The Weekend.

This weekend wasn’t as “weekendish” as I would have liked, but it still had some enjoyable moments. It started with a seven hour work day Saturday. Working on Saturday isn’t actually that bad. It tends to be amazingly productive because of lack of interruptions and usually someone brings in doughnuts. I was out by about 3-4pm and at that point went up to Coventry to take Mandy up on an invitation for some wake boarding.

Oh man. Wake boarding is really fun. We started with some tubing and then moved to the boards. Brandon, the boat owner, just got a new boat a year or so ago and has it stocked with gear. It is furiously fun. Five of us were on the lake for a good three or four hours Saturday evening. What a refreshing break. I hope that I’ll be able to go out again this season.

As for this week? I’m only in Ohio today and tomorrow. I really want to try and sneak out to visit my sister in Portland, OR for labor day weekend – though it depends a bit on how work is looking when I get back to CT. Unfortunately, classes start back up on September 5th, so I think this is my last opportunity for a multi-day trip for a little while.

Annnd we’re back.

Back!

Sorry about that little vacation there. I was really fed up with stuff and figured that anything I posted would have been far too self-critical to make for fun reading. Anyway, what’s new? Well this past weekend was a mix of work and play. Our presentation on Friday night went really really well. It was very well received by both the class and the professor. I’m proud of the result. You can see two of our 6 clips over in the features section on the left. The grapevine one is a higher quality clip, so I’d recommend that one if you only have time for one.

I still have a few more projects to do for my other class, but hopefully they won’t be too painful and I’ll be able to get through the week smoothly. Then I will be on summer break which will be totally righteous.

Saturday night I saw The Dark Knight. It was excellent. And Sunday was climbing and BBQ. Unfortunately, my Monday started with not enough sleep and ended with a very stressful evening. Work is heavy at the moment, I’m in the midst of the assembly phase of my project. We continue to identify problems as they come up and tackle them as quickly as possible, but it’s a tiring process. I’m certain everything will come together, it’s just how smooth that path will be.

Anyway, I hope you’re all well. Posts should continue for the remainder of this week.

Mosquitoes

This weekend the Mosquitoes hit up my elbows like they were buffet tables. Perhaps it’s because I can’t carefully monitor my elbows like I can my forearms, or perhaps it’s because I’m flawed when it comes to bug-spray application, or perhaps… perhaps my elbows are just really tasty… Whatever the reason, my elbows were annihilated this weekend. First at Astronomy night, then at Dave’s sister Amy’s birthday bbq, and finally during Sunday’s climbing.

My left elbow took nine hits. My right? eleven. And they itch like you wouldn’t believe. Sure, my ankles got one or two, and my right hand got a frustrating one right on the knuckle… but those are nothing in comparison to my elbows.

Curse you mosquitoes. Curse you.

Wait… Polo?

To create the perfect weekend juxtaposition, on Sunday afternoon after getting all riled up at Roller Derby, I went to watch Polo with a couple friends in Greenwich. It was really unique.

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Polo in Greenwich and Roller Derby in Holyoke are pretty much complete polar opposites. On one side we have women with fishnets and tattoos bashing into one another, and on the other side we have men on horses striking a small ball with a long mallet. And if it’s not evident by the players themselves, it’s evident by the spectators.

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You’ve got to be kidding me.

I’d never been to see anything like Polo before. Crystal happened to be going with some peers and, since you pay by the car load, it only made sense to fill it up. They had an extra seat, and I grabbed it.

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Horses are awesome.

It was actually pretty intense. The horses were very very fast. And when the players raced by, going near 30 miles per hour, the ground thundered. It actually rumbled.

Polo fields are huge. You can fit nine football fields onto a polo field. So it’s a bit hard to get a feel of all the action. I think each team only has four players out on the field at a time. And they nail that ball like it’s going out of style. I was pretty impressed.

At ‘halftime’ they invite the crowds to come out onto the field to stomp divets in the grass. Here’s a picture of me putting a big chunk of grass back in its place.

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Know your place grass. Know your place.

The polo match lasted a couple hours. We showed up a bit late, but still got to see plenty of horse riding action. It was a fun trip to wealthy-ville.

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I dare say, Pete and Crystal, you look dashing. Just dashing.

Thanks for inviting me Pete&Crystal!!
(feel free to check out some of Pete’s photos here.)