On the IJ Side of Life
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December 2nd, 2009
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| I had a really awesome birthday. Mom and Dad's trip was great. We hit up the National Archives, the Natural History Museum, and the Kennedy Center to see A Streetcar Named Desire on my birthday. Cate Blanchett was amazing as Blanche DuBois, and the rest of the cast was equally powerful in their roles. I got her autograph after the show, and she's just as beautiful and gracious as she seems in interviews. The next day we visited the DEA museum which is hardly ever open. It's more of a history of drug use in the US than a history of the DEA which was vaguely disappointing but still interesting. We also went to the American History Museum, the African Art Museum, and the Smithsonian Castle. There is one large display room in the castle that is a really brief overview of the contents of all the Smithsonian museums. We spent most of that Saturday at the zoo enjoying the cool weather and the many active animals. Before they flew out on Sunday, we went to Arlington Cemetery and Arlington House (under renovation). The weather was incredible, and the fall colors looked amazing against the blue, blue sky. Pictures from their trip can be found here. After they left, I started on my most recent volunteer assignment at the zoo, data entry for a sloth bear behavior project. I don't know how they let data entry get so behind on these things. It's like they've never heard of grad students (aka slave labor). I did end up auditioning for The Vagina Monologues, and I was cast for two monologues and one intro. Since we're performing this as more of a staged reading, practices don't start until January for Feb. 13 and 14 performances. I'm looking forward to it. The Amanda Palmer show in Falls Church was fantastic. Her opening act/back up band was really good with a strong horn section. Amanda did a chat before the show started and signed after the show until everyone who wanted an autograph and a picture got one. She has mad levels of energy. The week of Thanksgiving, Brooke and I saw The Nutcracker at the Kennedy Center and enjoyed it very much. It always seems so much better with a live orchestra and choir. Marzipan, the Sugar Plum Fairy, and the Cavalier were my favorite dancers. For actual Thanksgiving, we were in NYC visiting Natalie and Judith. It was a nice, low-key, low-stress trip. There was almost ice skating, but the line was too long at the Bryant Park rink owing to the bizarrely warm weather. There was delicious tea and cake and waffles at a place called the Rose House that I really want to go back to on all future trips. Lots of exciting things are coming up soon. Zoolights at the National Zoo starts this weekend, and I'm volunteering several days. Karen's visiting next weekend from Dallas. Several days after that I will be visiting Dallas for work. Then I will be home for Christmas Dec. 19-28. Anyone in the Baton Rouge area on December 19 is invited to my Uncle Jim's big Christmas party. Let me know if you need directions or details. | ||||||||
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November 11th, 2009
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It was a very eventful Halloween this year. Pictures from various activities can be found here. The Tuesday before Halloween was the 24th Annual High Heel Race in DC. What seemed to be ~100 drag queens in various fantastic costumes raced down four blocks in ridiculous heels. ![[info - personal]](http://s.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small} ell and temve were great company for such an excursion. On Thursday we went to see Up for a dollar at the cinema drafthouse near my apartment. They serve really delicious fried mac&cheese bites. It was a cute movie, but I think I would have liked it a lot more if Ellie instead of Russell had been on the trip.Brooke and I went to stay with Natalie and Judith in New York for Halloween. We saw The Nightmare Before Christmas in 3D. It was pretty awesome. I'd never seen the movie before and enjoyed many of the songs. After we, along with a group of Natalie and Judith's friends, went to the Greenwich Village Halloween Parade. Unfortunately, it started raining just before the parade started and didn't let up the whole night. We didn't stay for all the parade, but the part we did see was fun. They had large skeleton puppets and zombies doing the "Thriller" dance and someone dressed as the Caterpillar from Alice in Wonderland. The trip back was also fun because we got the upstairs front seat of the bus. Great views through the upper windshield. For the election this year, I worked in the absentee voter office counting, sorting, and verifying absentee ballots. I think I liked it better than working at a precinct because we didn't have any set-up or take-down work, and we didn't have people in and out all the time. We did have a lot of downtime though. I will be sure to bring