Weekend of March 18 – 20th
Friday – Friday night was one of a rare breed; I really didn’t do anything major or crazy.  Most of the night was taken up by cleaning up my room, playing video games, and going over my climbing gear.  I headed to sleep around 1:30 or 2:00, so I’d be able to get up semi-early enough to meet my Aunt in the morning.Saturday – Today is where the fun of the weekend started; I went to the Boston Flower Show with my Aunt (the keynote speaker), and did some pub-crawling and cigar-smoking.  Ohh, and made two people cry in pain for a good 30min straight. :)Saturday started off when I met my Aunt at Riverside at 10:30, and we took the pike to the seaport convention center.  She was scheduled to speak at 1:30, so we took our time checking out all of the presentations and displays, taking lots of pictures and generally just being impressed at the work that people put into these exhibits.  One exhibit had a full-on treehouse, massive pinwheels, and seven types of tree that aren’t normally in season (the gardeners had “forced” them into season via a multi-year-process of heating and cooling the trees).  One Exhibit even had freaking OWLS in it; a barn owl, a great horned owl, one other, a Peregrine Falcon, and a Turkey Vulture.  Yeah, impressive, to say the least.My Aunts talk itself was very cool, though it was stuff I had heard before from her when I had stayed over.  The real interest to me was how she talked, more than what she actually said… she is an amazing public speaker, and her strength lies in her ability to adapt to the situation and change her talk as the situation demands.  First off, she mentioned me and did a quick bit about the traffic and insanity of driving in Boston.  The real kick though, was when HAIR started singing and dancing outside to promote their new show and my Aunt just rolled with it and actually answered questions during the talk, instead of waiting for the end.  I’m definitely looking forwards to seeing more of her talks.After my Aunt and I parted ways, I headed back to my place to chill for a bit, then headed over to Daniels house to pre-game for a friends birthday party.  I arrived perfectly as he got in after biking over from campus, and we chilled out for an hour or so; relaxing, drinking some scotch, and talking over everything thats been going over.  I’ll admit, I had been a bit worried that he was getting pissed at me for how much of an ass I was being to his girlfriend, but I thik he understands where I’m coming from, and he see’s exactly what I see in who she actually is… the differance is that she is madly in love with him, instead of just using him as a stepping stone.After our chill-fest we jumped in the car and headed downtown for the birthday party.  I was expecting something akin to a pubcrawl, but it turned into a “take over the back corner of a bar and just fortify our position with pitchers of beer.  I, of course, was having none of that so I spiced everything up by getting the Birthday Boy (and Daniel’s brother, since he asked) a shot: Devil’s Piss to be exact.  I’ve mentioned it before, but Devil’s Piss is a shot of Tequila with HALF A BOTTLE of Tabasco sauce poured in.  Sam (the Birthday Boy) didn’t stop crying for 25min, and didn’t stop randomly yelling out in pain for a good 45min.  Brian (Daniel’s Brother) fared slightly better, in that he didn’t cry too much, but still had a very dazed look nearly an hour after taking the shot.The rest of the night was fairly slow, and so Mike, Daniel, and myself headed out around 11:30 to meet Dave at Cigar Masters.  Daniel left us right after we left, since he was just using our exit as cover so that he could head home to crash early before climbing on Sunday.  Mike, Dave, and myself spent the rest of the night relaxing and smoking some amazing cigars: rew Estate Java’s, to be exact.  I’d never heard of them before Dave brought them up, but DAMN were they good… very strong coffee / chocolate flavoring, with just a hint of smokeyness and bite.  I didn’t drink any more that night, since I had spent too much already, so I drove Dave home once we finally left at closing time, and then crashed as soon as I got home.Sunday – Sunday started out way too early for a Sunday; I had only gotten about six hours of sleep by the time I dragged myself out of Bed, packed my gear, and was on the road to meet Kittie at her place.  Dave was coming in on the green line where Kittie and I would meet him, and then we’d move and set up at Hammond Pond.  We only had one harness, so Dave made a quick Swiss Seat while I racked up, and I was already dropping the toprope to Kittie by the time Daniel arrived with Amanda, Ashley and Stef.  Kittie did really well on her first outdoor climb, although she did end up changing shoes after the first attempt, since Daniels little sport shoes were way too small for her (impressive, since she’s a Ballerina).  With the right shoes though, she busted our two really nice climbs by the time I took her and Dave back (Work for Kittie, studying for Dave).  We ate a quick lunch from Chipotle, I said my goodbyes to Kittie, dropped Dave at his place, and then headed back.The rest of the days climbing was really solid, but fairly standard-issue; theres really no routes at Hammond I haven’t lead.  I tried messing around with some teaching and other fun, riding Rebecca’s bike around for a little while, but by four or so everyone was tired / cold / bored enough that we headed back to the cars.  After some fun climbing up and surfing down the massive ice formations in the parking lot everyone parted ways; I drove Ashley and Amanda home, while Daniel and Stef headed back to the hill and Rebecca rode her bike back to her place.The rest of the night was really low key and relaxing; I got some Laundry done and played some video games, cleaned up my gear and organized my room, and just generally kicked back after a weekend well spent.