These last two weeks have been a little crazy with travel and meetings, so I've missed a few days. I'll break it down into separate blogs, so you don't get too bored with a long entry.

Monday started off with a trip to Blowing Rock, NC via Charlotte. Our CEO invited me and my co-workers (who do the same job as me in Raleigh and Charlotte) to have our quarterly meeting in his town of semi-retirement. The invitation included a 5 mile hike and dinner at his mountain home. Although we were all a little apprehensive about the hike, it turned out to be a lovely afternoon -- one of those things you are glad you did after the fact.
When we arrived at our host's house, a strange site on the rock wall caught my eye. I'm not usually very observant, but luckily I didn't miss this gem. It's probably a little too ugly and mannish to be the virgin Mary, but it does look a little like Jesus, or John Lennon, maybe. I suggested they charge admission to see it to pay off the new house, but think the whole thing freaked out the CEO's wife, and she's probably going to have it removed.

Straight from the airport to our department's annual Braves outing, which consists of beer and hotdogs, but not necessarily any baseball. I don't think I saw an actual play, but did check out the fireworks when we hit a homerun. The Braves aren't fun to watch anymore since we lost all of our great pitchers, except Smoltz.

Fortunately, Wednesday, my meeting at the airport ended early, so I was able to come home and get our weekly CSA (community supported agriculture) with Derek. The CSA is a pretty cool subscription to fresh produce from local farms. The fruit and vegetables all taste amazing, but it is sometimes hard to find recipes to use everything that comes in the bag. This week, we got green beans, pac choi, tomatoes, blueberries, pears and basil.