Washington DC!

*Getting to Washington DC without much traffic at all!  We made really good time and I even had stuff to talk about with my boss the whole way here.

 

*Going to an amazing pizza place for dinner.  My boss had a magazine that listed the best pizza places in town and we went to one of the original 2 which is still ranked at the top.  The pizza was simply amazing and we both really enjoyed what we got.  On the way there we made a number of wrong turns because roads kept turning or not turning and we simply couldn't keep up, but I had the map out the whole time and we kept making it closer until we finally got there.

 

*Flying through DC on the way back from the pizza place.  We didn't literally fly but we made it all the way across the town, past embassy row and the mall to our hotel in about 15 minutes without a single wrong turn.  Quite frequently lanes would disappear into parking lanes and people cut people off everywhere due to things like that, and we even had to do it a couple times ourselves but it was a whole lot of fun to ride around oddly enough.

From Food to Weather

*Apples w/ caramel dip!  I convinced myself to grocery shop a little healthier than normal and get some fruits and veggies and fruit/veggie juice.  To help balance out the good healthy idea, I got caramel apple dip which is quite yummy.  The advantage of getting it, since it isn't exactly healthy, is that it has already lead to me eating 2 apples today which is 2 more fruits today than normal!

 

*Respect.  I have apparently gained enough respect from my bosses to lead to me being taken along on a business trip for a meeting with a guy whose boss' boss is the head of NASA...This guy is so far above me that it is probably quite unusual for him to be in a meeting with someone as new as myself.  They are taking me along because I know the most about some of the things they want to discuss...

 

*Cleaning kick.  I got on a cleaning kick and completely organized and vacuumed and wiped down (where appropriate) everything in the main room, dining area, and kitchen.  I started out only attempting to do something small but knowing I needed to do more, and ended up feeling motivated to do it all.  Always a good thing to have a clean place.

 

*I went to the Virginia Air and Space Center today for free since I am a NASA contractor and it is "NASA Days" at the center.  It was cool to wander around and look at what they had and realize at times that I knew more about some of the things than they had written down, but most of it I didn't know.  Most of all it was good to get out of the apartment and just drive somewhere with the windows down when the weather is so good....

 

*Great weather.  Today the high was probably in the low 70s and slightly breezy, making it comfortably cool in the shade and warm in the sunlight.  Perfect day to get out and drive with the windows/sunroof open!  I love days like this.

Command & Conquer

*Getting Command & Conquer 3!  I just got the newest in my favorite line of games!  This should keep me entertained for quite a while :)  The graphics are cool, the units are new, and the acting in the videos is a whoooooole lot better.

 

*Clean windshield.  It doesn't sound like much, but when you can barely see out the windshield when facing the sun, and try to clean it and make it a bit better, but streaky (which makes the sun glare all over), getting some specialized cleaning supplies and getting a perfectly clean window is amazing.

 

*Busy days.  Work has been busy, but not overly busy which has made the time at work begin to pass faster than ever.

Soccer Channel

*Discovering the Fox Soccer Channel!  I love watching the game (in Spanish or English) as I personally think it is the sport that takes the most endurance and probably skill as well.  I discovered the channel on Saturday and happened to catch one of the USL (United Soccer League) semi-final playoff games on Sunday which ended after 2 overtimes and penalty kick shootout.  Exciting game!

 

*Finishing up my 6th week of work.

 

*Busy work week ahead.  After sometimes having too little to do during the week, I will have a full week which will make time fly faster, since it isn't too full to get it all done in time.

 

*Getting outside and jogging.  Even though it was over 80 I still got out for the first time and jogged around the circle.  If I can manage to do that a few times a week I may get my endurance back up, but this is a good start to the routine, and hopefully I can keep it up.

Telecon, Turkey, Trance & Talking

What do Telecons, Turkey, Trance & Talking have in common?

 

*Kickoff Telecon.  I took part in a kickoff telecon for work, though I can't really say what for here, but it was a welcome break from the reading I had been doing, and oddly enough kept me awake since it was all new information to me.

