Enjablog

Oh, wow… My cousin is such a dork –

SI.com - Fantasy Central - Xtreme Makeover:

We’ve selected Douglas Lee and his team the Bench Warmers as our week four makeover candidate. He contacted us indicating he felt he was in an “SOS situation,” and I have to say I concur.

QOTD seen on a bumper sticker: “Fat people are harder to kidnap.”

And, lastly:
Aids Walk Washington this weekend. Come out if you have time.

News Flash: John J. McMullen, former owner of Astros and Devils, dies at 87 –

In 1959, he founded John J. McMullen Associates, an international firm of naval architects and marine engineers known for its innovations in commercial and naval ship design.

It was the third to last paragraph of the article, but it still got mentioned.

Just wanted to share a link today. Ian and I have been getting a lot more exercise recently and I’m still trying to get the balance right so I can get enough sleep and exercise after my commute home from work. So, if anyone’s interested, Cool Running has a running plan that’s pretty easy to follow. We’re currently on week 5 of the plan and I already feel healthier and my pants fit much better too.

LOTD: Cool Running :: The Couch-to-5K Running Plan

P.S. Happy early birthday, Google!

Had the inspection for the condo on Friday. Conclusions: The floors will outlive us all and the circuit breaker will make the building burn down. I still maintain that if the building burns down, we will outlive the floors.

Went to the TJ-South Lakes game on Friday night. It was… interesting. TJ ended up winning 55-44, with the most missed extra points and 2-point conversions I think I have ever seen in a game. Funniest part was flipping through the program for the game and finding a coupon for 50% off brain surgery with coupon.

Saturday started out strangely. Went over to have a meeting with my parents. Apparently, they were a little unclear on my upcoming living arrangements. As Ben put it, they’re going to have a sin-in-law. What I took away from that discussion was that my mother would prefer that I lie to her. And while that was an option, it just really isn’t my style these days. (And yes, I know they’re reading this — Hi!)

Headed out to go yard saling in Ian’s neighborhood. Picked up a lifetime supply of yarn for $4, a purse, a like-new vacuum coffemaker (with burner and accessories) which is awesomely cool to watch, and a couple of retro stools.

Went with Ian out to the Re/Max client appreciation picnic for the better part of the afternoon. I was promised a hot air balloon ride, but it got canceled due to the weather. We did, however, get to climb the rock wall a half dozen times and they even let us race through the obstacle course moon bounce thing. We also convinced our realtor to play too. She got totally schooled by her son in the obstacle course. It was great.

After that, went running and watched Muppet Treasure Island and Saturday Night Live and called it a night.

Sunday, I worked on a scarf that I started last year and didn’t really make much progress on. It’s about 8″ now. Went to look at bars at some place in Merrifield to get some ideas. The condo has a pretty long living room, so my idea for the back area of it was to build a bar, which would then be easily accessible from the living room or dining room and would be really cool for entertaining or just when I feel like having fresh root beer on tap. Did some brainstorming and then headed over to Ian’s parents’ for their family dinner thing and get his dad on board with the project. Still working on the design and possibilities of modifying pre-made furniture to our liking. We’ll see.

I think that’s about it for my weekend adventures. Also, if you’re interested: Pictures of the condo. Not very many pictures since the people are still living there and I felt kind of weird taking pictures of their bedrooms. But this shows the living room from either end, the dining room, kitchen, and balcony.

Haha, well Sonny already posted my big news up on his blog, but that’s ok. I’ll still write about it here.

Big News:
I put a bid in on one of the condos Ian and I looked at this past Sunday and, as of Tuesday night, a contract has been ratified. Still need to meet with my loan officer to finalize stuff, do the inspection, and some other things. But so far, things look good. Pictures will be coming when I have them.

It’s a two-bedroom, two-bathroom condo in Alexandria. The location is excellent and will be saving me close to 2 hours a day on my commute and is also close to a Metro station. About 1250 sq. ft., appliances in the kitchen updated within the past decade or so, hardwood floors in the foyer, living room, dining room, and hallway, and a swanky, cool balcony.

Rewind to two weekends ago. Did brunch with Ian’s family and was invited to go out for a motorcycle ride. (Ian’s dad rides motorcycles.) I politely declined. After we finished eating blueberry pancakes and fruit salad, I was asked again. I politely allowed the subject to get changed. As everyone was sitting around chatting after cleaning up, I was asked again. I put on my shoes and was escorted outside.

To summarize: It wasn’t as scary as I thought it would be. I would still be mad if that was how I died, but not as scary as I thought it would be. Kind of cool to be able to see the road and plants around outside of a car though. It wasn’t all bad.

Went to bookclub and ended up just me and one other person who didn’t read the book (A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius — excellent book, btw). We decided to get tacos and margaritas instead. It worked out pretty well. And since we know each other through TLD, we invited him to meet up with us since we weren’t going to discuss the book anyway. So, he showed up in time to get frozen custard. Del Ray Dreamery… It was my first time. The flavor of the night was chocolate peanut butter cookie. So good!

