Memorial Day Weekend 2006-LONG POST
For Memorial Day weekend, Jim and I took a vacation from our daily stresses and busy lives and went down south to London, KY where the Bear and Boar Inn is located.
I got up on Friday morning and packed. I got online and chatted a bit waiting for Jim's arrival after he got off work. We showed up about 3:30pm, and I quickly loaded my luggage in the car and off we were to our destination about 2 1/2 hours away. The drive was relatively uneventful, with only a little traffic once we crossed the bridge into KY and some construction on the way.
Upon reaching the exit off the interstate, we followed the winding directions to get to the secluded Inn (as the directions said, you have to go through the ghetto to get to the Promised Land). We got there around 6pm and quickly met the owners, Ross and Marion. I have chatted with these men for several years (it's how I heard about the B&B to begin with), but never got the opportunity to meet them until now. Ross is quite the southern gentleman, a large, but sweet and charming fellow with an abundance of stories to tell and insight. He's the owner and also makes the meals. Marion, despite his name, is somewhat ruggedly handsome and very friendly. He's the "groundskeeper" and also helps out in other areas around the house. We checked into our room and took a shower (yes together) and changed for the evening. There was an impromptu dinner of red beans & rice with sausage prepared and we ate that before continuing on with the rest of the evening.
That evening, Marion was hosting a play party that was being held in the bunkhouse of the B&B. After eating and meeting some of the other guests and friends, we decided to make our way over to the play party. To put it simply, there wasn't much going on. There were about 15-20 guys there and only a few that I was relatively attracted to. However, there was one guy blindfolded in a sling (he wanted it that way) getting fucked by several of the guests. We opted out and instead enjoy other activities. Marion was a "gracious" host, and there was another guy named Jeff there who was absolutely adorable. There is one thing I like about the south, there are a lot of blue eyes and, of course, that southen hospitality. ;-)
After several people left, the party was moved to the main house where most stopped playing and began socializing, at least for now. Jim and I later encountered Jeff in the living room and got a little more active. It was actually very nice. Jeff was very attractive and frisky, furry and fun (he sweats a lot though). After all that, Jim was tired and made his way to the room to work on things and eventually went to sleep. I stayed outside and socialized some more and finally went upstairs and played with Marion, Jeff and a couple others before finally getting to bed.
Jim and I slept in on Saturday as the breakfast was continental and could have been eaten at any time. We decided to linger in bed and finally got up around noon, showered and joined the rest of the house on the patio. It was an absolutely beautiful day. A couple of the guests even went swimming in the lake. We decided against that. After breakfast and chatting, we were told that there would be a grill-out lunch (burgers and hot dogs) around 3pm. Very cool! We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, which was essentially the purpose behind the trip.
Don't get me wrong, I am sure I would have enjoyed going to Chicago and Bear Pride, but this was exactly what we both needed. This gave us an opportunity to escape from the stresses of work and city-life and just rest and relax and spend time together and be surrounded by friendly people. It definitely rekindled our sex life as we spent most of Saturday making out and just going at it in bed.
After lunch, I read while Jim played a computer game on his laptop. I would occasionally venture out to see what others were doing, finding Marion and Jeff doing some touch-ups and general maintenance on the outside and some gardening while Ross and friends got the big dinner prepared. Dinner was going to be a big evening and party.
So, Jim and I just relaxed, said goodbye to Jeff as he had to head off and do other things, then waited for dinner to be done. Dinner was delicious: Fried chicken, fresh green beans, greens, new potatoes, potato salad, corn on the cob, and more. I ate so much and it was good eating. After dinner was the party celebrating one of the friends of the house, Travis's birthday. There was a delicious marble cake with caramel icing and caramel praline ice cream. All was good. For the remainder of the evening, Ross and I and some others in the house played Spades. We kicked major ass in two games. By that time, it was around 2am (time flies when you're having fun), so I went on to bed, relishing in the evening of fun and relaxation.
