The weekend was nice, not amazingly exciting, but ok. Friday there was a camping trip organized, so I grabbed a sleeping bag from the place on campus which rents out such gear. Judy and Dustin picked me up from home at about 6:15 pm and then we went by to pick up Bonnie. The last person we had to gather was Katie, and after some delay we were on the road. I rode with Katie in her van, and we headed out into the wilderness. The dirt road was very bad and the trip was much longer than I expected, but we finally arrived at our camp site only to find someone else was already there. After some confusion we finally parked a little way down the road and started putting the tents up. I had to change because it was very cold and damp that deep in the mountains. I didn't bring a tent, but I figured I would just crash in Judy's. Two friends of Judy's, Ben and David arrived and they were nice enough. We got the fire started which was welcome and then Judy, Katie and I went for a hike up the mountain. We got back close to dark and had a few drinks along with dinner. We had hot dogs on sticks, and I dropped a few foil-wrapped burritos into the coals. Later still, a friend of someone's, Kevin arrived with a girl named Sadie he'd met that day. A bottle of rum was making the rounds, although I had my own supply of beer. We stayed up talking until about 2 am, but everyone was fading fast by that point. Katie, Judy and I squeezed into Judy's little tent and I was surprisingly warm despite the dew which was condensing out on the tent walls.
I'm a light sleeper and I woke up when Judy left early in the morning, but managed to get back to sleep. I was using my shoes as a pillow which wasn't amazingly comfortable, but which served the purpose. I got up around 10 am and everyone else was slowly arising, although Katie was fast asleep until Judy collapsed the tent on her. Ben and David had to leave early for a wedding, and then Kevin and Sadie headed home also. That left Bonnie, Dustin, Katie, Judy and I playing Frisbee in the mid-morning sun. After the clean-up we left Dustin and Judy to go for a hike and the three of us went back to town.
Katie dropped me off at home and I had a nice warm shower. After I got out, I'd missed a call from Tiffany, so I called her back. She had gotten into Aurora on Wednesday close to midnight and had called to let me know then very briefly. She had been busy getting stuff for her apartment and halfway through the call she got a call from Ryan who was in town for a graduation celebration. We talked for a while after, she had gotten a new phone as well as a washer and dryer for her apartment, so she'd been busy. After I got the off the phone with her, I took the camping gear back and then headed down to Albertson's to get some groceries. I was aimlessly wandering the aisles when I bumped into Chris, who I knew from the university Queer group. We hadn't seen each other in a while, and so we spent 30 minutes talking and catching up. His boyfriend Peter was having a bleated birthday party and so I got invited along to that. It was a Japanese theme sushi party, and so I borrow a “gi” (a martial arts uniform) for my costume and then I had time to get home and lay down for a while.
I headed over in my casual clothes with some drinks to Chris and Pete's house about 6:30 pm and was put in charge of the deep-fryer. The two other people there were Ewan and Meredith who were cool, so it was nice. Cardie was there also, although she was on the phone with her internet girlfriend from San Francisco, so she was a little distracted. The party itself was not all that large, and Chris was annoyed with one person, so we drove over to pick up Nicole, and that took a lot longer than expected, but we at least got back in time for the Samurai Jack birthday cake. We started watching “Princess Mononoke” but by then it was almost 2 am, and so the remaining fragments went their separate ways.
Sunday I woke up about 10 am and just loafed around the house for some time. My bike had unfortunately developed a flat tire, so I was on foot, I have my moped, but I prefer to get the exercise. I walked over to drop of some recycling and then via the coffee shop for some caffeine and then briefly to the lab. It was a gorgeous day with bright sun and some scattered cloud. When I got home I upended my bike and slowly went to work patching the tire. I say slowly, because I spent a lot of the time on a towel laying in the sun in front of my apartment listening to my stereo. A little after 2 pm I had the bike fixed, when Chris called. He and Pete were going for a hike and I had mentioned that I would like to go if they were. The came by about 3 pm and we went to a set of hiking trails that I hadn't ever made it to before near a little artificial lake. That was really nice and we hiked several miles in the sun. Later we drove to a different part of town and hiked a trail I was more familiar with. We dropped by Katie's place, but she wasn't home. They dropped me off about 5 pm and after I got home I spent some time talking with Mum. There wasn't much happening back in Tumut, so we didn't talk for very long. I didn't do very much that night, other than check out the rather handy, dandy sunburn which I'd acquired. That night I woke up during a heavy rain storm which sounded very nice.
Monday I got up at my usual time around 7:45 am and groggily got ready as I had no milk for my coffee. The engineer got back from vacation today and he came by about midday to pick up the samples which I'd prepared. Pat couldn't get his project to work which was not good, and then he destroyed some more glassware which was depressing. About 2 pm Judy called and we wandered down to a nearby restaurant for a late lunch. We sat around in the sun for about 2 hours and so I was nice and pink when I got back to the lab. I stayed there until about 7 pm, however I didn't go for the run which I was intending to go on.
Today however I did something which is possibly very vain, or not depending on your point of view. I booked in for teeth whitening. My teeth aren't exactly yellow and gross, but coffee and other stuff means they could look a lot better. I know some people get very “anti-vain” about people doing stuff like that, but hey it's my money and if I want to spend it like that, then screw what they think, I figure they're usually anti-surgery also. But that's all organized, they'll take a cast and give some moulds and some special peroxide gel and hopefully by the end of the month it'll show.
This week will be somewhat short as I will be leaving on Friday for Missoula. This coming weekend is the Montanan Pride celebration, and so some friends are going to that. I also have a conference there the following week, so it seemed like a nice combination.