- Saturday, June 13 - Beney’s DC scavenger hunt and an after-hunt trip to Oyamel to watch 2 of her friends eat grasshopper taco’s. There are some things that even I won’t eat.
- Week of June 16 – Trip to NC (which could either mean North Carolina or NASCAR Country, same thing) to do walkthroughs at a new client. Concluded that TX barbecue is the best but parts of NC are “perdy.”
- Jogging – Making slow but steady progress…emphasis on slow, though.
- Refinancing my house – Jumping onboard the Obama bandwagon. Any POTUS who drops my interest rate by more than 1.5% gets my support!
- Random observations – Men are stupid. And in other shocking news, the sky is blue and the harbor water is filthy.
- Upcoming – Chris’s 30th birthday weekend in NYC!
For the long version, see below:
Scavenger Hunt
Beney is the Queen of All Social Events, so the DC scavenger hunt that she hosted on June 13 was a great success. The turnout was ok, but with the fun that the groups had, hopefully the next one will be even better. I thought that an hour would give me time to get downtown and even get to a kiosk for some lunch on the Mall, but that was not to be. Metro was single track all the way in from MoCo, so the normally 45 minute ride took more like 1.5 hours. When I finally got there, Beney gave me the option of joining the one lone participant, but my stomach was grumbling so I opted to go to lunch instead. We went to Oyamel, which is this great Mexican place near the Verizon Center. They serve mostly small plates, so we each ordered a few dishes (I got a couple of mini tacos) and we split the fresh guacamole. It was fantastic! Apparently the weekend menu is special since that’s the only time they offer churros with Mexican hot chocolate. Churros are basically twisty dough sticks covered in cinnamon and sugar. You can get them at Costco for about $1 each, but since those are probably sold by the ton, stick to Oyamel’s! The hot chocolate is also special since Mexican HC is more like a chocolate fondue, only slightly thicker, the perfect dip. After a filling lunch, we went to the Capital Chophouse, where the teams were to meet up at the end of the hunt. I somehow found room for a couple of pints of their stout, which was pretty tasty (better than the other microbrew stout I had in Omaha). As the teams returned, it turned out that I probably would have done really well on the hunt, as I knew more than half of the answers immediately and probably had a good idea of which locations to hit and still make it back to the Chophouse in time (there was a time limit). I pointed out a few loopholes in the game that would probably have allowed me to win, but Beney decided that loopholes = cheating, and apparently the next hunt will include a Jen Clause to avoid such “abuse.” After the winners were determined and rewarded, the whole group headed back to Oyamel because someone got the great idea of trying out their house specialty, grasshopper tacos. I had this vision of two giant insects wrapped up in a tortilla shell, but what actually came out was a taco shell filled with something that looked like shredded pork. The tacos actually smelled pretty good (smoky and spicy), but when I got closer, I actually could see tiny eyes staring back. The little pieces of “meat” were actually teeny tiny grasshoppers. They were brown because of the seasoning and the quick grilling they received. Only 2 in our group were daring enough to eat the tacos, and both said that they tasted pretty good. There were only 2 problems – one was knowing what they were eating, and the other was texture. The first problem is fairly self explanatory…if you think something is gross, you usually don’t put it in your mouth. The second is the real kicker though. Apparently the texture is slightly crunchy, but then you get the “meat,” and the combination of crunch and squirt is just too much for me. I am throwing up in my mouth a little as I write this. I watched the carnage but stuck to my drink and a few chips and salsa. Thus ended another successful Beney-led outing.
Trip to the South
The next week, I headed to North Carolina for work with a staff and senior I hadn’t spent much time with previously. The client was located just outside of Charlotte, so I figured it couldn’t be that bad if there was an NBA franchise there. The first inkling that we were in the deep south was when we drove around looking for a gas station around 8 PM and found that none were open since they were still the old non-digital type. Instead of a credit card reader there was a rotary dial. This place was straight out of the 1950’s. The client was pretty well prepared and the work went pretty smoothly. We all got a kick out of the heavy southern drawl that most of the client personnel had. When you’re around that for a few days, you tend to pick up that accent, but I tried not to. I find that there’s almost nothing quite so ridiculous as an Asian person with a southern accent. The team did a good job and I’m glad I got the chance to get to know them a little better. We did get to sample some of the local Carolina barbecue, but it wasn’t as good as the stuff we had in Texas. Oddly enough, the best restaurant we went to was a sushi restaurant on the other side of town, where there were strip malls with modern buildings and neighborhoods that were filled with large homes and well-manicured lawns. Other than going out to dinner each night, there wasn’t much else to do in town, although that did give me a chance to catch up on some work for other clients and on the latest episode of True Blood (not really into the whole Twilight thing yet, but the R-rated vamp show is, I’m guessing, a much funnier, cooler, and more violent version).
