Spring Cleaning

I accomplished a lot this past weekend. The 2nd Saturday of each month, my neighborhood MUD makes these huge industrial rubbish bins available to toss out bulky items. Meredith and I took Troy to the neighborhood Dog Fair in the morning where he saw a few of his dog park buddies. I ditched out early to get started on my cleanup and be able to get clean up for Meredith's mom's birthday dinner later in the evening.
This 2nd Saturday clean up day is one of those things I always forget about. I either think about it too late and miss it, or think about it too early and then forget about it when it comes around. This time I made a conscience effort to remember. I think the recent break-in kind of made me a little more aware of the disastrous shape my yard and garage were in.
I think one of the factors that made my house a target was that I hadn't yet mowed the lawn. The unkempt grass might have been a signal to the crooks that perhaps the occupants of the house were on vacation, making it a good candidate for thievery. Also, I had accumulated a bunch of wooden pallets, a brush pile and some other junk in the back yard that the thieves built a little step ladder to get back over the fence with my loot. My garage is also in shambles. I don't think the thieves even bothered to look in there, but the Brink's guys were in there to work on the installation of the system, so I felt a little embarrassed that it was such a mess. Most of it is just junk, magazines meant for recycling, lots of empty cardboard boxes (also meant for recycling), pieces of scrap wood and lots and lots of sawdust from past projects.
First order of business was to get the big bulky stuff collected and hauled off to the rubbish bins. It took about 4 trips back and forth but finally got rid of:

• busted back door
• bunch of pallets
• busted chairs
• decayed old patio chairs
• 40 year old grill that was a heap of rust
• old vintage '92 vcr
• decrepit end table
  

Feels very gratifying and cleansing to toss out a bunch of old junk.
I spent the rest of the afternoon up until 4pm mowing the lawn, edging, clearing an old brush pile and sweeping the rust off the patio.
Sunday, I tackled the garage. First order of business was a trip to Home Depot to get a box cutter, some twine and contractor garbage bags. Troy got to come along, he's always a big hit at home depot. Since we've been leaving the porch light on for most of the time I picked up a couple of CFL low energy bulbs as well. Meredith did the make up and some prosthetic appliances for a few magazine ads for a campaign promoting replacing traditional incandescent bulbs with low energy/low carbon CFL bulbs. So I felt a little obligated to do my part to save the planet.
Once I got back to the house, I started to tackle the garage. I started weeding through piles of junk sorting stuff out I wanted to keep by moving it to the other side of the garage, where I normally park the car. The rest was either stuffed in a garbage bag or stacked and bundled for recycling. Lots of cardboard boxes from all kinds of things were broken down and stacked flat. I had quite a collection of Amazon.com boxes, computer component boxes and other packaging. The whole thing was a bit like an archaeological dig. I found a lot of things I forgot I even had. Somethings I thought we lost forever that I 'd already bought a replacement for.
After several hours and a few beers, things started to look pretty good. I could actually see the cement on the garage floor. I swept that area out and started to move back the items I was keeping so that I could sweep out the other side.
I ended up with a full giant garbage bin, three stacks of cardboard, half a dozen stacks of magazines and 4 giant garbage bags. My garage looks so much bigger and brighter than it did a few hours before.
Wednesday is trash pick up day. The recycling and garbage guys are somewhat sporadic and unpredictable. Sometimes the recycling guys with come at the crack of dawn while the garbage guys might not wander through before 6pm. To combat this you pretty much have to get stuff to the curb the night before and hope it doesn't rain or blow away. Last night I dragged everything to the curb, basically lining the whole curb with recyclables and garbage bags. Then said a quick silent prayer that they would take everything.
Now that my garage has had a bit of a colon cleansing I hope to keep it that way for a little while I've already caught myself putting a box in there from a new LCD TV I bought. I planned to put it up in the attic, but didn't drag the ladder out to do it.
We'll see how long it lasts. I have a few other rooms that need a good enema as well.

