So there has been a lot going on lately but I haven’t been very good about taking pictures or anything. Here is basically what it all is:
Act I: Bike Tour & Homemade Wine Tasting Party
We have some new folks here at the studio: Andy and Katharine, who are architecture students from the University of Tennessee, and Chris, who is from the University of Kentucky. Well, to introduce them to the place a little bit, we went on a bike ride last Friday evening to Ocean Springs. The bridge across the Biloxi Bay is about a mile and a half, and then we rode along the beach, cut over to OS’s classy downtown, and then hit up Sweet’s to hang out with Jessie for a bit.
We biked back to Biloxi and then headed over to Ian’s place. It turns out that for the past couple months Ian and Baby Nick have been making wine, and so they decided to have a party. They made three different kinds and had a gallon or two of each: a pomegranate-Kool-Aid wine, a rice and orange juice wine, and another red. They are hard to describe; adjectives like “sweet” and “tasty” and “unusual” are kind of inadequate. Anyway, it was pretty delicious and definitely a good time all around.
Act II: Fourth of July and the Phone Drowning
(All photos borrowed from Jessie: Facebook)
I knew the Fourth of July in Biloxi was going to be a little crazy and it definitely lived up to expectations. Basically a ton of people go to the beach because the weather is good and the various fireworks shows (the cities and the casinos usually put on a couple) are done from offshore barges. We camped out on the Ocean Springs beach and enjoyed a nice long afternoon with some frisbee, some football, and some lighting off of firecrackers. Around dusk people start breaking out a pretty serious arsenal of fireworks and the whole beach lights up with (often drunk) people setting off high explosives.
The official fireworks were cool as well. After they were done, most of us headed over to Sweet’s until it was just about time to get kicked out. We went back to Kendall‘s place where we set off a few more fireworks by the water. All in all it was a great way to celebrate America, except that I walked into the water with my cell phone in my pocket by accident and drowned it. Despite a rigorous rinsing and drying it’s pretty clear it’s not going to work again, so I’ve got to get another phone and re-gather numbers and everything.
Jeff and Sharece’s puppy Isabella probably ate her weight in meat:
Act III: The Bar Bike Excursion
My friend Nick from Hands On is one of the craziest people ever, in a pretty awesome way, and everybody knew his 21st birthday was going to be kind of wild. However Nick decided to step it up a notch and organize one of the best (and worst) ideas ever created: the 21st Birthday Bar Bike excursion. The plan was to start at The Pub and bar-hop to East Biloxi on bicycles, arriving at the Hard Rock after hitting about eight different places. We had a great crew of around fifteen people on a motley assortment of bicycles, including probably two with lights.
As you can imagine, things went rather spectacularly off-plan. The bars were definitely fun and everyone had a good time biking since the traffic was pretty light. After the third bar, Nick was completely incapable of riding a bike, but wouldn’t be talked out of trying. He took a couple of spectacular falls (including one right in front of a police officer, who kept driving) before careening into a telephone pole head-first. He was out for a couple of seconds and probably got a mild concussion. Suffice to say, he was done for the night, but he had definitely earned his place in history.
Anyway, those are some highlights from what is shaping up to be a pretty good summer. It’s not really wild and crazy most of the time but I guess we have our moments. Tomorrow Hands On is going canoeing on the Wolf River, which should be a blast. Happy Friday everyone and have a good weekend.
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