Last night was one of the craziest nights in quite a while.  My great friend Melissa was flying down to Tennessee to help me pack and move and go on another road trip up to the north.  However, when we bought the tickets over a month ago we didn’t know it would be during one of the worst storms in history: Tornadoes Ravage South.

The craziness began at work where we had a “stay in place” drill around 4pm because of a tornado spotting.  That only lasted about half hour to forty minutes and I left pretty swiftly afterwards with the weather looking fine.  Her flight got delayed an hour once it reached Charlotte but we weren’t too worried.  I was home skyping with Rich for a while until it reached 8pm and I decided I should venture to the airport, not thinking too much of the weather even though it was thunder-storming.   I was going down i-40 and it was horrendous.  It looked like I was driving into hell and was going to die any minute.  Then it started hailing golf balls and so I pulled over under an overpass and waited it out.  Finally half of an hour later (since I had to drive at 30mph) I reached the Starbucks by the airport.  I figured a hot drink would be better than waiting in the airport and when I walked in people looked at me as if I was insane.  “Welcome to the club” is what I was greeted with.  I ordered a tea and the barista began asking me why I was braving the storm and I explained that my friend was visiting and so I had to be here.  She asked me if I realized a tornado had just passed through and another one was coming in fifteen minutes (that explains the hail).  She handed me my drink and the depression sank in when I realized that this night was going to be a lot more than quickly picking up Melis.

Then I was trapped in the Starbucks for three hours.  We had to hide in the back with the barista giving everyone weather updates.  The others that were stuck had been there for a while and were very confused as to why I appeared in the middle of the storm.  “You just though coffee would go good with a tornado?” is what I was asked.  Then it started hailing baseballs and we had to stay in the back some more.  It was pitch black outside except for the lightning that was continually striking.  A tornado hit the airport and broke the radar, soo clearly Melissa was not going to reach Knoxville.  I was hoping they never took off.

My night was spent trapped in Starbucks and then I found out that Melis flew from Charlotte to Knoxville, until they realized the radar was shot and couldn’t land, so they flew back to Charlotte. Once she was back there she told me they were going to try again to fly out, so I waited a while before going to the airport when I thought she would land.  Again, they flew to Knoxville, decided they couldn’t land, and flew back to Charlotte.  Finally, she said she would find a hotel so I went home.  Then United decided they wouldn’t be able to everyone hotel rooms so once again, they flew to Knoxville. By the time I got back to my house I had an hour before I went back and finally got my friend from the airport.  And that was our night.

It’s my last weekend day in Knoxville so I had to go out and try to get all the pictures that I saw in my head while driving around but never actually took.  Yeva and I got Starbucks and then went down Karns Valley Road which is the main road on the way to work.  So these farms are what we get to see everyday on the way to work.

The cows loved staring back at us.  We usually see many donkeys and horses too.  We almost couldn’t find the horses but then stumbled on this lovely bunch.

Note the “Caution: Guard Mule on Duty” sign. 

We also stopped to take some pictures of this barn that is part of Apple Tree Nursery.  I didn’t take pictures of the rest of it, but it looks like a really nice landscaping/nursery business.

This creek usually has horses drinking from it but unfortunately they weren’t very thirsty today.

Finally, I will post the two most comical establishments in Knoxville, TN:

Papa Dom’s Pizza: the unloved son of Papa John’s and Dominos

Where do they cook the food???

8th wonder of the world.

I just realized I never posted about when Rich and I went to Nashville!  We saw Bright Eyes play at the Ryman Auditorium.  It was a great venue with so much history.  The concert was great, but I always love seeing Bright Eyes so that’s not too big of a surprise.  Anyway, the next day we went back to the Ryman for a tour.

The hallways were lined with posters from previous performers and included possibly every great musician.  We got to see backstage dressing rooms and hear about the thirty years when the Ryman was home to the Grand Ole Opry.  They had some showcases with memorabilia from past events.