cross-stitch and/or a really big book if I get assigned the absentee office again. Sunday, Brooke and I went hiking in Great Falls National Park. Pictures here. The weather was fantastic, and the views along the River Trail are really nice. The trail we took wasn't too strenuous, but it also wasn't boringly easy (except for one section). I think we'll try to go back there in the spring to see everything in bloom. Now for the future exciting stuff. Mom and Dad will be here in a few hours to commence my birthday celebrations. Woooo! Tomorrow night we're going out to Chef Geoff's in DC before heading to the Kennedy Center for A Streetcar Named Desire starring Cate Blanchett. My life is so awesome! I'm not sure what else we're going to do while they're here, but we're going to try to hit the National Archives and Arlington House. Thursday of next week is Amanda Palmer's show in Falls Church. I already have my ticket and am super excited. Does anyone else want to go with me? Now for the part where I ask for advice. I am thinking about auditioning for a V-Day performance of The Vagina Monologues next Wednesday. All audition materials are provided at the audition, so I can put off making a decision until about 15 minutes before the auditions start whether or not to drive out there. It's been over 5 years since I've done any acting, and I do miss it. But it's been even longer since I've done any acting with complete strangers. Any thoughts yay or nay? | ||||||||
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October 16th, 2009
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| I'm about to fly home for my cousin's wedding this weekend. It promises to be a good time with nice fall weather. Hopefully my sister has sufficiently recovered from H1N1 to not get the rest of us sick and to be able to enjoy herself at the wedding. This past weekend I met up with Natalie, Judith, Judith's sister, Judith's sister's boyfriend, and Judith's sister's boyfriend's posse at the Equality March in DC. It was great to see them, but I only stayed for a couple hours before I had to leave for my drumming class. I also ran into another woman who dances at Sahara, and she hung out with us during the march. I wish I had been able to stay for the rally after because there were some pretty interesting people speaking. I also wish I could have seen the Daily Show camera crew that was filming. Maybe some other time. I finally got around to reading Sherlock Holmes vs. Dracula: The Case of the Sanguinary Count. This book was completely unnecessary. It's a retelling of Dracula as though Sherlock Holmes had been involved in the case and had really saved the day instead of Van Helsing. Except, Holmes didn't really do much to defeat Dracula. He doesn't even follow Dracula back to Transylvania deciding that his work is done since Dracula's not a problem in England any more. It's written in the style of the Holmes stories with Watson narrating the events and contains an abundance of references to other Holmes stories, as though the author wanted to make sure you knew that he knew his Holmes canon. If anyone really enjoys Dracula and really enjoys Conan Doyle's stories but wants to not care about either, I highly recommend this book. Otherwise, you might want to read it out of morbid curiousity. In future good news, Amanda Palmer of the Dresden Dolls and Neil Gaiman's girlfriend (only relevant in that they are both cool people who increases each other's coolness factor) is playing in Falls Church November 19! The club is actually across the street from my doctor's office, so I know I won't get lost driving there. If anyone is interested in coming to the show with me, let me know. Tickets are $20, and for an extra $5 per group, we can reserve a table for dining and sitting purposes. | ||||||||
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October 2nd, 2009
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| So things have been going really well for me lately. Yay! ( Job ) ( Mt. Vernon ) ( Book Festival ) ( Zoo ) ( Nano ) For future awesome things, I will be home October 16-19 for my cousin's wedding. I'm looking forward to it as I am particularly fond of this cousin, and I know the reception will have good food, good drink, and good music. Any Baton Rouge people want to try and get together Friday night or Sunday, let me know. Saturday's fully booked with wedding and other family stuff, but I'd like to see friends if I can. Brooke and I are going to NYC for Halloween. We're staying with Natalie and Judith and plan on having an awesome time at the Greenwich Village Halloween parade. I'm pondering costumes and welcome any suggestions on the matter. | ||||||||
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September 18th, 2009
