Stone Harbor

Last Wednesday I hit the road to Stone Harbor with Quiggy and his mother, my eighth grade math teacher. You'd think that would be a more awkward situation for me, but I've had plenty of time to get used to it. According to his mother, on the ride up we spent more or less the whole two-and-a-half hours chattering like a couple of teenaged girls. I am unable now to recall what we talked about. I suspect mostly it was reciting Penny Arcade cartoons to each other.

Quiggy and I are pretty big nerds. Thus it was that the first thing we did when we arrived, after bringing our luggage in, was set up his television and Wii and start playing the copy of Call of Duty 3 that I gave him. Since it was rushed to market in order to be a launch title, it's lacking in features, like multiplayer. So I'd watch him play and make fun of him occasionally, but I make fun of him pretty much no matter what he does.

Other games we played included: Balloon Fight, Bomberman '93,Donkey Kong Country, Mario Kart 64, Metroid Prime 1 and 2, Military Madness, Soul Calibur 2, Super Mario Bros., Super Smash Bros. Melee, Zelda (the first one, Ocarina of Time, and Twilight Princess), and Wii Sports. I wouldn't say that either one of us really dominated in multiplayer. There were some games I was better at, because I had more practice, and some I sucked at. Likewise for Quiggy.

We settled into a routine pretty quickly. Generally, the day proceeded like this: We would wake up. I'd mess around on my laptop and Quiggy on his Wii. Then we'd get some breakfast. We'd mess around, usually playing video games, until lunch. After lunch we'd relax and let the food settle and then we'd hit the beach for an hour or two. Then we'd shower and mess around again until dinner. After dinner was when things most varied. Either we'd play more games, or watch a movie, or go into town.

I like Stone Harbor a lot. It's not very crowded, at least compared to Ocean City, and the downtown is very nice. It has a world-class ice cream parlor (Springer's) and far too many places selling fudge and taffy. It has bookstores, a great toy store, a movie theater, something like three mini-golf places, and really anything else you could ask for. Somehow it avoids feeling really touristy, which is always a plus.

The days seemed to fly by and before too long it was time to head back. Our last night there we went to the Boardwalk, where I resolved that the next time I was there I'd bring something to juggle with. I saw some bereft-looking teen doing a couple of passes, not very well, but he had managed to collect a couple of coins. I could tell that novice though I am, I was at least more skilled, so I figure if I get bored I could do something productive. We also went to an arcade and played some Galaga and some House of the Dead 3.

Our real last day there we went to the beach one last time before lunch. After lunch we packed up the van and headed back, though not before stopping for one last piece of deliciousness at Springer's. In the car we watched Batman Begins, an excellent movie. It conveniently was almost exactly the length of the trip back.

I did manage to pick up a bit of a tan, almost enough to make me look normal. I sunburnt one shoulder (my left one; I don't know how) and my hair is a lighter blonde than when I left. It was a good trip. Quiggy's going to Europe for three weeks soon so I won't see him until later this summer, but I'm thankful for the time we spent together.

Then yesterday I drove up north to visit a college and spend some time with my mom before she leaves for a little vacation. We got stuck in a thunderstorm so we didn't actually get in until earlier today. The college I visited is the same one my sister is attending, which of course makes me want to avoid it, but it actually seems like a nice place. I'm going to have to catch a train tomorrow back into Philly, but I've got no idea when exactly that's happening. All I know is it'll be kind of nice not to do any more traveling for a while.

Parties

Saturday morning I made sandwiches and went on a picnic with Rachel in Valley Forge. Even though I think I've always lived less than an hour away from there, I've never spent more time around it than it takes to drive past it. It's beautiful, although it was bothersome when we were looking for picnic spots and half the place seemed to have "Danger: Buried Asbestos" signs. I don't know what the deal is with that. We ended up finding a nice spot not too far from the Welcome Center, so we'd hear the occasional cannon-fire in the background.

Afterwards, we drove out and picked up Gabo to go to a concert/party held at an acquaintance's mansion. And I do mean mansion -- this place was big enough to hold all of the places I've ever lived. Walking up to it you could have thought you were walking up to a town hall. It was huge. We really only came to Meat Rainbow, and even though we showed up about an hour after the show was scheduled to start, we got to see them setting up.

It was not a very big audience. It was me, Rachel, Gabo, and the drummer's girlfriend most of the time. It was sort of depressing, but kind of cool, too. It made it a much more private affair. We got to talk with the band and they said that next show we show up to, they'll let us in free if they can, since we're such good fans. Their set was good, but after they were done, there wasn't much for us to hang around for. We ran into a friend we made at the last Meat Rainbow show and ended up following her into West Chester.

We hung out at a coffee shop for a while and then somehow ended up at the top of a parking garage. By some freak coincidence, we ran into some friends of mine from school -- Pat, Sharif, and Eric. They were there just chilling with some of their friends, and we all hung out for a while. Eventually we headed back to the party, but we took Sharif and Eric with us, and dropped Gabo off on our way. It was a pretty good party, I didn't know many people there but they all seemed pretty cool. When it was time Rachel dropped me off and gave Sharif and Eric a ride into Philly with her.

Sunday was Father's Day. My sister and I went out to brunch with him. We gave him his presents -- DVDs of Good Night, and Good Luck and For Your Consideration, and a picture of something that we got for him on eBay but it hadn't arrived yet. Afterwards we went to the movies. I wanted to see Knocked Up but they seemed against it so we ended up seeing Ocean's 13. It was actually really good the second time, a lot of things that didn't make sense the first time were clearer this time around.

