Team Building...

As we hunker down for DC Snowpocalypse 2.0 or 2010 or whatever people want to call it, I pose the following:

Q: How many engineers does it take to build a 5'6" tall snowman?
A: Apparently, it takes 4. In just under an hour.


We call him "Lumpy."

I can't wait until Monday to see how much he's buried... and how much bigger we can build another.

It's that time of year!

This was my favorite Christmas song as a kid. It was only when I moved to Maryland, and didn't hear it for a couple of years did I realize that this is a New York thing. No one I knew from outside the New York Tri-state area had ever HEARD of this song. Thank goodness for the internet!

Happy Effing Noo Yawk Christmas Everyone!

Happy Friday!

Let me in the sound!

Last night was just amazing. AMAZING. Nearly perfect, in fact. There's not much that can top a perfect dinner at the new Cava on Capitol Hill followed by an incredible U2 concert. (Well, we'll see if something can top it in, oh, 10 days.)

I think I'm pretty much convinced that I will never, I mean NEVER get tired of seeing Bono, The Edge, Larry and Adam in concert. They are just so amazing live, in Arenas Stadiums, small spaces and large. They are just incredible performers, and Bono really knows how to work a stadium crowd.

They played about half of their new album throughout the show, but there was so much previous and classic material played, much to everyone's joy (they played, for the first time since I began seeing them in concert, "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For," which I had only seen "live" on Rattle and Hum). There really is nothing like you and 20,000 of your closest friends all singing in unison while Bono stands on stage taking it in. It was cool.

The stage was HUGE! And FedEx Field is not that big, so our seats were great!

Oh, Bono.

There were only a couple of odd things in the evening*. There was a woman passed out in a bathroom stall before U2 came on stage... We never figured out what happened there. And the guy next to me seemed very irritated with the political and social messages throughout the show - HELLO? It's effing U2! What the hell was he expecting?

But those were little things. It was all amazing. The dinner, the show, the company. Amazing.

*Oh, and Turg fell asleep during the middle of the show for about 4 song. Fitti, B_Cat and I were very amused by this. It was actually quite impressive. But he was sad he missed the acoustic "Stuck in a Moment" - a song he likes a lot. I tired to wake him up, really.

Office Moving Day

Well, the day that many of us at the office have dreaded for years is finally here. It's moving day. We (and all our stuff) are moving in phases to the new snazzy facility... much further away from here.

Some history - this move has been planned for years. I mean YEARS. But, life moves at the speed of government, and because of budget cuts, etc., the move date kept getting pushed back and back and back. When I started 4 years ago, we were supposed to move within a year. Then the date got moved. Then moved again. Wolf was cried so many times that we (hoped) that it would never happen. But when the final announcement came that today would be the day, and our moving crates showed up 2 weeks ago, well, we knew there would be no more denying it.

So we've been packing over the last 2 weeks. And yesterday was the final frenzied push by everyone. I mean the place was a disaster area. And today, we're all working at home while our stuff gets moved. And (theoretically) everything will be there, computers hooked up and everything, when we get there on Monday.

They kept telling us to make sure to label everything (including our keyboard and mouse (seriously)) or it would not get moved. So, just to make sure that nothing got left behind...

*Thanks to my friend Timmy who came up with this idea and took the picture.

holy crap the icicles are going to fall and stab you in the heart and kill you!

If that happens, can I take a sick day?

**Picture of super-icicles on our roof courtesy of Turg.**

Total timesuck

aka shameless thievery from CawfeeGuy:



I like it cuz I think it actually looks like me... well, maybe not the midsection.

I know Halloween was a month ago. But it's a month until Christmas, and the Christmas crap hasn't stopped since Halloween...

Turg and I dropped by CawfeeGuy's house to pick up may camera. So now that I have it back, here are the long awaited photos from the Halloween party (well, maybe not long awaited, and certainly anti-climactic since it's been almost a month, but hey).

Aren't we a hot pair?

How much do we love that CawfeeGuy has redeye in these pics? I think it's perfect.

Woohoo! Flamer!

At some point, Justin and I thought it would be a good idea to trade wigs... I won't post the pic of me in the mullet - it's a bit too... scary

Word of the day

I love learning new words. Here is today's word of the day:

orchidometer

I will let you read the definition for yourself.

And because it's always fun to go to costume parties in pairs

I am going to be the Alice in Wonderland to Magenta's Queen of Hearts. This is going to be such a fun party.


I am so totally getting the long blond wig.

