I've lost most of my enthusiasm for keeping up this blog...

But I do have a great idea for a blog/novel/screenplay/television show about sandwiches. Stay tuned.

I am getting so behind on my blogging!!!

To get caught up, I'm going to do a quick round-up of day two of the hippie music festival, AND the story of the time I sat in a park in Charlottesville for like six hours because I'm basically the best person ever. So get excited.

I awoke Friday morning of said music festival not really at all refreshed or well-rested, but still ready to take on the day. The night had not been too noisy, though I had set my tent and sleeping bag up on a hill in such a way that comfortable sleeping was pretty impossible. I used the bottles of water I'd stolen from the (extremely meager) press tent the night before brush my teeth and wash my face, navigated my contact lenses into my eyes and set off down the mountain.

Barrett was also on his way into the festival, having been sent out to check in on the traffic situation, EMS calls, etc. I told him I'd meet him in front of the stage so he could help me work on my camping story, since I was behind the schedule I wanted to be on and was hoping to finish the story by noon.

Here is the thing about my mood at this point that you need to understand for the next part of this tale. It was not the most positive of moods. I had spent five hours the previous day in a parking lot of anarchistic (is that a word?) drunken humanity only to be told when I finally made my way into the festival and met up with another reporter that all that could have been avoided if I had had a slightly different media pass and been a little more insistent with it.

So as I approached the security checkpoint to enter the concert venue area and a man in a yellow vest snottily informed me, "Venue's closed, ma'am," I WAS NOT HAVING IT.

"I. Am. With. The. MEDIA," I hissed at the fellow, waving my camo wristband in front of him as authoritatively as I could. He hesitated for a second and stepped aside - a wise decision, as I was pretty much ready to punch anyone who told me to wait anywhere in the face.

Barrett and I connected and then immediately left the stage area, though, so I guess all my weight throwing around was unnecessary, but whatever. I spent about an hour roaming the grounds, chatting with people who had interesting setups or just seemed friendly, and this is what I churned out: http://www.newsadvance.com/news/local/article_9cee6d00-1823-11e3-a7bf-001a4bcf6878.html.

The rest of my day involved hiking back up the mountain to my tent and pretty much feeling like death. By about 2 p.m., when I planned to leave, I was super dehydrated and exhausted and chose to spend about 15 minutes laying on the ground while Barrett packed up my stuff for me. It was awesome.

The rest of the weekend was much less eventful, up until Sunday, the day of both Barrett's birth and his intense challenge thing he did. Perhaps if his "after action review" he just wrote (and I did a killer job of editing, because I'm awesome) gets posted on the interwebz I'll link to it here, but suffice it to say he spent 12 hours doing a lot of things (pushups, carrying bricks, more pushups, carrying telephone poles) that are difficult and I'd rather not do.

I spent about four hours (from 9 a.m., the earliest time the challenge was expected to end, to 1 p.m., the time it actually did end) creepily hanging out in a park in Charlottesville, literally sitting near a homeless man drinking liquor out of a paper bag.

Then I bought Barrett lunch, because, as noted: I am the best.

Life among the hippies...

Sorry it's taken so long for me to get to this entry, one of my few real adventures. It hasn't been a busy week or anything, I just have not felt myself struck by the blogging muse.

But I hear the people are demanding more pithiness from me, so here goes.

Gather round, dear readers, and you'll hear the tale of the longest, most frustrating, strangest, most exhausting and occasionally pretty cool 24 hours of my life: the time I camped at a hippie music festival for work.

I was pulled into the coverage team for this music festival because one of my main skills is writing quickly and it seemed that I'd be a helpful person to have around for updates. But in one of the planning meetings for the event, when it became clear that no one was planning to camp, I felt like we were missing out an important coverage opportunity.

And so, filled with trepidation, I volunteered to be that person.

Prepped with a small two-person tent I borrowed from Barrett, a z-rest (also borrowed from Barrett) and a sleeping bag (you can guess where I got it), along with my laptop, a sweatshirt and a change of clothes, I set out for said festival around midday one sunny Thursday.

I know there would be significant traffic delays, but foolishly believed by going later I could actually game the system, coming at a point where everyone who was there with the purpose of seeing the band would already have made it in.

I was wrong.

After an hour's drive out to the festival site, I spent approximately five hours in the impromptu waiting area/parking lot created out of what was once meant to be a seven-lane entrance. It was instead about 15-20 lanes, as people would see their lane was not moving and simply drive farther to the right, figuring they could sneak around others and worm their way in.

Because, you see, people are terrible. The volunteers responsible for directing traffic in this section had apparently quit, so it was essentially anarchy. Peaceful anarchy, for the most part, complete with bubbles and guitars and people not wearing shirts and so, so many beers.

Unfortunately for me, I was working, alone and had no beers. So instead I ate an entire box of fruit snacks, drank three Gatorade and tweeted. A lot. If you don't follow my twitter, you are missing out. (E_kennedy68)

I also like, did my job, sending in updates about some of the madness, which helped contribute to a massively read story, so that was cool.

After about four hours of this insanity, people started to get a bit tense. (Many of them had been there even longer than I had, the longest wait I heard was about eight hours.) Turns out, these 15 lanes of traffic didn't just have to merge down to seven lanes to get searched, but INSTEAD TO TWO. Then they merged back out to seven searching stations. But in order to cross this little road thingie, you had to be merged down to two lanes (with the help of guards on horseback) and then split back up.

Even if the original seven-lane system had help up, this would have been torturous. In the process of the merging down I finally yelled at this one girl who totally pretended she had some authority in order to get a bunch of cars to cut me off, but then she helped me because of her intense guilt. So that was okay.

I'm getting kind of rambly and losing some pith, plus I've reached a natural stopping point. So I'll be back soon (maybe over the weekend, if not definitely Monday) to fill you in on what happened when I actually made it into the festival, and how I survived without fruit snacks.

Today I am sad...

So no new blog entry. But tomorrow, or possibly Friday, prepare to hear about Lockn', otherwise known as the night I slept on the ground while surrounded by hippies after waiting in a car for five hours.

Talkin' baseball...

Look, dear readers, the prodigal blogger has returned! No on tried to guess what my reference was to in that blog entry like three weeks ago, but in case you were wondering its James Joyce's short story "The Dead." Go read it instead of this blog, I guarantee it will be a better use of your time.

But for those of you who find my boring stories about my life more entertaining than possibly the greatest short story every written, we turn back the clock two (three?) full weeks to Labor Day, a day I spent at the Friendly Confines of Wrigley Field.

My super cool older brother is the proud owner of 1/16th (I think) of season tickets to Chicago Cubs games, which equates to like 6 games a year (or so). After almost two years of summer schedules not lining up for me to be home at the same time as the Cubbies, I planned my Labor Day trip home partly around being able to make it to a baseball game, and so we went.

After driving up to Chicago Monday morning, we stopped at Andy's apartment, where I had the opportunity to meet the world's most adorable and most energetic kitten.

His name is Rufus, and he is the cutest. Zoom in on the picture for full cuteness.

Rufus is also a little terrifying though, because he's like four months old and only getting used to the whole "I have claws and a mouth" thing so likes to exercise both of those. Luckily, I managed to avoid scratching or biting (there was some biting, but it was just like playful nipping), but he did keep me up basically all night by deciding 4 a.m. WAS TIME TO PLAY WITH ALL OF THE TOYS.

I am getting ahead of myself. (But the 4 a.m. LET ME PLAY WITH EVERYTHING AND RUN EVERYWHERE AND LOOK IT'S A BALL AND OH THERE'S A STRING ON A STICK AND HEY WHAT IS THIS FOOT AND OOO THERE'S THAT BELL AGAIN AND NOW I'M IN A BOX AND I'M ROLLING THE BOX AND THIS IS ALL SO GREAT AND I AM A KITTEN AND LOOK THE BALL IS IN THE TRACK NOW LET ME RUN OVER THERE session was really a lot more memorable than the pretty terrible baseball game.)

The Cubs are awful, but were playing the Marlins, who are also awful. Early in the game, it looked as though both teams would score lots of runs and it would be exciting, but after about three innings of back and forth high scoring antics, the Cubs kind of forgot how to hit and the rest of the game was sad and terrible.

Still, Patrick Sharp (of the Blackhawks) was there and threw out one of the first pitches, so that was neat. And baseball games are always fun, especially at Wrigley Field, so hooray.

Post-game, we headed to a bar near the stadium that gives out free hot dogs for an hour before and after the game and ate lots of free hot dogs. THEN, we went to a bar near my brother's house that has half-price pizza on Mondays. We ordered a pizza, they burned it, AND SO WE GOT A FREE PIZZA!

