Our weekend was amazing; relaxing in an old log cabin with a wood burning stove, hiking in the autumn leaves, and walking through the mud of a drained lake. Herrington Manor and Swallow Falls have always had a special place in my heart but even more so now.

I’m super excited to begin planning a life with her. Though, I didn’t expect to be planning the wedding so quickly! After searching about 20 venues and realizing no one had any openings for next fall we realized the importance of making plans and setting a date now. No luck finding anything yet. But I have hopes we’ll find something soon.

Herrington Manor engagement

We had a blast. I’m pretty sure the combination of alcohol + good food + company was just about perfect. The beach was amazing: sunny, warm, and windy.

When you do a vacation like that, you have to do it right. Pancakes and sausage for breakfast. Skip the lunch. Big dinners: filet mignon kabobs, homemade pizzas, homemade biscuits, etc. And even a fancy dinner in downtown Charlestown. We know how to eat and we know how to eat right, baby!

Best thing of all: I didn’t bring along my computer. I had everything completely wrapped up here at work. And nothing catastrophic happened! For realz.

[Update: I uploaded the pictures to PicasaWeb. I'd have deleted some of these but I figure people who were at the vacation would like to see copies, even if they are bad.]

After an ordeal getting to Shreveport on the 26th, I actually ended up in Shreveport on the 27th, choosing to spend my night in Baltimore instead of the Houston airport. We spent time with Emily’s parents, grandparents, and friends before leaving for Nashville to spend New Years Eve with her sister and fiancé.

Unfortunately, we had to come home which meant traveling on New Years Day — driving the normally 11 hour but instead 13 hour snow, ice, and accident filled drive back to Baltimore. Arriving at about 4:30am, we made it safe but many others weren’t as fortunate.

I really enjoyed the fact that I made a goals list the start of last year. I’m not sure I’ve ever done that before. It was a wonderful reference point into my mindset and thinking at the start of last year. Now I can look back and see where I focused my time and energy and how it differed from what I thought it would be. My goals from last year:

1. Purchase house
2. Renovate and move into house *
3. Come up with a new idea for a web application and execute it for Fusion Bay
4. Launch Gift List It a little before Thanksgiving 2007
5. Successfully climb a 5.11 rated climb
6. Begin 5.12 climbing
7. Successfully climb a V7 boulder problem
8. Do some bouldering outdoors (which I have yet to ever do)
9. Go backpacking at least twice **
10. Try snowboarding

* The renovation process was much more extensive than originally planned. I’m nearing the end but this has actually become a 2008 goal
** While I only backpacked once, I had some other great vacations!

Now that I’m back and things are resuming their normal pace. Like many others, I’m expecting a fresh start on things. One that I’m looking most forward to is a new MacBook Pro which I’m set to receive any day now. I’ll finally be able to run iMovie and create some cool videos. My old computer was too slow to run iMovie so it wouldn’t even install! Stay on the lookout for my year 2008 goals list.

My first day was spent setting up and playing on a slackline, where I finally got walking backwards down and can go from start to finish on a line. In addition to that, I ended up working on and mastering a new way of mounting that starts with a hang from the line. I tried mounting by jumping both feet directly on the line but think I need a spotter and some more practice as I was thrown onto my head or side each time.

After slacklining, Emily suggested we go to the Revel, an outdoor festival held in Shreveport each year. I was unimpressed with the beer selection until we eventually found a little stand that sold Abida amber beer. The food was really great and I wish I was a little hungrier as there were all sorts of southern foods to try, including: red beans and rice, jambalaya, deep fried jambalaya, gumbo, shrimp dishes, gyros, and all kinds of other stuff. And yeah, I know gyros aren’t southern! Emily and I settled on a few dishes and shared.

Second day was spent at the lake house. Em’s father and I woke up before others and played a morning game of disc golf. Then, after gathering sticks around the property and chopping up and dragging 2 fallen trees into a bonfire pile, we went water-skiing. This marked my third time water-skiing. I’m really comfortable on two ski’s. Not so much on one. I tried the kick off a ski to slalom method and fell a few times hard. Then I tried to slalom straight out of the water and fell a few times. I’m not sure what I need to get the feeling of slalom skiing but it sure is annoying not being able to figure it out. I hope next time works out better. Then it will be off to barefoot skiing.

Third and fourth days were low-key and relaxing. I have some videos of the water skiing which I’ll post on youtube and this entry soon. That sums up my vacation!

The following set of images is a pretty good example of that process and the end result:

Regardless of the fact that I fell, I had an amazing time trying it. EEE’s father suggested I try barefoot skiing but I think I’ll continue working on the slalom skiing first.

