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Jun. 6th, 2003 12:54 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
annathystMan, I haven't updated substantially in ages, and I'm not gonna today - no time. But I'll give a summary of what I've been up to.
Last Monday, I graduated from Simon's Rock, getting my Associate's degree. Upon my arrival at home, I was immediately put through a flurry of unpacking and repacking by Alex and Dave, for it was decided that we were going to Tongor.
Tongor is a house in the Catskills (in Sundown, near Grahamsville and Ellensville, if any of you actually know where that is :P) owned by Alex's parents; they let him use it. So it was decreed we would go and go we did.
We arrived around midnight, and spent a while recivilizing the house - making sure power and phone worked (the latter didn't), turning on the water pump and making sure all the valves were set right (they weren't), and, most importantly, waiting for Austin (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
pvx) to show up, so that we could direct him into the rather difficult to see driveway (he did). So we all rolled off to bed at around three.
The next morning (read: afternoon) was highlighted by a trek out into the woods to see the seventy-foot waterfall which Alex's family is fortunate enough to have on their property. This involved an easy hike through the woods, with only a few tricky bits - namely, that the stream was about six inches higher than normal due to rain and snow melt(more on that later), and so crossing at the usual places wasn't as easy. Alex, Dave, and I, having waterproof boots, made it through okay; Austin...didn't. But we saw the waterfall, and it was spectacular, especially with all the extra rain and melt going down it. Nice big arcs.
We returned to the house and proceeded to do what we'd spend much of the next few days doing: lying around relaxing, reading, playing games on the laptops (primarily in the evenings), and shooting soda cans, cereal boxes, and anything else nonliving that we could find with airsoft and BB pistols that the other three, being crazy, brought. My aim is certainly better now.
The rest of the trip was pretty much like that - we hiked some more, we discovered that the phone wiring in the house was shot and hooked the phone up to the telco box outside instead, we hooked laptops up to Dave's father's LCD and played ZDoom and watched Space Ghost on a big sheet (very cool), and we amde a few trips to Ellensville for food. And, as teenagers in the woods are wont to do, we Blew Shit Up (tm). Specifically, we exploded two bombs made from empty CO2 cartridges and black powder, which leads me to the Incident of the Tree.
Dave affixed the first bomb we built to the trunk of a young tree, and set it off. While it did make a giant boom and throw bits of duct tape (the means of affixion) all over the lawn, the damage to the tree was surprisingly small - just a medium-sized scorch mark and some vaporized bark - at least, until Dave started peeling huge strips of bark off the tree. This was, obviously, not good - this is how one kills a tree, and Dave'd peeled too much bark off for the poor thing to survive. Plus, Alex's thoroughly anal-retentive and Martian father, who inspects every inch of the house and grounds in excruciating detail, would certainly notice the damage on his next visit - so something had to be done to Hide The Evidence...
The means of Hiding(tm) turned out to be...well, pulling the tree out of the ground with Dave's car and hiding it across the road amongst...other trees. Bother me if you want the complete story, it's a bit weirder than just that. Suffice it to say that I think we all can say we have post-graduate degrees in Overkill at this point.
The Incident of the Tree was pretty much the high point of the trip; we went back on Friday. It was a GREAT trip; very relaxing, and a lot of fun, despite all the rain. It's nice to have absolutely no means of contact with the outside world occasionally. Even the ride back wasn't too bad; we listened to Alex's awful Nineties Pop Mix CD, debated the meaning of liff^He and various sundry topics, and saw some amusing bumper stickers (worst: "Ithaca is GORGES." I'm STILL groaning about that one.)
I've pretty much been sitting around on my ass since then - doing nothing is still a novel luxury after the end of the semester. I DID get my braces off (after six years! woot!), and now know the "joys" of having a retainer. On a tooth-related note, my jaw is sufficiently modern to not be able to accomodate my caveman^Wwisdom teeth, and they're ALL gonna have to come out later this summer. Joy.
Today isn't going to be fun; more packing (I haven't even UNPACKED yet!) for my trip on Saturday. I'm going to Space Camp Advanced Academy with Ben and Jake. Really looking forward to it, it's gonna be great. After that, we head to Vaughn's house in Atlanta to party with him and Ashleigh for a few days before heading back home. Definitely gonna be cool.
