Oregon Shakespeare Festival

Mom and Haley and I drove up to Ashland to see A Midsummer Night's Dream. It was really cool! Lots of hot guys prancing around in tutus and see-through tops. Uh, yeah well... They were faeries, you see... *grin* I couldn't take any pictures during the show, of course, but I got a few before and after. My favorite is of our picnic before the show :)

Yay Birthday Cake!!!

My mom came over today. She brought another cake :) My very favorite -- Kahlua Mud Pie from Velutini's Bakery in Eureka :) :) :) I love birthdays!!!



I made out like a bandit this year -- Mom got me an electric teakettle and tea for my classroom. My friends got me some cool camping blankets and some soap and wine and candy :)

Birthday Potluck :)

My friends came over for a potluck dinner. We had so much food! After dinner, we played bocci ball, and then ate cake! It was good :)



We ended up going out to see the movie, "Hancock" afterwards. I enjoyed it, but it was a bit too old for Haley. We had to go wait in the hall for the scary part to be over!

Bumper Stickers

I finally got around to putting the bumper stickers on my car! Considering I bought these at West - An Tir *LAST YEAR*, it's really about time. That's about average for me, though. They look pretty spiffy!

A&W War

West - An Tir War was fun this year. I got to see a whole bunch of friends I hadn't seen in a long time!



I got to do lots of fun stuff this war!

Friday I took two weaving classes. One was a tablet weaving class. It turned out to be a beginning level class which I've done before but it was still fun. The other was a class in which we wove belt pouches. Not only do we get to keep the pouches, but we get to keep the looms and needles as well, so I can make more pouches in the future!

Friday night my buddy Abe ran by our encampment with a ball and hurley sticks, so I got to learn how to play hurley! That was pretty fun, though brief since most of us wanted to fight the next day :)

Saturday I fought all day, which was fun. I got a good kill in during the very first battle, but mostly spent the day getting gacked by pikes. My shield is great for tourneys, but leaves my legs too vulnerable during wars. I also dug out my gauntlets and borrowed a pike and then a glaive from Moon. I got piked even more, since I didn't have any shield at all, but it was fun to try something different. The showers on site were marvelous :)

Anyhow, this was a great event -- probably in my top ten events ever :)

Tennis with Dad

Dad and I try to get together and play tennis as often as we can when he's in town. I managed to snag a picture this time!




Dad's headed off to go fishing, but we got in a last tennis game for the season.



Of course, since he's gone for months at a time, it always takes us a while to get back in the game when he gets back. But overall, we're making progress. After all, I'm much better than I was when I was 12, for example *grin*

More Tasting Notes

My sister prefers white wine, so we opened the Honey Moon Viognier.




It's, ummm, a little sweet for Mom and Andrea. I like that it's not overly acidic. I'm very much off acidic whites right now, which pretty much puts me off the majority of whites. It's very fruity. No, I'm not cool enough to detect that hint of raspberry, or whatever. Especially not after the champagne this afternoon! This does have a bitterness beneath the sweetness, but I like it well enough. It seems a nice wine to sip chilled on a hot afternoon :)

Our Trip South

We're almost back from making our biannual trip down to visit the grandparents (not to mention Aunt Susan and Uncle Jim)! Here are a few highlights:

Grandma and Grandpa take the time to read 2 newspapers every morning:





Grandma, Uncle Jim, Haley, and Zach went swimming to cool off :)



One last family photo before we go:



Haley struck a pose by the Golden Gate Bridge:



As we drove home, the fires made the sun red! More than a little creepy:

Brief Tasting Notes

Grandpa chose to open the Vino di Lino and Grandma chose the Sebastiani Chardonnay.

Vino di Lino info:


Alas, I did not much enjoy the Vino di Lino. It was very, very tannic. I set a glass out for a couple of hours, but it was still pretty harsh when I drank it :( It's a 2004, so I guess that means I should buy another bottle and open it in a couple of years. I probably won't though -- too much effort for a wine I didn't much care for!


Here are the photos of the Sebastiani:



I quite liked the Sebastiani. The guy who sold it to me said it was very "buttery", and I very much agree with him. Not harsh, not too acidic, but not wimpy either. I might stop by Trader Joe's and pick up another bottle on my way home :)

I ♥ Trader Joe's

So since we were down visiting the grandparents, I had to make a pilgrimage to Trader Joe's. What a great store for a wine drinker! Since the grandparents live down in wine country, their Trader Joe's has a bunch of great deals on great (and not so great) wine. Here's what I picked up:



2 bottles of Blackthorn hard cider ($3 each), Coppola Rosso ($8), Beauzeaux Red Wine ($4), Oreana ? Red Table Wine ($7), Vino di Lino ($13), Trader Joe's Coastal Sirah ($4), Honey Moon Viognier ($5), Sebastiani Chardonnay ($9).



Plus, Trader Joe's sells this awesome reusable 6 pack wine back for people who buy too much booze. And let's face it -- this is a lot of booze for somebody whose wine cellar is a 9 bottle rack sitting on the garage floor *grin*

Anyhow, I think I'll open a red and a white tonight to share with the grandparents, and cart the rest home :)

Told me so...

