Prodigal Blogger Returns

I'm pretty sure no one missed me while I was gone. I know I wasn't particularly itching to blog my vacation adventures, so it was a nice break from the blogging monotony that can permeate things that become routine. But, now I'm back, in the office, and I found a little time to goof off. So, what have I been up to all week long?

Nothing. I was planning on using my vacation time to travel and interview at prospective job opportunities, but that fell through. Which left me with the only alternative available. Sit on the couch and play Call of Duty 2 on the XBOX 360. Which is great and all, but it doesn't secure any financial stability. This whole week was pretty relaxing though, and I find myself at work not wanting to kill anyone . . . yet.

The wife, dog and I went camping as well this past week. Yeah, roughing it out in the wilderness. Originally, we planned on staying a max of 2 nights out there. We got enough food, a tent, some sleeping bags and blankets, and shoved everything in my Mazda 3 (and, amazingly enough, it all fit) and made the 36'ish mile trip up Angeles Crest Highway to a slightly out of the way campsite called Buckhorn. I only say out of the way because there are no signs pointing to it. You just drive to a small road that off-shoots off the main road. If you miss it, you miss the campsite.

We set up our camp and paid the $12 for the night. Took a hike to tire out the dog who had spent most of the time since we got there whining. Then, we found firewood, splashed some lantern fuel on the wood, and lit it. Which was kind of funny because Heather thought she would light it for us. I had no idea (and neither did she) that the accelerant would work quite as well as it did, so when she lowered down to light it with a match, a rather large mushroom-cloud made of file "fwooshed!" up and almost knocked her on her ass. She didn't suffer any burns, which was fortunate.

Night finally came, and we crawled into the tent. All of us. Including the dog. Which was fine up until we started to smell him. In case you don't know, hounds usually smell worse than your regular dog. And since my dog spends most of his days under a shed, he smells like the inside of a vaccuum cleaner. Anyway, this was not the main reason we decided to cut our camping trip short. The main reason was the fact that we didn't have the forsight to pack any cushioning material. All we had was sleeping bags and the thin material the tent is made out of between us and the ground. Sleeping was extremely uncomfortable, so around 5 AM the next morning, we were up already and ready to get the hell back to civilization (or a mattress, whichever we could get to first).

That was the extent of our "out-of-town" activities. There were a couple of other things we did. A couple of baby showers, some time with the parental units, and a lot of shopping for a couple of weddings that are happening in the next couple of months. So, yeah . . . umm . . . what'd I miss?