How I Spent My Summer Vacation

Actually I didn't take a summer vacation, but given school is starting here in a few days, it sounded like a good title.

First off there was rowing. Our rowing season is broken into two parts - sprint racing in the summer and Head racing in the fall. This year we entered two sprint races. The first was the Occoquan Masters Sprint (OMS) held on our home water of the Occoquan Reservoir. It's hosted by the Occoquan Boat Club, also known as OBC. One of the highlights of this season is that Daughter#1 is coaching our Competitive Women. Here she gives final instructions to her "A" Boat before they head off to the start line.

They got a Silver Medal in their race. Nice job ladies.

I raced in an "8" and a Quad. We didn't medal. Here we are taking the "8" down to be launched.

Down to the dock.

Pushing off. I'm in 2 seat.

After OMS, there was Diamond States. That was an away regatta so there was boats to unrig.

And to strap down unto the trailer.

And boats to load onto the trailer.

It was a full trailer in the end.

Once the trailer arrived onsite in Middleton, DE, the boats had to be rigged and readied for racing.

And the racing begins being piped along to the finish like. I hurt my knee getting our mixed "8" out of the water and back to our trailer. I could hardly walk so I didn't managed to get any more pictures.

I also attended a Washington Nationals game vs the NY Mets. Daughter#1's husband is a Mets fan so it's the game we picked to go to. We got there early so we could look around the park. This is a view from the Red Porch in center field before the game

I was there with these guys - Ann, Daughter#1 and her Husband Matt shown here in the Red Porch.

We had some decent seats behind home plate from which we got to see the Nats win in the bottom of the ninth. Exciting ending.

We also have a National's farm team right down the road from us. Less then 5 miles actually. It's their High "A" club - the Potomac Nationals. The Nationals phenom Stephen Strasburg showed up for a rehab start recovering from Tommy John surgery. The stadium, such as it is (it has to be the worst "A" stadium in existence) holds 6,200. Almost 9,000 showed up to watch him pitch 3 innings. He didn't disappoint. He struck out 5 and gave up only two weak infield hits. What struck me about him is how big he is. He was easily the biggest player there. After Stephen left, The PNats held on to win. So nice finish all the way around.


There has also been some biking along the W&OD Trail and the bike trail along Rt 123, but no camera so no picture on those outings.

How have you spent your summer?

Last Weekend

It's a bit late for a weekend recap seeing that another weekend is almost upon us and frankly I've probably forgotten most of what I did over the weekend. Will this deter me? No. So lets get right to it.

Friday was a day off so that made it good almost from the start. I got up, although not nearly as early as I should have to get in a row. I'm not exactly sure why, but my legs just felt lifeless. Dead and sore. It could have been from the rowing practice the night before and they hadn't enough time to recover. Whatever it was it made rowing a somewhat gruelling experience. It was more of forcing myself to complete the row. I did a total of 11 miles so there was a lot of forcing to do. Parts went well, but on the most part it was a grind. After my row I came home and paid bills (it was payday) and then ran to Target for some shopping. I have a hard time getting out of Target for less then $100. I lazed around for most of the afternoon. Had pizza for dinner and went to bed.

Saturday I was up at 6:00 to get to practice. We're doing a lot more drill work then in previous years and it seems to be working, although we are a stubborn group and set in our ways. We're also doing longer pieces gearing up for Head Race season, which starts in earnest in Mid-September. After practice, our fitness rowers provided breakfast for the club. I sampled a lot of everything including pancakes, donuts, scrambled egg casserole, a bagel and a few glasses of OJ. After practice it was home to get cleaned up. I beat Ann into coming up with a shopping list and once completed, I did the grocery shopping. Always a highlight of my week. Not. Saturday evening, The Son and I planned to catch a baseball game at the local minor league park just down the road a piece from us. The Nationals, while having a horrible parent club, have signed some promising talent and we thought it a good idea to go see the youngsters. The Potomac Nationals were tied for first with Wilmington, whom the Nationals just happen to be playing that night. I had put off buying tickets on line because (1) Ann was on the fence about going; and (2) tickets are always easy to get with the exception of the 4th of July, which always sells out. As it turns out, Ann decided not to go so it was just The Son and I. I tried going on line about 2 hours before game time and buying tickets, but they had already stopped selling tickets on line for the game. No problem we would just buy them at the park and off we went. It turns out it was Scout night at the stadium. Scouts of all kinds could watch the game and then camp out in the outfield over night. Sounded like fun for the kids. As we approached the ticket booths I noticed that they had signs posted that all box and reserved seating was sold out and only general admissions were left. Now I've sat in the general admission seats before and in this stadium they are a nightmare. There are no aisles for getting up and down from your seats so you have to walk around and between people already seated. Kids are running around like demons and overall not that great of an experience. We decided to bag the game and try another time. Live and learn - buy tickets earlier. Since we had counted on eating hot dogs at the game for dinner, we stopped on the way home at a Ruby Tuesday's for dinner. After dinner we went home and watched the parent club beat the Marlins on TV.

