May 2005 Archives

I hope you all had an enjoyable Memorial Day. Mine saw the return of my family from a weekend of camping. I remained at home during those days, watching over the house and resting up for the week or so of travel that's coming up for me. So, it was good to have them all home again.

I wasn't really alone all that time, however: I hung out with my brother and his fiance on Friday night, and we had delicious burgers. On Saturday night, I did likewise, except this time it was with my old high school buddy Amanda. Mary came by later on, so that was cool. It was a bit of a reunion! I also caught up with Amanda's younger brother, Marc, who just graduated Tolsia with a lot of awards (just like his older sister did a few years ago), and Taylor, a veteran of the old Stuff TV summer days. (That's a long story; remind me to tell it to you sometime.)

In continuing with the theme of hanging out with old friends, I finally saw Revenge of the Sith last night with Joe. I have to agree with the general consensus of the Star Wars fans I know in saying that it's the best of the new trilogy, but it doesn't quite rank up there with the original three movies. Well, maybe ahead of Return of the Jedi. For me, though, it definitely ties a lot of things together, and even though I knew what was inevitably going to happen, it was still a bit hard to watch Anakin heading down that dark path. (Part of that difficulty was due to the mildly bland writing, though). Daryl mentioned all the severed limbs in the movie, and I have to agree that I lost count, as well. That makes Luke's single hand in The Empire Strikes Back seem petty, doesn't it? At any rate, the special effects were astounding, and it's put me back in a sci-fi/adventure kind of mood as the world bids farewell to new Star Wars movies for the time being.

Next up for me: The Return to Blacksburg, Part I, where mom and I will be moving out some of my stuff. I'll be traveling up to Maryland to see Gina before heading home. I'll post when I can!

After an unexpected series of disappointments involving cars being promised to us but sold to someone else, and some interesting background investigation into the various insurance and titling laws of West Virginia and Virginia, I now submit for your approval the latest addition to the Project BS family (name TBA):

She's a 2005 Nissan Altima 2.5 SL, and we've been getting along very well so far!

This is certainly the week of finales for a lot of good shows. First it was 24, but unfortunately, in the whirlwind of car shopping the last few days and the subsequent laying around afterward, I completely forgot to watch the final episode of Lost tonight, and for that, I could kick myself. So, I'll kindly ask my readers to avoid telling me anything of what happened, until I break down and read about it somewhere online in a few weeks. I'd pretty much figured that this show was one for the DVD library, anyway, so once it's available, I'll catch up on all those episodes I missed.

In a strange twist of fate, I did end up seeing the final moments of American Idol. I hardly ever watch this show; I hate the way they jerk around the early contestants and toy with their emotions. The best I do is know who wins each year. In fact, this season was the first season I'd even seen an entire episode, during mine and Gina's recuperation time at her house during Tour. However, that one stretch was enough to make me wish one of the rocker guys would win, just for a change of pace. Thus, I was rooting for Bo Bice, especially after tonight's send up of "Sweet Home Alabama."

I guess a country girl like Carrie is still a change of pace, though, and doesn't the second place winner usually end up becoming really popular anyway? I wonder if Bo's mugshot and report on TSG had anything to do with him losing tonight?

And so, finale season is done for me. It wasn't really a "season," though, since I only really watch two shows and I forgot that the second one was tonight. Dash it all!

I have to tell you guys, I am a 24 fan, through thick and thin. Tonight ended the best season since the first one, in my opinion. You can rag on it for the politics not being real, or for the events not being totally realistic, or about how we never see Jack or any of the characters sleep or eat during the whole day... but hey, it's entertainment. Better than that, it's good TV, darn it, in a time when shows like Hell's Kitchen are still being put on the air. (Reality TV must be stopped, but I think it'll have to be a war of attrition.) Solid entertainment for two hours tonight! I really dug this finale.

**SEASON 4 FINALE SPOILERS BELOW**

So now, we've got Jack going freelance again, running from the U.S. and Chinese governments, for all intents and purposes a dead man with a new life. We know that Fox has 24 for two more seasons counting next one, and that Kiefer Sutherland will still be Jack, and that it will be a non-stop season starting in January, much like this one was. Beyond that, it's wide open!

I know it's pretty pointless to do this, but here are my first predictions: the show has a totally new direction. Jack's a freelance rogue security superhero mercenary, he's going to join up with Tony and Michelle, and they're going to form a new A-Team with Palmer as the behind-the-scenes administrator guy.

It could happen.

**END SPOILERS**

24 fans, what are your thoughts on the finale and seasons to come?

