What's in a name?

We had a lovely weekend roadtripping to New York. Sadly, the Porsche is still tucked away for the winter so we took the Passat. We guess-timated a little over two hour drive to Schuyler to a friend's new pellet plant's open house. HA! Nearly five hours later, and a stop in at Herkimer's Police Barracks for directions we arrived.
There was only about an hour left. Still our friend Woody- yes Woody not a nickname- showed us around the place. Bringing me to my first name rant. Some new schmuck- his name is not worth repeating- at their company has started breeding pellet names and bags almost as fast as he's been breeding distributors (aka- unnecessary middle-men). There was then about a two milli-second delay before the chat boards start saying that the pellets in bag A are better than bag B... They also use this tactic to sell their fuel right next door to existing dealers- "you still have your area for bag A..." ((Barf))
We also got to talk to one of our favorite brilliant techno-geeks John. He is fascinating. He's a Canadian married to a US citizen. He lives in the US and she lives in Canada. Works for them. He understands all things mechanical, and electrical, technically, dymanically, etc. etc. His newest toy was a wood/gas camp stove that he retro-fitted to burn pellets (with the addition of two double A batteries.) Art wants one yesterday, of course. I was pulling out my mind's measuring tape to see if we could stuff it into our new wood cook stove to retrofit it to burn pellets.
Our friend's plant is a little bigger than the NH plant, but pretty much the same pieces. Our poor planning meant we barely got to say 'hi' to our friend before he was off and we had to run to get to Art's cousins before dark!
We arrived in the charming little town of Cambridge, NY at about 7:00. They had held dinner for us, but first M gave me a tour of their historic home. It was the trainmaster's home and had many original features like colored glass windows, a beautiful wooden staircase, ceiling medallions highlighting original gas light fixtures, and beautiful wood crown moldings. The basement hosted a marble block foundation, and a brick floor with a herringbone pattern. Great porches and high ceilings completed the look. They seem very happy there and we had a great visit. We asked them how they had chosen to move to this town. M said that she was initially drawn to the area because Cambridge and Greenwich were two very English sounding town's amidst all the others. The area hosted a harmonious mix of farmer's and wealthy retirees or gentleman farmers.
On our ride through NY and back we were having fun with the names of some of the towns, and roads we passed. For example we had to pass through Pittstown to get to his cousins. Who would choose to live in Pitts-town? That reminded me of other New England gems like Athol, and Belchertown. Even the first town we lived in, Amherst, is a little absurd. It was named for Gen. Geoffrey Amherst whose claim to fame was to give the Indians small pox infested blankets to give themselves an advantage in the war. Then you pass roads such as Scary Lane, and Dead End Road- Again- who would want to live there or maybe a better question is who names these roads?!? Then the truly silly names like North South Road, or Old New Boston Road... Of course the road I live on in NH is named after a little boy who wandered off in the woods and was never seen again- ...little creepy-