Snookersearch 2010 - Part 8: "New Crotch Profile"

Greenville, SC to Atlanta
I took sort of a "heat vacation" day, only traveling down to Atlanta, since it was in the mid 90's. During the day I took a little trip to a service station where I added air to the tires and checked the oil, which was a little low. The MP3 takes 5W-40 weight oil, which no service stations seem to carry.
I also went to a bike shop to look for some butt-pain relief. I was going to get some padded bicycle shorts, which turned out to cost $129. Uh...no. I went next door to a camping store and bought. a square of foam used as a makeshift camping seat. I can fold it so that it will fit above the AirHawk. It might not be perfect but it will give the seat a different crotch-profile and who doesn't like that?  Plus it fits perfectly in the Givi top-case as a bed-liner.

I thought it would be fun to go play some Par 3 golf in Greenville, at this course, I think it was called "Crosswinds", where each hole was designed by a different golf pro. I haven't played golf in a long time but it was pretty cheap and looked fun.
It was hard to find the ACTUAL ENTRANCE to the golf course but I finally did. I brought a motorcycle glove to use as a golf glove. When I went in the clubhouse, the manager asked me if I had a t-shirt. I was wearing a synthetic wicking tank top. I didn't have a t-shirt and he didn't sell them, so I decided to go back to the "Sleep Inn" (a misnomer by East Village standards since checkout time is at the ungodly hour of 11 a.m.) and get a t-shirt.
As I walked back to the scooter in the parking lot, though, I saw waves of shimmering heat on the grass. The sun was baking everything and I felt like I was about to hear a swarm of locusts descend. It was ungodly hot and there were almost no people on the course. I decided then "Hell no" and went to the hotel.
Hadn't eaten anything since the "make your own waffle" continental breakfast, so I went out walking in search of food. The only place open was a Domino's pizza, so I got a small pizza and brought it back to my room. I watched airplane pylon racing on t.v., now there is a sport for adrenalin junkies. It's super-cool to see those planes filmed in slo-mo where you can see the actual rotation of the propellers.
Still frickin' hot out but I had the seat cover on to keep the seat cool:

These make it so you don't turn your butt into the "Make your own waffle".
I took a shower and when I got out I looked at all the crap I had to pack on the bike and thought "ugh, so much fucking with diddlyshit before I can get going" but once you actually start doing it, it's not that bad.
The manager, Sharly, took a photo of me before I left:

Sharly was great:

Another interesting name I came across on this trip was a woman working at a roadside Subway named "Tasada".
I hit the road and raced the great midsummer sun into Atlanta. When I got there darkness had almost fallen and I got hit with two mini-thundershowers. I hate riding in the rain,. I was on an 8 lane highway with tractor trailers blowing by, and that just gets me into cortisol-country fast.
I made it to my friend Kelly's house, struggled through swarms of Japanese beetles and then met her girlfriend Heather and their cats and dogs. One doggie, Rex, is a bit of an overprotector and has snapped and some people but I felt a bond with him right away. When I went to bed I thought about how nice it would be to have a loyal dog near you, lying there, protecting you if anything should happen, and how nice they are to come home to. Really made me want to have a dog.
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Snookersearch 2010 - Part 9: "Fast Larry"

Made it to Kelly's and watched some of the Tony's. I had seen "The Royal Family" and it was awful so I was surprised it was nominated. It's funny when someone wins and around eleventyseven people get up onstage to be part of the acceptance speech.
That night I was very worried I would have insomnia, since my muscles in my shoulder and arms had the pins-and-needles feeling, which can throw me into a panic, but I was so tired I fell asleep after only half-waking up once.
In the morning Kelly took me to a coffee shop in Decatur that was pretty cool. She had a couple of sips of my coffee, she doesn't drink coffee because it doesn't agree with her, but she likes just a little bit of it. I love having coffee in the morning.
She took me on a short tour of Atlanta. The neighborhood where she and Heather live, Clarkstown(Clarkston, Ed.) is the most diverse neighborhood in the most diverse county in the US. Sorry you yankees in Queens NY. Apparently there are a lot of refugees there. It is the type of neighborhood I love: not suburban but instead mixed-urban, with some light industrial, some old houses, small houses, and strange businesses. I can see myself living someplace like this someday. It's not boring, but you get peace and quiet and a sense of place. You can have a garden.
Kelly brought me back and I saddled up to go meet Fast Larry. Fast Larry is Larry Grindinger, a former pro player and a trick shot artist who is in the Guiness Book of World Records for various shots. He used to have a traveling show with his Jack Russell terrier "Jake the Wonder Dog".

