Catching Up

Hey!

Still here and still kickin'! Been too busy to post. Took a few days off last week to go camping so the other days were jammed full trying to get ready for the trip and then trying to dig out of the backlog once I got back. Today's the first day I can breathe again!

The trip was cool, I got to do two full days with the Scouts (Sadly, The Boy couldn't make this trip - other responsibilities) and we did some cool stuff. I got to do some water skiing and ride on a "banana boat" (six-person inflatible raft that looks like huge banana and is towed behind a boat at 20 mph by a lunataic driver intent on dumping you all off. Fun as shit!) We also went rock climbing at an 85 ft. tall cliff face, wherein Your's Truly was almost killed.

Nope, I'm not exaggerating at all. I was belaying one of the older boys, when a huge chunk of rock broke off under his weight and plummeted toward me. the rock was about 15 or so inches across and maybe 8 in. thick, dropping from 70 or so feet, right at my delicate noggin! The climber screamed "Rock!" and I saw it coming down but there was nothing I could do. Moving would have meant letting go of the belay line -which I was NOT gonna do- so my only option was to "turtle-in". Bascially, that means pulling arms and legs in tight, head down, and trying to hide my whole body under the teeny little climbing helmet I was wearing. (Yea, like THAT was gonna happen!) Luck was with me though, the rock didn't hit me. It just grazed my left arm, leaving a few scratches, and slammed onto the rocks at my feet, exploding like a grenade, showering my legs with bits of sharp rock, earning me a few more scrapes. Scared the shit out of me! Overall though, it was a cool trip. I even got to shoot me some black powder rifles! Those are awesome!

On other fronts, I hit the In-Law's for a major landscaping project the day after I got back from the mountains. The whole family pitched in to work on their yard as a belatedFather/Mother's Day gift. It was actually fun. it was especially cool when we finished out the last hour or so in the middle of a thunderstorm. It rained buckets and by the end I was running about with nothing on but my shorts (I felt bad for the poor neighbors!) I actually did a little bit of writing last week before I split, not much, just a few hundred words but it was something.

Exercising is still going well, weight still dropping. I actually worried about missing days while I was on vacation but running up and down mountains, etc. MORE than made up for missing a day of running! It also helped that the food at this camp sucked, so I didn't eat a whole hell of a lot.

What else is going on? Oh, I'm working on heading back to school to finish off a BS in Engineering Graphics, did I mention that? That's one of them new things I want to do I been telling y'all about. It's what I specialize in now, so I don't imagine it will give me any great career boost, but it's one of those unfinished things in my life that I want to resolve. Just for my own peace of mind, ya' know? It'll be kinda fun to do some school work too. Maybe The Boy and I can do our homework together this year! :-)

Later!