June 2006 Archives

The month of June has been a string of Weeks of Eventfulness. It's a little like a Day of Change, but longer and with no preservatives. A Big Evening Of Getting Crap Done is even shorter still, and I've only had one or two of those since the spring. Since Tom and Amy's wedding, for instance, I've found a townhouse, had a string of Sunday dinners at Gina's, gone to a two-week class at Ft. Belvoir, saw my summerly Dave Matthews Band show at Nissan, continued to do pounds of laundry at a time, continued to convert the entire U.S. 52 audio tape library to digital format, and been officially accepted into graduate school--all while desperately trying to balance all the areas of my life. I've failed to do that in some respects, but as the summer continues to shape itself, I'm beginning to grow more and more accustomed to the simple concept of "dealing with it." There are some areas that need more attention than others, like finding and dedicating myself to a church up here, but the best I can do there is renew my efforts to find a place where I fit in and use my musical ability to the fullest extent possible.

I covered a ton of ground in that first paragraph, didn't I? That's sort've the effect I was going for. And now, kids, onward to falling asleep listening to the rain and planning a strategy to ensure I don't have to take an unnecessary refresher Accounting class. Wish me luck!

The rain, though it screws up commuting, shuts down streets and Metro stops, and generally creates a ruckus throughout our nation's capital, is still good. It slows down the often fast-paced nature of life up here. It forces workers to pay attention to their surroundings. It makes for ridiculous situations at concerts, resulting in muddy people from head to toe. It provides the perfect atmosphere for finishing off a couple of books... and it finally puts me in the mindset to write. The rustle of wind and sheets of water against my window has lulled me to sleep for three out of the last four nights while making it twice as difficult to awake in the morning.

When it storms like this, for days on end, I really miss having a front porch. Countless summer storms passed through Cedar Heights Road when I was growing up. My family would all camp out on our covered front porch, protected by the tall cedars and blankets mom had brought from inside. I'd usually cover myself in the tan wool blanket that was itchy but always good for building a fort. Then I'd sit on the concrete floor next to my dog Duchess, whose only reaction to the rain was a flip of her ear at each rumble of thunder. I'd be a little nervous, but the sight of the driveway and road leading to our house turning into a river would fascinate me at the same time.

Tonight is supposed to be the worst of the rain for this week, though it's not really supposed to let up until Thursday or so. Stay safe out there, kids, and if you can, take some time out to watch it pour.

The househunt is over! And it only took two weeks! Yes! Granted, those two weeks were grueling and nervewracking, and I didn't feel like I had any free time between looking at new places and staying on top of the Craigslist postings, but.. it's over. No more worrying. The lease is signed.

This particular place was the very first one that Josh and I checked out. We originally thought the timing of when the owner wanted to rent versus when we could move in was a little off, but we came to a nice agreement that lets us move in gradually toward the end of July while not paying too much overlapping rent. Plus, this townhouse meets all of my requirements: the rent is cheaper per person, it's bigger than our current apartment, it's within 2 miles of a Metro station, in a good neighborhood, and it's closer to work. It's right across the street from a golf course/mini-golf/park area, too.

Oh yes, I think that my second year in Northern Virginia is going to be momentous. We're picking up Matthew as a roommate. We've got a whole new level to our living space, a bigger kitchen, a patio, and a generic 7-11 knockoff just down the road. And this time, I'm armed with more knowledge of the area, and a chip on my shoulder the size of the Lincoln Memorial.

Okay, I'm kidding about the chip. I could totally go for some Tostitos now, though.

So far, househunting has looked a lot like this:

1. Wake up, check Craigslist.

2. Get cautiously hopeful about some of the listings.

3. Run out of time, go to work.

4. Come home, check Craigslist again to find more listings of places.

5. Find that the ads from the morning are rented already.

6. Make a bunch of calls, check Craigslist.

7. Check some classifieds. Make some more calls.

8. Eat, sleep, rinse, and repeat.

I think we're doing okay, though we haven't seen that many places yet. Of those we have seen, one was a little too expensive for us, one was rented the next day, and one was a little too cozy. I have a very good gut feeling about a few of the listings coming up, though, and I just got off the phone with a man with an African accent who seems very excited about the whole idea, at least. Now all we need to do is make a Herculean effort to coordinate all the potential visits to random places we'll be making this week and weekend.