Fortress of Solitude

The Brink's Home Security guys were at the house today installing the new home security system.
They arrived at about 8am and went through a bunch of paper work and asked me a few questions - where I'd like the keypad, what doors I enter and a handful of other questions.
On Tuesday when I scheduled the installation I had purposely scheduled it for today since I had a shoot schedule for Wednesday. Figures that just after scheduling the install, my shoot moved to Thursday. I figured changing the install this late in the game would just muck everything up, so I decided to try to work around the shoot.
My house was pre-wired for a security system when it was built back in 1999, so I guess I was thinking that they would just slap the thing in and be done by noon. I was wrong of course.
Luckily, as a contingency plan I had talked my Dad into coming over and hanging out if the Brink's guys were still around by the time I had to leave for the shoot.
Dad showed up around 11:30am and the Brink's guys were still going strong. I split about noon and drove over to the shoot. The shoots were pretty quick. One was demonstrating how to use a notebook cable lock and best practices for using them. The other was a quick demo of the bio-metric fingerprint readers that some notebooks have to increase security and ease of use (you don't often misplace or forget your fingertip). Both were in the can by 2:30pm.
I zipped back home to find that the Brink's guys were getting close to finishing up, running tests and doing some checks. Shortly after I arrived Dad left to run some errands. I thanked him for taking time out of his day to help me out. My parents are wonderful.
By about 4pm the Brink's guys gave me a few lessons on how to use the system, how to turn it on and off, how to cancel alarms, turn the motion detector off, and various options I can set. I think I've forgotten everything by now. I'm sure I'll end up setting it off a few times before I get used to it.
Good thing they left a DVD for me to watch that explains everything again.

Youth of today

Meredith called me on her way back from work. The detective working the burglary had called her to tell her that my gun had been recovered. Someone in a town a little north of Austin reported a suspicious person walking down the street knocking on doors and looking in windows. The cops questioned him and searched his vehicle and found my .40 caliber handgun. He claimed he "bought it from someone" apparently they also found some other items that were linked to another recent burglary as well. Turns out they think that this 20 year old man was leading a "crew" of juveniles ranging in ages from 17-13 years old, driving around breaking into houses. The guy is sitting in jail now. Weapons possession alone is enough to get him some good time in jail.
They haven't recovered Meredith's notebook. They found some other notebooks he had, right manufacturer but wrong model and the wrong Windows login. They'll continue to search pawn shops, Ebay and Craiglist for it as well as the other items that went missing.
I called the detective and asked about the gun. He said that it would be processed at a firearms facility where they would fire several rounds and collect the slugs and casings to check to see if it had been involved in anything after the time it left my possession. They'll call me when I can get it back.
Meredith mentioned to the detective that we thought that the window next to the back door might have been tampered with the night of the burglary. Sunday morning I had found that the window screen had also been removed and a small hole in the screen where it looked like someone had stuck a screw driver through to pop the screen out. Apparently the officers had overlooked it the night of the burglary and had concentrated on processing the door instead. The detective urged us to call 911 to have an officer come out and process the window. Apparently, they are needing more evidence to link the alleged thieves to the scenes.
When the officer arrived he dusted the window and found a couple of prints where it looks like someone with small hands had tried to push the window up...both at the middle of the window and towards the top of the window. Chances are those are our culprits. I haven't messed with that window in ages and the handprints are much smaller than Meredith's or mine.
I'm just happy that the gun has been found and at least one criminal has been taken off the streets.

