I'm a shut up, sit down

Its definitely time to update since a couple more of the summer goals have been knocked out.  I know I promised more about the house, but you'll see more of it when you come to visit me.  I have had to do a few handyman things around the place though, so I'm learning all of that fun stuff.  I had to switch out the electric cord on my dryer because it was three pronged and our outlet was four pronged.  I also had to do that the day before I left for the AP reading when I didn't have many clean clothes either so thankfully it was a quick job.  I switched out my shower head last night and now have a much nicer time taking a shower.  More basic things will come up and I'll be fine until there's an emergency.

Speaking of the AP reading, I got back from that on Saturday so that's another goal down.  It's also the basis for the title of this entry.  Grading for nearly 50 hours wasn't actually as bad as I expected it to be because you never really felt too out of it simply by having that 15 minute or more break every two hours.  There definitely were some frustrating things with the grading though as the prime goal is to grade exams as consistently as possible, meaning that strict adherence to the rubric is demanded.  My biggest issues came with the rubric itself.  I know grading over 200,000 exams means you have to have some sort of rubric, but too often it seemed like the answer that was being looked for just meant parroting back the correct statement that your teacher (hopefully) taught you instead of showing true understanding.  So yeah, there was definitely some frustrations, but overall, it was definitely a good experience especially once I get paid for it.  I expect I'll do it again next year.

The week before that, I also knocked out the goal of introducing Lindsey to Lisa and mine's habit of visiting a new baseball stadium each summer.  It wasn't that successful though this year as the game got rained out.  Lisa did get to sample the nachos though and I got to try Primanti Brothers for the first time.  I wasn't tremendously impressed.  The trip wasn't a waste though as we did have a fun day at the zoo before that and we got to spend a night catching up with our friend Beez earlier.  Now though, I've got to go call the Pirates box office and see if I can get a refund on those tickets.

If you can't see the thin air, then why the hell should you care

Roughly two weeks ago, I knocked out the first of hopefully many summer goals.  On that Tuesday morning, I headed out to Virginia, where I spent the night camping in Grayson Highlands state park.  The next morning, I hiked the Rhododendron Trail out to Mt. Rogers.  The following day, I hiked Old Mitchell up to Mt. Mitchell.  The day after that, I hiked Low Gap and the Appalachian Trail up to Mt Cammerer and managed to not get eaten by bears despite other hikers telling me that they had just seen one.  It was the hike to Mt Cammerer that provided my opportunity for finishing a goal as it is located on the far east side of Great Smoky Mountains National Park and I camped at Cosby Campground the night before.  Yay! One goal done.

Coming into the trip, I knew there was the possibility of rain each day and hiking in rain, or especially in thunderstorms, takes away a lot of the fun.  I received good providence and didn't actually have to deal with rain while hiking.  On the Mt Rogers hike, the weather started beautifully but once I had summited, a quick check of the sky showed that ominous clouds had rolled in and I started busting butt back home on the way back so as to minimize the time I would spend hiking in the rain.  Thankfully, that amount of time turned out to be zero, which is minimal.  My hike of Mt Cammerer had beautiful weather, but again, there were supposedly bear sightings.  The hike of Mt Mitchell provided the worst weather.  While it didn't rain, I was hiking in clouds for the vast majority of the hike.  Getting to the summit earned me a spectacular panoramic view of roughly a couple hundred feet in each direction.  This begs the questions - if you can't see anything, is the hike worth it?  Most of the time, I'll answer yes without hesitation.  This one certainly was.  Yes, if there isn't much of a payoff once you've reached, the experience has been slightly diminished but certainly not to the point where the journey isn't worth it.  I love walking through the woods and climbing over rocks and getting out and being active and just generally being a sweaty mess.  If the final view isn't there, oh well, but I still had fun and this gave me another state high point to claim.

If I really want to stretch this as a metaphor, and apparently I do, I'll compare this to the rest of my life.  The day after I got back, Lindsey and I were meeting with the couple who will follow up with us on our premarital counseling.  Lindsey and I ended up getting in a heated argument shortly before we were to meet with them.  The drive over to their house was basically done in icy silence.  It wasn't a great way for us to prevent ourselves so at that point, the payoff wasn't really worth it, but I've certainly enjoyed the process of getting there.  We've worked everything out to this point and I certainly still love her, so yeah, even though things don't always work the way I want to, it's still been a blast getting to this point.

Technically, I have two goals done.  Yesterday we bought a house.  More on that later though.