MaustsOnToast » WV

Thanksgiving around the Corner

drew — Sun, 23 Nov 2008 20:29:08 +0000

Gobble gobble. Thanksgiving is right around the corner. I’m not sure what turkey costs a pound normally, but I’ve seen one grocery bragging it had turkeys for $.68/lb and another touting $.67/lb. Unless you’re planning on buying an automobile sized turkey, a penny a pound shouldn’t really make all that difference.

Anyways, I thought I’d do a quick post filling you in on our upcoming Thanksgiving plans. Although I’ve (Drew) not got class all this coming week, Emily’s still got to go Monday and Tuesday for lectures. Our work is closed Thursday and Friday so we’ll be driving up to Beckley Tuesday night to have Thanksgiving with my parents one last time in West Virginia. We’ll then be back in Wake Forest Friday night-ish. This will be the last Thanksgiving in West Virginia for the Maust family as you probably read previously of their planned move to Pennsylvania near Pittsburgh. My mom writes in an email:

I just wanted to update everyone on our moving plans. It seems like the process has been going on forever (since August) but now it’s only 2 weeks away!! The movers will be here Monday Dec 1, it takes 2-3 days for them to pack and load so we will be out on the 3rd. The plan is to close on the house in PA on the 3rd also.

Sounds like it’ll all be happening pretty quick. We’ll be sure to snap some pictures of the Thanksgiving feast while in Beckley.

On a side technical note: I’ve upgraded the MOT server to unlimited disk space and bandwidth for free in exchange for allowing the hosting company to use our site as a tester for an upcoming move and upgrade on they’re planning. So if things may get crazy; but hopefully not too crazy. Just, if you try to access MOT (which I know most of you do daily!) and the server’s down, it’s only a slight malfunction. MOT will still be here and may just be down for the moment. Look on the positive side though: now with unlimited disk space and bandwidth we can blog more, share more videos and pictures, and you can browse more. (Haha. Yeh right! We don’t even come close to using all the disk space and bandwidth we had before unlimited! Oh well.)

Another side note: I’ve set MOT to automatically import posts I do on my personal blog at KataDrew.com to the main page of MOT here. Don’t be confused; read my other blog, too!

That’s all for now. Later!

West Virginia Is Losing Teeth at an Alarming Rate

drew — Mon, 08 Sep 2008 20:55:48 +0000

Charleston’s WSAZ news has this stereotypical story about West Virginian dental hygiene:

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) — Researchers found advanced gum disease in 80 percent of adults studied for a major oral health study in Appalachia.
The project by West Virginia University and the University of Pittsburgh tracked 445 families in both states.
Richard Crout, associate dean for research at WVU’s School of Dentistry, said the study shows rampant periodontal disease in adults, with signs of bone loss in 85 percent of subjects.
Left untreated, periodontitis can lead to bone destruction, tooth loss and even heart disease or stroke.
West Virginia has the highest rate of tooth loss in the country, with a third of residents 35 or younger having lost at least six permanent teeth.
Crout wants more resources for early dental treatment to instill good oral health habits.

Quite comical are the follow-up comments left by disheartened West Virginia natives below the news article at the web site. Don’t miss ‘em!

Goodbye MacTaggart Drive

drew — Fri, 05 Sep 2008 15:11:21 +0000

20433Last weekend we headed up to Beckley to help my parents rid their soon-to-be-for-sale home of any left over junk of mine and to help them get ready for their move to Pennsylvania any way we could. My dad and I chopped down our old wooden play jungle gym dealy (video of the chainsaw action on the videos page). Justin mowed the grass (video of him acting simple on the videos page). My mom cooked up whatever she could find in the freezer. And Emily, well, she lounged on the back deck sipping ice tea! Though she did eventually pick up a broom and get her sweep on.

The Mausts to Pennsylvania

It’s an odd thing to have both our parents moving at the same time and both farther from us. My parents are migrating north to Pennsylvania where my dad has taken a new and exciting job as a land agent for a gas company. I think they’re really looking forward to the move; well, maybe not the actual move, but the being in a new locale will be a refreshing change. They’re hoping to move over Thanksgiving or Christmas.

The Hayes’s to Namibia

Emily’s parents are also moving as of today, September 5th. They’re migrating south to Namibia where Georgina will serve with Voluntary Service Overseas as a volunteer and will be working with visually and hearing impaired children in Rundu in the north of Namibia. See Georgina’s Got No Hair for more info. Once they’re on the ground, we can expect to find regular updates on Nigel and Georgina’s blog at Hayestack.co.uk.

Pictures and Videos

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As I mentioned above, I have added two new videos to the videos page. Further, I have added a bunch of new pictures, some from our weekend with my parents in Beckley and some from our lovely friend Fontaine’s fiesta mexicana which she kindly hosted at her house. Here’s a foretaste, but as always, the money’s in the photo gallery.

