Carnage in South Riding!

I was letting Bailey out to pee a few weeks ago and saw this on my deck railing. It was too amazing not to photograph.

From Baton Rouge to DC

On Wednesday, my best friend from college came to visit me for the first time since our wedding. We managed to have a great time sightseeing some more unique things in the area. A few pictures from her trip are below:



This statue was the suggestion of Gill. It is called "The Awakening" and is on Hains Point in DC. It is actually 5 statues -- looking at them from afar makes it look as though a 75 foot man is coming out of the earth. After Hains Point, we went to the Spy Museum (no photos allowed).

Next stop was the zoo, where we met one of the Panda babies (above) and then went to the Golden Lion Tamarin exhibit to watch Gill in volunteering action. We sat there for 3 hours and watched as the volunteers took "snapshots" of the GLT activities every 15 minutes. Below are 2 of the 6 tamarins that they were tracking.
On Saturday, we decided to go to Mary Baldwin -- the college where we met. It was a very emotional experience for me, as I had not been there since the day I moved out to transfer to Mary Washington. It is amazing how one place can bring back both happy and sad memories. Driving around Staunton after leaving Baldwin, I saw this painted on the side of an old hardware and feed store and thought it needed capturing.

Newest Cake

The below cake was made for Gabe (turning 30) and Aubrey (turning 1) for a luau party. Everything on it is edible, including the white chocolate shells. I also made 15 cupcakes for the little ones complete with cocktail umbrella. Enjoy!

The July 4th Cheese Fry Challenge -- Documented

John and I spent our July 4th at Outback watching our friends single handedly* eat a plate of layered cheese fries. Then we went to the parking lot and watched the Vienna fireworks.

Here are timelines of the two finishers:

MIKEY

JOE

*With the exception that Joe did share one or two fries with Laura and Maggie

Back From Reno

I just got in from Reno last night and am pretty darn tired. I will post more later, but in the meantime, here are a few shots I grabbed visiting Lake Tahoe with Jen.

I thought this little boy was too cute trying to drag this heavy cooler (probably full of his Dad's beer).

This is Jen doing her best to not kill me for making her pose on a really large tree stump.

Jen snapped this of me at the state park where we were taking in the scenery.


This is the view going down the 10,000 foot mountain on our way back from Tahoe to Reno.



This Virginian couldn't resist taking this picture of the Virginian in downtown Reno. Reno itself was not that exciting -- it resembled the old parts of Vegas... full of check cashing places, wedding chapels, XXX movie houses and pawn shops. Jennifer and I felt a little unsafe as everywhere we went the store clerks told us to watch our purses and to be careful. Needless to say, we mainly stayed inside the Nugget surrounded by several security friends from the conference.

This sign is unfortunately the best part of Reno.

Slum Crew 20th

Had another great Slum Crew this year -- I think this picture of Joe from Saturday morning sums up how tired I am right now, though...

I also managed to grab a shot of the Slum Crew Museum...

Back From Seattle

We had a blast! Here's a few interesting photos from the trip.

Recent Cake.

Merry Christmas, Everyone!

I had no time to do Christmas cards this year, so this is my Christmas card to everyone. I hope everyone is doing well and is in good health and good spirits. Below is a pathetic picture of Bailey for your enjoyment.

Thanks, guys -- I'll miss you too.

More Family Photos...

After my grandparents passed away, my family started to divide up the items. My aunt got all of the family slides and negatives. She had no where to keep them, and asked me if I could store them for her. I have about 2500 slides from the 1950s to the 1980s and about a hundred black and white negatives from the 40s. I've started scanning the black and white negatives and have found quite a few lost family treasures. The below pictures are some of my favorites.

Small Mishap.

Meet Bailey

This weekend, John and I picked up our new pooch, Bailey. We rescued him from Howard County Animal Shelter, in the depths of scary Maryland. So far, he's been really good with a few minor issues. He knows "sit", "down", "come", "stay" (sometimes), "out" (to drop a toy) and he's pretty good on leash. He's housebroken, crate trained (with coaxing), is great with kids, and doesn't bark. Sounds like a dream come true eh?

