writ. dodging classification

One thousand and Thirty. Thats about how many miles Laurie and I crossed this weekend.

Ok Ok.. we didn’t drive most of them (thank god!) but we did ride in a car at least for all of them. All the driving for the first event of the weekend was done by Laurie’s dad (with the exception of me driving down to southern MD to get to her parents house). Saturday morning we were off to almost the most south western part of Virginia, basically almost Tennessee, in the Appalachian Mtns. I was invited to come along to a Family reunion 4th of July weekend thing that Laurie’s Dad’s side of the family does every year. These are some down home country folk. This means of course 1. They’re extremely friendly. 2. Their closest neighbor is outside shouting distance (except maybe family) 3. Really really good and fattening food, and lots of it.
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Thursday last week (16th of June): Wow what a perfect day to take off work and go down to the beach and hang out near the boardwalk of Ocean City, MD. Thats exactly what we did. Laurie, myself, Boehm and Erin. Not exactly sure if the day could have turned out better. laid out in the sun a good portion of the day, and got into the surf and played around. Was some really good times. Then later in the night we played some mini-golf to which i keep losing to Laurie in, to which i just say is just luck ;). Then we got food at BJ’s on the water-front of the bay in Ocean City.

Weekend: I was jet-skiing for the first time ever at Laurie’s uncles place. I wasn’t able to drive myself cause i needed a permit thing that I forgot to do the online course for the week before, but i was able to ride along. I made one error in my judgement on this endeavor. It was thinking that my girlfriend, a very sweet girl, wouldn’t in fact be trying to throw me off of the jet ski by turning really hard or going fast or doing something silly like that. I was wrong of course, and by the time we got out on the river a good distance from land sure enough she made a turn an easy one at first, and then she really cut into it. Too which of course i hadn’t readied my balance on the thing yet and wasn’t leaning into the turn so there i go flying off into the water. Of course i just passed it off as that I wanted to cool down and get in the water anyways so that seemed like the opportune time. I only fell off once more, but the second time Laurie, in fact went with me. Now I’m not going to say i pulled her off the jet ski or not, but she came off with me, and in fact i felt her slipping off before i lost my grip on the thing. So lets just say thats in history and need not be debated who did the falling and who did the throwing exactly on that turn. I had the chance to go water skiing, but declined for Saturday. I want to do it, but I just wasn’t’ feeling as up to it for whatever reason. I sorta wanted a beer, and realize that was counter-productive to water sports ;). So I’m sure we’ll be down her uncle’s place again, on a good day for water skiing so I can give her family a good laugh at me learning to do it.

Last night. Enter.. Movie plans, dinner plans. Two things that seemingly are simple events to coordinate and find information on. The Movie: Mr and Mrs. Smith. The dinner, some place in “The Avenue” area of White Marsh Mall (which ended up being Red Brick Brewery restaurant). The Players: Myself and Laurie, Boehm and Erin, Jason and Rachel (With a special guest appearance by Jeff, Laurie and Erin’s friend from college).
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Sunday, I went to the Air Show at Andrews Air Force Base with Laurie and her friend Michelle. It was pretty fun time. The girls even put up with my fountain of random facts that I know about military planes. I think they were tuning half of what i was saying out, but I think i was at least able to tell them a few things they found interesting. I sort of surprise myself with the amount of that stuff that I still remember, since I don’t really keep up reading and watching shows on that sort of thing as much as I used to when i was younger. Then again i do catch the odd Discovery or History channel show and pick up more interesting tidbits every so often. We got to see the Thunderbirds fly, whom i haven’t seen in a while. They weren’t flying their full 6 planes for some reason on Sunday, for reasons that we either missed or weren’t given (we saw the beginning of their show outside the range of the announcement speakers. Good show none-the-less. Always fun to see 2 F-16s hurtling at each other with their afterburners on, to tilt themselves left at the last second passing each other by. When we got to the show we were pretty lucky as well. When we were just getting off of the bus (we got in for the afternoon half) they were doing the AV-8 Harrier jet demo. Thats always something I personally like seeing in action. If you don’t know, its a vertical take off and landing jet. It can sit there and just hover in the air using a complex setup of engines that rotate around. They call it V/STOL (vertical/short takeoff and landing), but i digress. There was of course a whole slew of static display planes that we went around and looked at and I was able to tell Laurie and Michelle about if they asked about them (and sometimes if they didn’t haha). Good times.

