Dinner With Famous People

Cross-posted from Google+. Because I can

I saw this on the internet and became intrigued. After a whole lot of thought, this is the answer I've settled on:

1. Jane Espenson
2. Joss Whedon
3. Jon Stewart
   
4. Carl Sagan
5. Isaac Asimov
6. Terry Pratchett
7. Neil Gaiman

It took me a really long time (weeks) to come up with this. I still don't know that Jon Stewart really fits in with the rest, but I wasn't sure who else to put there. I do think he'd contribute to conversation and keep it interesting.

Interesting conversation was really what I was going for. I chose a bunch of writers (some of whom also do other things) because I think they'd have a lot to say. I think there's a big cross-section of interest here. (Again, Jon Stewart being the only non sci-fi/fantasy writer in the bunch). Basically, I would just sit back with a glass of wine and listen to these people talk. The dinner would need at least four courses.

Who would be on your list?

Lake Placid (Vacation 3)

On Wednesday we left Big Moose Lake for Lake Placid. The drive was a surprising two hours long (I didn't think the Adirondacks were all that big). Boyfriend's mom rented a condo for us right on Lake Placid. It was really nice not having to cram into a hotel room.

The bulk of our time at Lake Placid was spent at various Olympic sites. Though we did also spend some time wandering through the shops on Main Street, tasting wine, getting a massage, and playing games.

We bought an Olympic "passport" that gave us access to the Olympic Center with museum and ice rinks, the ski jump, the bobsled track, and Whiteface Mountain. The museum was small and the rink where the US team won the game that inspired that movie Miracle would probably have been more exciting to someone else. I did like the stuffed animal versions of all the Olympic mascots dating back decades, though. Especially the Snowlets from Nagano (sorry, I didn't get a picture)

After the museum, we drove over to the ski jump. At my last job, I worked with a guy who had almost gone to the 2006 Olympics for ski jumping. I have to say, standing at the top of that jump, I'm not sure how he ever worked up the courage. Especially the first time.

Looking down from the top of the ski jump

The tower was so big it was hard to get the entire thing in frame. Thankfully there was an elevator to the top. Although there was a second, 90-foot tower that did not have an elevator. I would not like hauling a pair of skis to the top of that

The 120-foot ski jump tower. On top of a hill we took a chair lift to the top of.  The sign said they were pouring the concrete for 15 days straight to build it

After the ski jumps we went to the bobsled and luge course. Apparently, one of the things that makes Lake Placid unique is that you can see all of the Olympic sites from all of the others. I took a picture of this from the bobsled course

Other Olympic sites

You can see the ski jump (left) and ice rinks (right) anyway. Mt Whiteface is off to the right and was hidden by clouds, so I didn't take a picture of it.

They actually gave us the option of walking down the bobsled track, which was fun. I hadn't been expecting that, and it was kind of a neat way to experience the track.

The beginning of the bobsled track

Heading into the first curve. The ceiling got really low when the track went horizontal

The next day (when it was sunnier) we took a gondola up to the top of Whiteface. (A whopping 3700 feet above sea level) (Forgive my snark) Anyway, here's a cool picture of Lake Placid from the peak of the mountain

Lake Placid is shaped more like a figure 8 than a circle

After we were done with the Olympic sites, we went on a short hike to see some waterfalls

Waterfall!

More waterfall!

All in all it was a very fun trip.

Natural Disasters

While on vacation last week I completely missed the earthquake that hit DC. I came back to work to find a whole lot of emails about it. Apparently my building was evacuated and everyone got to go home early. Except the earthquake affected public transportation so a lot of people ended up with 4-5 hour commutes home.

We have a bit of damage that needs to be evaluated in our home. Hopefully there's nothing too serious. There are a bunch of cracks in the walls, but it could just be paint and dry wall damage. Fingers crossed.

Hurricane Irene interfered somewhat with our drive home from Lake Placid. We came down I-87 initially, but ending up driving west to Harrisburg, PA to avoid the storm for as long as possible. That's quite a bit out of the way, considering that the initial plan had been to come down the Jersey Turnpike. Oh well, we did make it home.

We actually didn't encounter the storm until the very last hour of our drive across Maryland. It never got worse than a heavy rainstorm (we live pretty far inland). The Safeway told a different story, though. I went to pick up some food, since we'd been out of town for a week. Despite the fact that it wasn't supposed to really get that bad where we lived (heavy rain over night and early Sunday morning) you'd have thought the world was ending. There was no water in the store. I got the last carton of eggs and the last loaf of bread. The only milk left was whole milk.

As predicted the storm wasn't that bad. We briefly lost power overnight, but wouldn't have known if we hadn't needed to reset the clocks. By the time I woke up and looked outside on Sunday the sun was shining.

