What I did over my hot summer weekend
The technology Gods needed someone to screw over this weekend, and they decided on me. I don't know what I did that was bad enough to have my home laptop die and yet another pair of iPod headphones fritz out, but it must have been something bad. Maybe I swore at my work computer one too many times, or said "I hate computers" a little too loudly a little too often.
...For those of you not familiar with the entire history of this here page, my workplace gets a short visit twice a year from The Most Beautiful Accountant In The World™. She's been here every year for the last three years and there have been a number of awkward, fumbling, and ultimately unfortunate conversations with her. All in the past, except...I've now run into her twice in the last two weeks, and I've decided that the fates are saying one of two things to me: 1) "She's right there! Talk to her! How much more do we have to arrange this?!" or, more likely, 2) "You thought your office crush was out of your league?! Remember...HER?! <hysterical laughter>" The fates have been living up to their "cruel" reputation lately.
...I did something I've never really done before: went on a couple wine tastings. God, I am so fucking sophisticated. The tally at the end of the day was 14 wines tasted, two bottles of wine purchased, 3 times being asked if I spoke Spanish, and 10,000 times wondering if people at vineyards are sick of being asked if they saw Sideways.
...I thought again over the weekend about how it's either a huge irony or the most logical of progressions that the city that gave us one of the world's biggest tobacco companies and the Krispy Kreme doughnut is now a major center of medicine and health care.
...I'm very tired.
15 comments:
Reid, as you probably know, but your readers may not....
Wake Forest College used to be in Wake County, in the town of Wake Forest. Just a few miles north of Raleigh and the same few miles east of Durham.
That was until the year 1946, when the folks over at RJ Reynolds proposed a 320 acre land grant and an increase in their yearly fiscal donation for them to relocate to Winston-Salem. The college became a University, incorporated the Bowman Gray school of medicine and the associated Baptist Medical Center. Bowman Gray, by the way was one of the executives at RJR. The hospital and medical school had been there, but they began to flourish thanks in part to generous donations by the Z. Smith Reynolds foundation and the contributions of other RJR top bananas, including Bowman Gray.
Sooooo, the point is that it isn't coincedence. The irony isn't quite as thick as it seems.
By the way, enjoy the hits you'll be getting from Gwen Stefani searches. (bananas) (b-a-n-a-n-a-s)
Actually, that poing ends up swinging the meters in favor of "irony"...a hospital and medical school funded by cigarette money? If that's not ironic, I don't know the meaning of the word.
Please note that it's possible that I may not know the meaning of the word.
And it can't hurt the hospital's business that the town is full of chain-smoking doughnut-chompers.
For the record, I actually really love Winston-Salem.
That seems ironic to me - but I still think that a fly in your drink on your wedding day is ironic. Hey, wasn't Duke founded by tobacco money as well - and that's a top cancer research hospital. Dave? Little history lesson please?
And strange that you bring Winston up, because I was thinking about the place this weekend - and how I love(d?) it. But haven't been in far too long.
Well, yeah.
I suppose it is ironic. I don't know why I was trying to fight that. Maybe I was only shooting for something that you weren't even saying. I was just trying to say that the hospital isn't there to cover the tobacco company's tracks, or as a response to tobacco-related illnesses. Actually, you should have gone for the gusto and pointed out that Baptist hospital has one of the leading cancer centers in the southeastern United States. Funded by tobacco money.
Maybe they really did know how harmful cigarette smoking was, and they wanted to get a jump start on backing the medical industry. Maybe it's just that the tobacco industry is and always has been enormous. It's pretty much standard practice for huge wealthy corporations to donate large sums of money and/or land to colleges, universities, hospitals, whorehouses, and the like.
I don't know much of the history, but the town of Durham and Duke University are both there solely because of the tobacco industry.
This is why I get so frustrated when my dad indignantly screams "why do they always say 'tobacco road'? I'm not a smoker!" Somehow he's missing the point that although many many North Carolinins are indeed non-smokers, Duke University wouldn't even exist except for the tobacco industry,and Wake Forest is in what is still a huge Tobacco town. It's just a historical fact. And I think 99.9% of America gets it when sports commentators talk about 'tobacco road'.
you were tasting spanish wines?
No.* I was tasting Virginian wines with Spanish-speaking people** who speak English just fine but prefer to speak Spanish, so they would ask me if I spoke Spanish because if I did, they would speak Spanish, but I don't, so they had to speak English. They were disappointed.
* "No" is Spanish for "no".
** None of them are from Spain.
well this is America, dammit! they should speak English, or get back on their raft and go to New Mexico or wherever they came from. I mean, if I went to Latin America to steal jobs and women from the citizens, I would at least have the courtesy to speak Latin while I was there.
What's Spanish for "Sideways"?
Dave, you're assuming they're foreigners. Could have just been some college Spanish Club, where they go around doing things while practicing their Spanish.
GOD, Dave!! "Latin America"?!! Don't you know ANYthing about history?! The Latin American empire was destroyed, like, a million years ago when Ceasar was killed by Bluto!
Crate that shit up and send it back to Squaresville.
dang Reid,
there's no way Bluto could have killed Caesar. Popeye would have totally kicked his ass before he could go and do a thing like that.
You weren't paying attention in class anyway. It was Pluto who killed Caesar. Remember? I think Donald Duck was there too. That's where chicken Caesar salads come from. Originally, the salad was made with duck and Caesar dressing, but chickens are easier to catch than ducks. Just ask Elmer Fudd.
Geez.
That makes no fucking sense at all.
fucking sideways
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