The Scottish Games

I went to the Scottish Games yesterday with Jen (not all of my friends are named Jen, but a lot of them are). I can't think of a better way to spend a Saturday than watching men in skirts throwing trees.

Contrary to popular belief, the caber toss is not about distance, it's about accuracy. You can see the judge there running behind the athlete, he's judging the angle that the caber is released at and then he's going to give it a score or time. The goal is to flip the caber and have it land as close to 12:00 as possible.

Look at those cute spectators.

This guy, Gregor, actually did better when he took his shirt off. I didn't complain.

I'm a fan of the Scottish.

Thank you Jet Blue

Monday's lunch conversation at work was centered around plans to take advantage of the Jet Blue 10th year $10 anniversary sale. We were all going to go to San Francisco for dinner, because when a flight is only $10, why not.
Anyway, that all fell through because things of this nature usually do, but I still decided to go to Boston to visit my friend Jen. She already had tickets to the Red Sox game, so I got there and bought a game day ticket.

On the way to Fenway Park- How lucky is Jen that she lives within walking distance?

I got a first time at Fenway certificate..... and a balloon.

And there's Jen and I, sitting next to the "Green Monster".

This is my purse on the way home- this was my only piece of luggage, how impressed are you now?

The tree huggers

Like I promised, poached from the lovely Julie's facebook page.

This is one of the tree houses we stayed in.

I do like to live with the trees :)

And this is my new bike that I traded for the summer (just a little switcharoo with a friend). Too bad I traded my mountain bike for a road bike the week before I spent a couple days in the mountains. But I do live across the street from a bike trail, so I'm still happy about my summer of trying out road biking.

Tree House Camping

Tree house camping was amazing. We had roughly 24 people coming in and out throughout the weekend, and it was great fun. More pictures of the tree houses to follow when I collect them (aka poach them off facebook) from people who were better at taking pictures this weekend than I.

As you can imagine, getting 24 thirty somethings to agree to do one thing during the day is a nightmare, so it wasn't attempted. Some people went to the Antietam battlefield, some explored the quaint towns in the area, some went to a train museum, and Louise and Jen and I went on a bike ride.

This was my first time on this bike, and it required a little bit of trial and error to get things going, but in the end it, all was well. And, as with any worthwhile endeavor, the bike ride ended with ice cream cones :)

A beautiful day

Last Sunday was a beautiful day, and I spent almost all of it outside.
I had a few projects that kept me busy, mostly adding a bit o' color and
lessening the chance of butt splinters at dinner parties.

side of the road benches before


hand me down table before


hand me down table after



side of the road benches after

The Virginia Gold Cup

As the first day of May, last Saturday kicked off possibly the busiest month on my social calendar in recent history. Each weekend is jam packed with fun things to do, and I'm pretty sure I'm going to have to give up working to accomplish all the things that I have planned.

Adventure no. 1- The Virginia Gold Cup
This thing has been going for at least 80 years (it's a steeplechase- you know, that race where the horses jump over things), but I'm pretty sure the race is secondary to dressing up in ridiculous clothes and hats, being seen, and getting drunk. I personally love the hats, don't care much about being seen, and avoid getting drunk.


Erin, Me, Sam, Derek, Mort, Angela, Frances
Beverli, Jen, Angela


You can tell Mr. Gatsby here LIVES for this day.

I'm unsure if Uncle Creepy here grew the mustache specifically for the occasion, but he won for ickiest getup.

And here I am, cooling off in the stream (it was about 90 degrees; I nearly melted and it's only MAY).
fyi- I think my hat is pretty great. Unfortunately, from this angle, you can't see the two pheasant feathers shooting off to the side.
At some point during the day, a stranger walked by me and said "That is a hat."
This was obviously meant as a compliment, but I felt it was a little lacking in the adjective area.