Adventures in the South

Here are some things I did while on a recent business trip to Huntsville, AL.

• Ate southern food: grits, biscuts and gravy, greens, chicken fried steak, hushpuppies, fried catfish.
• Ate fruit salad with my fingers after dropping my spork on the airport floor.
• Went to Wal-Mart to get a feel for the local way of life. It was completely indistinguishable from the Wal-Mart in Tewksbury and not very different at all than the Wal-Mart in Sao Paulo, Brazil.
• Drove a rental car in third gear for two days before I mastered the subtleties of Nissan's automatic transmission controls.
• Visited an army base and didn't see a single person doing pushups or running in formation.
• Sat in an endless series of meetings while thinking only about how to optimize my water consumption to maintain that oh-so-delicate balance between dehydration and needing to use the bathroom more than my seven month pregnant co-worker.