Monday I went to the birthday party of Sam S., a friend of Rachel's. I'm pretty terrible at parties, doubly so at pool parties, so the first half or so of the time that I was there wasn't great. I resent being called anti-social; I'm just not social. I didn't go out of my way to strike up a conversation with anyone, and, to be fair, none of them tried to talk to me either. Not that I can blame them. I knew I had a problem when I realized that I was narrating current events in my head from third-person perspective. The second half was better. I ended up talking to two people I didn't know. In the end I was glad I went.

Today I've got my place to myself. The rest of the folks are on a train going somewhere. I'm taking a train tomorrow out near to Quiggy's. I'm going with his family to Stone Harbor for a week. It's going to be pretty great. I was hoping that the Nintendo DS Browser that I ordered would have been shipped by then, but I'll still have my laptop and cellphone. I'll be taking the chance to test out the Opera Mini 4 beta. I'm sure I'll be Twittering while I'm gone.

Return to summer

Wednesday before last was the official last day of school. It was technically a half day, although most everyone stayed the whole time since there was a picnic afterwards. I took the opportunity to pick myself up a yearbook and get signatures and so on. It was really a pretty boring day. It wasn't as hard as I thought it was going to be, saying goodbye to people. Mostly that was because a lot of them I knew I was going to see that Friday at graduation.

Graduation was good. I picked up the Sonic Yearbook (a compilation of audio recordings -- mostly songs and such -- that's been recorded throughout the year. I appear twice: playing guitar on one jam session and singing in the background for an impromptu a cappella rendition of "Don't Stop Believin'") and a t-shirt. Not all of my friends showed up, but most of them did. In general there were a lot more people there than I was expecting, and more than I think there were last year.

It was harder this time. Most of my friends I knew I wouldn't see again until next year, and I had a few friends in the graduating class, too. It's nice how easy it is to keep in touch with people these. I got a couple of phone numbers and email addresses that I hadn't had before, and I might be bassist for a new musical project. But it always seems to be the case that things tend to fall through and time gets wasted and things get pushed back. But at least there will be next year, and phone calls and instant messaging and facebook to get me through until then.

Gus and Rachel came over Wednesday to catch a ride with me to Gabo's movie night. I took the opportunity to give Gus The Tome of Battle: The Book of Nine Swords as a belated birthday present. We listened to music and played around before heading over to Gabo's. It was just us until Gabo's friend Max came over. Evan was going to be there but he didn't show up. We watched Snatch, which Max brought. IT was a little hard to follow but I enjoyed it. After that we watched part of A Mighty Wind before it was time to go.

Gus and Rachel stayed at my place for the night. We watched V for Vendetta, which I liked even more this time around, and then went to bed. The other slept in late, but I woke up at the usual time. That was good because I was able to take care of some chores and such before they got up but it was bad because I was operating on very little sleep for the rest of the day. We ended up going to see Ocean's 13. It was loads better than 12 but not quite as good as 11. We hung out at the mall for a little bit and made shopkeepers nervous, then went back to my place and watched a few episodes of The Venture Bros. before everyone had to go.

The summer's gotten off to a pretty good start. I don't have much planned for the rest of it but I think it'll shape itself out nicely.

End of the year stress

There have been a couple of busy days recently. I had to pull an all-nighter Thursday/Friday to get the last bit of my end-of-year school work done. It was my fault for being dumb and procrastinating some things for literally months, but I managed to get five four-page papers and four one-page papers done before I had to leave in the morning. They aren't my best work, obviously, since I didn't spend more time on them then it took to write them, so their structure is off and there's probably some mistakes in them.

Three of the papers were for my American Law & Government class. I wasn't sure what to write them on (we're allowed to do anything, so long as there's some tangential connection to legal matters) until I realized it would be easy if I just picked something I could get worked up about. Thus I ended up writing about the current internet radio debacle, all those proposed smoking bans, and (I hate myself for this one) how people are getting fired from work and suspended from school for having blogs.

The other two papers were for my Modern Mythology class, and were a nice diversion as they were much more light-hearted. One I did on Kingdom Come, the comic book, regarding other possible endings and their ramifications, and the other I did on possible scientific explanations for Hiro Nakamura's (character from the television series Heroes) time-travelling. (This is the point at which I'm going to plug Primatech Paper Podcast, a Heroes-themed podcast. It's stunningly insightful and humorous, and that it's done by someone I know is entirely incidental.)

I did my best to get a good night's sleep Friday night, as I had the SATs the next day. I managed to get to the testing center on time and find my seat without too much trouble. I was amazed to run into a friend from school there, but it was nice to have some kind of connection there. I was also smart to have brought an extra, long-sleeved shirt to wear as the gym we were in got progressively colder as time passed.

The actual test was okay. The essay wasn't bad; I managed to dot my final period with 24 seconds left on the clock, which unfortunately left no time for proof-reading and revising. I'm not going to say what I had to write about, since I'd rather not have to deal with any college nerd thugs. The reading comprehension was about the same as it's always been for me. The math was much easier than the last time I took it. I was able to answer more questions than before and feel better about those answers. Overall I think I did decently.

Afterwards I went home and took care of a few things, then took a train into Philly to hang out with Rachel. We made sandwiches for dinner and a peach cobbler for dessert. After that we listened to some music, I had brought over my copy of Belle & Sebastian's The Life Pursuit for her to rip. I felt bad because I wasn't much fun to be around. After dinner I really just kind of crashed. Between staying up all night recently and expending a vast amount of energy via hyper-focusing on the SATs, I was exhausted. I was doing the whole almost-falling-asleep-and-speaking-in-a-monotone thing, which does not make for good company.

Then nothing really happened the next day. I had the place to myself for most of the day, and so I got to just relax and do nothing much. It was a nice change. I always push myself at the end of a school year, which is why I usually start out the summer sick. It seems to just be what I have to do each time.