Game Over

Well the trip is coming to a close. After another late night the crew was up, cleaned out, and on the road by 10am. Safe to say that the drive is MUCH better than the way up.

Now it's time for some food and then an afternoon to catch up on all that has happened over the weekend.

I'll post some pictures where appropriate, emphasizing the word appropriate, when I get home. But I believe the bachelor had a good time with good clean fun...

6 Hours

The longest day of golf ever finished at 5:15 after teeing off at 11. I think Dan had the best round of the day by far parring quite a few holes and nearly getting himself a Brad chest bump twice only to choke and par instead.

It happens.

In any case we're heading back to the house for what will more than likely be a much tamer night than last night. On the menu for the evening are some ribs, grilled chicken, and some salad. Like I said, tame. So what are the girls up to tonight?

All Accounted For

After a rough night, the crew has made it up (at 10) and are now on the course here at Wisp. Dan is having the best day so far with Jeff right on his heels. Ahmed is balancing pretty good play with brotherly advice, and Royce just looks good today. Chris and I are driving the boys around offering a tip every now and again and some well timed remarks. I THINK they appreciate our humor, but maybe not?

Day One Comes to a Close

A good day was had by all. Many memorable quotes... Quite a few pictures we will more than likely delete... And friendship abound.

Jeff is soundly asleep upstairs, Royce is asleep on the couch, last I saw, dan was still laying on his bed in his bathing suit, and Chris and Ahmed are chatting the night away across the hall... 

I'm definitely bummed that I can't share some of the pictures as they are all priceless in their own way. Soon enough. I have to admit that it is a lot nicer up here than I expected. It's very quiet and everyone we have met is very friendly. I will have to look into Deep Creek again with our friends for a long weekend...

Anyway, this is the latest I have been up in a long time so it is time to call it a night. What will tomorrow hold?

Jeff Makes Some Friends

Six guys ventured out for a nice dinner by the lake. Damn is it cold out! After a few drinks and some tame stories about how Jeff met Katie and all of the wonderful qualities Katie has that he loves it got a little crazy.

I'm not sure if it was the game over T-shirt or the fact that we were congratulating Jeff very loudly on his impending wedding, but it did not take too long for two blonde locals from joining us at the table.

And then their husbands stopped over...

2 hours later Jeff has heard some sage advice: no guys nights out, take out the trash, do the laundry, tell her she looks good in a size 6 even if it is a size 8, and all kinds of things you'd only hear out in deep creek Md.

The pictures will tell it all, but it is safe to say we will see our friends tomorrow...

Until then....

No internet means no pictures...

Sorry ladies, no internet access this weekend which of course means NO pictures! I'll do my best to Blog from the cell phone. Tedious.

In any case we're here and the place is sweet! Not sure how much Jeff knew ahead of time but he seems genuinely happy which is what is important.

It is quiet, the weather is cool, and we have the makings of a good weekend... Oh, and the beer is cold!

More later...

Traffic part deux

So.... After finally passing what appeared to be a chicken coop in a truck on the side of the road we finally started moving again. For all of 45 mins. We have the good fortune of driving on 68 when it is shut down to one lane for road work. So... 3.5 hours later... Still another hour to go.

Traffic!

Ugh. My biggest fears were realized. We didn't hit the road until 2 and have been stuck in traffic for 2 hours. We're a mile from Hagerstown with another two hours to go.

Jeff has been a good sport so far. We're sure he knows where we are going but he's playing along anyway.

What's New?

I hadn't realized that it's been a solid month since I've actually had time to log on and blog about what's happening... My apologies to all 2 of you who actually read this to keep up on our lives around here.

Between one of the busiest and exciting months we've had at WeatherBug in years, the beginning of wedding planning, moving roommates in and out, and planning my buddy's bachelor party it's been almost too much. But somehow, we find a way to put our head down and keep moving, which in this case is what the mantra has been.

