Vacation?

Sorry to everyone who e-mailed, called, or left comments over the last several days who got no response or were only able to talk to me for a few minutes (or if I seemed surly at all) I actually got to take a few days off from work and "relax." I also had to ponder all the while whether or not I should attempt to move the family in the next year or so - I have a few potential job offers, none of which are closer to "home", some of which are for significantly more than I'm making now, all of which would be a change of scenery and would probably give the wife more of a shot at putting that college degree of hers to use. None of which I can afford to wait more than another couple of more days to act upon. And of course there's all the trappings that go along with that sort of thing - if you've been in the job market in the last few years, you know exactly what I'm talking about. What's a boy to do?

But that's not why I brought you here.



The vacation - I actually did some vacation stuff. The canoe was out on the water - more than once! Beer was drank. Fish were caught. Food was grilled. Cigars were smoked. No yard-work was done! Okay, that's a lie, I did mow the lawn on Tuesday. And of course I paid the price for taking time off when I returned to work yesterday.

Cindy and I have been doing some hiking as well - Ampersand Mountain is a great, short, tough, scenic, beautiful hike. Peter's previously blogged about it - Cindy and I weren't on the ball enough to remember to pack the camera. The hiking around here brings to mind something I'd been told but didn't really get the gist of before moving out here. The East Coast has its own unique brand of idiot. I won't go into to many details as I don't want to bore anyone, but out West I would invariably run into crowds around hiking areas - yuppie Seattleites, a few active soccer moms with noisy brood in tow, morons with no business being in the woods, etc. We've got some of that around here, especially right now, in the peak of the summer tourist season (seriously, does no one know what "trail etiquette" means anymore?), but the ones that trouble me the most are...The idiots that bring ski poles on a short, easy hike. Are you #$%&ing kidding me? They're also usually the ones wearing the most expensive, single purpose "outdoor" clothing, which only adds to my feelings of superiority over them. A walking stick if you're old or lame? Sure, but ski poles? Can someone explain? I wish I had some pictures of this phenomenon so we could all laugh...