered his spot. Another was, well, a lot like me. He wasn't black, per se, more of a dark brown, much like the controversy that is my curly mane. He would look at the people to humor them from time to time, but when he was done with them, he was DONE, often simply walking off away from a good vantage point. I applauded him for still having some pride. Yeah, I think I was the only non-payroll person in the park that respected the animals for what they were, and not what they seemed.

Another neat feature of the place was the gemstone and other curio's collection. These included:

-A copy of a wood carving found on the mountainside, which said, in somewhat poor english, that Daniel Boone, the famous American frontiersman, had killed a bear at that spot. Pretty cool, really.

-The largest amethyst stone in the country, maybe the continent. Impressive, to say the least.

-A tree tumor, carved out and turned into an art piece. Neat, but did I mention that 4 full grown men could stand in it? Yeah, thought not.

-Insect collections. Scorpions, walking sticks, and all the related awesomeness.

I spent some money in the gift shop, mainly souvineers for my girlfriend that missed the trip. She loved them, which is good. We then, the four of us, climbed across the swinging bridge. 5280 feet above sea level, the highest swinging bridge in North America. It was neat, had a nice view. My brother took some dental wax and threw it off the edge. A dentist just rolled over in his grave. I'm not terrible with heights, at least not solid heights, so the cliffs didn't bother me until I got to the ledge itself. We then got food at a steakhouse and headed home, another fun day closing with my brother playing, and subsequently losing, at Medal of Honor in the basement.

   Animals were the name of the game this past week, it seems, for we went to the Asheville nature center, an official zoo of small stature. I hadn't been there in several years, so it was a neat bit of nostalgia. I got to see:

-Great horned owls, always one of my favorite parts of a zoo. They  were sleeping, which gave me a warm and fuzzy feeling.

-A pair of sleeping bobcats less than two feet from my face, with glass in between of course. I have good luck with nocturnal species, it seems.

-A coyote with no fear sniffing at us from the fence. I have long been aware of Coyotes being gutsy things, but it was nice seeing it in person.

-Red wolves. They are almost extinct in the wild, and this zoo is one of the handful that is rebreeding them. They look like the gray's of literature fame, only lankier and with longer legs, with rust colored of fur. The pups have the BIGGEST ears, its adorable, simply adorable.

-A signed poster of the Crocodile Hunter. He had been there some time before his death, so it was neat seeing a tangible part of his legacy. RIP Steve-O, you are dearly missed by the world.

-In the gift shop, a pair of boxer shorts with the words 'nice cheeks' on them alongside a picture of a squirrel.


After that, we went to the mall. I looked about, found some good deals, mainly in a Gamestop. I found two games of note, one being a Wii exclusive RPG called Arc Rise Fantasia. It is really well done visually, colorful and not quite your typical anime style of design. One complaint, though, is that the voice syncing just sucks. . . the voices fit, the timing matches the lip movements, but it sounds way too awkward in English to keep me from laughing at times. Other than that I am very impressed.

The other game was one I had been looking for, one that I've intensively enjoyed playing, Rampage Total Destruction. Why did I not get this game before? Why???!?

After that, we went to my other set of grandparents, who live a few minutes away in a small mountain home. Its much quieter there, but after the constant sight-seeing it was pretty nice.

Napping, Wii-ing, and eating were the names of the games for a couple of days. We then went to visit my girlfriend, we watched Osmosis jones, which I picked out. I forgot how much fun that movie was.   Also, we watched Alice in Wonderland, Edward Scissorhands, School of Rock, and Hellboy II, all of which did their job of entertaining. We swam a bit, and the general fun, but we had to head back and enjoy the next couple of days in the mountains again.

The days after that were not as eventful, but still fun in their own right, and we arrived back in town this morning. My parents had just returned from a trip to Brazil, which they loved, so we all had some stories to tell.


Now, while on my own this week, I spent a lot of time drawing, and getting Dark Hours synthesized. I opened a document in Word, title: Dark Hours Thinktank, which is now over 15 pages long. I have almost every kaiju I want to do synthesized and put together, a good portion of them sized up and armed properly with role, placement, and activities. A lot of the human work is done too. Also, I am getting the timeline for the 'verse's entirety resolved, though I'm still getting the details of the era of creation resolved.

I worked on Art trades, and managed to secure a net connection long enough to answer a few comments and post my Shark week celebration pic.

Now, I have told you all of the week as well as my drowsy self can, so enjoy the read, and expect some uploads over the next couple of days.

If anyone wants to see the thinktank displayed, I can get it together and posted, or in an email if you note me the address, I don't mind.

Now, I am also posting this entire description on my DA page, which can be found here http://crimson-vagrant.deviantart.com/


(sorry, no pictures, my folks took the camera with them to Brazil. And sorry for any typos or grammar mistakes, I'm tired.)