Time to get up, dressed, fed, and start packing...
Last Monday, I graduated from Simon's Rock, getting my Associate's degree. Upon my arrival at home, I was immediately put through a flurry of unpacking and repacking by Alex and Dave, for it was decided that we were going to Tongor.
Tongor is a house in the Catskills (in Sundown, near Grahamsville and Ellensville, if any of you actually know where that is :P) owned by Alex's parents; they let him use it. So it was decreed we would go and go we did.
We arrived around midnight, and spent a while recivilizing the house - making sure power and phone worked (the latter didn't), turning on the water pump and making sure all the valves were set right (they weren't), and, most importantly, waiting for Austin (
pvx) to show up, so that we could direct him into the rather difficult to see driveway (he did). So we all rolled off to bed at around three.The next morning (read: afternoon) was highlighted by a trek out into the woods to see the seventy-foot waterfall which Alex's family is fortunate enough to have on their property. This involved an easy hike through the woods, with only a few tricky bits - namely, that the stream was about six inches higher than normal due to rain and snow melt(more on that later), and so crossing at the usual places wasn't as easy. Alex, Dave, and I, having waterproof boots, made it through okay; Austin...didn't. But we saw the waterfall, and it was spectacular, especially with all the extra rain and melt going down it. Nice big arcs.
We returned to the house and proceeded to do what we'd spend much of the next few days doing: lying around relaxing, reading, playing games on the laptops (primarily in the evenings), and shooting soda cans, cereal boxes, and anything else nonliving that we could find with airsoft and BB pistols that the other three, being crazy, brought. My aim is certainly better now.
The rest of the trip was pretty much like that - we hiked some more, we discovered that the phone wiring in the house was shot and hooked the phone up to the telco box outside instead, we hooked laptops up to Dave's father's LCD and played ZDoom and watched Space Ghost on a big sheet (very cool), and we amde a few trips to Ellensville for food. And, as teenagers in the woods are wont to do, we Blew Shit Up (tm). Specifically, we exploded two bombs made from empty CO2 cartridges and black powder, which leads me to the Incident of the Tree.
Dave affixed the first bomb we built to the trunk of a young tree, and set it off. While it did make a giant boom and throw bits of duct tape (the means of affixion) all over the lawn, the damage to the tree was surprisingly small - just a medium-sized scorch mark and some vaporized bark - at least, until Dave started peeling huge strips of bark off the tree. This was, obviously, not good - this is how one kills a tree, and Dave'd peeled too much bark off for the poor thing to survive. Plus, Alex's thoroughly anal-retentive and Martian father, who inspects every inch of the house and grounds in excruciating detail, would certainly notice the damage on his next visit - so something had to be done to Hide The Evidence...
The means of Hiding(tm) turned out to be...well, pulling the tree out of the ground with Dave's car and hiding it across the road amongst...other trees. Bother me if you want the complete story, it's a bit weirder than just that. Suffice it to say that I think we all can say we have post-graduate degrees in Overkill at this point.
The Incident of the Tree was pretty much the high point of the trip; we went back on Friday. It was a GREAT trip; very relaxing, and a lot of fun, despite all the rain. It's nice to have absolutely no means of contact with the outside world occasionally. Even the ride back wasn't too bad; we listened to Alex's awful Nineties Pop Mix CD, debated the meaning of liff^He and various sundry topics, and saw some amusing bumper stickers (worst: "Ithaca is GORGES." I'm STILL groaning about that one.)
I've pretty much been sitting around on my ass since then - doing nothing is still a novel luxury after the end of the semester. I DID get my braces off (after six years! woot!), and now know the "joys" of having a retainer. On a tooth-related note, my jaw is sufficiently modern to not be able to accomodate my caveman^Wwisdom teeth, and they're ALL gonna have to come out later this summer. Joy.
Today isn't going to be fun; more packing (I haven't even UNPACKED yet!) for my trip on Saturday. I'm going to Space Camp Advanced Academy with Ben and Jake. Really looking forward to it, it's gonna be great. After that, we head to Vaughn's house in Atlanta to party with him and Ashleigh for a few days before heading back home. Definitely gonna be cool.
Time to get up, dressed, fed, and start packing...
