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We took a whirlwind weekend trip back to the Home Country to see Lena's pen parents in the south of the state. They are the folks who originally brought her over for a visit back in '92, when she showed up in NYC from the slowly collapsing Soviet Union with $27 in her pocket. They're very nice folks, and we hadn't been to see them in about 5 years (which we didn't realize until we did the math... holy crap, how time flies).

So Friday night we're driving through Ohio, south of Columbus but north of Chillicothe, and just had a "local moment," wherein we stopped for gas, and the station cashier, obviously bored, came out to chat. We had a nice little talk about places and getting to them and such... then Lena and I had a subsequent chuckle as we realized that sort of thing is much more likely to happen the closer you get to hills and mountains than in the flatlands of corn country.

We were just getting back to finding some music we both could tolerate on the mp3 player when a pickup truck appeared about ten or fifteen yards in front of us and to the right. It was not on the road. It was barrel-rolling over, airborne, several times as we saw it closing in.

"Oh my God," Lena said, slowing down fast, but not jarringly. We stopped well behind it as it came to rest on the side of the road, rightside up. "Do you think anyone's alive in there?" she said. We went to find out. We slowly approached the vehicle, which, contrary to Hollywood expectations, had not burst into flame. As we got closer, a guy got out of the cab and ran across the road, past us.

"Dude, are you all right?" I yelled, as he was already past me and speeding up. He mumbled something and continued. Something not right here, my mind said... maybe he's running to get help for someone still in the truck? But I was too buzzed up with adrenaline to take that to its logical conclusion. I could hardly believe that I had seen everything correctly... how could that guy have even been on his feet, let alone running away so quickly?

After about a minute, though, when we had verified that there wasn't anyone else in there, and other cars were stopping and asking us if we were all right, and we were replying that we hadn't been part of it at all, another pickup screeched to a halt right next to the wrecked truck.

"God damn it!" the driver said, getting out. Another guy gets out and asks, "which way did he go?"

Okay, stolen, my mind said. I pointed the direction the crashee had run, and the driver got back in the truck and took off after him. The police arrived barely a minute later, and got everything under control. Apparently the would-be car thief knew the guys he stole the truck from. In fact, he told them he was going to do it. So they knew who he was, where he lived, what he was wearing, and probably just how much beer he'd had that night, too. Clearly there wasn't going to be any huge "unsolved mysteries" case here. Good thing too, 'cause when the police asked me for a description of the guy, I couldn't come up with anything other than "white, light build, scruffy lookin'."

Lena and I verify from the officer on the scene that he didn't need anything further from us, and we resumed our drive. Five minutes down the road, we passed a sign that said OUTDOOR DRAMA, NEXT EXIT. We laughed quite a while. Of course, we had more laughter when we passed a sign about forty minutes later that said JESUS IN THE HILLS, NEXT RIGHT. So that's where he's been all this time.

We continued on and had a very nice weekend, catching up with everyone and reveling in the West Virginianess of it all. I do miss me my home country sometimes. Not enough to drive through Ohio every weekend to get to it, though. Sheesh.

Lena and I made a mad dash to The Home Country in a rental van (cue James Earl Jones saying, "BIG sonuvabitch..."), to pick up boxes of mom's pictures and what of her furniture we claimed from her estate. It was fast and furious, and very much aided and expedited by Dad, who loaned us his Mercury SUV for general use while in town so we didn't have to truck all over the Big Wheel in our 14-foot Red-October-class moving van.

When we got in, there was one thing that puzzled me:

What do you think? I wasn't really sure at all upon first glance.

Well, maybe *where* we found it will help:

Still no thoughts? Weird mag-lev cup holding device? Emergency ejector seat rip handle? Quick-draw tracking device?

Nope. It all comes down to this-- Dad hates wearing his seatbelt. This is a device he made to click into the belt buckle so it doesn't squawk that his seatbelt isn't fastened.

Awesome!

Well, hell, this smacks of all the cardinal virtues of a programmer as outlined by Larry Wall, godfather of Perl: laziness, impatience, and hubris. If Dad had been born in a slightly later era, I bet he would have been a programmer.

Okay, maybe a sysadmin.

So we headed back to the Home Country for the post-Christmas. Things felt a little subdued this year, as my brothers weren't in town, and my sisters were there at different times, and I didn't really get the chance to leisurely go around and visit, as I've been wanting to of late. So it was low-key, but good.

