Random

Greetings from Washington, DC!  I just checked into my hotel a little while ago.  It’s 3:45 over here now, and it’s already been a long travel day – but a good one.  I’ve now technically been up for 12 hours, although with the time difference it’s just 10 hours, but I woke up this morning at 3:30am, got ready and left the house by 4am.  I drove the Mazda down to DIA (which I’m happy to report no problems at all – it’s hard to believe that I just learned to drive the stick 10 days ago!).  I caught my first flight to Minneapolis/St. Paul, then my connecting flight to Reagan National Airport.  I checked into the Sheraton hotel here not far from the airport, and wanted to take a few minutes to blog before I rest up then head out onto the town.

A few interesting notes about my trip so far:

-Freakin’ everybody who rode the shuttle this morning got up on the wrong side of the bed.  I pulled into the shuttle parking lot and in less than 5 minutes I was on the shuttle and we were heading to the airport.  Everyone on there was in a really bad mood and took it out on the poor shuttle driver.  They were all complaining that they’ve been waiting for a shuttle for 30 minutes (which I find hard to believe considering I drove past 3 shuttles when I got into the parking lot) and then they got mad at the guy for handing out the "you’re parked here" cards.  I felt really sorry for the guy.  Dude’s just trying to do his job and it’s company policy to hand out those cards.  He cant’ help it that you showed up late at the airport.  Heck, I showed up 30 minutes late but you don’t see me complaining.  If you’re pissed about the shuttle service than don’t park in the shuttle parking lot.  There’s a nice covered garage that you can park and walk right into the airport from – sure it costs 3 times what the shuttle lot costs, but you pretty much pay for what you get.  Geez…

-Then when I got to my connecting flight that was a little interesting.  Originally my flight was supposed to be a 1-stop flight with no changing planes, but they made all of us get out.  It turns out that they shifted the planes around so that the original 757 we were supposed to go on got replaced by an Airbus – which had 40 less seats.  Talk about a screwed up situation!  Luckily I wasn’t really impacted.  They didn’t change my original seat and I just had to wait and extra 20 minutes – no worries.  They were asking people to take later flights and were offering few round-trip tickets.  It was tempting… especially with the NCSC July meeting and the troubles getting everyone out here – but before you could blink they had more than enough volunteers.  Oh well!

-I loved flying into Reagan!  The last two times i was in DC I flew into Dulles.  Aside from the turbulence and someone actually getting sick during the landing (gross!), it was really cool to look out your window.  They sure land right in the middle of town, and it’s like the runway comes out of no where.  While I was looking out my window seeing the Lincoln & Washington monuments, then the capital I thought "Damn, we’re flying really close to this – something must be wrong", but that thought lasted for a moment.  Then appears the runway and things are all good.

It’s freakin’ humid out here and I think there’s a high of 94 degrees!  Ugh!

So I’m going to nap for an hour, then make my way down to the lobby so I can get to the Metro (subway) and take it towards RFK Stadium to see the Washington Nationals Game.  Somewhere along the way I want to find something to eat, considering I haven’t eaten all day, and I think as I make my way back I’d like to go through the town a bit! No big plans besides the game, but this is just how I like it!

Been a few days, but I thought I would post a few random happenings.

First off I had an interesting night yesterday.  I came home from seeing Stomp with Bethany (which was SWEET!), drove back to my parent’s home (where I’ve been house-sitting for the last 8 days).  I saw that my dog got out of the back yard again (more on that to come), so I get home and get ready to go to bed.  I walk up the stairs and walk by the bird cage.  I don’t know why I paid attention to it, because usually I don’t notice the bird, but for some reason I did.  I rattled the cage a bit and got no movement whatsoever.  So then I look down to find that the cage was empty, with the door wide open…

Quick side-note – part of my duties of house-sitting has been to take care of the small zoo of animals that live here.  I have to make sure that the dog, cat, fish & birds are cared for.  My sister told me to give water to the bird every day and feed it every two days, so on Wednesday morning I did both.  However I was running late for work and was rushing around and in my haste I FORGOT TO CLOSE THE STUPID DOOR!  But I didn’t realize that until 1am Thursday morning…

So my first thought it "CRAP!  Where is the freakin bird".  I start whistling around, hoping that the bird will respond.  I did a quick walk-around the house and couldn’t find it.  At that point I pretty much resolved myself to the bird escaping somewhere, or maybe even is long gone when a door opened…  There wasn’t much more I could do so I started to get ready for bed.  I take my contacts out and start cleaning them, when I glance over into the mirror, looking at the right side, only to find… that freakin’ bird looking right back at me.  At that point I tried to get him to perch on my finger, but he wouldn’t have any of that.  He took off and started flying.  With his wings being clipped he couldn’t get anywhere and started banging itself against the skylight.  Then it finally flew out of the bathroom and landed right by it’s cage, by the stairway.

Well, that’s when the dog saw it too.  Freakin’ dog went nuts and started chasing the bird.  The bird was spooked and really didn’t know what to do so it glided itself down the stairs, with the dog following afterwards.  The dog had the bird cornered and was ready to leap in.  In retrospect, I dont’ think the dog would have hurt the bird.  This dog has a lot of bark, but literally no bite – but at the time I wasn’t going to take any chances.  At this point I yelled at the dog louder than I’ve yelled in quite some time to get away (at 1:15am I might point out – NIIIIICE).  He finally listened and backed off.  At that point I was able to get the spooked bird back into the cage.

