Surfing

Last blog said that I had gone surfing and had a great time. The guy that took pictures during the class and surf time, Joel Sadoy of Island Classic Shots, gave me permission to post some of the shots on my blog. He did some really great work and was really patient with all of us when deciding to get the pictures or not (Thanks, Joey!).

This is the second day, before the class, looking out over the huge (ha!) waves we're going to try to surf.

Waiting at the surf truck. We had to travel from the surf shop to the beach and fortunately didn't have to lug our own boards. I think mine was 10' on the first day and 9' on the second. No way would that fit in the Aveo that we rented.

This is my first wave ever! Note the dry hair and the stupid smile I have on my face.

This is sometime later in the first day. Still smiling.

Jeremy took the lesson with my re-do on Saturday. I think he had a good time, too. This was a picture of him heading out to give it a shot.

Trip Report--Midweek

Having taken a day to recover from the trip and let Jeremy get good and burnt in an odd way, we took Thursday and did our obligatory touristy duties. Jeremy went skydiving and I took a beginning surfing lesson.

A few snaps from the adventure so far:

Jeremy in his tandem jump get-up, ready to go.

I didn't get any worthwhile shots of him after. He looked much the same. The sun seemed to be in the wrong place to get a picture of him coming down, and when I figured out which one he was, he was on the ground. We went to Pacific Skydiving. They were really great people. Jeremy was hauled out of the plane at 14,000 feet and had a good, long free fall. They also didn't pressure me into trying it. For this, I was thankful.

At lunch we tried to figure out how far the Kresser initials reached.

This is me getting ready for my surf lesson from Surf n Sea. I thought the rash guard was a bad idea and would cramp my style, but now I am certain that it was a very, very good idea because it kept me from skinning my tummy and upper arms. Plus, it looked cute.

Out of the water...it seems that I was the last one out. There may have been some betting on how long the instructor would be willing to stay out with me. They had a photographer out in the water with us. I'm going to try to get permission to post them. We'll see.

These last couple are just views from our hotel room. It's a rough life.

Squirrels

The squirrels are out in force this summer. The students are gone, pathways are more clear, and it seems that the little furry ones are slowly organizing and taking over. The Ronald McDonald house nearby has a squirrel-sized soccer field set up, complete with small goals and a small ball. I'm growing concerned. Unfortunately, I haven't been able to adequately capture the image in a picture yet. The scale gets all thrown off and it looks like a bad photoshop job.

I saw a woman sitting on a bench the other day trying to feed one of the squirrels. A puffed chip of some sort was held out, the squirrel had already identified it as food (though I would have my doubts) and couldn't tear his little beady eyes off of it, but also couldn't force himself to break the instinct to stay away from people. This had evidently been going on for some time when I approached. I stood and watched, decided not to interrupt and took the long way around, all the time watching the squirrel as he watched me, having sensed a change in his surroundings. I tried to avoid making sudden moves, to keep their little game going. As I passed, the woman finally gave up and threw the chip thing on the path and the squirrel victoriously nabbed it and ran off.

Much like this post, it was oddly unsatisfying and anticlimactic.

Morning Trails

Heather and I went for a 6+ mile run in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest this morning. I haven't been able to find a map of the trails, but it's one that we have run several times. It's a really nicely maintained route (we did have one tree to climb around this morning, but that's unusual) with lots of interesting elevation change and it's really quiet and peaceful. We weren't fast, but it was a great run.

*sob*

Trader Joe's "Two Buck Chuck" Chardonnay wins a gold medal at the 2007 California State Fair Commercial Wine Competition. The reviews I've heard of the brand are not as positive. At least they can put a sticker on 'em now.

Another benefit of drinking wine...

Hospitality first.

du Dragon

I opened a 2004 Domaine du Dragon on Sunday night and paired it with pan-fried pork chops, spicy corn salad, and roasted potatoes. Strawberry shortcake for dessert. The wine was very dark and had a very soft mouth feel. The flavor was very well-balanced and the tannins were surprisingly developed--it didn't taste or feel like a young wine. Overall, I was quite pleased, and I'm eager to taste this alongside the 2003 of which we're supposed to have a couple bottles stashed away somewhere.

