Hiking, Boozing and Breakfast Machines

I can't concentrate worth a crap right now.

I will say that last weekend was excellent.. I hiked, golfed, drank margeritas played and played guitar with a friend. Not bad at all.

The hiking at Ramapo Reservation was a blast. I went with Sfumato and his friend, Debra. Great conversation and good exercise. My ankles weren't ready for it. Hoofing it in NYC is not the same as climbing up to Hawk Rock - where we did in fact see a hawk and Sfumato treated himself to some hot stone therapy on cliff-rocks. Along the way we spotted lots of tiny little frogs and though we did not see one - Sfumato was convinced that there was a pheasant about.

Aside from an invite for the next hike, I took away one thing -- comfort in the fact that I'm not the only one who hasn't figured it out. Actually two thing -- the second being that we might actually have an Adventure Race team in the making. Spiff!

Later in the day I got a call from Dave - a long standing friend back from the Enterprise Rent A Car Days. We did an impromptu barbecue at his place and drank a couple of Margeritas and shot the shit outside in his back yard. Later on we played guitar for a bit - always a pleasure with Dave because he's really good and a good teacher. Go figure - he just got his Masters in Education from Fordham and he's a good teacher. Very auspicious. Then in the middle of playing, I get a call from Clarisa and she's all upset and freaked out and wants me to come home. The reason? A chandelier crashed down on our dining room table, just moments after she stood up. At first I thought it might have torn out of the ceiling, since we just had it moved and that the guys put it in wrong. Nope. The actual metal hook holding the lamp just snapped. Totally crazy.

It's fixed now. Clarisa put things back together on Sunday when I was golfing with my Pops. We went to Vassar and played 9 holes with a nice couple, Murray and Eileen. As it turns out, Murray's a Chinese Studies Historian at Baruch. Hey, how often do you meet a Chinese Studies Prof and how often do you actually have something thoughtful to say about Chinese history? I mean what are the odds?

In this case, 1 to 1.

Oh yeah, I finally got to talk about Cheng Ho and the Chinese Navy and the water clock they built and all that fun stuff I read in Boorstin's "The Discoverers". [DuffMan Voice] Oh yea! Putting knowledge to use. Fucking Cheng Ho the eunuch. [end DuffMan] On top of that - Murray was writing a book on electrical engineering with a focus on semi-conducters. As luck would have it, while my Pops knows nothing of sailing Chinese eunuchs, he just happens to have a PhD in Metallurgy and 30 years in semi-conducter fabrication with IBM. So he had something to talk about. Ah - so what does Arleen do though? She works in IT. Systems analyst. What a great networking opportunity. And they were pretty good golfers too!

I'm going to have to look Murray up. How many Chinese Studies Professors can Baruch have?

Finally - I'd like to leave you with this little bit of Family Guy. It gets funnier each time I watch it.