I’m the worst at updating this site because I have a very short attention span. You all can now rejoice that I have a new gadget to play with. My new Motorola Droid cell phone. Its all kinds of awesome. It can even update this page! So look for more frequent dates…. until I get bored with the phone anyway.
The Opera
The Opera…. Dreaded words on the ears of man. I heard these words back in the fall of 2008 when I bought tickets for Puccini’s Turandot. I was told it was an Italian Opera (sung in Italian) about an Asian princess and her ill fated suiters. Natalie was very excited because she was familiar with the music and enjoyed it very much.
I like to keep an open mind and enjoy most any live performance. This was no exception. The stage was well designed and the performance was excellent. I really do enjoy the Kennedy Center. The whole story was thankfully written in english in the program. This made it a whole lot easier to understand what was going on once the performance got started. They had a small projector screen at the top of the stage with subtitles which gave some assistance as well. I found myself not even looking at the subtitles by the end of the show. It’s true what they say about the Opera. You don’t really need to understand the words. The music and actions on stage are universally understood.
Gulf Shores
A few days later we traveled to the sunny shores of the Gulf of Mexico. Some call it the “redneck riviera” but we called it Gulf Shores AL. We flew in to Pensacola grabbed our rental car and drove the hour to our beach house. We met up with a few friends from college for a week of relaxation. The house we had was literally right on the beach. From the back porch you could listen to the waves roll in and see dolphins jumping in the distance.
Not being a huge beach person I went with the other guys out fishing. I’m not an outdoorsman but I’ve fished before. Never in salt water and never wading out into the water. We were fishing off of a point where two water ways converged. The current was fast and strong but you could easily stand on the sandbar. Redfish was what we were after but didn’t have much luck the first day. We had seen sting rays, and catfish but none of the native redfish. I started the good luck on the second day by pulling in a 24″ redfish. This was easily the largest fish I’d ever pulled in. Even though the other guys pulled in much larger fish over the next few days I was still happy with my catch. Jacob and Jordan played the part of fish monger and did the prep work for an exceptional feast of grilled fish.
It was a really great time. The location was great and the company was better. It’s always great to see old friends. Especially since we live so far away, having so many people in one place at one time is rare.
Art and Baseball
In DC there is an art show called Artomatic. Ever year an unfinished building/office etc is donated for a month to host a large open Art show. Artists are given a section of a temporary wall or corner to display or create what ever art they wish. This year Artomatic was across the street from the new Nationals stadium. We figured it would be a good use of a day to take in some art and go to a game.
I was expecting the art show to be a floor of a building but this was 9 floors packed with all manor of things. It was really pretty interesting to see what people produce. I saw a few things I liked along with the ever popular Peeps diorama exhibit. They used the popular marshmallow easter candy to create small scenes that were often very amusing. It was interesting indeed.
We were pretty tired from walking through the giant art exhibit so it was nice to sit at the ball game and relax. It may seem somewhat disturbing but ball park food is delicious.
The 4th
A day later we decided to celebrate the birth of our nation with a random excursion into the heart of Virginia. With our friends Kerry and Cedric we traveled to Lexington VA. Each year Lexington hosts a hot air balloon rally along with fireworks and various food vendors on the parade grounds of the Virginia Military Institute.
We got into town and ate at a quaint restaurant in the small down town. Lexington is maybe 7,000 people so it reminded me a lot of my home town. Still full of ball game food we welcomed the sight of more bbq fried foods and cotton candy. VMI really has a beautiful campus. We even saw the grave of Robert E Lee’s horse Traveler. This is some good stuff I tell you!
As the light faded everyone gathered into the field to watch the balloons take off. There was probably 20 or so that took off. I’d never been up that close to a hot air balloon before. Fortunately for Natalie and unfortunately for me all of the rides were already sold out. So we had to settle for watching the fireworks instead.
The next day we ventured off to see the Natural Bridge. Billed as one of the 7 natural wonders (of the world? The US? or maybe just Virginia. How could we resist a 219′ tall 90′ wide naturally occurring archway that happens to be crossed by US HWY 11? It was pretty cool. Along the way we toured through the Natural Bridge Caverns. The deepest commercially accessible caverns on the east coast. Quite the adventure.
And Stuff
While all this was going on we’ve been house hunting and preparing for more fun to come.
I’m not going to apologize for not posting sooner. If you haven’t figured out by now I’m far too lazy for frequent updates you probably never will. Anyway life is moving along as it always does. Mostly too fast. Between baby showers birthdays and travel in general we’ve had our plates full.
