Out on the Town

Living on your own is great. You can do what you want, when you want.

Yesterday I got off of work at 11:30 AM for the weekend (worked overtime earlier in the week), went out to lunch with some of the guys from work in 'downtown Canton' to try my hand at some southern food (which, by the way, is not agreeing very well with my stomach or my small intestines....) and sat out by the pool here for the afternoon to read a book I rented back home in Howard-Suamico.

Today, I went out and started my very own account at Blockbuster to rent some chick flicks that I was never able to watch before. I even bought a little packet of movie popcorn to go with it! Living the high life!

I got awfully sunburned (whoddah thunk?! I NEVER burned before), to the point now where it hurts to even put pants on.

I ended up going out to our Taj Mahal Walgreens here to buy some Aloe Vera coolant gel spray stuff to help me out, and was thinking of all of my new readers here and their seemingly insatiable hunger to read more on this website.

So, I took a few detours and took pictures of things I see here, with you all in mind. :)


This is the Taj Mahal Walgreens that I shop at - crazy luxurious architecture, huh?!? (I think Jared would find this interesting, being the former Wally-intern.)


These are the Mississippian car wash stations. They're the equivalent to what all of us yoopers call 'Stop and Robs,' found at your local Quik Trip gas station. :) I forget here that it snows once in four years (or so I'm told) so they don't need to enclose their car wash stations for the fear of the water freezing up.

Anyway, Dad, Mom and I used one of these last weekend while they were still here with me, and I think my dad found this to be one of the coolest things since watching Tim Allen and his show, Home Improvement. (How's that for a blast from the past? Do you all remember that show?)

If you look closely at the ceiling of the washing stall I captured in this photo, you'll see these two things that look like helicopter blades. They're actually the spouts you use to wash your car by hand: one 'blade' has a self-foaming suds brush attached to it that you scrub your car down with, and the second 'blade' has a high-powered jet-puking water hose.

I suppose with the humidity in Mississippi it's hopeless to have a drying station with blowers to dry your vehicle, so these stations skip those. Being veteran car pamperers, Dad and I came with some, uh, donated towels from the hotel he and my mom were staying at. They work wonders. ;)

P.S. to Grandpa: We went to the local Wal-Mart here and I found those Sonic Scrubber sets for sale in the automotive department!!!!!! (To every other reader here: LOOK THEM UP, they are AWESOME tools to use when cleaning all the crevices in your car or their tires.) I am so happy, I can't wait to run out and by a pair and live happily ever after in the world of car care - I just gotta make some money first! Dad is already telling me to buy them only if I swear to use them as a Father's Day gift, meh.


This is a Mom-an'-Pop shop that I went to have lunch at last week. If you look closely, the sign hanging on the front porch says 'Pig Shak,' and it appears to be a complete run down hole-in-the-wall restaurant that completely lays into the stereotype of Mississippi. The whole week my parents were down here, they'd drive past this shack and just ridicule the crap out of it. Well, the guys at work dragged me there to eat (pulled pork sandwich with peppered macaroni and cheese, good but weird). The inside is charming, it's got picnic tables and homemade signs all over the walls. And of course, the natives drink sweet tea as if it's their human gasoline.

This is a picture of Nissan's own water tower, which I snapped as I was on-approach to the Nissan plant. It's where I work every day.

This is the Nissan plant....huge, huh?


Moooore Nissan. That little red jut on the very left-hand side of the photo is the main entrance. The building alone is 0.94 miles long. Sorry, but no 'hail cannons' can be seen from here. (They're those things I previously posted about that create sonic booms.) Still huge, huh?

*Drumroll please* The official entrance/main gate to Nissan North America - Canton.


Nissan has this self-promotion rule that all employees who drive their own products (i.e. Nissan or Infiniti vehicles) are allowed premiere parking at the plant. The parking lot stalls are painted onto the blacktop with green lines, which designate the 'green zone' where employees can park. The stalls are parked closest to the building. Much of the office politics are based off of Nissan drivers being torqued out because of coworkers that violate this rule and park their 1982 blue Volvo station wagon in 'the green zone.' That, and some maniac guy that speeds and revs through the parking lot with his white Lincoln LS and also insists on parking in the very front row of the green zone.

On the way out of the Nissan plant, where you can see the inventory of Nissan Titans parked out on the would-be golfing range that Nissan closed just to be able to hold the trucks somewhere. Wow.

The railroad tracks behind the Nissan plant, which stretch on as far as the eye can see. The majority of Nissan's vehicles that roll off of the assembly lines are sent to their dealerships via intermodal (the fancy term for 'railroad').

An interesting road sign that my dad will appreciate the most. There is a main drag just south of Nissan called Gluckstadt. It is clearly German descent, but Dad gets the word 'cluck' out of it, and subsequently thinks of chickens whenever he sees this sign or hears about the village. Therefore, we now dub this street 'German Chicken Road.' :)

The entrance to my apartment community! :)

The boulevard drive-up to the apartment community. There's this white electronic gate that is just around the bend in the photo, which closes and gates off the community at 9 PM and reopens to the public at 6 AM every day. Keeps the residents safe. :)

The enticing swimming pool at my apartment community where I got sunburned....grrr!


Long live weekends and photo ops!