Peep
5/30/06
Three weeks have passed an not a peep from me...until now.
It's been a strange three weeks. I think I've done something every weekend for the past three weeks that didn't involve me sitting on my butt. Everything I did, however, did involve me, sitting, and my butt, just not necessarily at the same time. Although sitting does get kind of hard to do without me and my butt.
Let's see...so three weeks ago I went to Butano State Park to do what's called "trail hacking" or "trail hax0ring" depending on who I'm with. The Trail Center is building a hiking trail that connects Butano some other parks nearby. These parks are all really close to each other, but there's no trail that goes from one park to another so when all of this is finished, you can do a backpacking trip through three parks. Building a new trail was pretty interesting. We were cleaning up part of an old logging road so the path was more or less already there, but it was too overgrown. What's neat is that the path hadn't been used for a long time and there were a bunch of interesting features along the way that hadn't seen a human for a while. Along the way, there was the result of a rock slide that took place not long ago. We got to clear out the rocks and remove a fallen tree to make a wide-enough path for hiking. There was also a tree where a vine had wrapped itself around the tree's trunk while the tree was growing. The vine was no longer there but the tree has grooves in it showing where the vine was. We finished our day at a huge tree of some sort. The tree would have made a nice Swiss Family Robinson home. It would have been perfect if there was an elephant nearby.
The best part about the day was that there was poison oak all over the place and I was standing in it when someone came over and told me I was standing in a big pile of poison oak. I don't know if I ended up getting it on me or not. I started feeling itchy afterwards but I don't know if it was because I had poison oak on me or if I just thought I had poison oak on me or if I was a crack addict. The guys from the trail center had some good poison oak tips (besides not to touch the stuff). There is a magic lotion called tecnu which stops poison oak from reacting if it is used before the rashes break out. Unfortunately, they said that the highest concentration of poison oak is probably found on the outside of someone's bottle of tecnu. They also said to wash yourself and your clothes with dishwashing detergent because that breaks down the oil and that you should rinse off the detergent with cold water so you don't open up your pores. Poison oak, good stuff.
Two weeks ago, a bunch of us piled into a car and headed up to Dr. Grace's graduation. Grace, not only has the honor of graduating from pharmacy school but she also has the distinction of being allowed to respond when I ask, "What's up, doc?" Steph gave Grace this super awesome smiley flower which kept many of us amused for a very long time. It was so super awesome because you can wrap it around your head and the flower will still be smiling. After the graduation, we went to the Old Spaghetti Factory where we ate until eating was no longer feasible until they brought out ice cream. I managed to gain back all the weight I lost with my latest weight loss plan that day. My weight loss plan involves expressing extreme hatred towards the fat on my body and hoping it would feel unwelcome and go away. I think I lost one pound during my three months on the plan.
This past weekend saw a fine BBQ at the beach in Santa Cruz. We went to a beach commonly known as Ortega Park which is in Sunnyvale and is much closer to Santa Cruz than, say, Kyrgyzstan and can therefore be considered in Santa Cruz to some observers. The beach was complete with sand (dirt actually) and the ocean (or a large non-smiley flower spraying water on kids). We did have plenty of food, plentier of chips, and plentiest of fun along with a couple of made up words sprinkled here and there.
Afterwards, I hopped in my car and drove up to Sacramento to meet Phill and folks for Phill's birthday. Everyone else came from another BBQ and felt pretty lousy by the time they reached Sacramento. Not wanting to be left out, I developed a pounding headache along the way so I too could join in the misery. We met up at an English pub where they hold a quiz night Sundays at 9pm. I learned that a skink is not a preacher and that, well, I guess it would not be so nice if I could touch your butt, and that Patricia Cornwall writes books that con all and write crap. If that made no sense, then you failed the quiz. The next day most of us somehow woke up and went for a hike around some place where you can see Eddie Murphy's house in the distance. We somehow had more BBQ food for lunch and somehow got home. I kept almost falling asleep on the way home. Wait, I'm still falling asleep.
Today, I went to work refreshed and energized. That is, until I sat down at my desk. Sitting down takes quite a bit out of me.