Out of the mouths of babes, 2

I love all of the kids in my life. They're all so much fun and intelligent and, of course, say the darnedest things... Friday night, hanging at Crazy and SweetPea's house after dinner. SweetPea's Son (D - 16 yo) and Daughter (K - 14 yo), and Trouble playing Guitar Hero on Wii. Before I leave, D decides he needs to show off for me, to very little success. K and Trouble, in the mean time get bored and get out the laptop. K begins to dance to a video she's watching. The following conversation ensues:

D (stops in the middle of a GH riff): K, why are you dancing so provocatively?
K (giggling): If you saw what I was watching... this is sooo funny.
D (in the most serious tone I've ever heard from him - the kid is rarely serious): I really don't think that's appropriate.

It was at this point that I start hysterically laughing. Neither D nor K, nor even Trouble know what the heck is so funny. And I, of course, refuse to tell them.


On a completely different note, but because it's funny too - categorize this under "Adults say the darnedest things." At dim sum with friends - 4LL is swatting away the hand of her son (M), reaching for the sugar to put in his tea...

4LL: Why do you want the sugar?
M: I want to put it in my tea.
4LL: We DON'T put sugar in our tea.
M (in whiny kid voice): Whhhyyyyyy?
4LL (very sternly): Because we're CHINESE!

It just never stops, does it?

The Inner Light

Okay, it's time to put my nerd hat on. Why? Because last night Turg and I remembered just how much of a nerd I/we am/are. See, SciFi channel has been showing Star Trek: TNG . Sometimes we catch it, sometimes we don't. (Mind you, we have all 7 seasons on DVD, so we could just watch whenever we want.) Last night, we sat down for dinner and TV and turned on ST:TNG.

Usually, within seeing the first few seconds of any episode, either Turg or I* or both can identify what episode it is, and whether or not we're going to like it (see, nerds, geeks, whatever you want to call us). Well, the second episode of the four being shown last night started with a scene of an "unidentified probe" on th bridge viewscreen. On sight of this, I start tearing up. Why? Because it means that it's one of my favorite (if not my all time favorite) episode of TNG: The Inner Light.

This episode makes me cry everytime I see it. Every. Single. Time. In the same places. Crying. So predictably that I got a box of tissues out to be ready for it. Even Turg knows at what points in the episode I cry, that he kept looking at me to see if I was (in turn, I kept yelling at him to stop staring at me). Big ball of crying, snotty, nerdy mess. Crying at ST:TNG.


*Incidentally, just an example of total geekdom - on one of our early and most memorable dates, Turg and I sat in Pizzaria Uno for hours playing ST:TNG trivia. Yes, this is geek dating at its best.

Mario Cart Wii + Skype = Awesomeness

Total awesomeness. It took a while to figure it all out, but once we did, it was so fun. Magenta, Turg, TTW and Fibji played all weekend. And watched each other play via webcam. Lots of teasing and trash talking, which makes the game oh so much more fun.

Every once in a while, I really love and am amazed by technology. So, who else wants to join the fun?

Separated at birth?

I saw this photo in a magazine this morning, with a tag line of "Soft, but unsually strong."


I get the feeling sometimes that the above photo is how Thor views himself, instead of like this:


I know it's how he acts sometimes...

Yeah, so what if I don't remember high school French

I admit it. I suck. I can't remember a lick of French right now. But we're in New Orleans. And I think that makes up for it.

PS: There is WAY too much food.

Caption this picture.

Turg and I were walking through the Smithsonian Natural History Museum after seeing U23D on Saturday when we came upon this display called "Taming a Goat." I think many more interesting caption opportunities for this picture:


Have fun.

this. is. awesome.

It's rare that a computer game gets my attention. This one certainly has:


I. Want.

Tender moments... neh, who are we kidding. Think of who's kid this is.

My new baby nephew is terribly cute and he is definitely Jay and Ang's little one. How do we know, other than the amazing resemblance? Turg is setting up a beautiful, tender shot of little Andrew grasping Jay's finger. One of those lovely, icky, sweet Hallmark type of photos. Then, all of a sudden, everyone is hysterical laughing because...


Andrew gave Turg the finger just as the shot was being taken. Ah, perfect.

Happy Day-after Valentine's Day.

Every once in a while, I read something I find utterly charming, amusing, and sad all that the same time. I found this in the "Overheard In DC" section of DCist.com:

Valentine's Day in the flower section at the Tenleytown Whole Foods:

About 20 confused looking guys are doing last minute flower shopping. Father in his mid/late 30s on the phone: "Hey Billy, it's Daddy. What is Mommy's favorite color?"

Snow day!!

I took the day off yesterday. Yesterday was primary election day down here, and schools were out as a result. So Crazy and I played hookie from work to take the kids snow tubing at Liberty Mountain.

If you've never been tubing, I very highly recommend it. Totally fun. Remember those huge slides at amusement parks that you'd fly down in a burlap sack? It's kind of a cross between that and sledding. In a giant inner tube. Hee! And you can link your tube up with someone else's and go down in groups - loved that... you get a lot more speed that way.


Nothing like throwing yourself down a mountain just for kicks.