A day filled with tiny kittens and free pizza. The end.

Pretty sure no one is reading my blog...

So that is sad. I still plan to write about all those adventures from last week, but I have to get over this depression first.

Partyin, partyin, yeah! (Mostly an entry about game shows, though)...

When we last left my trip home, I'd survived a terrifying Costco encounter with a bird and was falling into the loving arms of sleep after a full-day of driving.

Saturday, I woke up, dined on a queen's breakfast of like four cups of coffee and cold pizza, and prepared for my brother and sister-in-law's Labor Day party.

The party was pretty much your standard party stuff - drinking sangria and beer, eating foods, chatting with family members and others, having arguments about Syria and the size of parking lots in Munster, all that good stuff.

But then, come evening, my brothers, my sister-in-law, my brother's friend and I sat down to watch some television at the end of a long day. And what did we find on the TV? THE CHASE.

The Chase is a game show, imported from Britain, that airs on Game Show Network. When first viewed, the rules seemed to make absolutely no sense, especially if you come in in the middle of an episode.

But eventually we figured it out.

Basically, there's a team of three normal people who are competing against "The Beast," this dick who is like a British trivia genius. He matches up against them in various quiz sessions where he is "chasing" them toward the bank, essentially, at which point they either win their money or are eliminated if they get caught.

Then, whoever's left at the end do a final chase against him, with similar rules.

It's stupid, and confusing, and THE BEAST IS THE WORST!!!

I always wanted him to lose, AND HE NEVER DID. It got to the point where my brother Paul started rooting for the Beast, because he likes to root for a winner.

This may be the worst blog entry I've ever written. Baseball game to come soon, and hopefully that will be more interesting and lead to fame. FAME.

The time has come to set out my journey westward...

Here we go, the first of many a blog post about the exciting 10 days or so that I just lived. I'll try to be engaging and hilarious to make up for my lengthy absence, but I make no promises.

(Also, 10 bonus points to whoever can name what I'm referencing in the post's title. If no one gets it I'll give a second clue in the next entry.)

My week and a half of adventure began early in the morning on Friday, Aug. 30. It's been almost a year - since Thanksgiving 2012 - since I've made the lengthy trek home via car. I opted to fly for both Christmas and Easter, as though were fairly brief visits and the flying costs off a decent amount of travel time.

Still, there's something enticing about driving; as I put it a few times while home, it makes me the master of my own destiny. If I oversleep (as I did before my flight home for Easter), I'll be behind the schedule I'd set, but I'm still certain to make ti where I plan to go. And there's a certain allure to spending hours in a car, clearing your head, getting to know America, and laughing at amusing billboards.

That being said, driving home this time was pretty much the worst. experience. ever.

Nothing specific happened to make the drive so unbearable; in fact, on the way home I made pretty good time, conserved gas well, and didn't even have to drive the full 12 hours since I stopped in Indianapolis on the way. Plus, there's a new Katy Perry song out these days, always a plus for the long car trips. (Not for my voice/throat, or for anyone who happens to be driving next to me while I have my windows rolled down, but it's totally worth it.)

No, there's no heartbreaking story of getting pulled over or yelled at by random people in West Virginia or going to the world's most insane Wendy's (all previous Indiana to Virginia drive occurrences), but by about hour two of driving on 65 m.p.h. roads in Ohio, passing cops every 10 miles or so, I was so desperate to be on a plane it wasn't even funny.

Still, I made it to my brother's house in Indy, nommed on some pizza, and went with them to hit up Costco, fairly unscathed.

I think Costco is dumb, and this trip did not dissuade that impression. As Paul pointed out, he didn't feel like he was getting that great of deals, and you have to fight your way through a veritable warehouse to get a giant box of Cheez-its that isn't actually a giant box filled with Cheez-its but rather two normal-sized bags of Cheez-its placed in a slightly larger, occasionally comical, box.

Plus, occasionally there are birds:

No one but me seemed concerned about this bird flying around Costco. But I was super concerned.

Anywho, we made it home from Costco, drank beers and watched Walk the Line/high school football (don't ask) and had a generally pleasant evening.

More adventures adventures to come soon! Hopefully.

So many adventures to come!

But today I am sniffly and unmotivated. So here are the things you can look forward to reading about:

1) My trip home! Possible sub-adventures include various lengthy drives, family parties, Cubs game, etc. We'll see how many turn out.

2) Hippie music festival. Sooooo many thoughts on the hippie music festival.

3) Going to Charlottesville to see Barrett do his big race thing where he got this sweet patch. Coolest patch ever.

Hopefully I'll get started tomorrow, when not feeling sniffly.

When I dream about the moonlight on the Wabash...

A taste of what kind of entries you'll get when I return from my visit home:

The adventure continues...

When last I left you, Barrett and I had conquered Sharp Top and we're foolishly confident about our ascent of Flat Top.

We enjoyed the peaceful, flat leg between the two mountains, reflecting on how awesome we were and how unlikely our death was.

Doesn't this look peaceful? Honestly I think the lodge should look a lot classier, but the lake is very pretty.

The map and directions Barrett had brought with him did warn us that the first part of the trail up Flat Top would be very steep with very few switchbacks. But then, as I read it, we were supposed to hit a more gradual slope with beautiful flora and fauna and all that good stuff. (The "as I read it" section of that is an important point...I read it wrong.)

The directions were not lying about the steepness of the first section. As we dragged our nearly lifeless bodies up the sharply pitched gravel trail, I could barely admire the pretty trees and whatnot due to my deep conviction that at any moment I would simply need to give up.

When we hit a bend in the road, I convinced myself this was the more gradual section, and everything was now going to be fine. It was pretty, that is for sure.

See, pretty! And not too steep looking, right? Wrong.

Only later did I realize I'd been reading the sheet wrong, and what it actually was that the majority of the 1.8-mile climb was steep and direct with very few switchbacks. I have never threatened to punch a mountain in the face more than I did on that hike, and I frequently threaten to punch things in the face.

There were some butterflies along the way, which were nice. It took me a really long time to get a good photo of them (I am not good at cameras), but my attempts were a good excuse for a break, at the very least.

Not a great photo, though you can sort of see there are some butterflies. They're sneaky.

Better photo. Look, butterfly!

After a terrifying dog encounter (I'd rather not talk about it, mostly because it was really not terrifying and I just acted kind of bitchy because, well, tired) and more "false summits" than I'd care to recount, we finally reached the top! To celebrate, we sat on the rocks for a very long time, and then took some pictures. Wild and crazy, right?

Pretty sure these birds were disappointed we didn't drop dead for the devouring.

The view was pretty worth it, though, even with all the near death feelings.

And then we hiked back down. The end. 

EPIC HIKE!!!!!!!

I'm dispensing with my traditional blog title form, because I have, yet again, a real adventure to recount and it is worthy of special titling.

Sunday, Barrett and I decided to tackle what we titled "epic hike," both Sharp Top and Flat Top in one day. According to the website where we got this hike (http://www.hikingupward.com/jnf/peaksofotter/), our route would cover about 9.8 miles, many of them upward.

We've done both mountains before on their own, and they've both been difficult before, on their own. But, as I am a fool, I always manage to convince myself that I'm in better shape now and will not die before I reach the top of either mountain.

Again, I'm a fool.

We set out around 11:30 a.m. Sunday, starting alongside a dad and two very little children. Every time I see these tiny kids on the trail, I have two simultaneous thoughts. 1) If these kids can do it, of course I can, I'm a grown-ass woman. 2) What if I can't do it, though, and these kids can, and then I'm just going to be embarrassed and sad for the rest of my life?

Of course, we quickly passed the dad and the little kids, and I convinced myself there was no way that two-year-old little girl and her slightly older brother were going to make it, even though the little boy was wearing a pretty sweet climbing shirt.

The initial stretch of Sharp Top is always the worst, as it's pretty much just a straight incline for about a quarter of a mile. I convinced myself, though, that once I conquered that it would be easy going, and kept reminding myself that Flat Top, though long, is a fairly gradual hike. Keep in mind here that I am a fool.

Nothing of too much note happened along much of the Sharp Top trail, other than occasional feelings that I was likely to pass out and die alternating with feelings that I was totally going to make it and was super badass. Near the top of the trail, we came across a mom with two young children, a tiny bit older than the ones we'd passed earlier but still decidedly not old.

The little girl, who was at best three, was snacking on chips and blocking the trail from any passers by. I think her mom was worried that was annoying, but I definitely appreciated the break.