Jogging
Not much to say here other than I’m starting up again with the goal of dropping my time down to the 90-100min range for the Army Ten Miler, the first of my 3 big races this fall. If I don’t, my dad might eat all the snacks by the time I finish. I am pretty excited that Anne and Jamie are doing the HoCo 5k, though! That definitely is a good motivator when you’re in a group of people who are really focused on doing well, so even though my main focus is on the 3 October races and I’ve been pacing in the mid 11’s, I’m still going to try to at least beat my last 5k time.
Doing my bit to help the economy
I’m refinancing my house, and the closing is tonight, so starting next month, I’ll be about $300/month richer. The whole process has been fairly painless, so I’m hoping that everything goes smoothly tonight. The only heartburn will be seeing my bank balance tomorrow…writing out a check for thousands of dollars is a bit stomach-turning, but it’s all in the name of saving down the line.
Random observations
A common theme from this week has been men doing stupid things. I went to Best Buy earlier in the week to buy a new camera for my trip to NYC this weekend and noticed a couple of guys who had walked in the store with their significant others. The men then promptly ditched these ladies when they weren’t looking and headed straight for the gaming area. There, they got into a huge jam session (it was either Guitar Hero or Rock Band…not sure as I’ve never played either), and they were spazzing and rocking out like they were actually playing real instruments and had real talent instead of having a plastic joy stick and computer-generated instruction dots to guide them. The funniest part was when these guys were picked up by their wives. They got a tap on the shoulder and immediately snapped-to, and basically had this look of, “Oh, hey, I was just checking out the game for the, uh, kids. Yeah, that’s it! The kids would totally love this. Yeah, the kids…if we had any.” Really guys, it’s not like she doesn’t know that you’re just a 6-year old stuck in a 40-year old’s body…just buy the game and embrace the nerdy gamer in you! I will say, though, that it’s a little embarrassing to watch these guys rock out when they have ZERO rhythm. Another example of men doing stupid things – the governor of SC. If you’re just some average person and you take off for the weekend without telling your family, there might be a few calls made by concerned loved ones. If you’re, let’s say, the chief executive of an entire state, people might start to notice when you disappear for days on end. Coming back with some lame-ass lie about flying to Argentina and driving along a 2-mile coastline to clear your head doesn’t exactly help your case…we all knew he was screwing around. When a politician’s wife doesn’t know where the politician is, he’s either with someone underage, not his wife, potentially a dude, or all of the above. Guys – stop the lying!
Weekend adventure
So, now that I'm all caught up, let's talk about the future. I am really looking forward to this weekend! Chris is flying in to NYC to celebrate his 30th birthday, and it should be a lot of fun. I met my “big brother” in college (he lived across the hall from me) and we’ve been friends ever since. I’m actually older than he is, but in Chris’s World, the fact that he’s 6’4” makes him the big brother. Regardless of his twisted, Steelers fan logic, he is a good friend and we always have a good time when we hang out. That hasn’t happened much since college because he’s out in San Fran, so it’s a fairly big deal when he comes back east. I’ve booked a few rooms at the Renaissance in Times Square for everyone who’s coming from out of town, so we’ll have a pretty crowded but swank place to crash. Besides the birthday dinner, Chris has planned a scavenger hunt on Saturday that may or may not result in me making a total ass of myself, but we shall see what’s on the list of things to find/do. I’m pretty competitive, so if I have to do something stupid to win a contest, there’s a good chance I might. Here’s hoping this weekend’s festivities don’t end up on YouTube.
0 comments:
Post a Comment