Meet Me in St Louis

Well not me, really, but The Son is gone on a three week business trip to western Illinois to help support a new Human Resource software release. He'll fly in and out of St Louis. Our weekend was mostly spent getting him ready for his trip. Its not exactly a Failure to Launch situation although at times it feels like it. Friday and Saturday were spent making sure his work shirts made it in and out of the cleaners and the rest of his laundry was done and folded so he had plenty of clean underwear for his trip. Ann even packs his suitcase for him. That is a little babying there, I believe. I did finally convinced Ann that he could afford having his shirts professionally done and she didn't have to iron them herself. I felt justified in making that argument because, heaven forbid, if I suggested that she iron my shirts, I would have been instantly transformed into a mass of goo from the laser eyes that would have shot from her eyes. Its what I refer to as "the look". Every married man knows "the look" and also understands what thin ice he's standing on when its directed his way. Its best to lay low and cut your loses especially since in all likelihood you've been cut off for a day..or a week..depending on the transgression real or perceived.

After making sure he was set to go, he did take us out to a late lunch on Saturday. By late I mean 4:00. He informed us at Noon that he needed to just make one short raid in his World of Warcraft game and that he'd be ready to go by 1:30. HA! Liar! Like anyone could pull off a raid in WoW in an hour or so. I settled in to watch the Nationals beat the Mets figuring it would be 2:30 before we left. Gross underestimate on my part. After several trips down to his dungeon...oppps..I mean bedroom, we were finally able to shake him from his shaman or tree elf or whatever character he transforms himself into and off we went. By the time we were all seated at the restaurant , we were all starved not having much of anything to eat all day. Of course we all over ordered and overate with plenty of leftover for the small furry children at home. It always amuses me to discover that The Son is somewhat of a minor celebrity amongst the 20 somethings of his age. Everywhere we go we seem to run into someone who knows him and his old car. This time it was our waitress. His old car that he had during high school and college was a 93 Honda Prelude (known far and wide as the 'Lude) that he had installed a body kit from Australia, of all places. That was my first and last dealings ever with US Customs at Dulles Airport. I felt all important and everything. My new Import business. Actually when the people at United Airlines cargo forklifted it out to the dock, we literally had to unpack it to get the various pieces to fit in our minivan. Anyway, apparently the now one of a type car cruising Woodbridge got him noticed. My first encounter with this phenomenon, was at the local Honda dealership. We had the Lude in for something or other and I drove The Son over to pick it up. The teenage girl working the cashier desk all but drooled over the receipt asking him about himself and the car. Of course he was totally oblivious to it all. I chalk it up to his being a teenager at the time but jeez, she was dying to give him her phone number.

After our late lunch/early dinner including a few Redhooks. All I wanted to do was crash. So I walked the furry kids and went to bed. By 8:30. I really am getting old.

Sunday we set out for Dulles to drop him off for his flight. We were worried that his flight might be delayed given the nor'easter that was upon us, but he got off with only a minor delay. We stopped off on the way home to grab some groceries and then watched The Island. Definitely not Ann's cup of tea, but after the first 30 minutes or so, it was really entertaining. Scarlett Johansson was stunning.

Daughter#1 Update. Her boyfriend had to work on Saturday so her day was spent working on a project for her UMASS course. She keeps asking for us to mail her softball glove since the bf plays on several different teams and we keep forgetting to do it. I guess its a case if you cant beat them join them. Although truth be told, she did play slow pitch softball growing up and also watched me attempt to play and drink beer between innings. I had to, it was a league rule or something.

Rowing Update. I set a new personal record for meters rowed in 30 minutes. I bested my old record bu 60 meters so I was very pleased by that. Still hoping to get off the erg and out on the water one of these days.

