The family has spoken, Mom and Melissa agree, the green pancake fiasco took place in Papillion, not, Grand Praire.
The first thing that goes is the memory.
Wednesday, March 23, 2011
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Happy Birthday
March 17th is my little sister's birthday, so I had green pancakes in her honor for supper.
G family history: When growing up, while we were living in Grand Praire, TX, we would normally have pancakes on Saturday mornings. One Saturday morning fell on March 17, my little sister's birthday, and St. Patrick's Day. I got up early, made the pancakes and colored them with green food coloring. For some reason, nobody else in the family thought that was a great idea. I got in trouble, Julie, if I recall, cried a little bit, dad got mad. In retrospect I think mom and Melissa might have thought it was funny, but didn't voice their support. Anyway, the pancakes tasted normal, they were just green.
I didn't think much about it, until much later when Wade (Julie's husband) mentioned that the green pancakes had been resurrected by his daughter's, Sid and Abbey, so, here's to you, Sis, Happy Birthday. They tasted normal, but were green.
Riding News
Five days a week commuting is very relaxing to and from work, but I normally get a little tired about Thursday. No problems, I am sure that will work itself out. The state of Virginia has finally (after a year of work) finished the section of the Mount Vernon Trail that connects Lady Bird Johnson Park to the Memorial Bridge. There is now a nice, wide strip of asphalt instead of a narrow, cone infested portion of concrete. I saw them almost finish it off on Thursday this week, and was going to wait until they finished it that night to ride across it, but it was getting late. NOTE: There were two other riders waiting for the steamroller and work crew to finish it off so they could be the first riders over it.
I rode home on Friday over it, and was really enjoying it UNTIL a smarmy, annoying pair of riders stopped in the middle of the intersection to the 14th Street Bridge. Because they stopped, I had to slow my roll down to go around them. After I passed them up, smarmy, annoying rider number 1 (clearly out for his first ride this spring) said,very loudly, in a very annoying tone "If you would have signaled, we wouldn't have stopped". The PTSD monster inside of me wanted to go back and pound the smarmyness out rider number 1, but the sane rational balance to PTSD monster decided not to ruin my ride by doing that. I like the fact that other riders have opinions about my riding, I don't necessarily care to hear them though. The rest of the ride was just fine.
This was the second interaction with smarmy, annoying riders on the Mount Vernon trail. Last year, as I was riding back to Alexandria after another long day of Joint Staff work, I made a very bad pass on a group of riders and some folks could have looked at my pass as almost dangerous, and one of the riders may have had to put on his brakes. OK, got it, be annoyed, say something, got it, sorry. Instead, smarmy annoying rider decided to pull up right behind me and ring his annoying bell at me continuously for about 1/2 a mile. Once again, PTSD monster inside of me wanted to do some biker on biker violence, but rational sane person vetoed the recommendation from PTSD monster.
PTSD monster can be hard to control sometimes.
Sigh, OK, that is off my chest . . . .
On the better side of riding news . . . There is a section of my route that goes between the Jefferson Memorial and the George Washington Parkway, there is a very small garden besides one of the overpasses, in the garden is a statue of a person sitting on a park bench.
I rode by it several times, always thinking "I should go over and see who that is". I did that on Wednesday morning, turns out it is a statue of George Mason sitting on a park bench (makes sense, the official name of the 14th Street Bridge is the George Mason Bridge). I read the sign that accompanied the statue, turns out, George Mason was one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence and a mentor to George Washington and Thomas Jefferson. Washington called him a great man and mentor, Jefferson thought he was one of the smartest men in Virginia. Jefferson used parts of George Mason's documents (the Virginia Declaration of Rights) as a model for the Declaration of Independence and for the Bill of Rights. Mason left the Constitution Convention though, after they failed to address slavery in the Constitution, pretty big deal for a Virginia man. Anyway, it is a pleasant little area, worth the walk and I am glad I stopped to check it out.Weather update
The weather here in DC is reaching the point where it is no longer cold, just kind of brisk, Cheney may be allowed to roam the backyard without her cape. Last year she had a green sweater, which she hated wearing, but kept her warm. When I took it off of her, she bounced all over the back yard for a while. I think she will miss the cape some, but not much.
Husker update
Spring practice has started, it looks like there is harmony in the coaching staff, so we will see. I am cautiously optimistic about our switch the Big 10.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
What has been going on?
Well, not much and a whole lot . . . .
