beach-bound for the first time in 2 years.  last summer was the first, i think, in my life, that i didn't walk in the sand somewhere, and it may have fucked my equilibrim for the entire 365 days thereafter.  i hope to balance back out this week - i really need it.

does it show me to be in a wrong mindframe that i already researched the closest free wi-fi spots to our cottage?  yes, "cottage."  me, four adults, one child, three dogs, in a cottage.

funny that i unintentionally included myself as neither adult or child in that scenario.

To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me. - Isaac Newton

It was hot this week. Miserably hot. The thermometer in my car read 103, but I believe that it melted in the intense frigging heat of being left in an uncovered parking lot for many hours. It definitely feels hotter than 103.

Even the camels I pass on the way home from work have given up. They were just sitting in their shaded field, heads on the ground, and humps on fire. The steam was incredible. But they didn't care. They could always go inside if they wanted to.

Their enui disgusts me. These camels live in a nice air conditioned estate built just for them, with large bay windows along the east wall so they can watch the sun rise over the lake from their barcaloungers; and murals that cover the south wall depicting early 20th Century labor struggles. They don't do much all day but eat grass and bore the egrets that come to bathe in their pond.

Thanks, Tripp and Rachael for coming to visit me and the family. And for drinking Tito's vodka with me in the kiddie pool while we squirted water at each other's breasts with the baby's bathtub toys. And for making me listen to Dizzee Rascal. And also for going with us to T&A sports bar and the T&A breakfast buffet, even if it did suck. And getting drunk at the baseball game. Oh, and the Indian food at the Krishna temple… even though it gave me the craps.

I could write a book about my vacation last weekend. The primal conflict would certainly fall under Man v. Nature, and my dramatic situation (which is so brilliant I could never make it up) would be young lovers struggling to escape an army of ravenous ticks in the deep woods of Kentucky.

Our first mistake was choosing the trail marked "Wilderness." No, our first mistake was not bringing any bug spray into such a wilderness.

And there we were, in a struggle for our very blood. In the deep woods of Kentucky against a downpour of thirsty deer ticks. They came from the trees, big and small, and stuck in our socks. I had seen a deer the night before, and it was skinny. It looked almost two-dimensional frozen in the lights from the tennis court. So perhaps the first mistake was not taking this as an omen and abandoning the hike in the woods altogether.

Many mistakes were made, and in hindsight several very obvious considerations had not been taken. Ten minutes down the trail, we were as paranoid as a man who has been hit by lightning seven or eight times.

But this chapter ends in me lighting the tip of my pocket knife and burning off hundreds of insects. I was picking dead ones out of Lisa days later.

(Lisa, as she is bitten)

The rest of my vacation was very pleasant, and so my book would be filled with babies, family, humor and new adventures. Such as boating in our black tank tops.

…and hallucinations after sampling the squeezin's from a hillbilly's still.

just bought a plane ticket to l.a. for next fri/sat. i haven't been back in almost 18 months now. seems so long.

i already have a full itinerary, full of silliness, fun, people and places i have missed.

i think this is going to be very good for my mind.

there was a nice post this morning on coding horror about desktops. i'm posting it here less because of the post and more because of the links to sites with desktops. i'm fairly picky about desktops — i like plain over flashy. too many colors and suddenly i cant see anything on there.

i went through the list that was posted and came away with a couple that get thumbs up from me:
k10 / ondisplay — i sometimes find nice ones and then photoshop out other peoples icons
mandolux — this guy gets how to do desktops. seriously.
damask wallpaper patterns — if you need a nice tiling pattern that looks like old wallpaper flourishes, this is where you want to be.
and then there is my old standby:
threadless — they make awesome desktops; simple colors, fun to look at and easy to handle.

so there. some ways to spruce up your workspace.

yesterday, i was hanging with the kurt and the keren and the mike and said how overwhelmed i am by the sheer number of people in the world. (skipping the part where i realize for the 100th time that usually the world feels very small to me.) a lot of this comes from realizing how much waste we contribute to every moment of our lives.

this list, depicting photos of waste, should help prove it to you. "…two million plastic beverage bottles, the number used in the US every five minutes."

it isn't just people i want to escape, it's this lifestyle. it's the fact that im drinking from a plastic water bottle right now. because i haven't gone out and bought myself a metal one to reuse. it's because i'm staring at an ipod and computers and plastic figures, all of which will outlive me.

it's overwhelming and exhausting.

i think it is obvious that i have to flee somewhere soon. since i'm broke and have no time off, my options are limited. ideas anyone?

and on a lighter note, perhaps you haven't seen how awesome i am at modeling. the model they used (behind me) has nothing on my skillz.

