My, but June has sailed by in a blur.  A quick recap:

The last week of May was spent getting ready for my annual Boundary Waters trip.  Fish and I did some shopping and prepped gear for the trip.  On the 30th, we headed up to the lake to meet the Old Codger and Scurvy Pete and pack everything up.  Because the Codger's brewery is still unfinished, we didn't have any homebrew to take in with us this year, which meant 40 pounds of liquid and one backpack that we didn't have to portage.  We spend Saturday night at a really nice resort up on the Gunflint Trail, with the nicest bunkhouse we've ever seen.  Seriously, these things are usually very spartan shacks with a couple of bunks; you're lucky if you get an electric light and/or a heater.  This one had a private bathroom.  With a shower.  It was awesome.  The people who own the resort are a really nice "retired" couple who reminded me very much of our friends the Sacketts, if the Sacketts were Boundary Waters people instead of marathoners.  But still, a lovely place that I'm seriously tempted to take Lemur to.
( The trip... )

( A lost canoe... )

Anyways, we had made great time getting out, so after a hot shower (valued beyond price!) and a bite, we made our way back to Mom & Dad's place before dark.  Which was good, since Chris had to work Saturday morning, and Fish had a fencing tourney to manage.  All in all, another good trip.  Tough weather and tough fishing this year, but we didn't have any mishaps or injuries, and we even managed to get the Codger home without hurting him too bad.  Unfortunately, we had rain all weekend, so I didn't get a chance to clean and air out my tent and other gear 'til around Tuesday or Wednesday.  And getting the gear cleaned up and dried was important, since Leems and I were heading out on another camping trip the next weekend.  More about that later.

Finally got around to pulling the bike out of the basement last night, and gave it a spring tuneup while Leems was at the cat shelter.  Then, to prove that I'm not a complete lazy slob, I actually rode it to work this morning.

I'm pleased to say that the bike worked, my legs worked, and that sensation returned to my fingers and ears shortly after I entered the warm building.  With luck, the weather will allow me to keep this up for the next five weeks, so that I can be in reasonable shape for the Boundary Waters expedition.

In completely unrelated news: there was a message on the machine yesterday from a headhunter with a lead that actually sounds promising.  It sounds like it involves running a laboratory information management system, which some of you may recall was what I did in the latter part of my Pillsbury/General Mills tenure.  I'm debating whether it's worth it to follow up with him.

I neglected to mention that our camera died the first day we were in Pensacola Beach, so I've no pictures to share.  Fortunately, my partner in crime has a nice collection to go with his recollection of the experience.  Yay for Fish!

( Day Four... )

( Day Five... )

( Day Six... )

( Day Seven... )

Now, Fish and I are each certified to charter boats up to 50 feet in length, without needing to hire a captain and cook to crew them.  So long as the boat owner (and, more importantly, the insurance company) recognize ASA certification (and almost all of them do), we should be able to take out boats on our own.

I have cow-orkers with boats around the Cities, and you can believe I'll be bugging them this summer so that I can get more sailing time under my belt.  The plan is to start with weekend charters on the St. Croix River and up in the Apostle Islands on Lake Superior with family and friends.  In time, we'll graduate to longer charters out of Annapolis, Florida, and the Virgin Islands.

If you're interested, I highly recommend Pensacola Beach as a sailing ground.  The protected waters of Santa Rosa Sound and Pensacola Bay are great for sailing, and it isn't too far to the Gulf of Mexico if you want more of a challenge.  Emerald Coast Sailing has wonderful people, and a laid-back attitude that's a great fit for someone interested in cruising.  Floridaze Sailing gets my highest recommendation -- Captain Bob will work your butt off, but when he's done, you'll have competence and confidence, and he's the kind of guy you'll really enjoy heading to the bar with afterwards. 

Smaller monohulls are responsive, exciting, and make you feel like you're really sailing.  They give you a palpable connection to the wind and the water, and they really respond to sail trim and handling.  Big catamarans are stable, comfortable, roomy, luxurious, but not exciting in the least.  They're generally forgiving of casual handling, and don't give you a lot of feedback on your technique.  The two camps have partisans and zealots that make Mac and PC enthusiasts look docile.  I try to think of it this way:  Bob and the Sabre are for sailing; Fred and the Lavezzi are for cruising.  You don't buy a Winnebago for the acceleration and handling, nor do you rent a Porsche to take your parents on a weeklong road trip.