After we passed them and continued upward, I heard the mom trying to convince them to continue on by paraphrasing the great movie A League of Their Own. "If it wasn't hard," she told them, "everybody would do it and wouldn't be cool anymore!"

And let me tell you, it was pretty cool when we made it to the top. We were sort of between the morning and afternoon hikers - we'd passed lots of people on their way down as we were ascending, but we seemed to be ahead of the big crowds planning to spend the mid-afternoon hours tackling the mountains. So that meant when we first reached the very top and sat down to enjoy our picnic lunch, we were the only people at the very top, which was pretty sweet.

People did eventually join us, otherwise I'd be very impressed with my ability to use the timer on a camera and place it perfectly for a top of mountain photo.

After a few minutes, we were joined up top by an older couple we'd been leap frogging the whole way up, both of whom had kick-ass walking sticks. They talked to us for a bit, and mentioned that although they'd never done Flat Top and Sharp Top in the same day, they'd hiked over and around Flat Top before for about a 7-mile trek. It was only then that we learned that Flat Top, although gradual when approaching from the Blue Ridge Parkway entrance, is super steep when approaching from the Sharp Top side.

This was not great news. 

We also eventually were met by the mom and her two little kids. The little girl was nom'ing on an apple, which she apparently had demanded if she was to be expected to go the rest of the way up the mountain. Way to negotiate, little girl.

After a lengthy break, we headed back down - always better then heading up. Just a few feet below the top we saw our other little kid hiking companions, the dad and children we'd started the day with.

I told the kids I was impressed and that they were clearly awesome hikers, and the little boy said something along the lines of "Didn't you see my sweet climbing shirt?"

I'll finish up later today or tomorrow with our adventures on Flat Top (spoiler alert, it was super difficult and life force draining) and more photos. Stay tuned to see if we survive epic hike!

The biggest adventure of them all...

Here it is, loyal readers, the adventure to end all adventures. I've been trying to put off writing this one, as it's a bit on the embarrassing side, but it's also most likely to make me famous. And you know how I feel about this blog and gaining fame.

So here we go.

Saturday, Alicia, Katrina and I set off for a hike, something we have done in a few months. Last April, we'd attempted this hike on a section of the Appalachian Trail near us, only to discover that the Blue Ridge Parkway is closed near that section for basically all of the wintertime. Outraged, we found a different hike that we sort of invented, which involved fording a river. (We're the toughest! Totally could've made it on the Oregon Trail.)

This time, though, the Parkway was open and the hike seemed like clear sailing. We left one car at the end of a footbridge over the James River near US 501, and took car number two to Punch Bowl Mountain, mentioned in the description of our three-mile hike.

Off we went, expect two miles of gradual ascent, followed by one mile of steep descent, with gorgeous views of downtown Lynchburg along the way.

This is what our path looked like at the beginning. Pretty and nonthreatening, right? Wrong.

To prove that we're intense and were, in fact, on the AT.

We made our way down the trail, noticing some cool trees and feeling the grind of the allegedly "gradual" ascent. Our first hint that something might be wrong was the absence of any cool overlooks, but high on our own awesomeness, we pressed on, rationalizing that those overlooks might have been along the 10-mile route and not on the three.

This, although pretty, was not at all a scenic overlook. If I took the picture facing the other way, you'd note a formidable amount of mountain still ahead. WHY DID WE NOT SEE THE SIGNS??? Fools.

Without the satisfaction of the overlook, we began what could only be defined as an incredibly steep descent. It was pretty, there were woods and stuff, but it was super descent-y and fairly challenging.

Alicia dubbed this "nature's front door," one of the many lovely spots we encountered near the bottom of our descent. We had the gall, you see, to assume this was near the entrance to the trail back, if someone were to start at the footbridge. MISTAKE.

Just as we began to think we'd been descending for more than a mile, we glanced to our left and noticed two things: 1) A large body of water, theoretically the James and 2) A bridge! We were almost home! Or rather, almost to one of our two cars which was about 20 minutes from our second car and almost an hour from our actual homes. Still, progress.

Imagine our surprise, then, when we reached said bridge, and it was definitely not the lengthy, giant footbridge we'd been promised.

It was instead a monkey bridge-esque suspension bridge (I did not care for its bounciness) over a small creek. Foolishly, we convinced ourselves that this creek ran parallel and perhaps above the James, and we'd be headed down towards it any minute now.

Look upon my confidence, ye readers, and despair.

After crossing the far too bouncy but otherwise pretty bridge, we began to go up. That's right, dear readers, we were encountering a steep ascent, something we had not been told to expect.

"Maybe we have to go up in order to go down?" Katrina asked, describing poetically both the nature of life and of mountains.

Agreeing, we pressed on, though all of us were starting to feel a bit of uneasiness and trepidation. Just before hitting the bridge, we'd crossed a small road and AT markers which indicated we were walking North, the same way we'd driven from where we left Car A to where we left Car B.

As you may have guessed, we probably should have been walking South.

So after pushing on over the unexpected ascent, and hoping against hope that we'd spot the mighty James below us, we began to descend toward a body of water, but one that was decidedly not the James River.

At this point I decided it might be a good idea to consult Google Maps as to our position, and determined that we were near the Lynchburg Reservoir, much closer to US 60 than 501, and decidedly far from where Car B had been left.

And so we were left with four options:

A) Push on, hopefully until reaching 60, at which point hopefully some kind soul could return us to our cars. 60 looked reasonably close on the map, but there was really no way of knowing what the actual distance would be. 

B) Turn back and hike the return trek, which would likely take us right to sundown but get us back shortly before, but would also require hiking back up the steep descent that had made me nervous on the way down and doing so already worn out and stressed from our initial journey.

C) Attempt to make our way to the reservoir itself and alert the reservoir keeper, or whatever his title is, to our predicament, in which case he would kindly boat us to safety or a location from which we could be picked up.

D) Return to the access road near the bridge and get Barrett to come pick us up.

We tried to make Option C work initially, pushing on with the hope that the trail would curve down to the reservoir itself, but as that became increasingly unlikely decided B or D were mostly likely go lead to our safe return home.

(Program note: at this point we became a bit too stressed about not being lost forever to continue taking pictures. Hopefully you're riveted by the human drama taking place and will keep reading.)

As we started to head back, in case we need to pursue Option B, I got in touch with Barrett to get the wheels in motion on Option D. He agreed to head out to Reservoir Road and we decided to wait at the bridge; an option that, if he could make it out to us in an hour and a half or so, would've been fairly logical and not resulted in our untimely deaths from exhaustion or hypothermia.

Fast forward two hours later - still no Barrett. Turns out, the road we were on was super long and super off-roady, severely limiting his ability to reach us in a timely fashion. Meanwhile, my phone was dead and Alicia's near death, while Katrina struggled to find signal.

Around 7:45, we tried to explore our environs a bit more and set a target time of about 8:15 or 8:30 when would call the police.

And at that moment, two wonderful things took place. We managed to reach Barrett on the phone, who said he was still alive but low on gas and had only made it down about half the road. So we knew he wasn't dead.

AND, some bear hunters drove by.

Alicia, who does not have the natural fear of stranger stabbing that I do, flagged down these bear hunters and asked them if they could drive us to a gas station on a major road where we could wait to be picked up. They asked where we were parked, and then told us they'd be happy to drive us to the Parkway.

Never mind that they were apparently illegally bear hunting, enjoying beers while driving us through the mountains, or at one point offering to sell us to some buddies they ran into for $3,000, these men are the greatest living human beings alive.

That's pretty much the end, give or take some frantic phone calls from Barrett's mom and her decision to share our adventure with all the attendants of their church. We learned some important lessons, though, namely the importance of compasses and maps.

And never, ever hiking again. 

I have a real adventure...

To tell you all about, but it was vaguely traumatic and embarrassing so it may be a view days. But don't worry, it's coming soon.

And that's why you don't go out on work nights...

As I've alluded to in the past, Katrina, Alicia and I are currently in the midst of a strange and wonderful free ticket cycle to Lynchburg Hillcats baseball games. Here's how it's gone down:

July 10: Attend work night at the Hillcats game, having received the tickets for free. Deal with hours of rain delays and a pretty terrible baseball game, BUT, receive free tickets thanks to a deal sponsored by a local radio station where you get a free ticket if you buy a ticket to that game. Except you clearly don't need to have bought it, since they give it to you when you give the ticket taker your ticket, and he doesn't know where you got it.