He is a controversial figure since he has views that go outside the standard pool establishment, and he is very free about speaking his mind about them. Apparently he has made some enemies in the pool world, but so what? I have heard so much ill-informed advice from so-called experts that I don't have any respect for the pool world. Case in point is my contention that pool cues should not all be 57 or 58 inches. When you are tall with a long armspan, like me, it only makes sense to use a stick that is in proportion. But a lot of people (hello Blatt billiards) will tell you that one size fits all.
I met Larry at a "Dave and Busters" in a mall in Duluth, GA. For those of you fellow Northerners who don't know what a "Dave and Busters" is, it's a batshit garganto amusement emporium that's like Vegas without the slot machines. They have tons of pool tables, a bowling alley, all sorts of video games, those basketball free-throw games, everything. I think people go there to get away from their families. You just hand everybody game card and go to the bar.
Larry had brought a complete arsenal of pool equipment, including around 50 cues, his own pool balls, and a giant aluminum stroke-trainer device that weighed about 50 pounds.
For a pool nut like me this is another Mecca - to have all this great stuff around, and get to pick the brain of someone who has that amount of knowledge and ability is a real privilege. Larry showed me some of the things he teaches: using a downward stroke rather than a level stroke for draw, how deflection really only seems to become an issue when you are hitting above center on the cue ball (this is huge, there is a whole industry devoted to low-deflection shafts), and his 'wave" method of stroking the cue ball. This is similar to a way I had been thinking about it: I think of delivering the cue like bowling with a bowling ball, where the tip actually comes up a bit on the follow-through. The BCA instructors tell you to keep the tip down. Fools!
We played a long time. Larry told me about his pool library where he has books going back to the 1800's, he has almost every book written on pool and billiards know to man. Wow, I would love to see those sometime.
I finally had to go, it was getting late and I was still thinking about heading out to Savannah. When I got on the bike though, I realized how unlikely that was, given how late it was and how tired I was from trying to absorb all this pool info. I had also gone to the WRONG "Dave and Busters" originally, and that delayed me from getting to the second, correct one.
On the way back I saw this truckful of recycling containers:

Probably off to be recycled.
I went back to Kelly and Heathers, they were out getting dinner. I took the scoot out to a little Ethiopian restaurant which was like a bar with some formica tables. It was kept very dark inside and men smoked flavored cigarettes inside. I ordered some spicy beef which was "meh" (came back to haunt me).
This Bhutanese kid came up and talked to me. He said he came to this bar to drink and smoke because if he did either at home, his friends would come around and everybody would want to drink or smoke and he just wanted to do it in peace. It was a lot of fun to be in a crazy little Ethiopian pub with the Georgia sun setting on all the warm green grass outside.
I went back to Kelly's and we watched "Bruno", which I think is hilarious, no matter what the critics say.
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Snookersearch 2010 - Part 10: "The Road from Hell" or "Boiled Peanuts"

I hit the road the next day, sorry to leave Kelly and Heather and their menagerie, but ready for more adventure:

I was very sorry to leave my new buddy Rex:

