A Midsummer Night’s Blog Post

Date: 2010.08.01 | Category: Friends, Jeeping, Party, Toys, Travel | Response: 1

I’ve been ridiculously busy since my last blog post. I’m starting to keep track of things by having my picture folders include the full date in the folder name. Otherwise I’d have no way to remember what order things came in.

In chronological, photographical order here is what I’ve been up to:

Marcy came down to visit Lauren and we all spent a few nights hanging out. It was a really great time.

Raleigh Times:

The Pit and The Saucer:

Matt’s House for Matt and Lauren’s Birthday, followed by Napper Tandy’s:

That one is a pic of Marcy trying out the Rum siphon. Engineering + Alcohol = WIN!

The weekend after Marcy visited, I went out Jeeping with Brendan, Garland, Andy, and Shapess in Mountain City, TN. It was a full Jeep caravan to Callalantee. This place was pretty awesome. We found a Jeep playground to jump over things, as well as some very cool logging trails up mountains!

After Jeeping in TN I decided it would be an amazing idea to ride my motorcycle to NYC from NC to go to a Brewfest on Governor’s Island. I was correct.

I stayed with Pete at his Parents’ place on Long Island for a few nights, as well as spending a drunken night in Manhattan with Munns. It was fun to finally visit Munns and see him in his natural concrete habitat.

Here is the gang drunk on the island. Just like old times:

My back, hands, and wrists were sore for a week after that trip! It’s a hell of a long ride on a motorcycle to just tackle on a long weekend, but definitely an adventure.

I took the weekend of June 25th off for actual relaxing (I think).

The next misadventure was the 3rd of July party at Justin’s house. I proceeded to get liberally sloshed and make a new drinking partner (Ruri) who can drink more tequila than I can, while at the same time thoroughly making an ass of myself. It seems the two go hand in hand. I woke up the next morning on Justin’s couch.. knowing that there was something I should apologize for – but not what exactly. Either way – I had fun!

If I hit on your friend, girlfriend, fiance, or wife (or any combination thereof) I’m sorry. That just happens.

I don’t even remember this picture at all! No one should have let me near fireworks.

I hear they found me asleep in a chair on the back porch and then wrangled me to the couch. I have no recollection of that either.

After much recovering, it was decided that I should start drinking at a more moderate pace.

I spent a weekend of general sobriety Jeeping at Gulches ORV Park in South Carolina with Andy, Nadine, Cam, and Shapess:

Sobriety lasted until the weekend after that – when I decided I hadn’t yet put enough miles on the Jeep, so I drove it to New York. That’s NY trip number 2 of the summer. Probably the 4th time I’ve been to NY so far this year!

Marcy has a cottage up on Seneca Lake in NY. Finger Lakes Wine Country! There was a Wine Fest in the infield at Watkin’s Glen. I drove up with Lauren and Brendan to spend a very long, very relaxing weekend. We floated around in the lake, drank some wine, and took a lap around the race track in a pace car. We even managed to fit a trip into Dinosaur BBQ in Syracuse.

Here’s the view from the Lake House

Here’s Brendan very sad about the number of our sign for picking up the wine:

Here’s Brendan and I taking a drunk ride (as passengers) around Watkin’s Glen:

After spending so much time in the Jeep it was time to spend a little less time behind the wheel.

That doesn’t mean I was done travelling though!! This past weekend I went BACK up to New York for my 10 year HS reunion. It was certainly an interesting time. Seeing everyone again brought back a bit of nostalgia (which was to be expected), but also turned out to be a much better time than I thought it would:

After the reunion we drove around town looking for bars that were still open. Quite an adventure.

This weekend I helped Pete move from his small 2BR in Chapel Hill to a big house with a 3 car Garage Mahal. We loaded up a massive truck with furniture and assorted boxes of crap. The best part of helping was getting to pilot his BMW R1200RT over to his place while he towed his other two motorcycles on a trailer. Woo motorcycle.

I’ve finally unpacked from all that travelling and done some laundry.

I’m beat.

I’ve become unstuck though. I want to go somewhere else now.

The summer has one more trip to NYC planned, and then WHO KNOWS? More motorcycling? More Jeeping? A road trip in the Z? We’ll see.

CCIE renewed + Beach

Date: 2010.05.31 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 2

I passed my CCIE Voice recertification. It wasn’t as bad as I expected it to be. I did pretty well and spent more time stressing about it that I should have. It’ll be nice to get the recert money.

Brendan invited me down to the beach. I have pictures here:

Now back to work after the amazing weekend. So much fit into the weekend.

Junkyard hunting for Andy’s cruise control parts
Meeting a new roommate
Motorcycle Ride and BBQ #1 at Andrae’s
BBQ #2 at Samir’s
Beach Trip to Wilmington for BBQ #3 at Sundeep’s
Back home for BBQ #4 at Scott’s

Delicious, fun, exhausting. Also, downloading the day’s New York Times for 99 cents on the Kindle makes for a great way to kill the 2.5 hour car ride back from Wilmington.