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| I had a great Time in Seattle with my family. Pictures of our adventurous adventuring can be found here. We visited Pike's Place Market and watched the people who throw fish around. There were a ridiculous number of LSU people in town for the game, and they were all decked out in LSU gear. Seattle's economy probably had an insane bump Labor Day weekend with PAX, Bumbershoot, and the LSU-UW game crowds. We took a ferry across Puget Sound on a clear enough day to see some of the Olympic Mountains as well as the Cascades. The next day also had pretty good weather, so we went up the Space Needle to see the sights. I love all the free telescopes they have to let everyone enjoy the view. We visited a glassblowers studio and watched them work for a while before perusing all the really awesome and way too expensive for me to even consider work they had for sale. Since Dad's birthday was at the end of August, we had delicious cake and ice cream for him while in Seattle. It was the only time Mom, Dad, Karen, and I had all been in the same place since Christmas, so we thought it was a good time for cake. On the day of the game, we went with a group of family friends to Snoqualmie Falls and ate at this really amazing restaurant call Salesh Lodge. The falls were cool to see, but the salmon hash really made the drive worthwhile. Mmmmmm. On our way to the game, we passed a car that was on fire. Firemen were already on the scene but hadn't put the fire out yet. I was rather selfishly pleased about that as this is the first time I have ever seen a car on fire in real life. The game itself was a much closer match than we had been expecting, but I was happy to watch an actual competitive match up that the Tigers totally won. Husky Stadium overlooks Lake Washington, so we could see a veritable flotilla of boats all hanging out for the game. Sunday we visited wineries. One of them had a peacock roaming the grounds. We tasted some nice wines, but I didn't think any of them were worth the hassle to transport back home. Monday we went to the Experience Music Project and the Science Fiction Museum. I'm not sure why, but they are connected and share an entry fee. This is a totally cool thing, and I recommend these museums to anyone going to Seattle. The EMP has an awesome collection of electric guitars and basses (even stand-up basses) that date back to the 1930s. There is also a bunch of recording studios set up with instruments and tutorials on how to play them. I now consider myself a drumming and rhythm guitar expert after spending upwards of 10 minutes on each tutorial. The Science Fiction Museum lacked any sort of hands-on fun (I'm not sure what it would have been anyway.), but I was quite taken with the general shiny awesomeness of the whole thing. Unfortunately they were very strict about the no pictures policy, so you will just have to imagine the wall of various sci-fi weaponry from various movies and tv shows. There was a section on robots, too. Overall I enjoyed the trip and spending time with my family very much. One week is a sufficiently long trip though, and I am happy not to see them again until I go home in October for my cousin's wedding. | ||||||||
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August 24th, 2009
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| I finally put my Portland pictures up. You can see my adventures driving along the Pacific coast, hiking around waterfalls, and visiting the Rose and Japanese Gardens. Friday night, I saw Carbon Leaf and Great Big Sea at Wolf Trap with ell. We had a great time despite the rain because we had actual seats inside. Both bands put on really good shows. Carbon Leaf's bassist was especially entertaining when he played his stand up bass because the body of the bass came up almost to his collar bone. He is very tiny. Great Big Sea had guitar/bass/mandolin/bohdran changes after almost every song. They know how to put on a very entertaining show. They did get sidetracked a few times with an ongoing discussion about whether or not the lead singer was Santa Claus which usually segued into part of a Christmas song. I did not expect to be swaying to "Do They Know It's Christmas Time?" while attending a Celtic rock concert, but it was totally hilarious. I would definitely go see them in concert again.Saturday, I got to sit field side for the DC United match against the LA Galaxy and David Beckham. It was a good game, but we only managed a tie. David Beckham was very nice to look at and has many intriguing tattoos. | ||||||
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August 18th, 2009
