The Aerie
All in all, a fun vacation.
The company I work for provides these cabins "up north" where the
employees can stay for vacations. Well, you can call them "cabins,"
but the smallest of them have more amenities than my own home. As
long as you don't mind birch-bark kitsch and incessant golf and
fishing knicknacks, what's not to love about a hot tub, a heated
swimming pool, pontoons, bonfires, cable TV, and stereo... all for
free, for a whole week? It's like winning a trip on a game-show every
year!
[marching.gif] Speaking of game-shows, I have just learned (due to
staying up way too late) that Survivor is having local tryouts on July
24th. Yes, it's my ego run amok, I know, but I can't resist it. I
didn't apply last time because the formal local tryouts were scheduled
for when I was going to be out of town. Now, however, I can attempt
to hit this event and get my name in the queue. Yes, my chances of
being chosen are zero, but what the hell. My chances of being chosen
are even lower than zero if I don't try it, and unlike a lottery, I
can hardly expect to find the winning ticket on the floor.
Anyway, the vacation was great, even if it did feature rain and
record-cold temperatures on Tuesday. We made the best of it, taking
the family to see Chicken Run (two thumbs up), and over to a Burger
King indoor playground. Like a brush with death, Tuesday's inclement
weather made us appreciate Wednesday and Thursday even more. We
looked up at blue sunny skies and puffy white clouds and realized,
"Hey, it could have been gray and rainy, like Tuesday, every day this
week."
By pure coincidence, both my supervisor (who wasn't even my supervisor
yet when I made the reservation last year) and the company president
were on vacation at the same place, at the same time. So on Thursday
I screwed up all my reserves of chutzpah and inveigled myself into
their golf game. I'd played golf exactly one time before, so this was
pretty nervy on my part. But, like applying for Survivor, it's in
keeping with my philosophy of not experiencing fear... although at
$100 for the course fee, I'm finding myself experiencing poverty!
The game was, well, as far as I can tell, fine. Sure, I sucked wind
from a big paper bag. Sure, I rocketed most of my shots out into the
brush. Sure I lost 16 balls in 18 holes. And once I nearly beaned
the president (I did not know that a golfball could corkscrew 60
degrees off the line struck -- honestly!) But even if the company
president now thinks I'm a complete doofus, he at least knows I
exist. Why this is worth $100 bucks, I can't say, except there seems
no point at all to being nobody to the top people at my company.
Thursday night I tried to use the big telescope that Santa brought for
the kids. No luck. It is going to take a lot more practice -- or
expensive automation -- before I can hold an image in place using that
thing. All this science-fiction stuff about shooting lasers at ships
in outer space? Pure bologna! All I was trying to do was fix a star
into a cone several thousand AU across, and I couldn't hold the image
in place long enough to even focus it. Not that the rapacious
attentions of the mosquitoes were helping any...
One small coup was calling an auto salvage place up north, rather than
in the cities. We were able to stop by and pick up, for a song, a
part that cost $100 in town. Along the way, we got to experience a
new route home, which was lovely, quiet, and fun to drive -- much
better than the freeway.
I didn't get as much writing done as I wanted, but on the other hand,
we did everything rig [sunsetsoar2.jpg] ht this trip: we cleaned
before we left, and we did our laundry there and brought it home. The
result? No chores this weekend! None! I can do just about anything
I want -- I just have to go to two family functions (sigh), but what
the hell. I even got all my computer hacking out of the way tonight
so I hopefully won't have to hook up tomorrow. I also had fun when we
got home by calling in to James [1]Lileks' radio show this evening,
using my Albatross moniker. Had a silly chat about True Grit, Patton,
and Amerigo Vespucci. Lots of fun...
So it was a grand week out, and I'm sorry it's over. Looking forward
to the August trip, that's for sure! Two weeks of driving in a
minivan, woo hoo! Walley World, here we come!
[2]Last
Posted by Albatross at July 22, 2000 12:00 AM