Thieves & Liars

It's been an interesting couple of weeks since I got back from Scotland.
The analysts meeting was on April 2 & 3. I had to videotape about 10 executives saying short lines. The event production company sent a director from LA to oversee the shoots. We worked pretty well together and got everything done. I had to coach him as to what to expect from our executives. I think he went into it thinking that they would be willing to spend as much time as needed and would tolerate saying the short piece over and over again until the director got what he wanted. It didn't quite work out that way. These guys wanted nothing more than to say it once and get out as soon as possible. A few were willing to work with us and a few got pretty agitated and wouldn't say the line more than twice. I'm sure they had other things on their mind.
On Thursday the director went back to LA with 6 of the ten executives on tape. Plan was for them to cut the ones they had and come back on Monday to tape the rest of them on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We'd cut them in our studio and lay them down on beta tape the by noon on Wednesday to be shown the same day.
On Friday there was a knock on the studio door and I open it to discover an executive all ready for his shoot. Apparently there was a slight miscommunication between the last schedule we were given and what he was given. He was none too happy. He was re-scheduled for 8am sharp on Wednesday.
The weekend rolled around and Meredith and I had a busy day on Saturday. An old college roommate of Meredith's had invited us (and Troy) over to celebrate her fiancé's birthday. They live about 30 minutes or more out of town. We planned on showing up early and leaving before things really got started so that we could make it to film fund raiser.
Everything went as planned. We showed up at the party, hung out for a while and left. We went back to Meredith's house and dropped Troy off and picked up Carolyn (Meredith's business partner and housemate) and zipped off to the bar where the fund raiser was being held.
It was nice to see some old film friends. Really makes me want to find some time to get back into it and help out doing some indie film projects. We stuck around until after the raffle (we didn't win anything) and left to find some dinner. After a nice filling dinner at Texas Land and Cattle we drove back to Carolyn's to pick up troy and drop off Carolyn.
Meredith and I got home at about 10:30pm, opened the door and Troy went wandering inside. We stopped in the hallway and chit chatted about a few things. I continued into the living room in time to see the dog slip out the back door. I called to Meredith..."did you leave the back door open?". Often before we leave we put the dog outside and leave the door open so he can get back in by himself. So since he hasn't learned to close the door when he comes back in, we have to do it for him. And it is entirely feasible that if we weren't paying attention we'd just forget and leave the door open. She says "must of..." and approaches the door. About that time I notice that the dead bolt is still in the locked position and that the door is broken. Someone has kicked the door in. She immediately says "where's my notebook" and looks to the coffee table where we'd left it. It was gone.
I'm standing right next to the house phone, so I pick it up and dial 911. I tell the operator that my house has just been broken into. She wisely tells me that we should leave the house and that she is sending a police unit out. About that time, I say "oh crap, the gun!" which of course causes a stir on the other end of the line. I rush back into the bedroom and open the nightstand drawer to discover that my Berreta .40 caliber handgun is missing. At this point the operator is pretty insistent that we leave the house. At this point I'm pretty sure there is no one else in the house, but we vacate to the driveway anyway.
The sheriff arrives and quizzes me about the missing gun. They do a quick search through the house. We do a quick inventory from room to room.

• Meredith's notebook and about 10 DVD's from the middle of my collection (S's from the Sci-fi/fantasy section) from the living room.
• My camera bag with my 35mm SLR film camera, 28-135mm lens and flash from the spare bedroom. (luckily I had had my Scotland film rolls developed already)
  
• And older notebook I was using as a print server for a color printer I use for printing the surface of DVD's from the front computer room
  
• The Berreta 8040 .40 caliber handgun, a box of loose change (pennies, nickels and dimes) and a jar full of Euros and British pounds sterling from the bedroom.

