I am SOOOOOOOOO Not an Outdoors Person

I've already used the title "Why I Could Never be a Pierson" and it would apply here too. As a refresher, the Pierson's are a branch of my family, namely a bunch of cousins - Jon, Dan, Rob, Liz who are all VERY outdoors-types. I'll never understand. I pay my hard earned money towards a mortgage each month so that I can sleep in a BED, with a perfectly good ROOF over my head.

I can only remember one other time that I tried camping, it was probably around 1994 or so with my Kenny Rogers Roasters crew, I will now see how many names I remember in case they ever google themselves (say hi!), this will be fun - Nicole Bradley, Dawn Bradley, Amy Swisher, Michele England, Poppy Bilbra-Jacobs...somewhere I've got a picture of all of us (holy crap I found it!!!! Wow, you probably know how it is, when you see a picture of yourself from about 15 years ago? All I can say is wow) Anyways, it was in the middle of nowhere in Southwest Virginia, we rolled in in my yet-to-be-named FSU-Jew-Mobile (my dinky garnet Plymouth Horizon). We got there, setup a tent, took a picture and that's all I remember before it started DOWN POURING. So we threw everything we could in my trunk and everyone came back to my parents house and we used the basement as our campsite...complete with a functioning ROOF! Not to mention air-conditioning. I haven't had any desire to try camping again since.

My friend Rory recently graduated from, well, some kind of advanced schooling to get her PhD, sorry for not knowing all the details, I don't get paid to write this crap! For her graduation party she invited a bunch of people to go camping at Lake Allatoona (which is only about 30 miles from my perfectly good bed). But, as a good friend I agreed to come...for the day. There was an evite and everything where I made my intentions clear that I'm only going for the day and that anyone else who wasn't a camper was welcome to stay at my place. Apparently that decision was overturned and I was going camping overnight. I soon realized I wasn't getting out of this. So I sucked it up and would give it a try. Tracy came into town from Jacksonville, Kim - and her boyfriend Michael and his boat - came in from Birmingham. Tara and Jason were going (but Tara used the 7-month's pregnant excuse to get out of camping...I was jealous). So it would be fun, a lot of my friends were going.

The first mistake I made (besides agreeing to go) was to drive Tracy to the campsite. Something bad ALWAYS happens when we go places together. Off the top of my head, a few incidents - She blew out a tire on I-20 driving back from a weekend in Tuscaloosa; driving back to Jacksonville last summer, a truck spilled oil ALL OVER poor little Vickie. Tracy will happily help me name some more incidents I'm forgetting. As we're driving up to the camp-site, on (the) 75 (why are interstate's only preceded with "the" in California?), we heard a noise at one point. Looked back in my rear-view and didn't notice anything, kept driving, assuming it was nothing. A few miles later we got off the interstate and onto some windy roads when driving got a little tougher. I just figured it was because there was a ton of stuff in the trunk maybe. We pulled into the camp site visitors center to check in, then when pulling out of the spot, guess what!!!!

Of course! A flat tire! Not just a flat tire, the tire was barely even on the rim even. Now, we're on a mountain, I was parked in a spot that was on a bit of a hill, so I had some trouble getting the jack to do it's thing. It slipped off about 3-4 times and about a half hour before I finally gave up. Rory's sisters' boyfriend (did I get that right?) managed to get the car jacked up (sounds funny) and he changed the tire in less than 5 minutes. Not the first time I've been bailed out in a tire-changing situation!!!!

So after installing a poor little donut on Vickie, I let her chew on that for a while and threw all our crap into Jason & Tara's car (nice timing by the way! They showed up just as we were done!) and headed to the camp site. Things calmed down for a bit...settled in, grabbed a beer and setup a chair and just sat there. I guess thats what you do? It was cool though just sitting around...at least it wasn't too hot out, there were plenty of trees and we were right by the lake. So all was going well, I did pass on the opportunity to go on a ride on Michael's boat, especially knowing Tracy was going...something bad was bound to happen :)

