The Last Two Weekends
It's been a busy several weeks for me. Fourth of July was AC, the next weekend canoeing in Michigan, then LAFF Softball in Chicago this past weekend, and Megaplex this coming weekend. I don't think there is any way I'm going to get around to an AC report (it was awesome hanging with all of you. I'll leave it at that), but I at least want ot give a report on the last couple weekends before I get too lazy busy.
The weekend of the 11th I was invited by briggswolf to go camping & canoeing up on the South Branch of the AuSable river. The group was me, Damaron, Basil, Eddidiums, Briggs, another fur named Kevin (I forget the fur name), and a non-fur friend of theirs that went by the nickname Wellso. Since we were going to start the canoe trip at 9 AM on Saturday morning, we went up to camp on Friday night so we didn't have to make the 3 hour drive in the morning. Eddi was kind enough to allow us to use his family's awesome cabin on Houghton Lake. This proved to be of great advantage the first night as a crazy thunderstorm came through at about 2:30 AM resulting in a mad dash from the tents to the cabin. After drying out a bit, we got as much sleep as we could and then got up to hit the water on Saturday.
We hit the water around 10 AM, our route taking us on a 22 mile float, most of which was through The Mason Tract. Ok, I'm going to go fly-fishing nerd a bit here and mention that the Mason Tract is a long stretch land donated George W. Mason to remain completely undeveloped and open to public us. This section of river is one of the best brown trout fisheries in the nation and Trout Unlimited was formed nearby. The river itself is fairly shallow with a gentle gradient. However, it was still challenging for those of us who had never canoed before. The river had lots of turns and tons of dead falls that made for some challenging obstacles. Luckily, Briggs did a great job of controlling the boat and we were able to complete the float without incident. It was incredibly peaceful being out on the river, as well as an amazing workout. My back and shoulders were pretty worn out by the end of the trip.
Saturday night was great as Eddi worked the grill to cook up some nice burgers and corn on the cob. The remainder of the evening we sat around the campfire toasting marshmallows and just chilling. It was really great. Much thanks goes to everyone for making it a great trip and a great weekend. It really reminded me that I need to get out and do the camping/hiking thing a lot more often.
This past weekend brought me to Chicago for the July LAFF Softball event. I drove up Friday evening with Fordshepherd and Exile. The drive was pretty easy except for the normal construction backup on I-65 that turns a 6 hour trip into a almost a 7-hour one. We got to the hotel a little short of 10 PM. Ford let Exile and me out at the hotel and then took my car to meet up with Duncan and Takaza. Friday night was a lot of fun. We played HORSE that night and I got a lot drunker than I should have (it's all Tzup's fault). I actually played better while drunk and it leads to fun things like not realizing you have a flush (sorry Reggie!).
Saturday morning we decided to go the park early to play some tennis. I hadn't played in probably 4 or 5 years and only maybe 10 or 12 times in my life, but I find it a lot of fun and would actually like to play a little more. Exile and I played Nbowa and Raver first and blew a big lead against them to lose 7-5. Of course, Nbowa was taking it easy on us to keep things fun. Next Stevie and I played Bucktown & Reggie and beat them going away. In those games I actually got on a bit of roll with my server (the one thing I do well if I happen to get it in) which was pretty fun, though as Nbowa pointed out later, it's actually more fun to get rallies going. Hopefully I'll get a chance to play so more tennis and actually learn to hit some shots. After wearing myself out with an hour and a half of tennis, we went down to the field for softball. I was honestly quite surprised with the team picking as like the first 7 people on our team were all folks that I knew could play well. The game ended up being a little more competitive than I thought, but we still won pretty much with ease. I probably played as good as a game as I could have, going 5 for 5 with a home run and 2 doubles (one of which would have been a homer had it not flew into the middle of a tree and ricocheted back), and making all the plays that came to me in the field. It was a lot of fun.
Saturday night took us Buona Beef for dinner and then the fursuit bowling event. This was the first fursuit bowling event I had been to and it was a lot of fun. I'm not sure the suiters liked how hot it was in the bowling alley, but I guess that's to be expected. I got some decent pictures there and also got to hang with Woody that evening, which was nice since we only got to talk for a few minutes at the MFF Picnic event. After bowling we went back to the hotel to play poker. There were 10 players and I went out in the 7th spot. I actually played fairly decently though, catching a nice hand with K J suited to move me temporarily into 1st or 2nd in chips. I ended up going out on what was a crazy fun hand where I had A 7 in hand and paired both on the flop. The crazy part was of the three of us that ended up staying in the pot, I had the worst hand. Stevie paired up his A 9, but Aiden had pocket 9's for trips. Crazy, but one of those hands that makes poker fun.
Sunday brought us to Bob Chin's for lunch, which was very good and place I had always wanted to try in Chicago, but never made it to. After lunch we met up with Ford at the Westin and started the trip back. It was really a great weekend, basically like a mini-con. I was able to meet some folks on my friends list that I hadn't met before, like Yuppie Pup. Ford & Exile (and Reggie on the way back) kept me entertained on the drive and made the time pass by easily. Now I'm just sore, worn-out, and ready for more craziness at Megaplex this weekend.