Busy lately – Camping, Jeeping, Motorcycling, Partying

Date: 2010.05.16 | Category: Family, Friends, Jeeping, Music, Party, Projects, Toys, Travel, Work | Response: 0

I haven’t posted in quite a while. That time has been filled with all sorts stuff. I’ve been riding my motorcycle around, going camping and Jeeping, Ward’s wedding, more motorcycling, and just hanging out with people around Raleigh and Chapel Hill.

I guess I’ll start with links to albums in chronological order, just to document things. I have such a backlog of stuff that I can’t really write it all out in detail. Instead, we’ll skip straight to the pics, and brief blurbs.

Pete and I took our motorcycles down to the beach one random day for lunch. We ate, walked around looking at girls in bikini’s then we turned around for Easter Dinner.

I went to Ward’s wedding and met up with a whole bunch of RIT and Cisco folks. It was incredible to have everyone together again. There was a lot of bittersweet talk about how this was the first and maybe last large reunion of so many RIT grads in one place.

There was camping and Jeeping after that.

Brendan and I took a random Thursday after that and went up to Richmond, VA to see Flogging Molly and Big D and the Kid’s table. They added ridiculously hot dancers. I was immediately in love. We also met up with Esther and her friend that night. It made for a long night. I eventually wound up riding my motorcycle at home from the Cisco parking lot at 3AM. Heated grips are AMAZING!

The next night we went out for Sasha’s birthday party. Raleigh was in full blown skirt season. It was excellent.

The first week of May is a Blur. Brendan’s friend Daniel had a grad party

I saw Steve’s band Idiom play at The Berkely. We met a cute Brunette that worked at an Animal Hospital

Aric had a house warming party where it was decided that everyone loved this girl

We also ran into another short Brunette who had opinions on whether or not Earth should be keeping a backup planet in the works for disaster recovery. Awesome.

Shapess, Andy and I had a random day out at Uwharrie. I had time to dial in the scope on my 22, AND spent some time shooting Shapess’ AK-47. Too much fun there.

On May 12th Kenneth, Pete, and I drove down to Charlotte to see Say Anything and Angels and Airwaves. Say Anything put on a good show but the set was too short unfortunately. It was nice to know that the girls belt out the lyrics to “Every Man Has a Molly” even louder than the guys.

You god damned kids had best be gracious with the Merch money you spend.
Cause for you I won’t ever have rough sex with Molly Connolly again.

I met a beautiful girl with so many awesome traits it’s hard to believe she actually exists.
1. Bartender
2. Graduated Culinary School
3. Loves the music scene
4. Gorgeous
5. Incredibly friendly / nice
6. Brunette
7. Tiny
8. Likes jeeps and motorcycles, knows how to replace a radiator.

Doubtful that said girl will actually get in touch with me – but it was a good night regardless. Another weeknight of getting home around 3AM. Energy drinks are my savior.

Just last night I went to a Skinny Tie Party at Justin Tiexera’s place.

I proceeded to introduce myself to a girl so forcefully that she immediately notified me she was someone elses wife. I need to do a better job looking for rings.
I also met another beautiful brunette who can bust out the quadratic equation at the drop of a ‘hat’. Math teachers for the win. There was Rock Band. People rocked out to Coheed and Cambria, and I sang my heart out to NIN – The Hand That Feeds. I don’t even need the scrolling words to sing this one:

And finally – today I went on an awesome motorcycle ride out to Wilson NC with my motorcycle gang. We hit up Parker’s BBQ and it was delicious. There was some really beautiful back country and great roads between here and Wilson if you avoid the highway.

After riding around NC I went over to Andy’s house and helped him tinker on his new front axle. We removed the diff cover and took out the locker, getting it ready for the new axle. We also greased up his lower control arms, and I drilled some holes for his new bump stops.

I am now VERY tired just thinking about all of that.

The future holds a trip to DC to see the air and space museum, and hopefully a trip out to the mountains with my Mom to check out the roads there.

In other non fun related matters, I’ve REALLY got to recertify my CCIE

2010 Kawasaki Concours 14

Date: 2010.03.28 | Category: Toys, Travel | Response: 1

I went down to Team Powersports in Smithfield on Saturday morning. Justin let me test ride the 09 demo model they had there. First, everyone in the shop seemed very cool. Second, this bike is big and heavy, but once you get on it that all disappears. It handled like a featherweight at slow city traffic speeds. U turns and figure 8s are no problem. At highway speed it would lay over left and right with just a little flick.