From the website:

The deep colour with almost black hues is a feast for the eye. From the first nose on, the wine immediately opens up. The aromatic spectrum is powerfull: toasty notes; liquorice, candied bananas and pepper flavours; menthol and anise aromas harmoniously blend with subtle oaky notes. This aromatic complexity is then encountered in the mouth with peppery and liquorice dominant flavours. After a velvety mouth, the substance density remains a mystery, and the still young tannins are already melting. The nice lingering finish in the mouth reminds of liquorice.Percentage of alcohol per volume: 14.1 %

A Run (I survived)

I finally got the courage to track down the Nashville Striders group that runs at 5:30 on Wednesday night. The web page advertises that they run three miles, but they really run five, which turned out to be okay, but it was five miles on the road, which I haven't done for a really long time. I survived and had a good time. I'll go back and run with them when I get a chance. Rumor (and their web page) has it that they do a trail run on Saturday mornings. I'll have to check that out sometime.

The five mile route went through some really adorable neighborhoods. Almost made me want to look at the housing market around here. Then I realized that they all had really nice yards and that I have no interest in maintaining a really nice yard.

Library

So, I walk into the library and say to the librarian, "Tell me how this place with books works."

She was very helpful, but it had been a really long time since I had a need to actually use a library with hard copies of stuff and I pointed this out to her and she double-checked to make sure that I had checked online for the stuff that I was needing. I realized that it had been a really long time since I've used a library, especially for periodicals. Fortunately, it turned out that what I was looking for had been archived and I couldn't have, even with full working knowledge of how the library worked, walked to the journals and gotten the stuff I needed. I had to fill out a request for stuff to be retrieved from some dungeon and delivered to the library (also underground), which should happen tomorrow.

It was just a very strange realization, with the library and all...

Words to live by:

87. If the thought of something makes me giggle for longer than 15 seconds, I am to assume that I am not allowed to do it.

--Some Guy's Blog

"The 213 Things Skippy Is No Longer Allowed To Do In The U.S. Army"

A good idea?

We'll see.

Miami

We got back from Miami on Friday. We had a great time, including a couple days of "vacation", something we've not done for over six years. After Jeremy fenced on Saturday in Div. I (he placed 38/65), we had Sunday to Tuesday to relax. We spent some time by the pool Sunday and had a the steak dinner mentioned before.

Monday, we went to the Edison-Ford Winter Estate in Ft. Myers. My parents drug me there when I was a teen and entirely too cool for doing tourist-type things....until I got there and was fascinated with the grounds, especially the trees. It was still really cool. We walked the grounds, checked out the houses, and poked around in the lab and museum. This is the only place that I've been really impressed with the gardens, mostly because there's such a variety of plants and with an eye towards research. Other gardens are pretty, but they just don't fascinate me like this one. This all, once again, confirms my geekdom.

This is the Mysore Fig. Not the biggest one on the property, but still a large tree. The roots stick up for stability (and other reasons, I'm sure), but some on the larger tree are four feet tall.

Banyan Tree, yes, just one tree in this picture. It grows support branches as they're needed. Very cool. This particular tree takes up almost an acre and is the largest specimen in North America. It's theoretically a cutting from the largest one in the world.

We had P.F. Chang's carryout (with some drama-they got my order wrong two times!) and a bottle of wine for dinner. The wine was Ch. Lilian Ladouys, a 2003 St. Estephe, which had a really subtle fruity flavor, and a nice, soft mouth-feel. I would say that it's a typical 2003 Bordeaux, ready to drink now, but will be very good in a few years, too. I really enjoyed it. We actually let it sit for a couple days and it was still very nice rather than adopting that jammy flavor that develops when you let many other wines sit. It wasn't a particularly distinct wine, but would be a really nice table wine, a safe choice for most occasions and something I would be happy to have in my cellar.

The Lilian Ladouys label. Yum!

The Copa America is going on right now. We watched a bit of pool play while waiting for our carryout. On Tuesday, we found a little pizza joint called Archie's showing pool play for the tournament. They were also the only place open on the 4th, so we ended up going back. The atmosphere was great, with people cheering and excited about the games. They also had a convincing pizza rustico. I was pleased. I had a cheese calzone the second night and was surprised that they included a Gorgonzola, which sounded better than it actually was.

Jeremy fenced in Div. IA on Wednesday. We were done early enough that I was able to get to the pool for some more sun and reading.

