Happy Birthday

Sunday was my birthday. i turned the ripe ol' age of 33. it was a good birthday. busy, but good. for my birthday, my lovely wife got me an iPod. i've never had an iPod before. i usually just listen to music on the computer, on cds in the car or i just listen to the radio. but, so far, i am really enjoying having an iPod. i tell you this because the iPod is also the reason that i have not kayaked for the last two days. both monday and tuesday mornings ideal mornings to kayak. the weather was nice and we had someone to watch the kids. the problem is that i have a lot of music on my computer and i have been trying to organize it in my iTunes library. for the last three nights i have stayed up late trying to get the correct songs onto the correct albums with the correct covers etc., etc., etc. most of the albums that i have were compiled from various sources and not all of them have the same information. needless to say, it is taking a while to sort everything out. and since i have been staying up late, i have not wanted to get up early to go kayaking.

so, last night i didn't stay up quite as late and got up extra, extra early because i had to figure out how to load the kayak onto a different vehicle. my father-in-law is currently working on my car. and until he is finished i am borrowing his van. it didn't turn out to be a very big deal. i was able to load it without any trouble and in about the same amount of time as normal. but since it took me about a half an hour to load it on my car the first time, i thought it would be nice to give myself a little extra time just in case it ended up taking that long to load it on the van for the first time.

now fun stuff... since sunday was my 33rd birthday i decided to just make a giant "33." this was the first time that a design turned out to be easier than i expected. everything just seemed to fall into place without any trouble. i kept thinking that the hard part was coming up, but it never did. and, in the end, i think that it turned out pretty well. the only problem that i had was at the beginning. when i started out into the water i noticed that my gps was tracking my movements in the correct direction, but not in the correct location. it had me positioned in the middle of Lakeside Drive. now, i'm good, but i can't paddle on dry land. i've tried. its a great workout, but not very fun. all it took was a quick reset to get the gps, and me, back on track. the whole design only took about 30 minutes to complete so, after i finished, i paddled down to the 6N bridge to use up the rest of my time. all-in-all, it was a really good day. now if i can only get my iTunes library straightened out...

Today's Trip Stats and Map