Oddly enough they left a lot of stuff that if I was a thief I would have taken...high end home theater audio gear, Wii, PS/2, Xbox, desktop computer parts and my large King Richard the Lionhearted replica sword. Makes me think they were looking for things of high value that could be easily slipped into a backpack or duffel bag.
The police dusted a few things for prints, took a report and left. I was expecting Grissom to come in a find microscopic epitheliums they'd get a one hour DNA analysis and arrest Col. Mustard before the night was over. Not so much.
Meredith called her parents who came over and boarded our broken door shut as a temporary safeguard for the night until we could put in a replacement.
We didn't sleep much. You feel so violated. You wake at every little noise. You dream about people sneaking into your room while you are asleep.
Sunday we went to Home Depot and bought a new door. Meredith's Dad was nice enough to help put it in...I say "help" when really I didn't do much at all. I'm grateful that he knows what he's doing with a hammer and nails. The door fits better and feels a bit more solid that the old one.
We slept a little better that night.
Monday I had to start dealing with the insurance company. First task was to come up with all the receipts for the expensive items.
Meredith was able to get a copy of her notebook invoice, I had the receipt for the gun and the camera lens...but couldn't find the receipt for the camera and flash.
I hardly throw any receipts out. I have mountains of receipts. I have receipts from trips to the grocery store from three years ago... Of course, I can't find what I really need. I gave up after a couple hours.
I called the store where I bought the camera and flash. They went out of their way and spent some time searching through their archives from 2001 until they found the invoices. I was reminded about how important good customer service is when considering purchasing decisions and repeat purchasing. I'll definitely be going back to purchase another camera even though their prices are higher than others, their customer service is top notch.
Tuesday and Wednesday brought about more executive filming. I felt the pressure on Wednesday. Not only did we have 3 executives in the studio to film, I had to turn around an edit for two of them recreating what had been done in LA for the other 6 all by noon. Somehow I was able to pull it off.
Thursday was rough as well. Occasionally we do live broadcast interviews with executives out of the studio to the national news like CNBC and Bloomberg. This executive was scheduled to appear live on a couple financial morning shows. TV runs on NY time, so everything is an hour earlier than ours, which of course meant a very early morning for me.
Friday was a bit more relaxing. I'm in pre-production on a new project that has to be done pretty quickly. This is one of those cases where their budget got cut at the last minute. So they come to us at the last minute wanting a rush job on something that they were willing to pay a dedicated full-time editor handsomely for. We get it thrown on our plate...and we have a lot of plates spinning at the same time.
Saturday Dad brought Grandpa over and we went our for breakfast. Dad and I have had a tradition of going out to breakfast on Saturday morning for several years now. He got the idea one year when he was up in Baudette, Minnesota, my mother's home town and residence of my Grandparents, Aunt and Uncle and my cousin. My Uncle and my Grandfather have been going out for breakfast on Saturday mornings for quite a long time. Even though my father and I live in the same town I don't get to see him much throughout the week. It's just a good opportunity to talk and catch up. I'm sure as the years go by I'll value these Saturday mornings even more.
My Grandparents are getting older and I should really try to make a point of spending more time with them before I no longer can.
Maybe next week.

If hell was an airport....

