Canoing on the Harpeth River

Also this weekend, in addition to the Memphis Zombie Massacre, we helped the Youngers move from their old place into their new place. Then, Saturday afternoon, Krissi and I and Yazhi drove up toward Nashville to go camping and canoing at the Harpeth River.

We got in Saturday early evening, setup camp at the crowded camp site, cooked some food, enjoyed the outdoors, and went to sleep. This was Yazhi's first time camping/in a tent, so the noise had her barking a couple of times in the night, but we kept her in the (spacious) tent with us, so we could shush her. We all slept pretty well, then were up at the crack of dawn to purchase coffee, since I had not been able to bring proper supplies with me to make coffee, and we prepared yummy camping breakfast and headed to the river with canoes. We put the boat on the water, put Yazhi in the boat, and she immediately leapt out into the water and began to panic. She was doing a doggie-paddle-tread-water-oh-shit-what-have-I-gotten-myself-into thing. We've observed her to be a fine swimmer previously, I think that the leaping into the water and not finding any footing just confused her enough that she panicked. Anyway, I was able to swiftly haul her back into the canoe, and she immediately leapt back in on the other side. Actually - I don't think it was so much leaping of her own free will, as much as it appeared to be. If you've been in a canoe, you understand how strange balance is in one. She'd go to one side, and stick her head over, the whole thing leans to that side, forcing more of her weight to the side, against the edge of the canoe, and she had no traction or leverage, and so after a half-second scramble, over the side she went. I guess we're just fortunate that she didn't spill the whole thing, us included. Anyway, we again got her in the boat, and actually got shoved off and into the river. She learned quickly, and didn't make the same mistake again. We paddled for a bit and enjoyed the scenery. We were out early, apparently most folks get out in the afternoon, so we saw only a few other people on the river. It was slow and smooth, and quite shallow - there were only a few places that seemed to be deeper than four feet. I heard that the river was quite low though, having not had any significant rain in some time. And we did bottom out and had to push through a couple of small areas. The weather was fantastic though, clear and warm. We did a long trip, 11 to 12 miles. Yazhi stayed in the boat a goodly portion of Sunday, but she'd hop out into the water when we went through particularly shallow areas and she could see the bottom. She swam like an otter, and loved the water. We reached the end of our route around 2 PM, waited for the van to come haul us back to camp, and then set about doing some hanging out, reading, and laughing at our tired and sleeping dog. We made some yummy camp supper and went to bed pretty much as soon as it was dark. Monday we were up early again, and on the water quickly. This time, we didn't have any panicking, but we did spend about half of the trip in the water. She swims like a fish, I tell you. She seriously swam three or four miles. By the end though, she was completely worn out, though she put on a brave face. We had a great time on the water both days, enjoying the weather and the company and our swimming dog.

We'd packed up our camp early Monday, before hopping into the canoe, so once we were done with the river, we hopped into the car and headed back to Memphis. Pics from the trip are here.

On a side note: people are stupid and vile creatures. There were a couple of spots along the river that there were discarded cans and trash. I just don't understand why people can't take the small amount of effort to clean up behind themselves. It really makes me angry, and its that frustrating, ineffective angry. Feels like there's nothing I can do about it. I mean, I can certainly carry around trash bags with me, and clean up other people's fucking trash.. Oh, and apparently some people think that its okay to take animals, perhaps from federally protected land. One family of particularly country folks were collecting turtles on their trip down the river. The same group who flicked cigarette butts into the river. Makes me feel angry and impotent. I feel like if I say something, even politely, I'll only accomplish getting into an argument or fist fight, and if I don't I just stand there like a dumb ass. So I stood there like a dumb ass. I just hope that karma has something in store for those folks. It makes me feel a tiny bit better.

Zombies

This past Friday evening we participated in the Memphis Zombie Massacre.

We had a ton of fun. We got all made up and joined well more than a hundred other people, and walked through downtown Memphis. Our path carried us down Beale street, Memphis' popular local and tourist bar-crawl area, then down Main, where there are tons of small shops and art galleries, and they were having a Trolley Tour, where both locals and tourists come to enjoy the galleries. So we had tons of spectators for our march. Almost everyone that I saw watching the march was very entertained. We passed couples and families and old folks and folks trying to eat expensive looking food and so on. The zombie crowd was really good. People seemed to be having a good time. Lots of costumes ranging from super cool and scary, to people with a dribble of fake blood on their tshirt, to everything in between. People could hang out in the crowd, and wear duct tape on their clothing to mark them as zombie victims. When spotted, the zombies would then take off after these people and zombify them. This worked pretty well until the end of the march, when everyone was out of extra blood, and I think folks were tired. We had a couple of duct tape clad civilians walking along with us, who wondered aloud why they weren't attacked. We confessed that we were all out of blood, and I guess maybe we should have given them a quick mauling anyway. We'll bring gobs more fake blood next time.

Anyway, enough text, now some pics, and a video.

Someone did a small documentary of the zombie walk, seen here.

We took tons of pics, which I uploaded here.

running

Ran yesterday: 4 miles in 39 minutes. woot. Did the last mile in 9 minutes. It was good. Probably not going to be able to run again until Monday or Tuesday, due to busy weekend plans/out of town-ness. And I failed my Save vs. Krispy Kreme donuts this morning. Grrr.

