please photoshop cowboy hat
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If you actually wanted to read about the recruiting event, sorry, that's all you get. I wrote that opening paragraph about 6 months ago - "The other night" was February 12th. I meant to finish the post the following weekend, but I went to the Cal-Stanford men's basketball game instead and ended up writing 1,500 words wishing Jorge was my Valentine.
After writing basically nothing for this site since that essay, I am back, having left when basketball season ended and returning a day before our first football game. Convenient! I am deeply, deeply saddened that I missed the meme invitational this summer, but somehow I must find the strength to carry on.
What have I been doing in the meantime? Mostly attending town hall meetings with my semi-automatic - no death panel is coming after MY grandma, you socialist fascist Nazis. Actually, my time has been consumed by two things. The first was the NHL playoffs, in my opinion the most intense sporting event in the country. I lost 5 pounds just by watching the games. My team, the Penguins, played two of their biggest rivals (Philly and Washington) before beating the Red Wings (to whom they lost last year) in 7 games to win the Stanley Cup. They were the first NHL team to win game seven of the Stanley Cup finals on the road in almost 40 years, and the first team in any major sport to do so since the 1979 Pittsburgh Pirates. The Red Wings were 11-1 at home in the playoffs before game seven (the only loss coming in triple overtime) and had beaten then Penguins in Detroit 5-0 in game 5. I could go on for a long, long time.
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My other time sink was a hike. Back in February (not coincidentally, the same time I stopped writing), I decided to go hiking on the Pacific Crest Trail. I took seven weeks this summer (after 4+ months of planning) to hike about 650 miles from Castle Crags State Park, southwest of Mt. Shasta, to the Columbia River at the Oregon-Washington border. In hindsight, the biggest accomplishment was hiking across all of Oregon without getting punched in the face.
A Clif Bar a day keeps your appetite away!
Crater Lake
So that's the truth, or most of it. No dying, no layoffs, and sadly no sexy dungeons. Just a hike, a lot of planning, and the NHL playoffs in the middle of it. If you want to read/see more of hike, send me an email - the address is at the bottom of the page - and I'll send you a link to my trail journal. Go Penguins, and most of all, GO BEARS!
Finally!