I am now a 5 day a week bike commuter. I recently went all the way to bike geekdom and purchased a side pannier (saddlebag) for my bike. It is much roomier than the small trunk that I had on my bike's commuter rack, so I can carry more stuff - - - I don't think that I will need to use my Mondays to carry in all of my breakfasts, lunches, snacks t-shirts and socks, I can just put a couple of day's worth in the saddlebag. I know that sounds pretty exciting . . . but, to me, it is. I don't particularly care to ride the metro and buses, especially the buses. Normally when I get on a bus, it is very crowded and it stops every two blocks for a mile or so, sometimes, I see folks get on the bus two blocks from the metro stop, and then get off at the metro stop which I find very frustrating. That was why I was walking to and from the metro stop, but . . . . . .
I recently had to stop walking to and from the metro stop because my foot has taken a turn for the not healing so fast. I am not sure what I did, but the plantar faciitis came back with a vengeance earlier this week. When I trace it back, I think it was wearing my Army boots a couple of times (when it snowed once, walking to the metro). I coupled that with a run that I got a little too froggy on (running too far too fast, sigh) and I think I will not be running for a while, sigh. I will see the podiatrist this week and see what he has to say, hopefully it is just a matter of staying off of it for a while.
The only thing that I have to figure out is how to do my weekly stop at the YES, Organic Food Market on Georgia AVE. It was only three blocks from the Metro stop. I think I can make a modification to my riding route and get to it from a side street, rather than going down Georgia AVE (one of the more frustrating roads to ride on, lots of traffic and stoplights). I normally stop there and get some fruit and honey, they have an organic honey that is really good, made by bees that frequent orange blossoms down in Florida, and it is pretty in-expensive for that sort of honey. Those orange blossom loving bees make a mighty fine honey.
Outside of biking to work, hmmm, what has been going on?
Last night me and a couple of friends went to see a play at the Kennedy Center (yes, that Kennedy Center). They are doing a two week showing of Indian (the country, not American Indians) culture, displays, art, textiles, etc.
Link to the Maximum India Web page
Pretty interesting stuff, we had some Indian food at the cafeteria (pretty good flavor, but on the pricey side, of course, it is the Kennedy Center) and watched an Indian interpretation of an Ibsen play: When the Dead Awaken. I am not much into plays, especially if they are done in an obscure Indian language. About 30% of the dialogue was shown as subtitles on monitors next to the stage, but it seemed to be a lot of screaming and laughing, with some interesting use of props. Description from the web page:
"Selected for its universal human themes of death and resurrection, When We Dead Awaken directed by writer, director, and actor Ratan Thiyam puts an Eastern twist on Henrik Ibsen's final play of the same name. Chorus Repertory Theatre's production revolves around the buried symbolism in names and occupations. A sculptor who has grown cold to his wife is led to climb a great mountain by an intriguing woman. But the monolith proves to be too much for the sculptor in this enigmatic play that hints that when we wake up to our reality, there is little around to recognize. In this adaptation, scenes from the original play have been picked up and interpolated, without distorting the original idea and using unaltered dialogues from the original text. Performed in Manipuri with English surtitles. A free Explore the Arts discussion follows the performance on March 4."
We didn't stick around for the Explore the Arts discussion.
A member of our running club was interested in it, so we went with him. The play was performed in Manipuri, a part of north east India, near Burma. I have no idea how someone from Manipur discovered Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright. Interesting symbolism in the production. I think I will stick to English plays from now on though.
Other news:
Husker update: Bo has made my year, he let Sean Watson go, so maybe the Husker offense will pick up and have a distinct identity. I think the entire Husker nation breathed a sigh of relief.
A new officer has come into our organization, he is from western Iowa, and went to the University of Nebraska at Kearney (formerly Kearney State College). He has the same huge Husker magnet that I do, so I figured out he was a Husker fan. That should make this fall a little more interesting.
Survivor update:
If you are not watching this season of Survivor, sorry for you. It is probably the best season in the past several years, there are some true characters on the show. I really enjoy watching it and discussing it with the two other folks on the Joint Staff that watch it as well. One of my Survivor buddies DVRs the show and watches it several times over a weekend. That is dedication.
Movie review:
I haven't seen too many movies here lately. The most recent two were Toy Story 3, which I did enjoy. I saw the first two, so I Netflixed the 3d one. Good story, and a fitting end to a Pixar empire.
I also watched Winter's Bone (Link to the NY Times Review), which was very, umm, gritty? If you want to watch a painful to watch movie about how the meth industry has affected rural America (the movie is set in the Ozarks), this is it. Very similar to Precious a few years ago, intense and hard to watch. I probably won't be driving through rural Missouri for a while.