Hey kids. I'm writing from home, after a few days of well-earned (in my opinion) rest, relaxation, and doing virtually nothing. Let me bid you welcome to the post-Tech and post-Albuquerque writings for Ramble On. I'll be doing a lot of traveling and moving around this summer, so posting may be sporadic, but I'll do my best to keep what I do write entertaining and relevant to both my life and the goings-on of my surroundings. I have, of course, many plans for updating the rest of the site, and I hope that I get at least a few of them done.

A daily news tidbit for you:

I was ordering a sandwich from the local Subway when, to my shock and horror, I saw that they were discontinuing the Sub Club free sub program! What has science done?!? Apparently, the Louisa store is the latest in a string of stores that are part of a test program that discontinues use of the stamp-giving free sub goodness. The reasoning behind all this? People are fraudulently using these cards. Yep, they're actually going through the time and hassle of faking Sub Club cards so they can get a free sub (with the purchase of a drink, mind you). Well, good job guys! Now we all suffer! I'm expecting the loyal Subway back in Blacksburg to follow suit, because some guys were arrested there earlier this year for doing the same thing. Dangit.

I'm currently recuperating in Blacksburg, freshly back from Albuquerque with the intent of returning home tomorrow for a while. It'd be safe to say that I'm exhausted from the constant activity since before graduation, but I'm a happy guy. For those of you wanting to know, the screening process for work went very well, as far as I know, so in a month or so I should be able to figure out when I will be starting work, etc.

Albuquerque is certainly a beautiful place. In terms of geography, it's different from anywhere else I've ever been. It's a place of culture and history. It has Southern friendliness with a definite Mexican flair (I suppose that's the "Southwestern" image that everyone likes to use). It's a crossroads for the historic Route 66. It sits on the famous Rio Grande. It's not too sprawling and not too stuck up, but it still has all of the major comforts of any city. It has a cool name for the minor league baseball team. I had a good time there.

On Tuesday, after the first part of official business of the day was done, I had a lot of free time on my hands to get lunch. I spent a good part of the morning driving around the city, trying to find a good place, and I eventually settled on the Frontier Restaurant, right across the street from UNM's campus. Frontier is a staple for the college kids, apparently, and it has lots of cheap good food. I had some enchiladas that beat out any Mexican food around here, due mainly to New Mexico's excellent tradition of chiles. Also, the freshly-made tortillas are served as a side with any New Mexican order, and they were delicious.

After Frontier, I perused a used CD shop to pick up some albums to play in my rental's CD player, wandered around the UNM campus a bit, and drove up and down Central Avenue, also known as Albuquerque's piece of Route 66. By then, it was time to head back for the afternoon portion of the day's testing, but it didn't take too long. I headed back to the hotel, caught a nap, and decided to hit up the Petroglyph National Monument on the western side of the city. The petroglyphs are remnants of civilizations thousands of years old. Walking amongst them, largely untouched by modern civilization, makes you wonder just what they meant to the people who decided it was important to record them in stone forever. It was one of those cool history-nerd things, and I'm glad I checked them out - even though I wasn't prepared for a full hike that day and turned back after going only about midway down the Rinconada Canyon.

I cooled off a bit in the car after that, on my way to Old Town. You could liken Old Town to the French Quarter in New Orleans, in that they both are the original sections of the two cities, hearkening back to wilder days. Old Town, however, is much closer to the nicer parts of the Quarter, being nothing like Bourbon Street. It's more of a shopping area now, with shops tucked away in old adobe buildings and merchants lining the sidewalks. The original town square where the Spanish incorporated the town still exists, as well as the very pretty San Felipe de Neri Church. I ate dinner here, at an unassuming fine dining establishment known as High Noon. The food was so darn good here! Everything from the salad dressing to the steak and mashed potatoes was unique. In fact, the good eating was a common theme to my stay in the city.

Like Ben Folds says, "I've landed." I'm in the hotel in the 'querque with some free Internet access, so I'm taking advantage of it. It's really hard to believe that I'm here, but so far it's been fun. Rather than your average run-of-the-mill compact rental car, the guy at Dollar upgraded me to an SUV rather than have me wait for the compact to get out of the garage. Thus, I'll be riding around the city in a little more style over the next day and a half or so.

So far, I'm thinking that I wish I could stay a little longer to see what the city is like. As it stands now, I'm coming up with some stuff to do after I'm done with official business tomorrow. We'll see what happens!

It feels really great to now be considered an alumnus of Virginia Tech. I feel like I really have had the time of my life the last five years, so thanks go out to everyone who made my time here unique and worth it. I can't and won't be able to say anything that won't sound trite, but other than it not really completely sinking in yet, I feel honored and rewarded that all the work of the past few years has paid off.