If we could jump on a place this week, I'd be tickled pink. Actually, I'd be tickled plaid, tweed, taupe, burnt sienna, or any other color you wanted to paint me! The confidence levels are still high, though the idea of the sheer magnitude of competition we're facing can definitely be a downer. That's why quicker is definitely getting better and better.

This past weekend, Gina, Colleen, and I Celebrated Fairfax much like Gina and I did last summer. This year, though, I had a much different perspective. When we were strolling around the Government Center last time, I hadn't moved to Fairfax yet, and Josh and I were just getting around to signing our lease. This year, I got us to the festival almost flawlessly, except that I didn't get the girls' food from Subway in time (sorry, ladies!).

Our mission this time around was fairly simple: see the Sister Hazel and Sugar Ray shows, and in between them, obtain as much free crap as possible. The weather started out cool but warmed up enough later on to be absolutely perfect, which suited me better than last year's sweltering heat. To get the most free crap, we discovered that the various government booths were the way to go. Anything with a wheel to spin was a good target, since many of the employees manning the wheels didn't care too much about whether you got the answer right or wrong. Heck, one of them even mistook Gina for a 15-year old lawyer with a daughter Colleen's age. Go figure. I think this part of our mission was definitely successful. At Gina's urging, we all even entered a raffle for a free postal scale at the county's IT booth, and as luck would have it, Colleen won later that day. The luck just kept following us!

The concerts were a mixed bag. It was great seeing Sister Hazel. I bought ...Somewhere More Familiar back in high school, when "All For You" was all over the airwaves. I couldn't get enough of that album for a while. It was the kind of rock that I was deeply into at the time, and I found the rocking guitar work over Ken Block's acoustic to be very interesting. These guys are definitely the real deal still, and they're still churning out some good songs. It's a shame that they've been spun out of the public spotlight recently, but they're still worth checking out live. The bassist, Jett Beres, is superb.

Sugar Ray was another remnant of high school music. I'm not totally ashamed to say I bought 14:59 after it had been out and "Every Morning" had catapulted their career. It remains a great song. However, their live show left a lot to be desired. They played all their hits, but they still had to stretch to fill an hour set, plugging the gaps with Mark McGrath getting screamed at by the ladies, cover songs being blasted by the DJ, and karaoke toward the end. They like to have fun, that much is obvious, but it doesn't look like we should expect anything new from Sugar Ray anytime soon, if ever.

All in all, though, I think we celebrated my home for the past year quite well, as you can see on the Flickr gallery.

One final note, kids: be careful what you wish for, kids, because this guy might be following right behind you. Right. Behind. You!

As I'm writing this, I'm struggling to resist the urge to go into the freezer and open another Snickers ice cream bar. This obsession started pretty recently, when apparently Snickers kicked up the marketing campaign a few notches, sending these radio commercials over the airwaves stating that their ice cream bars are one of the greatest things ever, ranking just underneath the miracle of life. It worked on me, because I bought a box of them earlier this week, the first ice cream we've had in the apartment next to those little Schwann's ice cream cups that are so awesomely awesome.

Snickers ice cream bars and I have a long, checkered past. It all started in elementary school (I'm wanting to say fifth grade), when there was some kind of deal where each week, someone in the class brought in some kind of ice cream on Fridays. It didn't really matter what kind, but parents usually opted for popsicles or ice cream sandwiches or the like, negating the need for bowls or cones. I wasn't exactly cool in fifth grade, but I thought that one way I could at least make people happy was by choosing some kind of awesome ice cream when my turn came. I knew I loved ice cream sandwiches, and so did everybody else, so that was a good, solid bet, and my road to classroom stardom was paved.

Except that when mom went to the store to get some ice cream sandwiches the Thursday night before, they were inexplicably sold out. She had to get the closest thing in the grocer's freezer instead, which happened to be (you guessed it) a box of the then-unheard-of Snickers ice cream bars. I think they had just came out, actually.

