Woke up this morning to a lovely sunrise on my lake, and something just clicked, and it now seems like summer is here. Gratuitous shot from my iPhone on the way out the door: Life is good. FOCUS: What plans do you have for the summer?
For the most part, it's going to be spent working. My goal is to get done my current contract as quickly as possible so I can then spend a month sitting on my dock, drinking blender drinks, and doing sweet fuck all. That will be interspersed with the occasional weekend spent racing and heading up into the mountains to slay some elusive trout with my fly rod. EDIT: So far this year, fishing involved a 4 hour road-trip for 4 days of hail, sleet, snow, rain, and cold. The pic below was the only 3 hour window we spent on the lake... the rest of the time was in a cabin, drinking and bbq-ing, while it just dumped like hell. Looking to improve on that by a large margin.
I'll be in Colorado the last week of June through the first week in July. Apparently the view from the condo we're renting in Silverthorne, where a majority of the trip will be spent.
Last year about this time I was living at my mothers house and had a breathalyzer in my car and a restricted license so that I could only drive to and from work. This year I am living in a house with three of my closest friends. We have a nice little ghetto blow up pool in the back, the grill is being used almost every day, and the coors light is flowing like wine. I think I'm actually losing some weight, and thanks to our ghetto pool I may actually have a tan this summer. All that plus going to see Phish in Atlanta on July 4th, combined with the fact that things are going well with the girl that I met on memorial day weekend...should be a pretty damn good summer.
Fishing trips to Jersey to fish for fluke with the fam (my dad, my brother, my son, and I). We're thinking about a tuna charter or 2 as well. Other than that, the usual family trip to the beach and maybe one trip up to visit the relatives (the wife and I moved 500 miles away from the rest of our family around 10 years ago).
Jet Skiing as much as possible. Got a brand new one that is made for pulling skiers and tubing and so far I managed to get one tuber 5 ft. of the water and one lady to lose her top. To top it off we caught the neighbors next door railing each other outside after they thought we had gone inside. Only two trips so far, but I'm thinking things are going to be alright.
Weekdays: Work. Fuck (my life). Weekends: Beer. BBQ. Patios. Driving my motorcycle. Summer is the best thing about Finland. During the winter it's more or less like this:
The summer of me is just getting warmed up. I relocated to Louisville 2 summers ago, and I am more than excited to be spending as little time as possible in this town over the next three months. May consisted of Derby, Cabo San Lucas, Chicago, and Northern Lake Michigan. Future agenda includes: 1) 4th of July in Atlanta with my best friend from growing up. Haven't seen him since his wedding a couple of years ago 2) Golf trip to Kohler, WI in mid July 3) Multiple camping trips in Brown County, IN, with stopovers in B-town to revisit my old college stomping grounds 4) Trip up to Michigan to see my folks in late July 5) Having my bachelor party in Montreal in late July 6) Trip to DC to see my brother in early August 7) Three nights comped at the Aria in Vegas. Date to be determined 8) Getting married in Cannon Beach, Oregon in September 9) Honeymoon in Fiji and New Zealand
We got snow the weekend before last, then last weekend we had 25*C weather for one day. This week we're getting rain, wind and 10*C. Summer came and went. Focus: No plans yet but my life is spent on the fly. A couple of cabin parties this month, spending a few weekends on my friend lake (Alberta Beach) on their wake boat and the possibility of a trip to either Las Vegas, Iceland or Japan later in the season. Just bought myself a new long board, so I'll likely spend all my time ripping around the city on that. Ah, life is glorious.
Wedding, weddings and more weddings. Good God people, stop getting married, or at least stop inviting me. No, the shitty food your catering company gave us is not worth the $200 I spent on your gift, much less pain of sitting through the Catholic mass. Oh, and if you MUST invite me, have an open bar. If not I'll punch you in the mouth and shit on your cake. Seriously, one of the weddings I went to had $7 beers and $9 well drinks. $60 bar tab and I was still sober. Worst wedding ever. Other than that I'll be doing some hiking, hopefully some paintball as well if I manage to stick to my budget (tough to do with a broke ass GF). Budget be damned I might finally go skydiving too, can't believe I haven't knocked that one off the list yet. If anyone knows of a good place please let me know (I'm around Hartford, CT).