After skiing, I built a huge bonfire for everyone’s enjoyment. I wish we had gotten some pictures of how much wood I cleared from the yard. Makes me realize how badly I need to buy a new camera since my accidental cleanup mistake of throwing the camera in the dumpster and not realizing it.

As with typical outdoor outings, I ended up with poison ivy on my feet and I hurt my thumb pretty bad when I slipped on the boat and bent it backwards. No climbing for me for a couple weeks until I’ve healed. Oh well. That just means more time at the house working on renovations.

I ended up getting my beignets yesterday but lucky for me I’m not a beignets virgin. I’ve had true beignets once before (on my last trip) and my mother often cooked what we called “fried dough” on weekends which was quite similar to a beignets. Actually, Mom, you’d appreciate the fact that I think you’re fried dough was much better.

Emily and I cooked this killer 14 spice indian salmon recipe last night, this time on the grill. Previously it had only been baked. Honestly, I didn’t notice much of a difference. Had the grill been charcoal, I think that might have been another story. Supposedly charcoal allows the meat to get juicy or something and keeps the smell in.

I’m sure today will be busy. The EEE family is having a pretty large crawfish boil, upwards of 40 people. I’m looking forward to some crawfish but I think breakfast would be best first. Looking forward to omelets made by EEE’s sister. Now if only she’ll wake up. It probably would help if I left the confinements of my room…

The weather is a little finicky. I left the slackline up last night until I heard some louder sounds of tree branches rustling and decided maybe I should take it down. Not 10 minutes later it started pouring down rain. I spent the rest of the evening tying lots of different knots with my webbing and visiting with EEE’s family.

I’m letting EEE plan our days, suggesting only the few things I want. Today that means getting beignets and cafe au lait but I’ll have to wait until later to get that wish as we have some errands to run this morning.

Beyond the workshops where we learned kick-ass moves (and other stuff like technique) is the whole competition bit. Last year I competed in the novice Jack and Jill Lindy Hop competition but didn’t make it into the finals. Not the case this year. I not only got into the finals but I got first place with my partner, Joanna! (I love google, only because I didn’t know her last name until I looked it up on BTP’s website this morning and then googled her and found her blog.)

For those of you who don’t know how a Jack and Jill works, it’s called that because you go out and are paired with a random partner. Jack and Jill’s have a lot to do with teamwork, which really ends up being a luck of the draw kind of thing. There are people you dance with sometimes that fight the whole way and there are others that seem to just know what you want. I was lucky enough to have one of those that seemed to know what I want, which in turn only made me enjoy the dance more, which served to make both of us “turn down the suck,” as Dorry later told me.

Getting the award was funny, only because I thought I was too late to the award ceremony to see who won. Actually, that part wasn’t funny, I was kind of pissed because I wanted to have a moment to have that “maybe I’ll place” excitement in my head. Anyway, once they named our competition (about 20 seconds after I walked in the door from lunch with the Baltimore crew) I heard them call third, then second place… in my heart I didn’t expect first, I simply hoped maybe I’d place, but then I heard my name which was so incredibly cool!

I’m not sure what got me more siked about the whole weekend. There were the moves we learned, the late night dancing, the competition, and the award. It all just lumps together to be this awesome experience as a whole, and one I hope to gain again next year.

I only wish I had more time for exchanges like the BTP! I’ll probably end up being at Jam Cellar’s “Big Big Event” and Swing Fling since they are both close to Baltimore, but I don’t see myself going to anything other than that until BTP next year. I have to make some room to go climbing, backpacking, and biking!

Camping in the cold is a pretty interesting experience. I’m glad to do it and would do it again, however there are a lot of things you have to consider. For example, how do you keep your water from freezing? What do you do if you run out of firewood? How to keep your toes warm once you get a little perspiration? How do you dry out your shoes and socks? And how many layers and sets of clothing do you need?

The temperature varied between 15 and 25F night and day. I used a combination of a 10 degree down sleeping bag and inside of that a 20 degree down sleeping bag, along with two roll-up air pads from REI. I also got to use my one-person tent for the first time and boy was it small once you have a lot of sleeping bag area and padding! I think next time I’ll lug along my two-person tent for a similar endeavor.

I’ll be a bit more prepared next time, but there were some great things learned this time. For one, I know that longer treks aren’t so good in as many layers as I had, because they really impeded on my ability to move properly. They did keep me warm though.

Also, I learned a lot about how a dog is an awesome companion. The guys had some dogs with them and taking the dogs for a really long hike with me was incredibly fun and almost serves as reason enough to have a dog. Last thing I need right now is something like that taking up my time, but if anyone ever wants to lend me a dog to go camping with I’ll gladly take your dog temporarily. He just better listen and be big enough to scare away the bears.