Now, it's time to start a new chapter. Over the next few days, I'll be in Albuquerque doing some things to allow me to start work at my new job. The timeframe for this, since a lot of people have been asking me, is still pretty vague. After this trip, though, I should know more; and as far as I know, upon completion of this trip, I should be eligible to start work about 60 days later. For sanity's sake, we'll say mid-August as a rough start date. That means that this summer is quite the transition period for me, and beyond that, I have very little idea what the future holds. It's an exciting and scary prospect.

In the short term, I'm not sure if I'll be able to post whilst in Albuquerque, but I'll try. Failing that, I'll be back late Wednesday night before taking my first trip back home to WV. Be looking out for me, and most of all, enjoy yourselves!

Thank you, Virginia Tech!

In the last issue of this year's Wesley newsletter, The Flame, the annual senior profiles are featured. Katie interviewed me for mine, but the Flame editors had to cut a few parts of it out due to space constraints. So, here's the full thing, straight from Katie herself. Keep in mind that she wrote everything except my responses, so I didn't say all the nice stuff about me. Thanks, KT!

A two-term Wesley president. An avid musician and music lover. A talented guitarist, bassist, and writer. A noble Christian. A highly intelligent and exceptionally motivated college student. An altruistic leader. A young man who can make you laugh anytime, anywhere. An awesome friend.... Bret Salmons ought to be a household name. And I really don't say that as an exaggeration. In the two years that I've known Bret, I have been continually convinced that he's one of the most creative and most fun people I know. Ladies and Gentleman ... Bret Salmons.

A few basics:
Full name: Bret Adam Salmons
Hometown: Fort Gay, West Virginia
Major: Industrial and Systems Engineering
Wesley co-chair positions held: The Flame (sophomore year)
Wesley officer positions held: Treasurer (junior year), President (senior year and super-senior year, there's an additional year because he co-oped for two semesters)
Relationship status: In a relationship, with the lovely Gina Saffioti.
Favorite TV Show: 24 (awesomeness!)
Favorite Band: Dave Matthews Band
Favorite Halloween Costume: Indiana Jones, his self described �crowning achievement of Halloween costumes�
Favorite Disney Princess: Ariel
Favorite Movie (at the moment): Garden State
Favorite Small Snack: "Well if I still have any left when I go to get them, then Oreos. But SOME people keep eating them." (Don't worry people! I've bought him his precious Oreos since then and on more than one occasion!)

The following interview took place between 4pm and 5pm.
KT: Can you tell us what brought you to Wesley?
BS: What brought me to Wesley? Well, I got some mail from them about a loft, and I knew I wanted a loft, and so I went ahead and ordered one. But I didn't actually go to Wesley during move-in, because they delivered it to my room while we were gone. So I had heard about Wesley but I never gone there, seen anything, or met anyone. So about a week or so into school, I decided "well, you know, I'll go check the place out because I had all this information they gave me." So I figured it would be a good place to come and hang out and make some friends since I really didn't know anybody going into college. When I got here, I got a tour and everything, and decided to come back. I guess the first thing I really came to was the tailgate they had for the BCA game where Lee Corso's car got struck by lightning. They had rented a big screen TV, and filled up the MPR with a bunch of people, with bean-bags and all the chairs and stuff and had lots of food. And that's when I met Gerritt and Steve Lloyd and Jason Winters and Steve Coffey. So, I met all these people and just kept coming back.

No, I haven't disappeared or gotten so stressed out with things that I ran off to the woods ... but I am done with college. All that remains are the graduation festivities this Friday night and Saturday morning! I turned in my last paper this morning, which (along with a quick two-minute presentation) doubled as my final final exam. After staying up late putting the finishing touches on the paper, taking three exams on Saturday, and studying for those exams on Friday, I am just about worn out.

Luckily, I have essentially nothing at all to do for the rest of the week! Huzzah!

I don't know if I mention this here very often, but I am a huge fan of Fox's 24. I also think this season is the best since the very first one, but that's not really where I'm going with this. Gina, Sarah, Katie, and I continue to faithfully watch the show every Monday night, especially since this season is non-stop every week. However, over the last few weeks, we've progressively noticed a pattern between the show and the Fox 21/27 10:00 News that immediately follows it: on alternating weeks, one of the shows' characters will make some sort of ridiculous phase, or one of the news' reporters will do something ridiculous.

Tonight turned out to be over-the-top. While 24 was pretty serious, we had such quality moments on the Fox News as a reporter actually asking on camera "how the heck do you break out of shackles?" to a mysterious silhouette being used as the identity of a house robber. Then, Fox 21/27 broke the earth-shattering story of a groundhog getting trapped under the hood of a car and chewing through the fuel line, only to later be fished out by some mechanics, do a dance, and run off into the nearby woods.

