Sky Diving is a fancy way of falling

Today's adventure is  simple, sky diving.  This was my second time. It was Judy's first time and her friend Shamala's 3rd.

A few things about this trip. 

1. No fancy suites

2. Training lasted 5 minutes

3. Plane sat 10 people.

4. It was really cold.

5. It was cold and I had nothing intresting to say the whole video that I had. I shall try and post later. 

Here are some pictures enjoy!

Simple enough

Getting all strapped in.

Judy and Shamla my sky diving buddies

Judy, me, Shamla

Origami Lucky Star

First Star

A few weeks ago, I was falling asleep at my desk. I was bored out of my mind. I don't want to read the books I brought because they are making me sleepy. The coffee I've drank had not hit my system yet. I kept looking at my jacket longingly to ball it up and use it as my pillow. I forgot my phone at home, so I don't even have the option of texting random people to keep me company. I had just moved locations so don't know anyone in the new building. Clicking on the random article so much I think I was burning a hole in the screen. So instead of having my head slam down on the desk like I was was about too, I found this website http://www.origami-fun.com/origami-lucky-star.html. There I learned to make a lucky paper star. The first one didn't work out so well because I was trying to push on the points on in the center. The second star worked a lot better. These are very easy to make! I had seen people make them out of straw wrappers at Outback before and was always amazed. Now I can amaze people! If you click on the link then you can too!  

Second Star

Grapes of Wine

As part of my personal quest to find new adventures, this adventures actually started a few months ago. I had decided back in like July that if it is was possible, I would like to help harvest some wine grapes. It is my goal to get re-connected to how things are made, created, and the effort it takes to make them happen.

So many times I walk into the grocery store and grab whatever I need, but more often than not, I have no idea how much time or effort it takes to make those things. Like so many people and the giant “They” of the world says, we are getting more and more disconnected from our food. To try and stop the cycle I am reaching out, give my time and energy, to help people and learn something new.

My adventure started with an unknown number come up on my cell phone? I didn’t recognize the number so waited until it reached voice mail and checked it out durning lunch. It was a guy name Dave, from Virginia Mountain Vineyards. They had started to harvest their Chardonnay grapes had seen that I was interested in helping and wanted to let me know. I told him I couldn’t make it during the week, but if they were still picking this weekend I’d love to help.

I waited until Friday, called back and confirmed that they were still harvesting, he said yes. So I told my friend Judy about this adventures, she agreed, and we headed out early Saturday morning to pick some grapes.

We were there for about two hours and learned a lot of useful information. Here are just some of the fun facts that we learned:

Chardonnay Grapes

Gapes get harvested at different times of the year. Until then, I assumed that they all were picked at the same time. We only picked the Chardonnay grapes. I am waiting for a call to help with the merlot graps.

All grapes are currently hand picked.

Walk in fridge.

As soon as you pick these grapes they are to ferment. To slow down the process these grapes are put in a very large walk in refidgerator.

One way they can tell the grapes are ready is when the birds start to eat the grapes. They then pick some, do some testing, and can even send grapes off to other locations to analznie if they are ready.

If you go to a wine festival, even though you probably bout a ticket, the local vineyards are kind of expecting you to buy a bottle of wine. Not maybe for each vendor, but at least one, especially if there are samples. Think of it as going out to eat, you pay for your dinner, and then you give your waiter/waitress a tip (If you don’t you suck as a person and need to rethink how the food industry works)

The blended wines does not get mixed until AFTER they have been made.

Most grape vines don’t start making grapes until they are about 5 years old.

Birds do not eat all the grapes on a cluster. They poke there beaks in one or two and move on. Bees like the sugars and hang around these broken grapes to get the juice.

Wearing a hat covered in bug spray is a good idea.

Your hands will be very sticky.

The tools are very sharp.

Eleanor Goes to the Doctor.

