Cave golfing

Went golfing with Spot and Wells the other day. No ball is too far gone for Wells to chase down.

The ball ran under the garage door of a building just off the fairway...but he fit! Technically the course map doesn't even show this as out-of-bounds and the garage is a man-made obstacle, so Wells argued he was allowed relief. I agreed. What else can you do?

This blog is not abandoned.

Ok, well, it kinda is. But only because stupid blogspot messed up my login/ownership of the page. Now my login is something retarded instead of "antievets" like you would expect.

And "GreatestJournal" gallery has apparently shat the bed so my links to photos are all gone. Looking for another free hosting site....

Anyway, I plan to start posting shit here again soon.

Vacation time...

Left on a short vacation last week, Thursday through Sunday, just to get some R&R before the new semester starts.

We went to a wonderful state park in West Virginia called Pipestem. The first night we spent camping, then the next two nights in a lodge at the bottom of a river canyon - the only access to the lodge was via an aerial tram (imported from Switzerland apparently). Photos of course can be found in the gallery.

It all started with us arriving at the last minute thursday night, just barely getting into the park before the gates were closed. We set up camp, built a nice campfire, and had a couple beers before it started raining and we retired to the tent. Next morning the rain stopped long enough for us to cook up a nice breakfast and break camp, but then it rained like cats and dogs.

We explored the park, went down to our room at the lodge, and went on a rainy 3-mile hike. those who know me will be surprised to hear I actually had a great time walking in the rain (my head was covered though!) When we got back to the lodge, we cleaned up and went down to the extra-fancy restaurant and ate a great meal, probably took us two hours, watching the storm out the window the whole time.

Next day was better weather and we went horseback riding for an hour, and there was also time for a golf lesson, and we cooked out in front of our room some tacos on my MSR stove...

Sunday we played the par-3 course before heading back home. Great time.

2006 EMS Memorial Bike Ride

Back in May, I participated in the 2006 EMS Memorial Bike Ride. This ride consists of EMS professionals and volunteers riding six hundred miles in six days from New York City to Roanoke, Virginia. The ride concluded as part of the annual EMS Memorial events. The participants ride in honor of the memories of EMS workers that have lost their lives while serving the public.

Alison and I joined the ride in Woodstock, VA. I rode the next day from Woodstock down to Staunton, and then again the day after that to the conclusion in Roanoke. Except for some rain the first morning, the weather was nice and we had a great experience.

A few photos, mostly of us, are uploaded to the photo gallery.

PMKP Weekend

Well, obviously been awhile since the last post. Went caving down at PMKP last weekend though and took a few photos, available in the gallery.

I enjoyed the caving and a weekend with my girlfriend "away-from-things". I'm not sure she was very happy I drove her car far, far further up a 4-wheel drive trail to camp than it should have gone, smoking the clutch and spitting gravel most of the way. But it DID make it which was very impressive, and no serious damage appeared to have been done.

The black widow here was found on our tent when we were packing up at the end of the trip - everyone wanted to kill it but me. I let it live since it posed so nicely for the photo...