What a weekend

This has been a good weekend, a very good weekend in fact.

Though I can't say that things got off to the best possible start. Friday night the girl and I went out rock climbing at a gym in St Paul (the other half of the twin cities...which actually includes a whole lot more little towns between them it's really kind of odd). Anyway the fact that we were in St Paul was the bad start, getting to the climbing wall as a bit of a pain. The road to access the place was two blocks away from the actual address. It's hard to explain, but it took a while to figure out where to go. The beautiful irony of it all is that the entrance was being changed the next day so that it would be much more straight forward. Anyway, once we were in there and set up we went up to one of the bouldering caves so that I could show the girl how to climb. See I had done a couple of years of climbing back at the U of A and still know what to do on a wall. She on the other hand had never been climbing, but she was super enthusiastic about trying it out. So after explaining a couple of little things I decided to hop on the way and show her what type of form one should have while climbing (that was under the assumption that I ever had the right form to begin with, and that I would be able to find it yet again).

So all was going well for a couple of moves and holds, until I got to a smaller 'pocket' hold. To grip this properly one should insert their middle and ring finger into the opening of the 'pocket' and hang from their finger tips. All in all it's pretty intuitive and easy to do, most of the time. This time however something went wrong. While I was hanging there I heard a load pop and I kind of let go of the hold to drop to the ground. At first I wasn't sure where the sound came from, it almost sounded as though the bolt holding the 'pocket' slipped a thread. A couple of seconds later though I realized that my hand was in some serious pain. Yup, my hand made the noise. As best as I have been able to tell my right ring finger actually got dislocated. As I say, this is only a guess, because the finger is properly set in the joint and can move freely, though it is slightly painful to make a fist and I don't feel as though I can close that finger as tightly at the moment. And yes, if this does not feel as though it is improving shortly I will see a doctor.

So even though I was limited to using half my hand when climbing the girl and I hung around and did climb for a while. I was really impressed to watch her climb. She was graceful and smooth, she looks like a natural and I'm certain that she will get much better within a short while. So yeah, it looks like we will be going back for more climbing in the future.

After the climbing we went out for a late dinner. We decided to try something that neither of us had been out for before, Indian food. It was really good. I had in the past tried some Indian food made by an Indian roommate and I enjoyed it. The meals that we had were surprisingly filling and very nicely spiced. It was funny to be one of only two couples in the restaurant, it seems that even though the restaurant was open until 12 am, not many people around here think of eating after 10 pm.

Saturday was a surprisingly sunny and warm day. Really a perfect day, which turned out well, as one of the girls from my lab was getting married that day. The wedding was like all others, there is no point in really going into any details, though the drive out was quite nice as the wedding and reception were out in a more rural area of the state. The one funny part of the service was when it came time for the "lord's prayer". As most of you know, I'm not religious, so though I do know the prayer and can follow along like all the rest through the required speaking parts of the service, I don't. It's particularly funny to do this and listen to everyone else, they seriously all sound as though they are brain-washed. This is nothing personal to those who reading this who are religious, I honestly do respect your belief and encourage you to hold them. My only suggestion would be that maybe you should try to put some passion into what you say if you believe it so much. Sounding like a beaten slave praising his master really doesn't seem quite right (yeah, I'm probably going to take some flack for that comment). To me the only services that sound right are the big and raucous gospel style services. Anyway, back to the funny part. The guy sitting next to me is dating a friend from work and I know him through dodgeball, when he saw that I was just sitting there looking straight ahead through the prayer he almost started laughing out loud...which almost got me started. So maybe it's not funny to everyone, but hey, this is my blog.

Finally Sunday, which isn't over yet, has been yet another great day. The weekend dodgeball game was moved to today at noon, and that turned out to be a lot of fun. There was a really strong turnout, a few new faces and even an old one back to visit. I have to admit that I was a bit slow on my game, but I was able to pick it up a good bit by the end. Though you should remember that my finger on my throwing hand is far from perfect right now.

Finally to end off the night the girl and I are going out for pizza with another couple I know...that's right, I'm starting to introduce her to the people I know. Though that really isn't a surprise, things are going so well with us that I want my friends to meet her and see just how great she is (yes I know she will read this, but it's not like I haven't told her as much before), I really think that she is great and hope that she will meet many more of you.