BrockLi Soup

I really can’t remember the last weekend I had to myself to enjoy. Last weekend, I drove up to Buffalo for a wedding. The weekend before that, I was moving. The two weekends before that were spent working in my SF hotel room.

Yesterday, I got up around 11, met the guy who (finally) took away the monitor I had been trying to get rid of, spent a few hours at work, finished a book, and fell asleep. A pretty full day, you might say, until I tell you that I fell asleep at 8:30, leaving less than 10 hours that I was actually up and doing anything. Today, I woke up pretty early, dropped off stuff at Goodwill, and I’ve spent most of the day working again. Right now, I’m taking a break to clear my head, because I’m still not done with everything that needs to be finished tomorrow morning. If I had my way, I’d probably just go to bed now, because even after sleeping about 12 hours last night, I’m still exhausted.

I guess it wasn’t a total waste of a weekend. I did get rid of some stuff that was cluttering the place up, and I did catch up on some sleep that I sorely needed, but I still just want a weekend with no obligations. This Friday afternoon “we need this Monday morning” shit needs to go.

(PS: When I titled this Another Wasted Weekend, I don’t mean to imply that going home for Bill’s wedding last weekend was a waste, because it wasn’t, and I had a lovely time.)

I do love these three day weekends, but I always come up with an ambitious list of things that need doin’, and then I keep putting them off because, hey, it’s a three day weekend, and then I find myself sitting on the couch at 10 Monday evening with nothing to show for my weekend.

But I suppose that’s OK. I had a nice long chat with Mel and watched some movies and finished one book and then read another one this afternoon and relaxed and slept in and made some chicken salad. I never did get around to doing laundry, but it’s OK because I bought a bunch of socks and underwear a few weeks ago, so I can go a lot longer between laundry days now.

Weekends like this are nice now and again, but I think I’d go crazy if they were all this mellow. But, last weekend featured a visit from BP and Klem, and the New Year was before that, and Christmas before that, and in another couple weeks I’m off to San Francisco for a bit, so it’s all good. I’ll have time to learn Ruby on Rails later.

I don’t know about you, but I had a hell of a weekend. We closed up shop around noon on Wednesday, so I went beer-and-food shopping with Jym and Mel, who cooked an incredible feast for six of us on Thanksgiving (when I saw “who,” I mean Mel - Jym had nothing to do with it). Elsie came down Friday for a long weekend, since RIT is in between quarters right now. A bunch of us spent Saturday afternoon at Fort Hunt, wandering around and flying toy airplanes, then went out to meet some people that night. Elsie and I spent Sunday doing “the walk” (Washington Monument to WW2 Memorial to Lincoln Monument to Vietnam Wall to White House) and wandering around other parts of DC. She fell asleep when we got home - at about 8 - so nothing much happened last night.

Over the course of the weekend, we ate at a few new places and some old favorites. I really do need to get out into the city more often - I always have a good time wandering around up there and we keep finding cool new restaurants. It’s easy to say “I’ll see it later” and spend the weekend on the couch, so it’s kind of nice when someone comes to town for a bit and gives me a reason to get out there.

Also, the monuments are beautiful at night, and one of these days (when I’ve got a few hundred bucks laying about) I’m going to get a new camera and show you what I mean (looking for Christmas ideas? Get me a D50).

It’s been a rowdy rowdy tiring long weekend, and I’m glad I’ve got a couple hours of down time before the next one starts.

I woke up feeling like shit on Thursday, so I stayed home and slept pretty much all day until Fonny and BP got here. I was still pretty run-down Friday and Saturday - and even now, I don’t feel like I’m totally over it - but I was good enough to go out and stuff. We had a BBQ here on Friday, for Fotios’ Going-Away and Jasmyn’s birthday, and wound up with a ton of people. I’m still not sure where a lot of them came from, but it got pretty big pretty quick.