well, the good news is that i think this wraps up all my catch-up on personal photos. (actually, that's a lie — i have hundreds of scans now that need to go up; i am now caught up from digital pictures i have.) the whole flickr set is here.

so a couple of weeks ago, r and i went on a second vacation — we were in san diego, came back for a week and then headed back out, this time to virginia and the better part of the week in cape hatteras. the short version of the trip, for me, was that it was awesome. a thoroughly brilliant and perfect time. much of this, no doubt, had to do with not only being near my family, but also not being on painkillers, as i was in san diego.

the first day back was low-key: i sorted photos with my mother, cleaned out a few boxes of my junk and then r and i went to david's to see him and melissa and julia. it was julia's 5th birthday (i think it was her 5th — that seems not right, so maybe 4th. time is moving too quickly.) we got to see mike and david's mom as well — a bunch of people had shown up for cake and icecream. i didnt get to visit with david as much as i would have liked, but it was better than nothing.

on sunday, annalily took the train down from dc and we picked her up. we hung out at the house for a while, rode the atv and then went out to the shooting range for the afternoon. (annalily owes me the pictures from the shooting; as soon as i get them, i'll post some.) it was fun, but with 5 of us shooting and sharing the range, there was more standing around than shooting for any particular person. plus it was hot. we dropped annalily back at the train station and then headed over to matthew's house to see him, heather and winston. we had dinner and nick showed up as we were about to eat. i hadn't seen nick in years and r hadn't seen him since my leaving-richmond party. the bunch of us sat around the table until 10 or 11, at which point sleepiness overtook us all. (nick had to get up early, r and i were jet lagged and the new parents were exhausted.)

this might be the only time i know of where a baby has actually made me look small. for a newborn, i can't believe it. he makes me look tiny. and yeah, the picture of matthew and i below? he is totally licking my face. and i didn't know it at the time. hm.

on labor day, we drove down to hatteras. i hadn't been in years and had been wanting to drag r down there since we started dating. i wish i could go on and on about it, but i have only some bulletpoints and a single story to share. mainly in the effort to keep the post moderately short.

we stayed in townhouses right on the beach. my family has gone to hatteras since i was in diapers. the houses were we used to stay were washed away in isabel in 2003, so we had to stay somewhere new. turned out to be excellent — right on the water.

much wine was had and i spent most nights there scanning old family photos — old pictures of my mother and her sisters and parents, photos i had never even gotten to see. we kayaked and swam in the ocean, sunbathed and shopped. and ate. and ate. and walked the beach. and climbed the lighthouse. and then, on the way home went to the bass pro shop in newport news, which i have kindly dubbed the 'wal-mart of outdoor sports'. it was insane — more cammo and fishing rods and insanity than you can imagine. there was a big sign on the wall reading 'hunting: a virginia tradition'. just super intense.

the best thing we showed rachael all week was the brew thru, perhaps the best invention ever. (and the subject i alluded to last week with the quiz.)

for those of you unfamiliar with this marvel, it is essentially a drive through. that sells beer and wine. you drive through the center of the building and there are coolers on either side, allowing you to grab whatever beer-verage you desire before paying and going on your way. i know the ones we used to use down in hatteras had the cashier actually grab the beer for you so that you don't have to get out. i am not sure if all of them operate this way. how can you not love this?

one night, r and i decided to take a walk on the beach. the beaches there are covered with ghost crabs, esp at night. so armed with a flashlight (actually, a headmounted flashlight, thanks to my father), we set out to walk. crabs covered the beach, but they run when you get close and they also run from the light.

except for the one that ran towards rachael, instead of away from her. she jumped and squealed, trying to both climb me and jump into my arms at the same time. all of this was news to me — i was not ready to make any sort of a catch and she fell, pulling me with her onto the sand.

and from this, she decided that she now has a fear of crabs.

what a great week.

i must apologize for a lack of posts. we have just returned from a glorious week at cape hatteras. though i had internet there, i shockingly spent my time doing other things.

(it looks like we got out just in time, as the weather channel is, right this second, reporting on the tropical storm that has now hit the outer banks this evening. looks like the waves are picking up already and it looks like the entire area is going to get nasty weather over the next couple of days.)

ill have pictures and probably some stories, but the short list of activities looks like this:
loads of scanning old family photos, kayaking, ocracoke island, loads of swimming in the ocean, food, family, wine and loads more. it was a quality vacation.

but its winding down and ill be back at work on monday. the good news is that i can get back into a regular schedule, something long overdue, what with the kidney stone, the san diego trip and now this. the bad news is that, yes, ill be back at work.

i hope your week went well and you didnt spend too much time crying over my silence.