blarg

so if you cant tell by my 5-6 month absence this year, ive either been busy, pre-occupied, or lost interest in this thing... im not entirely sure which is the winner. some morbid manifestation of them all? perhaps.

[cincy.house]
most of you are pretty up to date because one of the main reasons i started this thing was to update my long lost family back home on the status of the house and cincy in general [this was before the name change & relocation obviously] since relocating, i talk to most of you much more often and we discuss these things more often. but i suppose there are perhaps those of you out there that have read this blog from afar or perhaps dont stay in such close contact with me - to you, i do apologize, and will henceforth briefly update you.

the short answer is that nothing has happened. we finally finished reconstruction the last day of september, and we've paid everyone everything we owe them. we put the house back on the market, but had no interest worth mentioning in it since [nearly two months now?]

the crazy girl has popped up over and over and in the last 6 months we were forced to retain legal services and subsequently pay a shit-ton [i think thats metric] of money for essentially nothing. about every two months she pops back up with some nonsense amendment or letter that we have to pay to have our attorney, yet again, squash, disprove and render pointless... and then she disappears for two months.... i guess its about time for more of her nonsense? who knows. who cares. shes certifiable.

other than that, we discussed at great length the option of renting the house and have since gone through all the necessary paperwork and such to hire a property management company to handle things and get it rented out. they have another couple of weeks to find a tenant before the 45 day deadline - that come to think of it, i have absolutely no idea what happens after it expires. they seem certain that they can find a tenant before their time is up, so here's hoping they are correct. if we do manage to successfully rent this thing out it would cancel out the payments we're still making on it and in the end actually service as a modicum of additional income - sweet!

and that my friends, is the house update. such as it is.

[work]
work is good. staying moderately busy working on a handful of things. i still really enjoy my job and the freedom its granted me in addition to the obvious benefits of being gainfully employed. no worries here, i appear to be quite secure in the continued availability of my position as well as the continued happiness of my superiors. time and again i appear to have exceeded their expectations and they continue to assign me more responsibility, more respect, and more inclusion in things than i ever really could have imagined. as far as fellow employees go, i honestly like everyone ive met and have reoccurring contact with. there are certainly a few here or there that tend to have less than ideal personalities, but hey, to coin a common cliche - thats why they invented 32 flavors, eh? i dont mind. if im having a day where someone or someones are becoming an annoyance for whatever reason, i can simply turn up my headphones, shut my door and drown out my surroundings while i work away in the comfort of my office. [well, until i start to cook and have to allow in some ventilation, but those are sufficiently spaced intervals.] in summary, work is good.

[everything else?]
not really sure what to say. i could update you all on my wifes life, but really, shouldnt she be doing that? i dont really have the inclination.

||gadgets||
i did get a new toy for my birthday last weekend - yes, you missed it, and i'll only forgive you in the wake of lavish gifting - a kindle fire. you've probably seen them in the news, theyre supposed to be one of the most popular gifts this holiday season and are expected to be the only realistic rival to the ipad2.

i can say that in the few days ive had this thing it has completely abducted me. i am engulfed in its intricacies and discovering what all it has to offer. the main reason i wanted one was for games, movies, and books to take along on our cruise in a couple of weeks and so far im not disappointed in the offerings.

i havent yet started to purchase books for it, but ive done extensive wish listing on amazon and will soon make some decisions about purchase. the quality i can get in video is more than satisfying although i havent yet figured out how to get movies/tv shows directly to the device instead of streaming from the cloud... [apologies for all the tech-jargon if youre clueless] and lastly the games.

ive never been too terribly into mobile device gaming, but im starting to understand it a little better. other than a few word games that were mostly encouraged by the wifey, i hadnt really found any games that interested me much on them. oh sure, i test drove a few and they were fun for a little while, but after about 5 minutes, i was bored with most of them. not that i really have a ton of time for gaming anyhow, but its certainly part of the device experience these days. well, since acquiring my fire, ive found a few games im really enjoying. one is a pinball game that really took me back to pinball on our old win95. man its been years since i played that, but i rather enjoyed it then, and had a good time tinkering with it on the fire the other day. and then last night i really found some winners. i rediscovered mahjong [again, probably not since win95] and had a good time cussing it as i relearned the game, and even better was a crossword puzzle game. never been huge on crossword puzzles, but this proved to be very enjoyable as karen and i teamed up and spent a solid hour or two trying to solve the puzzles. we dont really play a lot of games together and this was actually a lot of fun for me, so that seems like a winner.

other than that, karen seems to be a bit annoyed with the thing, and im afraid shes starting to regret gifting it. i dont feel like ive really been playing with it to the extent of ignoring her or neglecting my husband-ly duties, but she certainly seems off-put whenever i pick it up. im not sure why really, but im obviously not seeing things from her perspective. honestly, im just really enthralled with figuring out all that it can do and how it does it, and once the newness and the mystery wears off, im sure itll be less enthralling, and hopefully less intrusive. either way, i am enjoying it. =]

||house||
the only other item i really feel inclined to comment on is houses. not the one in cincy though, here in houston. for those of you that dont already know, karen and i have taken a serious look at things and have decided we are ready to buy in houston, and as such, have begun the process. we met with a mortgage adviser at our bank and found out that i have awesome credit and we've been unofficially approved for a more sizable  mortgage than i had ever expected and with a very reasonable interest rate in my perspective.

we've enlisted the help of a close friend/realtor to help us with the search and have started scouring the city for that perfect house. so far we havent found it, but have been able to really start nailing down what things we do want, dont want, areas and neighborhoods we are and arent interested in, things we're willing to compromise on, and the price range we actually want to be in - and what that looks like in terms of potential houses.

its a process and its ongoing. ideally we'd like to close on something before january 1st for financial reasons, but at this point its not looking terribly likely. who knows, perhaps that perfect-for-us house is lurking just around the next corner. in the meantime we have some solid options that we're planning to try and get showing for by the end of this week. we've already done one round of these that was a little disappointing, but thats all part of the process, im not discouraged yet.

hopefully it all turns out.

hmm...
so i guess thats all i have for now. not much of an update, sorry. hope i didnt ramble too much. really hope you all had a happy thanksgiving - please do me a great favor and ignore anything and everything fox news is reporting about the president's non-official thanksgiving you-tube video. actually, if you really want to do me a favor, never watch fox news again - what a bunch of idiots...

okay, thats it.

ststststatus.update

hello blogonites.

so i guess its been about a month since my last update on the state of affairs in the htx. while i cant say its been a terribly eventful and exciting month, its certainly had its milestones... as follows...

[june 4]

we attended/participated in the houston aia's annual sandcastle competition in gtx... see pictures of some of the castles here...

[june 7]

the wifey and i had our annual anniversary [heh, i crack myself up...] and as usual i showered her with gifts, threatened to take her to wendy's, and then took her somewhere much fancier [well, at least a little, lol]. this year was a particularly difficult dinner to plan as i was trying to rival last year's dinner at the melting pot ...which is pretty much the all time greatest karen dinner imaginable... it was quite an experience. not only that, but having just moved back to the h-o-u, i really had no idea what my dining options were, and ended up spending hours on yelp, open table, and other such websites trying to find a good idea [and ended up with like 40... geez... ] eventually i settled on Philippe, a fairly new, fairly swanky, establishment in the greater galleria area owned and operated by a fairly famous chef [allegedly... id never heard of him, but then again, im not exactly a houstonian-socialite-extraordinaire...]. it ended up being a pretty great experience and a pretty great night overall. the food was fairly excellent overall and for my "foodie" readers ill take a short deviation from the flow of the blog to discuss our meal, those of you uninterested, feel free to skip ahead a little...

