Screw You American Recovery and Reinvestment Act!

Ok this is probably going to be one of my more selfish blogs since i know this act created thousands (maybe more) of jobs, and got Billions of dollars moving...but seriously people, mess with my commute and I turn all selfish on your ass.

for 5 solid days in a row I have hit stand still, scream in your car, going nowhere, double your commute time, traffic. And it sucks. The amt of traffic i've been hitting has slowly increased lately, but as of this week its become a regular occurrence. Infact I have started leaving work a half hour to an hour early to try and miss the worst of it (which eventually i need to make up)

I don't mind them fixing up the roads or whatever, but you'd think they could:

1. spread out the work. I don't need to hit construction at like 3 places both on my commute TO and FROM work...that's 6 construction sites on one small stretch of road. Maybe they could do one then the other.

2. Not do work during rush hours. For example....the 14th street bridge traffic was worse than usual earlier this week. They are working on the right lane which generally doesn't cause too much traffic, but that particular day they had brought in a large vehicle to lift a large object over the barrier into the construction lane from an open lane...maybe they could have waited till non rush hour to block the additional lane!

3. Offer Detour options. For example, the other day kennilworth ave was backed up pretty bad, so I took the first exit I could onto capitol hill and proceeded to get very very lost...if there had been a detour path back onto 395 past the construction site I wouldnt have wasted that extra 30 minutes.

So i'm not saying they should cancel the act, I'm not that selfish...but seriously, there are some easy adjustments to make everyone's life a little more pleasant.

oh also, if you didnt put signs up everywhere bragging about how your act is f'ing up my commute, I would never have known to blame my commuting misery on your act! I'm not that up on politics and would have thought it was just a bad coincidence to have all this traffic

NJ traffic

Did you know that NJ does everything in its power to make you avoid left turns??? All directions just have you spiral in to the final destination instead. The only thing the accomplishes is making everyone so disoriented that they forget they are in NJ.

I had planned to spend sunday morning touring around some of the places in NJ i went to years ago with my family, but once i realized how miserable it was to drive there we just stayed put.

Between the ceremony and the reception we had about an hour and a half, so we figured we'd head to the reception and find some place to hang out near there. It turns out that was not necessary since we got so lost on the way there that there was no extra time. We must have gone back and fourth on the same street THREE times before we found the right exit.

Thanks NJ for stealing hours of my life

Newark

This weekend P and I went to NJ for Jon and Alysia's Wedding. I'll blog first about the hotel we stayed at....

P, Chris, Annie and I all got rooms at the Crowne Plaza at the Newark Airport (technically in a town called Elizabeth)

We went out to dinner with Jon and his family and when we returned to the hotel I swear HBO's pimp ball or whatever its called was going on AT OUR HOTEL.

Out front were pimped out low riding cars in bright colors, men in swanky colored suits and afro's like i've only seen in movies, and ladies with big bootys and tight spandex sparkly outfits covering not much. And cameras videotaping their entrance to the hotel. I know thats a lot of stereotypes there, but whatever was going on was definitely worth noticing. I cant say for sure what the event was but i'm glad i got to see it.

Oh newark....

Bored To Death

So i've been watching this show so far this season, and its pretty good. Not quite as good as I'd hoped it would be, but definitely keeps me watching. Its good too because peter and I can watch together because I like Jason and Zach's characters and peter likes Ted Danson's Character.

Also, by the way, Ted Danson is a very good looking older man. I love his completely white hair, and his style is great, I want to buy peter some of his wardrobe...minus the episode where he tried to dress younger.

The only part about the show that i just dont like is Zach's girlfriend Leah. She is just so terrible, which is a shame because I like the actress :( I understand she's supposed to be all whiney and terrible, but if anyone from HBO is reading this, maybe instead you could make her adorable and lovable. That would make for much better TV.

