You just thought I was teasing you with a subject line such as "eggbeater Jesus." Trust me. I'm not.

You know how every town has its share of odd and bizarre landmarks? We've got our share. If you ask most residents about the most memorable landmark in Huntsville, anyone who has been here for five minutes will tell you that the full-sized rockets standing upright by the Space & Rocket Center are the most memorable sights in Huntsville.

*Anyone who has been here for five years will laugh at the idea of Sprocket being the most memorable landmark in town. Any old town, they'll tell you, can put up a fake rocket (see also, that little visitor's center on I-65 at the Alabama/Tennessee border just north of here). They'll drive you down I-565, turn south on Memorial Parkway, take the Governors Drive exit, and tell you to keep looking to your left.

It takes a truly special town to have an Eggbeater Jesus.

On this Election Day I come to you out of sorrow, fear, and this growing urge to register nothing but a protest vote. Geof has reminded me that I can choose to not vote on whichever races I don't feel are worthy of my vote, and suddenly my ballot begins to take on worlds of new sarcastic meaning.

Dear Friends,

Every now and then, this town catches me by surprise.

The first six months I lived here, I hated it and wanted to go 'home' - home, of course, being the quiet swaddle of friends and familiarity that was my collegiate life in Arkansas. But, with everyone graduated and moved away, 'home,' as I remembered it, no longer existed.

Without my friends, Conway was nothing but a collection of streets that connected a series of dormitories.

"Close your eyes and picture a watch hanging in the air, dangling right at the level of your eyes. As your eyes focus on the watch, it begins to move back and forth, the first small arcs growing longer and smoother. Your eyes track the movements and adjust to them, until it seems that it is not the watch that is moving, but instead the room rocking around the watch.