*****

for drink starters we had a few cocktails. i had my standard crown & coke while karen sampled one of the special cocktail concoctions from the menu, the sheriff - el jimador tequila, pink grapefruit + red chile flakes. mine was ethereal as ive been off soda for a good month and a half at this point and that one half glass was beyond amazing... karen absolutely loved hers as well. she pretty much loves anything with grapefruit [more on that later...] and really enjoyed this drink. i had a sip and can say that i agree, it was quite yummy - for a fruity girl drink with an awesome name. ;]

for food starters we chose the crab + avocado from the 'contained decadence' section of the menu. id read a number of reviews boasting this particular appetizer and was pleased that karen wanted to try it as well - sounding pretty delicious be the description - crab + avocado with lime, cilantro, olive oil emulsion. mmmm.... the contained description above alludes to the fact that this little dish is served in a mason jar and comes with toasted bread slices to spread. the crab was absolutely some of the best crab ive ever had. it was so tender and juicy and the complements of avocado, cilantro, and lime made for a southwestern savor that was over the top. my only complaints [and i hesitate to call them that] were that the emulsion made for a frothy substance on the top that was a little strange at first, and that it didn't really come with enough toast to compliment the entire jar. however the second point is moot, considering they served some quite satisfying bread complimentary to the meal, and were happy to refill as needed - it was warm and delightful.

on to the main course. karen decided on the texas caesar - with bbq-brushed skirt steak, cactus, & shaved grana padano. i chose the mascarpone risotto - with red wine-braised chicken, bacon, & mushrooms. and to celebrate the evening, we decide to buy a bottle of bubbly and chose the segura viudas, brut cava - which one of the managers later made a point of mentioning was one of his favorites. im by no means an expert on wine vintages or brands, but we enjoyed this one very much and were glad we ordered it. first off, the presentation was excellent.

karen's salad arrived on a large boat-shaped dish and was loaded with ample skirt steak. she was satisfied with her selection, but wished the bbq sauce wasnt quite so prominent - it pretty much covered up all the other flavors. but the steak was definitely tender and juicy and prepared exactly as she liked it and all of the greens were crisp and fresh.

my risotto was certainly no disappointment. in fact, id say it was in the top 3 dishes ive ever had! the risotto itself was creamy and soft, the sauce was amazing! in addition to that, the thick cut bacon was delicious and complemented the mushrooms - so flavorful! - and braised chicken perfectly. the chicken was well cooked and melted in my mouth. my dish certainly had all of its flavors represented and i couldn't really pick any one outshining the rest.

and finally, for desert. we just couldnt pass up the texas "millionaires" tart - chocolate-caramel-pecan tart, texas grapefruit salad, & jasmine cream. [remember the mention of grapefruit?] now if youre anything like karen and i, when you first read that combination of ingredients you probably took a double-take and pondered the idea of chocolate, carmel, grapefruit and jasmine and scratched your chin a little... and we certainly dont blame you! what an odd combination to image... but if you are in fact like us, then you couldnt resist indulging your curiosity either - and boy-howdy, we were rewarded. the flavors compliment each other in a way you just wouldnt imagine! i was stuffed from my early dishes so i only had a couple of small bites, but karen certainly enjoyed her dessert =] [sorry, forgot to photo that one!]

*****

overall, a pretty great dinner, i would definitely recommend it! on top of that the restaurant had a very well designed interior, with kind of an edgy industrial feel over a chic elegance. karen and i loved the wine-box-lid bars and the super tall backed booths. our only complaint was the use of acoustical ceiling tile over the stairway/lounge [eww!!] but then again... we're rather snobby about acoustical ceiling tile, haha, so that was an unavoidable criticism from us ;] other than that, it was a little on the noisy side, but we were able to enjoy our light conversation between mouthfuls just fine. the management and staff were extremely friendly and went well out of their way to make sure our night was special. i give the entire experience 4.5 out of 5 stars and will certainly keep it at the top of my list for any special occasion dinners in the future. [at $$$ its not exactly something karen and i can afford to enjoy on any given day, lol! although was completely reasonable for the meal and experience!]

by the end of the night we were stuffed silly and ended up relaxing on the couch with the mutt watching one of our favorite tv shows before turning in with satisfied tummies =]

[june 11]

fragment/ornament - an installation intervention by artist karen brasier.

some of you may remember the blurb i posted in my last blog about karens upcoming [at the time] art show. well on june 11 that show came to fruition - after lots and lots of hard work on karen's part [and only a moderate lots on mine, haha, ever the artist's assistant...]. as part of the ongoing art-walk events held in downtown galveston by the galveston art center karen hosted a special showing of work shes been working on recently in the original home of the galveston art center in its gutted and partially reconstructed state [see:hurricane ike...]. temporarily the gac has relocated to a new location to maintain the day to day while the original building is under reconstruction. however, the progress has stalled out for the moment as theyve run out of money and need approx. a million dollars to be donated to complete the renovations fully. the space is pretty interesting to be in at the moment, and the show was quite successful in my humble opinion - presenting both the opportunity for people to see karen's recent works and also a forum to expose the public to the current state of the facilities and discuss whats still needed to bring it back to life. karens work for this particular show was a fitting accent to the state of the building as we were required to construct temporary walls for occupancy and the theme of her show focused specifically on elements of fragmented architecture. im quite proud of her and this most recent endeavor and can attest to all of the very hard [extremely sweaty!] work that went into getting this show together.

she still has big dreams and goals for her art, so expect much more in the future - ill certainly post as things happen =]

well... theres much more i could say about the house at this point, but this post has gone on long enough, and i think ill save that particular topic for the near future - and hopefully have some updated pictures to show for your patience!

hope youre all having a fantastic week, hug your dads this weekend and have a happy dads day!

sayonara.

much.the.same

so karen arrived back in town safe and sound last wednesday. her flights were uneventful although being the smarty she was she decided it would be a good idea to go to the airport 10 hours early to try and catch an earlier flight... and didnt. so she spent a LOT of time waiting around in airports for her return to cincy, and after a short time of nearly unbearable hunger, the trip was over and she was back in my arms. since getting her home shes taken in all of the projects and changes and such and she seems quite pleased with the results. the day she got back i took off and our first "to do" on the list was the store and that night my wife decided to cook - and boy did she ever. it seems she was suffering a little in san fran with a kitchen about the size of a postage stamp and about as much space in the shared refrigerator. so when we got home she decided to make 2 different kinds of lentil salad, a carrot salad, pineapple bread, and we also made some home-made slasa that was just awesome. i took some pictures to share with the fam, but they arent very impressive and certainly not worthy of posting.

last weekend karen and i went to cleveland to attend a couple of friends of ours wedding. it was a really nice wedding, although pretty warm, but great times all around. it was a lot of fun getting to enjoy their day with them and see a bunch of our friends along the way. oh and did i mention the food? man i wish i had taken some pictures.... after the ceremony and before the reception there was a pre-reception party back at the brides parents and oh. my. god. they had some AMAZING food... apparently her step-dad owns one of the best restaurants in cleveland and boy did it show. everything was just mouth watering... overall it was a pretty exhausting weekend with the trip up and back and all the festivities and karen was totally jet-lagged most of the time, but we had a lot of fun and my wife looked incredible in her new dress ;]

since returning from cleveland things have gotten pretty well back to normal. ive been going to work and karen has been taking care of school stuff and doing different odds and ends around the house. shes started messing with wall paper and painted some primer here and there, but nothing super exciting as of yet. oh, one fairly significant change, we decided to finally move from the penthouse [aka sauna...] down to the second floor bedroom and things have been oh so much cooler. its about half the size of the upstairs room and theres the ability to close the door and contain the space, so the window air conditioner, while not the most attractive on the front of the house, does a much better job of cooling the space. we had about 3 nights of just absolutely sweaty sleep and had had enough. since then we've been much happier, haha!

umm... hmmm... what else...

well i cant really think of anything else to update you on. its only been a few days and sadly, as the title boasts, things are much the same as always. its definitely spectacular having the wife back [in oh so many ways!] and we're having a blast hanging out again, but life has a way of plateauing... much like working out does. although, my work outs are still gong well. ive skipped a few days with the wife around [and our shear exhaustion from the traveling and such] but ive also really pushed myself hard when i have gone and im feeling great about things.