Fotios moved out yesterday, so I moved into his room and Matt started settling in a little bit. We went and saw Beerfest again last night, then hung out at Fado for a while. BP and Schmitty wandered off on their own when the rest of us called it a night, but they managed to find their way back here early this morning. BP and Fonny headed north around noon, and Schmitty just left a little while ago.

And, in a few hours, Darrin is stopping in for the night on his way to somewhere, which is why I say I’ve only got a few hours to myself. We’ve got a revolving door here at the RIT Hostel, and a lot of times I’m not even sure who’s on their way in.

Tonight Laundry! (suck) Packing! (not-so-suck)

Friday Working my ass off till noon! (crap) Pick up rental car! (sweet!) Pay for rental car! (lame!) Drive! (fun!) It takes 9 hours! (ehhhh) Ride Dad’s motorcycle! (bliss!) Fix parents’ computer! (agony!)

Saturday Cousin’s wedding! (eh, if you’ve seen one Catholic wedding…) Reception! (whoo!) With my brother and cousins! (yeah!) And a bar! (”hey ya’all, watch this!”)

Sunday More motorcycle riding! (double bliss!) Drive home! (ohgodwhyisitsofar) Sleep through the rest of August and parts of March! (wait, what?)

Friday night included early drunkenness, a rowdy trip to Mackie’s, and a way-to-late bedtime.

Yesterday we saw You, Me, and Dupree (disappointment) and spent the evening in a Japanese karaoke cafe. A bunch of drunk college kids were in the Metro station Finger Jousting, so Schmitty jumped in and beat a couple guys before some cops and WMATA employees came down to investigate all the noise (we did a lot of cheering).

Today, after four loads of laundry, almost everything is clean and I feel accomplished. Done a little reading, done a little writing, watched King Arthur (not bad), and relaxed a bit.

Definitely better than last weekend, and now I know where all the drunk girls in this city hang out (hint: Japanese karaoke).

I like doing stuff on weekends. I don’t have any responsibilities and can stay out late without worrying about getting up early. More than doing stuff, though, I like using my weekends to not do stuff. I like having time to lay around and read books and watch movies. I never had much time for either while I was in school, so I want to catch up now, and I like relaxing on my days off. And even when I DO want to do stuff, I’ve also got a pretty impressive list of side projects I’ve been meaning to get to, and it’s never gotten any shorter.

This weekend has included almost no time for movies and books, but I suppose that’s a good thing. A bunch of us partied here Friday night, so I spent Saturday morning and afternoon recovering. My buddy from work had a house warming party later in the afternoon, so I got to spend some time hanging out with new people. He plays kickball, and most of the people there knew each other from that. I found out later in the evening that a handful weren’t from kickball, so we bonded over the fact that we didn’t know anyone else there. Lots of cool people, though - I met some guys that live in Crystal City who want to join us for poker night, and I think I’m going to play kickball in the fall because they were some of the friendliest people I’ve met down here.

Today was a total bust. I wound up working up in Baltimore and didn’t get home till after 3. By then, I was ready for a Sunday-afternoon nap, but I only got to crash for half an hour before Sharon got here. We hung out for a bit, then she left again, and I fell asleep for a couple more hours. I just woke up about an hour ago and I’ve been in that post-nap haze ever since.

Now I’m waiting for laundry to finish drying, and wishing it were Saturday morning again. I always have these ambitious plans for doing nothing all weekend - a book I want to start reading, some photos I want to organize, the movies that Netflix sent me weeks ago - and I almost never do any of it. I always seem to get blindsided by the rest of Life, but I suppose that making new friends is more important than organizing my stuff or catching up on movies.

DC is ridiculous. The street signs are misleading if they’re even there, and finding your way back anywhere is damn near impossible. It took me two hours yesterday to find downtown. Rent is probably twice that of Rochester, and the traffic is unbelievable.

But I like it. I think I might move here.

Also, the Meteor Shower Party was a blast. I’ll write about this weekend later - right now, I’m paying $7/hour to use wireless at Borders.