July 24: Attend game for which we received free tickets. RECEIVE FREE TICKETS AGAIN, thanks to the same promotion.

Aug. 14: Attend third free game. RECEIVE FREE TICKETS A THIRD TIME! This is madness!

Aug. 28: Will attend fourth free game. Free tickets unexpected, but still, it's pretty terrific.

Anywho, the other thing we've determined from attending so many free Hillcats games is the magic of the refillable pitcher. Although minor league baseball games don't quite have the exorbitant food cost of major league ones, beer still ain't cheap.

BUT, if you purchase a pitcher, and an initial cost of approximately $17, I think, you can then bring it back to every game you attend and refill it for only $12! ($16 and $11 if you go with generic rather than craft beers.)

Glasses, on the other hand, will run you like 6 or 7 bucks. The solution, my friends, is clear.

Having attended many a game now, we of course have a pitcher (two, actually, Barrett and Alicia both own them), which allows for the cheaper consumption of the alcohol. And we have the system down...arrive, receive free ticket, acquire wristband, purchase beer.

It's the best.

Anywhoo, last night was like the loveliest weather in the world, so it was quite the grand old time at the ballpark.

Look at that happiness.

Also, while at this game, I finally conquered my fear of Southpaw, the murderous Hillcats mascot.

Friends! But look at those eyes; good thing I'm abiding by the advice to keep your friends close and enemies closer. 

Here is the problem, folks, with the free game cycle, the efficient beer purchasing and the lovely weather and quick-moving ballgame: quite suddenly, the game was over, we were too tipsy to drive AND still had a half pitcher of beer left.

The solution? Sit around the ballpark as long as we possibly could in an attempt to finish the beer. Failing that, walk out towards my car, attempting to finish as much as possible then go sit at Katrina's nearby apartment to sober up, failing that, throw the empty beers on my car (this was Alicia's plan, which seemed like a great idea at the time).

Do not worry, dear friends, we did stop drinking at that point, and the far-more sober Katrina drove us to her place where we hung out for about two hours and bitched about work. It was great.

Great, that is, until I had to wake up at 6:45 this morning and everything was the worst.

And that's why you don't go out on weeknights.

Everybody's working for the weekend...

Adventure recap from the full weekend, straight ahead! I've officially given up on fame from this blog, but at least it's a way to stay in touch with a few people (my two consistent readers and commenters) and to hopefully provide entertainment to people who currently live in the same city as I do but are occasionally bored at work.

So, Friday night, we'd discussed the possibility of attending a 90's themed dance party at this bar in downtown Lynchburg that is closing at the end of the month. Now, there is pretty much nothing in the world I would rather do than attend a 90's themed dance party.

This would actually not be the best song to dance to at said party. But it's so great, and we all need to listen to it more often.

Sadly, though, living in Lynchburg has somewhat hampered our enthusiasm (using the plural first person to refer to me and Katrina) for attending parties that do not START until "after 11 p.m." Who do they think we are, college students? Plus, work was just the worst on Friday...I had to deal with some difficult people and the stuff I got to write was not as cool as I wanted it to be, and all I wanted to do was sit on my couch, drink beer and eat Chinese food.

Luckily, I was not alone! (How would I be? Doesn't that sound like basically the best activity in the world?) Katrina, my roommate Kayla and our other friends (there are very few of them) agreed that was really the best choice for our Friday night. 

So we ordered Chinese food (though the new owners of our favorite place have jacked up the prices and made the food less good - heartbreaking), drank beer and watched Admission (not great) and Beauty and the Beast (so great!).

For a slice of my life, Barrett's take on Beauty and the Beast: "I don't like it because the wrong guy wins."

When the movie was over, though, he did acknowledge that Gaston is kind of a dick and maybe the Beast deserved to wind up with Belle.

The rest of the weekend was fairly uneventful...we went out Saturday night, though not with Barrett's high school friend as promised. Sunday's hike was cancelled for fear of rain, which kind of came, though not very intensely and might have been okay. Still, I didn't really want to be on a mountain during a thunderstorm (and I got to spend a lot of the day in bed - always good. Though I did work out for a bit.)

All in all, not the most adventurous of weekends, but I hope you loved the post thanks to the video supplements.

Over and out.

Two things on my mind right now...

"I am the one who knocks..." etc. and this.

Very different, but I hope the latter made your day. Stay tuned for weekend adventures come Monday!

We're walking, we're walking...

And so we come to the conclusion of a pretty terrific weekend, that has been replaced by an initially unpleasant and now just kind of "meh" work week. But, as the camel in that commercial knows, it's Wednesday, and that is just terrific.

So Sunday I started the day with my first visit to mass in several months. Back in January I resolved to go to church every week, which quickly become every other week, and then...

But I'm back on track now! I went to Barrett's church last week and Catholic church this one, and actually got something out of it both times. I'm going to make a slight effort to be more Jesus-y, and we'll see where that goes. Perhaps you'll get a quality entry on Eleanor's weird thoughts on religion one day, but I'll have to work hard to still make that hilarious.

Anywho, post-church, I would've been all about a nap, but alas, it was not to be. Due to my endless quest to be fit and healthy and fabulous looking (a quest at which I frequently fail - see: the apple pie I may or may not have purchased from Kroger at 10:30 last night) I wanted to get back on the horse of Sunday runs, preferably of at least the six mile variety.

So Barrett and I set out for the trail we usually run on, he with like 8,000 pounds of bricks in his backpack (it's a thing) and me feeling like I'd rather be asleep.

But lo and behold, about a mile and a half in, I was feeling pretty good. As I am slow, and running is hard, and I'm not 6'4", I generally fall behind on these runs. But here I was, still leading by a considerable margin, well past the halfway point of the initial stretch!

In fact, I could not even see Barrett. Although initially inclined to celebrate my awesomeness, I started to grow concerned he may have broken all his bones and was being eaten alive by squirrels, so at two miles - despite the fact that I was feeling like a world beater and reflecting on the beauty of nature while rocking out to the Decemberists, circa 2007 - I turned around and headed back, ready to intimidate my squirrels.

Turns out his brick-carrying backpack was just not the best, and did not hold up super great during the running. We decided our best course of action would be walking - an additional five miles.

That was a lot. If you add up my weekend, we've got two miles of running Saturday, followed by two miles of running Sunday, followed by five miles of walking Sunday. THAT'S NINE MILES - SO MANY MILES!

But I survived, and my legs only moderately felt like they were going to fall off. And then we watched Interview With the Vampire and I just don't really know how to feel about that movie.

The end. I wish I was more hilarious - maybe next time.

Splish splash...

I've spent most of the day actually doing work (or reading about how diamonds are totally worthless), so been unable to write part two of my recap of my idyllic weekend. But I reminded myself that I must, while the memories are still fresh in my head and I am not in the grumpiest mood ever.

And so, after a Friday night enjoying the great American pastime, we moved on to Saturday: race day!

Around 11:30 a.m. Friday, Barrett e-mailed me that I should register for this splash and dash running/tubing race he was covering Saturday, because he'd gotten permission to run it as well as cover it. My initial reaction was extreme laziness and reticence. Running is hard, and Saturdays are best spent laying around in bed.

BUT, the race did look fun, and after I successfully convinced Katrina to also join us (due to a suspicion I had that Barrett would not wait for me for the tubing section - later confirmed), we quickly registered as the minutes ticked down to the noon deadline.

So, in the late afternoon Saturday, after still getting in a quality amount of lying on my bed doing nothing, I headed downtown for the James River Splash and Dash.

The race included about two miles of running, followed by probably a quarter mile of tubing - not really the toughest endeavor ever. When the organizers explained the course though, it seemed uncomfortably confusing and I began to worry that I would die. Plus, as mentioned, running is hard.

Still, Barrett, Katrina and I were so prepared to show that race who was boss. Bow down to our toughness:

This picture was initially super giant when I pasted it, but I thought that would intimidate you too much.

After Wave 1, aka the wave of people who are actually good at running, set off, we steeled ourselves for go time. I promised Katrina I'd wait for her at the tubing section, and although I mentioned to Barrett that it would be nice of him to do the same for me, it was not necessary. (Spoiler alert: he chose not to. But that's okay!...)

And then we were off! For the first quarter mile or so, I ran really fast, as I often do during races. I was all prepared to keep up with Barrett the whole time and crush everyone and be awesome. Then I remembered that I am slow and, say it with me now, running is hard.

So I fell back a bit and had to have my soul slowly crushed as runner after runner passed me. That was not the greatest.