well anyway, ill let you know when [if] something exciting happens, haha!

love+miss!

post.script: whos seen g.i.joe? how was it? want to soooo bad!

the.prodigal.blogger

so yeah, ive been on hiatus for the last couple of weeks i guess. although to be fair, theres been a lot going on and not much of it was all that interesting. so why dont we play the catch-up game anyway, hm?

well the week after the parents-in-law left, we were pretty exhausted from the visit and didnt do much of anything. we just tried to recuperate and gear up for the upcoming holiday weekend... which holiday weekend you ask? well im glad you did... the 678 holiday of course ;]

for those of you that are totally clueless and are checking your calendars to try and figure out what the hell im talking about, ill try and make this as painless as possible for you. 678 = 06.07.08 = june, 7th 2008 = karen and i's anniversary. caught up yet? so anyway, the upcoming sunday was our anniversary and while we hadnt really planned anything spectacular i did have to play romance and prepare a little bit for the 1year milestone. well at first i had no clue what to get the wifey for our first anniversary so of course, i called the expert on "traditional" wedding/anniversary/other sappy stuff customs and rituals - i.e. mom. well she was excited that id even ask her opinion, but i had to start somewhere right? well she was not much help when it comes to the "traditional" crap because, well, karen and i arent very traditional and we could really care less.. however she did give me a tiny bit of inspiration and well, as moms do, plenty of shoving in the directions she thought was the best. she was just convinced that i needed to do some really sappy crap and was really pushing for it and as usual i ignored her and she has yet to let me forget it [i doubt she ever will] but we'll come back to that later. so after my twinge of inspiration for a gift the rest started falling into place and i quickly planned out all the steps id need to take to make my wife pleased with me. [which to be quite honest, doesnt take much... im loved.] so wednesday after work i went out and got her gift and it really couldnt have been easier. she had class from before i got off work till 9:30 that night and would have no clue what i was up to so secrecy was definitely on my side.

so as the weekend approached i planned a little more and shed been dropping hints about wanting to go on a picnic on our anniversary, so really... i didnt have to try much at all - shes easy to please. saturday night we decided to go out to dinner for our "anniversary dinner out" but really we just didnt feel like cooking and it seemed like a reasonable excuse to go out to dinner. it wasnt anything super spectacular, but we went to a little german/hungarian restaurant in town that we'd never been to and shed wanted to try and we had a nice little dinner complete with chocolate cake.

sunday, the real surprises all happened and it started bright and early in the morning. i woke up and snuck out of bed and went downstairs to get started making her breakfast. well luckily she apparently had no idea id even left, so i was able to get quite a bit of breakfast started and the coffee made before she popped in to ruin her breakfast surprise - waffles. now i dont want to brag here, but i make awesome waffles. thats really all there is to say on the subject, its always been a little something i was good at, and i usually reserve it for special occasions. well, just to connect the dots for you, i had snuck out of bed and made her waffles the first day of our honeymoon so this was just a little allusion to that. whether or not she picked up on that is irrelevant, she was definitely surprised and was still trying to figure out how id gotten out of bed without her noticing and was very pleased to see what id been up to. and, as it turns out, this batch of waffles was one of my best yet ;]

so while she was enjoying her breakfast i snuck upstairs and retrieved her hidden present and then snuck up behind her and presented the gift. well now she was just giggling with delight, she thought the breakfast was her gift, lol! so she opened her present and "oo"ed and "ah"ed at its contents - some new perfume and lotion and a little travel bag with travel sized goodies in it as well all from victoria's secret. well if you dont know my wife, she LOVES perfumes and well, really anything scented. her "scents" as she lovingly refers to them. so she was quite delighted by all her new goodies and a little bonus, the bottle of perfume i happened to get was kind of a throwback and had the old-timey mist pump on it - very karen - and she loved it. =] so i got plenty of hugs and smooches after that.

well, even though it was our anniversary, it was still a typical weekend, so we had already planned to run some errands before our picnic and that was up next on the list of things to do. after relaxing a little and then getting dressed we headed out to run our 3 errands for the day. first, i needed a haircut because i was starting to get a little shaggy, but mostly because brother's wedding was in 2 weeks and i needed to be trimmed and have time to let my hair get to a good length before the festivities. so our first stop was the salon where i got all prettied up and actually had probably the best haircut ive had since leaving my favorite stylist of all time back in denver... [miss you chris!!] anyhoo, so i was looking good and karen was all smiley with my sexy haircut and we made our next stop - the grocery store. if you havent been reading long, or just havent ever paid attention, we go to the grocery store every sunday, its just out little weekly tradition, so we were picking up all our usual groceries, plus a bunch of extra fancy goodies for our special picnic lunch. so we got some really nice bread and fancy cheeses and meats and some fruit, spreads, crackers, etc. all the stuff you have to have on a picnic of course!

well the more we shopped i could tell the wife was getting more excited, it had actually been a while since our last picnic and she loves them [not to mention they're one of our "things" you know? most couples have little couple-y hobbies they really enjoy doing together ranging anywhere from just hanging out watching tivo on a saturday night to date nights to extreme stuff like skydiving, and well picnics have just always been one of ours since we started dating. but i digress...] so after we finished shopping we quickly took care of errand #3 - the weekly gassing up the truck, and then we went home to unload and pack up for the picnic. well karen had only mentioned that she wanted to go on a picnic but hadnt really said where, so the last little bit of my planning was coming up with a fun place for us to go. cincinnati is known for having a few hills, im not sure how many - 8? - and a few of them have little parks on them. well the first picnic we had in cincy was at eden park which is basically on mount adams so continuing in that tradition i decided we were going to go to mt. airy park which is just on the opposite side of northside where we live, so not far at all. we'd discovered that the park was there on accident one night when we went exploring for the fun of it up mt. airy, and we'd been planning to go back at some point - obviously this was the perfect time to do so.

so we headed up to mt. airy and leisurely drove around the park exploring all the different little paths and picnic areas until we found one that was perfect. after quickly unloading and spreading out we started our picnic and enjoyed it for the next few hours. all our snacks were quite delicious and we'd both brought little things to read and relax and of course i had my camera so i took plenty of pictures as we just enjoyed our time together, some light conversation, a little napping, a little sunning, you know... picnic stuff =]

so a few hours later we were both sufficiently picnic-ed and decided to pack it up and make a quick stop at this park treehouse we'd passed on the way in and wanted to check out. as it turns out the treehouse was really cool and we both really liked it and i took plenty more pictures, haha. after the treehouse we decided to drive around the park exploring a little more and found a couple of little lodges tucked hidden away in the trees that were pretty cool and an arboreum that was pretty cool before we decided we were done for the day.

and well, that was about it, haha. i know its not really anything all that exciting but we just hung out together doing things we enjoy doing and it was a really nice time. i dont think it could have been a better first anniversary, it was just very us. =] oh and i forgot to mention, the thing i didnt do that my mother was so insistent about was write karen a love poem. soooo sappy... and after i gave karen her present i mentioned that my mom had wanted me to write her the poem and she agreed... really not her thing. so as it turns out, i know my wife pretty well afterall, haha ;] sorry mom! =P

well since then, on tuesday karen left for the summer. i think ive mentioned before that she was going to san francisco this summer, but just in case i havent let me quickly explain. basically in addition to getting a masters degree in architecture here in cincinnati, karen decided that she also wanted a masters in fine arts and at some point during her researching she found a program from the sanfran art institute [which is apparently a pretty good school for that sort of thing] that lets you get a masters and really works with you on the time thing. basically you only have to be at the school for 2 summers full time and then you can do the rest remotely so shes going to be able to do both degrees simultaneously. anyway, tuesday was her flight out and after a few tears and lots of goodbyes she flew out. she arrived in sanfran at around 11pm western time and has since gotten to her summer apartment and gone to a bunch of orientations and gotten pretty well settled in. so far she seems to love it out there. shes had some little issues with her computer, as it turns out her harddrive decided to completely crash but luckily she had most of her stuff backed up on an external. also, just a crazy coincidence, chance and claire our fellow bloggers and friends from austin [see my links list for their blogs], are vacationing in san francisco right now and apparently karen hooked up with them last night for dinner and to hang out a little, so thats pretty cool. =]

well... i guess thats about it for now. theres really not all that much going on here. just trying to keep myself entertained and busy with work for the most part. i dont have anything planned for this weekend so i dont know what ill end up doing, but im sure it wont be terribly interesting. next weekend however, is josh and cassie's wedding and im sure there will be tons of fun and festivities involved. for those of you i'll get to see at the wedding i cant wait, its been a long time!