Well even though it called for it, and there were a quite a few clouds, the only rainy day we had lately was Friday. Otherwise, the weekend was perfect, which rocked. Friday night was Howl at the Moon, good times, as always with that place.

Ok Saturday. I pick the one game in the series of the Phillies and Orioles 3 game stint in Baltimore, for the Phillies to tank. Friday Phillies do good, Sunday Phillies lay the smack down on the O’s. Saturday, the game i was at, with Boehm of course, and my brother and my sister-in-law (who had different seats but we got them to come up and get seats where we were eventually) the Phillies, tank and don’t even put a run on the board. It was an alright game, and I saw it coming since Vicente Padilla was pitching (who really didn’t throw that bad a game, it was just terrible pitcher relief management that really did it).

But, it was a great night to be at a baseball game and was really enjoyable anyways. Plus, the big PLUS. We got to go down to the bowls of the O’s stadium loading dock and take a peak inside the TV production van that my brother Jim’s friend Nick works in. He gave us the full tour and it was a pretty cool thing. He works alot of the away game video and HD feeds for baseball games, and just portable production trucks for lots of other sporting events. It was a pretty cool experience, and pretty much made the day. We got to see how fast the camera men can find a cute woman in the stands, so that was funny. Took about 4 seconds for the one camera guy, I’m sure he’s quite experienced at this, they all seem to be ;).

So yesterday was thursday. I took the day off, because we had gone to see the midnight showing of the new Star Wars movie: Revenge of the Sith (see synopsis in previous post ;)). So i woke up around 11:30 in the AM, and shortly there after Boehm and I headed off to golf at Rocky Point golf course. A Fine, fine course run by the Baltimore County public golf courses. Its such a nice place to play, and weekdays for fee’s and a cart is only 23 bucks. The thing that makes it great, is that its right on the upper end of the Cheasepeake Bay. There’s this 1 Par 3, 188 yard hole that is literally right next to the bay. You start up high so you have just an awesome vantage point to look out over the water, and see the light house way on the other side of the bay (not to far at this far north of the bay, but still a distance). From there Boehm was telling me some stories of him and his grandfather boating out on the bay, and putting the boat out and going to a small island out past the light house he was pointing too. I think its a story i’ve heard before, but a good one none the less, and I’m always glad to hear some personal history when we’re out at cool places like that.

Even with that, the day was perfect, and it was probably one of my more enjoyable days golfing in a long while. (I shot a 111, I had some really good holes, and some bad holes, but overall i was content with what i shot). The one thing with golf that I can say. Is that no matter how bad i do on any hole, if i have that one perfect shot or really good hole, that makes my day. I remember them too. Yesterday i had a beautiful 5 wood fairway shot that left me on the green of the 8th hole in 2 strokes (it was a par 4). I had a long shot for birdie that i missed, and I ended up just missing the hole on a shot that I had made previously in the day to miss par. So the whole ended up as a bogey. But really i didn’t care, because that 5 wood shot was just that awesome and perfect. Makes you realize you can be good, and makes the game worth playing. It just feels good to do something like that, even if you’re not consistent.

just got in

badass.

is all i can say.

So lets see. Where am i today.

I’m at work. CHECK
I’m going to run after work. CHECK
I’m on a telecon at the moment. CHECK *sigh*
I had a pretty good weekend. CHECK
I need to burn a CD when i get home CHECK

Ok so I just feel like recapping things today. I’m feeling in that mood. Lately I’ve just been posting foto stuff on my site, cause I’ve had a rash of interesting stuff related to that lately. I’m about 20something pictures into my first Lomo LC-A roll. I’ve been taking a lot of random pictures, we’ll see how they all turn out. Hopefully a few will be good.

