Travel!!!

Did you guys miss me??

I haven't posted anything in a long time, with my B-day and with my trips to NJ, upstate NY, and FL, I have been pretty busy. I have a bunch of pictures and I will hopefully get something up for you soon! (Assuming that anyone actually reads my posts and cares...) Oh well, I'll do it for myself then. :) But I'll leave you with one pic of me and my sis for the time being.


Off to softball tonight. After not being there last week and the team losing, hopefully I can turn things around this week and we can get back on the winning track. It looks like a nice, if not HOT night!

Busy Time of Year

I am not sure what it is about May, but it seems to be one of my busiest times of the year. I don't know if it is because the weather is usually getting really nice out, it is my b-day month, or because of Memorial Day. I had my reunion last weekend. This weekend I am heading up to NY for my sister's graduation from St. Lawrence University. Then I come back briefly before heading down to FL for our traditional Memorial Day/B-Day trip. After that, I have my first triathlon of the year in West Virginia. Lots of time away from DC and work...

And in other news, the sale of the Nats was unanimously approved by MLB.

My Reunion and a B-Day

I am back from New Jersey and I had a fabulous time at my reunion!! It was such a blast to see people who I haven't seen in such a long time. It was also nice to reconnect with some friends who I have lost touch with. We only had about 50 people registered out of a graduating class of 200, but by the time the weekend was over, probably 75 people had come and gone at some point. As is to be expected, some people had stayed exactly the same and others have definitely "grown-up." I feel that I have gone through a good change in the 10 years that it has been since graduation.

The weekend started on Friday afternoon when I got to school and got registered. I poked around the Kirby Arts Center where I spent the majority of my time on campus, other than when I was sleeping. The theater looked good and I was really surprised to find that a sign that I hung in the lighting booth 10 years ago was still there! Then I ran into some friends who had just registered and we walked around campus to check things out before going to get ready for the Friday night shindig.


The first night, all the reunion classes were together in one big tent on campus. A few of us decided to meet in the hotel lobby to have a few drinks before heading over to the school. There were a lot of familiar faces when we got to the tent. We proceeded to get more drinks and then nibble at the food. It wasn't a real meal, lots of good snacks. However, that would cause problems with the fact that I didn't eat enough of the yummy snacks to offset the drinks I was having. After chatting with lots of people, it was time to head back to the hotel for the afterparty. We hung out at the bar until it closed. This is where things start to get fuzzy, but we bounced around to some peoples rooms where there was beer to be drunk.

I ended up in my bed and I jumped up awake and looked at the clock to find that it was after 12 already. I jumped in the shower and headed back to school for the picnic. I had missed the class procession in the morning, but apparently I wasn't the only one, since there were only 2 people, and they bailed so they weren't the only ones. So finally people started to trickle in to lunch. Afterwards we headed over to our old dorm to check things out and then made our way to watch the lacrosse game. It was fun to be back on campus just hanging out on a Saturday afternoon.

On Saturday night, all the reunion classes were split up into their own dinners. The '96ers were put with the '01ers though. Things got going pretty slowly on Sat. night. A few of us headed over to campus pretty early and we were just chillin, waiting for everyone else. This was the night that more people showed up for. I saw a number of people who I was not expecting, which was cool. I definitely made a point to eat dinner and I was not quite as drunk as on Friday night. I decided that the afterparty was going to be a bit much for me, so a few of us went back to the hotel where the '01ers were hanging out and then a good friend and I went back to my room to hangout and crash.

I slept in on Sunday morning, after Eliza had to leave waaay early to get back to Philly to meet her parents. Then I went back to campus to grab some brunch and say goodbye to anyone who managed to get up and head over there. We have some good family friends in the area, so I stopped over there to say hi, but their daughter was home alone. I chatted with her for a bit and then hit the road back to DC. It was a successful weekend!!

I also realized that my B-Day is a week away... I will be 28, officially into my late 20's. I don't worry too much about the number though, I don't feel that old. Except when I realize that I can't drink like I used too... I will be up in NY at my sister's graduation and coming back to DC that day, so I don't have any big plans to celebrate. But I will be in FL for Memorial Day weekend, so I will get a chance to celebrate then!

Headed to my Reunion

I have a pretty fun weekend planned. I am headed back to New Jersey to my 10 year high school reunion. I have not been the best at keeping in touch with friends from high school, so it will be good to see everyone who comes back. I haven't been back to the school in several years either, so I am sure there will be some changes. It will probably be a pretty drunken weekend, so hopefully I will have some good pictures next week! (I also need to get those NYC pictures uploaded...)