alright, thats all ive got. hope youre all having a great week!

post.script: yeah i totally forgot to bring any pictures with me to work today, so i'll have to upload some later for you. sorry!

i.need.a.holiday.after.my.holiday[part.one]

so when i last left you all i was in the middle of the weekend. well a lot of time has passed since then and my memory of the details of sunday are foggy at best. the only real excitement i can recall is that our closet collapsed sunday night at about 11pm and i had to fix it on monday. it was quite an annoyance, but everything is fine now.

the real excitement happened over this last holiday weekend. as i mentioned in the previous post, the in-laws were comin to town for a visit and we'd been preparing for their arrival. so friday night after work i cleaned house some more and set up the 2nd floor bedroom for them so they could have a little privacy on the 2nd floor with their own room and own bathroom. [theyd still have to share the only working shower, but its a big step up from practically sharing the same room with us - see: the circus coming to town...] anyway i got things pretty well prepared for them and then after karen was finished with school we went to the store and got some window treatments for the room so that the room wouldnt be completely open for the world to see. we spent the next couple of hours putting those up - a task that proved more difficult than id have liked, and the heat in the house was not working in my favor either... [this is actually going to be a bit of a consistency for the entire weekend... it was HOT] well at some point we finished and snuggled up in front of the tv for a while and before we knew it the cell phone was ringing and the in-laws were at the front door. well it was around 12:15am from my recollection and this was actually a little unexpected. wed been informed earlier that day that their flight had been delayed at least an hour, and they actually showed up earlier than originally planned... so not entirely sure what happened there, but we exchanged hugs, showed them to their room, and let them retire for the evening after all their traveling.

[saturday day.one]
well we were anticipating getting some house work done this weekend [i believe we may have discussed in brevity what projects we anticipated the night before] so we were all up pretty early and getting ready to start the festivities. after everyone had their coffee and breakfast we decided on a plan of action and then started putting together all of our lists. the days projects were anticipated to include, but werent limited to: home depot/lowes for materials & supplies, the grocery store to stock up for the weekend and the week to come, finish the bookshelves once and for all, put up the crown molding [caulk, fill, paint, and touch up as required], and if there was time get started on painting a few small areas that were still in need of some tlc. anticipated items for day 2 were to include replacing two doors, getting dirt and filling the planter outside, and then moving on to more painting and landscaping in the backyard. day 3, to be determined.
well, obviously we were a bit eager and thinking we could get quite a bit done, so we soon set off for the depot to pick up the few items we needed.
at the depot we got a little side tracked looking for some items that they ended up not having, but we were pretty good about staying on the list and without too much delay left the depot and headed to lowes to see if they had the missing items. well, they did, however we ran into a little bit of an assistance snag [in that the guy assisting us was pretty well worthless] and resolved to let anne [thats mom-in-law] stay at lowes to finish up while the rest of us walked next door to biggs to get started on grocery shopping. soon we were filling the basket with all the usual weekly items and then allan [dad-in-law] pulled out the envelope of coupons that mom was insisting we use, and we worked on those as well. i cant tell you exactly how long it had been, but it must have been close to an hour when mom finally popped into the grocery store as we were getting the last few items and checking out. apparently the worthless guy had been quite an ordeal, but eventually shed gotten what we needed and mom and i decided to go get the car and bring it around while karen and dad finished up with the groceries and we could all load up.
soon we were in the car and headed back home, anxious to unload all the new goodies and get started on the projects for the day. after unloading and having a quick bite to eat we were ready to get to work and split up into teams for the weekend. dad and i would do most of the guy stuff - measuring, cutting, heavy lifting, installing, that sort of thing - and mom and karen would take care of the lighter [although still just as important and just as labor intensive] work - like caulking, filling, painting, doing homework [that was karen specific] and supervising the guys [obviously the most crucial and time intensive task]. well we decided to start with the crown molding for the guys while the girls took down all the shelves that still needed to be painted and got started on that.
we were pretty confident as we got started on the crown molding because, well, how hard could it really be? its a 45degree miter for a 90 degree corner, right? thats what it was on all the base molding, and that went pretty quickly when karen and i did it, so this should be just as straight forward logically. well we took some measurement and got our crown out, got the miter saw hooked up and decided that just in case we were off a little on our measurement or cuts we better start with the smallest corner. so we set the miter, measured out boards and cuts [not just once, but twice] and climbed the ladder to bask in our glory.... and thats where everything went wrong. hahaha, as we stuck the wo pieces together we soon realized that they werent just a little off, but in fact were a mile off. the angles didnt line up at all, wed totally forgotten about the crown tilting out and having to cut back. crap, these were going to be compound angles. not only were we going to need the 45degree between the boards, we were also going to have to cut back at a 45 degree so that they would lean out - right? so we tried that method. calibrated the saw accordingly, made our new measurements, cuts, and then climbed back up the ladder... nope. what? but its a 90 degree angle, and this is half of that and theyre tilted at the same angle, so why isnt this working?? well we were a little befuddled at this point and had no idea what was wrong, so i came to the conclusion that since they were tilting out maybe that cut the angle in half again, so it was half of 45, so 22.5. that makes sense, right? alright, we had a plan, wed figured it out, we just didnt completely wrap our minds around the geometry the first two times, no biggie, we were still fresh afterall, the weekend had only just begun. so we re-calibrated, re-measure, re-cut again [at this point having gone through 3/4's of a piece of crown] and back up the ladder to see our succe...s&%$. that wasnt it either. and there was no discernible rationale for what angle we could possibly infer as the difference between the two. well now that we were quite frustrated and scratching our heads [which between the two of us - a masters in architecture and a real life head of scientific research - is saying a little bit i think] we decided to find the d.i.y. beginners books that mom had gotten us when we first bought the house, lol! well when those didnt turn up [weve misplaced a few things in all the rearranging and moving things around, but im sure theyll turn up soon] we opted for the advice of the internet. after a little searching karen found some website that had a table listing the various angles necessary for cutting crown molding - none of which made any logical sense whatsoever from a 90 degree wall angle and a 45degree bisection of that angle, but... whatever. so we found the numbers we thought we needed on the table, set our saw appropriately, re-measured the cuts again and then.... no. still not right... wtf?? so we consulted the website and chart again and it turns out theres two types of crown, one tilts at 45 degrees, one tilts at 38 degrees [where did these people come up with this stuff??? why 38 degrees??] and we apparently had the 38 degree variety so that came with a whole new set of angles. so we went back to the saw and comically enough, discovered that the new angles were actually pre-marked right on the saw all along if only we'd known to look for them, lol! apparently these are the "typical" angles for cutting crown.... anyway, so we remeasured [now having completely gone through a whole length of crown] and got ready to install using our handy new air compressor and nail gun that karen and i bought some time back. we tested the cut pieces and this time it worked! woo hoo! we were in business! i still have no clue how they came up with the angles that make these things work, but i also have no desire to sit down and try to work the geometry to figure it out either. lets just say that a master carpenter somewhere along the line was way better at this stuff than i am, heh.
so we glued the pieces up and stuck them where they were meant to go and got the compressor kicked on until we ran into a little hiccup - we were missing the one little connector between the gun and the hose. #$^*@.... so we sent karen to the hardware store around the corner while we measured and cut the next piece in line and by the time she got back we were ready to install. after trouble shooting the nail gun and getting everything in place we shot the first couple of nails and soon we were moving right along. the first two pieces went up no problem and then the 3rd we ran into a little snag. it was an outside masonry wall and the nail gun was not going to cut it. so we resolved to cut and mount a nailer first, then after a little more work we had the crown in place attached to it. well by this time we were starting to get the hang of this and it started to go a little faster. measure, cut, glue, nail, countersink... we got into a pattern and before long we'd installed all of the crown on 4/5's of the entryway. however, we ran into a little snag... we ran out of crown after all that trial and error on the first piece, haha! so we decided instead to move on to the second piece of the crown [we were doing a two piece type, for those of you that dont know, floor and crown molding can be a variety of combinations of pieces and any number of sizes]. these were just going to be flat against the wall like the base molding and were a much more simple measuring and cutting situation after the insanity of the crown. well... while wed been doing all this, the girls had painted all the shelves and were letting those dry, then had moved on to installing some pieces of glass that were missing in our front and back door - to make them much prettier - and then had even started filling and painting the trim around the two diamond windows in the stairwell and priming the rest of the stairwell to paint to match the entryway. well around dinner time we were all pretty gross from sweating all day [did i mention it was HOT?!] and were pretty hungry, so we decided to go to the comet for some mexican food and some hot salsa we'd told the in-laws about.
by the time we finished dinner it was getting pretty late and we'd only gotten most of one project done, so a little frustrated with our progress the guys finished as much of the crown as we could without the extra we needed to buy the next day and before long we were all exhausted and called it a night.

