Married

On July 14 I married the lovely Hannah (aka Cupcake Girl) here in Arlington at the Ft. Myer Old Post Chapel:

True to her alias, we even visited a couple of the local Cupcake shops. We stopped by Georgetown cupcake (Preordering so we could skip the massive line). They were nice enough to also give us a dozen cupcakes.
We also stopped by Baked and Wired (my personal gtown favorite):

then walked over

And visited Sprinkles

And because she worked there for 3 years, we also stopped by cakelove:

Then it was off to the reception at the Shearaton Pentagon City, where we were blessed by a rainbow:

And then partied the night away with good food, drink, and tasty desserts surrounded by friends and family.

So much fun, that you didn't want it to end, but in some ways you did because the moment you stopped you realized how absolutely tired you were.

Pacers Running Festival Half Marathon

What a wonderful day for a run! I was concerned based on the weather recently (last weekend was awful) but Mother Nature really put out all the stops and gave us a wonderful Mothers Day.
Overall this was a pretty great race, relatively flat, attractive view and of course my GF, H, was there to cheer me on. My only issues were that this course is not the most accessible supporters and that they really could have used another couple of porta-potties.

Final time? 2:24. Basically 11:00/mi. And that included a 2-3 minute visit to one of those scarce porta-potties on the second loop.

Not my personal best, for 2 factors. One was that I made a critical fail and went one scone too far in my pre-race breakfast/snack. Normally I do some toast and tea, but today was tea and scones (3 large ones). And I paid for that indulgence for 3/4 of the race, where I did not make my best time since I had to stop more frequently to prevent myself from vomiting. Additionally this race I was about the heaviest I have been in for quite a while and I could feel that as well.

Now off to celebrate Mothers Day with my Mom!

Four Courts Four Miler

Wow, did this race not look good when I woke up this morning.... It was POURING and didn't let up until around 3-4 minutes before the race start. But the secret that people who don't know? That as long as you dress right (little things like hats make life tolerable) and plan for temperature, you will be fine and not even notice it as you are running.

Considering I haven't trained half as much as I should (see previous post for how busy I have been) I wasn't too disappointed with my time (just a little under 10 minute miles).

And the course..... Ah, this is a slightly evil course... It is an out-and-back course, going down Wilson and onto Rt 110. Downhill for most of the first 2 miles, and then the hard part. Wilson between Rosslyn and Courthouse is a pretty steep grade. So that last mile was quite a haul and pretty much killed my time. The post race activities were pretty good (though I missed out on getting a special pint glass) and the free beer post race? Really tasted good. As you can see I convinced my GF H aka Cupcake Girl to "run" (jog) with me and she managed to accomplish her goal of not coming in last and finishing in under an hour. When I finished I circled back to join her and provide encouragement.

Rhodeside Grill

Ever been to a place that does something (in this case, brunch) pretty well and thought, "maybe I should try them for dinner?" I did and I was sorely disappointed.

I truly think that the brunch at Rhodeside is pretty solid, some original dishes and nothing to really complain about. And of course most everyone knows that it is a pretty good place to get a beer (very solid selection of them) because of it's kickball notoriety (at least in Arlington). But I made the mistake of hitting them up for dinner recently.

We started off with calamari. Bleh. Rubbery, the sauce was about as bland as can be, the breading was seriously meh... We did not clean then plate like we would for a good meal.

Then on to the main course.. Rack of ribs for her, Fish and Chips for me. Fries were not well cooked, lacked taste and more than a few were cold. My first sign that things were going to be bad for the main course was the fish and the onion rings had the same breading as the calamari. And darn if I wasn't right. The fish itself was ok. The breading was bad. The ribs were cooked right but they were overwhelmed by the tangy sauce that tasted as though it came from a bottle of KC Masterpiece. There was food left on my plate at the end of this... which for those of you who know me, means that it was bad.

Rhodeside, I will miss you for the brunch, the beer and the convenience, but I will not miss you for the food other than brunch (Rhodeside Grill is on the chopping block due to expansion of the Teachers building that is adjacent to it).

Really Arlington?

Moving your Health Department from the middle of the County(Clarendon) off to a fairly remote corner right by the gates of Ft. Myer? Poor planning. You are removing the following:

• Ease of access. The Clarendon location is right on the bus and Metro lines. The average people you have heading to these services? Not so car friendly.... And it pretty much makes it basically impossible for the employees to use public transportation to get to work.
• Parking. Easily this is what is going to affect both the general public and the businesses that operate in the Clarendon area. This will mean no more free parking after 6 for that area other than the pitiful street parking.

Toss in a snow job of the County board by the County management by forcing this through with little regard to little things like, y'know, review (hmm... this sounds familiar). So much for transparency of Government, at least here in the PRA (People's Republic of Arlington).....

SNOW!!!

God I love snow! We get it so rarely here in the DC region that I think I am always in shock when we actually get it here.

So anyone want to take bets the Prez makes another snarky comment about DC not being able to handle snow? The over/under here at the office is very much in favor that he will. I am so sorry that the DC region decides that it is not a good fiscal investment to have the same level of snow removal capability as locations that are more like to get his fine white stuff.

Oh well, at least I got my 2 hours (no g-d 7 AM teleconference).

Hiking

So it was a good weekend. Dinner with the Parents on Friday. Race for the Cure on Saturday morning (bad trend here, waking up earlier on the weekends than on the weekdays) where I got a repspectable 25 minutes. I so know how to run this race now, though I suspect that it will be my last (way too crowded). Amazingly I managed to link back up with everyone that I went there with (my family has a habit of losing people during races.... how they manage not to see me boggles the mind).

Saturday also involved a hike with the GF (http://whatsuparlington.blogspot.com/2007/05/june-2nd-ace-hike-happy-hour.html) which was kind of fun, to learn some stuff while getting a little walking in. Luckily the rain held off and it was a pretty good event (and the off to one of my favorite bars in Rosslyn, Continental..... love places that have a happy hour on a Saturday (until 9 no less)). Then we popped over to El Pollo Rico for some chicken and fries (awesome stuff) and finished Casino Royale (great movie, enjoyed it a lot.... though I think that modern spycraft isn't as entertaining as it was.... there was a lot of cell phone stealing in this film).

Then I wasted my Sunday. Class Meeting for OCS. At the RTI.... so 3+ hours each way (and in the rain, combined with leaving early (0700)). All for a little over 3 hours of talking... I can't wait until this bit is over. 6 weeks until Phase III. Dinner with the family (GF met my parents... can't have been easy for her). Then it was Clerks II on HD-DVD.... Love Kevin Smith films.

Oh Happy Day!

So I logged onto VCU's site (as I have been compulsively doing for the past week or so) and lo and behold this is what appears!

• Unofficial Graduate School Academic Record
• Degrees Awarded:
• Master of Science May 19, 2007
• School of Engineering
• Major: Computer Science
• Cum GPA: 3.000

So now I too can contribute to the factor that Arlington County as being the most educated city in the US (In 2005, slightly over 66% of adults age 25 and older had a bachelor’s degree or higher and about 36% had a graduate or professional degree. )
http://www.arlingtonva.us/departments/cphd/planning/data_maps/CPHDPlanningDataandMapsProfile.aspx

So is it wrong that the first 2 things I did were to print out the transcript request form (hello raise) and a duplicate diploma form (so going up in my cube at work)?

5 years, 15 classes, 2 schools (thank god that VCU allowed me to transfer some classes)....
Now to go sign up for the next class for my next Masters Degree....