Whirlwind Weekend

The weekend past was one of those where I feel like I never got to just sit down and relax. That’s not to say it wasn’t a lot of fun, but still…you know what I mean?

After work on Friday, The Boyfriend and I cleaned and cleaned, and then we cleaned some more. I went to the grocery and got the makings for the Fabulous Haw-Asian Dinner I was serving on Saturday. I did all the prep for that, showered, and fell into bed, immediately asleep, around 10 o’clock. I can’t even recall what I ate for dinner that night. Oh, yes. Frozen pizza.

Saturday was a wake-up-bright-and-early-with-anticipation day. We were going kayaking with some coworkers, and it was to be their first time on the water. Preparing two people for a day-long trip on the water is surprisingly more complicated than it sounds. I wonder if we take too much stuff with us. After finishing the prep for dinner, I helped The Boyfriend pack all of our gear and load the boats into the truck. Admittedly, he did a whole lot more of the work than I did.

On the trip, I got to test out some new gear:

• A new gel seat, since my boat only has a plastic molded one. Thumbs up on the Skwoosh.
• A new first aid kit. The last one was bought for camping at the Super Huge Discount Superstore of Evil and turned out to not be waterproof. This one is in a dry bag and will hopefully stand the test of my many capsizes. We didn’t need the first aid kit, which is a mystery but a good one.
• A new waterproof (really, I mean it this time) bag for important things like my ID, my phone, and The Boyfriend’s camera (which we still double-bagged because we weren’t trusting of the waterproof claim). It really is waterproof. That bag rocks.
• A locking carabiner, which was totally cool and useful for securing the bag mentioned above. I was worried that a regular carabiner might come undone, somehow and my important good s would be lost. I’m paranoid about losing my phone and afraid that The Boyfriend would seriously maim me for losing his camera, so I liked the locking aspect of this carabiner.
• A paddle leash that proved to be worth the $16 price that I thought was pretty steep. Couldn’t I just make this thing? Probably not. It features a hook-and-eye strap on each end of a coiled length of cord. One strap attaches to your paddle, the other to your wrist or boat. I didn’t like it attached to my wrist, so I strapped it to my boat, and now, I don’t have to worry about a floating-off paddle.
• A new paddle. It rocks my old paddle out of the water. The paddles are scooped, which allows the paddler to move more water with the same stroke. My old paddle sported flat ends and I wasn’t a fan. Good thing that one was free. Now, we have a spare paddle.
• A Camelbak water bottle. PBA-free. I’m glad to find that out via the Camelbak website. I worried about the #7 recycle symbol because it was the same as the Nalgene bottles, which aren’t PBA-free. It’s easier to drink from than a Nalgene (since you don’t have to unscrew the lid). I also like the harder carrying loop it sports.
• S-shaped, double opening carabiner. This was an awesome way to attach the water bottle to my seat gusset. I struggle with opening carabiners on the fly because I’m just challenged, that way. This one had two openings, so I could always get it quickly for a sip.

Good, Lord. That’s a lot of new gear. New for next week will be a pair of shorts that tries much harder to stay dry. Next challenge? Keeping water out of the bottom of my boat. Also (and how excited am I about this?) – new shoes! The water shoes I bought were cheapies. Frankly, they sucked. Yeah, they were fine to get wet, but they provided no cushion or structure against walking on the rocks and shore. I also blame them for the busted knee I got when I slipped on a rock. The new ones are fancy schmancy L.L. Beans and are a LOT like the expensive Keen’s I covet.

Ok, back on track with the weekend. After we kayaked about 12 miles, everyone headed back to be annoyed by our dogs, drink a couple of beers, and eat dinner. All parties were nearly falling asleep in their salads. As soon as our guests left and showers were taken, we were sleeping like babies.

The Boyfriend made pancakes, at my request, on Sunday morning. Even though I had to go to the store twice, dressed like a bum, under threat of severe weather, they were worth it. His pancakes are awesome. I went to my mom’s house to spend the day with her. She liked the gift, I think. We drove around the countryside, trying to find the Wildlife Sanctuary, but it was raining by the time we got there. No bird watching for us. Maybe another day. We did go watch some fish, though. We watched it go from the plates to our mouths, held by chopsticks. Sushi, baby! We ate until we were pleasantly stuffed, one more piece and we’d have been miserable. Then, it was back to her house to organize her scrapbooking equipment. She has a room that’s dedicated to that and toys. She’s got a TON of stuff. We didn’t make much headway, but we made some and sort of have a plan for the future. Dinner with the ‘rents and The Boyfriend rounded out the weekend.

This morning, back to the grind. I need another day of weekend!

