Tester Jobs Requirements (VIDEO GAME)

My buddy Duck recently visited his home town in New Jersey after teaching physics in Southern California for the past few years.  I played poker with him and a few other friends last weekend and was happy to hear about his recent adventures surfing and traveling along the Pacific.  While we were playing cards Duck passed around his phone so we could all take a look at some photos of a 77 Winnebago that he and two of his friends had purchased together.  The "Winny" was so sweet and retro-stylish that I had to get some pictures up for our faithful readers.


If you look closely you can see some pretty cool artwork on the face of the camper.  Thats not just rust.


And if you look closely at the roof racks you can see that Duck and his buddies have turned the  "Winny" into the ultimate surf mobile.  He told me that they have driven this 36 year-old charmer to Huntington Beach, San Clemente, and Ventura County.  They try to stay close to home because, "the longer the trip, the more likely something else will break."  It was good to hear that a group of intrepid surfers could still have such an old-school adventure along the modern highways and byways of the Golden State.


Ducks stories and photos of the "Winny" got me pretty charged up and inspired for our next big road trip to North Carolina.  We are heading south to the Outer Banks this Tuesday for a week at the Cape Hatteras KOA and then driving west across the state to the Asheville region for a wedding and for some quality family time in the Blue Ridge Mountains.

Over the years, Ducks 77 Winnie has probably supplied countless memories for dozens of adventurous travelers. If only those (aluminum?) walls could speak!  But more importantly, the "Winny" reminds us that adventure can come in many shapes, and many sizes, and at many price points.  Great Big America is out there waiting if you are willing.

Duck--welcome to the RV tribe.  Its like the mafia.  Once youre in, theres no getting out...

We pulled out of the the Cape Hatteras KOA at around 8:30 AM.  Not exactly the crack of dawn--but a pretty good departure time for parents with twin four year-olds and a three month old baby boy.  We were making good time when, about an hour into our journey, Max put down his coloring book in the back seat and started complaining that his stomach hurt.  We didnt pay him much mind.

Then he barfed all over the back seat.  This caught our attention.  Then he barfed again.  Now we were down-right focused.  Theo, being his twin brother and all, also barfed all over the back seat.  Now we were pretty grossed out.  Then he barfed again.  Now we both wanted to cry.  Only 8 hours of driving left...

At least Wes looked happy sitting in the back seat, smack dab in the middle of the twins, as he blissfully chewed on his rainbow colored squish.

After a Nascar-like emergency pit-stop-clean-up things started to improve very quickly--despite the lingering smell of double twin vomit.   The highways and interstates (particularly Interstate 40), that stretch from the Outer Banks to the Blue Ridge Mountains make for some very easy driving--even with our 6,000 pound, 33 foot, Jayco travel trailer behind us.  After the barfing incident the boys settled in and were very good for the rest of the drive (not that blowing chunks makes a child bad)--and Wes went for almost seven hours without a tear.

But at a certain point he became uncomfortable and the tears started to flow.  The last two hours of the trip were pretty stressful.  The boys sang "Its a Grand Old Flag" and the theme song to "Jake and the Neverland Pirates" to Wes over and over again--but he was not buying it.  My ears, and my stomach, were starting to hurt.  Stephanies nerves were frayed.  Then we pulled into the Asheville East KOA in Swannanoa, our home for the next nine nights, and we had one of those magic moments that can only happen when you get your butt out of the house and go camping.

The windows were down in our Silverado as we pulled up to register and we could hear the sound of a fiddler and his fiddle filling up the warm evening air in the campground.  The music was beautiful and soaring and the fireflies were coming out (we were later told that it was a great summer for fireflies.) We looked to our left and saw the fiddler playing, really jamming, really leaning into it, while sitting in front of his beautiful silver Airstream.  For the uninitiated, all Airstreams are silver, and all airstreams are beautiful.  For everyone--no single man deserves that much style.  I wanted him to be my guru--or at least my crazy uncle.

He looked completely entranced by his own playing--not even noticing the magic spell that he was casting over my family and the rest of his fellow campers.  Road stress gone.  Camping Mojo levels completely restored.  Camping Mojo levels Overflowing--thanks to the fiddler and his Airstream.

The poet John Keats once wrote in Ode on a Grecian Urn that, "Heard melodies are sweet, but those unheard are sweeter."  I couldnt disagree more.

Drama: The Liar and His Lover / She Loves Lie So Much (literal title)
Revised romanization: Geunyeoneun Geojitmaleul Neomoo Saranghae
Hangul: ??? ???? ?? ???
Director: Kim Jin-Min 
Writer: Kotomi Aoki (manga)
Network: tvN
 Episodes: 16 
Release Date: March 20, 2017 �
Runtime: Mondays & Tuesdays 23:00
Language: Korean
Country: South Korea

We were pulling out of the campground Sunday morning, damp and frizzy, when the sun decided to aggressively burst out of the clouds. Suddenly it seemed like absolute madness to simply head for home when the beautiful fall day we had dreamed of suddenly arrived.

We spotted this sign a couple of miles away from Pleasant Acres and headed down a bumpy, muddy road, keeping our fingers crossed that somewhere at the end we would be able to turn our camper around.


Is there anything as romantic as picking apples? My husband and I picked apples for the first time together about 16 years ago. He still remembers what I wore that day and I know this because he asked about that god-awful denim dress just a few years ago. I rolled my eyes and sighed, but inwardly my heart quivered at the notion that he could still picture me at 16--confident enough in my skin to wear an apron dress and a bandanna and probably Birkenstocks with socks, heaven help me.

This time Jeremy probably would not be able to tell you what I wore (sans photo evidence). We were both too busy soaking in the hilarity of two toddlers in an apple orchard. Whoever knew that eating apples could be such sport? They hurled themselves at the trees and grabbed at apples, taking bites and acting as if they had been deprived of flavor their entire lives; as if I had been feeding them cream of wheat and rice krispies their entire life when there was this to be had! Apples!




Every day since, we have had at least one apple request a day and they are eaten with relish. Tonight, I brought to the table a red Bosc Pear for dessert and the boys looked at it with admiration and love and proclaimed, "Apple..."




The romance of apple picking lives on.