good times

I went to Casper today for a work thing, which meant that I sat alone in the car for around six hours today. The university car I was issued had a tape deck instead of a CD player, so I spent my entire commute listening to public radio. I used to flip back and forth between KUOW and KEXP during my long commutes back in WA, but it only takes me ten minutes each way now. So it was kind of a nice change of pace to hear entire programs again. Also, I feel like I learned something about the sub-prime mortgage crisis and hedge funds this afternoon.

The drive back to Laramie was really pretty, but very windy. All that sitting made me restless, so it was nice to walk downtown, even though it was pretty dang cold and windy on the trip down. Rick and I checked out the new Thai place, which we've been waiting for for months. So has the rest of Laramie, judging from the crowd. The food was good and it felt really good to have Thai as an option again. Except for the summer roll appetizer, we ordered dishes neither of us had tried before, which was fun. We had the masaman shrimp with avocado and cashews and the chicken pad woon sen. Both were excellent, but I'm definitely having the masaman curry again. No photos this time, because I was too wrapped up in eating to remember.

Then, we went ice skating! Remember how I didn't fall down at all when I went roller skating a few weeks back? Well, tonight was a completely different story. It was my first time ever ice skating, and I was terrible. It was nice, though. Rick managed to stay on his feet the whole time, even when I crashed into him. I kind of hugged the wall for a while, and then got a little braver. I started to feel like I was getting it, but after I fell down a handful of times, I got too stiff to really do more. I lasted about 40 minutes, minus a few minutes here and there when I took a breather. The end result is two bruised knees, a pretty banged-up right hip and thigh, a sore bottom, and a slightly worse-for-wear right hand, wrist, and elbow. But it's cool. I'd definitely go again--after all, my technique can only improve, right?