Kayaking

One of my favorite things to do is kayak. More agile than a canoe and easier to maneuver than a raft, a kayak is the perfect watercraft.

Brooke and I snuck away from the campout activities this past weekend and went kayaking on the choppy, windy lake. I loved every second of it.

This picture, take in very harsh light, is extremely unflattering of both Brooke and myself. Yet I include it to give you a glimpse into our world.

Art

I've always loved art and creativity. The other day I found a painted canvas at a thrift store by MIT and bought it on impulse. It was a painting of a sculpted bust. The background was sky blue, the bust a marbled white, and the grade on the back said B+.

I painted it white with wall paint and then bought a $3 black paint tester to finish it off. I toyed around with several things to paint on the blank canvas. Silhouetted birds in flight, silhouetted birds on a wire, silhouetted trees, maybe some Kandinsky, perhaps some Rothko. I settled on lines.

Picasso had a blue period. This would be my black and white period. My bedroom art consists mainly of Ansel Adams photographs in black frames.

My philosophy on art like this is that a simple design becomes more and more profound the larger the canvas is. The canvas in the picture is a decent size, but if it were 4 feet tall and 6 feet wide, the painting would become a source of inspiration.

Camping

This is the phenomenal flier Anita made for the upcoming Ward Campout. It's going to be incredible!

Windows Down Heat Up

I love driving in the cold with my windows down and the heat up.

I love driving in the heat with my windows down and the cold up.

When we would leave the door open accidentally during the summer, my mother would tell us not to air condition the great outdoors. Oops.

My Favorite Snack

I Beat Brooke at Mini Golf

Kimball Farm

(Yes, this deserves its own post)

Cover Me

I love cover songs. I love originals, but it's so fun to see how other talented musicians interpret a song in a different way. Here are some favorites so far. I'd love more suggestions, so please make them in the comments.

Miscellaneous Happenings

We got rid of the hideously ugly sectional sofa that was in our living room. It wouldn't fit down the stairs, so we tried to lower it over the balcony. One side has a hide-a-bed and is quite heavy. That one soared gloriously through the air and landed with a resounding crack and contorted shape. Needless to say, its hide-a-bed days are over.

Some Russian tourists were walking by (we live on a very interesting street) and videotaped the whole thing. Look for it on YouTube.

The other half of the sectional is much lighter and fared much better. We lowered it down with no throwing involved, and it is now in the living room of a very kind Chinese family.

Our internet and television are now set up. They were previously in the name of one of our roommates who moved out in August. We agreed to transfer the service to another name, but before we could do that, he canceled it. That was fine for a week while Deathstar, a neighboring unsecured wireless router, was up and humming. But then Deathstar also moved out, and we were left internet-less.

One reason we want the internet is that Ben just modded an XBox, allowing us (among other things) to surf the internet. Tim has a Netflix account, so when you combine the two... magic happens.

Changing topics, I've been trying to force my way through 100 Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. This is my second attempt. For a book that's supposedly some of the best spanish literature of all time, it's not very captivating.

Fearing that I would never finish it, I read the last few pages. Interesting twist on things.

Institute started last night. We attended a class on The Book of Hebrews and it was fascinating. Did you know that Paul's epistles are organized from longest to shortest? All except one - Hebrews. And all but one start with the word "Paul". Hebrews again is the outlier. Some scholars doubt that Paul was actually the author of The Book of Hebrews. It appears that the compilers of the King James Version of the Bible also doubted that, as they separated it from Paul's other epistles. Fascinating.