After a seemingly interminable amount of time (I suspect 20 minutes at most), I left the trail section of the run and headed towards the beach where the tubes were stored. Unsurprisingly, no one was there waiting for me. But I hung out until Katrina arrived, and together we set out for the tubing section.

And then I cheated, but not on purpose! We were supposed to go out around this buoy upriver from the launch point before floating with the current down to the return spot. I forgot about the buoy until it was too late, and found myself sitting helplessly in my tube, floating downriver, trying to paddle against the current slowly until Katrina actually completed the course and caught up to me. 

Perhaps as karmic punishment, shortly after she caught me I floated into a bunch of reeds. It was not great.

In this photo, Katrina has rescued me from the reeds and is pulling me down the river. Teamwork!

Once we freed ourselves from the tubes and headed up the super steep beach, I expected to immediately start running along like a character from Chariots of Fire, and was shocked to find that moving my legs seemed super, super difficult. So I gingerly walked up the stairs before working myself up to a brisk jog (Jogging is the worst, Chris!).

Someone (it might have been Clark Kent) who had finished the race several minutes before, then came walking back toward me and dared challenge me to a race to the finish, and once again, I set out at a powerful sprint, only to receive my last and final reminder that running is hard.

Still, I finished, and it was awesome, and then we went and ate dinner al fresco (summertime experience number three!) and drank beer.

Tomorrow: walking is, amazingly, also hard.

An idyllic weekend...

...followed by the grumpiest Monday ever.

I really want to blog about all the cool things I did this weekend and be witty and hilarious (and incorporate pictures!) but I'm feeling very grumpy at the moment. I'll do my best to recount how lovely my weekend was, and maybe that will lift my spirits on this slow, boring torturous first day of the week.

Over the course of this weekend, I participated in basically every stereotypical, required summertime event imaginable. That started Friday night with a trip to see the Lynchburg Hillcats play baseball, aided by a coupon for $5 tickets and the promise of $3 drink specials. Also, we were supposed to get hats.

BUT THE HATS WERE A LIE. The Facebook page promised a "Battle of Virginia" hat giveaway, in which game attendees could choose a Hillcats cap in the colors of either the University of Virginia or Virginia Tech. Now, not being a fan of either of those institutions, I wasn't really that jazzed about it. BUT I WANTED THE FREE HAT I WAS PROMISED.

Katrina and I arrived around 6:40, and I'm 96 percent certain we were among the first 1,000 fans at the game. There were a lot more people there then other times I've been to see the Hillcats, but...I do not think that the team has 1,000 fans at any point. Anywho, we were a little confused at not being handed our chosen hats immediately upon arrival, but found our way to the guest services kiosk where people seemed to be receiving said hats.

"Umm...we'd like our hats?" I said to the man behind the desk, as he stared at us blankly upon approach.

"Are you season ticket holders?" he asked.

"No..." we said, "Is it only for season ticket holders?"

When the man said yes I sort of brusquely muttered, "That was not made clear!" and stormed off in a huff.

I do not think it will affect this man's life at all. I recently did a similar thing to a cashier at Sheetz when I got tired of them never EVER having sprinkle donuts when I came in, and I'm pretty sure I was just mean to an innocent man who has no control over sprinkle donut production. But at least venting my rage about life's little unfairness-es makes me feel a wee bit better.

Long story short, I spent the rest of the game (which was quite a while, four plus hours and 11 innings - the Hillcats lost) eyeing every person in a hat and trying to work up the gumption to ask if they, too, were season ticket holders. I suspect that man just didn't like us.

Also, we saw a skunk.

I will end the blog post for now and come back later in the day to write part two, which will focus on Saturday's race and hopefully involve less vitriol about the unfair denial of hats. At a later date I'll write part three on Sunday, a day on which I went to church (madness), ran two miles then walked five, and also watched Interview With the Vampire. You know you want to read about all of that.

I went on a run last night...

And here are some things that happened. Presented without comment, and in list form, because I've found that's the best way to create humor in kind of unfunny situations. Here we go:

1. The first song my Pandora station played was "Here's to Never Growing Up," by the one and only Avril, and it was awesome. All you haters gonna hate.

2. I almost got hit by some cars. The lights were red, I swear! But by the time I started to cross they were green and it was terrifying! But I lived.

3. I saw a groundhog.

4. I saw a state police car on the side road I was on and thought maybe they were going to pull me over for illegal street crossing.

5. I thought about how pretty Forest, Virginia is, because it is really fucking pretty. I love Lexington dearly, but I think this side of the mountains is better.

6. There were some ducks on the side of the road. One white, one brown. They were chowing down on some grass. When I encounter animals I like to run to the other side of the road, but that still felt too close. So I ran through some people's backyard for a while and they probably thought I was a robber and/or murderer.

7. The song "Skyscraper" came on my Pandora near the end of my run, and it was awesome and inspirational. Haters, continue hating.

8. I did not find myself magically 20 pounds thinner. And then I drank a beer and at some chips and queso because it was a hard day, so the effect of the run was likely moot.

All of the feels...

This is going to be an emotion-based blog post more than an adventure one, which I think is okay because it's been more than two months and I am not at all famous. I also think some of my regular readers have given up due to my lack of awesomeness and/or fame. (I'm looking at you, Shiri.)

So the reason for the emotion-based blog post is that I'm in one of those phases where I just decide everything is the most stressful thing ever. I used to be like this basically 24/7...in high school I joked that I was likely to die of a heart attack at age 40 because I took everything so seriously. I like to plan, and have a schedule (once, while in Ireland, a friend insisted I stop "cataloging," which is this thing I do while participating an activity I lay out what we'll be doing for the rest of the day: "At 3 we'll go get fish n'chips, then we'll go home and clean up, then we'll go out," etc.).

College helped me calm down a good bit (though the above example is from college) and recognize when I need to plan and be regimented and when I don't. It also actually helped me be slightly less stressed in college, I think, because part of my craziness is that I focus on efficiency. Especially during my junior and senior year, I made a big point of maximizing the time between classes as a chance to get reading done, outline papers, work on other homework, etc., especially vital when I had to spend a good portion of my free time devoting my life to the god that is Greek Life at my college.

But I still carry traces of these tendencies, and when my life doesn't abide, I feel like everything is the worst, even when it's basically the best. I've always been a worrier about the future...I can remember as a fifth grader, realizing that in four years I'd be graduating from eighth grade, and then it'd be only another four years until I graduated from high school, and then all the sudden I'd be 20, then 30, then so old! (This was literally the thought process I went through one night before bed. The next morning I told my dad something like, "Do you realize I will be 16 in only like, four years? That's so soon!" He did not understand where this panic was coming from, needless to say.)

So now I'm at this transient phase of life where I constantly feel like anything could change, and the only way to maintain sanity is to force everyone around me to abide by my plans and schedules and list.

(Weird confession: despite all this Type A stuff, I have never been one to keep a planner and I'm not particularly neat. The former is fine, I find I'm better able to adapt (efficiency!) with my system of ever-changing lists (plus making them was a good activity in English classes - I was not a note taker). But I'm very annoyed with the latter. If I'm going to drive myself crazy with stressing about planning, can't I at least be neat?)

The situation that is largely responsible for this state of constant stressed-outedness is my housing situation, which, as I explained to the always ready to listen to my crazy Hannah Muther last night, is actually totally fine. We finally, FINALLY, sorted out who was moving when and how we're going to handle the room-to-room transition, and we have a (sort-of) plan in place about getting the Internet bill transferred away from the girl moving out.

But it's still a big hassle, and if everyone just let me decide how everyone in my life should do everything, things would be a lot simpler. (Obviously a joke, generally. But I did recently have an acquaintance discuss how she was terrible at planning and logistics freak her out so she just doesn't deal with it. This acquaintance is relevant to the above source of stressed-outedness, and made me think I should pursue a career of dealing with that kind of stuff on behalf of others.)

The other piece of the constant stress is that I'm approaching the point where I'm seriously considering my post-Lynchburg plans, and it is tough stuff to deal with. That's fodder for another post, but it's the main contributor to my constant feeling of transience and general feelings of stress.

All that being said, last night I watched Wall-e and it was the best, and I felt a lot better for about 12 hours before I came into work and had to deal with all this work business that I'd rather not do. Let's all just be robots cleaning up the world and falling in love with other robots.

Sorry for the boring post. I'm going on a run tonight so maybe there'll be some adventure to recount.

The one-day weekend...

Sometimes, due to my need to have stable employment and make the moneys, I have to work Sundays. And it is the worst. I believe I've mentioned this before, but in case you're new to the blog: night cops is the living worst.

