The Lygers » Virginia http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog Sun, 04 Dec 2011 06:32:01 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.3 The Power of the Moustache http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2009/12/the-power-of-the-moustache/ http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2009/12/the-power-of-the-moustache/#comments Thu, 03 Dec 2009 02:30:58 +0000 Ryan http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/?p=805 So the time has come to get my Virginia driver’s license. By an amazing stroke of luck it happened to coincide with Movember. Excellent … most excellent. If I’m going to get my picture taken, it’s not going to be half-ass – I’m going all the way. I got out the gel, slicked back my hair and put on my gold chain. Mr. Awesome, coming through! I’m all dressed up and head to my local DMV. A few people are in front of me getting licenses so I have to wait about 15 minutes. My number is called and I go up, the clerk checks my paperwork and then asks me to stand in front of the camera. Virginia has a new rule where you aren’t allowed to smile in your picture – I guess it screws up their facial recognition software (Big Brother is watching …). With a moustache, slicked back hair and a gold chain I wouldn’t want to smile anyway. I stand in front of the camera, they take the picture, then the system fails. The clerk asks me to sit down while he frantically types into the computer terminal. He runs into the back room. There is a bit of scrambling. After 20 minutes he asks me to come up again. They try to take the picture … again, nothing. I sit down again. There is more scrambling until the announce over the intercom that the license issuing system is down. Not only is it down at this location, it crashed over the entire state of Virginia. My moustache brought down the entire state of Virginia’s license issuing system. Can your moustache do that? Obviously my moustache is too awesome for Virginia to handle. It was down the whole rest of the day. By the time I went back two days later, the shock of my moustache had worn off and the system was able me. Rock on moustache! Stay tuned to that license picture …

]]> http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2009/12/the-power-of-the-moustache/feed/ 0 Weekend in Charlottesville http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2009/03/weekend-in-charlottesville/ http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2009/03/weekend-in-charlottesville/#comments Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:56:44 +0000 Ryan http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/?p=51

Last week was Katie’s birthday. I won’t list her age, but I would now consider her to be in her “late 20’s”. As part of her birthday gift I took her to Charlottesville, VA. I had a large number of Hilton HHonors points built up so I was able to book a free room at a Hampton Inn just a few blocks from campus. Our planned agenda for the weekend was to see Monticello, downtown Charlottesville and the University of Virginia campus.

The drive to Charlottesville was cluttered with historical site signs. Some of them might have been interesting, but pulling into a ditch on the side of the highway to read them wasn’t high on my priority list. There is also a Civil War battlefield trail that crisscrosses the area. I would have found that to be fun, but Katie made it clear that Civil War battlefields were an inappropriate activity for her birthday weekend. There was also a collection of wineries along the way that would probably be fun when the weather was warmer.

We arrived in Charlottesville Saturday afternoon and headed straight to Monticello – the home of Thomas Jefferson. It was very important we visited Monticello on Saturday because on Sunday the “spring/summer” season began and ticket prices went up by $5. I already wasn’t happy about having to pay $15 per person – $20 would probably have put me in a foul mood. As it was, I think I was able to tweak out $15 of fun to make the experience worthwhile.

I have been to Monticello before as a child, but remember nothing of the experience. Obviously it didn’t make an impression – either positive or negative. Monticello is probably teetering on the edge of what I call a “fun-neutral” location. Typically these are interesting places that are a bit too expensive/hot/crowded/etc. for you to come home and write an extensive blog about what a great time you had. That said, there’s not much I can add to Monticello that you can’t read on their website or wikipedia entry.

After Monticello we wandered around downtown Charlottesville. Downtown has a nice feel, or rather it will have a nice feel when they finish construction on the street. The downtown area is a pedestrian-only street about 4-5 blocks long with a good many shops and restaurants. It also has a good many empty shops – the economic recession that is essentially invisible in DC was quite prevalent in Charlottesville. Book shops appear to be Charlottesville’s specialty. We visited 3 different bookshops and would have gone into more had the business hours not come to a close during our excursion. Katie picked up an Anne of Green Gables Cookbook at one store and an equally uninteresting book at another. I found a couple books that piqued my interest, but nothing I can’t check out at the local library for free. I have no idea how Charlottesville can support so many used book shops. Katie suggested it was probably because UVA was an “English nerd” university. It takes one to know I suppose.

Another exciting stop – for Katie, that is – was the Mudhouse Coffee Shop. Apparently it was a local haunt for Lauren F. Winner – one of Katie’s favorite authors. They did make a pretty good hot chocolate and had a jazz band playing while we were there.

On Sunday morning the weather had deteriorated to a cold mist but that didn’t deter us from walking up to the UVA campus. We walked around the old academic village and inside The Rotunda. This old section of the university – called The Lawn – also has rooms that students can apply to live in. Outside each of the rooms was a stack of firewood, which I’m assuming is used as their only heating source. I can’t decide if living in one of those rooms would be fun or annoying. I suppose as long as it had high speed internet it would fall on the “fun” side.

Before heading out of town Katie purchased a UVA t-shirt. One of her Breadloaf instructors is a UVA professor so she feels justified in wearing it. We got back to DC well in advance of the “huge” snowstorm.

]]> http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2009/03/weekend-in-charlottesville/feed/ 1 Ryan Goes to Colonial Williamsburg (part 3) http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2007/12/ryan-goes-to-colonial-williamsburg-part-3/ http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2007/12/ryan-goes-to-colonial-williamsburg-part-3/#comments Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:26:00 +0000 Ryan http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/?p=307

]]> http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2007/12/ryan-goes-to-colonial-williamsburg-part-3/feed/ 0 Ryan Goes to Colonial Williamsburg (Part 2) http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2007/12/ryan-goes-to-colonial-williamsburg-part-2/ http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/2007/12/ryan-goes-to-colonial-williamsburg-part-2/#comments Sun, 16 Dec 2007 16:22:00 +0000 Ryan http://www.ryanlyford.com/myblog/?p=306

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