Image courtesy of anankkml /FreeDigitalPhotos.net

The other day, my beautiful baby was not doing so well. I was cutting through a very hilly neighborhood to get from one job to the next when I thought I was going to have to get out and push. She had been having some issues over the last about two or three weeks. I kept trying to pretend that it was nothing, but when the check engine light goes on, you start going up at hill at like 25 mph and are barely moving up it at 5mph….. well you have suck up the fact that unlike people, car will not heal. Things actually don’t get better.
If you take your fist, which I hope you don’t, and punch me hard enough in the arm, I’ll probably burse. However, if I wait long enough, that burse will go away. Unlike a car, if you take a hammer to the door and bag in some dents, they will be there and never get better.

When trying to accelerate I would get a very high pitched sound,  Eleanor wasn’t transitioning from gear to gear very well, and was just over all a lot slower, I thought I had some transmission issues. I really hopped  it was not transmission issues because those are usually really expensive. My car being as sexy as she is, if the amount to repair Eleanor hit a certain level I would be pulling out the old school compare and contract bubble chart to see what I should do. Fix the car or get a new one.

When you think transmission normally you think Aamco. Why? One reason is because they are a big chain repair shop. I’ve used them before in Florida on my 1981 Diesel Mercedes. I also have their little slogan embedded in my head. Double A beep beep M C O. 

I called up the local shop on Tuesday and asked if I wanted to drop my car off tomorrow morning(Wednesday),  would they have time to look at it? Yes, they told me, they would be able to look at it. I asked what time they open, they said 7:30am. I was like cool I’ll see you bright and early. I made arrangement with a friend so she could meet me at Aamco, at 7:30am, I’d be able to drop my keys off, give them any information they need, and she’d drop me off from work.

I caught a Shannon

So most people don’t remember exact times or even round about times during their day. However, I can tell you exactly what was going on in my head Thursday, September 6^th 2012 at about 5:10pm.

“Owwww, what is poking me? Is that? Is a hook in my arm?!?”

Yes, you read correctly. A Hook. In My Arm. At 5:10pm. Now the first thought, hopefully, was are you okay? Thank you for your concern, yes, I am. The second thought was probably were you fishing? If I was fishing then it would be totally understandable and everyone could just shrug and go well, hazards of the sport. Wait, 5:10pm on a Thursday? Shouldn’t you be at work or leaving work? Don’t you work in an office? As a matter of fact, you are correct. I do, hence being slightly surprised by the fact a hook was in my arm.  

At  5:10pm I was walking back from my picking up my soccer bag out of my car so I could change in my office bathroom verse some other location.

Now you should be scratching your head thinking, how in the world? I was too, no worries, I was too.

Apparently, my old goalie gloves my mom found a few weeks ago and gave to me had a little present attached to the hook on the bag. I placed said goalie gloves on the strap of my soccer bag, because it is kind of small, and while walking through the parking lot in some crazy freak way, the hook went into my arm.

Indian Food!

 So about two weeks ago I went out to eat with my good friend Chris. Whenever he comes into town we always make sure we try something new or have an adventure.

 

Our first adventure started by going to a museum about O. Winston Link. It was a small museum dedicated to this guy who took pictures of steam locomotives for a living. It was very cool. We saw some art, some train parts, a small video and called it a day.

 

When we were done we decided we were hungry. So after going through the normal, burgers, salad, Mexican, seafood, etc. I told him we had an Indian restaurant, but I had never been. Chris was like then there are no other options, we must go!

 

Our adventure was on a sleepy Sunday afternoon and the place was mostly empty. When we sat down we were told about the buffet. After ordering waters we asked for menus just to see if anything jumped off the page. Seeing as I have never tried Indian food before, I really didn't know what I was reading or pictuing in the head. After about 2 minutes, we decided the small buffet would be the best options. Try a little bit of everything.

 

After handing our menus back to the server we headed up to the line. The picture below what I had on my first round. 

 

 

 

Book Review - 30 Lessons for Living, Tried and True Advice from the Wisest Americans, by Karl Pillemer, Ph.D.

