Fun new toys aside, my other task, traveling and vacationing, has also been a blast so far. I kicked off my grand tour with a trip to Indianapolis, partly to see an old Binghamton friend, but more importantly, to see the Indy 500 Hall of Fame! (Just kidding Mal, haha! Please don't hurt me.) There, we had all sorts of adventures like doing embarrassingly poorly at bowling, seeing the Indy 500 HoF and track, and hanging out at the zoo (the best part of which was watching a walrus playing peekaboo with a little girl from the other side of his glass tank while evidentally either having much too much fun looking at her, or simply missing the presence of a female of his own species...and all of the adults in the audience were snickering when they realized the walrus could use his hands and feet at the same time to physically relieve his "loneliness," while the little girl playing with him remained blissfully unaware).
The next week was a trip with some other Bing buddies to Margate, New Jersey, where a grand time was had by all with the beach, boardwalk, and barbecue. Losing $45 at blackjack was less exciting, but one Atlantic City-priced martini later, I didn't mind quite as much. A day after returning home, I went for a vacation of boating, biking and hiking with my dad, where not even the constant threat of cataclysmic monsoons could stifle our fun. Heavy rain for nearly half of a 25 mile bike ride on a muddy trail? Feh! Nothing can stop us from having a good father-son bonding time!...especially when we already paid the deposit on the bicycle rentals.
The final leg of my travels began last Sunday when I drove up to Boston to cram 6 of some of my favorite people into 6 days of visiting. Part one of the trip included staying with my sister Aviva and munching on fresh strawberries from the urban gardens she runs, then going out to a bar with her and her housemates and trying to remember all the rules of playing rummy, and eventually just making a few up. Next visit was some newly engaged friends of mine, one of whom was a Boston native who lives in Israel but came home for a visit so that he could propose to his girlfriend in person, presumably because doing so over Facebook with a photo of the ring would have been in poor taste. Together, we took a Duck Tour of Boston, visited Mother Goose's grave and argued over whether Ben Franklin was a Bostonian or a Philly Boy at heart. Next on the visit-list and joining me on my pilgrimage to the Samuel Adams brewery was a close friend and radio co-host who patiently waited as my underage sidekick while I sampled the beer, some of which is still unavailable to the general public outside the brewery. The day grew even more exciting as we shared a happy romp around downtown Boston, accompanied by a 3 1/2 foot tall inflated Sam Adams bottle bought at the brewery. This being Boston, people were thrilled to see our blatant display of civic pride in the form of novelty beer bottles, and cheered, joked or just stared at us everywhere we went, including one 5-year-old boy who told me he liked my "balloon."
The last leg of my journey took me south to see more friends, one of whom was babysitting the cutest baby imaginable who, when we would ring a doorbell near him, would look at me with a giant smile as if to say "See?? Isn't that the greatest thing ever?!" I ended the trip seeing another Bingham-friend and fencing partner, who took me mini golfing and gave me a toy vibrating lion to take to Africa, where I can stand on tall rocks and sing "The Lion King" theme song. To end my travels, I drove yesterday to a fantastic wedding of more Binghamton people, which was also a good chance to see everyone who I hadn't had a chance to say goodbye to.
This brings me to the present, and the end of another blog entry which is a lot longer than I thought it would be. I guess for the future, I'll work on being more concise, but frankly, you can read as much or little of this as you want, or space it out over time, and things like this always tend to be a bit self-indulgent anyway, so why shouldn't I write this however I want? In any event, I'll try to update once more before I start orientation, but this week is mostly just packing and cleaning, so we'll see what happens. See you next time,
~Jake
P.S. Here are some links to the photos of what I've been doing these last few weeks, and they're visible even if you're not on facebook:
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