sorry, but my lunch break is over, youll just have to stay tuned for pictures and the rest of the weekend!!

unanticipated.productivity [one]

so when last we parted, i mentioned that we didnt really have anything planned for the weekend. well, as it turns out, that was partly a lie. unbeknownst to me, my wife had already started quite a list of errands for saturday morning that would in turn breed an entire weekend of activity. 

so lets get to the guts shall we?

[saturday]

so saturday morning we actually got up kind of early, i still dont know why, especially considering id been up past midnight watching battlestar and karen had dozed off somewhere around midnight herself. either way, we were both awake at around 7:50 if memory serves, and while she went down to the office to work on some homework i watched another episode of battlestar, hehe. [ive only got 8 episodes left of the series and im on pins and needles! is there really not going to be a 5th season??? theyre just going to start this new series, caprica, told through the eyes of two cylons?? im in utter disbelief... i must be in for one hell of a series finale...] anyhoo, around 9ish i ventured down to the office to inquire about my wifes ongoings and discovered she was already planning our day out. so we both started getting ready and then somewhere around 10:30 [i think] we were getting on the road to start our list of errands for the morning. 

first up was a stop at the hardware store to return some items from studio that she didnt end up using. after that, a stop at the bank so karen could get some forms notarized for something or other and put them in the mail. after the bank it was around 11:30-ish and we were both decidedly hungry so we popped over to the panera bread next door for an early lunch. i had the egg salad and karen had some chicken panini of some kind - both quite delicious. and on the way out the door, we could help but stop at the "window of guilt and shame" and select a few mouth watering pastry deserts for the road. i dont know about you, but that window should be outlawed, i have no where near the self-control to pass that up, and it would be much better for me [and by me, i mean my wasitline...] if the powers that be stepped in to put a stop to the madness... but i digress.... after lunch the next stops were the library - for karen to return some items shed checked out for studio, the rec center... well, thats obvious, then onward to the depot and the grocery store. actually, come to think of it the bank didnt open till 11 when we went there first and so we decided to do the library and rec first, then the bank and lunch, but i dont suppose the order is terribly significant at this point.

well the first couple of stops going as planned, and we were feeling pretty pleased with our success for the day as we headed on to get more errands done. soon we were pulling into the oh-so-familiar home depot parking lot full of that depot anticipation. [which from my experience is a pretty good mixture of excitement for all the goodies we'll find and dread for the number at the bottom of the receipt...] well the reason we were there was that the "front yard" had become quite overrun with weeds in the last few weeks and after a few weekends of rain they were getting to be quite tall. so we'd about had enough of it and with a good weather weekend in-process we decided we better take advantage of it. so the plan was to get a small lawn mower and possibly some grass seed, and also we were going to look at the possibility of a new door for the second floor shop at the house [see posts on karens studio project vs. my missing door] ao it turns out that the cheapest lawn mowers that they carry are the old wheel blade kind that you push, which is exactly what wed anticipated getting, however even those run for 100 freakin bucks, and theres no way in hell im paying that. so we considered our options and opted instead for a small rechargeable weed whacker. considering that our "front yard" is about 10ftx15ft [if im being generous] i didnt think a small battery powered weed whacker seemed all that unreasonable. especially since it was only a moderate 30-something bucks. so after picking up the weed whacker and explaining to karen why we'd need an extra spool of line even though it said on the box that there was line included... [women...] we headed to the garden center to find us some seedin. well right inside the door they had exactly what i was looking for - scotts turf builder plus with weed killer and advanced hydrating something or other - 15 bucks for 1000sf... haha, ive got 150sf, so that might be a bit overkill, but its the smallest bag they carry, hahaha. so we got that and after having some conversation i convinced the wifey to head over to lumber with me to have a look at some timbers for a planter i want build in the front yard at some point. no commitments, we didnt have to buy anything, just looking... right. ;]

so we looked, and found these really cool rough cut 6x6 timbers for a very reasonable price and the wheels in my mind started turning. as we left the timber section discussing our options and debating the financial practicality of it all we strolled through the door section. at this point they had to pull out the paddles and revive me from the floor as we discovered that the least expensive door they carry with any kind of glass is almost freakin 200 bucks! ha! no thank you... well, after that catastrophe i convinced the wife we should have another gander at the timbers [that project seemed a lot more inexpensive now, haha, these were only 14 bucks each!] and as we debated the possibilities and the design details, we decided we could try out a few timbers and build a small planter and see how it went. so excitedly we got one of the guys to help us pull down 3 timbers [they were on one of the higher stacks and well, they were big.] and as he helped us and i had him check the quality of each timber for cracks and splits and what not, he inquired about our project. well i told him we were going to build a planter and he told us about some other items on the next isle that we might be interested in. so he walked us over to the next isle and pointed out some 1/2 inch rebar landscape spins, and a bunch of giant galvanized nails that would probably be useful. well, i was quite excited to see all of these goodies and quickly re-assessed our design ideas in my mind and decided we would definitely be needing to acquire these items, heh.

well soon enough wed loaded up the items wed need to investigate the planter and found our way to the checkout counter to do our daily damage. i dont remember now how much we spent, but im also not sure i want to. at any rate, i was very excited to get going on the new project and was ready to skip the grocery store altogether. however, my wife being the pragmatist of the moment insisted that it was on the list and was an actual necessity [unlike my pipe dreams] and convinced me it would be getting checked off the list next. so i seceded my opposition and reluctantly drove over to the grocery store to get it off the list. 

well after not too much longer we were pulling up to the house and unloading all the groceries and while karen put some of those away i got started unloading the home depot stuff. well after wed gotten everything unloaded and found all the necessary tools we jumped into constructing the planter and getting some yard work done. the first thing we did was to go through the yard and pull all the tallest weeds that we could and dispose of those. after that i started moving some dirt around to fill the hole in the middle of the yard and try and level out the area that we were planning to build the planter. at this point i cant remember the order anymore but there was some raking, some more weed pulling [as the weed whacker charged and charged and never finished charging on saturday...] and then at some point we made the decision to disassemble the chain link fence in the front as well. we'd discussed doing this a number of times and were both in agreement and now seemed as good a time as any to do it. so we managed to get the chain link down and only the pipe posts remaining and were satisfied as we moved on to the construction of the planter. well since these timbers were 6x6 and rough cut anyway i decided the best way to get them to the size we wanted was with the chainsaw [which worked like a charm! shockingly so in fact.] and then we drilled out holes for the rebar and pre-drilled holes for the nails. before long we had the timbers in place and we were driving the rebar and fastening the thing together. come 4:30 or 5 we were finished for the day and had a small planter constructed and had even relocated a small pile of dirt in the front inside of it. so the yard was really starting to come together and we were quite pleased with ourselves for the day. 