I've been sort of neglecting my bike riding this summer. Certainly compared to last summer. While I was tempted to go for another row, I decided it was time to get back on my bike.. It was suppose to get really hot, like close to 100 degrees hot, so I wanted to get out early. I was out of bed at 6:00, got the laundry started, loaded my bike in the car and left for the W&OD Trail. I was parking the car around 8:15 and I was lucky to find a parking spot. Apparently everyone had the same idea that I did. I rode out to Leesburg and after taking a break decided to continue on for a little longer and get in 25 miles. As I got into downtown Leesburg, there were police and race marshalls on the streets that cross the trail stopping traffic for a race. It turned out that the Leesburg YMCA 10K/20K Race was underway. I probably wouldn't had ridden into Leesburg if I had known the race was going on, but once there I just went on. Heading west. I was going against the runners so it wasn't a problem. In fact having people on the streets to stop traffic was actually kind of nice. After I turned around though I was in the middle of the runner, which I'm sure they appreciated having a biker in their midst. I managed not to hit anyone and vica versa. I ended up riding 25 miles and it felt good getting back on the bike. I'm planning a ride with Daughter#2 sometime soon in the very near future. The rest of the day was spent relaxing around the house and grilling some steaks for dinner. Not a bad day at all.

Bachelor Weekend

This will be a bachelor weekend for me. Ann and Daughter#2 left early this morning to visit Daughter#1 in Connecticut to have a girl weekend and do some wedding planning. Its been a long, long time since I've been alone for a weekend. The question is how to spend it. Some of the choices are:

Rowing - This is sort of a given. Besides practice Saturday morning, I can go out in a single, which is something I haven't done in a while now.

Biking - Again not that surprising. This was suppose to be the weekend we would ride the entire 45 miles of the W&OD Trail like we did last year. Alas, The Son opted out to go to Atlantic City and Daughter#2 is headed to Connecticut. Ann, who is our pick up and drop off driver, is with her. I really do want to do the ride again, but it is not to be. Unless someone out there is interested in being a drop off and pick up person for me. A free lunch is in for you and a friend, if you'd like. I've decided trying a modified ride would have to do. I would ride to Purcellvile and back from Rt 28. That would be 42 miles. I could ride an additional 8 miles toward Vienna and back to round up to 50. A trip to Old Dominion brew Pub would be in order after that.

Football Game - I do have tickets to the Maryland vs. Delaware football game. I'm not sure how crazy I am about going to the game by myself plus I'd have to find someone to take care of the dog. It's a 3:45 start too, which would put me home late (yes I'm old).

Baseball Game - The Nationals are home this weekend and their new ball park is terrific. The downside is that they are terrible although they just did sweep the Dodgers.

Movie - Always a choice especially when it's raining out. I can't say that anything really excites me right now. Any recommendations?

TV - College football does start this Saturday. Who Hoo!

Feel free to to help me figure out on what I should do.

