Yesterday Paxton and I headed up to Red Top Mountain State Park on Lake Allatoona to try out the Iron Hill Loop. It's a multi-use trail, and the only one in the park accessible to bikes.

This is a really fun little trail. It's graveled for the entire length, so no mud (and no worries about going on it shortly after a rain). We ended up doing the loop in both directions, and the clockwise route (turn left on the loop from the parking lot) is definitely easier. After crossing over Iron Hill Cove Road the trail heads down into the old iron-mining area. The most obvious remnants are the huge piles of tailings (?) from the mines. There are numbered signposts in this area, but the ranger office was closed and I don't see any description on the website. Overall the trail is pretty flat: the GPS in my G1 says the net elevation change is only about 150 feet, with a total rise of about 750 feet. The uphills are gradual, and the downhills are speedy. Use caution on the turns, though, the gravel gets pretty loose!

Iron Hill is a Muddy Spokes trail.

The truth I do not stretch or shove When I state the dog is full of love.
I've also proved, by actual test,
A wet dog is the lovingest.

I've finally posted the pictures from our Sedona trip: 88 out of the 350 we took! Not being able to leave well enough alone or do anything by hand, I've been struggling trying to get the captions that I added via Picasa out to be able to use with the qdig image gallery. Long story short: Picasa's EXIF tags and captions and exports are weird and slightly broken - python to the rescue! Long story long may be coming forthwith for the thousands of geeks who hang on my every word.

"He knew he had you beat on the flop. You knew he had you beat on the turn. That guy who's passed out at the bar knew you were beat. I'm pretty sure there's some kid in Somalia who just looked up at his mother and said, 'What the hell was Wil thinking?'"

I've got pocket queens, and a pair of fours show up on the flop. Everyone goes out but one guy ahead of me. And I raised him. Why the hell did I do that? He's probably sitting on trips! And sure enough, he gets his full house with fours over threes on the turn, while I check to the river.

I do wonder, though: if I had played it faster, I might have chased him out.

Oh, and my last hand tonight, I also lost pocket queens to K-5-K-x-x-5-x. I was all in before the flop to match the blind, so I didn't have to think about the betting past the first round, but still, losing two hands with pocket queens...

Terhan traffic

You know, this internet thing could really catch on

Thanks to David, I'm Final Four bound, bay-bee! This is SO uber-cool. Go Jackets!

\m/

I do have a few thoughts to share on the performance:
- Handel (and his buddies, for that matter) had it out for wind instruments. Exhibit A: the trumpet line in the Alleluia Chorus.
- Handel picked the weirdest lines to noodle on.

The unfortunate corollary to this is that Thomas songs have been on continuous loop in this Cooper's head. Currently playing is that pereniall favorite, "Let's have a race", but this can be replaced at any minute by "Gone Fishin'", "Toby's Song", "Thomas's Song", or that ever-popular sentimental paen to Thomas's home, "Island of Sodor".

So much going on! The best news is that Chance is back at school. He started back last Friday, and had a great day. He's been doing very well ever since (all three days), but it bodes really well. His appetite has finally kicked back in (actually around New Year's), which Ginger claims is due to this protein additive she's been giving him in his milk. Whatever works, I say.

The tough part has been living with the in-laws for the last two weeks. John's completely taken over the den (now populated with his laptop, two phones, three briefcases, a fax machine, approximately three linear feet of miscellaneous papers, and the latest stanza of "I don't see how anyone could use a monitor smaller than this one", "I don't see what good all this fast processor speed does for me", or the latest, "Seems to me like this guy had [the effect of carbs on controlling blood sugar] figured out years ago, and he wasn't an MD!"

This weekend was a nice preview of what life holds for us three or four years from now. On Friday night, my mom had the kids, and Ginger and I wanted nothing more than to curl up on the couch together and watch a movie. Kind of difficult when the aforementioned father-in-law is already in residence on the couch, so we decided to go to dinner at Stonebridge Tavern. Prepared to sit at the bar and wait for a while, who do we see but neighbor Clay, already in fine form! Turns out it's his birthday, and as his gift to us, we get to sit with them! An awesomely fun time was had by all, with conversation centering on the South Beach diet (I was the only one of 7 who wasn't on it) and Janet's new boob job. Apparently the girls got a view on a trip to the ladies room, while Clay filled us in on how well Janet was filling out her swimsuits. I already told Janet I'd be posting pictures here, so stay tuned come this summer!

Saturday night was just as nice, but in the opposite way. We had sour apple martinis and chili (it's better than it sounds) at the Litrel's, and Mike gathered mucho material for his column. We actually decided that he really needed to write an adult-themed column for a magazine that was a little more liberal than the Townelaker. Hmm, maybe I'll offer him a guest spot here!

The whole weekend felt so civilized, so sophisticated, so... much like before we had kids. Don't get me wrong, my boys are one of the best things that's ever happened to me. But it's sooo nice to be around grown-ups, and not be at work, and be with Ginger.