The most fun was probably watching Rory's friend (and my soon to be kickball teammate) Joel's dog swimming. (To clarify Joel's dog is not eligible for kickball I believe) That dog probably swam more in the few hours we were there than I may have in the last 10 years. It was also fun watching him and Rory's dog Piper go after a frisbee in the water. Especially when they finally gave up fetching it and we got to watch the frisbee slowly but surely float away. Eventually I did get in the water for a bit, then decided I'd even go on the next boat ride. It soon became evident that someone didn't want me on that boat. Almost immediately...in came the clouds. Dark clouds. Even though the radar was clear (OH! Tracy brought her laptop, you know...like a true camper!) We all know that the weather-peoples are never right, so it became obvious that the sky was about to explode all over us. First came the clouds, then came the wind, the thunder, the lightning, the rain...and just for the hell of it...let's throw in some HAIL for good measure. Luckily we were able to make our way to a bathroom facility in the middle of the campground site. The power was out, so it was pitch black inside the bathroom. I will admit this was a better situation than 2 weekends before when I was stuck on Pensacola Beach in a lightning storm with just an umbrella protecting (or, NOT-protecting) me! But the combination of those two weekends got the best of me...I had enough, I did NOT want to be there anymore. After the storm finally passed, they managed to get a fire going and I got a hot dog out of the deal before I got the hell out of there. If I had stayed, I know I would've been miserable and probably ruined it for other people, so I took one for the team and left with Tara and Jason, who took me back to poor little donut-wearing Vickie and then followed me back, going about 45MPH on "the 75". Ughhhhhhh! So I'm officially 0 for 2 in attempts to camp. Which reminds me of my favorite Bush-ism..."There's an old saying in Tennessee — I know it's in Texas, probably in Tennessee — that says, fool me once, shame on — shame on you. Fool me — you can't get fooled again." Well, I got fooled twice now...shame on you Rory!!!!!!

Here's all of us...I still don't understand why everyone's so happy? If you look carefully you can see some hail on the bottom left...I think

Did I pick the perfect shirt to wear or WHAT? Goes good with the Twister towel :)

The return of Kevin Fulmer

I don't think I'd seen Kevin since 2002 or 2003 or so, so its been a WHILE! I lived with him in my Tallahassee days for about 5 years. Kevin of course is best known as "Garnet Guy". I stole this picture from ESPN the Magazine. Pretty cool, huh? He used to go running around at FSU football games with his golden painted and glittered buddy Josh White. I went with Rory to pick him up at the airport and Rory had the idea to make a sign for him. So we picked up some posterboard and a red, errrr garnet, marker and some glitter and glue. Rory did all the work, but it was pretty cool, he had a sign waiting for him that just said "Garnet Guy". So we found him and went to go get his bag and his flight was listed no where on the baggage claim boards. Figures! There was one carousel that had alot of bags and I just kinda pointed and said to check that one. Turns out his bag was pretty much right where I pointed!!! So, we left the airport and met up with some friends in Little Five Points and just hung out and chatted for a while. We didn't want to stay out too late because we were planning on waking up early to play golf saturday morning. We still wound up getting home pretty late and didn't get to the golf course til almost 10am. John was waiting on us and Kim was meeting us there, but was late because she (a nurse) managed to get herself drunk on what she claims was cough syrup! (ha!) We hit some balls on the driving range before Kim showed up. I don't think any of us had played golf in about 3 years (once we learned not to hold the clubs like a hockey stick, we were ok), so we needed the refresher. I did alright, I was only about 45 strokes over par :) (note the sarcasm). We did teach Kim a lesson though. She was hitting from the ladies tees most of the time and on one hole she was standing way over to the side, but in front of us. I took my shot and almost killed her. I didn't even have a chance to yell anything before the ball was at her head. That was one of the scariest moments I've ever experienced, it barely glanced off her hair I think. But it really scared the shit out of me more than it did her. We finished about 5 hours later (yes mom, I put on sunscreen at least 5 times!!!) and were about as sweaty and nasty as you can imagine! Seems like the perfect time to go to a fancy thai restaurant, right??? Shockingly enough they sat us in the far corner of the restaurant not near anyone else. After eating we went back to clean ourselves up, but more importantly a nap was essential. Me and Kevin went to my friend Divya's sisters' going away/birthday party. Hung out there for a couple hours, then met up with Kim and Rory and eventually Matt at the Brick Store, where, they sell no bricks, but more importantly, about 500 different beers. Don't ever ask for a Bud Light there! I can't even pronounce the beers that I had...and thats why I love that place. After that, the only thing left to do at around 3am in Atlanta is to go get some food!!! We were gonna try and go to "OK Cafe", which, we thought was 24 hours. Its not apparently. So we went to Waffle House :)

Slept in til about noon on Sunday, me and Kevin went to see Evan Almighty...pretty funny, not as funny as Knocked Up, but it was good. Steve Carrell is hilarious. And that was pretty much it for the weekend. Hopefully it won't be another 4 years before we hang out again!