at this point we decided to take showers and get cleaned up and then at 7 we made our way over to one of karen's professor's house for a small studio dinner party. they had a pretty cool house and some amazing views of cincinnati and we had a good time. it was one hell of a dinner party and there were a lot of people to mingle with, im not sure how they pulled off the food, but it was delicious and we had a really nice time. 

so by the time we pulled up to the house around 10:30/11pm we were both pretty exhausted and soon passed out for the night. 

and with that, im going to call it a night myself, and we'll continue the story of sunday for another time. =] night!

the.before

alright, so this isnt actually from this weekend, but if you can imagine a forest of 2ft tall weeds in here, then its close enough. [note the hole in the middle of the yard to the left of the center of the image. its the black spot and its probably about 3 ft in diameter and a ft deep - give or take]

dc[part.thrice]

[sunday | 5.2.09 | day.three]

sunday morning was another groggy morning, but we managed to get up at a similar hour to the day before. after showering and getting ourselves ready we headed down to breakfast again. as with saturday we werent disappointed, although i think we both had a little less breakfast overall this time around. they didnt have the burritos, but there were scrambled eggs and sausage and most everything else from the day before.

after breakfast we quickly grabbed our stuff for the day, plotted out our stops and were on our way. well, no sooner did we hit the lobby door than we realized today was going to be a little different. it was lightly drizzling out and we didnt have an umbrella or ponchos or anything else to protect ourselves with. so after exchanging glances we pressed forward and made our way to the metro stop. luckily, the rain wasnt heavy and the temperate outside was moderate enough that we werent getting soaked and frozen, but we were getting damp and chilled a little, oh-well.

soon enough we were on the train and headed to our first stop, federal center s.

as we got on the escalators and slowly rose out of the depths we were a little disheartened to find that the rain hadnt magically ceased during our 15 minute subterranean reprieve. so after glancing at our maps and trying to find our bearings karen grabbed a free newsprint of some kind from a nearby dispenser and we set out in what i thought was the right direction. as i mentioned before the subway maps vs. street maps are a little difficult to rectify from scale and abstraction, so it turns out we were heading a little off course at first. soon enough though we realized my mistake, corrected and before long we were across the street from our first museum of the day - the national museum of the american indian.

id seen pictures of it at some point before so i knew what the building looked like, but it was definitely cooler in person. from what i remember the idea behind the design was a symbolic representation of the cave cities in the southwest so its got some really fun geometry. inside is a huge domed atrium space with an oculus and there are various different exhibits and gift shops on all the levels. we visited a couple of the exhibits which were pretty interesting to see, and then did a little research on my native american heritage. im some very small part potawatomi and am officially registered with the tribal rolls, and was curious to see what the national museum had on my tribe. well, sadly, they didnt have a whole lot. it took quite a bit of digging but we did find a few pages in one book in one of the bookstores that gave a brief synopsis of the tribes origins and then in one of the displays there was an actual artifact about beading, but other than that, ziltch. but i thought my parents would get a kick out what we did find, so theres a few images in the albums. thats alright though, the main center for the potawatomi is in oklahoma now and while i havent made it to see what theyve got yet, i plan to someday and im sure its much more in depth. anyway, we spent quite some time at the american indian museum - hoping it would stop raining, however, by the time we were ready to go... it hadnt.

so we headed back out into the rain and soon found a vendor with umbrellas so we bought a small one - probably should have gotten a larger one in retrospect - and huddled together as we made our way to our next stop a few blocks away, the smithsonian museum of natural history. i was really looking forward to this one because wed seen some posters of an imax film about dinosaurs that looked pretty cool and also something about a giant squid on display. so after getting ourselves thoroughly dampened and our feet thoroughly soaked after sloshing our way over, we made it inside and found ourselves in the midst of hundreds of people, a large majority of which were children who were having a good time but were definitely a little obnoxious. anyway the first thing i wanted to check on was the imax times and prices and as it turns out they were charging like 10 bucks per person and we really werent prepared to pay that price. so we decided to just see most of the exhibits instead and made our way through the museum. the first area we went through was the ocean stuff and got to see all kind of cool artifacts. they had huge lifelike models of different marine life, and a ton of real skeletons and stuff that were preserved for study. we really enjoyed ourselves and took a ton of pictures.

after the marine stuff we went on to the dinosaurs section and looked through all the fossils and skeletons of the dinosaurs they had on display - again a lot of pictures.

after the dinosaurs we went through the space exhibit and then the geological formations and saw all kinds of crazy rocks and gems and stuff. they even had rocks with hair! it was pretty crazy. the last stop we made was to see the hope diamond which was currently on display - karen REALLY liked it... hah, she wishes! after another trip through the ridiculously-over-priced gift shop we were getting hungry and had seen just about all we wanted to that day, and with the rain and all... we decided to call it a day and go find some food.

so we found the nearest subway station and headed back to the hotel to see if we could find a dining guide of some kind and figure out lunch. well... after consulting the internet and our brochures we found that not much was open on sunday in the area we were in and settled on a little deli/bakery - au bon pain - just down the block from our hotel and had a nice little lunch. they had some really great macaroni and cheese that we shared as a side and all kinds of little pastry goodies for dessert. after lunch we were both pretty exhausted and since it was already about 3pm and still raining we decided to head back to the room for a little relaxing, some tv, and a nap. well... the nap ended up being a little longer that we expected i think, and around 8 we woke up and decided to have a quick order-in dinner before calling it a night. we had a very very early morning on monday and it was going to be a loooong day, so we decided it was better get our rest. after confirming our shuttle pick up to the airport [because really who wants to change trains a dozen times at 3 in the morning?] we drifted off to sleep before getting up again at 2am and making the trip home.

as for the trip home, it went just as planned, was very uneventful, and after napping on the plane and landing back in cincy we got the truck from parking and were on our way straight to work and school. and thus, our trip [and the story] is complete. its actually been a pretty short week by comparison to our "vacation" but im looking forward to the weekend. we dont have any real plans yet for whats going to happen this weekend, but if we do anything fun or exciting ill be sure to fill you in next week.

hope you all have a fantastic weekend and a happy mother's day!

dc[part.two]

[saturday | 5.2.09 | day.two]

so we got up at about 8:30am [although quite stubbornly and with much difficulty given the night before...] and got showered and dressed and then went downstairs to the continental breakfast around 9:30am. it was actually a pretty sweet breakfast, they had just about anything you could want and the best part was the breakfast burrito fixins! i had a burrito and a bagel with some oj and diet coke while karen sampled just about everything there was, lol! i think her eyes were a little bigger than mine, but she tried everything and seemed to enjoy it all.

after breakfast we visited the little brochure kiosk in the lobby and got some free maps and then headed to the room to gather whatever items we'd need for the days excursion and then soon headed out. the short 3 block walk to the metro was nothing this time around and we were feeling much more confident as we purchased our tickets from the machine and routed our trip through various stops and train switches. maybe 15-20 minutes later we were on the escalators at judiciary square and were delivered directly to our first stop, sweet! we knew we'd be close from the map, but theyre a little abstract and difficult to gauge exact location proximity to anything, and we were lucky enough to emerge from the subway directly at the front door of the first museum on our list for the day - the national building museum. well before we went in we took a second to look at our surroundings and it turns out judiciary square is a pretty cool little plaza with some fun landscaping features and statues. at the present time there was some kind of ceremony going on in the center of the plaza but we decided to walk around the extremities in the in the tree-lined paths to check things out for a few minutes as discreetly as possible. well, as much action as was going on center-stage and the fact that the city seems pretty used to tourism, no one paid us any attention as we looked about and snapped a few pictures before heading into the museum.

