Welp, here I am, in good ol' Nags Head, North Carolina, home to a bunch of old fogies and Jurassic Putt Mini Golf. I can't really complain about the weather: right around 70, kind of breezy. The wind/waves leave a little to be desired when transferring from the dredge to the crewboat and vice versa, as we are dealing with 3-5 foot swells. Don't worry, this blog won't be full of dredge-n-dick lingo, nor will I discuss the insanely low price of Aldi's wild Alaskan salmon filets.
I'm here to discuss my adventures with Bob. Bob is an old man from the Pitt area who works for a company that has been supplying us with bearings for a long time. His company now makes a product that allows us to monitor these bearings. I'm here with Bob to get this product implemented on two dredges down here.
We fly in Sunday, and meet at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Norfolk, which was a pretty sweet experience. There is a naval base nearby, which led to a very diverse crowd at the bar. All the games were on, and almost every team was represented. There were mostly Cowboys fans, which was awesome when the rest of the bar celebrated after Romo blew the game and the raging Lions improved to 4-0. After that, George says "Hey, I've got a GPS, you can just follow me." What a mistake.
Bob is 65 years old. Bob drives like he's 85 years old. It's 90 miles to the hotel. We're going 55 in a 65 on the highway. I have a bladder full of three glasses of water that decided to hit me 10 minutes into the drive. I'm tailgating Bob to see if I can nudge him somewhere close to the speed limit. Let's get a move on, Bob!
We go for dinner Monday night to a restaurant called Kelly's, recommended by the Nags Head Inn concierge. Kelly's is also supplying the Nags Head in with sweet potato biscuits in the morning for breakfast, which by the way are delicious, so I thought this place could be legit. Well, I was the youngest person in the joint. Bob was the second youngest. It was like the Night of the Living Dead. Geezer Central. I'm trying to distract myself from the old person smell by watching the baseball playoffs, but Bob insists on explaining his wife's undying love for Elvis Presley. True story: Bob's first born son was struggling in the hospital for a few weeks after he was born. Bob wasn't getting much time to see him since he was traveling a lot for work. One time when he had a second to go visit, he raced to the hospital. He arrived to find his wife bauling her eyes out. Bob races over, begging his love to catch her breath, to give him some sort of sign why she is so distraught. "What's wrong with my son!!?? Is he going to make it?!!?!" His wife finally starts to calm down, composes herself, and says three words which will forever be burned into Bob's brain:
"Elvis is dead."
Bob nearly had a heart attack. Ironically, after this story, "All Shook Up" comes on in this 50's-type shag diner, and believe it or not, all these old bags of bones stumble over to a dance floor and tear it up. At one point, the DJ called for a "tush push." They were moving a little slower than the normal tush push speed.
I'm here to discuss my adventures with Bob. Bob is an old man from the Pitt area who works for a company that has been supplying us with bearings for a long time. His company now makes a product that allows us to monitor these bearings. I'm here with Bob to get this product implemented on two dredges down here.
We fly in Sunday, and meet at a Buffalo Wild Wings in Norfolk, which was a pretty sweet experience. There is a naval base nearby, which led to a very diverse crowd at the bar. All the games were on, and almost every team was represented. There were mostly Cowboys fans, which was awesome when the rest of the bar celebrated after Romo blew the game and the raging Lions improved to 4-0. After that, George says "Hey, I've got a GPS, you can just follow me." What a mistake.
Bob is 65 years old. Bob drives like he's 85 years old. It's 90 miles to the hotel. We're going 55 in a 65 on the highway. I have a bladder full of three glasses of water that decided to hit me 10 minutes into the drive. I'm tailgating Bob to see if I can nudge him somewhere close to the speed limit. Let's get a move on, Bob!
We go for dinner Monday night to a restaurant called Kelly's, recommended by the Nags Head Inn concierge. Kelly's is also supplying the Nags Head in with sweet potato biscuits in the morning for breakfast, which by the way are delicious, so I thought this place could be legit. Well, I was the youngest person in the joint. Bob was the second youngest. It was like the Night of the Living Dead. Geezer Central. I'm trying to distract myself from the old person smell by watching the baseball playoffs, but Bob insists on explaining his wife's undying love for Elvis Presley. True story: Bob's first born son was struggling in the hospital for a few weeks after he was born. Bob wasn't getting much time to see him since he was traveling a lot for work. One time when he had a second to go visit, he raced to the hospital. He arrived to find his wife bauling her eyes out. Bob races over, begging his love to catch her breath, to give him some sort of sign why she is so distraught. "What's wrong with my son!!?? Is he going to make it?!!?!" His wife finally starts to calm down, composes herself, and says three words which will forever be burned into Bob's brain:
"Elvis is dead."
Bob nearly had a heart attack. Ironically, after this story, "All Shook Up" comes on in this 50's-type shag diner, and believe it or not, all these old bags of bones stumble over to a dance floor and tear it up. At one point, the DJ called for a "tush push." They were moving a little slower than the normal tush push speed.
Ok, back to the GPS. Here is a map of Nags Head:
It's on a little strip of land called the Outer Banks about a mile and a half wide. If you think you only see one main road in town, you are correct. Every store is off one road, and all residential areas split off it. BOB insists on using his GPS to get everywhere. When we stopped at Radio Shack, and they didn't have everything we needed, the cashier said there was a Staples "a few miles up the road." The only road in town. I remember seeing the Staples on my way in, and even if I didn't, I'm fairly confident I could find it. Bob punches in Staples into the GPS, and it says not available. Searches again, nothing. "Aaah, damn. Let me punch it into my BlackBerry."
Freeze it. A few miles up the road. THE road. The only fucking road that contains any kind of establishment. He even pointed the direction to go. Bob is still not sold. He needs Google Maps to cure his fear of getting lost. I had even seen where Staples was, so I passed this information on to him, and relieving him of his searches. His response:
"Oh yeah? What side of the street is it on?"
I chuckled a little, but then I noticed he was waiting for me to answer. He was dead serious. He was going to use the fact that I didn't know if it was on the left or right side of THE ONLY FUCKING ROAD IN TOWN as justification to search it. Ho. Ly. Fuck.
Today, I'm just dicking around cuz the waters are too rough to get on the dredge. I might go take a nap on the beach. Life ain't Bad. I think I'm gonna drive back and forth on The Road to get some lunch.
Oh, and in case any of you were wondering, I'm beating Greg in FIFA '12 Overall Record 2-0.
great post kelly! tell us more!
ReplyDeletetl;dr Kelly went on a trip and got drunk with some old dudes.
ReplyDeletealso, the first time i read it as Elvis was the dudes son, and I was like "wait, wtf?"
and fuck old people with GPS, my mom sits in the passenger seat, repeats what "she" says and then holds it up to my face.