Tuesday, August 18, 2009

I am reaching out won't you take my hand, I'm coming home Ireland

I'm headed to Scotland tomorrow (later today, technically). How'd it get to be August already?

I spent last week crazy busy in lab trying to finish up some labwork, while simultaneously getting my poster done for the ISEE conference. I took off for Milwaukee on Friday afternoon for a weekend of frisbee at Cooler with my Hybrid teammates. The wonderful thing about Cooler is the number of Minnesota teams that represent. This means, I was blessed to see my lovely exbf360, Louie, as well as a number of other awesome Minnesota friends, like all of Kablammo, as well as folks like Jeff, Justine, and Ben Hesse.

We got back pretty late last night (Sunday), and showered and passed out. That almost meant that I got to worry about preparing to leave the country today. But not quite. I had to a) do a ton of laundry, b) attend some meetings, and c) do a bit of labwork. Then I had to run around Ann Arbor like a madwoman searching for a 42" poster tube for my poster.

Well... turns out that they don't have 42" poster tubes anywhere, it seems. But, apparently, that's ok, because when I was unrolling my poster, I noticed they screwed up the printing anyway. So I had to email them and my fingers are crossed that they'll reprint it tomorrow morning before I leave.

So, I came home around 5 and started getting my stuff ready to go. I was going to try to take my medium-sized suitcase, but that just doesn't seem like it's going to work. Turns out, since I'm bumming around in the Glasgow rain and mud for a week before going to Dublin where I need to look professional and pretty, I need a lot of clothes.

So, basically, what it comes down to, is that it's 1:30 am, the day that I'm leaving for Europe for a couple of weeks, and I'm not packed yet.

That's ok. I also don't have a place to stay the last night I'm there either. So it goes.

On an unrelated note, this chair is flippin' sweet:

Saturday, August 8, 2009

Summertime, and the livin' is easy...

I realize it's been a couple of months since I've written anything. I'm not sure if anyone notices, aside from Jared, so my conscience due to lack of blogging is mostly directed toward him.

Summer is already drawing to a close. I've been working for Rick doing some epigenetics stuff in lab again this summer, and spending my freetime playing ultimate. Juggles and I are captaining a league team together on Tuesday nights, and I signed up to play the Thursday night league with my fellow Minnesotan and lab buddy, Lisa. On top of that, I'm playing for a coed team called Hybrid.

Due to frisbee, I've gotten to do some traveling. I started the summer with a trip to Gender Blender in Ontario with a bunch of Ann Arborites. Blender is a pretty crazy tournament, marked by a night of partying in costumes, where each team is required to provide games and shots for everyone else. It's basically a huge carnival for 21+ ultimate players in various costumes.


Geoff and I partying at Blender


Ann Arborites after Gender Blender


A few weeks later, Juggles and I took off for Grand Rapids to visit his family and celebrate Father's Day on the boat on Lake Michigan, then followed that up with a trip to South Bend to play a tournament with Hybrid called Down with the Clown. We came in 2nd, after a loss to Abusement Park on universe point.


Hybrid after playing Down with the Clown


A few days after South Bend, Juggles and I took off for Seattle to play one of the biggest tournaments ever, Potlatch, with a bunch of my Minnesota buddies. Adro was a superstar to throw that all together. It started off with flight issues. After standing in line at the airport for over an hour waiting to check in, they closed the flight and gave our seats away 3 minutes before we arrived at the kiosk to check in. We managed to run to the gate and get on the flight in the exit row right before they closed the door to the plane. Of course, this meant that we didn't have our luggage upon arrival in Seattle, so we took off for Pike's Place and had some amazing salmon, mini-donuts, and dried strawberries, and did some shopping before returning to the airport to get our luggage.

It was a super hot weekend in Seattle, far more hot and humid than usual in Seattle. The tournament is a 3-day tournament, and highs were around 90 with an insane humidity level. And, of course, we were wearing black jerseys. But, we found ways to keep cool that included, but are not limited to: getting our jerseys wet in the water fountains before games, and playing underwear points.



Seattle through a Sculpture


Alicia and Juggles, sweaty during tournament play


Little Girl in Sumo Suit (because she was cute)



After playing Potlatch, we took off for San Francisco, where we rented a car to drive to San Luis Obispo to visit on of Juggles's closest friends (and former roommates), Bill, and his girlfriend Tamera. They moved from Ann Arbor last summer because Tamera wanted to be closer to her family. The climate in SLO is perfect -- about 80 and sunny every day of the year. At night, the fog filters in from the ocean through the mountains (there's a range of 7 old volcanoes that funnel the fog into SLO). We did some hiking up Bishop's Peak and some wine tasting at the local vineyards. Of course we ate at In-N-Out Burger and it was very delicious. Even I, the pseudo-vegetarian, had a big meaty cheeseburger. It was a phenomenal vacation, and very necessary to break up the summer a bit. Unfortunately, I managed to catch a cold from one of the flights and was pretty full of snot for the entire time we were at Bill's. But, we took it easy and relaxed in California style, so it was still a great vacation.