On Friday I went out with Laurie and we got Mongolian BBQ at this place down in Bethesda (I can’t remember the name of the place right now.) Mmmmm Mongolian BBQ. That stuff is sooo good. The place was a little crowded but we got our food fine, and we had a lot of time to talk about a bunch of random stuff. It was good. Laurie you ask? Yep Laurie, she’s a girl i met a couple of weeks ago. We’ve been doing a lot of stuff together lately. Partly i guess the reason why i haven’t been putting much up on the blog .. not as much time ;) (which is a good thing). So she enters the cast of characters i talk about on my weblog hehe. But i think most who read my weblog probably know details already. After dinner we went for a walk through her neighborhood, it was cool. So many trees, my car got covered in pollen in about 2 minutes. I’m amazed my allergies haven’t been working me over worse than they are right now.

Saturday i headed up to Philly to visit my Mom for mother’s day a day early. My dad washed my car and my mom and I headed out to best buy to look at movies. It was cool. Then we got home and eventually we got some fried chicken from the Giant for dinner. Mom didn’t want to deal with going out for mother’s day, since she doesn’t like the crowds and the waiting, and the random chance the food is less than par. Which i understand. I can’t argue, its her day, we do what she wants :). I got her a cool card that is true to life. It was a funny card showing an attic with a bunch of old high school stuff and report cards and junk that have been left at the house. Inside it thanked her for keeping watch over all my old junk ;). She liked it a lot, so i was happy, i knew it was a winner.

Though, I have to say, Jim and Melissa (my brother, and his wife) trumped my mother’s day card by a long shot. When we started dinner they had come over to my parents house, and got dinner with us. Mom was already eating, but Jim and Melissa insisted that she open her Mother’s day card. At first she said she’d get to it after dinner, but they kept insisting. So she opened it up finally after a few minutes of cajoling. At first she thought the card was a mistake. It was a Grandmothers, happy Mother’s day card. She said “oh how nice, but i think you made a mistake?” and then a second later it kicked in. She’s going to be a grandmother.. my brother and sis-in-law are going to have a kid!!!. It was so cute how they told us. It all made sense now why they were trying to get everybody together at the same time. Melissa is going to the first ultra-sound this week i believe (I’ll have a pic up when they scan and get it to me). They think they’re about almost 2 months along now.

I’M GONNA BE AN UNCLE!! thats so awesome. I’m so happy for them.

Sunday, I ended up going out with Laurie to a family get together, for food, and talk. I was down her place early so we went out to the gym and worked out. (Grrrrrrrrr) I got bored with the treadmill as I always do and decided to go ride a stationary bike, which for some reason i can just phase out on, whereas I can’t do that yet with a treadmill. I’ve just got to get more into running is all, once i do that I’ll have no problems with the treadmill. Until then longer runs I do will be outdoors around the block and such, its easier for me to set a goal of a distance that way, because i can see where I’m going, and i know I’ve gotta get back to my apartment somehow. After working out we got ready to head out and meet her family and some uncles and aunts and her grandmother for mother’s day. So i met them all, and I met her little 13 year old sister, Kristin (sp?), as well. She’s a trip. Everybody was pretty cool and we had a good time, i think i spent half my day laughing.

So that was my weekend. Action packed.

So one last time .. I’m gonna be an Uncle .. Uncle Mike .. i think that sounds cool.

Friday night I was out into DC to meet up with Emily and make our way to the Staccato in DC, to see Communist Bakesale play a show, w/ The Jones and a band called the Roustabouts. I’d have to say, and since Mat said it already, it was probably their best show yet. As far as crowd, playing and the whole scene in general. The place was packed by the time Bakesale got off stage. They even got cheered into doing an encore song, which I hadn’t seen happen before. Lets get to the point. The big thing about this show is that the crowd was great. We had people dancing, and carrying on and cheering. For the first half of the show I was working to door for the band, taking the cover charge. But about half way through the show i moved on and was dancing. I have to say i think I met a whole lot of new people who made it out to see the guys play, friends and friends of friends. It also was a product of “The Jones” keyboardist being a guy, David, that I’ve met before when I was painting mat and Emily’s house, as well as other get togethers. His wife Catherine was there, and friends they know. This was kinda cool since I’ve heard about the Jones through Catherine and Dave, but hadn’t been able to get out to see them, till now. Both bands played great shows. The place stayed packed for when the Jones came on. I’d have to say I think its a blur of all the people I met. I guess the only person to note that I hadn’t met before, but spent a good amount of time hanging out and talking with, was this cool cute girl, Kelly, whom is friends with Catherine through some convoluted roommate brother’s cousin type of connection. (i guess just about as convoluted as how I know mat and Emily). She apparently has made it out to quite a few of “The Jones” shows but has wanted to see Communist Bakesale. Sorta the inverse of me going to Bakesale shows I guess. Though this time she arrived too late to see Bakesale play. Which means, of course, that I was harassing her to come out and actually see Bakesale when they play something down in DC again. The rest of the people who made it out that i know were regulars of these types of things (Lance, Emily, Catherine, Erika, some people I think Emily knows through work .. and other people with various connections to either Communist Bakesale or The Jones). A good portion of us were dancing through both shows, which just iced the cake on the packed bar. It really looked like the guys were having a lot of fun playing as well.

