the marathon

this past week was a marathon of driving, visiting, and events

after spending all of the previous week frantically trying to finish my robot so i could deliver it, we finally got it 'working' (i'm still not terribly happy with it) saturday afternoon

i got it packed into my car (hooray hatchbacks) and immediately began my 2015 mile journey (hooray google maps with drag and drop routing)



i started by driving up to lafayette

i hung out with nick saturday night and sunday we went back to nine irish for dinner, where we were served by the same waitress (molly) who recognized our orders (same drinks, same opening order as last week) we ended up staying around there for awhile out on the back patio

it wasn't terribly busy so she came over and hung out with us a bit (along with the two other people who worked there but were off for the night sitting at the table next to us) we were all sitting around having fun (with her running off to take orders whenever she saw an empty glass) and she accused nick and me of scheming together where i lure girls in and he gets them to stay around (which is more than a little ridiculous and caused quite a bit of laughter from my general direction) after a while we were joined by sean (nick's boss) and we stayed until they closed

monday i met up at the village coffee house with a girl i met on okcupid, it was kinda interesting because i have never met someone in real life that i first met online (especially not in a dating scenario) we chatted for a couple hours until she had to go to work and it was enjoyable so i'll probably see if she can meet up the next time i'm in town (even though i'm not sure there's really a romantic connection there, i'm trying to give people more of a chance instead of dismissing them as (romantically)incompatible right away) after that i changed and went to an interview for a 'business manager' job in lafayette, it seemed like it went alright and my past job experiences line up almost perfectly with what they are looking for (they need someone to supervise their interns and manage their webpages and sales staff) but i was probably the first interviewee so i might have a couple weeks to wait before i know anything

tuesday morning i left to go to martinsville VA for the robot dropoff, but i didn't jsut take 65 south to louisville and then over, no no, i went down to bloomington (so i could hit up oliver winery for some specific wine i had a request for) and then over to 65 (though i stopped at brown county winery since i know the owners (or their sons more specifically) and got a few bottles from them as well) so i got to the hotel around 9pm, stopped at the bar to see if dave was there again, got called 'yankee' by the 4 locals who were there (because the bartender recognized me from 2 weeks before and we all sat around chatting awhile)

wednesday i went in to the plant and showed them the robot and after tinkering with it for awhile they said they were happy with it (even though i'm still frustrated) and i left it with them and headed up to alexandria VA to visit basham, see his wife and kid (charlie - aka 'chuck' by me) and house

thursday nick and i cut down three of the trees in his yard with some manly-bonding chainsaw yardwork, we got them down and chopped into logs in a few hours and then went out for some Pho (prounounced 'fuh') from Pho Kim, it is a vietnamese soup (kind of a beef broth with spices and noodles in the bottom and you can add tripe or intestines or whatever to it, i got plain old beef) it was pretty tasty (but probably more than i needed) and after that i headed over to mclean VA to meet up with alexz
she was meeting some coworkers for dinner so we all went to an indian place and i got the lamb sheesh kabob (and the lamb was the best i've ever had, not that i'm a regular consumer) then we played some guitar hero (it was fun, but i'm still not a video game person) and got some sleep

friday, after getting up ridiculously early, i drove to cherry hill NJ to my uncle's house
i sat around reading and chatting with my cousin danny(dan... it's different when you knew people when they were younger) (of liam and me fame) before meeting my parents at the hotel

saturday we had dinner with my grandpa and then got ready for the wedding (in my wonderful suit), after the full mass wedding (*sigh*) which saw the most excited bride i will ever see and some wonderful singing by her younger sister amanda, we went back to the hotel to sit for a while waiting for the reception
there was a full size drunk-bus which we took to the country club, had some great hors d'oeuvres (mmm big shrimp), some not-real-but-still-good-champagne, danced for hours, had a wonderful meal, enjoyed a speech by my uncle lloyd (he's hilarious) and hopped the drunk-bus back to the hotel
after changing out of the dancing-sweat filled suit i went down to the hotel bar to meet up with the wedding party and other assorted similar aged friends, chatted with the groom some more (pretty cool guy) and eventually went to bed around 2

sunday we went to the brunch at my uncle's, ate, chatted, said goodbye around noon and started driving kent and john home (so we could all get back to work while my parents stayed to visit)
we got to dayton and john called jason and kitten (who had gotten back from a cruise that day) and he found that they were somewhat stranded in indy (they were going to a concert and moaner was supposed to pick them up but he didn't even head up for the concert so they were going to have to borrow a car to get back down and then drive up the next day to return it) so we drove around indy looking for food (it was late so the places we wanted were closed) finally grabbing some white castle, picking up the guys, and heading on home

thus ended the marathon