Saturday, January 27, 2007

Game two

Game two

Well, it is safe to say that we were not quite feeling it in the second game. After a really slow start, the scores ended up as:

Lauren - 81
Brad - 142
Katie - 87
Jeff - 87
Leslie - 119
Dan - 117

All in all, not a bad night considering all of the distractions around us. Too bad it was too dark for pictures.

Game one

Game one

Tonight we all decided to go bowling. After bowling a 203 the last time we came here, I wasn't sure how I would do with a larger group. Well, after the first game, the scores are as follows:

Lauren - 110
Brad - 157
Katie - 67
Jeff - 139
Leslie - 121
Dan - 131

Not bad for the whole group. I actually marked in all but two frames. And in frame one of game two I have already spared.

Who knows what game two holds...

Thursday, January 25, 2007

Yeah you, in the Lexus

Get off your phone and drive. If I had been able to get my camera out this morning, I would have posted your license plate up on the traffic offenders web site. When you have a mile's worth of open road in front of you, you have no right to chat with your buddy along side a car in the right lane.

It's people like you that get my day to such a maddening start... Let me personally thank you for that.

Saturday, January 20, 2007

Cork Soaking

I had to post this because I happened across it this morning and it is by far one of my favorite SNL sketches of all time...

http://www.pistolwimp.com/media/21856/

Enjoy!

Tuesday, January 16, 2007

24, 8:00am-10:00am

24 is on!

Okay, wow. Can you believe how much 24 has kicked it up a notch this year? Holy smokes! Literally... Suitcase nukes loose in LA?!? Are you serious?!? I have to admit that I'm still struggling to deal with the loss of Curtis within the first four hours of this season, but hey, Curtis couldn't let business remain business, and let his painful past get in the way of doing his job. The big question is, how much more emotional pain can Jack handle at this point? The loss of his wife, all the pain to Tony Almeda, no contact with his daughter or his ex-lover, Audrey... It is a lot for one man to handle... but then again, this IS Jack Bauer, the same man that was able to withstand a knife to the shoulder, a needle to the spine, and could still pull himself together to escape through the sewer.

How many people died last night? Do we have a death count going somewhere? I'll have to do some searching online, but I'm assuming that someone has to be keeping track. Speaking of gruesome deaths, how about the guy getting blown up in the storage container?? I don't think I've seen such grizzly remains in any show on network television.

So, what is in store for next week? How will CTU cope with the detonation of a major nuclear device? Will Jack be back after telling Buchanan that he was done? Most assuredly the answer to that question is, YES. And watching the show in HD... Money. I need to give Comcast a call this week and see if I can work something out before next week's episode for sure.

Anyway, below are some pictures from last night's viewing party with Jeff and Katie. Lauren and Katie amused themselves on the computer while Jeff and I were attentive to our action hero.

Who is the puppet, and who is the muppet?


Stretch your mouth!

Sunday, January 14, 2007

Mancation Part I

That's right, the spelling is not incorrect... I said "Mancation."

While the ladies have a nice trip to the Dominican Republic currently on the docket, I am about to begin the planning of Mancation 2007.

Right now, the idea is to plan a trip to the Canadian Rockies and do some hiking for a few days. As the planning continues and we get closer to the trip, you will find blog posts covering the whole sha-bang.

Stay tuned...

Afternoon on Sugarloaf



With the weather in the 60s yesterday, we could not pass up the opportunity to go for a quick hike. So, we decided to head up to Sugarloaf Mountain in Dickerson, MD. Sadly, the mountain is only 10 minutes past work, so the drive from Alexandria was only 55 minutes.
The mountain offers a different array of hike lengths, from a quick, steep .5 mile hike to a long, winding 7.7 mile hike. You can see the different available hikes here. Though it rained a little bit on and off, the majority of the hike was clear, and as you can see by some of the pictures, the sun was out in the background.
You can see the full set of pictures on my Flickr page.
I would definitely recommend Sugarloaf to anyone who wants to go for a quick hike and doesn't want to sit in the car for more than an hour. I'll probably try and get up there after work a few times this spring and summer for a few trail runs given how close it is to WeatherBug.

Thursday, January 11, 2007

The Big Apple



Hi there. I'm sitting on the runway at LGA, number #11 for takeoff (we started at 30) and thought I would send in a quick entry to summarize what I did today up here.

I was in town for the OPA editorial day sitting as a part of a round table with CNN, weather.com, wsj.com, washingtonpost.com, about.com, Martha Stewart, etc. Talking about issues dealing with incorporating video on your web site, how much you should police your user generated content, and how you can structure your company to best deal with advertising products such that they do not disrupt your road map.

All in all, it was an interesting day, and I leave with a few ideas that I can't wait to share with everyone at WeatherBug.

Additionally, I had a chance to meet up with my friend Abby from high school and catch up before I had to fly home.

Now I sit here, wishing I could get home to watch the office, slowly watching the planes ahead of us takeoff. Also, it appears that the row in front of me were on some BET show as they are calling everyone they know as we sit here telling them about it.

Anyway, I'll post my trip pictures tomorrow when I get into the office. For now, typing this on my blackberry is hurting my thumb.

Title Night




Yep. On Monday night, Florida played Ohio State for the college football national championship. And despite being heavily favored, Florida trounced OSU. As a Penn State grad, and a die hard and loyal Big Ten supporter, I must admit that I was a little upset that Florida now holds the national championship for both football AND basketball. And it's not as if Florida barely won... It was easily the worst night of Troy Smith's (OSU QB) career, and a thorough butt-whooping. It's embarrassing. Fortunately, Penn State took care of business against Tennessee and Wisconsin won over Arkansas, maintaining some sort of honor, but the word on the street is that the Big Ten is soft.

The theme of the night was "Ice Cream Social." This at least made it a fun and worthy experience. Rolando came through, as he always does, with dessert and brought two half gallons of ice cream from Cold Stone, along with 8 toppings. Can we say sinful? It was ridiculous.

Check above for pictures from the event.

Monday, January 8, 2007

Some Time Off

"Time off" could mean one of many things, but for the most part, some time off is tied to the time off that I took from blogging and from work over the past few weeks. I was fortunate enough to take off from Christmas through January 3. I particularly enjoyed taking the first few days of January off as it gave me some time to relax AFTER all of the holiday craziness. Those two days were just pure, relaxing, time off. I was able to dig out my bike and go for the first ride in many, many months, play Xbox, organize some music, and attack things around the house that have been calling my name for quite some time.

So what did I do over my Winter Break (as I call it)? This is a list of all of my accomplishments during the time period:

  1. Experienced Christmas dinner with Lauren and her family
  2. Completed my Christmas shopping
  3. Blogged a little bit
  4. Watched a Capitals game
  5. Watched a Wizards game
  6. Bowled a 202 (en route to a 469 series or 156 average)
  7. Paid $365 for Toyota to replace my brake pads
  8. Get more familiar with the Xbox 360
  9. Write a little bit

A list I'm definitely proud of, and part of the reason why I was able to return to work last Thursday completely refreshed, motivated, and happy. While it would have been kind of nice to go somewhere for New Year's, it was just as nice to not have to worry about traveling somewhere. Of course, everyone and their mother asked me when I returned where I went for my break, and all were shocked that I didn't use the time off to go somewhere, but there is something to not doing ANYTHING.

That being said... I hope to plan some trips this spring, summer, and fall... Stay tuned for the "Planning of the Mancation" series which should be starting soon.