Police are still trying to find the hog in order to get it to pay damages to the car's owner. If you have any leads, please call somebody and tell them about it.

I tell you what, though, Waddell's still dreamy after all these years.

(I'm kidding, Gina. Put that down!)

Today marked my last day of classes ever, and in a way, it symbolized a good portion of my college career. Senioritis struck me pretty hard last week, so I didn't get as ahead in my final projects as I probably would have liked. At the very least, doing something - ANYTHING - last week would have helped out tonight.

As it was, I had to finish my portfolio for creative writing and round out my rough draft for a final paper in Environmental Engineering. This meant staying up until right around 3 AM this morning, then getting back up around 7 to finish up what was needed before class. After my two classes were finished, I was able to rush back here, put the finishing touches on my portfolio, and rush it to my English professor's office. Shortly after that, I met up with one of the investigators for my background check for my job... and the rest of the day proceeded in a similar fashion. Non-stop madness brought on by my own procrastination!

It looks like I'm going out the way I came in. The circle is complete. :)

Three exams and a final paper are all that stand between me and freedom! (Oh, and putting the finishing touches on the Tour CD and DVD before everyone leaves, too.)

As my time as a student at Tech draws to a close, I've become more and more interested in the slow changes being brought to the campus. I think back to how the place looked fifteen years ago compared to now and how strange and slightly unfamiliar it might look to older alumni, and I wonder if it will seem equally strange to me in another fifteen years. This recent Virginia Tech News article highlights a few of the minor changes that will be completed over this particular summer, which means the non-stop campus construction will already be marching forward after I graduate. It's a pretty neat thing to think about.

In particular, I'm looking forward to the completion of the Lane Stadium renovations and, though it means the replacement and renaming of the Donaldson Brown Hotel, I'm also liking the (Red) Skelton Conference Center mamajama. I've been noticing the clock poised on top of the new hotel's tower; it gives a Big Ben-type impression to that end of campus. If all goes well and Gina gets a job there this summer, I may get to see some of the ins and outs of the building while it's brand new. Sweetness.

I'd like to start off this week on a good foot with posting again. The end-of-the-year rush is not quite complete; in fact, there's still plenty to do. However, I think I'm starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel, plus it's starting to hit me that my college years are just about done. This transition may be more difficult than I first thought. So, I want to be sure to chronicle it all. That being said, here's something totally different:

In January, a sandwich shop called Touchdown Subs opened up in downtown Blacksburg on College Avenue, where Subway used to be before it moved to the new Kent Square location. It offered a variety of "gourmet" subs, though with a limited choice of bread and sandwich offerings. The overall theme of the place was tied to football, though, with the various combos having names like the "Blocked Kick" or "Lunch Pail Defense." They offered late delivery, stayed open late, and they had lots of other little options and perks. With Blacksburg being such a football town, this place seemed like a really good idea.

It was closed by the middle of March. I only had eaten there twice. It was a chain, but now I can't even find any good info or sites on the place. In short, it vanished.

Flash forward to last week. A little further down College Avenue, a new gourmet sandwich shop opened up, touting neon signs proclaiming "Real Fast Delivery" and that "Smells Are Free." The new place? Jimmy John's. Now, on the surface, JJ's looks almost identical to Touchdown, right down to the random red tile patterns on the walls. They sell sandwiches and are open late, just like Touchdown. With comparable rent and comparable size, you might predict JJ's to be gone in a few months, eh?

Well, I think this is one shop that's here to stay. I don't think I've seen the place empty at a normal meal time since it opened. I've only been there once, but I'm looking forward to dropping by again. What's the difference? Well, there's the atmosphere, first of all: the shop is peppered with signs that have catchy sayings and deadpan humor. It's very clean. It's about a block closer to campus. It offeres its own brand of kettle-style chips. The bread is superb, much much better than the hard-as-nails stuff that Touchdown had. In short, it's just cooler. On top of all that, NC native Amy swears by Jimmy John's, and apparently a lot of their locations are in North Carolina. So, you can feel good about eating there, because it's not a Canadian chain (read Extreme Pita) and it's not a Northern Virginia chain poised to turn our fair town of Blacksburg into a bustling, unfriendly place (read ... well, who knows. Starbucks maybe).

I only wish Jimmy John's would have come along a little earlier, so I could enjoy its good graces some more before I head home for the summer.

PS: Oh yeah, check out gerritt.net for a few more pictures of the Men In Tights. When I do my mega-picture-post after graduation, you'll see more on here as well.