I fenced in Div. IA on Thursday, I wasn't in as long as I would have liked, but was fairly pleased with my day. A group of us went out to dinner Thursday night at a little Cuban place, which left a little to be desired in the area of service. The company more than made up for the shortcomings of the restaurant.

Oh. Right. One more thing. We took advantage of the concierge services of the hotel and ate dessert in the lounge almost every night. Our good host, Edgar even saved me some chocolate goodness one night after hours. The desserts were amazing. Here we have from foreground to background, a flan, a chocolate mousse and Ganache mini-cake, a little chocolate tart thingie, and carrot cake. We also had, at some point, cheesecake, tiramisu cheesecake, and blueberries. Wow.

It rained.

Written on Sunday...posted significantly later so I could add the pictures:

Jeremy and I are in Miami for Fencing Summer Nationals. He fenced in Division I on Saturday and did a bang-up job. After his tournament, we went out to dinner...errr...lunch...errr...whatever meal falls at 4:30 on Saturday afternoon. The important part is that we went to a place around here called Novecento. It was really good. Started with a Caprese salad that had some (obviously) homemade mozz, which I really appreciated. I had the eggplant ravioli and a glass of non-descript pinot grigio. Towards the end of the meal, it started thundering. We decided to take advantage of the short, mid-afternoon-Florida rain to have another round, but ended up sitting for another two hours waiting for it to stop pouring. Jeremy and I started taking random pictures with our phones (yes, see below) and taunting the waiters while they were trying to poke the tents with the ends of brooms. Physics seemed to escape them. It was a lot of fun. It's been a really long time since I've sat outside, under the protection of a large umbrella watching it rain unrelentlessly. People looked miserable. I was delighted. No place to go, nothing to do. Heaven.

I don't think you can actually see the rain very well, but it was coming off the canvas in a steady pour.

Funny pic with the strange self-portrait function of the camera.

Walking back to the hotel after the rain. It evidently rained hard enough that the city drainage couldn't handle it.

Red Meat

Written Sunday night, about Sunday's meal....posted when I could:

Tonight, on Jeremy's request to have steak, we went out to dinner at Morton's Steakhouse. It's right across from our hotel (trans: within stumbling distance.) We started with cocktails, J with a bourbon, me with a vodka martini. We quickly progressed to dinner and wine. I chose the 1996 Faustino I, a Rioja that I've had before. I also chose the small rib eye. J chose the fillet Diane. Both our entrees went well with the wine. Before we were allowed to chose our dinners, our waitress wheeled out a cart, complete with cuts of beef and a live (!) lobster to explain the menu. She mentioned and described every dish on the menu from memory before handing a paper copy, and the wine list, over to us for perusal at our convenience. After seeing her wheel the lobster out for the dog-and-pony show a few times, we finally asked about its well-being. They had it sitting on a cart, facing the wall. We were assured that it would be dinner to someone very soon, but in the meantime, she would be happy to turn the critter so that it faced the crowd. This made me feel a little better, as it had more personality that way. I thought it was a dummy lobster until she had picked it up during her menu recitation. It took all I had to not break my interested-menu-driven-poker-face when she picked up the lobster while she was describing the menu...and its little legs went wheeling around!! I had actually looked at the little beastie and determined that it was *not* alive, but some plastic thing that was convenient for menu descriptions earlier. The waggling legs did not convince me to have lobster, but more convinced me that it's one, true skill was tap dancing. Unfortunately our hero-lobster didn't have a chance to practice his skills. We asked later. He was dinner for the people across the aisle from us. They hadn't requested him, specifically, but had ended up with him. Such a lively thing. C'est le vie. The wine was spectacular.

What would happen...

...if Ann Coulter, Nancy Grance, and Steven A. Smith had a show on CNN all together?

I thinks my head would asplode.

Jeremy thinks it would be righteously funny.

Step 1: Apply Fencing Logic to Softball

Step 2: Get robbed anyway.

I did my best saberist impression while running bases tonight during my softball game. My theory was that if I looked confident when I got on base, then regardless of how close it was, I'd be called safe. I think the theory would work if the ump was being impartial. I was called out on both close calls, one of which I was so sure of, I stood on base looking confused while everyone else was heading to the dugouts. Didn't work. Sigh.

