Gainesville trip: Day 4

I spent most of the morning sleeping and watching TV. Then, I went to lunch with a couple friends at the Chicken Kitchen and went over to see their new place where they will be living this fall. It’s a pretty nice place, but it reminded me that, for some reason, architecture here in Gainesville is really strange. There was one place in the living room where the previous owners had cut a hole in the carpet in the middle of the floor, so they could run a phone wire up to an end table or something. I guess they were pretty certain they’d never move that end table.

Frisbee golf

Then, we went and played a round of frisbee golf at the old course. My best score there when I was playing a few times a week was 3 over par. I shot a 13 yesterday. Most of that was just general rustiness–I hadn’t played in about 9 months or so–and some bad luck–if there was a tree, even if I made a good throw, I found it. Anyway, it was fun and we all had a good time.

Newberry Backyard BBQ

This place has some of the best baby back ribs I’ve ever had and I’d been looking forward to going there since I started planning this vacation. Of course, they didn’t disappoint and I had a great time with about 7 of my friends. I hope I can make a trip out there every time I visit Gainesville.

Kill Bill Vol. 2

Even better than the first. I don’t want to do an all-out review or analysis, but I’ll say that I’m seriously impressed with Trenton ability to mix various genres of film from different eras into a seamless, solid movie. Also, Uma was spectacular and I was very surprised by her performance. I could see that she took direction very well and that she was a great fit for the role. I can’t wait to see the DVD with special features and “making of…” kinda’ stuff.

Funnier ’cause we were tired

As we were all startin’ to go to bed about 4 am, I was walking through the kitchen when the phone started ringing. I looked at the caller ID and saw that it was one of the other guys in the house calling in on his cell phone. I decided not to answer, but my roommate did and this is what he heard at the other end of the line: “Hey. What’re you doin’?” Then, the same guy called about five other people around the city and did the same thing. That delayed our getting to sleep by about an hour because we were just laughing too hard to realize we were tired.

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Disc Golfin’ again

Today was the first time I’d played a round in a couple months or so. I wasn’t expecting much, which was good because I played at a pretty mediocre level. I shot a ten-over, which is probably a little above my average for the course. My roommate and I are going to start playing the course once a week or so, just because we can and also to “get back into it”. Who knows, maybe there’s an even par in my future.

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First time out in a while…

I played Ultimate Frisbee this afternoon/evening. I can’t remember for sure, but I’m fairl certain it’s been at least five months since I last played. Ultimate is a sport that I’ve been pretty much the same at since I first started playing my freshman year. I haven’t really improved much (maybe a little with throwing, but not much aside from that), but I don’t play much either. I used to play all the time, and I really enjoyed it, but the group I played with began to grow and the whole experience seemed to be getting less and less fun as people’s attitudes seemed to deteriorate into a sort of competitive rudeness. Anyway, I had a great time today and it was nice to see that I still have the touch.

Lots of eating lots of food

We (Chris, his girlfriend and I) are going out to dinner tonight. I’ve sort of lost track of how many ridiculously huge meals I’ve had in the past few days and I’m starting to feel sort of sluggish. I can’t wait until I’m settled in back in Gainesville and I can start eating well again. Until then, and since I’m on my company’s tab, I’ll continue eating large portions of expensive, un-nutritious food.

Looks like it’s time for din-din!

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Frisbee Golf:

I used to play it frequently in high school, particularly my junior year. I was a decent player back then, but not all that great. When I came to college, I was introduced to a sport called Ultimate Frisbee. Ultimate Frisbee is like football and soccer rolled into one sport. Anyway, one of the parts of the game in Ultimate is the pull or “throw off”, where one team throws the frisbee to the other team and play begins. Anyway, one of my strengths in Ultimate Frisbee is the pull because I learned how to play Frisbee Golf long before I learned how to play Ultimate Frisbee. So, when I play regularly, I can consistently throw the frisbee out of the back of the other team’s endzone. Well, we played Frisbee Golf last Friday and again this morning and I was amazed at how much I’ve lost on my drive. I used to be able to seriously launch the frisbee off the tee, but since I haven’t played in so long, I’ve lost quite a bit of distance. Also, accuracy is something that comes with practice and I’ve lost quite a bit of that, too. These two losses are evident in my scores (particularly last week’s) from last week and today–21 and 15 respectively. I guess the good news is I knocked 6 strokes off of my game this week, the bad news is I’ve still failed to get a birdie on any hole. I had a great opportunity today, but I banged it off the basket and ended up with par. I only had two double-bogies today and that was a significant improvement over last week. That leaves me with eleven bogies and five pars. I think the highlight of my day was that I only hit one or two trees as opposed to about ten last week. That seems to have made the difference in my score.

So, on that note, I’m going to sleep now. It’s 3 o’clock in the afternoon and, since I don’t have any studying to do and I’m putting off packing and cleaning as long as possible, it seems I have plenty of time to take a nap. Some very close friends of mine are coming into town tonight and we’re meeting up for dinner and some hang-out time. I’m really glad I’ll get to see my friends before I head off to Dallas. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to meet up with them before the big move.

The best part about taking a nap of indefinite duration is that I don’t have to set the alarm.

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If all goes as planned, in six hours, I’ll be with seven other fella’s, teeing off on the first hole at the Northside disc-(frisbee-)golf course. Two things about that sentence make me nervous: First, I haven’t played disc-golf in over two years. Granted, last time I played, I did really well, but that was probably either luck or the fact that I played a fairly easy course, rather than actual innate skill. Second, that means I have to get up in five hours and that’s not going to be easy. I slept until 1:00 pm today, so if I have to get up at 9 am, then I’ll be getting up about four hours early. That’s no fun. Sure, laugh, poke fun, whatever, but I’m usually very productive when I’m staying up til ridiculous hours of the night–finishing homework, reading, writing music, whatever.

Anyway, all of that aside, it’s time for bed and, as I’ve said before, I’ve never been one to fight sleep when it starts to wrap me up in its fluffy little cloud. I’m not much for enjoying rain, but any time the big cumulus-nimbus sleep clouds start rolling in (sure, go ahead and flash back to fifth grade when you first learned that someone had actually taken the time to name different kinds of clouds, based on their fluffiness), I just sort of tip my head back into my pillow and let my eyelids those big alligator drops pelt me in the face until I’m sleeping soothed and totally paralyzed into forgetting I’m me and dreaming that “awake” exists.

Yeah, I enjoy sleep enough to talk about it in metaphor as though it’s something really grand… because it is.

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