In 4th gear when pulling out to pass someone at about 60 mph you can do about 100 by the time you’re at the front of the car you’re trying to pass. It doesn’t have a buzzy high revving 600cc sportbike power. It’s a sneaky, large 1.4L displacement power that just rockets you up to speed without much noise.

The adjustable windshield was pretty awesome. I’m really excited about putting on some serious miles now that I have a machine made for it.

Knee Slider Review

Cycle World Review

After the test ride I wound up buying the 2010 ABS model. They’re putting it together from the warehouse and it should be ready sometime this week.

The rest of my time and energy will be spent on hooking up my Zumo 550 and maybe even the XM radio feature, and planning routes. Anybody want to ride up to Indianapolis for MotoGP in August with Pete Slow and myself?

Voracious Reading

Date: 2010.03.23 | Category: Books | Response: 0

I’ve been destroying books lately. They are great for plane rides, and great for taking your mind off of things. However, I always find myself more depressed than when I started. Something about holing yourself up for days at a time in a fantasy land that isn’t particularly helpful.

I need to remember to throw in more non-fiction every now and again.

I started two new fantasy series at the same time.

George RR Martin’s – A Game of Thrones (A Song of Fire and Ice)

and

Patrick Rothfuss – Name of the Wind (Kingkiller Chronicles)

I like them both. I like almost all books though.

I also just recently polished off 20,00 Leagues Under the Sea. Jules Verne is a grand chronicler / cataloger. That means there  are whole pages you can just skip. Oh, he’s still listing types of fish in the Indian Ocean three pages later? Next, Next, Next, oh the story starts again. Overall though – great book worth reading.  You can see the influence his work in the late 1800s has on modern science fiction. To me that’s fascinating.

Read 20,000 leagues under the sea and then pick up a copy of Michael Chrichton’s Sphere. Makes me want to re-read sphere. I’ve been through that book something like 4 times by now. Great read.

Shooter’s Log – Day 4

Date: 2010.03.23 | Category: Guns | Response: 0

A while back Shapess and I trekked down to PDHSC again. I fired 100 rounds of Federal 9MM through the P07. I also fired one magazine of 15 hollow points.

My accuracy was pretty great the first 50 rounds. The second set definitely suffered. I was stuffing an almost full 15 rounds per magazine when I normally shoot 10. Either I got tired of shooting, or just plain tired. 15 rounds is a bit to fire off.

My rapid fire accuracy is bullshit. I don’t know if it’s a skill worth improving at $0.20 per round. It’s always fun to go in an empty a full magazine like you mean it. The people next to you just shake their heads in dismay.

Thomas Paine

Date: 2010.03.04 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 0

I have resolved to take a US History class and become the foremost expert on Thomas Paine.

I will write many books and essays.

I will refer to him as T. Paine in all literary works.

I will laugh hysterically.

That is all.

Strange Musical Coincidence

Date: 2010.03.03 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 0

Lately I’ve had a stunning series of strange musical coincidences. I’ll be singing a song in the shower, and then again while I’m making my lunch for the day. Then I’ll walk into the car and fire up the CD player or the satellite radio, and BAM the song bursts into the same verse I’m singing.

This happened with the Gay Blades CD and I just tossed it up to me turning off the Jeep the night before on the same some “Dog Day Afternoon”

Then the very next day I’m listening to The Strokes – 12:51 and humming it along while in the shower. We can go and get 40s. Fuck going to that party.

I hop into the Z, hit start, and lo and behold what do I hear coming from AltNation:

It’s been ridiculous. What song will tomorrow bring? Will I have a three day streak? We’ll find out.

Summer Motorcycle / Concert Tour

Date: 2010.02.17 | Category: Friends, Music | Response: 0

I just had an amazing Idea.

I like Music.

I like Motorcycles.

Bands go on tour during the summer months.

Motorcycles are awesome to ride in the summer months.

Action Plan:

Take time off during the summer months and plot a course across the country that involves stops in different cities where bands are playing. Do it all on a motorcycle. I’m envisioning maybe a week or two, or if we stick to the southeast maybe just odd weekends here or there.

Who’s with me? Anyone want to ride on the back of my bike (boobs required)?

Snowboarding – Snowshoe, WV

Date: 2010.02.15 | Category: Uncategorized | Response: 0

I spent the weekend snowboarding (or trying to) in Snowshoe, WV. It’s about a 6 hour drive from Raleigh. I went up with Pete and Kenneth.

We randomly managed to run into Kurt and Lauren as well. I took a snowboarding class with Kurt. Lauren took a ski class. Kurt Lauren and I spent Sat and Sun going down all the green trails!

I hurt everywhere. I also hit my head pretty damn hard. Yeah, should have remembered that helmet. Towards the end of the second day I was starting to get it, but I was also too tired to make my turns fast enough.

I’d definitely go snowboarding again! Here are some pictures of Snowshoe.