Yeah, Mom was right. So much for being able to get a last minute spot in the hostel. That maybe works a lot better in November than in June. Rather than staying in the hostel in Sausalito, we kept going and stayed in a Motel 6 down in Morgan City. On the plus side, we only had to drive about 3 hours the next day. We almost kept going, but we woudn't have gotten to the grandparents' until 10 or 11, which is a bit late to show up. Oh well :)

It's also a bit warm. Dad & I were discussing what the weather was like down at the grandparents' and I believe I said, "No worries -- it tops out around 80, right?" Dad's response was, "Not exactly! 90 maybe... But who can tell with global warming?" Yeah, so according to my car, it's around 100. Bleuch. Naturally we're visiting during a record braking heat wave! And the only shorts I packed are the ones I sleep in. Luckily, we packed light enough to accommodate any traveling purchases :)

But for a missing y chromosome...

So I found this funny website at http://morph.cs.st-andrews.ac.uk/Transformer/ The basic premise is that you upload a picture of yourself, give it some basic information about your age, race, and gender, show it where your eyes and mouth are, and then it transforms your face in order to do any of several makeovers.

Here's the original picture:
















Now for the transmormations...

Black me:
















Asian me:















Italian Art me:















The obligatory Monkey me:















Possibly oddest of all - Male me:

Spend like there's no tomorrow!

So Haley and I are driving up to Canada this summer. It's been something that I've been talking about doing for a couple of years now. One thing we definitely want to do while we're up there is to go camping. However, I've done most of my camping with other people, and always used their food prep supplies. So there are several essentials, such as a cook stove, that I don't actually own.

Last night, the power of the internet allowed me to blow almost $300 at Amazon.com. That's a lot of money! Here's a list of the awesome stuff I bought:

A cool folding camp stove: the Coleman Fold 'n Go Stove
A set of 2 pots & a pan: Texsport Black Ice Trailblazer Cook Set
A mess kit: the Coleman Speckled Enamelware Dining Kit
A set of bamboo utensils that hopefully won't scratch the new cookset: Joyce Chen's 5 piece utensil set
A wooden ladle
A bag to stuff all that into: the Coleman Camper's Storage Tote
2 quick-drying camping towels: the Aquis Adventure Microfiber Towel
A set of luggage organizers: Rick Steve's Packing Cube Set

I also picked up a dutch oven from Walmart(1) that is just like this one, only cheaper(2)

Wow. That's a lot of stuff! But it should all last for years to come. Even if I only do one big camping trip a year, I'll still get my money's worth the first time I have hot food when I would never be able to otherwise :)

1. Yeah, I feel guilty. But it's the only store in town :(
2. I'm not actually sure how they managed to mark it down, since Lodge is an American company (appealing to the type of folks who are more likely to use a dutch oven). So I know they're not exploiting little kids in some sweatshop to get the bargain. I guess they're just spreading the sweatshop profits around...

Ouch!

My friend, Robert, came to visit this last weekend. I dragged him out of the guest bed at the appalling hour of eight in the morning (on a Saturday, no less!) because he'd brought his armor up to fight with me. We didn't last very long -- about an hour into it, I cracked the tang of the cup hilt on his sword, so we had to quit. A good thing, too. My arms were about to fall off. Here's a video of us fighting:



He'd hit me in the leg, so I was fighting from my knees. I managed to kill him in the end though! It was a fun hour of fighting, but this weekend warrior (litterally!) stuff is going to kill me! I didn't feel it at the time, but two days later my back really started to hurt. However, I've gotten some stretches off the internet, and I've figured out that running on the elliptical runner really warms up my muscles and makes my back feel better. Damn, another good reason to exercise.

Not bad at all!

I am not a great cook. There, I've confessed. Cooking is not a passion, it's a chore. Unfortunately, I really enjoy eating. And since I'm not rich enough to either hire a personal chef, or to eat out all the time... *sigh* But I'm quite proud of myself -- I've done a very good job of cooking in the last few days. Wednesday night we had split pea soup and fresh herb bread thanks to my trusty crock pot and bread machine. For dinner on Friday I marinated and barbecued pork, which we ate with brown rice, broccoli, and artichoke. I steamed the veggies in the microwave -- steamed veggies are the only things you can actually cook in the microwave. For brunch on Saturday I fried up some sausage and then scrambled eggs into it, then sprinkled the eggs with herbs and cheese. I also baked biscuits (the tube kind, not scratch!). Saturday dinner was leftovers -- we finished off the split pea soup and the bread, and also had some of the BBQ pork. Tonight I barbecued chicken. I used a new marinade, a garlic herb flavor. It was pretty good, though I overcooked the chicken. We also had corn on the cob. I tried Leia's trick of microwaving it for 7 minutes in the husk, and then peeling it and buttering it. That worked pretty well -- it was very tasty, and much faster than the usual peel-rinse-boil method. Tomorrow I'll use some of the chicken for a sandwich, and for dinner we'll cut up some of the chicken and make a caesar salad. Not bad for a not-very-inspired cook!

Getting Started

The school year is winding down and summer is staring me in the face. I was thinking that some of my family and friends would be interested in following along during my summer travels. Since updating hand coded webpages is a bit labor intensive for a (theoretically) daily newsletter type thing, I guess I finally have to concede and get a blog. That being more or less the whole purpose of a blog. So here goes :)