This was in the Johnny Cash and June Carter case.  The last picture is of a song that Johnny Cash wrote for the students at Vanderbilt to sing to them but then took these verses out.
Overall it was a great trip and I suggest touring the Ryman to anyone visiting the Nashville area =)

I’m going to try to focus, no more distractions.

Yesterday I worked on my paper to finish up my time here at Oak Ridge National Lab.  My project ended up well and the title for my paper is now: A Generalized Probabilistic Model for Learned String Matching.  I think it is pretty interesting and I’m quite excited for it. Today I drove to Hot Springs, North Carolina.

I met up with the other interns to go hiking for a bit. It’s one of the big stops on the Appalachian Trail so it was pretty inspiring to see these people that are on a hike for six months at a time.  I just think it would be amazing to hike from Maine to Georgia.

We did about a five mile hike and found a really amazing overlook on the way.

The rhododendrons created canopies throughout part of the trail.

We also found what a mysterious building, a public service announcement sign, and some left over railroad ties.

Then we ended up at a park before we got lunch and headed back home.

current distraction: paper paper paper

Time to recap the last month or so.  Yevatron and I took a trip to Asheville, NC.  It was really a great, cool place and I suggest everyone visit.  It definitely has its own culture and you feel that the second you get into downtown.  We stopped at a sort of indian-american place called Chai Pane (I think?) and it was quite tasty.  They had a ton of indian street food and it was all pretty cheap.  Then we walked around some more, going into little shops here and there, and then went to get massages.  Dah, I love massages.  Especially because I did not bring my back brace down here to Knoxville so I felt a little out of sorts.  Anyway, we were talking to the hippie receptionist about what we should do after and she recommended a Kava bar.  We never had kava before so we sought that out.  This was a hilarious place.  Kava is a drink made from the root of the piper methysticum plant and it’s supposed to have kind of the same effects as alcohol but without the hangover.  However, it also has a reverse tolerance so we didn’t feel anything but it was just a funny place to experience.  It tastes like dirt, exactly like dirt, and we chased it with pineapple.  The other people in the bar were really funny and they kept telling us we have to try Kratom, a leaf that you can make kind of like a tea.  Apparently it is stronger than Kava and some people prefer that.  So we hung out in the Kava bar for a while and played cards, then walked around some more before getting dinner at a japanese place.  After the Asheville extravaganza we made our way to Hot Springs, NC to enjoy the natural hot tubs.  This was really nice but not as much of the earthy place I was expecting.  Nevertheless, it was a real fun day and in case you didn’t notice from the lack of pictures I forgot my cameras memory card and couldn’t use it.  Depression =(

Last weekend Frank came to visit.  All the interns came over Friday night and it was the usual food, drink, and music. We ended up going to Half Barrel and Tin Roof, losing some friends and finding some friends and all was good.  On Saturday Frank, Yeva, and I went to Vanderbilt to visit Ryan.  That was insane.  Ryan is in a frat, in case the word wasn’t broken to any family members yet; I had no idea.  There were just parties all over the street and so many drunken undergraduates.  It made me kind of happy that I was done with all of that but it’s funny to see.  They had their Rites Of Spring music festival that night and we heard Matt & Kim while waiting in line, saw Edward Sharpe and the Magnetic Zeros, and saw Kid Cudi.  I could’ve done without Kid Cudi for sure, he was ridiculous.  He seemed like a nice guy that just needed some close friends to talk to.  We drove home after the show and got back to Knoxville at 6am Sunday morning.  DAH.  Monday and Tuesday night we went out for Franks birthday and got some drinks and hung out downtown.  All in all it was a fun visit and it was good to have Frank here for a while.

Now I’m focusing on finishing up everything ORNL related.  There was a cyber attack this week so unfortunately the internet has been down and cell phone reception is terrible and I have no distractions.  Now I have to work at home today so I get to leave in a week and go back home.