They make their fries from potatoes right in front of your eyes!


Juggles enjoying his burger


Climbing to the top of Bishop's Peak


I'm the queen of the world


Bill and Juggles at one of the vineyards


Bill and Juggles sauntering back to the car



The day we arrived back from our vacation, my favorite birthday buddy, Melissa, was in town to take her nursing boards. (She passed with flying colors!) This meant a night of debauchery in her honor, and a weekend of low key hanging out after that (she stays on our couch when she's in town, so it's like having another roommate, especially because she now has a key and her own bathroom). We started out Friday night at Dominick's and moved to Habana when they closed. Somehow Habana turned pretty insane -- people were buying rounds of shots for everyone (there were 15 of us or so?), so I probably managed to have about 5 shots and 2 beers in the couple hours we were there. I woke up Saturday morning hangover-free though. That's why I love shots and having a high metabolism! Saturday was a lazy day filled with breakfast with Jugs, Melissa, and Eric, then the start of the Harry Potter marathon, and culminated with a trip to Olive Garden with Grant and Zeke.



Will, Dana, Josh, Geoff, and Melissa at Habana


Grant and Melissa


Juggles and Alicia



The next weekend, we headed to Chicago to play Sandblast, a really fun tournament on the beach of Lake Michigan. My favorite Cuspian Twin (she was born 12 hours before me, and we're both on the Taurus/Gemini cusp), Kriss, came to visit us on the beach and take some pictures. We played on a team lead by a guy named Jon who was known as Juggles's twin when he was in A2 because, without his beard, he has the same build and really does look similar enough that people used to get them confused. A few other Hybrid buddies, including Sherri, Jules, and Scooter, played on this team, as well as some Toledo folks and a few other randoms. It was fun, but I ended up with a migraine on Saturday and had to miss the party because of it. On a positive note, Kablammo, Adro's Minnesota team, was there sporting white briefs and button down shirts, ala Tom Cruise in his dance scene from Risky Business. It was pretty hot.



Throwing discs


Carrying around his 6'4" frame


Kablammo in their Risky Business attire



The weekend after Sandblast was a local tournament called Motown Throwdown in Hartland, MI, about 30 mins north of A2. Hybrid decided to split into two teams, offensive and defensive lines, for the tournament to practice some new stuff, and also since their wasn't heavy competition. I played on the defensive line, and had some okay scores and such. We worked our clam de a bit, and played around to adjust our zone better. It was great fun, but an entirely exhausting weekend since we didn't have as many people on our teams.

The Thursday following MoThrow was Juggles's birthday. Of course, we have frisbee on Thursday nights, so I arranged a nice, quiet evening at The Arena with him and about 40 of our friends for karaoke, nachos, beer, and the destruction of Juggles via alcohol. Sparing too many details, Juggles had an amazing night -- shots, an AMAZING rendition of "Loveshack" that he performed with Amish, more shots, and... well, too many shots. Poor kid had a pretty rough night and a horribly rough Friday.

This brings us to August, and our last tournament, The Rock, in Rockford, IL. Stew and Vic picked us up on Friday at 530. Juggles slept the entire way to Rockford (6 hrs!). Saturday morning, he shook off his hangover, and played some amazing ultimate. Hybrid played okay on Saturday. I think we went 2-2, but there was one game we definitely could have had if we would have made better decisions. Sunday was a little more rough, and very frustrating for most. This tournament made me realize that our team has incredible potential, but may never realize it because we just do stupid things. If we can clean up our game, we have a definite shot at making it pretty far in the club series this fall. But we've got a ways to go. I won't go into specifics, but I'm just going to say that I was pretty much forgotten about during our last game, which is highly amusing because when I was on the line, I never once let the girl I guarded score on me even if she was the fastest girl on the team and had an iso called on her in the endzone. Let me say, my car had a few words to say on our journey home, based on line calling, strategy, and decision-making. It was a trip. We got home at 2 am and were worn out.

That brings us to this weekend... We had Hybrid practice in Detroit this morning in the pouring rain and it was great fun. Tomorrow we have practice again. Then, next weekend we're headed to Milwaukee for Cooler Classic. That's been my summer thus far!