Another outdoor weekend...

I have been pretty busy and haven't taken the time to post up anything lately, but I thought I'd give a general recap of what I have been up to lately.

I had a fun and busy first weekend in May. It started with a B-Day HH on Friday night at Continental, which was a pretty cool place. I then made my way up to Ballston to meet some friends at Bailey's where they were having some bands playing for Cinco De Mayo. They were pretty good. I don't remember the first one, but the main band was Gonzo's Nose.

On Saturday morning I was headed out for another good offroad workout to prepare for my races this summer. I met another DC Tri Clubber at Fountainhead and we rode 2 laps of the biking trail and then ran on the hiking trail for about 4 miles. Despite more issues with my bike's gearing, I felt better than I did the week before. It might have had something to do with the fact that I had a bit more to eat before heading out this time. I fell again, but this time I just bruised the right side of my butt. It's getting better though, there is some color to it, but it doesn't hurt. After that, I needed to hit the driving range to remember how to swing my golf clubs for an event that I had signed up to play in. It was such a gorgeous day!


I then picked up some friends and it was off to the baseball stadium to watch the Pirates take on the Nationals. Both struggling teams... I wanted to go a bit early for the game and watch the Bucos take some batting practice. Of course, I forgot my camera, but I did take that one picture with my phone. I didn't try to get any autographs from any of the players, but it was fun watching the kids all around get excited for them. I got a bunch of comments on my old school Van Slyke jersey. It was a pretty good game. At first I thought it was going to turn into a hitting match, but the pitchers settled down and we had a number of scoreless innings with the game tied at 4. We went into the 11th inning and with 2 outs, Jason Bay hit a nice shot to left field, below our seats to take a 5-4 lead. And that was how it would end. The first time that I have seen the Pirates win in person in a really long time!!!

We were supposed to go out after the game to celebrate another B-Day, but it was late, parking was terrible, and I had to get up really early on Sunday, so we jsut headed home. I was volunteering to work an Aid Station at an offroad marathon. I was at mile 9.3 for loop 1 and mile 22.4 for loop 2. It was a nice day to be out in the woods and I enjoyed giving all the runners the support that they needed. Since there was no way in hell that I could run that far anyway... The EX2 group is really great and I had a lot of fun with them. I am thinking about getting more invovled. Like I need something else to get involved with, right???

After practicing at the driving range on Sat., I was ready for the office golf tournament yesterday morning. It was a pretty nice out, just a bit cool. But it wasn't raining and I wasn't at the office. We were playing a scramble format, so that was nice also. We cracked open some beers and hit away, starting on hole 3. Our team didn't win, but we did pretty well. We were about mid pack in the results, coming in at a 4 under par 68. Unfortunately I had to go back to the office for a bit, before taking off for the 4th softball game. We are about half way through the season, and I knew it was time for a win. We were going to have a good team assembled also!

And I was right! We won 14 to 6 and we are now 1-3, not at the bottom of the standings anymore!! I didn't have my best game hitting or pitching. I was lucky that the other team wasn't really smashing my pitches and they were swinging at everything, even the bad ones! I think we are on a roll now, hopefully our luck will carry into next week!

Good baseball and Bad Softball

Well, that's not exactly true... It wasn't bad softball, it just wasn't good enough to win the game. As for the baseball though, that was good. Both of my teams, the Bucos and the Nats had excellent games yesterday and got 2 great starts from some young pitchers. We'll start out with a re-cap of the game that I played in.

I thought that this would be the week that we would get it done. We were playing another 0-2 team, with similar stats to our first 2 games. We had a pretty strong showing last week, despite a little relapse in the 4th inning, which I was hoping would carry us into this week. Unfortunately we would be playing without several of our good players, who helped us last week. I was all ready to pitch again. After throwing some warm-ups, I was feeling good about hitting the strike zone.

We got behind in the first inning in the field and we were never able to recover. The other team didn't have a lot of power, we just weren't on top of our game defensively. There were some dropped fly balls and some balls going through the legs. Those things happen. Toward the end of the game we settled down and had some good innings where we held them scoreless. We could have brought it back and made it competitive, but we were having some problems with the bats also. They had a pretty weak outfield, but we weren't able to take maximum advantage of it. For the second week in a row, I had a homerun!! I lead off one of the later innings and smacked it straight center field right past that outfielders. I was happy and confident that we'll be back with a competitive game next week.