Sunday morning, we awoke to the smells of breakfast being cooked. After the late evening, the big Sunday breakfast was pushed from 9:30 to around 11am to give everyone a chance to sleep in. Jim and I grabbed some clothes and made our way out to greet the morning. Other guests were also making their way out, enjoying the early morning views and swimming a bit more before breakfast was served. We had a cheesy vegetable egg casserole, diced potatoes, sausage, ham, and homemade biscuits with homemade blackberry or plum preserves. Another delicious meal and another good time just sitting and relaxing. It was great.
After breakfast, Jim and I played a little more (we just can't help ourselves), showered and packed. We stuck around for a little bit longer before finally saying goodbye to the Bear & Boar, Ross, Marion and others. It was simply an amazing trip. The drive was pleasant and we stopped at Newport on the Levee for dinner at Jax's Grill before Jim dropped me off. I spent the rest of Sunday evening checking up on email, chatting, unpacking, and resting.
During my chatting, I ran into our friend Matt (gaming Matt) who had inquired last week about Jim and I, Matt and Bill getting together for lunch and/or a movie on Monday. We all decided to catch the first showing of X-Men: The Last Stand at the Levee.
SPOILER ALERT!
As a comic fan, especially a Marvel/X-Men comics fan, I was definitely satisfied with the movie. Reading reviews on Yahoo! and such, I've heard several comic fans that did not like this movie and felt it was a gross interpretation of some great storylines. I felt exactly opposite. I took this movie for what it was: an action movie. I think it was what the franchise needed: to show off mutants and their powers in all their glory and see who comes out on top. Sure, you got bombarded with a lot of characters and did not have enough time to really focus on them, but does it matter? It was cool. Fans of the comics should enjoy the little (and not little) points from the comics and some of the characters involved. I really liked it. However, there are a few things that I wasn't particularly fond of:
1. Jean/Phoenix: What was up with her hair? I'm sorry, but it just didn't look right. It was a horrible dye-job and it looked more and more wrong as the movie went on. Also, I was also a little disappointed that there were no flames. I understand that they may have wanting this to be more of "this is who Jean really is," but when they showed flames in the 2nd film, they should have kept them. I did not particularly like that the Phoenix was a second personality, but understood that reasons behind it. Possession or cosmic entity would have been too complicated to explain without any backstory.
2. Beast: I wasn't as impressed as I think I could have been with Kelsey Grammar's performance. I liked it, but I didn't like it. He was kind of plopped into the movie and his station (Secretary of Mutant Affairs) rather quickly without enough background. Why is he in this position? What is the purpose behind it? Those questions need answers before I can believe him. We have to assume he has a history of being an X-Man and/or student/teacher due to his interactions with them in the movie, but it seems weird and kind of off to me...
3. Angel: Good character that was not used to his full potential in the movie. The fact that he's the son of the man backing the Cure could have been better used.
4. Brotherhood: There were far too many mutants involved here. I'm talking more about the background, unnamed characters that were essentially fodder (or "pawns" as Magneto put it) for the action scenes. I understand that it was rage against the humans' cure, but there just too many there.
5. Juggernaut, Multiple Man, & Colossus: Not enough screen time for these very cute and hunky guys! ;-)
And Finally,
6. Cyclops and Professor Xavier: Okay, I know they were trying to show the instability of Jean/Phoenix's mind, but did they really have to kill these two off so early in the movie. In regards to the comics, they both needed to stay alive as they were two of the more calming aspects to Phoenix. They could have played this very well in the movie, but didn't. Instead, they threw this burden onto Wolverine. I know this was more for the movie than trying to stick with the comics, but it was--to me--the worst part of the movie. I like Wolverine and I like Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine, but I dislike that the movie relied so much on his character. Why did Phoenix/Jean have to call out to him after she called out to Scott? Why did she never call out to the Professor? This was the only part of the movie slapped me in the face with being just wrong.