Last Friday, went out to Carpool and met up with a few people to hang out. We arrived just before a group of octogenarians showed up and sat down at a nearby table. It was… different. They were totally rocking out to the cover band, so my theory was that they were grandparents of the band or something. Probably not, but they just looked so out of place.

Not to be outdone, some other old guy showed up shortly after the retirement village left. Not as old, probably around his 50s or so… He comes around and we notice him standing (with his back to us) a table away. He’s bopping his head to the Bon Jovi cover and has his wandering hand behind some young-ish blonde chick. Ian and SPJ, of course, start offering the guy encouragement. This goes on for a song or two before the couple turn to sit down at a nearby table.

“Dude looks like a lady.”

“That’s not your mother; it’s a man, baby!”

So, uhh. Maybe not so much a young-ish blonde chick as a young-ish blonde transvestite. We gawked shamelessly. Although, writing this now, I am a little shameful.

Then on Sunday, did the househunting thing again. More on that tomorrow. :)

QOTD: “I don’t think we can take him/her.”

Host: Sonny
Location: TJHSST
6560 Braddock Road, Alexandria, VA

When: Friday, September 23, 7:30pm

So TJ is off to an undefeated season, led by awesome all-region Asian quarterback Matt Wong. Anyway, they’re going to be playing South Lakes this Friday. South Lakes already lost their first two games 42-0 and 60-0, so this should be a Jefferson stomp-fest. Give me a holla if you’re interested in going.

That’s right. Tonight, TJ will be playing against Sonny’s new school. Come out and watch the nerds go up against the Seahawks. It’ll be great fun. :) -j.

Chatological Humor:

Begging the atheist question: I think you were a little hard on the person who asked last week why atheists don’t act completely selfishly all the time. I would venture — dare I say — that you begged the question.

Your answer was basically “I am moral because I have a moral compass.” That is at best an answer to a simple, uninteresting question (”Do atheists have a moral compass”) and at worst begging the interesting question “In the absence of deity, on what do you base your moral compass?”

Boiling it down further, the question really is “Given that you have a moral compass, what is its pole?” For example, I can answer the same question by saying I follow the teachings of Jesus, because I believe he was God. You could disagree or think I’m stupid, but it’s an answer.

The interesting philosophical question is what is moral? Or how do you define moral, absent an outside standard of conduct?

So — asking in all friendliness and not being bitter or anything else (hard to convey in a chat) — As an atheist, where does your standard of morality come from?

Gene Weingarten: As an atheist, and a human, I believe that one should strive not to hurt people, I should try to conduct myself in a way that contributes in some way, even a small way, to the public good. That I should keep my promises and carry out my responsibilities, particularly to my family, whom I have a strong obligation to. I brought my children into the world and I have an obligation to help them navigate it as best as I can.

I believe, in most cases, it is clear what is the right thing to do, and what is the wrong thing to do, and I try to stay on the right side as often as I can.

I don’t think ethics and morals are all that difficult, in general.

Gene Weingarten: Oh, and I should add one thing. Being an atheist does not mean rejecting religious teachings. I find much to admire in the Bible. The lessons taught by Jesus contain remarkable wisdom. Darwin, too. And Gandhi. And Kierkegaard. And Clarence Darrow. And Adlai Stevenson. Shakespeare: An amazing humanist. You know? There is a lot of value out there. Much of it is religious, and much of it is not.

I’ve had this discussion with a few people before, so I thought I’d post this up. I really like Weingarten’s explanation: “I believe, in most cases, it is clear what is the right thing to do, and what is the wrong thing to do, and I try to stay on the right side as often as I can.”

There are a number of devisive arguments this country has come up with that do seem to blur that definitive line of morality, but I think what it all really boils down to is the golden rule: Treat others as you would want to be treated. I think a lot of the people trying to take away or prevent others from having certain rights in order to “protect” their own are choosing not to put themselves in someone else’s position and consider how they would want to be treated.

So how’s that for morality?

And as a follow-up:

Is it normal for all the schools on the route that I take home to have back to school night on the same night? I am peeved — not just because people are stupid and can’t follow simple driving laws, but because they are inconsiderate and selfish.

I left my office today and directly across the street, there were 3 police cars, a police van, and two ambulances. So, ok… Someone was getting arrested for doing something that got someone else hurt. I can only assume, but I did see someone sitting very sullenly in the back seat of a police car. People were pretty good about not rubber-necking and just going around the ruckus. I blame that part of traffic only on the culprit.

I decide to forego 395 because I left my office just before 6 and I have found that the back roads are usually better at that hour. Little did I know…

I take the ramp to get onto Columbia Pike and then it stops. Backed up to about 20 feet from the end of the ramp (around a curve, so I didn’t see it coming). People usually have trouble at that merge and there’s a light shortly after that, so maybe it’s just people being dumb. Well, it was people being dumb, cutting ahead and then stopping traffic as they try to bully their way back in, but even after that stretch it was just crawling. About 40 minutes later, I was able to turn off onto a side street that I knew could get me to Braddock Road. I don’t even know what was causing the holdup. I could see for about another half-mile down the road when I turned it was all brake lights.

