June Kayaking Videos

Double Trouble
Middle Ocoee
June 11, 2011

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Split Screen Nanty Falls
June 18, 2011

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Nantahala Falls
June 18, 2011

State Fair

Yesterday a group of us went to the State Fair at lunch time. We work just down the street from the fairgrounds.

We had a nice time walking around the concessions area. Nathan and Ray got steak sandwiches from the North Carolina Cattlemen's Association while I went to the booth next to it and got roasted corn on the cob. Then we went to another concessions stand and Jason and Scott got steak sandwiches while Joe got an Italian sausage (apparently, not from the good sausage place). On our way to get NCSU ice cream, we paused to get salt water taffy -- Joe and Jason each got some to bring home -- and we passed a deep fried everything place. I guess that kind of explains the name of the official State Fair blog -- Deep Fried! Joe and Ray got chocolate chip mint ice cream and I noted that the corn on the cob near the rabbit barn looked better than the corn that I had purchased earlier.

From there we started to head towards the free hush puppies, but took a detour to the cider place near the flue cured tobacco barn. Then it turned out that no one wanted cider. Joe debated getting some kettle corn to bring home (Jason had purchased some earlier) and by the bluegrass stage. Then we went to the grist mill and got our free hush puppies and wandered through the Village of Yesteryear. Then it was on to the Amish fudge so that Joe could get some to bring home. The final items on the shopping list were nuts and maple cotton candy.

Joe wanted nuts from a stand on midway near the Kerr Scott building so we headed up that way, stopping along the way for Jason to get a float. We threatened to put Jason on the Vertigo ride after he had his float! The nuts looked good and we passed the ostrich burger place to get there. We debated getting Click it or Ticket clickers for Joe's daughters and went into the Kerr Scott building in an attempt to located them but had no luck. There I overheard a mother telling her daughter, "Oh honey, you won't like that. It's souse." We sampled the honey cotton candy and decided that the maple cotton candy was probably better so we passed on that.

From there we cut through the Green NC display, saw the chick-cans and went to the Commercial building where Joe and I each had a Mount Olive pickle and got maple cotton candy to bring home. On the way out of the building, I got a sample of chocolate covered peanuts and shared them with the group.

We went through the Education building next door and saw the chocolate dipped bacon that we have heard so much about. We decided to get an order to share among for of us. At first, it tasted kind of good but not particularly special -- like chocolate covered salted nuts. Then it just started to taste fatty. The finish was bad -- like gritty bacon grease. Joe said that he wanted something to get the taste out of his mouth. Jason pointed out that the place that sold the chocolate covered bacon also sold sodas. Joe refused to give them more money. It was time for us to leave the fair anyway so we went to the gas station across the street and got a soda and walked back to the office.

Mmmm... Chocolate

The Chocolate Oracle Says You're Powerful

You are intense, powerful, and dramatic. People respect the things you do... And they're not sure if they could do them! You are emotionally expressive and sensitive. You're effected by everything around you. Your friends appreciate your open heart, but they are afraid of hurting your feelings. You love to be in love. You crave romance, whether you're single or not. You feel lost when you don't feel passion... you need someone to adore.

The Chocolate Oracle

Red Rover Red Rover

While camping at Bike MS, we hung around under the team tent. A lot of topics came up during our time there. One of them was about the r*ver trip one of the cyclists when on.

Hey, remember the r*ver trip that I went one. I got stuck in the snow at the side of the road.

Did you use the chain winch to get out?

The chain broke.

By now, DH was getting exited. He kayaks and wanted to know about the trip.

What kind of river trip?

hesitation.

confusion.

ROVER trip.

Oh.

To cujo: defined

Cujo verb (cujoing, cujoed)

1. foam at mouth in effort to forcibly eject offending pill : Hannah cujoed her melatonin.
   

Origin: DH, related to Stephen King book of the same name

Saturday night with Live

On Saturday night, DH and I went to see Collective Soul, Blues Traveler and Live at Regency Park. DH had a good time at the Wilco concert last week so he went and got tickets for this show last Tuesday.

Collective Soul was first. Overall I think that their set was pretty low energy. I'm not sure that it was entirely their fault. I think that the first slot was a tough one and the crowd still filtering in didn't help any. They played most of their hits in their time on stage -- just over 45 minutes. They sounded good. The one song that I did not like was one from Afterwards sung but Joel Kosche. I had not realized that Ed Roland, Collective Soul's lead singer, had Steve Parry hair -- but blond!

