Blowin' Up

The 4th. It's come and gone.

When I was a kid, this always seemed like the halfway point for summer break. At this point, we had been out of school for a month and a half and the end of August was closing in. Maybe those same apprehensive feelings surround me still at this time of the year. They shouldn't. It was worlds away from the stress of adulthood. Although, memories of two-a-days always seem to swarm me on muggy summer mornings. Man, I hated two-a-days.

We got to watch the infamous Red, White & Boom fireworks on the 32nd floor of the LeVeque Tower Thursday night. It was a good start to the long weekend. Spent Friday in Dublin at my aunt and uncle's house, then off to the west side of Cincinnati for dinner Saturday. We ended the whirlwind tour of Central and Southwest Ohio in Piqua. We got to hang out with Lauren, my brother and Leslie. Lauren keeps getting cuter. She was a lot of fun. It had been a while since we'd seen her last. She got big. And then it was back to Columbus... tired and ready for bed.

Summer never seems to relent. Seems like there's something going on every weekend. People scurrying to take advantage of the warm weather. I know our summer isn't slowing down anytime soon.

The Coop

Behold, Cooper Stadium. It's a Triple-A ballpark on the west side of town. It's not on a river, or in an entertainment district... which is why this is its final year. I understand the need to... well... no, I guess I don't understand the need for an upgrade. This is an amazing place to watch a baseball game, because the fans come to do just that... watch a baseball game.

I attended a few games when I was younger and remember darting between rows of seats for foul balls, and I have to smile when I see the kids of this generation running after those same foul balls. They've added some things that I would just as soon throw out, but it's never been up to me, and it's not like it gets in the way of the game. Tickets are $6 and you get a front row seat to some really good baseball. I can't tell you why I dig the minors more than the majors, but I do know that I'm envious of everyone associated with the Clippers. I want to be the center fielder, the manager, the bat boy, the announcer, the keeper of the brick dust, the usher, the umpire, the beat writer... any of them and all of them. Maybe it was because of the Sandlot. Those crazy kids made baseball in the dead of summer look like it was the greatest thing on earth. Either way, I need to infiltrate the ranks and see how I can put my expertise to use for the Clippers so that I might one day get to throw back roasted peanuts and a cold beer while on the job.

But it just wouldn't be the same with the new stadium. Twenty-somethings will start treating it like happy hour. Only going because it's new... not because Pete Orr is fast as heeeell in center field. But those kids will spend their money and in the end, that's what the owners are after.

Bloggo Immedioso

Two posts in one day!?! You'll just have to call me crazy. I got home somewhat early because a deadline was postponed so I took to the task of seeing what was up with Macintosh HD. Alas, Startup Disk came to the rescue and made all appropriate repairs. Didn't charge me a dime and looked good doing it.

Earlier in the day, there was potential Catholic Church festival in the works, but my boy blew me off and left me to my own devices. After a good run and a so-so shower, I took off on the Trek... due east.

Community Fest, or ComFest, is this weekend at Goodale Park. I road my bike over last year on a Sunday and didn't see what the hype was all about. The grass was filled with people that drank and smoked way too much over the weekend and even the trees smelled like bratwurst. But I decided that it would be a nice night for a bike ride. I'm not really sure what ComFest is all about. They're trying hard to be this uber-liberal hippie festival. There's a bunch of tents selling crap, a bunch of tents selling beer and three or four stages selling propaganda and bad music. Sound interesting? It isn't. Hollister was getting drunk and talking on his cell phone next to the anti-Christ who was getting drunk and talking on his cell phone. I saw hipster couples in arguments over the same things that non-hipster couples argue about... ie: "Why are you ignoring me?"

But I was glad I went. It was fun to ride through the throngs of people. The most interesting part of the night was getting a beer. It was the "buy tokens at this booth, get beer at a completely different booth" system which I knew nothing about and I'm terrible at reading explanations. So I take my two tokens ($8) and head over to the appropriate tent. After waiting several minutes behind the entire freshman class of OSU, I get up to the front, hand the man my tokens and tell him to get me whatever two tokens will buy. So he brings me two plastic cups... one full and the other about a third full. I have my bike alongside, so there's no way I'm getting out of there with two cups. He seemed like a nice guy, so I tell him the second cup is his... cheers. We toasted, drank and I got the hell out of there.

And here I finish out the night on the front porch. Nothing much going on. Some SUV just backed into a parked car and then sped off. There was something not good about the sound that Xterra made when hitting that pothole. And you can hear cats either fighting or having sex in the alley. Bon noir!!

Pounded

This hasn't been my best week as far as luck is concerned. One might advise oneself to stay away from casinos et al when you've put together a run like I have since getting back from Florida. Where to begin this pity party... hmmm...

My car's broke. Don't know if it's the alternator or a dead battery. If it ran... I'd take it somewhere to find out. As it turns out, it doesn't. The cord on my laptop's battery pack broke. No power to the laptop means no work getting done. No car means no Apple store, no Apple store means no battery, no battery means... well, you get it. Now my computer is eating disk space at an alarming rate and for reasons I'm not sure of. Disk Utility has clued me in on the fact that it needs repaired. No shit? I'm behind as all hell at work. I've been poured on twice riding my bike home and my stupid ass has me in a pickle with the misses.