This summer I joined a research team and am working 20-30 hours a week making some cash. Aside from that I just had a fake made about two days ago and plan on hitting the bars once or twice during the week (In Chapel Hill there is nothing but bars during the week...and being 20 sucks.) and getting sufficiently drunk and keeping whatever remnant of my game that is intact, intact. I have already been to the beach twice, but my friends and I are thinking about another beach trip at the end, and then I also have some 4th of July plans (going to the mountains and camping out, should be fun.) Aside from a week of volunteering at a special needs camp the rest of my summer is a 9-4 job.
I'm not very fond of the hot, so I do most of my vacationing outside of the summer months (when the vacation will not be spent ringing sweat out of my shirts). I plan on sitting my ass in the pool as much as possible, and playing golf in the mornings before it gets too hot. Other than that I feel very blessed to have an awesome air conditioner. This weekend I am hitting New Orleans, and next weekend Boston. Then my travel to fun places will stop until September, when I deem it Ok to return to the beach.
I'll be spending the majority of it in the concrete oven that is New York in the summertime, but will make as many weekend escapes to this place as I possibly can. No other houses for 1/2 mile in either direction (where I live, this is unheard of), the beach to ourselves, and a boat anchored in the bay ready for tubing. Mint.
Oh I am so excited, first I'm going to take Politics of Utopia and Science of Women's Bodies, then I'm going to take more stupid classes! Yay! In seriousness though, I will be taking the dog to every place that has water. My sister just moved to Coeur D'Alene, so I'll be visiting her and partaking in the natural beauty of Idaho. Surprisingly, it's not just for potatoes and Mormons anymore. I also signed up for horseback riding, so hopefully I'll get be on some trails this summer too. I still maintain nature looks a thousand times more beautiful from horseback.
Summer is the best time of the year. There's nothing like going to the beach, hitting on girls and swimming in some of the clearest warmest Louisiana crude.
The summer semester started yesterday, so I'm in class 2 nights/week for the next 10 weeks and per the syllabi, I have a few papers and a major group project, so they'll keep me busy. Since school is in the evenings, I'll be spending most of my free day time with my daughters, specifically, giving the oldest driving lessons so she can get her license this summer, and teaching both girls "kitchen and cooking basics." Each is responsible for cooking dinner one night a week (with my help and supervision initially), requiring researching and selecting recipes to plan and prepare a complete meal. Knife skills, food prep, matching seasonings to meat/fish/poultry, sides to compliment the entree`, and basic tips for stovetop and grilling will be covered. By the fall, they each will be able to prepare a complete dinner from scratch and will do so. They're actually pretty excited about it. Daughter #2 starts today: Bolognese sauce with angel hair pasta, tomato and vidalia onion salad with balsalmic vinegrette, and mixed berries with creme fresche. Daughter #1 goes Thursday with Kung Pao Chicken and a melon medley for dessert. They want to learn baking, but that'll wait til the fall/winter when I won't cringe about turning the oven on. The only travel plans so far are for a conference in Corpus Christi later this month, sans the family. Looking forward to the drive, but not Corpus at the end of June. Family vacation is booked for Thanksgiving week. I have a few light gardening projects in the backyard I hope to get to on the weekends, and will start the research and design phase for a larger landscaping renovation back there for the spring. We lost a tree back there to the snowstorm we had earlier this year, which has been cleared, but now there's a gaping hole in the middle of a landscape bed adjacent to the pool and spa and the surrounding shrubs look out of kilter since their growth conformed to the presence of the now-defunct tree. And lastly, after a 2 year hiatus, we'll start hosting BBQs back there again this summer with friends I've made in recovery, and going to BBQs at their homes as well. In fact, going to one this weekend. Oh, and my sponsor races cars and he invited me to the pit (don't ask me what kind of racing, I have no clue. All I know is, the next race, he's driving an Audi R8), so I guess I'll be checking that out. Wow. Taking this from my head to print, I just realized how busy I'll be! But that's a good thing.
I'm leaving my job for a couple months and going to live at home. The only reason I am moderately okay with this is because my brother, who I haven't seen since Christmas, is going to be home from Europe, so our summer will consist of heading out to our cabin and enjoying many bbqs. Other than that, many trips to Calgary will be made including the Stampede and various other shenanigans.