Fun weekend
It's been a fun few days, starting with Friday.
Friday was like any ordinary day. The only difference came when the weekend started, which was about an hour earlier than normal: At 4:00 I drove up to Irvine with my roommate to go dancing. Some friends of ours were normals at a swing dance club, where classes start at 7pm, and the dancing starts at 8:30. I must admit that I was a little apprehensive, not being one for dancing, and certainly not being one for social dances. However, my fears were swiftly proven unfounded, and I ended up having a blast. I'm going to look into going to the Firehouse, which is the local swing club.
Saturday proved to be much less active, but much more exploratory. It was the Amateur Radio Field Day, and me and a few of my friends decided to drive out to the mountains to meet up with a radio club and do stuff. They were taking tests, I was just having fun. There was a rather lengthy foxhunt, where we had to use radios to locate a hidden transmitter, sort of like geocaching, but instead of coordinates, you get a bearing. After about perhaps an hour, we found three of the four transmitters (one had turned off due to a dead battery.) We also tried to make contact with various radio sites on the East Coast, but unfortunately poor radio conditions prevented us from getting that far.
Changing gears once again, Sunday took us to the Highland Games. Again, I was not quite sure what to expect, but a group of us got there around noon, and immediately our senses were overwhelmed. From the food vendors selling fish-and-chips and haggis, to the burly men throwing things, to the pipers and drummers, it was a feast for all palettes. I found Clan Douglas, and we spent a good hour talking to random strangers about everything from whiskey to video games. Afterwords, we had haggis (delicious), saw the sheepdog trials, listened to pipers and drummers, bought shortbread and toffee, and went to a scotch tasting. I'm going to be buying a Sport Kilt in the Douglas tartan this week if they have the fabric in stock.
Tomorrow I go back to work.
Friday was like any ordinary day. The only difference came when the weekend started, which was about an hour earlier than normal: At 4:00 I drove up to Irvine with my roommate to go dancing. Some friends of ours were normals at a swing dance club, where classes start at 7pm, and the dancing starts at 8:30. I must admit that I was a little apprehensive, not being one for dancing, and certainly not being one for social dances. However, my fears were swiftly proven unfounded, and I ended up having a blast. I'm going to look into going to the Firehouse, which is the local swing club.
Saturday proved to be much less active, but much more exploratory. It was the Amateur Radio Field Day, and me and a few of my friends decided to drive out to the mountains to meet up with a radio club and do stuff. They were taking tests, I was just having fun. There was a rather lengthy foxhunt, where we had to use radios to locate a hidden transmitter, sort of like geocaching, but instead of coordinates, you get a bearing. After about perhaps an hour, we found three of the four transmitters (one had turned off due to a dead battery.) We also tried to make contact with various radio sites on the East Coast, but unfortunately poor radio conditions prevented us from getting that far.
Changing gears once again, Sunday took us to the Highland Games. Again, I was not quite sure what to expect, but a group of us got there around noon, and immediately our senses were overwhelmed. From the food vendors selling fish-and-chips and haggis, to the burly men throwing things, to the pipers and drummers, it was a feast for all palettes. I found Clan Douglas, and we spent a good hour talking to random strangers about everything from whiskey to video games. Afterwords, we had haggis (delicious), saw the sheepdog trials, listened to pipers and drummers, bought shortbread and toffee, and went to a scotch tasting. I'm going to be buying a Sport Kilt in the Douglas tartan this week if they have the fabric in stock.
Tomorrow I go back to work.