So I have still not made it to the Sunset Park pool ...after my last entry, Yan called and invited me to go to Long Beach with her and some of her other friends. I rarely get the opportunity to go to the beach with people, so of course I said yes. It turned out to be the perfect beach day; hot enough to make even the chilly ocean feel good, and really strong surf. We had lots of fun.

Then this past weekend I went camping with a bunch of people, including Zan and BA, Minnesota J and Nn (who's going back to Pittsburgh for a year of library school -- sadface). The weather was less than optimal. Before we left on Friday, it was monsooning in the City, but it wasn't really raining up by the campground, so we went anyway. It was cool and really humid, but the rain held off until the middle of Saturday -- at just about the mid-point of our 7 mile hike through the forest. I walked my shoes to pieces. I am not kidding: The sole of my tennis shoe actually came so unglued I ripped it off (luckily it was just the outermost sole and I still had covering on my foot) and by the end of the hike the other shoe was beginning to flap a little as well. Though our hike was not nearly as bad as two other members of our party, who got lost in the woods for several hours in the rain, finally managing to work their way back to the highway and getting a ride from a policewoman in the K-9 unit (they had to ride in the back, where the dog normally sat, and there weren't any normal seats!). The sun came out on Sunday, just in time for some quick games of Bocce and softball batting practice and a quick jump in the lake, and really the overall trip wasn't that bad. I still prefer my camping trips a little less moist, though.

So the guy in Oklahoma who was trying to break the motorcycle jump record only to crash spectacularly just provided the "wacky sports event" quotient of the local news. Of course. Hey, if OKC gets that NBA team, then they'll have to show them beating up on the Knicks, right? The Okies will have their day! Also, New Yorkers should be nicer to the Sooner State, as they may someday need to borrow their tornado-detecting radar systems and what not. There was an F-2 in Westchester last week (we drove by some of the damage on the way home from camping), and only divine intervention prevented serious injury and death. They had to call in the National Weather Service to look at the data the next day to confirm it even was a tornado. Nobody knows what the hell they're doing up here where tornados are concerned, and with the climate change only making the storms more frequent and more powerful, it's only a matter of time before this ignorance costs somebody their life. And, since the still-ongoing Queens blackout (Crazy Tree's old apartment was right in the middle of it -- good thing he's in Korea) shows just how well we execute preventive measures up here, I fear there may only be a tragedy that gets this issue its proper attention.