I was going to take smaller roads out of Atlanta but that was a mistake, since 30 miles later I was still hitting generic suburban strip malls. I got on 85S to make some time.
It was hot and the temperature kept going up. I took a photo of my onboard temperature gauge (thermometer?) at 104 F, eventually it went up to 112 F. It was 100 degrees in Macon, which I passed through. Eventually I had to stop for a bit to get out of the heat.
I stopped at a rest stop and soaked my evaporative vest in water in it's plastic bag. I also bought some boiled peanuts. The concept of boiled peanuts eludes me. Imagine if you are having a dinner party and boiling some pasta. You are trying to create a saloon-type atmosphere so you bring your guests a basket of unshelled peanuts as an appetizer. Only on the way from the kitchen you slip and dump them into the pot of boiling water. Peanuts ruined right? WRONG. Peanuts now a delicacy according to Southern cuisine.
I bought a small bucket of them and ate them while drinking my rehydration beverage of choice, Powerade (probably has the most HFC). They were soggy and mealy and dripping. This service station had flies, so flies kept landing on me. I looked down at the plastic bag with my evaporative vest soaking in it, and it was leaking all over the floor. Then I realized that the Ethopian food I had the night before was talking back to me. Specifically it had Haile Sellasie's voice and was saying "fuck you colonist". Or, in several seconds, "fuck you colon-ist". Good times.
I got it together, took care of bid-ness and got a plastic grocery bag for the vest. Hit the road. Temps kept going up. I stopped again and wet a kerchief and put it around my neck. At one point I stopped just to reverse the evaporative vest:

You have no idea how hot it is on that country road.
When I stop I try to keep the bike in view because I can't completely unpack for every stop:

(just out of the picture, the devil running away lifting his feet off the pavement going "Ow! Ow! Ow!).
Getting closer to Savannah I hit a little service station with a "petting zoo". Basically they have some animals out in a pasture behind the station and you can buy corn to feed them. I didn't want to buy corn, so the animals didn't come over to me. Two women stopped by with corn, but they were afraid to feed the emu (I think that's what this is):

You can't really see it from this photo, but this is a mean-looking fucker. I offered to feed it using my motorcycle glove to test how bad this thing would peck. Answer: BAD. This guy pecked the shit out of my hand when I fed it, I was glad I had the glove on.
Some other cuter animals moseyed over and they fed those:


At the service station the guy told me that this county was under severe thunderstorm warning until 7pm. I decided that I would ride anyway and if it started to rain just pull over.
Of course it started to pour, but I drove through two storms. No lightning so I wasn't that scared, and I sure as heck wasn't cold.
I pulled into Savannah into a sketchy neighborhood. It seemed darker out, like the sun sets earlier here. The streets were canopied with trees hanging with Spanish Moss, which gave a nice creepy effect. For the second time that day I got panhandled by someone pretending to be interested in the bike.
I rode on to a bar with a 10' snooker table, but I was too exhausted to do anything but find a hotel and crash. I did not want to ride the bike anymore that day so I walked a long way to a KFC. It seems that the KFC portions down here in Savannah are bigger than in South Carolina.
I cranked up the AC in my room and watched the Celtics get crushed by the Lakers.
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Snookersearch 2010 - Part 11: "Southside Joey and the Abercorn Jukes"

Savannah, GA
Took it easy in the morning then went down the road to a Yamaha motorcycle dealership. I ogled their scooters: the T-Max:

the Majesty, the Vino, the Zuma. They also had a little Honda Metropolitan.
They had a big touring motorcycle there called "The Venture", the equivalent of a Honda Goldwing:

And the Goldwing itself, it's crazy, look at all the buttons, truly an armchair on wheels. Just needs a bedpan.


The salesman I talked to didn't seem into scooters too much. I was gabbing away "How big of an engine on the Venture, ya know ya gotta love the foot room on the T-Max, of course I installed footpegs on the Piaggio, but in the end storage is key right? How's the storage on those Vinos, not that good I bet..." He's just like "Zzzzz...no sale".
After that I got a salad and a baked potato at Wendys. Went back to the hotel and took a dip in the little pool. It was hot out. Took a shower. Ahhh..finally clean:

I headed out on the scooter to a restaurant called "The Pirate's House":

