Good day, good weekend, and most of all, good friends and family

Had a really good weekend. I can't thank my folks enough for their support of my upcoming backpacking trip. On Saturday they took me to REI in Reno and bought me a backpack. REI Crestrail 70.

I'll be spending this next week learning how to outfit it for comfort and pack it correctly. In a couple weeks or so I'll start taking my walks with it on. Speaking of which, I've been doing good on my walks. I've walked everyday since deciding to take this trip, and have increased the distance little by little each day. I decided, though, that I should take Sunday's off each week from walking to let my body rest and heal. 


Today was especially good because my friends Paul and Laurel decided yesterday that they wanted to take a daytrip in the car and come visit me from Sacramento. I had no idea of the surprise they had in store for me! 

Paul and Laurel

I was excited enough just by the fact that they were coming all the way over here to visit me. When they got here we did the usual chit-chat of "how was the drive?" etc etc. Introduced them to a few of the critters and showed them around the house a bit. I asked Paul if he brought his camera because I wanted to check it out and compare it to mine since they are similar. He went to the car and grabbed it, came back in with a big camera bag, pulled out a  Canon Rebel EOS XTi and said "Here you go Jimbly, you can have this". I couldn't believe it. I even asked "Oh, are you letting me borrow this?" Paul had to re-clarify to me that he and Laurel bought the camera to give to me. CLASS ACT!!! 

Many of you have seen my sunset pictures and know that I have been frustrated with the limits of my current camera. Somehow they put their resources together and found a way to get me something that I can really work with (as soon as I get past the learning curve!). I think what I appreciate the most isn't so much the camera itself (although that is TOTALLY FUCKING AWESOME!!!), but the fact that they like my sunset pictures enough to believe in my potential and wanted to help me with that. Thank you so much, guys!!!

The rest of the day was spent hanging out with them at a local coffee shop, driving into Carson City and checking out the capital building, then eating dinner at Francisco's Mexican Restaurant. Excellent excellent day! Oh, and also Paul left his telescope here for me to borrow for however long I want. What's really cool about that is that apparently there is an adapter for the camera they gave me that will let me attach it to the telescope! Hopefully I'll be able to get you guys out there some totally stellar pics in a few weeks! (see what I did there? hehe)  

The only other update I have right now is that I decided to do some volunteer work for our local food bank. I'm bored to tears of sitting on my ass. Just because I can't get a job doesn't mean I can't do something. I start tomorrow and I'll be driving a box truck to pick up food at Wal-Mart and then helping out for a couple hours. More on that later. In the meantime, here's a picture of my dog Rocky.