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Published: October 4th 2007
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[youtube=rbGzFvDFSLc]
rigged and ready
ready to launch! I made a video, check it out at the bottom of the page here!
As Asstant Coach to Hobart and William Smith Colleges' Varisty sailing team, I'm gettin' in shape, I get chances to take boats out to enjoy that legendary Southerly breeze, LOVE to sailors on the team and Scott Ikle, the head coach, teaching a basic sailing class to beginners, have a great roommate and love the other assistant coaches, NO CLASSES! WHEW! Wegmen's, which is almost as good as Ukrop's ;-), travel every weekend to somewhere along the east coast... OH and there's a faculty/staff section of the dining hall with a separate chef and seating area. SO GOOD. Their desert table in there has about 4 different cakes and pies, cookies, pastries and more cookies everyday! Man the list just goes on and on.
"So many people live within unhappy circumstances and yet will not take the initiative to change their situation because they are conditioned to a life of security, conformity, and conservation, all of which may appear to give one piece of mind, but in reality nothing is more damaging to the adventurous spirit within a man than a secure future. The very
sunrise over Seneca Lake!
I see this every Tuesday, Thursday morning on my way to team workout basic core of a man's living spirit is his passion for adventure. The joy of life comes from our encounters with new experiences, and hence there is no greater joy than to have an endlessly changing horizon, for each day to have a new and different sun."
-chris mccandless
into the wild
I've explored a bunch of waterfalls and gorges up here. One of them was a 2 mile hike past 19 waterfalls! There were a bunch of locals jumping off the walkway down into the gorge and swimming around the water holes, so I joined in! They were experts, someone always had to stay up on the path way to literally lift people out of the gorge because it was so steep! That was exhilarating, especially after being warned of diving down too deep because one could get sucked under into one of the hundreds of under water caverns. That experience was much more adventurous than the one earlier that day of sunning and swimming at the bottom of a large, wide waterfall near Ithaca, Buttermilk Falls with a 10 foot high diving board. Though just chillin' out there in a natrual pool fed by that waterfall was
Gorge again
We dove in just around that next bend so relaxing!
The second weekend of my time in Geneva, NY was on a wine tour down the west side of Seneca Lake. There were some GREAT little spots with great wine and places to eat. Juli bought a bottle of wine from our top pick of the day: "Fox Woods". There are, apparently, several more wine trails all around the Finger Lakes. Who knew?? Sunday, I drove up with Juli to her Uncle's farm, south of Buffalo, for a family, Labor Day picnic and baseball game. A home run was over the barn. The dug out was backed by old mattress springs to coral balls into stickin' around. The bases were seat coushins and place mats. The pitcher never changed the whole game. At one point, I was comin' around third base on my way to home and got blind-sided by the dog! Taken' OUT! I did some diving. flying roll and came out alive. It was pretty awesome. Juli and I also hit up the New York State Fair for one of our free days. What a HOOT! animals, rides, terrible food, local dance school performing clogging, statues made out of butter, about 60 different species of roosters.
Cow butts
There were hundreds and THOUSANDS of livestock there, including about 60 species of roosters Man, it had it alllll.
The Poconos and a bunch of other skiing opportunities are up here. There was an idea amongst the ranks to have everyone up here to use my apartment as a base to travel around the ski places. Doesn't sound like a bad idea at all!
I'm also in the community choir up here. We rehearse on Monday nights from 7-9 in the Music building on campus. There are only a handful of students and people my age. The rest are senior citizens and one of them brings plums from his farm every time and several others live on my street and/or are or were professors at the Colleges. We're singing a Vivaldi piece called "Magnificat", which we are singing in Italian. The piece by Saint Sent we are sining in English I didn't really like when we first started, but it's definitely growing on me. I just auditioned for the solos last night, so we shall see how that goes! We find out next next week!
It's a pretty small town up here, but I like it. I've already gotten to know Mary who works at Wegmen's and a bunch of people who work elsewhere
on campus. There's a farmer's market in Thursday mornings in town with a great gander of vendors. Flowers, eggs, pumpkins, cakes, pies, begies, eggs, loooots of corn. The works! They're all so chatty too! Don't expect to walk in and walk out within a half an hour! Haha, I love it. Great cheap chatty mornings. This morning, I bought a gorgeous hearty and hardy rug from an older Amish woman. She wanted to give me a discount, but I wouldn't let her. Got a giant red pepper for 50 cents, two ears of corn for a quarter each, a small arrangement of flowers, a pawpa nut bread, some giant homemade cookies, a jug of fresh apple cider and some neat little tomatoes. I walked out with a bag I brought so I didn't get 15 more plastic bags, flowers, cider. I'm a townie!
We practice out on Seneca Lake all by ourselves, most of the time. If there's 1 other boat out there, it's groundbreaking. I don't see why either! We're still sunny and in the 70's in October! Apparently this never happens! I brought the warmth with me, I guess. Practice is Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, travel with
3-7 people to the regattas which are about 5-11 hours drive away on Fridays, compete Saturday and Sunday, drive back Sunday night and start again! I also teach a Basic Sailing course through the not-for-credit department of the Colleges on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons which I love. The students are all so enthusiastic and just SOAK everything I say up like sponges. It's quite an ego boost. The other day I ran the varsity practice all by myself! It was thrilling! We're ranked top 10 in the nation consistently, sometimes as high as 2nd, always falling short of St. Mary's, our arch nemesis. We have 3 people from Hobart who qualified for and are competing in the Olympic Trials as I'm typing this. I'm working a lot with the women's side of everything too, which I'm lovin'. This weekend we host a Fall Intersectional with a whooole bunch of teams. I'm pretty much runnin' it by myself too in preparation for MAISA Fall Women’s Championships which are also held here, for which I'll be even more alone because Scott will be on the road that weekend.
So Happy. "Lovin' life" as a past co-worker of mine used to always
say.
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