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| I know. Two month posting hiatus. I was busy then just got really passive about internetting. Here's a brief recap of what's been going on with me. Portland - work and fun Portland is a really cool city to visit. I really liked working in the Oregon field office. Things went so smoothly that they let me leave early one day, so I could drive to the Pacific coast. It's crazy how different it is from the Gulf or the Atlantic coasts I've seen. I also enjoyed the waterfalls and the Japanese Garden. Once I post the pictures, you'll have more details on whatever else I did that week. Natalie and Judith's visit It was great to see them again. We had fun going through the American History Museum and eating at the American Indian Museum. Uncle Don's visit He was in town for a conference, so we met up one night to watch LSU play for the CWS title. We also went to a Nationals game, so we could see them lose to the Red Sox. LSU CWS win LSU once again won the CWS. It's even better to do that by beating Texas. TN for wedding - bat I went down to Tennessee for my cousin Matt's wedding. It was a nice trip, and I enjoyed getting to see some of my relatives. There was an unfortunate incident of one of the bridesmaids stepping on a bat in the vestibule before the ceremony. There was much screaming and worry that the bat would fly up someone's dress until they realized the bat was dead or close to it. Thankfully it was taken care of by one of the church workers, and the wedding went off beautifully. Ell's party Ell's friend collective skews very dorky and therefore awesome. Her 4th of July/My girlfriend's in town party was lots of fun. Delicious food and drink was had by all. Video Games Live Brooke and I went with my coworker and her husband. The National Symphony Orchestra was amazing as were all the soloists. They had an audience member (picked from a pre-show contest) come on stage to play Guitar Hero backed by the NSO. The deal was he would get a sweet laptop if he scored over 200k points on hard. Dude scored over 300k on expert. It was pretty awesome to watch. Water damage and repair in apartment Thanks to leaky a/c pipes, I had water damage in my bedroom. Parts of one wall, the ceiling, and my carpet had water damage. Thankfully, Brooke was out of town on vacation while all the work was being done to fix my bedroom, so I got to sleep in her room for a week. Everything's fixed now, but it was pretty stressful not really having a functioning bedroom for over a week. Work is crazy busy I've just had something going on with almost every project I'm assigned to. It's not too bad this week because I have training instead of work. Next week will probably be hectic again. Belly dance show For my Hula Belly Fusion performance class, we danced to "Rock a Hula" and "Can't Help Fallin' in Love" by Elvis. It went really well. I'll post pictures later of my awesome stage makeup and leis. Parents' visit Mom and Dad were here for a week to visit and see me dance. I didn't get to see them much because I had training all last week and this week at work, but we got together for dinner every night. Sunday we spent the day in Baltimore with Brooke. The National Aquarium is really freaking cool. | ||||||
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June 6th, 2009
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| I'm leaving for Portland tomorrow early and coming back late on the 14th. While most of my time there will be spent working at the Oregon field office, I will have most of tomorrow, all evenings, and all day Saturday free to check out Portland. Here is my current list of things I really want to do if at all possible: Drive to beach and check out the Pacific coast Christian Kane (aka Lindsey on Angel, aka Eliot on Leverage) show Sunday, June 7th at Dante's See the Sinferno Cabaret at Dante's before the Kane show Pride Festival Saturday, June 13th UFO Museum Powell's book store Rock Bottom Brewery If anyone (like Ell who told me at least two other things to do that I forgot about) has other suggestions, let me know! I'm bringing my laptop with me, so I'll be able to keep up with the internets while I'm gone. Unrelated to Portland, we are having visitors soon! Natalie and Judith are coming to visit again June 19-22. We will probably spend some quality time at the Smithsonians and maybe the zoo. Then my uncle is going to be in town June 21-24 for a work thing, and he's taking me to a Nationals-Red Sox game. Yay! | ||||||||
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May 13th, 2009
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| Disney World was full of win and awesome. We made it to Epcot, MGM, Magic Kingdom, and Animal Kingdom. I'll post a link once I have all the pictures on flickr. I took a ridiculous amount because, despite having been 3 previous times, I have never been to Disney World with a camera before. Epcot was having their Spring Flower Festival, so there were topiary shaped like Disney characters all over the park. I had fun practicing my German while buying delicious Milka chocolate bars in the Germany store. We got to watch the fireworks/laser show there, and it is very cool. I rode the Rock'n'Roller Coaster at MGM which has one of the more intense starts I've experienced on a roller coaster. The blaring Aerosmith music makes the ride even better. Brooke and I both rode Star Tours and spent quite some time browsing the gift shop after. I bought two Stitch action figures, one of Stitch as Yoda and one of Stitch as Emperor Palpatine. We had lots of