Baseball & Burgers

Last night concluded my office sofball team's season. It was a great night.

** A Little Background **

Our team, the Orange Sox, has not done very well. We've consistently improved over the season and have even come close to winning, but the last inning has typically been when we fall apart. Keep in mind, my office has a large female presence. The league requires teams to play at least three women in the first ten of the line up. We had many nights when we were lucky to get three MEN. That aside, the ladies have not done that badly, we just can throw or hit the ball as far...

So back to last night.

The first game marked the benning of the league playoffs. We were seated #8 of eight teams, and we were playing #7. The stars aligned, everyone played weel and we beat them. It was a great feeling to win. We were stoked, packing up our things, patting eachother on the back & heading to our cars... when the ump stopped us.

Apparently when you win a game in the playoffs you play again -- that night. We had not considered the possibility of winning, so we hadn't bothered to see what would happen if we did.

Then came the good news: we were playing the #2 team. This team was serious. Their uniforms were night, their girls were tough (some of which playing better than a few of our guys), they even had a team photographer show up. Needless to say, we were slaughtered. They actually ended up calling the game early because the other team was 10 runs ahead. Chickens. The really sad thing is that we didn't really play poorly. We had a few really solid plays and many of the team members showed marked improvement from the first game. In the end, we just wern't as good. We all agreed - it was a fun game anyway.

Afterwards we headed over to a new restaurant that Chef Spike (a former Top Chef contestant) just opened in S.E. D.C. It's a burger place, complete with milk shakes and homemade fries.

In spite of the long line, grumpy guy in front of us & the fact that they ran out of Turkey Burgers -- we had a great time. Good Stuff Eatery was DELICIOUS. The "bouncer" was awesome, and did a good job at keeping the crowds in order. Spike was there cooking, complete with his signature fedora in place. He was very nice, made sure we had everything we wanted and even asked how the game went.

I had the Turkey Burger with a beef patty (they were out of turkey) it was delish. The milk shakes were smooth & creamy and the fries were excellent. The best part is, everything they make is made from scratch. I'm starting to feel like an ad -- maybe they should be paying me for this -- but I really did love it. You should really check it out.

You know it's Friday the 13th when

Today has started out all wrong. I woke up 15 minutes before I needed to be out the door. I rushed to get everything pulled together (including myself) and ran out the door to catch the train. I got to the station just as a train was pulling away, so I had to wait 5 minutes for the next one. When I got on the train, a girl that works in my building told me that there were power issues in the city (and our building). Apparently D.C. is experiencing a major power outage today. We arrived at our metro stop to find no lights in the station and lots of people. When we got to the building there were tons of people just hanging around wondering what to do. My office has no power, air conditioning and the server is down for the whole company. I wish this were a good thing... I had so much to do today!

** I just got a call letting me know that the server is working, maybe that means that power is back on **

Regardless, I'm home now, so we'll see what I can get done from here. And it's only 10:30 a.m.! I hope this is not a sign of things to come for the rest of the day.

I have arrived!

In June, I was invited to an event at the National Theatre. I went with some of my co-workers and had a great time. Trisha Yearwood, Clay Aiken and many other amazing vocalists performed. We were also treated to a poetry reading by Maya Angelou. How inspiring. We sat in the balcony and completely enjoyed the show. The theatre is amazing. It was a great evening.

Oh yeah -- the President and First Lady also attended. Here's my attempt at a photo.

Leslie Milk of The Washingtonian wrote about the event on the Capital Comment Blog. http://www.washingtonian.com/blogarticles/people/capitalcomment/7950.html
She writes, "Washington’s political elite dressed to the nineteens ..." Not a bad group to hang out with. If you scroll down to the listing of pictures, I am featured with my friends, Taj and Cory in the 6th picture.
If you're having trouble finding it, here's a direct link to the pic: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8206629@N05/2542989109

Gone Swimming

For those of you that were in D.C. this weekend, Saturday at around 2:00 p.m. we had a fast, heavy rainstorm that dropped a lot of rain in very little time. We had quite a unique experience as a result of the downpour that I thought everyone would get a laugh out of.

Around 1:30 p.m. on Saturday, Shiloh and I went to California Pizza Kitchen in Pentagon City with our friends, Rachel, Melissa and John. We were seated at a table next to a large wall of windows. We had a front row seat to the rain as it started to sprinkle. We were wondering how we were going to get back to our car without getting drenched when John said, "it feels like I'm getting wet!" Within seconds water started flowing into the restuarant from gap above the window that is usually filled by a sealant - apparently it's time to be replaced. What started as a small leak...

grew quickly. We dashed to a table a safe distance from our original spot, and not a moment too soon. Before long our table was in a lake of water. The picture below shows the clean up efforts we were seated right in the middle of the large puddle.

So, if you're looking for an eventful eating experience, make sure to head to CPK when you hear rain is coming.

Emergency Preparedness Fair

The second Rachel and Rachel production of the year, this weekend Rachel Watson and I participated in our church's Emergency Preparedness Fair. We had a great time and learned quite a bit along the way.

Memorial Weekend

What a great memorial day! My parents arrive early Saturday morning for a weekend of fun. We headed right over to Eastern Market where we browsed the goods. We used to look forward to the 57th street art fair in Chicago every June -- while the art could never compare, being out among street vendors was a little nostalgic. We found some very cool "singing" bowls. We spent quite a while perfecting the art of making the bowls sing. My parents love finding cool stuff like this, and decided to take one home.



After browsing the market, having our spiritual energy measured and finding lots of great jewerly and bags, we made our way to the Potomac River. We had a delicious lunch at Tony & Joe's and then walked down to Jack's Boathouse where we rented kayaks and played on the river.

After we got our fill of the sun, we returned to my aunt and uncles to meet up to go to dinner. We had delicious food at Tara Thai and enjoyed the company of my cousin, Daren, who left on a mission three days later.

On Sunday, my Aunt Linda hosted a farewell reception for Daren. Many of their friends came to send him off. We broke away for a few minutes to show my parents a few neighborhoods where we have been looking for housing.

On Monday we met up with Paige & Garrett and a couple of their friends for a trip to the National Zoo. We enjoyed the animals in the morning and then made our way to a picnic with our friends at Fort Hunt park near Mt. Vernon. We all enjoyed the sun and great food. This was an excellent welcome to the summer.

Home Sweet Home

It's official. We will be residents of the Washington, D.C./Arlington, VA area for the foreseeable future! We're so excited!

We are not yet sure where exactly we'll live, so if you have suggestions please pass them along.