Today is my Dad’s birthday. He went to breakfast with Mom at CrabApples and I went off for a paddle on Long Pond. I finally got out onto the water after almost a full week. I was able to do some filming for a future Wired Kayaker Podcast too.

The trip around long pond was a great paddle. There was an overcast sky with a chance of rain but I was determined to get on the water. I swear that the overcast days are some of the best ones around. You can get some really great shots on an overcast day. I paddled around and met a gentleman who had a rig on his boat for fishing while kayaking. I should have gotten an interview but my batteries were dying on me.

After the paddle I picked up Allison and we went for a delicious breakfast at Betsy’s Diner in Falmouth, MA. This place make the best breakfast around. We split scrambled eggs, perfect home fried potatoes, bacon and sweet and sour pancakes. What are sweet and sour pancakes? They are pancakes with blueberries and cranberries. They are now my most favorite pancakes ever.

After breakfast we went to Spohr Gardens in Falmouth. This is a 6 acre garden that is open to the public for free but accepts donations. The grounds are beautiful and have many different types of flowers. I used my telephoto lens with a macro setting on it. Now that I have played with it for a bit I really like it and look forward to using it much more. I need to get a tripod though. Then many more of my photos would come out much more clear and sharp.

After the gardens we went to Ocean State Job lot, I needed an S-Video cable for my computer and figured that I would have luck finding a cheap one there. I did. I also found a shorty wetsuit for $25.00. Now I haven’t lost enough weight to go modeling that thing on this blog but I will be putting that to good use to extend my paddling season. Allison found some inexpensive balls of yarn to feed her yarn activities for a while.

After that we went over and visited my grandparents and showed them about 500 photos that are on my memory card. I also showed them some of the raw footage from my kayaking on the water adventures. My podcasts are not on the laptop. I think those would have been better to show them.

Getting home I started working on fixing a problem with my neighbor’s computer. It seems to have an uncorrectable data error. I ran all sorts of tests and other things to try and get into the computer. I could just format the drive but they have photos on the computer that they want. And I do not blame them for wanting those photos. I am all digital and losing my photos would be devastating. I am glad I got an external hard drive to back them up. I went out and got a Belkin easy transfer cable but I need the other computer to actually boot up to get to the hard drive. This one went beyond my scope of knowledge. Anyway now I have this cable I may try to sell it on the company intranet or maybe offer it as a prize in another contest. Speaking of contests, I’m looking for more entries in the BenSpark’s Refreshing Soda-Club Contest. There are 4 entrants so far.

We had a delicious dinner with Dad and Mom and my sister Tara then we all went over to see my sister Shelby at The Boat House. We’ll be celebrating Dad’s birthday at breakfast at the house tomorrow. I can’t wait to give him his gift.

Today is also the 6th anniversary of when Allison and I started to date. If you know us, you know that we ‘dated’ (but didn’t realize it) for a while before we got together. We were always that couple that wasn’t officially a couple but whenever we went out with my friends there would be with all of my couple friends and Allison and I. Eventually someday we would become a couple and everyone knew it. That happened 6 years ago. And now this beautiful woman is going to be the mother of my kids. I look forward to our long life together and I know that she is going to be a wonderful Mom.