Friday Update

Friday was a workday so not a lot of time to do much other than work even, if it was from home. It is kind of amusing though as Ann and I both work from home on Friday and along with The Son's computer, we have five computers running on our wireless home system. Which brings me to a complaint about our work remote access. If we connect via broadband, which we do, we get disconnected after being on for just an hour and have to reconnect. Its truly annoying. Not to mention you're always in the middle of doing something that you haven't saved for a while and then it all disappears into the ether world. So far requests to adjust things have gone unresolved. I'm so glad we've outsourced our whole computer operation.

I was suppose to go out rowing yesterday evening. The forecast was for clear, but windy. I went down to the end of our block where I can see the Occoquan. It looked pretty choppy so I called my partner and cancelled. I don't think she was too pleased. Of course ten minutes after I called, the wind all but disappeared. Figures. We'll try again next week. We're suppose to get a big nor'easter on Sunday so rowing then is out. This is turning out to be a tough spring to row.

I used to be a big baseball fan growing up in NJ. I loved to play the game as a little leaguer, (Yea Newfoundland Cardinals!). I used to love the NY Yankees in their heyday. I can still name all the starters. I owned a Mickey Mantle signature glove (that I still have) and batted using a Yogi Berra model. I think half the team use to use it. I all but cried when I broke it. Back in those days you just put a few small nails in the handle where it was broken, taped it back up and you were good to go. Sort of. It was never quite the same. I adopted the Mets when they came on the scene and suffered through many a losing season till they won the World Series in 1969. After moving from NJ when I was 14 though it was harder and harder to sustain my love for the Mets, the world series not withstanding. When I moved to Virginia as an adult, Washington no longer had a team and frankly without a team I wasn't really interested in following baseball anymore. I still played - softball for a work league. I know there was the Orioles, but lets be honest they're the BALTIMORE Orioles. Peter Angelos position to the contrary, they're not Washington's team. So it was kind of exciting when the Expos moved from Montreal to Washington and became the Nationals. Sure they had no real owner other than MLB who refused to let them have any payroll whatsoever. So we ended up with castoffs that nobody wanted. To every one's surprise they've been pretty competitive. Except that is, for this year. They finally got real owners, a new stadium is being built (despite the gross ineptitude of both MLB (greed is our name) and the DC government (I think they all were schooled at the Marion Barry School for Idiots) ). The new owners have laid out this grand plan of building up the farm system and being ready for next year when the new stadium will open. All well and good, but lord could they have not spent a little money on players this year? They've discarded anyone of any value save one or two players and it shows. They've lost all but two games this year and usually by large margins. Its going to be a long summer for the Nationals. I fear the new owners risk alienating the fans to the extent that it will hurt them in the future. You just can't write off a whole season.

If Its Thursday, Its almost the Weekend

Ah Thursday and in my world that means one thing - Treat Day. Today's Treat day gets a B. Fruit salad for the healthy eaters among us (not me). I just can't stand the taste of melons, whether it be watermelon, honey dews or cantelopes. They just taste nasty to me, so I'll skip that. Bagels from Panera Bread. Frankly their bagels are only so so. I can get comparable bagels from Giant or Safeway, which isn't a ringing endorsement. Also available are something akin to donut holes in chocolate covered and something that appear to be some sort of mini eclair. So today was ok, but nothing to write home about. Oh, also an angel food cake with strawberries to add. However, since the cake is all wrapped up, no one wants to be the first to dig in. Todays Treat person needs to prime the pump, so to speak, by unwrapping the cake and taking a piece. The rest of the vultures will dig in.

I got stuck driving the van in today and it sucked. Even on a nice day, driving in in the morning while its dark is a chore. Maryland needs to look into actually repainting some of their lane lines because I can't see them. What made it worse today was the rain. My way of coping was just to follow someone else and hope they didn't end up in a ditch. The up side to this is I can take my Treat Day sugar coma onto the van this afternoon and sleep all the way home.

