Speeder Trav
Originally uploaded by ratsinis.

I’ve recently learned that the glory of a three day weekend is to provide one with three days during which to ride. Gareth and I mounted his bike no fewer than three times while I did some short solo triking once.

Incredibly, Brandy joined us for one of our rides. She took the trike while Gareth and I went tandem. This is incredible because Brandy never really learned how to ride a bicycle past the training wheel phase. The trike is basically like having training wheels all the time, so she gave it a go and found she enjoyed it.

I did my first semi-extended street riding with the trike last night, taking it along College Ave and Harrison Rd in Pleasant Gap. Nearly everyone gave wide berth while passing, but the 18-wheeler that rumbled through town wasn’t as considerate. Oh, and whoever designed the sidewalk on South Main St needs to be shot. The angle at which driveway entrances are cut makes biking on that walkway severely painful. Same goes for pushing a wheelchair on it. After about three driveways, I ditched it for the shoulderless road.

Oh hey, while I’m here… If you haven’t seen it already, be sure to stop by this site to grab plans for building paper models of Star Wars and Star Trek craft. Quite cool, but I’d never have the patience to actually build them.

A photo at arrrrrrrm’s length
Originally uploaded by ratsinis.

Laz and I are in Orlando for the week attending the Star East software quality conference.

The conference is going really well. I’m learning lots of great new stuff.

But it ends at 5PM. After that, we must amuse ourselves. Monday night was a group dinner with the other folks that came from Minitab (there are six of us). At the end of the night, Alex and I suggested we hit up Pirate’s Dinner Adventure for the next night. Everyone agreed, so I booked the reservations. Then, come Tuesday night, everybody bailed! This left Laz and I to go get our pirate on.

Photo pretty much says it all.

Tomorrow night is Sea World. No plans yet for Thursday, but Friday is going to be a trip to MGM Studios for a Star Wars geek out.

Laz has made it his mission to visit as many mini-golf places as possible while in town.

Okay, really… how hard can this be… I’m trying to find a wide brimmed hat that has a neck drape on the back for protecting the neck from sun exposure. I’ve found a few online, but I’d really like to purchase it locally so I can try it on.

Does anybody know where in State College I can buy something like this:

I haven’t had a chance yet to try Appalachian Outdoors, but I have tried Target, Wal-Mart, Dick’s, Tussey Mountain Outfitters, and a few shops at le Mall.

The reason I want one is that Laz and I are going to canoe about 30 miles of the Susquehanna soon. That’s a lot of time in the sun, so I’d like to have a little backup protection beyond the sunscreen.

Speaking of Laz, he and I are going to go see Hot Fuzz at the College 9 tonight at 7:30. Feel free to show up.

Where I Been
Originally uploaded by ratsinis.

I hit up Bald Eagle State Park on Sunday with the goal of doing about two hours of triking and two hours of kayaking.

But then I decided to take my Catrike Trail off-road for a bit. Bad idea. Everything was going fine until I ended up stuck in a lot of very wet mud. By the time I had the trike out and had carried it beyond the few hundred feet of muddy trail, I realized I wouldn’t have enough time to get home and wash off the trike before dinner.

So… I nixed the kayaking and just did one more ride around the park in the trike.

One of these days, I’d love to try getting from my house to Minitab on it, but I’m still quite afraid of the traffic habits of R26 drivers. I just don’t trust them to notice my day-glo flag and flashing tail light.