I was furious! I had no idea what the heck these Snickers bars were, but they sure didn't sound good. The candy bars were good, so I don't know why I didn't make the assumption that the ice cream would also be good. All I could think about was my classmates each getting one of these things, crinkling up his or her respective nose, and tossing it away, along with my ice cream-stardom pipe dream. Mom apologized, but there was nothing she could do, so I went with the Snickers anyway.

Needless to say, I shouldn't have been worried. These bars are so awesome that, while I was very reluctant to start passing them out at the end of the day, once I tasted one myself, I was instantly hooked. My ice-cream guru classmates all enjoyed them, and while I didn't become a cool ice-cream kid, I still appeased the jocks and bullies enough to fly under their radar for the rest of the year. And for fifth grade, what more can you ask for?

And with that said, I'm off to finish off the box.

Hey, I got Tom and Amy's wedding pictures up last night. Photoblogging for easy updates, anyone?

Tom and Amy kicked off the 2006 wedding season this past weekend. The DJ at the reception said something like (I'm definitely paraphrasing here) "the best way to honor Tom and Amy and the wedding is to have the best time of your life tonight, so that every time you look back on the wedding, you will always remember the great time you had celebrating." I've never really thought about weddings in that regard, but maybe DJ's have to take some kind of philosophy course on the side, because after this weekend I totally agree with him. It was fantastic seeing everyone there, and those of us who were able to hang out made it seem like the wedding festivities were more of an extended family reunion. In a way, that's what all weddings are, but once the bride and groom hop into the "Just Married" mobile, they usually leave behind a bunch of friends who continue the spirit of the event well into the night and following morning. That's exactly what happened in this case, as you can see from the pictures. I don't think I've laughed more times in a single weekend since the dentist put me on laughing gas.

Out of all the weddings I've been in over the years, this was the first formal one where I was actually a groomsman. I was honored, of course, but I didn't realize how nervewracking walking down an aisle in the proper way could be - especially when you have a wedding planner back with an amazing attention to detail right behind you. (Eyes on the prize, boys, eyes on the prize.) It was interesting participating in a rehearsal led by Glenn, too - I felt like I was behind the scenes of a familiar movie. I'm just glad Gina and I weren't late; I don't think I could have faced Nikki, the wedding planner, if I had been.

The fun rolled on through the rehearsal dinner at Bogen's, where Tom gave us groomsmen some nice VT memorabilia for our cars. I seem to remember comments from our table's conversation containing phrases like "pugilism!" and "well, what would the Madam say, Gina?" That night, a gang of us treated the groom-to-be to a couple of games of bowling at the infamous NRV Superbowl. It was getting late, so the second game for Tom's team was a spirited round of Speedbowling, whereby getting ten frames in is a function of starting the ball down the lane while the rack is still coming down to set up the pins. It got a little dicey, but Tom's team showed awesome timing skills and never had to explain themselves to the management.

The ceremony itself was at Blacksburg UMC, the site of many. At first, Tom, the fathers, and us groomsmen were all packed into the side chapel next to the Whisner building. It got a little stuffy, and with all the chairs and tables stacked up, we felt a little unwanted. However, Gerritt fixed all that by tracking down a box of Boggle, and we proceeded to while away the time making up words and trying to score points off of them. When it came time to perform our groosmenly duties, I have to say everything went off without a hitch. The ceremony was as reverent and joyous as it should have been. It went by quickly, really.

After the wedding ceremonies and pictures, we all headed down to Radford's Muse Hall for the reception. This was, somewhat surprisingly, a very nice place to have a reception like this. The room was spacious and the DJ was spirited. The food was good, and the cake was from Carol Lee's... what more could you ask for? I had the best time mingling with everyone and dancing with Gina. It seems like the two of us have learned a lot about dancing together; we got a compliment or two afterward, so we must be doing something right! I just know I wouldn't want to be dancing with anyone else. After the reception, I helped Gina wrap up a quick homework assignment before we joined the after-party at Hokie House. Sunday was a long day driving back after church, but my goodness was it all worth it.

From my perspective, I'm naturally very happy for Tom and Amy as they begin their life together. In some ways, they've had such a strong relationship for so long that it seems as though they've been married a while. However, that fact is just a testament to how succesful their marriage will be, I'm sure. Cheers to them!