My family had been there 35 years ago on our trip to Savannah. This was one of the unsuccessful "Save the marriage" vacations. Despite that, I always remembered Savannah fondly, especially the people.
I don't remember much about "The Pirate's House" other than there it had a cool pirate-ey decor and they gave out lollipops when you left. So I wasn't sure how much it had changed.
People were taking photos of this guy:

Someone asked him to smile and he said he that he was smiling.
It was crowded so I ate at the bar. Can't have booze since I'm on the scooter so I had a coke. I ordered the "Shrimp and Grits" appetizer and nothing else. It was the right choice because it was a lot of food. Very very good too: shrimp that tastes like shrimp and not bland nothingness. A sherry cream sauce with cooked red peppers. I was full after eating it.
Then I went for a walk to see some of downtown Savannah. This is a street paved with seashells:

Here's a metal plate that was in the street:

The College of Art and Design:

The "Scad" theater:

The cool bus stop signs they have (note it is not a giant sign, it's only about 8 inches across, I'm just close-up on it.

This building seemed a little Bauhaus:

There was more deco-style stuff than I had anticipated. Not this though:

More like a "Gangs of New York"-style delicatessen.
I liked the proportions on this Goodwill store:

This was a memorial to Haitian soldiers who had defended Savannah against the British:

The sunset on the river was nice:

At 9pm it was still 87 degrees. I rode towards Tybee Island but it was getting dark so I turned back.
These are the pretty pictures of Savannah. Overall though it was very touristy and there was a significant homeless population. I like the history, but Savannah reminded me a little of Asheville in the "boutequey-ness" of some of the streets. An Urban Outfitters, cheap t-shirt shops selling Corona tank tops, hey, sounds like NYC.
I went back to the hotel and headed out to the Southside Billiard Club. Southside had a bunch of "Robertson" tables made in Tampa, FL. The owner, Jim Laufenberg, explained that the Roberston factory had burned down and the company went out of business:

Also there was a 5' x 10' Brunswick snooker table:

Let me tell you, it is a ton easier to play on a 5' x 10' American table than a 6' x 12" British one.
The balls being used were a mixture of standard snooker balls (for the reds) and what appeared to be 2 1/8" pool balls. Check out how the orange "5" ball is bigger than the red balls:

Alison Fisher would not approve.
Jim took a photo of me in front of a Southside sign:

I had a great time there. The only thing that was tough to deal with was the second-hand smoke. Reminded me of Monday afternoons at Westside Bowling Lanes in Toledo, OH when I was a kid. You'd leave that place with your growth plates not only fused shut but also stained with nicotine.
Got back to the hotel very late, and I'm leaving early tomorrow.
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Snookersearch 2010 - Part 12: "The Worst Pool Table I Ever Played On"

I took these photos leaving Savannah:


I liked the name of this convenience store: "Ganesh". Ganesh is an elephant-headed Hindu God with multiple arms. He is knows as "the remover of obstacles" although he is also known to place obstacles in the path of those who deserve it.  What I love is that he is usually attended by a mouse. How different from the Western myth about elephants being afraid of mice. Can you find the mouse in this photo?

The GPS gave me a goofy way out town, then I hit US 17. My favorite type of road is typically a state route: a 4 lane divided highway with a speed limit of about 55 that goes through lots of twists. US 17 is a 2-lane highway so you have to deal with tractor-trailers coming at you in the next lane. The other problem with 2-lane highways is that you can't always pass and sometimes a line of cars will build up. I love it though that this road seems to go to nowhere, and offers the promise of interesting diversions along the way:

Eventually 17 runs out and you have to get on I-95. Once again the temperatures crept up, and soon my thermometer read 110 F. I don't know what this is actually measuring.  Perhaps my thermometer is measuring the road temps, it's always a higher number. (ed.  I've later noticed that my bike's thermometer tends to be about 9 degrees higher than the "standard" temperature but this is totally unscientific and could be wrong).
100 F can be dealt with, but 110 means the clock is ticking. I used the evaporative vest and a wet kerchief around my neck.
By late afternoon I made it "South of the Border", the iconic rest stop on the border between South and North Carolina. I was seriously overheating. I was pleased to discover that South of the Border offered pool. I figured I would cool off and play a little pool. Unfortunately these were the worst pool tables I had ever played on: coin-op 6-footers that were water-damaged with loose cloth, and a tremendous table roll. Played one game and moved on.
As I was leaving I saw this cool sculpture:

