A few years ago my extended family took a trip to Six Flags Great Adventures. We had a great time, first at the zoo, then various rides and roller coasters, and of course the soaking water canyon ride. But the best part of the day was when we played Laser-tag.

Looking at us, you wouldn't have seen a prototypical Laser-tag group. Sure, you had myself and my sister as the obvious teenaged fans. My parents and my uncle might have made you think that Laser-tag is best left to the kids. You would have been scratching your heads at the two final members: my grandparents. Nonetheless, I managed to convince everyone that not only was this a good idea, but that it would be fun too.

In the training room, we managed to align ourselves on the same team. Our opponents were a group of eight pre-teens. As my sister explained to my parents and uncle how to aim and to not get shot, Grammy worriedly asked me for advice. I told her and Pops just to stand in the base and shoot at anything that moved.

We entered the room and I escorted my grandparents to our base. Then the game was on! It started out like your typical game of Laser-tag: dark, noisy, and fog machine-smoky. My sister and I scored some quick points by attacking the target in our opponents base. Soon, we were overrun by a four-person group of the pre-teens, who constantly kept us in the shot/recharging state as they followed us like vultures. I glanced at the wall for the score and saw that we were not doing well. I applauded the pre-teens for their clustering strategy. Still, I wondered where the other four of them were...

At the end of the game, I wandered back to our base to get my grandparents. Team Freed/Landis had been outscored like few others. I asked Grammy how it had gone. She told me the other four kids were actually inside our base the whole game, and that her and Pops constantly had the lasergun against the target on one of the kids' backs. She also said "I kept yelling at them: 'Get out of my house!'" I thought I'd never hear anything funnier related to Laser-tag!

After the game, the Laser-tag operators hand out paper strips with individual scores on them. I collected my below-average score and noted that the pre-teens were getting mostly Ace ratings. Grammy's score card had two more surprises: a mind-boggling 97.5% accuracy score, and a rating of Top Gun!

An interesting read about people who've known the Internet their whole lives: "digital natives"

I just got back from the movie theater where I saw Transformers, and it was definitely more fun than I expected! An unbelievable amount of CGI, but it still retained some of its original charm :-)

The weekend started normally, a nice bike ride with the Cycling Spoken Here group totalling 30 miles in 100 minutes. Then a turn for the weird. I came home and noticed tire tracks around the house, like you'd expect from a four-wheeler. I thought it was a little strange, but I figured kids will be kids. We had a fun day of playing Halo on the XBox and doing our usual Saturday evening activities (Sweet Tomatos, REI, etc).

On Sunday we realized the Internet was not working. We called up Time Warner and found out the problem was with our line outside (usually the problem is inside the house -- a loose cord, for example). Later on we took the dogs outside, and realized that the tire tracks coincided exactly with the location of our cable wire. We walked up to the cable box and saw that it had been pulled completely out of the ground! Someone must have pulled the cable out and replaced it. The TV is working fine, just not the Internet. I called Time Warner again and they had no record of anyone coming to the house. The repair appointment on Tuesday should be enlightening!

We finished the weekend with Elise's longest stint in her new running program, two and a half miles at the Apex Community Park.

An unspectactular 17-12 loss, with not enough hitting and not enough fielding. My line: 1-2, 2B, R, 2RBI

33 miles in 1:52, with no gas remaining on the last major hill. Still, a good ride!

28.6 miles in 1:33, an average of 18.5 mph -- yikes! I guess I have to bring my A game to these weekend rides!!

Grandpas just don't play well from behind, it seems. A 14-2 deficit after the first inning turned into a 28-9 defeat. My line: 1-3, 3B, R, 2RBI.

The Grandpas got blown out last night, losing by the mercy rule after a mere five innings. The final tally was around 15-1. Very few bright spots, although a surprise roster change moved me to #2 in the batting order. Coach quickly pointed out that every time I moved up in the order last year, I'd go 0-4. I did ok in the new spot, but the change didn't provide the desired spark in the offense. My line: 2-3, 2B.

I went out with the Cycling Spoken Here road riders, expecting a "15-16mph 90 minute ride". I checked my speedometer after about 20 minutes, and noticed we were indeed averaging 14mph. Of course, my speedometer only records data 3/4 of the time, so we were on a pace much closer to 20mph than 15! At least it was a large and fun group to ride with. In the end, we tallied approximately 34 miles in 1:52, for an average pace of just over 18 mph. I had been talking tough during the week that I wanted to try a faster group, and I got one! It was pretty tough (also near 90 degrees outside), but I had a good time, and will likely give it another shot next week.