Every few weeks, I find myself without plans for the weekend. Once in a while, this is a welcome change: I can sit around and do nothing for a few days, catch up on sleep, do some reading, or catch a movie. It almost never happens, though. The weekends with no plans always turn out the busiest.

We saw Mr. & Mrs. Smith, then had some people over for drinks. Then we went mini-golfing, and had some people over for margarita night. Then we saw Murderball and had dinner at Stromboli Express, and I came home and had a drink and watched Universal Soldier, which was so bad it was great.

Weekends used to be for relaxing at the end of a rough week, but now I need Monday and Tuesday to recover from the weekend.

I know it’s Tuesday already (I’ve always been a couple days behind), but this past weekend was probably the best of the summer.

It started on Wednesday with a few drinks and a viewing of Cannibal: The Musical at Lux. I was surprised by how many people I knew there, but I’m not sure if they were there for the movie or my friends just hang out at bars on Wednesday nights.

Thursday was, of course, the Flogging Molly show, but I’ve already said quite enough about that.

After four and a half hours of sleep and a full day at work, I was pretty beat by the time we headed to the Flour City Brewer’s Festival Friday night. About 20 different local breweries were there, so we spent the evening sampling beers. I ran out of steam a couple hours in, but it was fun. I can’t even remember what beers I liked or didn’t, but I do know that Magic Hat Number 9 seemed overrated. After drinking for a few hours, we headed back to my place to meet us with people and head to Regal for Dukes of Hazzard. It was a lot better than I thought it would be, but I think we all braced ourselves for the worst and couldn’t possibly have been let down. It certainly wasn’t the Dukes, though - it was as if someone explained the characters to someone who had never seen the shown and let them write a script. Why was Uncle Jesse telling jokes? Why was Rosco so devious and competent? Why was it set in modern day? Why was the product placement so obnoxious? Whatever happened to button-up flannel shirts? Either way, it was funny, and there were lots of fights and car chases, and I was half-drunk, so I was happy.

On Saturday night, we hosted the Redneck Party, which wasn’t as well-attended as I’d expected, but a lot of fun nonetheless. We lost some money - less people came, but drank more beer - but that’ll happen. My brother and his girlfriend made it up, which was great. We drank and danced and drank some more, then made breakfast for everyone who spent the night. I’m hoping we can have a couple more parties before I leave in November, because they’re always worth the time and money we put into them.

It’s been a good week. I spent Monday and Tuesday catching up on the sleep I missed last weekend. Yesterday, I did the final test for Chem, so that’s not hanging over my head any more. We had a handful of people over last night for a shindig, which was a lot of fun. Earlier this week, I bought a TiVo - I figure I’m going to have to get my own apartment soon enough, and that’s one of the few appliances I want. This guy here at RIT was selling it with the lifetime subscription (usually $299) for $175, so I couldn’t pass it up.

Today, I’ve just been reading. I feel like I should be working on something, but there’s really nothing that needs doing. I still want to do something with AJAX, and I’ve got a couple projects in various unfinished states, but I think I’d like to catch up on some reading before I jump back into programming. I just haven’t felt like doing it lately. It’s unfortunate, because I really should be polishing up some projects from the past few years and putting together a portfolio, but I just can’t get into it.

Oh well. I have lots to read and watch. I can program later.

I’m trying to make to-do lists to sort out everything I need to do for the weekend. I’ll be heading home tomorrow evening after work so I can get up first thing Friday morning and take the motorcycle road test. There’s an Apple store in the mall near home, so I’m going to stop in there and see if I can’t get my iBook fixed - there are a couple small cracks in the edge around the screen. It looks like something inside the case is pushing out, causing just enough stress to gradually split the plastic casing. It’s really a cosmetic thing, since they’re hairline cracks, but I found a second one on the opposite side of the screen tonight so I want to have it fixed before my AppleCare runs out (note to self: renew that).