Weekend Recap

The weekend was enjoyable if not very productive, which is how I like it. Friday I was up bright and early and out on the water by 7:00AM. It wasn't hot yet, in the low 70s, but it was very humid. I headed up river toward Ryan's Dam. The water was great - nice and flat. The downside was I was still pretty sore from Thursday evening practice. For that practice I was in a double something I've only rowed a few times before. We rowed the double about 6 miles racing 4+s. I was also sculling with someone I've never rowed with before. It was pretty rough starting out as we were constantly dipping to port. Over time we got better and smoother and by our last piece from Jacob's Rock to our cove (about 1 1/4 miles), we stayed even with the 4+s until right at the end when one of the coxswains in the 4+s got too close to us and we had to drift wide to avoid clashing oars. Back to Friday's row, I wanted to try and get in 10 miles since I hadn't single sculled in a while. Going up river was fine, but by the time I spun my boat and started heading back, I was just exhausted. Rather then a steady row, I had to just row in mile increments and then take a break. Funny how it's always easier heading up then heading back to the boathouse. After my row, Ann and I went to the Original Steak House for lunch. I tried their crab cake sandwich and it was really good. I highly recommend it. After lunch I went back and took a nap while Ann watched her HGTV (boring). We went for pizza for dinner (sausage, mushroom and onions - yum) and early to bed.

Saturday morning was my club practice. We took out two 8+s - the old line up and the young line up. We rowed up about a mile past Ryan's Dam (4 1/4 miles) and did several race pieces on the way back. I was in the old line up boat and we got out hats handed to us time and time again. We were missing three of our strongest rowers so it really came as no real surprise. More of a surprise was how fast they could walk right through us. Saturday evening we were invited to witness some old friends renewing their wedding vows on their 40th wedding anniversary. It was a bittersweet ceremony. On one hand it was a moving ceremony for a couple that has been together so long, obviously care for each other very much and have raised three fine children. On the other hand he is very ill fighting lung cancer and recovering from a heart attack as well. He didn't look well at all, which could be expected. We wished them well and socialized with neighbors, something we do too little of and generally had a good time.

Sunday I went for a bike ride minus Ann. She decided to skip out again and stay home claiming it was "too hot". Please the temperature at Dulles airport, which is right next to where we ride was only 72. Of course the humidity was a stifling 94%. Since Ann wasn't with me, I headed east from Rt 28 toward Vienna rather than west toward Leesburg just as a change of scenery. Vienna is 12.5 miles from Rt 28 so it turned into a 25 mile ride. I managed to knock 3 minutes off that ride from last time doing it in 57 minutes each way. Last time was 1 hour exactly. Bike speedometers are fun to have. Despite the humidity, it was really quite nice out. The trail wasn't crowded but enough people were out riding, rollerblading, jogging or walking to make for some interesting people watching. After my ride, I came home and got up on the roof again to clean out the gutters. A job I hate but it needed to be done. It was amazing how much I sweated doing that job. My shirt was dry after my bike ride, but was soaked after cleaning the gutters, Yuck. Hopefully they are now good until late October when the leaves start falling. After the gutter cleaning, Ann and I settled into to watch the finals of Euro 2008. It was a good game and I was surprised to see Spain come out on top. Germany has a knack of pulling games out in the end and I kept waiting for their tying goal to come and it never did. I'm pumped now for the next World Cup. We also watched the Nationals pull out their rubber match game with the Orioles in 12 innings. It was nice to see them smack the Birds around.

Hope you all had a great weekend.

Having Fun

We are having a great weekend so far. I hope you are too. Its been a wonderful start to summer. So far we have eaten seafood by the riverside.

Played the game of LIFE. Something I haven't done since I was about 12.

And we've gone to the new National's Park and watched the Nationals win 7-6 in the bottom of the 9th.

And we still have Ann's birthday to celebrate tomorrow. Just a quick update. I'm off to have pizza and beer. Life is good.

Give Me My Football ESPN

Ever since college, I've always looked at Thursday evening as my gateway to the weekend. I'm always home on Fridays now, either with a day off due to my compressed work schedule or working from home. What better way to welcome the weekend then some Thursday night college football. Oregon would be playing Arizona. The Son likes Oregon and they are entertaining to watch. Because it was being played out west, the game was schedule to start later than most Thursday night games. I could live with that as ESPN promised an hour long College Football pre-game show. I love their Game Day Show on Saturday mornings so I thought that would be a fine lead in to the game. Imagine my surprise when instead of the pregame show, ESPN decided to air a "Breaking News" show. The "Breaking News" was, of course, Barry Bonds indictment and A Rod's resigning with the Yankees. True, as bis sport stories go, the Bonds story was news. However, ESPN had already beat the story to death on their Sports Center show earlier in the evening. The A Rod story? No one cares unless they are a Yankees fan. Most of the United States could care less about the dance between A Rod and George. Watching an hour of their coverage of these two stories was like being waterboarded. I watched about 15 minutes and that was all I could take. I decided to skip the game and went to bed. Stupid ESPN.