I think the only real news of importance is that we’ve started house hunting. Well I started today anyway. I need to work through the financing to see if we can actually afford to buy a house out here. If we were back in the Midwest we could buy a castle…. with a moat…. and towns people, for the price of a two bedroom condo out here. The unfortunate side effects of living is have a place to live in. As to not meet an untimely end due to exposure.
Despite the soul crushing debt we are surely to acquire I’m starting to get more excited. It will be really nice to have a place that is “permanent”. I haven’t really had such a thing since I left home for college.
This post is delayed a few days(weeks now.. its been weeks) for a very good reason. I’m lazy. Yes its a reason and yes I think it’s a good one. Now that is a established this is what has been going on. Last weekend (again weeks ago because I’m even too lazy to start this post over) we decided to enjoy the last of summer weather in Shenandoah National Park. It’s just under two hours a way from where we are with traffic and everything. I think we are pretty lucky to live where we do. National parks, museums, monuments, concerts you name it we’ve got it.
Anyway so we were hiking along and we heard a noise up in the tree a ways off. What is it you ask? That’s right a bear. A small black bear to be specific. It had shimmied up tree after some unknown goody. We watched him climb down and wonder for a bit before proceeding. He didn’t seem to care too much that we were there. A few feet down the path we found out why. The bear had backup! A second bear back in the woods about the same size. I’m sure they were working as a team. Having almost hit a larger grizzly bear with our car earlier in the summer I now consider myself a bear expert.
Besides the abundance of wildlife we did manage to hike down to a really great waterfall.
This weekend we decided to deviate from our routine and actually do something interesting. Turns out we live in big metropolitan city with a multitude of things to do and see. Who knew really? Anyway we made the drive out to the Kennedy Center for a symphony concert. I have somewhat limited exposure to such things but enjoy them greatly. This particular performance was centered around famous movie scores. The pinnacle of which is was the theme song for the Magnificent 7. It’s impressive enough on the TV but a live performance was pretty inspiring. It kind of makes you want to jump on a horse and fight some crime old west style.
We’ve been to the Kennedy center once before for the Phantom of the Opera. Both times I was impressed with the venue. Apparently 1970s chic is still pretty cool. Surprisingly tickets to shows aren’t that expensive (depending on the show of course). Perhaps if we went to more shows it would help justify the absurdly high cost of rent on the coast.
Having actually done something on the weekend I was exhausted and thus required to spend the rest of the weekend sitting on the couch. I would have gone out but the opressive heat this weekend prevented the idea from even forming in my lazy mind.
I’m sure all of you watched the Olympic games. Natalie is a huge fan of the event. I like to watch the summer games especially the track and field. Being such a huge fan Natalie agreed (I swear she said it was ok) it was time for us to get a new TV. I picked up a 46″ Samsung 550. Best buy had a model on sale for a reasonable sum and it had some decent features. I went in for a 530 that was on sale but got the 550 for the same price. If your willing to walk away from any purchase I find that the sales people can normally find you a work around.
The Olympics in HD were a superior event. We had 4 or 5 channels of Olympics 24 hours a day bolstered by the DVR. On a side note, anyone that watches TV needs a DVR. It really does change your life. We end up watching far less tv which seems counter intuitive on the surface. We only watch the shows we want to and do so without commercials. It fantastically efficient. Anyway back to my story. I think we watched ever hour of prime time coverage plus some of the off hour segments. The TV was a good investment.
Its been a busy few months but I think things are starting to slow down a bit. We are taking the next few weeks easy before all of the holiday madness begins. Christmas will be here before we know it.
After the honeymoon we returned home and began putting our lives back together. Natalie had just moved in the weekend before we left for the wedding. We spen the next few weeks putting stuff away and trying to find room for everything. We put some IKEA executive’s kid through college with all the new furntiure that was needed. I have to say it was pretty nice to actually having some decent furniture. We now have things like tables and night stands. My assortment of TV trays ended their venerable service to the living room and retreated back to the corner. Pictures began finding their way to the previously stark walls bringing with it a sense of home. Vases with fresh flowers rest on the newly purchased tables. Things came together very well. We are making the best of our small space.
Continuing on our home making marathon I decided to resurrect some of the gardening knowledge imparted by my father and grow some plants on the balcony. We went to Lowes, Home Depot, Walmart, and Target buying plants and pots. We have a table full of herbs, peppers, tomatoes, Flowers and a pretty sorry looking cucumber plant.
So far we’ve gotten some peppers and tomatoes. We use the herbs regularly in cooking so that has been a success. I can’t say the inital effort has been an overwhelming success but it is a far cry from failure. I’ll know more for next year and hopefully be more successful.