Because I'm so mature

Who doesn't like a good celebrity jeopardy reference though? seriously!

places to see and be seen

Last night I took my co worker Kevin's advice and went to Cava on 8th street with Peter Tristan and Mike.

First off, the food was delish! I highly recommend it. We got cheese that was set on fire, Spanikopita, Fried Zuccini Fritters, and other people got some other things. mmmm I wish I could go back tonight.

So when we got there peter noticed a table of congresspeople. Clearly I wouldnt recognize them. There are only a handfull of capitol hillers that I will recognize outside of context. I'm not really a "dc person".

However, when we got up to leave I led the way and there was dennis kusinich infront of me. I"m not so much excited to see him as I am excited that I recognized him! Points for Rachel!

Who knew Cava was such a hot spot! Thanks for the recommendation Kevin

Weekend of Free Stuff and other fun happenings

This weekend Peter and I went to cape cod with my sister, her boyfriend, and andreea.

The free stuff began on our excursion to P-town. After a full day of climbing the monument, shopping, and watching two men running into the chapel to get married (cute) we stopped into the fudge factory to buy some fudge. Andreea bought some first and asked the fudge man to cut some off from her purchase so she could eat it right away. Instead he cut her an entirely different and free block of fudge to eat right away. Then peter and I bought some, and after that he goes "you three bought a lot, and seem to be together, so I'll just give you another half pound of fudge for free!" sweet!

That night the five of us went golfing. After Andreea lost her ball to the water TWICE, peter and josh ended up tying for first place and both ending with the final hole a hole in one. This meant they both got little trophies and tokens for a free game in the future. The rest of us got temporary tattoos.

Even later that night after dinner we stopped in an arcade we saw on the way to our car. It had skee-ball so really I couldnt resist. We started playing when Andreea, Josh, and Julie all hit ridiculous jackpots on different games. We were 130 tickets short of our goal of winning Topple. The guy behind the counter goes "if you give me 5 bucks i'll just give you topple"....this sounded like a good deal but we also wanted to keep playing. So we played a few more dollars and won only a few tokens. We decided to give him the 5 bucks to get topple, to which he added "i'll give you 200 more tickets to get whatever candy you want as well". Somehow we walked out with nerd ropes for each of us, which actually was an additional 350 tickets. Sweet. Also ps, nerd rope turns out to be even better than it sounds.

Only a few more hours

Till i'm on my way to cape cod!!! yay! I know its kinda cold, but I think we'll still have fun!

Oh, also i think i hurt my back trying on bra's last night. weird huh? All of a sudden my lower back was killing me. Its not so bad today, but I guess that teaches me to go bra shopping!

uh oh...i may be becoming a football fan

Last night i watched a game of football that i had no invested interest in either teams and I had a great time. I guess if i had to pick sides I was routing for the vikings because 1. percy havrin is on my fantasy team 2. I spent all weekend with my awesome Minnesota friends talking vikings/twins/etc 3. I like their colors better

So I just started watching not really intending to watch the whole thing or even caring much. but then something happened, i started cheering, and getting into it. what? thats a bad sign when you can sit down and watch any game. wtf. I guess its also fun when you dont have to be stressed about your team, so if the team you are rooting for fails no real loss for you. Plus it was funny to see rogers get sacked so many times...so next week i guess i'll be watching jets miami. lets see if i get into non pats games 2 weeks in a row....go dolphins?

Foggy Bottom Kinda Weekend

This weekend was my GW 5 year reunion. We went to the cocktail hour in the library where they had a "signature cocktail" of a blue martini, which was basically just a plastic cup full of vodka at 3 in the afternoon on sat. We then went over to a bbq in front of tompkins. That was delish. great food,cake, wine, beer etc. And we got to meet the new dean who seemed really cool. Laurie and will were in town too which was a lot of fun :)

We also saw the toy story, toy story two 3-d double feature. I had forgotten how good those movies were!!! I cannot wait for toy story 3 to come out :)