ascanius

The last three weeks have been fun. I left on the 26th and spent two weeks down in St. Thomas. It was a hell of a good time. I got wicked sunburned snorkeling on my second day down there, so I was kind of incapacitated for a couple days after that, but other than that it was all gravy. I met Chainlink down there, my first ever real-life meet-up from the site, and we got to hang out for a few hours. I was drinking a cup of coffee, and about half an hour into the conversation what should have been a small chuckle turned into a complete eruption of coffee all over Chainlink and his banana bread. I tried to convince him this was just the island ritual of 'sharing our water,' but I'm not sure he believed it. Coffee eruptions aside, though, it was good to meet him.

I have a fairly good friend who's been living on St. John for the past year, and I got to meet up with her and her new boyfriend, too. That was fun. She's working as a teacher, and staying in what she calls her "shackteau," a really sweet little place with an amazing view. She's dating a stone-mason from Vermont who lives on his sailboat. $150 a year lets you moor up in the harbor, and you can get little wind turbines and reverse-osmosis desalinators that let you live more or less independently. She seemed really happy, and it's always nice to see people you really like doing really well for themselves.

I got back and finished up the memorandum of law I was working on before I left. I think I did a pretty good job wrecking the guy who took us to court, but we'll find out if the judge agrees with me next month.

Then I went to Vermont for the weekend. My dad asked me to watch his dog, Ginger, because he's off in Boston visiting his lady friend, so I took Ginger with me. She got to splash around in the White River a bunch, which she loved since she's part lab. The, on Saturday, we drove up to the Northeast Kingdom, where one of my oldest friends is working as a hand on Butterworks farm. It's a pretty awesome place. She's in grad school for natural resource management, and got interested in Butterworks because they are one of the very few dairies in northern New England that grow their own grain, and one of the even fewer organic farms to do so. They've also got a big old wind generator that makes all their power, and they process their milk into yogurt right there on site. It's one of the most successful farms in the Northeast Kingdom, and it's really something to behold. Ginger and I got to help out with evening chores. It's been a few years since I've been in a barn, and it felt pretty good to get my boots dirty again, so to speak.

I got a flat tire, so I drove home in torrential rain through a flash-flood danger zone on my doughnut. (Interesting. Doughnut is not recognized by my spell-check, but donut is.) Good times.

Anyway, life is good, and I hope you're all doing well. Thanks for the birthday wishes, by the way.