A Happy Birthday

On April 14th I turned 24. My roommate and wife threw together a celebration with several friends. We played the Battlestar Galactica board game, told stories, ate cake and drank beer.

The Battlestar Galactica game is a cooperative-competative game.  At the beginning each player is dealt a "loyalty" card which only they can see.  The loyalty card determines if they're working with everyone else or against them.  I was a Cylon this game, working to sabotage the rest of my peers.  

A few hours, several Cylon acquisitions, and a few beers later we stopped for cake.  My roommate had made an awesome key lime pie cake.

Thanks everyone for an amazing Birthday!

Hiking

Lauren, myself, and my friends Erik and Nick partook in another hike in the mountains behind my house this last weekend.  Nearly five hours in duration, we managed to find a new overlook with a better view than the cliffs I found two weekends ago.  We stop for a break and a snack near the top in the shade of a large rock.

We stopped for lunch on the newly discovered cliffs.  The view was amazing, the food, well, the sandwiches I made everyone were smashed flat and the fruit wasn't ripe, but luckily food always seems to taste better on an exhausting hike.  Here Lauren calls her folks while enjoying the view.

Lauren and I had originally thought about doing a week long hike on the Appalachian trail after our wedding last summer, but we got rained out (and maybe got a little lazy as well).  I hope that this year we can might be able to pick up where we left off.  In the mean time we'll just take a couple big hikes to prepare.

Gardening

And the yardwork begins.  The first weekend of April was spent working on the house. Lauren and I planted some flowers, tomatoes, strawberries, rasberies, and blueberries.  It was also time to mow, which meant removing the layers of branches that litter the yard after months of ice this winter.  

The new strawberry bed and tomatoes seem to be thriving.

Well, the garden is started, the flower beds are planted, and the yard is mowed.  

Extreme Hikes

My wife dubs my hikes as "Extreme Hikes".  I don't like hiking on paths, following a predefined, explored, safe route so that yuppies can feel like they're adventuring in the woods.  No, my hikes don't have paths and often involve scaling fences, small cliffs, trees, and anything else we come across.  If you're going to be out in the woods, you mine as well be out exploring the unknown.

I went hiking with my friend Joe a few months ago, and nearly died of exhaustion.  Since becoming a computer programmer, I have gained a lot of weight, and have gotten into really bad shape.  No one would guess I was a decent cross country runner in highschool.  Since that revealing hike a few months ago, I have trained in the weight room at work and walked every day.  My second hike with Joe was much smoother, and we scaled the mountain with relative ease.

We begin our hike heading up the spine of the mountain nearby my house.  It's a little steep, but climbable.

The trees are still leafless which led to beautiful views the entire way up.  The last half a mile or so is very steep, and requires climbing boulders that appear to have been involved in a rock slide many, many years ago.  My friend leads the way.

A moment of triumph as we reach the top.  This appears to be the highest point of the mountain.  It was roughly three miles of climbing up to this point, with some very rough terrain.

After exploring the top, we come across a cliff.

The view from the top is absolutely amazing.

Who would have thought so many natural treasures were waiting on the land within 3 miles of my house.  Going forward I plan to take a major outdoors adventure like this at least once a month, and hopefully with increasing ease each time.

A trip to Boone

I spent March 23rd and 24th in Boone, NC.

As I left it was snowing.  Two (very blurry) deer were in the yard as Iarrived home and prepared to head out for the trip. Normally I love the snow, but this winter has been absolutely terrible.  We had persistent snow on the ground from mid December through the begining of March, which is very unusual for Virginia.

My droid, and thus my camera, died shortly after arriving in Boone, NC.  I forgot to bring my charger.  All I have of Boone is a picture of this delicious dinner that I took to make my roommate and wife jealous.

My company sent me to Appalachian State University to do a presentation, have a Q&A session, and conduct preliminary interviews for graduating seniors.  While I was there I got to walk around campus, visit some of the cool artsy shops downtown, and enjoyed a nice meal or two on the company.  ASU was a very impressive little university.

Muse!!!

My second trip of March commenced a week after the Roanoke trip.  We headed to Nashville, TN to see a Muse concert.  If you enjoy their music, you should most definitely try to see them in concert.  Once again my wife, roommate, and coworker attended.  We walked around Nashville, saw the sights, listened to a lot of country music, and saw one of the top 5 shows I've ever seen.  We had breakfast at the Pancake Factory, which was amazing.  Definitely try the sweet potato pancakes if you find yourself in Nashville at the Pancake Factory. 

We caught up with a group of friends a few hours.  Here we are hanging out in the lines as they prepare to open up the arena.

The concert was one of the most amazing concerts I've ever seen.  My blurry pictures fail to do them any justice.

We were in Nashville a total of 3 nights.  I wish we had additional time to see the Parthenon replica and art museum, but i guess we'll have to save it for another trip.

Friends and Sushi

March 6th-8th.  On a previous trip to Roanoke Va, my friends and I had discovered that one of the chefs at the nicer sushi restaurant offered sushi classes.  My wife, my other roommate, and a coworker decided to attend a class on our next trip, and it was definitely worth it.

We all attempt to make our first sushi roll:

My wife and I took turns(although she let me do most saying she'd prefer I make her sushi).  She wasn't originally planning on attending but was able to switch hours with someone at the last minute.  Unfortunately they didn't have time to prepare another spot in the course.  Here I make her a heart shaped sushi:

We finish the class after making 7 or 8 rolls with a Dragon Roll.  This was a fried Eel roll that was put on top of a California roll to make it look like a dragon.  They were delicious.

We finished the night at a college friend's house, playing a new card game called Munchkin, catching up, and enjoying several beers and wines from local sources.  I've started brining beer and wine to most social gatherings ever since I brewed a batch of beer myself last summer.  All in all, this was a great trip, and a nice break after being stuck at my house all winter.

An Introduction

Throughout the past several months I, and sometimes my friends, have undertaken several escapades varying from “extreme hikes” (as my wife dubs them) to heading to Florida for a weekend at bush gardens. Here I will document these exploits to share with friends, family, and anyone else.