I need a kick in the ass or a change of fortunes quickly. I feel it's a lot like mountain biking or anything I'm sure. I'm going to use the analogy of mountain biking because it's still fresh in my mind. I can't say I'm at all comfortable on a bike. Add trails, trees, creek crossings, etc... and it's nerve-wracking for me. But I've taken two tips to heart and they've helped me immensely: 1) where your eyes go, your bike will follow, and 2) when going down a steep hill, stick the seat between your knees and hold on. It's that focus that gets me through most ventures, but there are inevitably encounters where focus shifts from being on the trail to doing anything and everything not to fall down. It's in these situations that trouble strikes... and it's often because I'm doing anything and everything to stay on the bike, that some other obstacle pops up and records the kill. I'm vulnerable. My attention is diverted and the stump becomes a perilous hazard... only because I ran into it. Had I been focused, it wouldn't have even been worth a glance.

So I've been a little more than off this past week. Above was Wednesday night. Around midnight, the tornado sirens started screaming. I was down on the couch and pulled up the radar. Sure enough, there's a classic "hook" formation bearing down on Grandview. This is usually the telltale sign of tornadic activity due to the heavy rotation. So Erica comes downstairs and after hanging out on the back porch for the initial brunt of the storm, we retreat to the basement just in case things got hairy. They never really did, but the lightning and the rain was unreal, so I sat out on the front porch and took some pictures and watched the rain.

Ends and Beginnings

To every beginning there is an end... and vicey versa. Our Florida Getaway officially ended around 5 a.m. Friday morning. We watched the sunset Thursday and by the time we saw it again, we were well into our 18+ hour trek. The return trip contained the drive from Cincinnati to Columbus which we'd eliminated on the way down by making a pit stop at Erica's parents. This was Gigi at 4:30 a.m. attempting to eat. The thing about Gigi is that she's blind and deaf but constantly on the move... it makes for a great deal of entertainment.

And in the end, we made it... exhausted, but in one piece. Then it was back at it Saturday to prepare for a night and day down in southern Ohio at Great Seal State Park. Myself and my two good friends, Nick and Andy, were all signed up for an 8-hour "adventure race" as Team Trail Trash. I really couldn't think of anything else. Luckily, we were the only trail trash on this jaunt. Pictured above was the start. We all gathered 'round for final details before setting out on the first of five disciplines... trail running, canoeing, orienteering, mountain biking and rogaining (Rugged Outdoor Group Activity Involving Navigation and Endurance). We handed in the last card at the 8:13:00 mark. And aside from bailing on the last three controls of the rogaining section due to the lack of time and some decent wrecks on the bikes, we did really well... especially for this only being our second race. You learn with each one, so I'm already looking forward to the next.

You'll never get a better night's sleep as you will after busting your tail through the woods for eight hours. I went to bed Sunday night and I didn't even open an eye until 10 full hours had slipped by. And that was that. I'm ready to get back to a normal state of affairs.

Beached and Loving It

So I thought I'd be better at keeping up on this and providing all four of you with breathtaking scenery from the Gulf Coast. But two factors have contributed to the lack of blog... vacation and old people. I'm going to assume that Florida is full of them. It's a fairly universal stereotype. And we all know that the old folks be hatin' the internet... because for most of them, it's completely incomprehensible. Maybe I'm going too far, and then maybe I'm not.

In Ohio, there's WiFi everywhere. You can get pizza for carryout and check your email while you're waiting. In Florida, hot spots are few and far between. So I'm going to break code slightly and post a bunch of pictures at once. Don't ask why I chose the ones I did. Mostly because it sums up what we've enjoyed the most. The dock at night, our trip to Sanibel compliments of my mom and dad, the beach, the sunsets... and the list goes on and on. So hopefully it does our trip justice... if not, I'll try and give a better summary on return to the land of 24/7 interweb.

Erica gets photo credit on the one of me.

A Study in Contrast

It's been a tumultuous week. A night out in Cincinnati Friday, a wedding Saturday, cooking all night Saturday and then again Sunday morning, graduation at the Horseshoe in 90+ degree weather with a relentless sun, a subsequent party and cleanup followed by the two hour drive to Cincinnati at 11pm, only to wake up at 5:30am on Monday morning and drive 990 miles to Nokomis, Florida.

And as much as I would like to be in a complete state of relaxation, this will more than likely not happen as I still have to get things done for work. Erica's graduation just had to coincide with Phil's wedding and, of course, the honeymoon. So here I sit at Panera in Venice, while boatmen talk about extra chum and an elderly couple play a board game... Sequence. Never heard of it.

Luckily, I won't be here much longer. I have to get a new air mattress as ours sprung a leak last night... which really sucked. And it was on a seam so the patching was to no avail. Time to get back to the beach... maybe get a run in beforehand. Adios.