two items
One -
HAPPY BIRTHDAY SIRIUS!!
I can't believe my little fluff ball is now 1 years old. To celebrate, I bought him a new featherstick (his old one had briefly become a fishstick, and is now chewed beyond belief), some pet grass, and a booda dome. I love my little guy, so I felt it was okay to spoil him a little.
Two -
Last weekend I did something very unusual for me. I was spontaneous! My boss let me have some comp days for the extra hours I put in during the festival, and so I bought a last-minute vacation package to Washington, DC. Gotta love Travelocity and their last-minute two-departure-city vacations. The only bad part of the deal was that I had to leave my apartment at 3:30 am to get to O'Hare on time for my flight. Well, that and the whole earthquake thing kind of made traveling from Indy difficult for some. :)
Despite getting up way too early, after checking into the hotel in Arlington - an amazing modern Westin right next to the Ballston stop - we got right to the touristy sight-seeing stuff. The weather was sunny and warm, and we spent all day wandering around the Capitol, the Library of Congress, the Mall, and the Washington Monument. I have to say, seeing the Capitol was probably more trouble than it was worth. I did get to meet the interns of Illinois 9th. They seemed very confused when I asked for a gallery pass, but that's fine. It worked out in the end.
Library of Congress was beautiful, and we managed to tag along on a tour that had already started. Even if all the questions the tour group were asking were about National Treasure ... it was fine. In fact, that's what I learned about DC. Don't pay for tours, just tag along on one that's already started.
The Monument was cool I suppose, as cool as something that phallic can be. It was at least amusing to watch GWB's helicopter fly overhead 4 times. At first we thought maybe he forgot his Blackberry, but perhaps there was a big meeting with many people who needed transport back to the airport? Who knows.
That night we ate a big steak dinner, yum. And, either because we were new or because the Philadelphia Fliers were in the private room, we scored a free glass of wine and a free dessert.
The second day was also sunny and warm, so we geared up for more sight-seeing. Saw Union Station, Ford's Theater, the house where Lincoln died, the outside of Madame Tussaud's ($25/person seemed like a little much for wax figures ... and the Pope Benedict outside was realistic and creepy enough to satisfy my wax figure craving.)
Went through the Smithsonian Natural History Museum - I can't NOT go see dinosaur bones when the opportunity presents itself. Also went through Smithsonian Castle, which had a few neat items including a panda-cam.
Since we only got through the Washington Monument the day before, we fueled up on lemonade and then started walking that direction again. Went through Washington, World War II, Lincoln, and Vietnam. Next we walked up to the White House ... because it's DC and you have to. Saw some guys with really big guns and took some pictures of some protesters.
Headed back to the hotel to meet up for dinner with Laura, who now lives in Northern VA. I hadn't seen her since grad school graduation, so it was really nice to catch up! However, I was dead tired, so we didn't stay up too late ...
The third day looked like it was going to be rainy, but we headed back to the city anyway. We wanted to check out the Newseum, so we were willing to chance the rain. The Newseum was pretty cool - seeing the chunk of the Berlin Wall was probably the most interesting part, but there were lots of neat things. After that ... well, that and ice cream, this is me we're talking about here ... we had to get back on the bus to Dulles. My flight left relatively on-time, but Sandor's did not by any means. For awhile I was wondering if he would even get out of DC, but ... he did eventually of course.
This weekend was not nearly as interesting as last. In fact, it was probably the opposite of interesting. I woke up with awful neck/shoulder pain yesterday, and have been on asprin/heating-pad treatment ever since. However, because of my lame-ness, I did manage to upload a huge chunk of my pictures onto my Flickr site ... though organizing them all is another story. I'm only about 1/3 of the way through, so ... who knows when that will get done. All the geo-tagging is done, though. I think I fell in love with geo-tagging.