One more thing

Peter and I got back to bwi late Sunday night after a slight delay from Manchester. All I wanted to do was get in my car and go home and SLEEP. We got on the bus to go to the express lot (the long term parking was full). Just as we get to our row where my car is waiting I see this GIANT racoon run under the row of cars! So I ran from the bus to the car and waited for my bags to be loaded in and not endanger my ankles from racoon bites. Luckily the racoon never appeared.

Then I get to the gate to pay, hand the attendant a 100 dollar bill for our 40 dollar fee and she informs me that i need to give her something smaller b/c all she has are 1's to give me! I had nothing smaller and obtained that bill specifically to pay parking. We patiently waited as she counted out 60 one dollar bills to give me for change. Luckily she had a couple of 5's to fill in. So for the next few days I'll be paying for everything in 1's. I'm expecting plenty of jokes.

Good bye express parking!

Back to dc!

I'm back in dc after a long thanksgiving break. Boston is so hard to get around without a car, but when I managed to hitch rides or borrow cars I had a lot of fun seeing many old friends.

I tried a drink called a Grapefruit Fizz, and mainly I'm blogging about it here so I don't forget, it was soda water, grapefruit vodka, grapefruit juice, and a slice of grapefruit! Very very delicious.

The good news is that the pies that i made turned out delicious! I made 2 pecan chocolate bourbon tarts and one cranberry tart and people loved them! mmmm i wish i had brought leftovers back with me!

I'm leaving on a jet plane

I'm going home like I do every year for thanksgiving. I'm looking forward to it and will be back on sunday :) that is all

First attempt at night photography

I made my first attempt at night time photography this weekend. I figure that this city is very beautiful at night, so why not use it as my testing grounds for hopefully some day being really good at night time photography. I packed up my 3 lenses and my tripod and headed out.

I think I learned two tricks to try for next time that didnt occur to me till I got home.

1. use the hood that comes with the lens to block out as much ambient light as possible
2. use the self timer for each picture since clearly the motion of pushing the button is enough to make the images blurry.

Ready to try again!


also this wasnt my best photo from the night, and is a little blurry, but i thought it was one of the more interesting shots

More Terrible Shows

Due to an email from my friend Andreea I decided to give the new show Cougar Town with courtney cox a try. Let me tell you, that show is TERRIBLE. I dont want to trash on Courtney though because she was still good. Her two side kicks seemed like terrible people, and borderline annoying. The one girl from scrubs/the drew carey show was the worst. She's had some unfortunate plastic surgery and she's basically playing the same person she was on scrubs but toned down and not funny.


Anyway, to peter's delight, you can be sure I wont be watching this again.

Time For A Change

Blogger says this is my 672nd post including drafts I wrote but never posted. Until now i've stuck with two, maybe three default blogger templates an just barely modified the colors and a few subtle things here or there. I've decided its time for a bigger change, so here it is. You'll notice that for now there is no title. This is because I dont have software on my computer at home to edit pictures so I will fix this as soon as possible. Please bare with me! Also hopefully this will be the start of a whole bunch of future templates.

The other change that I still need to fix is that my links were all deleted. That's partially ok since half of them are out dated, but I will update these also later.

when it rains it pours

Today two great but totally different things happen.

1. Going to see John Grunsfeld speak tonight about hubble. He was the last person to touch hubble before leaving the service mission, and I've seen him before, but I cant wait to hear what he has to say this time.

2. New "them crooked vultures" cd! I've heard 2 of their songs so far and really like it. I'm certainly going to go home and download the entire CD tonight.

So a little space nerdery and a little dave grohl all in the same day! Could anyone possibly have a better day?

I'd also like to note the great launch yesterday, and the meteor shower tonight!

Minus the broken car, what a great week!

For anyone concerned

The car place just called and it was my ignition coils, which coincidentally I just got a recall notice for this weekend. Thats too weird how coincidental it is. Anyway, that means that its covered by VW! yay! I hope to have my car back soon :)

Waving

So after hearing months of hype over the new Google wave Robbie sent me an invitation which I gladly accepted. I don't love it yet, but I'm willing to wait and see what happens with it. There are some flaws in the program right now, some features aren't enabled yet, and I only have like 5 contacts who are never online nor do I have the need to collaborate on anything at this point in my life.