fun on Pirates and the Haunted Mansion rides at Magic Kingdom. I have decided that my car's name is Doom Buggy, after the cars in the Haunted Mansion ride. (Must look for appropriate bumper sticker.) We also rode Splash Mountain. Did you ever get drenched on Splash Mountain? Brooke and I had both ridden it before and remained completely dry. Such was not the case this time. Everything I was wearing except my shoes and socks were soaked. Perhaps not the best day to wear a white shirt, but I doubt anyone was surprised to know I was wearing a bra that day. We also got to see the Magic Kingdom fireworks one night. Tinkerbell totally ziplines down from the top of the castle into Tomorrowland. I wish I could do that. Animal Kingdom was the only park we hadn't been to before, so we spent the most time there. It's a really cool combination of zoo and amusement park. They rides are great, and there are several walking paths to take you around near the animals. There is also a safari area where you are driven around the wildlife preserve with free roaming animals. Our vehicle had to stop for a few minutes while a giraffe wandered across the road. The really nice part about Animal Kingdom in the summer is the shade. Pretty much the entire park is shaded with huge trees to make the park feel more like nature. My next trip will be to Portland, Oregon in June. Some of you might remember that I got to go home last June to help out the LA field office with a big survey. Well, I'm going to be doing the same work for the OR field office this year. I would have liked to go home again, but I'm excited to go to Portland since I've never been to Oregon before. Any suggestions for places to go, things to do, food to eat would be greatly appreciated. I'm staying near the downtown area, but I will have a rental car to get wherever I want to go. For people in the DC area, Video Games Live is coming to WolfTrap July 10. Brooke and I already have tickets for the lawn area ($25 each including all service charges). If anyone else is interested in going, we'd love to do some kind of potluck at the concert. The lawn area allows whatever outside food and drink you want to bring in. My coworker and her husband are probably going to join us, but don't let that scare you. They are fun theater/gamer geeks who are just as socially awkward as you are. | ||||||||
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March 10th, 2009
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| 1. Ell's awesome Un-Valentine party. I met some of ![[info]](http://www.insanejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif){kind=small} shrieking_elll's awesome friends and their awesome kid. We had a great time drinking while watching Empire Strikes Back, The Big Lebowski, and Buckaroo Bonzai. I think I need repeated viewings to get what the hell was going on with Buckaroo Bonzai owing to the effects of Jeff Goldblum in chaps and lots of rum.2. Coraline in 3D. Unfortunately you can't see it in 3D anymore because the stupid Jonas Brothers concert movie took over all the 3D screens a couple weeks ago. The movie was very awesome with an appropriately creepy soundtrack. There were some large differences from the book, but they added to the story. 3. NSO's Prokofiev, Ravel, and Stravinsky concert. The National Symphony Orchestra periodically has ticket specials for only $20. I was thinking about going to their Prokofiev, Ravel, and Stravinsky concert but wasn't sure if it would be worth the effort. Then I read an interview with the composer for Coraline. He mentioned Prokofiev and Stravinsky as being two of his favorite composers. This totally sealed the deal for me as I loved the Coraline soundtrack. The concert was incredible. The audience gave a standing ovation after each piece, and the piano soloist for the Prokofiev concerto had 3 curtain calls. She was really amazing. I need to make a point of going to the theater more often. 4. Mom's visit. Mom and I started the sightseeing with a visit to the newly restored American History Museum. It was not as awesome as I remembered the previous incarnation being. Needs more First Ladies and pop culture stuff. Then we went next door to the Natural History Museum. They have recently opened a new section called the Ocean Hall which has many interesting specimens (by that I mean totally freaking creepy looking) from various ocean depths. The large replica of a whale that hangs from the ceiling is especially impressive. We went through the Butterfly Garden after, and Mom had a butterfly land on her pant leg. Now Mom, Dad, and I have each had a butterfly land on us. Last we enjoyed a special exhibit on orchids. The exhibit room was full of hundreds of flowers and smelled wonderful. Unfortunately we had come too late to hear the Smithsonian’s horticulturist speak (I didn't even know the Smithsonian had a horticulturist. I can't imagine there was much competition for the job.), but it was really cool seeing all the different colors orchids come