For the last few months I’ve been trying to bring reading back into my life. Partly because I got rid of my cable so I just have the basic channels. Do you know how few channels are available late at night with anything even remotely interesting? The selection is so poor that lately I’ve just kept it on a channel that tells me about local weather. Funny thing is I still have no idea what it’s supposed to be each day.

Anyway, not only did I want to get caught up with what all the cool kids were reading, like The Hunger Games series, or The Immortal Instruments series, I figured between my entertainment books I should read some non-fiction. If you remember form my adventure to my local Library finding books, good books is actually quite hard when you have been out of the what books are good to read loop.

Sure, you go could on line and try and find a list that has the top selling books. However, there are about a million lists out there. So that doesn’t really help. So I put my faith in my local librarian and just walked over to the new arrival section and looked for something that had an interesting title or picture. This time it was the title, it sounded interesting and so did the front cover flap thing. So I checked it out.

What is 30 Lesson for Living, Tried and True Advice from the wisest American, all about? Well, the author, Karl Pillemer, decided to go around and interview thousands of what he calls “experts.” They were men and women from all walks of life that were/are 65 years old and older. He asked the experts questions and advice about marriage, child rearing, careers, living without regret, choosing happiness, and about aging in general.

This was a fantastic book that I highly recommend. I thoroughly enjoyed the way it was written with examples, quotes, true stories, which were all easily broken down into sections. Over all, this was a very well put together book.  

Part of me is jealous of Karl Pillemer experience of talking with so many people about their lives. This is because I am such a huge fan of stories. He was able to talk with them about all the good bad, sad, and happy stories, alone is amazing.

Call me Paul

So, this weekend, with the help of my parents, we started to cut up a big oak tree that fell during a big storm we had about a month ago. This oak tree first caused us some concern when after another storm one of the branches had fell. At first glance, it looked like a tree had fallen in my yard, but no, it was just a branch. Yes, the branch was that big we had to question if it a tree was donw. We cut that one up, and created a small pile of wood in the back yard and called it a day.

The big storm that ended up taking down the rest of the tree. The picture about is the downed oak tree. I first thought there was the possibility of a tornado. 

When the storm starting to hit I was freaked out by all the winds, leaves and branches hitting the windows, and just the trees bending like gymnastic stars. I quickly lost power and found myself in the basement with no power, a few small candles, my phone thankfully charged, and wondering if I should take cover under something heavy? That or start looking for some buckets of water. I figured it would be a safe way to protect my friends when we met the Wicked Witch of the West. “Give me your Chuck Taylor's!” “No!” Throw the water on the witch, “I’m melting! I’m melting!” They story would end faster but we’ve all seen it so that’s like 3 hours of time saved.

During this storm, which caused millions of people to loose power and even more money lost due to damages. Luckily, only this tree came down. It missed my porch probably by only like 4 inches, but still, no harm no foul.  Not owning a chain saw, and not really one to play with power tool by myself, I waited until my parents came to visit and with their help chopped up the tree. I did ask, at one point if I could use the chain saw. Whenever the parents are around, I always feel like I'm 16 so asking is a must. After a few minutes of debate and hesitation my step dad gave in.

He told me how to hold the chainsaw, where to push the little power button to make the chain move, and was standing next to me advising me to move my feet and how to try and cut this big branch etc. Wow, chains saws are hard work! I had no idea all the body parts that were engaged when cutting stuff down. At one point I thought I was going to have to stop because my abs were starting to cramp. ABS! How in the world are those things  being worked? Everyone else always makes it look flawless and easy and I'm about to be bested by a dead tree branch. My arms were straining, I think I stopped blinking and breathing trying to push this spinning blade through this tree.

I cut two sections and gladly gave the chainsaw back to my step-dad to let him use his skills. I'll drag any tree or branches to the side of the road. I can now say I've used the chain saw, and I'd try it again but on anything big like this oak.. I might pass.

Good news, I have lots of firewood for camping!