I took my own advice and quit the "you fly, you die" philosophy while erging. My last two pieces have me back very close to my personal bests in the 30:00 minute row (within 4 meters) and the 5,000 meter row (within 6 seconds). I'm looking forward to getting off the erg and back on the water, but the weather is just not cooperating. I'm schedule to row a double on Friday, but the forecast is not looking promising. Where is spring?

Happy Easter

A Happy Easter to you all. This is a special day for most of us regardless of our individual beliefs. Congratulations for those of you who actually made it to church. I didn't, but did contemplate about the holiday while on my solitary walks with the dogs. I figure that counts for something.

How weird is it to have a thunderstorm early in the week and snow later in the week? We've had both. The snow wasn't much - maybe an inch if that, but still. The average temperature here in Virginia is suppose to be 65 degrees this time of year. We shouldn't be having snow and the high temperature today shouldn't just be in the 40s, if we're lucky. This is totally messing up my rowing and biking schedules.

This was payday weekend so we tend to do a lot of shopping and eating out before all the money runs out. We did Red Lobster for lunch on Friday and had Pizza from the Pizza Gourmet on Friday night. The son took us out for lunch on Saturday to Bar J. The good news was the food was as good as usual and the Dos Equis was cold. The bad news was the cute red haired waitress wasn't working yesterday.

Apparently my recent erg pieces have gone to my head giving me delusions of grandeur. These delusions have me convinced I can hold certain 500 meter splits longer than I can. It all came crashing down on me this weekend when I rowed so so 5,000 meter and 30:00 minute pieces by starting out too fast and dying at the end. Our Sunday morning rowing class is cancelled for today because of Easter, but I'll try another 30:00 minute row today on my own with more realistic opening splits.

Being the good husband that I am, I'm now off to color Ann's hair. I do the touch up in between salon visits. It use to be a chore, but now I'm used to it and it does earn me a lot of points with the wife. I'm also in the midst of doing the weeks laundry. My Sunday's are always so exciting.

Daughter #1 Update. I haven't had a chance to talk about daughter #1 lately as she's been busy with work (she has a big trade show in NYC coming up this month), school (she's taking an on-line certificate course from UMASS (she got a perfect score on her most recent test - we're so proud)) and her bf. They're spending Easter with his parents. We appreciate them opening their home to her.

Light Show

Tuesday night we were hit with our first thunderstorm of the year. It came rolling through at 4:00 in the morning and I must say, its the most dramatic light and sound show I've been privy to in quite some time. I can accurately quote the time as our two little furry kids did not care at all for all the loud noise and if they were up they wanted to make sure we were up. During the last part of the storm, it rained so hard it sounded like the house had been placed under a waterfall. Maybe the thunderstorm was related the Baptist visit and my reluctance to visit their church? Usually thunderstorms happen during the warmer months and, in fact, Tuesday the temperatures had been in the 70s. Alas no more warm weather for a while as the temperature has dipped significantly with lows in the 20s and 30s at night and high 40s during the day. Bring back the heat!

Yesterday was my night to cook dinner. We had balsamic pork chops. They were good although The Son is tiring of pork chops on Weds regardless of how they are prepared. Looks like he might be headed out to St Louis on another business trip next weekend.

Treat day today earned a B+. Excellent egg casserole. No bagels though. There was some cheese danish, which was tasty but nothing really to nibble on other than a cheese ball. Not sure about a cheese ball in the morning. Hmmm..that sounded sort of porny.

Erged 5,000 meters yesterday with an ok row but not as fast as my previous two 5,000 meter pieces. Not sure if I'm just hitting a plateau or if I went out too fast. I'm suppose to row in a double tomorrow (Friday), but not sure if I want to row in the cold. We'll see.

Holy Rollers

It was a beautiful day in the neighborhood as temperatures got into the 70s. The trees are beginning to show signs of greening up and there are flowers everywhere. The cherry blossoms are at their peak downtown around the Tidal Basin. The kids are happy as it's their spring break this week.

