Perfomancing Test

I'm trying this new Firefox Add-on called Performancing. We'll see if it's any better than logging straight into Blogger to create and publish posts.

Into the sunset...

Arizona has quite a bit of road trip charm, if I do say so myself. The other weekend, Donna's mom was in town, so we drove East on I-10 to check out some of the more... tenured attractions. The cynic in me would say that Historic Tombstone has degenerated into a second rate tourist trap. Which is pretty much what it is.
The first thing we did when we got there was to track down a gun fight. A man dressed in almost-authentic cowboy garb pointed us down the road, promising us the show would be funnier than Blazing Saddles. I'm not a big Mel Brooks guy in the first place, but we continued up to the wooden-frame store. Having seen Blazing Saddles, I can tell you this show wasn't quite what was promised, although it featured Richard Blake (Parole Board Chairman from Raising Arizona). We found out later that there is another gun fight closer to the OK Corral that is the main ticket in town.
There are some genuinely creative things happening in between the cheesy "saloons" and reproductions of Wyatt Earp posters. On this particular weekend, Tombstone was hosting a Western Music Festival. We passed by the stage, and the music wasn't half bad. The crowd was a mix of weekend road trippers with digicams (me), and honest-to-goodness Western music fans clad in Wrangler jeans and cowboy hats.
Other highlights of the trip included a slightly creepy, mostly touristy graveyard where a couple of the Clanton's are buried and The Thing, located in Dragoon, AZ. For a dollar, you get to go through some random exhibits of junk, basically. After, you get to say you saw The Thing. Gotta love AZ.

The Fifth Dimension...

For my birthday, Donna and I cavorted up to Grand Canyon a couple weekends ago. I'll just echo everyone else in saying it is amazing. We hit several different view points on the rim, and it was unbelievable from every single spot.The obligatory landscape shot.

That's some kind of Grandness.

Ranger Allyson showed us around during a couple of geology walks around the rim. We learned, first and foremost, that there is no "The" in the name. To locals, it's just Grand Canyon. Donna thought Allyson was yelling at her the whole time, but really she just talked really loud because she was used to working with 50-60 people, not 15. It was kind of like a science field trip with a PE teacher.Height, width, and depth are the physical dimensions of Grand Canyon. Allyson also talked about time as the fourth dimension and a fifth dimension: the spirituality of Grand Canyon. Possibly biblical, mostly hokey.

On the way back, we elected to stop at Flintstone Bedrock City. For the low low price of $4 dollars, we were able to walk around a poorly maintained gravel lot populated by various pastel-painted stucco structures. The best part was the "goatasaurus". It's life-like environment looked like someone wrapped up a bunch of wire coat hangers and nailed them to the open part of a shed. You can pick your friends, and you can pick your nose, but Fred can't pick either.

Yeah.

We saw several signs around the rim basically indicating that young, athletic looking men are falling into Grand Canyon all time and getting stuck. I wanted to make sure I wasn't at risk. You make the call. Deep down, we all want to be like Legolas. Right Andrew?

Apparently, Grand Canyon is the most popular tourist destination in the world, so I'm sure there will be other blogs that speak of it much more eloquently. But really, does anybody do natural wonders like the Flying Zehrings?

The Best Stockboy Ever...

It's been a full month since I did the blogging thing. I just picked up a night and weekend gig at the local Target box to supplement our savings account. Here's a little Zehring demographic update:

- 2 person household
- 2 car household
- 4 job household (Donna's working as a substitute teacher part time, in addition to her increasing responsibilities as a youth pastor)
- 2 TV household
- 2 computer household (all Mac, all the time)
- 6 Gilmore Girls DVD season box set household

So far, the benefits of working at Target far outweigh the headache of working second job. The hours aren't too overwhelming, but I get enough time to make decent money. The actual work is pretty mindless. "Go to Location blahblahblah. Scan UPC blahblahblah." And of course, it's tough to beat the 10% discount. Well, I guess it wouldn't be too hard. C'mon Target, how about a 15% discount?