Nobody really had the energy to stay around for the Roustabouts to play, because it was pretty damn hot in the place by the time they were coming on, and everybody was either tired or hungry. (of the people i was hanging out with that is, the place stayed pretty packed when we left ;))So with that Mat, Emily, Eric, Myself, Kelly, and her roommate (a guy whom i can’t seem to remember his name for the life of me) headed off to get falafel down the street from the Staccato. Catherine and David would have come along I believe, but they had to get home to sleep for their early ass flight to go to Costa Rica on vacation (man i wish i was going on vacation!!!). I ended up forgoing the falafel, and got some fries of which everybody else was vulturing from. What i really needed was the soda I got as well, i was so dehydrated.

The last thing, was if i hadn’t been so hot in the place, and kinda exhausted, in need of getting out into the night air, i would have wanted to see a couple of songs from the Roustabouts, for one intriguing reason. Of their musicians, they had a guy with a violin, that had it running through a WahWah pedal. He was testing out the sound before we left, so we heard a small taste of what it sounded like. I have to say that’d be pretty cool.. I’m ALWAYs a big fan of the Waaah.

Also i got a few pictures I took with the K1000 from the show, but they’ll be forthcoming when I finish the role and get it developed.

Part two of my easter weekend the continuation of what i was up to:

2. Go see Tim’s and bill’s comic/gaming shop that they opened in Downingtown. This I’ve been plotting for months (like even before Christmas) I just never got up there, so since this was my “triumphant” return to the area I figured I had to do this finally. Since Chris hadn’t seen the place i picked him up once he was awake and I got into the area on Saturday and we headed out on a trip to find this comic place. It took us about an hour and a half because, ONE: We didn’t know where the shop was except a vague idea and TWO: we of course wouldn’t actually just call the shop to figure out exactly where it was. So needless to say we eventually did call Tim and realized we were headed the right direction and he told us some landmarks to look for. The place is called Fat Cat Comics in Downingtown, PA, on W Lancaster Ave. Right down from the Rita’s water ice. They’ve got a big neon sign that says “Electronics Gallery” probably from the previous owners. Really cool place I’m pretty impressed with it. The place seems to be really coming around.

3. I went out to dinner with my cousin Jack, his wife Jen, My brother Jim, and my Sister-In law Melissa. We hit the Outback. I got the Alice’s Spring chicken, the best thing on the menu, it was delicious. Its got all you need. Fries, Chicken, Bacon, and Cheese. If thats not heaven I don’t know what is. It was a good dinner of talking about a lot of crazy things, and laughing. Sidesplitting even. I’ll leave it at that. I get to see jack and his family far too little, it was good to be able to get out with them. :)

Then Easter day was a good day of food and lounging around with my brothers big Chocolate Labrador, Rocky. My dad did his best impression of Martha $tewart and made this crazy thing called a Turkey Roll. Really good, and very moist turkey, which almost seems a contradiction in terms, until you have this thing. After that I just headed back to my apartment, since I didn’t want to be driving later at night and wanted some time to just wind down at home, before sleeping and getting back to work today.

Overall a pretty good weekend, got to see a bunch of people in just 2 days, and hopefully it won’t be so long until i am back up in that area again.

Wow for some reason i feel like i’m almost way too matter of fact with my account of the weekend. Hmm.. I dunno maybe I can spice it up sometime. But really it was a well needed uncomplicated weekend, visiting with family and friends back home.