1000 Strong

In checking my Flickr stats, today, I noticed that I have had 1,000 picture views. That’s probable a paltry number to the wonderful artists whose work is on Explore all the time, but I was excited to see it. I thought I’d pick an image or two to share with you.

This is the most viewed public image in my photostream.

For those of you reading who aren’t (gasp!) Kentucky fans, that is a picture of Sam Bowie. He played at Kentucky for three seasons and was drafted second in the 1984 NBA Draft – sandwiched between greats like Hakeem Olajuwon and Michael Jordan. I think if he hadn’t struggled with knee injuries, he could’ve been a hall of fame player. Back to the photo, though. I took this on February 10, 2004 at Rupp Arena after a basketball game. I think it’s a pretty boring shot and am surprised that it’s my “most viewed” of all time.

Most of my images are private because of safety concerns. I get caught up in events and taking lots of pictures with people in them so they don’t always qualify as interesting or having good (well, any, really) photographic composition. However, I think snapshots are the gateways to so many memories. My family often sits around on holidays going through boxes of old pictures and they can remember thousands of stories through those pictures. So, while I might enjoy looking at pictures of kayaks in creeks or rose petals, in the long run, I like snapshots of people I love better. (I do like shots of cows’ butts, too, though.) For the sake of equality, here is one “interesting” photo of people and here is one that brings back a great memory.

This is the interesting one. Although I can find flaws in every picture of myself (my eyes are stupid lopsided, too much gum shows, etc.) I really like this of my cousin and I. I let her have the camera for a while, last Saturday, and she took all kinds of crazy pictures. This one is cool, though, to me. I like faces. They are all so different.

I love this picture. Not just because the boys are being goofballs, but because I love all those people in the picture and I loved that day. We were all completely hungover because the night before was spent ringing in the New Year at a remote cabin with lots of alcohol, a hot tub, and a fire pit, but we were determined to hike to the top of Natural Bridge. It’s only, like, a 3 mile hike. To a bunch of hungover people, though, that seemed like 10 miles. You never heard so much bitching and moaning! It was so fun, though, our shared misery. We saw lots of cool things along our hike, but this shot shows us as what we were, a close group of friends (with some notables missing!) having a great time just hanging out together. We didn’t need fancy bars or swanky cocktail parties or even a holiday to have fun together. We could have fun even in the direst of champagne-induced headaches.

The Claw

You guys are going to hate that I’ve found a new hobby. I’m going to wear you out with it. On Sunday, The Boyfriend and I took my newly-teenaged cousin on his first kayak trip. We did the same 6-mile run that we did a few weeks, ago. The water was significantly faster and higher, though, since we got quite a bit of rain in the days before. The Boyfriend decided to test his new paddling skills on a stretch of creek known as The Claw. Here it is:

Not just spam e-mail, anymore.

I went fishing, today. This was Jason and my’s third trip, the second this week. Before I met him, I’d only been fishing once – way back in the day with my grandfather. We go to this cute little pond in the next county over, way out in the sticks. On Wednesday, we took an impromptu half-day vacation to enjoy the 70+ degree weather and beautiful sunshine. The fish were biting. A great example of that was Jason’s showing me how to cast my line near a fallen tree without getting it caught up. As soon as he cast, while trying to hand the pole off to me, he got a bite. He caught my first fish, ever, for me! It was like that pretty much all day. Constant biting. I did lose a couple of bobbers because I insisted that fish live in trees – else, why else would I cast directly into branches?

Today’s trip was a little different, though. We were looking forward to more warm weather and sunshine. What we got was a dreary, chilly, sprinkly day. We went to the fishing hole that will probably be our “regular” one, but no luck. We only stayed about 15 minutes. There was nothing even nibbling! Then, we drove around for a while looking for another fishing hole. I love driving around, especially in that part of the county. In these days of $4.20/gallon diesel and concern about my carbon footprint, not a lot of that happens. We did stop by the local, historical covered bridge and fished there, for a while. Jason had much more luck than I did. I get impatient and want to constantly cast, reel and re-cast. He’s more patient (big surprise!), and he was rewarded with a pretty large Rock Bass.

All in all, even though we threw back everything we caught, we had a pretty good time just passing that day with driving and fishing. I’m convinced, though, that we need a little boat. How much would I love just trolling up the creek and wiling the day away?

New Header

That, there, is a new header, folks. It sucks, I think, but was the best I could come up with when I was playing around with Paint.net, last night. The horse’s head is blurry, but that’s what you get when you go to Keeneland on a cloudy day and freeze your ass off. The grass is fine and is from my yard, hence all the weeds. I like the fonts for the text pretty well.

Eh.

That’s all I’ve got.