Those who are in the know realized that this was Carnival weekend at Carnegie Mellon. That means scantily clad women get into tiny penis shaped objects and have men shove them down a hill at break-neck speeds. Or buggy, as we called it.
That would explain the lack of posting recently. That and a completely jammed weekend.
Thursday night I manage to stumble home from work and I went straight to bed. My stomach was queasy, I had a whomping headache, and felt like I was going to hurl everytime I moved. Fun state to be in. Hell, that used to be Saturday night not Thursday night. Anyway, after a pretty sleepless night, I got up at 5:45 to get ready to go out to buggy. Oh, did I forget to mention for everyone that buggy begins at sun up? Oddly enough, I think that Carnegie Mellon may be the only campus in the United States that gets more alumni back for Carnival than they do for homecoming.
Anyway, Gage was going with me out to his first race day. We parked in the lot for my office which is about a 1/2 mile walk from campus. So, I packed the camera, his diaper bag, his food bag, extra clothes, a jacket, the Snugli, and his toys into the stroller and we set off. I was hoping the stroller ride would put him to sleep, but no such luck. And, to top it off as we got close to campus he decided that he was done riding. So, now I'm carrying him in one arm and pushing the stroller full of crap with the other. We finally got to campus, met up with Tom and I stashed the stroller near the buggy truck. We put Gage on my back in the Snugli and proceeded to watch the races and mingle with alumni. That morning went by without too much incident. We saw Mel, Madler, Stengel, Abby, Billy, Karen, Sheby, Virginia, and a ton of other alumni. Unfortunately, at the end of the morning, instead of three teams returning for second day SDC only had one because of some DQ's. But it was still a decent day. Everyone loved Gage. We even had some random girls stop us for a picture. After the races, during which we covered about 6 miles or so, we headed the 1/2 mile back to the car so Gage could get dropped off at Aunt Jenny's house.
Then I headed into work. After work, Susie, Tom, Terri, Jenny, and Gage met me at my office and we headed down to PNC Park for the Pirates Game. Gage's first Pirate game actually. By the time we got to the ballpark to find a place to park Gage decided his stomach had enough. He puked four times in a row covering himself, the car seat, and anything within range. Thankfully, I was a) in the front seat and b) in someone else's car. Anyway, once we got into the stadium the game wasn't bad. They actually won. The crowd was stunned. They hadn't seen a Pirate win in a decade or so. After the game we had to get out of the traffic, straigten out the cars, and get home so I didn't get to bed til after midnight.
Then it was back up at 6:00 the next morning. Terri, Gage, and I got out to buggy and the first thing they told me was that they were running exhibition heats and they wanted to know what hill I was going to push. So, at 7:30 in the morning I found myself sprinting up Hill 5 on Frew Street. Thankfully I beat the person I was racing against. And, I got to push Rage, which is the last buggy that I helped to build when I was at Carnegie Mellon. Then we watched the rest of the races, saw more alumni (some from the late 50's and early 60's) and took a big alumni picture on the hill like we used to.
After leaving the races we decided to have lunch and then walk down to Pitt where Joe, Dwight, and Craig were involved in various postions at the 8th Annual Trashionals tournament. We got there while most everyone was out to lunch, but we did finally manage to find someone who was able to tell us what room Joe was reading in. So, we settled in to wait for him to return. By a complete fluke one of the teams competing in his room in the first round after lunch was composed of only one person. Apparently there aren't many hard fast rules about picking people up along the way so Tom and I ended up competing with The Jimmy Stewart Experience for the rest of the day. I was Harvey the Rabbit in case anyone was wondering. Trash is very different from any other type of trivia competition that I've ever competed in. Tom got the hang of it much quicker than I did. And, he's much more up to date on the latest pop culture which is 75% of Trash.
After we finished competing, we headed back to campus to pick up the car. Then everyone met at our house and we ended up playing Trivial Pursuit til after midnight.
Sunday morning it was up early again (though not quite as early) for church. After church we headed straight home, changed our clothes, and then headed over to help Susie move into her new apartment. Two words...disposable furniture. I'd say something about the number of books, but I keep hearing this voice in my saying, "Hello Pot, this is Kettle." Anyway, we got everything unloaded thanks to Susie's parents, her sister Jackie, and Randy. Then most of us crashed in the living room and watched the end of the Nascar race on the free cable. I don't understand why Biffle is having such a good year. I wish it would stop. After getting cleaned up from the move, we headed over to Randy and Elizabeth's and met up with Hoss and headed out to Quaker Steak and Lube for two huge buckets of wings. Then a stop for ice cream and we were headed home.
Let's just say I woke up this morning and there wasn't a muscle that wasn't screaming, "You Bastard! What have you done to us!" Thankfully the pain subsided to a dull thud pretty quickly, but my stomach apparently didn't care for the combination of Louisianna Lickers, Golden Garlic, Parmesan and Pepper, Onion Rings, and Orange Sherbet. And it wasn't shy about reminding me all day. In fact, it's still a little touchy. I guess some of the iron must have worn out or rusted or something.
Anyway, I guess that's enough for now.