 

*Turkey sandwich.  I finally got to eat after the long long telecon and the turkey filled me up right, like the commercials would say.  Woulda fallen asleep starving in the afternoon without it.

 

*Trance.  No, not a hypnotic sort of trance, or stare off into space half awake, half asleep kind of trance but quite the opposite.  That's right, trance as in techno.  It not only kept me awake during work reading and enabled me to completely block out my surroundings and get reading done (though required rearranging my monitor location so people can't sneak up on me when I can't hear them).  Luckily there are a couple good trance free internet radio stations to listen to at work.  It also inspired me to get some trance on my computer for keeping me awake driving on long trips.  I must say it is pretty awesome music (listening to it now).

 

*Coming home after a day of work and talking to Adam on the phone.  We got caught up (he went to Alaska to hunt!) and he decided he would crash here next Tuesday!  It will be good to see him again, even if just for an evening because my apartment is closer than his to his work location tues & wed.

 

You guessed it (probably unless you are asleep which would be ironic), they keep me awake!

Organized & Social Interactions

*Organization.  I organized all of my stuff in the office, preparing a cycling color code setup for the tasks.  Each task (project) has a color of hanging file folders, regular file folders, binder label, and outlook calendar label so that they will all match.  There are 4 different colors and will cycle through with tasks to keep it organized.  Being someone who likes organization means this makes the work environment a lot more relaxing.

 

*Catching up with Tara on the phone.  It had been about a week and a half since I talked to her last, and it felt like a much needed catch up.

 

*Frisbee.  I got out and threw a Frisbee around with Kevin and Mark.  It had been a few weeks since I got any exercise at all, and I really needed the physical and social activity.  It was a welcome break from the normal evening routine.

Change of Pace & Surprise Rebate

*Getting the initial calendar schedule for a new task at work that may start Friday.  With all the reading I've been doing, it will be a nice change to work on a new fast paced review task for a couple of weeks.  We might not get the task contract in place in time for the kickoff, but as soon as we do, I'll have something else to occupy most of my time at work.

 

*Making brownies.  I started with a recipe I knew worked fine and modified it a little bit and it came out great.  I got to eat a warm brownie with ice cream for a late dessert. yum :)

 

*Unexpected rebates.  I got 2 substantial rebates in the mail that I was not expecting.  I was counting the number I was still waiting on and had gotten the last of them a couple weeks go.  These say they are for what I was expecting, but now I don't know what the last ones were for.  Can't complain at all though!

 

*Remembering to a post before someone bugged me about it :-P

Lazy Sunday

*Sitting around lazily and watching an action movie with special effects so bad its hard to figure out what is actually supposed to be going on at times (and it was made in 2002!).  I guess they couldn't actually afford to show a real moving train or pay good model makers.  Its funny to watch ordinary model trains crash into each other.

 

*Fries, chicken tenders, and tacos, all in one day!  Yum...

 

*Tropical storm turned away from the potential path near us.  We might get a little rain, but not much.

Airplanes, Airplanes Everywhere!

*Driving to work and seeing raptors and F-117's (stealth) frequently. If you pay attention in the building you can hear them outside, but otherwise they are easy to ignore and you don't notice them when working, but it is cool to look up in the sky and see such high tech planes

*Airshow. I went to the Oceana Air Show on Saturday and it was pretty awesome. The air show started Friday afternoon and runs though Sunday around 10pm, opening Saturday from 8am-10pm. The only other air show that I have been to was in Cleveland which I thought was pretty awesome since the blue angels were there and performed for 10-20 min. HOWEVER, the blue angels at the Oceana show performed for just over an HOUR! There were all sorts of planes and stunts and it was cool to see them all, even if they couldn't do supersonic for fear of breaking windows. What do you get when you cross an aerospace engineer, a digital camera, and a huge air show? 450MB of pictures and videos (~300 pics/vids). The guys near me at the show made that seem like a tiny number as they clicked off 10-20 per pass of an airplane with their huge cameras (though one guy had a press badge for an unknown airplane press type thing)*Having a camera with such a fast shutter speed (1/2000 sec), non-software stabilization, and zoom that I could take a picture of a plane flying by quickly with its bomb doors open and see clear details!

