My Camera Is Definitely Not Suffering From Shutter Fatigue

Because I can’t find the time to take photos. Perhaps time will appear this week now that my Black Sheep hash is done.

Read Along With Me
Today’s passage from Notes To Myself.

I don’t like the way I acted toward Alice. I was experiencing her as a very attractive woman, and yet the whole time I acted like an asexual nice-guy. When I feel like a man I want to act like one and not like a polite eunuch.

To all who have helped me — Thanks.

When In Rome, Do As The Romans. When In Athens, Do As The Athenians.
When in neither, do whatever the hell you want.

Again my plan to drive over to Athens, Georgia fell through — this time due to my own fatigue. On Friday it seemed perfectly logical to think that I could go out and scout trail Saturday morning, get home shower and relax, and then make the drive. However, I didn’t factor in how much energy I’d expend scouting for the trail. Gentri and I walked at least six miles Saturday morning and by the time I returned from eating lunch at his house I was whooped.

I’m Ready To Turn In My “Man” Card
What I did manage to do on Saturday night was watch Juno, which turned out to be one of the best movies that I have seen in some time.

If you never saw Juno, it’s a movie about a high school girl who gets pregnant and decides to give the child up for adoption rather than have an abortion. Juno is a girl who is a Y-Generation version of John Cusak’s character in High Fidelity, so offbeat, so opinionated about music. The couple for whom she is carrying the child are Mark (Jason Bateman) and Vanessa (Jennifer Gardner) Loring (not a bad looking couple mind you) who are incapable of having their own child. In the end Bateman gets cold-feet and decides that he’d rather divorce Gardner rather than become a father. The critical point in the plot is a note left by Juno on the Loring’s doorstep upon hearing about the couple’s decision to split. As we find out later the note says “Vanessa, If you’re in, I’m in. Juno” (may not be the exact quotation, mind you). We then come to realize that Juno has figured out that she is in love with the boy who impregnated her, Paulie, who is played by George Michael Michael Cera, who at this point must be vying for the title “Oldest High School Student In America.”

As a man I am not sure that I was supposed to enjoy Juno as much as I did, and as such am ready to turn in my “Man” Card.

Success Was Ours!
With the exception that I forgot to bring in the limerick written for me so that I could blog it today, nothing went wrong with yesterday’s hash.

The trail wound up being about four miles long, which given yesterday’s intense heat was long enough. We, the hares, also were thoughtful enough to provide the pack with a water stop about half-way through the trail.

The pack was an intimate crowd of nearly twenty, who for the most part enjoyed their trip through Union City’s finest brush and bramble, and not having to slog through a swamp (mostly because there are none in the area).

Here’s the funniest thing that happened this weekend. On Saturday Gentri and I were out making last-minute modifications to the trail. As is always the case with trail scouting you wind up finding odd things that people have carelessly discarded. In talking about these I offhandedly said “That’s cool, but I like finding money.” While dropping flour yesterday I looked down and quickly scooped up a bill that turned out to be a $20 bill. Score!

ITP Flickr Pic
Since I have no new photos I will post a map of yesterday’s trail instead.

If you want to get all interactive with the map, go here.

RealiTV Update: Next Food Network Star — “And Then There Were Still Three”
The competition for The Next Food Network Star has one more show in Vegas Baby! In this episode we’ll watch the three cheftestants do Vegas-related promos with “I was once in your shoes” Guy (who couldn’t be more dislike me) Fiere and then have to prepare buffet-style food for fifty Vegastainers.

I am sure at Harrah’s the odds on this competition are something like
Lisa: 5-2
Adam: 3-1
Aaron: 5-1

Given the past performances from each. As for me I don’t think that any of these people have the chops to be the next Food Network “Star.”

Surprisingly, Aaron nails his thirty-second promo. Of the three remaining cheftestants Aaron has been the least camera-savvy. Lisa struggles with her promo, and Adam does a fair job at best.

Without judgment the competition moves on to having the cheftestants spending $1000 at Whole Foods for fifty mystery Vegastainers. But first, we see that the cheftestants will receive a sous-chef, who in RealiTV land is always a cheftestant who has been booted previously. Why should this show be any different? Here come Kelsey, Shane, and Jen….

The three cheftestants and their three sous-cheftestants boogie to Whole Foods where we see another staple of RealiTV, the leave-behind which is gleefully caught on camera, but never revealed to the participant because fuck-ups make for entertaining RealiTV. On tonight’s episode we watch Lisa accidentally push one six-pound package of fish off her shopping cart and not notice as she speeds away. Whoopsie!

With the buffets ready for consumption each cheftestant gets three-minutes to entertain the Vegastainers and then serve them some grub. Lisa does her best Liza Minelli and sings a song, Aaron performs some sort of crazy comedy act, and Adam bores us to tears with his science of smoking. Truth be told I fast-forwarded through much of this since I hate watching people make asses of themselves.

Now it’s time for judgment and to crush the dreams of one of the remaining three cheftestants by sending them home. BUT WAIT! It appears that the judges can’t decide who to boot and wind up returning all three to New York for the “Final Competition” next week. I am reminded of Thanksgiving when the President picks out a turkey and “spares his life” but we all know that all he has done is extend the inevitable for one “unlucky” turkey…

And now for some ideas stolen from LiveJournal…
Current Mood – fantastic, and quite glad the hash is behind me
Current Music – Sirius Satellite Radio, Channel 26 playing Death Cab For Cutie — “Cath…”
Website Of The Day – I’m always looking for alternative forms of entertainment, especially when it’s related to food. iFoods TV is a site that uploads instructional food recipes.
Exercise (b)Log – running/walking ~10 miles this weekend
Monthly Foot Mileage – 34 miles
Monthly Wheel Mileage – 0 miles
Monday Morning Weigh-In – not taken 😉
Mode Of Transportation To Work – My car
Monthly Marta Rides – 0
Consecutive Days Of Bed-Making (Longest Streak) – 110 (110)
Books To Read To Earn Kindle – 4

July Goals
1) Run/Walk no fewer than 75 miles
2) Ride no fewer than 150 road miles
3) Ride Marta no fewer than twenty times (ten round-trips)
4) Read at least two books
5) Make my bed every day
6) Relaunch www.JalapenoBeach.com
7) Keep track of how many days I use stairs over elevators

Cheers,
Paulie [eatl/ga]