Fun-filled Fourth and More

This has been an eventful weekend. First, the fourth of July. It began, as many of my days recently have, at around 4:45 AM. Somehow, I felt ridiculously functional, and decided to make my computer more useful. So, I installed Apache, MySQL, MediaWiki, and LXR. There's more to come on that.

When the rest of the world woke up, people came over and we kayaked. 'We' being the girl, Amanda, Ken, and I. It were fun. Check out our route. Afterward, we cooked enough food to choke a small family of elephants, and somehow did not meet our demise. 'We,' in this case, additionally included Tim and Samantha. We ended up watching the Wedding Singer, and lapsing into restful (I hope) comas following.

Sometime during the day or night, we decided to start rating beers, and needed a place to store the ratings. Fortunately, I installed a wiki on my computer earlier. Some DNS magic later, my friends have access, and we now have a wiki with beer, wine, recipes, and other random junk.

Breakfast came and went the next morning at a nearby diner in Pasadena. I had some tasty french toast. Amanda and Ken left, and Jessie and I then learned that our basement had a stomach ache. Our sump pump was making some seriously sickening gurgling noises. Several trips to Lowes ensued, and we now have a new sump pump. Later, we went to Sandrew's house to begin an enjoyable eve.

At Sandrew's place, we began by taking a tour of the neighborhood on Drew's refurbished electric scooter. Good stuff. I never thought the thing could have been so fun. A bunch more food, enough to choke the former elephant family's giant mutant offspring's family, and then Katie and Jon came over. The girl also jumped in the pool, fully clothed, to rescue a drowning Corona bottle. Because of her hard work, we'll have one more Corona bottle in the world, saved from being one of the many of the horrible statistic of Corona bottles that have drowned in pools.

Sunday: Climbing day! Ken, Amanda, the girl, and I went to Rockville! I love that gym. I wish I lived a bit closer. I'm still sore from climbing. We ate dinner at the Mongolian Barbeque, went back, and waited out the storm at Amanda's place, with ice cream! Thanks Amanda!

Electronic Salvation

Eventful day today. Let me begin by saying, "Happy anniversary Karina and Kohnke." We were fortunate enough to spend some of today with them. We four went kayaking at Quiet Waters park. And so the fun begins...

My day began at 4:00 AM. I woke up for absolutely no reason whatsoever. Yesterday I put the Yakima rack on my car, and the plan this morning was to finish it off with the easy-to-mount kayak saddles. Seven out of eight bolts later, it becomes apparent that I'm one bolt short of a full rack, so to speak. So, 7:30 AM trip to ACE Hardware, to return shortly thereafter with the piece. Poof! Kayak rack is up and on. I'm so lucky that people who like to work on their homes wake up early.

Part two of the exciting adventure began at 9:00 AM. My initial estimate was that it would take about a twenty minutes to get the kayaks onto the car. Sure it would... Forty minutes later, the Kohnkes get a call from us, which was to be the first of many. Then, since our original plan was to stop briefly to get Dunkin Donuts for breakfast, we did so because we hadn't eaten and our combined stomachs would have triggered a good-sized earthquake. Of course, the line at DD could have wrapped a few times around the equator with room to spare for a return trip to the moon. Second phone conversation with Kohnkes ensues, informing them that we'll be a half hour late.

Trip to Annapolis continues (finally) with a tasty breakfast, eaten quickly in the car. Kayaks remain securely fastened to the RSX. All is looking good. "How do we get there?" Of course, neither of us knows. But we think we do, which is all that's important in the grand scheme of things. One wrong turn and several miles down, enter call number three to Kohnkes. After she returns our call, we're on the right track, ETA 45 minutes late.

We show up to Quiet Waters, find the parking area, and we're now 50 minutes late, which is something that my body and brain like to physically remind me of with every ounce of my scarred psyche. After pulling down the kayaks and walking the 30 more miles to the water, we're on the water in the kayaks. Finally. My body is screaming at this point from all the expended energy and muscular distress, and we barely started.

Now do most of that in reverse (except make it 85 degrees instead of 70), get us home , and give me about enough time to eat lunch, and then off to climbing. Yup, climbing.

Every part of me wishes fiercely that I wouldn't move right now. So I'm not. Fortunately, the fingers still work.

And now the punchline... The girl has wanted a GPS unit for awhile now, and Stealdeals had a link to a Garmin GPS for a good discount, so we immediately decided to make it a part of our family. Electronic Salvation is on the way to our front door...
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Kiteyaking

So, we were kayaking today (the girl, Amanda, Ken, and I), and the wind was up quite a bit. I learned quickly that using a paddle as a sail doesn't work so well. Not that you don't get momentum, because you do, but because you have no torque to use to rotate. Don't get me wrong; if you don't mind ending up dashed on the rocks, then by all means, please do. However, in making this determination, we happened across a new term, and potentially a new pasttime; kiteyaking. Ken has a trick kite. We all have kayaks. It's worth a shot. I mean, what could possibly go wrong? :-)

The girl is putting up pictures.