Back From Hiatus Thursday Rundown

What a hiatus it has been! An unprecedented four weeks have passed since I last wrote a Thursday Rundown. Oh my gosh, do I even remember how to write one of these things? Let’s find out. Here we go…

Turtles at CCU – Earlier this week, I took photos of the turtles that make Wall Pond their home at Coastal Carolina University. I published variations of the photos on a couple of our main #CCU social media accounts. My personal favorite is the one below. Although it focuses more on the beauty of our campus than it does the turtles, I love the colors. Needless to say, CCU is truly a scenic place to work. If you want to see more of the turtles and less of the greenery, click here.

I work at a very scenic campus. Very fortunate to be employed by Coastal Carolina University.

Costco Grand Opening – One of the things we did in Spokane that I didn’t directly address in my recap post was attend a Costco grand opening. The gigantic new warehouse is located about two minutes from my parents’ house in what was once a wooded area (bye bye trees). It opened at 8 a.m. on a Friday and we were there a couple minutes after the doors flung open. Unexplainably, people were leaving the store with carts full of merchandise as we walked in (talk about speed shoppers!). The experience was pretty much exactly what you would expect: huge crowds but numerous samples. As someone who visits Costco every now and then, I enjoyed checking out the sparkling new store.

At 8:30 a.m. in the morning it was chaos at Spokane’s new Costco.

Eggs Up Grill – A Conway/Myrtle Beach breakfast staple is a place called Eggs Up Grill. With several locations now around the Grand Strand area, its popularity is evidenced by its expansion. Oddly enough, as a guy who likes to hit up great breakfast spots, I had never visited an Eggs Up Grill until this past Sunday. While out and about in Market Common, our family stopped by the newly opened location in the area for some breakfast. An efficient and inexpensive dining experience, I ordered a biscuit sandwich. What delighted me the most was that it came with a side of gravy for dipping. I will be back!

My breakfast at Eggs Up Grill, complete with the side of gravy.

Longest Red Light EVER – I have complained about a certain traffic light on Twitter before but today’s experience has motivated me to take my beef to the blog! When I leave Gold’s Gym in the early mornings, I come up on a light at U.S. 17 and Mr. Joe White Avenue in Myrtle Beach. For whatever reason, it makes me wait at the very least 5-8 minutes for the green arrow to flash so I can make a left turn onto the highway. For an area that has a low volume of traffic at 5:55 a.m. in the morning, I find the wait a little excessive. That was until today. I was stuck at the light for 12 minutes (yes, I keep track on my car radio how long it takes each morning)! No amount of flashing my brights or pulling slightly forward/pulling slightly back will work. I am too chicken to run it. In all seriousness, why do some lights stay red for such an insane amount of time?

Because I sat here for 12 minutes this morning, I had plenty of time to take a photo.

Cute Photo to End It – Sorry again for neglecting the Thursday Rundown for four weeks. To make up for it, here is a cute photo of Sloan and her cousin, Henry. Both babies found themselves in baskets while we were on vacation at Lake Keowee. They stayed in them for maybe 30 seconds before jumping out and resuming to create havoc throughout our vacation house. Gotta love them!

Sloan and Henry hung out in some baskets while on vacation.

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I think a lot of times we forget how lucky we are (me included!!). Take a moment or two to thank God for the many blessings many of us living in this country enjoy. Have a great weekend, everyone. Don’t Blink.

“T” Time

I am due for a multiple topic, random blog post so that is what you will get tonight. But to make things a little more interesting I have a theme for tonight’s five item selection. So not to insult your intelligence I will just let you see for yourself instead of explaining the very elementary thing I am doing. Enjoy!

Timehop – My brother alerted me to this app a couple weeks ago and I must say it is pretty slick. With Timehop every day is #ThrowbackThursday. It gives you a summary of what happened on the current date going back several years. It pulls information from Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and your camera roll to give you a great inside look at what you were doing one, two, three, four, or even more years ago on that date. For a guy like me who has every day of my life recorded in journals since the seventh grade this app is right down my alley.

Here is a sample of what my Timehop report looks like for today.

Here is a sample of what my Timehop report looks like for today.

Turtles – A really cool thing about the campus at Coastal Carolina University is that it has real turtles! Believe it or not a pond sits in the middle of campus and living in it are tons of turtles. They will come right up to the edge of the water and hang out. Most of them have a reddish-orange mark on their heads and the student body has kind of adopted them as an unofficial mascot. I personally like the little guys.

I took this photo of one of the turtles in the Wall Pond at CCU this afternoon.

I took this photo of one of the turtles in the Wall Pond at CCU this afternoon.

Tinkle – Last night news broke that University of Montana men’s basketball coach Wayne Tinkle would become the new coach at Oregon State. I am so happy for Wayne that he has landed a Pac-12 job. When I was at Montana he always treated me very well. He made campus appearances for me, joked around with me, always said hi to me in the music corner right before games, and congratulated me when I took the Coastal Carolina job. Wayne accomplished tremendous success while in Missoula but it goes deeper than that. He raised three awesome kids that also gave so much to the community. The Tinkles will be deeply missed in the state of Montana.

Congrats to Coach Tinkle. The Griz will miss him (photo credit to the legendary Todd Goodrich).

Congrats to Coach Tinkle. The Griz will miss him (photo credit to the legendary Todd Goodrich).

Traffic – In Myrtle Beach you can sometimes run into traffic. Because I get to campus by 6 a.m. each morning I don’t always experience the worst of it but in my three weeks here I have gotten into a couple jams. Today I went out to lunch with Seth Horton, the Sponsorship Director in the Coastal Carolina athletic department. As we came back from Buffalo Wild Wings we got stuck in a little noon time traffic. As we waited for a few minutes Seth put the situation into perspective (I am paraphrasing a little bit): I don’t let the traffic bother me that much because it is made up of people from out of town. They are in the area because they are on vacation. They are choosing to spend their precious time away from the rigors of life in Myrtle Beach. This is our home. People go on vacation where we get to live. I dig it.

Tan – In Myrtle Beach the sun shines constantly, I have the beach practically in my backyard, and I enjoy an awesome pool complex. It is mid-May and I have started to develop a tan. Numerous people have mentioned my color. I try to warn them from here on out I will only get darker. My Italian heritage enables me to become brown during the summer months. I am making sure to let my co-workers know now so that they don’t think I am a total freak once my shade turns borderline black.

As you might be able to tell I am starting to get some color. My friend Sidney and I stand at the Marh Walk at Murrells Inlet this past weekend.

As you might be able to tell I am starting to get some color. My friend Sidney and I stand at the Marh Walk at Murrells Inlet this past weekend.

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Thinking about it, maybe I should have saved this post for Tuesday or Thursday. Oh well, hope you enjoyed the shortness of it. Congrats on conquering Monday, have a great rest of your week. Don’t Blink.