Folklife Can't Really Suck this Much Can It?

Ray and me went two weeks ago to the Folklife festival.... My Gawd!! Who thought of the lineup of Virginia for this thing?? If you want to see Virginia , go 10 minute South!! Or get this - The CALL CENTERS or Ireland!!!! Brilliant Geniuses! Even the Mekong River Area was annoying... Puppet theaters with no shows, and a Tea House with no Tea......

Thank goodness that friends make an outing fun, yes despite it all we had fun, mostly because we made it ourselves..... plus I actually managed to not crack my head open on a bike ride with Ray...... NEAT!!!

Here are more pics that Ray took

Tubing, Rockin, Its All so "Beaching"

WOW what a way to have to catch up on everything!

1) Tubing on the Shenandoah River with Hilary (Visiting from L.A.) , and the peeps on the 4th of July!! Gotta thank Jon for organizing this one! Of note was the awesome spot in front of the Netherlands Carrilion for the fireworks.... next year I am biking down... getting back was insane!

(pics from Darrens awesome waterproof digital Olympus camera , of which I want one, are -->here<-- Pic above is of George, me & Joel)

2) Carbon Leaf Concert - Of course Carbon Leaf Rocks - unexpected was how cool Stephen Kellogg and the Sixers were. Awesome on the stage - later as we listened to the album - is wasn't as high energy.... sad.

3) Day Trip to Chincoteague: Somehow this trip was soooo much fun! was it the company, was it because it was my first trip to the beach? was it Eric falling asleep?? Actually Its ALL of the above!! ... I miss the beach though & just lounging around, the warm feel of the sand and sun, and getting in the water when I please. I highly feel part of the euphoria was my first beach trip with my friends.
(thats Eric & Jon with me at the entrance of Chincoteague Island)

Things of note - even if they don't all make sense to everyone:

• Beware playing Journey or Air Supply on long car trips...
• Eric reads books while listening to Books on tape
• Seaweed necklaces RULE!
• I can still body surf just as good as those dumb body boards
• bring money when biking parks.... I couldn't go up the lighthouse because it cost $4 and I didnt have it on me.
• I had forgotten how funny Eddie Murphy's Delirious was.....
• My camera sucks.. I need a new one
• BEACH TRIPS RULE!!!!
  

Oh yeah I took home 2 lbs of shrimp for cheap!! Oh was that good! Thanks to those on these trips that made them all FUN!!!

more pics of Chincoteague here!

Not A Crabby Time

Well why else would it not be crabby when you eat at the Quarterdeck ??? My amazing friend
Hilary (w/ Ray in pic) came all the way from L.A. just to visit..... well mostly for her sister :) But yet we ate out with some MEETin people and Kara, Karoline, and of course the ever prevalent Ray! (no one else of note really other than "mumbles" who tried stiffing the rest of us on the bill....)

But that was just dinner with an amazing gal!!!! We headed to Dremo's afterwards - yeah that place wont be there long (Spring 08 actually) - We need more High rise condo's after all - forget about the establishments that made the neighborhood cool in the first place..... Anayway it was good to hang out with my peeps (Yusef, Stefanie, Megan, Dana, Liz, Kevin and a surprise showing by Wayne & Annie who had just come in from NYC!!!). Despite wanting to get home early, At Ray's insistence we continued to show Hilary the "historical evening tour"of Court House/ Clarendon area with a visit to Mario's Pizza...... yep.... greasy cheap good pizza...... Ok time to go home-

In a rip off to Rays "Whammies", I give the Quarterdeck two claws out of five... 1 for yummy food, and 1 for atmosphere, but nothing for the slow service (so what if they were filled to capacity) , and apparently cant keep a nice selection of crabs sizes for us... oh yeah beer selection sucks.....

Good News Comes in Droves!

YES!! It happened!! I got a NEW job! And a much better job in many ways. Ok sure I wont be doing something as directly productive as helping communities like I was doing at HUD, but heck, the paycheck is WAY better, and I was just being a data monkey (thank Cat for the terminology) and a bad writer (never my strongest suite). Now I’ll just be a data monkey doing quality control for the tech help desk for our government entity that oversees the Enron’s or Exxon’s and Jonathan Lebed's of this country. Yeah exciting stuff, but interesting (or so I hope).

Combine that with a week of great activities - and that makes me a happy man!!!