As I said yesterday, GW player Mike O'Connor, was making his second start for the Nats last night. He pitched a great performance against a very good Mets team. It was a win that the Nats desperately needed also before their 5 game homestand. It seems like Mike is getting a bit more comfortable in the majors also. It is always easier for a rookie pitcher to face a good team when none of the batters have ever faced him before. What was impressive was that he was able to throw enough stuff at them that by the 2nd and 3rd at bats, they weren't figuring him out. Its great to see a GW player doing well, especially for the hometown team!

Now, on to the great game for the Bucos, who are stopping off in NY for 2 games before taking the train down to DC for a weekend series. Their most impressive pitcher last fall, until he had a slight injury that kept him out of the lineup at the end of the season, Zach Duke, had a very impressive performance yesterday afternoon in Chicago. He had a complete game shutout of the Cubs, his first of hopefully many to come in his time on the mound in Pittsburgh. I need to find a time when I can watch him pitch. Its too bad that he won't be on the mound this weekend when I go see the Pirates hopefully beat up on my Nats.

Don't get me wrong, as a Nats season ticket holder, I am very supportive of them. But when it comes down to my roots, I will always be behind the Pittsburgh teams. The Nats better sweep the Marlins because I am looking for them to be swept by my Bucos.

GW and the Nats

What do GW baseball and the Washington Nationals have in common?

The starting pitcher for tonight's game! Mike O'Connor is coming off a good start against the Cardinals where he didn't get much run support. He was voted the Nationals Minor Leaguer of the year for 2005. Despite the fact that he is only in the majors because of Patterson's injury, he seems to be making the most of it. Let's hope he can keep the momentum going! Go GW and the Nats!

Mtn. Biking, Mtn. Biking and more Mtn. Biking

In case you couldn't tell from the title, my weekend was consumed with being outside and in the woods. The weather was fabulous!! I couldn't have hoped for anything nicer. It was perfect timing for my Friday off. I decided that I was going to revisit a place that I had been mtn. biking a long time ago. Now that I have been back there, it baffles me as to why I have not been there in about 4 years...

Fountainhead Park is a neat spot along the Occoquan river about 45 minutes from my place in Arlington. There is a hiking trail that starts/ends there and goes all the way up to Bull Run Park near Centerville. It is about 18 miles long. There are no bikes allowed on that trail. The bikes have their own trails which are awesome. At about 5 miles, it is a shorter loop than Schaeffer Farms where I like to go in MD, but these trails are much more vigorous and I got a much better workout. I only had one minor issue, after I had crossed one of the bridges, there was a root parallel to the way I was going, but the trail turned. My front tire hit it and slid out and I landed on my elbow. But it was just a bruise and a cut, nothing major.

After a gorgeous day on the trail on Friday, I decided that I would head back there on Saturday morning to ride. But this time I was going to do a brick workout. That is where you do 2 different training workouts back to back. I rode about 1 1/3 loops of the trail and then threw my bike and stuff in the car and went out for a trail run on the hiking trail for about 4 miles. I realized as I was turning around at 2 miles, that I hadn't eaten enough that morning and it was going to be a haul back to the car. I survived and felt pretty good actually. Once I got a gatorade from the drink machine. I think I am going to have to make that a standard workout... And I only had one crashing issue on Sat. I was carrying a good amount of speed down a hill towards a log jump that I managed fine on Fri., so I didn't slow down. Ooops. Over the handlebars I went, landing on my camelback. Just a few scratches on the leg, nothing big at all. Kinda fun looking back on it!

Then on Sunday, I volunteered to help out as a course marshall for the Potomac Velo Club's race at Greenbrier Park up near Hagerstown, MD. I didn't have to do a whole lot of work, fortunately nobody crashed badly or went off course in my spots. I did a lot of cheering people on and watching the racing. I even got a chance to ride a bit of the course, and wow, is it a tough one! The morning started out pretty cool, but by noon it had warmed up nicely. I would have like to have been riding with everyone else, but I was glad to be out there ready to provide support to people if they needed it. Plus I got to be out in the woods in a beautiful area watching a sport that I love.

In addition to all the outdoor stuff I did this weekend, I had a nice time Friday night meeting a new friend for a drink and then a trip to the Shakespeare Theater to see The Persians. It was a show unlike anything that I have ever seen in the theater. It is supposedly the oldest surviving play, written in about 472 B.C., and was only about an hour and 20 minutes long. But within that short time is a very powerful play. Then Sat. night I took it easy and had dinner in Shirlington and watched some TV at home. After I got back from the race on Sunday, I took the usual position on the couch to be lazy and watch more TV. Oh well, I had a pretty active weekend, so I felt like it was justified.