Spring also brings us Easter. Its Easter which I assume brought about the knock on our door shortly after dinner tonight. It was a couple from one of the local Baptist churches. I know with some religions its important to spread their interpretation of the Word and recruit new members to the true way. So it was that they invited me to Easter services at their church. All well and good and how very kind and neighborly of them. Then they asked if I had a local church. I told them that I did. I'm a cafeteria Catholic. That I did not tell them. I thanked them and accepted their literature and thought that was the end of our brief visit. The he asked if I knew Jesus. Hmmm...ok. Yes, I told him hoping that would make him happy and he'd be on his way. No such luck. Then he asked if I died today did I think I would go to heaven? Now what kind of question is that to ask a perfect stranger? Frankly I thought it none of his business and the question was at best rude and inappropriate. Who knows if I'll go to heaven? I'll leave that to the Big Guy to decide. I always felt someone's religious beliefs were private and between that person and whatever Deity he chose to believe or not believe. These people need to find something more productive to do with their time. Frankly the whole episode pissed me off.

Spring Rowing and Hiking

This weekend marks the start of rowing in this area in earnest. The first high school regatta on the Occoquan was this Saturday and today, Sunday, George Mason University Men's Crew hosts their Occoquan Sprints. April 1 also means that we can now take out singles. The bad news is with Regattas running both days, its near impossible to take a boat out. The park which houses the boathouse, Sandy Run Regional Park, is essentially closed on regatta days for those of us interested in taking out shells on our own. With limited parking and hundreds of shells, rowers, parents and friends, its easy to see why. Regattas, besides providing competition for rowers and their respective schools, are also money makers. George Mason's men crew is a club sport and it depends on its three races (2 races in the spring and one head race in the fall), to help meet their expenses such as new boats, oars, insurance and rack rental fees. The same for the high school regattas. The high schools teams will race every weekend between now and late May. Most of the local schools will have their races on the Occoquan. So Saturday rowing is essentially out until mid May.

Saturday, Ann and I made the trip to Harrisonburg to see Daughter#2, our son in law and the Black Demon, aka Gracie. SIL and Daughter#2 enjoy doing outside activities like hiking and camping when they have the chance. Before I get too involved in rowing for the summer, I thought this would be a good time to let Daughter#2 take us on a not too difficult hike. Harrisonburg is nestled in the Shenandoah Valley between two national parks/forests - Shenandoah National Park, home to Skyline Drive and the George Washington National Forest. Our hike would be in the latter to Reddish Knob, one of the highest peaks in the park with a 360 degree vista at the top. Somehow we missed where the trail began and we ended up driving much higher and deeper into the park then we planned. We ended up just parking the car on the side of the road and walking the last mile and a quarter to the the top of the mountain. The view was as spectacular as promised. We didn't hike as long as we would have liked, but all in all it was fun. Gracie kept us entertain during the walk diving in the forest at various places only to rejoin us a few minutes later. The highlight was seeing two white tail deer on out decent back down the mountain. The town leading in to the national forest, Dayton, is populated with a large number of Mennonite farms. Its always interesting to see them out in their buggies or working their farms. As one Dayton website proclaimed, the hitching posts in Dayton are not just there for show. After our somewhat shorten hike, we headed off to Finnegan's Cove for lunch. Its more of a bar that serves seafood then a regular restaurant, but it has some good beer and a raw bar. Daughter#2 and I enjoyed some seafood jambalaya and I also had a dozen steamed clams. I let Ann drive home and I took the opportunity to take a nap. We made it home in time to watch the basketball tournament. The Georgetown game was a bit of a disappointment and we only managed to watch about half of the UCLA-Florida game before heading off to bed.

Erg class today was a trip. I'll normally row around 10,000 meters during the class. Today it was 11,100 meters. That's an indication how hard we were pushed. Although I didn't feel as exhausted as I should coming out of the class. After a quick shower, The Son, now back from his trip to California, treated us to lunch at Bar J's. It was a late lunch so no one really felt like having dinner. Now its back to the grind tomorrow.