Ugh… I’m sick of being a zoo-keeper.  Which leads me to the story about my dog:

With the 4th of July drawing near our family dog has been getting more and more spooked by the neighborhood kids lighting off fireworks all over the place.  For some reason my dog has it in his head that he would be safer in the front yard rather than the back yard (the real truth of the matter is that he wants in the house ASAP).  For the last few days he’s been going to great lengths to get in the front yard.  Before it was easy with the big hole in the gate, but we replaced the gate.  Well now he totally screwed up the gate and broke a good 3 inch chunk of the gate below the 2×4 board we have at the bottom.  Then he squeezed himself right under that. So the next day I went ahead and created a little barricade blocking the gate – with a nice metal cage blocking the hole he created, weighted down by a huge rock.  Well now I think the dog has figured out how to climb the barricade and hop the fence.  Now it’s only getting worse.  Tonight I came home and found that the screen door got torn in THE MIDDLE – not the bottom where he usually scratches, but right in the middle!  Then I came home this morning to find him in the front yard and while he was there he scratched out part of the front door.  We’ve had the same front door in this house for hte last 19 years – and the freakin’ dog took a chunk of the door out.  ARGGGH…

In all fairness I haven’t been home very early this week, and it’s probably not fair to the dog, but would it kill him not to vandalize our doors?  I know fireworks are freaky, but geez…  I just can’t wait for 4th of July to be over, and (this sounds really mean) but I can’t wait for my family to come home and this being their problem more than it is mine.  After almost 3 weeks of being here my patience is pretty much worn out.

Hey congrats to the San Antonio Spurs.  I was pulling for them to win it in 6, but I’m willing to take it in 7.  I was hoping they’d win, mainly because they knocked the Nuggets out in the first round, and it’s a little comforting to know you’ve been beat by the World Champs.   The NBA finals turned out to be pretty good – for the last 3 games.  The first four games were unwatchable.  But now it’s all over, and hopefully I won’t have to hear Rob Thomas’ "This is how your heart breaks" every commercial break…  Geez!  How hard it is to play more than one song?

TGIF tomorrow…  I’m on a plane to DC in 30 hours…. The count-down is on!

Long day, late night = short posting…  I just wanted to post a quick story about my trek to work this morning…

Keep in mind I’ve been house-sitting in Loveland since Thursday night…

So rewind to Saturday night.  Bethany and I went to my apartment (in the van) to unload my drum set and get some blankets and stuff for the drive-in.  As I walk out I pass my cardAccess badge and my pager that are on the table.  I leave them there thinking "I’ll be back sometime Sunday and will get it then."

Sunday comes, I feel especially lazy and decided to spend all day in Loveland.  It’s not until 11:45 on Sunday night when I realize "Oh crap!  I left my badge and pager on the table!"  This leaves me in an interesting position.  My office is located on the VERY south-east part of Fort Collins, I’m on the northwest part of Loveland (which is south of work), and my apartment is on the NORTHwest part of Fort Collins.  So for me to go from my parent’s 25 minutes north to my apt, then another 20 minutes to work would be impractical to say the last.

"No worries" I thought, "I’ll just drive home in the morning, work from home until lunch (I had a lunch appt with a few friends on the north part of FC), then I’ll drive to work in the afternoon".

BRILLIANT!  So I head out up to my apartment in my sister’s Mazda.  I get all the way to Horsetooth (which is about 15 minutes of the 25 minute drive) when I realize "OH CRAP!  My housekeys are STILL IN THE VAN!" Argggh, so I turn the car around, drive all the way back down to Loveland, get the keys, then drive all the way back to my apartment and barely make it in time for my 10am meeting.  Ugh… Nice day of driving.

Hopefully tomorrow’s commute will be a bit easier.  I’m going straight to the office.  I have my apartment keys, my cardAccess badge and my pager.  Hopefully I didn’t forget anything… lol

What a weekend!  This weekend has been many things: fun, great, restful – but productive it was not.  I ended up spending a great deal of time in Loveland (where I am house-sitting) and slept in until noon on both days.  I stayed up late both nights, and throughout the course of the weekend I’ve watched 9 episodes of the West Wing.  I’ve been tearing those DVD’s up!

So yeah, I’ve been pretty much lazy – but I also mixed in some (somewhat) productive and fun stuff too.  I played over at church again and had a good time there.  Then after that Bethany and Shannon cooked me dinner (Mmm Mmm good!) and then we all went to the drive-in (another friend Jeremy came as well).  We saw Madagascar and Batman Begins, and yes I realize that Bethany and I have already been to both of those movies in the last week – but it was fun seeing them again.  Madagascar was cute to see again, and after raving about Batman over and over again I was more than happy to see it again!  It was just as great seeing it the second time!

My Sunday was the really lazy day for me.  I’ve killed 6 of the 9 West Wing‘s today, so that tells you how much time I spent in front of the TV (ugh!).  But I did get some quality lawn-mowing in, as well as some good stick-shifting in!  I drove all around Loveland today and didn’t stall out one bit!  Maybe I’m starting to get the hang of this!  I’m proud of myself nonetheless.

The other cool thing is I got things all set up with my DC trip.  I decided that I’m going to spend Saturday in the city.  I got a hotel over by Reagan National Airport, am going to look a few friends up that are in the DC area to see if I can join up for some good dinner conversations.  I’m thinking about buying *1* ticket to the Washington National’s game.  Yes, it’s a bit lame to go to a baseball game by myself, but I’m thinking I’ll like the quality "Jeromey" time    Then on Sunday I check out of the hotel, rent a car and go up to Bowie, MD to meet my friend Meghan.  Then we’re going to head down to Bristow, VA for the Dave Matthews Concert!  Yeah buddy!  I figured I’ll stay in Bowie, MD for the night – I booked a hotel out there.  I don’t want to make Meghan ride the DC Subway by herself that late at night, and my flight doesn’t leave until noon on Monday, so I have some time to get out of the hotel, drive back to DC, return the car and all that good stuff.  After mapping the trip out I’m more excited about it!