Morning comes way, way too early. I spent the night trying to pack and shove as much in as I could. I can never get everything packed on the return like I could on the departure. We leave the B&B at around 4:30am. Mandy, the proprietor of the Graham Arms B&B was nice enough to see us off. I don't know if she was sad to see us go or just happy for us to get the hell out of her house.
As we did on the trip from the airport we packed the smaller car that Rob and Jody were driving to the gills with luggage. We put down the back seats and shoved about everything we could in it, including my backpack and camera bag. The other car we put the rest of the family and just a couple pieces of luggage in the trunk.
Driving down and watching the countryside roll by I'm already starting to miss Scotland. There is quite a bit that I didn't get to see. I really wanted to visit Roslyn Chapel, Edinburgh, take a distillery tour, visit the coast, and visit some of the islands. I'll just need to come back some time.
We stop a couple of times on the way to Manchester to recycle some coffee and make pretty good time to the airport. First thing to do is to drop off the rental cars. We're following Rob & Jody's car and go around a few roundabouts in stop and go bumper to bumper traffic. Rob pulls up in front of one of the three terminals and asks some question we can't hear to a uniformed officer who is directing traffic in front of the terminal's loading zone. The officer replies with an answer we can't hear and Rob drives off. Dad, who is driving our car, tries his best to keep up but we get cut off by a few cars pulling out of the terminal. We lose sight of Rob's car around a roundabout. Assuming that he's looking for the rental return we try drive by one parking lot and don't see his car, drive around another roundabout and follow signs to yet another rental car return. We end up at terminal 3 which we recognize as the terminal we flew into. The rental car return is on the top floor of the parking garage, same place we picked up the car in the first place. We still see no sign of Rob and Jody. We wait for a bit thinking that he got stuck somewhere we didn't see. When he still hadn't shown up we headed to the rental car desk to turn in the car and see if Rob had turned the car in at one of the other of the three terminals and rental car returns. No dice. Of course at this point I'm starting to panic. The plane will take off soon and I have a connecting flight in Chicago to catch. Of course I have an additional problem. I have my suitcase with me but my camera and backpack which has my wallet and passport in it are with Rob. I'm having visions of myself as a bum on the streets of England...no identification, no money, can't leave because I can't return to the U.S. without a passport. Reminds me of Merhan Kerimi Nasseri, a man who lived in Charles de Gaulle airport for 18 years. Trapped in red tape limbo because his paperwork was stolen after arriving at the airport.
Even if Rob and Jody managed to turn the car in somewhere else, they would have way too much luggage for two people to carry.
At this point we're really seeing the benefit of cell phones and how much faith we've put in them over the years. We've become so used to the convenience of mobile phone communications that we've become sloppy. Minimal planning and no back up plan. I can always remember as a kid being told things like "if we get separated we'll meet at point x at this time."
Mom tries to use a Sam's Club calling card that is "supposed" to work internationally using the rental desk's phone to call Rob's mobile (which does work here). After struggling with it for what seems like an eternity she gives up. Meanwhile some other travelers have arrived at the rental desk. Cindy, Jody's mother, being resourceful asks a woman who is from Canada if we could use her cell phone to call Rob. For whatever reason, the call doesn't go through either.
