fbhjr | Thoughts on the weekend

I’ve got a bunch of photos to go through, but thought I’d put down some of the things that stood out to me before they slipped away.

The traffic getting past New York and Philadelphia is just stupid. I know, I know, they are major cities and what do I expect?
But, we lost 2 1/2 hours coming home to traffic yesterday. Without reason.

On the way down there was a truck on fire on the New Jersey Turnpike. I understand why that cause a traffic jam, even if I was mad at the folks on my separate highway for slowing down to look at it.

But, coming home it was Sunday so the construction crews weren’t working, folks just drove slow. And, that annoys me.

Friday it took an hour to go 6 miles and then another hour to go 70 more once we got away from the city. And, these roads had 4+ lanes for traffic.

The Philadelphia Art Museum has some cool things. But, their signage is not good. They do give you a map, which is good, because if you depended on the signs in the museum, you’d never get out.
It’s things like “Restrooms near the North Entrance”.
First, which way is north when your inside a building with few windows.
Second, you might want to mention that it is on a different floor.

And, in the cafe, you might want to let everyone who works there know where folks should pay. There were half a dozen of us wandering around saying “where do we pay for this” and someone behind the grill saying “Don’t know, I just cook the burgers”.
The guard, when asked, sent us to the coffee counter when it turns out there was a register without a line just around the corner.

The play (Scottish) that we went to that our friend were involved in was very good.
I was conditioned against Shakespeare as a kid, but still enjoyed the play.
Our friend Bobbie was playing Lady Macbeth and did an outstanding job. As my wife said “she ruled the stage every time she was on.” And, that is very true.

Two of our other friends did the fight choreography and it was excellent.
The final fight of the play was particularly good where they used a lot of actual historical moves in a way you rarely get to see on stage.
And, they did a great job of planning which moves were where on stage to make sure the audience was never in any danger.
That might seem like it would just be something everyone should do, but one of the reasons I quit doing shows at the museum 18 years ago was they didn’t do that and I was told “not to worry” about it by the person in charge so I quit.

The class we went to that was on African and Persian martial arts techniques was also excellent. The person leading the Persian style was a friend of ours who had done a class for us in the past, so I knew his stuff would be good.
The rest was also very good and my wife and I both had a great time.

Due to the long drive back, we only stayed for a couple of hours Sunday, but there was still some good fun.
The first was a tug of war. I was on team “Oh no!” And we did quite well.

The second contest was a spear throwing one where you try and get it through a moving hoop. I think I’m going to start doing this at Phoenix Practices as it is an excellent one.

They did do a lot of sparing, which is no longer my thing. When I started doing sword stuff, now more than 40 years ago, I was big into that. These days I’m more of “show me the moves, but I don’t have to prove I can hit people with them” than I was back in the day.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s fun. But, putting on all the equipment and such is a lot for me these days.

We did do a bit of unarmored, very slow, sparing and I did manage to get in one hit on someone. But, once I did, the instructor said “OK, that clearly worked, but let’s not do it again as it isn’t the safest attack”.
So, I got a point by cheating. Ah well.

The guy I was opposite asked later “Are you going to put on armor and try?” He seemed sad when I told him I was not.

The only bad thing this weekend was my car started to make a weird noise. At first it was almost a grinding, which is very bad, but it changed into more of a rubbing noise and eventually mostly went away.
I’ve got to find time to bring it in and have it looked at. Hopefully it is not something major.

I did treat us this weekend by staying at an upscale hotel. But, it was just the two of us and near the class.
Next weekend we’re paying almost as much for a much less upscale place, but it is near that show. I don’t know why it always seems expensive that weekend, but it is.
Sad we won’t get the same service for the same price…

My wife and I both said that these three days seemed like more of a vacation to us than 10 days on a cruise to Antarctica. But, this time we were doing things with friends and doing more things we liked.
It’s not that we didn’t like the cruise. But, the folks you’re with make a big difference. And, the folks we saw this weekend made it a much nicer time.