On that thought I may be gardening in a new location by this time next year. Our next goal is to save enough to buy a house of some sort. Condo or perhaps town house. If anyone has an extra $50k just needing to be spent we can help you do that. If not we’ll just have to continue our strategy of saving money (stuffing spare change and bills into the mattress) and investing (lotto tickets and Coke reward caps).
This will be the first in a series of posts to catch you all up on what has been happening with us. I’ll start with the honeymoon. If you all didn’t know we went out to Jackson Hole WY. We had gotten an advertisment from one of the ski lodges with crazy off season deals. We figured we’d save some money and see some beautiful mountains in the process. It was probably the best decision we made. If you don’t like hiking, scenic overlooks, or wildlife you may want to go somewhere else.
We mainly just relaxed and did some light hiking. We call ourselves hiking posers because we really don’t do real hiking. My idea of roughing it is a light rock scramble followed by a gormet dinner and a 5 star hotel. (Jackson hole really fits the bill here). However on the trail we really do look like actual hikers. We have lots of really nice gear. Rain proof jackets, ultralite backpacks, etc. Our best hike was probably up to Hidden Falls at Jenny Lake. If you go one place in WY it should be Jenny Lake. Its like a post card. Seriously if Bob Ross were still alive and there he’d have painted it without a giant tree in the foreground.
We took a day and went up to Yellowstone. We left equiped with an SUV full of food and provisions led by our trusty Yellowstone in a Day guide book. Step by step we went from one natural wonder to the next. We were on the road for 16 solid hours. The rangers kept telling us that we were there at the perfect time. Some of the trails were still snow covered but there were little to no people. It was kind of cold but with jackets it was quite comoftable.
We saw all sorts of wildlife. Lots of Buffalo and Elk. We took lots of pictures that we posted up in the photogallery. Our biggest event was probably on the way home from Yellowstone. We had just gotten back in to Teton park and were headed back to the hotel when I saw something move to my right. Knowing that wildlife have a tendancy to bolt across the road I hit the breaks hard as a giant Grizzly bear exploded from the woods. He stopped in the on-coming lane as I came to a stop next to him. Natalie was a sleep when this happened. Nedless to say she was a wake and staring at the bear 10 ft from the car who was enjoying a less fortuante woodland creature. I caught more movement to the right and saw another Grizzly even larger than the first. Not one but two giant bears within feet of our rented (and insured) SUV.
I had options. Intellegent ones even. I suspened my better judgment and rolled down the window and took a picture. Not wanting to further tempt fate I rolled the car forward slowly and continued down the road a ways. We turned around and came back to get a good view while keeping our distance. It appeared as though it was a mother bear and cub. The cub wasn’t too camera shy but the mother bear was pretty upset. People that were behind us stayed there right next to the bears. People started to get out of their cars to look at the smaller bear not realizing 20ft behind them was a fairly pissed larger bear. I had no doubt in my mind I was going to see someone get mauled.
Lucky for the idiots on the road the bigger bear ran across to the other side of the road. Back in the woods she was up on her hind legs threatening all on lookers. Natural selection was proven wrong in this case because not a single person out of the car got hurt. I thought rolling the window down was dumb. These people brougt it to a whole nother level.
I would go through all of the beautiful things we saw but me describing it really doesn’t do it justice. Everyhone should go to Grand Teton National Park and Yellowstone before they die.
Thank you to everyone that made our wedding day perfect. Thank you to our parents and friends that helped us pull the day together. We couldn’t have been happier to see all of you.
We are traveling for the next few days but I hope to share some pictures we have from the ceremony and reception after we get home. If you took any good pictures or know of someone who did please send us copies.
Thank you all again.
As you’ve probably noticed things are beginning to look a bit different. I’m moving the entire site into the WordPress system. I think it will be a faster and easier way to manage content and keep things looking nice. I also wanted a more bold color scheme to the site. I liked the old one but it is pretty bland. I’m also doing away with the welcome page and will eventually be using the blog as the front page. It’s really what most people read anyway. I’ll preserve all of the front page info on alternate pages. I’ve got most of the site ported over but I’ll need to do something tricky with the domains so that all the links don’t get broken. I don’t know why I decided to do this. I have a list of things a mile long to do for the wedding. I guess I’ve been working so much and so busy with other obligations I just had to indulge myself in the simple pleasure of web development.
Natalie has been pretty sick all weekend. She spent most of the weekend asleep which is probably for the best. She is feeling better today so hopefully she’ll be 100% tomorrow. Let me know what you think of the new page style.
