Thursday, January 28, 2010

Workouts

As I sit here watching the State of the Union Address, I think I should provide an update. I have been kind of busy this week as my chemistry class wrapped up. I took my final on Wednesday and I'm glad it's over. I'm not good at chemistry but I learned some good science. I think I passed my test and now it's time to move on to Fluids and Electical systems.

I decided to change up my normal workouts this week. I usually run between 3 and 4 miles on running days, but Tuesday I decided to run to the tennis courts which is about 3 miles. So, run 3 miles, play tennis, run 3 miles. I played tennis until dark, then began to run home. I had forgotten that to get home, I had to run through a neighborhood that is a little sketchy after dark. I also neglected to realize that I looked a little out of place with my tennis racket sticking out of my backpack. So as I'm running, I see a group of what looked to be middle schoolers. I hear one of them say, "That dude looks intense". I can only assume this was due to the shin splint pain. Then one of them started following me on his bike. All of a sudden he asks, "Are you trying to lose weight?" Humbling. I didn't know what to say so I said yeah.

In other news, I made pizza dough from scratch. Crazy delicious and cheap. Here is the recipe:
3.5 cups flour
1 tsp salt
1.5 cups warm water
1/2 tsp dry active yeast
1/2 tbsp sugar
2 tbsp olive oil
Mix flour and sugar. Pile on working surface and make a baseball sized well in the flour. Mix water, yeast, sugar, olive oil in a bowl. Pour into well. Be on guard against making a mess, I did. Slowly work flour into water and mix. Knead until it looks like dough. Drizzle with olive oil and flour before baking. The best part is the taste.

Monday, January 18, 2010

Post-Christmas Adventures

Last time I left you on the edge of your seat, wondering what I did after Christmas. Well, the long-awaited answer is here. Back in the fall, my friend Jake and I decided to go on a hiking trip. Let me give you some background because You're probably thinking, "Scott doesn't hike. He might hurt himself." Well, you're right. But I miss the mountains. They are gorgeous and I don't get to enjoy them very often so I figured a good hike would do me well. Jake and I planned to go 60 miles in 4 days which was more ambitious than I realized. Fortunately it snowed 2 feet and we had to cancel that trip. I decided to do 19 miles in 1.5 days. I thought it would be easy. I was wrong. Turns out I need some better hiking boots. After mile 12 my feet were hurting badly. My friend Todd decided to come with me which was a good idea. It was great for us to share what was happening in each other's lives. We saw some great views including the one above at McAfee's Knob and the icicles in a creek. Other pictures are on facebook. I also got to test out my 15 degree sleeping bag as it got down to 12 degrees overnight. I am happy to report that my Big Agnes bag kept me nice and toasty.

After surviving the wilderness, I spent another day in Blacksburg hanging out with great friends before returning toward Norfolk. I say toward because I stopped to enjoy the Hokies play football and spend New Year's eve with some college buddies. I must say the Hokies played well. Stinespring wasn't a complete idiot, our defense played well, and Tyrod didn't disappoint me. It is always good to see close friends you don't see very often. The party was out in the sticks which is just my style. I got to ride a 4 wheeler, play a little cornhole, and my buddy Michael let me play with his whip. I had a blast. That's all for now.

Sunday, January 10, 2010

Welcome back

Wow, I can't believe it's been a month since I posted. That's dumb. I hope you had a wonderful Christmas. I was privileged to be at home over the holiday. My shipyard shuts down between Christmas and New Year's so I am forced to take vacation during that time. At the shipyard where I'm doing my training, Newport News, there was no training on the 23rd or 24th, so I went home early. A week and half without work is great. I went down to my sister's house in North Carolina with Mom for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Seeing my niece and nephew along with watching how my sister and brother-in-law love them is really encouraging. Here is Jenna, she is going through a ballerina phase. If you don't think this is cute, tell me and I'll come punch you in the face. I came back to Blacksburg the 26th, celebrated my niece Jenna's 3rd birthday and spent some good time with Dad and Marj. My good friend John Dooley invited me down to his house to smoke a cigar and have a little grappa. The next day we even got to shoot some skeet together. Nothing makes a country boy smile like shooting pieces of clay out of the air.

I will discuss my hiking trip and New Year's in my next post, but I will jump ahead to current events now. After returning to work, my coworkers and I started our next class, chemistry. I am not good at chemistry, but I have certainly learned a lot over the past 2 weeks which is great. I am still running Monday Homework Club in Norfolk. Today had some bright spots. A few of the older kids have made some great strides in reading comprehension and graph reading. One of the younger girls today had to write a sentence about a hero of her's. After a bit of prodding she chose her mom. I asked her why she looked up to her mom and she said, "Because she loves me." I said, "Why does she love you?" And she said, "Because I love her." I soon realized we were in an infinite logic loop. She wrote her sentence. I didn't know how to solve our problem.