One last check with the rental desk turns up that Rob turned the car in at Terminal 1 about 10 minutes ago. At least we know he's not completely lost somewhere. Of course we still have the predicament that he's in a completely separate terminal with a pregnant wife and two tons of luggage. We decided to trek across the street over to Terminal 3 where our plane is scheduled to leave from and see if by some miracle they've appeared over there. The place is packed to the gills. Wall to wall people waiting at the check-in counters. I scurry about looking to see if I can spot Rob & Jody and a mountain of luggage but return to the group unsuccessful. We have a powwow trying to figure out what the heck we're going to do now. Out of the corner of my eye, I see two luggage trolley piled sky-high with luggage moving through the crowd...a very unhappy looking Rob pushing one and Jody pushing the other.
We're overjoyed to see him an quickly dismantle the luggage pile and start heading to the check-in desks. He mumbles something about the asshole security guard told him that the BMI terminal was terminal 1, which is how they ended up in the wrong terminal.
Cindy, being bolder than I would be, tells an airline employee who is directing travelers our sad story. They take pity on us open a cordon, let us through and check out passports and ask us the standard questions. My parents have an additional problem in that they want to be able to push out the departure date of their flight from Chicago to Austin in order to help Jody move to Canada. Mom of course is freaking out that their luggage will continue on to Austin without them if they check-in without changing the flight now. Rob, who is already stressed out, calls the airline only to be told that BMI can't do anything about United's flights and so on. I'm not altering my travel plans, so I go first to the check-in and get my boarding pass. Cindy and Mike follow me and we get in a line to go through security. We wait for a while wondering what the heck is taking mom and dad so long. I'm assuming that they are trying to finagle their flights around. A few more minutes go by and we realize that we've actually not been waiting in the line for security but rather the line to go to a different check-in counter. Crap. We course correct and are soon going through security and are poked and prodded through the metal detectors.
I start hustling to get to the gate...which of course is at the very far end of the terminal. I get closer and see that the doors to the gate are closed and the queue is cordoned off. Crap...I'm thinking we're doomed we've missed it. I rush up and talk to an airline staffer stationed there hoping to plead my case. To my utter surprise he says "Sorry, we're not boarding yet." Whew!
Mom, Dad, Rob and Jody straggle in a minute later. Turns out it would have cost well over $1000 to get their flight changed, so they won't be staying in Chicago.
Rob and I make a mad dash to the cafe to get 10 gallons of water for Jody to have on the flight. We make it back just in time for our rows to be called to board the plane. I walk down the gangway only to be struck with amusement at the sight of a giant rack full of free bottled water for people to take with them on the plane.
The flight to Chicago was long and boring. I finished reading my book early in the flight. I tried to sleep a little but I'm always too uncomfortable to sleep on planes. The girl sitting next to me sleeps the entire trip. My only excitement came towards the end of the flight where she woke up and started looking nauseas and groped about in the seatback looking for the barf bag. It didn't take long before she was dry heaving into the bag. She slept through all the meals and drink service...so luckily nothing came up.
We touched down in Chicago and deplaned. We get our luggage and head through immigration and customs. We say goodbye to Mike and Cindy who are hopping a ride on a hotel shuttle to retrieve their car and start their drive home. Rob and Jody join us on the tram ride to the domestic terminal so they can retrieve their car and head to Jody's.
After hugs and goodbyes, Mom, dad and I find our gate and realize we have something like 4 hours to kill before our flight leaves. This wait gets pushed out even longer as the incoming flight is delayed due to weather wherever it is. I peruse the bookstores and buy a magazine to keep me occupied on the flight. I take advantage of the airport wi-fi to punch out a few blog posts from earlier in the week...but make it a point not to touch my work email.
After what seemed like an age, we finally board our flight and are on the last leg of our journey home.
Tomorrow, I plan on sleeping and get caught up on all the TV I've missed over the week. Isn't DVR great?

