Jen and I traveled to our old stomping grounds in Tallahassee, Florida for a wedding this weekend. It’s actually the first time we’ve been back to Tally in just about five years exactly, since we graduated from FSU and got married in May of 2005. Mainly, it’s been good to see old friends and once familiar places. It’s a bizarre kind of time travel, really.

It’s weird how people you haven’t seen in several years can just pick back up with you like no time’s passed at all. I think it speaks volumes to how valuable friendships are, and the need people feel for connectedness. Either that, or our mutual Facebook stalking has kept up the ruse of familiarity. Maybe a little bit of both.

Anyway, here are the things I’ve learned in our trip to the Sunshine State…
Florida

  • If you feel the need to make the 700 mile drive from Houston, Texas to Tallahassee, Florida for a 7:00 PM rehearsal dinner and want to change on the way… make sure to wear flip flops if you are forced to change in a gas station bathroom. You do not know how many AIDS are on that floor, and probably don’t want to.
  • Sometimes, crop dusting planes like to fly 50 feet above the Interstate. Do not look at them while driving, no matter how tempting. There is a road in front of you that will/must not be ignored.
  • Weezer’s Pinkerton is just as good as it was in high school. Ditto for Wilco’s Yankee Hotel Foxtrot.
  • If you are at a wedding and a decoration catches on fire, don’t just stand there and watch it, dumbfounded. Taking off your jacket to look important or blowing on the flames, while not useful, at least bely the appearance of action.
  • The motion smoothing setting on 120Hz and 240Hz TV’s does actually look good for sports. I will simply never learn to love it for anything else.
  • When you tell people you are writing a “nerdy fantasy book”, speak clearly. There is a big difference between that and a “dirty fantasy book.”
  • Starting conversations with “I saw your kids on Facebook” isn’t much of a conversation starter, especially when the person you’re talking to doesn’t actually have kids.

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