My bro Dahood on my bike for a test ride, yesterday (as you can probably tell from the photo, Dave’s never seen a kettlebell in his life… riiiiiight …. 
):
Dave on V-Strom 20080706.
So, I did have a good Fourth of July. My friends Liz and Ping recently moved into a new (to them) house, and thought it would make sense to have a house-warming party and a Fourth of July celebration all at once. So they did.
And it was a good time. I had a good, hard PT session earlier in the day, so that was out of the way, and I finally made it up to their new place. Saw a bunch a people I knew (the Liz side of the house), and met a bunch I didn’t (Ping’s peeps, mostly). Good bunch, both. Only one case of extreme drunkenness, I think. And he went to sleep early.
We were able to see some of the local city fireworks (I think) out back of the house–when they cleared the trees. And various folks around the neighborhood were letting them off too, some were noise-makers, some were flyers.
People had brought some to the house, and it was wet from rain outside, so it was determined safe to let off said fireworks in the backyard, and amazingly, they were all legal, non-flyers. Sparklers and some fountain-type things, etc. Still, nice.
I stayed pretty late, leaving finally at like, 0230. As is my wont, I didn’t drink much alcohol, a small cup of wine, and a couple of beers (and even one of those might have been just partial). I don’t drink a lot typically because, a) I just get kind of sleepy, and b) I don’t like worrying about driving.
If there’s any kind of doubt, I won’t drive. I’m not particularly moralist about it (like some temperance freak), I just think I wouldn’t want to operate any heavy machinery impaired–especially something that could kill you and/or others. Just doesn’t make sense to me.
Which is not to say I don’t like alcohol. Mmmmm–I really like tequila, some wines, some beers, mixed drinks, etc. And although I don’t really care for the effect (i.e. the getting “drunk” part of it), I actually like the taste of say, tequila, the smell of it, that certain flavor, almost lime-y, and the pleasant burn of it in the mouth, down the throat, and the warmth in the belly. In fact, if I have a little bit of sinus drainage or something, I will take a shot of that rather than Nyquil. Same thing, but more tasty (and maybe add some acetaminophen, like in the Nyquil).
When people admiringly say, “And you can’t even taste the alcohol in it,” I’m like–”What’s the point?” ‘Cause it’s the alcohol taste of rum, or tequila, or whatever that I’m trying to enjoy. What’s a rum and coke without the rum part of the flavor, e.g.?
Saturday, I got up and took care of some things, then in the evening my brother Dahood came down from DC. We hung out, watched a movie (“Wild Hogs,” finally), and talked about motorbikes a lot. He’s really leaning (heh-heh) towards getting one soon.
Sunday was also relatively relaxed, with Dave taking the bike for a spin for the afore-mentioned test ride. And I rented a couple movies–we ended up watching “Lars and the Real Girl.” Great movie–recommended (though it sort of started to drag after while, it seemed).
Good times.