After Collective Soul, there wasa loonnnggg transition of 30+ minutes between acts. You'd think that they would have practiced that...

Blue Traveler was next. Their set ran for about an hour and was very enjoyable. John Popper was amazing on the harmonica. I'm not sure when he had time to breath between long passages on the harmonica and his fast rap-like singing. DH ask if I knew were they were from and I said, "Margaritaville." The real answer is Princeton, NJ. Of course they played both Run Around and Hook. They had good engery and crowd started to really get into the show. I thought it odd when John Popper turned his back to the crowd and took a smoke break three-quarters of the way through the set. I guess it was supposed to be a keyboard solo but it ended up just being a smoke break.

After another lengthy transition, Live came out for their set.

Live played for over an hour. Live did a great job. Of course they played I Alone, Lightening Crashes, All Over You, Heaven and Sophia. The band had a lot of stage presence and Ed Kowalczyk, the lead singer, did great. They sounded good. John Popper from Blues Traveler came out and did one song with Live as well. The crowd was into it to the point that we had Drunken Dance Guy in front of us who we thought might hurt himself.

DH said that he enjoyed himself but felt a little bit old. Both Collective Soul and Live introduced songs as "from way back in 199x." The crowd was mostly our age and he said that it had a little bit of nostalgia tour feel to it. I told him that if he wanted nostalgia tour music, we could always get tickets to see Belinda Carlisle, ABC and Flock of Seagulls in the Regeneration Tour. He said that he'd pass, thanks.

Meme -- tagged again

Steph has tagged me! I sort of saw it coming when Angela was tagged and she tagged Steph. I wasn't able to hide quickly enough though so I've brainstormed to come up with something worth writing about to write

The meme:

A meme is basically a list of things about me (hence the name). The stated subject is "6 UN-spectacular things about me."

And it comes with few rules, as follows:

1. Link the person who tagged you
2. Mention the rules on your blog
3. Tell about 6 unspectacular quirks of yours
4. Tag 6 following bloggers by linking them
5. Leave a comment on each of the tagged blogger’s blogs letting them know they’ve been tagged
6. What? No rule number six? Who made this thing up? This is a meme of sixes!

Six Unspectacular Things About Me:

1. I lick the bowl. I've been known to offer to bake things -- like, say, chocolate cupcakes with chocolate frosting -- because I want to lick the bowl. I don't even care about the finished product, I just want cleanup duty!
   
2. I do drive stick. Just after I graduated from college, my Chevette died. Have you ever seen a car with an automatic transmission buck like a bucking bronco? It's not pretty. I looked at some used cars but it was not much more money for me to get a new Honda Civic hatchback (red, of course!) with a four speed manual transmission. I did not test drive the car because I did not drive stick. My dad taught me to drive stick on that car.
   
3. One time, in band camp... (the rest of the quote, forgetaboutit) I used to be a band geek. I played the flute (except when I was a flag color guard member). When we moved from Iowa, were flutist played flute in marching band and marching bands marched at halftime and that was pretty much it -- to New Jersey where they thought a zillion flutes in a marching band sounded like a swarm of bees so most flutists were actually flags and marching bands competed, and oh yeah, marched at half time too. My New Jersey high school did have a band camp where we allegedly learned our fall routine. I can still remember parts of the flag routine for Rhapsody in Blue.
   
4. I enjoy reading the boards on The Fool. The Motley Fool brings out my inner cheapskate
5. I'm constantly surprised by the generosity of e-friends. People who I've met in person only briefly, if ever, have freely shared their knowledge and given support to me too many times to count. It's moving and it restores my faith in the kindness of humans. I feel fortunate to have met them.
   
6. I miss the newspaper. Yes, it's old media but it makes me sad when I see our pathetic little paper these days. The fact that the publisher doesn't seem to realize that Charlotte is not local to Raleigh. To most people local indicates within a short distance. A quick look at Webster's seems to confirm this: "primarily serving the needs of a particular limited district." Charlotte is nearly a three hour drive from Raleigh -- about 175 miles. Not local.
   

Tagged:

• Miles and family at Ware House's Monkey Business
  
• Lizz at Life with Lizz
  
• Genny at Down East
  
• James at The Robinson House
• jennsylvania
• Chris at Apex Cycle World
  

BeauSoleil

DH and I went to see BeauSoleil on Saturday night at the NC Art Museum. The concert was part of the Arts in the Park series and it was the first time we've seen a show at the venue. This was a great place to see a concert.  We were pleased that picnics are welcome.  We'll be back.

