Of bikes and moving trucks

Yesterday (Sunday) morning, I oversleep and wake up just in time to call Amy about meeting up for our bicycle outing. Luckily she did the same so I got to read a bit before I headed out to pick her up. 10 o'clock rolls around, and I roll into her apartment complex. We make it down to the greenway, and we couldn't have asked for a more beautiful day! It's nice and sunny, there's a nice breeze to keep the heat at bay, and really just all around perfect for a bike ride. We bike a few miles down to Tyson park where we took a break and chatted for a while. It was one of those fun conversations that just winds its way from topic to topic. After we got rested, and I had a few yogurt covered raisins, we made our way back to the car. Along the way, we decided that we really don't care for the hills on that half of the greenway.

I dropped Amy off at her place and then headed back to my apartment. I didn't really do much of anything aside from laundry. Oh, I did cook myself some chicken and pasta. I've put together this fantastic marinade for the chicken, and I'm working on getting the rest of the dish to taste as wonderful.

Today, I biked in to work. I really enjoy doing that, so I'm hoping I get to do it more often. Work went well, nothing terribly exciting. After work I biked over to Amelia's place to help her load up a Uhaul. It turns out that she was informed by our friend that I am her transition fairy. That sounds quite silly, but to some degree it's true. I rarely see Amelia, and when I do, it usually involves me moving her and/or her furniture. We've decided that I'll randomly call her while she's living in her new place and she'll be moving, and that I'll just happen to be in the area. Cause that's how we roll.

So I've realized that I take a sick masochistic joy out of helping people move. For one, it's good exercise. For two, it's like a giant game of Tetris (Minus the whole stuff disappearing once it all fits together). I have a fair amount of fun figuring out where to put things. Three, I get to climb around all monkey like in the van. Four: there is almost always free food and beer.

So I still haven't gotten around to filling in the gaps in my blog, but soon maybe.


LOLPOD: As I was driving Amy back to her apartment, we see this cop pulling over some guy. He ended up pulling into the Krispy Kreme. I didn't see, but I'd like to think that the cop went inside briefly after handing the guy his ticket.

Suits & Slides

I woke up entirely too early this morning. 8 o'clock on a Saturday just isn't nice. I fell asleep yesterday evening while I was sitting in my giant love sac and took at least an hour nap in it, so I was wide awake when my normal bedtime came around. I didn't get to sleep til around 3, so it's been a loooong day. But I've been able to get a lot of stuff done! My studio is getting cleared out and organized, so hopefully it'll be back up and running here at this new location. (More on my move later). I met up with Emily and we went to Thompson Photo to look at lenses for her camera. We ended up chatting with the guy there for a good hour I think. It's been so long since I've really talked photography and film with anyone that I had forgotten just how excited I get. It was like I was a little school girl again!

After I got to be a photo-nerd for a while again, we went to the Crown and Goose gastropub. The food was incredible! I ordered Bangers and Mash, with a side order of Bubbles & Sqeak. Some very standard, albeit delicous, British Meals. The Bangers were covered in this wonderful spicy mustard and gravy-like sauce. We also split a plowmans lunch, which is normally just some bread, cheese, and fruit, but this one was a delicacy! It had all of the aforementioned items, but the cheeses weren't exactly your run of the mill cheddars. From the Menu:

Ploughman’s Lunch (an English Cheese Board) – Classic Stilton, white stilton with blueberries, cheddar and red veined claret wine cheese, Double Glouchester a medium sharp English cheddar with strip of aged stilton, and Red Dragon made with Welsh brown ale and mustard seeds. Boards served with roasted walnuts, Chef’s choice of English fruit preserves and artisan honey, and French baguette

One of the fruits that was served with the cheese was grapes. But they weren't your standard variety of grapes, no, they were teeny-tiny. I'm talking like 5mm diameter, Lilliputian in proportion. And they were about the sweetest grapes I've had in ages! I just did a search and found them out to be Black Corinth grapes.

The only downside to this wonderful meal was the bill. Everything there is very expensive. And although it was a delectable meal, I'm just not sure it was worth that much money.

Then we headed over to Legacy, a vintage store near the Crown and Goose. Much to my chagrin, I found some incredibly awesome suits! They were more expensive than the $12 I'm used to spending at Goodwill, but I think I may have been willing to pay for them, but unfortunately the pants didn't really fit me at all any of them. The waist was too tight and if I had bent over, I would have split a seam. I was slightly bummed because one was this incredible maroon-ish red color! But my wallet is thanking me right now, that's for sure. I just had to drop a bunch of money into my "Battle Van" aka the Mystery Machine. In fact, i spent more on repairs than I did for the van itself... (mainly because the van was a gift) :-D So now my van has 4 new tires, fresh oil, coolant, steering, brake, and every other kind of fluid running in it. It still has a slight problem where it won't turn off unless I disconnect the battery, but that's only a triviality :-P (More on that in my upcoming posts).

I got home and decided it was time to go through my clothes. I tried on my suits and found that most all of them fit quite well! There're are only two that don't fit as well as they could, but I think I could still get away with wearing them. While I was doing that, Emily dove into my closet and started pulling out clothes that she felt didn't belong in my primary closet (I have two now that I'm renting a two bedroom), or just didn't belong in any closet at all. So now I have a very large pile of clothes on my lovesac that I have to go through and try to actually get rid of a few. I'm trying really hard to part with my clothes and other items in a push to be less materialistic, or whatever, and try to free up some room in my closet(s). All those skeletons of mine are just taking up way too much room. It's incredibly hard for me to get rid of stuff. Especially if it has any sort of memory associated with it, or if it was a gift (which I guess is a memory, so i guess mainly just that). I'm incredibly sentimental, and very much a penny pincher. And both traits lead me straight toward being a hoarder (Jon's pronunciation: whoreder).

A parting image to put a smile on your face:

Update

I am way behind on my posts, and for that I apologize. I've got a ton of stuff to write about in these past few weeks. Everything is going well for me! I have to run to work, but I hope that this weekend I'll have some time to sit down and write everything out!