PS - stealing two cool links from

Stupid Falwell quotes

Falwell in Hell comic

Geekery of the Star Wars variety

Here are some links related mostly to Star Wars. Enjoy.


Investigative reporting: Was the destruction of the Death Star an inside job?

Regarding the implausibility of the Death Star's trash compactor

Funny video: Vader phones Emperor Palpatine about the destruction of the Death Star (from Robot Chicken)

Physics of the Death Star's super laser explained

Wikipedia Death Star entry

Frickin' awesome size comparisons.

Have a good Memorial Day Weekend. I'm doing the Zombie Walk, helping some folks move, and going camping/canoing.

ohyeah: running

Haven't kept up lately, with posting that is.

Did ~3 miles on Saturday, and another 3 on Sunday.

Ended up taking both Monday and Tuesday off, but hit it hard on Wednesday and did 4, and they were good. Did them in 44 minutes, I think it was a 10 minute mile, two 11's, and a 12 there at the end :P

Going to go try to do another 4 this evening. According to a calorie calculator I found, if I do four 10-minute miles, I'll burn 600 calories.

I figure on average I intake between 1,200 and 2,500 calories each day, and on days that I run, I burn ~3,000.

Creating a living world, no fed-ex quests

Random gaming thoughts:

I'm a big fan of running games that I make up whole-cloth. No published adventure for me anymore, thanks. I enjoy the freedom that it gives me in order to give back to my players. I can make a game that revolves around and is based on the characters, not one in which they're somewhat-interactive spectators.

One of the difficulties that I've run into with this approach is creating a living world. I am fine with creating the good guys and the bad guys, and all of the folks in between, and even giving them motivations and goals and things like that, but what I sometimes run into difficult with is coming up with Quests To Give To The Players. I should pause - that's not my actual verbatim approach, but kinda defines what I'm running into.

No matter how fun the game is, the 10th time that you have to Go Do Something For Some Guy So That He'll Give You What You Wanted In The First Place, it starts to feel repetitive. Sure, there's tons of variety, go Get This, go Deliver This, go Kill This Guy, go Mediate This Dispute, go Find This Thing, go Ask These Questions, go Snoop Around This Place. I guess it feels like I've fallen into a rut of viewing the characters as errand-runners for the people in the game.

In what ways can important and semi-important NPCs interact with the characters, in ways that are not so contrived? Let me pause again, I feel kinda like I'm asking "Okay, but how do I build a house?" which is not a question with a quick, simple answer.

I've even spared a few minutes to think about how things work in the "real world". Granted, there aren't as many dragon-hunters, or vampires or ghost-catchers in the real world, but I was trying to quantify how interactions work. And maybe, again, I'm taking the wrong approach. My mind now jumps to movies like Lock-Stock and Two Smoking Barrels, which is, I suppose, an infinitely twisted series of "fed-ex quests". Perhaps a small part of the difference is that instead of entirely being "Mr. Johnson tells to you run out and fetch him the such and such", the characters there were sometimes placing themselves into a predicament, and though asked for particular results, the motivation was different (I'm thinking of the gambling debt).

Anyway, there's my thoughts. Suggestions?

In other news:

How about a weekend wrap-up?

Friday evening we got to hang out with the Maddie & John. Saturday we slept in, bummed around, played some computer games, did a 3 mile run with Maddie, and had my mom over. We watched For Your Consideration, which was fantastic - very funny, I highly recommend it. Sunday I got up early and did 3 miles, and it was great weather for running. I went hung out at Starbucks for a couple hours before noon, then went home where I rounded up Krissi and Yazhi, and we went down to Arkabutla Lake, and did a picnic lunch, let Yazhi enjoy the water, and did a little Geocaching (one find, three didn't-find).

Also - since we're dieting, I've gotten tons of mileage out of chicken. I can make a different variety of chicken dish every night of the week, and compliment it with seasoned rice or potatoes, and corn or green beans or broccoli. Just.. well, bragging a little, I suppose. Friday night I cut up chicken into bite size pieces, covered it with mustard, and cut up a lot of purple onion and threw it all into a skillet. Fifteen minutes later it was DE-LICIOUS. Last night I did chicken breast on the grill, threw some seasoning on it and let some shredded cheese melt on top of the chicken. I like cooking, and using basic, simple ingredients, in simple-to-prepare combinations. We've been universally pleased with the results.

Sorry, I'm pretty boring ;).

[insert exploding duck, and gun battle that takes place between secret agents standing on the wings of a pair of bi-planes as a battery of catapults hurls previously mentioned exploding ducks into the air.]

Edit: I forgot. I also turned in applications for a second job. I'm on the debt-reduction tip, and apparently I'm willing to give up a few hours of my free time for some more cash. We'll see if I end up: A) Working in a grocery store, stocking shelves, B) Working the front desk in a fitness club, and cleaning sweaty machines, C) Working at Starbucks, D) Waiting tables at Huey's, E) Doing IT work at the local community college - or even teaching some kind of computer class. F) Something else entirely.