so when first we entered the museum what struck us both was the grandiose of the main atrium space. this thing was effin huge! it must have been at least 5 stories high with these huge columns that went all the way up to the clerestory [er... little windows near the ceiling, in layman's...] in addition to that there was a pretty huge fountain in the middle and the width and breadth of this thing... lets just say you could have probably but a few of our house's [which is pretty huge to be honest] in this space and still have room to spare without batting an eye.

anyway, we went to the information desk to inquire about tours and whatnot and then decided to just start visiting the exhibits on our own [the next tour didnt start for an hour and a half]. the first exhibit we saw was called detour and it was about all these popular tourist spots in the norway countryside. it basically chronicled 17 or 18 spaces that were designed as lookouts or viewpoints in a video presentation and then after the video there were a series of architectural models and boards of some of the places from the video. the models were freakin sweet. as someone who has built a number of architectural models in my day i had a serious appreciation for how well built these things were and was a little enamoured with the different techniques that were used. it was a really cool first experience for the museum and i was looking forward to what was next at that point.

so the next stop was a photography exhibit by some architectural photographer that was geared towards 9/11 aftermath in the form of a juxtaposition and comparison of interrogation spaces, worship spaces, and government spaces from all the various cultural viewpoints. it was an interesting collection, although after a little while it all started to look the same and the clever ironies started to get less and less clever as you saw more of the work. but maybe i was just distracted by the random gallery attendant who took an interest in my tattoos and decided to ruin my experience by talking to me for most of the duration of my visit while i was TRYING to concentrate on the artwork. at some point i just started nodding while he was telling me stories about his cousin the marine who got in trouble all the time and was kicked out after 6 months, yadda, yadda, yadda. karen totally abandoned me while this guy chewed my ear off for 15 minutes. punk.

anyway the next exhibit we saw was about architectural detailing in different materials - stone, metal, brick, etc. and it was kinda cool, but a little boring. at this point wed already been there a good hour and i was getting antsy to see all the other million stops on our list for the day so we made a quick trip through the gift shop to see if anything jumped at us [nothing did, hah, not for those prices...] and then we made our way to the exit. so the next stop on our list was "the mall" where there are tons of museums, monuments, landmarks, memorials, and what have you. its pretty much the tourist hot spot of d.c. where the smithsonian and all the famous stuff is. well, it was either back on the subway for a couple of stops or just walk the 6 or 7 blocks over, and considering how nice the weather was out [overcast and cool - perfect for site seeing!] we decided to walk. well it was actually a nice walk and we went through some nice garden plazas and government buildings [which make up like 75% of the downtown area from what we saw, lol!] until we got to constitution ave.

at this point we were a little awestruck by the mall. at one end you could see the capital building, directly in front of us was the national art gallery, in the distance the washington monument towered over the treeline and there were a half dozen other museums within eye-shot. it was a cultural enthusiasts dream come true, haha, and being the nerds karen and i are, we were basking in all its glory. we decided to venture towards the capitol building and then around the national art gallery to its entrance to kind of get a full view of the area before going in to the art gallery. it was pretty cool seeing the capitol building, even from the distance we were at, and i was really digging the architecture of the national art gallery as well. by the time we made it around to the front of the gallery we both got distracted by these awesome triangular shards jutting through the adjacent plaza and had to investigate them further.

we took a bunch of pictures and came to find out there was actually a restaurant or something under the plaza that these shards were skylights into so we took the long way into the museum by going underground, through the restaurant to check the shards out from the inside, and then through this really freaking cool l.e.d. installation before actually arriving inside the lower level of the art gallery. and right there in front of us, a serra! awesome! this was really an enjoyable day so far! we floated around the gallery for a little while before deciding we wanted to take the tour of the sculpture garden about an hour later and decided to grab lunch at the garden pavilion before it started. so we walked over there and had a really delicious lunch at the pavilion before trying to find the tourgroup. well as it turned out we asked an official looking woman where the tour started and she was the guide so we were in the right place! and if that wasnt cool enough, it turns out we were the first people shed actually given the tour to in almost a year and we were the only ones that showed up that day, so we got a very one on one personal, and casual tour of the sculpture garden and karen got to ask all kinds of questions for a project she had in her museum studies class. it turned out to be a really fun tour and she was extremely knowledgeable of the sculptures.

by the time we finished the garden we were both starting to feel a bit tired. it was around 2:30pm at this point and we'd been on our feet for hours already, but there was still so much to see! i wanted to try and see the washington monument, the vietnam veterans memorial, and the lincoln memorial while we were in the area that day, so we got started walking - not sure if we'd make it. the first one we saw was the washington monument. it was really freakin huge and everything youd expect - although in a much less immaculate condition than you always see in pictures. up close you could see that there was some history to this thing and it had been around for some time. well, being the nerds we are, we took the opportunity to take a bunch of fun shots of karen with the monument - like you do at the leaning tower of pisa or the like - haha, it was a lot of fun.

knowing how much we still wanted to see we made our stops short for the rest of the day and tried to just get to everything as quickly as possible. so after circling the huge block that the monument was on we came across the wwII memorial and checked it out, then were on our way again towards the vietnam war memorial. eventually we arrived but it was absolutely overrun with tourists, kind of a bummer and pretty typical of the day so far - there were so many people there!, so we tried to take a few pictures before getting out of the people soup and making our way over to the lincoln memorial nearby.

well after seeing the lincoln memorial, which was pretty cool, but again CRAZY crowded, and making a quick pit stop - we were done for the day and decided it was time to head back to the hotel. well, at this point we were pretty far from any of the metro stops so we could either walk to the closest one, or about equa-distant, just walk back to the hotel - so we decided wed just suffer through and walk back. luckily we were in pretty close proximity to the white house at this point so we were going to make sure to go by it on the way to the hotel.

on our way to the white house we actually just happened past the AIA headquarters in d.c. which was kind of a cool random accident and then sure enough we saw the whitehouse. and wow, that was an experience, it was pretty cool.

we also saw an armed guard carrying what must have been a freaking grenade launcher/assault rifle/rocket launcher or something. ive never seen a gun that big in my life, he could have taken out a tank with that thing! we definitely didnt mess with him, haha!

anyway, after the white house it was only another 4 blocks to the hotel and soon we were relaxing and resting our poor feet for a while, and while we were doing that i got in contact with my friend lauren who lives in dc and i havent seen since senior year at a&m and made arrangements to go to dinner with her. well, not long after talking to her we saddled up and trekked back to the metro for another ride on the subway. this time we went down to alexandria virginia to meet up with lauren and ended up having a pretty great time with her. we had this authentic-y spanish meal with these little snack sized portioned meals [the name of them escapes me... tapas?] and a lot of catching up. it was really fun to see her again, but by the time we were done eating we were EXHAUSTED and ready for bed. lauren actually volunteered to give us a ride back to the hotel [only about 5 miles away, the area is pretty dense] and after a couple of wrong turns we eventually got home and crashed for the night.

- end of day two. and again, im out of time, sorry!! -

dc[part.one]

so when last i left you all, dear readers, we were about to embark on a little adventure. well it was quite the adventure indeed! we had a blast on our excursion but damn did it ever wear us out.