Sterling Castle

Morning arrives and we all have a nice breakfast of porridge and jump in the rental cars to start the drive to Stirling. Stirling is home to Stirling Castle, which played an important part in Scottish history. According to George at the Old Corn Mill we visited, Edinburgh Castle was just a vacation home...Stirling Castle was where all the real work was done.
Once we arrived in Stirling and found a place to park, we walked up a hill past the Church of the Holy Rude and through its impressive cemetery.
I've always been fascinated by cemeteries. Not for any "gothic" or creepy satanic reasons, but because of the beauty that can be found there. For me the old cemeteries with lots of statuary and gravestones which really honor and respect and tell you something about the person buried within. Unfortunately, in this day and age, this is becoming a rare thing as cemeteries are commercialized and designed to be low maintenance for caretakers. Such ideas as "remembrance gardens" and uniform headstones are just poor excuses for making mowing easier.
We have only ourselves to blame as peoples ideas about cemeteries have shifted from being a place to have a picnic on a sunny afternoon to ghosts, goblins and ghouls...some place you rarely visit unless on a dare. I'll step off my soapbox now.
I spend a while walking through the rows of very old headstones and sculpture snapping a few photos along the way. I spot my father who has discovered a hilltop overlook with a nice view of the surrounding country side and Stirling Castle up on an even higher hill. He warns me that the wind is pretty vicious.
He wasn't kidding. The wind whipped up and over this little hilltop with gusts, there is nothing to block the wind and no railing to keep one from tumbling over the hillside. Of course, I take this as a challenge and jump up on a short bench to get a little higher to get a better shot of the castle.
Just keeping steady enough to take the shot was a real challenge. I finally decided I'd risked enough once wind kicked up a little more.
I scramble down the hillside and through the rest of the cemetery and work my way up to the parking lot and entrance to the castle.
The parking lot is the home to a regal looking statue of William Wallace appropriately looking across the countryside at his monument in the distance.
We storm the gates with our Explorer Passes in hand. The Scottish military had used the castle as a headquarters and barracks for some 150 years. The castle has been undergoing restoration for many years since then and various sections are closed off as the archaeologists try to peel back many years of alterations to try to figure out what it really looked like and how it might have been built. Wandering around you can't help but imagine what it might have looked like in its prime.
Some of the buildings like the Great Hall and Chapel have already been pieced back together. Looking up at the beams holding up the roof of the Great Hall you see the incredible workmanship that went into rebuilding it. These great beams around the size of railroad ties are pieced together to form kind of a skeletal arch maximizing the vertical space of the room. I learn later that the whole thing is built without using any nails or screws...just dowels and joints and other carpentry wizardry.
The wind starts to pick up outside and I can hear these beams start to creak and moan. I'm seeing visions of newspaper headlines proclaiming the crushing death of a bunch of stupid American tourists when the roof of the Great Hall at Stirling Castle fell in during a bout of heavy wind.
They've made a kind of creepy exhibit out of what used to be the castle kitchens. I say it's creepy because they've tried to make it look like a working kitchen complete with mannequins dressed in period garb frozen in a chaotic kitchen moment (complete with spilt milk). Various types of fake plastic dust covered dead animals and fish in various stages of being prepared for a feast. At each little scene there are little backlit plaques that point out interesting facts. I had no idea that in that time the kitchen was men's work...women were not allowed in the kitchen.
I look above my head and there are fake salamis and hams hanging from the ceiling by a single fraying piece of string swinging precariously in the wind.
I see flashes of newspaper headlines again about some dumb American tourist being maimed by a falling fake salami.
On my way out I'm further assured that I'm not the first to be freaked out by the creepy kitchen. There a small child pleading with her father "please don't make me go in there!" I don't blame her in the least.
Another interesting spot is the Highlander Regimental museum which is housed in a couple of floors of one of the castle buildings. Lots of displays and men in kilts showing the history of the Highlanders and the various wars and battles that they have been through. Starting with early sword and musket soldiers and leading up to modern day high-tech warriors.
Another building that had been restored was the chapel. I'm assuming that they actual use it as a chapel for various reasons on occasion, since there were chairs set up and some audio gear.
The interesting thing here was a couple of hand made replica tapestries depicting the Unicorn Hunt. These beautiful things were dyed and woven by hand using techniques that would have been used to create the originals.
I spent some more time walking the along the walls taking pictures. The castle is up on a high hill so there are areas where you can just look out at the countryside where William Wallace fought famous battles.
I drifted into the gift shop to buy some souvenirs. This is our last real day in Scotland and I'd held off buying anything up until now mainly because I haven't seen anything I really wanted to buy. All these gift shops all stock the same crap and I really wanted to find something unique. I did manage to buy a few things from the 3 different gift shops at Stirling Castle. Now I'm just hoping my luggage isn't soaked with Scotch from a busted bottle by the time I get back home.
We regrouped as our family members had scattered in different directions.
The next challenge was finding some grub. It's Good Friday and it seems as though every restaurant in town is locked up. Rob goes out on a reconnaissance mission to see if he can located any place in walking distance to eat. After several minutes he returns proclaiming that the only place open was an Indian restaurant. We wander down there and practically take over the place. There is no one else in the restaurant so we make ourselves at home. The food was great, the naan bread they brought out was huge. Everybody got a something a little different. We had a good time. Before we left I decided to visit the bathroom before the trip back to the B&B. The bathrooms were three floors up...over 60 some odd steps to reach them.
Tomorrow we'll leave early, early in the morning in order to drive the 2+ hours to get to Manchester airport the requisite 2 hours early in order to catch our 9:30am flight. Now I have to figure out how to bend space & time to get everything crammed back in my suitcase.