Reasons night cops is the worst include the following:
1) I cannot run (or hike) on Sunday afternoon, one of my few guaranteed workout times. The rest of the week I will almost certainly convince myself not to work out after I get home, but on Sundays I have no excuse. EXCEPT WHEN I HAVE TO WORK.
2) I have to be at work until like 10:30 at night (if I leave a little early, honestly) which is just the pits. Then I go home and I'm tired, but I don't want to go straight to bed, because - lame, so instead I usually eat Cheetos or drink a beer or a coke or consume some other unnecessary calories that usually just have the result in keeping me up later than I want to be.
3) I am faced with the choice of either A) taking Friday off, giving me a normal weekend, but no days off at the same time as Barrett and I usually have shit I need to finish Friday morning for the Monday paper that I'd rather not finish on Thursdays, B) taking Monday off, giving myself an every other day kind of weekend, which is okay but just seems silly or C) doing what I did this time around and taking a day the previous weekend, giving myself a three-day weekend (WIN!) followed by a one-day weekend (LOSE.)

But despite all this sucktacular-ness, my one-day weekend went pretty well. I will now regale you with the tale of these adventures, in a post that hopefully sucks less so I don't need to end it with a picture of a teacup pig so you're not mad at me.

Sometimes, my life is a little bit like high school. Example: a certain man companion of mine lives with his parents (totally acceptable....kind of). When those parents go out of town, as they did this weekend, I am a huge advocate of throwing wild parties at their home so we can emulate all the sweet movies about high school I love so dearly ("I got enough cheese and crackers for eight people. You think that's enough?").

The problem, though, is that I do not have a ton of friends here in Lynchburg (curse you, college graduation). And my friends here are pretty cool, but with one of them out of town this week (:( Katrina) our party was destined to be a bit low on the attendance. And of my roommates was working, and the other had whatever activity beautiful people engage in on the weekends (actual situation: she had a softball game).

Long story short: our wild party wound up being Barrett, Alicia and I grilling brats, drinking sangria, watching Batman and Robin and then making an unseemly number of prank phone calls to the opinion editor. (There was also some playing of Call of Duty. We are way cool - and I am way not good at that game.)

It was still a quality evening, especially with the prank calls. Here's how it went down: Alicia and I left dozens of messages in suave, mysterious voices asking to speak to Carlos Danger, which was awesome. Then Barrett left a final message that began: "Hola, me llamo Carlos Danger," and asked if he could help him get in touch with some of his "chicas" who might've called said editor by mistake.

Oh, topical humor.

Anywho, the prank calling was a big high to come down from (see, my life is frequently a lot like high school) but I did my darnedest Saturday via napping, running (IN THE RAIN BECAUSE I AM ONE TOUGH M*****F****** [not sure why I decided to censor. for the children, I guess]), making a sweet-ass salad, buying sandals and seeing The Wolverine! SUCH A DAY!

(Side note: I also bought some white skinny jean capris from TJMaxx. They are pretty much completely see-through and I'm not sure when, how or why I will ever wear them. But they were $16 and I've kind of been imaging all these sweet outfits I could make with white pants before remembering that I still have large thighs. Most importantly, did you notice the $16 price? This is what the sales do to me. It's a problem.)

Closed the weekend off with not one but TWO services at Barrett's church because I  am a quality human being and went to hear him sing a song. Then we went to Buffalo Wild Wings, because I was super hungry after all of this Jesus-ing and at basically any given point in my life I would rather be at Buffalo Wild Wings.

(Fact: my fingers kind of smelled like the spicy garlic sauce from my wings for the first couple hours of work. It was the most frustrating and amazing situation ever.)

Instead of a teacup pig, I'll end this post with the muzak, because people like the muzak. I thought, briefly, about uploading the video of Barrett singing his song, but that seemed kind weird and like more work than I wanted to do. So instead, enjoy some Beatles. (Not bugs. The band. Bugs would be weird.)

The never-ending cycle of free baseball tickets...

And other adventures from my week.

After camping last weekend, the days have been pretty slow, with not too much going on at work and not many eventful out-of-work adventures to recount. So, in the spirit of an earlier post, I'm going to provide you with a series of vignettes on what I've been up to of late.

1) A few weeks ago, several of us reporters attended News and Advance night at the Lynchburg Hillcats (the local minor league baseball team). It was...not great.

Of course, the camaraderie and beer and pretzels were all much appreciated, but there was an ungodly amount of rain, many a delay and, when baseball was being played, the home team was getting crushed.

The plus side? The promotion that night was "win-win" Wednesday, where a local radio station gives you a free ticket if you buy a ticket to that night's game. Now, despite not technically "buying" our tickets - really they were handed to us by our employers - we still received the free ticket for the next Wednesday game! And at that game, which was this week, we received ANOTHER free ticket! MAGIC.

2) I'm pretty much out of material, and I'm only on number two. Should've planned ahead.

3) OH! Prank calling. There was a lot of it on Thursday, but telling the story seems like a lot of work. . I'm really not in the mood to be hilarious - I probably should've thought of that before I started this not-hilarious blog post. Oh well.

4) To make up for this terribleness, here is a picture of a teacup pig:

Can't be mad at me now!

Mosquitos love me, and other camping adventures...

Once again, I have a real adventure to recount for you readers! Unfortunately, though, neither Barrett nor I brought a camera camping this weekend, which would make for a rather dull retelling (despite my trademark pithiness) with no visual representation.

To alleviate your potential boredom, I've decided to present our weekend via another nontraditional blog structure, a list of highs and lows of my three day weekend.

HIGH: Left work at 5 p.m. Friday, after receiving positive feedback on my intern story, writing a pretty solid Monday business feature and finishing my assignment for one of our special sections.

LOW: Encountered disgusting cows cooling themselves in algae-covered pound on drive to camp. Was disgusted.

HIGH: Got to see campfire at Barrett's camp, which was fun, and then drank with other former counselors, also fun.

LOW: Went to bed late, slept on air mattress and had to deal with vague hangover. Not a great combination.

HIGH: BOATS!!!!!!

LOW: My boat was a tiny kayak, clearly intended for a 10-year-old boy.

HIGH: Kicked Barrett's ass in a boat race!

LOW: Barrett did not try very hard in the boat race.

HIGH: Delicious cookout food, including world's greatest mac n' cheese and a quality cheesecake for desert.

LOW: There was not nearly enough mac n' cheese available.

HIGH: Ate Salerno's for dinner. OM NOM PENNE ALLA VODKA.

LOW: Due to a late lunch, was not super hungry and only ate half of delicious pasta.

HIGH: Made exciting plans for post-dinner hike, with beer to celebrate afterwards.

LOW: Dropped three beers in kitchen, forcing us to delay hike until the next morning so we could clean up spilled beer.

HIGH: Prevented us from hiking through massive thunderstorm by dropping three beers and postponing hike.

LOW: Massive storm.

HIGH: Storm stopped enough for fire, drinking and s'mores.

LOW: Second night on air mattress. Many mosquito bites. Not great for the sleeping.

HIGH: No rain in the morning meant perfect weather for hiking.

LOW: Hiking is super hard and I expected my own death many times.

HIGH: View from the top was sooooo prettyyyyyyy.

LOW: Had to hike down.

HIGH: FINALLY SHOWERED.

LOW: Shower house was not ventilated so sweating started up immediately afterward.

HIGH: Had lunch with my beautiful little little Shaun!

LOW: Returned to Lynchburg and real life.

HIGH: Took Monday off!

LOW: Am now back at work.

How to survive...

...a week when your entire family goes on vacation without you.

This blog will be my first attempt at a hilarious list-based post, oh-so-popular with the interwebs. But before I get to the list on how to execute the survival alluded to in the title, I need to explain that it isn't quite as maudlin a situation as presented. (I'm about halfway through the explanation, and it's boring. So skip to the list part if you want to be entertained.)

This week, my parents, both brothers and sister-in-law are all at Camp Brosius, what I firmly believe is the happiest place on Earth. I spent many a happy summer week there as a child, and there really are almost no fonder memories I have than of my time at Brosius. 

I often describe it to friends as half resort/half camp, because it is a family camp, but that isn't really accurate. It does have some resort-like elements: food prepared by an excellent chef, some fairly classy accommodations, boats at your disposal, daily childcare etc. But it's still very much a "camp," though not the sleeping in tents kind of camp. The classiest housing options are the cottages, but those are the only option with showers directly in your residence. And, to my knowledge, only one of them is air conditioned (it's the reconditioned nursery and was also at one point the camp directors' residence.)