I guess now that our family’s have abandoned us in both northerly and southerly directions, we’ll need people to come visit us in Wake Forest. You might have to entertain yourselves because school’s in full force right now, but, hey, come on down and we’ll work something out. Maybe you can cook and clean for us, eh?

Country Roads Cabins

drew — Wed, 30 Jul 2008 00:58:29 +0000

19631Two weekends ago my parents gave my siblings and me something we really needed: a vacation. Why go to the beach or on a cruise or out west when you live in West Virginia? Thus, we went to Ansted, WV to the Country Roads Cabins. I hope this post doesn’t end up with a bunch of hits of people looking for the Country Roads Cabins in Ansted, because you’re not going to find the information you’re looking for here (but you might at their website). Anyways, from that weekend I’ve just added 80ish pictures to our photo gallery which presently gives us over 6000! Raise your hand if you’ve looked at all 6000 of ours pictures? (No one raises hand). I reckon I have. I mean I’ve added them all.

We had a great time spending the weekend with Matt & Christina, Justin, Lexie (my mom and dad’s poonum dog) and my parents. Shame you couldn’t have come along with us.

Congratulations Jason & Suzie Webb!

drew — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

I posted previously about our trip to Huntington, WV, over the weekend of May 23 to celebrate the wedding of our friends Jason and Suzie. Yesterday I finally found the time to re-size, rename, and upload our pictures and two videos. There’s a video of Emily on the Videos page praying at the opening of the service (you might need to turn up the volume quite a bit to hear her as I was seated in the back). Also, you can find around 140ish new pictures in our photo gallery of the rehearsal, shower, wedding, reception as well as a video of the bride’s entrance.

Congratulation, Mr. & Mrs. Webb!

In Huntington with Dress Drama

drew — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

We’re in Huntington, WV, now for our good friend Suzie’s wedding later today. If you’ll recall, this is where we first met. In fact, last night we drove past the house where we really first met at a luau party there the first week of school at Marshall back in August of 2003! The set of steps on the front porch where I first sat down to talk to Emily is till there, though I don’t remember the neighorhood at the time being so sketchy. I guess I had far greater fish to fry than to be thinking urban gentrification. Anyways, the wedding’s this afternoon at 4:00pm. We’re planning on taking bunches of pictures and, of course, they’ll be posted here with the myriad others.

On a more comical note, we left Beckley yestersday where we stayed at my parents’ house. With Emily putting on the bridal, lingerie shower this morning for the bride, we’ve got the car packed down with goodies. Our foremost biggest fear was that we would forget something in Wake Forest. The second biggest fear was that we would forget something in Beckley on the second leg of the trip. Well, while what we feared most didn’t come upon us, the secondary fear did. We (I say Emily, Emily says I) forgot in Beckley the dress she was planning to wear to the shower this morning. Oops.

My mom calls when we’re just pulling into Huntington: “Houston, we’ve got a problem.” Problem indeed. She said, “Don’t worry I can probably find someone that’s headed that way and can have it up to you by morning.” Watch out UPS, Mom’s on the prowl. Sure enough, she texted me about 30 minutes later saying she found someone from church that was headed up to Huntington in the morning for work and could take the dress with! Brilliant. It’s almost 7:30am now so I’ve got to run out to a machine shop just outside of Huntington and pick up a frilly dress.

Can Cold Water Clean Dishes?

drew — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

This is thanks to Simon who swears that this is not a good representation of West Virginians:

John went to visit his 90-year-old grandfather in a very secluded, rural area of West Virginia. After spending a great evening chatting the night away, John’s grandfather prepared breakfast of bacon, eggs and toast.

However, John noticed a film like substance on his plate, and questioned his grandfather asking, “Are these plates clean?”

His grandfather replied, “They’re as clean as cold water can get em. Just you go ahead and finish your meal, Sonny!”

For lunch the old man made hamburgers. Again, John was concerned about the plates as his appeared to have tiny specks around the edge that looked like dried egg and asked, “Are you sure these plates are clean?”

Without looking up the old man said, “I told you before, Sonny, those dishes are as clean as cold water can get them. Now don’t you fret, I don’t want to hear another word about it!”

Later that afternoon, John was on his way to a nearby town and as he was leaving, his grandfather’s dog started to growl, and wouldn’t let him pass.

John yelled and said, “Grandfather, your dog won’t let me get to my car”.

Without diverting his attention from the football game he was watching on TV, the old man shouted, “COLDWATER, GO LAY DOWN NOW, YAH HERE ME!!!”

Hog Wild at the West Virginia State Fair

drew — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

[G2:14449 class=left] Emily and I were able to make it up to the West Virginia State Fair in Lewisburg to catch great, grimey food, stomach-churning rides and Southern California's own, the Beach Boys.

No chicken barn this year, however, for fear of avian flu. (I guess they were too chicken.) Hogs and goats were out in full force (the ones of large girth, as you can see from the picture, were given special permission to ride solo--no one complained). We even bumped into two familiar faces by the bathrooms, Chris & Rhea. Click on the picture to view the rest of the album.