Frankly, I'm disappointed. I'm a little sad I missed the earthquake, especially since I lived in LA for four years and never felt one there either. I definitely would have felt this one. Though I am glad I didn't have to deal with the awful commute that followed the earthquake. Instead I was playing losing Settlers of Catan again. The hurricane wasn't even the heaviest rainstorm I've seen. Even my brother, who is stationed on the North Carolina coast, summed it up with "I've seen worse blizzards"

I know other areas were hit harder. And we still need to assess the earthquake damage, which could very well be extensive and costly. But I expected more from the end-of-the-world predictions I was hearing.

Kayak Adventure (Vacation 2)

On Monday, we decided to go on a kayaking and hiking adventure to the more remote Gull Lakes. Big Moose Lake has houses all the way around, so there was pretty much always someone boating or swimming or jet-skiing or something. But the Gull Lakes didn't have any property on them, so we were likely to have them all to ourselves. Getting there, according to Boyfriend, involved kayaking over to the trailhead and then hiking about a mile up to the lakes. This was the plan (kayak section in red, hiking in blue):

The intended route to the Gull Lakes

We set out. I had never kayaked before, so Boyfriend and I were in a two-person kayak together. His sister came along in her own kayak. The wind was blowing pretty hard when we set out, which meant the lake was fairly choppy. We crossed to the opposite shore, then paddled down to the inlet in water that was comparatively smoother.

I was impressed with how many different shades of green the trees were. In Colorado, everything was more or less the same shade because we only get 2-3 species of tree on a mountain (Ponderosa Pine, Douglas Fir, and maybe some aspens depending on the age of the forest). But here there was a ton of variety.

So much green

Once we got into the inlet, the water became very still. It was pretty easy to paddle since we weren't fighting any waves or current. Though we did find out the hard way the the water was really shallow. We got our kayak stuck in the mud several times and had to backtrack and go around. The first time this happened, we almost hit a frog. It shrieked and jumped out of the way, which made us laugh. I mean, who's ever heard of a shrieking frog?

Lily pads and still water

a "mountain"

Unfortunately, Boyfriend didn't quite remember where the trail head was. He'd only been there twice before. It was hard to see the sign from the middle of the inlet and nearer the shore, the marshes were too shallow to navigate easily. With one thing and another, we ended up kayaking all the way to the end of the inlet.

We kayaked almost twice as far as we needed to

The very end of the inlet was a massive maze of pretty purple flowers. The way through was just wide enough for the kayak, and we ran into the flowers quite a bit. But we survived and had lots of fun.

The maze of purple flowers

On the way back down the inlet, we were still trying to find the trail head and went ashore anywhere that looked promising.

Boyfriend thought this might be the trail. It wasn't.

We also saw a huge bird. The picture is kind of fuzzy because we were about to run aground again and I was in a rush. You can see how shallow the water is here.

Bird in the distance. The brown is mud sticking out of the water

Finally, Boyfriend's sister found the trail. We pulled in our kayaks and set off on the trail.

This sign was really hard to see from the water

Stowing the kayaks before our hike

We also had to sign into and out of the trail in a book. I guess this was so the rangers would know if they needed to go looking for anyone at the end of each day

The trail register

The trail took us past Gull Lake 1, which was really pretty, but apparently flooded. The original trail to Gull Lake 2 had washed out and we had to go up a hill and around to get to it.

Gull Lake 1

Gull Lake 2

Another view of Gull Lake 2

Boyfriend was excited about the green water. I was excited to stop and eat lunch. Boyfriend swam out to the rock across the way. But between the cold water and the fact that I can't swim, I was less than eager to get into the lake. I waded in a little ways and then tried to help his sister make a fire. We were unsuccessful.

Boyfriend made it to the rock!

We made up for the lack of fire by setting off bottle rockets.

Three at once!

Boyfriend and I at Gull Lake

On the hike back, we saw a frog that looked like a leaf!

Frog!

After we made it back to the house, we set off some more fireworks (which I forgot to put in the last post)

Spraklers!

The tail end of a pretty cool firework

Sadly, the fireworks upset the dog. So we still have a bunch left. Since they're illegal in Virginia, we're not sure where or when we'll be able to set the rest off.

Vacation 1

I spent the last week up in the Adirondacks with Boyfriend and his family. It was tons of fun to get away from everything (including internet and cell phone) and just relax on the lake.

The drive to the lake took about nine hours. It was a bit like going back in time. We got off the interstate shortly after we entered New York and took back roads the rest of the way. On the way up we stopped in Scranton, PA for lunch. I was pretty excited, but it ended up being fairly boring and the service at the restaurant was really slow. Boyfriend made two trips to the salad bar before his soup finally came out. We also stopped in Frackville for gas, which the nerd in me was really excited about.

Once we entered the Adirondacks, our cell phones stopped working. The house we stayed in did have WiFi, but I chose to ignore that and just pretend that I couldn't get on the internet at all. Boyfriend, of course, had to check his email and called into a few meetings while we were gone.

