Archive for March, 2008

Spring Break, and other randomness

Monday, March 17th, 2008

So I’ve been a little quiet recently. I was sick with the Westford Plague du jour, and have been busy – not all of it in front of a computer (ok, so I have the iCrackPhone with me even in the gym, but that’s just to please my ADDness from time to time). Anyway, here’s a random update.

Photo: 4 Aces…not a doctored image.

I was in Western Mass. from Friday night until Saturday afternoon, hanging out with some friends in a cabin (more like a lodge, and insanely cool), drinking Whiskey, playing copious amounts of Guitar Hero (I can get a 97% vocal score in expert mode, after drinking, and I’m going to have to buy a games console – probably a PS3). and poker, which I really enjoyed. I guess I need more of these social outlets. Getting there was fun, since I have no snow tires (next winter, I think this will indeed have to change!) on a rear-wheel-drive MX5 and my GPS kept wanting me to offroad/take closed roads/do things even I would consider a little unwise, in the rain. I got there in the end, after driving around, trying to get a cellular signal, calling a few times…comedy. I got stuck on one of the neighboring cabin driveways after making the “mistake” of stopping. Ice can do that for you.

I’ve been playing poker recently, having never really gotten into that. I’m also going to have to visit Foxwoods, and see ‘21′ sometime pretty soon. It’s funny really how much I’ve changed over the last year – I’d never have been really a poker person, but now I find it quite interesting. I still suck, but I’ll get there. On a tangent (the subject of random interests, and heck, this whole blog is one singularly giant tangent) I’ve been looking into skateboarding again. I think once the weather improves I’ll finally get this sorted. I’m looking for someone with some experience who can help me figure this out – otherwise I’m inclined to devote the past part of a day to falling on my ass some weekend soon.

Sunday was largely a catch up day, though I did buy a science text book, play with the iPlayer (caught up on Top Gear, Casualty, and even wound up with 10 minutes of Eastenders before I realized just how crappy that show always was), book a hotel in Miami, and look into surfing options, amongst various other things. I also caved and joined Netflix in the end. It was going to happen, and now it has. You can “friend” me, and see what depressingly unfortunate movie taste I may or may not have, by clicking on Netflix by clicking on my Netflix friend link.

I’m taking my first “spring break” next weekend. Hussein is flying over from London this week, and we’re headed down to NYC, and then on to Florida, for next weekend. The trip goes something like this:

* Thursday night, drive down to Jersey. Hang out with some friends.
* Friday. Tourism extravaganza in NYC for Hussein.
* Saturday. Fly to Miami ridiculously early. Get a rental convertible (Hertz were sold, but Avis weren’t, and I hope we’ll have a red Mustang option). Drive to Key West. We’ll try to go snorkeling and are staying down there for the night. I really want to see both an East Coast sunset, and an East Coast sunrise, from the same location…not many places that you can do that, by its definition.
* Sunday. Drive back to Miami. Go surfing. Hang out on South Beach, watch the vultures picking up college girls on spring break, hit the town, and probably check out some Martinis in the evening.
* Monday. Watch the sunrise, hang out on South Beach. Fly back to NYC.
* Drive back from NYC at some crazily unpleasant hour.

Jon.