Xtine Xpounds: What I did on my summer vacation

Cakebread Cellars...Movin on up...

I am sooooo behind, but I've been swearing with full-on good intention to update everybody in internet-land about my super fun summer, because you all just care so darn much about what I've been doing. But I'm so far behind that I have to deal with this like an 8th grade term paper. First, if we're lucky, I'll get the outline done. Then, I'll have to get it approved by the teacher (Pearl...that's you I guess). Then, I'll have another month until the due date, at which point I'll get up a little early and do it right before class. If there were a cliff notes for this, I'd just give a link to that. But since there's no actual literature yet on the subject, there's probably no cliff note version. Ah, cliff notes, I would not have graduated without ye (can they revoke your diploma retroactively? better watch it I guess).

Ok, summer outline, first draft. Think way back:

I. (note the correct use of outline numbers with capital roman numerals)
II. Vacation in BC (summary: took the convertible, it rained the whole time)
III. Something about installing a french door, I think I'm already out of order
IIII. throw in a few incorrectly formatted roman numerals
IV. Curtis visits, the rest of that weekend is a haze. I have some golf clubs in my garage now that appeared around that time.
V. Deck warming party with anatomically correct pinata and intellectually incorrect guests
VI. Sailing lessons, this year without taylor
VII. probably something interesting i'm forgetting, probably so
VIII. buy a sailboat
VIIII. get too busy to sail the sailboat
VIIIII. fry camry clutch on boat ramp
VIIIIII. buy a new car for the sailboat
VIIIIIIII. oh yeah, forget to mention, sold the miata right after the vacation. regretted that before the check cleared. the money was enough for a boat. or enough for a car. or not.
X. went to ashland, got stomach flu. that sucked (more precisely, that blew)
XI. determine that stomach flu more effective than south beach diet
XII. went camping at frog lake with the lake bakers dozen. saw frogs of all sorts, some hopping, some smokin
XIII. went to napa valley, tasted wine, dimmed judgement, bought lots of wine
XIV. went to san francisco, wedding of friends david & danny in sutro heights park. great wedding, nerdiest (i mean smartest) guest list ever. If weddings were all like this, maybe i wouldn't generally dread them. i miss those boys. maybe we should do another contract in greeley, co.
XV. probably lots of other things too
XVI. finally joined facebook. any spare self-absorbed time is now being wasted there and not so much here. keep swearing i'll stop wasting time in it, but it is kinda fun. today i licked myself.

And now, for your viewing pleasure, some viewables formatted badly. You can click on the pictures for a bigger version, so as to better see the irrelevant details:

Taylor in Victoria, BC. High Tea at the Empress: $100-something per person, decent clothes for the dress code: $500, saying "screw it" and ordering room service instead: priceless.

Taylor points out the sights.

Taylor points to a starfish.

Toured and sampled beer at Vancouver Island Brewery in Victoria. The more we sampled, the more FUN it all got. These guys next to me are in the Canadian military. They DON'T ride horses. That's the mounties. They DO drink beer in the shower, but preferably light beer. I think that's not an official Canadian military duty, but rather an optional extra curricular activity. Who knew?