He is very HYPER. If we do not walk him and play with him a lot to tire him out, I can forsee him being a handful. But we've been doing pretty well with it so far (granted, it's only day 3). He has an interest in our cat, Dawn, but doesn't chase her or bark when he sees her. Our big task will be getting her to tolerate him.

He also goes ballistic around other dogs. I am enrolling him in a behavior class, so hopefully that will get better. Because we have so many friends with dogs, I want them to be able to play and get along.

New Addition.

If all goes well with the approval, John and I will be adopting this cute little guy sometime this week! We went up to Columbia, Maryland tonight to meet him and we really fell in love at first sight. He's cute, smart, sweet and just all around lovable. We're trying to think of a name, so any suggestions are welcomed! The shelter has dubbed him "Rudy" but we're looking for something with more piazzas.

I Don't Think Wiley Liked My Gift.

Mike in Vegas.

Mike in Japan.

Something tells me there's a "Mike in Thailand" photo out there as well...

Japan, Day 9

Friday, October 28, 2005

Nothing really happened on Friday. We left for the airport at 6:00 am and boarded the plane at 11:30. The only thing that really happened, was a camera crew was at the gate while we were waiting for our airplane. I'm not really sure why they were there, but I took a picture of it anyways.



I'm really glad we went to Japan. It was definitely a chance of a lifetime opportunity and I know we'll end up going back.

Japan, Day 8

Thursday, October 27, 2005

Thursday was our last full day in Tokyo. Because we were somewhat exhausted, we decided to split up for the morning. Mike and Haywood explored Shibuya while John and I decided to go shopping for Christmas presents. We went across the street to Keio, an elegant shopping center located above the train station. I made an observation while we were there -- Japan doesn't have malls (due to space limitations), so instead, they cram all the shopping into train stations. This particular place was basically a 7 story Lord & Taylor with restaurants on the 6th floor and an open garden complete with pet shop on the 7th. While looking at the restaurants, I happened to take this picture of a "kids meal" on display. Look closely and you'll see a hello kitty crouton floating in a bowl of soup!



After buying gifts for John's family (my family is already saturated with Japanese memorabilia), I went back to the room to rest and John headed out to get some more things.

We all met up again around 6:00 in order to meet my brother and his friend for dinner. This next adventure was by far, the highlight of the trip. Jim took us to meet a fellow architect, Isao Hosoya, who designed the restaurant we were going to. This place was absolutely incredible. When you first walk in, you have to duck way down to enter the chest-height doorway. Once inside, the entire place looks like a miniature village. There are little huts that seat 2 people, and then there are "buildings" with rooms on top. To get to the rooms, you climb a very narrow staircase (after taking off your shoes, of course) and then you enter this tiny room where you sit Indian style at a low table.

Isao ordered for us and to our surprise, we had dish after dish of the most amazing Japanese food. We probably sampled at least 30 different dishes, the first of which, was "service" (this means "complementary") because Isao designed the restaurant. This dish was sashimi inside of an ice igloo. The igloo is the symbol of the restaurant, and is another reason why the huts were designed to look like ice.



In the middle of the meal, all of us were remarking on how much we loved the clay beer glasses we were drinking from. Isao promptly called the manager over and explained to him we were visiting from DC and loved the glasses. The manager gladly gave us each a glass on the house! After the waiter took our pictures, and we ate some dessert (green tea cake, tofu and sweet bean sauce, ice cream and some other things I can't remember) and headed home.

Japan, Day 7

Wednesday, October 26, 2005

Wednesday was spent split up. John and Haywood wanted to go see the Tokyo Auto Show, so Mike and I decided to explore Akihabara. Akihabara is sort of the Nerd district of Japan – it is full of electronics, anime, gundum, arcades and porn. I made sure to steer clear of the porn aspect, letting Mike wander in and out as he saw fit.