And the Native Cafe is the best breakfast place in Pensacola Beach, hands down.

Day One:

Okay, Day Zero, actually.  The three of us took Good Friday off from work, and headed south in the morning.  Thunderstorms in Atlanta made for a tricky day of flying; our flight out of MSP was delayed because ATL wasn't accepting landings.  This meant missing our scheduled connection, and spending a couple of hours on standby for the next flights, all of which were fully booked.

Fortunately for us (and Rachel, a new traveller whom we adopted in ATL), there were a lot of other people missing their connections that day, and we got on the next flight out.  Yay for happy endings, but boo for travel stress.  Anyways, we arrived in Pensacola Beach around suppertime, and met briefly with Peg from Emerald Coast, who handed us off to Captain Bob to get acquainted with him and his boat (our home for the weekend).  After a cursory introduction, we were free to go across the street for some supper, which we were very happy to see, as we'd not eaten since leaving the Twin Cities.

We got ourselves settled in the boat after dinner, and went to the store to pick up a few supplies (including a twelve-pack of Yuengling; if you've read the Key West story, you'll know that they bought a brewery in Florida a few years ago).  We spent our first night bobbing alongside the dock in the marina.  The wind was up (the beach had been closed to swimmers & surfers that day), so there was a fair bit of motion even in the protected waters of the marina.  The dewpoint was very high, as well, which meant a lot of humidity and a good layer of moisture topside after sunset.  An odd experience, but I was so wiped out from the day's travels that I slept pretty well.  I think the others did the same.

( Day One... )

( Day Two... )

( Day Three... )

I'm certifiable.  Ask anybody.
( A brief history... )

The entries that follow describe our recent Florida adventure.  I trust that my friends will pardon my spamming of their friends-lists.

Overheard at the awards:

David:  "So, waitaminnit -- how comes my film about an illiterate Nazi concentration camp guard who molests teenage boys got universally panned, and this one gets a bleedin' award?"

Ian: "Well, David, for this one they got a *girl* to play the illiterate mass-murdering child molester."

David: "A girl?  What's that got to do wivvit?"

Ian:  "Well, when you cast a woman in the position of power, it completely changes things."

Nigel:  "They did a twist on it!"

Derek:  "They did!  They turned it around."

David:  "We shoulda thought of that.  I can't believe I was so stupid!"

Nigel:  "It's such a fine line between stupid and clever."

Ian:  "Yes, it is.  And what's more, David, I gotta tell you -- Kate Winslet's tits will sell a lot more tickets than seeing your shriveled jibblies on screen.  You can take that to the bank."

The evacuation drill I mentioned the other day happened this morning.  Silly me, I figured getting out would be a snap, given that I'm right next to the stairwell.  What I didn't take into account was the fact that some rocket surgeon had locked the exit at ground level.

We pounded on the door for a minute or so, and when no help appeared, we went down to the parking level, walked under the building to the public entrance, and headed up the ramp to street level.  When we joined the rest of the company in the park across the street, our fire captain got an earful, as did the first building manager we tracked down.

I'm trying to convince the Powers That Be that the 13 of us suffered terrible smoke inhalation injuries, and should spend the rest of the day at the "hospital."  I can think of a number of treatments that would help me recover from this trauma...

From the comments at a throwaway post at Volokh (regarding VDH's silly "McCain as Gandalf" comments), comes the following bit that, as far as I'm concerned, wins teh Intarwebs for the day, if not the week:


Any garden-variety geek can bust out the Gandalf/Aragorn/Sauron comparisons.  It takes my kind of geek to cough up a Silmarillion-based comparison that actually works on that many levels.

My office is about six feet from the back stairs on this floor of the building.  Every day, I see a parade of cow-orkers pass my door on their way to the stairs, because A) they don't want to wait for the elevator in the lobby, and 2) they don't want the owners to see them cutting out early.

Today, I got my evacuation map from the building's management.  It looks approximately like this:

Desk --------> EXIT

So glad they cleared that up for me.