Thursday, August 30, 2007

i long for the days of boredom

I am in dire need of time to update this blog. In fact, this post isn't even an update. It's more of a placeholder to get my sister off my back for not posting.

Suffice it to say - law school is keeping me out of trouble (and in the library.)

Tuesday, August 7, 2007

I'm Not One For Nature

This weekend, Rachel and I participated in the abbreviated version of the Mississippi River Challenge. It was 22 miles of canoeing on the Mississippi River for a good cause.

And poor Rachel had to listen to me ALL weekend.

First of all, it turns out that I hate camping. By the end of our last foray into camping, I had a sneaking suspicion that I hated camping, but I wasn't sure. But yep, I think I hate camping. No electricity, no music, no computers, no ANYTHING. But, we did get awesome cookies from Whole Foods and we got to speculate about our fellow canoers. My favorite people were: The Potheads, Tent Twinsie, Fake Tent Twinsie, Food Boyfriend, and Fun Guy. We later learned that Fun Guy's real name is Brian, but only because we heard him yell it at someone else while we were canoeing. Rachel and I were total canoe loners. Everyone else knew people! We knew no one!

Anyways, after a completely miserable night, during which my borrowed mummy sleeping bag tried to mummify me, we woke up and had a little breakfast. Time to canoe!

And canoe we did. My main motivators are food and anger. And I got both! There were three rest stops on the trip and I eagerly looked forward to each one. Yay - food! It was even organic, so I was forced against my will to be healthy. No pita pizzas though.

But between the second and third legs of the trip, we began to encounter more boats going very very fast on the Mississippi. They're entitled to go fast, but unfortunately, this creates a large wake. And large wakes make small canoes seem very tippy. I have bruises on the sides of my knees from bracing myself very tightly against the sides of the canoe. Rachel enjoyed the wakes - I say she's crazy.

So, as more boats went by at these high speeds, I grew angrier and angrier. At about mile 17, Angry Canoeing kicked in. Angry Canoeing consists of me canoeing very quickly, swearing at people in the motorized boats and wishing that I was not in such a small, capsizable boat. Rachel said she should have gotten me angry at the beginning and we would have cruised through the entire challenge.

We finished and it was a great event. I'm not sure if I'll do it again next year, but overall, I did have a good time. Friends of the Mississippi River does critical work to conserve and protect the Mississippi River and I'm so glad that they run such an excellent event.

Oh, and my arms after the event? I could barely hold a pen.

UFO Days

First post on my Macbook! Yay!

So, this post is being posted much later than I had expected.

Andy, Casey, Erin, Rachel and I went to UFO Days in Elmwood, Wisconsin for my birthday a few weeks ago. I'd put a link to it, but UFO Days is no friend to technology. Anyways, I love Wisconsin, particularly western Wisconsin, so I was glad to be back in my home state for my special day.

We arrived at UFO Days and it was....a bit lackluster. I think the best way to describe it at first is....non-fun. But no worries, I got myself an alien-themed bobble-head headband almost immediately and the fun began. Well, actually, the garden tractor pull began. And yes, it's a tractor pull with garden tractors. It went on for so long that we went and got dinner at The Shack (excellent curds! but a bit weird to put chicken fingers on pizza....but kudos to your inventive usage of the beloved chicken finger) and the tractor pull was still going on.

There are three bars in Elmwood - the Long Branch, Big Dick's and Sandbar Too (no word on where Sandbar One is). I know that we went to two of these locations. And I know I bought a drink at Big Dick's after I dropped mine all over a woman in front of Big Dick's.

It was my birthday, so I celebrated appropriately. But UFO Days, I have a bit of advice for you - MORE UFOS! There was a definite lack of UFO-ness going on. There was barely any UFO spirit! I was in the minority with my light-up alien headband! WTF? So, UFO Days, I have some suggestions:

- Have someone walk around dressed in a UFO costume. Instant fun!
- Stage a fake UFO landing. Or at least have tours of the UFO sighting sights.
- Mandate the light-up alien headbands.
- Have a song contest, American Idol-style, of songs involving aliens or outer space.
- Don't let me drink so much.
- Have the parade on Saturday. That would just be more convenient for us.

I'd recommend UFO Days, but be prepared to be the most UFO-spirited person there. I'm highly suspicious that this was actually just an excuse for people to drink.

Thursday, August 2, 2007

A Bit Sensitive

Okay, well, I had planned to write a huge thank you to all of my friends and family for the wonderful birthday greetings over the weekend. And now I want to say thank you to everyone who checked in with me or our other friends last night to make sure that everyone was okay. We're an efficient bunch.