There are still campfires and endless mosquitos and bug juice drinking and jumping off rickety swim t's, all the stuff you associate with a traditional camping experience - you're just with your parents and they kind of like to have real beds to sleep in and to be able to bring babies. 

Anywho, although I used to dream about attending Brosius every summer for my entire life (as a little kid I'd brag that I went even before I was born, my mom was pregnant with me the summer of 1989), my last few summers there and only summer as a counselor served to sort of bring Brosius back to reality and the people there as still, you know, people with flaws. The camp is ideally designed for kids between the ages of four and 14, and becomes a little less exciting when you're a teenager who's not that excited to play Spud for the 50th time. 

When you're on staff, the summer can seem endless - even though it's a pretty sweet job - especially if you don't really click with the other staffers. (This is fodder for an entry some day on the weird hybrid personality I had that summer, half under the influence of my Indiana upbringing and half slowly being transformed by a year spent in Virginia. For a while I didn't really fit in either place, and that summer was the big illustrator of that.) And although I haven't been there as a young, childless adult, those who have indicate that although it's nice to be able to sit around and boat and drink and play cards, you don't have the added satisfaction that made my parents - and many others - so fall in love with it, that it's a vacation where you don't have to worry about keeping your kids entertained.

So as a young, childless adult, I'm not too bummed out about not being able to swing a week in Wisconsin, either in vacay time or moneys. That being said, I might have given doing such a thing more consideration if I'd know BOTH brothers would be attending with my parents - I'm not used to Andy having much flexibility in his time off and thought at most he'd go up for a couple days.

Still, I'm happy with my decision to prioritize holidays, including my eldest brother's Labor Day party next month - I'll be able to see more of my family and devote slightly less time and money to travel and other expenses.

But I'm still bummed out about the situation, if for no other reason than it's a reminder that I live halfway across the country at a time when my brothers have finally decided to stop living far away (something they had no problem with when they were my age and I was the only child at home) and have the ability to visit home fairly regularly. Granted, if I were living back in that area now I'd have a much harder time seeing many of my school friends, and wouldn't have awesome experiences like last week's boating adventure, but it's still not the best.

In this moderately maudlin mindset, here's a somewhat jocular list about how to survive a week like this one. Enjoy.

1) Start the week out with a major catastrophe - I recommend colliding with a deer - to put everything in perspective. 

2) Stress out about how to deal with said catastrophe, but eventually decide to do nothing. That way you'll feel like you're on vacation and free from societal pressures.

3) Give yourself a lot to do at work so you don't find yourself scrolling through your siblings' pictures or thinking about how you aren't even contributing at your job so wouldn't it be better if you were just out sailing with your dad.

4) Abandon impulse control, again to recreate the feeling of vacation. Your roommate wants to go get ice cream at 10 o'clock at night? Do it! You really want Cheetos (also at 10 o'clock at night) and for some reason your boyfriend will not go buy them for you? Buy them yourself - you're the boss of you!

5) Engage in mid-week drinking, in the form of a blistering hot happy hour with delicious sangria (that is allegedly a "special" but still kind of expensive) that is a lot stronger than you expected.

6) Plan a fun weekend activity to celebrate making it through the week, in the form of a camping trip with the Cheeto nazi boyfriend that will hopefully take your mind off the camping option you are missing out on while also giving you a quality taste of the great outdoors.

7) Begin plotting how next year you will plan better so you can use some of your vacation time to go to Wisconsin for part of the week. Intimidate siblings into telling you sooner if they plan to go again.

Reporting is like your umbrella...

Today's post is fairly work-centric, so for those who don't care about the everyday life of a small-town journalist, feel free to stop reading. And for those who work with me, I already sort of expressed these thoughts at lunch today. As those two groups compromise basically all of my readership, I hope that no one really enjoys my pithy musings.

BR, the mythical former head of the j school at W&L (only former because on time he broke his arm and it was this whole big thing - and because the current head is an amazing human being whom I love, but still, BR runs that shit) has a favorite axiom he likes to share with us student reporters, be it at the start of Journalism 101, Beat Reporting (curse you, Rockbridge Report!) or In-Depth Reporting, otherwise known as journalism capstone, otherwise known as the spring term you only heard about because you'd sold your soul, time and life force to the gods that control the j lab.

Anywho, the words he like to share are these: "Reporting is like your umbrella. It's better to have it and not need it than to need it and not have it."

The point, dear no one, is that you're way better off talking to way more people than you'll need, gathering way more information than you'll use and generally knowing more things than you tell your readers. All good advice, especially for those of us who are secretly lazy. (So, everyone.)

BUT, the problem with putting this into practice is that I tend to worry about the umbrella's feelings. Not on a day-to-day real-world basis, of course; if we go weeks without rain I'm happy not to have disaster hair all the time and don't care one bit how my umbrella feels about its lack of use. But in the metaphorical sense, I find myself feeling bad that I can't include everyone who made time to talk to me, especially if they were easy to work with and excited about the prospect of being in the paper.

Although it isn't exactly like the situation I'm dealing with right now, the best example of this came when I was an intern in Charlotte. I was asked to work on Fourth of July, "if I was free," and though I wasn't at all free and had planned to spend the weekend in Lexington, I said yes because that is what you do when you're an intern.

(Side note: As an intern, I never understand why editors asked me if I could do something, like it was a favor. Of course I can do that story, I am literally sitting her reading television recaps of a show I don't even watch.)

My assignment for the big day was a parade in a Charlotte suburb. The concluding phase of the celebration was pretty legit; all the kids had the opportunity to participate in a tug of war involving like a fire hose and this big ball filled with water. I don't really remember exactly how it worked, but it looked super fun and the kids all loved it and everything was great.

Afterward, I did the usual creepy thing of scouting out a kid who liked he'd be good to talk to, and approaching him in a way that looked the last like I was trying to nab him for maniacal purposes. Luckily his mom was with him, so I told them I'd like to ask him a few questions for a newspaper story I was doing about the event.

The mom was so jazzed, she wholeheartedly agreed. But when I asked the little boy what he thought of the tug-of-war, the best he could muster up was "It was good." Good. Not even fun, or exciting, or refreshing, or basically any other adjective.

So, that sucked. I tried to get him to share something worthwhile, but that was just not going to happen. Disappointed, I thanked him and his mom and walked away. But then I heard her on the phone a few minutes later, excitedly telling someone that "Noah is going to be in the paper!"

Of course I tried my damnedest to fit that little boy in the story. Sadly, it just didn't work. (Looking back, I think as a real reporter now I would've put him in and stuck with it and been fine. But as an intern, and since the editor that day was a notorious hacker who would basically rewrite your story, I knew Noah was not long for this world no matter what I did.)

The situation I'm in today isn't exactly like that one, nor does that one even really line up with the umbrella analogy. But it's a more active story and I like going on tangents, so deal with it.

No, what I'm dealing with today is an overabundance of reporting for a story I'm doing on internships. The story is one that had just a vague enough idea I could talk to basically anyone and get the same information, as long as I covered, colleges, students and businesses that hire interns.

I was having a hard time, initially, lining up some of those - especially the interns - and finding photo opportunities. So I put out a ton of feelers, way more than necessary, and now find myself with a dozen pages of typed notes and several college students, intern coordinators and even businesses hoping to see their name splashed across the front page come Sunday.

I generally don't feel very beholden to businesses, even if they have really helped me out, because I know they're just invested because of the whole free advertising. But this time I really think a few of them just want to talk about how much they love their intern, and I don't want to take that away from them - and they said some interesting stuff. And there's a handful that didn't say anything too great, but are one of the places we're getting photos from, and it would look less than great if we have random photos from places not even touched on in the story.

Overall, it's not the end of the world and I'm not even that concerned. I've written a 60-inch story that will likely get chopped down by my editor this evening, and I supposed I can always blame her and a lack of infinite space if these people don't get the big screen treatment.

Still, it's a bummer. Maybe it would've been better if I just let my hair get wet.

So about this deer (A.K.A.: 101 reasons why I am not ready to be an adult)...

As you may have a heard, I hit a deer on Friday night. Actually, I've decided, based on a careful survey of the evidence, that the deer saw the Japanese deer stocking cap in my rear window (thank you, John Grigsby) and was hoping to free its friend from a life of imprisonment.

Instead, it freed my rear bumper from my car.

So now I'm driving around with a duct taped on (thank you, Barrett Mohrmann) rear bumper. It seems to be holding up well, and as I don't have a ton of disposable income at the moment (or really any moment) I sort of plan to continue in this fashion for at least a month.

