DC Day 2 - The Yeungling Effect

After a pitcher of Yeungling, I'm posting a little late, and I'll have to make this brief. Here's a recap of day 2:
- Apparently it rains in Washington.
- When you walk out the door, and you've checked the forecast, and it says rain, and you're outside, and it is lightly raining, this is generally a sign you should buy an umbrella, or two. Most people would take that sign and stop at the local CVS... not hop on the train.
- Getting to Nat Geo in the rain? Not very fun.
- There aren't enough Dunkies around here, and not nearly enough near me.
- Nat Geo. I'm disappointed in you. Not because the exhibit wasn't cool, but I was just expecting a lot more!
- Red Line, Green Line, Yellow Line, Orange Line, Blue Line, they all make the same stops it seems. Just get on a train.
- OK well its not that simple, but it seems it at times.
- Went to an authentic Mexican restaurant for lunch. Cows tongue and grasshoppers on the menu. You'll be shocked to find out that I had a chicken taco.
- Congress, its not just for congressmen anymore. Apparently they have congressladies these days too. Interesting tour. Kind of. Meghan was disappointed with the tour, but I like that it was brief.
- Newseum? She wanted me to go into a place called a Newseum? Well, it was very cool. Check out the better half's blog for more details.
- Found a sports bar for dinner. It was fab, and I got to have Red Hook, which is always a bonus. Red Hook in DC! Who knew!
- And then there's that pitcher of Yeungling in the hotel bar last night... well, lets just put it this way, after a few glasses, Obama almost seemed appealing to me... and not just politically...

DC Day 1 - Nationals Baseball - Feel the Excitement

Here's a quick recap of day 1 in DC:

- 4:20 AM is WAY too early for anything, especially getting up to get on a plane.
- Random made up word of the day: bobulate. Meghan told me that I was all out of sorts while we were waiting for our 9 am flight (I call it sleep deprived). She said I was all discombobulated, and that I should take a walk around the terminal, until I was "bobulated".
- The walk worked, oddly enough.
- Commuter flights are my new favourite way to travel. Nothing like an empty airplane for a 1 hour flight that lands 10 minutes early.
- I hear Vegas was taking bets on whether Meghan would grab the diet coke cans that they gave us on the plane and recycle them when we got home. Degenerates everywhere were disappointed to hear that she didn't.
- Navy Yard, Washington, District of Columbia. From the looks of it, it used to be, well, a rough neighborhood. To say the least. And its going to be a fairly nice area in a couple years right now. But while we're here? Its a bit of a mix... brand new Courtyard where we're staying, with the ballpark (more later) virtually right next door. Yet its still a bit sketchy. Yeah, I'm still triple deadbolting the door...
- In all of our geekdomly genius, we broke out the phones to look for a place to eat near the White House. We decided we'd take a quick walk around the WH to start out our trip, but we needed lunch... and before I could come up with anything, Meghan found Old Ebbitt Grill. Come to find out, it wasn't exactly a tourist-showing-up-in-jeans-and-shorts type of place... but the food was very good, and they didn't rush us out the door to make room for Capitol Hill's movers and shakers (ok, i just wanted to say that.) Overall I give it an A- for food/presentation/snootiness of the maître d'.
- Walked around the White House. Its still white. I found it amusing that there are hardly any tourists at the fence at the back of the building, which provides a great view at a reasonable distance, and yet there are hoards of tourists out front, where you have to wedge yourself in for a much more distant photo op. Strange.
- World War II Memorial, very well done. Expansive, tranquill, water fountainy.
- Korean War Memorial. More peaceful, more tranquill, kind of creepy with the 125% of real life size soldier statues. But still, very nice.
- Vietnam War Memorial. Wall. Really, we've got to stop getting ourselves into so many wars. Also, do people still rub the names of the fallen onto paper? Didn't see anyone doing it today, but I did when I was a kid (back then that was about the only war memorial the city had...). Can I get a verdict on this?
- I understand not putting Metro stations underneath all of the important buildings... but what is the point of having a subway if you can't get to it when you are sick of walking?
- One other note on the subways... Boston should look into the creepy dark carvernous approach to train stations. Very cool. I forget how much the T sucks until I go anywhere else.
- Nationals Ballpark. Wow. I mean, Fenway is great, but WOW. Tix are cheap (beer, dogs and the like are still pricey enough to necessitate a second mortgage though), and the stadium is just beautiful. I hear that they'll get a big league team in there one day. Wait, what? Oh, right, that was a National League team out there... riiiight.
- Gotta love any oportunity to boo Manny.
- Sad moment of the night, after moving seats a couple of times, and each time Meghan dutifly grabed and moved them for me, I forgot the Nationals commerative beer cups that we got with our hot dogs. I probably could have gone back for them, but we were already half way down from the top level (oh yeah, that's WAY up there in these new fangled stadiums). I guess I won't be able to show off my Nats pride at home.

Next up: Congressional follies, Nat Geo, and attempting to find lunch at a place that doesn't employ a wait staff of 200.

Blame Canada

so I suppose you wonder why you haven't heard from me in a while. I won't make excuses. This summer, I just suck at posting. And I do apologize. But there are just so many things going on.
Ok, well maybe not that many things, but the olympics are on, and we all know that I was a little disturbed that I almost missed the 2002 Olympiad, so you best be sure that I'm not going to miss this one.
So what is coming soon? Well I'm sure i'm are I'll have something to say about the iPhone, on which I'm writing this post, as well as the upcoming pats season. Stay tuned.