Maine

So I just got laid off. 2/2 was my last day at work. I'm now officially a bum.
Instead of moping around and feeling sorry for myself (or getting a new job, which may have been the best idea), I decided to have a good time and do some traveling. Early last week, I loaded up the car and made the easy 10 hour drive to Saco, Maine, home of Brock.

If you've never been, Maine is really far away (500 miles to the north) and really cold (-3 degrees on Tuesday night). I find it impossible to believe a settler found this the optimum place to live. There's no way a guy was in Northern New Hampshire and thought he needed to go about eighty miles further North before setting up camp. I don't have anything against Maine itself, I'm just not sure why America goes this far. I think we should trade it to Canada, can we still do that? Listen up, Canada: We'll give you Maine for Steve Nash and the naming rights to your delicious circular bacon. Deal?

Before getting to Brock's neighborhood, I had to pass through a region I'll refer to as "The dark recesses of my nightmares". I know I've spent too much time in Northern Virginia, because dark open spaces now apparently creep the hell out of me. Every road I turned down, I thought I was going to die. If I was on The Sopranos (back when it was good), somebody definitely would have ambushed me. Since I'm not, I just assumed a moose would be the one to take my life. I turned on my brights, but immediately turned them off, because I didn't actually want to know what was surrounding my car. Anything I did happen to catch under the moonlight just made me more nervous. There were broken swing sets, abandoned barns with their doors falling off, basically if the Blair Witch made sweet love to a Yeti, their kid would live here. But I'm happy to say I got through the area, and arrived at Brock's house without dying a single time.

On Wednesday morning (I say morning but we obviously never woke up before noon), Brock and I drove up to Shawnee Peak resort for some snowboarding. Something you may not know about snowboarding: if you've only done it three times, apparently riding a halfpipe is not an easy thing to do. It may prove to be even more difficult when your foot is not properly attached into your bindings, which was a little discovery I made on my own. I dropped in the halfpipe, my front foot rose about three feet in the air, and the next thing I know I'm auditioning to be the new "agony of defeat" guy for Wide World of Sports. Other than that, it was a great day of snowboarding.

Brock is a sports writer for his local newspaper, meaning we had to attend various high school sporting events during the week. We went to two basketball games and a hockey game, where interestingly enough they actually played "Who let the dogs out" before it began. I don't know who was in charge of that, but I hope someone punched them in the face. Now, as I already mentioned, Maine is bitterly cold. The low temperatures and harsh wind chills are extremely harmful to a dry-skinned gentleman such as myself. I'm outside for 20 seconds and I turn into Pookie from New Jack City (what's my demographic here exactly, does anybody get that?) Anyway, now I'm going to the local High School girls' basketball game, licking my lips like LL Cool J on ecstasy. It's not a good look. I brought along a notepad and jotted down fake notes whenever a young girl appeared concerned/interested by my presence (the breakdown was really about 70-30) so I looked like a reporter. Paranoid? Yes, but the smartest decision I've made in a long time. When we went back to the newspaper after the game, Brock worked on his basketball article while I did some work of my own. Brock reviews movies as well, so I decided to write this letter to his editor. Apparently it was printed, copied, and passed around the office, but sadly it didn't work. By the way, Brock: Almost $37 million this weekend, #1 movie in the country? I rest my case.

One of the finest vacations I've ever had got a whole lot better that night, when we stumbled across what some call the greatest band ever. Their name is The Watson Mill Gang, and good God they're awesome. Check them out, just let that funk marinate on you for a while. I got home on Saturday night, and now I've got just enough time to unpack, do my laundry, and re-pack. Next stop: Mardi Gras in New Orleans. After that, I'll get back to work and officially retire from being a bum. I promise. Probably.