I Can Feel My Legs Again

So I flew out to Salt Lake City last Saturday, Sunday we (me, Tracy, Stacey, Rory) toured the city. Don't ever go to Salt Lake, there's nothing there for our types! First (and mind you, I was with 3 girls and I was the only guy) I got dragged to some Mormon choir/orchestra thing. Apparently these people have their performances broadcast nationwide on the radio Sunday mornings. I was just trying to sleep, but every time I got close to dozing off, they'd get loud. Not cool!

After that show it got worse, these girls wanted to go into this house called the "Bees House". (I think). Its the house that was built and lived in by Brigham Young - an important Mormon guy. Anyways, we go in, and I'm thinking maybe we just walk around for 5 minutes and be done. Yeah right! We walk in and we are greeted by this obnoxiously happy - but really cute - Mormon. She's just so damned excited to tell us all about this house, and I was trapped! Turns out its a damn 40 minute tour of this house. I couldn't possibly been more bored and uncomfortable. And then she starts asking questions and she learns I'm jewish. At this point, I'm very scared of this girl!!!! Anyways, we finish the tour and they give us these cards where we can sign up to receive a mormon bible and a pair of white boys will come to your house to "teach" you about the mormon lifestyle. So, naturally, I put down a friends' name, address and phone number and finally get the hell out of there!

After that, I was promised to have my lunch, and more importantly, BEER paid for since I was such a good sport on the tour. HA! Like I'm gonna find beer on a Sunday in Utah! Oh well, I got a free lunch! After that I had some leverage on our Salt Lake visit. I made them go check out the Delta Center (sports arena, where the Utah Jazz play and where some hockey was played during the 2002 olympics). We couldn't get in though. Then we saw a really old railroad station. Then we walked around the University of Utah. The opening and closing ceremonies were held at their football stadium. So that was pretty cool, but its a pretty small stadium! We walked around campus, I think we saw maybe 4 people. Its cold there! They stay inside I guess! Anyways, that was about it of the Salt Lake tour. Sunday night we drove to Park City, Utah where we skied. We had a really nice place to stay, I even wound up having my own room. Which was nice because sleep is cherished on these trips!

So skiing for 4 consecutive days is a bit much. By day 4, my legs were shaking as I went down the mountain! I actually decided to stop halfway down my last run and just kinda parked myself on a little snow hill for a half hour. It helped!!!!

There was 7 of us in our group. 3 snowboarders, 4 skiers. One day I'll have to try snowboarding, but I think I'm supposed to get good at skiing first! I hadn't skied in about 10 years, but remembering how to ski actually came back pretty quickly. I only fell once on my first day, and that was on purpose because I was just going too damn fast! They made me start on a "blue"! (green is for beginners, blue is intermediate and black, well, black is HAIL no!) But it worked out, after I fell, and then 20 minutes later when I was able to finally pick myself up (with help from a stranger - kinda embarrassing) I got pretty good after that.

Day 2 had a slight scare, I was going slowly down a hill, and these 3 people came up from behind me and I heard a guy say "careful, Hurricane fan on your left" (I had my FSU gear on) So this lady passes me and I could tell she was new at this. I tried to just stop and let her get far enough ahead of me. A few minutes later I'm right behind and her and she falls right in front of me. The only was I could avoid her was to try and jump over her. Yeah, that probably wasn't the best idea, I'm pretty sure my knee met up with the back of her head. I was fine, but I was so scared that she wasn't! She was fine, and I got alot more cautious the rest of the time. Which probably wasn't the best idea. Its no fun being cautious while skiing!!!!

Day 3, my friend Stacey introduced herself to a small tree. It didn't seem bad at the time, but she had a bruise on her leg about the size of a cantaloupe! It was huge! I wanted to get a picture but she wouldn't let me :)

Day 4 I had a pretty good bellyflop, that kinda hurt a little. I was just too tired and should've probably called it a day before that run! Oh well, all in all, it was fun. These guys have made this an annual thing, so I may be going back next year. Next year's destination: Wyoming. We'll see if I'm up for that. I can't imagine anything in Wyoming being fun!