Ah, November. Woke up this morning, peeked outside, and saw a sheen of frost on the cars. Guess Fall is finally and truly here. Part of me is thinking I should be out on the bike every second I get, before the riding season is over and done with. The other part of me is thinking "alright! SNOW is on it's way!!!"
In case you haven't guessed, I LOVE the snow. I love cold weather. I love it when it's like 20 below, the wind is blowing, the snow is falling, and it's just crap outside. I love that.
Yeah, well, same to you.
Halloween has come and gone, and I swear, these kids are just getting rude. Were we like this when we went trick or treating? They rush up to the door, half the time they don't say trick or treat, and the other half of the time, they don't say thanks. When we went trick or treating, we said all the proper things, and were usually polite. Oh, and we tee-pee'd houses.
Gail just IM'd me, said we should be practicing Tantric Sex. I don't even know what the hell Tantric Sex is, but apparently Sting swears by it. I also told her I was going to put this in my journal, and she said go for it. I think either a) she doesn't believe me, or b) she doesn't think anyone reads my journal. Which is probably true. Although I know my mom reads it.
And of course, because I had a good Friday, I'm going to have a crap Monday. Well, I might not have an entirely bad crap Monday. But it's not starting out very well, that's for sure.
My computer has decided that it needs to be rebooted about every 20 minutes, and it tells me this by locking everything on the screen. My shoulder STILL hurts (tore it up about 6 weeks ago...my mom says it's rotor cup related. weee. Thanks ma) and I didn't get to go riding at ALL This weekend.
This weekend was busier than a one legged man in an ass-kicking contest. We had Sarah's Birthday party, Cody's Little League game, Cody's End-of-the-season team party, and a Halloween party. And that was all on Saturday.
ugh.
Gail and I are going to be spending most of the next 2 weeks cleaning, as her parents are coming to stay with us for three weeks starting the 9th of November. Gotta make my computer area all nice and neat. Darn.
Nothing like riding to work in the fog. It's quiet (well, as quiet as you can be on a Harley), the other vehicles loom up out of the fog at you, and disappear as quickly...almost surreal.
So I made it to work ok, and get settled in with a nice cup of hot chocolate to help chase the chill from my cheeks. I read through my email (or is it e-mail??) and discover that I have to ride to one of our other offices to update a machine for an executive type. Oh joy. Oh hooray. It's one thing to be blitzing around (albeit carefully) on a bike in the fog at 7a.m. It's another to have to do it when there's a bunch more traffice out.
Today turned out to be a pretty nice day. I love Fridays like this. I just got back from my son's Halloween parade. Damn, those kids can be so cute. They all marched around the parking lot, led by their principle, who was dressed as a Dalmatian. Cody went as Harry Potter. Along with 18 other kids. Seems to be the popular thing this year.
Gail and I (and the kids) are going to a Halloween party tomorrow night. Gail and I are going to go as Thing 1 and Thing 2. We got the idea from a couple of the kids at the parade. Easy costumes, and pretty cool too. Cody and Sarah are going to a sock hop at the school tonight. And with Gail at work, I get to watch Friends in relative peace tonight. Sweet!
Talk about a nice weekend. Cody and I went on an Indian Guides sponsored camping trip on Saturday night, and man, did we have a blast. We got there early on Saturday (we were the second ones there) and set up our tent. After everyone else arrived we went down to the pond, and did some canoeing, and some fishing. Cody even caught a fish! There was a small barn right next to the pond that had two horses. We fed the horses some, and then headed back to camp.
Back at camp, we had a good sized fire going. By now, we had our whole tribe there, along with 2 tribes of Indian Princesses (The Princesses are for Fathers and Daughters, whereas the Guides are for Fathers and Sons). So there were about 20-25 kids there, all running around, playing flashlight tag, and yelling loud enough to shake the leaves off the trees
After we ate dinner, we had a "Silent Walk", where we walked silently up the path (Or tried to. It's kinda tough telling 5 boys to walk quietly) and every 50 yards or so, there was a sign with one of the Indian Guides sayings on it. After that, we sat around the big bonfire, singing songs and telling stories. It felt like the kind of camping experience I always wanted to do as a kid. I was glad Cody and I were able to do it together.
Sunday, we hiked on down to an old quarry, and then it was time to pack it up and head home. Last night as I was tucking Cody into bed and telling him how nice of a time I had, he said "Oh, me too Dad. I can't wait until next weekend"
"What's next weekend?", I asked.
"Our double camping trip! You know, where we camp out two nights in a row?"
"No, Cody, we're not going camping next weekend"
"Oh, then the weekend after", he says.
Uh oh, I'm thinking...he's expecting to go camping again already. "Uh, Cody, we're not going camping for a long time again. We have to wait until next May to go with the Guides"
"Well then, you and I will have to go camping dad. Next weekend"
"uh, Goodnight Cody"
Hopefully, with the excitement of Sarah's b-day, and Halloween coming up, he'll forget about it.
Also went to see Jackie Chan's new movie Friday night with my friend Derek from work, and his lovely wife Winnie. We had a good time. Jackie Chan was as awesome as ever.
Well, looks like it's time for a real entry. If you look below this one, you'll see about a bajillion testing entries. I thought I had the issues solved, only to realize I didn't so I had to fix the problem, then re-test. I think this entry will work just fine. And if not...well, so be it.
October certainly has sped right along on it's merry way. The leaves are turning gorgeous colors. There's a tree on my block that's half red and half green right now, it's the coolest thing. If I remember, I'll take picture of it, and stick it up on the page. Along with the changing of the leaves comes the changing of the weather. It's definitely getting cooler. When I ride the bike to work in the morning, my cheeks are frozen by the time I get to work. I imagine I'll be switching to a full face helmet pretty soon here, but it's so gorgeous in the afternoons that I haven't done it yet.
I've decided I like this new design, at least enough to keep it online and write journal entries without deleting pages because I'm tired of them. I'm hoping to put Shads Pad under my other domain soon, and get it out from the Harleyroads.com domain. If my brother gets this job he's been talking about, it might happen soon. Which would be cool.
We're entering the busy season now. By "we" I mean Gail and I. Starting with Sarah's birthday we then have Cody's shortly after, Cody's cousin's right before that, Thanksgiving, our Anniversary, then my birthday, Christmas, New Years, Gail's brother's birthday, and then Gail's birthday. My wallet is going to have nothing but lint in it when this is all said and done :)
And in other news, the new/old Jackie Chan movie is opening up tonight! Hooray! Those of you who know me, know how much I like Jackie Chan movies. I will be writing a review and putting it up on my movies page after I see it tonight. Can't wait!