Back from vacation!

I'm back from a wonderful time spent travelling Eastern and Middle Tennessee. The hot air balloon ride was a bust, it was too windy. And the trout fishing was a wash, too, because they were generating electricity at the nearby dam. The guide we were going with said the water volume went from 160 feet per minute to 4800, which washed the fish downstream and it was too dangerous, besides.

We had a great time in Chattanooga, which was much more cosmopolitan than I expected. I was last there in 1993 when they opened the Tennessee Aquarium River Journey, and since then they have opened the Ocean Journey and a new visitor's center. The most delightfully unexpected feature was the butterfly aviary, which I can't say enough good things about.

The downtown area of Chattanooga is impeccably clean and we stayed at the Sheraton Read House, which was a convenient walk to nearly everything. I highly recommend the Read House, but if you're staying there it pays to shop around. We booked it for $59 per night on Priceline. Chattanooga has a free shuttle in the downtown area and it was a godsend at the end of a tiring day of walking. The Hunter Museum has some extremely interesting glass pieces and a nice collection of pop art. Recommended places to eat include 212 Market, The Back Inn Cafe, and Southside Grill.

The Jack Daniels Barbecue was like a trip to a foreign country. I'm from Eastern Tennessee, but this was an experience unlike any I've ever had. Picture 40,000 people all in the same place to worship barbecue. Now imagine your stereotpyical idea of someone who would make such a pilgrimage would look like. It made for some interesting people watching. Stay tuned for pictures of this, the aquarium, and the rest of our trip.

Also be on the lookout for some new posts about Notes. I finished my Notes Multiuser Migrator, and I'm working on some techniques for replacing tokens in richtext while maintaining the style associated with the token. And there's still that DXL UI Updater and SQL Query Runner, both of which I'm working on that as time permits.