But the incident has served as yet another reminder of the fact that I have ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA how to be a grown-up. I did not even think, as I rejoiced in my state of still being alive and apparent lack of sever car damage, to stop and see if the deer was still alive, alert authorities to the dead deer in the road, take photos of otherwise do anything to prove that a deer had in fact run into my car.

Why is this significant, you ask? Because apparently, according to some quick 2 a.m. Googling, deer accidents are often covered by your insurance. I have talked to my car insurance man and learned that this is in fact the case, but I'm now concerned about the act of actually filing the claim because:

1) I have no actual proof that a deer hit me. There is a rear bumper hanging half off my car, but I could've just done that in a fit of rage.
2) Said bumper has, as mentioned, been thoroughly duct taped up to my car, so I can't even photograph it now without removing all of the duct tape and redoing it. I'm still sort of planning on doing that because I want to buy some really heavy duty tape, but I haven't yet and don't want to go through all that ridiculousness.
3) I also don't want to take the car in for an estimate or anything until I am totally ready to fix it, because I don't want them to tell me it's dangerous to drive with a duct taped on bumper and force me to leave it there and fix it NOW. Plus, doing that would also require removing the duct tape.
4) The deductible, according to Mr. Insurance Man, is $500. According to extensive Internet research and talking to one person who had similar damage, the cost of my new bumper plus installation will be between $500 and $600. What is the point of going through all this hullabaloo if it's going to save me exactly $0?

The biggest challenge, though, is that I just don't know how all of this works. As noted, I've learned a lot of this from the Internet, or excessively asking friends and family for advice/instruction. I've always patted myself on the back for my independence (which I stand by, still) but there is still many a scenario that I am just completely and totally unprepared for.

This is one of them, and I hate it. If someone just wants to become my personal assistant and handle all of this for me for a salary of nothing other than my everlasting love and appreciation, you are welcome to. I will continue being a half-grown post adolescent whining about how being an adult is hard.

Oh my god you guys...

LAST NIGHT I HIT A DEER.

That is all.

Feeding Big Bertha...

Today's blog entry will be short, but it's important that I recount to you the final part of my holiday weekend because it includes one of the finest moments of my adult life.

Sunday, Anna and I departed from Maryland in the late morning. This put me at an 11 a.m. departure time from D.C., which I feared would result in endless amounts of traffic trapping me on U.S. 66 for hours.

Luckily, it did not! Traffic getting out of the city was slow, but not standstill - the worst part was trying to navigate my way through the city streets of Georgetown, but I made it out alive, somehow. After an interminable stop at the most crowded Sheetz in the history of the world, I was cruising down 29 again, back home safely by about 3 p.m.

So the adventure part of this adventure, really, came that evening. I headed to Smith Mountain Lake for dinner with Barrett, his parents and his godmother's gigantic family. Dinner was pleasant (om nom pizza), and we encountered some giant fish (seriously these fish were terrifyingly large) who had clearly been fed way too much by children.

After dinner, though, due to the large number of children in our party, we went to the arcade. And it was awesome.

At first, Barrett wanted to play some stupid shooting game, but it was occupied. So I suggested we kill time with the Big Bertha game, where you throw little plastic balls in this giant face thing to make this woman fat (it sounds very disturbing, actually, when described) and it was just as awesome as when I was a child and played it at Shakey's. I was also jazzed to get like 10 tickets out of it - at Blade N' Skate that would've earned me so many flavored Tootsie Rolls!!

Then we did go to play the stupid shooter game, and this is where either my greatest, or most embarrassing, depending on your definition, moment took place.

We played one round - I did poorly. I am not good at these games. As Barrett was preparing to start a second round, I looked longingly for the ticket dispenser. Why were there not tickets?

Because, apparently, these stupid shooter games don't dispense any tickets. WHAT THE F.

So then, luckily hidden by some other games but still in an arcade full of children and their patient parents, I half-yelled (as in, said in more than a normal speaking voice), "I only wanna play games with tickets!!!!"

Embarrassing as it was, my outburst worked, and we played ski ball and then bought some frogs and a bug with our tickets and it was awesome.

No flavored Tootsie Rolls though. Next time.

I'm on a boat and...

Part two of my Fourth of July weekend adventure begins...now!

When last I left you good folks, Anna and I had returned home from a long day of celebrating freedom and fireworks and baseball and all things American. We arose Friday morning - once again, a little worse for wear - and readied ourselves for a long journey to the eastern shore of Maryland, where we would find BOATS.

(The theme of my weekend, I've decided, is boats. This sounds like the really terrible option for a prom theme in a teen movie or something like that. I think I might use this to write a screenplay. Anyways.)

The drive from D.C. to Easton, Maryland, where Anna's water house is takes about an hour and a half. A fairly pleasant drive, except for the DEATH DEFYING TRIP OVER THE BAY BRIDGE. I was initially very excited about driving over the Chesapeake Bay, expecting to gaze out in wonder over the pollution-filled waters and feel a love of American nature.

But as we approached, I saw that not only does the bridge go on seemingly FOREVER, it sort of bends to the left in the middle. Like, there is a turn in the bridge. A BRIDGE SHOULD NOT REQUIRE A TURN, BRIDGES SHOULD BE STRAIGHT. The really upsetting part of that turn is that you can see, very clearly, how high you are and how likely your death would be were your car to plummet off the bridge at a later point.

As you can tell, I'm not a huge fan of bridges. I'm not like actively terrified of them, but whenever I have too think to hard about anything that has the potential to kill me, I get a little freaked out. This leads to my many, many fears, as most things, I'm convinced, have the potential to kill me.

I am spending too much time on this relatively inane part of the adventure and should probably get to the boats. So, long story short, despite the terrifically high odds of death, Anna and I made it safely across and eventually arrived at her house.

This is the view from Anna's house. In the distance you can see her pier and boat. Now, boats are also something that, if you really think about it, could kill me, but I do my best to limit my fear of them.

After gorging ourselves on cheese, crackers, salsa, endless fruit, etc. provided by Anna's mom, we geared up to finally head out on the boat.

Here is my first mistake of the weekend. While applying sunscreen, I neglected to put any on my face. Why did I make this foolish choice, you ask? Well, I am a person who usually wears at least some foundation almost every day, so my face is generally protected. If I am going to be doing an outside activity for a long amount of time (hiking, running, etc.) I'll also often put on a hat to keep my ridiculous head of hair out of my face. Plus, my bangs generally protect at least the forehead section of my face, if my hair is worn down (or even, generally, in a ponytail. Rarely do I go for the pinned back bangs).

None of these things happened Friday morning. Who puts on makeup when you're going on a boat? And wearing a hat or keeping my bangs down seemed extra foolish when the wind would be whipping across my face.

So while Anna, her mom and I zoomed across creeks and rivers with reckless abandon, I rejoiced in the tan I was surely getting. Only about halfway through the day - specifically when Anna and I switched from the speedboat to a smaller kayak/paddle boat/sail boat combo (it was ridiculous, specifically the sail part) did I truly recognize the mistake I had made.

For I was now the proud of owner of what I have charmingly named "epic face sunburn." My good friend epic face sunburn took up most of my forehead, a bit of my nose and the rosiest sections of my cheeks (made extra rosy by their extreme sun damage). With sunglasses, my face was simply awash in red. But without, I was truly a sight to behold: the rare blonde-haired, pink-faced raccoon.

You can mostly see epic face sunburn in this photo, taken Saturday. Obviously, by then I'd learned the lesson about hats.

I'm certain that everyone at dinner that night was secretly mocking my ridiculous appearance, but that's okay because I'd spent the day on a boat. I may regret the lack of sunscreen down the road if I get skin cancer, and we can all return to this blog entry and laugh at me. But, BOATS.

Saturday brought more of the same, albeit with the addition of sunscreen and hats. We also boated to a waterfront bar, which was awesome because everyone was super sweaty and a mess and in swimsuits and no one cared. So that was great, because I was super sweaty and a mess and in a swimsuit.

Then Saturday night we caught crabs! SO INTENSE! This one crab fought Anna mightily when we tried to take it out of the basket with tongs (seriously, this thing had  a plan). So we left it for her mom - the solution to all of life's problems (have your parents deal with it).

After delicious, delicious crabs we watched a movie and I pretty much passed out, drained from all the sun and boating and day drinking (there was a lot of that Friday and Saturday).

All in all, a great way to celebrate America.

Up next: the adventure continues with my quest for the most tickets at a child's arcade. Steel yourselves for my awesomeness.