Last Thursday night Em and I packed our bags to set off for Shreveport, Louisiana. I’ve come to look forward to the time with her family and the different things I do while I’m there.

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!

On Saturday I went bouldering at the Gunpowder with Em. This was my first time ever really bouldering outdoors: meaning the first time I’ve ever taken a crash pad along with some climbing shoes and given something my all without regard (or much regard) to falling. It was exciting.

I don’t think the Gunpowder is really considered much of a hot spot for bouldering and I’ll admit from other videos of places like Bishop on YouTube this doesn’t really compare. Gunpowder is just a small 20ft cave with a 45 degree roof that is about 12 or so feet high. Still, it’s really fun and I can see myself going there a little more once the weather gets cooler. It was super hot and humid — 88F with 90% humidity.

Since the area isn’t all that popular, I actually can’t find any information on what climbs are there. That means whatever we do there we’re just making up. That part was actually quite fun. I found what I thought the easiest route would be and figured it out in a couple tries. It’s not that serious of a route and would probably rate something along the lines of a v3. My parents came along, which meant extra spotters so one of us could videotape.

One of the trickiest things was the first time I got to the top I realized it was entirely covered in leaves. My parents threw up a brush and I cleaned it off, but it was a little dicey hanging on to the top and cleaning everything.

After losing interest on the first route I made up, I moved on to one that starts at the back of the cave. Hopefully I’ll work that out and get a video on that one.

Videos: The first is Emily trying the route with a few little modifications of her own since she’s shorter than me. The second is me doing the route for the 4th or 5th time.

The last couple days of my Shreveport vacation were spent at the lake house with everyone. We went out on the boat a few times and went water skiing. This would mark my second time ever water skiing and this time I felt very comfortable on two skis so I began trying to get on one. That is actually called slalom water skiing. My attempts to get up out of the water ended up with some pretty spectacular crashes, so I opted to go with the method of getting up on two and then kicking one off.

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.

Tying knots in the webbing was just something to do to pass the time. I looked up a website on different types of hitches and such and just began playing with them. No reason to it at all.

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…

Wednesday night I got into Shreveport with EEE, so yesterday was my first full day relaxing in LA. It was hot (about 85f and 90% humidity) and sunny during the afternoon, so after doing some work for work I dug up a couple stumps in the yard and setup a slackline. The slackline gave me a hard time — I think because it was a pretty lengthy one. I plan on setting one up again today and will use trees closer together.

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.

I’ve been back, but I have not written. I’ve been busy with things, the daily life things like trying to put my luggage away, do laundry, or even wash the dishes. It’s hard to do when you have no time, so the things pile up until its overflowing and you have no time to do things like write about awesome weekends in cool places like Shreveport, Louisiana.

But the things did happen, and they were good things and fun things. I learned to water ski. I got to ride around on a fast boat. I got to be part of keeping a huge bonfire from spreading. I got to swing on a huge tree swing. Lots of cool stuff. I’m sure I have some stories I should write about, but for now I’m going to let the following picture speak for itself.

Here I go again, this time to Louisiana to meet and greet the rest of EEE’s family of which I have yet to meet and spend some time water skiing (which I’ve never done). I’m excited and look forward to some sunny weather, versus the colder cloudy weather we’ve had in Baltimore the past few days. Play nice and enjoy yourselves while I’m gone.

Not specifically Cingular, but the company they use to do the replacements for their 4 dollar a month phone insurance program. I’ve had phone insurance on my RAZR v3 ever since I bought it way long ago, and always wondered if it would be worth it. I can tell you that if you have a phone worth anything more than $100, it absolutely is.

After seeing EEE get a new black RAZR, I was completely envious that her phone actually clicked open and stayed open and that her camera worked. I called up Cingular’s customer service, was transferred to the insurance replacement program, told them my story, and they sent me a phone that I received the next day.

Unfortunately, I think that phone was a refurbished phone because it came in what looked more like a white box than an original V3 box. Not only was I a little disappointed about that and on top of that the phone wouldn’t sync to any bluetooth or usb devices. Obviously, there was something wrong with this phone. I called up the number for “questions or concerns” that came with this phone and told them about how it didn’t sync. They then told me they’d be sending me another phone asap. This was at 4pm on Wednesday.