[friday | 5.1.09]

so the trip started promptly at 5 o-clock when my beautiful wife picked me up from work with the car fully loaded and anxious to get the weekend started. well the first stops we had planned were to the bank to deposit my paycheck and then to dinner somewhere for a quick bite before heading to the airport. well we decided on buffalo wild wings for dinner and i had a pretty decent blackened chicken salad. it was no where near the best ive ever had, but its definitely a wing place, and they do have good wings, so i can cut em some slack on not having the best salads ever. it satisfied my hunger and that was enough for the time being. after dinner we got on the road and 15-20 minutes later we arrived at the airport and found the long term parking lot. luckily, there was a shuttle just waiting for people when we parked, so we got right on and were at the terminal only minutes later. after a quick stop at the automated ticketing kiosk and an uneventful trip through security, we were boarding the tram to the concourse and then before we knew it we were waiting at the gate. it seems everything went pretty quickly on the way there, so we actually had to wait around for about a half an hour before we were boarding the plane and then the customary half an hour sitting on the plane before we finally took off right on time around 8:20pm.

the flight to dc was actually really short, only an hour and a half, and we arrived at the baltimore airport after some moderate turbulence but all in all an enjoyable flight. [personally, i love the turbulence, but i dont think im in the majority there...] well, when we got off the plane the fun really started. karen had gotten some very limited instructions on transportation from her cousin who lives in dc which basically said to take the shuttle to the marc station and theres a train every half an hour. well we didnt know where the shuttle was, or what marc was, lol, but soon enough we found where the shuttle was picking up and 3 or 4 stops later we were at the train station. however, the marc trains [apparently the cheaper brand] were not running every half an hour as we were expecting. in fact there werent any for the rest of the night according to the board, so we had to suck up the extra cost and got tickets for the soonest amtrack into downtown [about twice as much as the marc from what we can tell]. well by this time it was already 10:30pm after all our traveling so far, and we were pretty anxious to get to the hotel and pass out for the night. well the journey wasnt over yet. about 15 minutes later the amtrack arrived and we boarded the train, both having flashbacks of our time in europe - it had been some time since id been on a train and it brought back all kinds of memories. well we sat pretty quietly on the train and eventually we arrived at union station in downtown dc, but at this point we really had no idea what we were going to do next. it was probably 11:15pm by this time and we ventured out to the street to see what the situation was with taxis - a line about a mile long of people waiting - and then back inside to investigate a metro sign that karen thought shed seen and a trip to the atm in case we ended up having to take a taxi after all. well after doing a few circles inside the station we finally found the correct route to the metro, which until this point i had thought was a bus situation like every other metro i was accustomed to. well as we got on the escalators going down to the station i soon realized it was actually a subway system, awesome! i love subways! i dont know why, but i just really love them! anyway, we had no clue how to decipher any of the maps or ticketing machines, but luckily the guy manning the info station wasnt too busy and was able to walk us through the process and help us find the stop nearest to our hotel [only about 3 blocks away] and get us going in the right direction.

so we went down another escalator and found some benches as we waited for the next train to arrive. at this point we were both feeling much better about the rest of our journey to the hotel, however we were both sweating like pigs! it was supposed to be cool from the weather reports wed checked, but it had to have been in the 70's and we were lugging around all our luggage, so we were pretty hot and gross at this point. well anyway, i took a moment to break out the camera for the first time on the trip while we waited for the train and took some pictures of the tunnel - i was enamored with the subway, haha.

before long the train arrived, and after a quick switch at the metro central station and a few stops later we were at our destination and after a short walk were at our hotel! finally! so after checking in and trudging our exhausted bodies up to the room we finally arrived in our room, and it was only 12:30am, lol! well the room itself was awesome. this was probably the nicest hotel ive ever stayed in. it was a studio style room and had all the amenities of a really nice studio apartment - with stove, refrigerator, and dishes supplied! anyway, at this point we were both ready to pass out, but i was disgusting so i took a quick shower before getting in bed, and then before long we both drifted off in preparation for a long weekend yet to come.

and with that. um, day 1. haha, we havent even started the "vacation" part yet, hahaha! but im out of time, lunch is over and ive gotta get back to work. so... for now i'll have to leave you hanging on the story, but feel free to check out all the pictures from the trip at my web albums.

hope youre all having a great week, ill try and update more soon!

no.70

so this saturday went pretty much as scheduled.

karen had to go to school at 10 for this personal trainer class shes taking, so while she was in class i went to the grocery store to do our normal shopping and then a little extra for the party. then went home to unload groceries and start doing the final cleaning stuff. i did mostly outside work while she was still in class, just making the place look a little more presentable and moving all the "junk" into a less conspicuous place. then around 2pm i went and picked karen up and we decided we were both pretty hungry and needed to get lunch. so since we didnt want to make anymore messes to clean up at the house we decided to go to currito again. this time i got a bangkok burrito and karen got a mediterranean burrito - both were excellent - although the feta was a little over-powering for my tastes, but karen loved it.

anyway, after lunch we went back to the house and got started cleaning up everything, for the next few hours we just did a lot of that, and probably around 5 we were satisfied and went upstairs to get showered and ready. by 6 we were in the kitchen getting food prepped and then just hanging out in anticipation of who might arrive first.

well a little after 7 amanda, patrick, and caity arrived with treats in hand, and so the party started. not long after they arrived, cae & emil were the second group and we all chatted and snacked for a while as everyone looked around at the various rooms on the first floor. amanda and patrick were the only people who had seen the house other than the family and the neighbors across the street so everyone was very curious to check everything out. well, soon enough another friend of karens arrived and then soon enough the neighbors from across the street did too, so all the boys started working on the kabobs while all the girls chatted.

everything was going pretty great for a while, the kabobs were on the grill and smelling great, and everyone seemed to be having a good time and someone asked how the grillin was going, so we checked em out and uh oh... there was no fire. whoops, must have gone out on us when we werent watching it. so we tried to relight it... and nothing happened... and again, and again... crap, we were out of propane. sooo... the girls decided to let us run and get some more propane while they continued to party without us. and sure enough we ran down the block and got a new tank of propane and were back without much notice from them at all, haha. well, we hooked the new tank up, got the fire going again, and then karen and i decided it was time for the grande tour while we waited on the food to finish. so we started giving the master tour of the house and ushering the mob from room to room, until we got into the attic and patrick and emil remembered the food. so they raced down to save it before it was all black, and we finished up the tour. they apparently were just in the nick of time and once we all got back downstairs everyone grabbed a skewer and chowed down. turns out we didnt do half bad for our first time grilling kabobs. =] they were quite tasty and before we knew it we were totally out and started a second batch while everyone mingled. soon enough the second batch came out and everyone enjoyed those as well.

so i cant tell you for sure how much longer it was, but everyone moved into the dining room after the second round of grilling and started in on the desert that amanda had brought, and i got started cleaning, heh. at some point there was crazy dancing in the kitchen initiated by my wife and joined by a few of the girls and that was definitely fun to watch, haha. but overall it was just a lot of fun to socialize and snack and relax. somewhere around 11pm everyone was saying their goodnights and we were pretty exhausted from the night... well, i was. karen was ready to go out dancing but eventually i convinced her the bed was a better idea and we retired for the night, lol.

on sunday we had a similar morning, karen had to be at personal training again, so i dropped her off at school, and then this time around i decided to go to church, and then get a haircut, and then pick up a few items wed managed not to get on the grocery list the day before. well, while i was at the store i decided to get a bunch of goodies [like this awesome chicken salad that biggs has in their little fresh market area] and pack a picnic lunch to take up to karen when she finished her class. she told me she was going to be working on studio for most of the day after the personal training class, so i thought it would be a nice fun thing for her to have a little picnic at studio.

well soon enough after i got home it was about that time, so i headed up to her school. well... i didnt know her partner was going to be there too, haha, so the picnic basket was a little embarrassing but karen was tickled and we enjoyed a brief lunch before she got back to work.

then for the next few hours i decided to hangout and keep them company and lend a little muscle occasionally when they needed a little extra. by about 7 they were finished for the night and had made a lot of progress on their project.

so we went home and just settled in for a little relaxing and recovering from the weekend in preparation for the week ahead. watched a little tv, had dinner, and eventually turned in for the night.

and now its monday. and well, i dont really want to talk about today. it hasnt been the greatest morning, but im hoping the day gets better. who-knows. at any rate, theres definitely nothing exciting going on and im still pretty tired from the weekend. i think id be content to go home and veg for a little while before crashing early. we'll see how it goes, but i bet thats what happens, haha!

sorry i didnt take any pictures. i always forget to get the camera out at parties. i just get distracted and its the furthest thing from my mind. but we really did have a great time and everyone seemed to like the house, so... cool! =]

have a great week!