I suppose it's all okay. People from the other team also mentioned (after the game) that I got robbed. I managed to mow over the third baseman, which was satisfying in its own way, too. My only regret is that I didn't drop my shoulder.

I went to fencing afterwards and fenced really well, I think. Next week should be interesting.

Think of the Twinkies!!

The Indiana State Fair is going trans-fat free. This will include all the vendors that sell elephant ears, fried veggies, funnel cakes, and *gasp* deep fried Twinkies.

Is eating deep fried food ever "healthy"? Will this switch make anyone "healthier"? Does deep frying Twinkies significantly change their nutritional value? If not, why does it matter what's used to deep fry them?

I suppose it's a good thought, but the big problem is that people eat the equivalent to this crap every day without regard to portion control. Switching oil type won't change that. It may actually make it worse. I can obviously eat more of this--it's trans-fat free!

Off rant.
I'm going to go eat ice cream.

Ups & Downs

It was one of those days that keeps you guessing about your karma.

Ups:

• I got my shoes! I ordered them Thursday and they showed up today. I would have had them Friday if I had ordered them earlier on Thursday. They're Clarks Carlenes and Thunders. Yea, Zappos and their free overnight shipping and free returns!!
• I had a good fencing practice and I managed to do some armoring tonight and I have 5 working weapons for next week.
• The dress I'm making is almost done.
• I made banana bread which smells wonderful in my apartment. I'll share with the class tomorrow. Maybe.
• Nice thunderstorms.
• A text message from my boy at a very good time.

Downs:

• Nomadshan's bad news from camp.
• Everything in Nashville closes at 6. I couldn't get the last bit of stuff I need for the dress tonight.
• The morning just "wasn't right" and I was off my schedule and routine.
• I found out that there's a show on MTV called Engaged & Underage, which isn't quite what it sounds like, but almost.
• What seemed like a host of really bad drivers following me around, never mind some poor driving direction choices on my part.

Neutral:

• The afternoon fire alarm. Evidently power glitches are triggering alarms. This would normally not be a problem, but the previously mentioned storms were near, which would have put a serious damper on the engineers-getting-fresh-air feeling. We all figured that the stairs down, standing outside, then stairs up was probably to be the best exercise we got and theorized that it was really a ploy by our advisers to make sure we went outside. We figured that we could sue for distress.

Anyway. I'm just glad it's over. I'm ready for a fresh start tomorrow.

Season's Firsts

This weekend, I went for a riding on the trace twice. Saturday marked my season's first road ride, today marked my first brick of the year.

Saturday, I started out at around mile 440 and ended at the Leipers Fork station. It was really bloody hot by the time I got going, around 10 am. The temperatures were in the upper 80s and humidity was such that only Middle Tennessee can provide. I was fairly miserable. I had planned to ride to Garrison Creek, but the hill between LF and GC was too much to stomach at the time.

Today, I started and ended at the Tennessee Valley Divide with Leipers Fork as the midpoint. If you look at the map, you can see that the previously mentioned hill is on this route, but didn't look nearly as bad at the half-way point with temperatures in the mid-70s. It really pays to get up early. After the ride, I ran a horse trail (indicated as a hiking trail, but there was plenty of evidence otherwise) from TVD to almost Burns Branch. The trail was all through the woods (at least the part I was on) and had lots of fun creek crossings and altitude change.

My foot at one of the multiple creek crossings.

The Trace

Having finished the rough draft of my paper, having finished the week of school and the office, having already decided that today was a day off from workouts, and having no better sense than to drive out of Nashville at rush hour, I took off after work this afternoon to scope out Natchez Trace, a 444-mile "scenic byway" that, according to the website, "commemorates an ancient trail that connected southern portions of the Mississippi River, through Alabama, to salt licks in today's central Tennessee." The Trace is a popular biking route--a well-maintained road with a low speed limit through beautiful scenery.

I ended up driving about 50 miles, only 5 of which were on the actual trace, because I had a hard time finding the access points. But, I got a good feel for where I can park my car and what the road feel is and I can imagine the tremendous quads and glutes I could develop from riding the hills. I'm hoping to get out for a ride sometime this weekend.

Then, having no better sense, I went to the grocery when hungry.

Car? Check.
Gas in the car? Check.
Navbitch? Check.
Common sense? Che--umm...