What I liked about it was that it was placed in a culvert so it looked like the dog was actually lapping up water.
I resoaked my vest and saw this cute dog near the restrooms:

It was a "Boogle": part beagle, part poodle.
I kept driving and made a lot of miles. When it was getting dark I put on these amber goggles to increase contrast:

I drove until it was dark out, made it to Rocky Mount, NC, about 350 miles away. I hate night driving in traffic. Made it to a Comfort Inn and watched the Lakers win the NBA championship. They deserved it, they had the offense and the offensive boards. It was fun watching Ron Artest being interviewed afterwards. He is such a strange guy, I thought it was nice though that he thanked his therapist for helping him relax. He said it helped him hit that 3-pointer at the end of the game.
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Snookersearch 2010 - Part 13: "I meet the Crazy Cajun and almost meet God"

I left Rocky Mount pretty early for me. I got sick of I-95 pretty quickly. I later found out that one of my earbuds had torn, so I was getting a lot of road noise. I brought a spare pair but they turned out to be the wrong size. I ripped out the core of one with my teeth, but that ruined it. I gently prised the core of the other one out and fit it on the headphone:

Not great, and you couldn't hear much out of it without that core, but serviceable.
I told my GPS to "avoid interstates" and it took me through a little town, then back on the interstate. The Garmin Zumo is unpredictable. It then took me on some fantastic little byways. I call roads like this "enchanted forest" roads:

Twists and turns and no cars, heaven.
Other roads were flanked by corn and I think tobacco. Here are some more photos:


I later learned that Western Virginia and Maryland had been tobacco-growing regions since the 1600's, and that tobacco had saved the lives of the colonists, since many had failed at growing traditional crops, and there was a high demand for tobacco in England.
After about 30 miles of 2 lane enchanted-forest roads, I turned left onto I-17, a two lane highway. But no, it turned out to be a four-lane highway separated by a median strip thick with trees - I was going the wrong way down the highway! I saw a car and a truck coming straight for me at high speed. I peeled off onto the shoulder with my heart going at 200 beats per minute. Turned the bike around and then U-turned back to the correct side. There had been no "Do Not Enter" signs and you could not see the other part of the highway because of the trees. Whew!
My brush with death made me very hungry and I soon found a BBQ place:


That pig does not look like the typical BBQ pig who is laughing or smiling.
The owner was very friendly and served me a brisket sandwich, which was delicious. I had been riding all day though and was still hungry, so I ordered a couple of Maryland crabs (I was in Maryland by now). These crabs were $1/each. Yes that's not a misprint, ONE DOLLA each. I would say that around 3 crabs would equal a small lobster so you do the math. And they were delicious:

I wasn't sure how to eat them, so the owner's mom came out and helped me (I have forgotten her name):

She was very friendly and even fed me crab by hand! How's that for hospitality!

She and her late husband used to have two restaurants at this site: "Cajun Creations" and "Crazy Rays". They combined them into "Crazy Cajuns". I think this was a good move: "Cajun Creations" sounds like a Shreveport floral shop, and "Crazy Rays" sounds like a discount appliance store. Good move mom!
My GPS decided that despite the "avoid Interstates" setting, to take me on the biggest Interstate with the most traffic. It's hard to see in this photo but if you enlarge it you can see traffic is backed up:

Something about the traffic patterns around Baltimore felt dangerous. People drove recklessly, there were lots of quick turnoffs and road construction. I wanted to find a campsite but there are none around Baltimore and the sun was setting.
So I stopped at a local hotel: the Williamsburg Inn. They use this old-fashioned device called a "metal key""

I'm not sure where you plug it into the computer.
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