I figure I’ll be back in Rochester in the early afternoon, giving me time to pack some stuff up before leaving for the Adirondacks with Rhubarb and (I think) Shane. The rest of the weekend will be spent there relaxing and trying not to think about that chem lab reports that are due on Monday.

At some point tomorrow, I want to review the Motorcycle Manual just to make sure I know everything I’m supposed to. The only thing I’m really concerned about is lane position through turns - I always ride with other people, and we mostly maintain our position in the lane. I practiced doing loops and figure-8’s when I was home last weekend, so those shouldn’t be a problem, but I know I’ll never live it down if I fail for something stupid.

It should be a decent weekend if I can just make sure I do everything that needs doing.

Alright, so the weekend didn’t end as planned. I was planning on being back in Rochester by 6 to see a movie or two at The Little. I didn’t get back till 8 or 9, though.

Around 12:30, Eric and I took off for a ride on the bikes. I didn’t think we were going to be gone more than half an hour, so I just pulled on the clothes from the night before and took off. We had been out for about 15 minutes when we stopped to call my cousin Mike and see if that crew was out riding. They were planning to take off in about 20 minutes’ time, so we turned around and headed out their way.

I don’t get to see much of my cousins these days, and I’ve never ridden with more than one other person, so riding with that crew was a lot of fun. There were six bikes - me, my brother Eric, my cousins Kevin and Mike (with Laura on board) and their friends Pat and Jim. We rode out to the reservation so everybody could buy cheap cigarettes, then back to the house because Jim’s bike was acting up, then out to Chestnut Ridge, where Michelle (Kevin’s girlfriend) was having a family picnic or something. Throughout the course of the day we put almost 100 miles in.

It’s worth noting at this point that it was sunny, in the high 80’s, and very humid on Sunday. I was wearing a black helmet, gloves, jeans, boots, and a leather jacket - typical biking attire. I was sweating in places I didn’t know I could sweat. Everyone else was riding in jeans and T-shirts, and THEY were sweating in places they didn’t know they could sweat. I figured, if I fell off the bike, Jim was riding behind me and would run me over anyway, so I stuffed the jacket in Mike’s saddle bag shortly after we left.

As you may recall, this leaves me in a T-shirt and a pair of gloves (on the top half, anyway). You may also recall the bit about the sun.

I was burnt to a crisp from just above my elbows to my wrists. Most of my face was beat red too, aside from the top inch of my forehead (which was covered by the helmet). It was one goofy looking sunburn, but 60 MPH winds through a T-shirt make an 88 degree day far more bearable than a black leather jacket.

At one point, Mike pulled into the left lane and went flying past everyone. Naturally, we all kicked down a gear and took off after him. It turns out my dad’s bike can do about 95 MPH before you need to slow down for railroad tracks.

I thought I was pretty comfortable on the bike when we started out, but I definitely noticed at the end of the day that it felt more natural. I was making the same mistake I did when I get my learner’s permit: I was so nervous about staying in my own lane that I watched the road 20 feet in front of the car and kept nudging the wheel to keep myself in the middle, which only made me bounce back and forth more. My dad told me, “Just look out further down the road, and you’ll stay where you need to be.”

Without constantly focusing on exactly where I was in the lane, it was easier to stay pretty close to the middle. I was doing the same thing on the bike: I knew that I didn’t want to hit pot holes or road kill, so I always watched 20 or 30 feet out to avoid obstacles.

Since I usually ride a couple bike-lengths behind Eric in the right half of the lane, I could bob and weave side to side a little bit without causing any problems. On Sunday, I spent most of my time next to someone and in the left half of the lane, so I couldn’t go too far either way. Maybe it was just easier to watch the bike ahead of me and swerve when he did (lots of road kill on those country roads), but I found on the way home that it was easier to pay attention to the road ahead and stay put in the lane.

It’s a little unnerving to think that I was so confident on the bike before only to find that I could be better, but I know I’m still a beginner. I’m really hoping I can spend just as much time on it in two weeks when I go home, because that road test is coming up quick.