Crowded Upstairs

Today I took castleraid to climb rocks at my beloved mountain. It was a very pleasant outing, and we had a great time, but the thing I feel the need to share with all of you is this.

One of the highways we traversed en route to the mountain was having roadwork done, so all of the businesses had orange signs indicating where the entrances to their parking lots were. One such business was a Shell gas station featuring a Dunkin' Donuts shop.

Some smartass messed with the sign, so that when we saw it, it said exactly this:

DUNKIN DONUTS
HELL

I am not making this up. castleraid got photographic evidence.

This is a test; I've installed Semagic on the home computer, because it wasn't working at the office -- the office comp was missing some required component and I was hesitant to download it, but it was already on Squishy here so I'm going to see if I can do the simultaneous posting thing. Because if I can that will rock.

I'm going to be very busy today; I'm starting a new "plan of action" for my daily activities that, I am hoping, will result in my neglecting fewer responsibilities without making me too much less available for play and chat. If this works out the way I'm expecting it to, I think I'll start seeing improvements in different areas of my life. Here's hoping.

Speaking of responsibilities, on August 25th I will be going out to my beloved Hawk Mountain for volunteer orientation! I'm going to be working there once a month as the Keeper of the Gate, who checks admissions and provides information to visitors. I'm going to try to get scheduled only on Sundays, because I think that'll be easier to work into my schedule. The available shifts are from 9:30 to 1:00 and 1:00 to 4:30, if I'm remembering rightly, so I'd have to take the second shift because of teaching Sunday School. I really believe this will be good for me, and it's certainly something I'll enjoy doing.

In related news, we've tentatively scheduled the youth group's visit to the mountain for November 11th. I'm really looking forward to helping out with that this year. I think it'll be fun and I hope the kids will get a lot out of it. I've also worked out the general theme for what I want to teach my Sunday School kids; the basic schedule will revolve around learning about symbols of the church, like stars and candles and things. We'll have a basic structure each month of a lesson day and a related craft day. I have to keep the schedule somewhat flexible, because the first Sunday of each month is spent with the other classes and my guys also have to do things like acolyte training, but for the most part I think this will work. Of course, the four Sundays in January will be spent watching The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, because that worked out fairly well; however, this year, to make sure the confirmation students actually pay attention (I noticed that my kids were very good, but some of them were not), Pastor asked me to work up a list of questions to which they must find the answers each week.

So today I have some shopping to do, and a lawn to mow; happily, the heat and humidity have retreated for a few days, to the point where jeans are comfortable. This is my absolute favorite kind of weather and it could just be like this almost all year for my comfort. (Just give me two or three weeks of snow over Christmas, because Christmas without snow looks weird to me.) Presuming that tomorrow is just like today, sunny and mild, I'm coming home from church and climbing up a mountain.

(Edited to add: It worked.)

So I got home from work yesterday and promptly dragged Kevin off to Hawk Mountain for a few hours of hiking. It was rather exhilirating. We braved the Escarpment Trail, which involves quite a lot of actual hand-and-foot scrambling over rock formations. Done incorrectly, you probably could fall to a very messy death. But I'm surprisingly unafraid on the mountain.

I had ideas while I was clambering around up there, which culminated in spending a few hours today working on this. It's nothing fabulous, but it was fun to do.

After we got home we headed off to a surprise birthday party for Ravi, who turns 34 tomorrow. We had to do it last night because he and his parents left today for a few days in Las Vegas; his dad is speaking at some convention. Gowri returns to India on Monday, so tomorrow I'm taking him...to Hawk Mountain. Can't help it, really; this whole weekend has been absolutely perfect, weather-wise, for hiking, and anyway, he's never seen it. Besides, my mother hasn't had a day to herself since before the wedding, so it'll give her the chance to relax.

Monday I'll be back to my regular net-routines. I promise.