I am now a 5 day a week bike commuter. I recently went all the way to bike geekdom and purchased a side pannier (saddlebag) for my bike. It is much roomier than the small trunk that I had on my bike's commuter rack, so I can carry more stuff - - - I don't think that I will need to use my Mondays to carry in all of my breakfasts, lunches, snacks t-shirts and socks, I can just put a couple of day's worth in the saddlebag. I know that sounds pretty exciting . . . but, to me, it is. I don't particularly care to ride the metro and buses, especially the buses. Normally when I get on a bus, it is very crowded and it stops every two blocks for a mile or so, sometimes, I see folks get on the bus two blocks from the metro stop, and then get off at the metro stop which I find very frustrating. That was why I was walking to and from the metro stop, but . . . . . .
I recently had to stop walking to and from the metro stop because my foot has taken a turn for the not healing so fast. I am not sure what I did, but the plantar faciitis came back with a vengeance earlier this week. When I trace it back, I think it was wearing my Army boots a couple of times (when it snowed once, walking to the metro). I coupled that with a run that I got a little too froggy on (running too far too fast, sigh) and I think I will not be running for a while, sigh. I will see the podiatrist this week and see what he has to say, hopefully it is just a matter of staying off of it for a while.
The only thing that I have to figure out is how to do my weekly stop at the YES, Organic Food Market on Georgia AVE. It was only three blocks from the Metro stop. I think I can make a modification to my riding route and get to it from a side street, rather than going down Georgia AVE (one of the more frustrating roads to ride on, lots of traffic and stoplights). I normally stop there and get some fruit and honey, they have an organic honey that is really good, made by bees that frequent orange blossoms down in Florida, and it is pretty in-expensive for that sort of honey. Those orange blossom loving bees make a mighty fine honey.
Outside of biking to work, hmmm, what has been going on?
Last night me and a couple of friends went to see a play at the Kennedy Center (yes, that Kennedy Center). They are doing a two week showing of Indian (the country, not American Indians) culture, displays, art, textiles, etc.
Link to the Maximum India Web page
Pretty interesting stuff, we had some Indian food at the cafeteria (pretty good flavor, but on the pricey side, of course, it is the Kennedy Center) and watched an Indian interpretation of an Ibsen play: When the Dead Awaken. I am not much into plays, especially if they are done in an obscure Indian language. About 30% of the dialogue was shown as subtitles on monitors next to the stage, but it seemed to be a lot of screaming and laughing, with some interesting use of props. Description from the web page:
"Selected for its universal human themes of death and resurrection, When We Dead Awaken directed by writer, director, and actor Ratan Thiyam puts an Eastern twist on Henrik Ibsen's final play of the same name. Chorus Repertory Theatre's production revolves around the buried symbolism in names and occupations. A sculptor who has grown cold to his wife is led to climb a great mountain by an intriguing woman. But the monolith proves to be too much for the sculptor in this enigmatic play that hints that when we wake up to our reality, there is little around to recognize. In this adaptation, scenes from the original play have been picked up and interpolated, without distorting the original idea and using unaltered dialogues from the original text. Performed in Manipuri with English surtitles. A free Explore the Arts discussion follows the performance on March 4."
We didn't stick around for the Explore the Arts discussion.
A member of our running club was interested in it, so we went with him. The play was performed in Manipuri, a part of north east India, near Burma. I have no idea how someone from Manipur discovered Ibsen, a Norwegian playwright. Interesting symbolism in the production. I think I will stick to English plays from now on though.
Other news:
Husker update: Bo has made my year, he let Sean Watson go, so maybe the Husker offense will pick up and have a distinct identity. I think the entire Husker nation breathed a sigh of relief.
A new officer has come into our organization, he is from western Iowa, and went to the University of Nebraska at Kearney (formerly Kearney State College). He has the same huge Husker magnet that I do, so I figured out he was a Husker fan. That should make this fall a little more interesting.
Survivor update:
If you are not watching this season of Survivor, sorry for you. It is probably the best season in the past several years, there are some true characters on the show. I really enjoy watching it and discussing it with the two other folks on the Joint Staff that watch it as well. One of my Survivor buddies DVRs the show and watches it several times over a weekend. That is dedication.
Movie review:
I haven't seen too many movies here lately. The most recent two were Toy Story 3, which I did enjoy. I saw the first two, so I Netflixed the 3d one. Good story, and a fitting end to a Pixar empire.
I also watched Winter's Bone (Link to the NY Times Review), which was very, umm, gritty? If you want to watch a painful to watch movie about how the meth industry has affected rural America (the movie is set in the Ozarks), this is it. Very similar to Precious a few years ago, intense and hard to watch. I probably won't be driving through rural Missouri for a while.
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