in. Pretty much anything in the purple-red-orange-yellow-green spectrum was an option. The next day we spent 5 hours at the Newseum, and we would have stayed longer if we’d sat through all the different films they show. They have newspaper front pages from as far back as the 1200s all the way through a daily changing display of current front pages from newspapers around the country. After the Newseum, we went to the Wax Museum. They have several figures of presidential figures, including President Obama in a mock Oval Office. The most interesting part was the video about how the figures are created. Over 200 measurements of the subject are taken while the subject is in the pose the figure will be displayed in. They use make up artists and hair stylists to match the subject’s skin and hair colors as closely as possible. When the final figure is assembled, each strand of hair is inserted one at a time. It takes weeks to create each figure in the museum. We had a pretty heavy snow here which kept Mom an extra day. We didn’t mind since we played board games and baked cookies. The only annoying part was getting through to the airline to change Mom's flight. We were on the phone for over two hours, most of the time spent on hold passing the phone back and forth so no one's arm went numb. 5. Hafla. My belly dance school has a hafla (party) mid way through the session to give the students a chance to perform for each other in a casual environment. No one is required to go (except the teachers), and you don't have to perform even if you do go. Each teacher choreographs a short dance for each of her classes, so there were about 20 performances total. It was fun, but our performance was so short that it almost seemed pointless. I know they wanted all the classes to have time for a short dance while also having time for open dancing, but I think we could have danced for a little more than 1 minute. My teacher said I did a really good job and that I have great control over my hip movements. 6. Pi Day Party March 14. As some of you already know, Brooke and I are hosting a Pi Day party on Saturday, March 14 at our apartment. There will be wii gaming, pies, and costumes. I promise I will not make anyone do math! Costumes are encouraged but not required. If you do wear a costume, it should be of the geek/nerd/dorktastic variety. I will be dressed as Hypatia, the first female mathematician, which basically means I will have a bed sheet awkwardly wrapped around my person to simulate a toga. Please feel free to bring guests, but please let me know. I don't want to run out of food and/or drinks. Email me at jrho.jrho at gmail dot com if you need my address and/or phone number. ETA: I uploaded pictures from Mom's trip here. | ||||||||
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February 7th, 2009
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| Lot 1: Last Friday, I met up with some hilarious women from the Shapely Prose website. After I went to a bar with one of the women and her husband to hear accordion bands. This is possibly more awesome than it sounds, but I doubt it. The opening act was a sword swallower and a fire eater. They were really entertaining. Unfortunately I hadn't worn good shoes for standing long periods of time, and I was really tired, so I left during the first band's set. They were comprised of an accordion, a violin, a stand-up bass, and a drum kit. I really need to find out what their website it because I really want to buy one of their cds. Lot 2: The results of the 2007 Census of Agriculture were officially released on Wednesday. We all went to the auditorium for the official announcement by the Secretary of Agriculture who was kind of an ass and booked it out of the auditorium as soon as he gave his talk. He was out the door before our director finished thanking him for being there. Before the talks started though, there was the national anthem with associated video hilarity. An image of a waving flag faded in and out with various pictures of heterosexual, same race couples with small children. There was one image of a crop field and one image of a carefully multicultural group of children, but no images of livestock, Hispanics, teenagers, single people, couples without children, vehicles, or water. From this my coworker and I have determined that these people and things are unamerican. It was really hard to keep our laughter muffled once the still shot of fireworks came up. Lot 3: One of the surveys I work puts out a monthly publication with results from the previous month's survey. I got an email yesterday saying there would be a small party with cake and punch next week because we had put out 12 consecutive monthly publications without issuing any corrections. That's right; we didn't screw up for one year. There was no such announcement last year which leads me to believe we did not manage a full error-free year in 2007. I'm planning on taking full credit for this since I fully took over this project from my coworker