Block Island

Brooke and I took a trip with some friends to Block Island, a small island near Providence. We parked the car, hopped on the ferry, and headed over as the sun set. It was GORGEOUS.

Our friends had rented an old mansion named Lynn's Way near the southern end of the island. The four of us from Boston were the first to arrive. We settled in quickly and explored the old, creaky, yet recently-renovated house. We spent the evening lost in conversation and threw in The Pelican Brief to lull us off to sleep. As we were sitting, we heard noises from upstairs that distinctly sounded like someone moving furniture. We stopped everything and listen. Tim insisted it was the wind. But it still sounded like furniture.

Saturday morning the New York crew arrived as Brooke and I were headed out for a morning run. We ran along dirt roads lined with stone fences and green trees. It was absolutely breathtaking. When we reached the paved road that circumnavigates the southern end of the island, we decided to look for a beach.

Our exploration led us to pass a house with a sign that read "Sit your butt or take a putt". There was a park bench with a beautiful view of the ocean next to a putting green equipped with two holes (and flags!), putters, and an abundance of golf balls. We did both.

Just down the road, we found a path that through a deeply green ravine and down to a long, empty beach. There were breathtaking bluffs in the distance, and no people to ruin the view. We spent several hours there enjoying the soothing cool wind and the gentle sunlight.

The afternoon was a marathon of exploring the quaint downtown and finding food. We were STARVING.

When we returned to the house after eating, several of our New York friends had found the Guest Books for the house. Each guest could leave a journal entry. Apparently the house has quite a history. It's featured on the cover of a book called The Ghosts of Block Island. We looked for the book around the house but couldn't find it. However, the written entries helped us piece together the hauntings.

Many of the guest logs had similar themes - people heard furniture moving upstairs, and saw red eyes peering through the windows. Everyone was getting really worked up. The girls from New York were getting quite scared and went to bed.

That's when we decided to scare the daylights out of the girls. I downloaded an iPhone app that displays eyes of different colors and set the color to red. We waited two hours until they were fast asleep, and then sprung into action.

Austin took the red eyes upstairs while Tim and I went onto the porch and started moving furniture around. Austin opened the door a crack and put the eyes inside. He then started scratching loudly on the door. The girls refused to wake up. He knocked, and there was some rustling in the room. All of a sudden, the air was pierced with a blood-curdling scream.

Austin bolted down the stairs as hysteria broke out on the 3rd floor. Tim and I were trying our hardest to swallow our laughter down on the second floor porch.

The girls never came downstairs that night. We viewed the mission as a great success, but didn't think too much of it until the next morning during breakfast. The girls were FURIOUS. They had been so scared. Jen, the source of the scream, had a hard time getting back to sleep. She made one of the other girls sleep in bed with her. None of them slept well.

Mission accomplished :)

Red Sox

The Sox lost 12-0 last night. At least we had incredible seats and got to see a lot of home runs.

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.