When I came in on Thursday, I looked around just to make sure FedEx didn’t drop off the phone for me. I was a bit disappointed, but I mean come on, what can you expect? My high expectations continued and I was very happy to see the phone waiting for me when I got in the office this afternoon. I could be wrong, but this phone seems like a brand new phone to me, complete with all accessories and in a true Motorola box.

I’ve synced up all of my contacts and I’m in the process of copying all the pictures back. I can’t tell you how happy I am that for once customer service has worked exactly as it should. This was definitely worth $50. Oh, and get this, they even send me prepaid shipping labels for both phones!

The inevitable meeting between myself and Emily’s family happened as well. Not a bad inevitable, just inevitable as in it had to happen at some point or another and I wasn’t about to go in dragging my nails, kicking and screaming. In fact, I can honestly say I was pretty excited to meet them. I had met her mother before but it wasn’t a, “Hi, we’re together” thing it was more of a, “Yea, we dated once” thing and then I danced with her. So I’m sure I was on her good side for at least dancing with her. And well, mothers aren’t really scary to begin with. Fathers on the other hand can be, and although Emily’s father has a few inches on me, I think I could take him. Not that I tried, you know… but of course I sized him up just on the chance that he took me by suprise. Hah! Little would he have known I was prepared!

I had dinner with her mother and sister Thursday night at the “other” tapas place near Emily’s apartment while we sat outside in the cold. Then we got crepes, which I have to say are awesome with caramel and I got my own which meant no compromising with Emily on whether or not we can have caramel. Then on Saturday, I took her family on the gunpowder hike east from Bel Air Road to Pot rocks, where we had fun trying not to fall in the water and then after we did fall in, just walking through the water and goofing around. Dinner Saturday night was with her entire family, including her father’s parents, her aunt, Alan, and Anne Charlotte over at Rocco’s Capriccio in Little Italy. We had a few bottles of Clos du Bois Merlot, which has been one of the tops on my “wines I like” list for quite a while.

Sunday morning Heather and I had breakfast over at Claddagh’s pub with some great stuffed french toast, sausage, pancakes, and scrapple. Yes, we both love scrapple and yes, we both know how gross it really is. Then we walked around Canton a bit and spoke of our dreams of owning a house here and conveniently went into two open houses. The views were incredible and I lost track of time when I realized I was supposed to be over at Emily’s for a round of disc golf in Druid Hill Park with her family. Luckily, they were late as well and I met them over at the course just after they finished the second hole. They had to leave before we finished the game, and I left to spend my typical Sunday evening with my family.

So meeting her parents was good. I really wasn’t too nervous. I think the only bad thing is that they all saw the inside of my house, which was very unexpected and not nearly in presentable fashion. I wasn’t about to deny them of the use of my bathroom though, which luckily wasn’t in all that bad shape. Shew! Hopefully next time I spend time with Emily’s family, we’ll have electricity 90% of the time and my house will be clean.

You know that song by Jack Johnson called “Banana Pancakes?” Well, yesterday morning we made pumpkin pancakes. Here’s what I think would be an accurate recipe for how we did it. Obviously, we didn’t follow the original recipe line by line.

2 cups flour
4 Tbs brown sugar
4 tsp baking powder
1 tsp salt
3 tsp cinnamon
2 tsp ground nutmeg
1.5 cups milk
1 cup pumpkin puree
4 eggs, separated
.25 cup melted butter

Sift together dry ingredients. Combine milk, egg yolks, butter and pumpkin puree. Stir into dry ingredients until just blended. Beat egg whites until stiff and fold into batter. Pour onto hot, oiled griddle, about half a cup at a time. Cook until bottom is firm and turn and cook other side.

Using a bit more pumpkin might be in order if you are expecting a real intense pumkin taste. It’s a very mellow mix as it stands, but I really enjoyed it the way it was.

This morning has been crazy. I was up so late and so early this morning packing. Emily and I are about to head off camping in Shenandoah National Park down in VA. I’ll take some pictures and hopefully have some cool stories to tell, if I ever find my way back home…