Baseball and Erg Tests

Sunday with my toe still swollen and black and blue, I decided to give it a rest and neither bike or row. We had tickets to the nationals game against the Mets so I just chilled in the morning until it was time to go to the game. One of the nice things about RFK Stadium if you live in Virginia is the easy in and out off of I-395 via parking lot 8. We got there in about 30 minutes and walked into the stadium to find our seats. We had seats in the mezzanine level by third base. We had a pretty good view of the game and easy access to food, beer and bathrooms. It was an entertaining game as Shawn Hill dueled El Dukey of the Mets. It was tied 2-2 going into the top of the 8th when the Nationals relief pitchers collapsed and the Nats ended up losing 8-2. Ouch.

Tuesday's rowing practice didn't come off due to weather. Its hard to complain when it does rain these days as we've been in a serious drought condition all summer. It wasn't lightening, but it was raining hard enough that we decided to call it and go to the nearby gym where we have our ergs and do some erg testing. Since we're now training for head race season, the distance was set for 5,000 meters. Since I've been able to get out on the water, I've neglected the erg and rightfully so. I'll see enough of it during the winter. I wasn't expecting much, but I managed a 21.08.1, which I believe, without going back to check, a personal best for me. By .7 seconds, but still a best. Even so I was the slowest of the men. Of course I'm the shortest, lightest and one of the oldest so it comes as no surprise. Not another good omen for making the Charles boat though. We'll see how things go from here.

How I Spent Mother's Day

For those not familiar with the Washington, DC landscape, where The Son and I spent Mother's Day was at RFK Stadium watching the Nationals play. The Son has been traveling for the company he works for quite a bit and his boss rewarded him with two tickets to the game. Not just any tickets either - VIP tickets (which being a Government employee I had to get an ok from our Ethic's Counseler since The Son's company does work for the Government). What might you ask do such tickets get you? First, they come with close in parking as you can see in the bottom picture. Actually we're a lot closer to the stadium than the picture leads you to believe. After entering the stadium, us VIPers are entitled to a free buffet in the Stadium Club which overlooks right field (picture second from bottom). The beer costs but its all you can eat. I concentrated on the sausage sandwiches while The Son stuck with the traditional hot dogs. We both passed on the grilled chicken and broiled fish, but did try the salad bar and fresh baked cookies. Its all about healthy eating you know. Plus they had Old Dominion Ale on tap! The people sitting behind The Son are looking down on the field. Shortly after the picture was taken we manged to snare two of these prized seats. We watched the first inning from there before heading to our seats 9 rows behind home plate. They give you wrist bands to identify you as a VIP and keep the riffraff from spoiling your day. They also have Wait Staff for the VIP sections so we didn't have to bother getting up from our seats to order more beer. The food was still free so I downed a few soft pretzels. The...ummm..atmosphere had us in a good mood so we were more than happy to join in a rousing rendition of "Take me Out To The Ball game" during the 7th inning stretch. It was a beautiful spring day, the Nat's won and we only made two wrong turns trying to get out of the city. Its the last year for RFK. The city is building a new ballpark a few miles away on the Anacostia riverfront. The building's other occupant, DC United, will also move to a new stadium in the near future. The Redskins left years ago for Fed Ex Field, which has never been able to capture the same excitement level as playing in RFK. I'll be a tad sad to see it go, but I'm also looking forward to the new park. The sight lines to the outfield with the Capital in the background is said to be amazing. To those of you that are thinking why weren't we with our Mothers on Mothers Day, rest assured that we tried our best to get Ann to go to the game with The Son, but she passed insisting that a day of peace alone would make her just as happy. So she was happy and so were we. I'm not sure she'll pass next year though with the new ballpark. We shall see. Hope every Mother had a blast on her special day.

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.