6. Remembering America August 2006: Thanksgiving and Home.

Nigel — Wed, 08 Nov 2006 13:48:56 +0000

Thanksgiving came early to Beckley this year. Duane and Chris kindly invited us to experience a real American Thanksgiving before we went home. We’d had a pretend one in England the year before when Drew came a-wooing (Emily, that is). What a fine lad he is, and also his brothers. Duane and Chris sure know how to bring up kids, don’t they?

Well, the meal was fantastic, turkey, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie – you know the sort of thing. Those settlers certainly ate well. Duane must have been up early that day with his gun, hunting that turkey on Maust Mountain. And Chris, cutting up that pumpkin (which had been the prize item in her vegetable patch) and getting rid of all the seeds. As she’s such a busy lady we wouldn’t have minded if she had opened a tin.

The ride down to Beckley was great. Duane’s car seemed to know where it was going. I needn’t have held the steering wheel. I could have taken a little nap. I thought I was dreaming. Drew was telling us this unbelievable story of two gorillas who had a house in Beckley. Perhaps he meant guerilla as in urban terrorist? Or two very hairy men? No, these were real gorillas. Drew and Matt used to visit them, no doubt to monitor their welfare. Apparently, they would shout and rattle the fence to get the gorillas’ attention. They loved those gorillas.

We took a detour to find the house. The gorillas had gone. So had the fence. No gorillas today. We sped on to McTaggart Drive.

If you ever visit Maust Mansions visit the bathroom. it has such a lovely, warm feeling and well decorated.

The meal was superb. The music afterwards was not. Drew dusted off his saxophone while I thumped on the piano. Sally, Hannah and Justin made noises with a trumpet and danced around the room. Altogether the effect was stunning.

Duane, Chris and Georgina sat with shocked expressions on their faces.

You can have too much of a good thing. The time came to leave. We would be flying back to England in 2 days.

It had been one of the best holidays we had ever had. It was very sad saying goodbye to Emily, but we knew we would be back to see her again in America the Beautiful.

5. Remembering America August 2006: Morgantown

Nigel — Wed, 30 Nov -0001 00:00:00 +0000

Someone once said that Morgantown was the sort of place you could drive through without a second glance. Not true. The official Morgantown website tells us that “Morgantown, WV has been recognized as one of the best small cities in the Country. World-class healthcare, recreation, education, and art facilities complement our strong business community”. And the website wouldn’t lie to us, would it? Morgantown has much going for it. It has an arboretum (as if there weren’t enough trees in WV already). It has a well-recommended university with a transportation system reminiscient of the flights of fancy of Walt Disney. It is surely the Thrift Store capital of the USA if not the whole world. Emily was worried about what we might do in Morgantown for 2 weeks. Silly. Just visiting the Thrift Stores alone would take at least 14 days. We must have visited most of them. One was huge. Old clothes as far as the eye could see. We were overcome. Forget Macey’s or Harrods. For a really awful, sorry, awesome retail experience this Thrift Hyperstore was the one to go for. I jest not. Thrift Stores have an important place in the scheme of things (especially if you don’t have much money). Besides, once you have worn someone else’s pants a few times they become your own. The Salvation Army Store was my favourite. Small and compact. A Thrift Store of human proportions. It’s main attraction was dirt cheap bottles of Mountain Dew and Dr Pepper. Admittedly, the old Dr had lost his fizz (isn’t that true for us all), but the Mountain Dew still packed a punch. I loved those dinky little transportation pods. Straight from the Magic Kingdom. We had to try. The station was empty. We’d have a pod to ourselves. A swarm of students arrived with the first pod. Same with the next. It was no use but to play sardines or give up the attempt. It was dark by the time we arrived at the university (Academic Land in the Magic Kingdom). We saw the main attraction. Looking through the street window was the very chair that Drew had sat in that very morning in his Japanese class. Our holiday was complete. By the time we started back the station was closed. It said so at the entrance. We charged up the stairs. Pods were moving but not in our direction. It took us 20 minutes to realise we were standing in the wrong place. We ran around the corner. Deserted. It would be a long walk home. Keep the faith. After 15 minutes a pod cheekily darted around the corner. It was ours. We could have smothered it with kisses. Our other trip to the university was to see the movie United 93. This was topical as we had only just visited the actual site near Shanksville, PA. A truly moving experience. It was an ordinary field with ordinary grass and ordinary trees. It looked as though nothing much could have happened there. Yet, it had been a place of true, extraordinary heroism where ordinary people had fought with evil for the sake of the good. People had left tee shirts, badges, clothes, all fading in the light. The Stars and Stripes, fraying at the edges, flapped in the breeze. It had been a triumph of goodness over evil and had been achieved through the actions of ordinary men and women. They will not be forgotten.