We're only a few weeks away from me being able to talk more about what's happening at the Bug, and once revealed, you'll have a better understanding of what has been keeping me busy night and day and weekends... But until then...

Anyway, today is the beginning of Jeff's bachelor party. Seen here.

For those of you following at home this weekend, depending on air card availability, I will do my best to document the weekend and keep you posted...

I just can't guarantee it won't be censored... ;)

Days of the Week

The pictures below aptly capture the different days of the week, and the impact the wind direction can have on the weather and how we spend our day.

Tuesday Morning - Laid out most of the day
Tuesday Evening - Sat in the hot tub

Wednesday Morning - Laid out on the beach
Thursday Morning - Went shopping and saw a movie with MIOL
Friday Morning - Slept in, sipped on coffee, and worked on puzzle with MIOL

Beach Week

Day one is finally here. We arrived yesterday afternoon to 20mph sustained winds and chillier than expected temperatures. We also arrived to see that Tropical Storm Andrea had her way with the dunes down here last week. I took a picture of our dune deck below that used to actually be ON a dune. As you can see from the picture, there is not much left protecting this house from the next major storm. It also looks like they had to lower the deck by about 4 feet (there are four new stairs), and add a new stairway (so that you don't just walk down into the ocean).

MIOL's mom and I had an interesting conversation over the weekend about the whole battle between the man and nature. Why do we insist on commercializing and exploiting nature, bending it to fit our needs, when in the end, nature will win? Granted, my family is down here, paying for this house... a house that should more than likely NOT be here... one that will probably NOT be here in 20 years... And I find that I am not too sure where I stand on this. I truly enjoy coming down to the Outer Banks. I enjoy sitting here, sipping my coffee and staring at the ocean... and a wi-fi connection, power, and the comfort I am feeling at the moment, would not be possible without the commercialization.

A few years ago, when Isabel tore through the Outer Banks and sent the road that connects Hatteras to the rest of the Outer Banks into the ocean, my family drove down here to check out the damage that November (2 months later). We drove all the way down to the point where the road was closed and ran into a park ranger that was stationed there to make sure that people didn't attempt to do something stupid. We asked him what it looked like, and what they were going to do given that Hatteras is a popular vacation destination and they would need to figure out some way to get the tourists there in time for the upcoming season in May. His response was, "oh, we're going to fix the island." Fix the island. I love it. And this is supposed to be someone who manages our natural resources. I'm not sure if that is the official position of the National Park Service, his personal opinion, or what, but there is something about that mentality, one that is more than likely shared by many of us out there, that we can fix and control anything we want to.

Unfortunately, my time will have come and gone in this world before I see the impact of this control, but my grandkids, or their grandkids will look back at these times and more than likely laugh at our attempt to control something as powerful as nature. These Outer Banks may be a part of the mainland by then, who knows.

Until then, I'll sit here happily drinking my coffee and enjoying the surf, happy to be on vacation.

Beach Week Almost Here...

So, as many of you who know me well, you also know that this is about the time of year that my family takes its first trip down to the Outer Banks for a week. A week long vacation could not come at a better time as I am ready for the peace and quiet and ready to relax. I know MIOL is also looking forward to being able to close her eyes and sleep on the beach.

I'm going to give the no work email for the entire week a try again this trip and see what awaits me upon my return, but I do know that when I did that last fall, it made a huge difference in my ability to fully enjoy the time off. But as most of you know, the amount of email you have after being gone for a week is beyond ridiculous.

Which makes you wonder why we opt to communicate so much over email. It's one thing if you use it as a form of communicating with friends overseas or friends that are hard to get a hold of on the phone. But work? It seems that more and more people are becoming either passive aggressive or non-confrontational, and would rather send a flaming email or send a series of email questions, rather than get up and walk 20 feet to talk to the person. This has got to be one of my greatest pet peeves as I am very much a "walk and talk" kind of person. I enjoy getting up from my desk and walking around, talking to the people I need to talk to get the job done.

