Weekend at Grandma's

Well I'm back in beautiful upstate New York, visiting my grandmother for the second time in about as many weeks. I was assured by Nemer VW that my car would be ready "on Friday. Saturday at the latest". In truth, it was not quite finished when I called on Saturday, but they have sworn up and down that it will be ready for tomorrow morning. I certainly hope so, since I have a ton of stuff to do back at home, not the least of which is going to the gym. One of the best parts of being up here is that I eat constantly. For some reason, the fresh air makes me really hungry. If I get to the gym tomorrow, I should be able to convert some of this food to new muscle, rather than just wasting it (and no, I'm not worried it will become fat).

Actually, as far as trips here go, this one has been great. My Senate Contact was super sweet and drove me out here. I always like taking driving trips with him. It's fun to just kick back and watch things go by. Plus he is a really good travel companion. Some of you might not know this, but I can occasionally be very opinionated or difficult to get along with. Sometimes I've even been known to push a few buttons. This means that long trips in the car can sometimes be tricky. I never have any problems with him. We got to Lake George pretty late, as we stopped for dinner in North Adams where we saw the only gay boy in North Western Massachusetts. Poor thing! The next day we chilled with my grandmother for a while, took a boat ride up north on the lake, and had lunch before he had to head back to Boston. Since then, my grandmother has talked about him constantly, saying how nice and sweet and cute he is. Single ladies out there, listen up, my grandmother is wondering why he hasn't been snatched up. Of course, she's also wondering that about me.

One other nice thing about this trip is that I've been able to play around more with my digital camera. I've taken a ton of pictures since getting here, mostly of the abundant wild flowers. Most of my photos suck, but I am starting to get the hang of things. I also have one photo of Forget-Me-Nots that I really like. I'll either post it here or on my website (math.mit.edu/~mikehill).

Tonight we went to a charity auction for this little theater in Glens Falls (which really should be named Glen's Falls, but who's checking). I was one of two people not in high school and under the age of thirty, the other being a quite attractive woman with whom Ms. A. K. (grandma's dearest friend) offered to set me up. Not too much to do around there, so I took my trusty camera (which does fit into my pocket nicely) and set about exploring the place. Well, I found my way to a cavernous basement (if they didn't want people in it, they should have locked it up better), where I experimented with things like obscuring the flash to get better control of the light. Quite fun, I must say, until someone came down, found me, and asked "can I help you" in a quite suggestive way. She wasn't too happy, so I told her what I was doing and went on my way. I did get a few good shots out of it, I think. I also learned a few tricks, so that's good too.

That's about it. Tomorrow I should get my car back and get back to Boston. Please with me luck on this, since who knows if Nemer will make good on their promise. The real question is, should I say something?