And…. we’re back. I hope everyone enjoyed their labor day break.
Notable occurrences over the holiday weekend:
1. I now have an iphone
2. Shaun and I concluded the Battlestar Galactica series
3. I visited the Barcelona restaurant for the first time with Darcy and SarahLyla
4. The HoR has left its temporary status as a work zone, and returns to fairly clean living space
5. My first trad climbing experience of the summer went down with Pete Wilk (I’m embarrassed that it took so long for me to get outside this year)
6. I have tasted a cake so potent with chocolate that it invaded my dreams
Climbing pictures will probably post tonight or tomorrow.
It’s hard to describe the experience of Sandcastle Day on Cole Road Beach. Ryan Schenk, Tom, and Mykal had driven out to meet me in Cape Cod on Saturday evening. After a fitful sleep, I arose at 5:00am. Tom and Mykal were sleeping in a little, but Ryan Schenk and I headed out the door ready for action.
Unfortunately, the tide wasn’t quite ready. Cole Road Beach is uniquely shallow. As a result, when the tide goes out… it GOES out. Probably a quarter mile off shore. This provides plenty of sand for castle building. The strategy is placing the castle close enough to the shore so that you get the most amount of building time, but far enough off shore that the tide will easily slaughter the castle once it’s built.
I didn’t time our beach arrival quite right. We showed up about an hour early. Here’s a picture of Ryan Schenk sad that we’d have to wait to begin construction.
The Tide is Wrong!
After a trip to Hole in One Doughnuts for transcendental doughnuts, we came back to the beach and BAM! The Tide was at the ready!
The Tide is Right!
Official ground breaking went down at 6:50am. We shoveled for 5 hours and then began carving. Originally the plan was to make a tall castle with a single elongated peak, but after discussions we thought a dual peak would look cooler. Tom and Mykal showed up shortly after we began to contribute – sadly they had to leave before the castle was complete. Dad D came by as the castle was coming together to complete his time honored task of building the official castle wall.
Here’s the construction time lapse:
The Castle Rises!
AWESOME.
To celebrate the castle’s completion, Ryan Schenk and I performed two epic high fives, both of which are chronicled here in this animated gif. Apparently, today’s post is very animated.
Style! Flare!
You can see the water fast approaching the seaside fortifications during our high five!!
On Saturday night Shaun, Darcy, Viv, and I went to Karaoke. One particularly obnoxious dude kept approaching the singers with somewhat untraditional dance moves showing complete disregard to their personal space – “getting all up in their grill” as Shaun put it. The uncomfortable man approached our table. We’ll call him Chad.
Chad: Hey guys. you singing tonight? what are your names?
Shaun: I’m Shaun.
Darcy: Darcy.
Vivienne: Vivienne.
Mike D: Mike D.
Chad: Sweet sweet. Darcy Vivienne, come on up and dance!
Darcy (shaking her head no): It’s not you, it’s me.
Wow. Responding to a weak pick up line with a break-up line.
On Saturday night, Darcy and I went to Karaoke in West Hartford.
Darcy really likes going to Karaoke with me, in part, because weird things tend to happen. Last time some aging frisky swingers approached, after my thrilling rendition of Possum Kingdom, and asked if I performed at any venues in CT. Odd? yes. But nothing could top this week’s weirdness.
After I sang Lights (Journey) and Virtual Insanity (Jamiroquai), an older man came up to our table. He held out his hand and introduced himself to me “Hi, I’m Al. People call me Frank.”
Al. Call him Frank.
He wore a gawky 1996 Olympics windbreaker, a red baseball cap with unbent rim, shorts, bulky ill-fitting sneakers, and bright white socks which stretched up to his knees.
“I’m an agent” he continued and handed over his card Al/Frank's Card
“I managed my brothers band when I was fifteen years old,” Al/Frank boasted
“oh?” I replied.
“You’ve got a good voice. But you need help picking songs. You’ve got to choose the song for your voice. The first song you did was good. The second one was a bad choice. That’s why I choose Frank Sinatra. Because it works with my voice.”
Aside: Al/Frank’s voice is not exactly well suited for Karaoke, let alone Sinatra
“Well, thanks” I replied awkwardly
“I saw you looking at the screens too. You have to memorize the words.”
“ahh,” I fumbled, “of course. of course.”
The conversation continued from there for far too many minutes. Eventually Al/Frank sat down. Shortly thereafter the Karaoke DJ announced “Next up is FRANK!”
Al/Frank didn’t move.
“FRANK! Frank’s up next!” the DJ looked directly at Al/Frank. “Frank!!”
nothing.
“Frank is up!!” he tried again.
rolling his eyes the DJ gave it one more go “FRANK!! FRANK IS UP NEXT. FRANK!!”
“oh!” Al/Frank said startled and worked his way up to the microphone.
When we left for the night, Al/Frank was handing his card to another singer. Best of luck Al/Frank. Best of luck.