The house we stayed in belonged to a guy who had gone to college with Boyfriend's dad. It used to be a lodge and was absolutely huge. Boyfriend and I had a suite on the east wing. His sister had a suite on the west wing. And his mom was in a suite on the main floor that had it's own deck. We were the only ones staying there, although apparently the house is usually pretty full.

The house we stayed in on Big Moose Lake

The house was right on Big Moose Lake, which made for some excellent views.

Big Moose Lake, as seen from the deck

It even had its own private dock.

Private dock, through the trees

I spent a lot of time reading and playing games. Boyfriend won Settlers of Catan roughly 17 times and his sister won once. We spent an entire day trying to find a game that Boyfriend wouldn't win. Eventually, his mom won a trivia game from the 1960s. And on our very last night I won SkipBo, which is really more a game of luck than skill.

I sort of learned how to play Bridge, although I think Boyfriend's mom was getting frustrated with me. I grew up playing Pinochle and the two games are different in a million little ways. Mostly in the betting stage, though. I bet pretty much every hand completely wrong. I'm a fairly conservative pinochle player, so I tend to just not bid unless I have a really stellar hand. This doesn't work out so well in Bridge, since you need to communicate with your partner (which still feels like cheating to me). I tried to teach them Pinochle, but that ended up being equally frustrating.

We also went tubing one afternoon. I had always thought that tubing involved a couple of inner tubes, a six pack of bear, and a lazy river or creek. I was wrong. It turns out that tubing involves being dragged behind a motor boat while you hang on to a raft for dear life. I managed not to fall off, though!

Boyfriend and I chilling on the raft

Trying not to fall off the raft

And here's a picture of the house from the lake

The house we stayed in, as seen from the middle of the lake.

More updates to come later this week

Catching Up

It's been a while.

On the one hand, nothing terribly interesting has happened. On the other, I've been really busy. And on the third hand I haven't really felt like writing or stumbled across a topic I want to write about.

Or maybe it's just that I haven't been able to find the words. My brother's being deployed to Afghanistan in December. I'm still working on processing that. In the meantime, life goes on.

We moved. And then I spent a lot of time not unpacking and instead watching lots of TV. I re-watched Wonderfalls and the first season of Battlestar Galactica. I also watched a few episodes of Pushing Daisies because Wonderfalls left me wanting more Lee Pace in my life.

I had my one-year anniversary with my company and a performance review. The review went well. They told me to keep doing what I'm doing and gave me a small raise. 

I've been reading a lot, but not terribly quickly. I'm making my way through George RR Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series which is incredibly long and dense. I've found that I'm liking reading at a slower pace, roughly 2-3 chapters a day. I've been filling up the rest of my time with other books. The upshot is that I'm currently halfway through four books, and all of them are going very slowly.

When Boyfriend got back from Alabama, there was a bit of a whirlwind of catching up and spending time together. This got combined with lots of furniture shopping and unpacking. We've bought a new couch, a guest bed, nightstands, a shelf to function as an entry-table, a patio set, and a grill. We finally got around to my birthday dinner at The Cheesecake Factory, during which I managed to completely undo a couple week's worth of dieting. Then we had a bunch of company to test out the new grill. My aunt, a friend from high school, and a friend from college were all in town last weekend, which of course led to more food and socializing instead of exercising (and then being hungover instead of exercising).

About the dieting thing. It turns out I actually have to get serious about this now. It's not something I've ever been overly concerned with. In fact dieting and the idea that I need to lose weight is something I actively resist most of the time. I'm fine with the way I look. Boyfriend is fine with the way I look. No one else's opinion matters. And since I'm all about instant gratification, a cheeseburger is more appealing than the thought of squeezing into a size 4.

I was a size 4 at one point. It was when I hurt my jaw and spent six months on a liquid diet. I'd rather avoid that method again, if at all possible.

The thing is, I don't have a lot of intrinsic desire to go on a diet or lose weight. Doing it for myself simply isn't enough motivation. But doing it for someone else? Well, that leaves me very little choice.

My bridesmaid dress arrived recently. It doesn't fit. I can't zip it up. It's not a huge thing. I probably need to drop a dress size. I think that's ten pounds? I don't know. I don't own a scale and I have only the vaguest notion of what I currently weigh and how that equates to dress sizes. The wedding is in mid-November, which gives me plenty of time to fit into the dress. Of course, I need to balance it with the bridesmaid's dress for the wedding over Labor Day, which does fit. Perfectly. And if I lose too much weight that will be its own disaster since the dress is strapless.

All in all I'm in a weird head space. I can certainly lose the weight in time. I'm going slow now. I'm eating a bit less and really making a point to ride my bike every day. This is actually much easier, now that my commute is slightly shorter and we live next to a park with bike trails. Biking in the woods is way better than biking along a busy street.

We're also going on vacation next week, which should be a huge help. There will be lots of hiking and kayaking and generally being more active than I am in my day-to-day life. It should be wonderful and relaxing and exactly what I need. I'm hoping that when I get back I'll be in more of a blogging mood.