Happy Birthday Alexandria!!!
last update: 07/12 @ 22:21

Alexandria always puts on a good show.

And for the 276th birthday, they kept up the tradition.

It was pretty hot so we decided on Casa Rosada gelato and watching from the Masonic Memorial rather than walking down to the river.

The show as great.

And the crowd was pretty fun.

There seemed to be a full 4th grade class there.

And there was a lot of “hut, hut, hutting” up and down the steps before the fireworks.

I expect there will be some heavy sleeping 4th graders tonight.

And Sarah and I were very happy for the very short walk home.

Sometime soon the heat and humidity will give us a break.

I hope.

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Another fun day on the river
last update: 07/08 @ 16:02

I’m taking a page from our Galapagos trip and using a rashguard/sunshirt these days. It seems to be working, I’m not feeling sunburned and appreciate a little cooling when it gets wet.

The river was about 3.6 today; this photo is from the Maryland chute at Angler’s Inn. It was hot, but nice to be on the river again. And that’s a pretty fun level for playing in both the Maryland and Virginia chutes.

Maybe when the temps drop a bit (~92 today) I’ll be more inspired to get back up the gorge and check out Wet Bottom and Rocky Island — it’s been a while.

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Whew!
last update: 06/30 @ 17:28

I just managed to get on the river in June. I’m trying to see how close to at least monthly I can make it.

That should be easy but… (I don’t expect sympathy) I tweaked my back early on in the month and then we had that trip to Curaçao…

But I did get out today (about 3.8 on the gauge), it was much cooler on the river but ~95 degrees with crazy humidity is really hot! When I crossed over to the Virginia chute, I saw this family making their way upstream. I was surprised when they just paddled/ran up the wave next to the rock. Very impressive attainment skills.

I did note that my strap tie-downs are ready to be reattached. So I have some maintenance in my future before my next trip on the river. With the month of July coming up, I’m pretty sure I’ll be able to make that fix and keep my streak running.

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Enjoying one of my Father’s Day gifts
last update: 06/29 @ 13:52

Gray headed catbird as captured by my new Bird Buddy.

It’s been fun enough to check out that I’m keeping the guest Wifi running as it can’t connect to a hidden WiFi network.

And Panzer tends to get very interested when I show him the videos it takes as well as stills, like this one.

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Diving in Curaçao!!!
last update: 06/23 @ 19:39

We had a great time hanging with Kelly, her family and Brian, Sharon and Mira in Curaçao. Most of the time we were underwater, seeing cool critters. The surface time was filled with very nice dining options.

Many more photos in the vacations section.

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Quick Robert Visit
last update: 06/12 @ 15:35

Robert’s home!!!

With an internship lined up for the summer, in addition to working for the Tempest/Cascades and Lumen Field, we’re getting a Robert visit in while we can. He’s now a senior!!!

Crazy!

We took advantage of the visit for an early father’s day and I’m fortunate to have several cool gifts:

• new music: Colter Wall; I’m liking his Imaginary Appalachia
• Blazin’ Raisen hot sauce (I’ve not tried yet)
• Dilettante’s chocolate (always a tasty treat)
• A Bird Buddy bird feeder with camera (as you can see).

While he was here, Robert had chance to try his hand at a Metro Speedrun:

The goal is to see how fast you can get through every metro station.

His time (see below), just over 8 hours, is very respectable. The ways to get faster, 7:34 is the current record, involve starting at the ideal station (Greenbelt, in Maryland) at the idea time to catch an express transfer bus between the suburban Maryland stations.

If you have questions, he’ll gladly clue you in :)

Pocket joined him for the first leg on her way in to work. And I joined for the first few stations just because :) I can now say I’ve been to the Franconia / Springfield and Huntington stations.

Ask Robert for his Insta Story for more details.

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We like our mayor
last update: 06/06 @ 23:34

We remain really happy with our new mayor, Alyia Gaskins. We were very happy with Justin Wilson as well; both work really hard.

I was glad to be able to hear Alyia and the other speakers at the common sense gun rally at the market square today.

Lot’s of good reasons to better control gun onwership in this country.

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Birthday week
last update: 05/25 @ 20:40

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It’s like this see…
last update: 05/14 @ 20:33

… The forecast made it sound like a rainy day today. With Sarah not having any meetings and me being, well, retired, we took advantage of where we live and metroed in to the American History Museum. It had been almost a full Robert lifetime since we’d been :)

As we headed back to the metro we stopped for a bite and bit of tea from Teaism and we got a call from Robert. He has the chance for extra credit if he can produce an illustrated map of where sewage flows.

He gets normal credit for an illustrated map of the flow from his dorm in Seattle to Seattle’s waste water treatment facility at Discovery Point.

But he was wondering if his parents could take a few photos for him to work on an Alexandria map. Like Hooff’s Run where storm water flows through Alexandria.

The forecast was wrong, it was not rainy and we were on our way back home anyway so …

… we learned that the waste water plant we thought treated our water actually doesn’t. That is for Arlington and Alexandria has it’s own treatment plant, which is getting substantially upgraded (thanks our and our neighbors waste water bills).

And we found this cool public art noting how Alexandria was exepcted to be (and was, for a while) a major shipping port (in the cities early days). With lots of traffic to Hispaniola, Barbados, Jamaica and Bermuda (I may have to go back and re-read that to be sure I’ve remembered that correctly).

We never would have stumbled upon that globe with it’s bit of history if we’d not been on the little expedition for Robert this afternoon.

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Epic Mother’s Day Gift
last update: 05/11 @ 10:56

For Mother’s Day this year, Robert mapped all the previous Mother’s Days with photos of the two of them.

So, of course, I need to add a photo of the two of them looking at that gift for this year’s Mother’s Day.

Sarah was very moved — it really was a great and unexpected gift (and proof he’s in the right program at UW — and maybe something I should look at for use here on the blog…).

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