Finally, Summer Vacation  − 18 June, 2007

Note: I posted this article BEFORE my stories about the vacation itself (which start here), leading to a sort of time paradox if you're reading these articles in chronological order. The English language has yet to invent tenses for when you are writing in the present that you're going to be writing about the past in the future.

See, this is where Scotty would say the Dilithium crystals are about to blow apart and give up.

It's been a weird two weeks.

The last day of school was before Memorial Day. Now, traditionally, teachers get the summer off -- not so with me. My first day of actual freedom was today. Why?

• The week of June 4th, I had two days of teacher planning. There were two days free in that week, but since I had to spend them going to doctors' offices, they don't count.
• The week of June 11th, I had a week of teacher training, more or less mandatory, with a 40 minute commute to and from the training site.
• Last week, I hinted around at having taken some time off to write music. True. But like the Minbari, sometimes I keep the whole truth to myself. I was actually accompanying my wife on a business trip to Baltimore, MD. I thought I'd have time to write music while sitting around the hotel room, waiting for her to get out of meetings.

Well, that last idea was, as they say, a good plan, but not the actual implementation. Given a foreign territory, a car, and a camera, I pretty much bailed out of Baltimore and explored the surrounding state and national parks.

This is where I say, "It's a long story."

Fortunately, here on Dandelife, I can actually finish my long stories.

If you want a sneak preview of the photos I took, follow this link to my Flickr page; I have put 53 of the photos in a set called "Baltimore" (of which, of course, only 2 photos have anything to do with Baltimore itself).

I'll be posting the story a piece at a time starting tomorrow. And the photos, of course.

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