*Driving down to Virginia Beach for the air show expecting it to take an hour (or worse since it was Saturday) only to discover I made it there in just over 35 minutes. I'll keep that in mind when I don't feel like going to the beach because I think it is too far....

Great Weather and Nearly Finished Moving In

*Perfect Weather.  Upper 70s to low 80s and partly cloudy with a slight breeze made driving with the windows open really nice, and I opened up my sliding door and put a fan in the bedroom window pointing out to create a fresh breeze in the apartment!  Weather like this makes me want to just stay outside, but I don't have anything to sit on outside to read outside.

 

*Talking to a bunch of UCMers on the phone right before bible study, and then some on Saturday.  I got to talk to Heather, Stephen, Shelley, Kyle, and Andrew all before bible study and Angela, Tara, and Andrew on Saturday during the VT football game.  Its good to talk to everyone, and I now know what its like to be on the other end of the phone when it gets passed around to a bunch of UCMers which happed a few times while I was there.

 

*Unpacking the last box of stuff from the move!

 

*Putting away most (not quite all) of the stuff that still was laying around and hadn't found a home yet!  The apartment is fairly clean and already more organized than my old one ever was, at least with respect to papers and files, etc.

Eclipse

*Lunar Eclipse. Tuesday morning revealed a total lunar eclipse. I don't think I've seen a full one since I was much younger looking out the window of my parents house in Ohio and checking the status every few minutes until it fully eclipsed. As I recall, it may have been pretty cold outside and that is why we were inside. I could see the eclipse quite clearly from the other side of the parking area in front of my building. From that point, the moon was across the apartment lake so there was nothing blocking it. I was able to get a few pictures of the moon during different parts of the eclipse with my camera which was cool, and I think I may try to venture out to the river next time up in the park near Yorktown at one of the many many pull off locations if I ever get the chance again (and it isn't at 5am).

*Reading a book. I finished Harry potter right after my last update, and I finally went back to the library to turn it in and borrow some more books. After wandering around for a while I decided to pick up a couple Clancy books even though I figured I may not be in the mood to read those, I also stumbled on another author whom I like and had found before by accident. I think I originally intended to get a Dan Brown (Davinci Code author) book, and ended up with a Dale Brown book, but it was really good, so I got 2 more of his as well. Then I noticed some books by Ray Bradbury and picked up one called "The Martian Chronicles" about people going to mars in 1999-2007(ish) which was written in 1950. It was interesting to see how he thought technology and society would be in our day, and they did not have computers (in the book) but had rockets that could seemingly fly anywhere as much as they wanted, and racism was still very present in the form of near slavery like behavior. I read the book in one evening and enjoyed it. I could tell partway through that he had written Fahrenheit 451 (though I found out later that 451 was written later) as well, as there were some strong references to book burning (though I've never read 451). (The Martian Chronicles turns out to be his first novel, followed by 451, another, and then Something Wicked This Way Comes)

*Three weeks of work complete. Three weeks have been completed and I am still enjoying it. Oddly enough I was very glad when my boss got back from his trip on Friday around lunchtime because I was running out of things to do and tired of reading. He quickly gave me plenty to do and that actually made the time fly by. Next week is a big presentation so we have a lot of work to do.

*Three day weekend. With labor day on Monday, I have 3 days of nothing to do, and its awesome. I went to the DMV to change over my license and become officially a VA resident, and that took most of the morning, but since it isn't a positive, I won't say more.

*Quick post office trip. After the DMV I was dreading going to the post office and when I got there the line seemed moderately long compared to the other times I went, but not compared to the CS PO. I looked around and saw the automatic package center but didn't know if I could use it for what I was mailing, but there was a lady from the PO there to help people! I walked right up and she said it was fine and helped me mail it very quickly. I was in and out in just a couple of minutes and never had to stand in the long line!

*Chili. I made a ton of chili earlier in the week and ate it for leftovers a lot. yummy yummy.

*Fajitas at Kevin's. Kevin made fajitas and we chatted a lot since nobody else could come and stay. It was good, and next Wednesday may be my turn.