Despite all this, I did really like the movie. It was decent mixing of several stories in the X-Men canon, including elements of recent, popular works (i.e. Astonishing X-Men). I loved that they gave Kitty Pryde a more prominent role (and also the actor behind it). There were some action-packed moments, great special effects and fights and awesome scenes. :-)
That was my Memorial Day weekend. Now, I head into this weekend with CMC's Pride concert on Friday and Saturday nights. It's going to be great!! :-)
I got up on Friday morning and packed. I got online and chatted a bit waiting for Jim's arrival after he got off work. We showed up about 3:30pm, and I quickly loaded my luggage in the car and off we were to our destination about 2 1/2 hours away. The drive was relatively uneventful, with only a little traffic once we crossed the bridge into KY and some construction on the way.
Upon reaching the exit off the interstate, we followed the winding directions to get to the secluded Inn (as the directions said, you have to go through the ghetto to get to the Promised Land). We got there around 6pm and quickly met the owners, Ross and Marion. I have chatted with these men for several years (it's how I heard about the B&B to begin with), but never got the opportunity to meet them until now. Ross is quite the southern gentleman, a large, but sweet and charming fellow with an abundance of stories to tell and insight. He's the owner and also makes the meals. Marion, despite his name, is somewhat ruggedly handsome and very friendly. He's the "groundskeeper" and also helps out in other areas around the house. We checked into our room and took a shower (yes together) and changed for the evening. There was an impromptu dinner of red beans & rice with sausage prepared and we ate that before continuing on with the rest of the evening.
That evening, Marion was hosting a play party that was being held in the bunkhouse of the B&B. After eating and meeting some of the other guests and friends, we decided to make our way over to the play party. To put it simply, there wasn't much going on. There were about 15-20 guys there and only a few that I was relatively attracted to. However, there was one guy blindfolded in a sling (he wanted it that way) getting fucked by several of the guests. We opted out and instead enjoy other activities. Marion was a "gracious" host, and there was another guy named Jeff there who was absolutely adorable. There is one thing I like about the south, there are a lot of blue eyes and, of course, that southen hospitality. ;-)
After several people left, the party was moved to the main house where most stopped playing and began socializing, at least for now. Jim and I later encountered Jeff in the living room and got a little more active. It was actually very nice. Jeff was very attractive and frisky, furry and fun (he sweats a lot though). After all that, Jim was tired and made his way to the room to work on things and eventually went to sleep. I stayed outside and socialized some more and finally went upstairs and played with Marion, Jeff and a couple others before finally getting to bed.
Jim and I slept in on Saturday as the breakfast was continental and could have been eaten at any time. We decided to linger in bed and finally got up around noon, showered and joined the rest of the house on the patio. It was an absolutely beautiful day. A couple of the guests even went swimming in the lake. We decided against that. After breakfast and chatting, we were told that there would be a grill-out lunch (burgers and hot dogs) around 3pm. Very cool! We spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing, which was essentially the purpose behind the trip.
Don't get me wrong, I am sure I would have enjoyed going to Chicago and Bear Pride, but this was exactly what we both needed. This gave us an opportunity to escape from the stresses of work and city-life and just rest and relax and spend time together and be surrounded by friendly people. It definitely rekindled our sex life as we spent most of Saturday making out and just going at it in bed.
After lunch, I read while Jim played a computer game on his laptop. I would occasionally venture out to see what others were doing, finding Marion and Jeff doing some touch-ups and general maintenance on the outside and some gardening while Ross and friends got the big dinner prepared. Dinner was going to be a big evening and party.
So, Jim and I just relaxed, said goodbye to Jeff as he had to head off and do other things, then waited for dinner to be done. Dinner was delicious: Fried chicken, fresh green beans, greens, new potatoes, potato salad, corn on the cob, and more. I ate so much and it was good eating. After dinner was the party celebrating one of the friends of the house, Travis's birthday. There was a delicious marble cake with caramel icing and caramel praline ice cream. All was good. For the remainder of the evening, Ross and I and some others in the house played Spades. We kicked major ass in two games. By that time, it was around 2am (time flies when you're having fun), so I went on to bed, relishing in the evening of fun and relaxation.
Sunday morning, we awoke to the smells of breakfast being cooked. After the late evening, the big Sunday breakfast was pushed from 9:30 to around 11am to give everyone a chance to sleep in. Jim and I grabbed some clothes and made our way out to greet the morning. Other guests were also making their way out, enjoying the early morning views and swimming a bit more before breakfast was served. We had a cheesy vegetable egg casserole, diced potatoes, sausage, ham, and homemade biscuits with homemade blackberry or plum preserves. Another delicious meal and another good time just sitting and relaxing. It was great.
