Omaha, NE

On August 30, I drove to Omaha, NE to visit my friend Melanie and her husband Scott. Melanie and I are old high school buddies, and she got her PhD at the same time I did. Unlike me, however, she actually has a job. A good one, too.

Melanie and Scott's house is a nice-looking brick deal in a quiet neighborhood.

Overall, it was a pretty lazy week. While Melanie woke up early and went to work every day, Scott and I sat around and played video games. Good times. I also ate an Omaha steak.

One day, I decided to do kata in a park right off of the University of Nebraska-Omaha campus. While doing so, a dude drove by in a car and kept yelling "Hey pussy" out his window at me. What did I do?

a) Ignore him.
b) Throw my sai through his gas tank and blow up his car.
c) Tell him, "Pussy's not my name, pussy's my game."


In addition to hanging with Melanie and Scott, I also hung out with their cat Nico and their dog Kira. This is the best picture I could get of Kira because she never sits still:

Knob Noster State Park, MO

On August 29, I drove to Knob Noster State Park, about 50 miles west of Kansas City. You're probably wondering, "What the hell does Knob Noster mean?" Since I am concerned about your welfare, dear reader, I spent 4.7 seconds looking this up on the Internet. Here's what I found: apparently there are some knobs or something that were the site of an Indian battle or something. So there you go, don't say I never did anything for you!

Knob Noster State Park was surprisingly nice; the weather was perfect, and a persistent breeze kept the bugs away.

For some reason, whenever I pitch my tent, a daddy long legs immediately appears on the roof. I don't know why that is. Do they like orange?

When I was a kid, I remember hearing that the daddy long legs is extremely poisonous, but is incapable of biting humans. However, I came across a sign at Knob Noster which said that this is not true. The daddy long legs that live in the U.S. do not have venom glands, nor do they have fangs. But, there is a spider in Australia also known as the daddy long legs that is quite poisonous, which is the source of this urban legend.

Marion, IL

On August 28, I left Woodstock and drove all day in a ridiculously heavy downpour. That day, it appeared that the entire eastern half of the US was drenched in rain. Being a total wuss, I didn't feel like being miserably wet, so I grabbed a room in the ever-lovely EconoLodge. Here's a shot of the awesome weather, and the awesome view outside my window.

Woodstock, GA

On August 23, I drove from Florida up to Woodstock, GA. My cousin Steve and his wife Charmaine live there, in a cool house with a Southern porch and a wild backyard.

I also spent a lot of time with Luke, Steve and Charmaine's son. Since Steve is my first cousin, that must make Luke my thrice-removed uncle-in-law or something like that.

Luke turned 3.5 years old while I was there, and he is a source of infinite energy. If there were a way to bottle it, we could wean ourselves off of oil in no time at all. One afternoon, we played soccer, baseball, hockey, football, chasing, hide and seek, Legos, Thomas the tank engine, grocery store, marble racers, Star Wars, and did some drawing. I drew an absolutely terrible tiger. However, I also produced an ingeniously-constructed marble racer track. I am way too proud of this.

See, those 12 years of college weren't for nothing!

Palm Coast, FL

After my sweat and car-filled journey down the east coast, I arrived in Palm Coast, FL on August 16. Some of you may wonder about the wisdom, or lack thereof, of visiting Florida in August, but I was fortunate enough to stay in Kim's house, which is blessed with the miracle of air conditioning.

Florida is a beautiful place, exceptionally green and lush, with water everywhere.

On August 21, George, Elizabeth and I visited Fort Matanzas in lovely St. Augustine. The name Matanzas comes from the nearby Matanzas River, and means "killings" or "slaughter" in Spanish. Apparently, in the 1500's the Spanish gave several hundred French Protestants a choice: convert to Catholicism or die. Given the name of the place, you can probably guess what they chose. Here's a picture of the fort:

For those of you into karate-related humor, here's a picture of me attempting to penetrate the fortress:

While we were in St. Augustine, George and Elizabeth treated me to lunch, and Elizabeth ordered a giant bucket of clams.

That's a big bucket.

The rest of the day, I drove around on the beach with Chris, and then we played Gears of War 2 until 2 in the morning. That night, I dreamed I was playing Gears of War 2.

Some commentary on the east coast

On August 15, I left New Hampshire and made my way down highway 95 through the eastern seaboard, also known as Clusterfuck Central. Seriously, I have never seen so many cars in my entire life. Here's a summary of my drive through New York and down the New Jersey turnpike:

I learned a valuable lesson about driving in that area -- don't do it. Eventually, I made it down to Dover, DE. On the way, I saw a bonafide operational nuclear power plant, which was badass. In Dover, I ate a Subway sandwich, and mustered up just enough energy to take a picture of the parking lot behind the Super 8:

Awesome.

The next day, I drove to Norfolk, VA and hung out with my high school buddy Kim. As the first test of my recovering stomach, we downed a bunch of pizza, beer, and ice cream. We also watched some True Blood, and reminisced about the old days on the mean streets of P-town. In the spirit of further pictorial documentation of this trip, here's a shot of Chesapeake Bay:

On August 17, I drove from Norfolk to Colleton State Park in South Carolina. It was a nice-looking place, complete with trees and a river.

However, don't let appearances fool you. I decided to head out to a nearby field and get in some light kata. Things started out okay.

However, after 30 minutes, I was a sticky sopping mess.

I showered off, but that night it was about 85 degrees and 247% humidity inside my tent. In summary, I have been disgustingly wet for 4 consecutive days, and have learned a valuable lesson about visiting the east coast in August -- don't do it.

New Hampshire camping, and New Hampshire GI bugs

On August 7, Megan and I went camping at Pillsbury State Park in southern New Hampshire. On the way, we passed through Washington, NH. Apparently, this was the first town in the US to be named in honor of George Washington. This interesting bit of trivia is also an excellent excuse to link to this video again.

After choosing our campsite, we rented a couple kayaks, and while I showed off my rowing muscles, Megan worked on Oar no kata shodan.

It was a nice, sunny day out on Butterfield Pond, and aside from what felt like gale force winds, it was a perfect day for kayaking.

Later, we failed miserably to get a fire going. I blamed the damp wood, but after our neighbor got it going for us in about 30 seconds, I realized how much of a pathetic lump of city-slicker softness I became during my years in Arizona.

That night, the full moon over the water was magnificent, but my camera sucks at taking pictures in low light (see my post from Crater Lake for a good example), so I'll spare you this time. However, I did manage to capture a good image of the morning mist.

All was not hunky dory, however, because on Friday afternoon I came down with some sort of gastrointestinal bug. After 24 hours of fever, 60 hours of diarrhea, and losing almost 20 pounds, I'm starting to look a little like Christian Bale in The Machinist.

Sexy.

Amherst, NH

On August 3, I headed north from Connecticut to Amherst, NH to hang out with Megan, a former Kokondo student of mine. New Hampshire is just as confusing as Connecticut; little visibility, winding roads, and no street signs. However, I eventually managed to find the house, and was rewarded with a prime spot to sleep on the giant couch in the basement.

On Tuesday and Thursday, we drove down to Master Wood's karate class in Monson, MA. He has a nice dojo on the side of his house, and after class on Thursday we were able to take a refreshing dip in his pool before making the drive back to NH.

On Wednesday, we dusted off a couple of tubes and spent a couple hours floating the Souhegan river.

Despite having to brave several class-5 rapids along the way, we came out of the trip unscathed.