There were various highlights during the trip:

My nephew got this ridiculously huge plastic gun that fires clips of nerf bullets. It kept jamming, and I kept dropping quotes and tech-sounding quotes about the AK-47, a la Clint Eastwood: "This is the Nerf Hi-Strike assault rifle, the preferred weapon of your enemy; and it makes a distinctive sound when fired at you."

At Undo's restaurant in the big wheel, I learned how to correctly pronounce gnocchi, and ate the first gnocchi in my life that did not feel like swallowing lumps of hardened spackle.

My niece told me that I was her favorite uncle. I was caught by surprise on that one, plus I got a little choked up. I'm such a sap.

I showed my mother facebook, and set her up with an account. O, God, what have I done?

We re-met with my friend Chuch and his lovely lady Argelia. Damn, but I miss the guy.

We had a game night at my uncle's house, which is always a fun event, usually a lot of laughing. The capstone of that evening came when I said something about my cousin/friend being able to recite most or all of the Jabberwocky... the two uncles present proceeded to recite the whole thing together, in unison. Caught by surprise again, but with those two jokers, I really should have expected that. I mean, what else would you expect a lawyer and an entrepreneur to have memorized?

Still trying to cobble together all the pictures from our recent trip to parts east. I've got a few put up on facebook, but still have to pull others from a temp cache that I haven't bothered to look for yet.

Here are a few samples for the time being:

Went back to the home country for a cousin's wedding this weekend. Very nice on all counts. Here is a random sampling of conversations, anecdotes, what-have-you.

Tourist comes to town, looking for some seafood, asks a cabbie: "Do you know where I can get scrod?"

Cabbie says, "Bub, I've heard that question asked lots of different ways, but that's the first time I've ever heard it in the pluperfect subjunctive."

Oh, God, please don't tell me that this Michigan team is going to make this Notre Dame team look good.

This isn't the exact variant we heard from my uncle, but it's basically the same:
"Do you herd sheep?", my Gramma sighed
My Grampa leaped in fright.
"'Your Grammer's wrong!", he loudly cried.
"'Have you heard sheep?' is right!"

Well, if Beanie had been healthy, we would've had those thirty-five points, and more, easy. [said by anonymous uncle in excellent imitation of a specific Ohio State fan]

Why couldn't I have a clown car at my wedding? [said by an anonymous family member as a tiny car disgorged an almost unbelievable amount of passengers]

So, who do you want to lose more, Notre Dame or Michigan?

Couldn't we just have the earth swallow up both teams?

Damn. I love beer. [said by anonymous aunt on her 3rd or 5th beer]

Hey, WVU doesn't play this week, do they? Sweet! We might move up!

Um... aluminum isn't a good conductor of electricity, is it? Oh, it is? Well, then thank God we're not sitting right beneath the highest aluminum tent poles I've ever seen with a massive lightning storm approaching. Hey, you want to trade seats? [said by an anonymous family member when staring at 20-25' aluminum pole supporting tent, as spectacular massive lightning storm approaches]

Back, synopsis of football weekend to appear tomorrow-night-ish. Meanwhile, check out hiking the law school hill.

June 20th is West Virginia Day. The Mountain Mama is 145 years young!

Sometimes, your alma mater does ya proud with just a little thing: 12-year-old applies for WVU's head coaching job. Nice to know there's a nice guy in the big chair.

I'm sicker than a dog, postgame blogging with a steady stream of nasal drip hanging from my nose. Yum. Salty.

Here's the recap on ESPN. Strong performances from Pat White, Owen Schmitt, Noel Devine, Johnny Dingle, Eric Wicks, Pat McAfee, and featuring one helluva catch by Tito Gonzales, and one helluva run by Schmitt. Steve Slaton was sidelined with a leg injury in the first quarter, and didn't return, so his stats were basically inconsequential.

Went eastward to the Home Country for Christmas with the family. It was very nice, except that one of my brothers opted to remain in his Secure Compound In An Undisclosed City Somewhere On The Eastern Seaboard (SCIAUCSOTES for short), for undisclosed reasons. Well, undisclosed to everyone else. Or at least, everyone not in our family. I'm not going to un-undisclose them, though. Don't want to be exfamiliacated.