After breakfast, Jim and I played a little more (we just can't help ourselves), showered and packed. We stuck around for a little bit longer before finally saying goodbye to the Bear & Boar, Ross, Marion and others. It was simply an amazing trip. The drive was pleasant and we stopped at Newport on the Levee for dinner at Jax's Grill before Jim dropped me off. I spent the rest of Sunday evening checking up on email, chatting, unpacking, and resting.
During my chatting, I ran into our friend Matt (gaming Matt) who had inquired last week about Jim and I, Matt and Bill getting together for lunch and/or a movie on Monday. We all decided to catch the first showing of X-Men: The Last Stand at the Levee.
SPOILER ALERT!
As a comic fan, especially a Marvel/X-Men comics fan, I was definitely satisfied with the movie. Reading reviews on Yahoo! and such, I've heard several comic fans that did not like this movie and felt it was a gross interpretation of some great storylines. I felt exactly opposite. I took this movie for what it was: an action movie. I think it was what the franchise needed: to show off mutants and their powers in all their glory and see who comes out on top. Sure, you got bombarded with a lot of characters and did not have enough time to really focus on them, but does it matter? It was cool. Fans of the comics should enjoy the little (and not little) points from the comics and some of the characters involved. I really liked it. However, there are a few things that I wasn't particularly fond of:
1. Jean/Phoenix: What was up with her hair? I'm sorry, but it just didn't look right. It was a horrible dye-job and it looked more and more wrong as the movie went on. Also, I was also a little disappointed that there were no flames. I understand that they may have wanting this to be more of "this is who Jean really is," but when they showed flames in the 2nd film, they should have kept them. I did not particularly like that the Phoenix was a second personality, but understood that reasons behind it. Possession or cosmic entity would have been too complicated to explain without any backstory.
2. Beast: I wasn't as impressed as I think I could have been with Kelsey Grammar's performance. I liked it, but I didn't like it. He was kind of plopped into the movie and his station (Secretary of Mutant Affairs) rather quickly without enough background. Why is he in this position? What is the purpose behind it? Those questions need answers before I can believe him. We have to assume he has a history of being an X-Man and/or student/teacher due to his interactions with them in the movie, but it seems weird and kind of off to me...
3. Angel: Good character that was not used to his full potential in the movie. The fact that he's the son of the man backing the Cure could have been better used.
4. Brotherhood: There were far too many mutants involved here. I'm talking more about the background, unnamed characters that were essentially fodder (or "pawns" as Magneto put it) for the action scenes. I understand that it was rage against the humans' cure, but there just too many there.
5. Juggernaut, Multiple Man, & Colossus: Not enough screen time for these very cute and hunky guys! ;-)
And Finally,
6. Cyclops and Professor Xavier: Okay, I know they were trying to show the instability of Jean/Phoenix's mind, but did they really have to kill these two off so early in the movie. In regards to the comics, they both needed to stay alive as they were two of the more calming aspects to Phoenix. They could have played this very well in the movie, but didn't. Instead, they threw this burden onto Wolverine. I know this was more for the movie than trying to stick with the comics, but it was--to me--the worst part of the movie. I like Wolverine and I like Hugh Jackman playing Wolverine, but I dislike that the movie relied so much on his character. Why did Phoenix/Jean have to call out to him after she called out to Scott? Why did she never call out to the Professor? This was the only part of the movie slapped me in the face with being just wrong.
Despite all this, I did really like the movie. It was decent mixing of several stories in the X-Men canon, including elements of recent, popular works (i.e. Astonishing X-Men). I loved that they gave Kitty Pryde a more prominent role (and also the actor behind it). There were some action-packed moments, great special effects and fights and awesome scenes. :-)
That was my Memorial Day weekend. Now, I head into this weekend with CMC's Pride concert on Friday and Saturday nights. It's going to be great!! :-)