Baltimore

This weekend marked the first of my 2006 trips. This time I went south to visit my good friend Mike in Baltimore. I've been to Baltimore before (I saw the Orioles lose), but this is the first time I visited while Mike was living there (he is doing a post-doc at the Space Telescope Science Institute). Since I have several trips looming on the horizon, I had to visit cheaply, so I took the Chinatown bus. Although it was a bit late in arrival, you can't beat a $35 round trip!

Mike and I spent most of Frday catching up, which was great. Later in the evening we ate dinner and went to see Date Movie, which I enjoyed, but which really isn't a good movie. On Saturday we went to one of the Johns Hopkins fields and played in a pickup a game of soccer. Despite having around 20 people we never evolved past two lacrosse goals. Things were made worse by having players who didn't understand the concept of marking the man. Also it was like 20 degrees with windchill making it feel even colder. Still, soccer is soccer and a good time was had. After soccer Austin and his fiance Nicole stopped by to chat a bit and then Mike and I left to get his friend Kevin from the Airport. After that was dinner at a nearby restuarant and then lots of chatting back at Mike's place. Oh, and I must not forget the viewing of an old VHS tape with Mike and Kevin acting in high school plays. I highly recommend Mike's impersonation of John Wayne. Quality.

On Sunday morning Mike, Kevin and I went to a Trap and Skeet range where I used a firearm with real ammo for the first time in my life (see picture above of Hayden with shotgun...he he). The range itself was pretty scary as there were all these people there that appeared to be displaced southerners. I was sort of feeling like I did in Nashville (not happy) and at one point it was particularly scary when I passed a group of guys having an anti-gays discussion. Definitely don't see that in NYC. At any rate, on my way out to the range I noticed the "No Aiming" sign which still cracks me up. Pretty much the last instruction you'd expect to see on the wall of a shooting range is "Don't Aim!", but that's the way it works when you're trying to shoot skeet (the disk moves so fast that aiming is too slow; you have to track and fire). However, we just did Trap which is shooting the orange disks that fly out at random directions. Here you can aim a bit, but not always. At any rate, I was quite good for my first time of shooting and even hit all the disks at one of the 5 shooting stations. I look forward to shooting again at the end of May when I'll be visiting for Austin's wedding and when the ambient temperature won't cause my trigger finger to go numb.