As BlackBerrys become more and more prevalent over the next few years, will we become an email society?

What matters is that I will not be participating in that society next week.

Cinco de Mayo Celebration

It's official!!! MIOL and I are engaged!!!

17 months in the making, I have met my match and the person I am looking forward to spending the rest of my life with.

I promise you that the story leading up to the proposal is well worth a phone call to me if you want to hear it. The intricate details and subtleties are too much to go into on here and will take too long to describe.

In any case, I look forward to blogging about the progress and planning as we set a date and move forward towards the most exciting day of our lives.

Stay tuned...

Exciting New WeatherBug Product

I'm excited to announce the launch of a new product from WeatherBug, WeatherBug Alert. Whether you want one-click access to live conditions and the forecast for your neighborhood, or severe weather alerts delivered to your desktop, WeatherBug Alert is right for you. For those of you concerned about downloading big desktop apps, or using a lot of memory, WeatherBug Alert is less than 400KB in size, and uses less than 5MB of RAM when running.

And if you're happening across this blog outside the U.S., never fear, WeatherBug Alert works everywhere!

Click here to download it and let me know what you think!

Rain + Mud = No Biking

After great expectations of coming up to visit Pittsburgh and go mountain biking with my college roommate, rain has chosen to "dampen" our spirits a little bit. It definitely stinks and maybe if the rain moves on we'll get a chance to get outside, but for now we're laying low, relaxing and waiting for the NFL draft to start.


The is about as close as I may come to a bike this weekend... So sad.

Reunion

Last night I was fortunate enough to meet up with a friend I met last summer at Gnomedex in Seattle, along with his friend who were visiting the States from South Africa. After a day of sight seeing, I picked the two of them up from the metro and met MIOL at Mai Thai down at the end of King St. in Old Town Alexandria.

Below is a picture of Colin enjoying his Tiger drink

And Carly enjoying her drink...

And MIOL and I at dinner...

After dinner, I wanted to show our friends what says America over and over again... frozen custard! I took them back to Del Ray and over to the Dairy Godmother. It's not surprising to say that they were both REALLY impressed and in love with custard once we were finished.

Me explaining what I like on my custard

Yep, that's a Rice Crispy sundae with marshmallow topping on chocolate custard.

At the end of the evening we were sad to drop our friends off at their hotel, but motivated to try and pull it together to make a trip down to see them. It's always interesting to hear a different perspective on things, and how our politics, pop culture, and technology is perceived outside the US. MIOL just liked their accents I think... ;)

Red Rock Hiking

Today, My Inferno of Love (MIOL) and I decided to take advantage of the warm weather and check out one of the regional parks in Northern Virginia that we had not been to as of yet. So, after visiting the NOVA park web site, I settled on Red Rock Potomac Overlook Park out by Leesburg. The park definitely earned its name as it was full of red rocks throughout the hike.

Here's a shot of MIOL and I...

After about 20 minutes of hiking MIOL and I decided that the park should be named Muddy Banks as we ended up waddling through 3-4" deep mud. It was actually kind of fun, like walking on ice.

Here's a better shot of the bank that must have been under water last week with all of the rain, hence the massive amounts of mud. Safe to say that we had to wear flip flops into the outlet malls later...

Arrival time

After a bit of confusion on where we were supposed to go, we pulled up at the hotel at 9:50. If I had gone to the right place it would have been 9:30. So, I would say that we spent all told about 3 hours on the road for a 2 hour trip. Once we got passed Fredricksburg, we were able to fly for the final 45 miles. It was just that darn stretch between there and the beltway.

Anyway, thanks for following along this evening. Hope you had fun and have a great easter weekend.

Back on the road!

After a nice dinner at panera we're back on the road at 7:30. Hopefully it won't be long... Say maybe an hour and a half?  Two hours? You decide.

Dinner

To be fair we have stopped for dinner at potomac mills. A half hour on the road so far. Traffic was as expected but hopefully it will lighten up when we get going again. Stay tuned.