The music was great -- fun music. If you are not familiar with BeauSoleil, they are a Cajun band from Lafayette, Louisana. They sing mostly in Cajun French but performed a few songs in English. Michael Doucet, the lead singer, introduced each song and explained the story of the song for the non-French speakers in the crowd.

I was surprised that with the exception of Michael Doucet, the group did not have a lot of stage presence. That really didn't matter though because there was a lot of dancing going on.  In other words, there was plenty to watch!  (DH does not dance and I was too chicken to go out by myself.)  The two dance floors near the stage were completely filled as was all of the other available floor space. I was surprised that a lot of people literally came in their dancing shoes -- tango shoes mostly but some in cowboy boots as well.

All in all it was a great concert and I would see BeauSoleil again.

Below is part of a song that BeauSoleil played during the second set:

ACE NETC 2009 - Des Moines, Iowa

This is the "invitation video" for the ACE/NETC 2009 conference. Very funny! The day after I first saw it, I was in the car and my iPod shuffled to Proudest Monkey. I laughed!

ACE NETC 2009 - Des Moines, Iowa

Wednesday night OMV ride

Last night Oh Melo Velo (OMV) was great as usual. I saw k1v1n there as well as several of the people that I ride with most weekends -- Jim, Sandra, Mark, John-on-the-single-speed -- and several OMV friends -- Eugene, Lisa, John, Sandra H.

The route for OMV is always an out and back. The turnaround time was 6:48 last night. The route last night went in a different direction than it has for the first few weeks and I really enjoyed it once we got across the railroad tracks. A train must of come just before we arrived because traffic was all jammed up and we were there for two light cycles. Even so, my average heart rate for the ride was quite hight.

I hung with the fastest group for the first 10 miles and then was in contact with them for the next three or so and completely lost contact just before the turnaround. I saw them coming back as I approached the turnaround and almost got back on but there was traffic where I needed to turn left so the last half of the ride was solo. I was pretty happy with how I rode and I didn't mind riding along but was a little embarrassed to come into the parking when I did. I just said that I was playing at being sweeper.

All in all, I had a nice time again this week.

Naked Juice Energy oh.my.gosh.

Last Thursday, spin class was, uh ... challenging. After 15 minutes the instructor asked if we were ready to to start working.

Someone -- a newbie -- innocently asked, "What have we been doing up to now?" We were all wondering the same thing but we were afraid to ask. Ugh.

Anyway, the instructor said that it must be the Naked Juice with caffeine that was doing it. His wife had been getting Naked Juice for him... Bad bad bad. After some behind the scenes research, we were able to determine that Naked Juice Energy Cherry Pomegranate Power is his drug of choice. The power referred to is caffeine from guarana extract (about 80 mg per two serving bottle) in addition to green tea extract and B vitamins. (Hint: All of the blends in their Energy product line have yellow caps.)

This morning, most of the class came in with Naked Juice. One class regular said that he thought about printing a sign saying, "I got Naked with..." but decided against it.

I had never had Naked Juice before and I'm not a comsumer of "energy drinks" outside of coffee products. All I have to say is that about 30 minutes after consuming half a bottle -- oh.my.gosh.

Alumni conference call

I went Shippensburg University, a smallish state school in Pennsylvania. While I was in school, my family relocated to North Carolina and I joined them here when I graduated. Most of the people that I graduated with went back to places like Harrisburg, Lancaster, Philadelphia or Cherry Hill, NJ. A couple of years ago, the Shippensburg alumi association contacted me and a group of us went to a Carolina Hurricanes game. Last year, there was an event and just this week, they organized a conference call with us to discuss possible events for this year. I thought that was really neat. About a half dozen of us were on the call and we've been exchanging e-mails as well. It looks like we are going to get a tent at the Great Grapes festival in April. The university president is going to try to make it to both Raleigh and Charlotte for events.

Even more exciting than that, one of the other Shippensburg graduates heard me say something about "my training will be ramping up again at that time of year." He e-mailed me seperately and said that he is

"thinking -- so far, just thinking stage -- about doing a triathlon"

Ah, I know how that goes. I trained as if I was going to ride the MS150 for month or so before I actually bit the bullet and signed up for my first one. He's a goner.

I'm very excited to have made this connection with another Shippensburg person. How cool.

Hey Spot, You’ve Got Mail - New York Times

Hey Spot, You’ve Got Mail - New York Times

My dogs have e-mail accounts. Do yours?