One feature that needs to go away for this ever to work, is that it allows other people in your "wave" or conversation to see what you are writing as you write it. I don't know about you, but for me usually my first take on a sentence is dumb or makes no sense and I need a second shot before anyone else sees it, also I need to run spell check before others know exactly how bad at spelling I am. I hope if i keep writing this comment in Google related products someone will see it and do something about it.

Robbie sent me an article saying that the big problem with Wave is that its an extremely useful tool, but was rolled out to Geeks first who really aren't the target audience. I agree and I feel like maybe this product should have been rolled out to students first since they are the most likely to make good use of this, specific companies second, and then the general public....if ever the general public.

Anyway I'm excited to see what the future of wave has to offer!

My stupid car

is broken again. It violently shakes when on, and if you look under the hood while its on you can see the engine rocking....never a good sign. So i got it towed and am waiting to hear whats wrong.

My advice to anyone reading this blog....dont buy VW

Found at Target

Do you think this is
A) an android assassin from star wars as the box says
or
B) Shia LaBeouf in Indiana Jones four

Today is a Special Day for Me

14 years ago today was my bat mitzvah. I'm probably the only one who still recognizes the anniversary of their bat mitzvah, but then again I'm probably the only one who gets the day off every year to mark the event. Two years from now will be 11/11/11, I should have a big party that day! Last year Peter and I went to Gettysburg for veterans day, but today being a random Wednesday we arent really doing anything out of the ordinary with our extra day. Oh well.

Oh, also, Its Leonardo Dicaprio's Birthday, so Happy Birthday Leo

From Jim

http://www.wired.com/geekdad/2009/11/10-geeky-laws-that-should-exist-but-dont/

I didnt really have anything interesting to blog today, but Jim just sent me this link and it made me laugh so I thought I'd share it.

Thanks Jim

Feeling Old

As I sit, still in bed, after a late (3am) night out last night I am starting to realize that I am getting older :( Last night I had three realizations

The first was in a discussion with a friend's boyfriend. He made some comment about how they use to drink bacardi razz in high school, and I thought for a second and said "they didnt even have bacardi razz when i was in high school". We then played the age game and it turned out that The year I graduated from college was the year he graduated from high school. ouch.

The second was when at the end of the night I realized that the only time in the entire night I got carded was a courtesy carding since they were just checking everyone in line going into the trendy bar.

I then told the people i was with about these two occurrences and how it made me feel old, and a few seconds later i go "oh yeah, i'll be in boston in may for my high school 10 year reunion" and mike goes "well there is your third sign you are old"

Cooking Classes

I figure since mcdonnel won Governor in VA I better take cooking classes, since if he had his way I'll have to quit my job and stay home cooking and cleaning (ok we all know the cleaning will never happen)

We made some AWESOME holiday food
1. Chocolate Pecan Bourbon Tart. This was AWESOME. First off we made individual sized ones so they were cute and little. I also learned how to make the crust and mine actually came out really well! I've tried making this pie before but it tasted nasty, this time i was pleasantly surprised that it was delicious. Clearly i bought a bunch of mini tart pans before I left the store.
2. Cranberry Crumble Tart. The instructor made this while we watched, But I think I could replicate it.
3. Cheddar Scallion Biscuits. Yep its just as delish as it sounds. AND it was super easy so clearly i'm going to make this all the time.
4. Parker House Rolls. Is this even a thing? The instructor says its a boston specialty, but i'm from boston and have never heard of it, plus they were nasty.

Bunko Night

Last night Laura and I got called up as Alternates to Bunko night. We were very excited to be volunteered up by Lindsay :) Its a gambling game involving 12 girls and 12 dice, its a lot of fun.

I hope they need more alternates in the future :)

Election Day!

This morning we got up and went to our assigned polling location. We got close and saw no line winding around outside like last year. Only Dems were handing out sample ballots this year. Evidently the republicans have totally given up on our neighborhood (no real loss there). We went inside....still no line. We walked right up to the table and only 1 person was infront of us. We voted and walked out. Peter stopped to ask the lady how lines have been all morning and she goes "its been pretty steadily like this all morning, although at a few points we had noone"....oh dear. Sorry Creigh, we tried