I find it interesting how many people I know have a birthday in the month of July. As I have aged and met more people, the number of July birthdays has continued to increase apace. As it turns out, my new circles in Tallahassee are also familiar with this phenomenon.

I wonder if the Halloween holiday, traditionally more popular with younger children, gets some women thinking about their biological clocks. Aside from a decrease in northern temperatures, which would not be applicable in the case of many I know, I can think of no other reason for October to be a preferred procreation month.

No matter the root cause, the birthdays have been all over the place. The end of last week saw three birthday events back to back. Thursday was Omar's "going out" party night during which we enjoyed Poor Paul's and the end of a band's set at Bullwinkle's. Friday was Omar's "staying in" party night hosted at his place and attended by many.

Waking up at a reasonable hour of the morning Saturday, I packed and departed Tallahassee for alternative rock's hometown, Athens, Georgia, the now one-year old home of Erik (birthday) and Lauren. The custom directions provided were excellent and made for a smooth, scenic trip. For the record, my flight plan was as follows: US 319 North → I-75 North → I-16 East → US 129 North → SR 10 West → Arrival in Athens' Boulevard neighborhood.

The three day trip was extremely enjoyable. Besides touring the University of Georgia campus, where Erik is working toward a graduate's degree, we drove through the various neighbourhoods and walked among the shops and eateries of downtown. Quality non-franchise stores and restaurants are a fixture of Athens and my few experiences were no exception.

The Grit offers vegan and vegetarian fare and a regularly changing menu filled with fresh, organic fruits and vegetables. I had a chili cheese hot dog with split pea curry soup, both of which were absolutely delicious.

The Five Star Day Café serves good 'ole home cooking, counter service style. The meatloaf dinner came with a slab of perfectly seasoned and sauced meat, suitable for two meals. Add to that generous pilings of skin-on mashed potatoes and large noodle macaroni and cheese for a meal I could not personally finish, but wished I could.

When we walked up to the door of Transmetropolitan, we were disappointed to see they were closed for their one day per year über-cleaning session. Since we had decided on this place because we wanted pizza, the Mellow Mushroom around the corner won out despite it being a chain. Needless to say, they keep up with the Athens bar of restaurant quality as evidenced by the garlic loaf, house salad, pizza and local microbrew pints. From there we wandered to Junkman's Daughter's Brother, the eclectic gift and vintage clothing store.

Like all trips and vacations, the time moves quickly and before you know it the return home begins. Wishing to maximize my time in Athens and feeling comfortable having now taken the route once, I left in the evening Monday night and carried on into the darkness. There were several long stretches of US 129 where I saw no other vehicles. Except for a few patches of rain, the ride back was nice.

Finally, no trip report would be complete without a few regional observations.

First, most of the radio stations and other organizations refer to the mid section of the state as "middle Georgia." Not "mid" or "central," but "middle." If I knew a good redneck joke, I would tell it now.

Speaking of radio stations, I never thought I would rejoice when I encountered a "top 40" station. When you are traveling through Georgia without a CD player and sub-par FM reception, you take what you can get. Needless to say, the one religious station and one country station I was forced to choose between were unacceptable and thus for a time radio silence was instituted. Luckily I was able to hang on to an oldies station—a title I have serious objections to considering they played a lot of stuff that came out after my birth—for a fair bit of time.

Athens itself was another story completely. The one station I listened to was WPPP Hot 100.7 FM, which features rock but airs all matter genre of songs and artists, absolutely commercial free. It gave me much aural pleasure.

In all it has been a pretty good month for me, which is good with my name and all.

Disable Offline Files Synchronization Warnings
Many custom settings cause errors during synchronization. Edit the registry to remove all but critical reporting and synch uninterrupted.

Mr. TTT Burger
"Introducing THE BURGER BUNCH, part of seven new plush dolls guaranteed to bring magic and mystery into the world."

In pictures: G8 summit body language
I meant to post this sooner, but it is still interesting.

Bob Sokol and Amyl on Stupid Pet Tricks
The 1983 story of a man, his dog and David Letterman.

Does anyone speak German?
I would be very appreciative for a German to English human translation of this article. Or at least a summary of what information was discovered about the therein-referenced IP addresses.

Unbelievably Cool
I may not care for the Bush White House nor watch American Idol, but I am very jealous of this. Some day...