May the Force be with you and may there be more useless posts next month.
It's been a strange three weeks. I think I've done something every weekend for the past three weeks that didn't involve me sitting on my butt. Everything I did, however, did involve me, sitting, and my butt, just not necessarily at the same time. Although sitting does get kind of hard to do without me and my butt.
Let's see...so three weeks ago I went to Butano State Park to do what's called "trail hacking" or "trail hax0ring" depending on who I'm with. The Trail Center is building a hiking trail that connects Butano some other parks nearby. These parks are all really close to each other, but there's no trail that goes from one park to another so when all of this is finished, you can do a backpacking trip through three parks. Building a new trail was pretty interesting. We were cleaning up part of an old logging road so the path was more or less already there, but it was too overgrown. What's neat is that the path hadn't been used for a long time and there were a bunch of interesting features along the way that hadn't seen a human for a while. Along the way, there was the result of a rock slide that took place not long ago. We got to clear out the rocks and remove a fallen tree to make a wide-enough path for hiking. There was also a tree where a vine had wrapped itself around the tree's trunk while the tree was growing. The vine was no longer there but the tree has grooves in it showing where the vine was. We finished our day at a huge tree of some sort. The tree would have made a nice Swiss Family Robinson home. It would have been perfect if there was an elephant nearby.
The best part about the day was that there was poison oak all over the place and I was standing in it when someone came over and told me I was standing in a big pile of poison oak. I don't know if I ended up getting it on me or not. I started feeling itchy afterwards but I don't know if it was because I had poison oak on me or if I just thought I had poison oak on me or if I was a crack addict. The guys from the trail center had some good poison oak tips (besides not to touch the stuff). There is a magic lotion called tecnu which stops poison oak from reacting if it is used before the rashes break out. Unfortunately, they said that the highest concentration of poison oak is probably found on the outside of someone's bottle of tecnu. They also said to wash yourself and your clothes with dishwashing detergent because that breaks down the oil and that you should rinse off the detergent with cold water so you don't open up your pores. Poison oak, good stuff.
Two weeks ago, a bunch of us piled into a car and headed up to Dr. Grace's graduation. Grace, not only has the honor of graduating from pharmacy school but she also has the distinction of being allowed to respond when I ask, "What's up, doc?" Steph gave Grace this super awesome smiley flower which kept many of us amused for a very long time. It was so super awesome because you can wrap it around your head and the flower will still be smiling. After the graduation, we went to the Old Spaghetti Factory where we ate until eating was no longer feasible until they brought out ice cream. I managed to gain back all the weight I lost with my latest weight loss plan that day. My weight loss plan involves expressing extreme hatred towards the fat on my body and hoping it would feel unwelcome and go away. I think I lost one pound during my three months on the plan.
This past weekend saw a fine BBQ at the beach in Santa Cruz. We went to a beach commonly known as Ortega Park which is in Sunnyvale and is much closer to Santa Cruz than, say, Kyrgyzstan and can therefore be considered in Santa Cruz to some observers. The beach was complete with sand (dirt actually) and the ocean (or a large non-smiley flower spraying water on kids). We did have plenty of food, plentier of chips, and plentiest of fun along with a couple of made up words sprinkled here and there.
Afterwards, I hopped in my car and drove up to Sacramento to meet Phill and folks for Phill's birthday. Everyone else came from another BBQ and felt pretty lousy by the time they reached Sacramento. Not wanting to be left out, I developed a pounding headache along the way so I too could join in the misery. We met up at an English pub where they hold a quiz night Sundays at 9pm. I learned that a skink is not a preacher and that, well, I guess it would not be so nice if I could touch your butt, and that Patricia Cornwall writes books that con all and write crap. If that made no sense, then you failed the quiz. The next day most of us somehow woke up and went for a hike around some place where you can see Eddie Murphy's house in the distance. We somehow had more BBQ food for lunch and somehow got home. I kept almost falling asleep on the way home. Wait, I'm still falling asleep.
Today, I went to work refreshed and energized. That is, until I sat down at my desk. Sitting down takes quite a bit out of me.
May the Force be with you and may there be more useless posts next month.