Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Snowman, O Snowman!

Hit the gym last night, then went home and scanned a bunch more photos, so stay tuned for another 30 or so to be posted to Flickr tonight. (By the way, I've been getting a real kick out of using my laptop like a toy lately, playing tunes and scanning photos and checking Facebook every few minutes, it seemed like a different world from how I usually play with the machine.) Last night was also Two Brew And Tacos Tuesday; I met Anne, who had come directly from visiting her mom, at Brew Works around 9:00, but we were a little too late to hang with the post-knitting crowd (or to get the food specials), so we shared some nachos and a few beers and called it a night.
 
Tonight I'll probably spend a little time on the trainer, maybe do some laundry and pack, since we're going on a mini-vacation with Doug and Lori this weekend. We're heading up to the Berkshires to do some XC skiing, and we're also going to check out some of the Northampton night life. Should be good, if we can get out of town: the snow is falling pretty hard right now, and should continue through tomorrow morning. I think we may want to avoid the coast, which is where things are going to get hit hardest...

Monday, January 24, 2011

Uncle Wiggily

Morning weigh-in: 182#, 12% BF (OK, whatever)
 
A quiet weekend without Anne: I stayed in Friday night: I was planning to see Trouble City All Stars at the Funhouse, but several hours of scanning photos and an hour of tempo on the trainer, along with the prospect of walking around in the bitter cold just to stand in a smoky room, totally put me out of the mood. Decision: early bedtime.
 
Saturday morning I met Doug and Lori for some XC skiing at Jacobsburg. It was brutally cold out, almost noon before temperatures even reached the teens, but we were huffing and puffing and steaming along soon enough -- I don't think I've ever been cold on the XC skis, no matter what the weather. Conditions were about as good as it gets, with the cold keeping the snow just right and the bright sun shining down; foot traffic made for some ugly skiing near the trailhead but further out our only predecessors were fellow skiers. Parts of Jacobsburg, where I normally would be bored to tears while riding, were actually so awesome I thought "people would pay do this..." Sunday morning I tried the same at Sals, but the hills were too steep and the turns too tight for my ability level, and I was forced to end after about an hour; the best part of the day turned out to be skiing in someone else's tracks around the baseball field.
 
In between was Saturday Night. I went out to see Geerbox, a friend's band, play at a local sports bar. The place (Mezza Luna i allentown) was nice despite the wall-to-wall wide screen TV's, and they had some decent beer on tap, and the band was good despite the singer's sore throat, but the music (the DJ between sets), and the clientele, was pure Classic Rock Without The Hard Stuff: uniformly white and middle-aged, and with that certain suburban decrepitude, all that I'd escaped by being who I am instead... Good people watching though, out on the dance floor.
 
Happy Anniversary! The first mac was introduced on this date in 1984. Here's something about the part I was most impressed with at the time... It was just a year ago that I threw out all my old "Inside Macintosh" books, when I was emptying out the apartment, and I still have my original 128k Mac, in storage like a forlorn little toaster.