Poet, Caravans, Castles and Scottish Scams

Well...Murphy be damned! My talk of the past beautiful days cursed us into rain and high winds. It apparently also made Rob vomit. I woke this morning early as planned to start getting ready for our trip to Edinburgh. Last night my brother stressed the importance that we all be sure to be out the door so that we would make the 7:40am train from Lockerbie (a 20 minute drive away) to Edinburgh. The train waits for no one and the next train didn't leave until around noon, so it was imperative we make it on time in order to have a full day in Edinburgh. I just finished dressing when there was a knock at the door. My mother informing me that Rob and Jody were both feeling pretty ill and we wouldn't be going to Edinburgh today.
Never one to miss an opportunity for a little more shut-eye I jumped back into bed. Meanwhile both sets of parents went shopping.
Few hours later another knock. This time it was Jody saying that everyone was feeling better (Rob apparently having sympathy morning sickness) and that they were wanting to get out and about.
We waited a bit for the parents to return from shopping and finally gave up at about 11am or so. We decided we'd head to Dumfries, a town the famous Scottish poet Robert Burns once called home. Scurrying down small country roads, Rob spotted a sign for farm fresh ice cream. We took a little detour and checked it out only to discover that it was only open on weekends. They had sheep though. We left after contemplating how Jody could sneak a little lamb on the plane with her. We jumped on the highway and along the way Jody spots a sign for Hoddom Castle which piqued her interest but we couldn't find a place to turn around. After a 30 minute drive we reach Dumfries, dumped the rental car in a free parking lot and walked across the river via a quaint little footbridge.
The Robert Burns Center was closed for lunch when we arrived. Having some time to kill we walked around and discovered that a little restaurant called Hullabaloo was also located in the RBC. I'd recognized the name from a recommendation in the guidebook so we decided to check it out and had a spot of lunch and waited for the RBC to open back up.
The Robert Burns museum had a free admission. Which was probably a good thing since the museum consisted of one room with some large signs on the wall describing Robert Burns' life and a couple of artifacts sprinkled in. Interesting stuff, Burns led an interesting life and died young.
After the museum we made the short hike back to the car and passed by Robert Burns' home he lived in Dumfries for a couple of years.
On the drive back we were determined to find Hoddom Castle. We turned at a sign for Hoddom thinking that Hoddom Castle would be in Hoddom. We're thinking we'll just drive down the road a ways and up will pop a castle. Little did we know it wouldn't be that easy. After driving done some narrow country roads with no castle in sight we instruct the TomTom nav system to find it for us and start following directions. Soon it leads us to what appears to be a drive way with a sign that says "no vehicle access to Hoddum Castle". This is good and bad. Good 'cause at least it means we're in the vicinity of the castle and bad 'cause it doesn't look like we can get to it. Of course this forbidden fruit just makes us more determined to find the darn thing. We drive down this driveway a bit and end up in the middle of the woods with a gate barricading the way. It has a little narrow spot for someone to walk through. We can see beyond it a glimpse of the castle and a whole bunch of caravans (i.e. campers to us non-UK folks). Not feeling comfortable with leaving our rental car in the middle of the woods and knowing that there has to be another entrance (how else would someone get their camper in there?) we turn around and head back out on the road hoping to flank our elusive prey. Another road and another sign this one reading "Not an entrance to Hoddom Castle" at the bottom it said that the entrance was a mile back the way we came from. Undaunted, we continued on our way trying to find another cross road that would lead us to a proper entrance. After a lot of sheep and hedgerows, we decided that the best course of action would to be to start over, knowing that there was the sign along the highway to Locekrbie that specifically stated "Hoddom Castle" since we'd seen it earlier that morning. Poking the TomTom to direct us to Lockerbie and we were soon traveling back over familiar territory. We traveled down a few roads we'd already been on and then turned right where we'd earlier turned left...and gosh darn it...there was a nice brick archway entrance to Hoddom Castle.
Hoddom Castle is still standing but is in pretty rough shape after not being occupied by the army since WWII. The place is billed as a camping resort rather than a castle tourism spot. I had a chuckle as I was imagining the castle's former royal occupants rolling over in their graves at the though of a multitude of common folk in their caravans parked on the lawn.
Hoddom Castle looked cool from the outside...everyone is forbidden from entering it as it is too dangerous (so the campground staff said). We spent a little while wandering the grounds looking at the castle and visiting the toilet.

We jumped back in the clown car and headed back to the B&B. I discovered a note tacked to the door of my room from the parents telling us that they headed out to take a photo in Lockerbie and we're planning on eating at a restaurant in town. We stuck around the B&B a little to give them some time to get their photos and then headed into Anan to meet them to eat.
There was a nice little fish & chips place that Rob and Jody had been to on another day. The note mentioned that they were considering either the fish & chips place or the little restaurant we ate at the first night. We hedged our bets that they were going to want fish & chips since every other restaurant we ate at someone tried to order fish & chips only to be told they were out.
We sat there with our fish & chips waiting...and waiting...and waiting. Finally we gave up thinking that the parents had gone some place else.
As we were walking back to the car we spotted the parents car heading down the street and waved them down. Dad had to drive halfway down the street before he could turn around. He pulled up to the curb and we started talking. All of a sudden out of nowhere a tiny SUV scrapes along the front fender and stops in front of us. Some old bag jumps out of the passenger side screaming "You've hit us!" We're all looking at her in disbelief and speechless. Her husband steps out of from behind the wheel and starts to inspect the damage on our car saying something about needing to pay him. We don't buy it. We maybe Americans but we're not that stupid. The old bag gets back into the car and the husband continues to ask for registration information. We give him information from the rental car agency and take a quick snapshot of his damage which consisted of a black smudge and scrape on the top and edge of his bumper. We also took the liberty of taking a picture of his license plate. When we started talking about getting the police he jumped back in his car and drove off.
We'd seen a police station just a couple of blocks down and reported the whole thing.
What a day. Tomorrow we'll head to Sterling Castle.