popefelix

After hearing about the trouble Darla Wynne was having with the Town Council of Great Falls, and hearing that folk were going up there to show solidarity, hlynna and I decided that we'd like to go. kajiracad offered us a ride, so we all piled into her car and drove up to Great Falls.


We left town about 14:30. It's only about 3 hours up there, but we figured we ought to allow for traffic and stops and such. Traffic and stops and such turned out not to be a big deal at all, so by the time we were approaching Great Falls, it was only about 17:00 or so. So we stopped briefly at Lake Wateree State Park along the way.

How does a lake get a name like Wateree? Couldn't they think of anything more imaginative? Aren't all lakes (unless they're dried up, in which case they're lake beds, non?) wateree - er, watery?

Well, regardless of a truly unimaginative name for a lake, it was a nice lake. I'd like to go back there sometime when there's a bit more time, so as to hike and such. We left Lake Wateree, and drove on up I-77 in search of High Falls State Park, which kajiracad was up 77 somewhere. Apparently it wasn't, so we turned around in the outskirts of Rock Hill. We stopped at a Dairy Queen there so that I could pee, and hlynna could have an ice-cream cone (chocolate dipped). So I went inside, used the head, and then got in line for ice cream. There were three girls, relatively cute, but rather skinny, ahead of me, and their order was apparently really time-consuming. They had a thing whereby you drop a quarter into a tank of water, and if you can catch your quarter on this rotating platform, you win a free Blizzard. I had had some success with this back home in Litchfield, so I decided to give it a go. I got it on my second try! So I got hlynna her chocolate dip cone, and I got an Oreo Blizzard. Yummy.

By this time, it was 18:30. The town meeting started at 19:00, and we were nearly 30 miles from Great Falls! So we beat feet out of there, and made it to Great Falls at just about 19:00. After walking around a little bit trying to find the Town Hall, a friendly policeman showed us where it was, and told us where to sit for the town meeting.

We got in, and sat down. All told, there were about a dozen Pagan types who came, and maybe two dozen people there in total. We apparently missed the invocation, but Darla said that they didn't invoke the name of Jesus Christ, which was in compliance with the court order. We all sat, politely, through the meeting. They didn't say a word about us, or Darla's lawsuit, or the court order, but they did go into an executive session. It was supposed to take 15 minutes, but ended up taking 40 minutes. During that time, Darla and a bunch of people went outside to smoke, and hlynna and I went outside to socialize. We met a couple of military types down from Fort Jackson who had come down to support Darla, and a reporter from the Rock Hill Herald. I made a comment to her about Jefferson's "wall of separation" between church and state, but it didn't make the story. :( Ah well. No big whoop. :)

Afterwards, we went out for dinner with Darla and co. to Tiffany's Diner, where I had a good cheeseburger. The service was excellent as well.



We got home about midnight, maybe 0:30. hlynna turned on The N (cable network), where they showed the video for a spectacularly bad song called "Dare You To Move," by a band called "Switchfoot." Awful. Equally bad was an episode of Clueless (the TV series based on the movie of the same name) guest starring Tim Conway. I know work is work, but oy! I elected to put away the clean laundry, then go downstairs and fix hlynna's computer.

hlynna's machine was not detecting either of the hard drives installed. This has happened before - at the time, the installed Zip drive had been connected to the IDE bus, but hadn't been powered. I disconnected the Zip drive from the IDE bus, and life was beautiful once again.

This time, the Zip drive was not connected to the IDE bus. The only thing on that IDE bus was the CD-RW. When I disconnected the CD-RW, and booted the machine, the hard drives were detected with no problem. And, interestingly enough, when I shut the machine down and reconnected the CD-RW, the hard drives were detected. I'm not sure what to make of this, but it worries me a little.


I'd like to note that the people of Great Falls were nothing but polite and cordial to myself and my companions.

I'd also like to thank kajiracad for giving us a ride up there, and buying us dinner. :)

For more information: A Google News search for "Darla Wynne"