Southern Mechanics and Their Misuse of The Word “Today.”

The word “Today” typically means some time during the course of sunrise to sunset of a given day. For instance, if you called me on Monday afternoon and I said, “Today I will get you an estimate on how long it will take to fix your bus.” Then you can expect to have a prepared estimate to review by Monday evening. Of course, sometimes “Today” refers to a 24-hour swath of time spanning two separate days. And in that instance, the aforementioned estimate might not be ready until Tuesday afternoon. Unless I was using “Today” in a rarer, but still acceptable usage, which refers to any amount of time between now and tomorrow evening. In that case, you’d have a precise and thorough estimate—including an itemized spreadsheet with prices and part numbers—in your possession by Tuesday evening. Unfortunately for us, “Today” does not mean any of these things. In fact, when uttered by a mechanic in the south, “Today” has no meaning whatsoever. Sure, it sounds like a word with meaning. And it’s formed by forcing air out the mouth and over the tongue in precisely the same manner someone would use to form a word that contains meaning, but in fact, this version of the word “Today” is more like the sounds “Uh.” Or “Huh.”

Sure, it seems incredibly inefficient to have a polysyllabic word that carries no meaning at all. And at first I assumed that “today” might be some type of shorthand. An abbreviation that means “next week” or “whenever the fancy strikes me.” But over the course of two weeks I observed that both of those meanings are also incorrect.

So, now that “Today” is over and our bus is back in one piece, with new cylinder heads, new valves, new spark plugs, new fuel lines, new oil filters, new canvas pop-top, and a new appreciation for companies that maintain a sense of urgency—we are ready to start living on the road.

Hand-painted sign we saw close to Jo's studio.

Athens

HONEY'S, Jo's hair studio, is pretty sweet. It is located inside an old warehouse that has been divided into artist studios.

Jo is giving Carl the best haircut he has ever had. Thank you Jo.

U-Joint

feeding us, feeding the bus, all grease

bringing it home

and yes, the music was playing on the radio

picking up the bus

A big peach in Virginia?

One hiking trip. One roadtrip

Nik is about to spend two weeks on the AT with his friends from Kansas. They're doing the entire trip in the nude.

the pick up day

Pricked by aduering with Nomao

The List

We made a list of everything we need to bring from Boulder with us on our trip. It's a very long list with lots of little boxes that can be checked, or marked, or crossed out, or simply ignored. The entire list fits on a single sheet of paper approximately 4 inches by 5 inches. But once you convert the list into actual things, it increases in size to precisely 3 suitcases, 2 small duffle bags, and a large crate containing one very happy-go-lucky black lab. I've also been a fan of lists, but I'd never before seen just how efficient they are at compressing things. So, I've decided to create the largest list possible (in terms of combined actual size of items). The following terms are excluded from the list because they are considered cheating. My list must fit on the front side of a single piece of 4x5 paper.
1) The entire universe—Definitely cheating
2) A list of all lists ever listed—Although snarky, also cheating.
3) a billion Suns—only one single item per line. And no, you can not repeat items. Also, no multiple items of the same type. So naming all the stars in the universe is also cheating.

My new, enormous list shall be posted tonight, to great fan fare. Huzzah.

Too Busy To Have A Last Day

Today was our last day...or so we thought. But we've been too busy with work to quit working today. So it goes. Now our official final day is Cinco De Mayo. I guess that means we'll be spending Monday afternoon drinking Margaritas and planning our future under the influence of Tequila. Can't think of a better way to make life-altering decisions than that.