Adenovirus

Last week I was fighting off what I thought was a fairly routine sore throat. People around the office have been coughing a lot lately, and I thought my insanely-robust immune system was simply shrugging off whatever was floating around. Unfortunately, come Sunday morning, I felt bad enough to not leave the couch all day. I made it out Sunday night to catch Body of Lies, which was solid, but woke up Monday morning with my eyes full of garbage. I took the day off of work so I could sleep off whatever cold/allergy combination had come to visit, and while I felt better Tuesday morning, my eyes were still full of slime and had gone all pink. My throat didn't feel any better either, so I worked from the couch, sure that I'd be ready to roll Wednesday.

Of course, I was wrong. I was in the same condition Wednesday morning as Tuesday, so I headed for the doctor's office, where I found out I had a strain of Adenovirus. Allegedly "rampant in the community" right now, I blame the coughing carrier monkeys at work.

The doctor put me on Sudafed, Advil, and fancy eyedrops, and I'll cease to be contagious by about noon today.

Friggin' monkeys.

Colgate

This past weekend, Amanda and I drove out to Hamilton, NY to visit Colgate University where she got her undergrad degree. I don't think I've ever been out to that part of New York, so it was interesting to see. Amanda drove for sentimental reasons, and I was actually pretty nice to just hang out for a few hours.
As scenic as it is, there isn't a heck of a lot to do out there, so most of the weekend was checking out parts of campus and checking out the bars. The campus buildings are mostly pretty new, although they're all built to look old. A new science building was put up since Amanda graduated, so we spent an extra few minutes walking around in it, and it was damn impressive, especially for a primarily liberal arts school. Plus, any building with a planetarium gets extra marks in my book.
The bars in Hamilton are all predictably small and crowded, but they also all have plenty of cheap beer. One, Risky Business, had the two scariest bar tenders I have ever seen. Both women, one looked like she must have been 60+ but was dressed like a 13-year-old, and the other was probably late 30s but looked like she had literally just gotten out of bed. A huge selling point, aside from the cheap beer, was the most badass Miller Lite sign I have ever seen. I can't even find a picture on the Internet, such is the awesomeness. It looked like it was from the 70's, and was an animated, scrolling city/mountain/beach panorama.
We had driven out to Hamilton on Friday night, so our drive home on Sunday afternoon gave us a chance to actually check out the scenery, which was pretty nice. There were a couple of wind farms just outside of Hamilton and as scared as I am of huge windmills, they really do look awesome. The ride home took us about four and a half hours, and despite my hangover it made for a nice end to a nice weekend.

Wedding in the Poconos

Early in August, two of Amanda’s best friends got married in the Poconos. The wedding itself was on a Saturday, but we headed down Thursday night. Amanda was a bridesmaid and the associated brunches, lunches, and parties started Friday.

I’d never driven through the Poconos before, but it was about what I expected: lots of hills, lots of trees, some deer, and not really much else.

We stayed at a cottage complex in the area. We arrived at about 11pm Thursday night, and there were virtually no lights at all near our cottage, so it felt a little like we were sneaking through a neighborhood as we unpacked the car.

The rehearsal dinner, wedding, and reception were at the SkyTop country club (which has a well equipped bar, and a well equipped lawn bowling court), but the brunches, lunches, etc. were at the Maid of Honor’s parent’s house on a nearby lake. The house was on a “preserve,” which I found meant an elaborate gated neighborhood surrounding a huge lake, with nothing but muddy dirt roads. Miles of muddy dirt roads. It was one of the few times since I’ve had the Mustang that I actually missed my old Bronco II.

Despite the terrain, all of the events were fun and it was fun hanging out with everyone, none of which we get to see very often.