First hour of commute: approximately 4 miles.

Get far enough on Braddock Road to approach the elementary school next to TJ. Cars everywhere… Cars coming out of the bus drop-off area cutting across 4 lanes of traffic without giving people a chance to stop for them, other cars taking that opportunity of utter chaos to turn into traffic behind them, impatient people honking at pedestrians… It was madness.

Go another 100 feet and there are police cars in front of TJ, the turn lane into the school has flares blocking it off, and the place is swarming with parents. Get past that and start averaging a speedy 35 mph… Until I get past the beltway.

It’s a little slow, but about normal had I gotten there an hour earlier. Past 7pm, it shouldn’t be that slow anymore. Finally get up to the accident: broken down school bus.

Got to GMU just in time for their evening traffic jam.

In other news, I bought a condo!! So, in a couple months, I will hopefully stop complaining about traffic. Woo! :) -j.

Happy Talk Like a Pirate Day!! :) -j.

Why are pirates so mean?
Because they ARRRRRRE!

Been working in DC this past week and they’ve been keeping me pretty busy as well as adding to my commute, so I haven’t had time to write up any of the things that have been going on lately. In the works:

Motorcycle ride
Book club
Adventures at Carpool with Ian, SPJ, Rusty, and Critical:
- field trip from the retirement village
- cover band
- old guy & tranvestite

Also, househunting! I’m getting very excited. :) -j.

I got in an accident in my car a little over a year and a half ago, involving a curb and some ice. This dented a rim and cracked a hubcap. Ever since then, I’ve been missing a hubcap on my rear passenger-side tire. For some reason, this bothers a lot of people.

For my birthday this year, my sister got me brand new, shiny hubcaps. Last Friday, I finally put a new hubcap on the naked tire. (Yes, I know my birthday was in July.) I put it on and it wasn’t really a tight fit, like the other hubcaps, but it was snug enough that I figured it would be alright. I was still a little nervous about it, but didn’t want to spend any more time fiddling with it.

I went out to run some errands and checked on the hubcap to make sure it was doing alright. Looked fine to me. Went to pick Ian up from the metro and headed out for date night, so I stopped worrying about the hubcap for the evening. After leaving the restaurant at the end of the night, though, I noticed that my brand new, shiny hubcap was gone! *gasp*

Well, it’s date night, so of course we decide to go on a quest to find the missing hubcap. At 11 o’clock at night.

I know I had it when I left Home Depot, but I didn’t check it between there and arriving at Coastal Flats. So, we retrace my path… I crawled through 66 traffic on the way to the metro, made a wild U-turn getting out of the Kiss ‘N’ Ride mess, and turned out of the metro area to go to Ian’s place.

Oh! A hubcap! Wait, no… Two hubcaps!

I pull over into a turn lane and put on my emergency lights. The first one didn’t look like mine at all, so we don’t even bother walking all the way back to check that one out. The second one is a Honda hubcap, so not mine either. At this point, Ian gently suggests to me that there’s a possibility we won’t find my hubcap. But… But… When my old hubcap was broken, it fell off 3 times and always found its way back to me before I finally took it off for good. Someone even chased me down the street for a block and a half to return it to me. How could I not find this hubcap?

Continue on our journey and I remember one of the side streets we took had 5 speed bumps. That must have been where I lost it! Get to the first “raised crosswalk.” No sign. Second is a speed hump. Nope, not there either. Approaching the third, Ian sees a glint reflecting my headlights at an intersection. Stop! There it is! There it is! Someone must have found it in the street or something and was nice enough to prop it up against a street sign where it would be easily visible.

Mission accomplished.

Went out Friday night with Ian to Coastal Flats. It was pretty crowded there and the parking lot was mostly full. Searched around for a spot and found one finally, only to see that it was next to a car parked with its back tire in the neighboring (empty) spot. Jerk. Giving you hope that you might be able to park in that spot, but leaving you with the disappointment of having some jerk be a really crappy parker. Circled around and found another spot, then left a mean note on the jerk’s car. Jerk.

Anyway, the Coastal Flats people were so nice to us. We did the call-ahead thing, which works so much better there than at Sweetwater for some reason. But anyway, Ian and I both ordered, and the waitress warns him that they were running low on his dish tonight, so she’d have to check first before putting his order in. We hang out for a bit and she reports back with a thumbs up.

About ten minutes later, we get approached by a manager carrying a menu. She tells Ian she has some bad news for him. Hm… I wonder what that could be? There was a mistake and they really are out. So, she told Ian to order whatever he wanted and it would be on the house… prime rib, steak, whatever he wants. Woo! Free dinner! He asked about their mashed cauliflower that came with his new order and she was very nice about that too, assuring him it was good, but if he didn’t like, she’d replace it with mashed potatoes or whatever else he wanted.

The rest of the dinner was uneventful and food was good. Still pleased at how nice they were there. :)

QOTD, overheard: “I’ll grind it on your head until you say when.”