do chemical weapons cause eco-damage?

[bvanevery]

Well I read Brave New World back in high school, so if that's the reference, it's been a mighty long time.

I-40, we're neighbors?  I'm in Winston-Salem NC.  1 hour away would be either Hickory or the far side of Greensboro.

Some would charge that a culture of overwhelming Political Correctness, could be Lal's version of Fundamentalism.

[Buster's Uncle]

Ah, you've got your location listed as Asheville - I'm about 15 minutes west of Hickory, so make it an hour and a half uphill.

[bvanevery]

That Asheville listing is correct 3/4 of the year.  I bug out for the winter.  This winter I happen to have been at my Mom's in Winston-Salem for a long time.  The recent excuse is she had some serious computer trouble, ultimately resulting in the purchase of a new computer.  Now she has 2 usable computers for redundancy, and a cloned hard drive already waiting to go in case of disaster.  Tonight I'll do "personal data" backups to the highest quality DVDs I could find (Verbatim AZO), and 1 of those will go in her safe deposit box.  Then my job as a techie, which has taken 6 weeks, will finally be over.

[Buster's Uncle]

Never be embarrassed that you take care of family.  Good man.  (Nor leaving Asheville in winter - the hippy craft beer's no good frozen solid. )

[bvanevery]

OMG a homeless friend of mine texted me from the grocery store we usually hang out at, a nice Harris Teeter with tables and a coffee machine inside.  He said it was snowing outside, "when are you coming back?"  Said he'd buy beer for myself and the dog when we got back.

Yeah, uh, "renting" a micro-brewery for the evening counts as one of the "heroics" I've done in the past in the face of winter.  One time I even ran into a homeless guy I didn't know at this brewery, doing the same thing as myself, but on much less of a budget.  I felt like I had extra resources at the time, so I bought him beer, then we went looking for Burger King to sober up.  They were closed, so we went to a grocery store and bought food stamp stuff.  I said "whatever you want within reason" because I had a food stamp surplus at the time.  He got some perfunctory stuff, like hot dogs, soda pop, whatnot, and I gave him a ride back to the Post Office lobby where he was camping out to beat the cold.  Good trick, will remember that if I'm ever on foot, although I never plan to let that happen.

Much easier to leave earlier in the season and not face winter at all.  No more heroics for me.

[Buster's Uncle]

I lived several years in Boone, year-round, which I gather is far worse -a Moldavian friend says the winters there managed to impress him, and that's a real winter, to impress an eastern European at all- indoors as a student, and it always struck me funny how the population literally doubled the nine months the town was not-too-habitable - and all the stupid Charlottean kids -the vast bulk of the students- went home the three nice months Charlotte was an oven and Boone rarely reached 90.  Screw the skiing - the place was icy hell 3/4 of the year and empty the quarter it was one of the nicest spots to be in the state.

Idiots.  I'm trapped on Planet of the Idiots.

[bvanevery]

Ueere een Noarth Caarolaiiena.

The question of where to choose to go, has plagued me greatly for the past 8 years.  Clearly I could.  Have car, will travel.  I've been all over the Southeast.  There is no better place to live out of a car in the summer, I've been everywhere.  To do any better, I'd have to go at least as far as Colorado, and that's 2/3rds of the way across the country.

[Buster's Uncle]

We've got less Yankees, here in America...

(Boone does have ferocious thunderstorms in the summertime, so not as bakey in the car at around 80 in August, but possible to wake up parked in a new place...)

[bvanevery]

It can get plenty hot in Boone in the summer, down in the valley where the Home Depot etc. are.  I did check out Boone as a place to plant my flag once upon a time.  Surprising lack of bars for a collegetown.

[Buster's Uncle]

I don't drink, so never really noticed that, but you're right; surprisingly few.  That plaza mall is in the worst of the floodplain, too.

[bvanevery]

I've also sat in the middle of downtown Hickory and used their electricity and wifi to run my laptop.  They had some kind of bar on that main square that I thought about going into, but never did for some reason.

[Buster's Uncle]

The railroad station thing?  I've been in there and wasn't impressed, but I'm the wrong guy to ask about noisy and/or crowded places.

[Geo]

I lived several years in Boone, year-round, which I gather is far worse -a Moldavian friend says the winters there managed to impress him, and that's a real winter, to impress an eastern European at all- indoors as a student, and it always struck me funny how the population literally doubled the nine months the town was not-too-habitable - and all the stupid Charlottean kids -the vast bulk of the students- went home the three nice months Charlotte was an oven and Boone rarely reached 90.  Screw the skiing - the place was icy hell 3/4 of the year and empty the quarter it was one of the nicest spots to be in the state.

Idiots.  I'm trapped on Planet of the Idiots.

Can't remember if we passed near or through Boone 3 years ago. It is 10 miles from Grandfather Mountain which I remember us driving by.
Anyways, early 90ties being called "nice" is an eyeopener to me. At least if its a humid 90 °F, a dry one I'd call tolerable.

[Buster's Uncle]

You and I passed within half an hour's drive of Boone when we turned back for home at Lenoir.  If there'd been time, going up north over the ridge and looking around would have been worth the trip -at least at another time of the year in better weather- and I'd have inevitably told funny college stories, being there.  We were about as close on the parkway, going to the gorge, too, and that day was good enough weather except for the cold.

[bvanevery]

Gosh this is almost sounding like the makings of a Pisgah National Forest, Grandfather Mountain district, camper's LAN party.