In order to get to Akihabara, we had to take the train which was pretty intimidating to navigate without the help of Jim. We spent a good 10 minutes standing on the platform with a map and pointing to all different lines. Finally, a Japanese man came up to us and asked us if we needed help. He told us to get on platform 11, which was a good thing, because we were about to go in an entirely different direction. Once on the train, we had an uneventful ride and we exited into Akihabara with excitement and awe.

Once there, we basically spent a good 5 hours wandering from store to store buying random silly things. One of the things that the Japanese love are collectable figures. They sell these things in sealed boxes, so you can’t tell what you’re going to buy. So once you open the box, if it’s not the figure you want, you buy another box in the hopes that you’ll get your figure. It’s sort of like Baseball cards in the form of useless plastic toys. Well, Mike and I managed to find a store (7 floors) that sold these things already opened in clear plastic bags – so you could just automatically buy what you wanted. I managed to pick up a few humorous things for friends with this newfound method.

We also found a store that was sort of like a ghetto version of Tokyu Hands. It was 7 floors of dollar-storeish items. I managed to pick up some dried fish and crabs along with some other “tasty” treats to bring back to my coworkers. At the top of this store, was a pretty cool arcade. You paid by the minute, and all the games inside were free. So for ¥100 (about 85 cents), you could play any game you wanted, as long as you wanted, for 15 minutes. We spent about 20 minutes in there running around testing all the games. One of the coolest games that I played was a typing/fighting game. Basically, all of these monsters are coming towards you and each one of them has a word on their chest. In order to kill the monster, you have to type the word as quick as you can. If you make a mistake, the monster will take a hit at you. I was pretty good at it, but all the words were Japanese which meant there were like a million hyphens. Since typing a hyphen is not a frequent activity for me, I managed to die on level 3 due to this anomaly.

The trip overall was pretty cool. Mike managed to get a hotdog from Mr. Donut and a cheeseburger from Mos Burger (the Japanese Wendys) which he said was awesome. After a while, we decided to head home as basically every store sold the exact same things and it was getting dark and cold and rainy.

Once back at the hotel, Jim called and we agreed to meet at Meguro Station. After a short train ride and a medium walk, we arrived at his office. It was neat to meet his coworkers and see his desk. There were models of buildings everywhere as well as pictures of projects past, present and future. After his office tour, we walked to an Indian restaurant where we had soup, curry, rice and non. The food was awesome. The owner was an older Indian man that spoke Japanese with an Indian accent. Pretty cool. At the restaurant, we happened to catch the end of the equivalent of the Japan World Series. The Chiba Lotte Marines won with the coaching of American Buddy Valentine. Apparently this was a good thing because there were a rowdy group of Japanese in the restaurant screaming and jumping up and down when this happened. One of the guys (who was pretty drunk) was even crying. He eventually stood up and kissed the TV and kept saying “Bobby! Bobby!” I’m glad we were there to witness that.

After dinner, Jim thought we may want to see Shibuya. This area of Tokyo is for the under 30 crowd and is full of bars, clubs and bright lights.



It is also home to Hachiko, the faithful little Akita dog. Hachiko lived in 1923 and his master was a professor in Japan. Each day, the professor would go to the Shibuya train station with his dog, and each day when he would return, the dog would be waiting for him. One day, the professor got very ill after getting on the train and died. The little dog sat dutifully waiting for him in the same place, only to find his master was not returning. For the next 10 years, Hachiko could be found waiting at the Shibuya train station, sometimes days at a time. He ended up dying in the very spot where he had last seen his master. In honor of Hachiko, there is a bronze statue erected here in Shibuya.



After walking around Shibuya for a while, and after Haywood got a cup of coffee from the busiest Starbucks in the world, we headed back to the hotel to get a good night’s sleep.