January of last year. Not that I have anything to do with the publication, but I have decided my mere presence has clearly made the difference. Lot 4: I had major baking plans for this weekend, so I went to the grocery early this morning to get my ingredients. Upon returning to my apartment, I noticed a downed power line next to my building which I immediately reported to the non-emergency number for police/fire department. I also told my apartment manager that I had already called it in and asked for someone to come put a barrier around the live end of the wire because it was in the playground next to my building. The firemen got there before anyone could do that, but it turned out not to be an issue. It wasn't actually a power line; it was a phone line. The fireman was really nice about explaining how to tell the difference between the lines and didn't make me feel stupid for thinking the phone line was a power line. (Note: The power lines are on top of the poles and not directly touching the wood. Phone lines are bolted to the pole and are black. Cable lines are bolted to the pole and are, around here, green. The more you know.) They just coiled it up and tied it to the pole before calling the phone company to come fix it. I told the manager what had happened and to expect people coming to say their phones were dead. He was extremely profuse in his thanks, maybe we'll get a discount on rent next month. (Probably not, but it would be nice) Lot 5: I did lots of baking today. All new recipes I got from a thread on Shapely Prose, and they all 3 turned out fantastic. ( Chai Shortbread ) ( Pumpkin Chocolate Chip Cake ) ( Beef and Cornbread Casserole ) | ||||||||
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January 18th, 2009
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| I was there, and it was awesome! How awesome? Behold the lineup of speakers and performers: Denzel Washington Bruce Springsteen - The Rising Laura Linney and MLK III Mary J. Blige - Lean on Me Jamie Foxx and Steve Carrell Bettye LaVette and Jon Bon Jovi - It's Been a Long Time Coming Tom Hanks Marisa Tomei James Taylor, John Legend, Jennifer Nettles - Shower the People with Love Joe Biden John Mellencamp - Ain't that America Queen Latifah Josh Groban and Heather Headley - My Country 'Tis of Thee George Lopez and Kal Penn Herbie Hancock, Will.I.Am, Sheryl Crow - One Love (let's get together and feel alright) medley into Where Is the Love? Tiger Woods US Naval Academy Glee Club and Renee Fleming - Walk on Through the Wind Jack Black and Rosario Dawson Garth Brooks - American Pie, Shout, We Shall Be Free Ashley Judd and Forest Whitaker Usher, Stevie Wonder, Shakira - Higher Ground Samuel L. Jackson U2 - Pride(In the Name of Love), City of Blinding Lights Barack Obama Bruce Springsteen, Pete Seeger - This Land Is Your Land Beyonce and everyone else (Stevie Wonder on harmonica) - America the Beautiful That is how awesome it was. You can watch it on hbo.com at 11 EST if you haven't already. I didn't manage many pictures and managed almost no good ones. What I'm not too ashamed to show other people can be found here. | ||||||||
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June 21st, 2008
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| The Friday night Mystics game was fun. Like with all his season tickets, Stewart had the best possible seats, right behind the opposing team's bench. May I just say that both the Atlanta Dream and the Washington Mystics are comprised of very attractive ladies. The first half was badly played by both teams, but the second half was really good. The Mystics won, mainly by being more proficient at free throws. Now I have been to at least one game of each professional sports league in the US. I'm quite proud of myself for this. This afternoon I went to a Can't Stop the Serenity showing at the Arlington Cinema 'n Drafthouse a few blocks down the street from my apartment. I didn't get to see Serenity when it came out in theaters because I was in Germany, so I was happy to get the chance to see it on the big screen. The Drafthouse is pretty cool and in walking distance. They show a small number of movies after they've stopped running in regular theaters, tickets $5, and they have live shows, usually comedians. The seating is at staggered bars and tables throughout the theater, and the waiters serve food and drink throughout the shows. I had the mozzerella sticks, and they were quite good. On my way into the show, I noticed a street festival which I explored after the movie. It was a blues festival with a live band playing. Many of the area restaurants had booths. One place was selling quarts of fruit salad for $1! That's an awesome deal for a mixed quart of grapes, strawberries, and pineapple. I stayed until the festival ended at 8 then came home to tell you all about my awesome day. | ||||||||
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On the IJ Side of Life
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